City of Fae

I froze, locking my thoughts and body down.

“Kill Reign. Do it now. The daggers in your hands. Use them.” I lifted the weapons, alarmed to find I had no memory of grasping them. “Yes. Kill him. Fulfill your purpose. He is too volatile, too dangerous, to leave alive.”

No, no. I wouldn’t do this. Unless … unless I could get her to come closer. If I could lure her down, Reign would attack. If I could get close enough, I’d plunge the daggers into her chest. “I need you, Mother.” I ground out the words, forcing them up my throat beside the taste of bile. “Help me.”

“Sweet thing … Do you seek to trick me?”

“No, Mother. I need you … I need your strength. I am weak, sick, this body fails … Give me the gift of your power so I can finish Sovereign.”

I felt her indecision; a moment between seconds. She hesitated, thinking, scheming. Her mind in mine, I knew her wants. She feared Reign, feared the spirit of the hound inside him. Reign’s curse was old draíocht, like hers. He had the potential to hurt her, maybe even kill her. She knew I could get close enough to stab him. Her starved mind had fractured. She was not what she used to be. She cried out for sustenance. To be glorious again. She wanted these people, needed them … She wanted the city of London. She’d weave draíocht through the streets, create a tapestry of life to mimic Faerie, and free the fae. Reign could stop her. He needed to die.

“Yes …”

Black poison surged through me. I dropped hard, knees cracking against the stage. Power whipped up my spine, arching my body and jerking my head back. Broiling draíocht bubbled beneath my skin, plunged into muscle, and rewrote my very being at the molecular level. I tasted her oily perfume on my lips, breathed her petroleum scent into my lungs. She poisoned me from the inside out, but I locked my mind away. She would not have all of me. Not again. When it was over, the band still rocked the stage, Reign’s voice still wove its spell, but I was changed somehow. Changed but me. She didn’t know how stubborn Alina O’Connor could be.

The queen crept down the back of the stage. Light slid off her black body, and licked over her eight skeletal legs. Her shallow coat of hairs glistened moist with poison. Her body twisted, and her all-red eyes fixed on me.

Working to swallow back the bile, I clutched the daggers in hand and strode onstage. Reign saw me immediately this time. Perhaps it was the way I broadcast my intent in my stride. He broke off, mid-note and cast a horrified glance my way. With a tight shake of my head, I tried to convey that this was an act, a ruse. C’mon Reign, see me. The real me. And behind you, see the queen …

The lights rinsed the stage clear, receding to reveal the monster spider hunched at the back. Chaos erupted. Band members burst from their podiums and scrambled away. Horrified screams burst from the crowd. Panic twitched ripe in the air. And Reign? Reign saw her, and me, bearing down on him. I’d betrayed him. Or so he thought. Dashed hope and disappointment twisted his expression. He let go of the reins on his hound. His body sagged, limp with relief. A veil of green vapor rolled over him. In moments, he’d be unstoppable.

“No!” the queen screamed. “Don’t let him turn … Kill him!” She saw my betrayal when I hesitated, and she knew she’d been played. A frustrated cry burst from her. She scuttled forward, bursting through the band’s equipment, her legs rippling like liquid.

“Reign!” I tried to warn him, but caught mid-change, tangled in a web of his own spiraling draíocht, he couldn’t move to protect himself. I lunged, blindly attacking. The queen swept me back with one cutting slash of her legs. I tumbled, landing on my front, just as she plunged one of her lance-like legs through Reign’s chest and lifted him clean off the stage. He dangled like a doll, twitching, limp and useless, impaled on her limb. She took a moment to admire her catch, watching his head loll to the side, and then tossed his body into the terrified crowd.

“No!” Fear, rage, and disgust churned my thoughts into a terrible maelstrom with one sole purpose at its center. Kill her.

Alarms sounded, great wails. I hardly heard them.

“You tricked me!” She pointed her bloodied limb at me, but turned and snatched the fleeing guitarist into her embrace. In a blur, she gathered the man against her chest, manipulating his body, angling him into her embrace where she could hold him firmly. He screamed. I’d never heard screams like it. They were primal sounds, the sort of sound that curdled blood and haunted dreams.

“Don’t!”