Dark Matter (4 page)

His chuckle carried through the heavy
barrier, sending a shiver through me. He was testing me again. I
wasn’t sure how, but I could feel it.

“
Where have you been
hiding?” Cassie asked with a grin. She let out a tiny laugh until
she saw my expression. Just like that, she slanted her head at me
knowingly. “What’s wrong?”

Was I really that transparent? I was
going to have to work on my acting, especially now that I knew how
Finn felt about me.

The man she was trusting to sort out
her Elemental status just might be too distracted by me to give it
his best effort. How could I break her heart by telling her the
truth? I settled for giving her the second reason I was upset.
“Heath’s trying to compel me again.” It was true. I could feel it,
but he was being much more subtle about it.

She studied the door as if she had
x-ray vision then turned toward me with a half-cocked smile. “You
could do worse.”

“
Yeah, you think?” I gave
her a short, upward nod. “You switching teams or
something?”

She made a whooshing sound like a
slashed tire gushing air. “Don’t be absurd. Finn could squash Heath
with one look.”

I nodded. There had to be a reason Finn
had managed to stay champion of the fire realm for the past thirty
years, and I was praying it was because he was much stronger than
Heath. It made me wonder though. I had been told that if the wild
hunt didn’t produce results within a certain amount of time a
champion was supposed to step aside for the younger
generation.

How could they call them that? No one
in this horrible place had the decency to age at all.

Finn hadn’t gotten around to bonding
with one of the poor Elemental’s from the hoards the Order had to
offer. I smiled. Now he wouldn’t have to. I was going to have to
ask him why he didn’t just bond with Cassie now. That would solve
at least one of our problems.

I gave her a feeble smile, dumped my
coat on the chair in the corner then walked over to the ginormous
bed in the center of the room. My fingers curved weakly around a
solid iron post. I steadied myself to tug my boots off. I pealed my
sweaty socks down to my toes and tossed them away trying to ignore
the stench. With that out of the way, I flopped on the bed, face
first. If Cassie hadn’t been with me I would have stripped down to
my skivvies. If it weren’t for how chilled I felt whenever I went
outside I would have sworn my inner body temperature had risen
since coming here.

I was absolutely useless. How was I
supposed to just sit here when Zach and Luke were facing the Order
without any real back-up? Then there was the matter of what had
been done with my family. I was worried sick about them. Cassie had
already told me that they had been taken to the island, but why?
Were they being tortured while I sat here doing nothing to help
them?

It was clear to me that none of the fae
took any human seriously, even the mysterious members of the Order.
They really should be more careful if you asked me.

When I had been in the tunnels with
Roger Wayne back at school, he had said something that had bothered
me then but doubly so now. He had blatantly told me the Order
hadn’t reached the point where they didn’t need the fae to
accomplish their designs. I’d taken that declaration to mean they
were working toward that end. Maybe whatever Luke had seen on the
island was dangerous to the fae. Maybe he and Zach had walked into
a trap?

I cringed at the thought. Even though
they couldn’t be killed, I had been around these immortals long
enough to know they still had emotions like humans. They
experienced physical pain, too, although they tried not to show
it.

I had seen a guy get pulverized by a
giant chunk of ice just two days ago. It hadn’t taken long for a
group of brownies to scuttle from the castle and levitate the thing
off him, but they had exhausted all of their power in doing it and
had to carry him back to the castle on a stretcher. He was groaning
the whole time, but not as much as the four brownies supporting his
weight.

Brownies are a short people. None I had
seen had been over three feet tall. They all had pale orange skin
with a light dusting of white fur that covered their bodies. They
looked virtually identical from the back. The only real distinction
between male and female, other than obvious things, had been the
slight difference in skin tone. The males had dime sized freckles
only a bit darker than the rest of their skin. The females had a
uniform skin color. Both genders wore their hair long and braided,
as was the custom of the royal house of Ignis.

As it turned out, the brownies are one
of the lesser fae races that came to earth for asylum after the
first five nations claimed the planet. They weren’t allowed to
share in the elemental power enjoyed by the royals, but they had
been fast learners of earth magic. They can manipulate matter, just
not to the heightened degree of the five houses. It takes a bunch
of them to accomplish the same task a royal could do with one
thought.

After hearing Luke explain how cold and
lonely his existence had been before he found Earth, I realized how
someone might be happy to just have a home. Even if all they ever
did was serve other people, it was better than wandering the vast
expanse of space for eternity.

I hadn’t seen any other fae races in
Ignis, but Finn told me there were countless numbers of them. They
all served some purpose so the royals could take care of watching
over humans without having to grow food or worry about
technological advances and such.

I was still having a hard time
accepting that the fae actually believed they were serving humans
by causing calamities or interfering behind the scenes when the
balance of power was weighted too heavily to one side. Finn had
told Cassie many things he wouldn’t even think about telling me. I
wasn’t sure if he realized she would tell me anyway, but either
way, his thinking was weird to me.

I heard the clomping of Cassie’s shoes
hitting the stone floor before I felt a light touch on my back. I
hadn’t even felt her sit down. My new bed was the most comfortable
thing I had ever slept on. Even Cassie’s memory-foam mattress
couldn’t compare. I was weightless when I was on my bed. I should
have been able to rest rather soundly under ordinary circumstances,
but being here was anything but normal. It didn’t help that I kept
having nightmares. Every night since coming here, I had fallen
asleep with the hope I would get some rest, and every night I had
been vastly disappointed.

