What did you do? (Infatuated fae #2)

28. Present Day

28

PRESENT DAY

Caly

T he doors to the outside of Malvar made a low, metallic creak as they opened. I pushed with all of my strength as it crawled open. Walter grabbed the thick iron.

I could hear Eli’s voice as the space between the doors widened.

The sound of steel against steel sliced through the air as a whir of shadows and movement broke across my vision.

A silent cry filled my lungs so sharply and painfully, it felt as if my chest would be concave from here on out.

Eli’s strong back and wings glinted and sparkled under the red sun while he fought to kick and slice at the Seelie guards—his own guards. The scene registered slowly. He was fighting, but it wasn’t to free Tarani or the rest of the Fallen, like I had suspected.

Thousands of creatures had surrounded the entrance to Malvar. The steep stone steps were the only space free of the battle that waged on the sloped earth below—the battle spanning the field between Malvar and the small town adjacent to the Seelie castle. Everywhere my eyes touched, they saw a new animal, creatures I could never in my wildest thoughts have imagined. Some looked almost demonic, with black, curved horns, others gentle and fluffy; silver unicorns with black, daggerlike horns and serpents with large textured wings.

Blood and tufts of fur rained down on the battlefield, as the animals fought against what, by the sheer volume, could only be assumed to be every Seelie guard within the royal forces.

“What is happening?” I cried, turning to Walter in horror.

A loud, gritty sound like a jet engine blared from above us. The entire mountain seemed to erupt in rage.

Walter jumped into the battle, knocking over a row of guards as they fired long gold cannons from the platform at the tall steps of the prison, where we had come out. Glowing balls of red and orange seared into the crowd of animals, combusting into wounding light. Shrieks and cries poured from the wounded animals and guards on the ground as the fight raged.

The mountain shook, sending bits of sediment from the sturdy prison tumbling down onto the platform outside the doors.

What the fuck was that?

Dusty air filled my open mouth as my stunned eyes focused on the sloping sides of the mountain behind me. Four black dragons with sharp-looking wings crouched against the dark mountain terrain. I whipped back around in time to see Eli hurling long sticks of light at the guards who had surrounded the animals in the distance.

He was helping the animals, not the royal guard. The guards weren’t listening to their own prince.

Eli looked like a god doused in gold as the wind thrashed at his hair. His powerful wings shimmered against the sun as they flapped, taking the soon-to-be king a few feet over to snap the neck of a guard as soon as he landed. The guard’s glowing, orange sword dropped in front of the animal they had been about to stab at the front of the crowd. The animal’s eyes lifted to mine.

The eval I had saved from the pit—I recognized him immediately.

“They fight for you because they sense that you cannot,” Walter said, ripping out the throat of a guard who tried to grab me. “But they still sense the Artemi in your heart.”

“But—”

“They were here when we arrived, though fewer in number.”

Dozens of flying, white roc hovered in the air, like car-sized seagulls. Instead of swooping into the sea for a fish, the roc dipped into the ocean of bodies, pulling free armored guards to tear apart.

Streams of gold and crimson swirled on the ground, leaking out of the many, many dead bodies lying there.

What were the Seelie doing? It wasn’t enough that so many animals had died in my cell?

“Noooo!” I bellowed into the wind, falling to my knees. I couldn’t watch any more animals die for me.

“Grab the Artemi bitch! Kill her while you still can!” someone yelled from behind me.

A forearm as solid as a metal pipe wrapped around my throat, lifting me from the ground.

My nails tried to dig into their flesh, but it was protected by armor.

A growl I’d come to love rang out from behind me. Walter had shifted to his wolf form but, from the sound of it, was also being restrained.

“Don’t fight me, or I’ll cut a smile into that Artemi face that you can wear in Tartarus,” the guard warned as he scraped a severed dragon claw down my cheek. I winced in pain as the sharp, hooked claw snagged on my skin.

The realization hit that this might be my last fight.

Light shifted in the sky as Eli dove for me, but the guards had been one step ahead in expecting the prince to do just as he had. At least fifteen men restrained him, but not before our eyes latched together like magnets.

This would be it—the end of both of us.

The large man who gripped me stumbled back, tightening his forearm across my throat as he gripped my hair tightly and pulled me against him.

I closed my eyes and prayed Eli and Walter could escape.

Anger began to pulse softly in my system. I refused to see one more animal slain at my expense.

A thundering roar sent a shiver up my spine as a large dragon crawled down the rocky ledge in our direction. I could only hope he fought with us and not the Seelie guards, but he looked so terrifying, a part of me doubted the dragon was even from Seelie.

