Page 1 of Fae Unleashed
1
CERRI
Iwasn’t a goddess.
I learned that the hard way when my knees started to ache, and my butt cheeks fell asleep while Addie and I were trying to fix my frayed timeline. Cracking open one eye, I peered at Addie—who seemed absolutely unbothered by her position.
Swallowing my groan of frustration, I unfolded my knees out from under me. We’d been here for hours already. I’d lent my nature-based life powers to Addie’s death-based powers. We thought that if her arcana gave her the ability to tap into the threads of fate, then mine would help heal my busted threads.
When I closed my eyes again, I could see the pile of dead Cerridwens—dead versions ofmefrom other timelines. Shivers ran up my spine. My heart thumped as if Queen Beryl had returned to finish the last Cerridwen in existence.
She wasn’t here. The Unseelie Queen didn’t have the guts to hunt me down on her own. She either toyed with me like a cat with a mouse, or she sent someone else to do her dirty work for her.
Still, I yelped in fear when the front door opened. Addie’s eyes flew wide, and I twisted to face the door while my heart tried to rip its way out of my chest.
Rhoan stood in the doorway, his feet spread apart in a fighting stance while he scanned the area for threats as if he wasn’t the one who’d just scared the crap out of me. I slapped a hand over my heart and tried to reassure myself, but my heart was having none of that.
My fae warrior had been acting weird since our return from the Seelie castle. The man could barely look me in the eye anymore. He did his best to keep his attention elsewhere. I’d tried everything to make him seeme, but it was all to no avail.
“Is everything good?” Rhoan asked after several peaceful moments.
Addie laughed. The sound of her voice was so bright compared to her dark arcana. She was a beacon of light in the dark depths of the afterlife. I could see why Maddox loved her so much. We all loved her, and we were proud of the ways she’d grown. So, I couldn’t be too mad about my split timeline.
My friend had spent most of her life terrified of her arcana and trying to fight it. She’d grown into that power and knew it had no control over her. After saving the world from another apocalypse, Addie deserved a happily ever after even if it meant mucking up my own timelines.
I would find a way to topple that bitch, the Unseelie Queen Beryl, on my own.
Hauling myself up from the floor, I did my best to ignore the tingling in my legs and looked to Addie. “Another day?”
She nodded, though there was a sad twist to her lips.
“Don’t be frustrated,” I told her. “It is what it is.”
But I was frustrated. I’d recently found out that not only was I the last survivor of the Seelie Fae Court—and not a failed wolf shifter—but I was also the unfortunate victim of someone else’s happily ever after. So, I had to find a way to win back my fae Court from an evil queen while at a serious disadvantage.
That wasn’t even to mention the blight that’d taken over my arcana or the fact that Rhoan, my knight in shining leather, wouldn’t even look at me.
I needed to go outside and scream. Holding up a finger to tell both Addie and Rhoan to wait, I lurched towards the back door. Never before was I more grateful that my friend now lived out in the middle of nowhere.
Here, in the mountains of New York, I clenched my fists and unleashed a mighty scream of frustration. Of course, my arcana flew outwards in all directions. The blighted power surged towards the surrounding woods. The leaves of the trees turned a deep crimson. Thorned vines unfurled from the base of the tree trunks and climbed high into the branches. Scarlet lilies leaned out of the brush and bloomed wide to reveal their delicate petals.
When Queen Beryl had tried to poison my shifter family with fae food, I’d gone to Beryl for the antidote. Instead, I’d found a castle, some old alchemical notes, and a curse. The alchemical notes had solved the fae food poisoning, and the castle was still waiting in the fae realm for me.
This curse, the blight that Beryl left on my arcana, had become a part of me. It was changing me from Seelie to Unseelie. I had no problem with that, though I worried that others would look at me differently. That’s what Beryl wanted, of course. She wanted people to look at me and see her touch on me.
I laughed to myself. Here I was, working with a descendant of a death goddess. It wasn’t like darkness could scare me. It had nothing to do with a person’s morality. Good and bad were separate from light and dark.
I just hoped others understood that.
“Are you ready to go home?” Rhoan asked beside me.
I wasn’t sure when he’d snuck up on me. Someday, I would put a bell on that man’s neck. I’d seen his inner beast. A bell would look adorable on him. And I was sorely tempted to say that out loud with the way he’d been acting lately. Prodding the man wasn’t going to make him love me, though.
Instead, I tried being direct.
Outside, surrounded by the red garden, I asked Rhoan what was going on.
He looked away from me, his gaze bouncing over the scarlet lilies. He didn’t have to say anything. That was enough for me.
