Fae Chronicles 01 - Fighting Destiny

  "Being dead?" He asked with a sexy smirk.

  "Yeah," I quickly looked away as something crunched a few feet away from us.

  "It's not as bad as I thought it would be. I don’t care for the having to feed part, but mix it with sex and it's amazing," he replied still smiling as he placed his hands back in the pockets of his jeans.

  He'd been having sex and I'd been Miss-Do-It-Myself. Great! I waited for the jealousy to come, but it was muted when it did. I rubbed my arms feeling the cool air flow over them as my eyes scanned the area wondering if we had been tailed.

  "I didn’t have a choice Fancy Face. The Vampire who did this to me, well he handed me a picture of you. Said he would turn you if I didn’t change. Vlad was worried we'd be sent after him, so he sent his version of a hit squad out that night. I did what I had to keep you and the others safe. You didn’t know it Syn, but they were inches from you that night. Showed me where you were and then showed me the vamp standing beside you. We were so cocky back then, reckless," he smiled as I turned to look at him.

  "So you went with them? We were strong Adrian, we could have fought them!" I was pissed, "That should have been my decision to make Adrian and you took it without asking us. We'd have fought for you!"

  "And died Fancy Face, you would have died. That wasn’t something I could have lived with—ever."

  "And what if we had won? Then you would still be alive," I blanched and continued, "Or more than you are right now anyways. Dammit Adrian, I buried you!" I was shaking with anger, rage and guilt.

  "Baby I couldn’t take that chance," his eyes searched my face as he closed the distance between us and curled me against him in a tight embrace, "You were my life Syn, I couldn’t chance it because I knew you would fight them and I knew you'd die. It was a choice, me for you. I took it and yes, maybe I should've had more faith in you, but at the time I was given a choice and I made it."

  He was cold, his body was more muscled than it had been, but where it had once been warm, it was cold and his scent had changed. He smelled of earth and his cologne he had always worn made me smile. I listened to his empty chest before pulling away in time to catch him sniffing me. Did I stink to his undead senses?

  I looked up into his face as he cupped my cheek in his cold hand, "Did you miss me?"

  "Would it matter?" I asked knowing he already knew I had missed him.

  "I saw you at my grave, every day for the first few weeks after I left. Then when work got busy at the Guild you came on the weekends. Do you have any idea how hard it was to stay away from you until I could contain this eternal fucking hunger?"

  "Is this where I say sorry? Because I would have fought, if we had died Adrian, then so be it. Everyone dies sometime and I'd have died to prevent what you've become any day of the fucking week."

  He frowned and nodded letting his arm drop from my face. "I can change you Syn, we could be together forever. Never growing old. Never be apart."

  "I wouldn’t abandon my coven so easily Adrian and who says I don’t want to grow old? You made a choice. Don’t assume you can make mine as well. I'm what I was born to be, what my parents died for. They died making sure I stayed alive, I won't change that because you went and made some stupid decision and it was Adrian, it was stupid. We needed you, you broke me Adrian. You left us weakened by your loss and who knows what could have happened while you were out fucking everything with a pulse!"

  "I wasn’t fucking anything Syn. I was so busy trying to figure out how to get you back that I couldn’t get my dick up! I had to feed though and well it goes hand in hand. So yes, I've taken lovers because I had to. I was just buying time Syn, I was unstable," he threw his hand in the air with frustration, "I couldn’t control it, I gave my life to protect you. Going to you while I couldn’t control the bloodlust would have been stupid."

  "It changes nothing, Adrian you left us exposed. You left me in fucking pieces!" I shouted uncaring if whoever was listening heard us.

  "I came back dammit, just in time to find you wearing his fucking name on your neck Syn. Are you fucking him too? He isn't what you think he is, he is so much fucking more and he's playing you. Did you fuck him? Call out his fucking name while he was fucking you!? Like you did with me?" He sneered.

