Loving fae, p.11
Loving Fae, page 11
The last thing I saw was Maize’s hand reaching for me through the brightness, her lips shaping my name—
A flash of blinding light. Searing heat. Then nothing but silence and darkness.
The quiet that followed was thick enough to choke on. My mind wouldn’t stop spinning—confusion, worry, and a hundred questions crashing into each other.
What the hell just happened? Did we escape? Why wasn’t this like before, when he reached through her head and trapped us within a ‘prison’? Why did it feel like a nightmare? Did that mean he was more connected to her…or less?
Before I could get any answers, the world began to put itself back together. The void peeled away, light and color bleeding into focus until shapes started forming around us. My panic eased just enough for me to take in where we’d landed—a gigantic cavern of molten gold and black, the walls pulsing like veins alive with fire.
“What the…?”
Suddenly, Maize appeared out of thin fucking air, followed by Philip. I surged forward on instinct, my arm sliding firmly around her waist to steady her before she could collapse.
“I’ve got you, teacup,” I promised as she gasped and turned into me, wrapping her arms tight around my neck. I held her there, protecting her even as my eyes swept the space around us, trying to figure out what fresh hell we’d landed in this time.
Philip stood a few feet away, eyes wide with surprise as he turned in place, scanning every glowing surface. He shot me a look that was equal parts awe and holy shit before muttering under his breath, “Another dreamscape?” His tone was tight, edged with reverence and unease.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have an answer. The air shimmered with a different kind of magic—magic that moved like Maize’s, but older.
I tightened my hold around her, feeling her heartbeat hammer against mine as she turned her gaze toward the fiery walls.
“We’re not in a dream anymore,” I said quietly, realization settling cold in my gut. “This is real.”
Suddenly, a deep and resonating voice rolled through the cavern like distant thunder. “Come forward.”
As the sound faded, the molten light shifted, and a stone altar rose at the far end of the chamber. On it was a bed of rock and fire, and a massive figure lay sprawled across its surface. Shit. The form was dim, flickering in and out of focus like a dying flame, power leaking from every crack in his skin.
Maize instinctively stepped toward him, drawn by something I couldn’t see—something having to do with her magic. I could feel it through our bond. I moved with her, my hand hovering near her back in case I needed to pull her into my arms, while Philip guarded her other side. His shoulders were tight, every movement coiled with tension.
“Balor?” she asked, her voice tinted with disbelief.
The figure stirred, firelight spilling from his eyes like an explosive volcano. I felt my lips curl back, and a predatory growl caught in my throat. I couldn’t fucking help it. This was a true god in the presence of my mate, and a lethal one at that.
Balor wasn’t just a god—he was one of the most powerful, most ancient of their species.
“Yes, child, it is me,” he said, his tone layered with exhaustion and something tender, catching me off guard. “I can’t hold him off for long, but my Cethlenn told me you needed answers.”
“Yeah,” I said. The god’s glowing eyes shifted toward me, his massive form unmoving on the bed of fire and stone. “Maybe start with where the hell we are.”
“In my realm,” he answered calmly. “Safe. Away from his influence.” I grunted, not entirely convinced but willing to take the win for now.
“For now,” Maize pointed out, her brow dipping. “He’s everywhere and watching everything.”
“How the hell did you trap him in the first place?” I was possibly jumping the gun, but considering these gods liked to disappear whenever they wanted, it felt like the right damn time to ask.
Balor’s lips twitched, the faintest hint of amusement ghosting over his face. “I was in my youth then,” he said, followed by a deep sigh that vibrated the walls. “Only a few millennia old. Reckless. Strong.”
Only a few millennia…
“But it poisoned me to do so,” he finished, and my stomach dropped at the picture he painted.
Maize shifted beside me, her voice cutting clean through the heavy air. “Will it poison me? Will the fate I’ve been given—the path I’ve been set on—bring me to this state too?”
I knew my mate well enough to understand she wasn’t afraid for herself. It wasn’t the poison that scared her, it was what it might do to the people she loved. To our bond. To the brothers she’d sworn to protect.
Balor looked at her—really looked—and for a moment the light in his eyes flared brighter, full of both pride and sorrow.
“You have more power than I ever did,” he admitted softly. “The blood of two gods—of war and prophecy. Your blood and your magic are the only things strong enough to end him. When the time comes, pour that magic into him. Give it to him. Don’t fight him, Maize.”
“What the fuck?” Philip snapped, his demanding question echoing against stone.
“I don’t understand,” Maize murmured. “You want me to give him my magic?”
“Your magic will unmake him,” Balor explained, his tone thinning as cracks of light began to shimmer across his skin. “The essence of it will unravel his being. It’s how I was able to trap him in the first place—it will destroy him. It will…”
“Poison him,” Maize whispered, realization dawning in her eyes.
The words hung in the air, heavy and final.
Maize’s lips parted in question. “What about my mates? How will that affect our bond?”
But Balor’s form was already fracturing, light bleeding through his chest like cracks spreading across glass. The rumble beneath our feet deepened, the magma-filled veins along the walls pulsing faster and brighter, as if the chamber itself was trying to hold Balor together.
