Chapter 4
1258 Words
The woman who had raised her. Protected her. Lied to her, apparently, but also loved her in the hard, fierce way that mattered more than softness ever could. Gone.
Elara turned away sharply, one hand over her mouth as her vision blurred and the standing stones shimmered through tears she refused to let fall, not here, not in front of him, not in front of anyone, and she took a breath that hurt and another that hurt more, while behind her Kael said nothing.
That, more than anything, kept her from shattering.
After a long moment, she scrubbed at her face with the heel of her hand and turned back around.
“All right,” she said, voice hoarse. “Explain.”
Kael was watching the tree line again, as if expecting more company. “This is not the place.”
“Funny, because I’m not going anywhere until I know why vampires were in my house and why one of them asked if I knew what I was.”
His gaze came back to her, cool and direct. “You truly don’t know.”
It was not a question.
Elara lifted her chin, anger flaring through the grief like a match struck in the dark. “You say that like it’s my fault.”
“It may become your problem.”
“Excellent. Another reassuring sentence.”
For the second time, that almost-not-smile touched his mouth, and she could already tell he was going to be infuriating.
Kael stepped toward the dead creature at her feet and crouched beside it. His hand moved to the collar, pulling it aside to reveal a black mark burned into the pale skin beneath.
Elara hesitated, then edged closer despite every sensible instinct she possessed.
The mark looked like a circle split through with jagged lines, almost like antlers made of thorns.
“It means something,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Well?”
He rose in one fluid motion. “It means they were not hunting at random.”
A chill crept over her skin. “They were hunting me.”
“Yes.”
She let out a hollow breath. “And I’m meant to be calm about that?”
“No.” There was something almost respectful in the bluntness of it.
Elara glanced at the corpse again, then away. “Who sent them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, or you won’t tell me?”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “If I knew, I would tell you.”
“Because?”
“Because if another faction has learned what you are before the Court has, then the situation is worse than I assumed.”
Elara stared. “Court.”
He nodded once.
She laughed again, but there was no humour in it at all. “Of course there’s a Court. Why wouldn’t there be a vampire Court? Why stop at monsters when the night can clearly get more dramatic?”
Kael ignored that. “Can you walk?”
She blinked. “Yes?”
“Good. We leave now.”
“No.”
He went very still.
Elara crossed her arms, though the gesture would have looked more defiant if she had not been barefoot, shaking, and standing next to a dead vampire. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Kael Varyn.”
“Well, that is a very dramatic name, so points for consistency, but it does not answer the important questions.”
“It answers one.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Do all vampires speak in riddles, or are you just especially annoying?”
A flicker of something passed through his expression again. Definitely amusement this time. Very slight. Very unwelcome.
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m trying not to follow a stranger with fangs into the middle of nowhere.”
“You are already in the middle of nowhere.”
That was, infuriatingly, true.
Elara opened her mouth to retort and then stopped as she realised the forest had changed, the air heavier now and pressing against her skin with strange intent while the standing stones hummed faintly beneath her feet and, beyond the circle, the shadows between the trees deepened as though the dark itself had begun to gather.
Kael’s focus sharpened instantly.
“What now?” Elara whispered.
He did not look at her. “Fae.”
For one mad second she thought she had misheard him.
Then the lights appeared.
Small at first, pale gold and hovering at the edges of the clearing like drifting lantern flames, one becoming three and then ten as they floated between the trunks in slow, graceful arcs, illuminating silver bark, black leaves, and the distant suggestion of movement.
Elara stepped backward until her shoulders nearly brushed one of the stones as the lights drew closer and, with them, came music—soft, sweet, and wrong, threading through the clearing in notes so lovely they made her chest ache, yet beneath that beauty lay something older and colder than kindness, the melody curling around her thoughts like fingers.
Come closer.
Come listen.
Come kneel.
Elara’s body leaned toward it before she caught herself.
“Nope,” she whispered, digging her nails into her palms. “Absolutely not. We are not doing enchanted forest choir tonight.”
Kael moved in front of her and the simple action sent a jolt through her, absurdly warm and sharp despite everything. He stood between her and the lights, shoulders squared, black coat still and elegant as a blade.
From the darkness between the trees, a woman stepped into view.
She was tall and luminous, dressed in silver that flowed like liquid moonlight over her body, her hair spilling to her waist in a pale wave that caught the glow of the floating lights, and her face was impossibly lovely, every feature perfect enough to hurt, but it was her eyes that held Elara, a green, not soft or human, but the colour of poison in sunlight.
“Elara Thorne,” the woman said, and even her voice sounded enchanted. “At last.”
Elara swallowed. “You know, I am getting really tired of strangers saying my full name like it belongs to them.”
The fae woman’s gaze shifted to Kael. Her beautiful mouth curved. “And guarded by a vampire. How unexpected.”
Kael’s voice went glacial. “Leave.”
The woman ignored him entirely and looked at Elara again. “Come with me, child. You do not belong with the dead.”
Elara almost laughed at that, except something in the woman’s tone made her skin crawl. “And I belong with you?”
“Yes.”
The answer came too quickly as the lights brightened and the music swelled, and every flower in the clearing turned toward the fae woman, bowing their heads in silent worship.
Kael spoke without taking his eyes off her. “Do not listen.”
“Oh, I gathered that.”
The fae woman took another step forward, and the standing stones shivered. “You have been hidden long enough. Come willingly, and I will be gentle.”
Elara felt the shape of that lie as clearly as if it had struck her across the face. “No,” she said.
The woman smiled, and it was not kind as she said, “I thought you might say that,” before the lights went out and the clearing plunged into darkness, and all around them the fairies began to move.
- Writer
