A Gray Area Read online

  “They will never follow you!” Cyprian declared.

  “If they don't, they will die.” Terial shrugged. “I don't need them either. I have an army of transformed humans gathered right above us; waiting patiently for my orders.”

  “Varian was right; you're the one who took those people,” I said in horror.

  “Of course.” Terial smirked. “I hold their lives inside me.” He ran a hand over his chest in satisfaction. “They have no choice but to obey.”

  “Damn you, Terial,” Cyprian growled. “I will see you burn for this.”

  “The weak words of a fallen faulin.” Terial laughed scathingly. “Have fun with your lady friend.”

  Terial waved a hand at the bars—a glittering light falling over the metal—and then he twisted away.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I took stock of my surroundings; bare, stone floor, nothing in the cells but what looked suspiciously like an outhouse toilet (I wasn't about to open it and find out), and a table of frightening steel implements outside of, and across from, the cells.

  “Are you all right, Amara?” it was Cyprian's real voice; the one without the purr.

  “I'm fine. You?”

  He chuckled mirthlessly. “Just peachy.”

  I laughed with him and sat on the floor near the bars that separated our cells.

  “We're in Danu, aren't we?” I asked him.

  “You'd know better than I, it seems,” Cyprian said as he sat beside me. “But I doubt that Terial has a cabin on Earth.” Then he took a good look at me. “What the fuck is going on with your eyes?”

  “They're glowing?” I asked.

  “Yeah; they're fucking glowing. Like the eyes of a damn pumpkin on Halloween.”

  I grimaced. “It's Danu; the realm affects me for some reason. It should simmer down in a little while.”

  “How fascinating.” Cyprian stared at me.

  “Why does everyone say that?” I huffed.

  “Everyone being?”

  “Varian and the Eastern Court.”

  “You really did meet the Queen of the East?” He lifted a brow.

  “Yeah; she reminds me a lot of some of the women I met at Yale. I used to call them Splenda because they were so sweet in a toxic, counterfeit way and tended to leave a bad taste in your mouth. Although, the Queen was more forthcoming in her apathetic cruelty. Simply put; she was a bitch.”

  Cyprian burst out into a bark of laughter. “Most queens are, se esaria.”

  “Why did you deal with him?” I asked suddenly. “Why help Terial?”

  “You saw how we were treated in Flamethrower's.” He lifted his knees and rested his forearms on them. “That's how everyone treats us. You are the first person who has ever stood up for us.” He cast a look my way. “That was something special to see. You were viciously beautiful.”

  “So, you traded Earth to Terial in exchange for a place to belong?” I ignored the compliment.

  “When I made the deal, I didn't know that the humans would be turned into raving monsters.” He sighed deeply. “I don't think even Terial knew that. He believed Earth would be remade into a version of Danu; a whole world that he could rule.”

  “And give pieces of to others to rule beneath him,” I murmured.

  “It was the best offer we've ever received,” he said wistfully. “A place to not only be free and looked upon without scorn, but to also rule. To walk in pride instead of shame. A place to make our home.”

  “You could have a home in the Market.”

  “I had no idea when I made the bargain that the great Spectra would swoop in and rally the citizens of the Supemarket into finally accepting us,” he teased. “If I had met you first, I don't believe I would have been so easily swayed by Terial.”

  “The great Spectra couldn't do a damn thing against Terial,” I muttered.

  “Neither could I,” Cyprian growled and shot me a blazing look. “And that says a lot. More than you know.”

  “If you're so damn powerful, get us out of these cells.” I lifted a brow at him.

  “Take a look with your other senses, Amara.” He waved his hand at the bars. “What do you see?”

  I frowned but did as Cyprian suggested. The bars radiated dark gray power. I hadn't noticed them before since the color was so similar to the bars themselves. Also, I'd been a little distracted by Terial's titanic aura of sparkling stolen life force. But I did seem to remember something settling over them before Terial left. It must have been a ward.

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “Yes, precisely.” Cyprian sighed deeply. “They're infused with magic. And I have no idea how to get around it.”

  “Magic.” I rubbed at my neck; Malik's mark had continued to pulse with his raging emotions, but it had gone from fiery hot to frigidly cold. With his strength and my odd connection to Danu, perhaps my natural abilities would be strong enough to counter Terial's enchantment. “Maybe I could try.”

  Cyprian looked at me curiously.

  I ignored him and stared at the bars. I let my vision blur until the aura of power became a mist and then just gray. Sparks drifted in the air; little bits of light I hadn't noticed before. I reached out to them and they shivered.

  “What was that?” Cyprian whispered.

  “Shh.” I sat forward intently.

