Beyond Everlight: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Fearless Destiny Book 1) Read online

  “You are a wonder, Kenna.”

  A knock at the door was a welcome interruption, because it was taking everything I had not to throw myself at him. Erebus lowered his hand, his soft expression smoothing into something more alert and business-like.

  Vale entered. His gaze flickered from my flushed face to Erebus’s unaffected one. Did he guess what had almost happened?

  “Erebus, Baal is here,” Vale said. “He wishes to speak with you. I also have the weekly report.”

  Erebus nodded and stood. “Tell him I’ll be right—”

  “Why don’t you tell me yourself?” Baal entered the room, his brows shooting up when he clocked me on the bed. His gaze fell to the collar at my neck. “I see the reports are true.”

  Erebus’s eyes tightened. “Reports? Have you been spying on me again old friend?”

  Baal winced and held up a hand, finger and thumb an inch apart. “Maybe just a little bit.”

  “Baal . . .” There was real warning in Erebus’s tone.

  “Pfft,” Baal waved a hand in the air. “You know me. I’m all about the information. And this,” he fixed his startling green eyes on me, “is some information.” His lips bloomed in a slow smile. “So Kenna, I see Erebus has you all trussed up and tangled in his futile cause.”

  His smug expression grated on my nerves. “Humanity’s survival may be a futile cause to some, but it’s something I’m willing to die for.”

  He shrugged. “And you will. That thing around your neck will kill you.”

  I looked him steady in the eye. “I know.”

  He stilled, his eyes narrowing. “You knew when you agreed to do it?”

  I nodded.

  He exhaled. “Well, it looks like you worked you magick Erebus. What was it this time? The slightly aloof demeanour with flashes of interest, or did you play the mentor card, pulling her close but holding her at arm’s length?”

  This time? My scalp prickled and I looked to Erebus, took in his tense jaw, the tightness around his eyes, and a terrible sense of premonition washed over me.

  “What is he talking about, Erebus? What does he mean?”

  Erebus didn’t take his eyes off Baal. “Nothing. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Baal shook his head. “It makes sense now. Why you were so willing to take your chances. Why you refused to consider giving up, or increasing the tithe. You had an ace up your sleeve. A hybrid soul.”

  I looked from Baal to Erebus, but neither was paying me any attention, locked in their own verbal, or in Erebus’s case, non-verbal battle, so I looked to Vale who’s turned down mouth and sorrow filled eyes told me everything I needed to know.

  I’d been manipulated.

  I pushed back the sheets and swung my legs off the bed. “I think I’ll go to my room now.”

  Erebus, silent and stoic, didn’t try to stop me.

  Baal was another matter entirely. “I’m sorry, Kenna. I truly am, because your sacrifice will be for naught.”

  I brushed past him, inhaling his scent; liquorice and cinnamon, and then I was running down the corridor, begging the fortress to take me to my room.

  ***

  He didn’t come to see me, to explain or to deny. He didn’t come, and my heartache morphed to anger and determination.

  Why the lie?

  Why the manipulation?

  These were my people that needed saving. I would have done this eventually—in fact I had been about to do just that when he’d been called out to the settlement. But there was that little voice again—would I have considered it if I hadn’t developed feelings for him, if I hadn’t begun to admire him? I grabbed a pillow and held it over my face and then screamed. It didn’t matter what my motivations may have been before, because in the end I’d done it, not for my people, but for him.

  I was no hero. I was a sap.

  “No!” The pillow was ripped from my grasp, and Sabriel’s baby blues burned into me. “You will not belittle what you have done. Your soul will not wither quietly into the night. You will not be forgotten like the others.”

  I was lying on my back, but his words had me propping myself up on my elbows. “Did you know about the others?”

  “No. If I had I would have demanded he let me remove you from this place.” He hung his head. “Erebus is a good, noble djinn, and his actions have always been in favour of humanity. Your immunity to the dream pool was a sign that you may be a hybrid soul. I may despise him for pushing you to condemn your soul, but I cannot say I don’t understand.”

