Chasing Faete (Beyond the Veil Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter Ten

“Quenya,”
Erica whispered the Elven word for “nanny” in awe, before she wrapped her arms around the slight woman, then lowered her head to Corrine’s shoulder and sobbed. As she inhaled, she drew the scent of clementines and vanilla into her lungs, and the familiarity of it made her cry even harder as she was suddenly flooded with memories.

Her childhood had been filled with love, laughter, and joy from times where Corrine and Erica’s parents spent afternoons doing nothing but play with her, to evenings spent with them reading her stories, each of them taking a role and acting it out for her. Her father would often choose a romantic story, and when the hero kissed the heroine, he’d capitalize on the opportunity to dip her mother over his arm and kiss her, making Erica and Corrine giggle. But it was the final memory that remained most vivid for her.

The day she’d lost both her parents.

They
were having dinner in the main hall when the doors burst open. Before he could even get up from the table, her father was killed with an arrow to the heart, pinning him to the chair. Three men, who now formed the senior ranks of Alefric’s guard, stormed the room. One of them grabbed her mother and dragged her from her chair. Corrine leapt to her feet to try to intervene but was knocked to the ground. The third moved to stand behind Erica’s chair, resting a hand heavily on her shoulder.

Erica was struck with grief as she watched the light drain from her father’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced by anger when she watched one of the guards, his arm wrapped around her mother’s neck, lift a knife with a curved blade, and hold it against the soft skin of her throat.

“Your time is up,
Your Highness
,” the man spat the final two words. It was clear he felt nothing for her mother but contempt. “Alefric demands your answer. Now!”

Tears slid down Raelyn’s cheeks as she stared at her husband, no doubt looking for any signs of life. “You’ve killed him, my Haydrian,” she cried.

The guard closest to her father’s body barked a laugh.  “Yes, we did. You were warned about what would happen if you weren’t willing to do what Alefric wanted. Did you think he was just going to let it go?”

Erica watched as her mother seemed to stand taller, the tears ceasing altogether and her face filling with disgust. “No, I never thought that Alefric would let it go. But I believed he had the intelligence to know that what he was asking for would never be willingly given. The right to rule this realm is through bloodlines. Alefric’s bloodline is evil and toxic and will never be worthy of our throne.”

“That’s why he wanted you to marry him, you stupid bitch,” the man behind her snarled. “All you had to do was agree to marry a male with the strength to make the Fae a force to be reckoned with, the way we all know we should be! You and that spineless bastard you married wanted alliances and treaties with animals. Shifters should have only one role in life and that is to serve the Fae.”

“Serve the Fae?” her mother said incredulously. “Why would they agree to that? Shifters are a strong, loyal, and a proud race. Whatever gives you the idea that they would simply fall into lives of servitude to anyone, let alone a race they know very little about?”

“Because that is as it should be!”

Erica turned toward the voice that echoed through the broken doorway. She gulped at the look on the face of the Fae male who walked through the door. He wore the blazer of a high ranked member of her parents’ military. His long black hair fell down his back, braided at his temples. His dark green eyes and his face were filled with rage. “The Fae should be the most revered and feared race on either side of the Veil, and yet you want to disgrace our heritage and live alongside these animals in harmony? You are a fool, Raelyn! We will no longer sit idly by and allow you to disgrace us as you have been.

“Now, I am tired of waiting for you to do the right thing, so as you can see, we are taking matters into our own hands. I am taking my rightful place as the King of this realm, and you can either take your place at my side or die by his.” Alefric sneered as he motioned to her beloved husband’s now still body. “The choice is simple.”

Erica’s heart began to pound when her mother turned to look at her, her eyes filled with pain and grief, but also begging her for forgiveness. She knew in that moment that her mother had already made her decision. If she hadn’t known her mother as well as she did, Erica might have missed the small throwing knife that slipped from her mother’s sleeve and into her hand.

