Authors: Amelia Hutchins
“He gives me the creeps,” I said quietly
after a quick glance showed me he was still staring at me.
“Cornelius has considerable strength, but he
needs Ryder as bad as we need his alliance. He has some pretty
powerful connections as well.” Ristan mused.
“So do I,” I mused and caught Ristan
regarding me with a curious look. “Hey, I have half of Spokane that
owes me for saving their asses.”
“I bet you do,” he said as we headed into the
room where dancing had started up. It was a celebration set to last
for the entire night. We were on the outside of the people dancing
so it was easier for the men to guard me. Adam came strolling up
with a smile from ear to ear.
“Wanna shake shit up?” he asked, wiggling his
eyebrows.
“I’d say they need a new DJ, and a couple
dance lessons,” Adrian stated as he and Vlad came in from the same
direction we had.
“We can’t dance to this,” I said as the weird
sounding song continued to cut through the room. It had no beat,
and the Fae looked more like they needed a room as they slow
danced.
Ristan smiled and snapped his fingers, and
the song changed to OneRepublic’s
Counting Star’s
. Many of
the Fae immediately departed the dance floor, and I smiled. Idiots
wouldn’t know a good song if it slapped them all upside the
head.
“Might need to liven it up with a music war,”
Ristan mused from beside me.
I knew they’d done music wars at
Sidhe
Darklands
, where Fae would ‘fight’ by changing the songs just
like Ristan had and the winner was determined by cheers, but this
was Faery, and music from the human world wasn’t something that
everyone here liked. Many still held on to the old ways as was
apparent from the music that sounded like bagpipes and other
ancient instruments.
I moved to stay within sight of Ryder, as
Adrian and Adam started dancing on either side of me, both smiling,
or more to the point, goofing off as we used to do. It was how we’d
used to relieve stress after a mission. It wasn’t long before
Adrian had pulled Meriel out onto the dance floor, and I saw Adam
was dancing with Darynda. I saw Keeley and Faelyn off to the side
dancing with each other as they cast glances to the males around
us, hoping that one of them would cut in and dance with them.
I smiled until my face hurt as we danced to
the songs Ristan picked. Soon, we had a lot more of the Fae out
dancing as we were. Which, let’s just say we all looked like idiots
bobbing our heads and shaking it to the beat.
I caught sight of Ryder smiling at me as I
danced between Adrian and Adam. He shook his head, but something
beyond his shoulder caught my eye and it left me breathless, in a
bad way. Danu was behind him, her eyes on me as she nodded her head
and looked around the room.
Sinjinn and Silas were making their way
toward Ryder with urgency marked in their stride. I looked around
and back at the direction they had come from. Nothing. Danu walked
in my direction as I came to a standstill.
“Time to choose,” she whispered with a
crooked smile on her full red lips, before she moved to stand
behind Adrian.
No one else seemed to notice her presence.
Ryder shouted out orders in that language that I still couldn’t
understand, and as I turned to look in his direction—everything
happened at once.
Adrian and Adam were both thrown across the
room as if someone had just picked them up and tossed them away.
Screams erupted as Ristan grabbed hold of me, and began moving
swiftly toward Ryder as he shouted out urgent orders to those
around us in the same language Ryder had just used.
I knew it was useless.
They couldn’t stop what was coming.
Ristan was still shouting directions as he
moved when he slammed into an invisible barrier that knocked us
both back.
“Fuck, they blocked us,” Ristan growled as
his eyes searched and found Ryder’s. They were doing their little
mind to mind thing when Ristan’s eyes flashed and swirled red.
Before I could process what was happening, he crushed me against
himself as he wrapped his body around mine.
Something sounded like it exploded, or had
inside the invisible bubble we were in. Ristan’s body shook, and he
gasped out a curse of pain as his body absorbed the impact. I felt
something pull against my skin, like something was trying to bite
it. Ristan lifted my chin; his hand tugged at Ryder’s necklace and
pulled it free. “Flower,” he whispered.
“It’s going to be okay, Ristan,” I whispered
back through hot tears.
It wasn’t okay.
