Soul Page 3

  Something about the sensation broke the spell, and I shrank back, rolling across the bed to get away from him. His laughter was humourless, and I feared looking into his eyes again.

  He called out something in a language I didn’t recognise. An elderly woman scuttled into the room and tugged at my clothes with fingertips that had been cut off and replaced with needles. Her faded blue eyes held my gaze, telling me everything her sewn lips couldn’t. I took off my clothes, unable to bear her touch. I covered my body with my arms as she took humiliatingly intimate measurements, but the dark faery refused to look away.

  The urge to stare him down almost overcame me, but the woman pricked my side with her needle fingers and drew my attention. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, and I rethought any idea I might have had about challenging him. What worked in my world wasn’t going to cut it with the fae.

  The woman finished and pressed my clothes into my hands. I dressed as quickly as possible, but my fingers kept fumbling. She left as I turned to face the dark faery again. His expression sent ripples of anger through me. I couldn’t respond to his arrogance with mildness.

  “Who are you?” I asked defiantly, surprised by the steadiness of my voice.

  “I am bodyguard, lord, and defender of the one true queen.” His response was robotic and automatic, as if I had triggered a switch.

  “I thought there were two queens,” I blurted.

  He frowned. “Lady Mirela is the One True Queen of the One True Court. All others are unimportant.”

  Lust. As I thought.

  He circled the bed. “I wish to present you as a gift to my lady. You will tell her you are willing. You will beg her to take your life. Your blood will anoint the Winter Solstice and bring Lady Mirela good fortune.”

  “I’m not willing,” I said sharply.

  “You must be willing.” His eyes narrowed. “You must agree.”

  “I’m not, and I won’t.”

  He raised his arm as if to strike me. I flinched, too wary of his sword to even attempt any self-defence moves.

  A familiar voice interrupted. “Lord!” The silver-haired faery rushed into the room. “Betrayal! Your lady’s in trouble. Quickly! She needs you.”

  The change in the dark faery was almost comical. Worry flooded his eyes, even though his constant smile remained. With his hand on his sword, he ran out of the room with the silver-haired faery, leaving me alone again. I couldn’t understand whose side I was supposed to be on. I sat on the bed and chewed my fingernails. All I could do was wait.

  The right faery returned.

  “You’re back,” I said with relief.

  “I made a promise.” He wiped sweat from his brow. “We need to get out of here. You can’t die tonight. We can’t let him return. It will ruin everything. I’ve pitted them against each other, but I don’t know how it will play out. We need to leave before—”

  “I can’t even see the door!”

  “I know.” He ran his hands through his hair, a curiously human gesture. “I’ll try to…” He raised his hands as if pressing against the very air. “Tell me if anything looks different to you.”

  I moved to his side, staring at the solid wall. I clutched his arm. “The door! I see it now.”

  “Maybe they died,” he whispered, gripping my hand and pulling me through the door.

  We ran down the corridor and back into the great hall. The music had stopped, and groups had gathered around the black-winged faery, who was battling the ferocious-looking wingless brunette who had stood by the silver throne. She jerked her head in our direction, distracted, and my companion dragged me back into the room again.

  “What the hell?”

  “We were seen. She’ll look for us as soon as she wins. She can’t find this room either, but if the one who holds the magic dies… Hold on a moment while I think this through. Perhaps she’ll lose.”

  That would mean the black-winged faery won. I didn’t like the sound of that. “And if he comes back for me?”

  “Right now, if we try to leave, both of them would hunt us down. It would be a great sport for their kind.”

  I sat on the bed. “I’m going to die here. I can’t believe it. I’ve been in the worst places with terrible people. I’ve been attacked with a knife! And now I’m going to die in a place that doesn’t exist. I’m going to get killed by something that has wings. Wings!”

  “You won’t. Stop panicking. Look at me. What’s your name?”

  “Cara.”