“Over a future with you?” Raelyn sneered as she turned to glare at Alefric. “I most certainly choose death. And it is my will that I take you with me, you murdering bastard!” And with a scream of defiance, her mother let the knife fly. From where Erica sat still pinned to her chair, the trajectory of the knife looked true, but there was a reason Alefric had risen so high and so quickly within their army’s ranks. He turned at the very last moment to take the knife in his shoulder.

Alefric groaned and hunched forward, the knife still embedded in his flesh. “Kill that bitch,” he roared, and then things moved in what seemed to be slow motion for Erica. Corrine screamed and launched herself from the floor and in her mother’s direction. The guard behind her mother gripped her hair, arching her neck and began to draw the blade with deadly accuracy across Raelyn’s throat. The arc of blood was the last thing Erica remembered of that day, before she fell into unconsciousness, the grief of watching both her parents killed in front of her too much to bear for a child so young. The soundtrack playing in the background was her own screams of horror.

“Shh, child,” Corrine murmured gently, bringing Erica out of her memories and back into the present. Somehow she had been led further into the house and now sat on a couch, still held tightly in Corrine’s arms. “You’re going to make yourself ill, and from the looks of concern and anger on the faces of your young mates here, I think that might just throw them over the edge and into insanity.”

With a small hiccup-laugh, Erica raised her head to look for her mates. Ben sat beside her, gently stroking his hand down her back, and Leo knelt on the floor in front of her. Corrine was right. Both of them looked anxious and ready to kill at the same time. “It is so good to see you,
Quenya.
For the longest time, I thought you were dead. When Leo and Ben spoke of a Fae woman with a seer’s gift yesterday, I just knew they were speaking about you. I felt it in my very soul.”

Corrine made a
tsk
sound and reached up to cradle Erica’s face in her hands. “You should have known better than to doubt me, child. I am a survivor, just like you.”

Erica nodded and smiled. Corrine had been more than just her nanny. She had also been her mother's most trusted advisor. The gods would share visions with her of what would or could happen in the future. If her visions were meant to be taken as a warning rather than prediction, then they were sometimes given time to change the path to ensure a different outcome.

“After I was unable to save your mother, Alefric had me taken to the dungeons. He knew of my foresight ability and wanted me to advise him. I stayed for a while, simply feeding him the information he wanted to know. I knew that with Raelyn dead, his attentions would turn toward you.” A low continuous growling filled the room. “And well may you growl, wolf mates to my princess. There are a large number within the Fae that look to him as their leader, but a growing faction awaits the true bloodline of their Fae royalty to return. The only chance he has of uniting the two is to take our Erica as his mate. I told him that Erica must not be mated until after her twenty-first birthday.”

And wasn’t that just a delightful thought. Erica shuddered at the thought of being mated to the narcissistic asshole and barked a humorless laugh. “Well, that explains why he came to me the day after my birthday.”

“He what?” Leo asked his voice deadly.

“He tried to get me to
cooperate
. Gave me twenty-four hours to think things over.”

“He dies, hard,” Ben growled, his wolf clear in his voice.

Corrine grinned, and Erica knew she approved of both of her wolves. “Now that I would love to see, but I have yet to be shown the death that awaits him.”

“Have you seen what lies ahead for us?” Ben asked.

Corrine’s smile slipped away and a shadow formed in her eyes. “I have seen two possible outcomes for your future, and as with all battles between good and evil, there is a happy ending and one that is not so happy.”

Having forgotten that the Alpha still sat in the room, Erica startled slightly when Gabe sat forward in the seat he had taken across the room. “Corrine, you talk as if there is already a battle on the horizon, but you have never spoken of this before.”

“You are already at war, Gabe, and it is one that you must win. Not just to guarantee the happiness of these three young lovers—” Corrine gestured between Erica and her mates, “but the survival of your own pack. I have never spoken of this as I had not been shown every piece of the puzzle that is unfolding before us, and there is much that still remains in the dark.”

