Lunar Marked (Sky Brooks Series Book 4) (23 page)

“Make a field,” he instructed. This was how we assessed how weak the magic that I borrowed from him was getting. I barely created a shimmer. I needed more. Before he connected again he brought the Aufero close, and I sucked in a ragged breath. I closed my eyes, feeling his familiar and comforting touch as his fingers interlinked with mine, hands pressed palm to palm.

“Again,” he told me. The tranquil soothing covering of his magic washed over me. Snaking around my body, I pulled from the magic in Aufero, it crept alongside Josh’s magic mirroring its movements making every effort to overshadow it. Josh’s fingers gripped tighter around mine; as the space became stifled he gasped.

Making more choking noises, he managed to speak. “Skylar, you need to change it.”

Yeah, better said than done.
Concentrating, I could feel the beads of perspiration forming along my brow. Josh’s breath beat lightly against my lips, and I felt my control of his magic waver. He was no longer assisting me. Dark magic crept along the side of his magic, wrapping around it. I forced it to mirror Josh’s magic, entwining with it so that they were indistinguishable from each other. The air cleared, and the smell of fresh linen, jasmine, earthy spice, and a hint of the metallic odor of blood inundated the shell that formed around us.

Josh released my hand but stayed close enough that his lips brushed mine as he spoke. “See, I knew you could do it,”

Well, at least one of us thinks I could.
There was a happy dance promised to celebrate this moment but I was too tired to give the much-needed enthusiasm it called for. I didn’t tell him that there was a part of me that liked the magic a little too much, a part that thirsted for the darker side, but the feelings didn’t matter—they were just that. I controlled the end results, and that’s all that mattered. At the moment, next to Josh, with dark necro-magic interlaced with natural magic, I had learned to control it without giving into the lust I had just two days ago. My eyes had been closed the whole time and when I opened them, the first thing I saw was Ethan leaning against the wall.

The pretty colors of the protective field exploded into the air, fragments of it drifting for just a moment.

“I got this Ethan, you can go,” Josh said as his focus remained on me. I started to step back, but he placed his hand around my waist. “No,” he whispered. “We need to finish.”

“It’s okay with me if he stays.”

“He’s a distraction.”

“For who, you or Sky?” Ethan’s hard voice asked from his position from across the room.

Josh wasn’t looking at me anymore but was focused on the wall behind me, his face drawn into a tight glower. “Both,” he finally said.

Ethan hesitated, looking at the Aufero, whose previous smoky orange coloring was a little lighter and more translucent.

In silence Ethan went upstairs.

F
ive long grueling hours later
, I lay on the ground next to Josh, my hair damp with sweat, my head pounding, and my mind fatigued from controlling all the thoughts that invaded it, even the one that briefly considered how wonderful it would be to have access to his magic at all times. So I laid next to Josh, so close our arms were touching, holding back the confession that for a few seconds, I had considered taking his magic. Nothing like telling the person that helped you, “Hey for a brief moment, I thought about stealing your magic. My bad.”

When he sat up, I did, too. I was ready to go home, eat, shower and—

“How long have you been screwing Ethan?”

Yeah and that. I planned on doing that—a lot—when I got home.

I blinked several times. Not because it was on my list of things I planned on doing when I got home, but because it surprised me again that they didn’t just talk to each other. Life would be so much easier if they did.

The deep, inquiring cerulean eyes waited for an answer. An answer that seemed to be stuck in the pit of my chest. Why did admitting it feel like a betrayal? If admitting it to someone was so hard, should I really be doing it?

“I don’t want to talk about my personal life, Josh—it’s weird.”

“So, recently,” he said, coming to his feet. He was halfway up the stairs when he turned to me. “Whatever happens between you two, don’t let things change between us, okay?”

I nodded, reading the meaning between his veiled words. Ethan’s reputation was something I was aware of. I like to think I was going into whatever existed between us with my eyes wide open. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t be knocked on my butt, even if I prepared for the worst. I would just see it coming, be a little more expecting when it did, but still totally unable to deal with it.

