If…okay, let’s be honest, when…we were caught on this escapade, there was no way on Belenus’ cock that I’d allow Wells to also discover Apollo outside the turret in his human form.
I might not be a typical fae warrior, but even I knew that it wasn’t brilliant strategy to free cygnets but lose your own swan shifter.
I hugged Apollo tighter at the thought, and he glanced at me questioningly.
I darted through the trees, humming the theme tune for Mission Impossible. Apollo hissed, pecking at my chest. I didn’t know what he was complaining about. Radley had already vetoed me listening to the soundtrack on my iPod.
I scanned the area for movement, before peering up at the sun streaked sky, which sang to the magic inside me. The Paranormal Prefect Patrol were always lurking around the school at this time. They were the dick paranormals who worked for the staff just for the sake of extra privileges and proving that they’d reformed.
Really, I should throw them a doggy treat next time I saw them and pat them on the head. Although, Oscar, the pure blood vampire who led them was such a jerk, he’d probably self-combust with outrage.
I smirked; I’d just found Number Four on my Bucket List.
Outrage a vampire.
Although, that did sound kinkier than I meant it.
Oscar and I had history (again, not with the kinky), and I’d insulted him before, but this last time needed to be something extra special. I’d given them their nickname: The Prick Patrol.
How was I to know it’d spread throughout the entire school?
It was catchy.
Also, I had a habit of breaking out of the House of Fae because I had a reputation to uphold as one of the mythological Rebel tribe. Usually, leaving the dormitory at night would set off the wards in my pants, and you never wanted to be punished by your own pants. I was certain that the Countess had chosen the settings. They were like being wedgied at levels that included atomic, bouncing, and Bankok.
Wow, did I hate Bankok (because feeling like you were being kicked in the balls during a wedgie really added to the experience).
It’d been days before I’d walked normally.
No fae had even risked breaking the magical wards that surrounded the skies and stopped us flying to freedom because a Bankok at that height would lead to a seriously embarrassing crash to your death.
But then, I’d bargained with the witches for spells that confused our wedgie-happy pants, and my mates and me had been able to start our prank feuds with the rest of the school. My personal favorite had been leading the zombies in a flash mob of the House of Necromancers with a dance rendition of the Cranberries’ “Zombie”.
The Duke of Wells should award marks for pranks like that because they took true genius and organization.
The House of Necromancers hadn’t seen the funny side. After all, they did spend most of their time hanging out with the dead.
Of course, the witches had tricked me too. What had I expected? They were dark witches. The spell to let me out of the House of Fae at night failed to include the one to safely return me without notice. Every time that I escaped, I knew that it’d end with my punishment. But it was worth it because the call to unleash my pent-up wildness was too great.
Forest Fae were never meant to be imprisoned.
I dashed across the farm towards Swan Pond. I breathed in the fresh air that hinted at the onset of rain.
All of a sudden, there was movement across the sky.
Had I been discovered already? I hissed out a breath, as my heart beat against my ribcage.
I glanced back at the cygnets who were nestled in my mates’ pockets.
Don’t let me fail them…
My lungs were burning, and my knees were close to buckling, but I ignored the warning signs and pushed through the pain. I spun behind the shed, which was as neat as the rest of Wells’ farm, pressing myself into its shadow.
Felix and Radley stalked either side of me.
Odile poked her head out of Felix’s pocket. “Are we nearly there yet?”
Felix stroked her head. “You’ve asked that six times already. And almost.”
Radley raised his eyebrow at me.
“I thought I saw something,” I explained. Radley went days sometimes, talking only with the power of gestures and grunts. “This close to the Day of the Wicked, the Prick Patrol are sure to be keeping a close eye on us.”
“If that Night Slave causes you any trouble,” Lil Swan’s voice was disturbingly menacing, “then you rip out his fangs, right?”
I blinked. “She’s sounding more like you every day, Rads.”
Radley huffed, amused.
“I’ve always wondered,” if I didn’t ask now, then I’d never know, “why are you pretending to be a gangster?”