  I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth that his words had spawned. “He didn’t have to lie and manipulate, he could have explained and simply asked.”

  “And would you have given your life in an attempt to protect mankind?”

  I’d been asking myself this same question since I’d found out, and now I was certain.

  “Yes, once I’d had a chance to get my head around it. Once I knew how dire, how desperate the situation was, I would have.” I sat up so we were eye to eye. “I would do anything to protect my family, to protect all the people I love, and yeah, when I found out how the flame reacted to me, when I worked out what it could mean I was scared. I tried to ignore it, but then, just before Erebus and his clan were due to go out to the settlement to kick the Shadow People’s ass, I’d decided to tell him the truth. It just turned out that I never got the chance, and then . . . you know the rest.” I grabbed my pillow back, shoved it against the headboard behind me, and flopped back against it. “So these others, they were like me? Mixed DNA?”

  Sabriel nodded. “Yes, the djinn call them hybrid souls. There aren’t many of them. I spoke with Baal,” his lips tightened, “he told me that Erebus has done this twice before.”

  Had he made them care for him too? I wanted to ask but bit back the words, not ready to admit what a fool I’d been.

  “And what about the clan? Samson was so angry with me being here. He acted all confused about how I could understand their language, how I was immune to the pool. Was that a lie too? Were they all in on it?” Vale’s kind face came to mind and my stomach tightened. I’d actually grown fond of him.

  “I’m not sure. From what I’ve gathered, Samson was unhappy with their role for a while. If he knew what Erebus planned to do it would explain his derision of you—your presence meant that he would be forced to continue in his duty.” Sabriel shrugged. “But he could have been oblivious too. The only way of knowing for sure would be to ask one of them.”

  I wouldn’t be going home. I wouldn’t get to see Bella or mum again. I was trapped here with a djinn who’d done nothing but pretend to care for me, and soon I would die.

  “How long have I got? How long did they last?”

  “A year.”

  A year . . . Instead of going home in a year I would be dying. My stupid eyes began to prick and I blinked away the pathetic evidence of my weakness. Fuck crying.

  I took a deep shuddering breath. “I just wish I could see Bella and mum one more time, you know, to say goodbye properly.” Something dark passed across Sabriel’s face, and my stomach tightened with anxiety. “Sabriel? What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Sabriel looked away, his expression conflicted.

  God, what more could there be. “Tell me. Please.”

  He plucked at my sheets. “I overheard Vale giving Erebus his weekly report and he mentioned your sister.”

  “What? They’ve been keeping tabs on my family?”

  “It seems so.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Bella is seriously ill. She’s in intensive care at Memorial hospital.”

  “No . . . that can’t be right. Bella’s never sick.” I was on my feet. “I have to go! I have to see her.”

  Sabriel looked to the door as if expecting Erebus to come barging in at any moment. “They won’t let you leave.”

  “They won’t be able to stop me!” I stormed toward the door, but Sabriel slammed his hand against the wo
od, preventing me from opening it.

  “Stop and think, Kenna, if you alert them to your intentions then they will be on guard. You need to find a way to slip out.”

  There had to be a way out of here. The shutters rattled. Of course. I pushed passed Sabriel and ran onto the balcony.

  “Fargol. Fargol I need you!”

  The night was silent—a place for death and its harbingers—and the sound of Fargol’s mighty wings cut through that stillness. He landed like a ghost, his grotesque face twisted in inquiry.

  “Fargol, you know everything about this fortress, about the Evernight. Is there a way out of here? I need to get back to the human realm. My sister is really sick and I need to get to her.”

  His gaze fell to the collar at my neck.

  I touched it briefly. “Yeah, I know I’m bound, but Erebus takes sojourns to the human realm all the time, the binding isn’t affected is it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Sabriel said from his position by the shutters.

