Authors: Marie Hall
When they finally noticed it was already too late.
The witch’s golden eyes grew wide in her face. Blood rushed from her skin, leaving her a pasty white. Her hands covered her mouth as a scream of raw fear flew from her lips. “Michael!”
The smile on the man’s face died. He turned—unable to run for cover, to hide from his fate. She ran forward, arms outstretched, and tried to pull the man toward her.
Metal exploded against flesh. The sickening crunch of bone and tearing muscle warred with the scream of tires braking. The man was dragged under the car. She was flung aside, her limbs at odd proportions.
Cian’s heart clenched painfully when he saw her ravaged body lying so helpless on the ground. She looked like a morbid porcelain doll. Beautiful and broken.
Blood spattered everywhere. All over the windshield. Even on the neighboring vehicles in the next three slots. The overwhelming metallic stench was all around.
The car squealed to a halt, slamming against the side of the sedan. The shattering of glass echoed through the garage with an eerie finality. It was done; their bodies slowly dying, their souls waiting only for him to harvest and carry on to the appropriate afterlife.
The driver, a pimply-faced redhead emerged. “Oh no! No!” he sang the litany over and over. He ran a trembling hand through his hair and glanced up. A family in the next row over stared back in openmouthed shock.
“Get back in the car, Derek!” the girl in the passenger seat screamed.
The wind picked up flurries of snow, enclosing them in winter’s peaceful embrace. An ironic scene, at odds with the gruesome sight of death before him.
The kid jumped back in his car and squealed off with one last
bump-bump
in his wake.
Cian closed the gap between himself and the victims. First the male. The man’s face had been nearly sheared off. His forehead was cracked open and a constant stream of blood gushed from the wound. Kneeling, Cian extended his skeletal hand, ready to harvest the soul and carry it safely to the afterlife.
The man moaned and opened green eyes glittering with pain. He didn’t question why Cian was kneeling over him; instead he parted ruptured lips and croaked, “Save my wife.”
Cian glanced over at her prostrate form for a brief second and then shook his head with a sad, bitter twist to his lips. He’d seen many broken bodies in the past, never feeling more than quiet detachment. But seeing her now, hearing the wet gurgle of her breaths, it was like razor-sharp spikes driving through his heart.
He closed his eyes, chanting over and over in his mind:
This is the order to life. Without order there would be chaos. To prevent the chaos there must always be order.
Taking a deep breath, he plowed on, finishing what he’d started. “Find your peace, human…”
For us both
. Then he gently caressed the man’s exposed cheek.
The light of death filled the man’s eyes, and a single tear slipped down his cheek. The mask of pain relaxed, and a soft blue mist exploded from the caved-in chest—the soul pulsed with energy and differing shades of blue.
A glowing portal of brilliant white opened before him. The melodic song of a bubbling brook and rustling grass momentarily made Cian forget—forget the pain and loneliness.
The soul glided toward the light. It shimmered and glowed as it stepped through the portal. Then it was gone. The light went too, and with it the temporary peace Cian had sought his entire existence.
One left. The thought was a needle stabbing into his brain. He tried to remain clinical and study her not as a victim, but as a task and a duty to fulfill.
She wasn’t in nearly as bad a shape as her husband had been. Both legs were broken at the hips. One foot was pointed north, the other south. Besides the obvious injuries, she also suffered a ruptured spleen and would soon die from internal bleeding.
Short, shallow breathing turned his gaze to her face. Thin and heart-shaped with full pink lips and almond-shaped eyes.
His hands trembled, something was causing him to hesitate, a strange feeling he had no name for. What was it? Curiosity maybe? Something about the witch tugged at his normally detached feelings about death and life.
Do it. You must. Take her from this misery.
Her eyes snapped open. The lioness gaze ensnared him. Her bloody hand grabbed his fleshy one and his world turned upside down. Instantly images and thoughts came to him. The face of her husband, a sensation of overwhelming, heartrending love. The pain. The fear. The hope. Her hope exploded inside him like a seedling shooting through black earth.
