Chapter 6
SEAN
After the mad dash through the nightclub, Sean expected the man to drive like a bat out of hell. Instead, he kept pace with the traffic and obeyed every law. “Did anyone else make it out?” he asked.
“I hope so,” Autumn said. “We’ll know if they come through the mist. Bowenn will take care of them.”
The driver shook his head. “Reckless.”
Sean exchanged a few looks with Cole, but they both stayed quiet. Sean’s mind, however, spun out of control. He relived the scene a dozen times.
Purple eyes…Lhynion’s heir…They want you dead…a kiss like fire.
What did it all mean?
His head pounded with images trying to burst forth. He knew these women. Both of them. He just didn’t know how.
“Just breathe,” Autumn murmured from the seat beside him. “It all makes sense. I promise.”
“I am breathing.” Sean glared at her bright smile. “None of this makes sense.”
In the front passenger seat, Isobel glanced back, meeting his eyes for a brief moment before facing forward once more. “It will when you have the full story.”
“How do you know my mom?” Cole asked.
Autumn laughed, tinkly and light, like the question was funny. “She’s one of us. I still can’t believe she’s been living outside the mist this whole time.”
“Outside the mist,” he repeated, voice flat.
“Yep!” She bounced in her seat.
“Because that makes perfect sense,” Cole muttered under his breath. He leaned closer to Sean. “We’re going to die tonight, aren’t we?”
“We saved your lives,” Isobel said without looking at either of them. “If we wanted you dead, you would be.” Despite her hard words, she had a sweet voice, like pink buttercream atop a fluffy cake. And the accent lilted each vowel so it sounded more like music than spoken language.
Sean found himself staring at the curve of her shoulder. “Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Isobel Faywood. People call me Bel.”
“Okay, but…who are you?”
She finally deigned to meet his gaze. Something sparked deep in her eyes—not purple, but white, like a cat’s eyes at night. “That’s a question better answered by your father.”
His insides disappeared, and he traded a wide-eyed glance with Cole. “My father is dead,” Sean said.
Isobel snorted. “Is that what Lana told you?”
Lana.
Sean hadn’t heard his mother’s name spoken aloud in so long.
The driver met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Your father is very much alive. He is our Sovereign.”
“What is happening?” Cole asked, clearly fed up with the mystery. He dug his hands into his hair.
“We’re here,” the driver said.
Without Sean noticing, the scenery outside the SUV’s windows had faded from the star-bright opulence of the Vegas strip to the nondescript darkness of a desert highway. The driver pulled into an abandoned convenience store parking lot and shut off the engine.
Sean stared at their surroundings—dilapidated building, vegetation pushing through the asphalt—and was instantly certain they’d been brought there to die. What else was the desert good for but hiding bodies?
Laughing, Autumn set a hand atop his. “You’re safe.”
Her seemingly normal hand was hotter than the glass of a lit candle, and he yanked his own away from her. It wasn’t just the heat that startled him. Something else coalesced beneath his skin, almost like she’d injected champagne bubbles directly into his blood.
“You’re safe with us, okay?” she said. “Can you trust us for just a few more minutes?”
“Until you murder us and chop us into little pieces?” Cole said dryly, yanking open the car door. “Sure, why not?”
Heat leached across Sean’s skin as the rest of them exited the vehicle. It coalesced in the air and radiated from asphalt that spent the day absorbing the desert sun.
The driver murmured something into Autumn’s ear.
After she nodded, he loped off into the darkness.
The women took a moment to exchange their party dresses and heels for linen shirts and thick brown pants, complete with leather boots.
When they emerged from the other side of the vehicle looking more like female Robin Hoods than club rats, Sean had nearly reached his limit of insanity.
He forced out a smile, leaning again on his charm—though it was far more difficult to evoke. “Will you please tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s just easier to show you,” Autumn said, starting away from the vehicle and into the darkened desert. “Follow me.”
Sean rejected that command. And he refused to even glance toward Isobel because looking at her made everything so much worse.
If he stared into her eyes one more time, he’d probably lose himself completely.
Rooted to the overgrown convenience store parking lot, he shook his head.
“I’ve spent the last hour following you and still have more questions than answers. ”
Autumn paused. “You want to know about the mist, right? It’s right up here.”
