Dagnu’s burst of laughter tittered through our audience. “Queen?” He staggered backward and wheezed, rubbing his scorched neck. “Because the Mad Prince says so?” The crowd jeered and snickered. “A king with a tek-heart is no king at all.”
Eledan would find no love here, not among Dagnu’s crowd, and neither would I. I dabbed at my waist, and cool, slick blood greased my fingers. While bonded with Talen, I could have healed the minor wound, but now I wasn’t sure.
“And you…” he purred. “What are you, if not a mongrel pet that should have been left in the saru harvester to rot?”
Tek spritzed to life, tingling over my fingers and up my arm, the whip thirsty for more violence.
“Death follows your stench, saru,” he sneered. “It is a wonder the Hunt has not caught up with you yet.”
Did he know how close he was to the truth? “Or you.”
“And what is my crime? Fostering you? Caring for your forgotten friend? The saru gladiator needed extra care after the king took you, but he soon fell into line…” He leered, stroking his whip through his fingers.
The rage came out of nowhere, spilling the kind of vengeful fire into my veins that Kellee would have told me to shake loose before it got me killed. The fire had burned all rational thought away, though. I lifted the whip, cracked it overhead, and swung its tails at Dagnu. He lunged right, avoiding my attack, and shot his whip in low, hoping to hook my ankle and yank me onto my back. I skipped to the side, pulled my whip back again, and cracked its tails, snapping sparks in the air above us, giving him no choice but to divide his attention between the whip above and me below.
The lust for the kill sang through my veins. I was made for this. Created for this.
He flicked his whip from side to side, like a beast’s angry tail, and sidestepped the small space we occupied. I circled him as he circled me. “There’s that fire. You were always so passionate a killer, so different from your saru kin, so hungry for their blood, for us to love you.”
He needed to stop talking. I’d make him stop talking forever. No more saru should have to suffer under him. I didn’t know the details of what he’d done to Aeon, but I knew enough. Dagnu would die here today.
The crowd blurred in the edges of my vision, while Dagnu’s figure was diamond sharp.
“You cannot stop me, Wraithmaker.”
“I told you…” I tightened my grip, feeling more power spill through me. “The Wraithmaker is dead!”
The whip flowed, like it was alive, and struck too fast for him to counter. It tore open a gash in his cheek, raining his blood over the stones. He yelled out his rage and tried to lasso his whip in the air, but his skill was lacking. Power trilled through me—not Talen’s, but something older and brighter, a piece of true Faerie. It sang to me, lifted me up, and made me whole, made me more than this little fae could ever be. He dropped his whip hand and stared, eyes wide and mouth open, as I bore down on him. Just like on the balcony with Talen, I had become something else and pulled the shadows into me, wrapping them close. I heard the darkness calling to the light, to me. A million voices, each one a thousand light-years away, but they burned as brightly as any star.
Dagnu dropped his whip. “What are you?”
He fell to his knees, the fight draining out of him.
They all fell like cards, the entire crowd collapsing to their knees with a single name on their lips, the same name I heard chanted in my head, the same name that had haunted me for months. “Nightshade.”
Knowing slotted into place. He was right, I wasn’t the Faerie queen, that had never been me, but I could be their chosen monster.
Nightshade.
My whip glowed like a beacon of white fire in my hand. I glowed. Light encased in shadow. I breathed in, drawing life and power and Faerie into me, and felt power flex outward. It reached with shadowy fingers for all the dark things hiding and forgotten in the nowhere spaces, and the darkness breathed life into them, calling them home. The unseelie. My unseelie.
Cold iron touched my neck.
The latch clicked, and from one blink to the next, I was on my knees, drowning and gasping, lost in the sudden, wrenching disconnect. Dagnu’s boots, I saw those.
Iron squeezed, bottling the rising power in my chest. Dagnu had picked up the collar in the fight. I should have known, should have expected a trick, but he’d seemed so small… I’d underestimated him, and now he had me.