  The sparks gathered; growing into a ball. I kept pulling and pulling; sparks flowing in through the walls until the ball was the size of my head, and then the size of a watermelon. Sweat dripped down my brow even as the ice of Malik's mark chilled me. Finally, I shoved the light at the bars. It burst apart; an explosion so hot and powerful that it sent Cyprian and me flying back against the wall. I blinked and stumbled to my feet. The light faded, but the bars were still there.

  “Damn!” I slammed a fist against the metal; hoping that I'd at least weakened it.

  Another burst—this one of deadly magic—sent me flying backward again. I landed hard enough to crack my head and stun myself. Blackness crawled into the edges of my vision and breath wheezed out of me.

  “Amara!” Cyprian was shouting.

  My mark shivered. I rolled onto my back and gasped in air as my body quickly healed itself. Cyprian's hand reached through the bars and took mine.

  “Se esaria, are you hurt?”

  “I'm fine,” I whispered and let go of his hand. “Stop calling me that, Cyprian.”

  He let out a relieved breath. “You must be all right if your temper has returned.”

  “Is there a way for Supes to get into Danu without twisting?”

  Cyprian stared at me thoughtfully for a few minutes. “I think Terial has a path he uses as an alternative, but I don't know if anyone else could even find it, much less travel it.”

  Malik, where are you? If anyone can find that path, it's you.

  “I don't think we should count on a rescue,” Cyprian said softly. “We need to find our own way out.”

  “You're right,” I agreed. “So, how do we get past the bars?”

  Cyprian considered the metal and then looked around. His eyes gleamed; appearing even more cat-like in the dim room. Dim room; that meant that there was light coming from somewhere. Where was the light coming from? I searched the room with Cyprian and finally noticed narrow rectangles high up on the wall behind me. Sunlight filtered in through the glass panels, and I could just make out the glint of grass beyond them.

  “That's far too small for us to fit through,” Cyprian noted. “But perhaps we could widen the gap and remove the glass.”

  The windows were at least ten feet above me and the wall was slick stone. I'd never be able to reach them, but I might be able to widen one with another of those spark balls. As I scowled in thought, Cyprian launched himself at the wall... and stuck there. I gaped at him as I noticed that his hands had turned into claws. He glanced back over his shoulder at me and winked as he stabbed his claws into the stone—chips flying—and climbed the wall. Those were some seriously strong claws.

 
; “What the hell?” I whispered.

  “Faulin aren't from Hell,” Cyprian said without an ounce of strain in his voice. “But we do share certain qualities with Bleiten. Such as demon-like forms with claws stronger than blades.”

  “How were your people ever enslaved?” I cocked my head and leaned against the wall to watch him.

  “Those who enslaved us are more powerful than we are,” he said simply.

  Cyprian reached the window and started clawing at the soil and stone surrounding it. Clods of earth fell to the floor with rattling pebbles. He dug and dug like a dog looking for a bone. His speed was dizzying. And the hole widened. I held my breath; it was three inches across instead of two—the edges of the glass window starting to show—when I heard a horrible scrape and then something sparked. Cyprian flew backward into the warded bars which then launched him across the cell once more to slam into the wall like a living pinball.

  “Cyprian!” I shouted and went to crouch as close to his body as I could. “Cyprian, say something!”

  “Ow,” he said dryly.

  I leaned against the bars—thankfully, the ones between the cells were not enchanted—and laughed in relief.

  “I believe our host has thought of everything,” Cyprian muttered as he rolled onto his stomach. He laid his head on his hands—normal hands once again—and regarded me. “We have to come up with something else, se esaria.”

  “I suppose we do.” I reached out to him.

  Cyprian's eyes widened slightly as he stretched a hand out to touch mine. Our fingers wove together, and we stared at each other grimly. On my neck, Malik's mark went numb.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Night came and brought nearly complete darkness with it. Just the barest shafts of moonlight drifted in through the windows. At one point, I was glad for the lack of light; it meant I was able to use the toilet in relative privacy. It wasn't an outhouse version as I'd expected, but rather a Danutian advancement that instantly whisked away anything that fell in it. Our host had even provided a pile of rags beside it. How thoughtful. But other than that, the night weighed heavily upon us. It was cold in that cellar and the sounds of hunting creatures echoed through the dark. Cyprian and I huddled together with the bars between us; both for warmth and comfort.

  Malik's mark had remained mostly numb but occasionally, a sharp, panicked pain would burst through it. I grit my teeth and ignored it as best as I could. Thinking about Malik wouldn't help. I needed to work out a way to get through this with Cyprian.

  Cyprian. I glanced over at him. The dark didn't affect me as badly as it had him. I could see in all spectra, which included infrared and ultraviolet. Basically, I could see in the dark. I had quickly adjusted to the utter blackness. But Cyprian had shivered when night fell and even though his eyes had adjusted enough for him to see, he hadn't stopped shivering.

  “Cyprian,” I whispered.

