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CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

PIERCE

We’d been in here a long time. Not that I had any proof, just a really bad gut feeling. The fact that my phone stopped working at the same time my analog watch did was decidedly not a good sign.

Neither was what I saw.

Nothing here was right. At a surface-level glance, it was no different than any other normal forest and that was what made it so terrifying. At least in the Land of the Lore, I knew that place was wrong going in. I knew that place was made from evil and darkness, of magic so wicked and cruel that it warped your subconscious mind. Before we entered the Old Lands, I would’ve scoffed at the notion this place was more unsettling. But it was. Without a doubt. Because it looked almost normal. Because the purple sky was pretty. Because the neon colors of the plants, flowers, and even the dirt reminded me of the Lisa Frank stickers of my childhood.

Everyone expected fear in the shadows . . . but not in a sunny field of wildflowers.

And in all fairness, nothing had happened to warrant the growing panic inside of me. Yet that didn’t mean I didn’t have cause. A few hours ago, right after the sun had set and Sweyn went off with the Unseelies to attack innocent humans, the Unseelie Prince had grabbed Sam and me. He hadn’t said where we were going or why, though he wasn’t the most transparent guy around. Unless of course it came to Sam. I’d never seen emotion on his face until Sweyn threw Sam out into the sun. While I’d tended to Sam’s burns and got her blood, the Prince had ripped Sweyn a new asshole—-or at least it sounded that way. They hadn’t been speaking English. As we walked through this neon forest fit for a Barbie Doll, the Prince kept a close eye on her, watching her every breath.

He either liked her or was worried she would betray Lilith like Everest had.

If it was the latter, well, he wasn’t wrong.

Finally, the Prince stopped walking. My vampire reflexes prevented me from embarrassing myself by crashing into him. Barely. Sam yanked me back a foot. The Prince narrowed those new creepy yellow cat eyes and spun in a slow circle. In here, his black hair was a vibrant navy-blue. I had no idea what that meant but I hated it.

“ Leave, ” he snarled, his gaze locked on the turquoise bushes to our right. He let out a vicious growl that sent a chill down my spine.

The bushes rustled. I caught a glimpse of a striped tail with a cluster of spikes at the tip, then it was gone. My eyes widened. “What was that?”

“ Chimera, ” the Prince said with a snarl. He gestured for us to follow to the left. “This way.”

“Chimera . . . those aren’t . . . real . . .?”

The Prince glanced over his shoulder at me. The smirk sent my pulse flying. “Everything is real In the Old Lands, Pierce. Do not let the colors fool you or you may find yourself as prey.”

My stomach turned and tightened. I knew it. I bloody well knew it. My gaze snapped left and right and back again as we walked. I scanned the ground in front of me and the sky above us. There were eyes on us in every direction. Not that I saw eyes, but I felt them—a vampire instinct I had learned not to ignore by now.

Sam reached out and wrapped her arm around mine, her hand squeezing my bicep. “From what I learned . . . before . . . the Old Lands aren’t actually fully tethered to our realm.”

“Wait.” I looked down at her. “We’re not on Earth here?”

“It’s a gray area.” She shivered. “I don’t wanna think about it more than that.”

“Then why are we here?” The words tumbled out before I could stop them.

The Prince stopped and I braced myself for an attack. Instead, he crouched down in front of a bush of weird flowers. “Do you see these?” He gestured to a giant flower that was black with metallic-gold thorns.

“Yes,” Sam and I said at the same time.

He bent down and blew on the flower. Glittery black mist billowed from his mouth onto the flower, turning it to dust on contact. He waved his hands in front of him to push that glittery black mist over to the other identical flowers on that bush. In seconds, dozens of those pretty yet strange flowers were destroyed. I frowned. Something was not okay about that.

The Prince stood and walked a little farther until more of those flowers popped up. With a sickening grin, he went to work destroying each and every one. He moved in a line, from one plant to the next, destroying every one of those flowers he found. It was like pulling weeds in a garden. And he was only killing those flowers.

Sam tossed her long platinum-blonde hair over her shoulder and peeked up at me through dark eyelashes. Her red and gold eyes sparkled. “You okay, Pierce?”

“Yeah- . . . yes . . . yup. Totally good.” I cleared my throat and looked away, only for my gaze to land on the Prince watching her from twenty feet away. His yellow cat eyes lingered on her body and there was single-minded focus in the heat of his stare. I looked back to Sam. “You?”

