Rive (8 page)

A few of her
Sidhe
guards closed in around her, no doubt making their presence known to him.

“I mean her no harm, fools,” he said to the shadowed
Sidhe
moving around him.

He rested his eyes on Celeste. “I am sorry for my words. If you love him, then you will leave him alone.” He disappeared, leaving Celeste alone in the gloom.

She was frozen in place, staring at the empty space her just stood. His words rolled through her.
If you love him, then you will leave him alone
. She had a big hurt hole in her heart because she knew he might be right.

She ran in the direction Rylan had gone. He wasn’t very far in the forest, leaning against the tree.

“I’m sorry,” Celeste said.

“It’s okay.” He pushed himself off the tree. “I’m sorry for blowing up in front of you like that.

She moved into him. It took him a second, but he folded his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head.

“Rylan?” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“What if he’s right? What if all I do is hurt you?”

“You stop that!” He spun her around, pushing her into the tree. “Don’t say another word. I choose to be here. I choose you.” He pushed his lips into hers, snaking his hand up to hold the back of her head. When her knees had just about given out, he tossed his head back. “Okay?”

“Unfair tactics,” she murmured.

He pulled her against his chest, rocking slowly back and forth. “Do you hear that?” he whispered

She listened, but heard nothing but the creak of the trees in the breeze, the buzzing of nighttime insects, and the rush of the wind. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly. I wonder what Tink and Victor are up to?”

She giggled. “Aw, leave them be. I’ve never seen Tink like this before. Hell, I’ve never seen him a date a guy for longer than three weeks.”

“Sweet. Let’s go inside. My mom’s not home.” He linked her arm through his and guided her through the forest.

She couldn’t wait to be alone with him. She pictured his bed, complete with navy blue blankets she’d helped him picked out. Red colored her cheeks. Maybe it would actually happen this time.

Her internal alarm went crazy. She dropped Rylan’s hand, feeling something evil try to move through her. It was big. Something bad.

“Celeste?” he said. His voice sounded like it was ten miles away.

She tried to push it back with her power, but it was too late. It had used her to cross from the Otherworld to this world.

A giant creature exploded into existence in front of them. It walked on four, squat legs, like a giant lizard. Scales lined its back and eerie red eyes peered out from a monstrous face. It made a god-awful noise wheezing growl, like every nightmarish creatures she’d ever heard all rolled into one horrendous sound.

It lunged for her. She jumped and rolled to the side, landing on her feet. “Rylan!” The creature stood between them.

It advanced on her, coming closer, red eyes glowing.

“Hey, over here!” Rylan clapped two branches together. “Come get me!”

The creature spun, looked at Rylan, and then turned its attention back to Celeste. Rylan became more desperate, making more noise, attacking the creature, but it remained singularly focused on Celeste.
It’s here for me.

Her guards attacked from all sides, but it batted them off with its powerful legs like they were mosquitoes buzzing around its head.

She ran. It thundered through the trees after her, shaking the ground.

“Victor!” she screamed. “Rylan!”

One of the
Sidhe
guards caught up to her and grabbed her arm. She almost cried with relief. He could teleport her away from this thing. But before could, a long scaly tail knocked him sideways. He slammed into a tree, very still on the ground.

She pressed her back against a large tree and watched the thing come closer. She was trapped. Ten feet, nine feet. Soon, it’d be against her.

Rylan and Victor’s shouts grew closer. They’d be at her side in thirty seconds, but she wouldn’t make it. It was coming too fast.

“No!” she screamed. She held up her hand. Light shot out of it, hitting the creature in the chest. It bellowed. It tried to move foreword, but it was stuck, like it was pushing against an invisible pane of glass between them.

I’m doing that.
She called on her power, thought of the ancient magic she had seen. She felt energy flow through her from the earth beneath the feet, from the tree at her back, and even from the air current dancing around her limbs. She pulled all the power she could. It welled inside her, bigger than a volcano.

Then she pushed it out. A shock wave erupted around her, sending the creature flying away from her while roaring like thunder. Her light blinded her, and she could see nothing.

