Rise From the Embers (Lightness Saga #4)

by Stacey Marie Brown

  “Sprig...” Ryker rubbed his temple.

  “Fiiiinnneee.” He sighed. “But if I miss any of the fun or you get trapped in a vault of honey jars, I’m gonna be so Viking mad.”

  “Why would we be locked in a vault with honey?”

  “I’m not the only one with that fantasy.”

  Ryker set him on the ground.

  “Follow the tunn—”

  “Please.” He swished his hand. “This isn’t my first rodeo. The vents will take me straight to the surface.” His mouth went into an O-shape, his eyes widening. “Are there rats in those vents?”

  “Probably.” I shrugged.

  He turned to Ryker, glaring, tapping his foot.

  “You’ll get the sink full of honey, I promise.”

  “I swear, Viking, if one of those wingless pigeons tries to mate with me, you’re dealing with my woman’s wrath.”

  “Who knows, you might become king of the vermin.” Ryker nudged him with his boot.

  “Oh, I am so not talking to you.” Sprig grumbled, but jumped to the vent, easily slipping in. “Adieu, may the forces of the honey gods be with you.”

  “And you, sir.” I winked.

  He crept deeper into the darkness, disappearing from sight.

  “Let’s hope he gets to them in time,” I breathed, turning in the direction where we last saw the kids. Chances were Stavros kept them elsewhere, but we had to start somewhere, and we could be caught at any time.

  “You know you just sent a narcoleptic monkey-sprite, who gets distracted by anything resembling food or shiny objects, to save us all?” Humor glinted in Ryker’s slight smile.

  “We’re so screwed.”

  “Pretty much.” He turned and stopped short, his body going rigid, hissing. “Fuck.”

  I swung around, my stomach bottoming out. Before the word what could leave my lips, I saw the reason for his response.

  Oh shit.

  “Come on, Ryker.” Amara leaned against the archway of the passage, a smug smile tilting her mouth. “How long were we together? You don’t think I know you?”

  Neither one of us moved, our gaze locked on the beautiful, lethal woman. She had model good looks, but you could feel the emptiness behind the pretty face. Smart and conniving but lacked any fire.

  “At one time we shared that. We knew what the other was thinking and could finish each other’s sentences, we knew each other so well.”

  “I never knew you.” Ryker shoved back his shoulders. “You were always deceiving me. Working for my father. Playing me for the fool.”

  “You can believe that.” She looked at the ground, a flicker of sadness rolling over her face. “But you were the only one I ever loved. Still do.”

  “Betraying and swindling someone is not love.”

  Her gaze flicked to his, a mix of hurt and anger in them. “It’s who I am. This is my nature. You knew that and still fucked me every night. Stayed with me for decades.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “And I did love you. Even I’m capable of it.”

  Ryker’s jaw strained, but he said nothing, the tunnel filling with awkward silence.

  “What are you going to do, Amara?” Ryker finally spoke low. “Are you here to catch me? Prove yourself to your master?”

  Her body flinched back, her lids blinking.

  “Fuck you, Ryker,” she whispered.

  I didn’t like her at all but, for a moment, I felt sorry for her. Only Ryker seemed to bring it out, the human in her. Someone who wanted to be loved too. She just went about it all wrong.

  Amara pushed off the wall, her long, lean legs strutting past us.

  “They’re down the passage. Look for the sconce that’s out.” Her face remained blank, her words monotonous. “And hurry. I’m only giving you a ten-minute start before we come after you.” She curved one dark eyebrow then swished back around, disappearing down the opposite hall.

  Ryker and I both gaped after her, stunned with the realization Amara had helped us.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered, peering up at the Wanderer. Deep in his strained expression, I saw a glimpse of sadness. As though he saw the girl he once knew. Possibly loved. But it was gone as quick as it arrived.

  “Let’s go.” He grabbed my arm, swinging me around for the other passage.

  The clock had started.

  And with every second that passed, our chance at escape dwindled.