  He gave my shoulder an awkward pat. “I’m Drake. Listen to me carefully, Cara. There are important things I have left to do. I’m not ready to die yet, and I’m certainly not planning on dying here tonight, so I’m going to make sure we both get out of here.”

  I stared at him. “Why are you really helping me?”

  “Neither of us should be at this festival tonight. Neither of us had a choice. And if the queens’ bodyguards are killing each other, then this is the beginning of a war. Maybe the Irish fae are trying to claw back their glory days, but they’re definitely up to something. Your death would make life more complicated for everyone who isn’t royalty.”

  “But how?”

  “Human blood spilled unwillingly at a festival like this would invoke ancient laws. If one queen defeats the other, there will be one court, and that would mean bloodshed and a dictatorship. There are so many reasons why this shouldn’t happen.”

  We sat in silence for a couple of seconds, listening to the fighting on the other side of the wall.

  “You said ‘their kind’ before,” I said. “Not our kind. Their kind.”

  “We’re not all the same,” he said fiercely, looking older than I had first gauged him to be.

  “You’re not a boy, are you?”

  He looked at me quizzically.

  “Never mind. Can I touch your wings?” If I was going to die, I might as well go out knowing what a faery’s wings felt like.

  He sighed. “Go on then.”

  I reached out and hesitantly placed the tips of my fingers on one of his pulsing wings. It wasn’t feathery, but it was super soft, like a butterfly wing. I ran my hand down it, curious about the vein-like shimmers under the translucent surface. Something sparked under my fingertips. The wings moved slowly, and Drake moaned a little, his eyes half-closed. I froze, unsure of myself.

  He pulled away from me abruptly. “Stop it.”

  I leaned back, excited and nervous in equal measure.

  He sat on the bed, leaving some distance between us. I had spooked him, and I wasn’t sure why.

  “This room is actually a hovel,” he said in a low voice. “Glamours and illusions, all of it.”

  “Are you really helping me? Or is that another illusion?”

  He didn’t respond.

  I swallowed hard. “I’m going to die here, aren’t I?”

  He looked at me with pity. “Your chances are not good.”

  “If I agreed, would it stop a war?”

  “No! You don’t agree. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Lots of things.” I inched closer to him. “And this might sound fucked up, but if I’m going to die in the next five minutes, then I’d really like to know something first.”

  Apparently startled by my sudden advance, he didn’t move when I kissed him. I closed my eyes and fell into the faery kiss, something even the smallest child knew was foolish and forbidden. Their touch was addictive, but death by kiss sounded better than death by unwilling sacrifice.

  After a moment, he returned the kiss eagerly, and my grip on reality loosened. I welcomed the release. Maybe he expected to die, too, and figured we might as well make a memory that wasn’t full of death and darkness first.

  Every nerve in my body came to life as we kissed. I had never felt so alive as when I faced the possibility of death, but the sensation was different, more powerful and real than anything else.

  He pulled back slightly, still nose to nose with me.

  I smiled. “You lo
ok stoned.”

  “It’s the queen,” he said, his eyes dazed. “This is the effect she has on people. But you shouldn’t have done that. We’re toxic to you. Dangerous. For a human, you take a lot of chances.”

  “We’re not all the same.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re not.”

  An awful wailing wrenched us apart. The sound seared through my eardrums and pierced my brain, making my blood run cold. Banshee. It had to be.

  “Now’s our chance,” he said, “while they’re distracted.”

  He led me back into the great hall. Some beings were fighting, while others were running away, screaming. Gore stained the walls and floor, and even the thrones were blood-splattered. We had left the safety of the bedroom to run right through a massacre.

  Drake gripped my hand and led me across the room. I thanked every deity I had ever heard of in my relief.

  I heard a shout and turned to see a faery running after us. His black wings were dotted with scarlet blood. We broke into a sprint, but he was on our heels when we reached the exit.

  Drake half-pushed, half-threw me toward the flight of steps. “Run! I’m behind you!”

