*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I was dragged down the hallway and taken to Ryder's room by a Fae I hadn't met before. He was silent, yet I could feel the sliminess of his aura pressing against my skin. This was all wrong, it made no sense. Alden wouldn’t have done this.
I was pushed into the bedroom door frame as the door was opened, my face taking the brunt of the damage. My nose exploded, blood bursting from it to run down my chin and onto my shirt. I should have fought and run. I wouldn’t leave this place without my coven though and Ryder knew it.
"Fucking whore, move it," the Fae barked when he had the door open. He pushed me again, even though I'd stopped in front of the bed. I knew where the chains were, I'd seen them on my one trip here. "Take your clothes off, let's see what is driving Ryder to fuck something so beneath him," he said crudely as his hands grabbed my breast.
"Wrong fucking girl," I growled as I spun using my hands as weapons, one grabbed his ear and the other connected with his chin and twisted, a sick crunch echoing through the room as Zahruk walked in.
"You broke his neck," he replied calmly.
I wiped the blood that was dribbling down my face without any sign of stopping soon on the back of my arm and replied coldly. "He deserved it."
"He did this?" His hand indicated my face, "You are deadlier than we had thought."
I gave him a nod, "And?"
"And, you could have easily done so to Dristan, yet you chose to only damage his legs and his pride," he mused as he closed the distance between us silently.
He was trying to surprise me, so he could take me down easily. He, like Ryder had the raw electrical current that was palpable when in close proximity. I considered my options as I stood watching him. If he chained me, I would be able to undo them easily. I wouldn’t be able to get away if I took any more injury. I sat on the bed with a calmness I wasn’t feeling. I watched as Z removed the subdued Fae from the room before coming back to place the chains on me.
"You need your nose looked at," he said moving my hair to secure a white metal collar around my neck.
"You gonna let Larissa do it?" I asked but his eyes narrowed as he shook his head, "Pass then."
"She's okay, a little shaken up but otherwise she and Adam are fine," he replied.
I scanned his face, he looked as if he was telling the truth, but I'd already trusted Ryder which had been a huge mistake I wouldn’t be repeating anytime soon. When the collar was on and secured to a chain, he grabbed a remote and turned on the oversized television that was mounted to the wall to the local news channel. I sat numbly watching it, we'd attacked. We'd killed. How the fuck? We didn’t have any Fae killing weapons. No one except the killer had them…
Zahruk left the room for a few minutes, leaving me to absorb the news that played on the TV. This wasn’t fucking happening. Not now. I'd given in to Ryder, just to have him do exactly what I'd been afraid of. I knew better, I was better than this. I shut down my mind and listened to the reporter.
Anger pulsated inside of me. It was a fucking set up. Smart. Calculated. They were pitting us against each other. And what was worse, it was fucking working! I lifted my head as Zahruk came back, his eyes lowering to my nose as he tossed a clean set of clothes on the bed.
"That needs to be healed, it hasn’t stopped bleeding Synthia."
"It will. Took a door frame to my face, I'm pretty sure he meant it to hurt," I said through the thickness in my mouth.
"You know you're stubborn as fuck, right?" Zahruk said with a soft smile on his face, he was making it impossible to hate him.
"Go away," I replied turning away from him to watch the news.
We'd attacked the Fae, or so it had been made to look that way. The reporter said the Guild had been locked down and unavailable for a comment on why they had invaded the club which had resulted in the deaths of seventeen Fae.
I scratched at the collar and eyed the clothing that sat folded on the bed. My shirt was covered in blood, my entire body shook with anger and pain. I exhaled as I moved off the bed and flicked my eyes to the door which stood open a sliver. I unbuttoned my pants and shimmied out of them using the top I had worn to wipe away some of the blood on my face.
