13. Mendax
13
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“N o,” I snapped at Aurelius. “I’ll climb the mountain before I resort to that.”
Caly clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, you’re going to have to climb pretty fast, because the water is going to be at our level in a few minutes. According to my calculations, I’d say no more than twenty-five minutes or so. It’s already cleared Lake Sheridon.” She scowled at me. “That means the benthyc, or whatever the Fates called those lake creatures in the letter, will be able to smell us and won’t have a barrier to stop them—all of them—this time.”
I know my expression must have been that of a pouting teenager. “Do you think so little of me, pet, that you think I can’t handle them? Have you not witnessed me take down much larger?—”
“That was when you had all your power. Now stop wasting time, and grab ahold of Eli,” Caly scolded me, impatient.
“I am not hanging on to a Seelie unless I am tying his head to a branch,” I harrumphed with finality.
Caly, the little minx, left her post by Aurelius and strutted over to where I stood. Even through the downpour, I could see the extra sway she infused in her hips with each step. Her shirt molded and clung to her perfect little breasts with the rain. She pressed against me and coiled her little fingers up around my neck.
My manipulative siren.
If she thought she was going to make me do things just by making me hard, she was mistaken. I was always hard around her, and no one, including her and her pretty pink bits, was going to make me do anything I didn’t want to, and I most certainly didn’t want to do this.
“Please,” she whispered in my ear, biting the lobe. “I’ll let you punish me later.”
“You’ve evidently never been punished by me if you think it’s something you’ll let me do. You’ll have to sweeten that temptation, my love.” I tried to pull back upright, but the hellhound had a grip on my neck like a vise.
“I’ll—I’ll—” She released her hold on me as she struggled to think of something that would be tempting enough for me to accept. I could sense her absolute frustration as she toyed with the pendant around her neck.
“I’ll owe you one,” Aurelius said. “Whenever you need it. You have my word.” The golden fae didn’t blink as we assessed each other.
My brows perked with interest. “You’ll owe me a favor, and the time and action are of my choosing?” I asked suspiciously.
“You have my promise,” he said with a glance at Caly.
Fae did not barter favors lightly. He may as well have just signed his life away to me, and he knew it. The offer was made so quickly, it made me pause. Was this some sort of trick? He had seemed brighter since he returned from seeing the weathered on his own. Had something changed? I knew the sun shining had restored a modicum of his powers, but it was hardly enough for him to be offering me his death so easily—especially when we were on the way to a trial that would decide if he or I died. Surely, he wasn’t so stupid. He was looking at Caly again. Was his confession all an act and he was going to fight for her love at the last second?
“Why?” I watched every line on his face for a tell.
Aurelius shrugged. “Because either you won’t have enough time before they kill you to cash in on it, or I will be dead before you can ask more than what I’m willing to offer, and mostly because Caly won’t come if you don’t, and she’s still my priority.”
I nodded. That all made sense. “Fine. You owe me, Aurelius,” I said with a grin.
He was a dead man walking—or flying.
Caly smiled and thanked her friend as she grabbed his side, keeping clear of the golden wings spread wide at his back.
Mine were still bigger.
“C’mon, Smokey, don’t be shy. Snuggle up,” the Seelie said as he grabbed me around the waist.
I pushed him away with both hands and was about to crack his freckled nose open when Caly’s laughter slowed me. Her laughter pressed inside my skin and took me over with a spell.
Aurelius took the opportunity to grab me around the waist and take off up the mountain.
Unlike Caly, who he hugged closely to his body, I hung horizontally, loosely swaying in the wind as we gained height. Rain pelted my back, and I realized he could drop me at any time, the fucker. I was giving too much of my power to Caly to be able to fly and he knew it. I would have dropped him. The thought wouldn’t have even lasted a second in my mind before I’d have let him drop had our roles been reversed. He was stupid not to. Even if Caly and he were only friends, if he didn’t drop me before we got to Moirai, he could be the one to die. He would die even if they didn’t choose him. I would make certain of that. I didn’t believe he wasn’t in love with Caly. There was no falling out of love with that woman, believe me. If it were possible, I already would have. Instead, I only fell deeper and deeper into the chasm that was Caly with every waking hour I existed.
