Last Ride of the Umbra Fae

4. Vessa

4

Vessa

T he saloon smelled of sweet bread and meats, coating the air to hide the stagnant stench of the sweaty bodies of brute men. My presence garnered some curious stares as their eyes lowered to the swells of my breasts. I remained calm, eyes forward, not even sparing any of these assholes a glance as I made my way toward the bar. There was a warrant out for my arrest, and I happened to have the pretty picture in my pocket. So far, this night was going pretty well.

I knew I was beautiful, and I’d used that to my advantage many times, but tonight, with my other pocket lined with nara coins, I could relax knowing what awaited me. A lady deserved a nice warm fucking bed once in a while. My shoulders slightly dropped, easing the tension from riding as I waited for my drink.

It wasn’t long before I heard Pa’s gruff voice as he settled into a poker game. A smile drew my lips, knowing he would end up robbing each fool blind.

Within minutes, I shuddered along the bond as the silhouette of a too-large asshole appeared beside me.

I turned my head and was met by a pair of dark and deep-set eyes, maybe charming on some days.

“Hello, bird,” I coaxed, faintly smirking as I took in the sight of Raven to see where his emotions were drifting. The corner of his mouth quirked up, drawing out a dimple on the side of his face with only half a day’s worth of scruff. Where he went to manicure himself was none of my fucking business. But when his stare seared down the side of my face, it became my problem.

“I don’t need the bond to sense you’re irritated that I’m at the bar having a drink,” I said, taking a longer sip of my whiskey just to spite him. Had he forgotten fae could drink twice as much as humans and still only get a buzz?

He leaned in closer, a grinning acceptance to the silent challenge of who controlled who tonight. The ebb and flow of an unwanted relationship.

Though we were tethered, I couldn’t feel a lot of things. His presence, yes—but anything that had to do with love or emotion, I gripped that part of the bond by the balls and castrated it. I was too powerful to fully accept it. A bond was supposed to connect a couple, body, mind and soul. I had the power to manipulate it, weave it into what I thought was acceptable. Which meant I was in control of how far it wove. We could speak to one another through this union, but only when I chose to. Which bothered him and was, in fact, the very reason he drifted into the saloon a heaving mess, because I had refused to answer him.

“You know, you’re less of an asshole when you’re a bird,” I said.

“Raven,” he corrected, unamused with how I had started this unwanted conversation. “I don’t feel like babysitting you while you drink yourself into oblivion.”

My head rolled in his direction. “You have to be kidding me,” I drawled. Apparently, the men in my life had forgotten I was seventy-five, though I looked to be in my late-twenties. I could have had a few dead husbands by now if this world hadn’t been on the brink of destruction. “Is there somewhere else you would rather be? There’s finally good liquor and a handsome chap that actually knows how to play piano, and you would rather roam the skies alone, throwing yourself a pity party?” I huffed, taking another sip.

“I don’t have time for this.” He deeply exhaled.

“You never do,” I said, much softer than I’d anticipated. Between the two men in my life, I was always left with my own thoughts. Everyone was too damn depressed and sad to have a decent conversation these days. “You really should go sit next to that gentleman playing the piano. I know how much music soothes you.” Anything to get my empty seat back. He thought about it for a moment. His eyes creased at the corner as he observed the pianist. He was just his type—elegant, suave, and talented, with veins full of sweet, tantalizing blood. Besides, birds always liked a good song. Unfortunately, his eyes were on me tonight.

Hells .

“You were supposed to get a room and wait upstairs when you walked in, not risk exposing yourself to these assholes. You’re too obvious,” he said.

I sighed, slowly lifting my gaze to catch him studying the freckles across my nose.

Too close, too intimate.

“It’s not my fault I’m a shiny bitch. Besides. . .” I spun around in my stool to face the crowd. “I think I might want to dance tonight.”

Raven ran a hand down his face, groaning.

“If you don’t dance with me, someone else will,” I teased. But as I turned to leave, he grabbed my wrist and yanked me against his hard, massive body, trapping me between his thighs.

“Sit the fuck down, Vessa. You’re drunk.”

Lies.

Maybe I was just tired of the same old routine. Maybe I just wanted to forget the pain my body was in and douse it with the best drinks stolen nara coins could buy so I could wake up regretting it tomorrow. Anything to feel alive, because the truth was, I was dying. Thankfully, the magic coursing through me was strong enough to sever a part of the connection to Raven, or else he would have known. I felt it in my blood, as if death itself was calling me from some distant place. I was gravitating toward it like a dying star.

Every. Single. Day.

Which was why I needed that fucking tonic.

I moved to take a step back. Another squeeze of his thighs anchored me where I stood.

Caged .

He pulled me closer to him, his minty breath huffed across the mark on my sternum. Ignoring what that might have done to me if I’d accepted the bond, I snuffed it out.

“Your hands are too clean to touch someone like me, bird,” I hissed. “Besides, you didn’t say please.” With just a thought, a shadow lurched forward, wrapping around Raven’s neck. “You look better collared,” I said, allowing my inside thoughts to roam freely. I slightly pursed my lips, watching him exhale another deep breath at my words. He saw a flash of anger in my eyes, a mirror of his own deeply-rooted scar as he remembered how it had felt to be trapped and sold on the market as a young boy before Pa had saved him.

Trapped.

He had been tied to me without a choice. The silence was choking him more. His grip loosened, jaw clenched. He hated feeling that way.

Raven’s gaze flicked to mine. “Please,” he growled through his teeth. “Sit down.” The murmur was low enough for just the two of us to hear. Anger flushed his pale skin. With my free hand, I patted the side of his angled face before flicking away a strand of dark hair from his eyes. The shadow I held around his neck dissipated into the air. Another sigh, and he let go of my wrist and loosened the grip of his thighs. He looked around, but no one had seemed to notice our dispute.

