Sirius plucked a pixie nest from a bush as we passed. The nest was no larger than a melon and comprised of twigs, moss, and fluff. I shot Kellee a questioning glance. The marshal shrugged, the look on his face saying, “How the cyn should I know?”
Talen would know, but he strode adjacent to Sirius, the two of them discussing something that had Talen chuckling. The pair appeared so utterly different, warm reds and browns against icy silvers and grays, yet they were so very faelike. If I blinked, would they vanish, like in the old human tales?
The strange dusk light never changed. Faerie’s stars twinkled as they observed us. On Shinj, Talen had taken me to the navigation room, where the stars hung among us and sang their forever song. I hadn’t known then that I was one of those stars, or, more accurately, my blood was. Faerie’s stars weren’t singing now, but maybe I was just too small to hear them.
Kellee moved in close beside me on the narrow, winding path. “I should have kept you safer.”
Kellee blamed himself? “I chose to go to him. I’d made a deal. It had to happen.”
He closed his eyes and winced before reopening them, fixing his glare on me. “You should have told me about the deal.” He kept his voice low so the fae wouldn’t hear, but Sota, walking behind us, heard everything. He always had.
“You would have tried to stop me.”
He considered that for a few moments and then tossed me his slick marshal smile. “Yeah, I would have.”
“You don’t need to protect me.”
“I know.”
But he always would. We’d come a long way from him tracking me down on Calicto for allegedly murdering a mineworker. The chances of us ever meeting had been slim, yet fate had run me right into him.
We walked some more, enjoying the quiet. Pixies sometimes chirped or something larger would disturb the bushes, prompting Kellee to glare into the shadows. “Some days I regret pushing you into being the messenger,” he said.
The words almost tripped me. “You do?”
His gaze found something distant to focus on. “Had I let you go, I might have saved you from all this.”
Only Kellee would think he could protect me from Faerie. “You can’t shoulder that blame either, Marshal,” I said softly. “My destiny was seeded into me before the fae harvested me. This was always going to happen. The only difference is we stopped Oberon before his plans could come to fruition.”
He nodded, but a soft melancholy surrounded him. “Have you thought about what comes after?”
“After?”
“When all this is done?”
I looked up and pinned my gaze to Talen’s back so Kellee couldn’t read the truth in my eyes. The polestar couldn’t stay in pieces, and whatever part of it was in me would soon be removed. I hoped Ailish would have all the answers, but some I already knew. “Do you think I’ll have an after?”
He thought on that a while and glanced ahead at Talen. “I’ll make you one.”
With your metal-worker hands? If anyone could craft me a life after this mayhem, it was Kellee. I let him see my smile and had to fight the urge to grab him and kiss that smirk off his lips. Here, in the wilds, surrounded by brush, wisps, and creeping things, he seemed more at ease, but that frayed edge lingered in the air around him, his beast so close to the surface I could feel the tension crackling around him.
“Are you all right, Kellee?” My thoughts went back to seeing him tear into Oberon, to seeing him drink down the king’s blood. I had no idea if a vakaru had ever killed a fae like Oberon before or what it would do to him. Perhaps nothing. Vakaru could ingest almost any poison and survive.
“No,” he finally replied. “But as long as we’re together, I’ll get by.”
I stopped, grabbed his arm, and pulled him close before he could argue. His arm looped around my back and pulled me in so there was nothing between us. His warmth enveloped me. There was no safer place in all four realms.
“Don’t ever leave me like that again,” he whispered, spilling those words over my lips. It wasn’t an ask. His words were a demand, an order, and they sparked a riot of need that urged me to devour him right here.
I threw my arms around his neck, trapping him. “I have no intention of ever letting you go.”
Sota cleared his throat. “As much as I’m getting off on watching you, the fae have disappeared through the brush ahead and are moving away. It’s best we stay together.”
Neither of us moved. I bumped my forehead against Kellee’s and fell into his gold-flecked eyes. Deep inside, he was wild and free and untamable.
His warm, scandalous mouth nudged mine. “Soon,” he promised.
Darts of lust scattered low in my stomach at the thought of having him all to myself. It had been a long time coming. Dragging a hand down his chest, I gently pushed. Sota was right. Separating our group out here was a terrible idea.
