Chapter 21
Zera
Zera remained as still as a statue under Kraven’s intense gaze. His muscular body tugged against his black suit, his silver hair a dull shade of gray under the dim lights. Gareth trembled behind the overturned table. Severed animal heads and battered critters littered the floor.
“Why won’t you kill her?” Gareth bellowed. “Will it, and she will use that weapon on her own neck.”
Jade and Sloane sobbed in the corner, still shackled with matching red bracelets that restrained their powers.
Zera wished she could free them right then and there, getting them and her son as far away from this as possible.
They weren’t involved in any of this. Then there were Maverick and the others, still in the cell somewhere in that labyrinth of halls.
His warning not to come back still rang heavy in her ears.
She couldn’t leave them there to rot in this place, but she would ensure her son was out first.
“Do it!” Gareth pressed the incubus, his pallid face reddening. “Slip into her mind, and end this.”
The incubus stared at her, tilting his head to the side as he considered Gareth’s words. Zera held her breath. She didn’t dare move. Not yet. She wouldn’t go near the incubus until she knew he wasn’t in her mind.
“The truth is, Gareth,” Kraven said finally, “I’ve been wondering about your tactics of acquiring a new supply of pixie dust.”
Zera hesitated, not knowing who to strike first. The incubus was dangerous, but there was something within her that told her he wasn’t going to hurt her.
She watched the drug dealer sputter, as if all words failed him.
“And now that I’ve seen your sources, I doubt they’ll be able to provide me with enough volume fast enough to meet my demands.”
“This is the only way the demands get met,” Gareth said, gaining enough courage to finally stand. He dusted his costume off with a manicured hand. “Pixies with the dust are dwindling. Your suppliers have all gone dry. I am the only one who can supply you with any.”
Kraven’s smirk deepened as he finally turned on Gareth. “Your way seems rather… tedious and, if I’m truly being honest, archaic.”
The drug dealer’s jaw slackened, and Zera mimicked the motion.
“You don’t have any other option. You need me,” Gareth pressed, which only made the incubus laugh. His white teeth glistened much too brightly.
Zera’s grip on the Whisper’s staff tightened.
Kill them. Kill them all.
It whispered to her, but something encouraged her to pause her magic.
It wasn’t so much a voice as it was a feeling, one she knew from experience belonged to the incubus.
But one wrong move and her pixie dust would sweep through that entire hall and destroy them all.
She knew her strength now, knew what she was capable of, and no one—not even the incubus and his persuasion—could stop her.
After what felt like an eternity, the incubus finally said, “Because I need her.”
She blinked. Shock must’ve reflected on her face because Kraven’s crooked smile deepened as he kicked at a boar’s severed head lying in a pool of blood.
“I knew you were a wicked thing the moment I met you. I just didn’t know you were also a mother.”
He studied her child cocooned behind her—still spelled, since he hadn’t yet made a sound, but his heartbeat reached her pixie ears.
She stepped back, angling her body to keep herself firmly between Kraven and Gareth. The incubus’s eyes jerked down to hers again at the movement. Zera’s whole body tensed under his stare.
He chuckled and shook his head in total dismissal of her.
She gritted her teeth. If she was truly being honest, she was more worried about the incubus than the elven drug dealer, whose power paled in comparison.
Not an inch of fear or feeling was in Kraven’s eyes.
She gripped her Whisper’s staff harder, preparing to kill them all once she caught her breath and found a way out of whatever persuasion Kraven had put in her mind.
“It makes your offer make much more sense,” Kraven continued, studying his own fingernails before flicking some invisible speck off his forefinger with his thumb. Then he looked her dead in the eyes. “And more enticing.”
“What offer?” Gareth blurted.
Kraven ignored him and nodded. “Kill him.”
The air crackled with a tension so thick, Zera could taste the metallic tang of the carnage on her tongue. Kraven’s order was clear, his deep voice resonating with an undercurrent of dark power that sent a shiver down her spine.
“Come on. Do it,” Kraven said, his eyes burning into her with an intensity that made her pixie blood simmer.
The blood rushed from Gareth’s face.
It might’ve been a trap, but Zera had waited too long for this to even consider doing anything else.