Everything was moving fast, but I felt as if
it was in slow motion. I could see Zahruk battling Fae that wore
the colors of the Blood Kingdom with a long sword in one hand and a
dagger in the other. Dristan, Sinjinn, and the rest of the guard
were also engaging Fae in similar colors. Across the hall, I could
see Vlad and Adrian fighting with swords and their fangs were out,
mouth bloody as they fought.
Ryder, had gone into full Horde King form,
and was battling to get to me. I saw him pick up one of the Blood
Fae with his magic and literally ripped the male apart. There was
something else there other than the Blood Fae combatants that the
men were seeking.
Even now, I could see the men shifting,
turning to beast. Zahruk had become a hound, the same one who had
nipped at my heels at the hunt. Other’s turned easily, including
Silas who had become a growling wolf with blood red eyes.
There had to be Mages outside of the bubble
that held Ristan and me that must have been wearing some sort of
camouflage or invisibility glamour, and the men were fighting
against them to get to us. I could hear no sound. The only noise
was my heart pounding in my ears, and Ristan’s against mine as he
used his body to save me from something I couldn’t see.
I felt tears in my eyes as something wet and
sticky spread across my stomach. No! Not the babies.
Danu,
now!
Nothing happened. Ristan made a sound of pain, and pushed
me toward the invisible barrier with a force that shocked me.
His black armor was dripping with blood from
thousands of cuts to it. I thought nothing could get through that
armor. My lips quivered with an idea of what had happened. I looked
down, and none of it was my blood. “No!” I screamed. Something was
here, inside the bubble with us, and we couldn’t see it.
Ristan looked like he was being stabbed. His
body was jerked one way, and then another. I moved closer, but he
held up his hand and shouted. “Stay back, Syn, spell,” he growled
as he was being slashed, stabbed, and torn with whatever spell the
Mages were using.
As quickly as the attack began, it stopped.
Ristan coughed, and blood exploded from his mouth as he went to the
ground—hard. I went down to the floor with him. I was on my hands
and knees, slipping in blood from the wounds he’d endured. His body
was mutilated with cuts, and he was choking on his own blood from
the wound that had gone straight through his back to his chest. I
tried to pull my magic around me and like my last attempts since
coming here, nothing happened. “Ristan, get up! Get up, Demon. Now!
Don’t do this to me. Don’t you fucking do this to me, please!” I
begged on a broken sob.
“Get up!” No, this wasn’t happening, not
again! “Danu!”
The bubble darkened and I looked up at Ryder,
wings spread wide as he pushed on the shield, trying to find a weak
point or how to remove it safely. Some would explode into a glass
like material when broken by anyone other than the person who cast
it; others could be crushed by these types of shields.
Ristan shuddered and suddenly became still as
more blood poured from his mouth. His eyes stared blankly. The
patterns in his eyes didn’t move, swirl, or shift for the first
time since I’d met him. I pressed my head to his chest—nothing.
I lifted my hands that were covered in blood,
and met Danu’s eyes which were welling with tears that slid down
her face. “Now, Synthia. Now will you accept me? Please.”
It was the first time she’d called me by my
chosen name.
“I accept,” I growled, finding the fight I
had left in me, even as tears fell freely from my eyes. They’d sent
Joseph to my home, they killed innocents indiscriminately, and now
they had killed Ristan to get to me.
They needed to die, and in a really bad
way.
I opened myself to her.
“I want it now.”
“You have it, child; you always have.”
I shook my head at Danu. I couldn’t feel
shit, and I had a sinking feeling she’d wanted me to feel helpless
and scared. “Help me!” I growled at her, but mid-growl I felt it. I
felt it inside my bones, down to my very being. A warm rush of
pleasure, that tingled and mixed with pain.
Danu sifted to me, even as the shield
vibrated with the force of Ryder’s assault. His men were behind
him, fighting against the Blood Fae and Mages that had emerged from
the crowd. They had appeared from nowhere, and Ryder’s men were now
fighting behind him in a protective semi-circle as he continued his
assault on the barrier. “You can do this, Synthia! You need to
accept me, really accept what I am trying to give you!” she
screamed as something sailed toward us, and Ryder knocked it out of
the way easily.