Emerald-green slits watched us as the guard turned our bodies to face the serpentlike creature.

“Move another claw and her blood spills!” the grating voice shouted.

It was too late.

Shrill laughter skittered up my spine like roaches as my old trainer came into view on the platform. Commander aimed an odd-looking gun at the dragon and fired, sending a golden ball of light the size of a basketball hurtling at the creature.

MOVE! I silently urged him.

The orb exploded into his shoulder, destroying half of his body as the rest of him tumbled down, crushing at least fifty more creatures beneath it.

Including the eval.

His sad, round eyes held mine as he dropped beneath the dead dragon.

“NO!” I cried out in despair over the commander’s laughter.

The commander’s stride ate up the space between us. I had sworn if I ever saw him again, I would kill him.

Anger pushed through my veins as I looked into his familiar face. The same face that taught me never to give anything away with my expression. He kicked away one of the dead animals with his black boot. The same kind of boots that taught me never to leave my ribs or my face open. The commander laughed his arrogant laugh. The same laugh that taught me to never let on how good I was because I might have to use it against them.

My eyes remained on the commander as he took the last steps forward, placing the cold barrel of a gun against my forehead.

“She should have killed you the minute she found you,” Commander Von growled as he moved his finger over the trigger and pulled.

Nothing happened.

My breath stalled as I waited for Mendax to leap from the shadows and save us all.

Nothing.

The longer I watched the commander, the more my darkness leached to the surface. What did it matter if I let it take me over now? There was no way Eli and I could get married in time anyway. Especially if we both died right now. For the first time in twenty-one years, I let the darkness out to play.

My eyes held tight to Commander Von’s as I struggled against the guard who held me before stopping to smile at my old trainer. He scowled uncomfortably at my expression and pulled the trigger again, letting out a string of curses when nothing happened. Frustrated, the guard removed his hands from me to grab his gun.

“No, do—” the commander tried as I watched and savored as the most delicious, deep fear suddenly crawled onto his face.

I couldn’t help but smile as I reached behind my back and palmed the severed dragon’s claw, bumping the gun from the guard’s bumbling hands as I did. In the blink of an eye, I had the claw in my mouth and the gun tucked in my armpit as I grabbed the dagger from its sheath at his belt. I moved fast, slamming the blade under his chin and into his head before I stabbed three vital organs left exposed by their shitty armor. Before the guard even had a chance to drop to the ground, I threw the blade into the neck of the guard holding Walter, who quickly finished freeing himself. I shot the gun, hitting the guard on Eli’s right arm with a large orb before chucking the gun to Eli and turning back to the commander.

“You fuckin—” Commander Von began.

I slammed my fist into his nose before he could finish, shimmering gold blood pouring out. There were better ways to break his nose, but I didn’t think any of them would have been as satisfying.

He was much faster than me, landing two hard kicks to my side.

“Caly!” Eli shouted.

Using the dragon’s claw as a karambit, I sliced open his neck, then lifted his arm to stab as deep into his armpit as the claw would go.

The large fae growled angrily. “So I see you picked up a few things.”

He made a move to kick me again, but this time I swept his leg, causing him to fall. I was on him in a second, pressing the tip of the claw into the front of his brain, just enough so the point nudged into his anterior cingulate cortex.

Completely immobile now, he let out a cry of pain that made my skin shiver in excitement.

I got comfortable, sitting on his chest, my legs stretched out and relaxed.

“I did pick up a few things since our training,” I said with a grin.

I checked his pockets, moving aside his limp arms to dig around until I located a short Swiss Army knife–type gadget from his utility pouch. “This will do,” I said softly.

He didn’t care what I said though because he was too busy screaming in pain.

“This right here?” I muttered as I pressed the thin pocketknife blade into a different part of his brain—not enough to kill him, but enough to do a different kind of damage. “Well, you see, this is the primary somatosensory cortex.” The commander made a strangled sound as his body went completely still aside from his eyes rolling back in his head periodically. “I know, it’s a mouthful, isn’t it? They are the pain centers of your brain. Fascinating, right? Now hush, or you’re going to miss this next part, Commander.” I bit my lower lip, pretending to think. “Now, what was it you always used to tell me? Oh yes: one man’s pain is another man’s pleasure. Boy, are you gonna like this,” I said sarcastically as I twisted both blades into his skull.

His body jerked before it went flat, literally dying from an abundance of pain his brain couldn’t override.

I pulled the dragon’s claw free before I drove it back down into the top of his skull. Over and over again, I did this until a hand pressed lightly to my back and I turned, claw at the ready.

Eli and Walter leaped back, eyes wide.

“You—you good?” Eli asked nervously.

