I was falling, the dreams clamoring for me. “Talen?”
I reached for the table or something, anything real. But I couldn’t see. I was slipping, chasing the dreams, reality folding in around me. A wood-paneled room. The oak throne was empty because Eledan stood behind me, his fluttering breaths on my neck, his words poisoning my confidence.
Couldn’t listen. Couldn’t let the dreams capture me.
A sharp pain stung my arm. I looked down, distracted, and when I looked up, I was back in the prison chamber, right where I had been all along, sitting on the floor, surrounded by tek, and Talen was there, setting down the empty syringe.
I hadn’t won my battle with the dreams.
Not yet.
I was clinging to the edge, so close to letting go, and I always would be until I killed Eledan. And I would kill the prince. I had to. It was the only way I’d survive.
Heat raced through my veins, the dangerous kind. I coiled the metal whip in my lap and looked up. “Do it,” I told the fae.
He didn’t hesitate, didn’t give me time to change my mind. His hand settled on my chest, and the smell of jasmine and something I had originally assumed was honeysuckle, but now I knew that to be wrong. The scent was from a night-flowering lily, the kind found only on Faerie and rare enough that it bloomed only once in a saru lifetime. Its sweetness was fleeting, just a flash and then gone. Talen’s magic swelled inside, filling me out where Eledan’s theft had left me empty. In my hand, the whip glowed a faint golden light. Strength poured into my body. The kind of strength a saru should never know. Mab had given me her gift for her son, but this was for me. All mine.
It was glorious.
And then the power died off, leaving me shivering. Talen withdrew his hand.
I caught his wrist, barely aware of how I was gripping him. “Why did you stop?”
“Too much too soon could damage you.”
I pulled his hand back and pressed it against my chest. “Damage away. I’m ready.”
“Kesh.” He tried to pull away. I arched an eyebrow. There was trying, and then there was his half-hearted tug.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I haven’t felt this good in forever. Hit me with it again.” He hesitated, stalling for excuses. I leaned in. “You want to. Don’t tell me you don’t. It feels good for you too, right?”
His flash of a smile was a devilish thing. He spread his fingers, pushing against my breasts. I wanted his mouth on me and could see it clearly, see him peering up the length of my naked body. The second that image struck, the flood of battling fear and desire almost derailed me, until his magic bloomed again, and I drank it in. The whip crackled to life, buzzing brightly with the same thrilling energy that zipped down my spine and pulled a gasp from my lips. It was everything the human body ached for, everything Faerie offered us, all our dreams and desires in one.
Talen yanked his hand away.
I swayed and reached for it again, but the fae stood up and stalked off, shoulders hard and strides clipped. “No more,” was all he said.
Breathless, I shuddered, careful not to groan out the little ripples of pleasure still sailing through me. Hot damn, I wanted more of that. But I had apparently overstepped some kind of boundary. I wasn’t used to magic-sharing. Such intimacy was forbidden to saru. And when the queen had given me the gift, it hadn’t been like that.
Heat warmed my face, and a familiar shame weighed on my back. I’d taken something I didn’t deserve. Something illicit. I wasn’t allowed to touch the fae. They were out of bounds, above me.
I shouldn’t have forced Talen.
The golden glow around the whip flickered and died out.
Perhaps the whole magic-bond-sharing thing hadn’t been such a great idea.
An alarm sounded, and Talen altered his course toward the exit. “The shuttle has returned.”
I jogged to the dock alongside Talen. He kept his gaze ahead until the last doorway, where his stride wavered and he allowed a small smile to touch his lips. It was enough to know he’d forgiven me. I followed him into the dock area, wondering when his opinion of me had started meaning something.
Kellee’s shuttled docked, and the airlock hissed open, revealing its occupant. Not Kellee.
Machine dust covered Natalie’s freckles. Tear tracks had cleaned lines through the dirt. She bit into her cracked bottom lip. “There was an accident.”
Chapter 25
A fae warcruiser drifted above Calicto’s atmosphere. The sleek claw-shaped vessel blotted out the light from Halow’s sun, casting its shadow over the small planet. Our shuttle was a speck of machine dust in comparison.
“It can’t see us?” I asked.
Natalie shook her head. “We’re too small for it to bother with us. But they shot two passenger cruisers out of orbit when we tried to evacuate.” Her lips pressed into a grim line.
Below us, as Natalie piloted the shuttle in low over Calicto’s surface, the biodomes glittered like upside-down crystal bowls. Two were cracked wide open, the sectors inside exposed to Calicto’s poisonous atmosphere. One remained intact, and at its center, the Arcon pyramid stood defiant. I fought back the memories and dreams trying to muscle in on my consciousness.
Natalie flew through uninhabited valleys and across the shattered skyline. There were no signs of life.
The mines sprawled several miles from the domes. Self-contained with their workings all underground, the small, single-story patchwork of buildings could easily be missed from orbit, and fae scanners may not be able to penetrate the substrate to scan deeper for life signs. Or they simply didn’t care about the few remaining survivors.
As we circled in, it was clear something had taken a chunk out of the miners’ complex, opening some of the tunnels and shafts to Calicto’s atmosphere.
Natalie docked the shuttle and opened the shuttle doors.
“I’ll be back soon,” I told Talen. We had agreed he wasn’t to leave the shuttle. His reception among the remaining human population wouldn’t likely be a good one.
He flicked his hood up, hiding his distinctive ears and hair, and nodded grimly. “Three hours.” His tone made it clear this wasn’t negotiable.
“They’re in the Nymn sector,” Natalie said, opening the second airlock and stepping inside.
She hadn’t said much on the trip back to Calicto—clearly uncomfortable around Talen—but she had explained that a section of the mines had imploded. Pressurized fail-safes had locked down, sealing anyone alive on the other side. Kellee had last been seen in Nymn.
What she believed I could do, I wasn’t sure, but I hadn’t thought much beyond getting here and rescuing Kellee. I still had the comms, and I pressed the small circular unit into place behind my ear.
We passed down narrow mine shafts, boots splashing in puddles, and through chambers like the ones in the prison, only much smaller. A few people passed us, some wearing masks, others coated in dust.
“You’re the messenger, right?” Natalie asked.
“I was one,” I replied.
“No, the messenger. The one who that fae nut sack framed for Crater’s murder?”
Kellee must have told her the truth. What else had he told her? How I’d been out of my mind and lost to the dreams while her people fought for survival? “I was her.”
She screwed up her nose. “Was it you or not? Because he said you’re something special and we need special right now.”
“It was me—it is me,” I corrected. “I’ll do what I can.” Special? Dammit, Kellee. He should never have built me up. What in the fresh Faerie hells had he been thinking?
“Guess the bounty means shit now, huh?” Natalie mused, gripping a guardrail and splashing ahead.
I’d forgotten about the fortune on my head. “Well, since the fae nut sack was the one paying the bounty, the only reward would probably have been a quick trip to a hole in the ground.” If lucky.
We marched on, weaving between rubble and around cracks in the floor.
“You know why he had Crater killed, right?” Natalie asked, tossing the question over her shoulder.