Alluring Raven

  “I never forget anything.” Nadine grins haughtily. “I’m the most brilliant witch that’s ever walked this world—it’s what I requested when I made the deal with the queen.”

  Rhyland’s lips spasms and then he busts up laughing, hunching over and clutching his side. I have to bite my lip hard to keep my own laughter down.

  “Oh my stupid fucking vampires, are you really that stupid,” Rhyland says, howling with laughter.

  “Shut up,” she seethes, her hands balling into fists, sparks cracking from her skin. “It’s true and you should be very afraid of me right now.”

  Rhyland shakes his head, laughter still biting at his tongue. “You seriously think because you made a deal with the fey queen to be the most powerful witch in the worlds that it actually happened?”

  “Yes,” Nadine says, but her confidence is faltering, as she dazes off, as if her mind is wandering back to a memory.

  “Then you’re stupider than I thought.” Rhyland takes a step toward her. “Considering you know what happened when I made a deal with the fey queen, you should know that she twists deals around so in the end, nothing works out as she originally said or how you wanted.”

  “She didn’t… She wouldn’t do that to me again… She promised she wouldn’t,” Nadine growls, stomping her feet. “Shut up, Rhy Rhy! Just shut up or I’m going to…” She elevates her hands in front of her, flames bursting from her skin. “I’m going to curse you even worse—”

  I lunge at her, grabbing her by the shoulders and twirling her around. Her magic sizzles against my skin, burning my flesh, but I fight the pain as I wrap my fingers around her neck.

  “Release your possession of Harper,” I demand, gripping her neck.

  “Never,” she chokes out as she slams her palm against my chest, right above my heart. Her lips part and a magical chant starts to spill from her lips, “Expel—”

  Rhyland rushes up behind her, muttering something under his breath, then a flaming ball of light shoots from his palm and hits Nadine in the back.

  She gasps out, her face contorted in pain, and I squeeze her neck tighter.

  Come on, come on, come on, let go of your possession over Harper. Please don’t make me do this. Please don’t make me hurt someone again.

  “Kingsley,” Nadine gasps as I lift her from the ground. “If you hurt me, you hurt your precious little disgusting half faerie/pixie abomination.”

  “She’s not an abomination,” I growl out. “And I’m not going to hurt Harper because you’re going to let her go. If you don’t, you’ll end up getting hurt too.”

  “No, I won’t...” she gasps, stabbing her fingernails into the backs of my hands. “I’m stronger than that—”

  Rhyland hits her with another ball of fire and she screams out in pain. He moves to do it again, but staggers to the side, blood dripping from his nose as he collapses to the ground.

  Shit, he’s too weak for this kind of magic. I need to get Nadine to let go of Harper’s body. Need to weaken her mind.

  “Do you remember those nights we were prisoners, Nadine?” I whisper lowly, hoping Rhyland can’t hear me. “Do you remember what they did to us? Do you remember how we bled? Do you remember how they broke us, body, minds, and souls? Do remember how since we’ve returned, we’ve never really been free?”

  “You said you didn’t remember,” she wheezes, her face tinting red. “I knew you were lying.”

  “Yes, I was.” I lean closer. “I remember everything. Remember how they broke you… What they did to you. And while you may say that you found a way to get past it, I know you’re lying. Because we’ll never get past it. Our souls and minds are damned for all of eternity and maybe even after that. We’re marked forever.”

  “No, we’re not…” She struggles to speak, her eyelids drifting shut.

  Please just let go.

  Her body goes slack and I quickly release my grip, sliding my hands down Harper’s arms to hold her up.

  “Come on, Harper, open your eyes,” I beg. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t give up—”

  Her eyelids pop open and her skin shimmers with light as she sucks in a huge breath. “Holy crazy trolls, that was intense.”

  I let out a relieved exhale. “Yeah, you could say that again.”

  “Holy crazy trolls, that was intense,” she repeats, a small smile touching her lips.

