Deciding Her Faete (Beyond the Veil Book 2) (6 page)

Chapter Nine

“Calm yourself, brother,” Donovan murmured, speaking low so that only Jason could hear him. “We’re only staying until the formalities are over, and then we will resume the hunt.”

Jason stood beside him, holding himself so tense that his entire body seemed to tremble, and Donovan could hear a low continuous growl rumbling through his brother’s chest. Despite Jason’s denials, Donovan knew the damage that had been done to him in the dungeons the day Erica reclaimed her rightful place in this realm two weeks ago, left him in constant pain. Erica had attempted to heal the wounds on his chest several times, but they hadn’t healed as they should have. The shifting powers of Jason’s wolf and the ancient healing powers of the Fae weren’t enough to help him either. Donovan heard Jason take two deep breaths, and his trembling ceased for the moment.

The two of them stood in the rear of the crowd that had gathered in the throne room of the palace to witness the coronation of the new queen. Erica sat on the throne at the front, Ben and Leo beside her, while a gray haired old dude stood chanting and moving his arms around in what Donovan suspected was an ancient ritual appropriate for such a formal event. To Donovan, though, he looked like he was swatting at some annoying insect.

When Erica looked out over the crowd and caught his eye, her expression turned sad, but then she lifted her chin with an inner strength he had come to respect in the diminutive woman. She had lived through the pain and danger that had followed her since she watched her parents murdered in cold blood right in front of her as a child, and she had even graciously forgiven Donovan for his role in returning her to face Alefric, a true testament to who she was and how she would lead her people. Donovan dipped his head in acknowledgment almost at the same time as Jason. Erica sent them both a small smile, but the sorrow never left her face completely.

Erica had met April that same day that he’d first come face to face with his mate in the dungeons, and during their conversation, Erica discovered that not only was their beautiful mate at least part Fae but that she carried the healing gift as well. This was why Kheelan had taken her, and all of those humans before—he’d been searching for April.

Donovan’s wolf snarled within him at the memory of that day. He’d only seen her for a brief moment, pressed his lips to hers just once, and then she was encouraging him to go save Jason. He’d been torn at the time, but the sound of Jason screaming was an excellent fucking motivator. When they returned a few short minutes later, after hearing her screams, their mate, their April was gone.

“Corrine!” Donovan was dragged from his musings by the roar of his Alpha. He shot a quick glance at Jason and then the two of them pushed their way through the crowd.

They pushed through to the front just in time to hear Corrine, a Fae Seer, and advisor to their Alpha, speak from where she was wrapped in Gabe’s arms and held securely against his chest. “He brings her powers forward. He is fighting a strong incantation that has hidden her magic for many years, but he is forcing his way through the shields. She’s scared, and in pain, but fighting him in her own way.”

“She who?” Jason growled his voice more wolf than man.

Corrine turned to look at them, sadness shimmering in her eyes, and Donovan’s heart seized in his chest. “Your mate.”

Jason bellowed in rage, and his wolf exploded from him. Donovan’s soul was making the same gut wrenching sound of pain, loss, and frustration, but he held strong to control his wolf. Just barely. Gabe was yelling something at Jason, but Donovan couldn’t hear what he was saying over the roaring of his own blood in his ears.

Locking his gaze to the Fae seer, he asked the question he had been asking himself every minute of every hour since she’d been taken. “Where is she?”

Corrine reached out a hand and placed it on Donovan’s arm. “If I knew, we would already be on our way, young wolf, but I do not know. All I can tell you is that you and your brother will play a role in helping her. You all have a long way to go before deciding her fate.”

Donovan closed his eyes for a brief minute against the sense of hopelessness and relief that rolled through him. There was nothing worse for a dominant wolf like himself than knowing that the one person meant for him, the woman the fates had charged him with protecting, cherishing, and loving for the rest of his life, was in danger. They had no leads, no trail to follow, nothing that told them where she was, but hearing Corrine talk about her fighting and that they would all play a role in deciding her fate, meant that she was alive. This was the first damn time he’d had that reassurance, and the relief was almost enough to drop him to his knees.

When he opened his eyes and was able to focus on his surroundings, he realized the coronation was over, the Fae who had been invited to attend were shuffling out of the room, and Jason was trying to cover his dick with the shredded remains of his shirt. It was something Donovan would have found hilarious at one time, but with the wounds of Jason’s torture visible as a clear reminder of what they had lost, he couldn’t find the laughter in him. Hell, without April, he might never find it.