“These burns are making me hot.” She fanned herself. “There’s no breeze right here. Do you feel one over there?”

I walked backwards without hesitation or looking where I was going. Her words were my command. Women like Sam were the reason human societies of the past believed in goddesses like Aphrodite and wrote stories about gorgeous monsters who lured men in with their beauty before turning them to stone. Beautiful blonde snakes. I shook myself and glanced down to a fallen log that I stepped over. A cool breeze swept over my face.

“Oh, there’s a breeze here.”

She skipped over until she felt the breeze brush through her hair, then she moaned. “That feels good.”

“Look for more of these.” The Prince growled and shook himself back into focus.

“I’m thirsty. I need to feed to heal my wounds, so let’s divide and conquer. Pierce, go look over there,” Sam said while pointing to my right. “The sooner we destroy all of them, the sooner we can go home for a . . . bite.”

The Prince growled and stormed farther away from us.

Sam glanced over her shoulder, then turned back to me. She tugged me closer and then whispered, “ Run. ”

I flinched. “ What? ” I whispered back.

“ This is your chance, Pierce. You saw what she did to me. She won’t hesitate to kill you if she sniffs your loyalty out of you. It’s time to run ? —”

“But she’ll just come find me, or he will ? —”

“Not if they think you’re simply lost in here.” She glanced back to ensure the Prince wasn’t paying attention, then turned back to me, gently pushing me farther away. “ Look, time doesn’t work the same here and no one controls it. This isn’t the Land of the Lore. The literal Garden of Eden entrance is in here. Also ? —”

I gasped. “ What?”

“—The Coven came in here in the fall and a few days for them wound up being five weeks out there. ” She squeezed my hands. “ This place is infamous for losing people, for people getting stuck here ? —”

“Then why would I want ? —”

“Do you want to run, Pierce? Do you want to get away from Sweyn and her side of the war?”

“Yes,” I said instantly. “ I can’t take it anymore.”

She nodded and looked pointedly to my right. “ Then now is your chance. If you run now, you have a chance of getting to The Coven. If you don’t run now, you may never get free.”

My chest grew tight. I needed to breathe, but she’d caught my attention. I didn’t want to be in this war at all, but if I had to be, then I wanted to be on Heaven’s side. The Coven’s side. “But you—-I can’t leave you alone.”

“Oh, Pierce, sweet summer child.” She pushed up on her toes and pressed her lips to mine. It was just a quick peck that ended too soon, but the snarl on the Prince’s face felt like claws down my spine. Sam tugged on my shirt and leaned into me. I was fairly certain she was putting on a show for the Prince, but I didn’t mind being her toy. “ Look, I’m Lilith’s granddaughter. Everest betrayed her. You and I are not playing the same game here. I appreciate you, but you have to run. Now.”

I reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “ He’s watching. ”

She giggled and ran her fingers down my chest. “ Yes, that’s the idea. Now, you listen to me, Pierce Fenn. When I turn around, I’m going to give him my attention. You’re going to watch carefully, and the second his back turns, you’re going to run as fast as your little tickling legs will take you. Got it?”

I nodded. “You’re a wicked little thing,” I said with my best flirtatious voice.

“Be a good boy. Go look for that flower over there.” Sam spun on her toes and skipped toward the Prince.

His eyes watched the way her body moved when she ran. She bent over at the waist and whispered in his ear. His eyes closed ever so slightly and only for a moment, but I saw it. He wanted her. I could have sworn his cheeks flushed. When she stood, I definitely didn’t imagine the way his eyes tracked the movement.

I smirked. You go, girl.

Sam took a step back, then without breaking eye contact with him, she untied her white silk wrap dress and let it drop to the ground, revealing her fit form in a white crop top and little shorts that did nothing to cover the curves of her ass. Her arms, neck, and face had been burned by the sun earlier, and while those wounds were gnarly, the rest of her body was absolutely flawless. I’d never been one to openly objectify a woman, yet with Sam I couldn’t stop myself. She was perfection in human form. Dangerously beautiful. Designed to lure a man to his death with a smile on his face.

And then Sam pointed behind him. With a flip of her hair over her shoulder, she walked around him toward a bush with those flowers a feet away. Instantly, like a puppy on a leash, the Unseelie Prince turned to watch her.

So I ran.