  I slapped him before I knew what I was doing. All the rage and anger I'd been holding inside since seeing him coming out with a vengeance, the pain and betrayal I felt didn’t help either. I turned to go but he was on me, his fingers biting into my shoulders as he tried to turn me around to face him.

  Big mistake, I don’t play well when I am angry. I pulled every ounce of power from the air around us and pushed it at him, watching the shock on his beautiful face, his electric eyes as he was thrown from me violently into the air. I could hear blood rushing through my ears, through my veins as I allowed the power full reign inside me. I wasn’t a fucking victim and I wouldn’t become one at his hands.

  I watched him stand up slowly, carefully. He was linked into my power. I could feel him tapping into it, pulling from it. His death had not severed his connection to the coven, he'd known this entire time where and what we were doing. I could see his eyes registering the mistake he'd just made. I held perfectly still, waiting to see his next move.

  "I didn’t mean to hurt you Syn, I am still learning how to control it," he whispered looking down at is hands as if they were a foreign object.

  "What I do, is none of your fucking business Adrian, you chose a different path that doesn’t lead to me," I allowed the power to drain slowly, watching as he did the same, "If I sleep with another, it's not up to you to decide if it's wrong or right. It would be my choice. My choice."

  He shook his dark head, his hair falling into his turbulent eyes. "He isn't what you think he is. I'm trying to protect you."

  "I'm a big girl Adrian, I don’t need protecting. Not anymore."

  "You do against him! Fuck Syn, we all need to be protected against him. Are you that fucking blind? Wake the fuck up. You're smarter than that." He growled as his hand fisted at his sides as mine had.

  "Then what the fuck is he?" I asked narrowing my eyes, I could tell when Adrian lied, I could feel it. He was also holding back, trying to shield the connection we had through the coven.

  "I can't tell you, not because I don’t want to Syn, but it’s because if I do, I forfeit my life and maybe even yours."

  That wasn’t a lie. I watched him as my mind ran wild with what he was saying. If Ryder was something else, wouldn’t I have noticed by now? "Adrian…" I said shaking my head as nothing he was saying made sense, but the connection between us was telling me he spoke the truth.

  "I can't," he said dejectedly as he dropped his shoulder and shook his head. He stepped close as I instinctively stepped back from him as I watched him closely. "Just don’t take anything around here at face value and don’t fall for him baby. Promise me, that somehow we will be as we were before we separated. Promise me we will be together when this is over."

  A sob escaped my lips before I could stop it. I couldn’t promise him anything anymore. He was undead, he'd left me and even though it wasn’t maliciously done. It was done. I stepped further away and turned back towards the house. I couldn’t promise him anything, but I still loved him, just not in the way he needed me to and it hurt to not be able to say it.

  "Syn!" He called but I was already moving, refusing to fold because if he caught me I'd lose this battle. And this relationship would be the death of me, literally. I was halfway to the house blinded by tears when I ran into something hard and unmoving.

  "Did he hurt you?" Ryder's voice was angry and sharp.

  I shook my head and tried to push past him, it was like pushing a concrete wall. I looked up with tears swimming in my eyes trying to make my tongue work but whatever he saw in my eyes must have showed him that I needed to be alone because he let me go and followed at a close distance behind me.

  When I reached my room and moved to close the door, he held his hand up on the wood
frame stopping me from closing it. "They found a few bodies, I need you ready to go Syn and I need to know what he did to make you cry. In that order. You're mine to protect and he overstepped, he said he wanted to explain why he had done it. You needed closure, you all did. But no one makes you cry, not on my watch."

  "Ryder, this is none of your business. As I told him, I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself."

  He bowed his head giving me a dark, dangerous smile. "Keep telling yourself that Syn and you might eventually believe it."

  "I don’t need you to believe it, or myself for that matter. I have to protect, endure and live for my coven. In that order. I'll be ready to leave in five minutes. Let me just go grab my big girl panties," I said leaving him at the door.

