Chapter 16
She buried her face into the crook of his neck. His skin was warm, and the ends of his hair tickled her eyelids. She squeezed them shut, and felt his skin shiver against the butterfly kisses her eyelashes left there. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps, they pooled against the nape of his neck and warmed her lips. His arms were heavy around her shoulders, she could feel his mouth slowly find the space behind her ear, then creep tenderly down her neck to her shoulder. His breath was hot and damp, and came in short, startled bursts, like her own. Warmth spread between them, close and wet, seeping through their clothes and clinging to their chests.
Slowly, they lowered to the ground. Bo wrapped an arm around her father, their breaths warming each other's skin even as the sweat that had accumulated there during their short battle cooled it. Her fingers pressed and dug into the strong musculature of his back, and, entangled in one another's embrace, they fell to their knees together.
Blood dripped and pooled around them. The collective cry that had rent the air mere seconds ago dissolved into the ether, and the room held its breath now, still and silent in fascinated, terrified observation of the combatants as they held each other and sank to the floor.
Jack's sword clattered to the ground, his fingers finally too weak to keep their purchase on the worn, soft leather of the hilt. He gave a choked laugh, Bo could feel his eyelashes flutter against the sensitive skin along the back of her neck, and the sudden, heavy pressure of his head slumping against her shoulder.
The last, violent seconds of their battle replayed over and over in her head. The long shape of his body as he charged her, the way his arms rose endlessly above his head, the wet, vicious gleam of his sword as it dove down at her. The cold futility that had gripped her. And then the sudden burst of adrenaline that had shot through her system. She slid so neatly, so easily into his embrace. If she'd grown up with him, with Aife, as a family, would it have been familiar? Would she have learned his madness? Would they, together, as a family, have taken the Fae world by a passionate storm, have destroyed the double partisan system it existed in, even thrived on?
Would it have broken her heart to kill him, if she'd really known Jack as her father? The dagger she'd clung to, the dagger she'd always kept strapped above her boot, pressed intimately against her thigh, had penetrated him so easily, as if she had dropped it into its sheath, rather than stabbed it through his belly. And it slid like a hot knife through butter as she rose in his arms.
Bo's cheek pressed against Jack's neck. She could feel the struggling flutter of his failing heartbeat. When she pulled away and settled the dying Fomor against the cold, marble floor of his home, he looked up at her with those dark eyes that looked so like her own and so unbelievably alien all at once, with an expression of utter disbelief and mystification.
She traced the lines of his mouth as it opened and closed in an attempt to form words.
"My…" he gasped, choking on the blood that flooded his chest and throat, "my… daughter…"
Bo couldn't fathom that tears might well in her eyes and drip down her cheeks. Her disbelief in them was so strong, it shocked her when she found her cheeks wet, and the little, salty droplets crashing onto Jack's face and rolling down his skin. The choked gasp she uttered didn't feel like her own, and a powerful shock that confused and numbed her consciousness swept through her. She blinked once, twice, heavily, and raised her eyes to stare at the crowd of Thralls that surrounded her.
And then realization settled in, and she drew in a deep, sharp breath as if it were her first in a long time.
Her father was dead. All the possibilities of having him in her life, in any capacity, were gone, completely, absolutely, in the instant in which she sunk her knife into his stomach and killed him. All the questions she'd had, all the hopes she'd nurtured, all gone, breathing their last breaths along with the man that lay at her feet, staring up at her in thorough hopeless perplexity.
Inari crouched beside her, the fingers of one hand burying themselves in her hair and those of the other wrapping carefully over the festering wound in her calf. Bo's deep brown eyes met Inari's emerald ones, and found such a well of compassion, worry, and unconditional love there that Bo had to wonder if this was truly the work of her own abilities as a Succubus, or if these feelings Inari had for her were really an intensified impression of something the Kitsune had already felt long before her enthrallment.
"Bo," Inari's shrill, anxious voice pulled Bo out of her reverie. The Kitsune was shaking her shoulder gently in an attempt to bring the Succubus' attention back to the here and now, "you need to feed. The infection is spreading, it'll kill you."
Bo didn't think that, in the short, intense time she'd known the Fox-Fae, that she'd ever heard Inari sound so serious. She twisted around on her good leg to pull the leather of her torn boot and pants around and look at the injury, though she could already feel that what Inari was telling her was true. A frigid numbness was creeping through her leg, had already spread across her groin and lower stomach, and was slowly seeping down her other thigh and up towards her chest. A cold, throbbing ache preceded it, and nausea pulled a dry retch from her throat.
Tamsin, Maia, Dyson and Hale had finally collected around her now too, supporting each other and walking as a sloppy, clumsy unit across the floor to break the small crowd of Thralls that milled anxiously around her.
