AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Having lived around humans far longer than humans ever had to live around themselves, I questioned whether their continued existence was altogether desirable. Whether their mess and their monarchies, greed, and gods might have more to do with consumption than creation. While remarkable creatures like Sal were mutilated for their own safety. Their powers concealed against craven and covetous eyes. And yet my brother damn near wept over a wench whose loss meant his precious peace with them might be within reach.
I had been angry at Sal merely for doing what any canny animal would. Knowing no law but that of the wild. Showing fealty only to those who had earned their place. Not been handed it by blood or by birthright.
“What on earth is she doing now?”
I extracted myself from my wrathful rhetoric and looked at Sal, who was no longer merely resting her hand on my chest but pushing on it in rhythmic pulses. Each time she did, blue light shot from my body’s mouth, eyes, and ears.
“Oh my,” Hannah said, her eyes glazing over as the lean muscles of Sal’s arms flexed with each palm thrust. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen her without her coat off.”
“Right?” I said distractedly.
Her skin glowed with a fine sheen of sweat as she muttered curses below her breath, ceasing the assault on my chest to lean over my face.
Her hand clamped over my nose, and I saw her draw in one giant breath before lowering her mouth to mine.
I felt a terrific sense of acceleration. Of being pulled through the fabric of the stars and spat out the other side.
I landed hard on my back with a rattling gasp and sucked in a lung full of air that made me cough and wheeze. Strong hands beneath my shoulders sat me up, and I coughed up a brimstone-flavored, bile-green substance that sizzled when it hit the floor.
“Kat,” my brother’s anguished voice called out. “Oh, thank God.”
“No,” I choked out. “Thank Sal.”
For me, at that moment, they were one and the same.
Her skin shone as if coated in opal dust, an entire rainbow condensed into every whit of her being.
“You are fae,” I whispered. “I knew it.”
“No, you didn’t,” Sal said, pushing hair away from my clammy forehead.
“Yes, I did,” I insisted.
“No, you really didn’t.”
“Yes, I really did.”
Beside us, a wet gurgle followed by a gigantic sneeze broke what otherwise might have been a poignant moment.
“Bless ye,” Mark said from his cage.
“Don’t you dare, you daft wanker.” Hanna held a hand to her head of wild curls as she slowly sat up and sucked in a breath. “Jaysus, but that hurts,” she said, massaging her scalp. “Is that what I’ve been doing to people all this time? That’s right unpleasant.”
“Look at Karma doing her work,” Sal said under her breath. Already, her glow had begun to diminish, her wings growing fainter until they disappeared back into her body with a whisp of smoke.
“Unpleasant? Unpleasant? You just attempted to steal my soul, and you use a word like unpleasant to describe what you have experienced?”
“I was trying to steal your brother’s soul if we’re being technical-like,” Hanna pointed out.
Wrong or right, all the other times with all the other Hannas unspooled in my mind like a long, horrific loop. I’d often heard the phrase been to Hell and back, but this time, I felt it. I felt the full fury of the infernal regions attach itself to what remained of my soul.
Sitting up, I shoved my hands into the arms of Sal’s coat and pulled it around me. “You know what? You two fecking deserve each other. You can sit there in your stupid cage and her stupid cheese cottage with her stupid cats and try to convince her of your stupid plan for her to fix the stupid shifter empire and make peace with the stupid humans. I am out. Done. Sick to death of cleaning up after the males of this line.”
“Don’t lump me in with him,” the witch protested. “I didn’t want him to sit there mooning at the inn, much less follow me back to my home.”
“And you,” I said, whirling on her. “One day, you and I will square for everything you’ve put me through. Every humiliation. Every insult. Every slight and missed moment of my life. And when that day comes, you had better hope my brother is here to protect you.”
Hanna yawned, bringing her hand to her mouth. “Some protection he is,” she said, jerking her head at the cage.
