Bounty Hunter (The Black Tulip Chronicles #1)

29. Vera

Chapter 29

Vera

I started out through the Shift Forest jumpy and anxious. The woods here are different. All curly twisted branches, thicker than normal tree trunks, and dark, but after a day walking through, nothing has happened. Rupi has become comfortable enough to flit from tree to tree, no longer huddling beside my neck like she was after she flew across the windy crevice. Besides the bridge, the trip has been surprisingly uneventful, which is scary in itself, but it has also made it really difficult to keep my mind from revisiting that almost kiss. I’ve had strange scenarios skittering through my mind, crazy ones, like what if I really were to date my criminal? What if he reformed and left his criminal life? He seems normal enough. I’m confident he could be successful in a career other than violent mercenary. I mean, I’d for sure be willing to wait for him to finish his jail time. The quiet burst of laughter that escapes me at the thought catches Ikar’s attention, but I shake my head, not willing to offer an explanation.

According to the map and Ikar’s guesstimates, along with the pace we’ve kept so far, we just might arrive at the kingdom of the Fae earlier than expected. We’ve left a deeper part of the forest where the shade and shadows created by the thick canopy above forced me to use my cloak, but now the sunlight streaming in magical shafts through the trees warms my skin.

I stop and take in the mountain peaks in the distance capped with white snow, misty fog clinging around them. Then, I take a moment to absorb the magical simplicity before me. Here in this valley surrounded by gentle hills, the sun is warm and soothing. A clear, burbling stream weaves through wavy grasses and in between the trees, tiny lavender flowers spread out before us, growing as one with the grass. Their light scent calls to me, and I want to lay down, close my eyes, and revel in the perfect calmness of this little valley in our huge kingdom. Birds call happily in the trees, and I spot a rabbit dart away from us, hidden beneath the bed of purple. Ikar didn’t stop and is nearly to a stand of trees a distance away, following the curve of the stream. I am in no rush to leave this place, so I slow my pace and let the grass and flowers slip lightly beneath my fingers as I walk. When I reach the shady stand of trees that Ikar entered, I see silky white flowers, their centers lightly glowing. I want to reach down and investigate, but Ikar calls me over. He stands before a pool of water surrounded with beautiful greenery and bushes, a small waterfall gushing from above causing ripples and waves to spread outward. The tiny lights of the flowers glow around us in the shadows, creating an almost romantic atmosphere. I mean, if you’re thinking about romantic things. Which I’m not.

“Are we going to stop here for the night?” I ask hopefully. I’m loving the ambience. I want to build a cottage and live the rest of my life here. I already decided. I scoop Rupi from my shoulder, and a few flaps later, she’s hopping around in the flowers, searching out bugs and spiders to eat.

“We still have half a day’s light, but I thought we could wash here. Looks like as safe a place as any.” He turns and glances around, confirming his observation.

I head straight for the pool of water, Ikar following in my wake. He pauses before he touches the water, and his head angles in thought, as if he’s thinking it over. I almost laugh, wondering at his hesitation. It seems like he waits for something to rise from its surface, but I’m so filthy that I’d bathe with a blackipor if I had to. I imagine the creature rising from the depths of this small pool and grin. It just doesn’t fit in this lovely place. The black reptilian skin over the huge body of a water-dwelling mammal with black tusks and a gaping, strong jaw. I know they dwell in the Lucent River, but here? No way. I crouch down and swirl my hand in the water, creating a tiny whirlpool to entertain myself while Ikar sits on his haunches and studies the pool. I’ve found he is one of those hyperalert and ready-for-anything types, and I can appreciate that, so I wait.

“Are we good?” I ask, beginning to be concerned with his hesitation but getting impatient. I glance around, wondering what exactly it is that has triggered his hesitation. Does he sense something I can’t? I’m probably too distracted by the fifteen layers of sweat and dirt in every crevice of my body to really be aware at this point.

“I don’t know.” He frowns and slips his hand beneath the surface, testing. “Something feels off. I think we’ll try another spot.” He begins to pull his hand from the water, but I feel the sharp tug the same time he does. In the next half second, I see a chilling face just beneath the water. Before I can even scream, we are pulled in by our fingertips. The depths of the pool are freezing cold and pitch black, a direct contrast to the beautiful, warm image presented at its surface. But whatever the creepy creature is, it continues dragging us down. Further and further into black, cold water. My oxygen is nearly gone, and I feel like I’m about to pass out. Just as lights begin to herald in the darkness that comes with lack of needed breath, we fall in a heap on a soft, almost cushy surface.