  I stumbled up the stairs, finally stepping out onto the earth and gulping in cold, brisk air. All haziness vanished, and reality hit me right in the chest.

  I turned to help Drake, but another piercing shriek filled the air, sending me to my knees in pain. When my eyes stopped watering, the hole had vanished. The earth beneath my feet was covered in vibrant green grass, and the strange old trees had disappeared. Regular night sounds filled the air; everything was back to normal. I had escaped, but Drake was still trapped inside.

  I clawed at the soil, but I remembered the old stories. I would never make it back into the land of the fae twice. I knew the rules. I had spent my one night with the fae. And the faery who had saved my life, the one I could still taste on my lips, was lost to me forever.

  Chapter Four

  I sat on the frosty ground for close to an hour, huddled up until the chill of the earth seeped so deep into my bones that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. A void had been dug inside me that was far worse than the nothing I usually felt. It was less than nothing yet so much more. My heart had torn in two, and being away from the fae felt like dying. I had felt strong, true emotions: fear, anger, desperation, and even lust. I was terrified I would never feel anything so powerful again.

  Because even though there was nothing left, I still knew what was possible, and I yearned to feel again, just for one more second. Only the chill remained, and that had more to do with the careless disregard for life I had witnessed rather than the cold of an Irish winter. And the reminder of the careless disregard I had always had for my life scared me all the more.

  Dawn threatened to break, and everything around me seemed perfectly normal except dulled, as if all the colour had been drained out of the world. Life was muted after the fae.

  Voices and laughter echoed from somewhere nearby. I got to my feet and limped away, my shoes still with the fae. I folded my arms across my chest and hurried out of the park to begin the walk home. I had no money, no bag, no phone, and no other choices.

  I glanced over my shoulder often, feeling that creeping sensation of someone watching my back. A garda car slowed as it passed, but it didn’t stop. The trip home passed quickly because I was so absorbed in my memories of the night before. My experience had shaken me, but I began to explain it away, thinking of times in the club when my drink could have been spiked, something plausible that could have caused me to see so many impossible things.

  How could I have survived a night with the fae when they all seemed so hell-bent on destroying each other? Except for Drake. A tear rolled down my cheek, surprising me. I hadn’t cried since my brother’s death, hadn’t shed a tear for myself no matter what happened, yet the floodgates were leaking, threatening to unleash a torrent.

  I snuck into my house without waking my parents. They slept in on Sundays, but I’d have to face them later. I was close to my twenty-first birthday and paid my own way, but that didn’t mean my father had let his control over me slip. But at that moment, I was too weary to deal with anything but getting into bed. I grieved for Drake, a stranger, and felt sure I had lost my mind.

  I hid under the duvet until my body stopped shaking. I tossed and turned, too wound up to sleep. Memories became reruns, playing over and over in my mind until I wanted to scream. I had been so determined to escape, but all I could think about was getting back in. I wanted the apples and liquid gold, the four-poster bed and the faery kiss, even if none of it had been real. An ache in the pit of my stomach drew me back to that spot in the park, an ache that made me think I would never rest easy if I didn’t see the fae again.

  It was the food. I shouldn’t have tasted their food. I would never forget. I would pine away with longing. The kiss had been worse. The kiss would kill me.

  No.

  I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. I wouldn’t let those thoughts take me. I would sleep. I would forget. I would move on. They couldn’t hurt me. I had gotten away. They wouldn’t come back for me.

  I wished I could ask my grandparents’ advice, but I hadn’t seen them since Darragh’s funeral. They’d fought loudly and angrily with my father. My mother stood by her husband’s side, even after he struck her father. My grandparents hadn’t come back for me; they were as lost to me as my brother was.

  I fell asleep with tears in my eyes, too tired to dream. At one point, my mother’s nagging voice woke me, but I pulled the covers over my head until she went away. I slept until late afternoon, but even then, exhaustion overwhelmed me.

