“You act like you are all mighty and hold the power here.” I ripped at the holds on me but couldn’t get free. I wanted less to escape and more to just claw his face off. “You think you are the one holding the power here,” I laughed maniacally and saw him take a step back from my crazed self. I suppose insanity wasn’t one of the emotions he enjoyed feeding on. “You are under my influence, repressed by your urges. You are not in control. Not by a long shot.”
Neither was I. A wave of something nasty was bubbling up from where I’d tried to tuck the residing darkness.
I sneered, “I think it is time for you to ask yourself, are you the hunter or the prey?”
The fae lord’s eyes flashed in surprise before tendrils of darkness thrashed out from my chest in every direction very similarly to the delther’s many tongues and slammed into my captors. I felt their ecos filter through to me before they withered and fell to the ground. The fae lord managed to duck from my undirected attack, but I didn’t care. I made a run for it, the darkness clouding my escape down the stairs.
Chapter 21
KARMUTH
I PACED IN FRONT OF THE BAR, MAKING THE PATRONS SITTING ON high stools sipping their drinks anxious, but so was I. Regar patted me on the shoulder on my next round past him, but I shoved his hand away.
“There’s nothing you could’ve done,” he soothed, only serving to infuriate me further.
“I could’ve sucked the life out of him, drank him dry,” I growled.
Hiko shook his head and tutted. “Even I know that would have been a bad idea. We can’t afford a war with Felroth.”
“It’s like he said, he can’t kill her,” Regar pointed out.
Ferro was nowhere in sight; he’d taken off the moment we arrived, but Sinister leaned against the bar next to the other two, his hands crossed on his chest.
He looked almost as if he wasn’t listening at all, tapping his fingers against his biceps. “There are worse things than death.”
“Thanks, man, just what I needed,” I spat at him. “To imagine that bastard raping her to get the sweetest taste of her fear.”
“Your imagination is messed up.” Sinister held his hands up in defence. “I meant the state of impassiveness. Still alive, but vacant.”
“Because that’s any better? Isay completely numb, robbed of her emotions?” That’s what was going to happen to her once Terwyl was done with her. He would leave nothing of her behind, and it would take years for her to recover, if she ever would.
Lord Terwyl was a high fae of Felroth court. A high fae that not only fed on passion, fear, grief, or love, but the whole lot of it. I’d felt Isay’s passion and knew it’d be hard to resist. It wouldn’t be hard to frighten her. And love? I… ah… hoped she might feel some for me.
I’d fucked up. Again. I shouldn’t have brought her here, just like I shouldn’t have taken her to the forest. Every step of the way I kept making mistakes that cost her dearly.
“Kar.” Regar pointed towards the VIP area Terwyl had taken Isay to, and I stopped my pacing. By the railing between two emotion-feeders stood Isay, struggling to get free.
“Get the car,” I ordered, not caring who’d be driving so long as it was outside the club when I got Isay away from the Felrothians.
I was halfway across the club before anyone could stop me. I’d walk in there, rip their throats out, and take Isay to where it was safe. Where was safe for her?
I didn’t quite reach the staircase before the scuffle upstairs stilled. Black threads spiked out of Isay’s chest and anyone in her path got sucked dry. I froze in my steps, staring up at the balcony in a daze. She looked absolutely magnificent and every bit terrifying. I’d seen white vines of ecos swirling around her and her inability to stop hadn’t scared me as much as those deadly tendrils reaching out from her chest. That… That was a trait of delthers.
I’d known there was more to what they’d done to her, but this… this was a lot to take in.
Not getting any time to come to terms with what I saw, I forced my feet to keep moving toward the stairs as Isay stumbled down them, taking the bouncer down with the darkness swirling around her like a shield. I prayed she wouldn’t turn me to ashes as I intercepted her escape.
“Isay! This way,” I called through the screams of the closest patrons as they turned to look at the deadly apparition that Isay had become.
“Karmuth,” she sobbed and thrashed her way over to me.
I braced myself for impact when she killed two more people on her path, but her tendrils retreated as she slammed to my chest and my arms came around to squeeze her closer to me before I shook myself out of it.
“We need to go,” I breathed into her hair and started pulling her towards the exit.
The crowd scattered in front of us, making it easier to get through—until shots were fired. Then the whole club turned into mayhem, not only running from us but from whomever was shooting. I knew it was Terwyl, and he was aiming at us.
I really fucking hated guns. They were loud, pulled all the attention to them, and the bullets drove through you like a visiting acting troupe. Painfully unentertaining.
I tripped and wheezed when one broke through my abdomen, and the burning that followed got me gritting my teeth.
Isay panicked. I knew she panicked, because she hadn’t attacked me before, but now one of the tendrils I’d seen latched onto me and sucked. Her eyes looked wild when ours connected and her flight instinct was switching to freeze, which was not good. Not good at all. We couldn’t stop, not here.
Despite the gun wound and her unintentionally trying to drain me, I kept on pulling her across the dance floor, every step a struggle.
“Just a little farther, beautiful.” I felt the powerful overload of ecos within me slip through the thread between us. The rush of it leaving my body left me lightheaded, or maybe it was the blood seeping through my shirt and making it stick to my skin. “Isay, we’re almost there.”
We soon pushed past the bouncer just as a group of fae broke through the frantic crowd, guns raised at us. Where did they even stash those things?
With the invention of guns, Vindica had tried to smuggle a batch of them through the portal, but what had reached the other side was a grate full of melted iron. Strange, since we had no such trouble with any other technological advancements, computers and phones excluded. I knew how to fire a gun, but we did not train to count on them in combat, and since swords were very conspicuous in modern-day Earth, we’d left all our weapons behind.
My only defence were my hands, and by the speed of which Isay was draining me, they’d be of no use soon.
I just needed to get her to the car, and she could have her way with me. She’d be safe with the others. Grounded for life most likely, but safe.
Our car was roaring in front of the club with Hiko behind the wheel and Regar riding shotgun. Sinister jumped off his motorcycle to pull a back door open for us, and I tucked Isay in before collapsing in a heap next to her. The party from inside rushed out with guns blazing before I could shut the doors and Hiko could take off.
“Shit!” Sinister cursed, forgetting his bike and squeezing in the back seat with us. “Drive!”
