Fae Chronicles 01 - Fighting Destiny (20 page)

I blinked at him, unable to make my lips work now that he’d released me from his spell. Angry tears exploded from my eyes flowing down my cheeks. I turned away from him, forcing him to move his face from mine. He moved away completely, standing up and marching to the door where he opened it and held it there with his eyes still hungrily on me.

I sat up swallowing the sob that threatened to steal from my lips as I tried to make my legs work for a hasty retreat. I moved past him in quick angry strides and continued down the hall until I heard his door slam closed.

My knees gave out the minute it did. On my hands and knees on the thickly carpeted floor I sobbed. I had been so stupid. I’d just baited a fucking beast in his own domain and then I'd lashed out at him because of my own traitorous body’s reaction. I'd blamed him for my response he brought out, the inner wanton that I'd starved since Adrian had died.

I was out of my league with Ryder, over my head in the deep end without going through swimming lessons first. I inhaled and exhaled before holding the wall to help myself up off the floor and made my way back to my room through the maze of hallways that led to the top floor of the mansion.

Inside my room I'd cry, I'd berate myself for being stupid and then I'd go find Ryder and apologize because
I
had been wrong. I'd blamed him and I wasn’t the type to not admit when I'd wrongly accused someone. And I had, as much as it sucked to admit it. I'd been mad at myself for reacting. I'd known the difference before he'd shown me.

When I reached my room, it was to find Larissa and Adam both waiting for me. Their eyes bugging out at the outfit I wore. "I think I got the job," I whispered grabbing clothes from the dresser without looking either of them in the eye and headed for the oversized bathroom before either could figure out I had been crying.

Inside the bathroom I clicked the lock into place and slid down the door only to jump as Adam pounded on the door I was leaning against.

"Syn, are you okay?" He shouted as if I couldn’t hear him.

"I'm fine," I said not bothering to raise my voice.

"Yeah? Then why is my bullshit meter going off?" He retorted angrily.

"Adam, I just need a few minutes."
And then what? Tell them what I'd just done? That I had just come all over Ryder's jeans like some FIZ slut?

Larissa knocked next. "Syn, can I come in?"

"Seriously guys, I'm fine. I freaked out because he's Fae. We knew it was a possibility, it just happened. I just need a shower and then can we go get some dinner?" I held my breath hoping they'd take the not so subtle hint to get lost.

"Is it because of Adrian?" Larissa continued.

I didn’t answer. I hadn't even thought about him while I'd been dry humping Ryder. I'd loved Adrian with everything I had to give, so why had I been so easily tempted by Ryder with no thought to my first and only love when he was around?

I'd tried dating last year, but I'd compared the poor guy to Adrian in everything, which had eventually made the guy break it off. No one deserved to have to listen to a person they were interested in discuss their dead ex-boyfriend. I was pathetic which was why I had sworn off dating and sex altogether.

I lifted my head taking in the huge rounded tub, it would easily fit as many people as a hot tub would, I'd had yet to use it since I was more accustomed to showering since the Guild had open shower rooms, one for the boys and the other for the girls.

I pushed up off the floor setting the clothes I'd brought in on the wooden vanity beside the sink. This bathroom was larger than my entire room in our crummy little apartment, but as crummy as my room was, it had become my home. I needed to get back to it and back to being the self-assured person I normally was.

Here, I was at Ryder's mercy and he knew it, which made him dangerous. It made me weak and reckless not being in charge of own destiny, or my covens. The sooner I got done with this little charade he wanted me to do—the sooner I could get back to being myself.

Showered and redressed in my own clothes I felt more reasonable. I headed out to find Ryder before I met up with Adam and Larissa for dinner so I could apologize. I'd found his Demon walking the halls as if patrolling and asked where I could find his master, which he'd replied growling something about "fucking Witches and fucking office."

Ryder's office was a mere four rooms from his bedroom which meant I had to take the same walk of shame to apologize that I'd taken back to my own room in tears. Which chapped my ass, but I needed to apologize. My coven's fate was currently in his hands and right now those hands were probably itching to be around my neck. I found the door labeled his office and opened the door.