  He flinched; his gaze darting toward me. His hair gleamed in the dark; catching what little light there was. I could see his features perfectly within that bright frame and they were tight with fear. I reached through the bars and took his hand.

  “We're going to get out of here,” I said gently.

  Cyprian swallowed roughly and nodded. “Yes, of course, we are,” his voice was torn; broken.

  “It's not the imprisonment that's getting to you,” I whispered. “It's the dark, isn't it?”

  Cyprian's jaw clenched, and he looked away.

  “We all have our demons,” I said gently. Malik's mark flashed, and I nearly grimaced. That statement had hit too close to home. “I don't think less of you for being haunted by something.”

  “Se esaria,” his voice ghosted between us as his hand closed around mine. “How do you always know the precise words to use to cut me to the heart?”

  “I meant to comfort, not cut.”

  “Isn't it the same thing?”

  I flinched. What kind of life had he lived that would make him say that?

  “No; not even close.” I rubbed my thumb over his hand gently. “Share your pain with me and let me lighten the load. What does it matter here, with just the two of us in the Danutian dark?”

  Emeralds glinting in the shadows; Cyprian cast his gaze at me consideringly. His jaw tightened again before it loosened enough to speak.

  “One of the most common ways to punish a slave on my planet is to put them in a windowless cell lined in stone that's empowered to drained emotions; everything but fear.”

  My throat went dry. I clasped his hand tighter.

  “I have never been good at bending the knee,” he went on. “Not for men, anyway.” He made an effort at a joke, and I squeezed his hand for it. “I rebelled violently and often. I don't know how many times I ended up in that draining dark; my heart beating in my mouth along with the taste of my own blood. There was nothing to fear there; I told myself that over and over. But when you live for passion, a lack of emotion is crippling. The air would thicken and press down on me.”

  Cyprian looked around himself as if the air were doing that very thing just then. I released his hand to slip my arm through the bars and around his shoulders. Cyprian jerked and then relaxed his body against the metal; his head coming to rest just over mine. I slid my hand up to stroke his hair; it was heavy and yet so fine that it slipped through my fingers like water. Cyprian sighed deeply; his eyes closing. I kept stroking his hair; working my fingers against his scalp until he returned to his story.

  “Some of my people went insane in those cells,” his voice roughened. “Some killed themselves, but I endured. I told myself that one day, I would find a way to murder the men who put me in that stone box and then I would free my people. I'd do whatever I had to do; fight, lie, kill, fuck. Whatever it took; I would free us and find us a home where we could be safe.”

  Tears stung my eyes and tightened my throat. I couldn't speak so I pressed my face against the bars and touched his cheek with mine. His skin was hot and wet; our tears blended together.

  “I nearly did it, se esaria.” Cyprian took my hand from his hair and drew it down and around to press against his chest. “I led an uprising—enough of an opposition to free hundreds of my people—and we fled. But not before I killed the men who had laughed at me as they tossed me in that cell. I slit their throats and laughed at them as they died. Then I brought my people here. To Earth; a land shared by many races. I thought that if there were anywhere in all the worlds that we could be accepted, it would be here.”

  “But you were wrong,” I said softly.

  He nodded. “The other races rejected us. Even humans called us monsters. It wasn't until recently—after the alien races and evolved humans started to hide, and we became myth—that my people were able to walk freely in the sun. But still, we weren't welcome among the Supes.”

  “I'm so sorry, Cyprian,” I said softly. “It's unjust and cruel. When we make it back, I'm going to do everything I can to change that.”

  “I believe you,” he said with a note of wonder. “My beautiful champion. I've never had someone fight for me. It's a strange feeling.”

  “Beside you, not for you.” I squeezed his hand again, and he lowered it into his lap. “We can change things together.”

  “I would like that,” he murmured. And then he blinked rapidly, as if in epiphany.

  “What is it?”

  “Together,” he whispered. “Oh. Could it work? I think it could.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Amara”—Cyprian turned to face me—“I think I have a way to overpower Terial. You won't like it, but I believe it's our best chance.”

  I let go of his hand. “Tell me.”

  “Faulin can share power with their mates,” he began. “We have a bond that—”

  “Is this like a Bleiten bond?” I cut him off.

  Cyprian frowned. “I don't know anything about Bleiten bonds.”

  “Does it involve venom and sex?”

  “Not venom,” he said he
sitantly.

  “But it involves sex,” I said with dry disdain.

  “I'm not suggesting that we have sex, Amara,” Cyprian snapped. “Do me the courtesy of hearing me out. What I'm about to propose to you is not something casually undertaken by my kind and never with an outsider.”

  I exhaled and nodded. “Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead.”

  “We call it Fusion. There are three steps to fuse two Faulin together,” he said evenly. “The first is a sharing of energies; we feed on each other.”