I wasn’t messy with my kills, and I didn’t leave trouble behind to mess me up later. I prided myself on being thorough and strict when it came to those decisions, and Aurelius had been marked since the second he and his brother tried to take her away from me at Caly’s second trial. Aurelius would soon pay the same price his brother had.
“What is that?” Caly shouted.
It was hard to hear with the sound of rain and wind beating against my ears in rhythm with the Seelie’s feathered wings. One more reason why Smoke Slayers were superior to SunTamers in every way—Slayers moved in silence. I could shadow and fly without spooking a nervous sparrow because it wouldn’t know I was there until it was too late.
“There! In the green!” she yelled as she pointed at the mountain top.
I was struggling to see anything with the wind and rain in my eyes, but it looked like a thin figure in green.
“It’s a man,” I shouted.
“It’s the person who’s been following us! They’re trying to get the scroll and stop us again!” Caly screamed furiously.
Aurelius tried to hover above the soil and crystal ground at the top of the mountain, but the fae had already spent too much energy carrying all of us up, and he skidded to a stop before tumbling into the dirt so hard that he made a divot, thankfully already having dropped Caly and me a few feet back.
The Seelie rolled to a halt when he was only a few feet away from the figure. I could feel things coming from the man that I shouldn’t—a power that felt ancient and didn’t exist anymore. I brushed the goose bumps from the back of my neck before they could settle.
He was cloaked in a floor-length robe of forest green with no ornamentation or house markings. The rain slicked right off him, leaving his plain robe completely dry. A short gray and white beard and mustache were the only parts of his face that peeked out from the dark shadow of his oversized hood. A stern and tight-lipped mouth flashed out of the shadow and into view.
“Who the fuck—” Caly, ever the hellhound, went for the stranger.
I stepped in front of her, keeping her behind me as I held her tightly by the arm. I didn’t want her anywhere near this stranger.
“No,” I said over my shoulder as I watched the ominous man. Something in my voice must have given her pause, because she immediately stopped struggling against me and instead pressed into my back and peeked around my side.
I could feel how powerful this man was, and it rattled my bones in a way they hadn’t been rattled in a long time—decades to be exact. I hadn’t even realized there was such a memorable, potent feeling attached to those battles until now.
Having been too young to have been in that specific war and thus having no idea what he was doing, Aurelius gathered himself and stood, towering over the stranger by at least a foot. Height didn’t matter when you had power like this man though. My heart quickened. Even with our full power as a SunTamer and Smoke Slayer, we were easy work for this man’s kind, so being near powerless was not going to bode well for either Aurelius or myself. Caly, bless her soul, wouldn’t stand a chance in Tartarus against him except that I would die a bloody, lifeless shield in front of her practically human body if that was what it took to keep her safe.
We were fucked.
If, for whatever reason, this Artemi didn’t want us in Moirai with the other Ascended, we were not going to get in.
The stranger stood confidently in front of Aurelius and spoke soft words that my ears couldn’t pick up over the loud rain.
The weight of my body pressed into my heels as I prepared to fight with everything I had left.
Aurelius took a slow step back. He raised his arms up…and hugged the stranger.
“What the?—”
“Fuck?” I finished Caly’s question as we both stared.
The Seelie prince turned to face us with a wide smile, waving his floppy palms at us in a weak command to join them.
Caly and I joined the two of them, and Aurelius stepped to the side, giving me a clear view of the man’s face from under the hood of the robe.
My eyes widened. I knew immediately who he was—not because I had ever seen him before but because that nose and those eyes were burned in my head. It was undeniable.
This man was Caly’s father.