His brows dipped, and his breathing spiked. He continued to share her emotions. He bit the inside of his lip, and the bitter taste of blood pooled on his tongue as he fought off the onslaught. He’d known upon first seeing her that she was a witch, had sensed her energy, but her powers were intense. He’d never come across a projecting empath as powerful as she was.
Cian took slow breaths and pushed his will against her own in an attempt to extricate himself from her furious assault. His will was like talons ripping and clawing at her insides; the back blast resonated through him. He reeled from it but couldn’t block himself off. She whimpered, moans spilled from her lips, and still she fought him.
He could break her wrist, force her to let him go. Force her to end the emotional battering. So why wasn’t he doing that?
Because he couldn’t. Because for the first time in an eternity she was making him
feel
—not just her pain, but her desperation for life. Emotions he’d never felt before. It was all so confusing, and yet…he’d never felt more alive. All his life he’d walked around in a daze. Moving from one soul to another, not living, just existing. For the first time he wanted. He felt. Because of her, and he’d betrayed her in the worse possible way.
Her eyes, glazed with pain, held his own. Defying him to take her life. She wanted to live.
Another shot of emotions slammed him. They felt like churning waves of angry sea crashing against him, stripping the flesh from his bones. Her anger beat at him, clawed at his throat with desperation.
Right then he made a decision. In defiance of his queen, the ruler of the reapers, he let her live.
C
ian opened the portal between the here and there with a swipe of his hand and stepped through. No one witnessed the shimmering disturbance of air, the growing crowd still entranced by the grisly scene before them.
He crossed the threshold, and an immediate soothing heat engulfed him in an explosion of sifting colors. Reds melded into gold, greens into blues. The dizzying array of shifting lights blurred until suddenly it opened, revealing a shrouded gray and misty isle.
He stepped through and studied the familiar surroundings, inhaling the sharp tang of salt in the breeze and allowing the awareness of home to ease the worry from between his brows and the throb of pain from his heart.
Algae-tinted water crashed against rocks, and foam bubbled up, looking like a witch’s frosty brew. The wind shrieked, its tone almost magical in quality. If one listened closely one could hear the voice of the land and its children speaking. Hence its name: Isle of Whispers.
But the locals knew the isle as something else. Alcatraz. The atoll had been home to fae long before any human had dared to step foot upon it. There’d always been a hint of danger settled within the foundation of earth and stone. A natural fallout of magick linked to the longtime association of faerie. In truth, the island itself was not home, but rather an entrance to the sithen. Alcatraz Island was only one of many openings to the fae kingdom.
Cian bowed his head against the whipping winds and walked toward a tree. An old oak, its limbs twisted by age and roots gnarled and curled out the ground, that was the life-sustaining mother of this sithen. The shrill scream of twin crows forced him to glance up.
She knows.
The knowledge did not come as a surprise.
The birds circled him twice then landed silently by his feet as they cocked their heads in unison, their hard glares boring into him. Cian clenched his jaw and waited for the summons.
Follow us.
He didn’t hear the words so much as feel the push of their will against his mind. After what the witch had just put him through, the push felt more like a stab. He winced, still sensitive.
A golden quickening surrounded the crows, the crackles of light appeared as a sunburst—variegated colors of red and gold cut through the fog. The birds landed before the entrance and passed their feathered wings across the bark in unison. A loud creak, similar to the groaning of shifting earth, rumbled through the air, then, smooth as silk, the center of the tree separated.
The hollow tree encased a trove of glorious splendor—rolling emerald hills, meandering streams of liquid crystal, and craggy cliffs. Thick, billowing mists sheathed the surroundings.
This was truly a world within a world. To travel through the entirety of the fae world would take years, if not decades. But he knew where he was going: to the very center of the realm. The queen’s castle rose through the mists as a spiraling steeple.
