Chapter 19 DARE
NINETEEN
DARE
The blue and gold of Dare’s eyes gleam with the thrill of the hunt.
A bloodthirst thrives in him—for her.
The kinta who slighted him.
An animalism stirs deep in his chest as he moves for the wall, presses his pale, slender hand to it, then lifts his fine nose in the air, as though he can smell every human and beastly scent that has ever walked this corridor.
And he finds something.
A thread of the kinta lingering in the corridor.
A throaty growl catches in Dare’s throat as he shoves away from the wall.
The faint pink of his mouth twists into a snarl as he marches for the door he just came through moments ago.
Two other warriors stand, silent, by the door, watching his every move, tracking his tracking.
Daxeel walks the length of the corridor, slow, the soles of his leather boots soft on the hard floor.
But Dare feels the turn of Daxeel’s gaze on him, piercing into his back as he picks through the scents weaved together in the musty air.
It whispers to Dare, a tapestry of hushed secrets, of all things been and gone.
This whisper is not what Dare wants to hear.
The scent of the kinta splinters: one to the door leading up to the roof, one from the staircase he just climbed—and the third leading down the corridor.
A primal roar rips through him as he shoves from the wall.
Lashes lower over gleaming eyes. He fixes his stare on the door further down the corridor. He pushes into step, slow, predatory steps, each one slinking his muscles beneath his hard flesh, and a focused sharpness to his face.
Daxeel turns to watch him, the other two warriors mirroring him. Statues stuck up on the top floor of this concrete tower, this monstrosity, waiting, watching as Dare boots the door open—and a punch of her scent floods the corridor.
Daxeel’s chest fills with deep inhale. “That is what you are tracking?”
The scent is fresh, peppered with mud and dirt and sweat, but threaded with undercurrents of mint and lavender.
Dare doesn’t look back as the other fae approach. He stares into the dark shadows of the cold, grey stairwell. “It’s not familiar to you?”
Before Daxeel can answer, Dare is gone, disappeared, into the stairwell.
Daxeel rushes after him, Cadwyn and Iiro on his heels, a rainfall of pounding bootsteps on concrete.
Dare flings himself over the railings and lands, silent, on the steps. He doesn’t run the stairs, he leaps them, down and down and down, level after level, never breaking pace, until—
Daxeel stumbles at the sudden blast.
A familiar sound, but one that wasn’t familiar to the dark fae before coming here to this world.
Now, it’s a friend.
Gunshots mean battle.
But this fight is Dare’s.
Daxeel stands back on the landing with the others, the three of them unseen to the human on the next landing down—but that human sees Dare.
And he has the barrel of a gun aimed right at him.
A trail of dark blood trickles down Dare’s bicep from a fresh bullet buried in his shoulder.
Shaky hands tremble the rifle, but the human boy keeps it aimed at Dare. His finger tenses around the trigger, ready to pull again.
Dare just tilts his head, a curious frown on his brow—and a daring glint in his eyes.
The boy pulls the trigger.
It’s the last thing he ever does.
The rifle blasts again, but before the second bullet can hit Dare, he’s swivelled, a shadow caught in a gust of wind. The bullet strikes the wall, burrows deep, and when it does, Dare is behind the boy.
Dare snatches his head and yanks it back, hard. The snap is the sound of crinkled parchment—before the boy collapses to the floor, a limp pile of limbs.
Dare stands over him, a trail of blood leaking down his shoulder.
With a roll of his jaw, he turns on the younger human boy, the one tucked in the corner of the landing, whose face is glossed with sickness.
Daxeel jumps the last lot of stairs to the landing.
The other two lean over the railing and watch as Dare lifts his dagger, then swipes out at the resting boy. His blade cuts through the flesh of his neck like butter and takes his throat with it. Glops of blood strike the wall, but not before Dare has made for the stairs again.
There are no more interruptions to pause them, and so it is mere moments before they have reached the bottom level, where a door leads to a small alleyway.
The four of them stalk out into the stink of lane, the scent they hunt almost entirely drowned out by the stench of rotting carcasses and fruits and scraps.
Dare drops to one knee at the foot of a large bin. He reaches out a bloodied hand for the lump on the ground. Then, looping his finger through a strap, lifts the material and lets it unravel.
He frowns at it.
Some type of brassiere. A plain white one, sturdier than fae females wear, if they wear one at all.
“This is the end of our bounds.” Daxeel takes a step forward. “We go no further.”
“I must.” Dare pushes up from the ground and shoves the brasserie into the pocket of his leather trousers. “I asked if the scent is familiar to you, brother, because you should remember it. It is Bee.”
Daxeel’s brow furrows.
Disbelief hushes his barbed, husky voice—a voice harshened by the thick scar slashed across his throat. “The kinta?”
A tension hardens the muscles up Dare’s back. He’s still for a beat before he turns his chin to his shoulder, and in the darkness of the alleyway, the clench of his jaw is a shadow slashed over marble.
“Yes,” he answers, and his upper lip curls over the hissed word.
“Whoever she is, she is a problem for another unit.” Iiro approaches from the door. The thickness of his insulated leathers pads his already stocky frame. “To chase one human out of our bounds is to risk too much. I will not aban—”
“Abandon?” Daxeel turns on the warrior, a darkness spilling into the deep blue hues of his eyes. “Take better care of your words, Iiro.”
Dare’s whisper is so softly spoken that it almost passes unnoticed, “I must chase.”
Daxeel turns his dark look on his old friend. “Your revenge on the kinta can come to be another time, another way. General Agnar will not permit your absence.”
“I must chase her,” he echoes, firmer.
Daxeel advances on him. “So she stole from you,” Iiro’s brow furrows, “she drugged you,” Cadwyn blinks a stunned look, “and then discarded you,” behind Daxeel, both Iiro and Cadwyn share a blank look.
“Revenge for these slights is justified,” Daxeel goes on, “but it doesn’t warrant this—to leave your post.”
“I will return.”
“And face the whipping post when you do,” Daxeel hisses. “One lash for each day absent—and to relinquish your steed. You know as well as I do, this is no light consequence.”
A growl hums softly in Dare’s chest and he turns to stare at the wall that ends the alley, as though he can see through the bricks and ice to the very one he itches to hunt.
“Then I will take my lashings and lose my steed,” Dare says after a moment. “I have a bargain for her life.”
“To Eamon,” Daxeel says and his mouth twists with the pain of grief. “Eamon is dead. Your bargain is now a mere promise. You are free of its tether should you choose to be.”
A pause passes before, slowly, Dare turns to smile something small and wretched at his friend, a brother of the soul. And as a soul-brother, Daxeel recognizes the cruelty in that smile as easily as he senses the wicked schemes plotting behind his eyes.
Dare decides, “I will go alone.”
Daxeel’s shoulders deflate.
He loosens a breath before he tugs the satchel strap over his head.
“We will meet soon, brother,” Daxeel says and hands off the satchel. “Don’t die.”
Dare pulls the bag strap over his head, then lifts a sneer. “Save your prayers for Bee. She needs them more than I do.”
Daxeel doesn’t doubt it. But he says nothing, and watches Dare jump the wall in one fluid move.