With no guns, the Felrothians drew knives. Karmuth had left his sword back in the reservation. I was pretty sure he didn’t carry any other weapons.
When he held his hands up in front of himself, palms open, with a grin spreading on his face, it seemed he didn’t care about his odds. He was either cocky or confident.
Okay, he had reason to be confident in his abilities. He really did; he was an incredible fighter. Him taking down a delther on his own back in the forest proved it more than the showdown on the training field. But he was facing nine unhurt dark fae whose abilities we had yet to see.
I might’ve also given way too little credit to Sinister, despite his frightful looks. I couldn’t stop looking at him like a big cuddly Rottweiler pup after Karmuth’s comment.
While Rottweilers could be pretty darn aggressive, Sinister was always balanced and calm. He did, however, carry a dagger, which gave him an advantage over Karmuth, who’d apparently decided to fight with his fists alone.
Mesmerised, I couldn’t look away as four emotion-feeders crowded around Karmuth, while the other five took their chances with Sinister. In a move I didn’t expect—and neither did the enemy, it seemed—Karmuth latched onto the closest opponent, skin on skin and the fae crumbled into ash within seconds.
Meanwhile Karmuth’s stance grew steadier, and he stopped preferring his left side. The other three fae were more cautious to get closer. Sinister’s opponents had no such qualms.
“Hiko, breathe,” Regar pleaded from the front seat.
I turned around from staring out the broken back window to the sight of him tugging the prince’s seat belt off to get him out of his seat.
All I knew about dangerous wounds was to never move the victim unless you knew exactly what the hell you were doing. My stepbrother had a bullet in his neck, and there was nothing more dangerous than that as far as I could tell. Unless you counted all of the sticky situations I’d been in lately, added them all together into a big pile of danger, then multiplied it by five.
If he died… If prince Hiko died, I would be the one to blame. I would, because there was no way the fae lord would have sent his men after them had he not taken interest in me. If I had stayed behind in the palace like I’d originally intended, Hiko would’ve been fine. This was my fault.
The prince let out a horrible sounding gurgle when Regar hauled him out of his seat and into his lap, pressing on the wound as if that’d keep the blood from seeping out and staining his dark shirt. Hiko’s body shook violently in Regar’s embrace, and then his quiet raspy breathing stopped completely.
“I don’t think you should’ve—” Unhelpful. That was completely unhelpful, and the alarmed expression Regar’s face displayed said as much.
I knew a little first aid, but the prince needed way more than first aid. A strong fae could survive even the most fatal wounds, and I had seen Karmuth shake off his own wound after one feeding.
While there were eight more emotion-feeders outside the car, there was only me and Regar inside, and Regar didn’t count when it came to viable options for Hiko. It was up to me to save the prince, but with my fluctuating abilities I didn’t know if I could do what I did back in the reservation again.
I could just as well accidentally kill the prince with the deadly tentacles inside me rather than offer him my ecos. If he could touch me…
I pulled at the ring on my finger, the only protection I had against the court of death fae, the only thing stopping me from giving up my ecos with a touch. It got stuck on my sweaty kuckle, and I grunted in frustration as Hiko began turning pale. When it finally slid off, I hit my hand against the seat in front of me and lost the grip on the ring.
It fell somewhere under the seat, but that didn’t matter. I slipped to the middle seat and reached across the space between the two front seats to place my hand on my stepbrother’s cheek.
The rush of life leaving my body was as intoxicating as it slamming into me in the club had been. Breathtaking. I held onto the prince for longer than I should’ve with Regar shouting at me, “Isay! Isay!” and likely something more that escaped my notice.
Hiko’s eye-lids fluttered before his eyes flew wide open, staring first at Regar and then at me in astonishment.
That’s when I finally pulled away and hyperventilated my way back to my own seat, too weak to crouch between the seats to look for the ring I’d lost. The darkness within me surfaced, covering my skin in a thick, impenetrable layer. It felt like a delayed reaction to me giving away my life force willingly, like if I’d touch the prince now, the darkness would drain him instead.
“What the fuck, Isay? You could’ve died!” Regar’s words pulled me out of slipping into a deep, dark place that was pulling at me. Within that place I felt the tentacles shift anxiously, displeased with my decision to willingly give away what they’d collected for me.
“I didn’t,” I whispered. My voice was way too quiet.
A wave of nauseousness made me swallow several times and drop my head back against the headrest. When my head still felt way too heavy, I let it roll to my shoulder as I kept taking shaky breaths and stared crookedly at the two males in the front seat.
I said slowly, “Hiko would’ve… died… without a doubt.”
Okay, talking was exhausting. I left my mouth hanging open to gulp more oxygen than my nose managed to supply. It subdued some of the dizziness that I felt. Until I had to swallow again, and my body freaked out and for a moment I forgot how to breathe completely, which left me hyperventilating again after I’d engulfed the spit. I was totally fine.
“How is he?” I whispered through gasps.
“Just peachy,” Hiko rasped the same word Karmuth had described his own weakened state.
I tried to crane my neck to see how he was doing, the sounds of fighting suddenly amplifying in my ears at the thought of him, but moving brought forth another wave of dizziness and nausea.
“Karmuth?” I moaned helplessly.
“He is fine,” Regar said. His voice sounded livelier than before. Amused?
I’d not asked for the state of the fight. I’d not inquired about Sinister. I’d been dead focussed on Karmuth. What that said about my confusing condition was perfectly clear: I was no longer only insinuating interest in one of the fighters, I was clearly stating it.
Chapter 23
KARMUTH
THE LAST OF OUR OPPONENTS STOOD BETWEEN ME AND SINISTER, his knife hand shaking slightly, but the sneer on his face refused to let up. “Fuck you, quaffer. You will not get me.”
“I was actually saving you for my friend here,” I spat right back, nodding towards Sinister, who’d done a fair share of drinking of his own.
He couldn’t get to another death fae, but the rest of the dark fae? Fair game. I’d heard they gave a slight resistance and tried to get to you first, but even if they succeeded, ending up numb sure trumped ending up dead. In the end, we always won. There was no coming back from death.
I enjoyed his fear way too much. I saw the appeal in drawing it out of a victim before feasting on the terror. But that wasn’t what my other half needed, right? It was passion. I knew it had to be passion. Or was it both? The draw that unexpectedly tugged me towards the other fae’s fear was unexplainable. I wanted to taste it, needed to grasp it. Licking my lips, I tilted my head and studied the sensation, prolonging his certain death.
“Quaffer sounds about right, doesn’t it, Sin? I feel an unsatisfiable thirst all of a sudden. Does your lot talk about me often?”
Sinister shrugged, twirling his knife around. His contentment to wait and see how this all played out was thrilling me as much as the scent of fear from the emotion-feeder. I was the one in control, I was deciding his fate, and no matter my next move, Sinister would back me up. He likely enjoyed the tension just as much as I did.
