“I pledged myself to you. I meant it,” Kellee said, leaving no room for doubt.
Sirius’s brilliant green eyes narrowed. “Sota is a beacon telling Eledan where you are, but Sota’s tek-presence could shield you from the Hunt, which is likely why Eledan wanted him close during the ceremony. Perhaps it’s worth the risk.”
There was no perhaps. “Sota stays. We’ll deal with whatever fallout comes from it.”
Sota toed the sand with a boot, looking so vulnerable that I wanted to throw my arms around him.
“If you want to go, I won’t stop you…” It hurt to say, but he had the right to choose. “But know how much I need you, Sota. I don’t think I can do this without you.”
He looked up and met my eyes. The wild locks of dark hair swept across his forehead and cheek, giving him a boyish appeal, but inside, he was a long way from his naïve exterior. “I’ll do my best to protect you.”
“I can’t do this without any of you,” I told them. “You are each a part of me, and while I know we have our differences and it will not always be easy, if we’re together, neither Faerie nor Eledan can break us.” The wind picked up and whisked my words away, carrying them to any force on Faerie who cared to listen. I’d seen only a small amount of the wonders and horrors Faerie had to offer. That would soon change.
Sirius, Talen, Kellee, Sota. I loved them with a light as bright as any polestar.
“What’s our next move?” Kellee asked.
“We visit Ailish and the Wild Ones.”
The guardian’s glower intensified. “That is… unwise.”
“Probably, but she told me more in a few minutes than any other fae has in my entire life, so we’re going to her.”
“What you saw of her in her home was the good, but she has many faces, Calla. She trades in deception and dark promises.”
I smiled. So do I. “Of course she does, but we have you and she seemed to like you.”
“She fears me. We have our history.”
Fear was a potent motivator. “It’s time I used all the weapons at my disposal.”
“Is that all I am to you? A weapon?” Sirius crafted the question to sound light and careless, but his steady gaze cut through that karushit.
“No, and you well know it.” A tension had crept onto the beach, the kind that would get worse if left to fester. “How might we find Ailish?”
“She will either sense our summons and come to us of her free will, or, more likely, we’ll have to seek her at her cavern. If she isn’t there, we’ll have to travel deeper into Faerie.”
“We’ll take Shinj there—”
“We cannot. The warcruisers are Oberon’s creations. The Wild Ones abhor them. They will not appear in the presence of such a creature.”
I glanced at Talen. He nodded in agreement with Sirius. Walking to the cavern would take days—days in which Eledan would delight in hunting us. “I don’t suppose you can rustle us up a carriage like you did at the docks?”
Sirius’s lips twitched around what might have been a smile if he’d loosened his stoic mask enough to let it slip through. “I can, but I’ll need some items.”
“Items?” Sota echoed.
“Come, let us leave this exposed beach. I’ll find the necessary elements along the way.” He started toward a section of the cliff that had collapsed onto the beach, providing a gulley through which we could escape the knoll and Eledan. Although, there was likely a reason he hadn’t yet raised the alarm.
“One more thing,” I called after him. He turned, and they all waited for me to speak. “We can’t sleep. Eledan will find us in our dreams. We all know how powerful he is there. He can turn us against each other and make it so we forget his meddling.”
“Then we had better hurry,” Sirius replied and marched on.
Chapter 10
Sirius plucked a pixie nest from a bush as we passed. The nest was no larger than a melon and comprised of twigs, moss, and fluff. I shot Kellee a questioning glance. The marshal shrugged, the look on his face saying, “How the cyn should I know?”
Talen would know, but he strode adjacent to Sirius, the two of them discussing something that had Talen chuckling. The pair appeared so utterly different, warm reds and browns against icy silvers and grays, yet they were so very faelike. If I blinked, would they vanish, like in the old human tales?
The strange dusk light never changed. Faerie’s stars twinkled as they observed us. On Shinj, Talen had taken me to the navigation room, where the stars hung among us and sang their forever song. I hadn’t known then that I was one of those stars, or, more accurately, my blood was. Faerie’s stars weren’t singing now, but maybe I was just too small to hear them.
