- FOURTEEN #3
Doyle, likely because he had already gotten a fill of her, was the first to snap out of it. "The work camps?" he clarified and his voice had gone dark.
"He runs them," she confirmed. "Only Dark fae I have ever seen who looks like he's Light. Dark through and through, though," she added with a shrug. "To work that place, you'd have to be. Doyle," she said, giving him a sexy smile, "anytime you want to visit, feel free."
With that, she slammed the door and whatever pull we all felt toward her slipped away. "That was freaky," I said, shaking my head. "I was half ready to go up there and do her myself," I said, making Doyle smile and Jasper look a little devilish.
"So the hand holding thing," Doyle said suddenly and I looked down, not realizing Jasper had grabbed my hand again. "Is that a 'keeping her close' thing or 'I finally got my head out of my ass' thing?"
"Think maybe we can have that heart to heart when we're not in enemy territory bent on causing a crime that could result in all of us dying a painful, bloody death?" Jasper asked, his jaw tight.
Doyle's face fell and his eyes went dark.
"Ah, come again?" I asked as they started walking again, both of them tense.
"When we're out of town," Jasper said, voice quiet. "There are ears everywhere."
We headed out the opposite end from that which we entered, the crowd getting thick, hard to move through.
Jasper's hand positively crushed mine and Doyle was so close behind that I could feel his breath ruffle my hair on each exhale.
"What the fuck is all this about?" I heard him say behind my ear, annoyed.
I didn't blame him, the air was thick, oppressive.
The noise hurt my ears. The smells, yeah, let's not discuss the smells.
I mean not that any of us really had any place to talk seeing as none of us had seen a bath in days, but Dark fae seemed averse as a whole to the idea of bathing.
"Fuck," Jasper said, stopping short suddenly, making me plow into him. He hissed at the impact but didn't turn around. I stiffened, not able to see past him, but feeling like I really needed to see whatever it was that made Jasper react that way. Not much stopped him in his tracks.
"Cece, no," Doyle said, worried, as I moved to Jasper's side.
But it was too late. I finally got to see what the crowd was there for.
They were there for an auction. But it wasn't antiques or art.
Oh, no, it was creatures. If I wasn't mistaken, it was rare creatures.
That in and of itself warranted a strong 'fuck'.
But what had Jasper tense and Doyle seeming to vibrate with something akin to anger, was the fact that the creature in the cage they were currently getting ready to auction off, yeah, it was Onyx.
Everything in me ran cold and I dropped Jasper's hand.
For reasons unknown to me, he allowed me to as I stood there too dumbfounded to even remember to breathe until my chest started to burn.
One of the auctioneers moved forward. He was my height with greasy black hair, dark eyes, pasty skin and a giant scar in the shape of a triangle on his cheek. He had a glove on one hand and some sort of metal bar. My stomach clenched, knowing it was iron, knowing that that couldn't be good.
"Next up, the last known barguest!" he announced and the crowd erupted into a mix of surprise and excitement.
"Prove it!" a man in the crowd sneered. "It could just be a big dog!"
My mouth went dry as the auctioneer smiled evilly.
"As the legend goes, when provoked, a barguest's eyes flash red.
Let's give that a try, shall we?" He raised his arm and shoved the bar between the bars of the cage, jabbing it into Onyx's torso so he let out a loud whine.
But his eyes didn't flash. The auctioneer, pissed, kept jabbing him harder and harder.
And, well, I was done. Without me consciously telling it to, my right arm flared into its fireworks thing, making my own skin warm as I bolted through the crowd, wanting to get there before Jasper or Doyle could stop me.
Because they would. They wouldn't let me save him.
I knew that down to my bones. And I couldn't let them make that decision for me.
"Hey!" I shouted as I stopped in front of the small cage. "He's mine!" I yelled when the auctioneer turned to look at me.
"Yeah? Not anymore. Unless you have what it takes to buy him back. From the looks of you, though," he said, looking me up and down in a way that made me want to crawl out of my skin, "you don't. So get lost. You're distracting the serious buyers."
He raised his hand again, giving me a cruel smile, then jabbing Onyx even harder.
I jumped up on the stage and charged him.
The smile wavered then fell as I raised my arm.
But it was too late. All I felt was a burning, consuming rage, taking over every inch of me, seeming to come from a well inside that was bottomless, that could keep producing more anger no matter how much I used.
And that anger? Yeah, it seemed to go directly to my heart then shoot down my arm.
My hand closed around the man's neck and he screamed, dropping to his knees.
My grip tightened, nothing in me seeming to recognize that I had the upper hand, that I could stop, that I could probably demand anything I wanted.
All I knew was I was pissed at him and he deserved to pay.
"Cece, enough!" Jasper screamed in my ear, tagging me around the waist and dragging me backward.
His voice somehow breaking through even when the man's screams barely penetrated, I looked down to find the man's throat reddened, blistered, peeling beneath my fingers.
I dropped him, horrified, and took a step back, the anger washing down my body like a tide and disappearing out my feet, leaving me nothing but confused, terrified, and sick.
The man choked, rolling around the ground in agony as I was vaguely aware of Doyle breaking open Onyx's cage.
"I know you're freaked, but swallow that shit," Jasper said in my ear, barely more than a whisper. "You need to own this. Use what you just did to scare the fuck out of this crowd or your ass is going to end up in a cage. Got me?"
I nodded tightly, pulling away from him and turning to the other auctioneers who looked like they wanted to rush to their colleague's aide.
"Don't even fucking think about it," I yelled, directing the energy inside down to my arm, feeling it warm, but not nearly as hot as it had been when I was raging out.
But it sparked, it was enough. "Anyone else?
" I yelled, turning to the crowd, waving my arm out and the whole of them moved backward like a tide. "Yeah, I didn't think so."
With that, I followed Doyle and Onyx down the stairs and through the wide berth the crowd gave us.
Jasper was right behind me and as soon as we crossed out of the square, there was a completely silent, unanimous decision to break into a dead run.
We didn't stop until we were under the covers of trees again, until the town was nothing but a blurry image.
I stopped, leaning over slightly, gasping for breath as Onyx stabbed his wet nose into my thigh, letting out a whine.
I reached down, patting his giant head, wondering why it hadn't occurred to me that something could have happened to him.
I felt guilty though I knew I couldn't have done anything sooner.
"What the hell was that?" Jasper asked suddenly. I straightened and turned to look at him, his blue eyes confused but, more so, worried.
"It was the forcefield thing."
"No, Cece, sweetheart," Doyle said, shaking his head. "That was different and you know it. The forcefield is fear-driven. It protects you. That wasn't to protect you, that was for you to hurt others. And your face..."
"My face?"
"When you had your hand on his throat... your face was pure rage."
"That's what I felt," I admitted, knowing I could trust them with that, hoping they could help me understand it. "I don't know how to explain it..."
"Like it was a part of your blood, your marrow, like it was seeping outward and completely overtaking your whole body, until it was all there even was to you...
" Jasper explained for me, making me start.
"Cece, you weren't there," he said, shaking his head a little.
"I don't know how to explain it, but you were just... gone. All there was was the rage."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you're not just a silly changeling and it means I want to know who the fuck your parents are and why they would stick someone with those kinds of powers in the human realm, completely fucking unaware of what they were capable of."
"That's... not helpful at all," I said with a snort.