3. Alana

THREE

Alana

P ain swarms behind my eyes, needling at me like wasps. Blurring my vision. Although I'm still wearing Eldrion's robe, I feel suddenly exposed. Completely bare. As if my body and soul have been ripped from my bones and laid out on the floor for everyone to see. Bloody and shapeless.

Finn was dead.

And then he wasn't.

And now he's a monster.

I stare at the empty space where, just moments ago, he hovered in the air in front of us. My mind is reeling, trying to process what happened.

Every time I blink, I see him behind my eyes.

His once playful, mischievous features twisted into something dark and sinister. His eyes, usually a warm, inviting blue, glowing a deep, malevolent red.

When he turned them on me, it was as if he could see into the depths of my soul. As if he could see every deep, dark thought I'd ever had and was determined to coax them to the surface.

His skin, previously smooth and unblemished, became covered in intricate, swirling tattoos that looked like living shadows. They snaked up his arms, across his chest, and up the sides of his face, pulsing and undulating as if they were trying to both consume him and free him.

But it's not his eyes or his skin that has lodged in my brain.

It is his wings.

No longer small or delicate. No longer a part of him that I could bind or play with.

They became huge, larger than Eldrion's, stretching out like the wings of a fallen angel. Instead of their dull, muted shade, they became pitch black. They seemed to absorb the light around them, pulling in the shadows until Finn was cloaked in an aura of darkness.

As he moved, the shadows danced around him, swirling and shifting like a living entity. They caressed his skin, wrapped around his limbs, as if they were an extension of him.

When he turned his red-eyed gaze on me, his lips curling into a cruel, mocking smile, I realised the Finn I had known was gone. Or perhaps that he never existed.

In his place was a monster; a being of pure darkness.

And I have no one to blame but myself for what will happen next.

Something touches my arm. I jolt away from the sensation, purple light crackling in my palms. When I realise it's Briony, I freeze but do not lower my hands.

She shakes her head and holds up her palms. "Alana, it's me."

"And it was Finn," I whisper, looking out over the awakening citadel. Golden hues dancing on the rooftops. The day is slowly beginning, just like any other, except nothing will ever be as it was before, and Finn's storm clouds still paint dark bruises in the sky above us.

Wiping tears from her face, Briony nods at me. "I know," she says. "It was Finn. He..." A violent sob escapes her lips and she falls forward into my embrace. I hold her as if I'm her mother and she's my child. Usually, it is her comforting me. But now, she feels small and fragile, and I am too numb to feel anything at all.

Her wings twitch. I stare at them. Pale grey, almost translucent.

The way Finn's were.

Is that why I underestimated him? Because I saw what he wasn't instead of what he was?

The rooftop is eerily silent now, the only sound being the distant rumble of thunder and Eldrion breathing raggedly beside me.

My heart hammers in my chest, a sickening mix of fear, confusion, and dawning horror swirling inside me.

Finn, my Finn, the one who was the one steady thing amongst all the turmoil of the past few months... He is gone.

And it was all because of me.

I clutch my stomach, doubling over as another wave of nausea hits me.

I am no longer numb.

I am broken.

I can't breathe, can't think. The image of Finn's red eyes, his shadowy tattoos, his twisted limbs reshaping themselves into something monstrous – it's seared into my mind. Worse than the visions that have haunted me because they are real and I cannot undo them or forget them.

"What have I done?" I whisper, my voice cracking. "What have I unleashed?"

Beside me, Eldrion staggers to his feet, his face pale and his eyes wide with shock. He looks down at his hands, flexing his fingers. His gaze darkens. He splays his wings and draws himself up to his fullest height.

My breath hitches in my chest. I wait for the shadows to come to him, but nothing happens. Everything is completely still.

"My powers," he murmurs, his jaw twitching. "He's taken my powers."

"What do you mean, he's taken your powers?" I stride forward and grip his wrist, staring at his hand as if I might be able to coax them back to him. "How is that possible? He had no magic. The Shadowkind have no magic." I look at Briony as if she might have an answer, but she just buries her face in her hands and takes a long, shuddering breath.

Still flexing his wings, Eldrion shakes his head, his expression grave. "The shadows, the darkness... they don't respond to me anymore. I don't know how he did it, but he took them."

A violent chill drags through my body, making it shiver.

"The demon I saw..." I am still holding Eldrion's wrist. His skin is cold beneath my touch.