“They are coming after you. Dammit, child,
accept me. I can’t hold them back or it is considered interfering.
Even I have rules I must follow,” she warned crossly.
I wasn’t listening anymore. I had closed my
eyes and extended my arms—shedding the last of my fears, misgivings
and accept that I had to stop trying to escape my destiny, and
embrace it with open arms. I had to do this to save what I
treasured; my new friends and my growing wee little beasties.
I could feel the pull to Darkness. The taste
of light on my face, as the Light came in and settled. The Blood
Fae in me, it wanted blood. The Horde wanted everything dead who
threatened me, or my soon to be family.
“That’s it, daughter,” she encouraged.
“I need a moment,” I said through the power
as it radiated through me and around me.
“You don’t have a moment,” she said, shaking
her head. “You need to focus, and figure out how to fight them.
Ristan didn’t deserve what they did to him, any more than the rest
who have been slain from getting in their way. They need to die.
You need to do this so that they can’t hurt anyone else.” She
smiled sadly.
“They are going to die screaming. I promise
you that,” I said, but I was no longer worried about what I had to
do. I knew it deep in my bones how to use my powers, and how to
make them pay. I took a second to peek at Ryder, who was now
issuing orders to those around him as he pointed at the weak points
of the barrier. Smart, he’d found them fast in the utter chaos
around him.
I smiled sadly and turned to face those who
had thought to harm my unborn children. All at once the power I’d
been denying surged forth and the air crackled with the power and
electrical charge. Thin lines of silver, black, and gold shot along
my crimson brands and spread over my flesh as my vision became
blurry, and then crystal clear. I blinked and I could see all of
the different types of aural signatures from everyone in the room.
I could see the Horde Fae shining gold, Adam radiated green, and
the Blood Fae radiated a deep crimson color. The Mages radiated
black, as if their souls were corrupted and it had stained their
auras.
There were four Mages that were still using a
type of invisibility glamour, one moving closer to me as I watched.
Ryder broke through, shattering the shield’s spell. The wicked
taint of it drifted to my nose. It was the same scent that had
radiated through the barrier when they’d taken Ristan down. As I
watched, the four mages shed their glamour and became fully visible
before me.
I wasted no time before moving into action. I
sifted behind the closest Mage, and pulled him against me until his
back was against my chest. I lifted my hands to his neck, and
twisted. I didn’t flinch at the cracking or snapping of his bones.
Instead, I closed my eyes and smiled.
I opened my eyes and met Ryder’s shocked
face, and smiled. His eyes were taking me in, and I watched as his
eyes grew large with surprise as I reached out and held him
immobile with my power. Well, at least for a moment before he shook
free with a blinding grin.
“Less flirting, more fighting,” Danu snapped
as another Mage stepped forward, walking right through her. I
noticed Ryder reaching out for me and flicking his fingers at the
Mage, who disintegrated into ashes, clothes and all. I was
beginning to see why no one fucked with the Horde King. He’d simply
flicked his wrist and ended the Mage’s life. It shouldn’t be that
simple to end anyone, but I wasn’t going to bring that up anytime
soon, not to him.
I sifted to stand in front of the next Mage,
and smiled coldly. “You have no idea what you messed with, and now
you die,” I said, and extended the fangs inside of my mouth and
watched as he stood helpless to move from my magic as it froze him
in place. I brought my tongue out to lick one of the extended
incisors.
I wanted him to become mute—and he was. I
imagined all of the blood inside of him, isolating every one of his
blood cells, and redirected it away from where it kept his heart
beating in one fast push—and it did. It exploded from his body from
his mouth, eyes, ears, and nose. I stepped back as it began to pool
around his feet, and headed for the next Mage as he collapsed.
“You guys like shields? Let’s see if you like
one of mine.” I cast a bubble around him. He turned, trying to get
away from me, and ran into the barrier on the other side. I brought
my hand out and pulled with the power surging through me.
Unwillingly, he came sliding across the floor back toward me.