Facets of Feyrie Box Set, page 54
part #1 of Facets of Feyrie Series
Tearing himself out of my grasp, he moves a few feet from me, panting.
“This anger is… attractive. I want you to rage and slaughter, and then I want to fuck you while you’re covered in the blood of your enemies.” The fire in his eyes heats and parts of me get hotter as well. “This very second, I want to bury my teeth in your bloody skin and feast on you,” he sighs. “This is unacceptable. I may want these things, but not with this kind of Magikal push.”
“It’s not all Magiks, Phobe,” I say quietly, climbing to my feet. I start pulling the leaves out of my hair. Every moment of that was fucking awesome, his words after—more so. I love the wildness of him because something inside of me responds to it. This though… he’s right, something is off, because this level is unusual, even for us.
Especially at such a bad time. Phobe and I are incredibly attracted to each other, but neither of us is keen on having sex given the current situation. We’re not that kind of monsters.
Pushing my mind off sex, rather forcibly, I say, “This bullshit is affecting you, too, isn’t it?” He nods. Oh, this isn’t good at all. Phobe going batshit? That’s how the apocalypse starts.
“Anything that affects you affects me,” he states, rather calmly.
“Does that mean that it’s my behavior versus the actual Magiks?” He nods again. Okay, that helps. “Let’s see if we can get home without ending the world, all right?” This time he rolls his eyes at me. For some reason, this makes me smile, and as I’m turning back around to start walking again, I see the smirk on his mouth.
The shit did it on purpose.
Chapter Two
The wash of lustful rage that consumed me earlier is easing, but it's not entirely gone. I want to grab her and fuck her senseless, and the thought is so tempting that it takes every ounce of willpower I possess to deny it. There’s still residual heat between us, that never seems to ease, no matter the circumstances. How can I touch her and not feel it? She’s the pulse of life for me.
Watching her walking in front of me, oblivious to her surroundings, amuses me also—which helps with the almost undeniable want of her. I think it also relieves her to know that her emotions are what affect me, not the Sidhe mess. Only her. Our essences are so intermingled that I get the backlash of all that untapped violence inside of her—and I love it. I love the chaos of it, and the rage and the desire to destroy, but she doesn't like destruction in the same way that I do. I destroy things, and that’s fun to me, but she can’t tolerate hurting those she considers innocent. This part of me is something that I need to learn to control around her, or we’ll both be in trouble.
I see the flash of her black eyes over her shoulder, as I feel her turbulent emotions through our bond like little shocks of static electricity on my skin. No, WE will not be in trouble, but this world she cares about—the people she cares about will be. I can’t be the cause of something that she’ll regret in such a way. Not because I care about any of them, but because of the guilt she will have if she hurts them. Even inadvertently.
Seeing her hurt in such a way displeases me.
Pushing through the last bits of her shield that I think she’s barely trying to maintain, I let her thoughts sink into me. A small crowd is standing outside of the Sidhe. Unsure of what has happened to draw them out. She braces herself to deal with them. She’s not good at explaining things and doesn’t like having to do it but pushes herself just the same. In Iza’s mind, getting her fingernails pulled out one by one is preferable to dealing with more drama. Her thoughts focus on Michael standing at the front of the crowd.
“We found out where Jameson was taken from. Now, who has enough skill with a computer to see if we can get anything off this?” She holds out the crushed device.
Michael steps forward and takes it from her, looking at her, then at the mess in his hands. “What happened to it?” he asks.
“I was a little mad,” is all she says before pushing past the group of people to walk inside.
Nika steps into her path. Without saying a word, Iza firmly pushes her to the side and out of her way. I suspect the dragon wants some type of explanation or reassurance, but she won’t be getting either one. Grazing the dragon’s thoughts, I see that’s not all. She has certain expectations of what Iza should be doing and, in her opinion, Iza shouldn’t return home until Jameson is found. There are moments when Nika completely oversteps her place in Iza’s life, putting importance on herself that doesn’t exist. Her demeanor has pushed her to the sidelines of the ones Iza tolerates but dislikes on principle. It’s the dragon’s fault, Iza isn’t the type of creature that you can push without her pushing you back.
If you’re not strong enough for the pushback…
Following Iza to Jameson’s room, I lean against the doorframe, watching her mutter to herself while looking on his computer. Clicking around on it, she starts to type.
“What are you doing?” I ask, curious despite myself.
“He has this blog thing, and people read the dumb shit he posts. I figure we can start here.” After a few minutes, she closes it with satisfaction on her face. “I think they’ll get my point.”
“Did you discover anything else?” I ask, to maintain the ruse that her shields are still up. I like playing this game with her, even during times like this.
“Jameson has bad taste in pornography, but other than that, no.” She sits back and crosses her arms. “I don’t understand any of this. It feels like there’s a big, important chess game happening, and I have no idea what the rules are.”
“Do you even know how to play chess?”
“No, it looked a bit boring to play. Too much like life. A cruel parody of how so many leaders sacrifice the little guy, to reach your goals. I didn’t need a game to teach me that life lesson.” Wiping a hand down her face, she looks up at me. “You’re awful quiet about the entire thing,” she says, the doubt of my lack of opinion thick in her voice.
