Page 14 of Of Pixies and Promises (Fae Guardians)

Chapter

Fourteen

M ore humans were here than Sid had guessed. Maybe fifty. Maybe more. A few Reapers were among them, but not too many. That was a good sign. It meant either Nero was running low on elite soldiers, or they were busy elsewhere.

With the help of Shade and Silver, he arrived in time to fight with the pixies for the gully—which he realized now was only a small part of a greater whole.

The woods outside Crystal City were a dead wasteland.

He could see now, without a doubt, the greed and use of harmful and dangerous substances by humanity had poisoned the earth.

The further they spread, so did the disease.

A black-clad soldier with goggles and a mechanical gun stepped from behind a tree and hesitated when he saw Sid. That small pause was all Sid needed to steal his weapon, clobber him over the head, and then unmask him.

Blond hair. Wild eyes. Youthful face.

“Jimmy,” Sid murmured.

The kid was fifteen when Sid had seen him last. Jimmy had chased Silver and Sid on their fateful Reaper mission into Elphyne to kidnap a powerful fae child for Nero to exploit. Sid’s heart clenched at the memory. Jimmy was a frightened teen with pimples and was a helluva lot greener than now.

Stronger jaw, haunted eyes, broader shoulders.

Jimmy had only followed them because he’d needed medicine for his mother… or was it his sister? Sid shook his head, ashamed at his lack of memory.

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re one of them now.” Jimmy glared at Sid’s blue mark beneath his eye. “You’re a fucking Tainted.”

Sid crouched to grip the young man’s collar.

“Listen carefully, Jimmy, because I will only say this once. There’s a reason Silver and I switched sides, and it wasn’t from some fairy spell.

Nero lied to us all, you hear me? We don’t need to be trapped in that cold prison.

Your mother wouldn’t be sick out here. Or, at the very least, she would have access to healers. ”

“I don’t want to turn into a fucking animal.”

“Do I look like an animal?” he growled, feeling frustration build when he thought of Nyra, how she had wings sprouting from her back, how other fae animalistic sides were different to humans but not something to be feared.

“Even if I did look it, some of these fae—these tainted animals —act more human than us.”

Silver appeared next to him. Perhaps she heard a familiar voice, or this was fate or the Well at work. But the second person Jimmy recognized broke his composure. He tried to hold it back, but Sid saw the doubt in his eyes.

“Jimmy,” Silver said softly, kneeling next to him. “Go back to Carla. Go back to Polly, and tell them quietly that you can come here and you will be welcome.”

“But…”

“I know you were with the party that kidnapped Willow. We’ve all done bad things we regret. That Sid is standing there before you now, his slate wiped clean, means you all have a chance. Don’t be a fool like these others. It will get you killed, and then who will look after your mother and sister?”

Emotion flared in Jimmy’s eyes, and Sid knew Silver had him. She lowered herself, whispered something into his ear, and then let him go. Jimmy scrambled to his feet, gave them a confused and pained look, then disappeared into the dark forest.

“Everyone counts.” Silver slid her bleak eyes to Sid. “If we can spread the word, then the more humans we can convince to leave Nero, the better for everyone.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Because if Jimmy goes back to tattle on them, anyone they befriended in Crystal City could be dead.

A scream behind Silver, somewhere nearby in the forest, said the battle still raged. Silver kicked Jimmy’s discarded mechanical gun toward Sid with a wince. “I can’t carry it without breaking my connection to the Well. But you can.”

Realization hit him—he could fight Nero with his own weapons. They jogged into the fight. Any human he came across, he gave the same choice he gave Jimmy. Retreat. Go back and spread the word that Nero has lied. If they refused, he gave them a swift death.

He almost thought they were winning, that they’d successfully stopped the raid before it worsened, but then he walked into the clearing where the digger was frozen, its claw buried in the dirt.

Two trucks were filled with raw cobalt. More Reapers and raiders had formed a barricade, protecting their spoils.

Some were Sid had given a second chance only minutes ago. They’d promised to return to Crystal City. Their betrayal hit him like a knife to the heart. He scanned the group, desperately seeking that shock of blond hair, and couldn’t find it.

At least Jimmy had the sense to leave.

Shade stepped out of the shadows, his expression grim as the humans gathered their weapons and prepared for an assault.

“Fuck them,” Shade growled, his vampiric fangs flashing. “Silver darling, let me drop you in there, and you can unleash.”

