Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FRANKIE
Tenn had been kicked out of the house.
Apparently, this was a common side effect of Tegan going down, or being gone, where Tenn would have so much panicked energy that he literally caused distress in the others. So no one else was surprised when they sent him out like a bad puppy. They were surprised I was sent out with him. I’d lost track of how long we’d been kicked out or how many laps around the house we’d done with all the dogs, but we’d finally sat down on the front steps because I’d worn myself out. Tenn hadn’t lost any energy. Dude didn’t seem to tire physically. We’d been sitting here for a hot minute in comfortable silence on the outside. I was sure his mind was as noisy as mine.
The waiting was the hardest part.
Waiting for Tegan’s potion to wake her up. Waiting for the other potions to finish brewing so I could give them out to everyone. Waiting for the next Unseelie attack. Waiting for Sweyn to make her next move. Waiting for Everest to finally reveal his allegiance and join our side.
So much waiting.
I was going to snap.
My legs bounced. I twirled my crystal ring around my finger over and over. Tenn was simultaneously playing fetch with all six dogs at the same time. It was adorable and impressive. They were having a blast. Well, five dogs. Olli had quit a few minutes ago and was stretched out at his feet. It was giving Tenn something to do. I didn’t know how he coped emotionally or mentally with Tegan being down. I wouldn’t have been able to stay sane. Then add his sister and father being down on top of it? Not to mention all the pressure on him as Coven Leader and being destined to kill Lilith . . . That was too much for one soul to bear.
I wanted to snap for him.
The sun was setting too. With every inch of darkness spreading across the pink sky, my anxiety spiked higher and higher. We were going to be called for another attack any minute. I knew it with every fiber of my being while not understanding the how of that at the same time. I balled my hands into fists and clenched my teeth, letting my breaths hiss through them. There was wrongness in the air. That was the only word I had for it. Wrong. I felt it crawling down my spine. I smelled it in the breeze. I heard the screams in my ears that weren’t even there.
“What just happened over there, Franks?”
I glanced up to him and found those mismatched eyes locked on me. “Why do you ask?”
“I can feel that. It shifted in you just now. You went from anxious to detonation.” He narrowed his eyes. “What are you feeling?”
“I don’t know. I feel wrongness? Like something is wrong somewhere. It sounds crazy, I know?—”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“I just feel there’s an attack somewhere. The call is coming soon. Don’t you feel it?”
“Not sure, at least not the way you do.” He nodded, then in my mind I heard him speak into our minds, “ Everyone be battle ready and outside now.”
“We don’t know?—”
“You do, and we don’t doubt this shit here.” He pointed to my wrist and jumped to his feet. “And those runes just started glowing pink.”
Constance rushed out the front door and whistled. “Boys, c’mon. Get inside.” She looked up to us. “I’ll be here unless you need me to?—”
“Stay here.” Tenn stepped aside for the dogs to run by him. “Get the others out here.”
I ruffled my boys’ ears, then stood. “Go on, go check on Chutney. I’ll be back soon.”
They licked my hands, then followed after Olli, Albert, and Squishy.
“Ya know, that fire-doggo could be a good weapon for us against the Unseelies.”
Tenn sighed. “No new tricks yet.”
I turned to face him, resting my hands on the hilt of my sais. “At what point do we start using new tricks?”
He hung his head and stared at the ground with his hands on his hips. “I need Tegan back first. She’s our master strategist. I need her brain. I need her schemes.”
I gnawed on my bottom lip, wishing I had more of an answer to give him. I wish I knew any hint or expertise on when Tegan would wake up to give him that peace of mind. Yet I couldn’t. I was flying more blind than he was.
The air sparkled with gold glitter. I frowned and spun in a circle, but the glitter was moving.
“ Fairyflies, ” Tenn whispered. Then he cursed and shouted into our minds, “ GET OUT HERE NOW!”
Fairyflies? Like fireflies? That was when I realized they were like fireflies, but they definitely weren’t the kind humans saw. They glowed too bright. I held my hand up and they flew in circles around my fingers. The air pulsed to my left. When I turned to see what it was, I found a small black hole in the air, and it was growing bigger.
I heard the footsteps of my Coven-mates approaching, but I didn’t dare look away.
“Tenn, what’s that?”
The black hole spread, then a petite girl with long, wild red hair leapt out and I recognized her instantly. That was Saffie, daughter of Prince Thorne and Myrtle. Olli’s owner. Former Death Card. Her lavender eyes were wide, and an aura of panic rushed out of her like a wave. “TENN! HURRY! UNSEELIE!”