  I showered for too long, hoping the hot water would wash away the invisible stains. My legs shook as the memories flooded back. No haze protected me. My mind was clear and ready to deal with the reality of what I had seen: death, blood, mayhem.

  I wanted to throw up when I remembered how out of it I had been, how I hadn’t even reacted to the casual violence. I relived how it felt to touch Drake’s wings, to lose myself in his kiss, how adrenaline had coursed through my body when I escaped, only for Drake to remain trapped underground. He had been determined to survive, but he was as good as dead if that black-winged faery had reached him.

  Shivering anew despite the humid heat of the room, I stepped out of the shower, dried off, and got dressed, readying myself to face the music downstairs.

  In the kitchen, Mam’s petite body was turned away from me as she scrubbed the counter. She cleaned all day, every day, whether the surfaces of the house were dirty or not. I mooched in the press and found some chocolate to nibble on.

  Mam turned to glare at me. “If you’re going to stay out all night long, doing God knows what, then the least you can do is eat a decent breakfast.”

  I grinned and met her gaze, but started with fright at the sight of her. Her dark brown eyes were tinted with a colour I had never seen. The shade was off the spectrum; I couldn’t name it. Something glinted, and I grabbed her arm, ignoring her bewilderment. I peered at her glistening skin. I held my arm next to hers, but the shimmers from the night before were gone. Her skin was almost transparent. Blinking fast, I backed away from her, unsure of myself. Was I seeing things? Was I still intoxicated from the fae food? Was she even my mother?

  Her nose wrinkled the way it always did, and I sighed with relief.

  “Are you still drunk?” she asked, sounding bemused.

  I shook my head. “I’m just… I thought I saw something. Never mind.”

  She shook her head. “You’re a walking anti-alcohol advertisement, Cara. Avoid drink, or you’ll end up like this poor soul.”

  “Hilarious,” I said, moving past her to scrounge in the fridge.

  “If you’re not going to eat breakfast, at least have some fruit. I filled the bowl yesterday, so no complaining about brown bits.”

  I glanced at the fruit bowl on the table, caught sight of an apple, and dry-retched over the sink. Mam tutted behin
d me, but she rubbed my back.

  I sucked in a breath. “I’m fine. I… my stomach just turned.”

  “Hmm, so what happened last night then? Too drunk to remember where you live?”

  I didn’t respond, gripping the edge of the counter with white-knuckled fingers as I tried to breathe past the nauseated feeling.

  “It must have been a good night. Zoe’s been ringing all morning. She’s starting to sound a little desperate.”

  I groaned. I had completely forgotten about Zoe. I didn’t have a clue how to explain why I had been on the missing list all night. I ran upstairs to find my mobile before remembering I no longer had my bag. I had a strange sense that I had lost something very important.

  I spent the next hour slouched in front of the television, hoping Sunday morning reruns of reality shows would distract me from forming actual thoughts of my own. Dad grumbled when he saw me, but I was pretty good at drowning him out in my head. He and Mam sat close together on the sofa. Her skin was still shining. Maybe I was suffering from some kind of ongoing hallucination, but a growing part of me didn’t want that to be true either.

  Dad caught me staring at Mam and frowned. “I hope you don’t think you’re going to make this a habit, Cara. Drinking all night and sleeping all day isn’t going to help you pass any exams. I’m not paying your way through college when you decide to flake on your course and try another that actually has the potential to get you a job. If you fail your exams, you’re out of here.”

  I didn’t bother answering. Experience told me that wasn’t the way to go.

  The house phone rang, so I ran for it. I would take any excuse to get away from Dad without looking as though I had backed down. He might have enjoyed making life as uncomfortable as possible for me, but I refused to let him make me feel as though I didn’t belong in my own home.

  As soon as I answered, Zoe’s irate voice shouted in my ear. I held the phone away from me in exasperation.

  “Will you ever shut up?” I said at last.