Inari ducked her head under one of Bo's arms and pulled her up to stand.
"No. I need to break this bond. Maia, you need to help me," Bo was shocked at the weakness in her voice. It faltered, her tongue was stiff and huge in her mouth and she couldn't seem to move it correctly. It curled against her teeth and pressed against the inside of her cheeks, feeling swollen and jumbled there.
"Tear off four long strips of cloth from the drapes. Clean strips," Dyson's voice was pale. He leaned heavily against a dizzy-eyed Hale, who possessed the limbs, if not the balance, to hold them both upright. Maia edged out from under Tamsin's arm, the Valkyrie nodded that she was fine to stand by herself now and hugged her arms to her battered chest, and Maia ran, skidding over the pools of blood that smeared the floor to the windows. "But she's right, Bo," Dyson continued, turning his attention back to the failing Succubus, "you need to feed."
Dyson didn't need to say it. Bo looked from one potential meal to the next, feeling her hunger begin to cloud her senses out of an instinctual drive to stay alive. Those she trusted the most: Hale, Dyson, even Maia and Tamsin, all looked too beaten and broken to feed from. The little Chi they might spare her would be too essential to their own lives for her to take, and what little sense and humanity Bo still clung to through the haze of her gathering, urgent hunger forbade her from taking any more of what little life essence they still possessed.
She looked then to her Thralls, each of them more willing than the last to give her everything they had to secure her life. She could drain them, each and every one of them. It would not only restore her to perfect health, it would satisfy the hunger that had been coiling and writhing in her belly for weeks now, insatiable and ever present. She was powerless to stop the Succubus within her now. A slow, seductive smile curled against her mouth, and her eyes, bright with the slightest undertone of blue pulsing beneath the surface, settled on the Thrall that huddled under her arm, pressing her cheek against Bo's chest adoringly.
"Yes," Bo purred. Her sticky, bloodied fingers brushed against Inari's skin, her hand cupped her cheek and her thumb flicked under the Kitsune's chin and guided it gently upward, "I need to feed."
Inari leaned into the kiss, intense green eyes hooded and cheeks flushed pink with excitement and desire. Bo's fingers buried themselves into her thick, crimson hair. Their lips met, and thrill rushed its sweet, warm breath down Inari's spine, flooding her senses with the coppery smell of blood mixed with the sweet taste of spiced cocoa, the sensation of Bo's hot skin pressed against her own and the sound of Bo's hair whispering as it moved to curtain that brief, intimate caress.
And then Bo drew back, and Inari felt the sweet, intoxicating pull of her own Chi pouring past her lips into Bo's mouth. A warm, dull ache flooded her, tensing her muscles, making them quiver with the force of her ecstasy. Inari nipped at Bo's lips with her teeth in an attempt to capture them again, and felt the soft, swollen flesh slide once between her own before Bo pulled away completely. A soft, miserable whimper escaped her, and she keenly felt the absence of Bo's arms around her, of the Succubus' weight pressed against her shoulder, as Bo left her side and fell into Dolph's arms instead.
"Quickly, Maia," Dyson's voice was gruff, whether from the pain that seared through his shattered ankle, the arousal he felt watching the intimate scene unfold before him, or the furious jealousy that coiled and tightened and squeezed in his gut at watching Bo in the arms of another. Maia slipped and skidded back to them, four long strips of clean, white cloth wrapped around her fists and clenched tightly between her dirty fingers. "Wrap it around their hands."
Bo wasn't satisfied feeding just from Inari alone, though the sweet tartness of her Chi was, among her Thralls, her favorite flavor. But she wanted them all, at once, together. Her body demanded it, even if all Bo truly, deeply wanted was Lauren. She curled into Dolph's massive arms, tracing her fingers delicately over the tight musculature that rippled under every inch of his rough, tan skin. The Shifter bent his head, his forehead meeting hers and his pale, ocher eyes focused intently on her swollen, glistening lips.
Slowly, she ran her hands over his biceps, across his collarbone and dipped them over his chest. The cold that had been spreading steadily through her body had halted and shrunk with her first feed, and was now only a sharp pulse that squeezed mercilessly all over her wounded leg. Her tongue darted out and dragged sensually across her upper lip as she stared up at the enthralled Bear, her smirk widened, and a sharp blue flashed like lightening in her dark eyes at the feel of him pressed, throbbing and hard, against her.
Maia yanked one of Inari's hands away from the Kitsune's face and wrapped a strip of white linen around her palm. She reacted to Dyson's instructions immediately and without hesitation, studiously avoiding the erotic scene that unfolded beside her. With the discarded dagger she'd plucked from the floor, she carefully cut a shallow line along Inari's wrist.