Dressed in a form fitting tank top and some short spandex shorts, I curled up on the bed not caring that blood was oozing out on the pillow. I should have let them heal me, but right now I didn’t trust them, they wanted revenge. Revenge for something we hadn't done and we were close at hand to take the brunt of their anger.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on a plan, any plan that would get us all out. I couldn’t focus. I could feel my power draining as I lay there. The blood wouldn't stop and had only increased in flow since Zahruk had put the stupid collar on. I pushed away the feeling of needing to close my eyes and struggled to sit up, but couldn't. I cried out fighting the dread that was consuming my mind.
I had expected Z to come back, instead Ryder stood over the top of me looking down. "What the fuck? Syn what the hell did you do?" He asked looking around the room as if it held the answers he needed.
I gasped, I couldn’t get air, my body shook as I gasped and tried to bring air in through my throat, but it wouldn’t work…The harder I tried, the less air I got. I was dying. My hands clasped around the collar, my eyes growing slack as I struggled to fight against the oblivion drawing me in.
"What the fuck? Zahruk!" He was yelling, his hands working against the collar deftly as he pulled it off from my neck.
"What's wrong?" Z asked walking in taking in the scene as I still gasped for air, "Bloody hell!" He sifted, or maybe I was starting to see things.
"Don’t you fucking die Syn, don’t…god dammit! Where's the fucking healer?" Ryder was commanding me not to die. He had some serious God complex going on.
Thirty One
I awoke to pressure on my face. It felt broken, my entire head felt broken. I didn’t bother trying to open my eyes. There was no point. They felt like they were glued shut. I lay still as voices sounded from across the room.
"She's waking up, some," Zahruk said as the bed shifted, but his voice had been across the room, someone else had been on the bed? I tried to remember everything that had happened.
"Dristan?" Ryder asked his voice low.
"The one above the useless one is a protection spell, powerful, but fading as if it's losing its juice. But Ryder, it's been there a long time. It’s definitely Fae and old."
"You're saying my little Witch is marked by the Fae? By, us?" Ryder said in surprise.
"No, not per se Ryder, think older," Dristan replied coldly.
"Elaborate," Ryder snapped.
"It almost looks as if it was branded with blood ink and some very old magic, but that’s impossible considering she appears human and has been living as such since she was a child. Someone went to pretty extreme lengths to hide her if she is Fae, they didn’t want her being found."
"Is it possible she was stolen or is she something else?" Ryder mumbled from across the room. “I pushed magic into her and she resisted. It took everything I had to turn her mind to my will.”
“You’re saying that you could not turn her FIZ?” Zahruk said and whistled low.
"I hate to butt in, but those were Fae in her house who killed her parents. Chances are they were looking for her and the collar she reacted to was crafted of iron Ryder." Zahruk said carefully.
"True, but why would they? The Fae don’t hide their young with humans, it would be suicide for her and the humans if she hit Transition without help. And the reaction to the collar doesn't make sense if she hasn't hit Transition, she could be starting the Transition and at twenty one she's the right age for it to start, if not a little past it."
"It's only suicide Ryder, if you cannot control them…she is being shielded, she has no Fae abilities, she doesn’t feed, she ages normally. Someone made damn sure she appeared to be one hundred percent human," Dristan said before fingers smoothed down my neck and the hair was pushed out of the way
, "It's a Triquesta, of protection, the words well…I can't read them and this particular usage of the Triquesta looks to be a protection and concealment brand," Dristan released my hair and stepped back, his shoes making a soft thud as he walked to the other side of the room.
"If she is Fae, then why the fuck isn't she waking up?" Ryder growled low in his throat.
"No clue, but you sifted with her. I'm going to take a guess here and say it has to do with why the tattoo is fading. You said her tattoo was darker a few days ago and she did not know it was even there right? You also said that you could see it before she entered Faery?" Dristan continued to be the loudest voice inside the room.
"Correct."
"You taking her into Faery weakened it then, she's changing. Question is what the hell kind of Fae is she?"
"She could be Light Fae, with her coloring it’s possible. She has enough of their attributes as well," Zahruk replied.
What the fuck were they thinking? I was human and I was pissed…sore but pissed. I wasn’t Fae, had the whole fucking world gone crazy this week? I blinked and moaned wincing as I realized everyone had been whispering even though they had sounded louder, Dristan was the first to say something.