Odile snickered at her sister.
Lil Swan puffed up her feathers. “You can’t be brought up in the Big House and not earn respect. Fear me…?”
The quiver of uncertainty now in her tone, made my heart ache. Radley scooped Lil Swan onto his palm and gave me a hard glare.
I cleared my throat. “I am genuinely terrified. You have the Fae Three as—”
“My bitches…?” Lil Swan crowed.
Radley growled, but Lil Swan only flapped her wings.
“Your bitches,” I agreed.
Lil Swan settled down, satisfied. “Don’t mess with the swan from the pond.”
“Deluded,” Radley mouthed at me.
“Aye, you’re all my bitches.” Apollo fluttered his eyelashes at me.
He didn’t pull off the innocent face.
I gaped at him, but Felix laughed, softly.
“We’re going home,” Odile murmured in wonder. “River, are you coming with me?”
Felix froze. His gaze darted between Radley and me like we could help him.
But what could we say?
“I wish that I could, Odile, but I’m not a shifter,” Felix replied. “We’re taking you to your real parents. They’ve missed you so much and…I know because I’ll miss you just as much. But this way, you’ll be safe after…”
He couldn’t tell her after he was dead.
Let Odile understand…
“But I want you,” Odile wailed. “I’ll miss you.”
“Stop it,” Lil Swan’s voice was sharp but as raspy with tears as her sister’s. “Don’t you get it? They’re not abandoning us, sis, they’re freeing us.”
“We love you.” I hadn’t thought that this would be so hard. Had it been like this for our families when they’d given us up as Hostage Lords? Had they hoped that the Court Fae would foster us and treat us kindly? What if we weren’t doing the right thing? “I promise, your true family will love you too.”
“If there was something watching us, it’s not there now.” Radley clasped Lil Swan to his chest. “We need to move.”
I nodded. “It was probably nothing anyway.”
I hoped.
Court Dictate 697 stated: If you’re paranoid, your enemy has already defeated you.
Wait, that one actually made me feel worse.
I forced myself on towards the lake across a carpet of gillyflowers, which were just starting to unfurl into sun-burst yellow life. Their cinnamon aroma shocked me with its spiciness because it reminded me of Emerald.
Suddenly, I wished that Emerald was with me, sharing the heart thudding excitement of this moment. I stopped at the edge of the pond in the hushed silence. When I placed Apollo down, I missed the shape of Emerald’s hand. I was certain that her fingers fitted perfectly between mine.
My boots crunched on the reeds. The pond was black and silent. Bats snatched insects off the water.
The sacred swans slept floating on the surface with their heads tucked underneath their wings or standing on one leg. Like this, you wouldn’t know how deadly they were.
Carefully, Radley and Felix placed the cygnets on the edge of the pond but not in the water because they couldn’t even swim.
Without their
parents to teach them, they’d never learned. My hands balled at my sides. Perhaps, the other fae were right to sneer that I was the Court’s tamed fae. I’d had no one to teach me the true ways of the forest.
But I’d learn.
Odile glanced back at Felix. “I’m scared.”
“Me too.” Felix bit his trembling lip. “But you’ll be fine. Trust me.”
“How do we wake up the swans?” I asked. Apollo launched himself into the water with a splash. “That’ll do it.”
The swans startled awake.
Apollo was as brave in his own way as Radley because the way that the other swans’ eyes glittered and they reared up, surrounding the intruder, I was certain that they’d peck him to death.
“One way to go is to murder the shifter who’s helping you,” I hissed. “Or you could turn your feathery asses around and see that we’re here to return something precious to you.”
The swans’ necks swiveled, and Apollo shot me a grateful glance.
Odile and Lil Swan huddled together like they were being assessed and if they didn’t pass, their parents wouldn’t want them back. But I’d seen the despair on their mum and dad’s faces when they’d only been able to look up at them through the net.
They loved them.
