Darkness & Light (War of the Fae: Book 3) (30 page)

Ben smiled and walked in, shutting the door behind him.
 
“None of the above.”

“So?” I threw my arms out.
 
“Why did you bring me here?”

Ben shrugged.
 
“It’s a necessary part of the plan.”

“Your plan for world domination?”

He laughed humorlessly.
 
“Hardly.
 
But call it whatever you want, it makes no difference.
 
I will get what I want; I always do.”

I stuck out my chin, unable to help myself.
 
“You didn’t get Tony.
 
And I know you wanted
him
pretty badly.”

Ben smiled at me pityingly.
 
I didn’t like that look one bit.
 
“If it was Tony I wanted, don’t you think I would have just snatched him up like I did Samantha?”
 
He must have read the surprise on my face because he continued, “Yes, I did take her as soon as you and your friends got on that plane.
 
She’s been here even longer than you’ve been Light Fae.
 
We don’t require our recruits to go through any ridiculous tests.”

“Yeah, that’s right.
 
I hear you’ll take any mentally deficient
shitforbrains
that comes along.
 
Samantha’s not the only proof of that.”

Ben’s look went from looking condescending to
annoyed
.
 
“You are patently incorrect, but it makes no difference to my plans.
 
Continue to be ignorant for all I care.”

“Astute observation is not ignorance.”
 
I had no idea where that had come from, but I decided to roll with it.
 
“All I’ve seen is deceit and tricks.
 
You lied to Tony and you hurt my friends.
 
You’re willing to kill humans and fae to get what you want.
 
That tells me you need people of questionable morals to build your army.
 
Samantha is a perfect example of that.”

“And what has Samantha ever done to you?” he asked, folding his arms and leaning back on the door.

“Nothing, other than being a person who hangs out with losers.”

“I’m sorry, but you must be mistaken.
 
You’re looking at the soon to be winners of the fae war.
 
You’d be doing yourself a favor to join us.”

“In your dreams.
 
Send me back now and I’ll tell them to go easy on you.”

Ben shook his head slowly.
 
“You really don’t have any idea what you’re saying.”
 
He pushed himself away from the door.
 
“But that makes no difference.
 
You will serve your purpose and then you will be released.
 
Or killed.
 
Whichever suits my needs at the time.”

The hardness in his voice chilled me to the bone.
 
There wasn’t even a hint of potential remorse in his expression.
 
I believed him when he said he would kill me if it
was
convenient.
 
It had a tempering effect on my words.

“Why me?
 
Why did you take me instead of Tony?”

He looked at me, searching my face.
 
“You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know
what
?!
”
I asked, exasperated.
 
I was already tired of his games.

He took two steps towards me.
 
I backed up until my legs hit the stone bench behind me.
 
The closer he got, the more I was able to feel his warmth; it came off him in waves.
 
I stared at his face, unable to look away.
 
His hair was gently tousled, a shock of it falling over his forehead.
 
It was dark, dark brown, nearly black.
 
His deep green eyes penetrated my resolve as he stared at me and began speaking again.

“You will be the one who starts the war,” he said coldly, calmly.

I felt the blood drain from my face.
 
“Me?” I said weakly.
 
“How can I possibly start a war locked up in here?” I licked my lips in nervousness, my entire mouth having gone bone dry.

Ben smiled, almost sadly it seemed, slowly reaching up and touching a finger to my face.
 
“So soft.
 
So cool to the touch,” he said, almost as if to himself.
 
Then he blinked his eyes a few times and his expression hardened.
 
He dropped his hand to his side.
 
“They will come for you.
 
And when they do, we will be ready.”

And then he spun around and strode from the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
  

I was frozen in place for a few seconds, digesting his words and weighing them for their cost.
 
I had to get the hell out of here before they could become fact instead of just a madman’s ramblings.
 
I didn’t have the same faith as he did about my level of worth to the Light Fae as a group – but I knew my friends would come for me, and I didn’t want any of them to get ambushed.

I could feel a wiggling in my shirt.
 
I placed my hand over Tim.
 
“We have to get the hell out of here, Tim.”

A muffled “Agreed!” came from within.

I ran to the door and pulled on it, expecting it to be locked – but it flew open and slammed into the wall.
 
I lost my balance a little but quickly regained it, running from the room into the hallway.
 
I looked both directions, deciding quickly to go to my left.
 
I reached back in, shut the door behind me and started running.
 
There was no rhyme or reason to my decisions now, just survival instinct.

I ran down this hallway that looked disturbingly similar.
 
I passed door after door, wondering when I’d come to the end or to a turnoff.
 
Eventually out of breath, I stopped, placing my ear to a nearby door.
 
I heard nothing, and gently tried the latch.
 
The door opened bit by bit.
 
The room was stone like my cell.
 