He meets my eyes and nods solemnly. "Finn... it was him all along."

"But there were more." I pace away from him, pinching the bridge of my nose, trying to both remember and forget the visions I saw. "There were so many more."

When I turn around, Eldrion is staring at Briony. "The Shadowkind," he mutters. Now he is pacing. His wings twitch but they seem, somehow, even though they are barely moving, to have lost some of their strength.

In one stride, Eldrion has closed the distance between him and Briony and is holding her tight by her shoulders. Her eyes widen, and her dark hair falls forward into her face as he shakes her a little.

"Is that what he's planning?" he hisses.

Briony opens her mouth but can't seem to form any words.

"Is it?" Eldrion's grip is tightening on her shoulders. She winces and tries to pull away but he doesn't let her.

"I don't know what you mean," she says meekly.

"Is he planning to turn all of you?" Eldrion barks the question, his face inches away from hers.

Briony frowns and stutters as she speaks. "No. No. He planned to kill you. I know that. He wanted Alana to help. He wanted to take over the city. But he never said anything about..." She trails off, unable to finish her sentence.

"About turning into a demon," I mutter.

Eldrion releases a low growl and lets her go. I can see thoughts flitting across his face, but he doesn't vocalise them.

"We have to stop him," I say, forcing myself to stand up straight despite the trembling in my legs. "Whatever he's planning next, we have to stop him. We have to get your magic back and stop him."

Eldrion looks at me, his eyes filled with a mix of emotions I can't quite read. Anger, fear, regret... and something else, something deeper that I can't put a name to.

"Alana," he says, taking a step towards me. "I..."

But before he can finish, Briony interrupts, clearing her throat as she steels herself to speak. "Maybe we should get inside." She looks at the sky as if Finn might reappear at any moment. "We all betrayed Finn in one way or another." She looks at me, then wrings her hands together. "And he doesn't forget things like that easily. He'll be back for us. Won't he? I mean, he's not just going to let us go after all that?"

I nod, tearing my gaze away from Eldrion. She's right. We can't stay out here. And I can't think about what happens next while I'm standing here, naked beneath Eldrion's robe, the feel of him still on my skin and the scent of him dizzying my head.

I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself.

How could I have trusted Finn? How could I not see what he was?

How could I have ever believed I loved him?

I stand in Eldrion's chamber, hastily pulling on a pair of leather breeches and a dark tunic, provided by Briony before she hastily backed out of the room and left us alone.

My hands are shaking, making the simple task of dressing myself more difficult than it should be. Behind me, I can feel Eldrion's eyes on my back, watching my every move.

"Stop staring," I snap, whirling around to face him as I button up the tunic. "And pay attention to what I'm saying. What was that? You're the all-knowing, all-powerful Lord of Luminael. You didn't see that coming? You didn't know your powers could be stolen that way?"

"No more than you knew you were being used as a pawn in his plan to steal them from me." Eldrion rises from his armchair and paces to the window.

"You're still staring." I pull the tunic closed over my breasts and finish fastening it.

He scoffs, folding his arms across his chest. "It's hard to focus when you're putting on such a show."

I glare at him, my cheeks burning with a mix of anger and hatred. "I would never put on a show for you," I retort, jaw twitching with fury.

"Yes, you would." He strides towards me.

Our eyes meet. My skin warms, fizzes, tingles with heat. How does he do this to me? It's like every emotion – fear, anger, sadness – bubbles to the surface of my skin, and multiplies, and swells, and turns into undeniable, painfully loud, screaming thunderbolts of arousal instead.

As if he is the only thing that will soothe the way I feel.

And yet also the only thing to ignite it.

"I despise you for what you have done," I whisper. "What you did to the Shadowkind. What you did to Kayan. What you did to me. Don't think that because we have a common cause now, we are friends."

Eldrion's jaw clenches, his eyes hardening. "What did I do to you, Alana?"

I stare at him for a long moment, then whisper, "You made me want you even though I hate you."

He slams a heavy hand onto my waist and tugs me towards him. "I could say the same thing to you," he growls.

I can't stop looking at his lips. I want to melt into him. I want his hands, and fingernails, and teeth on my skin. I want him to destroy me so I can no longer feel anything except him.

"Finn is more powerful than you now." I meet his eyes.