Tenn cursed violently. He flicked his wrist, and I went flying. The world passed by me in a blur and then turned green before I slammed into something hard face-first. The force of Tenn’s throw meant I bounced off whatever I’d hit and stumbled backwards until I crashed into a warm body. When I looked up, I found Tim looking down at me. He smirked and hoisted me upright.
We were in a strange tunnel. It was maybe fifteen feet in diameter. There were no flowers, no hint of natural light, yet somehow there was light. The tunnel was made up entirely of thick green vines covered in leaves. Everything was tangled together almost like a spiderweb. The air was thick and smelled like wildflowers, but there was no breeze. The tunnel stretched far to my left and right, fading into black nothingness. I placed my hand on the tunnel wall and walked a few steps forward, dragging my fingers over the vines and leaves. Wild, raw energy tickled against my fingertips. With every step, the buzz grew stronger and stronger.
I turned and looked back to find the last few members of my Coven jumping through the hole by Saffie. “What is this place?”
“Seelie Tunnels,” Tim answered quietly. “They’re safe now, controlled by Thorne and Sage?—”
“And Saffie,” Saffie added before she leaned her head into the hole that revealed Coven Headquarters in the distance. “HURRY, HURRY, HURRY!”
Tenn was the last one through the tunnel opening. He gripped Michael’s sword in his hand. “Saffie, get us there now.”
“Unseelies have attacked a fair full of people near Issale, right on the fey lines.” Saffie flicked her wrist, and the green vines sealed the hole instantly. She took a step back, then pressed her pale hand to the vines and a new hole opened. “Foster and the wolves are there, so keep your eyes open—GO!”
Tenn charged out of the hole without hesitation. Our Coven-mates followed him with their weapons in hand, including Mei-Ling, who held both a dagger and a sword. She paused at the opening and winked to me before letting out a battle cry and racing after the others.
I grinned and started to jump when I noticed Saffie had stopped. “Aren’t you coming?”
“No, my dad and Aunt Sage went to Heaven, so I’ve got to stay in the tunnels to keep watch—” She gasped and then her head snapped in the opposite direction. Her eyes narrowed. “Go, Frankie! I have to check something?—”
I dove out the opening—and into a rushing tide. I was a salmon swimming upstream. People of all ages wore matching looks of panic and terror as they ran right toward me. I glanced over my shoulder, then did a double take. The tunnel opening was gone, like it’d never been there at all. With a curse, I faced the stampede. I steadied my weight in a fighting stance and leaned into it. None of the humans sprinting toward me seemed to notice me standing still as a statue in the middle of the pathway. They bumped into my shoulders as they passed. I clenched my teeth and scanned their faces for ones I recognized. Finally, I spotted Mei-Ling by her neon-orange hair up ahead. Somehow in those few seconds she’d gotten far from me. I saw the colorful flashes of my Coven-mates magic, but I couldn’t see them anymore.
But I saw the Unseelies easily. They were dark spots on the setting sky. Seeing them out here was all wrong. The sky wasn’t quite dark yet. The warm pinks and oranges still clung to the air. Tennessee darted back and forth, his white wings looking like clouds on his back as he sped by. A loud siren wailed from the speakers strapped to the wooden poles. Good, good, get out of here.
The crowd ahead of me parted. A massive white wolf with amber eyes threw its head back and howled. A black wolf with glowing yellow eyes slid up beside the white one but it clawed tracks into the grass beneath our feet and growled. Screams ripped through the crowd, except this time they were screaming over dozens of wolves chasing them—right in my direction.
Tenn shot like a comet, then landed right in front of me. He wrapped an arm around my waist and lifted me into the sky. “Foster! Inez! Get the people out!”
The massive white wolf howled, long and slow. The black wolf vanished into the crowd. I tried to watch the stampede of wolves chasing the humans out, but Tenn was zipping around the fairgrounds. We’d come out of the tunnel in the middle of the rows of food booths with their neon lights and flashing signs. But the second Tenn flew us around the Ferris wheel, my heart dropped to my toes. Unseelies dodged my Coven-mates magic left and right. They reminded me of seagulls on the beach diving over and over to steal food from people’s plates. Except they weren’t stealing food, they were stealing people.
“Drop and run!” I shouted over the wind. “DROP AND RUN!”