  "I'll be strong for you Syn, if you need it. You don’t always have to be the strong one, I'll be your glue if you want to crumble, I'll hold you together," he said lifting his eyes and meeting mine.

  "And what if you're what's making me crumble Ryder, what then?"

  His lips lifted into his sexy smirk. "Then I'll put you back together. I will never tear you down Syn. I will always protect you from anything and everything that would. I've yet to find anything in this world or any other who can take me on—keep that in mind," he said lifting his eyes to meet mine before he started to turn away.

  I was startled by his words and what he had said earlier when we were dancing. He didn’t like me, did he? "That's what I'm afraid of."

  Twenty Four

  I quickly changed into jeans and a different shirt that covered my arms. The fact that the other bodies we'd examined had blown up had a lot to do with the long sleeve shirt, shrapnel hurt like hell. I put on leather boots which were not pretty, but would protect my feet and headed to the door hurriedly. I was just going into the fourth minute of the five I had told Ryder I needed to be ready.

  He was in the hall when I came out. Leaning against the wall holding the vest that had saved me last time. "The other gear is in the car, we don’t know what to expect this time but there are five bodies. I'm taking no chances with your safety Syn, this one could go south in a hurry. I want you on the perimeter, not on scene until the dogs have finished."

  My heart sank in my chest, hot tears stung my eyes as I felt the loss of the five people this crazy asshole had taken from the world. "We need to catch this killer Ryder, this has to end soon." He had bomb sniffing dogs? Why hadn't he brought them to the last crime scene I wondered as I turned to ask him just that.

  "I just got them, so before you go yapping off and demanding to know why I didn’t think of it before…finding well trained dogs who can sniff through Otherworld creature's bullshit is harder than it should be."

  Well that settled that! I narrowed my eyes wondering how he had figured out what I'd been about to ask him.

  "You speak through those pretty blue eyes. Try to work on it if you don't want the world to know what's going on inside that brain of yours."

  Fuck you Ryder I put it in my eyes with a smile lifting my lips even though I really didn’t feel like smiling while we went down the never ending stairway to the front doors where his men waited with my coven. This was going to be a long day.

  The crime scene was like the others, half torn up bodies lingered in chairs while some sat in different positions up against the walls. The only difference at this scene was the sheer volume of bodies. Some looked no older than twenty. A few wore dresses, while others were in workout clothes. "They're all in shape," I mumbled more to myself trying to figure out what we were missing.

  "What would that matter?" Zahruk questioned coming up with his face crumbled in disgust.

  "Nothing, but that they're all in shape, which is the only connection besides the fact they all come from a faction of the Otherworlder's, which brings us back to Necromancers. They choose victims who they can benefit from controlling. Strong bodies to use, but if it was Necro's, well they forgot the bodies. So we can check them off the list of suspects."

  He smiled which looked off with his forehead crinkled from the rich scent of death. He was Fae and they could smell everything ten times stronger than I could and I was fighting the churning of my stomach that fought to release the coffee I'd sucked down earlier today. "Good to know I guess, no dead fucks cutting people up," he replied.

  "They went off the pattern though. Most of these women are Fae. So the body count is higher for the Fae then it is for the humans. Our Fairy knew her killer. She had let her inside her house. These women looked surprised, as if they never seen death coming, but unlike the Fairy they were not at their homes," I scanned their feet, most wore shoes, expect the two who were currently footless. The others had either running shoes on, or dress shoes. I leaned down to examine a young female whose hands were held above her head in full rigor mortis. She had handprints on her wrist, her feet had been bound, but her eyes looked lifelessly at something in front of her. She also had those damn holes in her shoulders as if something had pinned her to the chair, but nothing inside the room was small enough to have been used.

  "Two killers, or more," I said horrified, it had been bad enough to be looking for one sadistic killer, but now we had two to find.

  "You sure?" Ryder said coming over to stand next to Zahruk by the female's body.