The chamber shuddered, then began to collapse around us—light folding in on itself until the only noise I could hear was a thunderous heartbeat.
I jerked upright, breath catching as the heat and noise vanished, replaced by the cold, still air of the tower. Maize gasped awake a moment later as Philip grunted, catching himself before stumbling to his feet and heading for the door to alert the others, no doubt.
Maize trembled, her pulse racing against my chest when I pulled her close. I didn’t say anything—words felt too small for what had just happened. I just held her, feeling every tremble and uneven breath. Her fingers fisted in my shirt anxiously and I tightened my arms around her in silent support and comfort.
“I love you,” I murmured finally, the words pulled from a deep and unguarded place within me. I needed her to fucking know after that.
She drew in a surprised breath before whispering back, “I love you too.”
Music to my fucking ears.
I rested my chin against her hair, letting the weight of it all settle between us—the storm outside, Balor’s warning, the quiet truth of what we’d just survived.
She wasn’t simply some weapon born to end a god, as Balor suggested.
Maize was more. So much more.
CHAPTER 13
MAIZE
The snowstorm had broken sometime before dawn, leaving the mountains blanketed in a thin silvery fog that clung to every jagged edge of rock and skeletal tree. The air still hummed with the bite of the wind, but sunlight was finally breaking through the heavy cloud cover, warming the world just enough to make it bearable to travel. The warmth touched my face as we pressed forward along the path, our horses well rested after a long night’s sleep.
Chait insisted on riding behind me, his arms loose around my waist but his chest firm against my back. The faint rise and fall of his breathing was comforting as our horse moved along the narrow, ice-slick path.
In the early morning light, my mates and I rode in a comfortable silence, though tension rippled quietly through the bond connecting us. Even Pip—curled up inside Maddox’s heavy jacket—seemed to sense it, his tiny head occasionally lifting as if to check that we were all still alright.
It probably didn’t help that my magic was restless, drawing at the edges of my awareness—an invisible thread tugging me forward. It wasn’t painful, exactly, just relentless, urging me toward the looming mountain. The closer we came to that wall of stone and ice, the stronger the pull became.
A chill crawled up my spine as I stared at the sheer face of the mountain rising before us. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were closer to Oberon than any of us had predicted. The only question was how in the hell we were supposed to get past the impossible barrier waiting for us.
“I can feel him,” I finally said to Chait, my voice so quiet that the wind nearly swallowed it.
“Oberon?”
“Well, yes…” I hesitated. “But Balor, actually. It’s like I can feel an echo of his magic. Like—”
“He’s leading you?” Chait asked, his chin brushing the top of my head.
“I think so,” I said carefully. I didn’t want to sound too sure, because it was entirely possible that what I was feeling was a mix of my own magic and the pull of Oberon’s influence.
He didn’t answer right away, and the trail narrowed again, forcing us to slow. Fog drifted across the slope, veiling the valley in white. For a while, there was only the crunch of hooves on frozen earth.
“I just hope it’s him,” Chait said at last. “I hope it’s not one of Oberon’s tricks. These mountains up ahead—they’re where his magic signature was strongest in the Spirit realm.” He exhaled. “One way or another, we’re going to find out soon.”
A fact that clearly had every one of my mates on edge, especially after the events in the dreamscape last night. Apparently, when Philip came barreling out of the tower, the others had just stared at him, wide-eyed, as he tried to explain the insanity of what we’d experienced. If I hadn’t lived it myself, I wasn’t sure I’d have believed it was anything more than a nightmare either.
But I had felt Balor’s power. And, much like Cethlenn, I knew without a shred of doubt that he was real. They were real, and my connection to them was real.
And that meant one undeniable truth: I was the child of two gods.
What did I even do with that?
We continued upward until the path widened again, a break in the fog revealing the pale outline of the ridge above us. My magic pulsed once, gentle but firm, and I knew we were close to something. The awareness made my stomach twist.
“I’m scared,” I admitted. The words slipped out before I could stop them. They didn’t sound small or fragile—they just were.
Chait didn’t answer right away. He slowed the horse to a stop, ignoring the others as they rode past us, understanding we needed a moment. Chait reached up to tilt my chin toward him, his fingers brushing along my jaw.
He studied me for a long moment, his eyes searching my face. “Of him?”
I shook my head. “Not of Oberon. Of what happens after. Of what I might have to become to stop him.”
“You’re not a thing waiting to be turned into a weapon, mon amour.” His tone softened to a whisper. “You’re still you. You’ll always be you. No matter what you—or we—have to do to defeat him.”
I swallowed hard. “Even if I destroy everything in the process?”
“Then we’ll rebuild it together,” he said simply. “Piece by piece.”
The certainty in his words struck something deep inside me. Chait truly believed that.
Before I could respond, he tilted my head back further and kissed me. It was slow, deliberate—like he wanted to make sure I understood every word he’d just said without saying anything else at all. The world shrank to the warmth of his mouth, his familiar scent, and the gentle press of his fingers beneath my chin.
When we finally broke apart, a smile curved onto my lips. “I love you,” I whispered. “I love you so much, Chait.”
