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

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

T ORRENCE

I sense Julianna in the woods before I see her.

Somewhere between the entrance to the blood mines and her favorite outcropping of ice-riddled caves, she waits for me like a ghost in the darkness.

She’s haunted me my whole life, never content if I have even a scrap of happiness she could ruin.

“Hello, son,” she says, and the word sounds like a curse in her mouth.

“Arlo? Really? I’ve done everything you asked here, yet you still felt the need to spy on me?” I hiss at her, trying like hell to tamp down my fury. I don’t need a real confrontation, not now. No matter how Ruby’s blood made me feel, I’m nowhere near strong enough to take her on.

“And a good thing I did. Look at the mess you’ve made. Arlo had to kill all those gobbelins for you, and then you went and ruined him for me. He’s no good to me dead.”

“I was going to take care of it.”

“On your own timeline, I presume? Because you certainly weren’t willing to jump on my command.” She gives me a falsely sad smile that reeks of self-pity. “The truth is plain here, Torrence. I can’t trust you with my troops, so you’ll stay here - underground - and Idris will move into your place in Haret. It’s so embarrassing that I can’t rely on my own son. I trained you all those years, and for what? I’m not even confident you can manage the mines now, but there are so many incompetent gobbelins. I’ll be so gutted if you turn out to be one of them.”

A growl rumbles in my chest as she goes on and on, but really, I’m acting. Her martyr act hasn’t worked on me since I was a boy. I don’t want to return to Haret yet, and I couldn’t care less about commanding an army. I trust Idris to do what needs to be done for our secret plans, and now I can stay close to Ruby, protecting her.

“You never intended to let me lead,” I bite out, trying to look wounded. I need to playact for her a little longer to keep her suspicion away. Julianna smiles, toying with a lock of her black hair.

“You’ll never know my intentions again, unless you can prove your worth to me. I should have kept Declan.”

She makes a pitiful, self-indulgent sigh, but I’m way beyond being hurt by her petty comparisons between my twin brother and me. Declan chose the fae over us, and she couldn’t have kept him if she wanted to.

“I’ll give you this last chance to show loyalty to me, Torrence. Take care of the girls in the bookshop - they know too much. Kill them or turn them into blood slaves, I’ll give you that single choice. But by the Goddess herself, if you fail in that task... Well. Let’s just say you don’t want my motherly love to run dry.”

I glare at her, knowing damn well she’s never had a motherly instinct in her body. However, this does tell me Julianna is threatened by Ruby, and doesn’t believe either girl is the changeling. My mother has always wanted to be the only woman I depend on, and I’m certainly closer to Ruby than I’ve been to any woman since we fled the fae after Rinna’s death.

“I’m perfectly capable of handling pets, Julianna,” I answer. “Idris is a good commander, but you know the design and process of the mines only works so well because I made it so.”

In fact, they work so well that I’d never dream of turning Ruby into one now. I didn’t intend to become attached, but I’d rather see Ruby die than become a blood slave.

Julianna is right about one thing. Humans - Ruby, to be exact - are dangerous.

Not in the way magic is dangerous. But her innocence. Her joy in life. Her excitement.

For the first time since we escaped Aralia, I feel hope. Even my plans for Magriel are made of desperation and determination.

Even more than Goblin Market , Ruby has shown me that a different life might be possible. A softer one, full of joy and pleasure, far away from cruelty and violence.

A life where I could be more man than beast.

“There’s no time for you to cart around a forest princess. Get her under your thumb, or I’ll gut her in front of you,” Julianna warns, growing impatient with our silent standoff. “Either way, she’ll die. Slaves only last for so long, and she can’t feed you forever, darling.”

I grit my teeth at her saccharine smile. I’ve seen hundreds, thousands even, of humans deteriorate and die as blood slaves, yet I’ve only now connected that possibility with Ruby. Would I really keep drinking from her if I truly cared about her life?

“You know, Torrence, anyone besides my son would already be strung up and bleeding out as an example. But I do have my limits.”

She’s gone before I have a chance to spit out an answer, and for the thousandth time, I curse my decision to stay with her instead of siding with the fae or striking out on my own. It was an impossible choice then, and it still is.

I tell myself it’s smarter to pander to my mother, that rebelling would only make everything worse. But it’s cowardice that keeps me here, doing her dirty work. I’ve never had a reason strong enough to risk the danger, but I’m not sure that’s true any longer.

I’m a chained beast to my mother, but Ruby called me a savior. Maybe what I really am is beyond both of those. Protecting Ruby could give me the courage I’ve lacked to bite back, and drinking her blood could bring me the power I need to break that chain, once and for all.

As much as I hate Julianna, she’s right. I’m not leading, I’m following. With Ruby by my side, I could finally step onto a different path.