"The wrist I cleave and the other leave," Maia began; her heart beat heavily in her chest. The syringe she'd snatched from Vex's hand pressed uncomfortably in the pocket against her hip.
Dolph dipped his head to meet Bo's lips with his own, his arms wrapped tightly, possessively, around the slender, curvaceous woman whose body pressed so closely to his. Bo's tongue darted out to slide between his blood-stained teeth, and the coppery flavor mingled with the heady, bitter taste of his Chi as it slid into her mouth.
"With harm to none, thy will be done," Maia breathed, expelling the words in a rush of air, eyes closed in concentration as she focused on the words Dyson instructed her to repeat. Her free hand slid into her pocket, and her fingers closed around the needle poking uncomfortably into her bruised skin.
Duncan pressed himself against Bo's back, his unbroken arm winding sinuously into the slight space between Dolph's and Bo's bodies and pulling the Succubus closer to him. He pressed his lips to the nape of her neck, his breath hot and damp against the sensitive skin and his teeth nipping playfully as his mouth climbed from her shoulder to her jaw. Dolph groaned as Bo broke the flow between them and ground her hips against his, and he buried his face in her hair, pressing hard, wanting kisses to the soft skin behind her ear.
Bo turned her face to meet Duncan's. The piercing pain that had seared through her calf was gone, reduced to a tickle where the broken skin knit itself together. Power rushed through her, flooding her body, clouding her mind with the immediate sensations that pressed against her skin, the hands that kneaded the strong muscles over her back and around her hips and stomach. She brushed her lips against Duncan's, eliciting a sharp gasp of arousal from the gangly Redcap, and savored the sour taste of his Chi as it dripped over his lips and curled like smoke into hers. An intense, sudden craving for honey balled in the back of her throat, making her almost salivate with the abrupt realization.
"Thou cannot harm them, Bo!"
The mouth that suckled around her earlobe stiffened, the arms tangled around her waist tightened almost unbearably, and hot, wet breath flooded her neck and face in a sudden, steamy cascade of released sexual tension. Her skin tingled with the arousal that pulsed in a close, tight jumble around her, flushing against the sudden moans that broke around her face. She had to react quickly, before they recollected themselves and recovered from the erotic, unsatisfied urges she'd awoken in them. She was too vulnerable, pressed between their grasping, grinding bodies.
Bo's skin thrummed all over, smoldering like hot coals and radiating seduction to dull the senses of the half-released Bear and Redcap that had been her Thralls. Delicately, she extricated herself from between them, careful to keep one hand on each of their shoulders before stepping out of their reach and allowing Hale's low, soothing whistle to lull them to sleep. They collapsed in a jumbled mass at her feet, dead to the world and snuffling exhaustedly into their arms as they settled into a deep slumber on the sticky, blood-soaked floor.
Inari curled herself around Bo's leg, bringing a sudden, sharp laugh to the recovered Succubus' lips.
"Jeez, that kid is all over you. I wonder what Lauren's going to think about that?" Tamsin smirked, the normal acerbity of her tone brought a collective sigh of relief from everyone around her and immediately seemed to lighten the tension of the dark situation. Still, dark circles yawned beneath her tired, pale eyes, and she leaned heavily on Maia, who struggled forcefully to stay upright.
"What would you think?" Maia sighed, and a guilty, unhappy grimace spread quickly over Bo's features. "I mean, I'm sure she'll just be happy you're alright," she continued quickly, and tried to smile as reassuringly as she could at the Succubus' uncomfortable expression. The intended smile came out a flinch, and Maia released her tight clutch on the syringe in her pocket and wound her arm around Tamsin's waist, supporting the Valkyrie with what little strength she had left. Gingerly, she handed her knife back to Tamsin, breathing another audible sigh of relief as she relinquished the weapon to its rightful owner.
"I donno, the way she was makin' out with them… and that little bump and grind with the Bear," Tamsin's eyes glittered with mischief as she accepted the knife, "whew, I think the temperature went up in here about ten degrees with that little show."
"Tamsin!" the way Maia scolded her and the flippant, teasing grin Tamsin responded with was met by incredulously raised eyebrows from Bo. Dyson and Hale rolled their eyes, already a little acquainted with the strange little friendship sparked between the human and Valkyrie. But Bo's lips were parted in mild surprise at the light, unconcerned way Tamsin dismissed Maia's admonishment.
Still, her surprise at the previously cold, professional acquaintance-turned-friendship served to distract Bo from her guilt and unease. And Bo could only shrug and hope that Maia's assurances that Lauren would be more concerned by the ends than the means in this situation would be true. She pushed her useless remorse aside and focused instead on the bizarre exchange at hand.