  "Someone held her hands above her head, while someone else dissected her organs. She has hand prints on her wrist, with nail marks in the tissue, so we're looking for at least one female. She had to have been taken a while ago, her blood stopped flowing about seven hours ago or so. She also has the same holes in her shoulders as the Fairy and all of the other victims do. It's possible, that whatever the pins are could be what is sapping their powers."

  "So you are saying there are more killers then we originally thought we were looking for?" Ryder asked clarifying what I had just said.

  "Yep, two sadistically twisted fucks—or more. To kill on this level? They had to have had help. I don’t see two people killing this many women in this little of time Ryder, we have three Fae and two Witches with an empty spot but a blood pool, so someone else was here before we were, taking their dead with them when they left."

  I watched Ryder nod his dark head once before he clicked open his phone and hit redial. I waited trying to figure if he was calling the Guild, or who it could be that he thought his people needed to be informed.

  "Vlad, now." He barked at his phone, "No, this cannot wait, put him on the fucking phone. Get him on the damn phone now!" He waited briefly and then Vlad's smooth voice came through the other end loud enough for me to hear.

  "What is it Sire?"

  There was that title again.

  "Did you remove a body from a crime scene?" He waited and then hung up, "It wasn’t a Vampire. Vlad hasn’t removed any bodies."

  "So it wasn’t a vamp, which leaves Light Fae. These are all Dark Fae." I said scanning the room briefly before resting my eyes back on Ryder.

  "I would smell it if they had a Light Fae inside this room."

  "We're missing something. You said the dogs picked up nothing. Not even a trail, so what if the killer is using the body parts on him, or herself? It would confuse the dogs and why didn’t they put the bombs in…too many bodies maybe? But they could have gotten the same results using just one to destroy the crime scene," I mused looking around and finding a picture sticking out from beneath one of the bodies. "Arianna, again."

  She was dressed in a business suit. Her blonde hair piled and pinned on her head. With a red X painted over her face. "This is the same picture we found at a different crime scene."

  "So it is, I'm glad she agreed to extra security," Zahruk said as his eyes settled on the body the picture had been under. "She kind of looks like Ari, Ryder?"

  Ryder was already squatted next to the body with his elbows resting on his knees as he examined the corpse. "She does, but so does that one," he pointed to the body in the chair."

  "Think whoever is doing this has something against Ari?" I asked looking at
the faces of the other victims.

  "Hard to tell, she's a gentle creature, timid at best," Ryder replied as his eyes evaluated the other bodies, "I cannot see anyone holding a grudge against her, which was why we were shocked when news of the assassin's interest in her came."

  "How did it come?" I asked wondering how they would know an assassin was trying to take out his future bride. It wasn’t like we posted it on the telephone poles and said "hey, by the way we plan to snuff out your life," no we just got the assignment and carried it out silently, making damn sure no one was the wiser that we were coming.

  "We got a tip, from one of Arianna's people that someone was trying to kill her, someone highly trained and very deadly. We don’t take chances with our own."

  I narrowed my eyes on him. "So someone just walked up and told them hey, we plan to kill the Light Heir and you believed them?"

  "No we investigated it, but we couldn’t find any leads and since your Guild was the only one inside the city, we came to you. If the Guild Master offered to help, we knew it wasn’t from within your Guild. Marie sent me a letter a few years back claiming you were different than the others inside the Guild, better, faster and smarter. I made sure to ask for you. Alden was only too willing to give you to us for a price. So tell me Syn, if you had been told to take out my bride, what would you have done?" He asked watching me closely.

  "I would have observed her movements for around two weeks or so, until I knew a time and location where she would have been more available and with fewer guards. Then I would have gotten the team together and taken her out before a single word of what we had been told to do could have gotten out, clean, simple, painless. I wouldn’t have told a single person who wasn’t on the hit about the target, when you take a mark, you don’t want retaliation and so telling anyone else would be off limits. A breach of contract, so let me ask you this Ryder…who would be so sloppy to get word out about taking down a target, unless your future bride placed it on herself?"