  Chapter 19

  Zoey

  Women moved around the room, almost seventy of them, but I could barely hear a whisper. The only murmurs of noise came from the babies, but even they seemed to understand the necessity of silence. Better to become washed away in the sea of beds and bodies.

  The longer I watched, the more aware I became of the subtle hierarchy and system these women had developed. Clusters of groups stuck close to each other, quietly helping each other. A definite division stood between species—human and fae. The fae women were more dominant, probably because they lived longer and had been here from the beginning. But the longer I watched them, the more I saw even that line disappear. The real separation was those who perceived this life as an honor and those who understood they were in a forced drug/sex ring.

  All were in fear and awe of me. They bowed their heads, scurrying around me against the far wall, giving me a wide berth. Was it because they knew I was the original “mother”? The originator of their torment? Or was it because at any moment the stone might return? They looked at me through narrowed lids like I was a spy, the watching eyes of the head monster.

  In moments, glitches of time, when the stone was away from the cave, it released its hold on me a little, and I emerged from the dark. This was the only time I had control over my body again and when my mind was clear. But there was always a string linking me to him; I was never fully off my leash.

  It was hard to fight the sensation to curl back into myself and hide. I was plagued by wounds from my childhood, where I was forced to do things against my will, locked in dark closets. I wanted to close my eyes and disappear into myself.

  “Oh, are we mourning Lars?” Vadik’s voice slithered into my ear, generating a chill to shiver my bones. “Good riddance to that fucker. A constant thorn in my side. All he did was make my life hell, ruining my business, taking my best workers from my clubs.” Vadik rolled his bony shoulders. “I feel so free knowing he’s gone for good.”

  Don’t react, Zoey. Don’t let him get to you. Hell, this man was asking for an ass-pounding and in his current state, I knew it would be easy. He might be a demon, but he was weak, and I no longer played in the human world.

  Vadik chuckled, leaning against the wall next to me, his arm brushing mine as he whispered into my ear. “How things have changed for the old fae hunter.” He clicked his tongue. “At one time were you any different? You hunted us, brought us in to be lab rats. We were nothing to you. We were beneath your kind. At one time you were completely fine letting fae be tortured and killed for experiments. No difference here.”

  “This coming from a man who turned over his own kin to be tortured and killed.”

  “Yeah, but I never claimed to be doing something honorable.”

  “Believe me, if I knew what was really happening, I would have done things differently.”

  “You wouldn’t have done shit and you know it.” He shook his head with a laugh. “Don’t give me that, Zoey. You are not any more honorable than I am. You merely pretend to carry that righteous flag.”

  My gaze locked straight ahead, watching the woman who’d borne Zeke’s child, staring off in space, disappearing from life. Was I any different? At one time, I would have hunted these fae women and taken them to DMG to be tested on. I thought I was helping find cures for human disabilities and diseases. I wasn’t fully aware of what Dr. Rapava was doing. But honestly, would I have stopped if I had known? At one time to me, fae had deserved to die. As I gazed over the room, I preferred to believe I would have stopped something like this, and not purely for the human wo
men.

  Vadik leered at me. “What’s wrong? Am I hitting too close to home?”

  “Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Me.” I snapped each word, avoiding his gaze penetrating into the side of my face.

  “Is that how you speak to your father-in-law?”

  In human terms, Ryker and I weren’t married, but in the fae world, we were. A sheet of paper declaring you are “legally” married was silly to the fae. When they found their mate, it was a connection beyond any marriage humans could fathom.

  “How is my grandson? I bet he is a spitting image of his father. Of me.”

  I whipped to him in a blink, baring my teeth. I only came up to his chest as I rose onto my toes, but I got into his face. “I told you to never mention him. And let’s make this extremely clear. You will never, ever see him. I will not hesitate to kill you; do not doubt it, old man.” My gaze ran down his skeleton frame with disgust. “It would not take me long. I am not someone you should mess with.”