“We’ll find her,” he heard Erica say behind him. Donovan turned to face her. “She’s strong. I only met her for a few minutes, but I could tell that straight away.” Erica placed her hand on his arm, directly over a tattoo he’d had since it had come to him in a dream ten years ago. As soon as her hand touched the design, the world around him seemed to stop, and a moment later he felt a jolt rocket through him like he’d gripped onto a live wire and an image formed in his mind.

He saw a river running through a village, surrounded by mountains. A strange cluster of three tall stones that he recognized protruded from one of the ridges just outside the village. Beyond the village, further up the mountain, almost directly below the three tall stones, he saw a crevice in the cliff. The image began fading as that crevice came closer, and just as it faded, he caught sight of April. She ran out of the cliff face through that crevice, and the look on her face was a strange mixture of terror and determination. Her skin was streaked with dirt, tears had created tracks down her cheeks, and there was swelling along her left jaw. Her clothes were dirty, and her shirt had been ripped at her right shoulder. Then the image went dark.

Donovan’s heart was pounding in his chest when he opened his eyes. The room was still frozen for a moment before returning to normal.

“We’ll bring her home to you and Jason. That I promise you.” Erica continued talking as if nothing had happened. With a startled look around the room, he realized that for her and every other person here, nothing had happened.

Still in shock, he simply nodded at the newly crowned queen of the Fae realm. Erica smiled then turned back to her mates. Donovan spun to look at Jason, who was pulling on a pair of jeans that one of the younger wolves in their pack had given him. “Did you just see something strange?”

Jason shot him a look. “Be more specific. “I’ve seen a lot of strange shit lately.”

“No, like a vision or a dream, or fuck, I don’t know … like some kind of foresight image or some shit like that.”

Jason shook his head. “No.”

Donovan’s body began to vibrate with excitement. He knew that what he had seen was connected, the dream, the tattoo, the vision, everything. “Come on.”

Jason frowned. “Where are we going?”

Donovan didn’t pause as he strode out of the throne room, knowing that Jason was right on his heels. “I think it is about time we went and got our mate back. I know where to look. I’ve seen it, and I think she’s managed to actually escape.”

“What the ever loving fuck are you talking about?”

“I know where to find her.”

“Should we tell Gabe?”

Donovan hesitated for a moment. His job as Beta was to protect his Alpha, and despite his recent actions, it was something he took great pride in. “No, this could be a trap. Just some magical hallucination Kheelan and his cronies have cooked up. We’ll go alone, and if we find her, bring her back safe and sound.”

“And if we find Kheelan?” Jason’s voice had dropped to a deadly octave.

Donovan stopped and turned in the corridor to look his brother in the eye. “Then you get to rip out his heart, and hold it in front of him while it is still beating.”

For the first time since he arrived in this realm, Donovan saw Jason smile. Sure it was bloodthirsty and filled with anticipation at the painful death of his tormentor, but it was a smile nonetheless.

Chapter Ten

“Heal me,” Kheelan ordered her again.

“No!” April spat.

“Hurt her again,” Kheelan commanded the other sadistic fuck, his sidekick, Frederych.

Not for the first time in the two weeks she’d been here, April felt her body convulse as if she were having a seizure. Frederych loomed over her with his hands—which never quite touched her body—as they roamed over her chest, then her belly, all the way down to her legs before coming back up again. At first, she would feel a mildly uncomfortable pulling sensation, but then it always escalated to something excruciatingly painful, as if his hands were magnets and her organs, her veins, her blood … her magic, were all being drawn out of her body. At this point, her body would shake and buck uncontrollably and she would let out a blood-curdling scream, or at least she did for the first week. After that, she simply gritted her teeth and bore it, not wanting to give either of them the satisfaction.

At the highest peak of her pain, when she thought for sure that every internal part of her would be sucked out, twisting her insides out, a blue light would rise out of her and snap everything back into its place, throwing Frederych back against the wall. Kheelan had wisely learned to safeguard himself from this after the first time it happened and he, too, had been thrown.

“Heal me,” Kheelan demanded again from the farthest corner of the room.

April was still reeling from the pain of having her insides settle back to normal when a maniacal laugh escaped her.

“What’s so funny, bitch?”

“You’re not looking so good there, Kheels,” April observed.

He’d been getting progressively worse every day since she’d been taken. His goon had managed to patch up the gaping hole in his stomach when they first brought her to this … secret lair—that was the best description she could come up with for the hovel they had brought her to. They had blindfolded and gagged her after entering the human realm and shoved her back into the same limo that had brought her and Jason to the woods the night all this horror had begun. At least it smelled like the same car, all old cigarette smoke and spilled alcohol.

April had been getting so sensitive to scent in the last couple of days. Things that she had never noticed before were suddenly logging in her memory.

