Chapter 19
Periwinkle
It takes a long time for my heartbeat to level out and my mind to stop its frantic scrambling.
We’re well into the evacuee camp before I realize that Raze’s driving strategy is more “keep swerving to avoid whatever object you’re about to drive into” than “continue down the road.” He stares at the street ahead, looking a little frantic himself, his tawny knuckles paling as he jerks on the wheel again.
He drove like this all the way out into the wilderness to find me—because he was so worried about me it mattered more than how worried he was about crashing a car. I can’t help beaming at him even as I jolt against the seatbelt again.
I’d ask if we really need to drive, but he said that when he left my other men, they were still restrained. From the smacks of irritation and discomfort that keep hitting me, I’m guessing no one else has found them.
We need to free them as quickly as possible, no matter how much rubber we burn getting there.
With another faint squeal of the tires, Raze peers around him, his jaw tight. “I—I was going to give the car back, leave it where I found it. I don’t remember what tents it was near.”
I pat his arm. “We’ll park it and make an announcement, and the owner will find it. I’m sure they won’t mind when they hear what a noble use you had.” A wave of fondness rolls off me to soften his agitation. “You were amazing with the humans. You rescued me without hurting any of them.”
He manages to aim a quick smile at me alongside a waft of his own affection before he yanks his gaze back to the trash bin we need to dodge. “You showed me how.”
The joy of that knowledge stays with me until we come up on the looming, shadow-drenched city.
As Raze navigates around the now-abandoned factory buildings, my awareness of my other mates’ emotions thickens into an unpalatable slop. Acidic fear mingles with bitter frustration, like the most gag-worthy of cough syrups.
My pulse hiccups. “I’ve got to get to them,” I say to Raze, and dive out through the strip of darkness around the car door without waiting for him to park.
I dart through the shadows along a few more buildings before I reach the patch of thinned murk where I was casting my powers not long ago—and see the men trapped there.
Hail is lying on his back, a silver-and-iron net tangled all around him, his chest heaving with pained breaths. Mirage squirms within similar bindings, flinches, and goes still for a moment.
They’re both too lost in agony to notice my arrival, but Jonah perks up where he’s been lashed to a telephone pole with one of those glowy whips. Sweat has beaded on his forehead, but relief shines from his face. “You’re all right.”
The strain in his voice combined with all the distress emanating from my mates makes my hands clench into fists. I can’t do anything about the nets, since they’d burn my hands the moment I touch them, but I hustle over to Jonah to see if I can loosen the whip.
Why were the humans so cruel? We were brightening the darkness, not adding more. Isn’t that what they want?
Jonah isn’t even shadowkind. They can’t claim he’s a monster.
They tied him up like this and left him helpless just because he’s on our side.
My anguish brings a prickling sensation into my chest. I start to tamp down the swell of unpleasant emotions automatically—and then realize they might be just what I need.
Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I hold out my hands toward the side of the whip where it’s taut against the pole—not Jonah himself. With careful control, I release a spurt of the dark energy inside me.
My concentrated jab cuts right through the searing light. The rest of the whip sputters out, and the handle clatters to the pavement.
Jonah scrambles up with a ragged inhalation. “I’ll get Hail and Mirage.”
I can only watch as our sorcerer rushes to peel the nets off my other mates. As I stand there, mired in my own frustration, a slim dark figure wavers out of the shadows.
“Peri!” Fen cries, with a swivel of her head as she takes in the scene. Drips of distress trickle off her fingers and patter on the pavement. “I was going to see if I could pitch in at all here, but... What happened? Is everyone okay?”
“Some humans attacked us,” I tell her through the tightness in my throat.
“Not hunters, I don’t think, just regular people who got some of their weapons.
They grabbed me and tried to get me to ‘admit’ that we have a conspiracy against humans or something like that.
They think we wanted this to happen!” I wave my hand toward the deluge of shadows cloaking the city.
Fen blinks at me, her brow knitting. “What? Why would anyone want that?”
“I don’t know! That’s why it’s so ridiculous.”
But no matter what I said, the humans didn’t believe me. They probably still think they were right—as much as they’re thinking at all right now before Raze’s paralyzing power wears off.