"You think I don't know that? I can feel the emptiness where my powers used to be." He is still holding on to my waist. "You're an empath, Alana. How the fuck could you not see it?"

"Don't you dare put this on me," I retort, caught between feeling utterly distraught and utterly furious. "You're the one who started this, Eldrion. You brought me here. You put me in Finn's way. You caused this, not me."

I don't believe what I'm saying, but perhaps Eldrion does because his eyes flash with anger, and for a moment, I think he might actually strike me.

Instead, he grabs my face roughly, his fingers digging into my cheeks. I can feel the heat of his breath on my lips as he leans in, so close that I can count the flecks of gold in his stormy grey eyes. There's a hunger there, a raw intensity that matches my own, and before I can protest, his mouth crashes down on mine.

The kiss is brutal, all teeth and tongues and pent-up frustration. Eldrion's grip on me tightens, bruising and possessive, as if he's trying to brand me as his own. But I refuse to submit easily, teeth nipping at his lower lip in defiance.

In a frenzy, he rips my clothes off and we stumble towards the armchair.

My nails rake down his back, leaving angry red marks beneath his wings, but Eldrion only growls in response, then spins me around and pushes me down so I'm kneeling in the chair, leaning over the back, waiting for him to enter me.

When he does, he slams into me so hard the chair nearly topples over. I brace a hand on the wall to steady us. He hooks one arm around my waist and furiously circles my already swollen clit. There is no warm-up, no slow building of pleasure. It hits me like a tsunami and is almost painful in its intensity.

It is so much, I can barely make a sound.

I bite my lip, grip the chair and the wall, push back onto him again and again and again.

He calls my name. Utters it like a curse word. Like he hates me, and hates how much he wants me, and this is his vengeance.

This exquisite torture is how he will end me.

With waves of pleasure that blind me to anything but him.

His thrusts are a promise that he will not stop until I am drowning in him, and only him. Until he has dragged me down to the depths of my own desire and abandoned me there, unable to breathe, tethered to his darkness.

When he comes, the sound of his release drives me over the precipice of my own orgasm.

I shudder and quake beneath him, my body turning to nothing but a blazing pool of skin and flesh and bone.

I expect him to pull away from me quickly and leave me quivering and shaking and cold without his presence. But he stays, arm curled around me, holding me as I tremble.

When I start to cry, he bites my shoulder. But it is tender. And the tenderness makes me cry harder. "I hate you," I sob.

"I know." The bite turns to a kiss.

He lets me cry.

And then he's gone. I feel him move away from me, hear him dressing. I sink down into the chair, turn around, then rise to my feet.

When I'm dressed too, and we're staring at each other in silence, I realise – perhaps for the first time – that he is not as beautiful as I thought he was.

He is flawed.

In all ways.

And for a terrifying moment the hate in my heart becomes softer around its edges.

Eldrion frowns at me, then runs a hand through his hair, his brow furrowed. "Whatever Finn has become, he's dangerous. And he's angry. At both of us."

"Not just us." I roll up my sleeves, then pick up the boots Briony gave me and pull them onto my feet. "He is furious with every Sunborne fae in the city. Furious with Luminael itself."

"So what's his next move?" Eldrion asks, pacing the room. This time, when he looks at me, it's as if we are equals and he genuinely needs to know my answer.

"I don't know. But—" a violent shock of pain hits me between the eyes and I stumble backwards. Bright light fills my vision, blinding me, then solidifying into something else.

The forest.

The campfire, the leaves, the canopy above. But it is darkening. Smoke curls around the trees. No, not smoke – shadows.

Then, in the darkness... red, blinking eyes. Black wings. Screams, shadows, wings.

"Alana!" Eldrion's voice shakes me back to reality. His hands are on my shoulders, gripping me tightly, and he's staring with wide, worried eyes. "What did you see?" he barks.

"We have to warn the others." I can barely speak. Fear has its clammy hand over my mouth, pressing the words back down into my throat.

"Others?"

"Finn. He's going to kill them."

"Who?" Eldrion steps back from me, frowning.

"The Shadowkind and the Leafborne. I saw him. In the forest with them..." I hesitate but force myself to trust Eldrion. Because, right now, I have no other choice. "They're hiding in the forest north of the city. Behind a shield. But Finn can get past it. They'll let him back in, and he'll?—"

Eldrion nods slowly and steeples his fingers together. "We might be too late," he says gravely. "But we'll try."