Chapter 23

23

I ’m a fool to think I’d be able to outrun another half-shifter.

If my fae side gave me increased magical awareness, then my shifter side gave me speed. Which meant the dude who’d found me was also pretty damn fast.

I took off at a run with Noren right behind me and we wound into the crowd. Even the mass of bodies around us wouldn’t be enough to keep the shifters from catching up.

They’d follow our trail as surely as they’d followed it here.

My lungs bellowed and my legs ached by the time I raced back to the Black Dog.

Even the dude with half his head shaved jumped back in his seat as I ran by him toward the stairs. Up again, hauling myself along the risers, and into the apartment.

“We’re in trouble! They’re here!” I somehow managed to screech the words and once they were out, my throat closed and my lungs collapsed.

I’d have fallen to my knees if Noren hadn’t been there to catch me, moving faster than a speeding train. Dizziness swarmed me and my vision narrowed slightly with a black outline. When I swallowed, my mouth had gone dry.

The rest of the team jolted into movement.

“We’re out of here, then,” Mike said. His voice reverberated back to me with a tinny undertone. “Tavi, are you able to move?” he asked. “Let me help you.”

I gulped and closed my eyes against the dizziness. I was too weak to push him away or insist on doing it myself. Mike hauled me to my feet and kept a hand on my lower back for support.

“I’m coming with you,” Livvy insisted.

She moved to the kitchen, withdrawing a small tote from beneath the sink and looping it around her shoulders. A go bag.

I’d never met anyone with an actual go bag for emergencies.

“You’ll be painting a target on your back. After so long in hiding, are you sure you—” Laina began gently.

“It doesn’t matter,” Livvy interrupted. “The target doesn’t matter if my daughter is in trouble. She was brave enough to come find me. It’s time for me to take the next step of the journey with her.” A pause, a scramble for supplies, and then, “I only stayed hidden because I thought it would keep her safe.”

My mind churned. I didn’t care if she stayed or not. We just needed to run, immediately, before the Claw & Fang burned the entire building to the ground with us inside. The sense of urgency pushed at me and I drew a deep shuddering breath.

Calm down .

Nope, no calming down.

I held out a hand for Onyx. “Do you need help?”

He shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go.”

He faltered on his first step, and Bronwen and I stepped up to take the brunt of his weight. She flashed me a look telling me not to say anything.

Together we limped toward the door. Mike held it open, gesturing for us to hurry, and we skipped down the steps as quickly as possible, Laina at our front, Livvy at our back.

The noise from below grew with every riser we traversed and by the time we made it to the last step, I knew.

In my blood and in my bones I knew what we’d find on the other side of the closed door.

Laina opened it. The restaurant was already crawling with our enemies.

Livvy moved faster than I could ever have imagined. She passed us with a sweet breeze gusting in her wake and stepped in front of Laina, her hands lifted in front of her and fae magic pulsing in a golden corona around her wrists.

My heart lurched into my throat and lodged there as a shifter surged forward, knocking a table out of the way. The wood crashed to the floor and he swung a fist at Livvy.

Her magic erupted in a wave and shoved the shifter back. The man flew off his feet and landed heavily on his tailbone.

The crack of the impact was lost in the shouting.

A low growl reverberated through me, and when I turned to Onyx, his eyes had darkened and his lips were peeled back to show overly white, sharp teeth.

My veins lit with terror and bloodlust when a second shifter ran for Laina. Mike stepped up in time to take the brunt of the attack but there was little maneuvering room. They collided, the shifter driving Mike backwards with a yell.

We weren’t strong enough to fight. Not now, with our energy stores so low.

Onyx and I were barely able to put one foot in front of the other.

Fear burned through me.

Then Noren rose like a ghost behind me and launched at one of the shifters closing in on us. A blast of magic came from the side and several tables lifted at once before crashing down and taking several members of the Claw & Fang with them.

Livvy yelled an incoherent stream of curses, and out of the corner of my eye I watched the seedy one-eyed dude and his cronies bum-rush her.

Suddenly another voice was heard. “Help Livvy! She needs us.” Xordon bellowed out the battle cry and the rest of the room erupted.

The one thing I hadn’t counted on was the patrons’ love for my mother.

One burly patron wrapped a massive arm around the neck of one of the shifters and yanked, drawing him back and strangling him.

Another blast of magic shot at us from the left.

I ducked, inhaling the stench of ozone and singed wood, lifting my gaze in time to watch the blast hit a shifter square in the chest. My hackles rose, my skin prickling with the urge to change despite my lack of strength.

Noren swept through the crowd, tearing at limbs and yanking people off their feet. He towered over the rest of the fae.

