Seven Black Diamonds (9 page)

The attacks weren’t regular, and the media tried to explain them away, but the tabloids were filled with truth in this case. They cut through the government explanations and acknowledged that the Queen of Blood and Rage was steadily targeting humanity—and that humanity was defenseless.

The queen was merciless when angered, and Zephyr hoped that he wasn’t going to anger her tonight.

“I’ll let you know how it goes,” he told his teammates. “Right now, you better concentrate on getting well. No more of this, Creed.”

Creed didn’t speak, neither agreeing nor refusing. He simply stretched in the sunlight, absorbing the nutrients it offered. Later, he’d do the same with the moon. Creed and Will were creatures of air, just as Zephyr and Alkamy were of the earth. Zephyr’s second affinity, metal, was peculiar in that it was only recharged via fighting. Alkamy had also started to show a second affinity, but hers was air. Consequently, unlike Zephyr, she could find nutrients from the sun and the moon, as well as from the soil. Violet was fire, so she drew from the sun as well. Only Roan and Zephyr weren’t able to be healed by sun alone. Roan needed water,
and Zephyr needed soil.

Zephyr stroked the plants nearest him.

Creed drew his attention back to them by asking, “How was the explosion?”

Zephyr flopped down on the ground, shucked his shoes so he could feel the earth against his skin, and brought both Creed and Roan up to speed on the explosion, Lilywhite, and the difficulty of what to tell the queen.

He did not, however, tell them about the kiss. He didn’t admit that he was more stunned by the way she’d kissed or that she looked momentarily terrified when he called her Seelie. He didn’t tell them that she’d fled from him. Lilywhite was a mystery to him, and until he figured out more about her, he’d be keeping that mystery to himself as much as he could.

LILY

Lily felt out of sorts as she walked through the administration building and down that over-wide, shadowed hallway. The stone murmured under her feet; the heavy bass voice of it felt like a monastic chant that soothed her nerves. Sometimes Lily felt bad for people who couldn’t connect to one of the elements, but then again,
they
weren’t breaking laws simply by existing.

After several minutes, she found Hector inside a surprisingly modern office. “The campus gates should have been closed after we entered. She could’ve been—”

“Hector,” Lily cut him off.

The headmistress had a pinched look as she turned to face Lily. “We take security very seriously here at St. Columba’s, Miss Abernathy. The gates are in place for a
reason. They keep threats out, but you should know that wandering into Belfoure alone is not something we recommend.”

“I understand,” Lily said, tactfully avoiding any admissions.

Hector shot her a look that made quite clear that he knew what she was doing.

“Well then,” the headmistress said. She cleared her throat delicately and told Hector, “Miss Abernathy seems to be safe after all.”

“Maybe the school ought to consider guards,” Hector suggested, his gaze fastened on Lily as he spoke. “I could help you set up a patrol route, Mistress Cuthbert.”

Lily rolled her eyes even though Hector wasn’t joking. Her father had guards inside the gate, as well as a security room to keep eyes on the whole estate at all times. Daidí took extra precautions because of his career choice. Nonetheless, she was fairly certain that such measures were a bit more draconian than those that St. Columba’s employed, despite the affluence of their students.

“We are not a prison.” Mistress Cuthbert pursed her lips again, and Lily thought she might like the woman a little bit after all. “As I was telling your driver, Miss Abernathy, students are free to explore the grounds within reason. It’s simply the area outside the gate—the town of Belfoure, in particular—that is off-limits.”

Lily nodded. None of this was actually surprising. It
wasn’t pleasing, but it wasn’t unexpected at all. Daidí held security second only to love of family in his pantheon of values.

“If you exit the rear of the hall, the grounds extend quite far,” Mistress Cuthbert was saying. “You really have no need to go into town proper unless you need something from one of the shops, and there are sanctioned outings for that.”

Her voice sounded almost sympathetic, and Lily suspected that she was far from the first student at St. Columba’s who had an overzealously protective parent. In this, at least, Lily might be normal.

Abernathy Commandment #14: Blending in helps you seem less memorable should you need an alibi at some point.

The headmistress turned away to answer another student who had the look of a girl who was not used to any conflicts in her life. Lily felt a stab of sympathy, both for the girl’s obvious emotions and for her inability to hide them.

“Don’t leave the grounds again, Lilywhite,” Hector ordered in a voice not to be refused.

“I don’t intend to leave again,” she told him, offering both an admission and a promise.

He nodded, having been trained to know that when she offered blunt promises, she could be trusted wholly. “I’ll wait here with your things.”

“I’m safe, Hector,” she assured him, and then she went to find peace in the gardens.

