Page 6 of Faerie Fate (Fae Academy for Halflings #7)

Chapter Four

T error never felt this way before, mingled with the agony of feeling my skin part.

The muscles tore and blood poured down toward my clavicle, dripping onto the key to Faerie looped around my neck.

Blindfolded and arms pinned, I couldn’t reach for the cut, couldn’t draw my fingers along the wound myself to pull the pieces together and stop the bleeding. I was completely at Kendrick’s mercy.

I gasped and the skin shifted, opening even further.

“Christ, stop shaking,” Kendrick growled. His voice skittered over the wound and made the pain worse. “This is nothing. A little bloodletting will seal our mating. The slice isn’t deep.”

It felt deep. It felt impossible to survive. I was going to die.

Kendrick grunted. I smelled fresh blood, not mine, like the awful stench of things left to ripen in the sun too long.

Half a heartbeat later, his fingers wrapped around my throat and squeezed, his own cut skin pressed to mine.

I lost my breath. My chest tightened, constricting smaller and smaller until my lungs were no longer working.

And suddenly magic flared between us. It began as a small spark barely flickering enough to combat the dull darkness, then grew brighter as our blood mingled.

This wasn’t the kind of magic I knew, or wanted to know.

This trickled through my system in cold tendrils of frost and decay, obliterating any heat I had left in my body. Kendrick’s forced mate bond permeated through bone and marrow and turned everything dark.

Unnatural.

The bond settled in my veins with the clank of ancient iron, permanent and stinging, done against my will.

The energy connecting us solidified with the permanence of a closed and locked prison cell door, and he squeezed my neck harder. His fingerprints marked my skin as surely as the mystical bond marked the rest of me, changing my soul and capturing my heart in a cage.

I cried out. The twisting, slithering darkness inside only made Kendrick laugh.

“There.” He grunted, still choking me, forcing air and blood out. “Isn’t that better?”

Then he released me, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t even press my own hand to my neck wound to save myself.

His heavy, plodding footsteps beat out an uneven rhythm from his bandy-legged stance and disappeared, the room falling into silence, not even the beating of my heart.

My head spun in useless circles and clawed at mist that had no physical form, nothing for me to latch onto to pull myself free.

Blood loss . The thought came from somewhere in my head, but Kendrick was there, too. In my head. He was everywhere and nowhere at once. He didn’t need to touch me for me to feel him.

Blood still trickled down my neck, soaking through my shirt. I felt woozy, my chin slumped down, unable to hold my head up.

Did he bond with me just to let me die?

Was it better for him this way?

I didn’t want to die mated to him. He’d follow my soul into the afterlife and enslave me there too—absolute power and control. Those were his only goals…

Footsteps back into the room. Kendrick ground out, “Heal her. Now.”

A soft feminine gasp sounded in the devastating wake of his command. “What have you done?” Then a very recognizable scent wafted around me.

Nurse Julie?

She survived?

In the darkness behind the blindfold my mind conjured her image the way I remembered her. She was another species of fae, with gangly limbs, pointed ears, and shiny wings protruding from her shoulder blades in a blue only a shade lighter than her skin.

I remembered their speedy flutter whenever she got overly agitated.

“You shouldn't have cut so deeply,” Julie admonished, her voice trembling. “She’s going into shock.”

Kendrick cleared his throat and something wet hit the ground, my shifter hearing latching onto any minute sound. “I don’t explain myself to you people. Just fucking fix her.”

A wave of malignant disgust filtered down the mate bond between us. I wanted to tell Julie not to make him mad. He’d gleefully slice her throat too, if she refused to be useful, or if she let her tongue run away with her.

Please, Julie, don’t provoke him. He’s prejudiced. He hates the fae.

A rustle of cloth announced her movement before Julie’s too-long fingers flickered over my face. Did she hear me?

I jerked back on instinct, my body too traumatized to be touched.

“It’s going to be okay, Tavi. I’m going to fix you. Try to control your breathing before you hyperventilate. The blood is pumping out too quickly,” Julie said softly as she worked on the wound.

Her magic was warm against the permanent freeze settling in my veins. Her touch remained gentle yet purposeful as she smoothed her fingers on either side of the wound.

A brief pause, then the distinctive scent of one of her calendula salves assaulted my nostrils. She pushed her magic into the wound in steady, small increments. Bite-sized so my system wouldn’t reject it.

My shaking increased until my front teeth knocked together.

“It’s going to be okay, honey. I know you don’t believe it, but it will be,” Julie continued. “The salve will get to work along with the spell. The skin will scar, though. There’s nothing I can do about that. Whatever knife he used?—”

She trailed off and her fingers left my skin, tugging at the edges of the blindfold to remove it.

“Stop!” Kendrick yelled as Julie tugged the fabric north. “Leave it on.”

Another pause, and then, “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

I bit down on my back teeth to keep my jaw from trembling. My head swam and the bile in my throat crept higher.

“Well? How much longer is this going to take? What kind of fae are you if you can’t heal a simple?—”

“I’m doing the best I can but this is delicate work. You cut too deeply,” Julie admonished, sucking in a breath. “The magic will take time to knit the wound together. Sir.”

She offered the nicety like an afterthought and Kendrick growled.

The hair on my forearms stood up at the threat in his tone, along with the savage glee echoing through the bond. He wanted to hurt her. He’d use any excuse to do it.

“You’re sure about the scar?”

