Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
VALE
“Why are you still here?” Wraith drawled as he sprawled lazily on the pitched roof of the bell tower. “I assumed you’d fuck off as soon as you handed your snack over to Gareth.”
I shrugged noncommittally, which was a mistake. Wraith chose to take my non-response as encouragement to fill the air with chatter.
“It’s the hunt, isn’t it?” Wraith said as if it wasn’t completely obvious, given our location.
He nodded to himself and continued. “I don’t understand the appeal, really.
Any smart fae will beat it back to Underhill or out of town in December.
Besides, the bells only last for a handful of days.
The humans are invested enough in the game now that none of us need to participate. ”
“I’m not fae,” I growl. “I have a human life that I can’t interrupt, and unlike some, I can’t hide in the fairy realm.”
“Won’t,” Wraith corrected. “If you weren’t such a chicken shit loser, you’d give our real home a try. And you’re fae enough for the bells to burn your magic.”
I shuddered. The bells were brutal, even with the muted dose I got, which was proof I’d lost more than enough of my humanity. Visiting Underhill would finish the job, and Wraith and I both knew it.
It was an old argument, so I said the words I needed to in order to get him off my back. “The only reason you want me to go is because you’re afraid of going there alone, but you miss it, so sometimes you have to go back and get a reminder of what assholes most of your race are.”
My barb hit its mark as intended, and for once, Wraith was lucid enough to feel it rather than blithely wandering away from the topic as usual.
Wraith’s glamor rippled, and for a moment, I could see his true form. It wasn’t ghastly, but it was decidedly inhuman, and I had no desire to join him in needing to glamor myself every time I left my house, so the fairy realm could go fuck itself.
Wraith’s eyes burned with an unholy purple fire, and I thought he was going to get angry, but he pulled himself together and his human disguise appeared once more.
Wraith’s fury vanished, and his tone was petulant when he said, “It’s more fun here anyway. I don’t need to go to Underhill.”
“Then stop complaining and help me break this fucking thing tonight so I can get some sleep. My brain is burning, and it’s only been a day and a half.”
I lived in constant anticipation of the next tolling of the bells.
Even though I knew exactly when it would happen, my entire nervous system was constantly on edge, waiting to be brutalized once more.
Even in my soundproofed lab, I could still feel them.
It was more than sound. It was the cold iron resonating discordantly with the frequency of the magic inside me and making reality distort wildly.
It was horrible. Every time the bells tolled, I felt like a glass about to shatter from the sound.
“Nah. I’ll just go to Svalbard for a week. There are definitely no cold iron church bells there, and if I’m lucky, I can eat a polar bear. Things always taste better when they’re going extinct, you know?”
“Too much fur,” I said absently. I’d just seen Echo enter the church grounds.
Even though the bells couldn’t be broken yet, I was there to scout the place before nightfall. I hated being out during the day. Something about fae magic made it thrive at night and fade during the day.
Being in direct sunlight makes me sleepy and uncoordinated. It’s easier on me to stay indoors, but I still get tired. I’m usually tired, though, even at night. Life can be so exhausting.
“Your snack is cute,” Wraith said, and the comment pulled me from my surveillance. “Mind if I have a taste?”
My mind scratched like a record being ripped away from its needle, but I did my best not to react outwardly in any way. “He tastes like shit,” I responded, hoping that would be the end of it.
“It didn’t look that way from where I was standing.” Wraith had stopped sprawling and was perched next to me, examining Echo as closely as I was. “Are you trying to keep him to yourself? You don’t usually do that.”
I held back a snarl. Wraith was having a lucid day, and it was horrible timing. “Why do you care?” I tried to sound unaffected, but Wraith wasn’t falling for it.
“Because you clearly do, and the only things you care about these days are your stupid experiments. So, either he tastes better than our usual fare, or you’ve finally stopped brooding about losing your little engineer and found a new plaything.”
I didn’t answer, and it was a mistake. I should have realized it right away, but I’d lost track of Echo and was searching the grounds, trying to catch sight of him. It was only when I realized Echo was probably inside the tower that I noticed Wraith was gone.
I gripped the edge of the roof and saw Wraith clinging to the side of the tower and watching something intently through a narrow window.
I scrambled down to join Wraith and caught a glimpse of his face. My stomach sank as I realized the hunting frenzy was stirring in his eyes. Wraith was watching Echo with the gaze of a predator biding his time until he could pounce.
