Chapter 25
Jena took a deep breath and darted out into the rain toward the shadowed garden, lightning flashing and bringing the landscape into stark relief.
The deluge hit her like a fist, her robes plastering to her, wrapping around her legs and threatening to trip her.
Damn it. She crouched beneath the trees by the reflecting pool and wrenched the sodden fabric aside, letting it hang open.
A ruddy glow sprang up at the center of the garden, lighting her way like a beacon as a wave of sin rolled out from it.
She hunched over gagging. Oh God, whatever Malcom was doing in there, it was pure evil.
Her temper flared, the feel of it far too similar to what’d been coming off the dark altar in the vision her mother had left.
Jena ran the back of her hand over her mouth.
The bite on her lip throbbed and the rest of them were a study in frickin’ misery, but she needed to save what karma she had.
She crept through the garden’s entrance, taking the same path she had not three days past. A thrumming anticipation resonated through the stones at her feet, fractured power bleeding up from the earth, along with a creeping sense of being watched.
The space between her shoulder blades pricked, and this time she wasn’t even going to try to pretend it was her imagination.
Something was definitely aware of her presence.
She passed the tumbled urns and long stone planters, rainwater overflowing and splashing down onto the cobbled path.
Her pulse sped, the weight of regard increasing with every step.
Jena bit back a sob as the twisted, overgrown limbs of the ornamental trees caught at her, as if to hold her back.
Like the dryads that’d once inhabited them knew something bad was about to happen—no.
She couldn’t stop. Her chin trembled. She had to do this.
You can do this…Jena pushed through the branches, hurrying past the drowned pocket gardens—
And then there it was. The stone bridge.
She shivered, scratching a wrist, her nightmares coming back full force, the darkness of the entity she’d sensed…
One step at a time, Jena, you’ve got to get across that mess first. Below the bridge, the stream had filled, straining its banks and washing over the stone footings.
The last three feet of the path lay beneath a rising stretch of swirling water.
What was in the fountain’s basin sloshed onto the path around it with each gust of rain.
Jena’s skin prickled with wild magic. At its center, the statue of Hecate stood heedless of the storm, its eyes somehow more seeing than they had been.
Fuck…If you’re there, please, please, please lend me your favor…
She swallowed the lump of fear threatening to choke her as she approached the flooded portion of the path, and jumped to the bridge just as a slim, gray-green pair of hands darted from the pool.
She slipped, falling to a knee as she landed.
Ugh! Frickin’ naiads! She scrambled back onto her feet, pulling her dragging robe from their reach, and turning as she swept the rain from her face.
The massive stone urn stood just across the way, daring her to cross.
The creeping sense of being watched increased a hundred fold. That darkness, the entity—her father—was waiting for her.
And so was the node.
The storm raged around her as she stepped forward, wild magic lashing at her, the stones of the bridge shimmering, caught somewhere between this world and the next. Reality deepened, gaining another dimension and rendering everything crystalline. The taint of rot seared her nostrils.
She paused, her toes at the edge of the containment circle, and raised her chin with a deep breath. Here goes… “Hi, Dad.”
A deep chuckle resonated around her, and a shadowy form took shape by the urn. “Jena. So nice of you to come and see me after all this time. And my, haven’t you grown, though you’re looking a bit worse for the wear.”
She shivered, his voice rolling over her like a cloud of carrion. “Why did you come back?” God the sins of this creature…how could her mother have stood to be close to him?
“Why, for you, my child.” He smiled, and it was more endearing than it should’ve been. “But alas, your mother wasn’t amiable to me taking custody, and I’m afraid our discourse became…heated.”
Jena gritted her teeth, absently scratching her neck before she caught herself. Frickin’ pixies… “You don’t say.”
“But it’s not too late,” he said, extending a long-fingered hand, the ruddy light from whatever Malcom was doing playing over it. “And I’d very much like to get to know you.”
She stared at his outstretched palm, a tattoo of a pentagram writing against his skin. A sick certainty rose in her throat, choking her. “You’re not unseelie.”
He chuckled again. “Seelie, unseelie, sidhe. They’re such broad terms. Let’s just say I’ve enough to qualify, and as to the rest…well, that’s a bit murkier.” His fingers undulated, hypnotic, urging her closer.
Jena closed her eyes, her lips and fingertips tingling with intent. “You killed her. Blackened her name and ruined my life. You took everything from me,” she rasped, glad the rain was hiding her tears.