Gabe’s face turned fierce. “What in the hell do you mean the survival of my pack? Who in the hell would be crazy enough to fuck with a pack as strong as ours?”

“Alefric is,” Erica answered gently. “He is more than crazy enough to start that war, and he’s also vain enough to believe that there would be no real threat to him once this war begins.”

Corrine sighed and nodded. “That is very true, child, but, Gabe, there is more to this than what I see. Can you be assured that your pack is as strong as you think? I pray for all our sakes that it is, because if there is even one small opportunity for Alefric to infiltrate and sway the odds in his favor, he will find a way to do it.”

The room fell silent as they each thought about what that could mean. Wanting to fill the silence, Erica asked, “What were the outcomes you saw for us,
Quenya?
”

Corrine turned to look at her, and Erica’s heart pounded at the sadness in her eyes. “There will come a moment, where you will be faced with your greatest challenge. Alefric will stand before you, and a battle will ensue. If you are unable to kill him, then you will lose your opportunity at happiness. If—”

“I don’t think,” Ben interrupted, “that either Leo or I will have any qualms about ripping that fucker’s throat out. Ending him will be a fucking pleasure.”

“That may be true, young wolf, and I do hope that you get that opportunity, but the job of ending that Fae’s life may fall to your mate. Destiny can be a fickle mistress in derailing the best-laid plans.”

Erica nodded. She didn’t have the foresight Corrine had, but she had always felt that there would be a showdown of sorts between her and Alefric. In fact, she was looking forward to it. She owed him far worse for the death of her parents.

Before Leo and Ben could voice the objections Erica read on both their faces, another man walked into the room. He was tall and built like he’d been born in a gym. His dark hair was cropped short to his head, and a tribal tattoo of some sort wrapped around his forearm. “Alpha, there is a Fae emissary here with a message for you.”

Again the room fell into silence. Now that was unexpected.

“What is the message, Donovan?” Gabe snarled.

The shifter shrugged, folding his arms across his chest. “I have no clue, Alpha. I explained to him that I was your Beta and could bring the message to you, but he was adamant that the message was for your ears only.”

Erica watched as a feral grin bloomed on the Alpha’s face. “Well then, it would be very rude of me not to give that message my
complete
attention.” Gabe and his Beta then strode out of the room.

“What if our pixie is successful?” Ben asked, placing a hand high on her thigh. “I mean, I would much prefer it is me or Leo that gets to tangle with this fucker, but if it has to be Erica, then I have faith she will divest him of his head quickly and efficiently.”

Erica smiled gently and placed her own hand on top of his. “You have that much faith in me?”

Leo snorted, leaning in to place his hands on both her knees. “Honey, we both do. You forget, we saw the way you swung that deadly looking curved blade of yours.  If there is a fight between the two of you and it is fair, then we have no doubt that you will send him to the hell he deserves. But make no mistake … I have no intention of allowing this to be a fair fight.”

Erica felt the final dark spot in her heart fill with the light of the love for both these men and knew they owned her completely.

“Then your happily ever after will be filled with the love and laughter you all deserve,” Corrine answered, filling Erica with hope.

The sound of snarling, growling, and screaming came from the front of the house, and all four of them leaped to their feet. Leo and Ben moved to stand in a protective position in front of her and Corrine. Just as Erica was about to suggest they go and see what the ruckus was, the door Gabe and Donovan had exited through opened, and Gabe strode back into the room. Naked.

Leo growled low, moved to a sideboard, opened a drawer, and threw his Alpha a pair of running shorts. “What the hell was all that about?”

Gabe pulled on the shorts, his eyes still flashing with signs of his wolf. “It would seem that this Alefric prick has decided he wants your Fae back. He has given us forty-eight hours to return the princess, or we go to war, and the Fae will not stop until every single one of my pack is dead … so they said.”