Loving fae, p.13
Loving Fae, page 13
Then his eyes turned to us.
No color. No pupils. Just reflection—cold and endless. The air turned solid in my lungs as he spoke, his voice filling the world in a tri-layered echo.
“Obsidian Butterfly. I see you defeated the unworthy.”
Oberon’s words struck down to my very marrow, vibrating deep inside me until my vision blurred. The world tilted, and the wind in the valley became violent, whirling out from him as if he were the eye of a horrific storm.
Before I could react, before I could speak, an invisible force slammed into me.
My body was yanked forward and off the ledge, into the blinding light. The magic wasn’t a pull; it was a command. My ribs compressed as if crushed by a titan’s grip. Breath tore from my lungs, pain spiking so acutely I couldn’t even scream.
“Maize!” Zed’s roar echoed distantly. I caught flashes of movement behind me—my mates reaching for me, Charm soaring after me—but it didn’t matter.
Oberon’s magic slammed them all back in a single ripple. His hand lifted lazily, palm turning upward as my body was dragged through the air until I hovered above it, suspended like an offering.
I didn’t even care that I hung hundreds of feet above the vast, broken valley below; the thing that made bile rise in my throat was how close I was to him.
Dread invaded every nerve. Oberon was supposed to be weakened. If this was him weakened…
“So fragile,” he murmured, the sound crawling beneath my skin. “So small.”
His magic tightened. The air in my lungs vanished completely, pain bursting through my chest in white-hot waves. My wings strained against the pressure, shuddering as his immense magic coiled around me like chains.
Then his actual fingers tightened around me. The force drove through my frame until my bones felt poised on the razor’s edge of snapping. Agony radiated through every nerve until thought itself began to slip. My vision blurred at the edges, the air around me rippling with his saturated power. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him raise a wooden staff, pure energy gathering at its tip. He aimed it directly at my mates.
Something snapped inside me.
My familiars broke free, awakened in a form I’d never witnessed before. Light burst from my skin as Sy tore from me with a sound like thunder booming across the sky. A gigantic spider of obsidian landed in the center of the valley, long limbs glinting with a shimmer that mirrored my wings. Her eight eyes locked on Oberon before she scuttled toward my mates, her massive head rising level with the cliff.
I wheezed out a breath of shock as Lu followed, a massive coal-colored serpent filling the valley so completely that even Oberon stepped back. Lu’s form solidified in an instant, body unfurling and stretching until he dwarfed even the god himself.
The shockwave of their awakening forced Oberon’s grip to falter, and I dropped through the air before catching myself in the updraft of their power. Oberon, realizing his mistake, snatched me up again just as Lu released a hiss that shook the mountains around us. He lowered his head slightly, ready to strike, a rumble of warning vibrating through the air between my familiar and the ancient god.
In the distance, I saw my mates climbing onto Sy before she raced across the valley with impossible speed, but the god holding me didn’t seem the least bit concerned.
Instead, Oberon chuckled.
The sound rolled through the valley, amused and endless, and his skeletal jaw twisted into something that might have been a smile. “I wonder what they’ll be like as my pets once I take your magic.”
His confidence would’ve broken anyone else, but I remembered what Balor had said, his plan echoing in my mind: Do not fight him. Let him consume your power to poison him.
My pulse slowed. My fear bled away, replaced by a strange calm. I didn’t need to overpower a god. I just needed to let him dig his own grave.
“You will not take my magic, Oberon.” My voice carried across the valley like a promise. “You cannot take my magic.”
He tilted his head, mock curiosity flashing in those mirrored eyes at my blatant challenge. Then the air between us flashed, our powers straining against one another in a quiet, brutal stalemate. And for the first time, I saw it—
A crack. A fissure in his perfect, godly mask.
Oberon’s expression faltered. The faintest flicker of doubt crossed his face at my confidence.
