Scorched Fury: A SkinWalker Novel #5 (DarkWorld: SkinWalker) (19 page)

"Then why did you let me come?" Demand in her posture.

"So that you could be part of this mission to save Sienna. Not for
my
personal protection."

Lily paused, her gaze drifting from my face to my Dad's.

"It's not as if I don't need protection. Ailuros knows I get myself into all sorts of dangerous shit. But you came along
with
me. We were a team so we were responsible for each other, yes. But we were both injured. In case you've forgotten."

Lily smiled wearily, shrugging her shoulder the tiniest bit in response to my words.

"I'm not negating your help, Lily. But you should know that in a situation like that everything is up to chance. We just fight back and hope for the best. We could have both died there today. But that's the risk we took." I paused. "It's the risk we both took."

Lily stepped closer and pretended to be inspecting the wound in my arm. She needed time to absorb my words. Lily was complicated where I was concerned. Declaring a different Alpha is a dangerous thing, and both Lily and Anjelo had done it. Yet she was still welcomed into my father's home, the home of
my
Alpha and she didn't suffer for it.

My father had given her a concession that he wouldn't have granted to any other member of our clan. I looked up at him and his tender expression as he flicked a glance at her, made my heart swell. He was looking out for her too. I only hoped she knew how important she was.

Lily cleared her throat and looked at my father. "Sir." She paused, hesitate. "Um, Kai told me about what you wanted to try and I . . . I think I'll do it. But only if you're the one to look after me."

My ears rang at her words and had I been able to stand I would have thrown my arms around her and given her a giant hug. For all her abrasiveness, Lily could be the sweetest, kindest person I knew. To think she'd once thought of me as the bitch who was trying to take Anjelo away from her.

I suppressed a laugh at the memory as Dad tilted his head, his expression serious. "I understand how much courage it would have taken to agree to this, Lily. And I promise I'll take good care of you. No less than if you were my own child." His tone lowered and her eyelashes fluttered as she looked up at him.

She nodded, either too terrified, or too emotional to respond.

Dad proceeded to administer to my shoulder wound and Lily ended up stepping over to help Darcy mop up the blood. For some reason the arm wound hurt more, and bled more, but I didn't get too much time to think about it. Dad moved something within the wound that sent searing agony through me and before I could gasp or cry or scream, I passed out.

Thank Ailuros.

CHAPTER 25

W
HEN
I
CAME
TO
, L
ILY
WAS
nowhere to be found, and my visitor was the last person I expected to see.

Tara sat beside the window, eyes on a dusty old novel. The room was silent, apart from the rustle of the pages as she turned them, and my irregular breathing of course.

I blinked, feeling the lashes crinkle painfully on my lids. Strange how you feel everything on a microscopic level when injured. Tara shifted, laying the book down on the table beside her, the soft silk of her rose gold cowl-necked gown whispering against her skin.

As she walked to the bed, my heart warmed as I scanned the room.

Greer's old bedroom. What would she have thought about her bed being used as a hospital gurney? The Greer I'd met before she'd died would have approved.

"Hey," said Tara, the curve of her lips soft and benevolent. She moved to sit on the bed, curling up next to me, paying no attention to the possible creasing of her regal robes. "I leave you alone for five minutes and you go and get yourself killed?"

I snorted, then inhaled hard from the ache it caused. "I'd say you should see the other guy, but there's nothing left of him."

She laughed and I joined in, and ended up coughing like I had lung disease.

"Hey, calm down. I don't want to be the one who finally flips your switch."

"Just try. I won't go down without a fight."

A wary glance at the door.

"Any news?" I asked.

She nodded. "This time our lab has similar results to yours. And we found the origin of the poison. I sent the reports to your phone, but essentially the toxin has a Fae origin." She frowned. "Or rather it has had Fae influence during its extraction process."

I touched her hand. "That doesn't mean that the perpetrator is Fae, Tara. And even if it is, they may have good reason." I'd learned as much from Darcy. "Don't go around mistrusting everyone. But also, don't go trusting everyone around you."

She offered a regal wave. "Don't worry. I haven't been that trusting in a while."

"And Elan?" Just the thought of the frosty Fae made my jaw harden.

Tara pursed her lips. "Not a thing. He's off doing something in the Winterlands, so I'm not sure what he's up to exactly." She sighed, an air of defeat enveloping her. "He's either clean and honest as the rain, or he's too damned good to give anything away."

"Not all rain is honest."

"Huh?" she asked, clearly confused.

"Some rain is poisonous. Acid rain?"

"Ugh, Kai." She rolled her eyes. "Sometimes I have to wonder if you have all your marbles in there." She poked a finger against my forehead.

We both laughed.

"So any ideas on who could have poisoned the Tree and why?" I got back to business.

"I've been talking to a few people. There was a small uprising a few years back when I was still in Chicago. An outlying faction, mostly Winter Court, wanted to reassert their control over the other planes. They felt their old ways were better for the earth, and that most of the worlds would do well by returning to the Fae-controlled past."

I shuddered even though it hurt. "Who would want that?"

Tara looked guilty.

"Don't tell me you agree with them?" I asked, shocked. I had to force myself to breathe because believing Tara could be behind this was too much to handle. I was certain my brain or my heart would explode.

Or both.