Kellee moved in close beside me on the narrow, winding path. “I should have kept you safer.”
Kellee blamed himself? “I chose to go to him. I’d made a deal. It had to happen.”
He closed his eyes and winced before reopening them, fixing his glare on me. “You should have told me about the deal.” He kept his voice low so the fae wouldn’t hear, but Sota, walking behind us, heard everything. He always had.
“You would have tried to stop me.”
He considered that for a few moments and then tossed me his slick marshal smile. “Yeah, I would have.”
“You don’t need to protect me.”
“I know.”
But he always would. We’d come a long way from him tracking me down on Calicto for allegedly murdering a mineworker. The chances of us ever meeting had been slim, yet fate had run me right into him.
We walked some more, enjoying the quiet. Pixies sometimes chirped or something larger would disturb the bushes, prompting Kellee to glare into the shadows. “Some days I regret pushing you into being the messenger,” he said.
The words almost tripped me. “You do?”
His gaze found something distant to focus on. “Had I let you go, I might have saved you from all this.”
Only Kellee would think he could protect me from Faerie. “You can’t shoulder that blame either, Marshal,” I said softly. “My destiny was seeded into me before the fae harvested me. This was always going to happen. The only difference is we stopped Oberon before his plans could come to fruition.”
He nodded, but a soft melancholy surrounded him. “Have you thought about what comes after?”
“After?”
“When all this is done?”
I looked up and pinned my gaze to Talen’s back so Kellee couldn’t read the truth in my eyes. The polestar couldn’t stay in pieces, and whatever part of it was in me would soon be removed. I hoped Ailish would have all the answers, but some I already knew. “Do you think I’ll have an after?”
He thought on that a while and glanced ahead at Talen. “I’ll make you one.”
With your metal-worker hands? If anyone could craft me a life after this mayhem, it was Kellee. I let him see my smile and had to fight the urge to grab him and kiss that smirk off his lips. Here, in the wilds, surrounded by brush, wisps, and creeping things, he seemed more at ease, but that frayed edge lingered in the air around him, his beast so close to the surface I could feel the tension crackling around him.
“Are you all right, Kellee?” My thoughts went back to seeing him tear into Oberon, to seeing him drink down the king’s blood. I had no idea if a vakaru had ever killed a fae like Oberon before or what it would do to him. Perhaps nothing. Vakaru could ingest almost any poison and survive.
“No,” he finally replied. “But as long as we’re together, I’ll get by.”
I stopped, grabbed his arm, and pulled him close before he could argue. His arm looped around my back and pulled me in so there was nothing between us. His warmth enveloped me. There was no safer place in all four realms.
“Don’t ever leave me like that again,” he whispered, spilling those words over my lips. It wasn’t an ask. His words were a demand, an order, and they sparked a riot of need that urged me to devour him right here.
I threw my
arms around his neck, trapping him. “I have no intention of ever letting you go.”
Sota cleared his throat. “As much as I’m getting off on watching you, the fae have disappeared through the brush ahead and are moving away. It’s best we stay together.”
Neither of us moved. I bumped my forehead against Kellee’s and fell into his gold-flecked eyes. Deep inside, he was wild and free and untamable.
His warm, scandalous mouth nudged mine. “Soon,” he promised.
Darts of lust scattered low in my stomach at the thought of having him all to myself. It had been a long time coming. Dragging a hand down his chest, I gently pushed. Sota was right. Separating our group out here was a terrible idea.
Kellee didn’t budge, so I spread my hand on his shirt, feeling the ridge of pectoral muscle beneath. His marshal’s star was missing. I looked up. “Where’s your star, Kellee?”
“Right here, in my arms.”
The words broke me open, exposing everything I was and had been. He knew me, and still, he loved me. Maybe this was all a dream after all.
“I could call them back here so we can all watch?” Sota suggested.