Through the bond, I felt my mates’ terror and wrath twist like barbed wire through my chest. They didn’t understand what I was doing—and maybe neither did I—but I sent a single pulse of reassurance through our connection anyway. Trust me.
Oberon’s fury at my words cracked through the air. His skeletal jaw snapped open and his arms spread wide, leaving me floating in the air between his two clawed hands.
“Then I will tear it from your very soul.”
Agony ripped through me as my magic—my pure essence—tore free from my skin in glowing threads of pink, blue, and violet light. Each strand shimmered and writhed, pulled from me with such force that I could feel it detaching muscle from bone, every molecule of my body trembling in response. I was being flayed alive from the inside out, tears leaking down my face.
But all I felt was victory.
My veins felt hollowed, my pulse a chaotic rhythm of suffering as the threads floated upward in spirals, twisting through the sky like ribbons as they spread outward, connecting to Oberon’s reaching hands. Every cell sparked white-hot as the color bled from my vision. My wings flickered in and out of existence on my peripheral, fragments of energy sparking off them weakly as my body wilted.
The threads that left me didn’t vanish—they clung to him, sinking into his translucent skin as he greedily demanded more. I could feel him consuming me—a primordial god draining a goddess.
It should have emptied me. It should have killed me.
But instead of weakening me, it did the opposite.
The power recoiled—not from me, but to me. It surged back through the connection like a silent river current flowing in reverse. My body convulsed under the force of it as Oberon’s power poured into me, filling the hollows he’d initially created. The glow beneath his skin dimmed even as mine flared brighter. I was both poisoning him and feeding on him…and he had no idea.
My magic took deep, ravenous pulls of his, and with each ounce of his stolen divinity, I became stronger. When he looked at me, truly looked at me, I saw the faintest flicker of disbelief cross his monstrous face. In that mere second he realized that the predator in this moment wasn’t him.
It was me.
My mates felt it. I sensed their astonishment through the bond, a rush of disbelief and awe. Through their eyes, I caught glimpses of myself: my nails lengthening into gleaming points, my irises reflecting mirrored light, my wings fracturing into pure energy that surrounded me in a protective aura.
My poison, once something I was ashamed of, flared to life in beautiful and powerful hues of pink, violet, and blue. It surged through Oberon’s veins like wildfire, burning bright as it unmade him molecule by molecule.
My mates and familiars encircled us, anchoring my magic. They fed me their strength, completing a toxic and lethal loop of power—our energies syncing in perfect, terrifying harmony. Our bond, our love, had never been so strong and all-consuming, enough to silence a literal god.
The more Oberon tried to draw, the more we gave, offering him everything he wanted.His lips curled in confusion, then frenzied rage, as he realized I was growing stronger.
“No! No! This can’t be! I will consume you, burn through you, until the world forgets you ever existed!”
I spoke with a calm certainty that felt like a blade coming down on his throat. “And that will be the death of you.”
The stolen power within him curdled, turning black and tar-like as my poison corrupted it. His divine body fractured, splitting into shards of smoke and light as my magic devoured him from within.
In one final act of desperation, Oberon released it all, every drop of stolen essence blasting outward in a blinding explosion. The impact hurled me across the sky. Excruciating anguish seared through me, my wings tearing, body burning as if every nerve had caught fire. The world spun violently until something enormous surged beneath me, Lu’s head rising to catch my fall.
I landed hard but alive, the serpent’s scales glowing faintly beneath my feet.
“That is my power!” Oberon roared, voice cracking into madness. “Only mi—”
The ancient god dissolved into glittering dust, vanishing all at once.
Then came the rebound. Every thread of magic Oberon had ever hoarded surged toward me in one violent rush. Light engulfed the valley, flooding the shadows with brilliance. My familiars vanished into the rush, their energy consumed by the tidal pull. I hung there, weightless, suspended in the air as the stolen power poured into me.
