The Faerie Slayer

Kade's Pov

We coursed through the woods for hours more. At this pace, we'd only have about six more to go. My thoughts were occupied with a thousands wonders but the main one that stood out from the rest was our kiss. In the moment, I had realized two of things, first one being that I had never felt so weak. I was the leading sovran warrior of my pack for many seasons, always seemingly the strongest and steadiest. At the will of Aubrette Evergreen, I was merely a puppet. I realized that she was the most beautiful and enticing creature that I have ever seen, both mortal and immortal. Aubrette was truly sculpted by angels and gods that favoured her greatly. Nothing in the past had been able to take my breath so. Secondly, there was no mistake to be made, no more dubiety nor disbelief, that Aubrette was my mate. During the kiss I had questioned whether shes placed me under some strange trance that only a Moiety Child can summon. That cannot be possible for she does not know of her capabilities.

Nor do I.

I thought about how it would feel to leave her at the safety of Alexander Lupus. The word abandon came to mind. Suddenly, the thought began to pain me. After I'd drop off Aubrette, I intended to return to Deadwood Creek and find out what is it exactly that my father was hiding from me. I'd convince him to keep the girl alive because she was half mortal. I wasn't certain about how I could protect her from the creatures of the folk. There had to be a way to fake her death, a way to convince them Aubrette is long gone so that they could finally abandon their wicked motives for her.

Perhaps I could convince father to tell his faerie friend that Aubrette is indeed dead. Perhaps he then could tell the other faeries.

But I knew that it would never be this simple.

One step at a time, I thought to myself.

The back of my throat and tongue ached with thirst. I caught sight of a glistening river about a mile out . I began to slow down eventually into a stride. I felt Aubrette's grip on my gear loosen. By the water now, I kneeled so she could jump off. I gazed at her with curious eyes and watched as she slummed her body down by a tree trunk, the impact causing her yellow hair to fall cape at her shoulders. She was clearly relieved for the rest, I realized this as she dug into the pockets of her backpack and retrieved an empty bottle of water. She leaned forward and filled it with contents from the riverbank, she used it to wash her face. Her sight met mine and I was quick to alter my gaze, realIzing that I'd been staring.

I bowed my head to moisten my mouth with the water of the river before sipping. The unfamiliar taste was bitter. I scrunched my eyebrows and mentally pondered on where I had recognized the flavour from. The impact of the realization hit me like a pound of bricks. By the tree, Aubrette's eyes were closing slowly.

The water was poisoned.

I hurried to shift in an attempt to get to the vile of salt, but it would not have mattered anyway. This was wild berry poison and salt was not the antidote. They have found us and I foolishly marched us into their trap. I felt my limbs began to numb as the feeling of shifting back into a mortal began to fade into an aching buzz. I could not decipher whether or not I had fully shifted. I could only feel the weakening of my legs and the buckling of my knees. I hit the ground with a soundless thud, in the distance, I could see ogres armed with dried wild berry necklaces as bright as the colour purple. Suddenly, the lights of the world had gone out and my vision was black.

When I rose, the pounding of my head bid me good morning. My vision was returning in bits and pieces. My hands were chained behind my back with silver cuffs that burned when pressed against my skin. At the grasp of the chain were ogres. Four of them formed a square around me.

"He's all chained up," hissed one of them to a fellow comrade who merely nodded in response and we began to march. I opened my mouth to speak but I was silent. I could not form words, nor any sound at all. My limbs seemed to have also stopped working, I could not struggle nor fight. I was glamoured to their will. I peered in panic, wondering where Aubrette was. I turned my head resulting the cuffs to burn into my palms and hissed silently. Aubrette was half a mile behind me, guarded by the same of ogres but she was not awake. She was slung over the shoulder of one of the beasts. We followed the burgundy and amber brick path panelled in between never ending fields of grass. Above me, the sky was titian with occasional strikes of lightning. It took me a while to register that we were not on earth anymore, we have entered the shadow world of the folk. The trees in the land of the faeries housed strange fruits and berries of colours not yet brought to human kind. Flowers that sprouted from the soil appeared normal until you focused, and then they appeared to be breathing. A wild rose the colour of burnt lavender unveiled a mouth that housed a column of fangs. It hissed and clamped it's jaw at my feet. I yanked my leg from its grasp and carried on with the mindless ogres who acted as if nothing had happened.

To my right , sea of the brightest blue. I had remembered briefly reading about the oceans In the faerie world and the thousands of creatures they homed. Something emerged from the waters, a creature bearing the face of a monstrous women. Half of her face remained under the water, while the other half focused on me. Hideous red eyes met mines and I suddenly felt as if I was gazing at the sun. My head began to thud harder, the ache increasing the longer I held gaze with the mermaid-like thing in the water but I could not seem to look away.

I felt the hands of the ogre steer my head forcefully away.

"Do not look into the water," he muttered," or a nixie might getcha."

I wanted to further enquire but my voice was still astray. Ahead, through murky clouds, I caught sight of a tower, made of the same dark brick as the walkway. Minutes later, now at the front of it, I realized it was a castle and the ogres stationed outside stood guard but stepped to the side to let us through. Up the steps and through the gates, we were now inside walking on plush scarlet carpet. The walls were made of sepia stones but the dark colour did not make the hallway appear smaller. I turned to look at an unconscious Aubrette again, the pain of the silver mirrored the last time. On the carpet, blood dripped from my burning hands, staining it with splotches of a brighter red.

