Consume me a fated mates.., p.1
Consume Me: A Fated Mates Romantasy, page 1
Consume Me
Immortal Vices & Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve
Heather Hildenbrand
Consume Me
Immortal Vices and Virtues Universe
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Edited by Dawn Y.
Cover by Malice & Mayhem
Character Art by Lumie
www.heatherhildenbrand.com
Chapter 1
Kendall
My boots don’t make a sound as I make my way through the Crossroads, but my tired muscles burn with every step. The shovel I balance on my shoulder has only grown heavier with every mile I’ve walked, but if this works, all the labor and exhaustion will be worth it. Even so, the tightness in my chest doesn’t ease. Neither will the coil of dread in my stomach. Hope and nerves have been fighting for dominance all night. In this moment, it’s an even tie between them.
Underneath the cover of a moonless sky, my thoughts of hope remind me of my mother. She was always the optimist. Maybe it was her nymph heritage and her connection to nature that made her so upbeat. So willing to see life everywhere she looked. Or maybe it was my father’s dark fae blood that gave him such a stormy outlook. The way he saw death everywhere he looked. Either way, I take after my mother. Always quick to smile. To see the bright side.
Or I used to. Before.
Back when I could afford to be hopeful.
That sunny version of me feels so far gone.
Like my parents.
Now, I barely remember their faces, though maybe that’s from guilt. Even my father, a notorious assassin in the Crossroads before he died, probably wouldn’t have a very high opinion of the things I’ve done these last few months. The people I’ve killed. How hardened I’ve become from doing it.
Not me, I remind myself.
The daggers.
It’s not like I have a choice once they order me to kill for them.
I’ve tried to resist. To stop them. To free myself.
So far, every attempt has failed. But I can’t give up. To do that would mean accepting my fate as a prisoner to this darkness—and that is something I refuse to do. I allowed the daggers to claim me all those months ago in order to save my sister from the same fate. So, I can’t bring myself to regret what I’ve done. Still, with every passing day, my hope of escaping them grows dimmer.
Tired beyond words, I use my key and let myself into Spells, Secrets, and Sorcery, the shop where I work—and now live. Natalia, my boss and mentor, is a powerful witch and a hardass of a teacher, but she’s been instrumental in helping me develop my fae gifts. She’s also been a good friend, considering she’s been letting me crash in the studio apartment on the second floor for over a year now.
The moment I enter, the charms and wards she’s placed along the doorframe glow faintly, recognizing me, allowing me to pass. If I weren’t coded into the spell work, I’d be dead before I crossed the threshold. How the daggers don’t see Natalia as a threat is still mystifying to me, but I’m not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth.
At the top of the stairs, the door to the second-story apartment opens with a soft creak, and I slip inside.
Small. Quiet. Safe.
Or it will be. If this works.
I prop the shovel by the door and toe off my boots. Dirt shakes loose from around their soles, leaving a bit of a mess on the floor. My jeans are soaked through at the knees from where I knelt, digging through loose, damp earth to the hard clay beneath the surface. My back aches as I think of it. Even with my fae abilities, it’ll take hours for the soreness to fade.
Worth it.
It has to be worth it.
I head for the bathroom, already imagining the sting of hot water hitting deliciously against my skin. But halfway there, I stop cold.
There is a distinct hum beneath the silence.
No.
Not possible.
I drag my gaze toward the bed.
There, in the center of my pillow, surrounded by a small pile of dirt, lie the daggers.
My breath catches in my throat. The kernel of hope I nurtured all the way home blinks out—eclipsed by a cold, curdled dread that pools low in my stomach.
“No,” I whisper.
I left them buried. Deep. Far from town. I’d sealed the earth with spell-laced salt courtesy of Natalia’s personal supply, spoken words in a language I didn’t even understand, cut my palm as a blood ward.
They shouldn’t be here.
Yet, here they are.
Taunting me.
I take a step back. Then another. My heel hits the wall. I slide down it until I’m sitting on the cold floor, legs folded, arms wrapped tight around myself like that will stop the shaking.
The daggers don’t move.
But they whisper, same as always, their incessant chatter ringing out inside my head. A private torture known only by me.
“You left us,” they murmur, soft and sweet, like a lover. “You tried to run. To abandon us. But you’re ours, Kendall. Ours forever.”
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until stars explode behind my lids.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I say out loud. Not that I need to. They can read my thoughts just as easily. “I don’t want to belong to you.”
“Want has nothing to do with it, mortal. You wielded us at the moment of transfer, and now your hands are ours to command.”
They sound amused. Darkly, disgustingly amused.
I want to scream. To throw them into the sea, the sun, the void. But tonight proved once and for all that doing any of that won’t matter. They’ll come back. They always come back. Even here, above Spells, with Natalia’s protections woven into every beam and floorboard, they found a way in. And worse, they made it look easy.
