Warrior Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac Book 5) Read online

  “Russel,” he said, swallowing hard as he looked me in the eyes, a flicker of anger there that awoke the demon in me.

  I cast a wooden blade in my hand as sharp as a knife and tossed it to him. He fumbled the catch, a murmur of terror escaping him as he held it like it was a cursed object.

  “You will cut one of your own ears off before I finish beating Bryce, or you will regret it, Russel,” I told him simply.

  He gasped in horror and Bryce winced as I threw my fist into his face, the word pain on my knuckles smashing into his jaw. He hit the ground and I leapt on him, pounding my fists into his body as he took it all like a good little scumbag, not even trying to fight me as I spilled his blood, drinking in his pain.

  “I don’t hear any cutting!” I roared at Russel and he wailed, starting to beg. Fuck, I hated when they begged. It disgusted me.

  I beat Bryce bloody, my breaths coming heavier as I thought of Elise, of that fucking robed asshole stealing her away from me. My punches became deadly as I crushed bones and made him scream so loud, it shook the walls. But nothing was going to get beyond my silencing bubble, and even if it did, I doubted there was anyone in this school with enough of a backbone to come save him from me.

  Bryce started fighting back as he realised I might just kill him, using his Vampire strength to slam furious punches into my sides. I relished his suffering, growling as my magic reserves swelled and the blinding pain juddering through me gave me some relief from the aching loss of Elise.

  When Bryce tried to run, I caught him by the throat and pinned him beneath me, squeezing as tight as I could. He was a rat, maybe I should just end him. But then I’d have to hide the body and I didn’t have time to fuck about. Besides, I didn’t kill my own unless I had entirely valid reasons and as much as he was questioning me, he hadn’t outwardly taken a stand against me. This should be enough to squash any more fancy ideas of rebellion he might have. And to teach the rest of my gang a lesson.

  When his head was about to pop and I had ice coating my arms from his water magic, I released him and Ethan stepped forward, pressing a hand to my back and immediately healing me without a word.

  I nodded to him, getting up as sweat ran down the back of my neck and I took heaving breaths as I turned to Russel. Two ears. No blood. Not even a cut.

  “Oh Russel,” I tutted, shaking my head. “How bitterly disappointing you are.”

  I strode toward him as he whimpered, trembling from head to toe as I snatched the blade from his hand. “Both ears it is then.”

  I shoved him down at my feet and he screamed, casting a dome of ice over himself in protection. I slammed my boot through it and grabbed hold of his shirt, ripping him out of it and binding him in vines before holding him up against the nearest wall. I fingered the blade as I moved toward him, letting him squirm and scream and beg while I just sneered at the pitiful display before me.

  I took the first ear slowly, letting him wail and hurt, but the second I cut off in one furious slice that would be a bitch to heal. The pain was enough to fill the last of my magic reserves but it did nothing to heal the aching hole in me over the loss of my girl. I spat venom onto my hand and rubbed it over his wounds, making him scream even louder. Now these wounds would scar horribly and there’d be no chance of him growing them back with a potion.

  I turned to Ethan with bloodied hands and he nodded to me.

  “What’s the plan, boss?” he asked brightly, clearly not remotely affected by the violence. He was my kind of Fae.

  “Send word to the entire Brotherhood to hunt our half of the city for Elise Callisto,” I ordered him.

  “Aye, aye captain,” he said with a smirk then turned and led my people out of the basement.

  A couple of guys dragged Russel and Bryce out, but they didn’t have the gall to start healing them in plain sight of me. And nothing would fix Russel fully.

  Things were back in order for now. But this was a Band-Aid on an open wound, and it would keep bleeding until death was near again. I couldn’t escape the path I was on. It was already too late. My men would follow me now, but for how much longer?

  I wasn’t afraid of death, but I was afraid of losing the glint of life Elise had offered me. If I couldn’t stem the betrayal running through my gang like poison quickly, then my time as the king of the Lunar Brotherhood was going to come to a bloody end. Our enemies wound up in ten pieces, but our traitors wound up obliterated. If they turned on me, my death was inevitable. So I had to rescue Elise and find a way to keep her safe for good. Because I wasn’t the only one they’d punish now they knew she was my weakness.