****

Kheelan had torn off the blindfold and gag when they arrived at some strange looking cliff with three stones. Her demands about knowing what happened to her mates had fallen on deaf ears as Kheelan, Frederych, and two other guards had escorted her further up the mountain by foot until they reached a crevice in a cliff.

One of the goons had drawn a few symbols at the entrance before they all stepped in, and once again, just like when she had entered the Veil, April had felt a wave of nausea sweep over her. They must have entered another one of those portals, she figured.

She found herself in what she could only describe as a mad scientist’s lab with otherworldly-looking machines and test tubes of various sizes filled with different colored liquids.

Kheelan had marched her straight into yet another cell with a hospital looking bed in the middle of the room. They had strapped her down and immediately began with her torture when she would not comply with Kheelan’s order to heal him.

After her blue shield, as she started to call it, tossed Frederych and Kheelan against the wall the first time, and they both recovered, she watched as Frederych put his hands over the hole in Kheelan’s stomach. A black spark had emitted from his palms, and the hole closed up, leaving a giant scorch mark all around it. She had winced, seeing the redness and swelling that remained around the wound, which clearly indicated an infection. It was a temporary fix, she learned, one that the Fae had to administer to Kheelan daily, like a magical Band-Aid of sorts.

After one particularly torturous session, April had spat in Kheelan’s face and said, “Even if I knew how to heal you, I still wouldn’t do it. So go ahead and kill me, you bastard. I’ll have the pleasure of knowing you’ll be dying painfully soon after.”

He had slapped her and stormed out of the room.

Later, he came back alone, only this time to torment her with his words. “You look so much like her … your whore of a mother,” he had sneered. Then his expression turned almost wistful. “Except for your coloring. Reysken had the most beautiful long red hair and the same big green eyes as you. He had far more freckles, however.” He paused and seemed lost in his own memory. “They covered every damn inch of him.”

Kheelan sounded like he actually cared about her father—if the man he spoke of was actually her father. Reysken, he had called him. April repeated the name in her mind several times, testing out the sound of it. Then the word “daddy” flashed in her mind, and she gasped. Kheelan just sneered again and continued his incessant descriptions of Reysken.

She suddenly found herself wanting to learn more about this man, but not from him, not from a man her father couldn’t possibly have been in a relationship with, let alone been in love with, as Kheelan had declared.

“You are a liar, Kheelan,” April had yelled in his face. “My father could never have been in love with someone like you. You’re cruel and incapable of love.”

“You have no idea, you filthy brat, of what I am capable.” He’d leaned over her and got very close to her face. She wouldn’t have thought it possible for his eyes to become colder. His lip then twisted in disgust. “I have loved two men in my life, both very deeply, and both of whom were honorable. You--you consort with filthy animals.”

April had spat in Kheelan’s face for the second time that day and braced herself for his assault. It didn’t come this time, and it worried her even more. The bastard wasn’t done with her yet.

“Hit a nerve, did I? I thought your father was honorable at first anyway. Until he met Ilyra. She bewitched him into thinking he was her mate, and he left me for her.”

“That’s not possible,” April snapped. “You can’t bewitch someone into thinking you are their mate. It’s the most sacred, impenetrable bond there is.”

“And how would you know this? You’ve been living among the  humans.”

“I’ve also lived with wolves, and I have seen firsthand the love and bond that forms between mates when I was with them, something you have clearly never experienced. But even I had no idea of its true power until I experienced it for myself.”

Kheelan seemed unaffected by her remark. He smiled cruelly. “Your parents didn’t get to experience it for very long.”

April gritted her teeth. “What did you do to them?”

“If your father had chosen me, if your father had trusted me, I would have only killed her. I would have even forgiven him for being part filthy beast since his Fae side was so dominant.”

Was my father part shifter?

“I had no idea what he was,” Kheelan continued. “Then I started hearing rumors about his dealings with a magician. I caught the mage training your mother and father on how to hide your filthy genes from the rest of our people. I couldn’t believe he had hidden that part of himself from me for so long. I was furious. The mage was surprisingly easy to kill, but I admit, I hesitated with your father and underestimated how fiercely he would fight for his mate and child, which gave Ilyra the opportunity to escape with you.”

The lights … the blue lights from her palms … cruel laughter … her nightmares—they were echoes of her memories, ones that she had blocked out.

“I finally caught up with your mother a few days later. Sadly, she had already sent you away. She taunted me that I would never find you, so I ripped out her heart,” Kheelan said dispassionately. “The whore obviously underestimated me, as I did indeed find you, didn’t I?”

She had stared at Kheelan stony-faced, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had gotten to her.