  I shake my head, on the verge of smiling. “Only you would smile right after you almost died.”

  “Well, what else am I supposed to do?” She shrugs. “Besides, you saved my life.”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “Um, yeah it was.”

  “I just strangled you,” I remind her, guilt clutching at my chest.

  “But only to get that crazy witch out of my head,” she says as I slowly release ahold of her arms. “And just so you know, she wasn’t ever going to let me go. She was going to possess my body until she stole Raven and took her to the queen. Then she was going to release possession of me and have me killed.”

  My brows pull together. “How do you know all of that?”

  Her smile is as shimmery as the iridescent clouds. “Because while she was in my mind, I saw some of her thoughts.”

  My confusion only deepens. “But that’s not how possession works.”

  “Maybe for you vampires.” Her eyes glitter with amusement as she pats my shoulder. “But I’m a strange breed of faerie/pixie and magic usually works a bit wonky on me. I’m surprised she was even able to possess me at all.”

  I scratch my head. “About when did that happen?

  “When you insulted my skipping.” She sets her hands on her hips. “Which for your vampire information, I’m still mad about, so make sure to make that up to me.”

  My smile just about breaks through, but I fight it back. “I’ll see what I can do.” I move toward Rhyland, grab ahold of his arm, and help him to his feet. “Where’s Raven?”

  “I left her with Dex.” Even his voice sounds weak, his is skin pale, and dark circles have formed under his eyes. “We should hurry back. I don’t like her being so unprotected.”

  “We’ll head back now.” Worry claws inside me, but my tone is even and composed. As he struggles to stand upright, I shake my head. “So how bad are is it? And don’t try to bullshit me. You just about passed out.”

  He wipes the blood from his nose. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. You need to feed.” So do I.

  “We already talked about this.” He jerks his arms from my grip and staggers toward the stretch of forest behind me, calling over his shoulder, “There’s no one around for me to feed on.”

  I jog after him. “Well, we need to figure something out, especially if you keep insisting on using your magic.”

  “I can get you some blood if you need me to,” Harper says as she skips up beside me. “Once I get us settled into this place, I can get it. It won’t be fancy or anything—I know how you vampires love your powerful blood,” she teases, skipping backwards in front of me, “But it can help him recharge a bit until we can find some better blood.”

  Rhyland and I trade a look and he shakes his head.

  “Eventually you’re going to have to drink some blood, unless you want to black out,” I tell him. “So it might as well be sooner than later. At least that way, you’ll be around to help with Raven.” If that won’t persuade him, I don’t know what will.

  “Fine,” he utters then quickens his pace, stumbling through the snow.

  “What are we going to do about Nadine?” I call out after him. “She knows where we are now and she can possess. That means no one and no place is safe.”

  “We can put up some anti-possession spells on us,” Harper chimes in. “It’ll take quite a bit of magic, but if we can succeed with the spell, it should make it so the five of us are safe from any creature taking over our bodies. And as for Nadine knowing where we’re going, that’s not going to be a problem.”

  I glance at her.
“Why?”

  She beams, her skin glimmering as she winks at me. “You’ll see.”

  I hope she’s right. About everything. But there’s still one more problem. Well, one more problem on top of a seemingly ever-growing list.

  “Even after drinking blood, Rhyland’s not going to be powerful enough to cast that big of a spell,” I tell her, swatting tree branches out of my way. “He needs to feed off Raven’s blood in order to get back to full strength, but he can’t do that until Raven is better and has her strength back and also…”

  The fucking curse. It’s taking hold of me again. Not completely, but a little bit.

  “I know how the curse works, Kingsley,” Harper assures me. “I know what needs to be done.”

  I nod, relieved she understands what I’m getting at. “Then you know it’s probably not going to happen anytime soon, which means Rhyland won’t have his full strength back for a while.”

  “I know. And I wasn’t planning on him doing the spell. I have a friend that could help. A witch doctor of sorts, and she’s very powerful.”

  “Is she trustworthy, though, because that’s where we run into problems.”