Two graceful swans swam away from the flock and to the edge of the pond. Felix and Radley’s wings brushed against mine; they were trembling, and I knew that they needed to sense my touch, as much as I needed to feel them.
Just for a moment, the swans’ necks entwined in a perfect love heart.
“Ma?” Odile whispered.
“Da?” Lil Swan shuffled closer to the water’s edge.
The two swans bobbed their heads in thanks to us, and then turned, allowing Odile and Lil Swan to climb one onto each of their backs. When the cygnets settled into their feathers, I’d never been so sure that they were where they belonged.
“Take care of them,” Felix called, as the swans glided back to join the circle of shifters, “and love them.”
“We’ll be checking,” Radley warned.
I’d never seen anything as beautiful as the swan shifters reunited in the dawn’s light.
Apollo swam back to us, shaking out his feathers. “That’s Number Three on the Bucket List checked off, My Lord. The cygnets are free, and even if I plucked out a feather and laid it at your feet every day for the rest of my life, there wouldn’t be enough to thank you.”
“I could’ve done without the horrifying plucking image but that aside, you don’t need to thank me. I only wish that I could also free you, but even though Wells is one of the few fae who takes the whole swans are sacred thing seriously, you’re a white Forest swan and too close to me for him to let you go. The cygnets, on the other hand, are from the Court flock and will be guarded by their own now.” I glanced at the swans who were circled protectively around the cygnets and their parents. “He’ll have a swan rebellion on his hands if he tries to take them back.”
We’d done it. In the name of the forest, maybe I had been paranoid.
Then I yelped, as something tugged on my ears.
I stumbled backwards, flailing my hands only to meet a handful of squirming fur. The creature tugged on my ears again.
“On my feathers, I am the Marquess of Spring,” I snarled.
Felix stared at me. “I appreciate the announcement. It’s possible that I may have developed amnesia in the last five minutes.”
The skvader, a small half bunny, half bird creature that like the myrmidons lived in the territory, which the Wicked Reform School had been built on, and were…to put it diplomatically…jerks, yanked on my ears again.
I gritted my teeth. “My ears.”
Radley huffed. “Only your ears are noble? As an attempt to pull rank that’s feeble.”
“There’s an asshole skvader behind me.” I thought that it was restrained of me not to punch my mates in the dick, so yeah, brownie points to me.
Yet skvaders often worked as scouts for the Paranormal Prefect Patrol. What if they were about to raid the House of Fae?
Radley gripped the skvader by his long ears (see how he liked to have them tugged), and hauled him away from me. The skvader squeaked and then hung defiantly between us, staring up from his black eyes.
I gestured towards the farm. Felix and Radley stalked after me away from the pond and back under the cover of the trees. If an attack was coming, I wanted to be as far away from the swans as possible.
When I nodded at Apollo, he reluctantly flew towards the turret. He couldn’t enter it, but he’d be safer sheltering at the walls than with us.
“So, are the Prick Patrol on their way?” Radley demanded.
The skvader turned up his twitching nose, refusing to answer.
“Wow, really good chat.” I glared at the skvader; he eyeballed me back. “Let him go. He won’t talk.”
“Leave the bunny bird with me and a single carrot, and I’ll have him singing like a canary.” Radley’s grip tightened around the skvader.
How’d we become good cop, bad cop again?
When the skvader’s eyes widened, and his white wings that were tipped with black beat frantically, I shook my head.
“Let him go. If that band of bootlickers are on there way, then it’s too late, they’re already—”
“Here,” a creepily arrogant voice wound out of the shadows.
How did Oscar always seem to manage that? Could pure bloods truly materialize out of smoke, as Oscar always boasted (read lied), or was he just sneaky?
Oscar slunk closer, swinging his cape like he was auditioning for the role of villain. His hair was short and brunette and he was far too pretty to pull off threatening, even with his fangs extended.
I’d heard rumors that Oscar had got caught up in vampire politics and killed half his own family. Oh yeah, he deserved to be allowed out early on good behavior as reformed just because he led this patrol of pricks…not.
