The Lost Runes (A Demon's Fall Series), page 47
Flame.
“What is it?”
“Another deal?” the other one hisses, but the flame spirit answers me.
“Death. For without the Cursed Rune, you will die.”
I halt, feeling the spirits powers swirling around me. The pressure of them here, waiting for their deal. They know what I will say, what I have to do. “What would I need to trade for my life to be spared if I gave you the runes?”
All I hear is howling wind for a long time until a new voice answer me.
“In the Otherworld, there is a ring of power, older than us. Older than time. Find it, and we will consider saving your life.”
“What is the ring called?”
“You have a deal, currresssed onnne.”
The spirits disappear as quickly as they came, and I nearly fall off my feet but I manage not to as my men rush to me. Seth gets to me first, wrapping his arm around my waist.
“Did they agree?”
“Yes,” I tell them. I will tell them about the ring later… when we get through what has to happen next.
I look up at the portal to the Otherworld. “It’s time to go home and receive my gift. It’s time to find out why the gods fear me so much. I’m worried the power will change me.”
“With us at your side, nothing that world can do will change you,” Finn states.
“We do this together,” Ryker suggests, and we do.
We walk into the portal together, but instead of coming out into the Otherworld, I see nothing but a blinding light as a voice I’ve never heard whispers into my mind.
“An Otherworldly welcome, Cursed One. We have waited for you.”
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DESCRIPTION
Thousands of Fae slaves freed. The Otherworld throne to take. A war to win.
No big deal for an assassin/thief… right?
With her new mates at her side, Daesyn heads back into The Otherworld to get her powers, unsure if Poppy has won the Royal Reaper Academy test and unable to help her.
The war has begun, not only with the Unseelie and Seelie fae, but with the gods who watch every move made. Can Finn convince his mother to help his mate?
Daesyn needs to find a way to get all four runes, save her world from its ruler, and free her people before the gods decide to end them all.
Fans of epic urban fantasy romance will love this four-book series by USA Today Bestselling Author G. Bailey. This is a reverse harem romance, meaning the main character will have more than one love interest.
This series is a crossover of the series, A Demon’s Fall, but can be read on its own. This is the final book.
CHAPTER 72
“An Otherworldly welcome, Cursed One. We have waited for you.”
The words repeat in an echo around me, like they are spoken on a wisp of wind and belong to the elements more than they do me. I can’t breathe for a few moments, as every inch of my body feels like it’s been ripped apart by power.
Fae power. It’s all I can feel and focus on as it reshapes my body to its will, morphing me with the gift of power from The Otherworld. I didn’t think it would hurt to receive my powers. I should have known better.
I grit my teeth, digging my hands into the damp ground under me, wishing it would stop. I was just with my mates, well, Ryker and Finn, but with Seth and Sebastian it is only a matter of time. They are my mates in every sense of the word and in my heart. The magic, thick, heavy, and ancient, continues to rip through my body, and I pray the runes I have will keep me alive. I can’t die because of The Cursed Rune that I was given as a baby, and The Forsaken Rune will only do so much to stay bonded to me. Its only use to is to call an army of the dead, and I need to be alive to use that. Everyone I love flashes before my eyes like a movie, starting with Ryker, my hellhound prince and true mate. Then Finn, my demigod mate who ignored the wishes of his goddess mother to be with me. Sebastian, who threw away a crown and his life in the Reaper Realm to be with me, and finally Seth. My overlord demon, who saved my life and stole my heart in the next breath. I want to be his mate because I love him, like I love each of them. I used to be so alone, with only Mossy for company, but it’s not like that anymore and it will never be again. Even if I must rip the worlds apart, I will find a way to be with them.
Poppy Riverlite. For a second, I feel like she is next to me, my soul sister. It kills me that I couldn’t be there for her final test for the throne, but I know deep down she will win. She is meant to be queen and she will make a better queen than I ever could.
But I will try for my people, for The Unseelie who have been hunted and chased their entire lives by the king.