"It lives," he said making me cover my ears and cry out. It was like razors pounding through my head.
"Stop screaming," I whined.
I turned over carefully, just in time to catch Dristan nodding to Ryder who stood across the room. I glared, this was his fault.
"Look at her eyes," Ryder said smiling.
I closed them. It was too bright, sound was too loud. I exhaled and tried it again. A scream ripped from my throat as everything around me grew brighter, more vivid and painfully so. Something wasn’t right. I'd been dying when I'd last seen Ryder. I groaned, "So help me, if you turned me into a fucking Vampire I'll bite your dick off!"
Dristan exploded in a fit of laughter, Ryder didn’t find it so funny on the other hand. His eyes narrowed and ran over my body slowly, as if was trying to figure something out but couldn’t. "The tattoo on the back of your neck Synthia, who put it there?" He asked ignoring my outburst.
I shook my head and pulled my hands away from my ears fighting the nausea rolling in my stomach. I tried opening my eyes again and was relieved to find the room as it should be. My eyes swung to him accusingly, "Fuck off, Fairy," I growled.
His lips jerked at the corners before he sat beside me making me scoot over to keep distance between us, "I'm a fucking Fairy? Tell me how is it that you had no idea you were a fucking Fairy Synthia," he whispered cold and tonelessly.
"Seriously, did the entire fucking world go crazy when were busy—" Shit!
"When we were busy fucking?" He finished crudely.
I felt a blush steal over my cheeks, I hated that I had given in and allowed him more ammo to use against me. Why didn’t my brain work right around him? I met his piercing stare with one of my own. "Thanks for that by the way, not bad for a fucking Fairy—" I laughed—"get it? Fucking Fairy?" I snorted and closed my eyes.
"I get it," he growled, his hand moving the hair from my face making me flinch and back away from him. He allowed it, but only because one of my legs was held to the bed with a new metal cuff and a length of chain. I shot him a pissy look before laying my head back down. He'd accused me of fucking him as a distraction—something I had never done in my life.
"Tattoo guy, who is he?"
I smiled, or tried to, "Fuck off."
"Keep telling me to fuck off Syn and I'll see it as an invitation," his voice had turned husky.
"Keep dreaming," I growled, wishing I looked tougher and maybe less crusted in blood—my own at that.
"Keep saying fuck Syn," he argued.
"Let me go," I pressed, I needed to see my coven, make sure they were okay.
"I cannot do that Syn, the Guild killed seventeen Fae and that is not something they will live to regret. Tell me why your coven was inside the club when it happened and I will consider changing my mind about them. The others we already killed."
"And if they didn’t do this? If it was a set up?" I asked watching his reaction closely.
"They did it, and they will pay for it. An eye for an eye Syn. I want the name of the artist who did the red ink tattoo on your neck."
I blinked, "I don’t have a tattoo with red ink, its white ink. It's not red."
"Stop fucking around Syn, someone went through a lot of effort to hide you and I'd like to know who it was and why they did it."
My hand went to the back of my neck on instinct, my fingers touching as they skimmed over the slightly raised skin. "I'm Synthia Raine McKenna, I was born human and I will die human Ryder, I won't make it to old age. I'll die fighting, you most likely if you don’t release my coven. We didn’t attack you. That much I know. I would have felt it. Inside. Larissa and Adam didn’t raise one magically delicious finger. If you try to tell me they did, you better have that shit on tape."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ryder and his men left the room soon after we had agreed to disagree. They were leaving for the club to assess the damages. I wasn’t sticking around for when they got back. I pulled the chain and sat on the side of the bed, opening his nightstand drawer and found nothing useful.
I shook my head and looked around the room, my eyes landing on his dresser mirror. I sent my mind out to connect to my coven, the feel of them pushing their magic into me was heady, exhilarating. They were alive and inside this house.
