When the Woods Go Silent (Haret Chronicles: Dark Fae #1)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

R OSE

I’ve really fucked this all up.

I’m pacing the front room of the shop, chewing my bottom lip and trying to figure out what the hell I should do.

It’s opening time, so I unlock the front door. Then I immediately lock it back. There’s no way I can stay here and tend to customers like this. I have to find Ruby.

I can see her on our tracking app, though it keeps glitching like she’s losing signal. She’s still technically in Clearwater, though. Maybe she just needs to burn off steam. We can bounce back from this, right? It’s terrifying, but part of me isn’t quite sure.

And of fucking course I have no way to reach Kier.

Why the hell didn’t I remember to get his number last night? Do fae even carry cell phones? I am in so far over my head. I take the crumpled paper out of my pocket and look at it for the thousandth time, as if it might have magically grown answers by now. Of course the fuck not.

It’s been so long since I thought about that operation that I’d nearly forgotten about it. I still get tested periodically, but the blood disorder has never shown back up. In fact, I’ve been healthier than most ever since then. It’s never bothered me to think that all the blood in my body used to belong to someone else, but now? Thinking about what it could have been hiding all along makes me feel like puking.

Did I really create that thorny vine that wrapped itself around Ronan?

It seems impossible that I could be doing magic without even knowing about it, much less how to control it. But Kier told me about his brothers’ magic. Ronan can’t control plants, and Kier wasn’t here this morning.

I made that vine.

Which means I must have made that rose, the night Kier backed me into the bookshelf.

My poor brain feels like it might just turn into a puddle of soup trying to process all of this, and my heart breaks a little more each time Ruby ignores another one of my texts. I’ll never forgive myself if she runs to Torrence and gets hurt.

I should have just laid everything out to her and asked for her help figuring it all out. I never should have tried to control things or think I could keep any of it from her, even for a single day.

I regret every fucking thing I’ve done since meeting Kier. Hell, since meeting Arlo. Clearwater was supposed to be a fresh start, not the end of an era. I have to fix this.

After making a “Closed for the Morning” sign for the front door, I check Ruby’s location again. She’s moving, but she isn’t coming back here. Not toward the restaurant, either. Damn it, where is she going? I wish I had my own car. I haven’t felt this helpless in a good while.

Grabbing my laptop, I plunk down in the office and begin researching fae and changelings online. Everything conflicts with something else, though. I’ll never learn the truth this way. Frustrated, I stare down at my hands on the keyboard.

“Rose,” I whisper to them, imagining growing a rose out of thin air like Kier can do. “Vines. Thorns.” Nothing. Not even a tingle. I feel ridiculous, and there certainly isn’t a how-to video on summoning fae magic.

I don’t even want to think about the implications of being able to summon magic wielded by a different fucking species. I’m human. I have to be - I would know. Right?

I check Ruby’s location again, then pull up the ride-share apps. I have options, but not many. Would she even talk to me if I tracked her down?

Fuck . I don’t know what to do.

I sink my head into my hands, willing myself to come up with a brilliant plan, but that’s about as effective as willing myself to make magic happen.

A knock on the front door echoes into the back office room, and I sigh deeply. I am so not in the mood to sell books right now. But then again, I put that sign up. Maybe it’s not a customer. I hurry around the corner, nearly bursting into relieved tears when I see a tall man with ginger hair standing outside the window, hands cupped to the glass to see inside.

“Kier,” I exclaim, rushing to unlock everything. I practically jump into his arms when the door is finally open. “Thank god. I need some serious guidance right now.”

He chuckles, patting my back a little awkwardly. Suddenly self-conscious, I back away and gesture him inside, locking up behind him.

“What happened?” he asks, as I lead him back to the office where we settle at the broad table.

I spill it all instantly - no more fucking secrets. “Ruby knows. Torrence told her before I had a chance to. She ran out and won’t answer any of my messages. It’s so bad, Kier. I fucked up so much.”