With this many members, not to mention patrons, there was no clear way to the door.

Livvy sent another wave of magic out but it did nothing more than clear the first few feet in front of her.

I helped Onyx forward with Bronwen at our backs now, making sure we weren’t taken by surprise. My instincts were screaming at me to do something more than watch. To help the others so Mike and his mom, as well as my own mom, didn’t have to handle the brunt of this fight.

This was my fault. They’d found us because of me.

Something clawed at the back of my shirt. I broke out in a cold sweat, lurching forward, unwilling to let go of Onyx. We were getting out of here if I had to put him on Noren’s back and send them out the door myself.

The grip abruptly loosened and something hot sprayed my back.

No time to turn around. No time to look behind me and see what kind of death trailed us.

Someone let out a whoop, the sound trailed by a gurgle, and the seedy guy strode by dragging one of the club members by her hair. He winked at me before making a shooing motion with his free hand.

The message was unmistakable.

There was still no clear path to the door but Laina and Mike were halfway across the room at this point. Livvy nearly made it.

“Tavi! Let’s go!”

Mike called my name. He’d taken care of his own business beautifully.

Club members mixed with restaurant patrons. Even the sweaty cook from behind the line had joined the fray. He slammed a heavy pan down on the head of one of the half-changed shifters.

I’d gotten too caught up in the pandemonium to think straight, to do anything other than react.

Something hit into the back of my knees and I lost my grip on Onyx and went down. The side of my cheek slammed against the wooden floor, pain ripping through me, before something yanked my hair and dragged me up to my knees.

I screamed, power surging up through my skin and taking the last of my energy with it. The bite on my arm pulsed, throbbed horrifyingly hot, and I ignored it.

My assailant’s hold loosened but it wasn’t enough to get them to release me entirely.

I kicked out, still on my knees, hoping to land a hit against my unseen enemy.

The burly dude came to my rescue. “People like you don’t belong here! Get the fuck out.”

He dragged the shifter off me and hurled him against the wall.

Onyx reached out a hand and helped me to my feet. Together we made it to Livvy, who stood at the door motioning wildly for us to follow her.

Onyx limped over the threshold and the door slammed shut behind us.

“Come on!” Livvy’s voice echoed strangely against the crash of the waves.

Daylight burned my eyes for some reason. I choked, my lungs filled with smoke from the inside of the restaurant, the salty spray from the waves stinging me. I tightened my grip on Onyx.

Footsteps sounded behind us as shifters poured from the Black Dog, giving chase.

We raced down the street with Livvy in the lead. She knew the city. At this point, I trusted her. We had no choice but to trust her. She slowed her steps enough to reach for me, her fingers brushing my elbow.

With a nod, she turned to the left and cut through a side street. Up a set of stone steps carved out of the cliff face itself. Another left, and then a right.

My attention narrowed on the footfalls behind us, the growls and the yells, like we were actually going to listen to their anxious commands to stop .

This was life or death. This wasn’t a game.

Not that it ever was.

The maze of alleys and the cramped spaces between houses became an impenetrable labyrinth. After a few moments I lost all sense of direction.

My lungs shrank like balloons without air.

Every tense step had my muscles seizing, and even with the distance from the Black Dog, my attention remained hooked there. Wondering when they would pick up our trail and which shadowy corner they’d pop out of. Dorian Jade was far from the boogeyman of my nightmares but he was real enough for me to worry.

Livvy knew the city, that much was clear. She strode ahead with the purposeful attention of someone confident in their direction. This was her playground.

How long had she lived here and when had she taken it upon herself to explore the backstreets?

It was clear she knew exactly what she was doing.

She led us on a wild goose chase through twists and turns and soon enough, the sounds of the scuffle faded behind us. The Claw & Fang following us were now just as lost in the maze as we were.

When Livvy held up a hand to get us to stop, my legs refused to listen and I stumbled. My muscles were too tense to slow down and the ache traveled up my calves all the way to my hips.

Every part of me shook, whether from adrenaline or the lack of magic.

I’d been emptied out and left to suffer through the effects.

“We’re safe here,” Livvy said breathlessly.

Bronwen slapped a hand against the brick, sucking in a breath. “How do you know?”

Livvy didn’t bother to answer. A bright splatter of blood dotted the side of her face but it wasn’t hers. “I must have sent the journal we need with you, Tavi, when you went to live with your uncle.”

Her abrupt change of subject took me by surprise.

“You’re still going on about the journal?” Onyx snapped. The blood had drained from his face and left his skin as ashen as his hair.