He rested his forehead against mine, his voice slightly unsteady. “You are everything to me, Maize. I would follow you across every realm, and when our time comes, I’ll follow you into the Spirit realm too. We will never be apart.”
Because we were inevitable.
The moment lingered, soft and perfect, until a familiar voice cut through it.
“Alright, lovebirds!” Zed called from a few feet ahead, his tone dripping with pure amusement. “Are you planning to stop making out long enough to tell us why your magic’s lighting up the damn path?”
It was what?
I snapped my head up, and sure enough, Zed was right. My magic shimmered along the mountain trail ahead, threads of light slithering between the trees before disappearing against the sheer rock face. It wasn’t random. It was deliberately pointing us forward.
“We’re close,” I said quietly. “We need somewhere to put the horses before we go any farther.”
The others nodded, following as I urged our horses through the snow-dusted forest. The air had grown colder as we moved out of the sun, the fog clinging low to the ground and curling around the horses’ legs. We followed the luminescent trail my magic carved through the pines, the world narrowing to frost-decorated branches and the anticipation of what we would find around the next bend.
Finally, the trees thinned. The path opened into a small clearing at the base of the mountain against a looming wall of rock.
“There,” I said, pointing toward a cluster of boulders tucked beneath a rocky overhang.
It offered enough shelter from the wind to keep the horses safe. The others dismounted, securing the reins and brushing the frost from the animals’ coats. The horses snorted and stamped but eventually settled under the blankets we covered them in, as if they somehow understood this was where their part of the journey ended.
“Pip, you coming with?” Philip asked. The little creature was sitting on top of one of the horses, snuggling up like a kitten would.
Instead of answering or moving toward us, his magic shimmered across his coat before expanding out into a bubble around all of our horses…like a shelter.
“Did he just make a house?” I tilted my head curiously.
“Essentially,” Zed murmured. “Well, that’s really fucking cool.” It was and I couldn’t help but dart forward and give Pip a small pet to the top of his head as he purred underneath my fingers.
“Be back soon,” I promised.
From there, we pressed onward on foot. My magic pulsed brighter now, streaks of blue and violet light rippling across the white ground, guiding us to the far side of the clearing. The path wound between two massive pines before curving sharply toward the mountain.
There, half-hidden behind a wall of icicles that might once have been a waterfall, we found it. A narrow, jagged opening cut the mountainside, warm air drifting out in slow, misty tendrils.
Cannon’s hand brushed mine, his eyes catching the dim light as Valerio and Maddox moved ahead to scout the entrance. “Stay by my side,” he murmured.
I squeezed Cannon’s fingers once, my pulse thrumming with equal parts fear and awe, then stepped with him into the mouth of the cave.
The air changed the moment we were inside. The howling wind vanished as if swallowed whole, replaced by a silence so dense it made my steps slow. The warmth that drifted from the entrance deepened the farther we went, wrapping around us as my boots scraped against smooth stone that shimmered beneath a thin layer of frost.
Then the dim light around us began to swell. At first, I thought it was just my magic reflecting against the tunnel walls—but no. The glow came from the stone itself. Veins of silver and violet light pulsed through the cavern, bioluminescent threads weaving together like the circulatory system of a living being. The glow brightened with every step we took, as though the mountain were waking up simply because we had arrived.
Cannon trailed close behind me as the others fanned out, their magic flickering faintly through the bond, defensive and alert. Mine, though, had gone quiet. It was buried in my chest, subdued and watchful, leaving behind a hollow unease that crawled beneath my skin.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being observed.
The only thing that kept my focus on moving ahead was the tunnel itself—its impossible beauty and how damn unique it was. The deeper we went, the more unreal it became. Pools of water collected in shallow dips along the path, their surfaces perfectly still, untouched by the soft currents of air that moved through the cavern.
When I looked down into them, I didn’t see our reflections. I saw worlds. Tiny villages of sea creatures swam through brightly colored coral and drifting kelp, these tiny pools somehow supporting an entire ecosystem. Their depths seemed endless, stretching far beyond the stones they rested in, as though each pool opened into another realm entirely.
There was also the music. A faint melody drifted from somewhere ahead, the sound of harp strings plucked by invisible hands.
“Obviously, this isn’t natural,” Chait murmured from my left.
I didn’t look back. “No. It’s also older than anything I’ve ever experienced.”
We continued forward, the tunnel widening until it no longer felt like a tunnel at all—it felt like a vein carved toward the heart of the world.
The air grew warmer, saturated with a surge of magic so strong it made my fingertips buzz. The sound of rushing water became louder, echoing from ahead, and then—suddenly—the ground beneath my boots shifted from stone to soil.
Light poured in.
The tunnel opened up without warning, and I stumbled forward, one hand shooting out to brace against the rocky wall as my vision adjusted. My breath caught in my throat.
Before us stretched a valley that defied every law of nature I knew.
It was massive, impossibly so, an entire world hidden within the mountain we’d just passed through. Pale grass rippled across the expanse, glowing faintly beneath the fractured sunlight that filtered from above, untouched by the cold or the snow of the outside world. The air shimmered with gold and silver motes of magic, drifting lazily like summer snowflakes suspended in time.
