Forever Fae (35 page)

He smirks as he says, “Nice plan, though, luring me out
here to seduce me like a siren in heat.
B
ut I think we need an audience, don’t you?”

He turns away from me and yells out into the forest, “I know you’re out here somewhere and if you don’t show yourself now, I
’m going to put her through ungodly
pain each second you decide to waste.”

Ryder
appear
s
first
,
off
to my left and our gazes land
on each other.  My eyes begin to fill with tears, but I refuse to blink and let them fall.  I am not weak and I will get us out of here.  Our situation
is
too dire to think of anything other than getting out.  I wonder if Nixie is around and what she has planned. 
I look around for her, but I don’t see her.
If she is here I hope she has some magical plan to help us get out of here sometime soon. 

The dark sor
cerer sees Ryder appear and taunts sarcastically
, “Ah, Prince Ryder, it’s nice to
finally meet you and might I say, you’re looking pretty dapper in that new skin.
  Thank you for j
oining us on this special night because
I’m su
re you’ll find the festivities rather…unappealing.”  My heart
s
inks
because t
he last thing I want is for Ryder and Merrick to see what this bastard does to me.

“Don’t you dare touch her, you worthless piece of shit!” Ryder yells. He’s fuming and his stance
tells me
he’s about to attack any minute.

“Oh, I plan to do a lot more than just touching
her, Prince Ryder,” he provokes with menace.

Ryder bolts
to
ward the dark sorcerer, but is stopped by some kind of
in
visible force.  Merrick appears
in front of Ry
der holding him back. I notice
a silver locket
dangling from Merrick’s hand and I recognize it as the
locket he gave me for my birthday.  I wonder what he’s doing with it.

The dark sorcerer is amused at Ryder’s anger and claps his hands when Merrick appears. 
He laughs
.

“Now that was easy.  I’m surprised, Guardian, that you would stop him.  Killing Ryder would pu
t you next in line for her heart
,
now wouldn’t it?
  Isn’t t
hat what you have always wanted
?
T
o
have her love?”

Merrick’s scowl
is
impressive as he
sp
its
, “I already have her love, but your cold, dead heart wouldn’t
know anything about that
.”

The da
rk sorcerer put
s
on a mock frown
and on Av
ery’s face it just looks evil
.

H
e
shrugs his shoulders and replies coldly
, “Well, that may be the case, but I plan on enjoying her love while you two watch and then I plan on killing you both while she watches.”

In that second, the oily tree roots rise from the ground and bind both Ryder and Merrick to the trees behind them.  Their eyes grow wide
with shock and they both gasp
for air after being knocked against the tree.  The force of the impact
ma
kes
a loud thump as their bodies
are
thrown against them. 

The dark sorcerer smiles and then turns
to me.  I begin to walk back
ward
slowly as he makes his way forward
.  I look at both
Ryder and Merrick as I move.  They are both trying desperately to
get free
of the roots, but I know they won’t succeed.  I’m going to try to get them
out once I can concentrate and connect to the ground.  I give Ryder a reassuring look to let him know I’ll be fine. 

I look over at Merrick and
he stops moving when I
silently say,
“I’ll be fine, Merrick.  I’m going to get you both out of those roots and then we’ll attack.  Just give me a little time.”

“Please hurry, Calista.  I can’t bear to see him touching you.”

I nod at him quickly and explain,
“When I release you from the roots I’m going to use as much magic as I can.  I want you to hit him full force with your fire.  This should distract him and then we can attack.”

“Nixie is here as well.  She says she’s going to help us
,
”
he says.

Relief washes through me, but
I don’t have time to answer back because the dark sorcerer lunges and takes me down to the ground.  A scream escapes my throat and the impact of the fall leaves me breathless.  He pins me to the ground
,
drivi
ng his body down on top of mine, and
I can feel the mud squishing
beneath
my body. 
His weight
has me struggling to breathe, but I know I have to concentrate.

“What do you say, Princess?  Is it time to start the show?”
H
e
teases darkly.
 

I don’t even reward him with a response
;
I just stay quiet.  If I yell at him and throw around my temper
,
it’ll only fuel his determination and I might not be able to escape from that.  I just stare at him with a blank expression and he frowns.

“Where’s the feisty and stubborn
p
rincess
I have heard so much about?  I thought you would be more fun and put up a fight
,” he provokes.
 

‘
Just wait, dickhead, you haven’t seen me fight yet
,’
I think to myself.  I’m going to come at him full force when I get off this ground.

I hear Ryder and Merrick screaming in the background, but I can’t see them because the dark sorcerer is on top of me.  I just have to play helpless a little while longer.  I take a deep breath in and lay my hands flat on the ground beside me. I let go of everything going on and concentrate on the ground and the roots that
are
holding my men hostage.  The dark sorcerer is oblivious to what I’m doing and slowly glides his hand down my body over my breasts to the laces of my brown leather pants. 

