TIED (A Fire Born Novel) (29 page)

“You’re crazy.”

“Be nice, Teine. Such a shame you had to come and spoil our fun. Well … not really. Didn’t anyone tell you?” She raised a questioning brow. “No?”

Max’s eyes widened.

“How sweet and innocent you both are.” She chuckled. “You see, when a Tie is forged, a connection is made.” She entwined her fingers, and unconsciously, I stroked the leather bracelet at my wrist. “The Tie binds—protects—but it can also be torn.” She grinned. “Once torn, the Tie becomes a tricky thing. It no longer defends. No longer aides.” She swept a finger over Max’s chest. “Teine left you all alone, believing she was protecting you.” She waved a finger at me. “We mustn’t forget our studies, young one. Misunderstanding in our world can mean death … or worse.” She nodded, and the Sluagh descended on Max.

A sharp pain shot up my spine.

Invisible fingers pierced into my chest, and Max let out a scream that matched my own as I dropped to the floor. His ravaged body collapsed in a heap across the room from me.

The Leanaan Sidhe slumped her shoulders, her gaze moving back and forth between us. “Humph … still connected.” She exhaled, and the army of attackers moved in from all sides.

A gale sped through the French doors, encircling me within the confines of a cyclone, dispelling the fog.

“Stay there. Out of the way. I can’t have you hurt.”
Max pushed unsteadily to his feet just before a back-handed blow sent him flying across the room.

The assaulting Sluagh turned, advancing on me.

Threads of scarlet flame discharged from my body.

Cloaked forms rushed forward, transforming into plumes of shadowy vapor, and disappearing before my eyes.

Spindles of flame radiated out in a circle from my body as a savage ferocity shook me, numbing my pain. Tapered scarlet light reached for Max and enclosed his body in fire—shielding him while setting everything in the path of our enemy ablaze.

“I can’t have you hurt either.”

His mouth opened.
“How’d you do that?”

“I have no idea.”
I backed farther against the wall, shielding my back, and pushed outward from my core.

Gleaming spears started sporadic fires everywhere they hit. Scaths went up in blue flames, their luminosity acting like some kind of ignition

Smoke infiltrated the house as the fire grew, and I scanned the mayhem for my mark—my target—like a missile taking aim.

Silken purple wings eclipsed the hazy light that filtered like a chimney through the open roof.

I glanced at Max, and finding him free and clear, I released the fire and took off.

“Layla, no!”

Wind whistled along the gutted framework, an increasing bluster chasing me. Fire licked up, burning a clear path through the destruction as I made my way to the stairs. I closed my eyes to the radiant silver glare of the Sluagh but reopened them as I realized they were fleeing my approach.

Reaching the landing of the stairs, I spied a fan of long gold hair.

The Leanaan Sidhe lunged. Canine teeth grazed my shoulder and heat ripped through my arm like a white hot iron.

“Layla!” Feet pounded the staircase.

A sinister grin spread across the Leanaan Sidhe’s lips.

Quick breaths released from my lungs as shock set in, and a torrent of burning spindles burst from my body, striking the floor like metal rods, and surrounding her in a blazing jail.

Someone grabbed my waist from behind.

The ceiling combusted, dropping the cage imprisoning Justice from its soaring height, and Steeds charged the landing.

Free from his enclosure, Justice plowed toward them in a grey haze, scattering the attackers like pins on a bowling alley, while Max hurried me off the stairs.

The smell of rotten eggs assaulted my nose, telling me the rampant fire had reached the natural gas lines a split second before the kitchen erupted like a volcano, hurtling knives through the smoldering air.

Max pushed me to all fours, flattening my body underneath his, and I found Tristan still lying beyond the family room, his leg free of the rafter, blood pooling beneath.

The scene blurred in and out of focus as if I witnessed the chaos through a film reel.

Ignoring the searing heat shimmying through my shoulder blades, I rolled from under Max, grabbed his hand, slick with blood, and ran through the likes of a war zone.