His eyes darken with sudden anger, and his hands clench into fists as I shrink back in my chair, remembering the crushed paper in my jeans pocket. Shit. He’s going to flip when he realizes his brother was here, too. But I can’t hold it back. That’s the sort of behavior that got me in this damn situation.

“Also, Ronan was here. He’s apparently stalking me now.” I toss the paper at him, and he snatches it up, his eyes scanning down the page.

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know. That I might not have fae blood because someone took it straight from my veins? I don’t have any idea how that even works.” I hang my head back and stare up at the ceiling, following the hairline cracks to have something normal to focus on. Because that sentence is absolutely imploding my careful, ordered, spreadsheet world.

“What did you tell Ruby?” His voice is low and sharp, like a knife at the ready, and I shiver a little. Kier has never frightened me before, but how well do I really know him? Not to mention how I’ve probably rocked his world, too, in the least sexy way possible.

“I didn’t have a chance to tell her anything. We were going to get coffee, but she slipped out the back door. Then she came back, told me Torrence had confirmed magic was real and you’re a fae, and then she bolted again in our car. I should have just told her everything last night.” I scrub my hands over my eyes, regretting all my life choices at once.

The stretch of silence goes on a bit too long, and when I crack my eyes open, Kier is looking at my laptop screen. A sneer twists his lips in a way I’ve never seen, and it makes me realize how little I know about this man. Ruby’s right. I should never have trusted him over her, no matter what stories he’s told me about war and gobbelins. He’s played me this whole time.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask slowly, looking more for his agenda than actual advice.

“Forget about these stories, for starters.” He gestures to the screen of search results, shaking his head. “This is all worthless.”

“I need information, Kier. And no offense, but getting it from only one source is bad research.”

He slides his eyes to mine, something cunning in them before he hides it away. “Come with me, then. Home. To Aralia. I’ll show you every fucking thing you’ve ever wanted to know about magic.”

I roll my eyes at him. That’s the problem - I never wanted to know anything. “I’m not leaving.”

“Bring Ruby, then,” he suggests, guessing why I won’t leave, and I glare.

“That’s not the point. I’m not leaving my whole life here to follow some guy blindly. That’s how people get kidnapped, dumb dumb.”

His mouth flattens, and I can see he isn’t amused, but neither am I. I pluck the paper from his fingers and fold it back into my pocket.

“I don’t have long here, Rose. I have to return to the palace. Come with me,” he requests again, holding out his hand like I’m just going to waltz off into the magical fucking sunset with him.

I shake my head. “Go, if you have to. I’m not leaving. But at least give me your cell number.”

He huffs, standing and shoving his hands in his pockets, scowling down at me in a very un-Kier-like way. “I don’t have a cell phone. Human technology is useless in Haret.”

“But don’t you need one when you’re here? Doing security stuff?” I stand and edge past him, hoping to lead him back toward the front door. Something is different, and I don’t like it.

He grabs my arm.

“Say you’ll come with me, Rose.” His voice is harder than I’ve ever heard it, and when I try to shake him off, his grip tightens. I throw my weight through the door frame and into the hallway, half-dragging both of us toward the front room, but he still doesn’t let go. I get the unfortunate feeling that he’s also holding back his strength, and that I have no shot of getting free if he means to take me somewhere.

What the hell good is having magic if I can’t call it up when I need it?

“Leave me alone,” I hiss, but he only grins, that foxlike quality of his turning to something more wolfish.

KIER

Looking through the window of the bookshop, I can’t fucking believe my eyes.

Rose is standing right there, her arm gripped by... me? Realization washes over me a micro-second before the rage rolls in.

How dare he ?

“Ronan!” I roar, banging on the glass and rattling the locked door. His grin flickers toward me, and I see past the glamor easily, now that I’m looking for it. What has he done? What has he told Rose, in my name?

She looks frantically between the two of us, yanking her arm against his grip. It’s one thing to be told about fae glamor, but quite another to be tricked by it. She’s going to be furious.

Ronan’s lips are moving, and I don’t waste any more time on the locked door. My vines curl under the tiny gap at the bottom and up around the door, wrenching it off its hinges. It crashes onto the porch as I rush my brother, knife-like thorns slicing through the air toward him, and Rose screams, trying to twist away.

