I felt a sob rip through me and managed to hold it in
as I saw all of the women that were in the courtyard, dressed in nothing more than silks. He had an entire harem of women to pleasure and feed him. They were all beautiful, and Fae. Why would he ever need me? He had so many women that I couldn’t count them all.
“
They all belong to Ryder?” I squeaked through the tightening of my throat as it choked from tears.
“
They do. Some are used for guests, his men, and others he keeps untouched by any but himself in a separate part of this place.”
“
Take me home, Adam, please,” I whispered brokenly.
“
I can't go with you, Syn. I'm under contract. The only way I have out is to go home to my father.”
“
Will you be okay if you help me get out of here?” I asked, not wanting to get him in trouble for helping me.
“
I'll be fine, Syn. Will you?”
“
Just take me home, Adam, please.”
“
Come. I have been exploring what little I can since I got here. Most of this place has been warded and sealed off from me, so there was only so much I could see. I did find a portal that I am sure was not meant to be found by us. This place is a maze; one meant to keep people in it. I can get you home through it. I need to know you will be okay, Syn. As a friend who is going through the same thing, I’m worried about you.”
“
Huh, you had a crazy Fairy turn your ex into a vampire and watch you do naughty stuff inside your bedroom, too?” I joked, which made Adam laugh. It had been my aim, even though my heart was breaking.
Ryder had a courtyard
full of beautiful Fae—why the hell had he wanted me? I felt my heart drop to my feet, and I stepped over it to enter the portal that would take me home, without my Dark Prince of secrets by my side.
It had been six day
s since I’d left Ryder and Faery behind. And, even though I’d left him behind, it felt as if he was still with me. When I slept at night, I could still smell him and feel his arms wrapped around me. I dreamt of him watching me sleep, and even though he never responded to me in the dreams, his presence was strangely soothing.
It shouldn’t have been.
After everything he’d done to me, I should have hated him. The problem was that I was new to this life and still slightly under contract, since I couldn’t sift. It was a lot to take in; that he’d been watching Adrian and I, and had given the order for Adrian to be changed just to have me. I wasn’t even sure I’d actually processed it all yet. I wasn’t sure what was worse; the fact that he’d watched me inside my bedroom without me knowing he was there, or that he’d admitted to it.
Marie had brought me to his attention, but why? Had she known? I hated that every time I found answers,
those led to more questions. Worse yet, it normally led to the dead, which couldn’t answer them for me. My entire life always pointed to the answers that only the dead, who couldn’t speak, could provide.
I’d spent the entire morning tearing through boxes trying to find something that could point me to
my birth parents. My mother had been impeccable at keeping records. She’d kept a detailed record of everything
but
me. By noon I had given up and started packing the room back up.
I’d tried eating like I used to before Transition
, since Ryder and his men had assured me that I could. I gave that up fast and turned to comfort food like chocolate, and then ice cream…which led to me sitting at the table cussing at the endless calories that did nothing to sate the hunger pangs started to gnaw at me like a fire burning out of control in a dry forest. At least I’d had several days reprieve before the hunger had started in on me again.
I was settling in
to a routine; a very unhealthy one. I glared at my own reflection. It was a stark reminder that I was no longer human, and that I couldn’t even try to act like one now because of it. I also noticed that I had the same glow that the Light Fae had—was I half Blood Fae and half Light, or was it just the dye Alden had injected into me at the Guild that had somehow jumped to the brands I’d inherited since Transition? These types of little things would lead my mind down the path about my origins that I did not want to go down. And then there was Ryder. He was on my mind twenty-four seven, or so it seemed, and I knew that wouldn’t change anytime soon. I was actually missing the overbearing caveman!
I could hav
e been an ad for drugs; only not so much for the drugs…and more for Fairies. This was your brain before Fairies…and I could then play the part of the brain after Fairies had played with it. I was moving through the motions of living, but Ryder had been right—I hadn’t been living. I’d been doing what I thought I was meant to do. I’d been damn good at pretending to be happy, and, if I was honest about it, I really hadn’t been.
I couldn’t complain
too much. I’d had amazing friends. I’d been loved. Even though Larissa had been hard on me and had kept things to herself, in the end, I knew it had been to help me. I couldn’t go back to what I had known my entire life. I had no idea where I fit in now if not with Ryder. I was pathetic, and I missed him.
