Chapter 27 #2
Why let me taste something and take it away?
It wasn’t supposed to be her. I never wanted a mate, especially not a mouthy human girl.
Did I know deep down that night we took her prisoner and chained her to the wall that she would be my demise?
The spitfire who did not back down or express fear at my threats.
She bit back with words and teeth sinking under my skin and poisoning my soul with her smell and taste.
When did the thought of living in this world without her become agony?
A grunt snapped through my teeth, and I rubbed my forehead, trying to shove her out of my thoughts.
Focus on the mission.
Killian, Eli, and Warwick hacked through the underbrush, the light from a flashlight glinting off metal underneath.
“There.” Ember pointed to the covered manhole. Warwick kneeled, gripping the top. He easily pried the heavy lid off, letting a hiss of stale air out. Brexley directed her flashlight into the hole, revealing a ladder heading down into a narrow cement room.
“All right, boys. Go check it out.” Ember wiggled her shoulder where Cal sat, still pouting that neither juniper juice nor mushroom juice were being provided on the trip.
“Be my honor, my lady.” Simmons buzzed for the opening.
“No way, girlie.” Cal wiggled his butt deeper into her shoulder, staying put. “There are probably spiders and rats down there. You know what happened the last time? That rat tried to mate with me. Uh-uh. No way.”
“Do it, or I glue your dick to your asshole,” Eli grumbled.
“Ha! Unlike your monster, mine won’t reach.” Cal huffed, folding his arms like he won, then slowly realized what he asserted. “Oh, wait . . .”
“You said it,” Eli huffed out a laugh. “Now get your ass down there, barbie—”
“I’ll get you juniper juice.” Ember cut Eli off, speaking to Cal. “A sink’s worth.”
“Tub!” Cal retorted. “That rat almost penetrated me. I’m scarred for life!”
“Okay, a tub.” She nodded at him.
Cal huffed, climbing off her shoulder, his wings flying him to the manhole with a grumble. Simmons followed him in.
Ember winked at Eli. “Trap them with honey, not salt.”
“Why am I afraid that you even saying the word honey will cause a sprite to suddenly pop out of nowhere?” Eli ran his hand over his head. “Like summoning a demon.”
“Hey now,” Kek spoke. “You can’t summon a demon, but we do come on command.” She grinned at Ash and Lukas. Ash lifted his eyebrow with a knowing grin while Lukas blushed, staring down at his boots, a soft smile hinting on his lips.
Yeah, I had heard them last night too. Let’s just say by the way the walls were shaking, I was shocked that old house was still standing in the morning. Wesley had taken it as well as I had, knowing one of those rooms held Killian and Rosie. He had slept outside in the small storage barn.
“Her pets are at least trained,” Warwick muttered to Brexley. “Yours shit, eat, destroy things, and pass out. High out of their fucking minds.”
Chirp! Bitzy flipped Warwick off from Brexley’s shoulder. She sat in a pack on Opie’s back, both dressed in black, with cat masks with spaghetti noodles for whiskers.
“I take offense to that too.” Opie’s voice caught the air. “We don’t destroy things. We create masterpieces. We make dull things better.”
“I’m not sure the fae book would agree.” Ash retorted, his bitterness over that incident still clear. Though I think he was hurt the book didn’t take him in last night, picking Warwick and Eli instead.
What no one knows was I went too. It wasn’t physical like with them; it was more like a movie in my mind.
I watched myself die and saw Maddox running for me, screaming.
Magic funneled through me with a zap of lightning, knotting me back together.
Taking that first breath, I recalled images flashing through so quickly I couldn’t make them out.
They melted away, never to be thought about again.
This time I saw them more clearly. I didn’t really believe in all that fate crap, but last night, when Hanna’s face flickered in my head as I came back to life, knowing she wasn’t even born yet, I wondered.
Like roots of a tree, the bond connected me to Brexley, who would lead me to my mate.
It was as if somehow, Brexley or the magic foresaw what I would be, who I was meant for, and saved me. That it wasn’t happenstance at all.
I could have died on that patch of grass, my life no more than a memory to some, growing dimmer in time. I would never have known her. Never have understood the power of loving someone. Fighting for someone. Dying for someone.
“She might be lost,” Tad-Esmeralda had whispered to me before heading upstairs to sleep last night.
“She has not forgotten. Not yet. But time is slipping her further away. I can’t see if she is gone for good.