“Nothing I say will help. I don’t have any more information than you do, yet.” I give her an honest answer. I don’t think she;’l appreciate me keeping anything from her concerning Jameson. She genuinely cares about the imp, all of them. Something I don’t understand, especially in Jameson’s case. He betrayed us and sacrificed us, much like the king does to the pawns in the chess game. All to protect himself.
“Would it not be better to carry on and let them keep him?” I don’t think she’ll agree, but the option needs to be put forward.
“They’ll kill him, Phobe.” I shrug at her answer.
Jameson isn’t an essential person in her life. He helps her, yes, but they’re not tasks that someone else can’t be trained to complete, possibly more effectively. I tell her so, “I don’t see the big deal; he’s replaceable.”
She sighs and says, “Jameson does a lot around here, and he deserves the chance to redeem himself. He’s been working so godsdamn hard, and he warrants more than to die at the hands of some slutty vampire who bathes in dog piss.”
That raises another question. “Why do you think she’s trying to hide her scent?”
“You know,” she stands and crosses the room to stop in front of me, “I’ve been thinking about that. I think because whoever is pulling strings doesn’t know what I am, only the who.” She walks past me, heading towards our room.
Yes, our room, even the Sidhe, knows it.
“Shifters have a strong sense of smell, but they don’t have one nearly as good as I do. The man who squished poor Jameson into the mud is a shifter. I could smell his pheromones all over the place. He was excited about hurting the chicken man. You know,” entering the bedroom she strips off most of her clothes and climbs onto the bed clad only in her underwear. “It’s kinda strange they didn’t try to mask his scent too.”
Distracted by her, I say nothing at first. Even with all the clothes stuffed into her closet, she still prefers being nude. Not that I’m complaining. I sit on the end of the bed, close enough to feel her body heat but far enough away to fight the temptation to touch her. Once I touch her, there are other things that will take precedence in my mind, and all of this will be momentarily forgotten.
“He’s expendable.” I break the thick silence, giving voice to her suspicions.
The small, other part of me doesn’t care that she’s in turmoil, it cares that it wants her, hungers for her. Right now, turning that part loose on her will cause more harm than good. The majority of what makes up the creature I am does care, at least, about her. I feel nothing concerning the rest of her refugee family. That’s the only reason I give a shit about finding the foolish imp who got himself captured, over something so absurd, that even Iza can’t make up an excuse for his behavior.
Then again, going by one example of her level of ridiculous, Iza does things like lick wallpaper in the store because she thought it would have a flavor like a movie she watched with ‘snozberries.’ That’s the level that very few creatures achieve. I catch myself almost smiling. She had turned to me with the oddest look on her face and told me in no uncertain terms, that the wallpaper did not taste like berries of any kind, and that TV lied, then proceeded to lick it again to be certain.
“What are you smiling about?” she demands.
Letting the smile that is tickling my lips break free, I answer, “Snozberries.”
Covering her face with her hand, she peeks at me from between her fingers and says, “I feel like it was a perfectly acceptable mistake. It looked like real fruit, like in the movie.”
“That’s why you are hiding your face?” I tease. Her tongue pokes out between her fingers.
Dropping her hand, her face grows serious as she asks, “Why did they pick him? Out of all the people, why him?” The frustration in her voice makes it deeper, huskier, and her eyes flash black.
Even with her obvious distress, I decide to answer her honestly. “He was the easiest to trick out of the people in the Sidhe. Most of the others are too smart to fall for such a ploy.” Not surprised that it doesn’t take the frown off her face. “Iza, at least it’s not one of your heathens.”
“Still doesn’t make it right. Jameson isn’t very strong, Phobe. I’m not sure how he’ll handle this. It might break him completely.” Her reasoning surprises me.
“You’re worried about his mental health?” I can’t help but ask in surprise.
“His entire health, because they’ll probably kill him. Especially if he opens his mouth.” In that, she isn’t wrong. Jameson talking often makes people want to kill him.
In my perspective, Jameson is expendable, and always will be. Compared to her, all of them are. In this case, she can recover from his rather quickly. I’m pleased they took him instead of one of the children. When it comes to them, I’m not sure she could recover, ever. She’s formed an attachment for them that nearly touches the strength of the one between the two of us she smiles at me, and I know how hard their deaths would hit her. Hers would make me inconsolable. I can admit it at this moment, at least to myself.
The temperature of the room drops, and she doubles over, a hand pressing on her stomach with all the color leached out of her face. The backlash of something hitting her through the Sidhe wafts through our bond. I pull her onto my lap. There’s nothing I can do to ease this pain. Expanding my darkness out, I look for a culprit, but there’s none. A residual taste that’s similar to what attacked her before.
The trojan is showing itself.