It was very quiet.

She quieted her light. As it faded, the night came back into view. Crickets started chirping again. The forest came back to life.

“Whoa,” she whispered. The creature was dead, impaled against a series of destroyed trees. Destruction ringed a perfect twenty-foot circle around her; mangled trees, flattened underbrush. It looked like somebody had set off a bomb.

“Celeste!” Rylan’s voice floated the forest.

“I’m here!” she shouted. “I’m okay!”

He burst into the clearing created by her… whatever that was. Relief washed over his face when he saw her. “Are you okay?” He ran toward her.

She had her hand up still, facing the creature. She pulled it back, staring at it like it could explain what just happened. “Yeah. Fine.”

He reached her, pulling her into a hug so tight it almost took her breath away. “Thank God you’re okay!”

She gave a shaky nod.

Victor and Tink burst into the clearing. “Holy crap-monkey shit balls!” Tink shouted. “What is that?” he shrieked, pointing at the mangled creature.

Victor put his hand gently on Tink’s chest, stopping him from stepping any closer to the creature. “Are you okay?” he called over the body of the monster.

“Fine,” she said. “I’m fine.” The second time she said it she started to calm down.

The guards appeared around them, surrounding the creature. “What happened?” Victor barked at them. “Where were you?”

The girl with the strange gray hair answered. “It had some sort of curse on it. We could not get close.” She leaned toward it, poking its tail with her shoe twice. “What is it?” It made a yucky squishy noise. The spot she’d touched looked different. Instead of scales, gelatinous squishy flesh circled the massive tail.

Victor made a slow deliberate circle around the creature. “This is very strange, but I’m pretty sure it’s a Revolving Beast.” He poked it again, watching the skin transform to gooey softness. “I don’t know of anything else that can do that.”

He raised his eyes to Celeste. “How did you do kill it?” He gestured to the circle around him. “You did this?”

“I don’t know, exactly. I put my hand up, and it flew back, and um, yeah.” She flipped her hand up, looking at her palm. Like normal, it had the purple fire rolling around her palm.

“You did this?” Rylan whispered into her ear.

“I did.”

Tink stepped into the circle, running a finger down a severed tree trunk. “That is so awesome!”

She glared at him. “Gee, Tink. I’m fine, thanks.”

“You are okay, right?” He dropped his finger from the tree. “This is so cool. I wish I could do that.”

“This is all my fault,” Victor said. “I was distracted, with…with—”

“Me,” Tink mumbled. “No, this is all my fault.”

“It’s not anyone’s fault,” Rylan said. “Whatever this was, I couldn’t get near it. Every time I tried, I was repelled.” He gestured at the ever present
Sidhe
guard. “They couldn’t either.”

“That is some scary shit,” Tink said.

A new S
idhe
appeared in front of them, making them all jump. Celeste recognized his long brown hair and modern clothes. Regina’s guard. “Dammit!” Rylan shouted. “Don’t do that.”

“I am Conor, Regina’s top guard.”

“We know,” Celeste said flatly.

“My, my, my.” He pointed at the beast. “That is not good. Not good at all.” He turned to Victor. “Regina wants to see you. She heard about this and she wants to talk.”

“What the,” Victor said. He faced the five guards. “Which one you is Regina’s damn spy? You work for me!”

The impassive guards said nothing.

“Fine.” He threw his hands up as more
Sidhe
appeared around them, immediately circling the body and investigating the trees. “Send in the damn troops.”

Victor stomped away from the beast and planted himself in front of her. “I need to understand. How did you do this?”

“I don’t know. It just happened because I wanted it stop.” She turned her head to the right, then the left, taking in the flattened, burned trees. “That, I have no freaking idea.”

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Be careful who you discuss this with, okay?”

“Agreed,” Rylan said.

Victor continued whispering. “Revolving Beasts are very powerful and very rare. They don’t go after people like this. I’m not sure why you weren’t able to stop it from entering, or why it was even here in the first place.”

“What are you saying?” Celeste asked.

“I’m saying it was tampered with, and it was brought here. Until we know why and how… just be careful.” He walked away to speak with some of the arriving
Sidhe
investigating the scene.

