Chapter 19
Brio
Ronit is furious, but he’s not saying a word.
Instead, his jaw is clenched tight, and his eyes have lightened to the colour so pale it’s almost white.
I lean against the brick wall, watching as Reed curses and threatens the world.
Lirin’s worried, his lips are tight, and the skin is white around them. He wants to run off and find them.
Like they are lost lambs that need to be protected.
I look up at the setting sky. It’s been about two hours, two more hours until the curse Diablos put on us starts coming into effect and making our lives unbearable. We better find them, or everyone is going to suffer.
I close my eyes, searching for the dragon’s song. It doesn’t take long, they aren’t far away, but something’s changed in it. It’s deeper, with more layers, an echo.
While I listen to it, memorizing the changes, my shiver continues to argue.
Something sharp lances through my head, a pain that I’ve felt before, but it’s been growing stronger.
I grip my face, letting the music fade away.
My lungs burn, and the desire to get to the sea grows like a weight that gets steadily heavier.
I gasp, struggling in the hold of the pain, until after several lifetimes, it stops.
I blink, realising I’m covered in sweat and am on my ass, huddled against the wall.
“It’s happening,” Lirin says softly. “We’re changing back. The spell's ending.”
“We have some time,” Ronit says. “If we can find the people who did this to us, then we have our backup plan. We have Mei. That was the agreement we made; our bargain for legs. The creature who gave us time wants her, so there’s still a chance to find a way out of this.”
“You know perfectly well the people who did this to us are long gone, Ronit. The witch wants Mei, it has always been about the Strega. So, are we handing her over or not?” I snarl.
There’s a long silence as they digest my furious words. The triumph I felt when we made the deal feels like bitter ash in my mouth now. It would be hard to give her up to some creature. What if it’s that leather-winged bastard? What if the creature is something worse?
It’s her or us.
We already bartered. If we fail to deliver and succeed in our mission, then we become the slaves of the creature who wants her. Back in the ocean, like dogs.
“We should never have made that bargain,” I say hoarsely. It’s not the first time I’ve said it.
Reed snarls at me, but he doesn’t argue. He just turns away and locks down his feelings, giving us ice through the bonds.
“What about the deal with Diablos?” Lirin says. “He’s more powerful, his deal will nullify the other.”
“She will be safer in Nightmare than she will be with Deux hunting her here if we can’t catch him,” Ronit mutters. “Better to give her a chance than watch her die.”
Canto shakes his head. “You weren’t there, you didn’t see it; they were relentless in Nightmare. They didn’t see her as a threat at all. When did it all become about keeping Mei safe?”
Ronit is silent, staring at Canto for a long moment. “She is our only option for keeping our freedom.”
Canto curses and throws his fist at the brick wall, breaking the bricks.
“We were never going to find the Fae who cursed us, and I think the creature knew this. We can’t even get home to look.”
“That place is not my home!” Reed says, quivering. “I’m not going back there. Faerie is a hole that betrayed us.”
Ronit shrugs. “We don’t have to do it. We don’t have to hand her over. We can choose to leave her be and go back to the oceans, as guard dogs forever. There is nothing that says we have to.”
“But this is it, it’s us or her?” Lirin whispers. “What about-”
“If you bring up that mate bullshit again, we are going to have huge issues,” Reed snarls. “She can’t be.”
“Has it occurred to any of you that refusing to face it, refusing to acknowledge the fact that she’s our scent match, is because we are ashamed of what happened?” Lirin shouts.
“The scent only arrived with the Fae.”
“That Fae lady we all felt nothing but contempt for?” Lirin points out angrily.
“She’s an omega, that changes things,” I say, breaking into the conversation for the first time. “Part of our reasoning for why she couldn’t be ours was because she wasn’t an omega, so she couldn’t carry that potent, sweet scent that drove us nearly out of our minds. She’s an omega; it’s possible.”
“Judging by how we’ve been feeling, it’s not just possible, it’s probable,” Lirin barks. “What if Mei is our scent match?”
We fall silent, each of us thinking about those ramifications.
“She’s off-limits,” Canto says harshly. “We don’t touch her.”
“Go to hell, Canto!” Lirin snarls.
I’m careful to keep my feelings muted, but I think we’d have a better chance of winning the lottery than staying away from her now.
An omega, and the first one we haven’t wanted to kill on sight. The only exception to that rule is omegas who are happily mated. All others, it’s been near on open warfare. Especially Reed.
His run-in with the woman who put him here still haunts his dreams. He thought it was love. She was more concerned with saving herself. He got the blame and was sentenced with the rest of us.
Feeling the softening of his feelings over the last few days has been unnerving. Smelling her on him was wildly alarming. Until it wasn’t.
I don’t think the others know that he’s already touched her.
An omega. I shake my head, but I can see it now. If you take away the years of hunger and brutal exercise, she would be softer. Her scent is tart, but we’ve caught notes of the possibility of it being richly sweet.
“Off limits is not going to work,” I murmur.
“It has to!” Canto says firmly, glaring at me. “Imagine accidentally bonding an omega and leaving her here alone, or worse, taking her with us.
I cringe. His point is valid.
“What do we do if she goes into heat?”
“We can’t see an omega through a heat, especially not her,” Ronit stresses. He closes his eyes, and for a moment, it looks like the weight of all our problems will finally break him.