I grimaced. “I never had anything of yours. Uncle Will told me I came with nothing when he took me in. Everything I had, he bought.”

And my memories of that time in my life were nonexistent. A big black hole in my head and no amount of pretending had ever been able to fill it.

I watched Livvy’s face go the exact opposite of Onyx’s. The flush began at the base of her neck and crept up to mottle her cheeks until every part of her was a bright crimson in her fury. “That odious man. I sent everything with you. Everything I could.”

And here I thought she’d had nothing but nice things to say. It seemed that her gentle facade held some secrets buried deep.

“What’s in the journals?” I asked. “Why are they so important?”

Maybe if we had an explanation it wouldn’t seem weird, a strange focus when it would have been smarter for us to worry about the actual monsters chasing us down.

Livvy turned to me and grabbed me by the shoulders to force me to pay attention to her. Her eyes were wide, the whites overtaking everything else. “When Faerie gave me the prophecy that you would return, she said you would be the catalyst for peace. But your witch powers were locked. They always have been, it’s safer that way, at least until the time was right. They needed to be unlocked and Faerie gave me the specific spell for doing so.”

Witch powers . Yeah, right.

I broke away, my chest heaving. “You’re not the one who got the prophecy. Oxana the Sightless did.”

“It’s the same prophecy, but not the same,” Livvy insisted. Her lips twisted in frustration. Like I somehow wasn’t paying attention. “She only received a part of the prophecy. Faerie gave me the rest, along with the key needed to unlock your potential.”

“I’m not following,” Mike muttered. “Explain, please.”

Laina gripped his hand and shook her head once to get him to hold his questions.

“Why are you speaking about Faerie like it’s a person?” I asked. “It’s a place. It’s our world. You can’t talk to a world and have it talk back to you.”

Livvy reared back and rolled her eyes. “Tavi, of course Faerie is a person. Honey…she’s a goddess. Haven’t you heard the truth?”

Okay, my mom was officially nuts.

She’d lost her mind and that was why she spouted off about goddesses and prophecies and witch powers.

“Don’t you see how Faerie is corrupt? Arcane? How things are working against the natural order?” She pointed toward a dark spread of clouds on the horizon. “It’s because you’re the one destined to stop it.”

I couldn't help but agree with her about the weather and the corruption. But the rest of it?

Did she expect me to just let her lead me along, sheep to the slaughter style?

I’d busted Onyx out of prison because he was going to be put to death without a trial for a crime I knew he didn’t commit under his own volition. Someone had been pulling his strings and using him as an instrument for murder. Because the king—or the premier in this case—was judge, jury, and executioner.

Absolute power corrupted absolutely. Wasn’t that a saying?

“I get that Faerie is infected. And maybe something should be done to fix the realm, but I know nothing about it. I’m not the right person.”

Oh, god. Was the queen staring at me?

What was Laina thinking through this mania?

“You were born for this,” Livvy insisted. “You are not just the right person, you are the only person. I was given a spell by Faerie to unlock your powers myself when the time was right. The time is now right.”

Something must have gone wrong in her head.

A loose screw but worse.

She was talking about the world like a person, a goddess, talking about me like I’m a savior.

Before I knew it I’d taken an unwitting step back away from her. The space between us turned hot, molten, and made my already overworked lungs shoot into overdrive.

It wasn’t me. It could never be me because I wasn't anything special and Chosen Ones were for fairytales and television shows.

Livvy, rather than step up to me and make me listen to her, shifted her attention away. Her gaze flickered back and forth and she blinked rapidly. “We’re going to have to break into Will’s house. We have to get those journals. We need the spell. There’s no other choice.”

Terror was bright. It scalded my insides and turned every part of me to ash.

“We can’t return to the human realm,” I blurted out.

The others were there around us, once again pretending none of this conversation was taking place. They were watching our back and our front and our sides for other real enemies and acting like they didn’t hear this absolute nonsense.

“What if Kendrick Grimaldi catches me?”

“I’ll come with you to protect you.” Mike said it as though it was self-evident. “There’s no way he’s going to get through me. He won’t touch you.”

I bit down on my lip.

Mike’s magic wasn’t strong enough to protect me, not against Kendrick, even though it was so sweet to see him willing. To know he’d step up this way for me.

“No, I’ll go with them,” Laina insisted. “Between the three of us, we’ll be safe. And quiet.”

“You’re serious.” I gawked at the queen. “You don’t think this is absolutely insane?”

Laina’s chin jutted out and from the way she refused to meet my gaze, the answer was clear. She believed it.

So either they were all going mad or I was. Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside of me until I doubled over with it.

Please, let me be insane . Because reality was too fucked-up to be believed.