Ruby hasn’t seen my true gobbelin form, but somehow she’s sifted through the dark places of my soul and found the light I hid there so long ago. Now she holds it like a beacon, beckoning me forward.

Realizing I’ve been pacing through the woods as I think, I look up and find myself behind the bookshop, drawn there like an insect to the flame. I don’t know how or when it happened, but Ruby owns a piece of me now.

Standing outside the building in the darkness, I look up at the window of Ruby’s bedroom. I can feel her sleeping there.

Dreaming.

My mind stretches and reaches for her, the wisps of her dream like plants waving at the bottom of an ocean. I dive in deep, craving to see what she dreams about.

I follow the tendrils deeper into the dream, even as I freeze the door alarm and slip inside the building. Silently climbing the stairs, slipping into the folds of her mind. I’m no good for her - I’ll ruin her, like I told her in the beginning.

But I can’t seem to stay away.

Leaving wouldn’t protect her, though. Not now. Julianna would send someone to kill both girls, or relish doing it herself.

Would Ruby let me hide her? Idris would help me find a place where she could be safe until after the war. She wouldn’t leave without Rose, though. I see that now. I have to find a way to make them both leave Clearwater. The question is, how? Where can I hide them that my mother won’t find?

Ruby’s dream dissolves around me as I gaze down at her, and her long lashes flutter.

“Torrence?” she whispers, blinking up at me with a soft smile. There’s no fear at all in her voice - a marvel to someone like me.

“I’m here for you,” I murmur, settling next to her on the soft bed. She curls into my chest like the kitten I imagine her to be, and something deeper than hunger twists in my stomach. Something stronger than fear aches in my chest.

“Do you need blood?” Ruby says, her words soft and blurred with sleep. She arches her neck, and I swallow down a groan as her eyes flutter closed again.

“Ruby...”

“Take it, Torrence. Take what you need.”

I curse under my breath as she closes her eyes again, so incredibly trusting. What kind of man would I be, if I broke this trust now?

Leaning down until my lips brush her neck, I give the trust back to her and do what she asks. I feed, but gently. Slowly. Carefully, without taking more than she can bear. She sighs and sleeps again easily, slipping back into a dream and pulling me with her.

We’re twined together on her bed and in her dream, and my mind spins with the power of the combination.

Take me, Torrence. Take what you want.

Dream Ruby dances away from me in another fuzzy, dreamy woods, teasing and begging. Dream Ruby doesn’t want to go slow, she wants to be tasted and tongued, forced onto her back in the leaves and fucked until she screams my name in the pleasure she’s been craving all along.

As I drink her blood and dream with her, I begin to wonder if Ruby herself is tired of holding back the same desires.

RONAN

Fucking Torrence.

His scent is everywhere around the bookshop, as is the sickly sweet of dreamwalker magic. And none of the biting ice that Julianna would bring.

I should have put the two together long before this. I’ve always known she was a dreamwalker, but Torrence? He’s somehow kept that from me until tonight, and I’m going to fucking ruin him for it.

Dreamwalker magic is rarely passed on in families, and we don’t understand how someone with gobbelin blood can even use it. Whatever secrets Julianna has uncovered, she must have shared with him, and that’s an unfortunate twist.

My lip curls up as I determine Kier’s scent is everywhere around the bookshop, too. He’s been using his own base ways to convince Rose to come to Aralia, but as she’s still here, maybe my little brother isn’t as charming as he thinks he is.

I can sense Rose in her room, the burnt sugar scent of her magic like a spark in the night air, somewhat easier to find now that I know what I’m looking for. I should go up there and make sure Torrence stays the fuck out of Rose’s dreams. Her secrets need to belong to me, alone.

But Ruby could tell him anything, especially in her dreams. She would never know the danger she was putting her friend in.

I start for the door, noticing it’s been frozen over so the alarm won’t sound. Clever, though I hate to give Torrence the credit.

“To sleep, perchance to dream.”

I whirl at the soft voice, magic crackling in my fingertips as soon as I see Julianna leaning against a tree at the edge of the woods, a teasing smirk mismatched with her cold, cruel eyes.

She stops my air magic attack with a single hand, and I find myself pinned all too easily to the wall of the shop, limbs frozen in place as shards of ice press dangerously close to the softest parts on my body. Julianna laughs, letting me know she could do so much worse, and I curse my mother again for letting this woman escape with her life.

“Poor Ronan. Never as much fun as Kier, and not trusted with the hard things like Brigance. Classic middle child, and evidently just as impotent as any other fae I’ve met. I could kill you now, you know.”

“That would ruin your plans,” I growl, the effort of forcing words out of frozen lungs enraging me. My fire magic begins to rally, melting away some of the ice, but we both know she could kill me long before I get free.

