Rise of the Lost Prince (6 page)

When they came to the closed and
massive wrought iron gate of the park’s haunted attraction, Ghost Castle, she
stared at the imposing gothic structure. One side was missing a chunk of the
roof, and a clearly rotten draw bridge dangled over putrefied water. She wasn’t
real sure she wanted to take another step.

Wyndi figured Dash must have felt
her hesitation, because they stopped, and he glanced down at her.

“We aren’t going in there, are
we?”

“Yep.”

She shook her head. “No way. No
how.”

He smirked. “Why? You’re not
scared are you?”

“Yes, but not of ghosts.”

“Of what then?”

“It doesn’t look safe.”

Wyndi heard what sounded to be an
electronic male voice ring out from what she suspected to be a hidden speaker.
“Who’s the babe?”

Dash glanced up. Wyndi followed
his gaze. A security camera, which she would have figured to be not at all
functional, was mounted on the outer castle wall which surrounded the
attraction. Slowly, it turned, the lens facing them.

“How does this place have power?”
Wyndi stared up at Dash. “And who’s talking?”

“You’ll see.” Dash flipped off
the camera. “Byte, unlock the gate.”

A different electronic voice
asked, “What’s the magic phrase?”

“Kiss my ass, Tera.”

“Nope. That’s not it,” the voice
replied.

“If you and Byte don’t stop
jacking around—”

“Say, ‘open sesame.’”

It sounded as if two people were
chuckling, only an odd distorted chuckle.

“We’ll just teleport in,” Dash
said.

“No!” Wyndi interjected, sounding
far too panicked in tone. “No more teleporting.”

Laughter buzzed from the speaker
she couldn’t see. Dash didn’t look amused in the least.

Something
clicked
. The gate clacked opened with the classic sound of rusted
hinges making a protest.

“Come on,” said Dash, taking her
elbow yet again and walking her forward.

“The bridge looks too dangerous,”
she protested. “If we fall into that water, we might catch botulism, or
dysentery, or have some mutant fish attack us or something.”

“Walk, or teleport. You pick. But
one way or the other, we’re going inside.”

A murky fog rolled in from the
direction of the sea and hovered only a few feet away in the middle of the
bridge. Wyndi grabbed onto Dash’s forearm with determination, nails sinking
into flesh. “The darklings, they followed us here.”

“Naw,” he said, calmly. “That’s
only Vapor.”

Long, inky-black hair took shape
as if thrashing wildly in an invisible wind, followed by another angelic yet
deadly looking face, naked torso, roped stomach, then a lower body covered in
low-slung jeans and biker boots fully materialized. Her gaze danced over him.
Muscled arms with swirling black tattoos flexed at his side.

She glanced at Dash. “He’s like
you.”

“Ha,” said the guy who just
appeared out of the fog. She returned her attention to him, bare chest glistening
with water droplets. “Dash only wishes to be as awesome as me, sugar lips.” He
stepped forward, took hold of her hand and placed a kiss on her knuckles. “Let
me introduce myself properly. I’m Vapor, the only one of this group who can
pull water particles from the atmosphere and use them to my advantage.”

“You can harness and control
water?”

Wyndi slipped her hand free of
him, and noticed he smelt of the sea and
exotic
orchids.

“I can.” His crystalline eyes
fringed in thick black lashes seemed to take in every inch of her body, and
while this man was just as sexy as the others she’d met—she’d have to be blind
not to notice—he didn’t come close to the appeal, or the magnetic pull Petúr
held. “Amongst other things.”

“Well—”

Vapor winked at her. “Badass, I
know.”

She would have gone with bizarre.
Off the wall, weird, maybe. Perhaps, disturbing. For sure, not humanly
possible. But, then, hadn’t everything about her night and the warrior men who
were occupying it been out-and-out fantastical?

“Sure, why not,” she said,
throwing her hands up in the air. “Badass works.”