From behind, I watched as Josh passed his brother. Their eyes fixed on each other in the way they often did, when words were never exchanged but I was sure some form of communication took place. They both denied they could communicate other than verbally with each other, but I was still finding that hard to believe. One look between them seemed to have more information than most people could express in a minutes-long exchange.

T
he decorative pillow
was pinned against the wall, a small vase moved slowly around me, and I held the protective field around me and Ethan while he pressed against my jaw, then his tongue licked at the pulse of my neck. “Will you stop?” I snapped.

After we left the retreat, we ate and I showered but not until after I convinced Ethan bathing wasn’t a group project and we didn’t get around to having sex. Josh was in my head and I just couldn’t do it.

The feeling of having total control of dark magic was exhilarating, and subduing the taste for power and violence that had overtaken me so often in the past few days left me feeling weak. I didn’t like that. I still wanted Maya out of me, because she had shown who she was, and being in a protective state, trying to make sure I could control her and keep her from taking over wasn’t how I wanted to live.

He kissed me, and his fingers slipped under my shirt, rolling languidly over my skin. A light touch that made my skin tingle even moments after fingers left the spot. “You have to be able to perform with distractions,” he teased.

“If this is the distraction they employ, then I’m pretty sure things are just going to get weird fast,” I said, keeping the objects levitating around me.

He touched my hand. “Drop it.” Ethan stepped back, the field separating as he slid out from it. My eyes narrowed with curiosity.
Okay, that’s different.

He simply returned a crooked grin, standing outside the field watching. Slowly the field slipped away, the objects around me eased to the ground, and the Aufero pulsed at its same rhythmic beat.

Closing the distance between us Ethan said, “Very good,”

“Very good? Did you see that? I just made magic my bitch.”

“That you did,” he said in a low rumble, the warmth of his words breezing against my lips before his pressed against mine.

He drew me closer to him, pulling me into the kiss, and for a few minutes I forgot about Josh’s words; but it didn’t take long for them to reassert themselves.

I pulled back, taking several steps away, and when there was adequate distance between us, I asked, “What is going on between us?”

The deep gunmetal eyes held mine with lascivious intent and the little lilt of his smile seem to mock me. “It was just a kiss, Sky.”

Nothing was “just” with Ethan. Displays of affection were a salacious prelude to more. A simple hand hold led to me pressed against the wall, with us clawing at each other’s clothes like we were in heat. I’d seen the carnal side of him that enjoyed violence, but I now experienced that side of him that approached sex in the same manner. Unfettered, primal lust coursed through him. His sexuality was raw and carnal, and being with him was absolutely sinful. Each time we were together it was as beseeching and overwhelming as our first kiss. His sensuality was every part of my body, a masculinity that inundated my senses. He had quickly become a craving, an addiction, a necessity.
This is bad.... So bad!

“No, it’s not just a kiss. What happens next?” I looked away from the miscreant smile.

“Whatever you want to happen.”

There was a long silence and I waited for the words to come. For me to spout out that I wanted things to go back to the way they were. But I couldn’t even let that lie pass. The words just didn’t come out, and any that came to my mind weren’t what I wanted to say.

“What happens when you get tired of me?” I asked.

There weren’t any truer words. He was the king of one-night stands and fleeting relationships and the only lengthy one he’d ever had was so dysfunctional people had bets on who would kill who first.

He smiled. “What happens when
I
get tired of
you
? How about when
you
get tired of
me
?

I didn’t answer his question because I wasn’t the one with the questionable past. “Don’t play games with me. Answer the question.”

“It’s not very hard. We move on” was the simple response he gave me.

I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Why did I make this more than what it was—sex. Pleasure. Fun.

When he stepped closer, I kept moving back, trying to keep the distance between us, but quickly ran out of space, my back pressed firmly against the wall. Tracing his fingers down my arm, he waited until I lifted my eyes to meet his. “Where is this coming from?”

I shrugged, but it wasn’t enough of an answer. “I just don’t want to be a throwaway.”
I wish I was cooler than this.
“Someone you quickly lose interest in.”