When he finally left the room, she’d broken down and allowed herself to cry freely, her sobs nearly choking her. Some of what he had said rang true, especially when this time she repeated her mother’s name to herself. Then a memory of her parents flashed through her mind. A woman with blonde hair, blue eyes, and dimples in her cheeks, and a man with flowing red hair and bright green eyes were smiling as they tucked a five-year-old April into bed. They then walked out of her bedroom holding hands. The bittersweet memory only made her cry harder.

One way or another, Kheelan would suffer for what he did. She’d make damn sure of it.

Over and over, they’d tortured her, leaving only enough time in between for Frederych to recover from whatever toll it took on him to use his magic on her. During the brief breaks, she thought of her men, praying that Donovan had gotten to Jason in time and that they both had gotten away safely. Jason’s screams still haunted her, but there was one moment when she closed her eyes and thought about the moment Jason had passionately kissed her in the diner, and the time Donovan had kissed her sweetly in her cell, that she fully felt that spark within her. She had touched it in her mind, cautiously at first, not knowing if this was yet another trick of Kheelan’s to torture her.

The more she explored that part of herself, the more natural it had begun to feel to her and she became even surer that at least most of what she’d been told here was true. She was Fae. She was one of them … a monster like Kheelan and his men. She was going to have to be as ruthless as these bastards if she was going to get out of this mess by using her powers against them.

By the next day, she had finally learned to reach inside of herself and draw out that spark of magic which until now had only manifested out of instinct. Believing it was actually there had been half the battle, and once April had admitted to herself that she was more than human, it was like a doorway had opened up inside her soul. Behind that door, she’d found the power she had been looking for.

****

When her tormenters arrived back in her cell, bright and early to begin their day’s work of trying to coerce her to heal Kheelan, she was almost eager to see them this time—now that she had a plan. She was grateful that at least the awful sounding king was dead. More than once, she’d caught Kheelan blubbering about his former lover and how he longed to continue in his footsteps.

And now, as she laughed in Kheelan’s face, tormenting
him
about his days being numbered, she reveled in that fact that soon he would be wiped off the face of the earth.

“I’d say you’ve got a week, maybe two tops, by the look of you, Kheels. I am so looking forward to your death.”

“Again,” he barked at Frederych, who had slowly just risen to his feet.

“But, Captain, I am not sure I ca—”

“I said again!”

This was it, her best chance, she thought. Frederych was truly the only one she feared, as Kheelan was still too weak to hurt her himself, and with him pretty much out of commission for the time being, she was ready for some payback.

“Please, no! I can’t take anymore,” she pleaded, hoping that they would believe her little scared act. As soon as the bastard reached her, she let loose her power, knocking both Kheelan and Frederych unconscious. She blasted through her restraints. Next, came the door. She would bring the whole goddamned place down if she had to, she thought as a murderous rage swept over her.

She remembered the direction they had brought her in and quickly made a run for it. Two guards stood at the entrance. She blasted one immediately, knocking him unconscious.

“I’ll do worse to you if you don’t open up the entry into the human realm.”

Wide-eyed and clearly terrified, the Fae guard did as she asked. Then she blasted him anyway and launched herself into the human realm. She saw what looked to be a cluster of houses farther down the mountain and decided to make her way down there. She’d need to find a reason to explain why she looked so beat up and disheveled. She couldn’t very well go telling tales of kidnapping Fae and wolves who shifted into men or she’d find herself locked up again in a different kind of cell.

Days spent in a dank dungeon, followed by two weeks in another less than sterile environment did not bode well for her appearance. Her clothes were dirty, her shirt torn, and she still felt the bruise on her face that Frederych had inflicted. The ones Kheelan had given her had already vanished due to her self-healing. She hadn’t lied to him at first when she told him that she had no idea how’d she’d done it. It became second nature to her eventually, but she didn’t understand why the wound Frederych had given her was healing at a slower rate than the damage Kheelan had inflicted. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something different about the other Fae.

April needed to come up with some excuses fast. Perhaps, she could simply say she got lost in the mountains. She quickly made her way down the rocky path and into the cover of the dense trees. She needed to get as much distance between herself and her captors as she could. There was no telling how long she had before they’d regain consciousness and come after her. After running full out for as long as her muscles could stand, she came across a flowing river, and her legs finally gave out.

She fell to her knees. Kheelan would come for her again. She knew it. And he’d hurt others, especially her men, to get to her. As much as she wanted to find them, to run into their arms, she had to stay away, at least until she was certain that Kheelan was dead. She would rather die herself than allow that vile Fae scum to ever harm her men again.