The Nightshade's Touch: A Paranormal Space Fantasy (Messenger Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  Aeon.

  No. Despite the scream in my head, the cry came out garbled and weak.

  “You have no say in this, Wraithmaker,” Sirius said. His words, like the male they belonged to, were hard and unwavering.

  I reached out a limp hand. He batted it away. I tried to push up off the ground, to bring myself closer to his level. Sirius straightened to his towering height. His boot found my ribs, gently rolling me onto my back. He could have kicked me, could have hurt me, but he didn’t need to. I was already at his mercy.

  I shook my head to hustle my thoughts back into the present. Everything throbbed—my head, my back, all of me—but none of that mattered. Pain was just a symptom. I could overrule it. Saru knew pain every day. I was not its victim.

  I saw the yard fence. We had made it outside, but not far. The ship Arran and I had fixed lay in flaming bits. Where were Arran and Kellee?

  Something shimmered behind Sirius, its surface smooth like a mirror. It reflected the fire raging inside the mangled wreckage, reflected Sirius standing over me and the fae dragging Kellee’s lifeless body away from the flames.

  My heart stuttered. Fire blazed or were those my thoughts raging? I reached down for my whip, found it gone, and pressed a hand to my chest instead and called.

  Stardust and shadow. Come to me.

  Power raced through my veins, power and light and strength and the ravaging wildness of Faerie. It overrode the pain, washing it away and lighting me up. The rich scent of lilies filled the air. Magic.

  I climbed to my feet and shook off the tingling.

  Sirius had watched me rise and his green-eyed glare burned with indignation. “You are Faerie touched,” he whispered.

  And then something the size of a shuttle, made of pure darkness and bristling with teeth and claws, slammed into the guardian, throwing him off his feet and into his ship, hard enough to rock it off its struts. I blinked, hardly believing what I witnessed.

  Sirius’s flight of soldiers let out a chorus of alarms, and the creature turned. Its outline churned. Fire raged in its eyes. Whip-like tentacles thrashed and knotted at the air, as though the air itself infuriated this thing.

  I’d never seen anything like it, had no idea where it had come from, but I recognized the look in its eyes. Death.

  The beast bounded in, clamped its massive jaws around one of Sirius’s flight, and crunched down, biting the fae into a gory, mangled mass of flesh and bone. It tossed the body aside and searched for a second.

  I sprang toward Kellee’s motionless form on the ground, and heard the terrible sounds of flesh tearing and bone cracking behind me.

  “Kellee!” I grabbed his shoulders. His face was all scuffed up and his shirt was bloody, but he had shrugged off worse injuries. “C’mon, Kellee.” The marshal rattled in my grip, head lolling. I couldn’t carry him. I could drag him, but that would be too slow and—

  A blast of hot, rancid air blew my hair across my face and warmed the back of my head.

  Everything froze but my racing heart.

  Fire burned ahead of me, but I didn’t hear the shouts, just ticking and bubbling metal, and the huffing, panting snarls of something so close its breaths surrounded me.

  It would chew me up the way it had the others. I smelled death on its breath. Death like I’d known as a little girl locked in the saru harvest container. Death like the smell the Hunt left behind. Blood and carnage.

  Cold sweat wet my face. Kellee lay at my feet, his eyes closed, and I didn’t know where Arran was, and this thing behind me might kill them too. Any second. I couldn’t move. Terror had me in its terrible grip. Some ancient human part of me believed that if I froze, I’d live.

  Breathing too hard and too fast, I carefully, slowly, turned. I wouldn’t run. If I ran, it would chase me, and that was something nobody could survive. I saw the heaving mass of tentacles whipping at the air. Then the slippery, shadow-like skin and its smiling, fang-filled jaws and eyes that saw too much—knew too much. Intelligent eyes. My twin reflections glowed in its pupils. There, I was a splash of light with a thread of silver outline.

  The beast growled. Hot, wet breath washed over my face, and a whimper escaped my lips. The beast opened its maw, slowly, like it was tasting the air. Its black barbed tongue writhed in a mouth clogged with torn flesh, so close my eyes watered and my instincts clamored for me to run, run, run.