Beside her, Dash snorted. “Vapor,
get your ‘bad ass’ a-movin’ and let’s get inside.”

They made their way forward,
Vapor in the lead, Wyndi watching her feet, trying to be careful not to step on
one of the gaping holes where the bridge had disintegrated. She held her
breath. The stench wafting up from the water was horrific.

Stepping over one really bad spot
in particular, all of her hair stood on end, as if she’d been zapped by
lightening. Electricity seemed to snap over her skin one moment; the next, the
sensation was gone.

“What’s going on?” she asked,
wondering how many times she was going to ask that specific question tonight,
glancing up to see what should be the spooky ruins of the haunted castle
attraction, not in ruins at all. In fact, it appeared a real gothic castle
which had been restored.

“We crossed over the hologram
threshold,” Dash replied.

“Hologram?”

He shrugged. “That’s the best way
to describe what the techno twins created.”

Wyndi blinked, rapidly.

“See,” Vapor interjected. “If the
place looks abandoned and falling apart like the rest of the park, we don’t
draw attention to ourselves and no one knows we’re here.” He opened the large,
ornately carved doors to the castle. “Ladies first.”

Slowly, she walked inside,
shocked to find herself standing in a grand foyer. Overhead were intricate
chandeliers, dripping with crystals. Beneath her feet, polished onyx
floors.
 

“This is…” she uttered, not sure
she could find the right words.

“Quite something, ahi?”

She spun, turning in the
direction of the deep voice she didn’t recognize. She rubbed at her eyes and
looked again. Indeedy. There were two of them. Identical twins, with wavy
chestnut colored hair, stood shoulder to shoulder within the archway to her
left. Their clothing was even the same. White muscle-hugging T-Shirts. Baggy
designer jeans.

Wait. She studied them a little
bit closer. They weren’t exactly identical.

“Tera,” Dash said. “This is
Wyndi.”

“Hi-ya, Wyndi.”

“Wyndi,” Dash continued. “That’s
Tera and Byte.”

“The techno twins, I presume,”
she said.

“At your service, milady,” said
Byte, brushing his fingers along his jaw.

The only way she was going to be
able to tell them apart was Tera had one bright green eye and one navy blue eye
and Byte had one bright blue eye and one snowy white eye. Yet even with their
strange mismatched eyes, they were, like every one of the other men, tall,
built, and fabulously handsome.

Chapter Five

Petúr carried Bell’s limp, bloody
body into the home he and his brothers shared, having covered her nudity the
best he could with the remains of his mutilated shirt. When she passed out, her
wings did this disappearing act, shrinking until they became the tattoo his
palm had caressed upon her back earlier in the night, warm to the touch, and
slightly raised. What worried him, she felt too cold now, and her flowery,
sweet pea scent was dulling.

“Oh God,” said Wyndi, coming to
his side, eyes rounded. “Bell!”

“Tera. Byte,” he said, looking at
the twins who were manning the computers of the control center. “I’m going to
need your doctoring help.”

“You’ve got it,” said Byte.

“Sure,” said Tera.

“Grab the medical kit, Dash,”
Petúr instructed, watching him nod right before he disappeared from sight.
“Vapor?”

“Yeah?”

“Vibe stayed behind to do his
thing with a couple of humans who stumbled into the aftermath of our scrimmage
tonight, but he and Firefox should be here soon. Unlock the gate for them.”

“Will do,” said Vapor.

“What happened to Bell’s
shoulder?” Wyndi asked. “Why is she naked?”

“We’ll talk later,” Petúr said,
heading for the first bedroom he came to. Wyndi was right on his heels.

He placed the petite creature on
the bed as carefully as possible, before turning his attention to Tera and Byte
who were both staring down at Bell, brows crinkled, nostrils working.

“What is she?” Tera asked.

Dash appeared, handing over the
medical kit to Byte.

“She said she’s a Demi-Fae,”
Petúr answered.

