Chapter 12 Zera #2
Whispers reached her ear as if the staff was speaking to her.
Her eyes jerked down the weapon that glowed faintly in the setting sun.
A symbol near her grip caught her eye—two circles in a pike formation with a smaller circle connecting them in the center.
She’d heard the legends of the Whispers as a young child, but they were folklore.
Ancient pixie warriors trained in battle with their blades of terror and would slaughter those who kept secrets from them.
But it was just a story parents used to scare their children not to lie.
This couldn’t be one of those weapons because pixies hadn’t actually been warriors in ancient times.
They’d been servants or farmers who tended the fields with the other nature fae, and even today in the modern age, they were mostly clerks in various wildlife and forestry offices.
Important but overlooked by society and definitely not in positions that required much higher education.
That was why she strove to be different.
To set her own path. Not that it had worked out so well for her on that front, since she was a bartender.
Perhaps one day she’d go back to school and finally graduate with a faeology and alchemistry science degree.
But until then, she would have to make do with serving drinks when she stopped playing spy and got back to her reality.
“Where did you get this?” she managed to gasp, but she couldn’t bring herself to look up. She felt a pull toward the design, like it was beckoning her to come closer.
“That’s a long story,” Maverick whispered from somewhere far away.
The whispers grew louder and more urgent, as if guiding her movements. She followed their lead and raised the staff above her head before bringing it down in a sweeping motion, letting the blades slice through the air. A ripple of her power surged out in purple waves.
Confused but intrigued, she repeated the motion and again felt the surge of energy. With each swing and thrust, she felt connected to something primal yet foreign.
A growl erupted from Maverick’s throat as they sparred more fiercely than ever before. It was as if they were dancing together, their bodies moving harmoniously with each other’s desires and needs.
She could feel her control over the power growing with each movement, as if it was connected to the staff in some primal-yet-foreign way. The staff seemed to amplify not only her strength but also awakened desires she thought long buried beneath single motherhood and heartbreak.
The whispers began to form words, guiding her in a language she didn’t understand but somehow knew how to follow. Then they changed. The whispers urged a new dance, a new path, but it felt wrong. It wasn’t her movement, and suddenly what the whispers asked of her, she wanted no part in.
A breath for a breath, it whispered to her. Take what they stole from so many before you.
No, she wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t.
Traitor! it hissed as her movements with the double-bladed staff grew more and more intense. You call yourself a pixie? Pathetic. Only blood will do.
The whisper faded, but the hold on her only tightened.
She tried to stop, to break free from whatever curse this staff had put on her.
Though she was a pixie, this energy wasn’t made for her.
She wasn’t a murderer, and what the staff whispered to her wasn’t to kill out of self-defense or to protect her child from Gareth; it was slaughter. And it was coming for every last wolf.
“Zera,” a familiar voice shouted at her, but it was so distant she couldn’t tell where it came from.
She struck the air again, only this time a scream sliced through the silence, piercing Zera’s ears. The sound was filled with pain and desperation.
“Zera!”
Suddenly, Zera found herself on top of Maverick once again, his handsome face twisted in pain.
She blinked once, twice, confused at what might’ve happened.
She knew something wasn’t right. He was at eye level, and his arms were struggling with something between them.
Her gaze followed his, and bile rose up in her throat as she saw the source of his agony.
The blade at the end of the staff had pierced through his torso.
Crimson blood stained his shirt and dripped onto the floor.
Horror swept over Zera, her heart pounding in her chest as she dropped the staff. The whispers silenced in an instant.
“Maverick!” she cried, rushing toward him. Panic flooded her senses as she tried to process everything. Zera’s eyes filled with tears as she frantically searched for something to help him.
“Stay still. I’ll call for help!” Zera’s voice shook, but Maverick grabbed her wrist, stopping her from reaching for her faestone.
“I’m okay,” he said with a grunt, but the look in his eyes told a different story. Zera could see the pain and fear lurking within his storm-filled gaze.
“But—”
“I said I’m fine,” he growled, shoving her hand away as he managed to get to his feet. “I’m a werewolf with alpha blood in my veins. It’ll heal in no time.”