  There was no hiding my fear.

  Run, fleshling. Let me chase, it crooned inside my thoughts.

  It was a monster in the truest sense of the word. Its smell coated my tongue and burned the back of my throat. It had power too, something alien and sickly. Its power clung to me, pulling at my strength. This thing had killed the fae, maybe even killed Sirius, and I was next. Kellee too.

  My tears mixed with the sweat and grease on my face.

  Run, the saru in me demanded. But Aeon had told me never to run from them. Kellee too. You don’t run from them. I lifted my chin and stared into its eyes, standing between it and Kellee, and inside, the thrum of Talen’s wild power set my soul ablaze. I felt the call of things that didn’t belong to me, and I felt Talen answer from somewhere far off. My silver fae.

  I didn’t know what it meant, but this creature did, because under the weight of my stare, it bowed its head and stepped back once, twice, and kept retreating until it turned away and slunk off, folding the night around it.

  I waited until I was sure it was gone, until the fire had died down, until I saw that Sirius’s vessel had vanished. Only then did I drop to my knees.

  “Sirius was waiting.” Kellee paced, boots striking the floor in even beats. “Shot us out the sky before we’d even made it a few hundred meters. I should have suspected it. They were too damn quiet…” He rumbled on and I watched him stride back and forth. Patches of blood darkened his clothes but he paced with ease. It could have been worse, for all of us.

  Arran had been thrown out the opposite side of the vessel. He’d woken to find me numb, kneeling beside Kellee. He’d roused the marshal while I’d mutely looked on, much like I was doing now. Together, we had retreated inside the hangar buildings. Arran now sat in a chair. He’d torn his sleeve open and tied it around a deep gash in his bicep. The bleeding had stopped, but he’d have a new scar.

  We each looked as though we had been run through a mangling machine and spat out half dead on the other side.

  They hadn’t experienced what I had. The smell of the creature, the noise of its burbling growls and the way it had cut through Sirius’s flight like they were nothing but toys.

  But they had seen the bodies—what was left of them. Neither had commented on the carcasses, but the questions were coming. Kellee would be first to ask; he just hadn’t gotten around to the accusations yet.

  “We find another ship…” Arran said. He opened and closed his hand, watching the tendons in his arm move, testing the movement around the cut. “Kesh and I will fix it up and we’ll try again.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said, wondering how I sounded so calm when inside I was coming apart. “Talen’s coming.”

  Kellee jolted to a stop. “Now?”

  Talen was coming. The tightness in my chest and its accompanying flutters signaled that the bond was getting stronger. Wherever he had been, whatever he’d been doing, he was coming. And he would know exactly what that beast was. He’d glide in and save us, the humans, and Hulia and stop Sirius, just like he should have done two days ago. This nightmare was almost over.

  “He’ll be here soon,” I said, avoiding the sight of Kellee’s scowl, catching Arran’s instead. Where Kellee glared, Arran just looked… concerned. What did they want from me? I didn’t have answers to any of this.

  Kellee’s eyes narrowed. “Are you going to explain what happened out there?” I heard the real question hidden in his words, Did you kill those fae?

  “What by-cyn is wrong with you, man?” Arran snapped. “She’s in shock. Leave her alone.”

  Kellee shot Arran a
golden-eyed look, heated enough to flash-burn souls. Arran arched his eyebrow and held the marshal’s gaze, baiting him into a fight.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples.

  Was I in shock? Something felt… off. Empty. Numb. Was that normal after what I’d seen? The emptiness started after the creature had left, like it had taken part of me with it. Surrounded by human buildings and tucked safely back inside reality, I wondered if I’d dreamed the whole thing. I hadn’t killed those fae, had I? The creature was real. Sirius knew. He’d seen it.

  I reached down and examined the coils of my whip for blood. Arran had found it among the wreckage. Its edges were smooth and clean. I hadn’t killed the fae, but Kellee’s glare was right about one thing. I could have.

  I needed Talen.

  I needed to get off this planet.

  I looked at my hands, my palms, and my fingers. Just normal saru hands, meant for serving the fae. Nobody could see the blood on them, but the memory was there. Not from recently, but from far back when I became a killer.