“That’s irresponsible,” she snapped back at him. “You know the decay can spread from them to the wildlife around here.”

“I’ll contain it with my darkness.”

She considered it. But in the space of a blink, she thought too long.

The humans had recovered, reloaded their weapons, and started spraying gunfire randomly into the bush around them.

Panic scorched Shade’s face. He grabbed his mate, and they disappeared in an explosion of shadow.

Sid ducked behind a tree and held his breath.

As he stayed shielded by the tree, he would be?—

“Sid!” Nyra’s voice was a hammer to his heart.

Time stood still. Nyra as behind him, full-sized and not shielded by a tree.

He heard the pop pop pop of gunfire. The whiz as bullets sailed past their heads.

Power built inside him—something born of instinct, fear, and the urge to protect—he grabbed his mate and unleashed.

He tried to do what Silver had said and pointed it away from them…

but the power didn’t want to listen. It stayed around Sid and Nyra, and suddenly, they were no longer human size.

Their bug-sized bodies tumbled across the ground as bullets splintered into the tree behind them, cascading shards of wood like boulders.

He covered Nyra with his body, “Stay down.”

The gunfire suddenly stopped. Either they’d run out of ammunition or—screams filled the air. Wet gurgles. Horrific cries for help. Sid heard someone gulping and drinking and remembered Shade was a vampire. Human blood was extra tasty.

Shade had done what Sid did—protect his mate first. Then he returned to make them pay.

Sid climbed off Nyra. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, wild eyes flared as he helped her to her feet.

“You shifted us at the right time,” he said, praising her. “Can you grow us again so I can join Shade?”

“But Sid, I didn’t shrink us.”

“What?”

She cocked her head, studying him. “That must have come from you.”

His finger touched the spot on his cheek where the Guardian teardrop glowed. “Do you think it was my gift? You always talk about your mana depleting after you use it, but I feel the same. Am I supposed to feel different?”

Her lips turned into an O of surprise, and she patted herself. “I feel different. I feel like I shifted, even though I didn’t command it.”

“You think I borrowed your mana?”

“Or maybe…” Her gaze turned thoughtful as it landed on the metal weapon in his hands.

Before he could stop her, she snatched it from him and gasped, her eyes wide and panicked.

He thought she’d drop it, but then one hand latched onto him, and she exhaled in relief.

Excited eyes met him, she gripped his arm and said, “I’m going to shift us back to full size. ”

“But you can’t,” he said. “You’re holding the gun.”

In a dizzying instant, they were back to full size. Nyra grinned and handed him the gun.

“Your gift is sharing,” she exclaimed. “Do you know what this means?”

“I don’t have a gift?”

“It means that when we touch, you can borrow from me, and I can borrow from you. I could use mana while holding metal, but only when connected to you. My connection to the Well was cut savagely when I let go of you. It felt like I’d flown too high or had walked over ancient ruins.

It hurt, Sid. It hurt to be cut. But then I touched you and it was back.

” Awe filled her eyes. “You’re the answer to the gully’s problem. ”

“Fangs, I’m not following.”

“My mother is having trouble connecting to the Well with all this metal.” She gestured to the mined and spilled cobalt.

To the bullets littered over the ground.

To the trucks. “But if I’m connected to you, borrowing your gift to flow the mana around the metal, then I can do what she can’t.

I can repair the damage the humans have done. I can bring the gully back to life.”

Sid could virtually feel the joy bursting from her. He lowered his lips and kissed her. She smiled and pulled back to say, “I’ll get my mother. We’ll start here where it’s worse.”

She was gone before he could protest, so he took a breath and shook his head, smiling to himself at how happy she was. His smile dropped when he walked toward Shade and Silver at the heart of the mining operation.

They had the situation under control. Those who weren’t dead were divested of weapons and huddled in a circle. Five, Sid counted as he walked closer.

Manabeeze floated lazily around the clearing, leaving ghostly streaks of light swirling through the misty darkness. Fae had been killed—Nyra’s people. His heart squeezed.

Shade’s hand rested protectively on Silver’s neck as she leaned over the group, snarling words at them Sid couldn’t hear.

Shade didn’t seem worried. His dark gaze eased to Sid as he approached.

His pointed vampire tongue darted out to lick the blood from the corner of his lips.

