Blood Before Sunrise

“What do you mean, love?” His words were spoken softly but carried a warning edge. “I share my life with you. Is that not enough?”

“Do you not think I can handle the truth? Is that why you keep things from me? Do you not think I’m strong enough? Capable?”

“What I do is for your protection.” He’d abandoned the facade of calm, heading down a path I knew better than to follow. “If I keep things from you, it is for your own good. Do not make me regret the decision to save your life, Darian. Leave all things to me and you will be safe. Accept that fact or risk your safety.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. He’d saved my life; he’d cared for me. How could I question him or doubt his honor for even one second? “I-I was just curious, that’s all. The postcards, they’re like a mystery. A puzzle to be solved.”

“Perhaps you need diversion,” Azriel said, pulling me onto his lap. His breath tickled where he lowered his lips to my throat. “You need no puzzle to solve or mysteries to unravel.” His lips were warm, soft, sending a ripple of pleasure across my skin. “You have me, and I am enough.”

My head rolled back on my shoulders as he unbuttoned my dress. Yes. I had him. And he would be with me. Always. I didn’t need to know the truth. I didn’t need to know anything besides that he loved me. He was enough.

And I trusted him.

Chapter 28

I hadn’t trusted him.

I’d done to Tyler what Azriel had done to me all those years ago. I’d taken control of him and the situation, and I hadn’t trusted him to be my partner, my equal. I’d used my body to distract him. I’d treated him as if he were weak, beneath me, and he knew it. I’d expected him to blindly trust me without offering anything in return. And I’d left him.

I reached for my thumb, touching the skin that had been worn smooth by Tyler’s ring. What had Faolan done with it? I needed it. I needed to feel that part of Tyler on my body.

“Darian,” Moira said, not so gently slapping my cheek. “Darian, can you hear me?”

No. Well, I didn’t want to anyway. Admitting I could hear her was acknowledging this reality, the fact that I’d dug myself a hole I couldn’t get out of, and had more than likely lost the only thing in my life I cared about.

“Darian.” She slapped me harder this time, and my head throbbed where I’d been hit. Lovely. Just lovely.

“I can hear you fine,” I said, venturing to open one eye and then the other. “But if you slap me like that again, you’re going to be the one unconscious.”

“Get up,” she laughed. Apparently she didn’t consider me a threat. “We have to keep going.”

Slowly, oh, so slowly, I brought myself to a sitting position. Damn, I hated how susceptible to injury I was in this place. My head bobbed on my shoulders, and the effort it took to support its weight made me want to lie back down. I reached tentative fingers through hair matted with blood, wincing as I made contact with a large gash.

“It probably feels worse than it looks,” Moira said, supporting my shoulders. “Your skin was split clear to the skull. I stopped the bleeding and gave the cut a little jump start in the healing department. It’s nothing more than superficial now. You should be fine.”

A jump start? Okay, whatever. “What happened?” Besides the fact that I’d been knocked out by a lesser opponent. The shame was almost worse than the injury.

“Pride before the fall?” Moira said. “Not quite. They double-teamed you while I was occupied. You turned your attention to the greater threat, and the other took you down with the pommel of his sword. Better a knock to the head than a blade through your heart.”

“Doesn’t feel much better.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re very arrogant?”

Sure. In so many words, almost everyone I’d ever met. But in my line of work you had to be a little cocky. “You have a problem with arrogance?”

“In a Guardian?” Moira smiled. “Not at all.”

I looked around at the bodies littering the ground beside us-senseless deaths at Faolan’s hand. After all, these Nymphs would still be alive and well if it hadn’t been for his influence. How many more had to suffer for his insanity? If I had anything to do with it, not another soul.

“What happened when Faolan attempted his last coup?” All I knew was that Brakae had helped to imprison him. There had to be more to the story, and besides, it helped to pass the time as we walked.

“He never should have fallen in love with her,” Moira answered. “It was his undoing.”

“Yeah. I got that much.”

“Faolan’s race was bred for war,” Moira said. “Fearless warriors, terrifying in their beast forms. Badb kept the Enphigmale busy for centuries, fighting her battles. But when the humans became involved, the gods didn’t think it was fair to let them fight against supernatural beings. Humans are so very fragile.”

From Moira’s tone, I got the impression she didn’t chum around with many humans. She rolled her eyes at my thoughts, answering my unspoken question.

“The gods decided it was in the best interest of humanity to separate them from the Fae and their kin and rend the fabric of time in two. They gave their extraordinary children a choice: Live in the mundane and hide their true natures or live in O Anel openly.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Seriously, you expect me to believe that actual gods and goddesses did this?”

“Darian,” Moira said with pity, “you’re thinking like a human. Your narrow-mindedness is perhaps your most unsavory quality. Badb pulled Faolan from the battlefield and gave him a position of honor: Guardian of Iskosia: the key to O Anel. He would help to maintain the balance of time and protect O Anel’s Time Keeper if need be. I doubt he was thrilled with the appointment, but he tolerated it…until Brakae was chosen to serve.”

I didn’t think the whole mundane world/Faerie Realm thing had been created too recently. Still…“Faolan had mentioned that he didn’t care about the others, so clearly Brakae wasn’t the first Time Keeper.”

“Brakae was the fifth. In the beginning, there were many uprisings, and Guardians were busy protecting their charges. Faolan satisfied his need to fight for a thousand years, squashing this usurper or that. By the time Brakae had been called to serve, the hourglass was nothing but a myth.”

“I take it peace didn’t sit well with our gargoyle?”

“Oh, it agreed with him. He fell in love, after all. But there were too many rules to follow, too many restrictions. Brakae was bound to the essence of time. She had become one with chaos and could never leave O Anel.”

Moira’s story was just too tragic for my usual jaded outlook. “Faolan couldn’t stomach the way she aged.” He’d said as much already.

Moira nodded. “Amongst other things. And so he gathered his army and set to the task of overthrowing the order the gods had created. Obviously, he did not succeed.”

Brakae’s energy called to me, and I steered Moira to the left, following her trail. “Badb punished him?”

“Brakae set the trap, and Faolan never suspected her betrayal. I led a small army against him, and we captured the nine Enphigmale warriors still living. We trapped them between the worlds; I suppose you’d call it purgatory. Through my blood, Badb punished them all for their treason by imprisoning their beast forms in stone. And in that empty place, they were to stay.”

“Until I came along,” I murmured.

“Yes,” Moira said. “Until you.”

“Why doesn’t Badb step in again?” I asked. “I suspect she could end this pretty quickly, being a goddess and all.”