King Einar and his new pregnant bride, Laelie.
I know exactly how I’m going to handle Einar, but Laelie, she is a problem I’m not sure about. It’s been months now since we heard of her pregnancy, and she might have had the baby for all we know of how far gone she is. I would never hurt that baby, even with the threat against my throne she or he might pose.
I have too much to do, too much to lose, to die from taking a step through a portal. I force my eyes open, and my eyes burn with the effort and the blasting purple light surrounding me. A cry leaves my lips as I sit up and look around me in a daze.
Purple fae magic is swirling around me, spinning and dancing like Gwragedd Annwn’s. Water sprites. I remember seeing one just once, as a child with my mother, in a pond. It was small and tiny, its body made of the brightest, clearest water, and it danced like this magic. The same dance, one that tells tales of older magic and lost folklore that couldn’t be said in any kind of words.
It’s beautiful, even as the magic slams through my stomach like a spear, lifting me into the air. There isn’t any pain, just a numbness setting through me as I float, held up by the magic.
I feel like I’m held for days, with no way to tell the time or count the hours. No sunsets, no moonrises, nothing changes until suddenly it does. The magic spear disappears, and I fall through the magic and crash out of the portal onto sand, rolling to a stop with a bright light of the sun shining down on me.
The Otherworld.
I’m home.
“Dae!” Finn shouts seconds before he is picking me up in his arms, and I’m too weak to even wrap my arms around his shoulders. He kisses my forehead. “I’m here. You walked into the portal and didn’t come out the other side. I nearly lost it, but I could sense you were alive with our bond, but not where you were. It’s been four days, and the others have gone to search for you. I stayed just in case.”
He pauses, and I manage to finally look up at him, his eyes like gold stars in a dark sky. His skin is a little tanned from waiting out in the sunlight, I’d guess, and his white hair is almost glowing now. He is so handsome, breath-taking as a son of a goddess should be. But it’s the way he looks at me, like I’m his entire world and he almost lost it.
“Ryker will be able to sense you’re here and will bring the other two back,” he tells me, reassuring me. “With Mossy and Caliphe, too. They went to ask the fae creatures to look for you.”
Ryker. I can feel my bond to him and Finn alive, burning within me, and I try to reach out to Ryker through it. To tell him I’m okay.
My throat is dry like sandpaper, and my lips are cracked dry as he sets us down, somewhere shaded, and I glance up to see thick leaves hanging down around us. Finn keeps me on his lap but hands me a bottle of water, and I drink it quickly, soothing my throat. “Thank you.”
I have to clear my throat a few times, knowing I’m safe in Finn’s arms even in The Otherworld. I can feel my powers back, the ones Einar took from me with the Divine Rune, and something else. Something new. “Four days?”
“Four long-ass days,” Finn states. “Where did you go?”
I try to think back to the place with magic, and I only get the deep feeling I wasn’t meant to know where I was. “The Otherworld gave me power, and it took me, held me. I don’t know where it was.”
“Do you have powers now?” he asks, running his fingers through my long black hair, searching my purple eyes. “There is something different about you, I can feel it.”
I imagine the power I saw and hold my hand out in front of me. I reach for my Unseelie fae magic, which is usually hard to pull from my body, but this time it’s like breathing. Purple magic explodes out of my hand and cuts a deep line through the sand in front of us, destroying it into nothing but a large gap.
Dust settles as my eyes widen. “I was trying for something small...”
“That wasn’t small,” Finn replies, tightening his grip on me. “That power is destructive, Dae.”
“Just what we need. I think I could destroy the gods with it,” I say, feeling I am right. I know I am, deep down in my soul. This power I’ve been given means I can destroy anything, and with The Cursed Rune, I can never die.
“Has anyone else come from The Reaper Realm?” I ask. Poppy. I need to know what happened to her and who is sitting on the throne of the Reapers.
Finn gives me a sad smile. “No, no one has come through. I’m sorry.”