A shudder runs through the naiad’s slender frame. Her face tenses with determination. “I can go find Rollick and—”
I grasp her forearm. “No. I… I’m not sure I want to talk to him about this. At least not yet.”
He warned me things like this would happen, didn’t he? That most humans would never trust us.
It was only that small group. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
Except more and more “small groups” keep popping up. At what point do I have to acknowledge that they’ve become a big group?
Jonah heaves the untangled net off Hail, and I dart over to throw my arms around the winter fae. His ebbing pain gives way to a rush of honey-sweet adoration. “There’s my Cream Puff. I hope you gave them a piece of your mind.”
His voice is so ragged my throat completely closes up. It takes a moment before I can speak, with tears burning in the back of my eyes. “I tried to. They weren’t very good at listening.”
The winter fae tucks his head next to mine as if I’m a balm on his wounds, and I’m happy to offer that if I can. Then his gaze drops, and a spurt of jalapeno-sharp anger radiates from him. “They left scars!”
I follow his gaze to my wrists where the sleeves of my leather jacket have ridden up slightly. Faint pink lines mark my pale skin where my captor’s metal-twined ropes bit into them. A bit of an ache lingers too.
I grimace. “I’m sure those will fade. They didn’t have me tied up for very long.”
A few ruddy streaks cross his face and hands too where the metals of the net burned him. I hate to think how the rest of his body might have suffered through his clothes.
Before I can say as much, Hail lets out a growl Raze would be proud of. “They shouldn’t have tied you up at all. Those fuckers.”
Any further angry ranting is cut off by Mirage springing free. He bounds over and flings his arms around both of us, to Hail’s sputtered indignation that’s flavored with a dollop of amusement.
After a moment, Mirage slumps. His time wrapped in the net has sapped most of his usual energy. He has his own temporary scars etched across his flesh.
Even though I know his and Hail’s will heal as quickly as mine, my gut twists at the sight.
I tuck my hand around his neck to draw him into a kiss and then help both of my men to their feet. Raze hurries over to support Mirage, but Hail waves off Jonah when he attempts to offer the same.
“We’ll just go through the shadows,” he says. “We’ll recover faster there anyway.”
Jonah nods. “We should get back to the center of operations and find out what else has been going on.”
My stomach sinks. I slip after my three shadowkind mates into the patches of darkness.
The journey back through the camp in our shadow forms is much more sedate than my trip by car. Which means I have more time to take note of the human refugees around us.
Everywhere I look, my gaze catches on metallic gray glints on people’s chests. I think at least half of the humans we pass have the badges the hunters showed off pinned to their shirts.
We’re the ones who got these people out of the city before it could warp them to death. Are they really so scared of what else we might do?
Either because of that or for other reasons only the humans know about, a lot of them are packing up their meager remaining belongings. Buses parked at the edges of camp are taking in streams of passengers, I guess to bring them to other accommodations farther away from their original home.
Colonel Hueber did say they were planning on moving people elsewhere, but I didn’t realize so many of them would be gone so quickly. The sprawl of tents already feels much more vacant than it did a few days ago.
In a few days more, will it only be us, the army people, and all the hunters and sorcerers who keep arriving? What will they try to do to us if the news crews leave too and there’s no one to witness their hostility?
I’m trying to squash those uncomfortable worries when an imposing presence drifts over to us through the shadows.
I’m already braced for Rollick’s words when his low drawl reaches me in the darkness. “I’ve been hearing a lot of… interesting reports from my sentries. Something about a stolen car?”
Raze’s essence twitches. I jump in before he needs to explain. “It was only because—”
“—a rescue operation was in order,” the demon supplies. “A couple of my people followed and determined that.”
Raze’s voice comes out gruff. “I left the car over by the factories. It didn’t take any damage—at least, nothing major…”
Rollick chuckles. “I’d imagine we can arrange its reunion with the owner without too much trouble. Better they go without their car for a couple of hours than we go without our glowing friend here, hmm?”
He pauses, and I have the impression of him considering us with the full ominous weight of his demonic powers. When he speaks again, his tone is more somber. “Are you all undamaged? I suppose I didn’t do enough to prepare you… I hadn’t expected the situation to escalate quite this quickly.”
The tang of his guilt slides across my tongue. It stirs my own conscience.