His voice like velvet spoke into my cheek, warm kisses melted against my skin. “How could I lose interest in you?”

It was a line that I willingly accepted. And I let myself fall into returning his kiss.

I
was
wide awake lying next to Ethan; my overactive mind had decided that sleep wasn’t necessary and pondered over everything. Maya, Moura, dark magic, Logan’s information about the Faeries, and even Ethan. Logan’s avid curiosity with Ethan hadn’t diminished despite us removing the elven magic. And Ethan’s effortless movement from the protective field weighed on me.

“What is it Sky?” Ethan said in the pillow before rolling over to look at me, watching me through slits in his eyes.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“Seventy-seven heartrate and your respiration is twelve, you want to try again?”

“No, I just want to know why you are such a freak.”

He chuckled and sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“Why did Logan react to you the way he did?”

He shrugged. “Who knows why Logan does any of the things he does. I’m not going to waste time trying to figure it out.” But the nagging feeling persisted. Something was off. Ethan never just skated around an issue, he performed a full-on dance ensemble around it.

“You just walk out of the protective field as though it wasn’t there,” I offered, my curiosity at full bloom.

“Sky, you were using magic all day, it was a weak field. Anyone could have broken it. but it will get better with practice.”

It took a while for me to take me eyes off him, waiting for something to falter to confirm my suspicions. The more I found out about Ethan, the more there seemed to be to discover. His mother was a witch, and he possessed magic that he rarely used but I believed was stronger that he let on. “Okay.” My suspicion permeated the words.

He leaned forward to kiss me but I didn’t respond, keeping my lips pressed firmly together.
Distractions. Distractions. Distractions.
This was now his new sleight of hand and I wasn’t having any of it.

“I keep thinking about what Logan said about the Faeries,” I said. “What if Maya was one? That would explain so much. It would definitely explain why they resorted to infanticide to get rid of her. If she is, how horrible were the Fairies that people would resort to such things?”

A lot of the things that happened in the otherworld as an effort to prevent future problems were cruel by most standards. Its denizens often “contained” situations, which meant they killed off many for the pure agenda of keeping the world safe. But were you really ever safe in a world with vampires who devoured blood to survive and had moral compasses that seemed to be perpetually broken? Or elves who lived in the shadows, hidden from the world by glamours, and spent most of their time genetically engineering creatures that if released could cause the type of havoc that could destroy this world and the real world? Or their lesser counterparts who could control weather and agriculture? Faes who could control the mind, force the truth with a kiss? Or were-animals who shifted into creatures larger than the animal counterpart found in nature, who accepted fights of dominance as pack culture? Witches, despite their objections, were just as much a part of this world as anyone else. Magic and the depth of their control to cast curses that could kill, to form barriers that protected them from most things. How did the people in this world decide what addition to this ominous and bizarre place was too much for it to handle?

Ethan ran his hands through his hair and heaved a ragged breath. “If my research is correct, I think the best choice was to kill them before they could reach their full potential.” I knew what he was eluding to—and it made me sick.

“No, that is never an option.”

His lips dipped into a frown. “Sky, the Faeries were not good people. And because of how powerful they were they couldn’t be destroyed, so what other options did they have?”

I didn’t know what options they had, but I hated the very idea that someone thought it was okay to kill a child because it
might
grow up to be something horrible.

Ethan rolled out of bed and started for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to get something out of my car.”

“You’re going out there like that? Clothes please.”

He looked out the window—it was still dark outside. Then he glanced over at the clock on the nightstand. “I doubt there’s anyone outside. I’m used to my home.”

The estate which Ethan called a home did provide a lot of privacy. There were only six homes in the subdivision and they were so far apart I doubt he ever saw his neighbors, I’m pretty sure he was pleased with that.

“Well, I have neighbors, and I doubt they want to see your naked ass and junk while having their morning coffee.”