The crows cawed. Haunting, wispy calls echoed in return. The sylphs—winged beings resembling angels—flew overhead. None but immortals could ever see them. Their butterfly-like wings were a splash of glorious color against the gray of the sky.
The closer Cian drew to his queen’s side, the more he felt her fury. It boiled inside him like a festering wound. He grimaced, tasting the blood from where he’d bitten his cheek earlier, and knew that bit of spilled scarlet would not be enough to assuage her thirst for revenge.
He went now to plead his case for the witch. The woman was still far from safe; he’d only granted her a temporary asylum. The queen could choose at any moment to send another reaper out there to finish what he hadn’t. Whether the beating stripped all the flesh from his body or not, he meant to see her safe.
* * *
“Well, now, this has been a most interesting turn of events. Wouldn’t you agree, Chaos?” Dagda—king of the earth elements and of the fae—asked.
The Morrigan—goddess of strife, war, and death—narrowed her eyes at him. “I despise when you call me by that name.” The air quickened with the sharp nip of frost.
Oh yes, his queen was in a fury. He ignored her typical protest of his pet name for her with casual cool.
“You do revel at my misfortune, ugly bastard.” Though her words were harsh, they were laced with a thread of humor.
Dagda chuckled. The thunderous boom of his voice filled their antechamber with resonance; it echoed off the high ceiling and caused gold dust to shower down upon them.
Despite the fact the fae god seemed merry, his voice held the power to kill if he chose. He’d done so on rare occasions. Though he found he didn’t have the same taste for blood as his bonny Chaos did.
He covered her ivory hand with his dark one and proceeded to run his thumb along her knuckle. “Chaos, you old hag, calling your king a bastard. I take offense.”
A swift smile played on her bloodred lips. Then the humor was gone, replaced by an immediate, unnatural calm.
“Frenzy, bring me my cat-o’-nine-tails and sharpen the blades on the ends until they gleam,” The Morrigan said in a calm monotone.
He, however, was not deceived. Dagda had seen her like this many times; this mood never boded well. She was as the eye of a hurricane, merely an illusion of quiet, peaceful tranquility.
The stealthy figure of a reaper emerged from the shadows of the wall. Frenzy dipped low to his queen, his long crimson hair trailing along the stone floor like a sea of blood. Straightening, his silver eyes flashed with a hint of madness.
Normally Dagda would not interfere in The Morrigan’s punishment of death. But he must find a way to temper her; far-reaching works had been set into motion and she was not to do anything with lasting consequences. An oracle to the chosen ones had warned him long ago this day would come.
Though it grieved him to do so, he must now assume the role of order to his queen’s chaos.
“Chaos,” he said.
Her eyes flashed with annoyance—their normal icy blue changing to the ruby red of her crows, Badb and Nemain.
Dagda drummed his fingers on his armrest. “What do you propose to do with Cian?”
Her nostrils flared, and the fire and shadow of her hair swirled as she cocked her head. “Ten thousand lashes for his disobedience.”
Dagda stroked his smooth chin. “And the mortal? What of her?”
“I’ll send Frenzy. She will not escape her fate this time.”
“I see.”
She lifted a curved black brow, a knowing glint in her eyes. “Dagda,” she cautioned, “do not interfere.”
His lips curved at the corner, but he didn’t say another word.
C
ian entered the castle gates and immediately felt the sense that all was not well. It was like a rush of ice down his spine. He scanned the dimly lit corridor, noting how the inhabitants shuffled here and there, never glancing up and unnaturally quiet. An expectant hush filled the stone keep.
The only eyes that stared back at him came from the skeletal heads affixed to the walls as candelabras. Golden flames flickering inside empty mouths cast strange and undulating shadows down the hall.
The Morrigan kept tokens of all her conquests. The leering bones meant nothing to death. He knew all these bones by name and who’d they’d been in a former life—farmer or great hero, it didn’t matter. Now, be they humble or famous, they were resigned to an eternity of being little more than decoration.