His fingers sank into my hair. He jerked my head up and leered into my face. “You might be the Nightshade, but you’re still mine, little saru, and you’ll always be mine.”
“Actually, the Messenger is taken,” came a lawman’s smooth drawl.
I blinked through the haze and saw my vakaru, with my silver fae and my guardian standing on either side of him. Sota… where was Sota?
“And she beat you before you pulled that collar out your ass.” Sota’s cold voice. “So you’d best let her go before we make it personal.”
“You have no claim to her!” Dagnu’s fingers dug tighter. The collar tightened. Can’t. Breathe. “She was mine long be—”
A shot rang out. A single precision blast.
Dagnu fell with a solid thump. I blinked up at Sota’s outline. His gun ports smoked. His tek-eye glowed, but his mouth wore a modest smile. “He was about to launch into a villainous monologue and ain’t nobody got time for that.”
Sota reached behind my neck, and the collar fell away, allowing me to breathe again, in more ways than one. Power trickled back into my veins. Nothing like I’d felt before, but enough to remind me I was becoming something else.
Sota hauled me onto wobbly legs, neatly propping me against him so I could at least appear impressive while surrounded by a few hundred silent fae faces. They knew me now.
Ailish’s cackle sailed into the silence. I searched for her hooded presence but couldn’t find her.
The crowd parted, opening a path out of the square.
Kellee nodded, but its tightness had nerves fluttering in my gut. Talen’s keen eyes scanned the crowd, his presence warning them to back off. Sirius led the way, forcing the locals to skitter out of his path.
“You hurt?” Sota whispered.
My side ached where the knife had cut into me and my neck itched, but I’d live. “No, I’m okay.”
His arm tightened around my waist. “Screw having a tail. I want Nightshade wings like yours.”
Chapter 14
Kellee had gone into silent sentinel mode, which was the only clue I needed to know I was in a whole world of trouble.
We were back in Talen’s house, in one of the spare rooms, so I could clean up and catch my breath. Dagnu was dead, and though I should care, I didn’t. He was just another fae left dead in my wake, and he’d deserved it. No more saru would suffer under his whip.
I’d stripped off my upper leathers and vest, leaving just the chest wrap on, and examined the jagged tear at my waist. It oozed blood, but it could have been worse.
Kellee’s glare prickled the hair on the back of my neck. I’d told him I wouldn’t leave him. I’d told him we were together. I’d told him no more secrets. And I was a lying bitch. But I’d had good reason. “You would have stopped me.”
He simmered silently in the corner across the room.
Sota breezed in through the door and dumped a bowl of fresh green leaves on the bed. “I have no idea,” he said, “but Talen said these leaves will seal the wound. He also said don’t eat them.” He picked up a fat green leaf. “It resembles aloe—”
“Leave,” Kellee growled, the word barely decipherable.
Sota stiffened and threw a look back at Kellee. “You’re a dick.”
Kellee stalked forward and snarled, revealing blunt teeth, so we weren’t in full vakaru mode. Yet. “Get out, Sparky, before I ask why you didn’t stop her from risking her life when you’re supposed to be her last line of defense.”
“Hey, you don’t judge him, okay?” It was not okay to blame Sota. “I asked h
im to help, and because he’s a good friend, he agreed. He’s the only one I could trust not to lecture me or try to stop me.”
Touches of red swam in Kellee’s dark eyes. “Of course he went. He’d do anything for you, and you took advantage of that, just like you did with Aeon, and look where that got him.”
“What!”
“Wow.” Sota dropped the leaf, and folding his arms, he looked at Kellee with enough sass to rival the marshal’s barely contained fury.
“Out!” Kellee’s teeth snapped together.
Sota rolled his eyes over to me, adding a question in them at the end. As much as I appreciated him being here, he’d rile up Kellee and that was the last thing we needed. I nodded and Sota left, leaving the door ajar. He wouldn’t go far.
Kellee snatched a leaf, tore into it with his teeth, and came at me like he was going to smother me with that single leaf. I had the wall at my back and stood my ground. Running from a vakaru was a bad idea.