I opened the door wider and saw a stone bench just like the one I had been sitting on.
 
I threw the door open the rest of the way and saw that I was standing in the doorway of my original cell.
 
I could see the trail of water that had dripped down the wall.

“Fuck
a fucking
orc!”
I yelled out to the room, clenching my fists in frustration.

Tim’s head poked out of my shirt, his hair sticking out in all directions.
 
“What happened?” he whispered hoarsely.

“The hallway’s spelled.
 
I ran for five minutes and got exactly nowhere.”

“Cuss word!”

I paused in my ranting, looking down at him like he was nuts.
 
“What did you just say?”

“Cuss word?”

“Is that your idea of swearing without swearing?”

“Obviously.”
 
Tim used my buttons to climb up to my shoulder.
 
“Put your hair down so I can hide when they come back.”

I yanked out the rubber band holding my hair in a ponytail, sliding it onto my wrist.
 
I was fresh out of ideas and full of pissed off.

“Can I complain some more about how much my lack of wings is hindering our escape?”

“Go ahead.
 
I’m right there with you.
 
But maybe you should keep it quiet in case this place is bugged.”

“Oh, it’s not.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Pixies can sense stuff like that.”

“Stuff like what?”

“Well, electronics or anything that acts like electronics – like bugging spells.”

“And why haven’t you told me this stuff before?
 
Don’t you think I might have wanted to know about it?”

“What?
 
I’m supposed to tell you about
all
of my amazing abilities?
 
That could take a very long time, you know.
 
I have piles of them.”

I know for a fact that if he had wings right now, he’d be brushing them and preening.
 
He is inordinately proud of them and his general
pixieness
.
 
I was too, normally, but now all I was doing was worrying about how to get him and his wing
nublets
out of here alive.
 

I don’t know how much time passed before someone finally came to the door.
 
Maybe it was just a few hours or maybe it was a whole day; it must have been a while though, because I was getting hungry and I seriously had to pee.
 

The door opened and a small guy stood there, wearing the clothing of a sprite – possibly a wood sprite from the looks of it.
 
Tim had been sitting on my shoulder so luckily he was able to jump into my hair as soon as he heard the latch moving.

“It’s about time,” I said irritably.
 
“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Please follow me.”

I went behind him down the corridor to another door.
 
He pushed it open to reveal a bathroom.
 

“There is a toothbrush and other items you might need on the shelf.”

I tried not to be mad at this guy.
 
I knew it wasn’t his fault that I was here, but that didn’t make it okay that he was going along with my imprisonment.
 
“I’m not staying here, you know.”

He just looked at me without expression.
 

I brushed past him to do my business, surreptitiously putting Tim in the stall next to me so he could do his thing without the sprite seeing him.
 
The guy stayed outside, giving us the privacy we needed.
 
I ran the water after, so he wouldn’t hear Tim and me whispering to each other.

“Is this place bugged?”

“No.”

“Did you see any way to escape on our way here?”

“No.”

“Me neither.
 
Keep your eyes peeled.
 
Look behind us while we’re walking and see if you spot anything.”

“ ‘
kay
.”

We walked outside the door, Tim hidden once again in my hair.
 

The wood sprite pointed to the symbol of an arrow on the door.
 
“This is your bathroom.
 
You will be able to find it by image-seeking this symbol.”

So that’s what they called it here –
image-seeking
.
 
Same spell as our compound.
 
I filed that information away in my head for later.
 
“How do I find the way back to my room?”

He smiled without humor.
 
“You will only be able to find one room – your room.
 
No symbol needed.”

Dick
.
 
I withheld from saying anything out loud.
 
This guy would get what was coming to him one of these days, when the Light Fae came and kicked all their
asses
.

He delivered us back to our cell where I found Ben waiting, sitting on my stone bed.
 
The door closed behind me and I stepped a couple paces in before stopping in front of him.

I smiled with fake cheer.
 
“How
not
nice to see you.”

Ben smiled back, but it looked more like a grimace.
 
“You might as well get used to it.
 
Me visiting you.
 
I can’t seem to help myself.”

“Oh, goody.”

Ben got a distracted look on his face and then looked at the door.
 
“Enter!”

I turned to watch it swing open and reveal a tall, thin male fae wearing a dark gray tunic standing in the entrance.
 
He stepped inside, nodding to Ben and acting like I wasn’t standing directly in front of him.

Ben stood and looked at me, all pleasantness gone from his expression. “Jayne, this is
Leck
.
 
He’s a
wrathe
.
 
His job is to get information from you, and your job is to give it to him.
 
I suggest you cooperate.
 
It will be easier for everyone that way.”

I looked at him in confusion.
 
What the hell was he talking about?
 
What information?

Ben gave me one more intense look and then moved to the corner of the room.
 
He nodded at
Leck
.
 
“Proceed.”