Authors: Reed James
Gunnar so wanted to trust Maeve.
But he also wanted to kneel before Corrigan and let her make all the decisions. It would be so much easier.
The rain came, hammering hard as he sped, water spraying in his wake. His windshield wipers whined as they sloshed back and forth. The rain fell in thick sheets, the fat drops covering his entire windshield again before the wipers could make their next pass. Traffic slowed. Between the rain and the bottleneck at Fort Lewis, Gunnar watched his odometer drop from seventy to sixty to forty to twenty.
“Come on,” he groaned, his insides twisting. He had to get this over with. He had to make sense out of his life.
He glanced at the clock on his phone. He still had an hour. Gunnar ignored the missed call and text notifications. Both Corrigan and Evan had tried to call. Gunnar didn't intend to call them back. He didn't have the patience to explain himself to Evan, and he feared Corrigan preventing him from getting the cold iron sliver.
If she is a Fey...
Flashing lights blinked ahead. A traffic accident slowed everything to a crawl. He drummed on the steering wheel. Gunnar had thought it would take an hour to get to the foundry. He was only halfway there and an hour had already passed as all of I-5 had to squeeze into one lane to get around the bad accident.
Finally, he was past, racing back up to speed. Some of his fear dwindled. He had forty minutes to get there. He should make it.
Gunnar exited the freeway, following his phone's GPS as he navigated through the side streets. Ahead, smoke poured from large stacks, the residential houses falling away before an industrial park. He passed through an open gate in a chain link fence, razor wire spiraling along the top. He pulled his car into a parking lot and headed into a white-sided building besides the foundry.
“Hi,” Gunnar said when he walked in.
“The guy looking for the sliver?” the receptionist said as she busied behind the desk. “You just made it.”
Gunnar nodded. “Great. I really need it.”
“Don't get why you need a bit of cold iron? You're not with those others, right? The Wiccans?”
Gunnar shook his head. “Others? Wiccans?”
“Yeah, the redheaded girl, Black guy, Asian gal, the blonde, and the kinda hunky nerd.”
Maeve, Evan, Akiko, Felicity, and Brad?
“No,” Gunnar said. “What did they buy?”
“A lot of cold iron spikes. They were very specific. Pure iron, cold forged. But we had some cast off material from making them that hadn't yet been recycled. So you're in luck.” She grabbed a small, plastic tube caped on the ends. A sliver of metal rattled around in there. “That'll be ten dollars.”
Gunnar whipped out his wallet and paid without hesitation, his hand shivering as he clutched the plastic tube. The proof he needed was in there. If Corrigan was a Lean Sidhe, the moment he even got close to her with the sliver he would know.
And then what happens?
Gunnar shuddered. But he had to know. Whatever the consequences, he had to know if Maeve was telling the truth or if she really was a lying monster. He pocketed the container and marched to his car, his shoulders set.
~ ~ ~
Frost stiffened the sheets of Gunnar's bed. Ice coated his window and crept across his dresser, slowly spreading its white, crystalline arms like a mold. The temperature kept plummeting as Corrigan's fear mounted. The wind swirled around her as she sat cross-legged on the bed, her hands gripping her phone.
Gunnar had ignored all her calls. All her texts. He had disappeared.
What if he's fled? What if the Pixie has gotten to him somehow.
“If he had fled, I'll find him and flay his skin,” she hissed, icicles forming on her fingertips.
The cold engulfed her, caressing her naked skin. The moisture in the air condensed and froze on her flesh, becoming small, burning dots of frigid pain. She savored it. Ice coated her hard nipples and frosted the lips of her pussy.
Cold, merciless anger burst out of her in a fierce gale. The windows rattled and pictures were knocked off the wall, crashing to the floor. She poured it out. Anger at Gunnar for being so stubborn, anger at Maeve for daring to find a backbone again, and anger at the lying emotion that still bound Gunnar to Maeve.
How she hated love.
Corrigan's phone chirped. She swiped her thumb across the screen, melting the ice. It was a text from Gunnar. The wind died around her. She read the text.
“Sry I didn't get back to you. Phone died. Had an emergency to take care of. OMW home. See you in 10.”
Corrigan stood up, the ice cracking and falling from her flesh. She threw the phone to the side, an icy flail forming in her hand out of swirling cold. “You are going to pay for every minute you made me wait,” she promised.
