Like winged demon women.
And …
My heart thumped in my throat as I glanced over at the dead shadow.
Thump, thump … freeze.
I couldn't breathe anymore, one hand flying to my chest, my eyes widening as I thought I saw something that I couldn't possibly be seeing.
The black shadows around the creature I'd killed with the spear disintegrated, drifting away in the cool breeze like mist, the silver moonlight catching in the supernatural fog and glimmering brightly. As the swirling darkness dissipated, I found myself looking at a familiar face …
“Mom?” I whispered, the sight of her gently wrinkled face, disheveled brunette curls, and thin, wide mouth … It shook me deep inside. I could hardly remember who I was or where I was.
Suddenly, I was just Ciarah O'Rourke, nineteen year old loser with nobody and nothing. I had a mom who beat me, who blamed me if her boyfriends tried to fuck me, a heroin addict and a drunk …
She was an all-around horrible human being.
But … had I just killed her?!
Stumbling forward, I put my hands on the belly of the woman I'd just stabbed, my fingers curling around the handle of the spear, sweaty and shaking, my grip weak and trembling.
“Mom?” I asked again, squinting up at her face, blood draining down from my scalp and into my eyes. Standing this close, my fingers tangled in a dirty white t-shirt with the name of the bar where I'd used to work—Sweet, Sweet Times. The low slung jeans, a pair of boots that I recognized as being my own, as being Ciarah's.
Even the smell of her perfume was familiar: Kim Kardashians' Fleur Fatale. I'd always hated that smell. When she was fucked off on heroine, she didn't get dressed to go out, didn't even shower and she reeked of BO.
I'd always thought that was the worst smell I'd ever breathe in my life.
But then I got older and she started going out more, and when she went out she drank. When she drank, she brought home men that tried to touch me. That, or she hit me herself.
So fuck that perfume.
Yanking on the handle of the spear, I stumbled back and into Killian. He caught me in a flutter of black leather, the musky scent of male, and the sharp metallic reek of blood. I dropped the spear, knowing he would grab it, and lunged forward, grabbing my mother's body before it could hit the ground.
I laid her out before me, the screeching and cackling of the harpies a distant echo behind me. I was too busy gazing at the woman I'd hated my whole life … a piece of my broken past chasing me into my new one. Reborn in a new body, I shouldn't have my fucking human memories. That was not the way rebirth worked. Centuries of shattered memories, of love and loss and pain, stacking on top of one another, life after life … that was not something many souls could endure without sinking into perpetual madness.
But the previous Veil Keeper had had no choice. To lock her memories away, hide the knowledge of the Veil from me and thus from my captors, she had to give me a mind to keep, an identity.
I'd been gifted Ciarah.
So new body, new life … still Ciarah O'Rourke, native New Orleanian and human.
Human, human, human.
Weak.
Putting my fingers on the side of my mother's neck, I felt for her purse. Killian was beside me, kneeling down, desperately trying to draw my attention.
But I couldn't look at him right then. In my confused state, I almost forgot who he was.
“Mon Dieu, Le Gardien,” he whispered, reaching out and trying to take my arm. I jerked away from him, this little voice in the back of my mind screaming for me to get up and go find Reece, find Arlo, make sure my Lords were alive.
I couldn't.
I couldn't move, couldn't think straight, couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing.
“Mom, I'm sorry,” I whispered, tears rolling down my cheeks as I reached out and covered her wound with both hands, smearing blood everywhere. Like, why am I in a cemetery? What was I doing with a fucking spear?! And my mom … she can't be dead. She just can't. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye, to tell her I hated her … to tell her I loved her, too.
“We need you out there,” a voice growled from beside me, a man's hand curling around my bicep. My gut reaction was to jerk away from him violently, tearing my arm from his grip and simultaneously sending him flying with a surge of power I didn't understand, knocking him against the side of a crypt with a hard crack.
The red-eyed, silver-haired man I just threw came at me again, but this time, as he did, he became a wolf, knocking me away from my mom's corpse and onto my back. I hit him, punched him, clawed at his face while I screamed.
“Wake up Veil Keeper!” he roared, hot wolfy breath in my face.
“Get off of her!” a man in a black trench coat screamed, shoving the wolf.
“Look, dude, I don't want any trouble,” I said, grabbing the fucking ancient ass looking spear off the ground. Who the hell carries around a spear in this day and age? I wondered, eyes wide as I flicked my gaze around the St. Louis Cemetery. How the fuck did I get here? And how had I ended up stabbing Mom? “You come near me again and I'll kill you!”
My attention flicked to the right and I found some big dude in a leather jacket getting ripped in half by two women with wings instead of arms?!
WHAT THE FUCK?!
Taking the spear with me, I turned and ran as strange ripping sensations tore through my soul. “Fae are dying!” something whispered in my ear and I screamed as a woman with long dark hair tackled me and knocked me on my back, the teal streak in her hair sliding forward and brushing over my face. She had huge, vibrant butterfly wings on her back and a face with wide green eyes.
“Get the fuck off of me,” I growled, swinging the spear up to hit her. The weapon went right through the woman's body, making her image ripple like a reflection on the surface of a lake. “What the …?”
“You need to collect yourself, Ciarah O'Rourke. Get up and fight for your Wild Hunt—you are their Queen!”
“No, I'm nobody's queen,” I breathed, trying to push the woman off of me. But my hands went through her again.
“Yes, you are. The Wild Hunt belongs to the spirit who inhabits this immortal vessel.”
“Who are you?” I asked, but it was starting to come back to me …
My own death.
My rebirth
Years of pain.
An alleyway with zero memories to draw from.
My Lords.
The hallucination of … Gràinne? myself? the essence of the Veil Keeper? … disappeared. Panting, I shoved myself to my feet and ran straight into Killian and Rafe. I hit Kill's hard chest and bounced off, his arms steadying me as I held the spear out to one side.
“Ciarah's mother is here,” I said, choking on the words. “She … I killed her.” Blinking at Killian and then flicking my eyes briefly to the silver wolf at his side, I managed to get out the question whose answer I was afraid to here. “It's not really her, right? A hallucination?”
“Oh, cher,” Kill breathed and I knew. I knew without him having to say it.