Chapter 5

5

V anth didn't know how long he had been sleeping when his magic burned alight like he had been hit by lightning.

"What in the fuck," he gasped, rolling off the couch and hitting the floor with a thud.

Dazed and disorientated, he tried to get his bearings. His magic was running through him over and over like he had fallen asleep in an amplification circle. He ran his hands over his arms and tried to get the feeling of burning ants to go away. He blinked rapidly and then woke up enough to realize what was wrong.

Something or someone was in his house. It wasn't a new ghost. He knew what they felt like. Vanth pulled the black-bladed dagger from his boot.

"Time to make a new ghoul," he mused. That was what he usually did to people who invaded his space without his permission.

Where the fuck were his ghosts? They should have still been about from all the energy he had been feeding them when they were dancing. They were nowhere to be seen, which meant they were scared too.

Vanth opened the door to the kitchen and found a fae female going through his fridge. She had wavy hair the color of blood that fell to her shoulders and was braided on one side to show off her pointed ear.

Inferno was a place that had a lot of eccentrics, but this one would have stood out in any crowd. She wore a leather suit that he had only ever seen superheroes or assassins use. Over it was a sleeveless, hooded robe that fell to her ankles. It was a silvery gray color with designs stitched into it with black thread. Definitely enchanted somehow. Just fucking great.

"Let me guess, the fae are having a superhero convention, and you're the Black Widow?" he asked.

The female turned from the fridge. "Funny. Where is all your food?"

"I have been too busy to grocery shop. Also, what the fuck are you doing in my house?" He didn't ask how the fuck she had gotten through his wards. That was a problem for later; right now, he was laser-focused on the threat in front of him.

The female turned, and he tried not to do the cliché male thing and get stunned at how pretty she was. All the fae were attractive. This one was no different. She had full lips and strong cheekbones, but it was her eyes that really made him pause. They were dark gray and full to bursting with death magic. The smell of sweet pine and cinnamon was in the air, as well as incense and blood. He didn't know how much of it was hers.

"I'm here because I need your help," the stranger said.

Vanth smiled. "Sure. I'll help you right the fuck out of my door."

"I'm serious," she growled, showing a flicker of fae aggression.

Vanth's hand tightened on his dagger, that same territorial part of him ready to throw down.

"So am I, darling. You can book an appointment. I think I have free time next year."

The female eyed the dagger before reaching under her cloak and bringing out two black batons. At least, Vanth thought they were batons right up until the moment two silvery blades flicked out to reveal that they were combat sickles. They pulsed with a death power he had never felt before. It made his own rise up in self-defense and curiosity.

"You don't want to go down this road, darling," he said, his feet sliding into position. "Leave peacefully. I really don't have time to train another ghoul right now, even a pretty one."

She actually smirked at him. "I'm not leaving until you agree to help me. I know you've had a long night, but that's no reason to be rude to strangers."

"Me? Rude? You're the one that broke into my house."

Again, that maddening smirk. "It wasn't all that hard."

"Ghoul it is," he replied. He lashed out with his magic instead of his blade, but she was ready for it. She shifted, moving like a ghost, and swiped at him with her sickles.

Vanth blocked her with his dagger, and the impact rattled through his arm. She had more than a little training behind her. Vanth aimed a kick for her knee, but she moved with the same eerie speed, blocking him and bringing up that same knee aimed straight at his balls. He turned and absorbed the blow with his hip.

"Straight for the nuts? Are you flirting with me?" he teased and then gasped as she drove the butt of one of her sickles up into his sternum.

Vanth stumbled back, and she used his temporary disorientation to hit him with a spell. He didn't have time to counter it, and it sent him smashing into the tiles. She was on him in a blink, disarming him and pinning one of his biceps with her knees. A blade pressed into his throat, the other resting cool on his unpinned arm.

"So you are flirting with me," he said, looking up from between her thighs at her furious face. "If you wanted a date, you should have just asked."

A silver necklace slipped free from her suit and pulled down towards him. Metal shifted against his own skin, and the pendant his mother had given him hours before flew out from under his shirt and collided with hers like magnets.

The fight was forgotten as they stared at the matching pendants straining towards each other. The female leaned closer, and the pendants collided. They slid together like they were two halves of the same necklace. Magic, strong and dark, pulsed between them before a song started to play. It was a sweet tune despite the death magic that was powering it. Vanth's mouth went dry. His mother used to hum that song when he was a child and couldn't sleep.

"Where did you get that? What the actual fuck is going on?" he said, staring up at the murderous female on top of him.

"As I was trying to say, I need your help, Tarael," she said. Her eyes darkened with leashed power. "It's got to do with your father."

Vanth couldn't breathe, and it wasn't because of the female on top of him.

"As much as I enjoy this position, can you let me up? I'm going to need coffee before I make you explain yourself," he said, still trying to fathom what she had just said. His father. What the fuck was going on?

"You promise to talk to me like an adult if I let you go? Because you are in danger, and I've risked my own skin coming here," she said, the edge in her voice as sharp as the blade at his throat.

"I promise. I'd even cross my heart if I weren't too scared to move right now," he replied with a grin.

The female leaned down and purred, "Good boy."

Vanth's body tightened at the effect the praise had on him. Yeah, he really needed to get coffee into him. The female unclipped their pendants and moved off him before his thoughts could get any dirtier.

"If we are going to talk like adults about whatever the fuck is going on, we need to go out in public to get food. You need to change into something that isn't going to attract so much attention, Scary Black Widow," Vanth said, getting up off the floor. "Also, what the fuck have you done to scare my ghosts?"

"I haven't done anything. They are wary of me because they know I can reap them and send them through the Veil. A task that you should have done already," she replied. She picked up a bag by the fridge that he hadn't noticed in all the excitement.

"Don't tell me and my ghosts what to do." Vanth pointed. "There's a spare bathroom though there. You could do with a wash. The blood on you, I mean. It's not yours, is it?"

Cool gray eyes assessed him. "Not a lot of it."

"Are you hurt? Do you need...assistance?" Vanth didn't know why he felt the need to offer. What the fuck was wrong with him? He should be kicking this strange female out, not offering to tend her wounds for her.

"I am fine. I will accept the shower. I have been on the run for three days, and there hasn't been time," she replied.

Vanth nodded and then asked, "What's your name?"

"Elektra Nova."

"Sounds fake."

She smiled. "I wish it was. You know how the fae are with their ridiculous names."

"I do, so please call me Vanth. Tarael makes me feel like I'm in trouble."

Elektra huffed out a soft laugh as she headed for the bathroom. "You are."

The door to the bathroom closed, and Vanth's brain tried to catch up with everything that had just happened.

"Yeah, I really fucking am," he whispered and then went to find his own shower.