Speaking of…
“You’re feeling brave today.” I fixed on my patented sneer, and next to me, so did Felix and Radley. Oscar would never admit it but he was terrified of the Fae Lords like most of the students in the other Houses. Never underestimate the power of a cold sneer and a reputation as a rule-breaker. “Are you here on your lonesome?”
Radley dropped the skvader, who flew up to perch on a tree branch, quivering.
“You know that we’re duty bound to slice you into pieces and leave them as a bloody gift in front of the House of Vampires now?” Radley slipped out his scimitar.
“Oh, they’ll love that!” Felix beamed.
I drew my sword as well, at the same time as Felix. The magical runes along their blades glowed.
Oscar became ashen. “Why would I expect the Fae Lords to respect the sanctity of my Prefect status? I enjoyed the little play you put on yesterday, by the way, with you on your knees.” I stiffened. He’d better not say it… His expression became dreamy. “It was better than every one of my fantasies. I’m quite giddy about Saturday. The whole school is betting on you dying, and I’m personally crossing my fingers for strangulation. It has a certain type of poetry to it.” When Radley growled, lunging forward, Oscar clicked his fingers. “And how foolish do you believe me? I didn’t come alone.”
A pack of seductive female vampires flitted out of the trees around us.
Brilliant. Oscar’s backup dancers had arrived.
Except, I didn’t make that quip because last time I had, the vampire with Barbie pink nails had kneed me in the balls.
When she leered at me, I cupped my groin protectively.
Then a Nephilim with milky-white skin and deep brown eyes slipped with an arrogance bred of his too beautiful to be real brilliance out of the trees to stand on one side of Oscar. He patted at his golden hair, as if to check that it was still perfect.
It was, the asshole.
A giant shambling man who seemed to be nothing but muscles and soulful eyes rambled to the other side of Oscar: one of
the most feared bear shifters.
The gang was all here.
I cocked my head. “It’s not like this isn’t lovely — surprising me in the romantic setting under the dawn trees — but if this is your last-minute proposal, Oscar sweetheart, then you should truly get on with it.”
Straight face…don’t laugh…
The bear shifter growled, one of the vampires gagged, and Barbie nails looked anguished like she couldn’t decide who she wanted to kick in the balls first.
“You brought us here to marry this…irredeemable fae?” The Nephilim arched his brow. Before, the glow around him had been peaceful, but now it’d darkened to something terrifying.
The Nephilim could throw a compulsion around others that made them obey. The staff punished any Nephilim who was caught, but the sneaky assholes were good at hiding their schemes. Any calm that they exuded was no more than a predator tricking their prey. But it didn’t trick me because a fae’s magic could see through it.
The Nephilim’s posturing didn’t scare me, much.
Oscar reddened, bouncing up and down on the spot and twirling his cape in his outrage.
I grinned. That was Wicked Bucket List Number Four (outrage a vampire), checked off.
“Never!” Oscar burst out. “I’d rather marry the Dean of Discipline in a huge open-air wedding on the training grounds with mutants as my bridesmaids.”
Felix pointed his sword at Oscar. “So, you have a crush on the Dean as well?”
Oscar howled, storming towards us. “I’m offering you a single chance to come with us quietly. If you do, then I’ll tell your Head of House that you didn’t resist arrest. Perhaps, he won’t punish you too harshly.”
The Nephilim crossed his arms, pouting with disappointment.
Adrenalin flooded me. I’d forgotten how much fun these little chats with Oscar could be. He was an asshole, but at least that meant I had something to fight.
My smile was dangerous. “Have I ever agreed to that?”
“I wondered whether you’d been broken.” Oscar’s fangs glinted. “Being close to death often has that effect.” My patented sneer darkened to something real in my rage. Oscar stumbled back a step. “It was just a thought…”
I raised my scimitar, before slashing it through the air. “Fight me.”
Rebel: House of Fae: A Dark Fae Paranormal Romance Page 9