Challenged by Darkness (An Urban Fantasy Novel) (Befallen Tides series Book 2) (4 page)

Sitting up with a firm hold on the shears, Winx brought the tool down by its point into the savage’s head, making him shake and then go limp.

How long could she keep this up? Two savages, and she was already tired. Winx gingerly touched her new wound, so close to others that had just healed, and fury began to bubble within her. She was supposed to kill all of these stupid things by herself? With no help? While bits of her were being
eaten
? Renewed fury welled into her, forcing her breath out in tiny hyperventilating spurts.

She had never wanted any of this. Even when avenging Deja, she never saw herself as a killer. The only fuel that had charged her to kill her sister’s murderers had been her indignation on not only losing a family member, but on seeing the gang walk away free.

Now, all she had was her militant training and her survival instincts. Death was coming for her, and it wasn’t quiet about it.

Fuck that. No more wounds. No more of her blood being wasted.

Winx stood over the opening of the attic with her weapon dangling at her side. The savages were still ravenously dragging themselves closer. Their hands lifted toward her in a wanton display of endless hunger.

Swinging the shears over her shoulder, Winx took a step closer to the mouth of hell.

Then she jumped in.

CHAPTER 4

Winx swung her makeshift weapon in a large arc. The blades flew through the air and connected with every fiend lunging at her.

More bodies flew to the ground. She did not waste time with her gained advantage, but instead, she walked to the nearest one on the floor and stabbed through his head. Using her foot to dislocate the shears, she went to the next and silenced that one as well.

The others were already lurching her way again.

She didn’t waste time severing limbs.  Every swing was aimed at killing a savage.  Winx cut a path through them, narrowing  her eyes against the spray of blood that flew into her face and against the bites and scratches the savages inflicted.

But Winx didn’t feel any new bruise or wound. She only felt the need to survive.

 As the savages dwindled, they became hell-bent on eating her rather than dodging her well-delivered blows. Winx was overexerting herself to keep up.  She was winning, but she couldn’t concentrate enough to control the things.  If her powers hadn’t so often failed her recently, she might have faltered.  But her resolve remained unfaltering, and she pressed on. Five left. Then two.

Then none.

Winx stood in the glory of victory, drenched with blood. Wiping her brow only spread it across her skin like war paint.

Better their blood than hers.

She returned to her room, picked up her still-packed duffel bag, and slipped on her shoes. It didn’t matter where Keaton was, or the princess and her cronies. They weren’t at the bed and breakfast. That meant she was on her own again.

The shears were heavy in her hands as she stomped toward the exit, but she kept a tight grip on them anyway.

She was only stopped by cackling laughter from down the hallway.

“I should have known it would not be that easy to beat you. You’re the trickster of our Queendom, after all. Your disappearing act after training with the eradication forces is spoken of throughout the clans. A most cunning fable are you, Winx Rowan.”

Winx didn’t  recognize the man’s voice, but something told her he was exactly who she was supposed to be dealing with. An accented voice in the void, one which knew her name…

Her hand squeezed around the handle of her weapon, and she turned slowly in his direction.

“You’re nothing special,” he said, voice growing distant as she walked toward him. “The only reason you’ve lived for this long is because Iragall wanted to keep you around as a pet project. Were you in the jurisdiction of another, you’d be as dead as anyone else stupid enough to cross the order. But no. The vapid stripper is allowed a reprieve.”

Winx trotted down the stairs, seeking her tormenter with the gardening shears in hand. But he was too fast, staying just far enough ahead enough to be nothing more than a voice within a passing shadow.

“Was Deja Rowan really so important? Did it never occur to you that she may have done something to deserve her fate? Don’t you know
why
she was killed in the first place?”

“Who the hell are you?” Winx shouted.

“Someone who knew Deja far better than you ever could!”

Winx ran harder. It was enough to bring her to the very first floor of the building, but she was still out of reach of the interloper. She hurried to the still open front door and searched the grounds with a quick eye.

The only thing to see in the still darkness was his retreating back, his white wings spread as he took off into the night sky.