Agony struck like a second impact, everywhere at once. It wasn’t just pain, though; it was reconstruction. My veins burned as if they were being rewired, my body redrafted cell by cell. The magic that filled me was too vast, too ancient. It clawed at the edges of my being, demanding space that didn’t exist.
But I wasn’t alone—my mates, connected to me through the strength of our bond, took the excess magic, filtering it through them and grounding the storm.
For a mere second, I felt as though I was floating through the heavens. Then my body went limp, drifting downward to the destroyed earth.
Strong, familiar arms caught me before I could fall. My mates’ voices blurred together—desperation and fear filling the air—their magic brushing against my fading consciousness before everything went black.
CHAPTER 16
MAIZE
I woke to find myself standing in a sea of black, shadows rippling beneath my feet like churning waves. On the horizon, a massive silhouette began to form, its edges visible only where the dim light gathered like a flickering candle flame.
For a moment, I wondered if it was Oberon—if we had failed to destroy him.
But it wasn’t. It was Balor, and rather than lying frail upon his bed, the ancient being was walking toward me, each step causing the space to tremble with power. His burning eyes glowed brighter as he drew closer, his expression filled with knowing and something that looked almost like pride.
“You’re up.” My voice came out rough, laced with curiosity and exhaustion.
“You unmade Oberon. You released me from my sickness,” Balor said. “You faced what I could only trap and conquered it. The world will find balance in your wake.”
I blinked at him, mustering the energy I had left and let out a long sigh. “I didn’t die…right?” I didn’t think I had. Honestly, this felt like a dream, but the way he said it made me wonder about the possibility.
“No.” His mouth curved into a grin. “You ascended into godhood. True godhood.”
Oh.
I looked down at myself, feeling strangely normal for someone who’d undergone such an intense change, but I couldn’t doubt him. After all, it had felt like I was being ripped apart and remade, so I supposed that tracked.
Balor’s massive hand lifted, hovering just above my shoulder. “You carry both my wrath and your mother’s magic wrapped in prophecy. That balance kept you from failing as I did.”
Before I could say another word, his form began to fade, the world around him rippling like torn fabric as the darkness folded in once more.
The dreamscape around me transformed.
I saw a vision of Cethlenn, her hands trembling as she held a crying infant swaddled in silver cloth. Her eyes were wild, desperate, filled with both fear and love. She pressed her lips to the baby’s forehead—my forehead—and whispered to the Dark Fae woman waiting in the shadows. “Go to him and tell him this is his child. She needs protection from those who would see her removed.”
The scene warped, the privacy of shadows dissolving into the chill of cold marble halls.
I heard Mario’s familiar smooth yet cruel tone cutting through the dark. “I’m unsurprised she’s not mine, and to hear she’s more…well, I only see that as value.”
“You don’t worry she’s a spy?” someone asked.
Mario barked out a laugh. “No. The girl doesn’t realize her parentage. She’s a simple mistake—and even gods abandon their mistakes.”
But the words didn’t sting the way they once would have. I understood now. I wasn’t a mistake, not truly. For all their faults, my parents had been fighting forces far older and far crueler than I’d ever realized. It didn’t erase what I’d endured, but it finally made sense, and that alone felt like healing.
My breath caught as the dream fractured into soft light.
I gasped awake, lungs burning, heart pounding, and the echo of the memories still bleeding into the waking world. My body ached in a thousand small ways, but beneath the soreness and exhaustion, I felt alive. My veins hummed faintly with leftover magic, the remnant of power from Oberon still lingering like static under my skin.
It took me a long moment to realize I wasn’t alone.
Zed’s arms were around me, and his bare chest was cool against my cheek. His heartbeat thrummed beneath my ear, and I stayed there for a moment, breathing him in, tears pricking at my eyes in relief. They were okay—I could feel it through our bond.
My mates, my familiars…they were all safe.
“And you’re safe,” Zed murmured, his fingers sliding through my hair.