He scrunched the torn leaf in his hand, squeezing out the sap, and reached for my waist. I batted his hand away. He caught my wrist, held me back, and shoved his goo-covered hand into the wound.
Pain snapped up my spine. “Ah, dammit.” I kicked him hard in the shin. “Don’t fucking touch me.” He didn’t budge. How dare he pick on Sota and say those things about Aeon. He knew how much it hurt. “Asshole.”
“It’s better it’s done and over with fast.”
I watched his lips move, observed the blunt teeth behind them, and knew I was safe to pant out the pain. With his face angled downward and his attention on the wound, his hair fell over his eyes, hiding their color from me. He’d been close to the edge of his control since killing Oberon. If he did go vakaru, his eyes would be the first warning, then the claws, then the teeth. After that, I had better be ready to fight.
He looked up, dark eyes flecked with a hint of gold. “Afraid?”
My teeth chattered. “Cold.”
“And probably almost in shock after what I saw.”
His hand on my side shifted, and the pain started up again. I closed my eyes and stumbled back, needing the wall to hold me up. Kellee let my wrist go, allowing me to steady myself. “What did you see?”
“You, going full Nightshade, like Talen.”
He said it like it happened every day. Oh hey, you sprouted wings and darkness, but it’s just another day of the week in the life of the Messenger.
“Was it bad?” I brushed my hands over my arms to friction warmth into my skin. I was cold, and now that the adrenaline had worn off, my body was telling me all about it.
“Not bad. Just… different.” Kellee shifted the leaf again, positioning himself even closer. “Talen says there’s no knowing what the Nightshade’s power might do to a mortal body.”
I swallowed with a click. The Nightshade… me. “Did Talen know this would happen?”
Kellee pulled a slow breath in and sighed, likely to steady his own racing emotions. I wasn’t the only one trembling. “In the beginning? No. A mortal shouldn’t be able to adopt the Nightshade’s powers, so my guess is he wasn’t concerned. After you started changing, though, he suspected. Don’t go thinking he meant for this to happen. He’s only ever tried to protect you from the worst of him.”
When Eledan had severed his wings, I’d reached out to protect him, and taken his burden on board, shattering the bond.
Kellee withdrew his hand and went looking for a towel or cloth to clean the goo from his fingers. “How’s that feel?”
I poked at my side and found it numb, the wound sealed shut. “Feels good.” I wasn’t quite as cold now either.
He returned with my top balled in his grip and held it out at arm’s length. The way he kept his distance and his eyes downcast, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d damaged us.
I took my clothes from him, and before I could say another word, he headed for the door.
“Kellee, I had to go, and it had to be me alone, not Talen or Sirius… or you. You know why.”
“Sota?” he asked, not turning, but at least he’d stopped walking away.
“He’s tek. I… I wanted to unsettle them. If I’d taken you and the others, whatever happened, the fae would have pinned the victory on you. It had to be me, just me. Dagnu was my past. I had to be the one to deal with him.”
“It’s not that.” His right hand locked into a fist. “One day, you’ll leave, like you did earlier, and you won’t return, and I can’t live through that again. I won’t. So I think it would be better for the both of us,” he sighed, “if we don’t take this thing between us any further.”
“What?”
“You and I end now.”
Staring at his back, I mumbled, “I don’t understand.” What was he saying? That we were over?
He turned, and the regret on his face cut a fresh wound. “You’re a hard person to love, Kesh. It’s killing me.”
I blinked, stunned. He let those words settle and seemed as though he might say more, but instead, he turned his back on me and made it to the door.
“Marshal Kellee, stop right there.”
He braced an arm against the doorjamb, his body slouched like someone already defeated.
“You’re giving up on us because you’re afraid I might die, is that it?”
His shoulder muscles locked.
I wouldn’t let him throw us away because of what-ifs. “I don’t accept that, and neither do you. Did you turn into a coward while I was gone? Because, sure, I bet loving a mortal sucks in the worst way. We die, it’s what we do. You’re going to make us suffer because you can’t stand the thought of outliving me? I’ve never heard such karushit in my life and certainly never expected to hear it from you. How dare you walk away from me, from us, out of selfish fear. You’re better than that, and we both know it.”