  My eyes filled with tears and I brushed them away angrily. “I know I’m going to die, but why can’t I do that from home? Why can’t I be with my family? Why can’t I be there to hold my sick sister’s hand?”

  Fargol looked up to the sky. “Fargol not like Kenna to cry. Fargol not like Kenna to die. Fargol has a window and he will take you home.”

  A window? As in a breach? My heart beat a little faster. “Can you take me now?”

  Fargol inclined his head.

  I had a way out.

  I was going to escape.

  CHAPTER37

  BRETT

  B rett knocked on the door to Kenna’s house and waited for Mrs. Carter to answer. Since Kenna had been taken away as a tithe, Brett had made it a point to come over at least once a week to hang with Bella and Malorie. It made him feel closer to Kenna, and he figured he owed it to her to take care of her family. Besides, over the years he’d grown to love them as his own.

  Both his parents had been killed when he was a teenager and his uncle, a man with little time for kids, had taken him in. He’d given him a roof over his head but little else. If not for the Fearless, Brett would have been all alone.

  He rang the bell again but there was no answer.

  Strange. Malorie had known he was coming.

  He flipped open his phone and dialled her mobile number which went straight to voicemail.

  “Excuse me?”

  Brett glanced up to see Mrs. Butler, the old woman from next door, peering over the fence.

  “Yes?”

  “If you’re looking for Malorie and that sweet girl of hers, they were taken away early this morning in a med carriage.”

  “What?” Brett’s heart stuttered. “Do you know why?”

  Mrs. Butler shrugged. “Not sure. But it was the little girl, poor dear, that they had on the stretcher.”

  Bella!

  “Thanks, I have to go.” He began to walk away and then realised he had no idea which hospital they’d been taken to. He turned back to find her watching him in anticipation.

  “Memorial hospital, hun.”

  He gave her a thumbs-up and headed back to his ride. He’d just slipped on his helmet when his radio buzzed.

  “All units report to base immediately.”

  Shit!

  He revved his engine and veered away from the kerb.

  This better be bloody urgent!

  CHAPTER38

  F lying above Evernight, the wind in my hair and Fargol’s hands around my torso, was exhilarating. Up here, away from all the lies and secrets, I finally felt a little like myself. It was as if distance from the ground had snapped the cord of disconcertion that had been binding me.

  Binding.

  I touched the collar lightly as the empty feeling crawled back into my chest, but then Fargol was swerving sharply. My hair whipped into my eyes and when I pushed it aside we weren’t in Evernight any longer. Far below I could see the Times Bridge, lit up like a Christmas tree and pulsing with everlight.

  “Kenna must direct Fargol.”

  I scanned the world below until I found what I was looking for. “See that building way over to the left, the one with the flat roof and a red circle painted on it?”

  “Fargol sees it.”

  “That’s where I need to be.”

  Fargol rose higher, turning his body in the direction we needed to go and then we were moving directly toward the hospital.

  ***

  Using my long hair to hide the conspicuous cuff around my neck, I made my way through the corridors of the hospital looking for the intensive care unit. I wasn’t dressed in any outlandish way—black slacks and a black long sleeved t-shirt—but I found myself on the receiving end of several curious looks.

  Had the cuff changed something about me?

  I ducked my head and kept walking, following the signs for intensive care. They led to a locked door with an intercom system. I pressed the call button and waited.

  The speaker crackled and a female voice answered. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, I’m here to see my sister. Bella Carter.”

  “And you are?”

  “Kenna Carter.”

  “One moment please.”

  One moment the corridor beyond the thick shatter-proof and fire-proof glass was bare, and the next a woman with wild silver-blonde hair was running toward me.

  “Mum!” I pressed my hands to the glass.

  The door buzzed open and we fell into each other’s arms. Mum squeezed me so hard I thought she’d crack my ribs, and then she pulled back, brushing my hair from my face with trembling fingers.