“Okay, we don’t touch her,” he whispers. “We stay away, we fight it.”
“Yeah, great,” I snarl. “Has anyone bothered to tell the freaking dragon that?”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Lirin opens his mouth to argue but stops, his smile falling away.
Ronit rubs his forehead. “Debate it all you want, but it’s a pointless exercise. There is no us, there is no happy ending. We deliver her, or we go back alone. Those are the choices. Leaf doesn’t get a say. He goes where we go.”
That unhappy future settles into me like a hard lump. I think I’d known we wouldn’t be finding the Fae to get revenge, but to know for certain that there is no hope is bleak.
“Excuse me, can I get your selfie?” a giggling voice asks.
“What is a selfie?” Ronit growls.
She laughs, holds up her phone, and runs away, returning to a group of girls who stand watching us from the corner of the street.
“Lets get out of here,” I mutter. “Humans are weird.”
I listen for the song again and hear it twanging with something. I clamber to my feet, pulling out my viola.
“Brio?”
“Leaf is in trouble.”
Ronit turns, baring his teeth. “Where are they?”
I take off at a run, racing straight out into the bumper-to-bumper traffic and through the city streets with no other thought but to get to them.
It takes too long, and the sound of his song turns into a war cry, a summons. I picture the place I want to be, and then it’s there, replacing the image of huge buildings. A lake and massive trees with old, ancient architecture in the background and Leviathan and Kit standing in front of her.
How did we get here? What was that? But there’s no real time to assess the situation because Leaf is raging and circling her with hard and jerky movements, while rattling a long and slow, violent warning from his scales.
“Leaf, what is it?” Ronit barks, his alpha command demanding the dragon obey.
“He’s here,” the dragon bellows with the force of all the dragons that ever were. The sound thunders and rolls through the air. His rage makes the world tremble.
I hear a sinister laugh and turn to look at Mei. She’s standing perfectly still. Her body naked but for those dancing runes that decorated her body.
Why is she naked? And where did the blood that’s run down her chest come from?
She’s scared, I can see it on her, but she’s trying her best to hide it. Her head turns ever so slightly as she listens to a world that we can’t hear.
“Leaf, I order you to keep her safe,” Ronit says.
“We’ll take care of this,” Canto says before turning to me. “Stay here.”
Leaf struggles, hissing and spitting, but he can’t disobey a direct order. A pang of unease hits me, but it barrels after Ronit, who walks off with Lirin in one direction, while Canto and Reed go around the lake in the other.
“Release me,” the sibilant voice of Leaf growls.
I can’t, though. It’s Ronit’s command, I’m not strong enough to break it. All I ever wanted was music. I’ve come so far away from my dreams. But seeing Mei standing there covered in those silvery scars and fresh blood, her body trembling the way it is, I think perhaps my life hasn’t been so bad.
Perhaps I was luckier than some.
“Rowanee.”
“What’s that?” I ask under my breath.
“It’s me. I’m the witch of Rowanee,” Mei whispers. “It’s where he ripped my eyes out of my head and ate them. It’s where I escaped.”
I jerk hard, whipping around to stare at her. “He ate your eyes?”
She doesn’t answer me, just continues swiveling her head, listening for any signs he’s coming.
I feel sick and outraged and, for some reason, absolutely fiercely protective of this omega who is supposed to be my enemy. If anyone gets to hurt her, it should be us. Not this deformed, dark creature.
The scent of decay climbs in the air, and all my senses go on alert. It’s here, and my shiver are too far away. I inhale and try to force myself to remain calm, looking at her instead. She is lost in whatever she is hearing, and Leaf isn’t aware yet.
Dragon noses are not the best out of water.
He’s a hand span away from me, but if I move, I know this creature will be on us.
“Leaf?”
He doesn’t answer me, instead huffing angrily as he circles her. A bead of sweat crawls down my temple. Canto suddenly feels me, and I know he’s coming back, but they are too far away.
I see it out of the corner of my eye and throw a dagger in its direction. It veers off, hissing. Leaf snarls and chases it, but it’s so fast, unbelievably quick. I’m not sure how we are ever going to even get close enough to hurt it.
“Mei, run.”
“No. Running won’t help. It will just make it all worse.”
He lands lightly, barely making a noise, and when Leaf comes at him again, he dodges his sharp teeth easily, and then it’s just Mei and him and me, like an afterthought standing beside her.
No.
I won’t stand by.
When he rushes her, I jump between them, shoving him back. His talons bite deep into my hands, and I cry out, but I don’t let go. I just keep shoving him back, trying to buy time, to keep him busy and off her until the others get here.
My hands scream, and I realise I might never play an instrument again. Hell, if I’m unlucky, he might cut off part of my hand.
“Sing, little Siren, sing,” the creature whispers, and I’m struck suddenly by how chalky his face is, pieces of skin sit half connected.
His hair is oily with the wrappings of dead things in it.
His lips are thin and black, as is the interior of his mouth.
Those pointed teeth are sharp, and they scare me more than anything, but it’s the matte black eyes staring at me with such an alien gaze that really sends my mind cartwheeling over and over.
In them, I can see a million versions of my death, a hundred thousand ways for me to die screaming.
He wants it.
He hungers for my life to end.
He is a true monster.
Looking into his eyes is looking into the face of evil, and I am afraid.