“Now that’s not true,” he crooned. “I’ve a sneaking suspicion there’s somethings very dear to you at the center of this garden, and whether or not they remain on this plane of existence is entirely up to you.”
Jena’s breath caught, her magic dying as his smile widened, those long fingers beckoning her again. Behind him, the sun had just set, its last rays barely visible through a break in the distant clouds.
“Come child, it’s time.”
It was. Jena blew out a shaky breath, swallowed her fear, and stepped into the circle.
Chase stared at Malcom, vividly imagining clawing through his guts and feel of viscera slipping through his fingers.
The sadistic asshole paused carving another symbol into Crystal’s flesh, her screams already devolved into low, sobbing moans.
He glared over his shoulder at Chase and growled, a hand on his stomach.
“Well, aren’t you a prodigy,” he spat out a gob of crimson and reached up, deboning the ring finger from Crysta’s hand with a gristly pop. “Fortunately, there’s a cure for that.” He pulled the engagement ring from it and slipped it onto his pinky. “You need to come to heel, son.”
Another weird tug went through Chase, and whatever power he’d been accessing dropped away.
Goddamn it. “It’s true?” he asked, fumbling for whatever he’d been tapping into as the son of a bitch turned back to Crystal.
Jena said the ring he’d given her could mitigate the hold it would have on him…
yes, there. Thank God, she was right. He latched on to a tiny thread of power and focused on the last tumbler in the lock at his wrists.
Malcom laughed, then grimaced, spitting out another gob of gore before going back to his gristly task. “That you’re mine? In every sense of the word.”
“Why are you doing this? What the fuck is the point?”
“The point,” Malcom said, gouging out another chunk of Crystal’s flesh, “is for me to return to the realm and reclaim my throne.” He flicked his knife around the circle in disdain, a hand on his gut as he grimaced. “This pale reflection is an anathema…as are you.”
The tumbler clicked, and Chase caught the cuff as it fell from his wrist, slowly working the chain still attached to the other through the iron loop at the base of the stone. “Guess you shouldn’t have fucked my mom in a bunch of rabbit guts then. You had to know that wasn’t gonna turn out well.”
Malcom’s spine straightened as he turned, coming closer. “On the contrary, that turned out exactly as I expected…but what would you know about that?” he asked, stopping just in front of him.
“Way more than I want to.” Christ, the chain was almost free, he needed to keep the shithead talking.
Hopefully, whatever he’d done to the asshole’s insides would slow him down.
“So what, you were some kind of prince? Of what? Ill-laid plans? Must be, if you were slumming over here. It must suck to lose your crown over a piece of tail.”
Malcom narrowed his eyes at him and spat another crimson gob to the side. “Sidhe royalty is bestowed based on power, not birthright, and only the strongest have a claim on consort. Of those, only the cleverest ascend to Her Dark Majesty’s side.”
The end of the chain slipped free. “Shit, then you didn’t have a chance.” Come on, just a little closer, you motherfucker…
Malcom took one more step and grinned down at him, his teeth flecked with blood and the scent of viscera on his breath. “I’m going to enjoy killing you. Maybe I’ll fuck that whore witch in your guts.”
Chase exploded forward, wrapping the chain around Malcom’s throat and driving his knee into the were’s stomach.
Malcom screamed and a burning slice flared across Chase’s abdomen as they fell.
Fuck, he’d forgotten about the goddamned knife—His muscles strained against the thrashing man, trying to keep his grip on the links—A jab of agony lanced through his flank, and he rolled, pinning Malcom’s hand with the knife to the ground beneath him.
The motherfucker started to shift, raking at Chase with his claws. Chase’s fangs elongated, and he lunged at Malcom’s throat, biting into the soft flesh beneath his jaw.
Malcom howled, a wash of briny copper pulsing over Chase’s chin.
He shook his head and it surged, spurting crimson.
Beneath him, Malcom went limp, and Chase fell back panting, a hand over the gnarly slice across his abdomen.
He spat the taste of the man from his mouth.
Asshole had just about gutted him. Fuck, that needed stitches, and who the hell knew what the stab to his back had hit. If it was a kidney—
“You need to finish it,” Felix rasped weakly. “Sidhe don’t die easy.”
Chase stared blankly at the dangling warlock.
“You need to cut off his head.”