CHAPTER 4

Nika

When we finally founda hidden hatch, Silas took a knee, and his blue magic swirled around the door. I watched the trap door swing open and a ladder come into view, leading into nothing but impenetrable darkness. Silas smirked and pulled a few things out of his pack. Handing me some goggles and a semi-automatic rifle, he quickly illuminated the path down the ladder with his gorgeous, sparkling magic.

His eyes flicked up to mine, a mischievous gleam taking hold of all the gold. "I prefer weapons a tad bit more silent, but bullets work better with the bastards who like to hang out in these tunnels. With those goggles, you'll be able to see my magic illuminate the invisible assassins who make a pretty penny on bounties caught here."

I could take a moment to tell the presumptuous asshole that my magic did that too, but I opted for amenable compliance. The way my abilities worked, I'd sense anyone nearby using the smallest amounts of magic, and I could simply keep my magic moving through the tunnels, undetected.

As I was learning with the silver-haired mercenary, choosing my battles was vital to our rapport over the course of these couple weeks. Sadly, I was all too familiar with the sensitive egos of the men around me, and I rarely found any value in arguing with them. One way or another, Silas would soon see how little he needed to worry about me.

I'd heard a few things about the assassins Silas mentioned. The Fae called them Shadow People, and they neither congregated nor swore loyalty to anyone but themselves. Like Silas, they were bought and paid for by the highest bidder, and if the Dark Fae were smart—and Lev's mother, Yuma, was—then they'd hire a few to scope out any hidden tunnels in the surrounding areas and possible cities we'd escape to.

But luckily for us, Shadow People only excelled in hand-to-hand combat. They weren't magical, per se, but they could blend in and become invisible to the naked eye—two things that could be countered by using Fae magic like Silas presently employed. I was more worried about being slowed down than I was about fighting them.

Silas turned in a half circle, panning the entire area, before gesturing for me to go down first. I'd been tactically trained by my father and knew exactly how to proceed. I descended the steps, keeping my eyes peeled for anyone possibly waiting at the bottom or hidden around the corners.

When we were both in the tunnel, Silas motioned to move and we walked, his eyes on the tunnel behind us and mine ahead. I took in a quiet breath, sensing the entity well before Silas made a noise. My gun was already aimed, and I silently picked off the offender within seconds of sensing them. Another came swooping in, and I quickly aimed before shooting, taking the next one out with a bullet straight through the head.

With two down, Silas stopped and stared at me. "Who trained you to react that fast?"

Looking over my shoulder, my lips lifted up for a half second. "You tell me. Seems like you know my father, so this should be an easy guess for you," I retorted sassily.

Silas huffed a small laugh, then nodded to keep going. "You might have a future in mercenary work if this keeps up, love. It takes a lot to impress me, and you've given me a lot of reason to be bloody impressed, you have. Hell, I haven't even really seen you fight yet."

I couldn't help the smile on my face as I carefully moved ahead, eyes searching the area for the next lurking Shadow Person. "Guess that's something to look forward to then, hmm?"

"I'm proper giddy, I am. You're nothing like any Fae woman I've met before."

Before Silas could respond to the sudden alert along our magical reach, I'd already gunned down one bastard and then ran full speed at the other, twisting around their body and sinking the blade the mercenary gave me into my enemy's throat. A body shaped by my pink magic immediately collapsed onto the ground, gurgling and sputtering blood loudly. Then the invisibility that had concealed them faded away. It was the first time I visibly reacted in surprise.

The expired body of a young girl appeared at my feet, no older than maybe fifteen or sixteen. I took a step back, suddenly unable to comprehend what I was seeing. "It's a child..." I murmured before feeling a hand on my shoulder.

I'd already grabbed him by the fingers, twisting his hand at a breakable angle, and Silas grunted in pain. "Ah, fuck. I forgot. Forgive me, little bird."

Little bird? I didn't think his pet names could get any more patronizing, but that one beat out the rest. Maybe because I didn't like that his playboy terms of endearment veered into blatantly animal now.

Not even human anymore? What a fucking jerk.

Rolling my eyes, I released his hand. I wasn't one to apologize, but I offered him something close to a sorry expression to make the point that I hadn't meant to attack him. Not this time at least. It appeared the mercenary picked up on the silent apology because he beamed a smile in triumph.

Fuck this dude, seriously.

"So, you aren't made of ice and stone, huh?"

I glared at him before my eyes fell to the young girl laid out over the dirt, the unfortunate victim of the blade that burned from the inside out. "Are they all this young?"

Silas brushed through his luminous hair with one hand, his sparkly gold eyes flitting to our right before falling back to the girl in question. "It's a different world out here, princess."

I wanted to snap back and give him a piece of my mind, seeing how I was exposed to the same reality as this young girl from early on, but I held my tongue. I didn't have any reason to convince this patronizing-as-fuck stranger who I was. The only reason he was even here right now was because Lev paid him to be and he owed my friend a favor.

