But there was no behind. The two Fae boats bracketed us, the three vessels’ hulls thudding together with a hollow noise as they secured our boat between them. Loops of rope fell over cleats mounted on the side of our craft, trapping us in place.
I was still hunkered in the bottom of the boat like a frightened child, useless with shock. The armed Fae in one of the boats held his gun trained on Guthrie, and the other one had his gun pointed at me.
Bullets.
They probably assumed Guthrie was human. Though they’d figure out that he wasn’t if they got close enough to notice his lack of a heartbeat, or if they shot him.
Lead bullets.
Nigellus had told me there was very little that could kill Rans beyond decapitation and silver through the heart. He’d been shot in the head. I’d seen his skull open up like a flower. And I was still alive. Was Rans floating in the water behind us, helpless and insensible with his brains scattered everywhere? Even if he wasn’t dead dead, could a vampire even heal from that?
“Get up, demonkin,” said the Fae who was pointing a gun at me.
I snarled at him, clutching the dagger—reduced to animal reactions. A dumb beast, just as Caspian and the Unseelie had always seen me.
“Zorah,” Guthrie said again, caution in his tone. He was still standing where he had been before, hands held outward to show he wasn’t armed.
“Get up, or we will shoot your remaining companion,” said the Fae. “We have no orders concerning the human—he’s of no importance to us.”
I... should’ve gotten up then. I know I should’ve. Or at least said something... tried to reason with them. Tried to cut some kind of a deal, or... something.
“Yeah, go right ahead, Sunshine,” Guthrie said. “Don’t hold back on my account.”
A bullet tore through Guthrie’s thigh as the second armed Fae apparently took him at his word. He grunted and doubled over, clutching the wound for only a moment before he straightened with a snarl on his face that probably matched mine.
Only his snarl had more fang showing. His eyes glowed a brilliant violet.
“What—” breathed the Fae who was covering me.
Guthrie growled and lunged over the side of the boat to get at the one who’d just shot him, along with his two startled companions. One of the unarmed Fae leapt out of his boat and into ours, avoiding Guthrie’s charge. Guthrie slammed into the one with the gun, sending the weapon arcing into the water. The second pulled a knife and jumped on him as the unexpected attack descended into an ugly two-on-one brawl.
“Guthrie,” I rasped past a throat as dry as sandpaper, staring at the flash of sunlight against the pale blade and praying I was wrong about it being made of silver.
The Fae who’d bailed into my boat stood poised and wary—his attention split between me, and the fight he’d just fled.
“Don’t just stand there gawping like a youngling on his first hunt,” snapped the armed Fae from the other boat, still covering me with the gun. “Get the demon abomination over here and cast us off from the other two vessels. Let the others deal with the second bloodsucker!”
My body finally uncurled itself as the three remaining Fae approached me, and I clambered to unsteady feet. Belatedly, rage surged in, flooding across the shock and unfreezing my brain cells.
“I’m not an abomination—you fucking Fae monsters!” My voice rose with every word until I was practically screaming at them. I jerked the iron dagger free of its sheath. “You can’t have me! I’m not your fucking property to haul around like baggage!”
I had no idea what I looked like, swaying on the deck with my ridiculous sundress and sandals, a dagger clutched in my right hand. But I felt about twenty feet tall—like some vengeful goddess intent on smiting my enemies with the power of my own righteous fury. Towering rage... the term made sense to me now.
Vaguely, I was aware of grunts and the impact of flesh on flesh coming from the other boat, but I couldn’t stop to look. My eyes burned into the four Fae who were focused on me, demanding their acknowledgement of what I was. Insisting on their recognition of my power.
The knife I was holding clattered to the deck. An iron dagger wasn’t the weapon I needed to punish these creatures who’d hounded me across oceans and hurt the people I loved. I didn’t need a blade to hack their souls free of their bodies. Because despite themselves... despite their avowed disgust for my very existence, these Fae desired me. It swirled around them like mist, like a secret that only I could see.
“You don’t control me,” I snarled, grabbing every invisible trail of want that licked at my aura... and pulling against them with all of my strength.
EIGHTEEN
THE ENERGY THAT flowed into me was vile. Fae animus burned like acid through my veins, just as it had on the two other occasions I’d unintentionally pulled it into my magical core. The first time, I’d only just learned what I was. I’d panicked when Albigard captured Rans and me, not knowing that the whole thing had been a ruse. Drawing animus from him as a defense had been sheer instinct, nothing more.
The second time, Caspian and one of his henchmen had been torturing me when I was a prisoner in Dhuinne. I was already weakened from hunger and exhaustion, unsure of my own powers and delirious with fear. In both cases, my attack had lasted only seconds before the connection to my victims had snapped.
I’d been much less powerful, back then.
Now, I felt like an angry, ravenous beast. I hated the life-force I was drawing from the four Fae, but rather than stopping me, that hatred only made me more furious. The closest Fae cried out and dropped to the deck a step away from me, clawing at his own stomach. Gunfire rang out and a