Then he lazily toyed with the long braid running down Silver’s back, waiting for her to finish saying whatever she needed.

This might not have ended this way if Shade hadn’t been here to help. Colt was right, Sid needed to spend time at the Order and train. Now that he had different weapons at his fingertips, he would have to relearn how to fight.

Sid’s bare feet crunched over rock and debris. He winced as sharp twigs stung. His adrenaline must have been too high to feel the pain before.

“Just kill them,” Shade growled impatiently.

“No,” Silver replied. “We have to give them a chance.”

“Some of them already had a chance,” Sid pointed out, nodding to the soldiers he’d faced and disarmed. Something familiar in their eyes halted him. Fear.

Sid was in their shoes once. He was who Shade had begged Silver to let him kill. But just like now, she’d stopped him. Even after that mercy, it had taken Sid months to change his mind about the Fae.

“But they need time,” he added, agreeing with Silver. “Change doesn’t happen overnight.”

“If we see you back here,” Shade snarled at them. “I’ll be drinking my fill.”

“Before we let them go,” Sid said. “Let them see Nyra and her mother bring this gully back to life. They need to witness it with their own eyes.”

Nyra returned with her mother and a collection of bloody, vicious pixie soldiers still twitchy from battle. Moss and the dark-haired, blue-eyed soldier were there. They wanted to kill the prisoners, but Sid and Silver convinced them to wait.

Queen Juniper’s expression was grave as she took her daughter’s face in her hands. “You were right, Nyra. The Well had a purpose.”

Her words came out breathless, as though she struggled to catch air. Her gaze skated to where Sid leaned against a tree, keeping a respectful distance. She beckoned him over. When he stood by Nyra’s side and curled his arm around her shoulders, Juniper gave him a genuine smile.

“Your love for my daughter is bright in your eyes. You will be a good consort.”

“Mother?” Nyra’s voice turned tight. “What’s wrong?”

“My darling daughter, it’s time to pass you the reign.” Juniper lifted the glass leaf tiara from her head and placed it on Nyra’s head. She swallowed, and her sad eyes teared as she grasped her daughter’s hands. “You are the new queen. The tithe belongs to you. The gully is yours to protect.”

Unseen energy thickened the atmosphere. It was like lightning on Sid’s tongue.

A vibration. The gully taking a breath. Juniper slumped as Nyra gasped and lifted.

Her back bowed as she floated, but her wings weren’t holding her aloft.

Worried, Sid reached for her, but Juniper’s cool fingers wrapped around his wrist.

“She is receiving the tithe. Look how bright she glows… my daughter.”

As though the sun powered Nyra’s heart, a light glimmered from her pores and wings, spilling into the clearing.

Everyone shielded their eyes until the light dimmed.

When Sid looked back at his mate, she stood on the ground with a shocked expression and tears leaking. Wordlessly, she beckoned for Sid.

“Hurts,” she choked out. “So much more than I ever felt. Mother was holding this pain for so long.”

He clasped hands with Nyra, she closed her eyes, and Sid felt a pull through his equilibrium.

Pain speared him, and he knew this must be the connection to the injured forest Nyra was talking about.

That pulling feeling intensified, and strange things around the glade started happening.

Lush ferns sprouted from the scorched earth.

Metal bullets, weapons, trucks, barrows, the digger…

it all sank like it was in quicksand. People hurriedly moved out of the way because Nyra’s reparation to the land wasn’t waiting.

Life sprung anew in the gully. The pain in Sid’s chest lessened. He could breathe again.

If only everyone could feel the pain when they hurt the world, perhaps they would take better care of it.

When it was done, when the forest was vibrant and green, Nyra opened her eyes and let go of Sid’s hand. Unlike Juniper, who looked pale in comparison, Nyra’s wings shone like diamonds. Her skin still glowed.

“Long live the queen,” Juniper whispered, smiling as she lowered to her knees.

One by one, the pixie soldiers around Nyra dropped and announced their new loyalty. When Sid was the only one left standing, he looked to Silver and Shade but found them gone—and the surviving humans too. Shade must have taken them back to Crystal City.

His lips curved as he took his queen’s hips in his hands. “You did it.”

“We did it.”

He lowered to his knees, still holding her thighs, and whispered, “Long live my queen. I will be with you every step of your reign.”

“Promise?”

His heart clenched. This time when he answered, no hint of a lie was on his tongue. “Always. Forever.”