  M y fucking head.

  By the stars what the fuck had happened to me and where the hell was I?

  I groaned as I pushed myself up into a sitting position, squinting at the dark, stone chamber I found myself in and brushing bits of grit and gravel from my side that had stuck to me while I was out of it.

  I reached for the well of magic which should have been living inside me and my heart lurched as I found it severely lacking. My tongue swept over my fangs as they snapped out and the bloodlust hit me hard and fast.

  Shit.

  A snarl slipped from my throat as I looked around in the dark urgently, hunting out some form of prey to sate this thirst in me. How long had I been out to be this desperate for it? I felt dizzy and achy, and my throat fucking hurt with how much I needed blood.

  I hadn't been tapped out like this in a long damn time. Not since my kings had become my Sources. I was a damn addict for the taste of all four of them and I made sure to take my fix daily. They were a habit I had no intention of quitting and I’d been spoiled by how regularly I’d been partaking. But this feeling...fuck I swear it actually hurt.

  I took a deep breath and fought the bloodlust back as best I could, trying to focus on where I was and what was going on.

  "Hello?" my voice rasped out and I licked my dry lips as I looked around at the dank space I found myself in.

  I got to my feet, my legs more than a little wobbly and pain ricocheting through the left side of my skull, causing me to press my fingers to it. Sticky, half-dried blood clung to my fingertips where it was matted in my hair, but there wasn't any wound, so I had to guess someone had healed me. Though not well enough to banish the ringing in my skull or the dull thump of a headache that was pressing in on me.

  No one answered my shaky call and I took a deep breath as I focused on my senses, listening with my gifts as I tried to hear anything or anyone nearby. It was almost entirely silent beyond this space and I cursed as I realised I was within a damn silencing bubble. And with no magic in my blood, there was nothing I could do to remove it.

  Just as I was about to return my hearing to normal, I noticed a faint sound like the lapping of water coming from above me and I stilled as I tried to concentrate on it and figure out what it meant.

  I tilted my head back, using my gifted sight to pierce the darkness that surrounded me and noticing the faintest sheen on the ceiling overhead. It was hard to make out much, but I was almost certain there was a small amount of silvery light up there somewhere, way above my head, just about reaching me in the gloom.

  "Hello?" I tried again, walking towards the edge of the room and stopping when my outstretched hand met with cold stone.

  There were patterns carved into the rocks that surrounded me but even with my Vampire gifts, I couldn't see well enough in the gloom to pick them out.

  I started walking, keeping my fingers pressed to the cold rock and feeling my way around the circular chamber. The walls were only broken once by a single solid, wooden door which must have been the only way out of here.

  I felt all around it before realising there was no handle on the inside then steeled myself as I gathered my gifts and built up the strength in my limbs.

  I backed up several steps before shooting towards the door, slamming into it with my shoulder and making it rattle. But it didn't give.

  I threw myself at it again and again, ignor
ing the pain that burst through my arm as I just kept going.

  I had to get out of here. There was no alternative.

  "Let me out!" I roared, wondering if the silencing bubble went both ways or if whoever was out there could hear me.

  As I backed up to run at the door again, air magic slammed into my body and I was hoisted off of my feet, cursing loudly as I was suspended in the centre of the room. I kicked and thrashed but it achieved nothing, and I fell still as a faint sound reached me from beyond the door.

  The door burst open and I squinted as the flickering orange light of a burning torch assaulted my eyes, lighting the space outside and a little of my prison too.

  The carvings on the walls were thrown into sharp focus and I glanced at the countless images of every kind of shifter intermingled with constellations and words written in a language I couldn't read. Above my head, I realised the roof was glass and I sucked in a breath. I was in an amplifying chamber, somewhere deep beneath the ground with water overhead. This was a place designed to boost The Sight, but I had no such gifts so why was I here?

