Kalina ~ Book Four

It was him.

It was fucking him.

Sylvie should have known it, guessed far sooner, and ignored her useless heart…

Dawn was still a few solid hours away. As her mates darted around her sluggishly moving world, she slipped from the house, took all the car keys, and dumped them in the hidden compartment of Kian’s Harley.

She isolated herself from her mates, imagining a wall between them as she pushed the bike down the path to the driveway.

She’d broken all her rules, rituals, and the deals she made with her mates, but she supposed it didn't matter anymore. She couldn't say goodbye this time. She couldn't risk them stopping her. Or worse, coming along only to get hurt because of her.

She couldn't face that again, and she couldn't risk the Fates hiding as she begged for one of their lives. If it came to that, she had nothing to offer in return. She was an empty shell of a woman.

Kian's helmet fit snuggly, as did the leathers he had bought her when he thought they’d take more road trips on the motorcycle. That was before all the carnage. The death. The loss of people she loved and who loved her because they wanted to, not because they had to.

Twin handguns were clipped tightly around her thighs, and strapped across her chest were dozens of bullets tipped with Wren’s light magic. She’d have to watch where she shot the shifters, somewhere non-fatal, but the light just needed to break the skin to work— to cleave the possessor from the possessed.

Shine a light.

Her last possession warmed against her thigh from her pocket, Amira’s mystery seed.

She started the bike and accelerated, not opening her mate bonds until she was out of range for them to catch up with her. Their anger, confusion, and pain hit her like sharpened daggers as she lowered her head and accelerated as fast as the winding bends of her pack roads would allow her. It wasn’t until she hit the highway that she let herself weep. She had to do this alone. She had to.

Even as her tears cut trails down her blood-drenched cheeks, she didn't waver, didn't slow. Soon, the sun would rise, and she would be upon him—her monster.

Elias watched her go. He didn't stop her when she pocketed all his keys and stashed them in Kians' Harley. He felt her emptiness as if it were his own and held back the urge to tackle her from that leather seat and hold her against him until she stopped fighting.

The dam in her heart creaked under the pressure of the last few months, and if she needed to isolate herself to embolden her choices, he would fulfil that illusion. But that is what it was- an illusion. She had discovered something even he could not know, not after her increasingly secretive nature of late. Perhaps that was the Wraith's influence too. It didn't matter now.

He offered Kian a hand as he swayed, sickly, on his feet in their living room. “Take some from me.”

Wren offered a hand, too, their skin glowing faintly. “And me.”

“Even if I do,” he wheezed. “I can’t follow her this time.”

“I know,” Elias said, squeezing his shoulder. “But you can call someone who can.”

Kian’s expression cleared, and he nodded, taking just enough from Elias and Wren before whispering words in Ancient Fae—a beacon.

They stood in tense silence for a beat. Then two. Then three.

“You called?” Kerensa stalked through the front door, equipt in full warrior gear, twin swords strapped to her back and guns filled with light holstered on her hips. Spotting Elias’ squint, she said, “A prototype.”

“Sure.”

She looked over at Kian and shook her head. “I’m sending you home, brother. You need the healers.”

The words turned Kian even greyer. “I can’t leave her-”

“You aren’t. You’re keeping her safe by protecting yourself. What do you think would happen if she felt you die in the middle of a fight because you over-exerted yourself?”

He just shook his head, defeated.

“Wren.”

“Yes, my Queen,” Wren said, trailing a finger down her ebony cheek. She leaned into the touch and sighed, her resolve hardening before their eyes.

“Take him to the healers in Sun Court.”

Wren bowed their head and took Kian by the arm. He didn't protest, though his head stayed bowed. “Let’s go.”

Elias didn’t stay to watch Kian leave. Instead, he headed for the Pyre at the central cut. Rowan and Rosie stood in silence as he approached the body of their healer, their elder placed tenderly atop it, her pale blue shroud hiding any evidence of her gruesome death.

Sylvie would never forgive herself for missing this- his broken mate. When her heart healed, it would be her biggest regret. He tugged on his marks and winced as she closed off from him again.

He’d have to pick up the pieces when they reunited.

He checked his watch—still an hour and a half before she would arrive, at least.

Elias nodded once to Rowan and stood aside as the shifters shed their skins and wound in formation around the body and the Pyre. Rowan trembled, and before he could show weakness to the pack, especially Fraser's defectors, Elias walked over and helped him lift the body.

It was clearly uncommon— non-shifters assisting in the funeral pyre— but Rowan looked eternally grateful, the purple tint under his eyes revealing his exhaustion.

Besides, Elias had no doubt Amira wouldn't mind. She gave him shit often, but he could always sense the mirth there—the wisdom they shared.

It was rare to find creatures who lived a fraction of his lifetime; despite Amira being a fledgeling compared to him, she held an eternal grace that even some ancient Vampires never displayed. He always wondered if she was more than just a shifter.

He flicked a wet drop from his cheek and stepped away once more as Rosie struck a match under the Pyre, silent sobs curling her over herself again and again.