He took a deep breath, inhaling the delicious aromas of roasting meats and baking breads. Warriors sat at gnarled oak benches, heads bowed over their chipped bowls of stew. They whispered amongst themselves; hundreds of voices buzzed in his ears. He could only make out snatches of conversation.
“Live…”
“…death…”
“Foolish boy…”
He ground his jaw, knowing they spoke of him. Rumor traveled fast and The Morrigan’s rage could be sensed like a living entity within every crevice of the castle. It was a choking sensation, stealing the breath and lying heavy on the lungs.
The gray, dank stone echoed with the sound of his footsteps. He turned a corner and then there was nothing. This portion of the castle was unnaturally empty. Cian glanced down the shifting maze of hallways and doorways, keen to pick up the sound or scent of something. But it was like walking through a mausoleum. Desolate and foreboding.
He glanced up, studying the flight of The Morrigan’s crows. The red-and-black banners of the royal court affixed to wooden beams on the ceiling fluttered at the birds passing. The Morrigan rarely sent her crows, preferring instead to use other methods of contact. A clap of thunder, a whisper in the wind. She saved her crows only for the direst of circumstances.
Polished doors of silver grew from a mere speck in the distance to large arches the closer he drew to the royals’ private chambers. The ground beneath his feet shifted, a vibration traveled up his soles as if from the pounding of several trampling feet.
Had she sent her guard? Why? She had to know he was coming of his own free will.
Then he saw them, twenty of her most experienced and lethal, marching to block off the entrance to her room. Their steps were unified and absurdly beautiful in their precision. The lead guard, dressed in a tunic of burnished bronze and buffed brown leather, halted the procession by lifting his fist into the air, and as one the group turned on their heels, all done in absolute silence.
They extended their spears and, like a coordinated ballet, slammed the ends onto the floor. The sound of metal slapping stone reverberated through the room like gunfire. Austere faces gazed at him.
The Morrigan’s pretentious show of force and power nauseated him. It wasn’t enough for her that she command the most lethal, and loyal, battalion in all of faedom, but she couldn’t resist trying to prove her superiority even to death.
He stopped, eyeing them. Each had hair tied back at the nape in a severe queue. Their delicate features made them look weak, effeminate. But they were deadly thanks to the swords attached to their dun-colored scabbards. Resting within the hilt of each sword was a red stone.
Mereth en draugrim
: feast of the wolves.
One nick from the blade and the victim went instantly mad, beginning to crave such things as bloody meat, marrow from bones. It was a sickness that only overcame the sufferers when the moon grew pregnant with light. The truth of the weres was that they were the original creation of fae.
“Grim reaper,” Cahal, the lead guard, intoned in a deep barrel-chested voice.
Cian’s nostrils flared. Heat snapped down his spine, turned his blood to molten lava. A tightness centered in his chest, and the dread and hatred he’d harbored in his soul awoke from their slumber.
“Let me pass, Cahal. I only wish to speak with the queen,” he said, his words edged in steel.
Cahal lifted a snow-white brow and shook his head, a glitter of antipathy gleaming in his ice-blue eyes.
“No.”
In fury, Cian roared, knowing the queen would hear him and wanting her to. There would be no escaping the beating, and with that thought came freedom. For the first time he need not fear the repercussion; they would happen anyway.
“Morrigan!”
Cahal hooked his arm through Cian’s. Using the guard’s momentum against him, Cian turned on his heel and slammed his palm against Cahal’s cheek. More guards jumped on Cian.
Fingers clawed into his flesh. Nails drew blood. But he didn’t care. He swung his fists and yelled.
“Craven whore,” he bellowed, praying the goddess would hear him. “Hiding behind your dogs. Meet me!”