” He patted my hand. “I want to believe there is hope. You were brought back from the dead by magic. Maybe it’s you who needs to do the same for Hanna. ”
“I don’t have that kind of magic.” I shook my head. “Brexley does.”
“Magic isn’t always a spell. Love can be the greatest magic of all.”
His words stuck with me all night. I was hoping to speak with him again to get more insight into what he meant, but whatever energy Tad used to possess Esmeralda had wiped both of them out.
She slept all day, not even stirring by the time we set off earlier, leaving Olek to watch over her, the nectar tucked under her pillow.
“All clear, my lady.” Simmons whirled out of the hole.
“Clear? There were a dozen rats and a million spiders just in the first chamber.” Cal shivered, brushing at his arms. “That one was giving me sex eyes. Though, can you blame it? Who wouldn’t want a piece of this marinated beefcake?”
“Beefcake? Try pickled twinkie,” Eli snorted.
I barreled forward, irritated by their slow response, practically pushing people out of the way to go down first. The thin metal ladder whined against my weight as I descended, dropping into the tight space, my flashlight igniting the low passage in front of me.
The sound of trickling water came from the room beyond, pulling me forward.
One by one, everyone followed me as we ventured deeper into the tunnels, passing underground rivers and old bunkers built in the Cold War to areas that went back to when this capitol was founded.
The reeking stench of vermin and river water filled my nose, and the tight spaces were coated in spiderwebs and mummified bugs.
“Oh goodie, more tight underground places we have to squeeze through.” Ember’s breath pumped in and out as she tried to calm herself. “You’d think by now I’d be over my claustrophobia.”
My gaze darted to Brexley, sensing her anxiety spike, knowing that being underground brought back her time in prison.
It took most of us back. Věrh?za would be something we lived with daily.
It would never be forgotten, a deep scar marring all of our souls.
Being buried far underground, tortured, beaten, starved, and assaulted.
Not seeing the sky or breathing fresh air, knowing we might never be free or glimpse a tree or bird again.
Fighting for our lives, our sanity. The memories hung around, waiting to pop back up and attack.
Gritting my teeth together, I pushed forward, following the passage inching us closer to our destination, without any other thought than the need to move faster. An itch in my soul, a drive making me want to cut through the tunnels with my bare hands.
“Scorpion! No!” Ember grabbed my arm, yanking me back. I stumbled backward, almost falling on my ass.
“What the fuck?” Ire prickled up my spine, my head whipping to her with confusion.
Her head flicked to the spot I was about to barrel through. “Look.”
My lids narrowed, and it took me several blinks to notice the disparity in the air before us. A wave of magic veiled by the darkness. Sucking in, I stepped back with fright.
Fuck. I had almost walked right into a fae door.
I was so consumed by my anger and the need to move forward that I didn’t even see it. If Ember hadn’t stopped me, I would have gone in . . . been lost forever.
Though oddly, a part of me was tempted. It seemed fitting. I was always searching, never finding—in perpetual torment. Lost. Alone. I had been fine with that. Accustomed. Preferred it, actually. Saved a lot of drama and nonsense.
I had grown up alone, an accident between two people who despised each other, and hence me. At seven, I watched my father murder my mother and then kill himself, forgetting or not caring I was sitting right there. I was of such little thought to him.
Whoever said blood was thicker than water was full of shit. My real family was found outside the bounds of any DNA. On the streets, with other unwanted kids like me. Where I found Maddox, Birdie, and Wesley. And when we joined Sarkis’s army, we felt we had a home for once in our lives.
I would kill and die for them, though I never completely let my wall down.
Now what had been normal and comfortable filled me with dread and anxiety. As if I finally touched the sun and was put back into the darkness. It gripped my soul, cut and burrowed in until I couldn’t breathe.
“Scorpion . . .” Brexley’s shade whispered in my ear as if she could feel every emotion running through me. I knew she couldn’t, but she knew me enough now to sense the turmoil, the fight. I hated it because I had grown accustomed to her presence, the feel of her there, depending on the connection.
Two women had pushed past every barrier I had, giving me no choice. One saved my life and the other my soul.
Murmuring a quiet thanks to Ember, I circled widely around the fae door, shaking off the adrenaline still coursing through my veins. I needed to get it together. Not do stupid shit because my brain was scattered all over the place.