Page 15 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom (Faeted Seasons #2)

Vareck

My eyes snapped open. The forest was still. Too still.

And in Evorsus, silence was deadly. The usual chitter of animals or brush of the wind was notably absent from where I lay with Meera.

After the pool, we’d returned to the clearing and decided to get some rest. Meera fell asleep almost instantly, dragged under by exhaustion, secure in the feeling of my chest pressed against her back.

My arm was draped over her waist, and our legs were tangled together.

In another time, another place, it would have been a luxury for me to be able to lay with Meera like this. Since the moment we met, nothing went as planned and it seemed the universe was equally conspiring against us as it was rooting for us.

But this wasn't a vacation. We weren't camping in some tropical forest. We were in the twin hells, and currently the only sound I could pick up was her deep, even breathing and the slow pounding of my own heart.

I listened closely, my fingers fisting in Meera’s t-shirt as I pulled her close.

From behind me, a single step made the faintest of sound. Then a second.

They knew we were here.

I inched my face forward, letting my lips ghost over my mate’s ear. Meera was curled into me, her brow furrowed in sleep, oblivious to the danger surrounding us.

“Wake up.” I spoke as quietly as I could manage, so as not to alert our visitors that I was aware of them.

“Mmmph. Five more minutes,” she grumbled.

“Meera,” I said, placing firmness in my tone. “Time to wake up.”

She groused, moving to sit up. I kept my arm around her waist, pinning her to my side. Meera blinked, the sleep clearing from her features in a second flat. “What are you ...”

The words died in her throat as the shadows shifted around us.

They emerged from the trees without a sound.

Dozens of them.

Not the usual forest predators one might imagine, like lions, bears, other apex predators often found on Earth and in Faerie.

No, these creatures were tall, spindly things with shifting layers of skin.

Dressed in rags and other makeshift materials, they stepped closer.

At first, one might think they were faceless.

While indentations marked where eyes, a nose, and mouth were present, the features themselves were missing.

The one nearest me stopped and cocked its head, as if regarding me. I slowly sat up, pulling Meera along. That’s when it happened.

The molding of a face stretched unnaturally across its surface like melted wax. It shifted to something human. Familiar.

My stomach twisted.

My own face stared back at me, impassive in a way that was unnerving. I shifted to my feet, years of combat training engrained in me. With one hand, I kept Meera glued to the front of my body, and with the other, I reached for one of the swords strapped to my back; Hex Cleaver.

A grin slowly stretched across the creature’s face.

“What the freaking fuck is that?” Meera stood instantly. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know until they're gone.” Her voice was steady, but I could feel the tension radiating off her.

Magic hummed in the air around us as her eyes changed from hazel to an ethereal, glowing green. “Go back to where you came from,” she said, pouring persuasion into the order. Enough so that my own legs locked under her magic’s pull.

The Nameless paused.

For a beat, I thought it worked.

That for once, I’d make it out of an encounter with them unscathed.

Unfortunately, that was hope talking.

The one in front of us did something I’d never seen before.

It spoke.

“Stand down, cursed king.”

“Shit,” she whispered, swallowing hard enough I felt it.

“Meera, they’re immune,” I said. Despite the fear that rattled my psyche, my voice was strong and sure.

“But they’re human-ish,” she said. “They speak fae. Clearly they can understand.

“Like calls to like, my Queen.”

The Nameless were revenants. Fae that had died on Evorsus and the land had chosen to bring them back to a semi-living state in this form.

They were single-minded in their desire to hunt and kill, but this one did something so wholly unexpected when he spoke.

I didn’t have time to think about what it meant, only what I had to do.

“I need you to run and hide. The Nameless are flesh-eating parasites. They travel in groups and will devour anything they come across.”

“No,” she said, fierce as ever. “I’m not leaving you to deal with these things.”

“You need to.”

“ No ,” she argued. I loved that fire about her, even if it drove me fucking insane. At that moment, I didn’t have time for the pushback.

“Your persuasion doesn’t work. You don’t have an elemental power.”

“I was raised by redcaps?—”

“You’re fae. They eat fae.”

“You’re fae too! If it’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for you,” she insisted, pulling herself into a fighting stance.