No one else has ever breached Natalia’s security.
But the daggers aren’t like anyone or anything I’ve ever known.
The past eighteen months of my life have proven that.
Fighting tears, I jolt a little as my phone dings with a text. I pull it free from where it’s wedged into my pocket and check the screen. Tori. Again. I sigh, my hopelessness digging itself even deeper into my chest. My older sister has always been my lifeline and protector. She would be furious if she knew what had happened to me that day I took those daggers from her hands. The way they bound themselves to me as my master. She’d be even more upset if she knew what they’d made me do. The people I’ve killed. The darkness I’ve courted. The way I’ve all but lost myself to their will.
I told her once that my gift of death sight had only ever shown a long life for myself. A death in old age. But that’s a lie. I’ve seen my own death. It’s a vision that haunts me day and night. The only things standing between me and it are these damned daggers. Even so, sometimes I can’t help but wonder if the ends justify the means.
But Tori… she’s newly mated and married. For the first time since our parents died, she’s happy. I won’t take that happiness from her. Nor will I endanger anyone else I care about by involving them in my fucked-up situation.
Before the last thought is finished, I can feel the familiar buzz between my temples.
“Shit, not now,” I groan.
But there’s no stopping the visions, and within seconds, I’m swept away in a sea of images. Possible futures for all sorts of creatures flash by so quickly that I barely have time to grab hold of one before it has slipped away and I’m on to the next. Their sheer speed is dizzying. Not to mention the horror of having no way to slow or stop them.
My dark fae gift is sight. Specifically, death sight.
But this…
This isn’t me. This is the daggers. They’ve been using me to channel these visions for months now.
It’s getting worse.
By the time the last vision fades, the room tilts as it spins, and I get on all fours, trying to breathe instead of vomit on my rug.
None of the images I saw were of people I know. But that doesn’t make their fates any less horrific. Or less real.
What good is seeing future visions of death with no way to stop it? Or worse, being the cause of it when death finally finds the poor souls I saw?
When I’m fairly sure I won’t be sick, I sit again. Heavily this time.
My loneliness echoes in the silence around me, and not for the first time, I feel the devastation of being so completely and utterly alone in the world.
Eventually, I drag myself up off the floor and walk past the bed into the bathroom. The daggers remain silent on my pillow, but I don’t touch them. Nor do I bother cleaning up the dirt they scattered over my pillow. Not yet. I’ll deal with it later.
For now, I focus o
Chapter 2
Noctan
The rune inked on my forearm hasn’t burned like this in nearly half a century. It started two months ago as nothing more than a flicker. A phantom pulse beneath my skin, nudging me toward my quarry. In the fae realm, I could almost forget it was even there. But now that I’ve followed it into the Earth realm, the flicker has become a constant pain. No, more than pain.
It’s a dark heartbeat.
A tether pulling taut.
A summons.
Which is why I’m standing in front of a woman I swore I’d never ask for a favor again. To end this quest for vengeance once and for all.
Vaelora looks the same as when I left her court centuries ago: nails painted the color of blood, dark curls swept up to reveal pointed ears, silver gaze honed like a blade. Only, now, she smells like power.
And secrets.
I’m not surprised about the latter; she’s made it her business to collect everyone else’s, as if doing so will somehow distract her from her own. Now, her sharp eyes are drawn to the glowing rune etched onto my skin by magic so potent, no force in this world or any other can remove it. Not until my vow is fulfilled.
“It’s the daggers,” she says knowingly. “They call to you at last.”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to. The rune flares white-hot at her words. As if the symbol itself is sentient. Maybe it is. I’ve often wondered about it myself.
“What do you know about them?” I ask as rage surges in my veins.
Sometimes the force of it surprises me. My thirst for vengeance has not dimmed, even after four centuries. If anything, it has grown more consuming over the years. More potent. I wonder if I’ll be so empty once it’s finished that I’ll simply cease to exist.
“Why do you think I know anything?” Vaelora asks, but her feigned innocence drags a growl from me.
“You’ve made this territory your home. And we both know you don’t settle in a place without learning everything about its inhabitants first.”
Her eyes glimmer like I’ve complimented her somehow.
“Fair enough. As you say, I know more about the daggers’ servant than I do the objects themselves,” she says coyly.
But I refuse to fall for her tricks. I care nothing for the evil creature who has taken up the blades’ dark dealings. After centuries of hunting their various lackeys, I know all I need to: Some poor, miserable soul has once again succumbed to the power the daggers possess and probably thinks they can somehow wield that power for themselves.
Soon enough, they’ll realize that power flows one way only.
Until that thirst for power eventually gets them killed and then the daggers move on to another fool.
