Fairy Tale: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 3) (22 page)
Read Fairy Tale: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 3) Online
Authors: J.A. Cipriano
“Step over that line, and I will, Lillim.” His face was set in grim determination as he swept his hand back in a grand gesture to show me the way past him.
“Come over here and make me, Masataka.” I stuck my tongue out at him and made a face. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t.”
“Your mother has protected you from me in the past, Lillim. But no more. If you do not come over here, I
will
step over that line and take you back to Lot. If you resist, I
will
hurt
you
.” Masataka’s face closed off so that it reminded me of a cold, unfeeling stature. He knelt down, picking up a handful of dirt at the border and letting it run through his hands. “I hope you resist.”
I glanced from him to my mother. She had a look on her face that betrayed nothing, and the sight of it sent a chill hopping down my spine like an icy toad. My mother wasn’t exactly good at controlling her emotions or facial expressions. When you’re the strongest person in the room, people tend to give you a pass on stuff like that. But, right now, my mother was trying… That was not good. What could make her do that?
“Lillim Callina, the charges against you are serious. You will return my daughter immediately and surrender yourself into Masataka’s custody,” Reath’s low baritone warbled through the air, and I glanced at him. I guess I should have been threatened by him, but I’d just killed a death god a few hours ago. Reath had nothing on Crom Cruach.
“Go find her yourself. She’s about half a day’s journey that way!” I pointed toward a cactus behind me with a particularly large vulture sitting atop it. “Aside from that, I’m not turning myself over to you.”
“Surely you have noticed your mother’s lack of adornment, the lack of
her
people here. Only
my
people are here,” Masataka said as he stood, hands motionless at his sides. “She cannot help you.”
“Mom, what’s going on?” I asked, turning toward her. “Warthor said you were coming with a squad, so I came to tell you we handled it already.”
My mother replied with a sigh. “I tried to get troops and people to come help, to come rebalance fairy but no one would listen to me. The council refused to authorize it. That is… until they realized Kishi was with you. Suddenly, I had these guys willing to come along. The only catch was, I couldn’t come, at least not in my capacity as head of the Dioscuri.”
“So you’re here as a subordinate?” I glanced at Masataka. “To him?”
“Yes,” Masataka said with a grin. “Until we return to Lot, I am the lead. Even your mother has to do what I say.”
“I feel like I should buy you a cake,” I said with a shrug. “You know, to celebrate you finally being in charge of something more important that your brother’s birthday party. Mitsoumi does still let you plan that, right?”
“Once we bring you back and have you executed for treason, I’ll make a cake from your bones.” Masataka grinned, and for the first time, well ever, I saw his eyes twinkle. “Won’t that be a dainty dish to set before the king?”
I turned and ran, sprinting back down the dunes as fast as my legs could carry me. I’d barely made it twenty feet when my mother screamed. It was a short, horrible sound that stopped me in my tracks. I whirled, swinging my body around so fast I lost my balance, tripping over my own feet and smacking into the sand.
I shook my head, spitting sand from my mouth as I scrambled to my feet. Masataka Mawara had my mother, the leader of the Dioscuri fighting forces, on her knees in front of him. With one hand, he jerked her head back by her hair and put a seven-inch black-bladed knife to her throat. It was a Becker BK7 and was thick enough to pry off a car door.
“Take one more step, Lillim. I double dog dare you,” Masataka called, his voice strangely genial. “Let’s see how much you love your mom. Part of me hopes it isn’t very much.”
“Lillim, keep running, don’t stop he can—” Masataka cut off my mother’s words by smacking her across the face with the butt of the knife. Her jaw went slack, and even from there, I could see it fall at a disjointed angle. Then her bones began to twist and writhe beneath her skin, sewing themselves back together.
“You know what’s awesome about people with supernatural healing?” Masataka asked, and the sight of his smile chilled me despite the relentless heat of the Summer Court. “You can torture them over and over, and just when they are about to die, they heal and you can start all over. Healers get all squeamish when you ask them to heal someone just so you can beat the tar out of them again, but when it’s natural… well…”
“You’re a freaking psychopath!” I screamed, and despite my better judgment, took a step toward him. “If you hurt her, I will kill you!”
Masataka drove the blade deep into my mother’s shoulder, hitting the spot just behind the collarbone. My mother screamed as he tore the blade out in a spray of red. He held it in the air in front of her eyes as my mother’s face twisted in pain. Drops of blood flowed down the knife, dripping off the tip and splattering against the sand in front of them.
“It probably goes without saying, but I can do this all day.” He drove the blade into her side, and my mother gasped. “And thanks to her demonic healing, well, she can too.”
“No!” I screamed. The air around me surged with power. The desert around me exploded into a rolling, seething ocean of sand as I charged straight at Masataka.
My hands ripped the twin blades of Shirajirashii from their sheathes as my mother looked up at me and shook her head. It hit me a second later. The moment I touched Masataka, I’d be declared a rebel and his entire army could come down on me like a hammer. I wanted, no needed to get her away from Masataka, but if I did, I’d be facing off against all of them… and my mother wanted me to run. Did she have a plan or was she just being noble?
I stopped, my body skidding in the sand, thanks to my momentum. Unfortunately, I slid over the border line and came to a stop just a few inches beyond it. The twin blades of Shirajirashii throbbed in my hands, and as I looked at the katana and wakazashi throbbing in my hands, I realized something.
Masataka Mawara had been waiting for the opportunity to kill me since the day I was born. He had put that trident through my chest when I was just a little girl. I still had a scar from it. I’d been the bigger person then. I’d saved his miserable life, and this,
this
was how he repaid me?
“What do you want from me?” I screamed as tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. He swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he released my mother, pushing her to the side. Her body hit the ground with a thud as he stood before me.
He wasn’t very tall, standing only a few inches taller than me, but when you’re only five feet tall like me, everyone seems tall. Still, I could tell he wasn’t used to looking down at people. His gazed shifted to each of my swords and back to me.
The weapons quivered in my hands. I could take off his head before he could do anything to stop me. I was fast dammit. So fast. And… I swallowed. The pit in my stomach dropped into a huge chasm. Where was Mattoc… where was he to tell me what to do? I swallowed and blinked back the tears filling my eyes again.
Mattoc was gone. He’d given his life so we could save fairy and this jackass wanted to persecute me for it? I swung my head to the side and glared at Reath. His eyes were filled with rage and confusion as he watched me, his face set into a sort of bewildered mask.
“Call off your dog before I put him down,” I snarled, and my voice was so cold that it could have chilled a glacier. “I’m not in a very good place right now. I feel like I’m about to snap, and the absolute last thing you want me to do, is get really angry.”
Masataka looked me straight in the eye, and instead of speaking, he smiled. It was one of those creepy smiles that sent a chill hopping down my spine because it meant one thing. He wanted me to attack him.
Table of Contents