The Leanaan Sidhe’s Steeds covered her, attempting to distinguish the flames, I presumed, while Scaths fled the scorching heat consuming the house.

I dropped to my knees beside Tristan, covering him with my body, shielding him from the extending flames. I took in his blank vacant stare, human and vulnerable, his crushed leg and the gash open across his forehead. “Tristan?” I concentrated on keeping my voice steady, feeling it vibrate in my throat.

“Help … Justice.” His gaze set toward Max at my side. “Go.”

Max turned to me. “Stay here. Stay down.” He tore up the staircase.

Tristan grabbed my arm, eyes rolling up into his head. “You … too.”

My grandmother’s words played in my head.
‘He is quite capable of fighting alone.’

“I won’t leave you.”

“They … need you.” Words garbled and choked, his eyes closed.

“So do you.” I raised my head to the skies. “Benny!”

The remaining assassins on the ground floor turned on me as one force.

A blinding yellow light flooded the room and Benny stood wide-eyed in the blown out doorway. “What the …” She glanced at me, toward the pack of killers, toward Max covered in blood and ash, toward Justice, and finally on Tristan, dying. “Oh, my god!” She bolted across the room and screamed for Sam.

I fought for breath as a horde of steeds flew at her. She screamed again to the heavens, glanced at her attackers, and shifted her form instantly. I lost her tiny yellow light in a gale of wind and spreading fire, each steadily feeding the other.

Shadows loomed through the smoke beside me, rippling in and out of sight, and hot rancid breath radiated down my neck. Reptilian feet showed at either side of my body as I crouched over Tristan, refusing to expose him to the beast hovering over us.

“Layla!” Benny’s voice rang through the chaos.

The rip of talons dug into my rib cage. Warmth oozed down to my waist. An involuntary gasp released from my lungs as something slithered underneath me. The weight of a Steed collapsed onto my back, shoving my body on top of Tristan.

His arm fell, limp, to the ground.

“No.” I gasped for breath, pushing back against the creature pinning me, trying to place my head on Tristan’s chest, to listen for a heartbeat.

The weight disappeared. Benny screamed again for Sam.

I glanced up to see the lifeless beast clutched in her human arms. “He won’t come.” My words fell out in a whisper while I desperately tried to convince myself Tristan was alive.

Anger and distrust filled her eyes. “What did you say?” She dropped the dead creature at her feet.

I shook my head, unable to make sense of the destruction, the debris whipping around us in a distortion of color.

“Tell. Me.” Her tone was measured. Controlled. An order.

I raised my gaze slightly. “Sam won’t come. He disabled the boundary lines. He’s working under the King of the Fomore. I
saw
him.”

The atmosphere in the room changed, and as I looked at her, every ounce of the Benny I’d known my entire life vanished.

She eyed me with an inhuman ferocity. “You’re a liar.”

I fought to breathe, as if she’d punched me in the stomach and I was suffocating.

“Come on, Tris.” She pushed me away from him and cradled her arms underneath his body. He whimpered. “Grandma Mac will know what to do.”

“Ben …”

“Save it, Layla. You made your choice. Go fight your battle. You’re on your own, now.” She spun, and vanished, gripping Tristan’s limp and bloody frame to her chest.

I rose to my feet, my brain reeling, and stared at the spot from where she’d vanished, hoping she’d reappear.
She couldn’t have meant that. Not Benny. Never Benny.
I lifted my foot but lowered it again. Frozen. Numb.

Shattered glass, splintered pieces of wood and blazing bits of furniture careened past my face as if suspended in a midair carnival of wreckage.

“Layla, get down!”

I turned in what seemed like slow motion, standing on a precipice in the center of a broken house, staring down the edge of a cliff.

Max ran at me, covered in blood, a myriad of rubble silhouetted against the light in front of him like miniature particles of dust. He yelled again, but I couldn’t make out his words. He continued running, mouth moving, arms waving.

