“The Mother help me. What the hell happened?”
The stranger’s eyes widen a fraction, like he couldn’t see the complete extent of the damage despite seeing through most of her glamour. “May I?” He offers a hand, palm up, and Cambria hesitantly puts her hand in his.
The undercover guard closes his eyes and the air around him seems to buzz. Cambria’s silver eyes flash, the color swirling like a mist of clouds in her irises. The snake around my neck starts to stir and I bite the inside of my cheek, stroking it and mentally screaming for him not to strike out at the guard, drawn to the power he’s using.
When the man takes a step back, Cambria gently probes the wound on her cheek, her fingers coming away with only the remnants of dried blood instead of anything fresh. He gives her a once over before speaking, lacing authority into his voice.
“Now, what happened?” He leaves no more room for deflection, crossing his arms over his chest. The sun glints off of his dark skin, his golden eyes laser focused on Cambria and mouth pressed into a thin line.
She gulps before rushing out, “There was some girl, and I thought she was lost. Dirty, like she’d been sleeping in the woods. I tried to help, but...” She swallows again, forcing her eyes to turn glassy and I have to remind myself that it’s all bullshit. “It was a trap.” Color rises to her cheeks in a perfect show of deceit, running the emotional gauntlet and getting incensed. “They didn’t even use any abilities, nothing better than the humans.”
She makes a show of taking a breath to compose herself. “She took everything. Forced me to switch clothes while one of her men held a knife to my throat.” A tear tracks down her face, delicate beneath her glamour, but splashing red on the sidewalk as it trailed through the concealed, drying blood. She tentatively brushes her fingertips over where her cheek was just split. “And she did this to buy themselves a head start.”
The guard’s eyes are furious, but in them is a spark of excitement. He knows exactly who she’s talking about and no doubt the price tag that goes along with it. “Where?” he barks and Cambria rattles off a description. He jerks his head in a sharp nod and turns on his heel, calling over his shoulder. “Get yourself cleaned up before anyone else sees through your mask. We don’t want to start a panic or rumors that Altheon isn’t safe; go straight home.” He strides off, each sure step radiating determination and power that has those he passes stepping aside quickly.
I turn back to Cambria, whose eyes are closed in relief. “What next, gorgeous?”
With a devilish grin as she opens her eyes, she whips her hand out of her back pocket with a flourish to show a wallet. “Now, we get some new clothes and something to eat.”
***
Walking down the streetin our new clothes, travel cloaks fastened and billowing behind us, I reach inside of the messenger bag slung over my shoulder, using the fabric of the dark green cloak to conceal it at my hip. My stowaway flicks a tongue over the pad of my finger before striking, and I wince as the razor sharp teeth bury into my flesh. A small bit of fear keeps my heart rate spiked until he removes his teeth, flicking a tongue over the punctures to seal them.
I’ve watched firsthand as he devoured someone, and all I have to ensure that I don’t meet the same fate is fragile, tentative trust, and loose interpretations of a fool’s bargain. But kindness breeds loyalty, and in a world that’s been so cruel to them, my actions carry weight.
It helps to keep the edge of hunger at bay, ensures the changeling doesn’t escape and starts sucking the fae dry around us, blowing our plan to smithereens. Cambria passes me an apple from her own satchel wordlessly, eyes flicking to my bag with concern, but saying nothing.
I always thought that if I was going to be someone’s blood slave, it’d be a bombshell vampire and end in orgasms. But sadly, I ended up in a magical war instead of an erotic anime. Life sucks like that sometimes.
“Karma?”
“Karma?” It takes her a second before it clicks and she laughs. “Karma, karma, chameleon?”
I grin, but it slowly fades away as the changeling slithers out of the bag, getting annoyed at staying trapped in the dark. I look the little creature in the eye, seeming far too cognizant for what it can articulate. A lifetime of misery is held in those obsidian orbs, a shadowy prison in their own right.
“Azazel.”
Helping the snake settle back around my throat as we near the edge of the city, Cambria watches me with a rueful smile. “The scapegoat.” She shakes her head sadly, reaching over to stroke a finger over his head and down his body. “Perfectly poetic for the little demon of legend.”
We walk a little while in silence, both lost in our own thoughts. There’s a twenty dollar bill left from the money Cambria pilfered from the guard, but neither of us can bring ourselves to spend it. That crumpled bill carries an ominous weight, too parallel to what happened to Maddox. His death set everything into motion, but also feels like it serves as a warning.
We stop into a small bookstore so that we can use a real bathroom before heading back out into the wilderness. It’s a single room, one person set up, so I mill around the stacks while waiting for Cambria. Brushing my finger over the dusty spines, my mind continues to wander, dredging up every magical tale I’ve ever read from the recesses of my memory. Life may change the finer details, but after a millennia of stories being told, they all tend to follow common themes, or lessons screaming to be learned that people ignorantly refuse to. A vicious, repetitive cycle, so the answer to all of our problems has to be somewhere, lost in a sea of entertainment and knowledge so vast that you can’t find the tiny drop you’re looking for.
“Anything in particular you’re searching for?” The woman looks like the embodiment of sunshine, from her sun-kissed skin to her golden hair braided down her back. Bright orange eyes smile with genuine friendliness, nothing like the cruel calculation I tend to see in so many fae.
“A map would be a blessing.”
She nods, weaving between the narrow shelves and stacks of books strewn throughout the place and I follow her carefully, hand on my bag to keep it from swinging. She opens a few drawers behind her desk before triumphantly grinning, unveiling a folded map, yellowed on the edges from age. “Knew I still had one around here somewhere.”
“You don’t get many travelers passing through, then?”
She lowers herself into a chair, swiveling it from side to side. “Certainly. But not many that admit they need help. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met that would rather stumble around in the woods for weeks than acknowledge that they were lost.” She scoffs. “All it takes is one bad deal in someone’s lifetime and they never risk asking for help again.”
Reluctantly, I pull the crumpled bill from my pocket, offering it her way and hoping it doesn’t put a larger black cloud over my head than I already have. I’m not typically superstitious, but recent events are definitely making me reconsider my stance.
“On the house.” She passes it over the same time Cambria returns, offering her that same, blinding smile. In such a dusty, shadowy shop, she’s a ray of light, breathing life into a place that appears forgotten, yet refusing to fade away. “You two look like you could put it to use far better than I’ll ever get the chance.” Her gaze turns wistful. “On the condition that if you ever pass through Altheon again, you’ll tell me about one of your adventures. I’ve always wanted that for myself, and I’m a little jealous.”
Cambria cants her head, assessing the girl. “So why don’t you? Pack a bag and just go.”