  She nods, growing serious, which is a rarity with Harper. “She’s a bit different, but I would—and have—trust her with my life.” I open my mouth to ask more questions, but she places a finger against my lips, shushing me. “You’ll just have to trust me on this, okay?”

  “I hardly trust anyone.”

  “I know.” She offers me a comforting smile then twirls around and skips ahead of me, calling over her shoulder, “I can do a blood oath if you need me to.”

  That helps alleviate the tension from my muscles a bit. But only when I spot Dex and Raven through the trees do I relax.

  From what I can tell, Raven appears in the same condition as when we left her and is lying on the snow in her frozen state, her raven black hair contrasting with the snow. When I get closer to her, though, I notice that a few more cracks have webbed across her face.

  “I hope we can fix it soon,” I mutter to myself. “Or she’s going to fall apart.” The idea of that, of losing her, makes my chest feel like it’s splintering apart.

  “I may have an idea for that too.” Harper pops up beside me, startling the living bats out of me.

  I press my hand to my chest. “For the love of fucking bouncing pixies, you really do have a habit of popping up out of nowhere, don’t you?’

  She's all smiles and pride. “It’s a gift.”

  “That it is.” I tug on a strand of her hair and her smile broadens. “Are you sure you’re okay?” My gaze travels to her neck. No marks are visible on her skin, but with how hard I grabbed her neck, I worry I may have hurt her.

  A grin breaks across her face. “Aw, does the moody vampire have a soft spot for the faerie pixie?”

  Instead of answering with the truth—that I do—I throw her sarcasm back at her. “Did you just refer to yourself in the third person?”

  “Not quite.” She pats my cheek. “Relax vampire. You didn’t hurt me. But you did hurt Nadine, so that’s good.”

  My head tilts to the side. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, before she left my body, I could tell she was going to have a hard time recovering from what you and Rhyland did to her.” She gives me yet another reassuring smile.

  It dawns on me then, like a stake to the chest, that if Harper was mentally present while Nadine and I were chatting, she heard everything we said. If she did, she could very well take advantage of that information.

  I swallow down the vile burning in my throat. “What else did you hear while she had control of you?”

  “Not too much.” Then, for the third damn time in the last few minutes, a smile graces her lips. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone your secret. My pixie side is very good at that.” Then she skips away, as cheery as can be, leaving me no choice but to trust her, something I haven’t done with anyone in a very long time.

  In fact, the last time I fully and completely trusted someone, led to what started the secret to begin with.

  Rhyland

  I’m beyond weak, and everyone knows it. I can’t even carry Raven anymore—Kingsley had to do it. Watching him hug her against his chest like she’s the most precious thing in the worlds—which she is, but still—is nearly shredding me up from the inside out. It’s also weakening me even more, my witch powers barely a dim light inside my chest.

  While I hate that my magic abilities came from the queen, right now, I need them, especially if we’re ambushed again. Although Harper insists that won’t happen, that even though Nadine knows our general location, no creature wishing any harm to us will be able to find us. I don’t know, though. I like Harper and everything, but she’s a little out there in la la, what-the-hell-is-she-talking-about land. And so far this safe place she’s leading us too seems to be nonexistent as we journey further and further into the trees.

  “How much farther is it?” I brace my hand against a frosted tree trunk to give my legs a rest.

  “Only a few more steps actually,” Harper replies, taking a few more skips before coming to a halt. Then she turns in a circle, staring at the ground while tapping her finger against her lip. “Let me see… Where is it… Come on, don’t be shy.”

  Okay then… I arch a brow at Kingsley.

  He grimaces, warily eyeballing the pixie faerie that I’m worried may have lost her marbles because of the possession. It’s been known to happen sometimes.

  “Um, Harper,” Kingsley starts, but she shushes him.

  “Don’t talk or you’re going to scare it away,” she hisses, holding up a finger. “And then we’ll have to wait for another moon cycle before it returns.”

  Kingsley elevates his brows, like okay.