“Mendax is rolling over in his grave with a stiff dick somewhere right now,” Walter said, looking much more relaxed with the scene before him than Eli. “You good?” he asked, mimicking Eli.

I licked the dragon’s claw in one slow swipe as I stared at the mangled commander on the ground. Even his blood tasted bitter.

“So good,” I replied with a wink.

I took a deep inhale, smelling a hint of smoke. I whipped around, the corners of my mouth already quirked, expecting to see Mendax standing behind me.

The dark-gray wall of rock was the only thing that caught my smile. But I could have sworn I smelled him just then.

My eyes dropped to the ground behind me to see a charred tree limb had fallen on the platform.

Agh.

Eli and Walter had managed to take most of the guards on the platform, but below, the fight waged on.

Something cracked inside my chest suddenly, and I felt the blood run from me as the deep sound of a muffled thud filled my hazy head.

No!

“No!”

One of the last guards below had shot me in the stomach when we weren’t paying attention.

Urgent hands lifted me.

“No! Cal!” Eli’s panic skittered through his tight grip.

I had fallen from the edge of the platform and onto the ledge below. Eli pulled me against his chest. His heart was thrumming…too fast.

“Calypso Petranova, please, please don’t leave me.”

Eli’s heavy breathing feathered across my forehead.

“Walter!”

My head fell to the side, and I fought to open my eyes.

Growls and snarls filled the silence as I took in the crowd. The animals were overpowering the guards easily now. But the clink of cannons made my body tense.

The guards struggled and panicked for a few more seconds before taking off into the crowd. The cannons wouldn’t fire, and they were significantly outnumbered.

I choked suddenly.

Large hands grabbed my shoulders, trying to stop the sharp, jerking movements as I struggled to get down and walk on my own.

“It’s okay… It’s okay.” Walter’s comforting face moved in front of mine.

“She’s been hit pretty good.” Eli trembled.

“Do you have your powers?” Walter asked.

“No, and she— we will be dead in a few hours if we cannot get her heart now. It’s too much for her little bit of heart. We have to get it now.” Eli’s voice cracked.

“What happened to your powers?” I rasped, fighting to hold my head up. I just needed to get my breath and I would be fine. Men were always babies about getting hurt.

I felt the cold air push back the hair from my forehead. The smell of clean, fresh soap and sunshine hovered in my nose. Eli readjusted my weight, pulling me tighter against his chest.

“We need a new plan. We have tried a thousand times to free her heart. The castle is under siege right now. You have no powers and are dying right alongside her.” Walter’s angry voice seemed like it rattled against the mountains.

“But she needs it! She needs me.” Eli’s voice quivered. “She needs me, and I will never ever let her down again.”

My chest seized painfully, but I think it might have even had my heart been whole.

Warm drops fell on the clammy skin of my face, and for a moment, they felt like sunshine peeking through gray clouds, but they weren’t rain; Eli was crying.

“You have become an unlikely friend, Aurelius—Eli. I cannot let you, Seelie or not, get caught in the battle between the Seelie crown and the Fallen. Tarani is forgiven because she works with them. If you enter that castle, you will not make it out.” Walter’s voice softened.

“I am the crown. There is no amount of friendship that could erase the dangers placed on my head now, but the castle is my home, and the real war is between my mother and sister. My mother will be placed in the castle’s oubliette, and Tarani will take the Unseelie throne.” Eli let out a shaky breath. “In truth, even with my sudden lack of powers, it’s still safer for me to go than anybody else.”

“Take this, then,” Walter said with a grunt, ripping Mendax’s tooth necklace from his neck with a smile and handing it to Eli. “Mendax would want to have been a part of your death.”

“Ha-ha,” Eli said, palming my tooth.

“Put me down. What happened to your powers, Eli?” I murmured as I tried to find my voice.

“No. I like carrying you, and you’d never let me if you weren’t too weak to fight me,” Eli said as the three of us continued down the mountainside. “Just don’t get all wild looking like you did back there with the commander, and as for my powers, with the wound to your stomach and only half a heart, you are dying, which means that we are dying, and what little power I have left is keeping us alive with our tie.”

Walter’s warm brown eyes snagged mine, and for the first time, I realized how much I had come to love and trust him since meeting him as Brown Rat in the Unseelie dungeon. His proud, dancing eyes felt like balm to my soul right now. In some weird, unconventional way, Mendax, Eli, and Walter had all become family—a home to me that wasn’t bricks and beams.

I grabbed ahold of Eli’s tunic, trying to wiggle my legs down to the ground.

He held me firmly, staring out into the distance as we all continued walking farther away from the creatures and closer to the castle.