I blinked in a daze, my eyes falling on a gargoyle rounding the kitchen corner at Max’s right.

Anguish contorted Sam’s monstrous face. Teeth bared, he charged, and for a brief, fleeting second, guilt paralyzed me. His inhuman gaze, black as night, drilled into my eyes. He took flight and aim at me.

Benny knows now. And all in your world is lost because of it.

“Layla!” Max seized my hand.

“Get out of here!” Justice cleared the corner, close on Sam’s heels.

“Take Devon!” Max muscled me away from where I stood, dragging me outside, and tucked me into his arms. He spun into a roaring ocean gale.

My grip tightening around his waist, as he pulled me into him, his uneven and labored breaths brushing my face. “Your shoulder.”

Through my ripped shirt sleeve, a stark narrow off-white line showed. “Just a graze.” I tugged him closer, hands slick with soot and blood, nestling into his chest, numbed by shock.

He lifted my chin, his lips touching mine, “Don’t leave me again.”

I glimpsed weather-beaten wings right before the staggering strength of a battering ram crashed into us, tearing us apart.

“No!” Max’s hand shot out.

A grey blur sped by.

“Max!”

Rushing wind roared in my ears.

Salty ocean spray clouded my sight.

Max’s fingertips touched mine. “Layla!”

The Leanaan Sidhe’s laugh reverberated off the ocean.

A gleaming, scaled hide screamed into focus.

Brown hair.

Leather boots.

Stone talons.

I reached out with my hand again.

Max caught it.

The crest of a battered wing shot passed.

A blinding light burst from the horizon.

His hand tore free.

I reached again and gripped his wrist.

A resounding boom echoed off the water.

The wind died, and I plummeted, my hand holding nothing more than air.

“Max!”

The cackle of the Leanaan Sidhe’s laugh faded with the wind and a final glimpse of black wings before everything went silent and still.

“Max!” Tears shed down my face. “No!”

Screams ricocheted through my body with violent ferocity, fury smoldering in my core like hot coals, seeping into my veins, corrupting my vision in streaks of red.

“Max!”

I glimpsed the remains of white gardenias, their torn and darkened petals strewn across white sand. A brown leather bracelet cast among them, and rage discharged like a dam broken loose, igniting fire with the force of bullet holes ripping through my skin, fanning out on either side of my body. Massive flaming wings took shape, rising to peaks above my head, and the Raven emerged through an eruption of burning spindles.

I spun through time and space. Darkness and light. Desolation and shadow.

“I’m coming for you.”

Acknowledgements

A huge thank you goes to J. Taylor Publishing for taking a chance on an unknown writer. Your guidance and encouragement was more than I could have asked for.

To my fellow writer friends who kept me sane and moving forward over the last two years, thank you doesn’t begin to encompass the impact your words have had on me.

To my beta readers, Nancee Clark and Carol Brown, thank you for taking the time to indulge my crazy ideas. I couldn’t have done this without you.

To Alexis, the first to read the beginning chapters, love it, and ask for more. You pushed me more than you know.

To my incredible family, whose support was absolute and unyielding, you are amazing. To my mom, my perpetual role model, you inspire me everyday. To my dad, my insatiable appetite for my own Irish history would never have been spiked without you. To Stephen for his encouragement and words of wisdom. To my husband, who found the ram in the china shop amusing and loved me for me. To my kids, who believed in me, gave me space when my earbuds were in, and cheered me on through innumerable days that seemed never ending, you are the sun and the moon in my eyes. And to the voices inside my head, the ones who never sleep, thank you for continuing to talk.

LANEY McMANN

With a passion for the supernatural and all things magical, Laney developed a voracious appetite for reading fantasy at a young age. A vivid imagination helped set the stage for creating her own worlds and placed her onto the writing path.

By the time she reached her teens, she’d accumulated notebooks full of poems, which led to short stories and finally novels. Young adult dark fantasy, paranormal romance, and mythology are among her favorite genres.