The wind stilled as if acknowledging the loss, and the flame caught, eating away at the spindly kindling in an instant. Just like with Natalie, the flames consumed Amira’s body with the rising sun, her ashes scattering on the light breeze and disappearing beyond the pines.

Rowan couldn't afford to shift, the next need of the day requiring him in skin and clothes. He bowed to the Pyre and sent a hardened gaze to Elias. Let’s finish this, it said.

Elias nodded and turned, leading him back to their home. To Kerensa and—

He growled but nodded anyway. He should've anticipated it, but seeing Kora and Magnus armed to the teeth, anger flaring, took him by surprise.

Their love for their daughter was clear. It was unfortunate it came so late. She could have avoided so much pain if they had shown this fight for their only child when she was still a child. That was why he remained distant. They weren't forgiven in Sylvie’s eyes. Thus, they weren't forgiven in his.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Kian slept restlessly for most of the journey. The six-legged bear-like beasts of Sun Court pulled their motorised carriage far faster than he was used to. Faster than his Harley by miles.

The Sun court's riches, castle, and surrounding villages shone with sophisticated grace, and an ancient air curled around him from inside the carriage. Courts were not made equal, it seemed. He had never seen such dazzling brightness in Evergreen besides the days when he was with Sylvie, but this… This.

Beyond reason.

“It’s something, isn’t it,” Wren said quietly, guiding him past the spiralling columns attached to a marble dome littered with twinkling skylights and refracting mirrors.

“You could say that.”

“The Queen never took you?”

From Wren’s tone, he knew they were referring to his mother. “No. It was always too risky a journey for the heirs of the Fae.”

“I understand,” Wren said sadly. Kian withheld the urge to soothe the emotion and leaned into Wren's firm grip.

“They must miss you.”

“Every day.”

“You visit?”

Wren gave a wry smile and hoisted Kian's arm higher over their shoulders. “Plenty. Never enough for them, but almost too much for me. I’d rather not be away from her for long.”

Kian offered a tired smile and nodded. Seeing his sisters bonded and feeling the pure, endless love they had for his sister was a great gift, even as his own bonded descended to a darkness he couldn't reach, at least not in this weakened state.

He wondered briefly if she planned it that way, running him ragged with portalling so that when she decided to face the monster haunting her, he couldn't follow.

This darkness in her, though, wasn’t entirely new. It had only grown. And with Amira… Kian sighed, letting Wren guide him under a marble arch and down a winding marble staircase as Sylvie lingered in his mind.

That darkness…She hardly talked about her time after Argyncia’s fall and losing Elias or burying herself in a cocoon of earth and roots, but a sliver of tar remained in her soul for the ten years of peace they had. He could never brush it away, never soothe her enough to take away that gloom. Whatever haunted her then and now, she had to face alone.

At the bottom of the staircase, the room opened into a sunlit sauna; rocks heated by eternal flames let off steam even as the hairs in his nose singed.

“Climb into the pool. The healers will see you soon.”

He did as he was ordered, bathing in milky white waters, changing into the clothes the healers left and following them to another bright room, this one covered wall to wall in tapestries. He went to stride past them towards the carefully arranged square in the centre of the room surrounded by candles and sigils and paused.

Not just tapestries.

Stories.

The light-imbued Fae overcame epic battles and monsters. The stories closest to him were frayed in the corners, dating back thousands of years.

“Do you recognise our history?” A smooth, silken voice asked from his side. He glanced at the healer, covered in linen regal garb and shook his head.

“Most of this history was destroyed or hidden.”

“Ah, yes. If everyone knew our strength, they would wonder why we didn't rule.” Kian glanced sidelong at the healer. That talk was treason against his family, but the healer wasn’t wrong either. Evergreen had fearsome warriors, but against demons, the Sun Fae were far more powerful.

With a knowing smile, the healer inclined their head to a far newer tapestry, perhaps a decade old, filled with wiry bodies, torn apart, disintegrated from a pool of blood. Standing above them, framed by a willow, was a woman with rose-pink eyes and waving brown locks.

He met the healer's eyes. “How did you know of this history?”

“Our oracles see much, just as they see her destiny intertwined with yours and three others.”

Three.

Kian's heart faltered as he took in the tapestries again. Hybrids, wraiths, hounds, lesser demons he had never encountered, all were cast in a veil of darkness. The healer guided him to the square and cushions, getting him to lie down on his back.

The roof was even more stunning and horrifying. Demons in the shape of men, scores cut through them with light once again. It all made sense after seeing what Wren could do to the possessed shifters. The Sun Fae were a natural weapon against the demons.

He suppressed a frown.

They could have stopped them, but they had let Stone Court fall all those years ago. If history rang true, Sun Court was not keen on helping anyone other than themselves.

But Wren… Wren was an ally. They could be useful, but he would not allow them to use his sister's mate as their weapon. Kerensa deserved happiness, not the eternal worry that something might take her bonded away. She shouldn't have to feel what he had for the last few months.

But maybe there was a way Kian could help his mate, even at this distance. They needed more knowledge of the demons, and he sensed that, whatever the outcome of her choice that day, this information would be needed soon enough. “Tell me everything,” he breathed.