And my jaw dropped to the floor. Ryder had Claire sitting on his desk as he pounded a massive erection into her. I gasped but I couldn’t look away from it, or what he was doing. I watched his body punishing hers and found myself wanting to take her place, wanting to be the one he fucked. I couldn’t look away from them.

My eyes locked to what they were doing and his sleek masculine body as he fucked another woman. I grew wet with need and my mouth watered for his kiss. I shook my head as if it would wake me up with no success.

She was whimpering and crying out as he drove himself inside of her over, and over again. He wasn’t saying anything, her noise the only sounds inside the room. Those eyes of his glowed molten fire, which told me he was feeding from her as he had hadn't done from me earlier. I bit my lip as heat flooded my core with the need to take her place. I'd left him starving when I’d left him inside his room. I'd seen it in his eyes.

"Either strip or get the fuck out little girl," he growled with his eyes now leveled on me.

I turned and ran as fast as I could away from him.

His wicked laughter taunted me until I rounded a corner and collided with a very solid form. Zahruk's hands steadied me as he searched my horrified expression. "You left him starving little Witch. He's Fae and he left instead of feeding from you."

"I…I…uh."

He smiled coldly. "Do you know how many Fae could have walked away after smelling your need?" At my puzzled expression he continued, "We have to feed, you might not like it, but its life for us. And you smell in need of a good fucking girl, we can all smell it on you. Too bad Ryder isn’t willing to share his new pet. If you were mine I’d share the fuck out of you and enjoy every scream you gave as we took you, filling you up until you could take no more."

I stared briefly before taking a big step back, what the hell did you say to something like that? “I’m not his pet,” I swallowed and continued. "And I know what he is, I'm well aware of that. I only came to tell him I was sorry for accusing him of Fae-fucking me when it was me who had reacted to him."

I watched his blue eyes shine with laughter, but there was more there in their depths. "You have suffered at the hands of the Fae Synthia, we understand that. But we were not there when your parents died. Ryder's a good man, he has thousands who he has to make hard choices for and he's a damn fine man when it comes to making those choices. Most would have become power hungry, but not him. I'd follow him into the depths of hell to guard him. Remember little Witchling, if you push him, we all will push back."

I narrowed my eyes and folded my arms across my chest as I glared at him. "Is that a threat?"

"No, I don’t make idle threats. I make promises that I always keep. He's trying to save an entire species from fading away to the pages of a history book. You? I think you're only interested in one thing—revenge and that always plays out badly for everyone involved."

"I don’t take unnecessary risk with my coven.
Ever
." I felt the need to make sure he knew it.

His smile was sad as it spread over his full mouth never touching his eyes, "If that were true Synthia McKenna, you wouldn’t be standing here right now. We
all
make bad choices occasionally."

I blanched at his words and watched as he turned and walked away in the direction where Claire's ecstatic cries were still coming from down the hall. I turned and fled needing to get out of here. Once again I'd been enthralled by Ryder and this time it had been while he fucked someone on his desk! I needed a cold reminder of what I was and why I did what I did. And fast.

I stole keys from the entryway before peeking through the window to outside, I quietly opened the door and snuck out of the house, sneaking through the door and into the garage before pressing the unlock button to see which car beeped. I growled when three made the same annoying loud beep. Stealthily, I slipped into the first one.

I sat in a midnight blue Lamborghini and smiled like a naughty child with her hand in the cookie jar. Oh. Hell. Yes! I hit the button on the keychain to open the garage as I turned it on and pulled out onto the long driveway and winced as I saw the closed gates, but as I approached them slowly they slid open.

I let a slow shaky breath out and passed through waving to the guard like I was supposed to be in Ryder's quarter million dollar car and smiled like an idiot. I didn’t relax until I hit the highway and then I opened the car's engine and allowed it to purr to life.

My mind went back to Ryder inside his office. I'd considered his option…way too much. I'd almost taken the step that would have told him yes. I'd seen his hunger shining in his eyes and I had wanted to fix it. Of course I told myself it had been because I'd been the one to enrage his appetite and leave him hanging.