  A figure stepped through the doorway, shadows seeming to cling to their very being and a cloak pulled around them to conceal their features. I stopped trying to fight the magic that was holding me and just hung there, fixing all of my attention on them as I waited to see what would happen next.

  This was him. Or her. King. The one I'd been hunting for so fucking long. The reason I'd enrolled at Aurora Academy. The reason my brother had died.

  "Hello, Elise," King purred in a tone that was at once familiar and alien, male and female. "I suppose it's time we got to work."

  I opened my mouth to scream or curse or just call this asshole out on being a psychotic motherfucker with Daddy issues, but before I could do any of those things the cloaked figure lifted a hand filled with glittering purple powder and blew it into my face.

  I inhaled it before I could stop myself and my limbs fell instantly slack. If their magic hadn't been holding me suspended off of the stone floor I would have fallen flat on my back in the blink of an eye.

  My consciousness began to slip away from me as I felt myself floating out of the chamber at their command, my eyelids fluttering closed while my heart raced in fear.

  I battled to stay awake with the last few ounces of my strength, and my mind filled with pain and panic as I thought of the four men who had captured my heart and wondered where they were now.

  When I'd first started out on this mission to avenge my brother's death, I'd foolishly believed one of them had been my target. Who would have thought that I'd be relying on them so heavily now? Because I knew in my soul that I couldn't get myself out of this. I had no idea where I was or what was going to happen to me, no magic at my disposal and no way to fight back.

  The only thing I had was hope and love. I needed to believe that my kings would find me somehow. I needed to place my faith in them unlike I ever had before. Because without them I was certain that I would find out Gareth's fate clearly enough by succumbing to the same darkness myself. I was going to die here.

  A single tear slipped from the corner of my eye as the darkness pulled me under and the last thing I thought of as I was drawn into the shadows was that I didn't want to die. I'd been willing to sacrifice everything I had and everything I was in the pursuit of justice for my brother. But that was before. When I didn't have them. And now that I did, I knew with an unending certainty that I couldn't give them up. I needed them more than I'd ever needed anything in my life, and I was almost convinced that they felt the same way about me.

  The darkness pressed closer and a tremor ran down my spine as it drew me away.

  Please don't give up on me, boys. I need you.

  T wo weeks and there hadn’t been a single sign of my little monster. The stars made me burn for her in an eternal fire, the strength of the Elysian Mate bond between us fiercer than ever. Losing her had been the most unthinkable possibility to ever cross my mind. So much so that it never really had. And now the worst had happened. And I was fucking useless to her.

  I hunted day and night, barely sleeping and keeping myself perky on energy booster spells. It was taking its toll, man, I knew that. But I’d straight up die if I didn’t find her, and I wasn’t sure that was even an exaggeration.

  Gabriel landed beside me in a dingey alley on the rougher side of Alestria. It was weird it even had a rougher side considering it was ninety nine percent rough wherever you went. But this here was deathsville for any weak and stupid Fae who wandered into this particularly nasty corner of hell.

  Gabriel’s black, velvety wings folded behind his back and he nodded to me, his jaw tight and his eyes as hollow as my chest felt. I moved into him, hugging him firmly and nuzzling into his neck. He wrapped one arm around me and released a noise that spoke of how much he needed this too. My bro wasn’t much of a hugger, but I didn’t really take no for an answer, so he was coming ‘round to the idea.

  Footsteps sounded behind me and I broke apart from Gabriel, finding Dante striding out of a glimmer of stardust, his shoulders rigid as he approached us. He clapped me on the back and I shared a look of desperation with him before we turned to Gabriel.

  “He’s going to be on the corner of Firefly Street in five minutes,” he said and a growl rumbled through my chest, my Lion pushing against the inside of my flesh.

  “Let’s go,” I insisted and Gabriel nodded, leading the way out onto the road, casting an illusion over us to keep our identities concealed.

  He was one powerful fucker and I could feel the weight of the magic as it trickled over me. I didn’t really care if my enemies saw my face tonight personally - they wouldn’t survive ‘til dawn to remember it. But keeping Gabriel’s involvement in this a secret was important considering he was our only connection to the Black Card, and if they figured out he was helping to hunt out important members of their twisted little cult, King might take an interest in killing him deader than dead.