He finally releases her, and she scurries to hide behind the counter as our magic collides.

“Leave her the fuck alone,” I growl at him, scenting the hint of fire before he grabs a vine and incinerates it.

“No! Get the fuck out of my shop!” Rose yells, and I realize too late that we’re going to ruin everything if we fight here. The smoke alarm blares as I throw my strength into building thicker vines, working to bind Ronan so I can get him outside. He burns through them as fast as I make them, caring nothing for Rose and Ruby’s hard work here.

The only choice I have is to run and hope he chases me, forgetting her.

“Rose, get out of here!” I yell, just before taking off out into the front yard, pausing my earth magic for a split second to glamor myself invisible. Ronan takes no precautions, barreling after me as a car honks and swerves to miss him. The two of us crash into the forest across the street. I spare a glance at the bookshop, relieved to see it isn’t burning, and Rose is gone from the front room.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I hiss at Ronan, who has dropped all pretense of trying to impersonate me. His blue-black eyes flash a split-second warning before he unleashes fire meant to burn me more than my vines. I should be using my own fire magic, but I can’t start a forest fire. I’m holding back so much as it is.

“We can’t fight here,” I try, dodging one of his fists. “Take it out on me in Aralia, but we can’t risk the humans seeing this.”

Ronan curses at me, but I sense him pulling in his magic along with his temper. He knows there will be hell to pay if we expose ourselves for such a stupid reason.

“Stay away from her, Kier,” he warns, finally collecting himself, and relief floods through me. “She’s not the changeling. You told her about our world for nothing. I was just trying to clean up your mess.”

I watch him for a long moment as the forest seethes around us, the trees angry at being treated like bystanders. Ronan’s lying. He must be. We don’t know for sure that she is the changeling, which means we don’t know she isn’t. Unless he knows something he hasn’t told me.

Either way, he’s lying, and the only thing I can do right now is get rid of him.

I hold up my hands in a show of surrender. “I know. I’ll take care of it, and the cleanup here. She wants nothing to do with magic. She won’t talk.” I have to get him to leave Rose alone.

She’ll never trust me now, after the way he impersonated me. My frustration starts to boil over again, and Ronan notices it.

He laughs darkly. “She will. When her friend runs away with the gobbelin prince, she will.”

“Too bad you can’t control that brother, either,” I taunt, unable to help myself. Ronan flexes for a moment, the air thickening around him as if he’s deciding whether to attack me all over again. Torrence is a thorn in his side, and I usually don’t bring it up.

Then he smiles in that wicked way a brother has, when he holds something over your head. “You thought you had a shot at finding the changeling, didn’t you? I see it now. All these extra trips to Earth. Brig and I thought you were just fucking your way through the locals. Oh, Kier.” He laughs again, shaking his head as though I’m nothing more than a child.

This sort of thing used to set me off, but there are bigger things at stake now.

I lean casually against a tree, aiming to appear unworried.

“Obviously. We were supposed to be done with this tri-ruler charade by now. And still, the threat of war breathes hot down our necks, none of us are free to do what we want, and the single thread of hope is finding some long-lost woman in a sea of billions. Of course I’m going to be fucking looking .”

His expression hardens. “Don’t think Brigance won’t hear about this.”

And he’s gone in a rush of his air magic, flying up and over the treetops like a fucking harpy. There’s nothing I can do if he decides to tell Brigance, and I don’t really care, either. They can’t stop me from looking.

I’m even more committed to solving the mystery of Rose’s magic and convincing her to trust me now, even if it’s only to spite Ronan.

I whisper my apologies to the woods, resting my palms against their trunks to lend them a bit of my magic so they can heal faster. As I make my way through the woods to the bookshop, I let a sliver of hope return. If I’m careful, maybe I can use today to my advantage. I’ll fix anything we ruined. I can even make it better.

After what Ronan pulled today, she’ll never trust him, either. He thinks he made things harder for me, but if I play things the right way, I can ensure that he’s just eliminated himself from the game.