“The Whispering Daggers are much more than mere objects,” I warn. “You’d do well to remember just what they’re capable of. Their power could end even you.”
“Oh, I’m perfectly aware of their true power, darling. But, this time, I think you’ll find it’s not what you think.” Her wink boils my blood. Of course she’s not taking any of this seriously.
“I don’t have time for games,” I snap.
Coming here was a waste of time.
I turn for the door.
“What if I could guarantee to put you in the same room as the daggers and the one who wields them?”
Vaelora’s words stop me.
I turn back to her, wary. “In exchange for what?”
“No price.” She smiles. “A gift.”
“Nothing is free, least of all from you.”
Hurt flashes in her eyes. “You wound me, old friend.”
“You forget I knew you before you decided to play Cupid in the Earth realm, Vaelora.”
Her lips form a pout that is as fleeting as the emotion itself. “Fine. The truth is, I owe you.”
I lift a brow at that. “Are you referring to the wine?”
Her smile widens. “Ah, so you do remember.”
“How could I forget?” I cross my arms, my voice low with warning. “More than half the court was drunk off their asses because you were foolish enough to smuggle in a shipment of vintage laced with a curse. I believe you called it ‘the finest from Coras Hollow.’”
Vaelora’s laugh is a rich, delighted sound. “It was fine—until the entire hall started hallucinating their deepest desires for all the court to see. Including multiple versions of me naked and prone for various admirers to ogle. I couldn’t show my face for a decade.”
I growl at the memory. “You would have lost more than your reputation if I hadn’t burned the curse out of the wine before the High Regent noticed.”
She lifts her glass in a mock toast. “And for that, darling, I owe you. A debt repaid, nearly a century later.” I don’t trust her, not for a second. But her silver eyes gleam with something close to sincerity, and the words worm their way beneath my stoic armor.
“I’m hosting a party for All Hallows’ Eve,” she goes on. “That is where you’ll find your Whispering Daggers. And their wielder.”
“A party? You want me to take my vengeance in front of all your lovestruck guests? Did the wine teach you nothing?”
“I trust you’ll be discreet. Besides, it’s the only way I can guarantee your quarry will come to you.”
“Why should I bother? This rune will lead me straight to them eventually.”
“That rune will only get you within the vicinity of the daggers, and we both know it. Are you going to search out and interrogate every creature in the Crossroads one at a time, then?”
“If I have to.”
“And risk alerting your target before you can identify them?”
I bite back a curse.
She’s right, of course, but that doesn’t make this any less irritating. In fact, something about Vaelora being right makes this much more infuriating. Or maybe it’s the way she’s coercing me into coming to one of her stupid parties. Again. After the wine incident, I swore I would never repeat that mistake. But for my fallen sentinel brothers and sisters, I’ll do just about anything.
“When is this party of yours?” I ask.
Vaelora smiles brightly—victorious. “Tomorrow evening. You’ll need this for entry.”
She waves her hand, and a piece of parchment winks into existence, hovering in the air in front of me. I snatch it, not bothering to read it before stuffing it into my pocket. Then I turn on my heel.
“Wear something nice,” she calls at my back.
I don’t bother to respond.
Chapter 3
Kendall
The next morning, I wake early and slip out before Natalia arrives. It’s not that I’m a morning person, exactly, but holing up in my tiny apartment isn’t an option. I’ve tried it before, but Natalia always comes looking for me, and I’ve learned from experience that I’d rather be gone when that happens. She’ll either make me talk about the daggers—which I hate doing—or worse, put me to work to “take my mind off things.”
I used to enjoy the work.
As a dark fae gifted with visions of the future, including death sight, I’ve always struggled to find others who understood that part of me. Natalia’s not exactly warm and fuzzy, but she gets me. Or at least that side of me. She also pushes my capabilities and doesn’t let me feel sorry for myself. I admire her—not that I’d ever tell her that. Nor do I want to spend the morning listening to her wait on customers whose biggest problems are noisy neighbors they want to ward their property against or getting their gardens to produce bigger fruit to sell at the market.
With no destination in mind, I wander the city.
Once upon a time, the Crossroads was called St. Louis. Back then, humans still ruled the Earth. Then the portals opened, ushering in a new age that left humans firmly ranked at the bottom. Cities were destroyed and remade. Governments toppled. New regimes called Houses rose. And eventually, through all the chaos, the Crossroads became the neutral territory it remains today, ungoverned by any House, though our newest portal into Tartarus might as well be the doorway to our king.
Caius has no interest in claiming our territory for himself, but his sheer power is enough to keep others from trying to do the same. I’m not sure if that endears him to the people of this city, but it has helped ease some of the unrest over the last few months. Especially considering how many of our citizens have now mated to someone from Tartarus. My sister is one of them. Tori is happily mated and married to Legion Razginath, the death dragon himself.