“Where are we?” My voice cracked in the darkness of the room, barely more than a whisper. “Did we make it back? How is everyone—”
He brushed his hand down my back in a soothing touch. “We’re home,” he said quietly. “Queen Gray’s forces felt the shock of Oberon’s fall across the entire realm. They portalled in before the mountain collapsed and brought us all home safely.”
Home. The word barely made sense at first, but as I blinked, I saw the faint morning light filtering through familiar curtains. My chest ached as the realization hit me and grew into true hope. We were safe. The others were downstairs. I’d probably been asleep for…
“How long have I been sleeping?”
Zed shifted beside me, his voice quieter now. “You’ve been out for three days.” His hand tightened where it rested against my waist. “I worried you’d never open your eyes again.”
I looked up at him—really looked at him. His jaw was tight, his violet eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “Zed…”
“When he had you,” he said, his voice trembling, “when Oberon had you in his grasp…I have never felt true fear like that.”
“Hey,” I whispered. “You didn’t lose me. I’m right here. I’m alive.”
“I love you, angel,” he said.
I swallowed hard, tears stinging my eyes. “Zed…I love you so much.”
He nodded once, a faint, broken smile tugging at his lips. “I’ll always love you. I don’t think you realize what you are to me.”
I lifted a trembling hand to his face, my fingers brushing along his cheek. “Then show me.”
His eyes flashed, the candlelight in the room flickering in their violet depths as he leaned closer, his breath mingling with mine. “You sure you’re ready for that?”
“I am.”
Zed hesitated, his hand tightening at my hip as his gaze flicked over me with equal parts desire and worry. “You’re still recovering. Too delicate for that right now. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I don’t want distance, Zed. I want to feel connected. And not only that,” I whispered, heart hammering at the thought of what I was about to say, “I want you to drink from me.”
His expression shattered with pure need, but he quickly tried to hide the roll of desire that filled his darkening gaze. He shook his head, throat working almost nervously.
“Maize…” His voice broke on my name. “You don’t understand what you’re asking. I’ve barely held myself together since we’ve met, let alone now. If I taste you—”
“I don’t want you to hold back,” I repeated, sliding my thumb over his bottom lip. “I need you, Zed.”
For a long moment he didn’t move, the silence between us heightening in intensity. Then his resolve cracked. A low sound left him, half-growl, half-sigh, as his hand slipped to the back of my neck, his thumb tracing my pulse. His large frame rolled us so that I was trapped underneath him, the oversized shirt I wore doing very little to hide how much his touch affected me.
When his lips brushed my throat and his fangs sank into my pulse, the world shifted.
I gasped as warmth flooded through me, the pull between us deepening until molten need surged through my core, leaving me trembling on the edge of euphoria. My power reached for his; our bond snapped taut and alive, stronger than it had ever been.
Zed groaned against my neck, the sound caught between pain and pleasure. His hand tightened in my hair as if he was fighting the urge to take more. I slid my fingers through his hair and tugged gently, wanting exactly that and so much more from him.
His bite didn’t drain me—it healed me. Every ache disappeared, melting into nothing under the current of energy that flowed between us. My breath hitched as the magic built higher, sizzling in the air, wrapping us both in its glow.
When Zed finally pulled back, blood glistened on his lips as he pressed his forehead to mine, breathing hard. Then his mouth found mine in a slow, silent kiss that tasted of my blood.
The metallic tang should have been a shock, but instead it was an aphrodisiac, a potent flavor that shot straight to my core. My blood, on his tongue. Inside him. The thought made me dizzy, my head falling back against the silk pillows as he lowered his frame so that I was completely trapped beneath him. Zed’s eyes burned with a fire that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with possession.
“You liked that, angel?” His voice was a gravelly rasp, vibrating through the small space between our bodies. I could only nod, my fingers digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders. A raw, aching need spread like a wildfire through my veins as he kissed me again, this time more demanding.