He cursed in my ear and swooped down low, barely slowing before his grip on me vanished and my feet hit the ground. When I glanced up, he was gone again, chasing after the dark and silver blobs of the Unseelies. One of them shot over my head, gunning down the humans still fleeing the scene. Without thinking, I threw my hands up and blasted the Unseelie with my neon-pink and blue magic.
“FRANKIE!”
I gasped and spun at the sound of Mei-Ling’s voice, but instead of finding my best friend, I spotted Bentley Bishop flying through the air in a total freefall. Tenn was far away in the middle of a sword fight. He wasn’t going to catch him. I dug my heels into the dirt and leapt into a sprint. I had to dodge a few humans before I pushed off the ground and jumped into the air with my arms wide. Bentley crashed into me with a grunt, sending us pinwheeling into the ground. We slid through the dirt. Bentley groaned and cursed as he writhed on the ground. He gripped his injured shoulder, his whole body trembling. I pushed onto my knees and found his old wound gushing with rivers of fresh red blood. With a curse, I slammed my hands onto his wound to try and stop the bleeding. He bellowed in pain.
“ I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! ” Acting purely on impulse, I pushed my neon-pink magic into his wound.
He threw his head back and gasped, but the trembling stopped. His blood bubbled over my fingers. I searched for a weapon or a reason for what just happened but there wasn’t anything. His golden eyes flashed with those orange crescents. Darkness wrapped around him, blocking him from my sight. Before I could panic, Thiago emerged from the chaos practically dragging Royce and Willow with him. Royce’s entire neck was purple. He coughed over and over. Willow’s face was scrunched in pain. She held her hands over her ears but not enough to block the fresh rivers of blood running down from her ears.
Thiago dragged them to my side—then suddenly Bentley was visible again. Thiago released his grip on Willow to drag me up to my feet. He shoved me backwards. “GET IN THERE!”
I cursed and looked up—my heart skipped beats. Tenn was still playing tennis with the Unseelies up above our heads, but there were plenty of Unseelies ignoring him to focus on my Coven-mates. I fired my magic into three of them flying nearby. They bellowed and swung around to look at me with murder in their soulless black eyes.
Two large hands gripped my shoulders and lifted me off my feet. I craned my neck back and found Unseelie armor glistening in the chaos. I wrapped my hands over his hands and pushed my magic. The Unseelie knight grunted and abandoned his hold on me. I didn’t scream on my way down, even as my bones seemed to crunch when I slammed into the cold, hard dirt.
“EASTON!” Lily screamed as her boyfriend plummeted toward the ground with black smoke coiling around his body and pieces of metal armor falling with him like hail. Lily screamed again but light flashed from her arm. Her voice cut off abruptly and her eyes rolled back in her head.
They both dropped. Unmoving.
“NO!” I screamed.
Everything was happening too fast, too chaotically. That same Unseelie dove for Tenn, catching him by surprise by gripping his throat. Tenn’s eyes widened. He’d captured Tenn by the neck and held him up in the air with a shit-eating grin on his alien face. His long fingers dug into Tenn’s throat. He shook Tenn’s body violently.
The rest of us snapped to attention and raced for Tenn, ready to lay down our lives for his.
The Unseelie gripping Tenn’s throat made a loud whistling sound. All of the other Unseelies disengaged from their fight and fled. They took off toward the sunrise. I pumped my arms and legs to try and get to Tenn, but it was like a moment in a nightmare where the body just didn’t move. And neither did Tenn. His muscles tensed and flexed like he was trying to move but his body was motionless, like the knight had turned him into a statue.
But it was just us and the one Unseelie. We could take one of them. He was outnumbered. But why hasn’t he fled with Tenn? What’s he doing? Is this a trap?
This Unseelie lifted Tenn until their eyes were level, then he growled, “Would you still love me if I were this hideous?”
WHAT?
Rainbow magic swirled around the Unseelie knight over and over until it revealed a familiar face. Relief hit me like a brick wall. TEGAN! I heard her name shouted with excitement and relief in chorus. Her pale-green eyes sparkled like diamonds. The black and purple hair whipped around her with every gust of the breeze.
Tenn sighed and his body went limp and loose.
“A choking kink is a pleasant surprise, babe,” Tegan purred with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes and a smirk on her face. She glanced down to Tenn’s throat still gripped in her hand. “But I can work with this.”
“TEGAN!” Hunter shouted.
Tegan grinned. “Let’s get outta here, kids, before they realize there was an imposter.”
White light flashed all around us.