  Of course, King hadn’t shown his face since he’d taken our girl, but he had been as busy as a little bastard of a bee. Killblaze was spreading through the city like free cake and junkies were popping up all over the place like freaking jack-in-the-boxes. But Gabriel hadn’t been summoned to a single Black Card meeting since Elise had been taken and it was making me anxious as a shit on a Tuesday.

  I knew she was still alive though. The star bond roared as loud as a claxon in my head, begging me to find her. And I was sure I would have felt it if she was dead. Gabriel said he felt it too through The Sight and though Dante and Ryder hadn’t said anything of that affect, I could see it in their eyes. They felt her because we were all meant for her. The four of us were cast from stardust in the exact image of the soulmates she needed. And I may have had silver rings in my eyes, but that didn’t make my love any fiercer than my brothers’ love for her. It was clear in the way they hunted for her, their desperation equalling mine in every way. I hadn’t had a whiff of a doubt about any of them before, but if they’d had doubts themselves, I hoped they could see now how much we all deserved her now.

  We headed along the street where a Harpy with one beaten up black wing was begging for money and a half shifted Lexian Goat woman was frying up some kind of bugs in a rusty old pan over a magical flame. I mighta had one for a laugh once and said Hakuna Matata before I ate it. Not anymore though. I hadn’t smiled since Elise had been taken. And the only food I ate was the meals Gabriel made for us at his apartment. I’d only been home once, unable to bear the look of sadness in my parents’ eyes after I’d told them what had happened.

  They were already broken over the loss of Roary, now they were broken over Elise too. And not just that, I’d seen the way my dad had looked at me. Like I’d done this. Like I should have been there to protect her. And I felt the same way. I’d let her down. The one person I’d vowed to love and cherish for the rest of time, the one the stars had chosen as my perfect match, who I’d claimed as my Lioness queen. I hadn’t protected her
when she needed me most. What kind of Lion did that make me?

  Gabriel led the way down a dark street as the moon shifted behind the clouds above. There was a betting shop across the road where punters were placing bets on the Pegasus sky racing that was playing on the screens inside.

  We leaned against a wall side by side, waiting for our mark to emerge. I had the urge to shift, tear in there and grab the bastard between my teeth. I’d rip limbs off until he told me where my little monster was, and I’d make his death the most painful I could if he had the answer. But that wasn’t the plan. I couldn’t go off half-cocked. I had to be fully cocked. We handled every target the same way; we captured them discreetly and Ryder came to collect them.

  “How’s Rosa?” I murmured to Dante and he sighed.

  “Better,” he replied with a heaviness to his voice. “But she won’t talk about Felix. I’ve tried to get her to open up, my mamma has too. She just refuses to talk about what he did to her. And I’m afraid she won’t ever open up now.”

  I shook my head at that, hurting for Dante’s kid cousin. The scars left on her body by Felix would never heal, they’d been left there by a Sun Steel blade. There was no undoing that shit. And it broke my heart to think of what she’d faced at the hands of her own father.

  “It’s time,” Gabriel murmured and we all stood upright as the asshole in question stepped out of the betting shop.

  He was a grisly fucker with a weathered face and slicked back grey hair. He pulled up the hood of his coat then started walking up the road and a low growl rolled through my throat.

  As one, the three of us crossed over the quiet street and followed him while Dante worked to draw the shadows closer around us for cover. We were three predators on a hunt and the beast housed in my body hungered for death keener than it ever had. This danger in me wasn’t new, but it was at its peak. There was nothing more deadly than a star bound Fae parted from their mate by force. They’d tear the heavens apart for one another. And if King thought they could hide her from me, they were going to be proven seriously wrong when I got my hands on them. I’d bleed every drop of blood from their veins, spill their magic into the earth and let it rot there. Elise Callisto belonged to four powerful creatures who would happily see every star in the sky fall if it would return her to us. And I would be the first to rip one down.