I rolled over and looked at Cassie’s
concerned face. Here I was feeling sorry for myself when she had it
way worse than I did. All I had to do was pick a guy to spend a few
hundred years with. It shouldn’t be that difficult, especially
considering whom I have to choose from. Cassie’s future wasn’t so
certain. She didn’t know how much of an Elemental she really was
and neither did anyone else even though they had spent the last
couple of days trying to figure it out.

All they could tell was that she was
part Elemental. She had the genetic markers, but her DNA was
different than anything they had ever seen.

The doctor had implied that she wanted
to sample my blood, but I wasn’t about to subject myself to that
kind of scrutiny. What if that little troll, Gibbit, had been
right? What if somehow I was part fae? What would they do with me
then? I had joked with Finn and Cassie about them having a baby
eventually and Finn had grown very somber. He told me in no
uncertain terms that it wasn’t possible for a fae lord to father a
child. My brain kept telling me that he was right, but in my heart
I wondered.

Cassie leaned up against the headboard
and patted the mattress next to her. I crawled over and sat down. I
pulled one of the soft pillows out from behind my back and started
fiddling with the fringe.

So many things here were similar to the
human realm. The chairs and dressers were intricately carved to
old-world perfection. The stone walls were covered in ancient
tapestries that showed heroic scenes of damsels in distress with
warriors heroically saving the day. I wondered how many modern
conveniences had been introduced to the human realm by the fae. I
also wondered why they seemed to cling to old styles.

“
Did you find Finn?” asked
Cassie.

I flicked a glance at her. I
was
not
about to
take away the only hope Cassie had by telling her the truth. “No,”
I said dismally feeling I wasn’t really lying to her. The man I had
followed outside didn’t resemble her kind, loving boyfriend in the
slightest. Maybe he was temporarily possessed?

She shrugged and smiled compassionately
at me. “Do you want me to talk to him for you? I know you don’t
like being alone with him.”

Her tone implied that I was the one
avoiding him. I would be from now on. I smiled lamely at her. “That
might be better. Thanks.”

She sniffed. “Have you heard any news
at all about Zach and Luke?”

I banged my head against the headboard
a few times for emphasis. “No one will tell me anything. If I
didn’t know better, I would think they are hiding the truth from
me.”

She looked distractedly out the window
as if she wished we were talking about a more pleasant subject. I
couldn’t really blame her. “Maybe they just don’t know anything
yet?” she said hopefully.

I turned toward her so I could see her
better. “If that’s true, why wouldn’t they send someone to
investigate? Why would they sit here and do nothing?”

“
I wish I had an answer to
offer you. I’ll see what I can find out, though.” Her face
brightened. “Are you excited about the ball yet?”

I groaned. “You just had to remind me,
didn’t you? I explicitly remember telling you not to.”

Why were they throwing a ball for me
anyway? A friggin’ ball—the kind with elaborately uncomfortable
dresses and even more uncomfortable dancing. I didn’t know the
first thing about how to behave at a ball, and I didn’t care to,
either. It wasn’t as if these people were giving me a choice. I
could try to refuse, but I was pretty certain Finn or, worse yet,
Heath would carry me down there kicking and screaming if they had
to.

I only had a few minutes
until my ladies in waiting would rush in to
help
me get ready. I wished I could
figure out how they managed to change my clothing without ever
taking anything off me. Cassie had already informed me that they
would be using old-fashioned methods with me tonight. It, too, was
a sign of respect. So not only was I going to have to let multiple
women watch me dress, I was going to have to allow them to put
their hands all over me.

A knock sounded at the door. “They
don’t waste any time, do they?” I asked Cassie.

She grinned, jumping from the bed and
over to the door so fast she was almost a blur. Sure, she was
stoked. She was going to be dancing with Finn until the wee hours
of the morning. I had no idea who I would be obligated to dance
with tonight. Unless a miracle occurred, one thing was certain, it
wouldn’t be Zach or Luke.

Chapter Three

Before I could even sit up straight,
six women entered my room. I knew at some point I was going to get
used to the beauty of these people, but it hadn’t happened
yet.

All six had waist-length
flowing red hair; all six had tawny eyes and flawless skin; and all
six were staring at
me
as though I was the newest wonder of the universe.

One of them stepped forward. “I am
Lysanne. Please follow me.”

For half a second, I considered
refusing her. I could pretend I was sick, but they would only bring
the physician who would no doubt poke and prod until she found
something she could use to get me into her lab. The experience
wouldn’t be any different with these women.

I slunk off the bed and fell in line.
Lysanne led me to my dressing chamber. It was bigger than Aunt
Grace’s entire house back in Castlerock, Utah. I never, in a
thousand years, would have expected I would miss the place this
much, but there was a certain comfort a small residence could offer
that a sprawling palace would never be able to compete
with.

I shed my clothes and waited for the
primping to begin in nothing but my underwear. I had already bathed
today, and I refused to take another dip in the Grecian style tub
so I asked Lysanne for the fae equivalent of a shower. I wasn’t
sure I would ever get used to it, but it did save time. One minute,
I was sweaty and my long hair fell limply around my face. The next,
I was squeaky clean with bouncy brown curls tumbling over my
shoulders. I slid a ringlet through my fingers and stared at her.
What was wrong with my hair the way it usually was? She smiled
defiantly at me. I had bigger things to worry about
tonight.

Lysanne’s assistant strode toward us,
stopped in front of me, bowed formally then she went to work
slathering oil all over my body. My skin tingled before it began to
glow slightly and I’m not talking about a fake glimmer shimmer. My
skin was actually lit up from the inside. “What is that?” I asked
in awe. The woman wouldn’t answer me. That was another thing that
bugged the potatoes out of me. They never talked much.