“Put me down. I’m better now,” I lied.

In truth, I was terrified. Not of dying, but of running out of time.

There was something unwavering that burned inside me now, unleashed and stronger.

Hate.

I had just had a taste of what it felt like to let the monster out of its cage, give it a lick from the spoon, and I knew that if I could only get the rest of my heart, then I could have the whole fucking bowl to myself.

It was time to make the ones who had wronged me pay.

My heartbeat pounded in my ears as fast as a rabbit’s while heat blazed through me with such force, my toes curled to stop from screaming in Eli’s arms.

Eli’s steps faltered on the dirt slope, startling me out of my vengeful thoughts.

“For star’s sake,” Walter said, grabbing me from Eli before he could drop me. “Is it from Calypso?”

“Is what from me?” I rolled my eyes. I could have walked now had they let me.

“The Artemi have been feared and hunted into extinction not by simply being capable of controlling and bending nature, but because of what their powers can do to others,” Walter said, nodding to where Eli had stumbled to the ground.

“Make a handsome fae flop on the dirt?” I said with a grimace.

“You hear that?” Eli groaned and swore. “Handsome.”

“An almost mortal , handsome fae flop on the dirt,” Walter replied. “Artemi’s most terrifying ability is to take another immortal’s powers, rendering them as useless as a human… No offense. I know your mum and sister were both human.” He tightened his mouth into a line with a flinch as he looked into the sky as if he were solving a math equation.

“It’s more likely from our tie than your powers,” Eli said, returning to where we stood. “Though I’m scared to even see what kind of powers you get once your heart is repaired. You’re not just a hidden Artemi that never ascended; you’re Zef’s fucking daughter.”

Zef.

My father.

I shoved out of Walter’s grip to slowly walk. It really wasn’t that bad.

Both men protested, but when they tried to grab me, I pulled the dragon’s claw out, and they backed off quickly.

“Zef was the King of Artemi when it was still a realm of its own. He is the Titan of the Ascended,” Walter answered. “He’s easily the most powerful Artemi to exist, which means his daughter is going to have a fuck-ton of powers.”

He was also the one who chose which child got the Artemi powers and the one who was going to have to pay for that decision.

“The Ascended are the grandchildren of the old gods—the closest thing we have to gods and goddesses now, next to the Fates—and your father happens to be the Titan of the Ascended, the King of Gods,” Eli bit out angrily. “And you, not having the other half of your heart and powers, were never able to ascend.”

Silence filled the air as we continued to walk, no one knowing quite what to say as we prepared for what was to come when we arrived at the castle.

Eli cleared his throat. “If it’s all right with you, we will perform the wedding inside the castle as soon as my mother is removed.”

“You can’t really think she will remain locked up?” I started. “I know she doesn’t really have any wild powers, but look at her. She hasn’t let that stop her yet. Maybe the Fallen should?—”

“She will be locked away with the utmost precautions. She has done horrible, horrible things, but I will not allow anyone to hurt my family, and that includes my mother,” Eli thundered.

Acid rage poured through me. “She deserves to pay for what she has done,” I ground out through clenched teeth. Heat flared in every pore of my body as low thuds pounded through my ears. Hot, enraged tears filled my eyes.

Walter tried to squeeze my hand, but I shook him off. I couldn’t help it—she had raised me to be cold-blooded.

The evening sky was as dark as it got in Seelie, with deep reds and oranges sulking above the treetops.

“She will pay, I promise you that. But not with her life. Not everything needs to end in death.” Eli’s tall frame stepped toward me. The charming fae put his hands on the sides of my face as his emotion-filled eyes poured into mine. “You don’t have to hold on to the evil side of you any longer,” he whispered. He leaned down to lightly brush his lips across mine.

My own lips pushed into his, tasting his sunshine before I pulled away, caught off guard by the tenderness I felt in the kiss. I pushed back into him before he could move. It felt like the whole world—and all of my pain—blurred into the background.

“I want to marry you, Eli,” I whispered. “As soon as we get into the castle, I want to make it official.”

I loved him, and our lives were literally tied together already, but mostly I wanted to do this because it was the only way I could ever see my sister again.

He smiled so hard, even the creases of his eyes made new smiles when he leaned in closer. “You have a heart of gold, Wife.” He pressed a kiss to my lips, then my forehead. “Once we are married, all of this darkness will be gone from inside of you. I will do anything to make you happy,” he said as he pressed his mouth to mine in a sweet kiss.

“Married or not, my darkness and I will still come inside her,” added a deep, gravelly voice I would recognize anywhere.

Malum Mendax.