The ogres made a turn, and then another, and another until we were heading down steps into a dampened cave. The inside was dark, my sight was not yet robbed by the faeries but it was a struggle to see what was in front of me. I wanted to turn and peer at Aubrette again, but there was no use. It was practically pitch black. The sound of a water droplet hitting the pavement somewhere echoed almost deafeningly. It took my a couple of minutes to realize that we were walking past cells, confined by bars of steel and silver. This was faerie prison.

We marched to the very end of the tunnel and I helplessly watched as one of the ogres fiddled with a key to unlock the prison door. Behind me, the ogres that guarded Aubrette were doing the same thing to a cell further down. Once they succeeded, they continued inside, Aubrette still unconscious on their back. I felt anger begin to broil much like the silver did on my skin. Being this futile and helpless, it was taunting and truly the ultimate torture for a warrior.

The metal gates to my chamber were now unbarred and I was forced inside by the faeries . They tossed me carelessly onto the moist ground where overbearing was the foul scent of mold. I do not remember the last thing I saw, but rather heard, which was the ensued sound of the metal rattle as the gate closed shut.

I had no way of keeping time. Hours must have passed, perhaps a day, but I lay there, unable to speak nor struggle, unable to fight for me nor Aubrette. I refused to believe that they had won, but there was nothing that I could do to ally that.

The cell bore no windows for me to measure time using the sky with, no holes, no way in or out besides the gates. Silver stung at my wrists with every breath and it was a slow and wicked kind of torment.

Eventually, my vision began to abandon me languidly. I parted my lips as to call out for Aubrette but I was not victorious.

A while later, the gates rattled enough to startle me arise. More warriors of the queen bid into my cell and charged me onto my feet. They tossed me outside but kept me in their grip, shackled and bound with the same torturous cuffs. Back into the room that was lit by chandeliers, I did not have to ask where they were taking me. At the very end of the grand hallway were wooden doors that bore the entrance to my suspicions. They unbarred upon our arrival, faerie soldiers stood at either sides, and led to ceaselessly by the same red carpet was the queens throne. Her lips were already spread wide with deceitful welcome. If I peered close enough, those were fangs and not teeth.

"Kade Odin, son of Alcindor Odin," she greeted from her high ruby chair. The court was larger then most homes and heavily guarded at that. More then a dozen ogres stood watch, armed with size and callousness. The ceiling did not exist in her majesty's tower of doom, the indoor sky seemingly endless.

I did not take bow as the others did. I could not yet move more then an inch, nor speak.

The crimson- skinned women rose to her feet that appeared to be webbed and padded much like a frogs but were soon veiled by her lilac gown. Her silver hair was tied above her head, inches beyond her and decorated with the corpses of butterflies and opesia. She was both ravishing and ghastly.

Her long black fingernails shot up into the air and she clinked her thumb with her middle finger.

"You may now speak."

"Your Majesty," I greeted and cleared my dry throat.

"You are as handsome as your father."

I could not force a genuine enough of a smile, merely a display of teeth.

"I must ask you, my dear. Why the sudden interest to interject with the politics of the folk? I thought you merely a hunter."

"The girl you are after bears mortal blood, you cannot have her."

"Do you know who this girl is, Kade Odin?"

I did not respond.

"Surly you should know by now that she too, bears the blood of the folk, royal blood at that. The girl belongs to us." There was a flash of something unsettling that crossed over the face of the queen.

"I ask that you spare her, back to the life that she only knows. She has no knowledge of this world and offers no threat to your kind."

"Where is my trow?"

I knew immediately that she was referring to Caleb,"he's dead."

"Then it's a little too late for that my dear."

"It's never too late for your people. Cast a spell, or rob her of her memory as you had robbed me of my voice,"I could not help the fury that seasoned my words.

"You should be thrilled with her unusual outcome. Had this been any other Moiety Child, you should believe that they would not have survived this long."

"Aubrette will do you no good here. She belongs in the mortal world."

"Did you miss the part where I said the girl bears royal blood? She is connected to me not just by race, werewolf, she is my family."

"I've heard what you do to those who you call family."

"I do wonder the true reason you have involved yourself so deeply. Don't your people have a saying? Faerie blood, no matter the bearer, is enemy blood. Shouldn't you have slayed her by now, Faerie Slayer?"

I could not answer for I could think of no words. She knows that Aubrette is my mate.

The queen continued.

"What would your father think, if he too knew of your mercy for the half child?"

The queens initials were not the ones on the scroll. I could not ask her about plans with my father for I feared she had no knowledge of them. It was not her that he was working with, otherwise, she would not have asked. My father wanted Aubrette dead, the queen did not.

"What do you intend to do with her?"

"She's to be married to my son, Edmund and crowned princess to my heir. I spent months searching for her, after discovering her of existence."

I sucked in a deep breath. It was beginning to now make sense why the queen needed Aubrette. She did not only bear royal blood, she was also an heir to the crown. This meant that the queen would stop at nothing to warrant her. I feared there was no way out.

"I do not wish conflict with your race, Odin. You detest us enough as is. Your people have rules, to terminate the faeries that roam out of our dimensions. I bid my people good luck, but I do not intervene with your plot, please do not intervene with mine."

"Where is she now?"

"For the remainder of it, Aubrette Evergreen will lead a life of luxury here . You do not wish to worry yourself of her being, rest assured, she is cared for, now that she is under my watch, she is free to live out her true potential."

The sounds of approaching footsteps made me turn my head. A young man, dressed in a khaki waistcoat and navy breeches. From here, his eyes were like looking into an emerald sun. He resembled the queen with the same dark skin and white hair.

"Edmund."

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