There was no reason for the queen to do this. He’d come with no arguments; he’d known the punishment he’d receive. But he knew her perverse love of violence and blood all too well. The queen was a sadist through and through, and this was nothing more than a blatant show of power, of letting him know she was boss. He hated her now more than ever.
Bodies slammed into his back, bringing him to his knees under the weight and choking the air from his lungs. But the adrenaline was spiking and he no longer cared.
Cian writhed, the preternatural strength in his body refusing to fade out. This was a fury he’d suppressed for far too long. The indifference and hostility of the righteous fae toward his kind, the indignity of being called “dog” or, worse yet, not being called anything at all, had the festering hatred boiling over.
The sounds of snapping bones, quick grunts of breath, and the muffled noise of flesh striking flesh echoed down the hall.
He grabbed two heads and knocked them together. The dull sound was sickening as the bones crumpled against the other. A boot slammed into his face. It felt like his nose had been rammed through his skull.
Then more feet connected, busting in his teeth, his cheeks. He was on the ground now, facedown and being crushed under the pressure of a blanket of bodies. They slammed sword hilts into his face; the explosion of razor-sharp pain inside his brain was immediate and excruciating. He hissed, finally blacking out as one connected with his temple.
* * *
Badb and Nemain returned, gliding toward The Morrigan. They landed on either end of her throne and cawed.
She caressed the thick rope of leather in her hand. “Is Cian shackled in the chambers below?”
She’d heard all the words the fool had spat as he’d fought with her guards. He’d pay for the remarks with blood.
Nemain blinked her ruby-red eyes.
“Good.” The Morrigan strode toward the hallway. Her fingers twitched with anticipation. Her obsidian gown tightened at the chest with the excited rise of her breathing.
“Be well, Chaos,” Dagda called after her.
She turned and nodded toward her scheming consort. His eyes gleamed differing shades of gold and black. A smile cut his features, the white of his teeth in sharp contrast to the natural tan of his flesh. The Morrigan turned on her heels and proceeded toward the rack room.
Dagda was keeping secrets. He never involved himself in her affairs. Now twice he’d done so.
Anger sizzled through her veins. Her nostrils flared. She cracked the whip against her thigh in agitation.
Only strategically placed torches lit the winding stairway of stone. Thin jets of light cut through the shadow at intermittent spaces. The gloomy, dank path had been designed with purpose. To create a sense of panic. Of fear. To increase the heart rate into a pounding melody of terror. There wasn’t much that could scare an immortal centuries old. Nothing, that is, except the rotten stench of dried blood, the torn flesh of their kith, and knowing they’d soon be next. She bit her lip, her fury increasing with each step she took.
Finally, three flights down and in the darkest corridor of the castle, she arrived at the rack room. Two guards with crossed sickles stood before the door.
Her lips twitched at the sight of Cahal. One eye was beginning to swell with an overflow of blood. The white was now a shocking sea of busted blood vessels. She loved death. They were such a lethal predator.
Cahal’s good eye was a startling blue in contrast. He remained aloof, but she could tell by the pounding of a vein in his neck that he was agitated by her cold perusal. A thrum of electrical pleasure hummed through her body, she vibrated with the beginnings of bloodlust and reached out a hand to caress the side of Cahal’s face.
He shivered under her touch and leaned in just slightly. A perfect teardrop of blood slid from the corner of his eye onto her pinky finger. She held it up to her nose, inhaling the scent of autumn leaves. Excitement quickened her pulse and with a delicate flick of her tongue she lapped it up. The sweet taste filled her mouth.
“Cahal,” she said with a husky tenor, “you are truly a prize to be savored.”
He closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling with breathless wonder. The redolent musk of his pride filled the air with the thick scent of turning leaves and sweet apple cider.
A feral need for more blood ripped through her. “Leave me now,” she growled, wanting to save the fire of her madness for Cian.
“My queen,” they said in unison and not with a small amount of relief. As one they turned and marched off with exact precision.