  Sighing, Dex sinks to the ground and Aeribella climbs onto his lap. “I have a feeling we might be stuck here for a while.”

  “That makes two of us,” Kingsley mumbles, moving to sit down.

  Harper raises a finger. ‘Would you three shut up and be patient. These things take time.”

  “We might be able to be more patient if we knew what was going on,” Kingsley tells her, standing back up again.

  Rolling her eyes, she continues to turn in circles with her eyes glued to the ground. “I’m getting us to a safe place, like I promised.”

  Then she keeps spinning and spinning, searching for something in the snow. I’m about to give up and tell Kingsley we should just keep moving when something pops out from the ground.

  “Greetings Land of Moonlight visitors.” A shimmering blob of what appears to be a faceless, iridescent, six-inch tall winged faerie announces while throwing glitter into the air. Then it rubs its chin and glances toward Raven. “And moonlight creatures, apparently.”

  “Yes, she’s of moonlight decent,” Harper declares with a nod of her head.

  “But she’s not the same creature you came here with last time,” The blob says. It’s not a question. Just a mere statement.

  “Oh, Sparkles? Yeah, he went off the deep end again,” Harper explains with a dismissive flick of her wrist. “So we’re taking a little break from each other. I mean, I like him and everything, but there’s only so much crazy I can deal with, you know.”

  The blob bobs its head up and down. “I completely understand, sweetheart. Sometimes you gotta focus on your own crazy, right?”

  “Yep.” A smile lights up Harper’s face. “I do need to still come in there, though. And we’re very pressed for time so if you could make this a speedy transport, that’d be super great.”

  “Anything for you, beautiful,” the blob winks at her. “One speedy transport coming right up.” Then the blob dives back into the snow.

  Silence stretches between us.

  “Okay, then,” Dex finally says, jumping to his feet and brushing the snow off his jeans. “Did anyone else see a shimmering blob of goo hitting on Harper?”

  “Oh, Shiny wasn’t hitting on me. Trust me.” Harper
dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “Shimmer Blobs are just natural flirts. They don’t even mean to do it most of the time.”

  “Shimmer blobs?” The snow crunches under my thick boots as I step toward her. “What the hell is that? Because I’ve been around for a really long time and I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “That’s because you’re knowledge has mostly been limited to the creatures of Mystic Willow Bay and Shimmer blobs originally came from the Land of Reflective Light. But when their government started to collapse because the king got a little too handsy with all the wives and even some husbands, a lot of them relocated here,” Harper explains, plopping down on a chunk of ice. “It’s not your fault, though, that you don’t know this. The curse has sort of limited your traveling abilities and distracted you from a lot of what’s going on in the worlds.”

  True. But that still doesn’t mean I’m on board with some odd sparkling, flirty by nature blob of goo knowing Raven’s location.

  “How do we know we can trust it?” I question. “And what the hell does it even do?”

  “It’s going to transport us to the safe place,” she states matter of factly.

  “I know, but how?” I bite back my annoyance the best that I can, but she keeps talking in circles. “And where are we even going? Because you’ve never clarified that either.”

  “You’ll see when we get there, because telling you before we get there would mean that we might not be able to go there.” She’s starting to speak in riddles, a pixie trait.

  I give up, turning to Kingsley. “What do you think we should do?” I lower my voice. “I mean, I’ve never heard of a shimmer blob before and this whole thing seems weird.”

  “I know.” Kingsley flicks a glance in Harper’s direction. “But I think I trust her.”

  “Really?” Doubt rings in my tone. “Because usually you don’t trust anyone, except for her.” I graze my fingers along the shirt covering Raven’s face.

  “I know.” That’s all he’s says before sinking into silence.

  Something’s bothering him—I can tell. I’m about to press when the ground begins to rumble and shake, the icicles dangling on the tree branches above us clinking together. I reach for my sword, but before I can withdraw, the ground lights up, and a large iridescent puddle bleeds through the snow beneath our feet.