  “You’re not supposed to be here, baby girl. You weren’t supposed to see this.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Mum pressed her lips together and shook her head, dislodging the tears that had been clinging to her lashes. “It doesn’t matter. You need to go back now.” She touched the collar at my neck.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to stay for as long as I have. Take me to Bella.”

  Mum sighed. “Fine. But only for a moment.”

  She led me into a corridor lined with private rooms made of glass, and stopped at the third door.

  “Just a minute or two, Kenna. Then you have to go.”

  She pushed it open and ushered me inside. The room reeked of antiseptic. Bella lay, eyes closed, ashen and silent in the bed. Her body seemed smaller . . . fragile under the hospital blankets. I stepped up to the bed and her lids fluttered open.

  “Kenna? Kenna. You came. I knew you’d come.” She smiled weakly.

  Oh god . . . she looked so frail.

  “Mum said you couldn’t come but I told her . . .” She coughed—a hacking painful cough. It lasted several seconds and then she laid back wearily, her chest rising and falling erratically. “I told her you’d come.”

  I perched on the side of her bed and took her hand. “I’m here baby and I’m not going anywhere.”

  Bella’s pale face lit up in a beatific smile, and my eyes burned.

  “I wanted to see you before I went to heaven.”

  I stilled. “Who told you that? Who said you were going to heaven?”

  Bella looked past me to mum. My body was suddenly flushed with heat. I turned to glare at mum. “You told her that?”

  Mum’s bottom lip quivered and she pressed her fist to her mouth.

  I closed my eyes and exhaled before turning back to Bella. “We all go to heaven one day baby, but you are not going anywhere right now. I promise you.”

  Bella’s smooth forehead puckered in a gentle frown. “But my angel said so too. She said she would come get me when it was time, and we could fly.”

  A chill ran up my spine. A few months ago I would have attributed this talk to her sickness, a hallucination, but now I knew better, and the truth sent icy dread up my spine. I had to speak to Sabriel, get him to find out who this angel was.

  “Kenna, I’m so sleepy.”

  I plastered a smil
e on my face and squeezed her hand lightly. “That’s okay baby, you get some sleep. I’ll be right outside.”

  She closed her eyes with a soft sigh and I watched as her breathing settled into the rhythm of sleep.

  I grabbed mum’s arm and dragged her out of the room with me.

  “What’s wrong with her? What is going on? Bella never gets sick. Ever.”

  Mum opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a low buzzing noise. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone and checked the screen.

  “Aren’t you supposed to have that turned off?”

  She held up a hand as she scanned the message before raising wide eyes to meet mine. “You need to leave. Now!”

  She was crazy if she thought I was running out on my sick sister. There was no way I was leaving her like this.

  I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Mum’s lips thinned and her eyes lit up with a strange fire I’d never seen. She grabbed my shoulders, her fingers digging in to my flesh. “That was Brett. The base has sent out a unit to pick you up. You can’t let them get you. You belong in Evernight. You belong with the flame!”

  My breath caught. “How . . . how do you know about the flame?”

  Her expression pinched. “There’s no time to explain, just get to Lauren. Get to Twilight. Lauren will help you. He knows . . . everything.”

  None of this made sense.

  “Kenna, please. Baby girl you need to go. You’re our only hope for the future.”

  Her phone buzzed again and she gave it a quick scan. “They’re pulling up outside. Go!” She fumbled in her pocket and pressed a few notes into my hand before shoving me hard. I stumbled back, away from Bella’s room and toward the exit.

  “Go!”

  I turned and ran.

  ***

  Fargol was gone. I’d had no intention of returning to Evernight, but now I was kicking myself. A gargoyle would have been the perfect getaway vehicle. Avoiding the lifts, not wanting to risk getting trapped, I took the stairs. If I could get out of the building I could grab a ride to Market Borough, to Clovers. Maybe Lauren could help me get my ass out of Lindrealm.