“Vera?” Ikar asks from somewhere near me, he’s breathing in great gulps of air, same as I.

“I’m okay.” I press against the softness and find it’s very moist moss. Probably grows like a wildfire in the warm, humid environment we’ve been dragged into. I blink to clear my stinging vision, then I realize then that there should be a large puddle of water around me, my clothes should be sopping wet, my hair drenched. But there’s no water, and I’m clean . I don’t know if we’re about to die or not, but the fact that I’m clean lifts my spirits, and I laugh out loud, which draws a concerned look from Ikar. I don’t blame him. I figure whatever dragged us down here didn’t do it to offer us a cup of tea and send us on our way, though we appear to have been dropped in a garden fit for the fanciest of parties. An odd, filtered, watery-like light bounces off the garden scene we’ve been dropped in and draws my eyes upward. The pool is a sphere of water above us. Cover for a well-disguised trap. Clever.

That knowledge leaves me with a cave-like feeling about the place, but there is no evidence of it beside the lack of direct sunlight. I realize that aside from the dim light that barely reaches through the pool, the only other light comes from the same variety of white flowers with glowing centers that we saw above. The entire place is almost fae-like in its extravagance, only missing the jewel-toned flowers. Vines drip in large, tangled clusters from somewhere I can’t see, tiny white buds of growing flowers along their length. There isn’t a space that’s not covered in the soft, fuzzy moss. I’m not sure how a place beneath a freezing pool of water can be so green . Or hot. It won’t be long before I’m drenched in sweat in this garden sauna.

“Where the blazes are we?” I whisper beneath my breath.

I glance at Ikar, who is focused on something ahead as he moves into a defensive crouch. My gaze follows his as tinkling laughs raise the hair on my arms. Four bobbing lights, similar in color to the glowing centers of the flowers in the shady wood and those in this cave garden, lengthen and transform into four beautiful women before us. Everwisps. Silk dresses that match the velvety white of the petals I’d admired less than an hour ago flow over their feminine curves artfully, accentuating all their best parts. A dip in fabric here, a slit to reveal a shapely upper thigh there. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen women as beautiful as these. I’m currently feeling as pretty as the blackipor I was willing to swim with earlier, but my comparison switches to a strange sort of jealous possessiveness when their eyes literally glow with delight as they move their gazes slowly over Ikar, drinking him in like they’re desperate for water on a sweltering day. I am completely ignored by the shifters. Apparently, I do not merit even a glance of their golden eyes. I want to be offended, but I stay quiet, observing. Best to keep the not dangerous label I’ve been afforded, so I stand but don’t pull a weapon.

Their hair is entwined with the white flowers. Two have silky-looking brown hair, one has shiny black hair straighter than I’ve ever seen, and the last has hair the color of red and gold autumn leaves that falls down her back in tumbling curls. I grudgingly admit that each of them appears to be a work of art. One of the brown-haired women walks with a sultry air toward Ikar. I notice his grip on the sword handle tightens.

“Stop,” he commands.

She continues toward him, hips swaying. “If you comply, your lady friend will be safe.” She speaks smoothly, never taking her eyes from his form.

Still, I’m not enough of a threat to warrant a look.

“If you hurt me, she dies.” She says it so sweetly and with an air of flippancy that you’d never expect she was speaking of murder.

The other three women surround me. Their nails lengthening into razor-sharp claws, though they don’t touch me.

His face is expressionless, and he doesn’t move. The woman laughs that tinkling, irritating laugh again, and I watch as she stops right before him, pushes his blade to the side with her hand, and steps a hand’s width from his chest. I begin to worry that she’s entrapped his mind somehow—why did he let her so close? Did we miss a step with the mate bond? My heart begins to beat erratically.

“We don’t often get such a… handsome package.” She’s practically purring. She steps closer, inhaling and running a caressing hand from his left shoulder down to his chest. I see a muscle in his jaw tick. She leans in close, and I barely hear her whisper. “You know you never needed that mate bond?”