“Yes, it would. I don’t want you dead, any of you. I want you as my slaves . A trio of little pet princes.” She laughs, the sound softer and prettier than she’s ever been.

“Why are you here?” I ask, working to free my arms as she watches with a bored expression.

“Earth? Clearwater? This bookstore with the stupid name? I have plenty of reasons for each.”

“These woods,” I bite out, bending one elbow.

“I like the way they smell.”

My eyes flick to hers, and she laughs again, the picture of fae nonchalance. She’s trying to get information from me, as usual.

“They smell like shit, just like the rest of Earth.”

“And yet, you and your brother just keep coming back like hogs to roll in it. Where is Kier tonight, anyway?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“Gallivanting, is he? Using his shore leave to fuck pretty humans, like the ones in this building of books?”

“You don’t think much of my slutty little brother, do you?” I get the other elbow bent, using my freed hands to direct fire to the daggers of ice still pinning me to the wall. She makes no move to freeze me again, and her indifference is a pointed insult.

“Why should any of you think you have a fool’s chance of winning this war? You can’t beat my army, poor darkling prince.”

“We have ways to beat you, ice-grubber, methods you’ve never seen before.” I wish it weren’t an empty boast, but Rose isn’t yet in Aralia.

Julianna laughs, the sound like hail on a tin roof. “Like a changeling? Even Ignea couldn’t turn over that stone.”

The corner of my lips lifts in a taunting smile, and she raises an eyebrow. If she won’t leave me alone, perhaps I can distract her by throwing Torrence like a bone to a dog.

“What makes you think I have my sights set on the red-haired girl? Kier can have her. What I want to know, is why Torrence seems so much more interested in the other one.”

“Animal hunger. Torrence is led by her blood and his cock, nothing more.”

“Do you really believe you know everything Torrence does? You seem to forget he’s half fae, even though you birthed him. Torrence hides all sorts of things from you.”

“I know what he hides,” she snaps, and her anger lets me know I’ve prodded a bruise.

“Do you? You gobbelins claim that humans are nothing more than pets or cattle, so why hasn’t Torrence drained her dry? He hasn’t even bedded her yet. She runs free, although she’s eaten plenty of his tainted food. Either your pathetic prince sees this human as something more than food, or he’s training her to choose him.”

Julianna snarls as I continue, laying out the fantasy for her.

“Why else would she need to choose him, unless she were the changeling? Any other human, he could simply force into the mountain caves where your pitiful armies hide.”

Her lip curls up, showing the glint of needle-sharp teeth as she considers my words. I wonder if I’ve pushed too hard. She’s always been better than me at playing games of deception, and she could have easily seen through mine. A sly grin spreads over her face, and I work faster to free myself.

Nothing good ever comes from a woman who looks at you like that.

“You tell me more than you think you do, middle prince. It seems that I was the smarter mother, since you’re proving to be even stupider than Torrence.”

“Ignea made you flee fast enough,” I point out, freeing one shoulder. How desperate Julianna must have been to leave Aralia behind and hide in the ice caves all these years.

“And yet... which of us is still alive?”

The taunt isn’t the cut she wants it to be. I’m happy my mother is dead. “No-one mourned her death, and they won’t mourn yours, either.”

“Nor yours, darkling prince.” Julianna smirks at me, suddenly done with the conversation. Slicing open the ground beneath her with her magic, she creates a silent fissure that opens wide to swallow her whole. Her laughter echoes down into the black earth as I finally free myself from the ice.

I don’t know if I’ve made things better or worse, but at least she’s gone.

She must be feeding well to have grown so much stronger, but none of that will matter once I have the changeling. I make my way quickly up to Rose’s room, keeping my glamor and air magic wrapped around me so Torrence won’t notice I’ve arrived.

Even in Rose’s bedroom, traces of my brothers taunt me. Torrence with Ruby, and Kier with Rose. Rose is a beautiful woman, and under different circumstances, I would have bedded her too, or perhaps stolen her from Kier. Sibling rivalry was bred into all of us, but there’s no time for that here.

My only concern now is how I might get Rose to come with me to Aralia.

What stories has Kier told her about my own plans for the changeling, and what does she already fear about me due to the way I’ve treated her? Perhaps my brother isn’t as cock-led as he seems, and perhaps Julianna is more right than I want her to be.

I know nothing of games and gentleness.

I was raised to fight and win, no matter the cost. Brigance may be the oldest prince, but Ignea groomed me to be the fiercest. Unfortunately, strength and force are useless here. Rose has to choose to come to Aralia with me, or the magic will never be enough.

It seems impossible tonight, but it won’t be forever. My instincts are better than anyone’s. I’ll find the right thread to pull Rose right into my trap.