I was needy,
and it pissed me off to no end. I should hate him. Hell, I had plenty of reasons to hate him. Yet I felt pathetically alone. I’d been to the cemetery twice now to dance with the dead. Where it used to comfort me, now it was a reminder of how alone I really was.
I was in the kitchen when Alden arrived. He’d been calling non-stop trying to fi
gure out why I was home alone, as if I wasn’t supposed to be here anymore. I smiled as I set down the coffee mug and lifted a brow. “Come to make sure I was still alive?” I asked as I stood to move over and pour him a mug.
“
You stopped answering my calls,” he said by way of explanation.
“
I did, but only because
‘are you eating humans’
was bound to come up in the conversation sooner or later. The answer is no, I have not started to demolish the human food chain yet.”
He snorted and shook his head.
“Ryder said—”
“
Zip it!” I shouted and slammed the mug down onto the counter. “We do not say
his
name in this house. And don’t look at me like that! Don’t look at me like I’m a cup short of crazy,” I barked when his eyes narrowed. “If it gets that bad, I can shoot myself in the head and just wake up tomorrow.”
“
You sure you could do it?” he asked as he looked at me carefully.
“
Alden, I’d have to. I won’t feed from humans. Kinda hard to when I’ve spent my entire life learning to protect them from monsters like…me.” I scrunched my face up distastefully as if the words tasted dirty on my tongue, and I laughed, even though I found nothing funny about it.
“
You’re not a monster, Synthia. I need to talk to you about something, and I need for you not to explode when I tell you this.”
“
You knew Ryder had given the order for Adrian to be changed, and you also knew he was still alive,” I said, hoping he’d say that I had it all wrong. I knew he wouldn’t though. Over the past several days I’d started putting the pieces together. The problem with pieces was, when they lined up right, you had to find more to finish the puzzle.
“
I suspected it. I told your team to report to me after that happened to keep you three safe. I knew someone was trailing you, but it didn’t make sense why someone would be only trailing you and not the other teams. You were just an Enforcer, and you held no real power inside the Guild. Those who seek revenge come looking for me, or someone higher up in command. They don’t go after the ones who only take orders; they come after the ones issuing them. I had another team whose job was to tail your team to see who it was. After a while, I had to pull them off or take the chance of someone above me questioning my intentions.”
I blinked at him. How bad-
ass was I? I hadn’t even noticed I had two tails chasing me! I shook my head and took the seat across from him. “Why? Why chance another team for me, Alden? The Guild states that in our contracts, if we are compromised, we go away quietly. If I was compromised, and someone was tailing me, I should have been on my own with it.”
“
Because I raised you. Hell, you were the only family I had left. You are like a daughter to me, believe it or not, and I wasn’t going to lose you. I was doing my job protecting you from harm, as anyone who had a raised a child would have. Never thought it would become this big of mess though. I knew you were different, and Marie’s actions confirmed it. Marie kept you and Adam close to her at all times. Never thought anything of it, until Adrian was killed. We had known your coven was being tailed before that, but whoever it was, well, they were smart and impossible to find. It wasn’t until Marie was killed that I started to get really worried.”
“
By a radical,” I replied as my eyes took him in. He looked tired and disheveled. It was out of character for him, and I knew there was more he was going to tell me, and I wasn’t going to like it.
“
No, that’s just what we told you. She was killed in the catacombs beneath the Guild. No marks, no indication of a struggle. She looked as if she’d just sat down and died, but in our line of work we never take anything at face value.”
“
Magic? Was there any leftover residue from magic being cast in a close area? Was it one of
us
?” I asked as my heart sunk in my chest. I’d been inside those catacombs. It was a cramped space at best. There wasn’t enough room down there to manage spells, let alone hide the residue of one.
“
Nothing. At the time, we had nothing to explain it. We decided to tell the children that she was killed outside the Guild to be safe. We couldn’t have that many children panicking because we had someone killing high ranking members inside our protected walls.”
“
No magic, no marks. That makes no sense. She was healthy, Alden, very healthy. What was found on the autopsy?”
Alden nodded in agr
eement. “She was, and her autopsy proved it.”