“I’m not ...” I said, voice dropping as I struggled to speak. My fury started to rise like smoke from beneath my skin and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My instincts knew the odds were against me. The fury inside me knew we had to protect our mate. Suppression wasn’t an option.

She opened her mouth—probably to argue—but two things happened in quick succession.

The uninvited guests stepped forward. The one that spoke reached for Meera. Grime-covered fingers brushed her skin, but before it could do anything more than touch her, I lost it.

My eyes darkened until they were nothing but endless black.

My fingers cracked as they elongated, turning into curved, obsidian talons.

From my back, twin wings erupted with a sound of tearing fabric, huge, wraith-like and leathery.

They ripped clean through the shirt I wore, shredding the material with ease.

My teeth lengthened, my fangs sharp and prominent as the fury surged forward, no longer leashed. My voice dropped, laced with something deeper. Otherworldly.

“ Hide. ”

The word wasn’t a request. It was law.

Meera’s body jerked as the persuasion took hold. She twisted in my arms, searching for an opening through the horde, then darted for the trees.

My mate bolted to the left toward a small gap in their ranks. Two of the Nameless advanced toward her.

I moved faster.

No hesitation. No mercy.

One swipe of my talons and the first creature dropped, its stolen face peeling away like wet parchment. The second shrieked when I decapitated it with Hex Cleaver, its voice pitched high and broken before giving way to silence.

My chest heaved. In the span of several seconds, I’d taken down two of the assailants, but over a dozen more still remained.

Keeping one eye on the direction Meera fled, I blocked them from following her and descended into bloodlust. The Nameless came at me faster in desperation, too many wearing faces that didn’t belong.

An innocent child with doe-like eyes. An old man with a curved back, wrinkled and worn.

A woman who, if you squinted through the madness, looked eerily similar to Meera.

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Instead, I fought like I had been bred for it. Fury wasn’t just an emotion for me. It was a whole other being that was rage incarnate and lived beneath my skin.

My wings slashed through the air, the serrated edges cutting them limb from limb.

My talons ripped flesh from bone, and the black shadow of my fury rising cloaked the clearing in shadow.

I felt their minds—cold, curious, hungry—and I gave them a single truth to carry back to whatever pit they crawled out from: She is not yours.

Not now. Not ever.

I didn’t know how long had passed. It could have been seconds. It might have been hours. Time warped and collapsed in on itself as I fell into the battle. And then it was over.

When the last one stood among the bodies of its brethren, it didn’t lunge. A sickening feeling twisted in my gut.

The Nameless sidled closer. Slower. More deliberate in its actions than others. They’d attacked blindly when I guarded the path that led to Meera. This one didn’t, and that worried me.

Its skin shimmered, face shifting beneath the translucent veil like water struggling to freeze. The dread in my gut expanded as green eyes formed. Ginger locks sprouted from its bald, peeling scalp.

My stomach dropped.

It was her.

I stepped closer without realizing it. That’s when I saw the illusion wasn’t perfect, only close enough that my mind hesitated, and my fury stayed its wrath.

I focused on the differences.

The hair wasn’t quite right. It curled too much in the front.

Her eyes were the glowing emerald shade she wore when using magic, but the beauty mark beside her nose was missing.

A myriad of freckles stayed camouflaged beneath the dark skies of Evorsus, but if I had to guess, they wouldn’t line up with my siren’s either.

“Help me.”

Everything in me went still.

The beauty mark appeared.

The hair framing her face lost some of its curl.

Those differences dropped away one by one until it was Meera. My Meera.

I couldn’t strike her. Even when my brain screamed that it wasn’t real. That it wasn’t her. My body refused to move.

The illusion crept closer.

Its eyes— her eyes—held mine, pleading and hollow.

“Help us.”

I cocked my head, but the calculation was brief. The small, distant part of me that wondered if something more sinister was at play was instantly silenced when it struck.

Long, jagged fingers plunged into my side, sharp and sudden, knocking me off balance. I staggered, blood seeping out from between my ribs.

“VARECK!”

Her cry cut through everything. The fog. The confusion. The lie.

I looked up.

Meera stood just beyond the trees, her face a mirror of rage and fear.

I saw her. The real her.

“She’s ours,” the creature said, its voice losing all traces of the ruse it had created, and instead reverting to the cold, lifeless tone of Evorsus.