  “Right, Zoey. Because you are fae now.” He grinned, his yellow teeth showing between his lips.

  “No.” I tilted my head with a twisted smile. “Because I am the fucking Avenging Angel.” I rammed my shoulder into his body as I stomped past him, leaving the room.

  I took only nine steps before I fell against the corridor wall, my breath burning down my esophagus. There were too many truths to what Vadik had said. For years I’d captured fae, despised them.

  Things only changed because of Ember. That one storm she inadvertently caused had changed my whole life. Truths became lies and certainties became doubts. And I couldn’t be more thankful.

  Ryker would have never come into my life if not for that freak accident. Magic tied us together until we both saw each other as people. And fell in love.

  “Ryker,” I whispered his name, tipping my head back onto the cool cement. “I’m trying. I’m trying to fight. For you. For us. For our family.”

  Burning tears licked behind my eyes, grief grating at my lungs. Saying the words didn’t take away the knowledge this would not end well for me. The stone would never let go. It would punish me for eternity or kill me the moment revenge was no longer fun. The loss of Lars was profound. Knowing he was there, even buried underneath, had been a chain keeping me linked to possibility. To hope. When he died, possibility and kinship fractured, letting excruciating loneliness and despair smother what was left of my soul. The darkness leaking in so deep, there were no tears. I went numb.

  To stare into the face of the man, but know he was gone broke another piece of me. Not only had I grown to respect and care for him, he was my tether—I wasn’t alone so long as he was here.

  The torches spread deep shadows down the darkened barracks. The muted sounds of children’s voices screaming and wailing from the fighting room chilled me.

  Zoey Daniels, the Avenging Angel, had fought her way out of a lot of situations, but this was past surviving or fighting. The stone’s words came back into my head: You should be scared, Zoey. What I just did to him… I will eventually do to you. After I force you to watch yourself destroy all those you love.

  Right behind the stone’s declaration, I heard Lars’s voice wrap around my chest, whispering softly into my subconscious. “Remember, Zoey, it can’t ever truly have you.”

  What did he mean by that? The stone had claimed him! The most powerful fae I knew. What fight could I have against it?

  A swirling sensation filled my chest, coiling into my gut like a lasso tugging me back to the cave, calling me to my master.

  The stone was back.

  Sometimes it kept me “awake” to play with me. To show me all it was doing, knowing I could do nothing but let it happen. It would take my soul bit by bit, until nothing was left.

  Come join me, Zoey.

  No longer fighting, I made my way back to the main cave, the fire enlarging the shadows of the monsters frantically moving around the space. Zeke yelled commands through his daggered teeth at the rest.

  Something was happening.

  “Zoey.” Lars’s figure moved to me. I tried to fight calling the stone, Lars, or even a man, because it wasn’t, but the more the stone stretched under Lars’s skin, the more it looked like a person. A man. He even wanted me to call him “Stone.” I noticed him staring at some of the girls with a glint in his eyes, as though he were coming into a sexual awakening and getting to participate and feel things it only watched before.

  “What’s going on?” I tracked a group that grabbed weapons and headed down the tunnel to the outside world.

  “The time is upon us,” Stone replied, motioning his hand stiffly at his first in command. “Zeke has just reported a string of ships heading along the coast, full of fae. They are only hours away now. The war has started, precisely as I hoped. Human or fae, their brains are so simple to understand and foresee.”

  The two sides would be so concerned about fighting each other they wouldn’t notice the third party moving in, demolishing them both.

  “The deceit of your tricky words…The years you made me wait for you. It is time for you to pay up.” Stone leaned closer, fire flickering off the black of the pupils. “I will take everything from you while you watch… You deserve no less. I’ve dreamed of nothing but revenge upon you.” His gaze dropped to my mouth and every molecule of air vanished from my lungs. I tried to pull back, but his will locked my limbs in place. His brow furrowed, and he looked down, my gaze following.

  Fuck. No. Terror gripped me. His pants pitched out, showing off his arousal.