‘
Concentrate
,’ I say to myself.
  He starts to undo my laces.

‘
Concentrate
.
’
 
The
laces are undone.

‘
Concentrate
’
.
  His hands are reaching down.  I clench my hands and grit my teeth, all I want to do is fight him off, but it’s not time yet.  I have to be strong.  It’s hard to be strong when you’re being tou
ched by a psychotic,
magic
-
wielding prick
that wants your power and your body.

I can feel the power of the Black
Forest and it’s fighting my
magic and trying to block me out, but I feel a push helping me along. 
That’s weird,
I wonder where that’s coming from
.
O
r
is it the push of deter
mination I am feeling right now fueling the magic
?
 
I don’t know, but I do know that t
he roots are starting to unwind slowly. 

“We’re getting out, Calista.  Hit him hard and I’ll follow with min
e.  Ryder is going to attack being invisible.”

“
O
K
, Merrick, here I go.”

I call upon my fire magic and put as much emphasis on it as I can.  It may not be as potent as before with my power being taken, but it will definitely do some damage.  I let out a guttural scream that hurts even my ears and I let my power fly.  It hits him straight in the face and he quickly
backs away from me screaming
.

“You, Bitch!”

I jump to my feet and get into my fighting stance.  I didn’t train
all this time to sit back on my ass
. 
I shout with fury,
“You want the feisty and stubborn
p
rincess
?  You got her, fuckface.”  His face literally looks that way
,
too.  It’s slowly starting to heal, but he looks like one of those monsters in the horror movies I’ve watched in the mortal realm.

  I look over to Merrick and Ryder
.
  I only see Merrick
, and thankfully he is free
.  Ryder is invisible somewhere so I concentrate on what Merrick’s doing.  The dark sorcerer has his back turned and Merric
k sends a fire ball straight at him
. The dark sorcerer falls to his knees with a grunt, but gets back up
swiftly
.  Ryder appears behind him with his s
word drawn and takes a swipe, but he ducks and dodges the blade.
Fear washes through me when I see the dark sorcerer reaching for the dagger in his belt.  It’s an iron blade and if it cuts one of them, they will die.  I have to make sure they hear me so I scream as loud as I can.

“The blade is
iron
! Don’t let him get too close.”

With the blade being made of iron
,
it can kill one of us very easily.  The sorcerer can hold the blade because he’s not fae, but if we were to hold the blade it would melt the skin off our hands.  We would heal from
it
, but if we were to be stabbed with
the
blade
,
we would die.  

All three of them are going hard, moving left and right, trying to get in a good hit.  Ryder and Merrick are moving great together, but the sorcerer is averting every single move.  They’re moving so fast I can’t get a good visual to attack.  I feel so damn helpless just standing
t
here.

“You’re not helpless, Calista.  We want you to stay back so you don’t get hurt.”

As soon as he says that, my world comes
to an a
brupt halt.  Everything happens
in slow motion and
I can’t seem to grasp what I am
seeing.  The soul searing scream that escapes my mouth echoes the scream in my head. 
I put my hands to my ears and fa
ll to my knees
hard
.
The scream in my head
is
piercing and filled with the sounds of agonizing pain and fury.
The tears begin to fall as I crawl my way to the warrior on the ground.  The fighting is still going on around us, but my focus is
on the man that I am now pulling into my lap
.  His breathing is coming out raspy and he reaches over slowly to clasp my hand, hissing along the way from the pain.  I sit behind him with his head in my lap and I hold him tightly.  I brush his blonde hair off his forehead, and I kiss him
there
softly.  My tears are making it hard to
see
,
so I angrily wipe them away because
I don’t want to lose these minutes by seeing a blurry outline of the man that has been my friend for all the years of my life, and the
g
uardian
that was sworn to protect me.  The gash across his stomach is oozing blood and I can see the poison of the iron blade spreading across his abdomen.  How am I going to live without him?

“You will live because everyone needs you.  Ryder needs you and so will your court.  You’re going to be an excellent
q
ueen
.  I just wish I could see it.  Oh yeah, and tell Ryder ‘you’re we
lcome’ for me protecting him
with my body.”

I burst out crying and lay my forehead against his.  Even in death he could still be a smart ass.  I rub my hands all over his face and body because I know very soon he will not be here and I will never get to touch him again.  My throat feels tight and I’m glad we can talk silently because I don’t think I could get my voice to work right now if I tried.  I hold him tighter while rocking back and forth. 
Rocking back and forth always seems to help me, but not today.  It’s useless because nothing is going to change.  My Merrick is going to die.

“Merrick, please don’t leave me.  I am so sorry about hurting you and anything else I’ve done to
cause
you pain.”

He leans his hea
d back to look at me with tears
in his eyes and his lip quivers.