Winx could only jump into her car to follow.

Keaton hadn't meant to spend so much time away from his designated safe point. In truth, he'd only thought to hear out Sabrina's story and then get back to the Yertz B&B. But something about the green-eyed girl had drawn him in.

She hadn’t taken him too far from town, but the cabin was still away from the hustle and bustle. Instead of parking her car at a campground left mostly empty for seasonal reasons, Sabrina stopped off road alongside an overgrown trail.

 They hoofed it through the thicket of branches, and Keaton kept himself on alert. At the first sign of trouble, he was going to utilize all of his power to get away. He wasn’t in the mood for surprises.

Sabrina was quite perceptive. “I have no intention of hurting you, Keaton.”

“I'm not so concerned with you. I've been through a lot lately.”

“There's no denying that. Your trials are hanging around your aura like a dead weight.” He gave her a puzzled look. She shrugged. “The evil endangering the packs has left a lot of bandits unsteady. You aren't the first I've ran into on the side of the road looking lost.”

“And you're what? Pulling them off of that road and taking them to your house?”

Sabrina smirked. “I’m trying to introduce them to a solution better than suicide.”

“What makes you think I'm suicidal?”

“Oh, please. Flaunting your fangs around town willy-nilly? You wanted to find a hoard and show them who’s boss. ”

“I was just...disoriented.” He still was.

“I was the same way. And so were the others who are here. It’s a hard thing to accept.”

As they approached the porch of the large wooden house, Keaton saw that there definitely were others. Men and women walked along the outline of the trees, some dozed on hammocks, and others hunkered down against the cold in lawn chairs. Voices and delicious smells wafted from what had to be a well-stocked kitchen.

“Is this your pack?” he asked.

“In a sense. My familial pack was killed months ago. This is a pack that we've sort of straggled into. Like refugees.”

“That's something,” Keaton said.

Sabrina shook her head. “Not when you didn't choose it.”

It didn’t take long to get her meaning. Nobody there looked truly at peace. The conversation seemed forced when they were happening at all.  Nobody played music or had a story to tell. They all sat precariously, like him, waiting to run at the first sign of trouble. No smiles, no warmth, no security.

Sabrina led him into the house without saying anything to anyone. Sleeping bags and backpacks were strewn across the floor, and with the exception of those flanking a long dining table, there were few chairs. Nothing here looked permanent.

A myriad of smells clouded Keaton as they entered the kitchen. If nothing else, the dwellers were eating well. Two men and a woman walked around the counters, stirring large pots and cutting portions on boards. They looked up at Keaton when Sabrina sat him at the nearby table, but they didn’t welcome him with any expression.

“So, what do you think?” Sabrina asked.

“Think?” Keaton snorted. “What is there to think? This is depressing.”

“But it adds truth to what I've told you,” she reiterated with an expectant look.

Keaton nodded. There was no denying that. “Where are the elderly?” he asked reluctantly. “Or the children?”

Sabrina shook her head. “Always the first to go.”

Was that true? Keaton and his pack had been able to protect those who could not defend themselves. Not every time, of course, and sometimes at the expense of the fit warriors, but there were still survivors. To look around and see only faces as young as him or just slightly older was a heartbreaking call to reality. Had children in his pack not survived this last scourge? Would he find his pack again, only to learn that his leaving has caused their demise?

“We are the survivors.” Sabrina waved her hand around. “All that's left is forced together by necessity. Ordinarily, our packs would not mingle. As I'm sure you know.”

Bandits may have been known to take in a straggler here or there, but as far as entire packs went? They kept to their territories. It was less of a risk to speak to a pack on your own than it was to bring friends. Perhaps if they had not kept to the old ways, if they had mingled and adopted more modern technology, they would have been able to help one another.  But pack masters felt obligated to uphold the old culture. Even to their destruction, apparently.

“We've let this happen,” Keaton muttered. “This could have been prevented.”

“We didn't create this problem,” Sabrina said.

“No, we didn't, but why do we have to lose everything before we intermingle?” Keaton sighed.  “Even the lixyns have been reaching out since they lost their kingdom.”