“What just happened?” she asked Rylan.

“I don’t know.” He pulled her into his arms. “I’m here.”

She hugged him, pushing her face into this chest. His familiar smell slowed her wildly beating heart.

“Celeste,” he whispered into her hear.

“Yeah?”

“That was freaking awesome.”

She giggled. “Thanks. I don’t even know how I did it.”

“Still awesome.”

Victor cleared his throat. She guessed he was back. “Regina wants us all to come in until we sort this out.”

“What about my parents?”

“We’re sending guards, just in case.”

“Right,” she said.

Rylan’s arms tightened around her, and she was whirling in the violent way while he transported them to Dublin.

Chapter 9

“Unacceptable,” Mateus growled. His normal warm smile was gone, replaced with a thin flat one.

Victor cringed under his stare. The awkward family moment was, well, awkward for everyone.

Mateus was at the same old conference table flanked by Regina and Usha. Celeste sat next to Victor. Rylan and Tink were waiting just outside the room.

“It’s not his fault,” Celeste said. “Whatever that thing was, it was after me.”

Regina folded her hands in front of her. “What do you mean, after you? We know that.”

“It was very focused,” Celeste said. “Rylan was trying to attack it. It didn’t even notice him, or the guards. It had a singular focus. Me. I could feel it.”

“It shouldn’t have gotten close. It shouldn’t have crossed over,” Mateus said.

“We don’t know how it crossed over. That’s an excellent question,” Victor said. His eyes rested on Regina, then Usha. “It was cursed or tampered with somehow by somebody or something very powerful.”

Celeste pressed on her temples with her fingers. “I tried to stop it from coming through. But I couldn’t.”

Mateus pressed his hands down on the table. “Victor should have killed it. Victor should have been there instead of gallivanting about with the some… boy!”

“I was there!” Victor yelled. “You’re acting like I was in Hong Kong or something! I was at her side in a second. Five guards were in a ten foot radius at all times.” He cleared his throat, taking a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling. “They backed off a bit to give her and Rylan privacy, but they were there. And he’s not just some boy.”

“We’ll discuss your private life later,” Mateus said.

“Or not,” Victor mumbled.

Usha stood, walking around the table in smooth, small steps, like he was floating. “The guards were not capable of protecting her from that threat. It’s not their fault.” He paused, resting his hands on the back of her chair. “It seems she is capable of defending herself just fine, so our attention should turn to finding the motivations around the attack.”

“Exactly,” Victor said. “Well, not totally. I think she still needs some extra protection, all of you do.”

“We should also discuss your capability in guarding this young woman, and whether you are distracted,” Mateus said.

“I am very capable of guarding her.” He looked at Regina. “You guys need to worry about protecting this place. What if an army of cursed Revolving Beasts come through here? Like fish in a barrel.”

Regina waved her hands in front of her. “Gentleman, please remain calm.” Mateus leaned back in his chair. Victor pushed his lips together, but remained quiet. “Victor and Celeste, please excuse us. The board will decide how to handle this situation.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Victor said stiffly.

Celeste stood without another word and walked out of the room. She was scared because they were scared. They were out of their league with this thing, and that worried her.

Rylan and Tink were waiting in the hallway.

“What happened in there?” Rylan asked.

“Mateus is blaming Victor for the attack. They’re not really focusing in on the issue at hand. It seems like they’re fighting,” Celeste said.

“That’s totally not fair,” Tink said.

“They kicked us out so they could decide what to do,” Celeste said. “Like this happened to them, not me? Why do they get to decide everything for me?”

“They don’t,” Victor said. He looked side to side, scanning the faces of the
Sidhe
around them, and then pulled them down a hallway. He took them to a dark corner Celeste recognized where she and Rylan had snuck off to. “Look, we need to find out why this is happening. Something made that thing come after you.”

“What do we do?”

“We need a spy,” Victor said.

“What kind of spy?” Celeste asked. “What does that mean?”

“The undetectable, dirty kind.”

Rylan interjected. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”