Kellee didn’t budge, so I spread my hand on his shirt, feeling the ridge of pectoral muscle beneath. His marshal’s star was missing. I looked up. “Where’s your star, Kellee?”
“Right here, in my arms.”
The words broke me open, exposing everything I was and had been. He knew me, and still, he loved me. Maybe this was all a dream after all.
“I could call them back here so we can all watch?” Sota suggested.
Kellee’s grip eased, but the want in his eyes didn’t fade. “Buzz off, Sparky.”
I pulled myself from his arms and caught Sota’s wide grin. He hadn’t lost his kinky humor during his transformation.
Kellee reluctantly hiked farther up the trail. Unlike the fae, who all moved with innate cat-like grace, the play of muscle beneath Kellee’s shirt and pants radiated an unforgiving primal strength that demanded to be respected, and admired, and touched.
“He has a very fine ass.” Sota made a squeezing gesture and an “oh” expression that suggested he’d like to caress that ass as much as I did. “He’s so gonna be worth the wait.”
Unexpected laughter tore from me.
Kellee threw a middle-finger salute over his shoulder, indicating he’d heard every word, and plowed on up the path. I laughed harder, looped my arm through Sota’s, and followed Kellee into a clearing between tall, leaning trees.
Talen watched Sirius, who was crouched at the center. They’d brushed aside the fallen leaf litter, and as I drew closer, Sirius placed the nest on the ground and four large, round pebbles beside that.
Talen threw me a wild smile that was so unlike him but so filled with delight.
My gut twisted in excitement and apprehension. I folded my arms. “All right, what’s happening here?”
“Transportation,” Talen said, like that one word explained everything. He backed up toward me, giving Sirius room to work. “You’ve seen so little of what Faerie is capable of.”
“Will it turn into something hideous that’ll devour us all?”
“Not quite.” The delight in his eyes wasn’t exactly comforting. Anything that delighted the fae usually meant others would suffer, but I trusted Talen and, to a lesser extent, Sirius.
The guardian straightened, brushed leaves from his coat, took a few steps back, checked our locations, and bowed his head. He flicked out his hands. The raw tek-hand glittered in Faerie’s soft dusk light. The breeze lifted and shifted around the clearing, stirring up a tiny storm of dust and twigs.
Similar storms had blown through the sinks on Calicto, when the fans were down for maintenance, but here, the whirlwinds were probably alive. Funnel after funnel sprung from the ground, no bigger than a man. They danced and spun to music only they heard. Sirius clapped his hands, and the tiny storms became one, blasting a column of air up and yanking all the dust, leaves, and debris out of the clearing. I shielded my face and leaned back against the wind. Sota’s fingers steadied my arm, and then the storm collapsed, revealing the impossible at the center of the clearing.
A carriage.
“Holy cyn,” Sota blurted.
Talen’s richly devious laughter made my toes curl.
“Can you do that?” I asked him.
“No.” His lips tilted. “I could have summoned you a dark army, but these days, all I’m good for is a little human mind control. That”—he nodded at the carriage, with its woven wicker-like structure and impossibly shiny marble-like wheels—“is a Wild One’s talent.”
“Sirius is full of surprises,” Kellee drawled. Raising his voice, he asked, “Where are the steeds, fae, or do you intend to pull it too?”
Sirius whistled through his teeth, and for a few minutes, long enough for me to venture closer to the carriage and run my hand over its design, nothing happened. Then a snickering from the trees drew my eye, and from deep within the shadows, a black horse emerged, with fire for its mane, tail, and fetlocks.
Sirius lowered his tek-arm, keeping it out of sight, and approached the stallion, offering his normal hand for the beast to sniff.
Life magic.
Sirius had it too, but not until recently. His powers were returning, just as Ailish had foretold. Faerie approved of his recent choices. Another black fire-tipped horse breached the clearing, this one snorting and kicking, its eyes wide and glassy. Eventually, Sirius got them under control and maneuvered them into the harnesses.
We clambered into the carriage, Kellee wary, Sota in awe, Talen thrilled the more we fell into Faerie’s ways. Sirius took up the reins from the outside seat. With his bellowed “Yah!” the horses jolted into motion, and we thundered into the dark.