“
But there is nothing else you can tell me about it, right?” I asked as I mentally filed away the information to think about it later when I was alone. He was a good man, but he wouldn’t tell me more. I was smart enough to know when I was being told only the basics. “So, let’s go back to Adrian. You knew Ryder was most likely behind it, and you still sent me to him anyway.” I crossed my arms and leveled an angry glare at him.
“
Synthia, when the Dark Prince of the Fae comes inviting you into the Dark Fortress, you go. He didn’t want just anyone, and when he started asking for my best…well, I had a feeling it had to do with the letters Marie had mailed to him right before her death. It wasn’t my idea to send you, but when I sent the query up the ladder to the higher ups, they said I had no choice but to send you. So I actually had little choice when it boiled down to it. I haven’t had much choice since the new elders took their places at the table.”
“
Wait, so you didn’t agree with me going?”
“
No, I thought it was too risky. You scored higher on the magic scale, and in hand-to-hand combat than any other Witch to date. Sending the only one who could potentially save the one we sent in was a risk we shouldn’t have taken. If anyone could have gotten those who got caught by Ryder out, it was you and your team. I wanted to send in Ilea’s team.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose
in confusion. “So they sent me to Ryder, and you told them it was a bad idea from the start? That I was the only one who could get in to save the team if they got caught, and they still sent me. Like…a sacrificial lamb to the FIZ slaughter.” FIZ was what the Fae called the human after they’d digested the soul, and left them a mindless meat sack.
“
Why do you think I was there waiting? I was told to stand down and let it play out. I couldn’t take that chance, not with you. I brokered the deal with Ryder to be on the same floor for the interview. I knew Chandra was going to die, because it was just another test by the elders for all of you. I did not trust her, and I suspected from the very beginning, when she was sent to us, that she was a Guild plant. I did know that if she turned on you, you wouldn’t hesitate to take her out. It’s how I’d trained you, Syn. I’m sorry for that by the way; placing it on your shoulders to carry out what I should have done myself. You are a tough shell, Syn, but even with time, it’s hard to fix the cracks.”
“
I didn’t know any of that, Alden. I thought you were getting money hungry, and abusing power. You should have trusted me enough to tell me this from the beginning. I wouldn’t be in this mess now if you had,” I said, and blinked when I realized what I had said. “That came out wrong!” I tried to fix it, but he smiled and shook his head.
“
That tongue of yours is unable to tell a lie now, Synthia. I knew what it was beginning to look like, and that’s why I’m here. I have been watching my fellow Guild members for quite some time now, and I did not want to say anything or involve you until I had enough evidence to do so. I need you to get word to Ryder that the leaders of the Guild are now publicly taking sides in this fight between the Mages, and the Fae. They have been spreading propaganda that the Mages are true ancestors of the Druids, and they have been actively singling out anyone who has friendly contact with the Fae for…‘early retirement’, he said, his fingers curling into air quotes around the last two words.
“
Um, as in the ancient Celtic Druids; those Druids?” I asked, trying to stop my legs from shaking at the mention of the Mages.
“
The very same. You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you are already placing and sorting through the implications.”
“
Yes, Alden, I get it. We
are
the fucking Mages.”
He nodded and stood up to leave.
“Wait! That’s it? You just drop a bomb in my lap and leave? What are you going to do? You can’t go back there. Stay with me; I can keep you safe. If the Mages are inside the Guild, and turning the Guild against the Fae, then you’re in danger. Let me help you.”
“
Synthia, someone has to stay inside to get word back to you,” he argued.
“
That’s shit, and you know it. You would be in the enemy’s den. It’s suicide.”
“
Synthia,
we
are the ones who killed Larissa. The Seattle Guild knew it while they stood beside us at her funeral. There were no reports of the girl who played Arianna ever going missing. I started to wonder soon after she was exposed, since something like that would have been reported to us as well as to the rest of the Guild Covens. I started to wonder why—because if you had gone missing, I’d have gone to the moon and back looking for you. I’d have sent a line out to every coven I could until I had found you. They didn’t even contact us for it, let alone warn us that there was an issue. Not until others went missing, one’s who had families that would have reported it. No, I need to stay and make sure it doesn’t happen again. I can’t live with knowing I did nothing to prevent what happened to those girls from the next repeating itself. This is something I need to see through, before I am ‘retired’.”