Page 77 of Fae Unleashed
Pushing off the wall, I fell the twenty feet to the next terrace and landed with a soft thud. Nothing in the night stirred. Now that Cerri had returned, everyone who remained flocked to the castle for a chance to be close to her. The dryads and pixies kept her busy while I took this time to myself.
To my right, a figure stepped out of the dark. I expected Cerri or Tal, but the face belonged to someone I didn’t know quite as well. The dragon shifter put his hands in his pockets and came to stand beside me. He rocked on his heels and cast a sidelong glance in my direction.
There was a restlessness mounting between us. He had an idea, and I was starting to pick up on it. We’d fought together in Faust’s domain; things like that created an unspoken bond.
“Your mate will burn down Cerri’s domain if I get you hurt,” I told him with a shake of my head.
He laughed and rubbed the salt and pepper beard on his chin. “Then conjure a fireproof forest.”
Despite my earlier mood, a smile reached my lips. “I’ll get right on that.”
“I’ve been thinking ever since we left that…realm. Those other spirits looked a whole lot like your beast, but they weren’t completely bound to their master’s will.” Morgan waved a hand in the air as he spoke. “It seemed, to me, like the man had caught them, but he’d been unable to force them into submission. The same could go for you when the time comes.”
I wrinkled my nose. Who told the dragon man about my curse? Knowing the women and their social circle, Cerri must have told Vi who then went and told her mate. Still, I scowled knowing that my dirty laundry was out to hang where everyone could see.
Morgan just wanted to help, though. I wasn’t so distrusting that I would refuse his assistance in a time like this.
“That’s not the only thing I thought of, though.” Morgan smiled, revealing sharp teeth at the corners of his mouth. His devious eyes flashed in the dark. “They helped us once. That means they might help us again. You and I could go tonight and deal with this now. If we remove this Faust character from the upcoming fight, then there’s a greater chance of overall success with minimal casualties.”
My stomach tightened in untampered excitement. Morgan had a point. When I looked back, I knew that Cerri would kick me in the shin for leaving without telling her. It’d been a problem in the past. Yet, I also knew she would do everything in her power to stop me.
I reminded myself that I was doing this for her. I could ask for forgiveness later, when the dust had settled, and we had the rest of our lives ahead of us. As fae, I had an eternity to ear her trust once again. It was a fair trade for Faust’s life, in my opinion.
“If Cerridwen is anything like her friends, you’re going to hear about this for the rest of your life,” Morgan warned. “Are you prepared for that?”
“Doing this means I get a life with her, so yes. I’m prepared.”
He nodded. “Lead the way. I have your back.”
Together, Morgan and I stepped into Faust’s forest with the hopes that we would find our way back to Faust’s domain and to the other souls trapped there.
Cerri
I sat across from Delphine.Since she was still here, I knew that she wanted to be here. I didn’t have a single person in my entire court who could make this woman do anything she didn’t want to do. Which really begged the question of why Del chose to stay.
She sized me up with her dark eyes, all the while her lips remaining an emotionless line. I fought the urge to roll my eyes and slouch in my chair. This was tedious. I didn’t want to have to play games with someone I thought I’d grown close to.
“You saved me from Faust more than once,” I noted.
Del smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. The expression gave her a menacing aura. “And I tried to kill you more times than that.”
She wasn’t wrong, but that’d been for the money. Now… now it was to protect Rhoan.
“What if I told you I could brew a potion that would sever Rhoan’s connection to Faust? I learned how to tap into a raw source of magic and apply it to my potion-craft. Given a little more time, I could completely—”
“You don’t have more time,” Del admonished.
As if slapped in the face, I jerked back. She was right, though. We didn’t have time. If Del was saying this, though, that meant she knew something that I didn’t. So, I sat back and waited for her to keep going. If she had information, there was a chance she might slip up and tell me.
But Del mirrored my movements. She sat back in her seat and kept her eyes trained on mine. The frustrating assassin had my patience running thin. We needed to move on our attack, but I couldn’t risk doing that if Del had information that could change the course of this next battle.
Finally, I slapped both hands down on the table. “Listen, I’m ready for this fight to be over. I’m exhausted. I’ve died at least once, if not more. This is going to come to an end one way or another, and I’d like it to be in my favor if only to give you a fighting chance.”
Del sneered. “A fighting chance? Really?”
Del had spunk the same way that my friends did. I wanted to fold her into my circle and keep her close so that she would never have to fear for her life again. It was something I wished someone had done for me. But the more she spoke, the more I wanted to punt her into the sun.
I reached into my hair and pulled out Feri. After gently dropping him onto the table, I met Del’s gaze once more. “I learned, rather recently, that the original Cerridwen created Feri’s curse.”