I was lying to myself.

I was getting pretty damn good at making excuses for why I did stupid shit around him. I wondered if they would notice the car's absence since it was unlikely they would notice mine at all. Ryder was partial to his cars and it showed in the way he drove them. The way his hands caressed the leather….oh hell!

I switched on the radio and flinched as Nine Inch Nails roared to life from the speakers mounted in the doors. I clicked it back off and rolled my eyes at how pathetic I was acting.
Synthia McKenna, Fae killer extraordinaire—is giddy over the Dark Prince
…I could imagine it on the headlines of the Guild's paper already.

I pulled up to the Oak Ridge Cemetery gates and nodded at the gatekeeper before slowly making my way to the unmarked grave in the back close to the tree lines. It was one of the oldest cemeteries in the state. It was also the only one with no names on any of the graves—just numbers.

It was a way to keep track of the dead without giving out their family names or place others on the human's radar. Even though we’re technically human, we didn’t fit in with them or the Otherworlder's. We just continued to protect them even though they didn't accept us anymore than they did the Otherworlder's who couldn’t pay them enough to be accepted. Money made the human world spin. Always had and would continue to do so until someone decided they weren't worth keeping around any longer.

I parked in the back and exited the car, grabbing for my purse before heading to where Adrian was buried. I'd bought his plot since he hadn't had family to do so. It was the least I could do since it had been my ego that had gotten him put it in the ground to begin with. There had been nothing to bury but a few pints of blood and hair.

No soul lay inside this cold ground to be reborn. I had to live knowing it. Knowing that I'd failed to save him. They said the dying had it easy, that being reborn was easy and peaceful. What about the living who had to remember it? Had to carry the burden of knowing they'd failed, living with the memories of the dead? I think we have it worse off since we don’t forget.

I cleared off the grave from the pine needles the wind had shed on his resting place. I pulled out the iPod from my purse and stuck in the ear buds feeling the call of the dead tingling on my skin. None of my dead was buried here, they hadn't been that lucky.

I would release Chandra. Give her eternal peace until she was reborn. I didn’t have my coven to help as her witnesses, but I had a graveyard full of dead souls who had yet to pass on the Ever-after, stuck here for some reason or another and unwilling to pass on.

Good thing I was one of the few who could raise souls, I'd raised this entire cemetery by accident soon after Adrian had been buried here. It had been just another botched attempt to release the souls of my parents. I wasn’t even sure I could release them, I'd messed up at taking them in, but I'd only been five.

Most Witches couldn’t master taking a soul until their late sixties and it was risky do to at any age. I sat with my back to his grave marker, "I miss you."

I waited, as if he would answer me back.

I exhaled trying to find something else to say, anything.

"I'm the world's biggest slut now, almost gave in to a Fae. Go ahead, roll over in there A. Lord knows my parents would be right now." I smirked finding irony in the fact that I was confiding in a concrete slab with numbers on it, "I miss you. Larissa and Adam are totally bumping uglies by the way. Cue more eye-rolling, I know you would be if you were here. I told you he liked her," I smiled imagining the wide grin he used to give me when he found out I had been right on something. "Okay, let's do this."

I stood feeling the eyes watching me. I scanned the area finding nothing out of place in the thick greenery on the edges of the cemetery. I pulled the small blade from my purse before pulling out the ear buds to listen for a second longer.

The wind howled, but other than the Witch posted at the gates I felt no one close enough to be considered a threat. I whispered the words for the candles to be lit, feeling the surge that came before the flames leapt to life in the candelabras that had been scattered throughout the graveyard.

The feeling of power running through my veins was heady after being useless for two days in a row. Throwing a shield didn’t give off the same kind of thrill casting did and nothing gave the feel of raising the dead, even if was only souls that I was actually raising here.

I took the headphones off and placed the iPod on dead shuffle, which I'd made for doing this since the dead loved to dance. Most would consider it odd but not me. Since they couldn’t talk it was about all they could do and not look like zombies. Okay, well some still looked like zombies.