  I heard Kellee leave and wondered if he was afraid, because I sure was.

  “You okay?” Arran didn’t look at me like I was a monster. His soft eyes and gentle smile reminded me of how we would reach through our bars at night and draw saru symbols on each other’s palms. They had tried to keep us apart, but we’d always found a way to be together.

  I nodded. “I’m all right.”

  “Okay.” He smiled gently, aware that anything sharper might shatter me. “That’s good.”

  “Yeah.” Maybe I was in shock. I wasn’t all killer. Inside, wrapped in all the Wraithmaker myth, I was the same little girl just trying to survive. Aeon had known that.

  Arran looked at me. He didn’t remember who I was, but he cared. I could see it in the way he tried to smile and failed, in the way his eyes apologized for something he hadn’t done.

  “Will you sit with me?” I asked.

  Without hesitating, he crossed the room and sat beside me. It was unfair to ask him. I knew this was wrong. When I rested back and leaned into him, feeling his warmth and strength, and when his arm settled around my shoulders and tucked me close, the terrible weight of my past lifted. He understood where Kellee didn’t and never had. I needed him close. I needed a friend.

  The warcruiser descended through the burnt orange sky, frothing the atmosphere and casting a shadow the size of an ocean across the plains. I shivered as a cold wind tore across the landing strip, whipping up dust storms. It was an impressive sight. It would have been even more impressive had Talen turned up in time to save Hulia and the remaining colonists. Even as I shivered, heat fizzled in my chest. He had better have a damn good reason for arriving late.

  The ship settled on tower-like struts, spreading its massive weight over huge pads, but even with the distributed weight, the earth still cracked, rumbling thunderously across Hapters’s empty landscape. Warcruisers, once in the sky, weren’t designed to land. The fact Talen had brought her down likely meant he had no intention of taking her up again anytime soon. Something about the exertion of low-atmosphere travel. He had explained it once, but I was still grappling with the idea that the enormous ship was alive and sentient.

  We entered a strut and took a pod up into the warcruiser’s belly. Kellee ground his teeth the whole way while Arran stared at the doors like he wanted to be anywhere else but trapped in a confined space with the marshal and me.

  Inside, we split up, each of us silently heading to our quarters. I must have been special, because Talen was waiting in mine.

  He turned as I entered and arched a fine silvery eyebrow at my grease, ash, blood, and dirt smothered coat—the coat he had given me. I tore it off, balled it up like a used rag, and tossed it at his feet.

  He blinked quickly and looked as though he was about to say something—explain where he’d been, perhaps—but I strode past, crossed my arms, and yanked my upper garments over my head. I threw those at the bed, acutely aware of his gaze riding my naked back. I couldn’t look at him. The angry sizzle I’d felt earlier tightened into a ball of fury. I’d rarely felt anger like it, anger and fear so potent I wanted to spin around and scream, Where were you!? Oh, but he felt it—through the bond wide open and beating between us like a thing alive. He felt every nerve simmer, every thought scorch the next. My treacherous body trembled, and no doubt he felt that too. I didn’t need to say a damn word.

  I freed the whip from its hip loop, dropped it to the floor, and pushed my belt down over my hips. A dart of lust tripped my stride, because that sensation wasn’t mine. It shot through the rage like a javelin of fire. I almost turned around and threw everything I felt at him just to see if he could weather the storm. But despite my fury, I was fragile too, and I couldn’t lose control. I was too ready to break. Pushing the heady rush down, I stepped behind the drapes, finished undressing,entered the shower and tipped my face up as water hissed from holes in the ceiling, stinging cuts I hadn’t realized I’d gotten. I braced my hands against the warm walls as the water pummeled my shoulders. Dirt and blood spiraled around the drain holes.

  Talen watched my outline through the drape, perhaps ruminating over his explanation.

  I could have died on Hapters. When the ship went down, we all could have died. The fae flights could have killed Hapters’s people instead of harvesting them. Hulia might be dead. The creature could have eaten us all. And Talen had been missing. He’d gotten away with the mysterious shit before, but I was about done with long fae silences and implied secrets. He was a fae pilot. Rare. Powerful. Enigmatic to a fault. And while he had never explicitly said he was on our side, he sure behaved like he was one of us.

