Breathe.
Trissa pulled out a small vial of purple juice. “This is pricklewart juice. One drink gives you about sixty seconds of invisibility. After that, you will be seen, but it should be enough to get you in the room with the crystal, then you can jump out the window, where I’ll be waiting.”
My face scrunched up. Pricklewarts were nasty. Worse than nasty, they were literal warts that grew at the base of troll trees in the dark forest. They smelled like a dying animal, so I’d obviously never tasted one. But invisibility would be a decent tradeoff for drinking something nasty…
Triss looked impatient, tapping her foot. “Lily, I’m sorry to rush you, but we are on borrowed time.” She popped the cap off the vial and shoved it in my hand. “If they move this crystal again, it could take you weeks to find. Earth is big, you’ve never had to seek something that’s another country away. I knew it was in this city, so it was easy for you, but next time it might not be. Next time might be too late for Faerie.”
Shit.
Elle’s eyes widened and she looked terrified. Good, I wasn’t the only one. With Trissa’s stark warning ringing through my head, I grabbed the juice and put it to my lips.
Trissa’s hand came out to stop me. “I’ll take the back of the house, Elle the front, and you will be alone inside. Can you handle that?”
Fuck no.
“Yes.”
She nodded, seeming pleased with my confidence, though I was really questioning my mother’s decision making right now.
“I trained you well. I’m not worried,” she finally said, almost like she herself needed to hear it. “Scream if you need help, but these things are best done as a one woman show.”
Damn. My mom was like a Fae thief-assassin. Sneaking into Sons of Darkness strongholds and retrieving the lost crystals of Faerie. It was kind of badass when I stopped to think about it. “And don’t get any ideas about drinking this stuff all the time. More than one dose in twenty-four hours acts as a poison.”
Oh fabulous. Thanks for almost leaving that out.
Without wasting another minute, I pressed the cold glass vial to my lips and tipped it back in one shot. Foul smelling liquid poured down my throat and I gagged as the smell hit my nostrils, but the taste was surprisingly sweet and peppery.
“Good luck!” Elle whispered, reaching out to squeeze my hand quickly. I looked down at my body as it slowly…
Holy shit!
I’d disappeared.
“Go!” Trissa hissed.
Letting my wings burst from my back, I zipped across the large front yard of the farmhouse and right up to the front door. No one was manning the front, which told me they didn’t have a big enough group guarding the crystal to allow for outside security. Or at least I hoped that was the case. Zooming right up to the front door, I did one hard tap with my index finger. Maybe they would think it was a rock or something.
Fifty-two … fifty-one … fifty … I was counting in my head. Come on, you idiots. I tapped again because I could hear a muffled TV inside. Footsteps. “Was that a knock?” a deep voice called out.
“I didn’t hear anything,” another voice followed, this one less deep.
The door swung open and I braced myself for a hideous beast. But the guy that opened it was … normal looking, but for the fact that he looked like he had a small pair of brown horns on his forehead. It was one of them, one of the Sons of Darkness. Shaking it off, I tucked my wings flat down my back and slid right between him and the doorframe, slipping inside.
“No one there,” he called to two guys sitting on the couch. “I’m gonna have a smoke anyway. I’ll keep watch until we get orders on where to move the crystal.”
The crystal. I froze.
Thirty-five … thirty-four … thirty-three … holy shit he talked about moving the crystal. I glanced quickly at the guys sitting on the couch and saw that one of them was extremely pale and creepy looking, his eyes completely black. The other was another horned head like the dude outside smoking. Okay, three guys total so far. Not bad considering there were three of us. I could do this. I had lost count and knew I probably had only seconds to find the crystal before the pricklewart juice wore off.
Tiptoeing down the hall, I called up a picture of the crystal in my mind. There. A strong tug at my navel pulled me deeper down the hallway and then to a closed door. As my fingers turned the knob, they started to reappear. If someone was in this room, I was screwed. I’d have to fight them.
Pulling my obsidian blades from my thigh holster, I stepped into the room and breathed a sigh of relief that I was alone. Closing the door behind me, but not latching it for fear of making noise, I spun back to the center of the room.
When my eyes landed on the blue glowing crystal that lay in the middle of a bed, relief spread throughout my limbs.
I did it.
There was a window in the room that led to the outside. I’d have to crawl over a desk, but I could definitely get out through here.
Wasting no time, I crossed the room and kneeled on the bed, ready to pick up the crystal.
“Who the fuck are you?” a deep male voice came from behind me and I froze.
Spinning, I held up my blade ready to slice, when my gaze landed on a guy with huge black wings. I nearly stumbled off the bed. I’d expected the wings to be feathered, like a crow’s, but they weren’t. They were … Fae wings, like mine in shape, but inky black where mine were pink. Were the Sons of Darkness … Fae?
No way.
The elders used the word Dark Fae, but they’d made them sound like hideous creatures, not this… this guy was… like me, only his wings were black.
His hair was sandy blond and tousled like he didn’t care to comb it, but still managed to look put together. My gaze fell to his ears, which were short like a human’s. I was a whopping five-foot four inches tall and this dude towered over me at least a foot higher. He was stacked with muscle that pulled at the edges of his t-shirt, and his arms screamed “I can squeeze your head off your body with my bare hands.” But his eyes, his insanely blue eyes were threaded with molten copper. They had me stepping closer to inspect them, letting my guard down as I did.
The thought that he was Fae shook me, but I was still ready to fight my way out of this room, crystal in hand, when a blue light pulsed from his chest. Alarm registered on his face, and then that same blue light pulsed from me, an identical rhythm to his.
No. No. no. no. no…
Confusion crossed his face as a warm unconditional love trickled down my veins and a sob lodged in my throat.
My fucking soulmate was a Son of Darkness.
I couldn’t really describe what I was feeling. My heart burst open and euphoria pumped through me, but I was trying to push it down. I felt … completely and utterly in love with this person before me, like he could do no wrong. I would accept him for whatever he was, and he would do the same for me. We were created for each other, and I suddenly felt like the last twenty years of my life had been so lonely without him. The entire room glowed blue with our combined magic. Boom-boom, boom-boom … the magic pulsed with my heartbeat. His brows were drawn down in confusion, but then softened into intrigue.
He finally found his words. “What is this? Magic?”
He didn’t know. The tears that had been building up in my eyes spilled over and I found myself wondering if he was feeling the same thing as me. How the hell could this dark creature be my soulmate? It wasn’t right. He was my newly sworn enemy.