Kellee’s grip eased, but the want in his eyes didn’t fade. “Buzz off, Sparky.”
I pulled myself from his arms and caught Sota’s wide grin. He hadn’t lost his kinky humor during his transformation.
Kellee reluctantly hiked farther up the trail. Unlike the fae, who all moved with innate cat-like grace, the play of muscle beneath Kellee’s shirt and pants radiated an unforgiving primal strength that demanded to be respected, and admired, and touched.
“He has a very fine ass.” Sota made a squeezing gesture and an “oh” expression that suggested he’d like to caress that ass as much as I did. “He’s so gonna be worth the wait.”
Unexpected laughter tore from me.
Kellee threw a middle-finger salute over his shoulder, indicating he’d heard every word, and plowed on up the path. I laughed harder, looped my arm through Sota’s, and followed Kellee into a clearing between tall, leaning trees.
Talen watched Sirius, who was crouched at the center. They’d brushed aside the fallen leaf litter, and as I drew closer, Sirius placed the nest on the ground and four large, round pebbles beside that.
Talen threw me a wild smile that was so unlike him but so filled with delight.
My gut twisted in excitement and apprehension. I folded my arms. “All right, what’s happening here?”
“Transportation,” Talen said, like that one word explained everything. He backed up toward me, giving Sirius room to work. “You’ve seen so little of what Faerie is capable of.”
“Will it turn into something hideous that’ll devour us all?”
“Not quite.” The delight in his eyes wasn’t exactly comforting. Anything that delighted the fae usually meant others would suffer, but I trusted Talen and, to a lesser extent, Sirius.
The guardian straightened, brushed leaves from his coat, took a few steps back, checked our locations, and bowed his head. He flicked out his hands. The raw tek-hand glittered in Faerie’s soft dusk light. The breeze lifted and shifted around the clearing, stirring up a tiny storm of dust and twigs.
Similar storms had blown through the sinks on Calicto, when the fans were down for maintenance, but here, the whirlwinds were probably alive. Funnel after funnel sprung from the ground, no bigger than a man. They danced and spun to music only they heard. Sirius clapped his hands, and the tiny storms became one, blasting a column of air up and yanking all the dust, leaves, and debris out of the clearing. I shielded my face and leaned back against the wind. Sota’s fingers steadied my arm, and then the storm collapsed, revealing the impossible at the center of the clearing.
A carriage.
“Holy cyn,” Sota blurted.
Talen’s richly devious laughter made my toes curl.
“Can you do that?” I asked him.
“No.” His lips tilted. “I could have summoned you a dark army, but these days, all I’m good for is a little human mind control. That”—he nodded at the carriage, with its woven wicker-like structure and impossibly shiny marble-like wheels—“is a Wild One’s talent.”
“Sirius is full of surprises,” Kellee drawled. Raising his voice, he asked, “Where are the steeds, fae, or do you intend to pull it too?”
Sirius whistled through his teeth, and for a few minutes, long enough for me to venture closer to the carriage and run my hand over its design, nothing happened. Then a snickering from the trees drew my eye, and from deep within the shadows, a black horse emerged, with fire for its mane, tail, and fetlocks.
Sirius lowered his tek-arm, keeping it out of sight, and approached the stallion, offering his normal hand for the beast to sniff.
Life magic.
Sirius had it too, but not until recently. His powers were returning, just as Ailish had foretold. Faerie approved of his recent choices. Another black fire-tipped horse breached the clearing, this one snorting and kicking, its eyes wide and glassy. Eventually, Sirius got them under control and maneuvered them into the harnesses.
We clambered into the carriage, Kellee wary, Sota in awe, Talen thrilled the more we fell into Faerie’s ways. Sirius took up the reins from the outside seat. With his bellowed “Yah!” the horses jolted into motion, and we thundered into the dark.
Chapter 11
Sota stared out the carriage window, watching the blurred scenery sail by, his eyes absorbing and reflecting the occasional darting ball of light. I spotted enough stars to know we were moving inland, away from the sea.
