Read Awakened (A Fairy Tales Novel) Online
Authors: Melanie Walker
“The same deal was given to Ashess, ah yes I see your fight there as well. He forced her to feed from you for her strength never telling either one of you that the feeding would be permanent, to seal the two of you in strength. She is what did he call it…” He tapped a finger to the side of his mouth, the pressure of his search digging inside of her mind to the point of agony. “Ah yes, a "Succubus”.”
“You feed Ash?” Fangs asked but his voice was barely audible over the pain.
“She despises it, hates the very feel of fangs on her skin, don’t you Briar?”
She didn’t answer, was beyond answers. She hated feeding Ash because with it came Ash’s emotions and the darkness in Cinderella was un-fucking-livable. Feeding Fangs had been pleasure among any other.
“She has been desperate to protect you, completely devoid of what you are capable of, she only knows fear and the evil Fil is capable. Jesus, it’s almost sickening to see the wealth of love she has for you.” He snarled the last part and turned his attention back to Fangs. “And you berate her for it out of pride. You are truly a fool.”
“She deprives herself of all things, avoids peace because it has a cost. Looking in her mind has been a lesson in absolute pain, in the barest sense of the word. She is simply waiting for a coffin to curl up in. I venture a guess at saying that she is completely ruined.”
With that single word she had lost the fight. He Bring her feelings and thoughts come from another while you are helpless to protect yourself is the worst type of death.
“Perhaps be a gentleman and give the girl a spinning wheel and prick her damn finger because she needs a good night’s sleep and honestly, eternity would do her a world of good.” With that he pulled back from her mind gently closing all her doors and lockers where she safely hid her most treacherous memories. One by one they were locked away but it was no use, he had effectively opened Pandora’s box and what came back, if any part of her did at all, would never be the same.
“Where is the knife!?” Fangs demanded his voice like a razor, he was not asking again.
Game over.
“Are you aware that even if she finds the knife, she must use it? Fil is stronger than he has been given credit for, I know him and he will not go gently into that light. You are giving her false hope.”
Fangs moved faster than Briar could track, his fangs were dropped and his veins had gone as black as his eyes and covered his smooth skin like a band of ropes. Those daggers hidden in his mouth sank fast and fierce in the neck of Adam Cane as a wail of torment ripped through the house, shattering the
fesh
as Cane’s wife and daughter rushed into the room.
“Tell me now or you die in front of your wife and child, I could care less!” For the first time in his thousand years Fangs made a threat he had no intention of keeping. He wasn’t thinking in the box he did business in. This was all about Briar and a claimed Vampire would do
anything
to save their claimed.
Bri was shaking uncontrollably as she tried to stand from the seat but her joints were making mini earthquakes and her voice was so not cooperating. “Please…” Adam gasped. “Release me… I’ll give…anything.”
Fangs retracted and Adam gulped in air his eyes demanding his wife leave and take their daughter with them. “Who has it?” Fangs demanded again.
“The Weaver.”
*
“What the hell does a
Contaca
Soul
need the knife for? He’s not even a demon.” He let the blood drip from his Fangs so that Adam knew he meant business.
“He was given the Blessed Knife for safe keeping.”
Fangs stepped back and thought of the reasoning behind giving something as important as the knife to a
Contaca
Soul
. It made no sense. They didn’t have the strength or resources to keep it safe. He needed to get Bri back to the crypt and get that little fucker Peter Pan to start answering some questions. If anyone knew all there was about
Contaca Souls’
it was Peter Pan.
He stalked toward Adam each step taken with hatred and malice. “If she is any different than the girl I brought in here when she finds her footing I will take a pound of flesh for
every
nightmare,
every
tear, every god damned flinch she makes!”
Adam nodded and the smell of his own fear, fear of Fangs revenge was a permeable stench in the room. “May I say something to make an amends to you on good faith?”
Fangs snarled having heard all he needed from the worthless snipe, but nodded, hedging that it may be needed.
“What I opened in her was a service. I may have hurt her in the process but she was as tattered as a string on a runaway kite, it was a matter of days before the tether keeping her sane broke.”
Adam adjusted his tie as he continued to speak, his voice calm, level and filled with a sadness Fangs didn’t understand. “It takes courage and strength to survive what she has and still want to find the good.” He stepped forward to Fangs with a threat of his own. “A warning if I may: She was shattered by whatever connection you severed between the two of you. Her reasons for leaving you were for your safety and her own, however foolish they were. Find a way to salvage whatever is left of that connection because your love is going to keep her stronger than any blood any contract and any knife let alone the blessed one. Fil
will
kill her. He will not hesitate, no warning and no flinch, he will do it the first chance he has.”