I wrapped my hands around the metal anklet I had awoken with and sent magic pulsing into it. Nothing happened. What the hell was this thing made out of? Platinum? I eyed the chain, screw it. I grabbed it as close as I could to the cuff and pushed again smiling as the metal melted.
I crept from the bed and cussed as the knob twisted. Jumping back up onto the bed I pulled the blankets over the metal chain and evidence of what I had been up to as Ristan walked in. His eyes searched the room and then settled on me and then at my ankle.
"Going out?" He asked lifting a dark eyebrow.
I narrowed my eyes, "Guess not."
"Oh, don’t stop on my account. I came to let you out anyways. Unless of course you don’t want to break your little friends out?"
I considered answering him and then hesitated, "I dooooo, unless of course I say that I do and then you go Demon on my soul, in which case I'd politely answer with nooooo, I like it here?"
He smiled and shook his head, his eyes turning briefly from their silver and black pattern to red as he plopped on the bed and folded his arms behind his head. "You will need to hurry, Adrian will meet you at the exit road," his eyes met and held mine, "You are going to be timed of course, Ryder will be back shortly, so you have exactly fifteen minutes to be out of here. This information comes with a price Synthia," he smiled coldly.
"Great, you want my soul?" I glared at him unamused.
"Nah, that thing is battered and bruised. You now have fourteen minutes. I need a promise that you will stop this before it happens. If Ryder openly attacks the Guild, it will mean a full out war. While it would be a feast…I cannot allow it." He waved his hand and I felt a cold breeze pressing gently across my face as the thick oily presence of his magic surged through me.
"So tell Ryder," I said harshly, "What did you just do to my face?" I asked afraid if what he had done, but it felt clean and less painful now.
"I cleaned you up a bit and you've met him Flower, he's about as fluffy as a porcupine. He will not listen to me or to you unless there is powerful evidence to change his mind. There is something else, you need to get close to Arianna and you need to look closely at her Syn. She's off, something isn't right about her. I can’t “see” her and that can mean a multitude of things—most of them bad. Got me?"
"You want me to take her out?" I asked carefully.
"No, I want you to look at her. Ryder would kill you before you could take her out, don’t be stupid. You'd start a fucking war of the worlds you do that shit. Thirteen minute
s," he replied smiling.
"Fine," I started to stand up and groaned from the pain inside my head.
"C'mere girl," Ristan said smoothly, before I could protest, I was pressed against his mouth with my eyes bugging out as he kissed me. When he was done I pulled away wiping off my mouth with the back of my hand. Power pulsed through me, raw, dirty power. Demon magic…I smiled and started to walk out of the room but he caught my hand and pulled me back staring. "Fucking hell, you taste good."
"Thanks…I'm leaving now." I looked down noticing he'd just done more than juice me, he'd given me black sneakers, black sweat pants and a black long sleeved shirt for escaping in, rather than the bloody mess I'd been wearing before.
"Good luck, go stop this before it’s too late," he whispered before he flicked his hand and the collar appeared on his neck, his face taking on an instant black eye as if I'd hit him myself. I turned and left the room shaking my head and wondered if Ryder would really believe that I overpowered Ristan.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The basement was on the next floor down. I'd barely managed to miss being seen by two guards as I'd not so stealthily walked right down the middle of the hallway. I could sense the Demon magic he gave to me with that lovely kiss was dangerous kicking up my pulse. I felt no pain, my emotions were gone. I felt like darkness would overtake my soul if I let it.
I took the stairs more carefully, my eyes scanning for body heat as second sight took over. I had to actually concentrate using it as I walked. As if I wasn’t myself and maybe that had to do with the head pounding I'd encountered with the door. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, a single door sat ajar.
I pressed against the wall and peeked inside, Larissa and Adam both sat on chairs with their hands tied in front of them. I slipped inside, expecting to fight. I looked around the barren rooms. Pulsing cells enhanced by Fae magic were constructed along the walls. An enhancing spell covered the wall in black ink and I had a feeling Ryder was creating those cells for Witches alone.