“You’re an alpha?” The contents of the egg salad she’d had for lunch churned in her stomach, and suddenly she didn’t feel well.
Being a Lunar Brotherhood wolf who’d abandoned his pack was one thing, but he had the alpha bloodline.
That changed everything. It made him even more dangerous than she’d thought.
At least that explained how he’d been able to reject the pack and live to tell about it.
And she’d nearly killed him. An alpha without a pack. But how?
Her throat went dry when she looked down at the silver staff that still glowed on the floor, beckoning to her.
“What the bloody fae is that thing?” she demanded, whirling on Maverick, who hobbled over to the nearest chair. She just watched, since the arrogant, stupid wolf rejected her offer to help him. Too much pride for his own damn good.
“I told you. It’s a staff.”
She folded her arms and scoffed. “That’s no staff. Or a stick. It’s alive. It breathes the same energy as my own pixie dust, but it wanted me to kill you.”
He made no response, letting out a grimace as he slumped against the cushion and peeled back his hand, which was covered in his own blood. The wound was already stitching itself back up.
“What is it?” she demanded again. She wouldn’t take his silence for an answer. He had to say it.
His eyes met hers, as if to say she already knew, but she didn’t want to say it first. Didn’t want to even think of it as a possibility.
“It’s a Whisper’s staff,” he said, and she shuddered as the walls of her reality shattered all around her.
“The ancient pixie warriors fashioned the double-bladed weapon only they could wield to enhance their own powers against the Lunar Brotherhood. A way the universe kept everything in balance. For a time. Until the Lunar Brotherhood alpha bloodline grew in numbers and strength, nearly making them extinct.”
She shook her head. “But the Whispers are only a legend. These weapons don’t exist because that would mean…”
Her eyes flitted between the healed wound in his chest and the storm raging in Maverick’s gaze.
“I could’ve killed you,” she gasped.
He nodded. “One inch to the right, my heart would’ve stopped.”
“Why won’t you tell me where you got it?
And what happened to its wielder?” Zera’s voice shook, a mix of anger and fear coursing through her veins as the haunting tales she’d grown up on of the Whispers came rushing back.
If he had this staff, then he must’ve killed the Whisper pixie who’d wielded it.
The legend, if it was true, was that the blade could only be separated from a pixie warrior if they were bested in battle or if they gave it willingly.
Maverick’s jaw hardened as he checked his wounds and wiped the blood on the shirt he’d left on the arm of the chair. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me,” Zera insisted, reaching out to touch the intricate engravings that lined the length of the staff. They glowed faintly in response to her touch, as if recognizing her pixie magic.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He stood when she tried to press him on the matter. “Trust me. The less you know, the better.”
She ground her teeth. He was keeping secrets from her, and he had the nerve to tell her to trust him.
“Trust goes both ways, you know,” she said, following him to the kitchen island, where he turned on the sink to clean up.
“I’ve trusted you so far. When every instinct in my bones screams that I should run, I trust you.
But you keep secrets from me. How long do you think that’ll keep my trust?
We’re supposed to be partners, Maverick! ”
His jaw clenched twice, but he made no response. He wasn’t going to budge on where he got the staff. Fine. She would try a different question, then.
“Why would you give me a weapon like that if you knew it could kill you?”
“I was just… testing a theory out.” His words were hesitant as he continued to wash the blood from his hands.
She raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “A theory? About what?”
He paused for a moment before turning off the water and drying his hands on a nearby towel. “A theory about the staff, but it doesn’t matter. We have bigger issues at hand. Like Gareth and the bounty on our heads.”
“Fine,” Zera snapped, frustrated by his evasiveness. “If that’s all that matters to you, then so be it.” With that, she stormed up to the bedroom, determined to distance herself from the infuriating werewolf spy. He could keep his secrets. She didn’t want them anyway.
As she entered the room, she tried to distract herself by focusing on her everfrost blossom.
She knelt down beside the small plant budding in the protected terrarium pushed against the south-facing window for optimal sunlight.
She meticulously documented each detail of progress she perceived, her heart swelling with hope and anticipation for it to bud.