She didn’t need both the waves and the soil to keep
healthy. Either one would suffice. It was easier if she had both, but one was enough to sustain her. Daidí had undoubtedly already researched the matter. If they hadn’t already had what she needed, he would’ve paid to add it.

The hall appeared empty so she slipped off her shoes again. The stone sang to her as she walked, speaking of a faraway quarry where men had carved the rock from the earth. The story was not told in words, not in the way that most people understood words. Stone spoke in thick slow images, like heavy syrup trailing across her mind. The news most stone could share was far from recent. Their words fell into her consciousness with a welcome surety though. Stone mightn’t know the newest things, but what they did know was true.

On the other hand, sea was fickle, and sometimes the act of sorting through the sheer immensity of the words from the water was an exhausting task. Air, for her at least, was barely an affinity. It was there, but it came with difficulty thus far. Fire hadn’t been an affinity that she’d felt as comfortable with. Mostly, she counted on the earth for knowledge. Earth had been her first, and of the earth options, the words of stone and soil were easiest for her to hear.

As soon as Lily left the hall, the hum of the roots seeped through the cobblestone path under her feet, beckoning her. She resisted stepping into the soil. It was one thing to walk barefoot on the old stone of the building; it was an entirely different matter to let the plants greet her, especially when her mind was so unsettled. Plants with so much
human contact were chaotic in their words, more so than she could manage today.

“Soon,” she promised.

The grounds behind the administration building were beautiful. Trees flourished as if they had never known dry seasons. Shrubs dotted healthy lawns, and flower beds offered bursts of reds, golds, and violet. Beyond them, however, was something far more exciting. A walled garden waited there, and the door was open. It looked seldom used, which was exactly what she needed. She wanted to step off the stone path and onto the living earth. She wanted to lose herself in it, fill the ache inside her with the surety of nature.

She pushed the door open farther, murmuring a soft greeting to the remnant of the spirit of the wood that still clung to the aged timber. Vines clung to the walls and exploded in every hue of green she could hope to see. Inside the garden, paths were clearly marked. At the far back of the curated part of the garden was the mouth of a labyrinth. To either side of it, the plants seemed to have been allowed to go wild. The juxtaposition of the sculpted maze and the chaotic expanse was perfection. People didn’t enter the wild anymore. Fears of fae lurking in the shadows kept most of humanity to the fringes of nature.

Lily went into the maze and twisted through several passageways. Then, after a quick glance to make sure there were no witnesses, she asked, “May I pass?”

The plants rustled softly as they parted to allow her into the wilderness outside the labyrinth. She stepped through
the opening in the hedge wall, expecting to be alone with the rarely visited plants of the wild, but there, dressed only in his tattoos and jeans, was Creed Morrison.

She was glad she hadn’t arrived a few moments earlier. He was buttoning his jeans.

At her gasp, he looked up and saw her. “And here I’d begun to think you disliked me.”

The anger in his voice was tempered by his apparent amusement at her discomfort. Lily looked down at her feet to keep from staring. She’d certainly seen pictures of him like this, bare-chested and barefoot. He’d been caught on a beach in Ibiza wearing nothing more than jewelry, ink, and a smile. He’d been photographed in the restored Trevi fountain in Roma. The journals had blurred just enough to keep from violating “privacy of minors” laws, but only just. She’d liked the pictures, as she suspected most anyone with functioning eyes would. Still, seeing the pictures of mostly naked Creed Morrison hadn’t made her feel dizzy the way the real person was.

“I was just”—she gestured behind her—“taking a walk.”

“And stepped through a hedge wall without a scratch? However did you manage that?”

She looked back at him as he buttoned the top button on his jeans. He didn’t sound as friendly as he had at her party, and she had exactly
zero
experience in being challenged. She kept her lips pressed together.

“Is this the part where you injure yourself by lying again or admit that you’re a fae-blood like me?”

She stared at him, consciously holding his gaze and not letting her attention drift to his bare skin.

Abernathy Commandment #6: Never confess your vulnerabilities if you can avoid it.

“Neither.” She smiled then, letting a little of her temper into it. “I don’t see the need to answer that question.”

Creed laughed. He was dangerous in ways she didn’t understand. Growing up with criminals had prepared her for a lot of things, but not
this
. She felt the urge to flee just as she had the first time she’d seen a mountain lion in the woods.

However, she knew enough to know how to protect herself a little. The fae were known to stand by their word—their literal word, but still, it was better than humanity, which could be treacherous for so many foolish, selfish reasons.