“There is still hope,” I say, even as my heart hurts more than it should. Tiredness spreads through me as I rest my head on Finn’s chest. “I’m just going to close my eyes for a little and then we can save the world.”
“You rest first,” he breathes, kissing the top of my head, and I feel his daggers appear in his hands in a blast of gold light. He wraps his arms around me. “No one is touching you, Dae. Sleep.”
Nothing in the worlds could stop his command from working as I fall asleep in my mate’s arms.
CHAPTER 73
A sky full of icy rain falls on us about a mile away from the nearest village, marked by signs on the path. Finn swears and moves closer to me, tugging the hood of his cloak up. I pulled mine up about ten minutes ago when I looked up at the heavy, grey clouds drifting towards us. It’s bitterly cold out, and the howling wind is slowly turning the rain into hail. We stayed at the portal for as long as we could without food or water and decided we needed to find a village to trade for a bed for the night and something to eat. My stomach rumbles, but I don’t take my eyes off the dark shadows under the trees, marking every movement the wind makes and keeping my senses alert.
From the tense way Finn is holding himself, his daggers still held at his side, I know he is doing the same.
My cloak is soaked and stuck to me within minutes, my boots filling with more water with every muddy puddle I step into. Between my starving stomach, aching muscles, and soaked clothes, I barely manage a smile to Finn as he looks at me.
“We will need to pretend to be travellers, and you need to keep your head down with those eyes,” Finn warns.
“I’m used to being unseen,” I remind him. “I was once a thief and an assassin. It was my job to be unseen.”
His daggers disappear into gold dust, and he moves closer, picking up my wet hand and linking our fingers. Finn never needed to say many words to make me understand he is always there for me.
Even if I hated him when we first met. I stopped hating him when I realised why he put up a wall between us and who he really is behind it.
That he is as messed up as I am and trying to make a good life from the tiny bits that life gave us.
The village is small but big enough that travellers aren’t going to be looked at too deeply, and the streets are filled with uneven stones, flattened to make a road, but puddles of rain and mud are hard to dodge as we walk through. The houses are basic, brick and stone, slate roofs, and short stone walls. There are few fae around, and the ones we do come across don’t look our way as we head through the village and find an inn at the end of a darkened street. The inn looks busy, yellow light shining from the bay windows onto the dark street, and shadows move around inside enough to suggest there are a bunch of people in there. Finn nods at me, and I tug my cloak tighter as we head inside, and I step behind him, keeping my eyes low and hidden under my cloak hood. The inn has a bar, and there are twenty-two fae in the room, from my quick count, and the creaking floorboards above me suggest more upstairs. At least five of the fae turn to look at us, watching us with clear distrust as Finn leads me to the bar.
“We need a room and food. We pay well,” Finn gruffly states, and I hear him drop a bag of gold coins, the money the fae use, onto the table. Thank the fae that Finn thought ahead more than I did, as any money I have wouldn’t be accepted here.
The bartender and inn owner, if I had to guess, is a big man with a long grey beard, scars on his thick arms, and he sighs.
“You gonna cause me trouble?” he demands, his voice gruff. “Where the Unseelie go, there is trouble.”
I lift my head, because there is no point in hiding now, and meet his green eyes. “Lucky I’m half reaper and maybe that will give us luck.”
“Maybe, doll,” he replies and takes the bag of gold, exchanging it for a worn silver key. “Third floor, room two. I’ll bring up grub and drinks in half an hour. No trouble.”
“Thank you,” I tell him, knowing he is taking a risk by letting us stay. I won’t forget his kindness.