“What happens between Briar and I is our business and you are crossing a line I won’t hesitate to kill over.” Fangs didn’t need advice from a demon on Briar. He got to see the mess she was up close and personal and still he wanted her. His reasons for denying to let her back in were strictly because she was planning to walk in the end. The end game did not include
them
. No happily ever after, no once upon a time. What was, was, and it came and passed and now it was about survival. As much as he loved her, wanted her he would watch her leave. Leaving him was all she had left, he understood it now and he wouldn’t fight her.
“I’m willing to test that line and offer her my support as an ally.”
“Why would you offer yourself as an ally when I am the dog at your heels?”
“Because I saw what you cannot ever understand. You have a taste of her because of your claims.” He pointed at himself, “I have been in her and I look forward to the vengeance she can unravel. As a fear demon it’s a buffet. But I warn you now, she is not what you think she is, let alone what she thinks she is. Her power is… terrifying.”
“I’ll pass it on.” Fangs said not betting that he would. He lifted Bri into his arms and headed for the door, he made his point . Adam Cane knew what waited for him if he so much as thought about Bri in a harmful way. Whatever he meant about her being something else entirely, well Ezek would answer to that and a shitload more.
Adam followed him to the car but stayed a distance behind. Never a good idea to stalk a stalker. One wrong move and Fangs would have his bite locked in like a junkyard dog. As Fangs jumped in the driver’s seat Adam spoke. “I would offer my assistance to you as well. I find your form of threats a bit demented and I can only imagine the fear you unleash.”
“Perhaps one day I may need a fear demon to help clean up a mess but until then I’m not making any commitments.” Fangs slammed the door and started the cruiser when Adam tapped on the glass.
Jesus this guy was persistent. He rolled the window down and an aggravated “what” sounded through the night.
“Do you know of her scars?”
Fangs glanced at Bri her scars not on display because when he strapped her in he folded her head to the side and let her hair fall around her face just like she preferred. “No, she never told me and I never asked. Figured however it happened was torture enough, no sense reminding her.”
“I think you should ask her. Perhaps knowing the why’s of things helps to understand the reasons.” And with that he turned and walked away, having slipped his card in the window pane of the cruiser.
*
Fangs took Bri to his home, a condo off of Capitol Hill in the heart of Seattle’s Emerald City. He ordered her a pizza and found a series marathon of Deadliest Catch, her favorite. They hadn’t spoken and he didn’t mind the silence. He waited for the pizza and then went to take a shower and give Bri some space. She finally stopped shaking about an hour ago and the constant chatter of her lips softened courtesy of Jim Beam black label.
He had sang those blues before so he knew the relief only three fingers of Kentucky straight would offer.
His mind however was not about to be shut down and it raced a mile a minute. There were too many questions now, things that Adam Cane pulled free and left dangling and Fangs damn well couldn’t ask her about them. His first plan of attack had been calling Peter and leaving a message that he was looking for The Weaver, a
Contaca Soul
who had been entrusted with one of history’s greatest mysteries and that little Fairy would know damn well who Weaver was.
Second on his list of Fuck you very much was a nice little chit chat he would have with Ezek. If what Adam claimed, Ezek manipulated Bri in her most vulnerable state, making her a pawn in a fight she didn’t have a clue about. As far as he knew Ezek didn’t have a reason to use Bri and Ash in his rise to power. And the whole feeding Ash thing had him hanging his head under the shower's drilling splash in absolute confusion.
He knew Bri was concerned for Ash while they were in Ontario, but that worry stemmed from a fucking life force, a bond forged between the two of them that absolutely neither one had any hope of getting free of. He knew about feeding, with it came the others emotions, their deepest thoughts. He knew Ash and he wouldn’t have fed from her for a million dollars and twelve burn free sunsets. The girl had issues and a dark side to rival the Grim Reaper.
Adams words ran through his head repeating like a god forsaken Allstate commercial.
“Perhaps be a gentleman and give the girl a spinning wheel and prick her damn finger because she needs a good night’s sleep and honestly, eternity would do her a world of good.”
He knew the meaning, understood it. Like the rest of the world he knew the Disney version of Bri's life. Hell the minute he found out who she truly was he went out and bought the blue ray bonus pack, along with Cinderella, Snow White and Beauty and the Beast.
Speaking of Beast and Belle... Jesus, the way Bri broke down about that had him on an alter of suffering, crying out to the almighty for a request to turn back time. Learning how sacrificial Bri had been in her long life, it must have killed her to know that Belle sacrificed herself so Bri would have a guardian of the contract and the knife, no doubt a protector of Ash's slippers and Winters apple seed.