She opened the door. Cian was shackled to the wall with his back toward her. A sliver of light fell across the sculpted beauty of his body. He shifted and the locks of his long hair swished across his shoulders. Alternating strands of polished sable and ivory gleamed with unholy light. The long, hard lines of his body flexed with his movement.
“What are you waiting for?” His voice was like fine whiskey. Smooth, hot, and raw.
She narrowed her eyes, excited by the rising fury rolling through his veins, and walked up to him with catlike movements. Already the taste of Cahal was making her crave death itself. She trailed the grip of her whip against his back, the itch flowing through her for the sight of his blood. “You know what you’re here for, don’t you?”
His body tensed, and the rigid cording of his back flexed as he turned his head to glare at her. The midnight blue of his eyes turned black with rage.
That was when she finally got a good look at his face. It was a bruised mess. His jaw was nearly twice its normal size. Blood already covered his chin and long gouges ran the length of both cheeks. She chortled, grabbing his chin in her hand and squeezed tight. He was a masterpiece of pain, but her guards had barely begun to scratch the surface of her blood thirst, she wanted to do so much more to him than this.
“Such tough words,” she spat. “I’ll enjoy making you beg for mercy.”
“You’ll have none from me,” he said low and menacing. He narrowed his eyes and his face twisted into a frightful mask of arrogance and fury. The look was enough to quell many, but not her. Not the goddess of battle and strife. The Morrigan fed off rage; she lived for it. She inhaled the heady scent of his wrath and gave him a hungry smile.
“You’ve disappointed me, Cian.”
His jaw hardened. “That was never my intent. She is meant to live. Do not harm the mortal.”
She slapped him across the cheek. The power of the blow forced his head to crack against the wall. “How dare you make demands to me!”
He studied her like a predator ready for the kill—silent and with an undercurrent of lethal power.
In answer he spat by her foot. The sight of the crimson-streaked saliva had her barely suppressed bloodlust rising to the surface.
“Oh, my death. That was most unwise.”
The Morrigan stepped back and snapped the whip through the air. Its shrill sound was like the crack of thunder. Cian never flinched. She threw her head back and laughed. “You were always my best. So heartless, so perfect.”
Then she struck him. The metal tips at the end of the cat-o’-nine-tails tore into him. Thick crimson spilled down his back.
Cian’s fists clenched; his body went stiff. Tremors traveled the length of his legs. The Morrigan licked the blood that settled against her lip—its sweet, metallic taste only made her want more.
His blood was the sweetest of all. It wasn’t just scent, it was memory. The memory of every soul he’d taken was within each drop. She relived it all through him and couldn’t contain the rushing need for more. He was death, life, and power, and she wanted it all.
She walked up to him and laid her hand against his lacerations. He hissed and hung his head, and then, leaning toward his ear, she whispered, “Now imagine how much more the rest will hurt. You’ll never disobey me again, Cian. I vow it.”
* * *
Dagda glanced up as the door to his chamber cracked open with a loud boom. The Morrigan stood in the entranceway. Blood and gore covered her from head to toe.
He stood and held out his hand. She walked toward him and dropped a gentle kiss against his cheek. “It is finished,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Now?”
She eyed her clothing and sneered. “I’ll clean up before sending Frenzy to finish what Cian could not.”
Dagda blinked.
An explosion of magick took her breath. The aftershocks of so much power sped through her veins. She pulled out of his embrace and gazed at him. Her brows lowered. “Why have you sifted the strands of mortal time?”
“To make the fight fair.”
She cocked her head. “How very, very interesting. Whatever are you hiding from me, consort?”
He raised a brow. His face remained impassive. “Why would you think I’d be hiding anything?”
“You won’t win.”
“Who said this was a contest?”
She shook her head. “I don’t trust you.”
He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckle. “Take your bath, Chaos. I have matters to attend to.”
She eyed him and turned. “Whatever it is you have planned, Dagda…don’t.”
His lips curved as he walked from the room.