Blood Before Sunrise (42 page)

Authors: Amanda Bonilla

“If it pleases the council…” The double doors of the chamber swung wide, and the Shaede High King himself swept into the room as if he owned the place. “I beg a moment of your time.” Alexander Peck—or to me, just Xander—never turned down an opportunity to show off his dramatic flair, and right now, he claimed center stage.

“With all due respect, Your Highness,” the dark-haired Fae said, “the time to testify in front of this council has passed.”

Decked out in what had to have been a ten-thousand-dollar suit, Xander looked as regal as he did imposing. Though his stance was relaxed, his molten caramel eyes sparked with a cold light that dared anyone to turn his request down. I could only imagine what he was up to. Maybe he couldn’t stand that I was the center of attention. Or worse, maybe he just wanted to prove that he could throw his weight around.

“Do I have to remind you about Edinburgh, Amelia?” Oh yeah, Xander definitely just wanted to throw his weight around.

The Fae looked at the questioning faces of her colleagues before she cleared her throat, fidgeting with the cuff of her sleeve. She scooped a glowing pearlescent ball in her hand and knocked the faery equivalent of a gavel down on the table twice. “We’ll adjourn for fifteen minutes. Alexander, if you’ll follow us to our quarters, we’ll hear what you have to say.”

Xander flashed me an arrogant smile. He waited patiently as the seven council members stood and followed in their wake as they walked, single-file, from the room. “Sit tight,” he said as he strolled past Raif and me. “I’ll be back shortly.”

We sat back down at the same time, and I asked Raif, “What the hell is he up to?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. We’re talking about Xander, after all.”

Raif leaned back in his seat, staring at the ceiling as if his brother’s plans were written there. I, on the other hand, had no interest in wondering what His Royal High and Mightiness had up his sleeve. Instead, my mind drifted to where it always did lately: the clusterfuck that was my life.

You’d think I would have lost track of the days since that night. The emerald pendulum,
Iskosia
, the key to the Faery realm that I wore around my neck, silenced the sound of time as it ticked within my Guardian’s soul, but I had invisible tally marks etched on my heart. Eighty-seven days, six hours, fifteen minutes, and twenty-two seconds. Twenty-three…twenty-four…twenty-five…

It’s not like I’d been brooding the
entire
three months. Well, almost three months. I had a system going, alternating between outings for my hearings with the PNT’s judicial council, setting up camp on my bed, answering the door for grocery delivery, and occasionally crashing on the couch while I let the TV lull me to sleep with mind-numbing entertainment. I wasn’t proud of the fact that I knew every single cast member of
The Jersey Shore
down to their cocktails of choice, but it was better than the alternative. The alternative being: allowing my tortured thoughts to drive me to a state of near-insanity.

I leaned forward in my chair and massaged my sternum. The imaginary fist that had been squeezing my heart for the past seven months clenched tight, leaving a hollow ache I couldn’t get rid of, no matter how long I rubbed. I’m not a fool. I realized that the blame for our separation rested solely on me. I ran—and spent four months away—from the one person in this world I should have sprinted
toward
. I shunned his protection, disregarded his strength, and stomped all over the love he offered…all in the name of arrogance.

Ty showed me how much he appreciated my treatment of him by returning the favor in classic “eye for an eye” fashion. I’d come back to Seattle after a months-long excursion spent in
O Anel
, the faery realm, protecting Raif’s daughter, Brakae, aka the Time Keeper, from
her ex-boyfriend, a nasty Enphigmalé asshole named Faolán. It was my job, after all, to protect the doorway and the key to
O Anel
. I’d failed miserably, taking Faolán to the very placed he’d been banished from so he could mend two halves of the hourglass that controlled the flow of time in both the mundane world and the faery realm. If he’d succeeded in his plans, Faolán would have killed every human being on the planet, aging them instantly as time sped up in the mortal world to keep pace with time on the other side of the veil in the faery realm.

According to Raif, during my absence Tyler had become temperamental, angry, and resentful, not to mention dirty and disheveled. I arrived at his apartment expecting to find a broken man. What I found broke
me
. Calm, clean, showered and shaved, and packing a suitcase for an extended vacation, Tyler gave me one last kiss and left. And he’d stayed gone. Three months and counting…

I took a deep breath, tried to slow the frantic beating of my heart that signaled the onset of another panic attack. Dredging up memories of my many mistakes caused my palms to sweat and my breath to stall in my lungs. The floor seemed to tip beneath me and the room swam in and out of focus in a dizzying blur. Oh man, this was going to be a bad one…

“Darian, stand up.” Raif’s voice was nothing more than a whisper, but it echoed in my mind as if shouted down the length of a tunnel.

The door to the council’s private chambers opened, and I just about fell on my ass as I shot to my feet. Raif reached out to steady me, his face etched with concern. I would have given him a reassuring pat to the shoulder if my hands weren’t bound in the damn cuffs. A few deep, steady breaths managed to calm me down enough that I was no longer seeing stars at the periphery of my vision, and my head finally felt like its normal size, not floating above my shoulders like a balloon.

Xander sauntered out of the council’s chambers much
the same way he’d entered. Only this time, the smugness of his expression spoke of victory, not just the prospect of success.
Great
. If he had any pull with regards to the council’s decision about my sentence, I’d never live it down. Just one more thing for his royal pain in the ass to hold over my head.

The Fae with the deep brown eyes—Amelia, Xander had called her—cast a cautious glance in the king’s direction before turning her focus to me. “The accused is officially absolved of any wrongdoing against the PNT and any charges brought against her are stricken from the official record.” She brought the opalescent orb down against the table with a resounding
crack
. With the sound wave, a pulse of energy swept through the room and caressed my face like a kiss of warm breeze. The cuffs around my wrists loosened on their own and dropped to the floor. Amelia’s eyes narrowed shrewdly as she addressed me. “You are free to go.”

Xander turned to leave, his chest puffed out with pride. “You can thank me later,” he said, and strode from the room.

As the council members rose once again to leave, I said to Raif, “He really gets off on throwing his weight around, doesn’t he?”

Raif’s laughter was the only answer I needed.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Amanda Bonilla
lives in rural Idaho with her husband and two kids. She’s a part-time pet wrangler and a full-time sun worshipper, and she goes out into the cold only when coerced. When she’s not writing, she’s either reading or talking about her favorite books.