I don’t have time to think about why that might be and what her words mean, so I tuck it away for later.

A long, graceful finger continues its way down, tracing down his shirt, over his muscled chest and torso. “We’ve been waiting for centuries for the right man to father our children, but having you here is above my every expectation,” she whispers again, her words only for him, as her finger drops lower and slides slowly along the top edge of his leather belt.

Rage ignites inside me. If Ikar is feeling hesitant to use that sword, I’ll do it for him—with pleasure.

Ikar slowly goes from expressionless to smiling in that charming way of his as he deftly scoops her hand away from his belt and into his and brings it to his perfect lips for a sultry kiss. My heart drops. This is just fantastic. We’ve been entrapped by lusty flower women bent on killing me and stealing my criminal, and apparently, they’ve overtaken his reason.

“You are a vision, my lady.” He looks into her eyes. What kind of power do these everwisps have? What was the mate bond for if not for this? A scream is waiting to erupt from my throat.

She smiles, her golden eyes glowing warmly at his appreciation, and she steps in a little closer.

Then his expression drops to a soft look of apology. “I apologize for the inconvenience, but you will need to find another…” he clears his throat, “donor… for your offspring.”

The golden glow in her eyes flickers darkly, and the smile drops from her lips, but he continues.

“I am honored by your invitation, but, unfortunately, I cannot father children.” A sadness darkens his eyes, and I wonder if he is for real. If not, he’s good. Really good, because I feel actual sorrow at his statement. And relief. A lot of relief. He’s not wrapped in whatever spell their presence apparently weaves.

A feral smile lights her lips, the hiss that escapes her mouth could rival a cat’s. “That’s a lie. I picked up the scent of your virility a mile away.” She laughs again. “Most men are more than pleased with my beauty, but perhaps you have different tastes?” Her golden eyes give me a once over, and her lips purse like she sucks on something sour as she thinks about what she’ll have to do next .

Ikar begins to speak, “It’s reall?—”

Two vines shoot out of somewhere in this creepy garden cave, faster than I can track, one wraps around Ikar’s sword, and it’s yanked from his grasp and rolled up against the ceiling. The other whips in my direction, and hot pain slices through my forearm. I cry out in surprise as blood spreads across a clean cut that reaches three inches down my arm, soaks through the sleeve of my shirt, and begins dribbling down my fingers. I watch as drops begin to hit the moss at my feet and soak into it like it’s dropped onto a wet sponge. My ears buzz with pain and shock, so I don’t hear what Ikar shouts at the everwisp. I’m too busy wondering what the blazes I did to deserve being attacked.

I look up with fiery words to say, but I forget it all when my eyes meet my own face. I do a double take and shake my head in denial, then step back, forgetting, until I bump into the everwisp behind me. She hisses in my ear and I remember I’m still surrounded. The one before me, who stole me , wears the same white dress… but the body, the light spatter of freckles across her nose, the flyaway hair. It’s all me . For a moment, I appreciate how I could look if I felt the urge to update my wardrobe, but then I realize that, apparently, this mossy substance is somehow her, and she literally took my blood to copy me. I’m standing on it and getting more grossed out by the second. While I’m battling a combination of disgust at that realization, along with a bout of dizziness, she turns with a commanding look over her shoulder at Ikar and heads toward the inky blackness of the garden tunnel ahead of us. Hips swinging like mine never have. It’s odd, feeling jealous of yourself.

Ikar stands for a moment. I can’t call it indecision on his face, he’s too decisive for that. Calculated choosing is what it is—which is sometimes scarier. His enchanted weapon is still wrapped up in vines, and he glances at me surrounded by the other three everwisps. I realize the situation isn’t great. They’ve got me surrounded to force him to do their bidding, and he knows if I die, his magic is gone. But there’s no way he’ll go with her, right? He has other weapons. I know it, I’ve seen him remove them, though never all at once, of course. And none of those other weapons will kill an everwisp as quickly as an enchanted one, but still. I look at him with a question in my eyes. He takes a step forward. Whether he’s stepping forward to follow or fight her, I don’t know. But I do know there is no way I’m letting him go without a fight. Because I like him. No. Because I need the money. And I want that vile woman’s hands away from him. Forever. I ever so slowly slip my knife from my right hand to my now weakened left hand, forcing my grip to hold even while it’s slick with blood.