They were probably used to it. After multiple discussions with Steven, he finally at least started wearing pants. The neighbors didn’t seem to mind. In fact, most of my neighbors happened to make too much of everything and used that as a reason to come over and share their various dishes with us. Free food. The pang of Steven’s absence hit me again. Sometime over the past couple of days he had removed more of his things. I wasn’t sure if he was saving me the pain of an uncomfortable departure or he didn’t want to deal with my maudlin display of emotions that I wouldn’t be able to control once he actually left. I pushed the thoughts aside.

He sighed, frowning as he grabbed his underwear and slipped them on as he headed out the door.

It’s just clothes.

He returned with a book that he dropped on my lap. As I read through the pages, I was met with recounts of enslavement, torture, destruction, and exceptionally cruel displays of power. They were cruel, and the more I read, the less the idea of “containing” people seemed abhorrent. Many of the Faeries were eventually killed, but not without the loss of thousands in order to kill a few. Limited in their ability to procreate, they started to do so with humans, but doing that left them the less powerful progeny that we called fae. Logan described Faeries as godlike, and as I read on, I realized he wasn’t far off. They fought hard to retain their status, finding that witches produced a stronger offspring.

I don’t believe in infanticide. I don’t believe in infanticide
. I repeated that mantra over and over in my head despite reading how they forced were-animals into animal form and treated them as such. The anxiety of my new discovery wound tight in my stomach as I came across the names Ravyn, Emmalesse, Leonel, and Ethosial. Considered the strongest of the Faeries because of their ability to manipulate magic, shapeshift, perform necro-magic equivalent to that of dark elves, and transfer magic similar to what I was able to do with Josh. I stared at the names as my fingers went numb and my hand became cool and clammy. Was Ethos a descendant of the Faerie himself? If a knife in the throat didn’t kill him and enclosing him in an oxygen-deprived protective field barely stopped him, he might actually be. How old were they? I could only imagine the extent of his magic. Emma’s story of losing her child, Maya: was it really as tragic as I believed? Emma—was it coincidently similar to Emmalesse? Who was she?

“How long have you had this information?” I asked.

“Not long.”

“And you didn’t tell me about it? You can’t continue keeping information like this and then just springing it on me,” I snapped. I wanted to be upset and angry with someone. It was the only emotion that was easily at my disposal. The others had retreated, leaving me feeling empty. I kept looking at the names, the familiarity and how unusual they were. I just didn’t believe in coincidences anymore after witnessing collusion, secret alliances, worlds hidden by glamours, creatures created by the manipulation of magic, lives captured into shades, and natural elements controlled by the wiggle of a hand. I didn’t have the luxury of believing that things were coincidences, because they never were. Was Emma a grieving mother or participant in making sure that Faeries continued to exist, maintaining their hold on the otherworld, living as gods, and expecting reverence? As the mother of such a powerful being she would hold a place of power by association.

I’d read enough but I forced myself to continue, hoping someone had written a how-to on killing them, but there wasn’t any such luck. Pages and pages of their talents, when they could have simply written, “They can do everything—the end.”

Startled, I quickly grabbed the phone as soon as it vibrated and played David’s ringtone. I answered, expecting his typical greeting of calling me a feline or a pastry. Instead, his voice was shaky and raspy. “Skylar, I need you here, now.” Then he hung up.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got to his house, but I was prepared for anything. I didn’t care about the peculiar look Ethan gave me when I grabbed a hunter’s knife and the Aufero and headed out the door with him in tow—thankfully fully dressed.

“
W
hat’s the matter
?” I asked the moment David answered the door. In response, he moved aside, and curled up against the wall was a man covered by a blood-speckled sheet. David pulled back the covers, exposing a half-naked man, hair punctured through his sallow skin. I knelt in front of him, and he attempted to speak but could only get out a pained “k” or “ca.” I tried to make it out but couldn’t.

“Don’t try to talk. I’m going to help you.” I sounded a lot more confident than I felt because I didn’t know how to help him. His eyes resembled the odd ones of the man I nearly ran over. Was he a mutated were-animal, and if so, what the hell happened? David plopped in the chair next to us and looked relieved that I had a handle on things.