“Someone… someone just died.” The disbelief in her voice is enough to make me pause, and before I can peek into her thoughts, she’s off my lap and up on her feet. She is attempting, unsuccessfully, to pull on her clothes while trying to walk at the same time. Grabbing her waist while walking behind her, I steady her to keep her from ending up face first on the floor. Other than this insignificant thing, I’m powerless to help. This is something between her and the Sidhe, something that has already passed, an enemy I can’t see to fight. I can sense things sometimes, but I’m only getting echoes of what has already come to pass.
Which gives me no direction to go, no intruder to look out for. When this happened before, I could sense the attack. It was blatant and a show of Magikal muscle by the perpetrator, so I thought at the time. Now, I’m starting to doubt that assumption. The blatant attack was potentially a misdirection, and I fell for it.
I suspect Light, but I can’t prove it. Once upon a time, the three of us were equally matched. There would be no hesitation about confronting him. That was a long time ago. I’m not the creature I once was, not yet. One can’t replenish all the power lost in a thousand years in a few months. Not at the slow rate, I’m feeding. I’ll start feeding more, building my strength. This ensures a confrontation between the two of us, one I need to be prepared for.
My gut tells me he’s the one behind all of it. Going after him, if I can even find him, will set off a war that I don’t think these creatures can survive. That Iza can’t survive. For a thousand years, I’ve wallowed in slavery, my power slowly being starved out of me. In this physical form, I’m also incredibly limited.
Until I am once again at my full strength, I can’t take him on.
Unlike me, he wasn’t spelled into a physical form and retains his true form and all the abilities that come with it. He’s Light incarnate, and it allows him to possess others. I can’t hurt him unless I can catch him in a mortal form. In his true form, there’s nothing to sink my claws into. It’s very frustrating, almost as much as the woman in front of me.
I genuinely believe that this was always meant to happen, Light and Darkness going against each other. There has never been any form of affection or relationship between us.
The only one who ever shows that is Life. He likes to be sentimental and call us brothers, and I’ve fallen into that habit and used the term. But we’re not even remotely close to being related. We’re merely three beings who became aware of existence at the same time. All with different powers, purposes, and strengths. I abused mine; all three of us did and do. Unlike Light and myself, Life, at least, sticks to some semblance of moral code.
Light’s only code is to be worshipped by all.
I need fucking facts to move forward. Life on our side is the only way to win this as things stand. For that, I’m at a loss. Perhaps Iza knows something I haven’t worked out? Snooping around inside of her head, I find that, although she felt the death of an imp she doesn’t know the cause, either. She isn’t happy about it, and as we walk through the hallways that the Sidhe creates for her, her mood deteriorates even more.
Val is the one who died, the imp who was sick before. One she doesn’t know well but has a bit of a soft spot for because of what happened to his family. This likely means the others who were sick are in danger as well. The sickness was the planting of the seed, and the imp’s death is the bloom.
The out of control moments of her Magiks are possibly another part of it, but I’m starting to suspect something else might be the culprit.
First, I need to calm Iza down because the anger that’s driving her is steadily building stronger. She can be very emotional at times, but this level of anger is uncommon for her and will make her act out in senseless ways. It doesn’t matter that I like the darkness that’s alive and showing its teeth inside of her. Iza always pulls a visceral reaction out of me—this amplifies it, significantly. The deep, primal part of me wants to encourage it. The part of me that’s brought out by Iza wants to dissuade it, protect her from the consequences of it.
A conundrum, this war between two fragments of my personality.
The plan I settled on is to find a way to reach both goals. I haven’t found a way yet, but I won’t stop searching until I do. Both of the creatures I am all of the creatures I am, love her—no, it’s not merely love; it goes beyond that. So far beyond that, even I don’t know where it ends.
Iza is everything to me.
“Why do I have a feeling you’re having a conversation with yourself about me?” Coming out of my thoughts at her question, I look down into her eyes. She’s standing in front of me, her arms crossed. The anger temporarily banked inside of her, raging behind a mental wall. This shows exactly how strong she is, and I like it, too.
Although, her knowing I’m thinking about her is suspicious. Studying her active thoughts, she’s incredibly perceptive at times. I check in case she has suddenly developed mind-reading abilities. She hasn’t and is merely showing how deep her mind can truly be.
Opting to stick with the truth, I say, “I’m trying to decide whether to help you control the anger or let it out.” Both of her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline in surprise. It amuses me that, given all that she has gone through with me, I can still surprise her.
“I’m used to your brutal honesty, but that’s honest even for you.” Her eyes sharpen on me. “Which one do you think is the right choice?” She’s seriously asking me my opinion on this subject after what I said?
Squashing the small flutter of flattery in my stomach, I answer, “There isn’t a right choice in this situation. You’re a creature of the dark, a living breathing representation of it. Letting that part of you out doesn’t make you evil. You are what you are. It’s why I don’t understand your strange concern about being reviled by these people.”
A strangely moral one that has no place in her life. She won’t go on some murderous rampage if she embraces what she is, at least not against the creatures she has cared for. The masses of Light Fey, though, would be in danger of her doing exactly that. Not only would they become her fodder, but she would also unleash… oh, now I see. It isn’t herself she is worried for.