With a curious spark in his eye, Cole stepped forward, peering into the darkness where she pointed. “I don’t see anything.”
She tutted. “Do you often see mist when it’s pitch black outside?”
He shot her an annoyed look. “Are you sassing me?”
For the second time that night, her gaze caught on Cole’s face. Her head tilted, and something predatory ignited in her gold eyes.
And that was the moment Sean decided to leave. “Cole. Let’s get out of here, yeah?”
“Nope.” Isobel wrapped a manacle-tight hand around his wrist and dragged him into the desert. “It’s taken two decades to find you, and you aren’t getting away.”
He could get away if he wanted though. She was tiny, and he was very strong. But once again, the urge to follow her crashed through every other desire in his body. He needed her close, the same way he needed air in his lungs and blood in his veins.
It was heinous, this yearning. It could easily destroy him.
They were well into the desert, the abandoned convenience store a tiny dot in the background, before Sean returned to rational thought and yanked his arm from her acidic grip.
He might have found the strength to turn around, to save himself and Cole, if not for the wall of mist that lurched from the darkness up ahead.
It swirled as if alive, sending tendrils of gray through the dry desert air.
Inside the mist, the sagebrush and creosote gave way to the shadows of impossibly tall trees and flickers of light like candles.
Something called to him from inside the fog—a silent, ravenous wail, beckoning him forward. He dove into the gray just as Cole shouted for him to wait.
All sound muffled—the wind through the shrubby trees, the scampering of lizards over rock, the distant calls of large birds. It was as if he dipped his head underwater. The cool fog kissed his skin and formed tiny drops in his sweaty hair, so thick he could barely see his next step.
As he walked, the desert dissolved. It didn’t take long before the mist thinned and colors oozed back into the world.
First the chestnut and copper of tree bark.
Then the emerald and sage of the ferns and leaves above.
Riots of flowers grew in playful bouquets along the ground, electric purple and powderpuff pink.
Teal vines crawled up several trees and hung from branches like verdant icicles, glittering in the strange flames of light that pulsed in the air.
“I’m dreaming, right?” he asked of no one in particular. “This isn’t real.”
“Keep walking,” Isobel said, trudging past. “Others will come in behind us. It will delay us if they see you.”
Sean followed, but his attention strayed from one improbability to the next. Purple capped mushrooms lined the dirt path, silver light sparkling from their edges. A snow-white creature with golden rabbit ears and the tail of a fox perked up, its curious eyes following them through the dark.
He knew this place. The same way he knew these women. It all hid in a treasure trove in his mind.
Eventually the path grew wider and arches of giant branches rose overhead, connected by thin glittering fabric, creating a sort of tunnel into a wide clearing. Several large tents had been erected on wooden platforms, lit from within. Bonfires dotted the periphery of the camp.
An outpost of sorts?
Strangers gathered, dressed in the kind of clothes Sean thought people only wore in cosplay—leather vests and hooded tunics and laced bodices. Some women were clad in sheer lace overlays with nothing beneath, and several men sported loose harem pants with no shirts.
The same light that flickered in the air glittered in their skin. It winked in and out of existence, sparkling in the dark, like they were backlit. Some of them were too tall to be human, others too narrow. Some had too many finger joints or ears that pointed like elves.
And some of them… Some looked just like Sean—that uncanny combination of tawny skin, ebony hair, and piercing blue eyes that had been fawned over as so unique by the folks of his town for the entirety of his life.
He was halfway into the camp, Isobel at his side, when he realized the strangers were staring, open-mouthed and silent. The driver led their party now, like he’d served as a herald for Sean’s approach, while inhuman eyes of violet and silver and aquamarine followed them, dumbfounded.
Everything went still around them.
Sean slowed to a stop, and every one of them dropped to their knees. They lowered their heads and touched two fingers to one temple, some foreign sign of respect.
Isobel continued to walk, ignoring the crowd. Gut roiling, Sean tried not to meet anyone’s eyes and sped up to keep pace with her.
Whispers followed in their wake.
Ashanta. Ashanta. Ashanta.
Spoken repeatedly, it hit his ears differently, somehow translating in his brain.
Savior. Savior. Savior.
But that wasn’t the exact translation. It had illumination to it. Almost like…divine light.
In his efforts to avoid eye contact, Sean’s attention caught on a massive shape beyond the clearing.