No.
I couldn’t allow it. I absolutely could not allow Wraith to destroy Echo. We didn’t sample people. Neither he nor I had the ability to stop once we’d tasted a person’s blood. Once we did, it was over.
Echo was an exception for me, but there was no guarantee it would be the same for Wraith.
I grabbed Wraith by the hair and jerked him back from the window, sending us both tumbling to the ground.
“Don’t even think about it,” I hissed.
Glamor gone and eyes blazing, Wraith snarled, “Why do you care about this mortal? Let me have him. I can make you forget, and you can go back to being a pathetic weakling instead of the god you should be.” He threw off my hold and climbed the tower, making for the window once more.
I was hot on his heels, closing the gap instantly. I threw myself on his back, and he continued to climb. Never had I lamented my decision not to practice my powers as much as I did in that moment.
I was no match for Wraith as I was, and we both knew it. My only choice to stop him was to end my own life, and it would take too long. The curse was too strong to allow my body to be destroyed easily, and even if I could manage to kill myself, the monster would fight me every step of the way.
I dug my hands into the stone walls, fighting to slow us down, but Wraith wasn’t having it. He slipped from my grasp and made it to the window.
Desperate, I drew on my power and pushed my speed past its limits. I dug my fingers, now transformed into claws, into Wraith’s shoulder, making deep holes that I could feel opening in my own shoulder.
“If you touch him,” I hissed, “I will go to your precious Isa, tear his head off, and bathe in his blood.”
Wraith paused, bloodlust left hanging in the air, waiting to see what would happen next. After an eternity, he asked, “Who’s Isa?”
His voice had taken on a hint of uncertainty. The fire in his eyes began to dim.
This was why I hadn’t killed Wraith. He was a monster, but he was controllable if you knew his weak spots. He was also incredibly unique, and the world would be the lesser without him in it.
“Isa, your cousin Briar’s lover,” I prompted. “The person currently holding your name?” My voice had gentled. Wraith’s mind wasn’t his to control. He was subject to its whims more than anyone, but he had triggers I could work with.
Wraith cared about his cousin Briar, even if he had difficulty remembering details about him. Briar was the only decent family he had, and it had etched itself onto his soul.
“Briar…” The light of rationality replaced the dimming bloodlust in Wraith’s eyes.
“Yes, Briar. He’d be devastated if something were to happen to his lover, Isa, wouldn’t he?”
Wraith glared. “You wouldn’t. You want to study Isa too much to kill him.”
“I want Echo alive more,” I admitted reluctantly. I hated giving anyone that kind of leverage over me, but since I had in-depth knowledge of most of Wraith’s weak spots, it couldn’t hurt to show him one of mine.
Wraith released his hold on the windowsill, jumped to the closest tree, and I followed.
“You’ll leave Isa alone if I leave Echo alone, is that it?” Wraith’s voice was less raspy and had moved into his lucid speech pattern.
“Yes. I’ll pretend that Isa doesn’t even exist when you’re not around.
” I still wanted to study Isa due to his connection to Wraith, but I’d stay away as long as Wraith stayed far away from Echo.
“In return, you won’t hunt Echo, harm him, or allow him to be harmed if it’s in your power to protect him. ”
In for a penny, in for a pound, right?
Wraith’s gaze drifted to a pair of ravens, and I knew I was about to lose him, but he surprised me by saying, “You will promise the same. For both Isa and Briar.”
“Deal,” I said, holding out my hand.
Wraith took it and said, “Deal.”
The magic took effect instantly, binding us to our agreement. Wraith wouldn’t be able to forget with our deal in place. Even if the dreaming took Wraith, and he drifted for months, trapped between realities, he wouldn’t be able to harm Echo.
It was better than any solution I could have hoped for.
“So, you’re in love with the new guy?” Wraith asked with a sly smile.
“I beg your pardon?” I arched an eyebrow at him.
Wraith snorted. “Keep your secrets. I’m out of here. The bells will toll soon, and I don’t want to be around for it.” And without so much as a wave goodbye, he vanished.
I stared absently at the space where he’d been, shaking out my throbbing shoulder.
It was healing, but the damage Wraith and I did to one another always took longer to heal than anything else.
It would be an hour before all traces of injury were gone.
Normally, anything less than a mortal wound would heal in under a minute.
Life-threatening injuries took around ten minutes to fully heal.