Sabrina scowled. “I didn't know.”

“It’s true. They've been building armies against the savages for a good amount of time. Meanwhile, bandits all across the states are the first line of defense, and we're letting ourselves lose.”

“How do you know about the lixyns’ downfall?” Sabrina asked.

“I'm currently under their watch,” Keaton answered derisively. “I was tracking the one responsible for all of this.”

“And that one would be?” Sabrina's eyes went wide, and she growled eagerly.

Keaton could only say, “Someone quite powerful.”

 “How is one man responsible for all of this?”

“He was in charge of processing cryptids who were under arrest by the Queendom. He’s  intensified the savage problem for his benefit.”

“What are the authorities planning on doing about this?

“Honestly? Beat him when they find him.”

“That doesn’t sound very well thought out.”

“It’s better than what they were doing, which was ignoring his rise to power.”

 “Curse them,” Sabrina spat. “Of course this is all on their heads.”

Keaton was inclined to agree. “Like I've said. They’re building an army against the tyrant.”

“And you’re part of it?”

“For now. But as soon as I find what I'm looking for, I won’t be anymore.”

The corners of Sabrina's lips twitched. “It seems we have a lot to tell one another. Please, stay a while and tell us your stories.””

The other cryptids had been victims of the recent happenings, just as much as Keaton’s pack.  They should have known what he knew from the beginning. How could Keaton refuse to let them in on it? Still, the thought of sharing made him feel as if he were betraying someone's confidences.

“Very well,” he finally agreed. “But I’m only telling you what you have to know in order to better prepare yourselves.”

“I wouldn't ask for anything more.” Sabrina reached across the table to hold his hand. “It’s lucky I found you again. You always were quite useful to have about.”

Keaton was unfamiliar with such raw expressions of affection, but there had always been a sincerity to Sabrina. Now that she knew of his horrors, for she had lived them herself, and she was helping her fellow kind, it seemed to shine through all the brighter. He squeezed her hand back.

He ended up spending hours  in the company of the ragtag pack. It was long enough that it was dark and dangerous by the time he headed back to the hotel.  Sabrina insisted on accompanying him regardless of his protests, and since he couldn’t shake her off, he followed her back to her car.

 Keaton and Sabrina had talked for so long that they had nothing resembling conversation left in them, but as Sabrina drove through the streets with casual familiarity, the silence was peaceful. Keaton didn’t fight it. Instead, he lowered the window to place his arm along the frame and let the cool air clear his senses. It had been a very long day. When he got back to the hotel, he fully planned on kicking Winx out of the bed so that he could commandeer it for himself.

He let his mind transport him to a different time, a sweeter time. One in which his pack was hale and Sabrina was his lover. A smile tickled the corners of his lips and he remembered his usual mode of preparing to go see her.

It wasn't as if they ever had a lot of time,  since they were both loyal to completely different alphas. Never mind that mixing company wasn’t common.  Ottanu, his alpha, had almost lost her territory to Sabrina's pack master before she’d turned the tables. There had been no lack of ill feeling toward the two alphas since then. And those who knew about Keaton's affair would remind him of that fact.

Whenever Cohen Silver would see his son awash in the glow of impending sex, for instance, he made it a point to try and dissuade him every time.

“There are other girls out there,” he said once, getting in Keaton’s way as he moved around their dwelling.

Keaton would not slow in his preparation to leave, evading Cohen’s moves. “Of course there are, father.”

“Your soul is that of fire, you attach yourself too much.”

“I am far from troubled by it.”

The words of caution were rich coming from Keaton’s father.  The two men were alike in many ways: in height, manner, appearance, even humor. But their lives had taken very different paths. Cohen had fallen in love with Keaton's mother, Ayelen, at a very young age. Their connection to one another had steered the older Silver for his entire life. But Keaton had not been so lucky.  He hadn’t allowed the knowledge to bring him low, but he’d recognized the pangs of loneliness all too easily in contrast to his parents’ love. And he had craved a ready escape from it.