  “W-what is happening?” He growled.

  The thought of the most powerful weapon in the world getting his first boner and not understanding what it signified almost made me want to laugh. But then I realized what it meant. The idea of hurting me turned him on. There was nothing humorous about that.

  I said nothing as past trauma froze me in place. I’d worked hard to overcome what I’d gone through, to not be a victim. I promised myself I never would let anyone make me feel that way again. But it didn’t stop the icy claws of terror from scraping across my spine. He had full control over me and could do anything he wanted.

  “It can’t ever truly have you,” I repeated Lars’s statement over and over in my head.

  “Master. Mother.” Zeke walked up, bowing to both of us, hate flicking at me with a quick glance. “The children are ready.”

  “Great.” Stone backed away from me, clearing his throat. “Prepare everyone in the next few hours. We head out at dawn.”

  “Yes, sir.” Zeke dipped his head and took off down the tunnel.

  “Are you ready, Zoey?” Stone faced me again. “You ready to watch everyone you love die?”

  “I’m ready to watch you die.”

  The stone tried to smile, his lips curving oddly. “I cannot die.”

  He was a weapon of magic, but he was also a man now…susceptible to weaknesses of men: power, lust, greed.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Chapter 20

  Kennedy

  Impressions of the soles of my shoes were worn into the rug from my constant pacing. Dawn hinted at the horizon, yet my eyes had not closed, my hurting heart and weighted mind did not allow me rest.

  “Ken, please.” Lorcan scrubbed his face, a yawn stretching his lips. “Lay down for two seconds.” He rolled his head on the pillow, patting the empty space next to him. “You are exhausted; I can feel it. You need to sleep.”

  “No.” I wagged my head, starting my cycle over the rug again. “I really shouldn’t be sleeping. I need to figure out how to save my friends. My people. To win this battle.”

  “Have you?” Lorcan propped on his elbows, curving one eyebrow.

  “Have I what?”

  “Figured all that out. I mean, you had all night.” He shook his head in disappointment. “Really, Ken, you should have broken into the castle, defeated the dragon, and found the meaning of life by now.”

  I paused and glared over my shoulder at him. “You’r
e not helping.”

  “Come on.” He patted the bed again. “You are only hurting yourself. You need to rest. You’ve gone long past the point of figuring anything out. Now you’re just going in circles. Figuratively and literally.” He nodded at the indentations on the rug.

  My shoulders slumped, and I walked over to the bed, sinking onto the mattress. Watching Ember sail away with Stavros, sacrificing herself, had added another block of concrete onto my shoulders. Should I have let her? Was it the right decision? Not that I could ever order Ember to do anything, but I still felt as though it would be my fault if anything happened to her. Ryker as well.

  Nic and Kate were not helpful with any behind-the-scenes information at the compound. Stavros kept them drugged and barely coherent the entire stay. Marguerite, who was now up and about, had shooed away the healers and was hovering over the two invalids like a mother hen, stuffing their bellies full of love and healing powers. I swear her food had a magic component to it. Whatever was going on, it somehow made you feel better.

  “She chose to go. You couldn’t have stopped her.” Lorcan brushed strands of hair from my face. “Hell, my brother couldn’t do shit to stop her.” After Ember’s departure, Eli went berserk, shifting into his beast and roaring into the forest. As far as I knew, he hadn’t returned. Lorcan, West, and Cooper went after him but returned muttering something about the ass needing space.

  “I know.” I bowed my head.

  “Then let it go. I know it sounds harsh, but you have enough to try and figure out. She is strong and stubborn as hell. I have no doubt that between her and the Viking, Ember will be the one who walks out.”

  A small smile wobbled on my mouth.

  “We have two more days to devise our battle plans. A few hours of sleep will help that, not hurt it.” His hand dropped to my shoulder. “We’ve been to war before. We survived and we’ll do it again.”

  Staring into his green eyes, I swallowed before responding. “Dying is not my worst fear.”