~ ~ ~
Gunnar pulled his Charger into the parking space at his apartment complex. He gripped the steering wheel, the plastic container bulging his pocket. He pulled it out, the metal sliver rattling around inside the tube. He used his teeth to pry off the cap and shook out the thin sliver onto a crease in his right palm, the metal end biting into his flesh.
Gunnar winced, closing his sweaty fist about it.
Gunnar closed his eyes. Maeve's smiling face appeared.
Have I made the biggest mistake in my life? Did I let Corrigan trick me? Did I lose Maeve?
Gunnar's fear remained, but it was dwarfed by his drive to know the truth. He kicked up his door, striding out. His shoulders were set, his blond hair framing his fierce face. In another life, he would have been a viking warrior leaping from the longship and charging his enemy with sword in hand, screaming bloody fury.
Gunnar took the stairs two at a time, the silver biting into his palm. He reached his door and thrust it open with a bang, bursting in to his apartment. He couldn't stop. He had to keep moving. Gunnar knew if he stopped to think he was done. He would lose the battle to fear.
“You've been very bad,” Corrigan purred, slipping out of his bedroom. She was naked and lovely, water dripped off her ivory flesh, and a leather flail clutched in her hand. “It's time for your punishment.”
Gunnar couldn't help the overwhelming lust that shot through him. His knees buckled, begging Gunnar to kneel and accept her flail. He strode forward, marching at her, staring into her eyes and looking for any hint of the truth.
“Umm, someone's eager to be...” Her golden eyes narrow. “What is that stink? No!”
Gunnar grasped her left arm with his right, pressing the sliver of cold iron against her flesh. If she was human, it would do nothing to her.
Corrigan screamed. Smoke curled from Gunnar's palm pressed against her arm. The flail cracked, slamming into Gunnar's chest with such force he stumbled back. A black burn, only a sliver in size, marred her arm.
“You fucking bastard!” she snarled her flesh rippling. The lines of her face grew harsher, more angular and alien, and somehow even more breathtakingly beautiful. Her pupils narrowed into black slits and her violet hair shimmered like the northern lights. The leather flail frosted into pristine ice.
“You are a Lean Sidhe,” Gunnar growled.
The flail cracked again, wrapping around his right arm. Icy, numbing pain filled him. His hand shook. The sliver of cold iron flew free and tumbling to the floor.
“Maeve was right, you fucking bitch!”
“Yes, the little cunt was right!” Corrigan snarled, jerking harder on the flail and pulling Gunnar along behind her. She was far stronger than he thought, his arm tearing at his shoulder joint as he struggled to fight her. “You will howl tonight, Gunnar! You will be my fucking hound and grovel at my feet.”
“Never!” Gunnar spat as the icy chains around his heart tightened. A strange part of him wanted to be hers, wanted to finish submitting to her domination. He had come so close to giving in during their games. By playing along he had, at some deep level, come to think of her as mistress. “I'm Maeve's!”
“You were that Pixie's!” Corrigan seized him by the throat as he entered his frigid bedroom.
Icy winds full of icy daggers attacked him, shredding his clothes, leaving bleeding scratches. Gunnar grit his teeth, ignoring the pain. Corrigan hurled him with one hand onto the bed. The frosted sheets crackled beneath him, icy shards digging into his back.
“But you didn't love her enough to trust her,” Corrigan mocked. “You didn't love her enough to see through my glamour. You let fear tear apart your love. And that left you so vulnerable to me.”
Gunnar tried to fight as his arms were stretched over his head, manacles of ice freezing his hands to the headboard. “Well, I still love her! She wasn't a monster! She should have told me she was a Pixie, but I would have forgiven her. I love her!”
“Not enough!” Corrigan slammed the icy flail across his chest. Gunnar howled in pain. “You called me Mistress. You've already began to submit.”
Crack!
Blood matted his chest, leaking from a dozen, red gashes, the bubbling blood frothing into pink ice.
“And you will howl in pain until you submit, Mortal Champion.”
“What?” Gunnar demanded, fighting the pain, clutching on to Maeve's face.
Crack!
“You will wield the Balance for me as my faithful hound! You will tip the Equilibrium into Winter's favor.”
Crack!
“I will make you run down your precious Maeve!”
Crack!
“I will laugh as you rip her to pieces and feast on her entrails!”