“What?”

That came from Wyndi. He didn’t
respond. As much as he wanted to give the human woman his full and undivided
attention, he couldn’t at the moment. The little one had tried to protect him.
Even put herself between him and Grapple. He had to make sure Bell would be
okay.

“As in, a fairy?” asked Byte.

Petúr nodded, watching Tera grab
at the kit Byte held, plucking out one of his tiny med-tech creations with some
tweezers, and saw Wyndi sort of slump into a chair out of the corner of his
eye, hand over her mouth. He supposed he could have Vibe change her memories again
when he got home, but he didn’t want the warrior in her head anymore.

“The nano will repair all the
tissue damage,” Tera said.

Forget
about Wyndi for now. Concentrate on Bell.

“She’s lost a lot of blood. She’s
going to need a transfusion,” said Byte, placing the device onto Bell’s arm.
Because Petúr’s eyesight was superior, he could see the microscopic legs on the
nano pop out. It scurried up a trail of blood, then dove into the gash,
disappearing. “But since she’s not human, I’m not sure—”
 

“I’ll give her my blood,” said
Petúr.

 
Byte squeezed the back of his neck. “We can’t
know if that will work.”

Petúr held out his arm.
Determined. “It will.”

****

 
From the darkened corner of one of the lower
caverns, Kros peeked around a boulder, observing his father pacing back and
forth in front of Ariette who sat upon her throne of leathered flesh and bones,
rotting corpses stacked up, creating a partition behind her.

Torch light flickered on the
walls around the throne, highlighting hair as orange as the glowing sun. The
silky looking strands tumbled past her slender shoulders and caressed her
angular face, while elongated claws of burnt umber thrummed against the femur
which made up one arm of the ceremonial chair.

“How dare you come to me, reeking
of man,” the demoness said in a voice as sharp as shards of glass, eyes of
molten lava, gazing down her aquiline nose at him.

“Ariette,” Grapple said.

“Do not speak! Obviously, your
plan to distract Petúr and the lost boys with a horde attack, while you swooped
in to take the human, didn’t work.”

A wicked smile stretched across
Kros’s face at the news. He reveled. Hell, he basked in the knowledge the great
and mighty Grapple had failed.

“You have promised me entry into
the land of Fae, where I am to be queen, yet I am still here in the
under-verse, waiting.” Her eyes narrowed. “I hate to be kept waiting.” She
tapped her foot on the rock beneath her feet.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Many of our darklings were lost this night.” She
scraped a sharp claw along the femur. “And since my sister Narvon is no longer
alive to bear us replacements, I have decided you will pay for this loss,
Grapple the Dark.” The demoness waved her hand. “Approach.”

 
Grapple briefly closed his eyes, his lips pressing into a thin line
before he smoothed out his features into neutrality, turning to walk up the
rock steps to the throne.

“On your knees before me,” she
said, rising to her feet in a graceful manner.

Surely, his father, the man who
considered himself all mighty, all powerful, wouldn’t go to his knees,
subservient to a female.

He
did
.

Kros smirked when Grapple
complied. Oh, the feeling of seeing this, his brute of a father with his head
bowed, dark hair falling forward, hiding his face, was better than feeding.
Better than fucking. Satisfaction, all encompassing, danced over Kros in
grandiose fashion.

Ariette tugged at the belt around
her waist, freeing it. The flowing, purple robe gapped, showcasing pale,
porcelain skin. Two perfectly shaped breasts, larger than a hand full, and
tipped with cinnamon colored nipples the size of ripe raspberries, greeted him.

Kros took her in and reached for
his hardening cock. As she moved, a line of orange colored snake-like flesh
appeared between her breasts, flowed downward, and disappeared just above a
small, lickable, slit of a navel.

His gaze dropped lower, finding a
fine strip of fiery pubic hair and supple looking thighs. Kros gripped himself,
feeling his body swell, blood pumping through his veins.