She turned slowly to face the man who had turned her world upside down, who had threatened her family—her own son.
The elven drug dealer had threatened everything she held dear.
Gareth’s bald head gleamed under the dim light, his razor-sharp nose twitched as if he sensed the imminent danger, and those clear irises of his reflected nothing but malice.
“You can’t let her do this!” he scoffed, his eyes boring into the incubus who kept his gaze firmly on Zera. “I’m your supplier. All your other options have dried up, and if you want to stay in the game, you’ll stop her.”
Kraven didn’t even give the drug dealer a second glance when he said with a lazy shrug, “As it so happens, Gareth, I’ve found a new supplier who’s far less expensive. Let’s hope she’s worth it.”
Zera gulped. She felt the weight of her son’s future, the safety of her family and friends, all resting on her slender shoulders. Perhaps it was a fool’s mission, but if she played her cards right, she could take them both out with one swift movement. Or two.
First, the drug dealer and then the incubus, and then she wouldn’t have to worry about her everfrost blossom problem.
Though she did pray it had blossomed so that she could further her experiment.
Getting rid of the drug dealer and crime lord would do nothing to stop the actual problem, and as long as pixies existed, there would always be another drug dealer and crime lord to take their place.
She would just have to worry about her little supply problem later.
Determination hardened her jaw, and something feral and fierce uncoiled within her—a power she had always possessed but never fully embraced until now.
“This is for my people,” she said, her voice steady despite the turmoil inside her, and she unleashed the fury of her rage upon them. She launched the Whisper’s staff at Gareth, but he ducked, and it missed.
Her lips curled as she called upon her pixie dust, letting it simmer once again under the surface of her skin. It prickled her fingertips. “And this is for my son.”
With a swiftness born of necessity, she flung her hands into the air, fingers flexed and shimmering with the remnants of her pixie dust. The dust surged forth in a wave of purples and blues, sparkling violently as it sought its target.
Gareth attempted a sneer, but it was cut short as the pixie dust enveloped him before he could dodge her again.
He let out a strangled gasp, his telepathic abilities useless against the sheer force of Zera’s unleashed wrath.
There was no charm or spell that could save him now, not from the raw elemental power of a pixie protecting her kin.
Zera watched, almost detached, as the dust sparked and burned into Gareth’s flesh, burrowing into every exposed crevice with an insatiable hunger.
It was as if her anger had given it a life of its own, a need to eradicate the threat that had loomed over her long enough.
And eradicate it did—his flesh caved in, melting around his bones, until Gareth was nothing but a heap of charred remains.
Her chest heaved with exertion, and even her wings ached beneath her skin. The room was silent but for the sound of her breathing and the fading echoes of Gareth’s final cries. Zera closed her eyes briefly, allowing herself a moment of relief. But she knew there was no time for rest. Not yet.
A slow clap reminded her of that. Her eyes rose to Kraven’s, who still had yet to move, and her spirit was ablaze with resolve. She would put an end to all of this, once and for all.
“Well done, my dear,” Kraven said, amusement touching his lips.
Zera strained to get a grip on her heart rate, the adrenaline from what she had just done setting in.
She watched as he meandered over to where Gareth had once been and kicked his ashes, the ones resulting from her incineration of him.
Something hollowed out in her chest. Not from grief of the loss, because the realm was better off without him, but from what she’d had to do.
What her actions had taken from her. Though there was none, she had blood on her hands, and the stain it left on her stung.
“You’ve taken care of a huge problem for me,” the incubus continued, crouching to sift through the soot. His fingers brushed against the wooden staff, and Zera stiffened at the sight of it. “And I was surprised to see this old thing again.”
She frowned. “Again?”
His eyes locked on hers as he straightened. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?”
The sound of her swallow was the only response. He rose and crept toward her, and she made every attempt to draw on her power, but again, that silent resolve to keep him alive—the one she knew she wasn’t in control of—slammed against her power like a bucket of ice water, keeping her frozen.
Zera’s eyes jerked to Jade and Sloane, who hadn’t moved from the farthest corner of the room. Jade’s protective arm was in front of her wife. Zera shook her head, her eyes begging her half sister to stay quiet. Jade nodded silently.