“Never!” he howled, bleeding stripes covering his broad chest, stomach, and thighs. “I'll never be your fucking hound. I will never hurt Maeve!”
Crack!
“The pain ends when you call me Mistress, hound.”
Crack!
“The torment ends when you grovel at my feet and beg to be my hellhound.”
Crack!
Gunnar's arms bulged as he fought against the numbing ice entombing his wrists. His entire body was agony. His skin was raw. Every crack of the flail sent pain flaring through his body. He concentrated on Maeve. He pictured her face, focusing on it.
Maeve's the Mistress of my heart.
Crack!
Gunnar cried and screamed, bucking on the frozen bed.
“Be my hound!”
Crack!
“Let the pain end!”
Crack!
“Call me Mistress!”
“No!”
Crack!
He kept screaming his denials. Every time was harder than the last. His body was icy fire. He burned and froze. The ice was so cold, he felt on fire. His tears froze to his cheeks, his spittle to his lips.
And the flail kept falling.
I can be strong.
Right?
For Maeve?
Crack!
Chapter Nine: Moonbeams
Gunnar didn't come to class. And neither did Corrigan.
Fear gripped Maeve's stomach as she went through the motions of school. She feared her gambit to plant distrust in Gunnar's mind had backfired. Now only the challenge remained.
Be strong, Gunnar. I'll free you from her control. I hope you'll be able to love me again, but...
The anguish in his eyes still haunted Maeve. He had been so hurt, so devastated by Corrigan's trick.
Maeve put that concern out of her mind. Either way, she would free Gunnar. She would live with the consequences. It was better for Gunnar to be free and happy than to be any Fey's prisoner. Maeve would always cherish their month together and the ring he gave her.
She walked to the sorority with Evan, Akiko, Brad, Felicity, Raven, Billie Jo, and the rest of her sorority, her Mortal friends wanting to protect her, to support her. Maeve's heart beat with love for all of them. They were risking so much. They each knew what Corrigan was capable of and they didn't flinch at the task ahead of them.
Everyone was nervous at the sorority. The disgusting spikes were divided up into ten different piles for tonight's ceremony. Even down in the basement, Maeve shuddered at their poisonous presence.
Dinner was cooked, and they all tried to act normal as they ate, laughing and joking. Maeve didn't have any appetite. She just had to get through tonight and to tomorrow evening. It would all end. She was defeat Corrigan and win Gunnar's freedom or she would die.
“Everything will work out,” Felicity said, finding Maeve staring out the window. The blonde put her arm around the Pixie. “Love always works out in fairy tales, and since you're a Faerie, I know you and Gunnar will be happy.”
“Not in the tales I hear. Love between a Fey and a Mortal rarely ends happy.” Maeve clasped her hands together. “Even if I save him, he'll grow old and die one day, and I'll keep living and living, slowly forgetting him as the centuries wear on.”
“You'll never forget him,” Felicity said. “And you said he was special.”
The Pixie nodded her head.
“So who's to say he won't live forever like you. Or maybe you could help him out, do some task or find some object. There's stories like that. Right?”
There aren't.
Maeve turned and hugged Felicity anyways, savoring the hope. “What sweet words you say. Thank you.”
“You saved me from Corrigan. I think it's the least I can do.”
A giggle escaped the Pixie. “Yeah. I guess it is the least you can do.”
“That and help you trap a murderous Fey that's already tried to kill me twice.”
“If everything works out, she won't ever get the chance to kill you,” Maeve said. “I'll win Gunnar back, and we'll begin searching for the Balance.”
“What is the Balance?” Akiko asked.
“Yeah,” Evan nodded. “Do you have any idea where it could be. It's important. Right?”
Maeve nodded her head. “It is so important. But only Gunnar can find it.” Maeve smiled. “I bet he's already found it and has no idea.”
“So what is it?” Akiko pressed.
“In the distant past, great wars raged between the Seelie and Unseelie Fey. The wars began when Titania and Mab contested for the love of Oberon, the Master of the Wild Hunt. Mab was jealous that Titania won the hunter's heart and took him for her consort. So Mab attacked Summer and the world froze. Back and forth Summer and Winter fought, sometimes Summer would prevail only for Winter to come back and seize victory. There were a few powerful Fey not aligned with either side who saw only futile war. So the three Norns—Urd, Skuld, and Verdandi the sisters of fate—decided to act. They created the Balance and gave it to a Mortal. The first champion.”