  The warm water soothed my quivering, but it did nothing to ease the ache in my head from clenching my jaw too tightly or the roll of my stomach every time I thought of how close that creature had come to sinking its teeth into my face. I’d seen people killed, killed people myself, and I’d seen some of Faerie’s worst butcher each other for entertainment, but I had never seen anything dispatch the living the way that thing had.

  I half expected Talen to be gone when I tied my robe and stepped out, but he hadn’t moved from the spot dead center of the room, like a museum centerpiece. His long silver hair was tied in a loose ponytail down his back and threaded with a thin strip of leather. He wore loose-fitting leathers, not the snug scout kind, but something similar to what human males wore on Calicto. He would never pass for human. Or casual. Without trying he still looked mythical. Eyes the brightest shade of violet and a body sculpted and shaped by an artisan. I had to fight every saru instinct not to drop to my knees. I had served Queen Mab for years. I’d learned to kneel before learning to walk. I’d lived among his kind—survived them—and he was like them in every way, and yet… not.

  He looked me in the eye, his face a blank mask.

  I cinched the belt on my gown tight, using about the same lethal force I’d used to kill a lordly envoy. Then I planted a hand on a hip and waited.

  Virtually motionless, he waited right back. His silences had always been heavy, but this one was suffocating.

  Would he say he was sorry? Would he explain where he had been? Would he ask if I was okay or would he just stare at me until I wilted like a human flower he’d plucked from Earth a thousand years ago?

  “Did you enjoy the party?”

  That was what he’d decided to open with? Did I enjoy the fucking party? He must have seen the rage flash in my eyes because he flinched. “Try again,” I coolly advised.

  His penetrating gaze narrowed. “I—”

  “If anything comes out of your mouth that isn’t an explanation of exactly where you’ve been then I can’t be held responsible for what happens next.”

  He paused and frowned, wrinkling his perfect brow. “A fae warship arrived.”

  “Yes it did,” I agreed. Having seen Sirius stride from inside it and hidden from its flight with Kellee and Arran, I knew all about the warship.

  “With a gu
ardian aboard,” Talen added.

  “I noticed.”

  “An Earthen vessel in orbit was observing from afar. I chose to observe it in return.”

  “You didn’t think we might need help with the guardian and his ship full of fae?”

  His fine, elegant eyes narrowed further. Apparently, he didn’t like my tone. “The three of you are capable. The human vessel was the first one seen in Halow since the fae’s arrival. An alliance with Earthens from Sol could prove invaluable.”

  My rage fractured a little. That was a good point. “Go on…”

  “The ship appeared to be observing Hapters, and then it vanished before I could secure a communications link. When it was clear they were gone and not just stealthed, I turned my attention to Hapters and attempted to track the guardian’s personal vessel, but he is using a shuttle with stealth capabilities. I could have tracked its path from the colony, but I would have needed to descend into the planet’s atmosphere, limiting my firing capabilities. I waited to see where the ship emerged and planned to arrive once it did. Unfortunately, I lost its signal, only for it to reappear near the landing strip you were sheltering in.” His eyes were cold, just like the facts. “I felt your call.”

  The sound I made might have started as laughter in my head, but it sounded more like a growl when it left my lips.

  He felt my call. While I’d stared down a monstrous creature three times my size and capable of chewing up immortal fae like kibble, he had felt my call. I grinned and knew it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “I know that too.” I approached him and stopped far enough away so I didn’t have to tilt my head to look him in the eye, but I was close enough to feel the magnetic pull thrumming between us. “And?”

  As a Calicto messenger, I’d intimidated my way into many dwellings. Some folks didn’t want a messenger on their doorstep, but payment was contingent on the delivery of the message. I could be very persuasive when I had to be. With the right words, the right attitude, and a flash of the whip and pistol, most people buckled. Farther back, in the arenas, some saru hadn’t so much as raised a hand against me before I took their lives.