Tara laughed, shaking her head. "A long time ago I did. I was young and naive. I'd been taught the old ways from birth and that's a long damned time to be brainwashed. It's why the Fae court demanded my return. They thought I'd be a proponent for the cause, but I think I disappointed them." She fell silent as her eyes stared off somewhere distant. Then she shook the thoughts off. "They'd expected a different type of leader. They didn't get it."

"I should hope not," I mumbled, remembering too late that I was talking to royalty. I snuck a guilty glance at her. "Sorry."

She snorted, staring at me down her slim nose. "You've never been sorry in your life. Now stop treating me like a fragile queen and talk to me like a friend. What can I do?"

My Tara was back.

I shifted against the pillows. "Do you know of any Fae living in Sand Beach, Maine? Not too far from Bar Harbor."

Tara pursed her lips, her eyes again taking on a faraway look. "I'm not sure. I'll have to check." Something she wasn't telling me? Then she gave a nod. "Yes, let me get back to you on that. Text me the address if you have it."

"I'm not sure that the address will help. I highly doubt that they were living at that house. If I were them I wouldn't. Or am I over-estimating their smarts?"

Tara sighed. "You're right. But our records are precise. Even if a Fae doesn't report his location we have scryers who find them within seconds. So we'll find them."

"Okay, can you also see what you have on any shape changers and shadow mages who have a connection with Fae, or have a rep for causing trouble?"

"Consider it done. This all sounds rather mysterious, Kai. What have you been up to?"

I gave Tara the rundown on Logan, his sister, our trip to Maine and our inevitable mauling at the hands of the elusive shadow man despite the special dagger.

"You have the Glyhs?" was all she said, her eyes wide with surprise.

I scowled. "Out of everything that I just told you, that's your takeaway?"

Tara rolled her eyes. "Okay . . . Oh-dear-what-a-terrible-ordeal-I'm-so-glad-you're-alive-and-well-hope-you-recover-soon." She lifted her hands. "Happy? Now, how did you get a hold of the dagger?"
 

I shook my head and tried to smother my laughter. Tara cracked me up.

"The dagger has been in our family for decades. Dad said something about it being entrusted to us for safekeeping after a particularly brutal battle."

Tara nodded, "The battle of Ghila. It was a gruesome thing. I remember looking at the dead and thinking it was like a sea of bloodied corpses. Such needless death."

My eyes widened. "I keep forgetting you've lived so long." I watched her as she shrugged, as if living for eight hundred years was nothing. Walkers are long-lived but we have nothing on the Fae.

"I was alive to witness the massacre." She didn't look like she was happy she'd been there. "I'm just glad the Glyhs is safe. The Fae didn't deserve to possess such a weapon. I remember my mother . . . so furious when she couldn't find it."

"The dagger belonged to your mother?"

Tara snorted. "Only after she stole it from an Ancient." Tara sighed. "The Glyhs has a long history of destruction. Not the dagger causing it but people who want it. I suggest you keep your possession of the weapon a secret."

"Too late. The Prince of Shadows must have seen it. He did explode in front of my eyes, so I'm hoping the dagger terminated him for good. But, if he was working with someone, or channeling a master, then someone will know about the dagger. Although . . . That is a big fat load of assumptions."
 

"Assumptions are dangerous, so you be careful. There's no telling what would happen should the location of the Glyhs become public knowledge."

I shifted, tired despite my rest.

"I should go," said Tara giving me a worried glance.

"Before you do. One thing I meant to talk to you about for a while now."

"Shoot," she said, smiling.

I cleared my throat. "So I've been given a piece of information that's very important."

"And?" She tilted her head. "Can I help you with it?"

"Maybe." I inhaled, then recited the words.

In the Dark World, when the night is black,
When darkness looms, to swallow you whole,
A quintet of courage will bring forth hope,
And reach across the planes to save heart and soul
She who shreds the Veils and she who hunts the Demons,
She who mend Minds and she who speaks beyond the Grave
And she who bears the face of all - these five shall be as one.
For they are the saviors of the DarkWorld, they are the Niamh...

"Oh," she said sitting back. "I see."

I scowled. "You knew."

She sighed and leaned closer. "The Fae are long-lived, near immortal. Sometimes we are privy to things that should remain out of our control. In this instance, intervention is not acceptable."

"Because you're part of it?"

She inclined her head. "That and because people I care for are part of this Fate."

"Then why the long face."

"Because where the Prophecy goes, death follows."

"Oh. I see."
 

She looked at me sadly. "I'm here if you need me. If any of you need me. But all I can do is my part. Nothing more."

"I understand."

We sat there for a few minutes, absorbing the ramifications of our shared fate.

Then Tara got to her feet, smoothing the front of her dress, making the gold thread blink against the light. "I'll send those reports to our forensics people. See what they can come up with. Right now I think we are left with
leg
work rather than forensic work to make any sense of this case."

"We'll figure this out. You, however, need to get yourself better and find this girl. Whoever they are, they think she's important. To me that means she needs our help. They want her for something, and with this much maneuvering, they don't want to play double dutch in the sunshine."

I nodded. As much as I agreed with her, I was beginning to fade.
 

Tara patted my shoulder gently, taking care not to jostle my injured arm, then moved soundlessly to her feet.

I was asleep before she stepped through the Veil.

CHAPTER 26