He bumped his fist against the wall. “By cyn, you drive me crazy.”
“No, you do that to yourself.”
He pulled the door shut in front of him and turned. His eyes glowed their multicolored rings, tripping my heart. “You think I’m afraid of us?”
“Why else would you walk away?”
He started back toward me, but the intent in his stride had me looking for an escape. I could make it to the window if I ran. The whip was on the bed, halfway between us. Window or whip? Flee or attack?
He smiled. The tips of his fangs gleamed.
“You’re a nightmare to love, Kesh. Half the time, I don’t know if I want to protect you, fuck you, or fight you. In one breath, I admire you, in the next, I wonder if I even know you. You play kings and queens like they’re your puppets, and here, on Faerie, you’re something—someone else again. You asked me if I’m afraid of us?” He stopped at the end of the bed, holding himself back. “I’m fucking terrified of us. And now you’re the Nightshade? What am I supposed to do with that?”
What was he supposed to do with it? What was I supposed to do with that! I laughed, not caring that it sounded cruel. “Do you think I’ve ever had a choice?”
His brow tightened, gaze thinning. “Do you believe you haven’t?” His fingers twitched, drawing my eye to the claws stretching free. “Eledan had it right—”
My mouth twisted. “You listened to him?”
“While you slept, he asked me if any of us really knew you. He asked if you’d manufactured everything from the beginning. Tell me you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t plan everything.”
Had he lost his mind? Had Oberon’s blood messed with his perception? “Of course I didn’t. What do you think I am?”
“The polestar, the Nightshade, the Messenger, and a Faerie queen. That was all a happy accident, was it? C’mon…” His mouth slanted. “I’m done listening to your karushit, Kesh. Tell me the truth.”
I crossed the floor and looked my vakaru in the eye. Denials tingled on my lips, but on opening my mouth, the words wouldn’t come. The hurt in his eyes turned my thoughts over and revealed the truth. I had wanted the fae to bow to me. I’d wanted i
t since I’d clawed at the earth, locked inside my saru cage, since Dagnu’s whip had come down the first time to snuff out the fire in me. I had manipulated and lied my way through life and thrived. Now here I was, something and someone else to thousands of lives. A Messenger to the saru and Halow humans, the Nightshade to the unseelie, Mylana to the fae, and a queen to Eledan. He was right. The sluagh bastard. I had taken the opportunities where I’d found them. Kellee was looking at me like I was a stranger, but I hadn’t chosen those names. I’d chosen to create the nothing Calicto messenger girl, Kesh Lasota. I was still Kesh, but he couldn’t see the real me behind all the other mantels thrust upon me.
He smiled a sorry smile that looked wrong on a face, with eyes as dark as the night and teeth as sharp as knives. “It’s all right. I wanted the truth. Now I have it.”
I lifted my hand toward his face. He turned his head away.
“Only some pieces of it. You’re missing a vital part.” I caught his clawed hand and spread his fingers over my chest, over my heart. “Inside, I’m just Kesh. Please see me, Kellee, the real me, the girl I wanted to be, the girl you brought back from Eledan’s dreams, the girl you tried to save in the sinks. I’m not those other names to you. I never wanted to be. Those other parts of me, they’re missing my heart.” My voice wobbled around the knot in my throat. “You have my heart, and if you can’t see that… well, maybe you should walk away.” If he turned his back on me, it would break me. Without him, without Sota and Talen and Sirius, I’d be lost. Without them, I didn’t know who I was either. They kept me real.
He went still, something dangerous and sharp in his eyes. If he thought me to be everything he despised, this would be the moment to finish me, to take his claws and slice me open. He could walk away from Faerie, from the war, from the Hunt, and go back to being Marshal Kellee. Maybe if it ended here, I’d have done enough to change Faerie for good, to change my soul for good too.
Her Dark Legion Page 10