"Let's get a move on," I hissed, offering the young girl one last fleeting glance before lifting my gun and starting down the silent corridor again.

For twenty minutes, we traveled the tunnel before taking a left at Silas's beckoning. I'd taken out nearly twenty enemies by myself, and Silas remained openly verbal about his surprise, saying more than a handful of times that I'd proven far more skilled than anyone he'd been paid to guard.

"I only know your father a little. Well, I should say, how he fights. He's another one of those people I'd rather avoid crossing, if you catch my meaning, yeah?" Silas started conversationally, but his body was always tense and ready for whatever enemy might come at us. Guess silence was off the table now that he didn't consider me a walking blob of dead weight.

"Oh?" I retorted, pretending to be uninterested when I was anything but. "At least my father believes in mercy, unlike the rest of these assholes. Unless he has a reason to target you, he won't."

"Oh, aye," Silas quickly agreed. "I deserved it, I did."

Before I could ask about the story behind deserving it, another line of enemies closed in, and the two of us moved into action.

I'd never admit how effortless it was to fight with the mercenary, but when I went left, he'd go right. When I'd kick, he'd punch. He always knew how to best finish the moves I started, and I perfectly understood how to follow up every one of his, too. Even Lev and I didn't fight this seamlessly together. The only person who came close was my father, and it was yet another reason to give the oversized troll credit. He might be highly deficient in personality and verbal outbursts, but the silver-haired mercenary made up for it in skill.

If he'd met my father in a fight, the mere fact that he survived was testament enough to his skill. Very few did. My father, while one to give mercy before death, never gave mercy to the undeserving. Which was the entire reason I knew in my heart he'd attacked the council members for a reason. So, Silas must've proven something to my father if his story was true. Not that I could surmise any reason to lie about being on the wrong side of my father.

Most knew the name Bane, but very few had crossed him and lived to tell the tale. It wasn't that I revered my father so much that I believed he was without flaw, but he'd taught me from a young age that it didn't matter who or what you were born as, the choices you made were what defined you.

My father chose unity. The only reason he stayed among the Dark Fae was because he believed in real change. He was strong enough, and it was his hope that one day he could turn the tides. Then he struck down several strong Dark Fae on the Council. But for what purpose?

I needed to know.

Usually, my father clued me into every part of his plan, so it took me by surprise when I knew nothing about it until I was charged with espionage and tortured for information. That was why I had to believe that the address written in the book he'd given me that night had all the answers I sought. It had to, or I was out at sea without a boat or paddle.

"Your father is bloody powerful, but I'd be lying if I said right now I wasn't more interested in the ice-cold but surprisingly compassionate princess he raised," Silas said after finishing off the last enemy who attacked us.

I looked up from my kneeled position, having gently closed the eyes of another young child forced by fate to meet their untimely end. When the glow of gold met my gaze, something in my stomach twisted for the first time, and I quickly looked away. On my feet again, I fixed my jacket and stepped over the bodies scattered across the floor.

Silas followed but was swiftly in front of me for the first time since we entered the tunnels, his eyes boring into mine. "You know, he said something when he let me live that day, Nika. Any guess what that might be?" Silas imparted in a voice that was unexpectedly removed of any hint of humor or play. His tone had only taken that note one time before, and that was when Silas realized I could very easily overpower him with a single dagger.

"Something tells me you're going to say it no matter how I respond," I clipped, heart in my throat.

Silas's lips finally lifted into a small smirk. "Oh, aye." Eyes never leaving mine, he continued, "He said that one day I'd repay him for my life with his daughter's, and I thought it was proper odd for a bloke who I didn't even know to take the piss. But here I am...with his daughter."

His expression darkened, and Silas's jaw ground down as if what he was about to say next was still hard to believe.

"Now, I'm not one to trust in things like fate. Even clairvoyants get it wrong because the future changes with every altered decision. It's too hard to pin down, yeah? But your father said this to me quite a time ago, love. That's plenty of time for ‘fate' to change. But here I am, standing in front of the very daughter he claimed I'd save, who just happens to be running from a whole lot of people who want her dead. Guess even I can't argue it's massively coincidental."

His proclamation took the air right from my lungs, and I struggled to keep my face unreadable. But thankfully, he spoke again before I was forced to say anything in reply.

"Is your father a clairvoyant?"

Surprised to be asked, I shook my head. "Not at all."

"Hmm," was all Silas voiced before gesturing to keep moving. "We're not far from the exit hatch leading into town. I have a few trusted contacts there we can impose on for a few hours to rest and eat, yeah?"

Breathing out a shuddering sigh and thankful for the much-needed redirection, I nodded. "Are you sure we can trust them? I have a pretty large bounty on my head, I'm guessing."

The silver-haired giant clicked his tongue and laughed. "Aye, that's probably true, but these two can't be bought with money or favors."

Still skeptical, I assumed the front position, and Silas covered our back as we traveled the tunnel with a bit more urgency than before.