Finn takes my hand, and we go up the three flights of stairs to find our room, and Finn unlocks the door, waving me in. The room is dark and cold, but it’s dry, and that’s all that matters to me as I unclip my cloak as Finn shuts the door. He clicks his fingers, and the fireplace lights up, warmth and light filling the room. There is a small double bed, that makes me wonder if Finn is going to hang half off it all night, and a line across the room to hang clothes. Other than one tiny window that gives a brilliant view of a brick wall with ivy on, there is a tiny, uneven wooden table and two creaky-looking chairs by the fire. I hang my cloak up and pull off my clothes until I’m just in my underwear and I climb onto the bed, pulling the bedcovers onto me to stop my shivering. It doesn’t work well. It’s still freezing, and my wet hair just makes it worse. Finn strips off, leaving only his boxers on, and I admire his golden muscles, his broad shoulders and narrow waist, the six-pack in front of it.
He smirks as he looks over at me, reading my expression.
“Does my mate want to share this bed?”
Hearing him call me his mate makes me shiver for another reason than the cold. He is walking to me, a man on a mission, just as the door is knocked. Finn doesn’t bother to hide his annoyance as he pulls the door open and a small fae woman squeals, nearly dropping the silver plate filled with food and drinks in her hands.
“Thanks,” Finn gruffly says and takes the tray, and the fae woman near enough runs away.
I shake my head at my grumpy demigod as he puts the tray on the table. I wrap the blanket around me and sit opposite him, barely saying a word as I devour the stew, bread, and milk. It’s all bland, and there isn’t an herb in sight for flavour, but I don’t care as I eat it. I was so hungry. Finn seems to be in the same boat as he doesn’t pause, and soon, we have eaten everything.
“I was thinking one of us should go downstairs, listen to see if anyone talks about Einar or the rebels,” I suggest.
“Not tonight,” Finn replies. “It’s too risky for either of us or we could be caught. The inn was sheer luck when they knew what you are.”
“I wouldn’t be,” Caliphe exclaims from nowhere in sight, and I turn to see her slide through the window and fly to me.
I grin, and she smiles back. “Glad to see the hellhound wasn’t wrong and you are back in The Otherworld.”
“Seems The Otherworld wanted me for a bit,” I reply. “Are Ryker, Seth, Sebastian, and Mossy, okay?”
“Yes, and with the rebels. They found us and suggested sending me to get you, as it would be easier and safer than the others travelling. They attract too much attention,” Caliphe states. “I will go and spy around the inn and in the villagers’ homes.”
“Aren’t you tired?” I softly ask. “You can rest.”
“It’s been a long time since I was home, and I do not tire here,” she explains and bows her small head before flying out the window.
“Always a surprise, that one,” I murmur, my voice drifting off as Finn presses his lips to my shoulder and softly kisses me. His hands glide around my stomach, and he pulls my back to his body, pressing me against every hard inch of him.
I turn around, and he kisses me, devouring my lips with a passion only my mate can have. I wrap my legs around him, sinking my hands into his hair as he carries me to the bed and lays me down. The fire makes his skin glow, his eyes burn, and his hair like wisps of a flame as I look up at him.
“You’re so beautiful,” he tells me, running his hand down my chest.
I unhook my bra as he pushes my panties to the side and slides a finger into me, making me gasp. Finn doesn’t waste time, bringing me close to the edge before stopping and pulling off my panties. He flips me over, and in one smooth glide, he is fully inside me.
I moan, clutching the bedsheets tightly as he thrusts in and out of me. A perfect rhythm.
“Not yet,” he growls as I feel myself getting closer. His hands dig into my hips as he thrusts harder and harder. He tortures me, never letting me get close to the edge until he decides.
His thumb barley grazes my clit before he whispers into my ear, “Now, Daesyn.”
I cry out as I climax around him, and he thrusts a few more times before joining me with a shout that could shake the walls of the inn.
I collapse under him, and he picks me up, tucking me into his body and wrapping us in the surrounding blanket. “I wasn’t expecting that tonight.”
He chuckles. “Then what comes next is going to be another shock. I only need a small time to rest.”
I laugh as he grips my ass and pulls me up his body, lining us up. He is hard once again, and my eyes widen as desire flickers through my body, ready and waiting for him. He cups the back of my neck and pulls me in for a soul-searching kiss.