“Do you mean me harm, Creed Morrison?” she asked. It wasn’t a perfect request, but she’d spoken his name as she knew it, and the intent was there. She’d never attempted to elicit a fae bargain before because of the risks of exposure, but he already knew what she was.

Creed’s eyes glimmered in approval. “On my blood, I do not.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but he spoke over her. “And do you, Lilywhite Abernathy, daughter of Iana, mean me harm?”

They were alone in the garden. There were no
witnesses, no one to hear her words or his. She sat down on the ground.

He matched her movements.

Slowly, not looking away from him, she spread her hands out over the ground. Tendrils of vines snapped to her like whips. They curled around her from wrists to biceps. It wasn’t the extent of her relationship with the things that lived within the soil, but it was enough to point out that she wasn’t defenseless even in their isolation. The knife in her pocket and the one strapped to her leg were a secret, and she opted to keep it that way. Her affinity with the earth she would admit, partly because her fae-blood nature wasn’t a secret from him and partly because she needed the touch of earth.

“I mean you no harm on this day and until such time as you mean harm to me or mine,” she vowed.

“Thorough,” he said mildly.

“Contracts and negotiations are familiar territory. My father is a crime lord.”

“
The
crime lord,” he corrected.

Lily shrugged. She’d reached her limit of admissions for the moment. The vines on her wrists slithered away, and she stroked her fingers over the soil, not lingering long enough that the plants would share their most recent memories. Seeing the full image of a naked Creed Morrison was a tempting idea, but definitely not a good one. Her memory flashed back to the photos with the blurred sections.

After a moment when it felt like the air became perfectly still, he sang, “Deadly girl. All I’ve ever wanted was a girl like you, a girl who kills me a little more every day.” His words touched her skin with each breath, despite how far apart they sat. “Sun-kissed skin and bloodstained heart. All I ever wanted was you.”

She shivered.

“All I need is a deadly girl, a—”

“So air,” she interrupted. “Your affinity is for the air.”

“It is,” he agreed.

Without meaning to, she lifted her hand to touch her skin where she’d felt his words. A small voice reminded her that Erik could never do what Creed just did, that choosing to be with a human would mean sacrificing parts of herself. Logic silenced that voice quickly. Her life was already going to be risky enough without adding the dangers of being with another fae-blood.

Creed watched her like he was counting the beats of her heart. Maybe he was. She wasn’t as familiar with the aspects of working with the air. It didn’t come to her easily so far.

He sang softly, “Knife-tipped fingers and rose-petal kisses. All I need is—”

“Stop.” She pushed the air back toward him as forcefully as she could. Her eyes fell closed and she concentrated on not calling soil or stone to her defense.

After several moments, Creed asked, “I thought you liked my singing, Lily?”

She wasn’t going to lie, but she wasn’t going to listen to him as his voice brushed against the skin low on her throat either. Lily opened her eyes and said, “You know it wasn’t your singing that I was stopping.”

“I’ve never done that with anyone else,” he said, his voice casual. “Not on purpose at least. Not until you.”

She wasn’t even sure she believed him. He’d already proven that he was capable of overcoming the fae aversion to lying. Everyone was very clear that fae-blood couldn’t do so, and she’d always wondered if she was
less
fae-blood because she herself could lie. Then again, the fact that she had multiple affinities, strong ones, made her suspect that she was actually of purer lineage rather than being
less
fae.

She wasn’t sure what to say, but before she could figure it out, Creed said, “No one knows I met you.” He kept his voice emotionless.

Lily stared at him. He kept tossing her things that she didn’t know how to catch. Sure, they’d had a spark when they met, and yes, she’d had a tabloid crush on him for years. That shouldn’t mean that they dive headfirst into disaster. “Why are you telling me this?”

He sprawled out on the ground. “It will matter later. If it was about my reputation, I’d have found a way to get pictures out to the media. I didn’t tell
anyone
though. And I’m glad I didn’t. There are . . . others to consider.”

It was easy to figure out who
Creed meant. The welcome-to-Belfoure bombing was a pretty big clue. The kiss was another. And if there were any doubts, Zephyr’s
own admissions vanquished those.

“I met him today,” she said, sinking to her knees on the ground to face Creed. “Zephyr. That’s who you meant, right?”

She watched Creed as she said it, but he wasn’t as easy to read as she’d like. For someone whose every emotion appeared to be on his face in the hundreds of pictures that cropped up everywhere, Creed’s expressions one-to-one were implacable. She wondered how much of his media persona was cultivated. How much of the careless charm was
his
, and how much was a persona?

When he remained silent, Lily added, “I met him a couple hours ago in town.”

All he said in reply to her announcement was, “I know.”