“How much longer until we’re at the cavern, do you think?” I asked, turning my head to find Talen watching me. Somehow, I’d missed him shift across the seat, but with him this close, I could barely think around him. I plucked a twig from his hair. He had others snarled in it, leaves too, but he didn’t seem to care. His lips tilted upward, and even his eyes held a more intense sheen than I’d ever seen before. Faerie agreed with him, but of course it would. He’d been away a long time. The Talen I’d met had been starved of Faerie, and while he’d never complained, seeing the changes in him made it clear how much he had suffered.
“Faerie looks good on you,” I told him.
“It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t glad to be home,” he admitted. “But Faerie has changed in my absence. There are oceans where there were none before and dry basins where once there was life. Mountains have split and separated. Great swathes of forest have perished or vanished. I barely recognize it with my eyes, but my soul knows Her.”
I’d once had a piece of that old soul, and I’d somehow let it go.
He cupped my face. “Don’t grieve the loss of our bond. It was a mistake on my part to offer you such a thing when you did not know who you are. Now you are free to be all you can be without my influence.”
His touch warmed my cheek. So gentle. I missed the feel of him inside me, but saying that here, now, with Kellee sitting right opposite, doing his damnedest not to hear every word? How could I? Soon, Kellee had told me. I needed that for us all, needed a moment with each of them before the moments were all gone.
“We are together, getting stronger with every passing heartbeat…” Talen’s thumb stroked my bottom lip. If I looked into his eyes, I’d want to kiss him—want a whole lot more. These impossible males would not be mine forever, but while I had them captured in my mortal hands, I’d love them wholly and completely. No matter what happened after, we would have lived and loved. It would be enough. It had to be enough.
The carriage hit a hole and jolted us free of the moment. Talen reluctantly retreated but stayed close, his presence soothing enough to keep my mind from running over the danger I was charging headlong into.
“What did Eledan say?” Kellee asked. “Did he give you anything?”
“Very little. He and I… He brings out the worst in me. I can’t talk to him without trying to kill him.”
“What’s his endgame? What does he want?”
&n
bsp; I thought of how the new king had admired Faerie from the knoll balcony, thought of his words when he’d spun an illusion at the crystal palace. “He wants Faerie to love him like She never has.”
Faerie loves all Her children, Ailish had told me, but Eledan had been away for so long he thought Faerie had forgotten him. His crusade might have begun before that, when he’d created the Hunt to be seen. What had he told me? That I’d slaughtered my own kind to be noticed. He understood that need. As the lesser prince, he’d been ignored much of his life.
“I think that’s all he’s ever wanted, and if Faerie does not favor him, he will not react well.”
“He won’t stop at Faerie,” Talen said solemnly. “His heart is tek. He spent as long pretending to be human as he has as Faerie’s prince, and with the Hunt free, he’ll send it beyond Faerie.”
Silence fell between us as the carriage clattered on.
“He doesn’t know what love is.” Sota turned away from the window. “He’s never known it, not real love. He’s searching for something he doesn’t understand. He may never know it.”
“He believes he loves you, Kesh,” Kellee said. “When the Earthens had me restrained, he helped me escape and revealed a few things.”
“He helped you escape?” I asked. “Why?”
“I don’t know…” Kellee shifted on the bench seat. “Much of it is a blur, but he mentioned a key, and my help. He also said I was to let you sleep when the time came.” Kellee waved a hand. “We know how that turned out.”
“You didn’t think to mention this when I asked if anyone had any more secrets to reveal?”
“It wasn’t a secret. I couldn’t remember much of it. Still can’t. The pieces are all jumbled in my head. I was drugged.”
“He got to you.”
Kellee laughed dismissively. “He didn’t get to me. He just… We just agreed on some things.”
“Some things you don’t remember?”
Kellee saw Talen’s and Sota’s equally unimpressed expressions and sighed. “I had him under control.”
Her Dark Legion Page 6