Then the heavy shackle tingles against my nape, and all my attention quickly shifts to the strange contraption. I smell cooked meat before I feel the searing pain. The metal collar presses deeper into my skin with an audible hiss.
I gasp in shock and start to choke, reaching up to my neck to try and pull the thing off. My hand starts to sizzle, and I jerk it away as it burns, a squeal escaping my throat.
Three inches of the shackle’s width are now branded into my palm.
Star rushes forward and kneels at my side. “It’s okay, Sage. It won’t be so bad once the spell takes hold and you wake up fully. Just breathe.”
I try to get away, but everything hurts. “What did you do, Star?” I gasp, shaking now—with rage or pain, I can’t tell. The memory of dropping the cup flashes in my head. “The drink. You drugged me.” I gape at her and try again to move away, but she just scoots forward.
My muscles tense, and I’m ready to run, to fight, the ache from my burning skin fading as panic takes over. “What is this?” I motion to the shackle.
“It’s to protect you, to hold in your power,” she says. “The pain will pass in a second.”
I was such an idiot to trust anyone. This freak of a girl is completely insane. She’s just trussed me up for some creepy kidnapping.
My attacker grabs Star by the arm and yanks her up, shoving her away from me. “Back off, pixie.”
I blink at him through the pain and terror clouding my senses. My vision blurs a little, then clears again. He’s wearing all black, dressed like some sort of bounty hunter in a tight T-shirt, cargo pants, and heavy boots. Something is strapped to his belt: a knife. The hilt is worn—because he uses it a lot. There are green-and-blue tattoos all over his arms and up one side of his neck, curved and swirled Celtic designs and unfamiliar lettering inked onto his copper skin. He has another scar on his jaw. And those metallic green eyes . . . they’re so hard, calculating. A hunter’s eyes.
He’s the kind of guy who would be fine with killing Bambi. Or me.
“Look what she’s capable of with only half her strength,” he says to the thinned crowd around us. He points to something—no, someone—on the floor. It’s Ben. He’s kneeling a few feet away, hunched over as he grips his head like he’s in pain. His skin is ashen. There are angry burns running a thin trail up his arm . . . where my fingers grazed his muscles.
Oh my God, did I . . . ?
“I just thought this would be faster,” Star says, sounding pitiful. Her silver wings shiver a little. “This way her power’ll be awake once you get her to Master Marius.”
“The Emergence has already started, pixie. I’m not the only one out here tonight sniffing around. Prince Kieran could be aware of her now.”
Star goes pale, and the shivering spreads to her whole body. “Really?”
The guy nods slowly. “His sister would have plans for our little doe.”
Star’s features fill with panic. She turns to the blond guys beside her. “Check to be sure Ben is okay.”
They move to obey, helping Ben to his feet and dragging him from sight.
That’s when I notice that the music has gone silent; everything has. And the pain that was gripping me has faded to a dull throb. The room is half-empty, and all eyes are on me. And still I don’t know why. I only know I need to figure out how to get out of here. I search the figures around us for Ziggy, but I don’t see her. I hope she ran away, that she caught a whiff of the weird and bolted before these crazy cult freaks could hurt her.
A ringing fills the strained silence, and the tattooed guy pulls a phone from his pocket. He puts it to his ear. “Faelan here,” he says, his accent stronger now. Irish. His hard eyes lock on mine. “Yes. I’ve got her. Brighid’s daughter is ours.”
THREE
FAELAN
“You’ve got the wrong girl!” the demigoddess yells as I lift her out of the beanbag chair and drag her by the arm down the hall to the back room. “Please! My mom’s name is Lauren, not Brighid!” She squirms and wriggles like a determined salmon and keeps shouting. “The bitch is probably in jail again. Or in a gutter smoking crack. Whatever you’ve got going on with her, I’m not a part of it. I haven’t seen the woman in years.” She’s trying to convince me of her humanity, trying to convince herself. But her aura is sparking orange and gold. Can’t she feel her Other blood ready to be released? Can’t she sense her soul aching for her own kind?
If not, she’s about to get a very loud wake-up call.
I drop her on the bed and attempt to think past her screeching. I need to take a breath and come at this more delicately, or we’ll lose her and she’ll end up in Prince Kieran’s clutches, captive to the whim of the House of Morrígan. I don’t understand how she doesn’t realize what she did to Ben. I know female demis are stronger, but the shade was nearly sucked as dry as a husk by a simple touch. She’s lucky he wasn’t human or he’d be ash right now.
She keeps yelling at me about kicking my ass. I’m not sure how she plans on doing that. She’s a mess of a waif in oversize clothes. Not even remotely attractive at first glance, which is a relief. It’s probably why the pompous prince overlooked her. Her strawberry hair is ratty and she’s far too thin, her features too sharp. But her eyes . . . they’re stunning and vibrant, a golden shimmer already surfacing in the hazel, as the fire of her mother’s power begins to boil up inside her.
I steel myself against her energy and lean down, hovering. She shrinks back as she looks up at me. Her tongue stills—praise the holy Danu.
I take a breath in through my nose and try not to let the sharp spice of her power hit me too hard. Then I say, as calmly as I can, “You’re going to need to understand something if you plan on making it through tonight: I am not your enemy. I’m your best hope of finding safety.”
She gives me a derisive look. “Are you shitting me? You attacked me. You burned me and—”
“It was merely the iron collar. You’re fine. The pain is temporary.”
She shivers and puts her palm in my face. “I’ve been branded like you own me, dickhead.”
“Look at your hand,” I say.
She scowls, so I grab her wrist and turn her palm to face her, showing her the healed skin.
She struggles to break away but then looks at it, her mouth opening in shock.
“You aren’t human,” I say. She doesn’t seem to react to my words, still blinking at her healed skin, so I continue my speech. “Your life has been a lie. Everything you knew until this night is forfeit. Your true blood, your magic, began to surface several weeks ago. Tonight, with the full moon, you’ll start opening up to it further. The pixie’s potion is speeding up the process, but it was bound to boil to the surface with the lunar pull.”