Our eyes hold for a second, then we move at the same time. I lose sight of him when, with all the strength I can muster, I wrench my elbow up and back—fast and hard—into the throat of the unsuspecting everwisp hovering behind me, while thrusting my knife through the everwisp that stands at my right side. The stabbed one collapses to the ground, and the rosy color of her skin and rich color of her hair leech out, leaving her with a bruised tinge. I grimace as I step forward and pull my knife from her, then she bursts with light and is gone. I don’t have time to see if she actually died or just disappeared because the nails of the one I throat punched are apparently stuck in the back of my jacket, and she pulls me back as she stumbles, coughing and hacking in way that doesn’t match her unearthly beauty from my throat hit. I switch my knife to my stronger hand. I could definitely overthink this moment, but I can’t. So, while I have the chance, I thrust it into her, too. She screams out in rage before all the color in her hair and skin drains out in a horrifying way that matches her sister, her face slack and lifeless as she falls to the ground before glowing brightly and disappearing. A wilted gray flower lies in her place. I hope that means she’s dead.

I look over my shoulder as I grab my sword off the weird moss floor to see Ikar standing off with the brown haired leader. She flashes away in a snarl and whirl of skirts, revealing a bit more of my skin than I’m comfortable with. Curse her. At her retreat, the other everwisp takes her place. She flickers in and out of sight, glowing extra bright in surges that burn my eyes, then darkening and leaving me blind. Appearing and disappearing in different parts of the garden, she messes with my vision, leaving bright imprints that are difficult to see through when they intentionally darken the room. Ikar appears unfazed and watches closely. He pauses a moment when one flickers out, like a pinched flame. Then she appears to his left, her razor nails at the ready. She’s just out of reach, so he expertly spins the knife in his hand and throws it. It lands in her chest right as she begins to flicker again, but instead of disappearing, she falls to the ground in solid form with a spongey thud. Her form glows brightly like the ones I witnessed just before, then disappears, and the knife lays on the ground again. I watch him unsheathe another when I begin to feel movement beneath my feet. Vines circle around me, and the moss seems to have grown spongier. I quick step and begin to scramble with a yelp, trying to avoid the vines but they continue their circling until both my feet and lower legs are caught up in their ever-tightening grip.

I forgot for a moment that she wants him alive—it’s me they don’t care about.

I look down at my own feet. My vision begins to blur a bit, and I almost fall over. I notice there’s blood staining the moss all around me now, and the vines are climbing higher, already up to my mid-thighs. They’re probably the reason I haven’t toppled over from blood loss, but I’d still prefer they get off me. I begin chopping at them with my sword, careful to avoid my legs, but it seems as soon as I get a cut in, another vine sprouts from the opening and makes it worse. They travel up, wrapping around my hips now, and I begin breathing too fast. The last everwisp, dressed in my body and face, her swaying hips and dangerous golden eyes, makes her way toward Ikar.

I see his shoulders bunch as he readies for the fight and stalks forward to meet her. Gone is the well-mannered gentleman with the handsome, charming smiles. Now he is darkness and power and predator. Very much like the man who almost strangled me that night by the river when I arrested him. Glad I’m not on the receiving end of his anger this time.

“Ah-ah-ah,” the demon woman says with a smile.

Before he gets too close, a vine snakes around his wrists, around and around and around. They wrap so tight that his hands smash together, and his knife clatters to the ground. The vines wrap around my midsection, and I begin to see spots. The everwisp, somewhere between wisp and solid form, flies around him and appears again in front of him.

“You are immune to my draw.” She chuckles and leans in to his ear. “I know what you are, and it only makes me want you more,” she whispers to him, her finger now trailing up over the shoulder that pains him sometimes and down the back of his shoulder blade again. That mask of ice forms over his face. Her words carry and seem to slam into the solid stone walls of our prison, falling heavily around us. She knows what he is? A criminal? Something else?

“Should I tell her, or is it our little secret?” She laughs.

“There is no secret,” he says flatly, but I can see the small tick in his jaw. There is most definitely a secret.