“You will be my demise someday,” Raven murmured again.

Unaffected by his words, I said, “You have always been mine.”

A grin curved my lips as I rested both elbows against the bar, looking out at the crowd.

“See, humans are simple,” I said, ignoring the tinge of hurt that I might have caused him internally. I cared about his stupid feelings, but mine would always be before his. Pa was getting up, making his way toward the end of the bar. Raven took that as his sign to leave. His job here was done. “Wasn’t that a lot easier?” I asked, sitting back down on the stool. But he walked out the door without another word.

I heard Pa speaking to the lady, likely asking for two rooms. His gruff voice was always a low rumble, thundering beneath the clamor of the room. He carried on a straight-to-the-point conversation with the woman, who gave him a second glance as he strode away. Then she looked at me, smiling curtly as he disappeared into the crowd looking for another table to swindle.

A few moments passed. I was already on my second drink when another figure obscured the light beside me, taking a seat where Raven had been.

“Seat’s taken,” is all I said, shoulders hunched, leaning my elbows onto the hardened wood while I swiveled the ice in my glass. The sound brought comfort to my aching bones and encouragement to drink more.

“Judging by that interaction, I don’t think your lover’s coming back,” he said. His words were enough to turn my head, my heart a pummeling beast against my chest.

“Don’t worry, Desert Storm, your secret is safe with me.” His whisper was a fearless gale sending a warning across my horizon. My ears grew hot as I flicked my gaze to his, finding a pair of pale-blue eyes peeking out from dark, tousled hair that framed his face. He sat facing the crowd with his elbows resting on the bar and one leg sprawled out as the bottom hem of his black coat brushed against the filthy saloon floor. Something caught in my breath as he continued to stare. A wave of mixed emotions swept down my spine in a frost-bitten shudder. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I only had a few seconds to decide if I should kill him; he’d seen who we were. And since he had called me a storm, I was suddenly in the mood for a knife fight. My mouth gaped open as the insult washed over me.

Before I could speak, Pa came up from behind. “I see you’ve met Vessa,” he said to the man who had broad, wide shoulders and a look so penetrating, it held me beneath his stare. The bastard smirked, finding humor in my shock. I quickly closed my mouth, holding back the darkness coiling through me.

“I sure have,” the asshole said, grinning ear to ear, a smile far too wide exposing pearly white teeth—diamonds in his rough appearance. Beneath his shadowed jawline, dark strands of hair brushed against the sharp edges. The jerk was a beautiful mess. With a slight tilt of his gambler-creased cowboy hat, I was ready to end this night and go to bed.

“Vessa, this is Ryder. He will be our guide in The City of Donia.”

Ryder threw me a charming wink that sent my brows snapping together. With a slow turn of my head, I side-eyed Pa with a look.

What are you thinking?

There were many things he kept to himself—it was aggravating one hundred percent of the time—but this? Having a guide had not been in my plans. Nor had going to The City of Donia. Which meant my tonic was getting harder to find, something I knew he worried about. I held in my emotions, taking a deep breath as I felt pressure build behind my eyes and rolled my head around, easing the pain between my shoulders.

“Well I guess that’s that then, isn’t it?” I chided, but I knew Pa wouldn’t have a response. He was three seconds from grunting as his way of saying, “Yup.”

“Here.” He tossed Ryder a skeleton key.

“And did you get me the best room this hellhole had to offer?” Ryder asked as they exchanged a look, one that forced me to believe they’d had quite a few discussions before this. How? When? I had no clue.

“Second,” Pa corrected, holding out the other key in my direction as his eyes remained locked on the brute cowboy, eyes boring into Ryder’s soul as if searching for something. Still not pleased about having to go this route, I held my hand out. As the key fell onto my palm, Pa said, “She always gets the best. Remember that. Be lucky your room came with a bath.” With a quick once-over and a simple touch to the brim of his hat, he said, “You need it.” He turned to leave, making his way up the wooden stairs to where I assumed the rooms were.

I remembered, long ago, when we’d stayed up all night as he’d talked about memories of a haunting past that still hid in the shadows of his eyes. But he’d always felt better by the end of it, releasing whatever demons had been surfacing. It’d seemed to make his dreams better, less chaotic because we knew they were nightmares. Now things were vastly changing. As time went on, he turned in earlier and earlier, as if he were chasing something far better than this. I couldn’t imagine what it was.

I felt Ryder’s stare as I watched Pa leave, lifting his gaze above the brim of the glass as an uncomfortable silence hung between us. He threw two fingers into the air at the barmaid. I watched the flutter in his jaw as his attention was drawn toward her. A black bandana was tied at the base of his neck. But as he leaned into the weathered wood of the bar, I caught a glimpse above the cloth. The tips of his hair slightly brushed against the crook of his neck, a soft, thick, pulsing chord I’d like to sever.

The barmaid placed two glasses of smoky whiskey in front of him.

“Looks like you need a drink,” Ryder said, sliding one my way. My eyes narrowed on the glass, the amber liquid sloshing around a few cubes of ice. My throat bobbed. The temptation was far too alluring.

I grabbed the drink off the counter and chugged it. He tilted his head to the side as he watched. When I was done, I slammed the glass down, causing a few heads to turn our way.

“He’s right,” I bit out. “You do need a bath.”

He slid his tongue over a canine, watching me as if he were already naked in a bath full of warm water, and sucked in his tongue. This asshole was way too fucking confident and ornery.

Humored, he looked down at the room number etched into the metal of his skeleton key. “Well, darlin’, I’m in room twenty-six if you wanna watch.”

I scoffed, leaning in a few more inches. His scent enveloped me—black licorice, spice, and heavens knew what he’d killed before coming here. “Fuck you, cowboy.”