Last Ride of the Umbra Fae

9. Vessa

9

Vessa

I was jolted from sleep when a filthy, meaty hand cupped over my mouth. The taste of sweaty flesh dug into my teeth, and it was enough to make me want to hurl. The mark on my sternum burned as shadows wrung out in silence. An orange glow caught my eye as a man picked me up by the neck. Pain seared against my mark as sweat formed over my face. Looking down, I saw fire churning inches from me.

Fire Fae.

I desperately looked for Pa, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Raven!” A desperate call, but I was met with silence as I observed that Ryder was also gone.

I was dragged by my neck with a rope doused in fire magic. The more I moved, the hotter it grew. He was using the power of Lam.

Every time my shadow attempted to strike him, pain lanced through my body.

A struggle sparks the ring of fire, something in the cadence of the wind whispered to me—a faint call brushing against my mind as the moon’s glow cast over us. The searing memory of burning flesh came flooding back. I did my best not to struggle.

At the other end of this rope was a masked bandit who smirked at my sneer. The creases between his eyes showed me he was grinning, taking pride in what he had caught.

“The legendary Umbra Fae is quite the little spitfire.”

I spat on his boot, picturing a menacing smile on his face as pain swept through me at the sudden movement. “Fuck you, you traitorous scum.”

“Your pretty little mouth has a lot of shit to say, doesn’t it?” His voice was low and gritty—likely a smoker. He wore a dark, dirty vest with fancy buttons and a revolver with shiny grips in each holster. Not the typical dress of a fire wielder. He was working for the humans.

I carefully found my footing and growled as I fought against physically straining from the rope’s intensifying heat.

Any other time of day, this could have kept me bound temporarily, but he’d only willed his death beneath the luminescence of the moon.

Suddenly, a wave of relief came over me, and my heart clenched as I unknowingly opened the bond, sensing Raven nearby.

“Such pretty freckles you have there,” said the fire wielder, jerking the rope toward him, causing me to hiss.

I summoned the energy of the moon, a siphon to my shadows, as the surrounding air charged. An unseen force formed between my neck and the rope, relieving my skin from its touch. I grabbed the rope with both hands and yanked it from his grip. The fucking bastard dropped to his knees. With a whip of my own, a darkness unfurled, forming around his neck. I dragged him toward me, inch by inch, relishing the way he writhed like a worm stuck on a hook. I ungloved a hand, wrapping it tightly around his neck, squeezing his throat until he was gasping for air. The penumbra of my call was a whisper of death, and it seeped into his mouth until his very last breath was expelled into the night sky. With a hard shove, his body fell to the ground.

The air was knocked out of my lungs as another bandit came from the front, tackling me to the ground. I cursed as the back of my head slammed against the hardened soil. Dazed, I struggled under his excessive force as he tried grabbing my wrists. “My partner was right; you do have a pretty little mouth.” He smirked.

Suddenly, a big, tanned hand wrapped around his throat.

Ryder leaned down to the shell of the bandit’s dirt-crusted ear. “What about me, partner? Do I have a pretty mouth, too?” He flashed a wicked grin.

The man moved his hand down to his holster. That’s all it took for Ryder to act, slicing his throat clean from one end to the other. Warm blood spilled in spurting waves, covering my chest and dousing my clothes, its iron-rich scent coating my mouth and neck.

I gasped at the sudden onslaught of hot blood as I pushed back until there was enough distance between Ryder, the carcass, and myself.

In one heavy gale of wind, Raven appeared behind me, landing with a slide that upturned the soil as he shifted forms; then a guttural wail sounded. He’d shifted way too fucking fast—his shoulders still bore silkened feathers. The sound reverberated down my body through the bond, and a new kind of worry for him was splayed all over my face.

Raven helped me to my feet as I carefully inspected his shoulders, where remnants of his animal form still clung to his flesh, splattered with blood. At the sight of it, he paled.

“I’m fine,” he huffed out. “I just needed a little more time to shift.”

“No shit.” I exhaled in relief, hearing the calm in his voice.

With a few strides, Ryder was at my back. “Are you alright?” He looked me over, brows tightly knit.

As I noticed my blood-soaked clothes, aggravation heated my cheeks. “Looks like you owe me some new clothes,” I bit out, shoving my way past him.

I was running before I noticed the pain searing around my neck, the faint burn marks of the Fire Fae’s rope. But I needed to find Pa. My heart wrenched in pure panic as I looked out into the desert—nothing but sand and random cacti, barren and desolate.

When I turned the bend of a small cliff, my jaw dropped when I found him heaving, clearly at the tail end of his wrath.

Bodies littered the ground around him.

No, not bodies, vessels of what they used to be. There were no clothes, no skin, just piles of muscle and organs.

Raven and Ryder came up behind me, and I felt the same shock roll through them.

“End’s Wrath,” Ryder whispered as Pa turned around, his moonlight-gray eyes meeting my stare.

End’s Wrath indeed.