Fangs of Fate (Untish #1)

Chapter 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

TATE

I had been in a forest, surrounded by grass, rocks, and pine needles, but now I stood in a field of flowers. How was any of this possible? Mardi wiped his mouth next to me, he still looked sick. Good, at least I wasn’t alone.

“What the hell just happened?” I demanded.

“Don’t worry about it.” Mardi huffed.

“Seriously?”

“Did the blindfold mean nothing to you?” Mardi’s remarks were getting weary, winded even. Perhaps, the weird traveling we just did drained some of his energy? Or was this James’s doing? He was Fae, after all, and I knew very little about what they could and could not do.

“Alright, so about two miles up the path over there you’ll find the main road that leads back to HQ. You have your instructions from Arithi. Once you find Fletcher, you’ll notify me.”

“And how, pray tell, do I do that?”

“With this.” He handed me a small vial on a chain. “When you find him, burn this and I’ll find you. Be discreet about it.”

I palmed the small metal vial, it was tiny, maybe the size of my pinky fingernail. The chain connected to it was silver and very delicate. It looked like a crystal some wore for good luck. I clasped it around my neck and tucked it under my shirt.

“Here.” Mardi extended a brown bag.

I tentatively opened it. My clothes, not the ones I’d been wearing before, but a new pair of black pants and a black T-shirt. I raised an eyebrow in question.

“Can’t go back wearing that.”

“And I suppose I’m supposed to just change here,” I challenged.

“Be our guest?—”

Mardi elbowed James in the ribs mid-sentence.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of opportunities to do so before you reach the village. I’ve already seen enough of you,” Mardi sneered before running a hand through his hair.

The air around me intensified, I could have sworn there was a charge to it—a sultry heat. Odd for this time of year.

James muttered something unintelligible under his breath before turning and walking toward the tree line.

Mardi just stood there. Chest rising with every breath. Each breath a call to the wind, to my nerves, to my blood now heating inside?—

I shook my head.

“Fine.” I eyed the path ahead.

Screw Mardi and whatever mind games he was playing. I needed to get back and find Fletch for my own reasons. I moved forward toward the village. Answers certainly lay ahead.

Mardi’s hand snapped out and grabbed my arm. “Tate, if you should speak a word of this to the guara or anyone other than Fletcher, I will make what you endured in that warehouse feel like a cakewalk. Understand?”

I yanked my arm free and ignored him, continuing down to the path—leaving those two atrocities of nature behind. Time to get some answers.

By the time I made it to the village, it was late afternoon. I’d found a secluded place not far from the two buffoons who’d dropped me off in the valley to change and simply discarded the scratchy linen gown in the shrubs. I was much more comfortable in my standard clothing of choice.

In a minute, I’d be home and hopefully, Fletch would too. He had a lot of talking to do. The last twenty-four hours were catching up to me. This whole day had been total bullshit. Getting drafted to the guara? Bullshit. Getting jumped on my attack, total bullshit. And being literally burned alive? Impossible. Fletch’s involvement with another Vamp and complete betrayal of the Glenn along with my mother’s legacy? Beyond impossible. Yeah, Fletch better be home and he better be ready to answer some serious questions. Maybe I should even have a drug test done? It was possible this was all a really bad trip.

I crested the hill that led down to my house and paused. The door was ajar. It hung loosely as if forcefully opened, and the hinge appeared broken. I ran down the hill. Heart racing, palms sweating. A strange tingling filled my system, my nerves felt like sparks firing rapidly. I reached the porch and burst through the doorjamb. The whole room was in shambles. The couch cushions had been slashed; cotton coated the floor in maroon clumps. Blood. The whole room had sprays of dark red everywhere. I spotted a broken bottle of bloodwine near the couch next to broken picture frames smashed by the fireplace—a fireplace that now had its embers strewn across the room as if someone had rummaged through it.

My pink blanket had been torn to shreds and was now covered in soot and blood. I turned down the hall, past the ransacked kitchen with broken cabinet doors, toward Fletch’s room. I ignored bloody footprints and the clear signs of a struggle. Looked past the broken drywall and odd char marks coating its surface.

I approached the doorframe to my mother’s room, and my heart dropped. The door was open, and the room was completely destroyed. The bed had been overturned, mattress cut open, all the wall décor had been smashed and now coated the floor. Destroyed. Utterly ruined.

“Fletch!” I screamed his name.

No answer, but I didn’t expect one.

I moved from the room of my shredded childhood innocence as a coldness settled over me. My security blanket had been ripped off. My room, like my mother’s, was a disaster. Fletch’s room was the worst. I couldn’t even recognize a single piece of furniture. The bed had been dismantled, the dresser lay scattered in pieces, and the walls had holes in them to the point the whole room looked like a piece of Swiss cheese.

Arithi’s face filled my mind’s eye. They were looking for him. Did they do this? Or was he really in trouble with the guara? The questions I’d received the last time I crossed the veil came to mind. They were looking for him too. What the hell was going on?

Footsteps sounded down the hall.

I grabbed a piece of broken wood from the bed frame and pressed my back to a gaping hole in the drywall. The steps got louder and louder. Two guaramen appeared in Fletch’s room, weapons drawn. I swung my club at them, catching one off guard. He went flying backwards. The next one ducked and swung his rifle at my club, snapping it in half. He leveled the barrel at me.

“Tate Aaralyn, come with me.”