Julie held steady no matter how gruffly he addressed her. “There’s always a possibility I’m wrong.”

Screams echoed from the hallway, frenzied and piercing. Julie froze with her hand on my shoulder.

The howling screech came again, closer to our room this time, followed by the distinctive yap of one of his wolves.

Kendrick growled, the sound imbued with all his strength as alpha. “Whatever the fuck this is, it better be good!” He stomped heavily toward the noise.

The moment the door closed behind him, Nurse Julie tugged the blindfold free. I blinked to clear the tears from my eyes. Burning, acidic, trailing down and dotting my shirt.

Julie looked almost the same. Unharmed if a little more tired, a little more worn out than the last time I’d seen her.

Her concerned gaze scoured my face and she brushed the tears away deftly. “I told you,” she repeated, “it’s going to be all right. I’ll make sure of it. You’ll live, Tavi. You’re going to live.”

But the damage was done. Wasn’t it? Kendrick had his mate bond. Something so magical and beautiful…twisted into ugly servitude.

“There’s no way for me to get you out right now. But I’ll put the blindfold back on you a certain way. You should be able to toss it off your head so you can manipulate Kendrick when he comes back,” Julie said. “It’s the best shot you’ve got at escaping.”

My lower lip trembled. “He knows. He knows about my powers. He’s too strong for me to fight.”

Julie’s brows drew down and her expression hardened. “Don’t talk like you’ve already given up.”

I didn’t want to be the kind of person who gave up. I’d done whatever it took in the past to get myself out of the constant quicksand, from one mess to another.

As though she read my thoughts, Julie offered a grim smile. It faded quickly. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

I shifted slightly and the chain around my chest pulled me tight to the stone. “I had to come.” My voice sounded stronger. “I wasn’t sure who was still alive.”

“As you can see, this old girl is still kicking.” Julie pulled in a deep breath. “He’s marked you, though. I smell it.”

If she wanted to remind me about the foolishness of my arrival at the academy, she could save her breath. I inhaled sharply against a wave of fury from Kendrick. Someone was about to die.

“I’m sorry, Tavi. I’m not powerful enough to get rid of the scar.” Julie bent close to my neck to examine the healing wound. “It won’t kill you, like I said, but the scar will still be there.”

They made scar removal lotion in the mortal world. “I don’t…”

“It’s not just a simple cut. This is arcane magic. Dark stuff, too. I have no clue where that man found the spell for it.”

Of course Kendrick would use arcane magic on me. He’d want to make sure there was no way for me to escape him ever again. I didn’t want to cry in front of her. The tears felt like giving up.

“Breathe.” Her voice centered me. “The magic is working and the bleeding has already stopped.”

“You’re trying to make me feel better.”

“I know it’s not working.” She obviously heard my swallowed sobs.

“No, I’m fine. Never been better,” I said unconvincingly.

“If anyone could bounce back from this kind of horror show, it would be you. Never met a more stubborn girl in my life.” Julie failed to capture her usual level of solid, no-nonsense happiness. It used to come to her naturally.

“Maybe I took a page out of your book,” I said with a dead laugh.

Julie sighed. “Please don’t. My book has no happy ending. As delighted as I am to see you, this isn’t the time for happy reunions. You should have stayed gone.”

“I’d never leave you behind.”

Every second, the space between me and Kendrick shortened. He grew a bit closer. A million sounds pounded into my ears.

Without fail, without mercy, I’d make Kendrick pay for this. If my resolve had ever slipped, no matter. It locked into place now. I might be a prisoner, in one of the truest senses, but I’d gotten through hard experiences before.

Lock picks were invented for a reason.

“Nurse Julie!” One of the other healers rushed into the room. “We need you. One of the students lost a leg. I can’t grow a bone back!”

“I’ll be right there,” Julie replied decisively. She turned back to me as the healer rushed off, her features clouded by regret. She lifted the blindfold. “I’m sorry.”

She kissed my cheek and settled the fabric in place. This time, she left the fabric bunched at the top of my head, covering only my face.

“I’ll be back, sweetheart, I promise,” Julie said before disappearing.

I missed her immediately. Missed her presence and her energy. Without her steadiness, my body seized. The trembling began again and started at the root of my spine before traveling slowly higher and capsizing my heart.

I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to have to face this on my own, to keep being strong, terror my only companion.

I wasn’t alone for long.

Kendrick’s distinctive footsteps sounded less than five minutes later, his presence growing steadily like a gas lamp being turned all the way up.

The door re-opened. “Those fucking bastards. Can’t handle anything themselves. Useless.”

The mate bond snapped between us and tightened until my heart skipped a beat. In some small, useless part of my brain, the girl I used to be screamed and beat at the inside of my skull for a freedom we’d never have again.

When he was close enough that I could feel the heat of his body, I jerked my head to the side. The blindfold drifted down to the base of my neck and my eyes lifted to meet his.

You’re going to let me go .

Our energies had no room to collide. Not when we were already woven together. But before I could attempt to manipulate Kendrick, another man stepped into the room.

The flicker of movement over Kendricks’s shoulder materialized into a very familiar face and I broke eye contact. Silent alarm splintered my senses. The rattle in my ears became a full blown storm.

He couldn’t be here.

This was no king’s camp. This was no grand or splendorous moment. This was a dismal and dusty classroom in the mortal realm and no amount of trembling would break the chain.

Dorian Jade had arrived.