"Tell me about it," I tease him, knowing he's not happy I'm taking Tristan and Oreo with me. He didn't expect the Shadow Mage would be this annoying, did he? I smile at his back, feeling more upbeat than the moment calls for.
And the universe knows it.
A flurry of steps thunder behind us, making the smile melt off my face. I shoot a glance over my shoulder, and the shadows move with more silhouettes than I can count. My heartbeat spikes. Prince curses in non-English again, then halts, gripping the portal stone in his hand.
"I'll fight them off," Tristan announces, dropping into a fighting stance in front of me.
I reach out and grip his shirt, pulling him back. "It's not that I don't trust your strength, but you can't win this one." He shoots me a doubtful look, and I plead with him mentally. This is so not the time for him to sacrifice himself over something like this. I barely know this guy, but he's been so good to me with nothing to gain.
Well, that's what I thought of Donatello, too.
Tristan takes my word for it anyway, stepping closer. "Alright. I'll stay with you and keep you safe." He shoots a suspicious glance at Prince that doesn't hide his mistrust.
The fae rolls his eyes, impatience on his face. "Grab her and don't let go." He spits, and his long fingers curl around my bicep, nails prickling my skin. His eyes bore into mine. "You better be worth it, Shadow Mage."
The threat slides down my spine like a cold finger, at the same time my stomach flips with alarm. I snap my head, my instincts screaming, and my eyes meet the vampire I've been trying to avoid like the plague.
Kayn runs down the corridor in our direction, no butler, no umbrella, his eyes a red so deep I can see them even when the lights are blinking the same color. He bares his teeth, and a deep growl reverberates in our direction. Oreo winces in my arms. Every hair on my body stands on end. The rage on his face is unlike anything I've ever seen.
He's coming at us. And he's coming fast. Fear lodges itself on my throat, and I try to swallow it down as I stare dead straight into his eyes, challenging, unbreakable.
Then purple smoke curls around me and everything goes dark.
CHAPTER 10
CASSANDRA
When I open my eyes again, I'm in a place perfectly opposite to the one I left. Neither blue nor red artificial lights, no alarm blaring so hard my ears bleed. The smell here is not of recycled air, but fresh oxygen, so crispy clean it burns my nostrils. This nose and these lungs are not used to good old clean oxygen. Will this give me an allergy?
My wonders on allergens disappear when Tristan steps away, and Prince drops his grip on my arm. The fae releases a string of curses, some in English, some not, as he gives his back to us and walks off. I can't move for a moment. My frozen body hasn't quite come to terms with this sudden change in my surroundings.
First and foremost, Kayn is not two feet from me, arms outstretched, fangs lowered in threat. Playing poker didn’t give me any powers of seeing the future, but I learned to recognize patterns. And the pattern there was obvious: he would pounce first, bite me until I couldn't respond, and then he'd take me peacefully after his goons dealt with Tristan and Prince.
No, Kayn is nowhere to be seen. And in the place of cold, sterile corridors bathed in artificial light, there's green. So much green. We stand in a green circle, immense oaks bordering the land, grass so bright it's almost neon. And the sky! I gasp when I look up. The deepest hue of blue I've ever seen. It's warm and inviting, and I cuddle Oreo closer to my chest. He tips his head up, and I swear I see a smile on his face.
I press our noses together. "You're safe," I tell him, and it's like a promise. I'll keep him safe, even when this place might not be safe at all. I turn to Prince. “So, do fae live in tree houses or something?"
Prince doesn't deign himself to reply. He merely chuckles like my honest-to-heart question was a joke. The nerve. I’ve lived my entire life in small human towns, and knowledge of the supernatural world never reached me. Of course, I knew vampires and shifters existed. The Light Mage and his Chosen One vibe came up on the news here and there. Fae were in often on romance covers, but that’s all.
It’s not like I had a school course on supes. Everything about them is new… Well. Aboutus.
The fae in front of me keeps going, not giving me any chance to tell him to fuck off. I tighten my hold on Oreo, then start after him, shooting a glance at Tristan. The three of us follow Prince, keeping some distance.
The beaten path takes us into another clearing. A much bigger one. I halt, my jaw dropping at the sight in front of me.
Prince climbs the front steps of a church. A. Church. And not even the kind of parochial, simple church we had back at Myrtle Creek. No, this one must be like a cathedral, all thick towers and high spires. I narrow my eyes, descrying the top. Are there gargoyles? Is a hunchbacked man going to open the door too?
I've always defended that the best ending would have been Esmeralda by herself, admired by all, leading a revolution. She was so worried about her people, I always felt like a love triangle didn’t quite fit in. The kids at the orphanage made fun of me because of my choices in these movies. After this one, I heard for an entire month that I had a crush on Quasimodo because I didn’t defend Captain Phebo.
My co-orphans, as I tend to call them now, had very different ways of facing the orphanage. Some waited for their parents with such loyalty they wouldn't accept being adopted by anyone else, even if their parents had passed away. Other kids felt themselves superior. They were there waiting for a much better family. A boy called Fabian had this point of view that if a person was desperate enough to adopt a child, they must have failed on several pregnancies. So he had plans to turn that to his advantage, developing ideas on how he could always get the best from those wide-eyed parents. He was also the kind of boy who used words likecrippledand then-word, but never in front of the parents.
For the other kids, he was a king. For me, he was as much of a failure as the rest of us, just with a bigger ego. Sometimes I wonder what happened to him.
"I'd say you can stay there and spend the rest of the day gawking," Prince's voice calls from ahead of me, "but I haven't checked the wards just yet, and I don't mean to lose you even before we had some wine."
Someone opens the main door, and Prince slips inside. I raise my head, my gaze traveling up the ivy-covered stone walls to the stained-glass windows. Prince steps disappear inside the place.
I swallow hard, searching for Tristan's gaze. "Guess we should follow."