"I definitely missed something," Bo commented, bending to extract her leg from Inari's tight, affectionate cuddle. The Kitsune sighed in her sleep and rolled over, arms grasping and clearly searching for something to hold on to. It almost brought another laugh to Bo's lips, but she controlled it and swallowed it down. When she turned her attention to Jack's still form sprawled across the floor, her expression sobered immediately.
Bo knelt again, her hands splaying over his arm. Gently, she brushed the graying hair over his temples and felt the rush of disappointment and grief that accompanied the tender gesture. What little she knew of her father were things she wished she never knew, and Bo couldn't decide whether it had been better not knowing him at all, or having at least a little of her curiosity sated. But now that she knew, for certain, that her father really had been a monster… what did that mean for her? After everything she'd done, everything that had happened in this nightmarish castle, what did it make her?
She curled her fingers over the handle of her knife and carefully pulled it out. It slid through his chest with a sickening squelch, and Jack's blood, still warm and wet, oozed out with it. It dripped from the blade, and Bo wiped it clean judiciously with the cloth she unwound from Inari's hand before flipping it in her hand to hold it by the blade.
"Let's just unbind the others and go," Bo murmured softly, her eyes still focused on her father's unmoving face. It was frozen in an expression of surprise, his dark eyes were wide open and staring unseeingly into space. She brushed her fingers over his eyelids, pushing them closed, before she rose.
"Right," Maia muttered, her eyes darkening again as she turned her gaze to the Shifter and pair of Redcaps that lay slumbering on the floor. She accepted Bo's offered dagger, and resolutely set about unbinding the sleeping Fae.
It was a struggle for her to pull Dolph's enormous hands out from under his heavy head, but Maia managed with no help. If she expected a reaction when she cut his ties to the Succubus, her surprise didn't show on her face when she received none.
Duncan was the last that Maia turned to. She knelt beside him, Bo's knife in her hands dripping along one edge with the blood of the Redcap leader's lackey and the last strip of clean white cloth dangling from her fingers. She cleaned the knife on her jeans – the fabric had already been stained irreversibly by the blood that seemed to flow unchecked since early that morning – and carefully wrapped the cloth around Duncan's wrists. Her face was a grim mask when she turned it up to look at Tamsin.
"What if my hand slipped," though Maia's voice was soft, there was a hard, cold edge to it that sent a shiver down the Valkyrie's spine, "and he died of blood loss?"
"Don't," Tamsin warned. She hated Duncan, he was a spineless coward and little more than an animal that Tamsin believed with her whole heart ought to be put down. But whether actually accidental or not, his death at the hands of a human would bring a retribution upon both Tamsin and Maia that the Morrigan would undoubtedly be happy to bestow.
The Valkyrie knelt beside her human, settling a hand gently over Maia's wrist and brushing her thumb lightly over the back of her hand, "he's not worth it, Kid. And you're better than this."
Maia stared into Tamsin's eyes, her expression hard and angry, but also contemplative. Her nostrils flared, and her jaw clenched, her lips pressed into a thin, white line. And then her eyes slid closed and she breathed out heavily through her nose and gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
Her hands were trembling a little when she finished, and she wiped the blade clean against her pants for the last time before returning it to the Succubus that watched with keen interest only a few paces away. With the knife out of her hands and her part finally done, Maia wrapped a supportive arm around Tamsin's waist again and allowed her body to relax a little.
"You did good, Kid," Dyson smiled at the curly-haired human pressed close to Tamsin's side, picking up the Valkyrie's moniker for her with friendly ease and familiarity, "and now, we can all go home."
"Good," Hale chuckled, his eyes still a little unfocused and his smile entirely lopsided, "not that it wasn't sexy watchin' you heal your Succu-butt," he nodded at Bo, dark eyes sparkling with dizzy mirth, "but I think I'm ready to leave."
Bo offered the Ash a half-smile, happy to see that he still cared, and was still one of them, despite his duties as the leader of the Light Fae, and turned to follow the hobbling group out the door. She paused at the threshold, caught halfway between the murky, crimson light of the building's entrance and the bright, fresh late morning sunlight that broke through the heavy clouds outside, to leave a last, lingering, wistful look upon the still, lifeless form of her father lying across the floor. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, her bottom lip shivered with the regret that swelled in her chest, then she lifted her chin defiantly and turned away.
They took the highway this time, none of their party willing to walk for almost an hour through thick, treacherous underbrush if they didn't have to, and found themselves on the street-side of the line of trees which hid the truck within twenty minutes. Bo's Camaro was hidden not too much deeper in. The ditch that dropped between the tarmac and the edge of the forest was deep and steep, and took some careful navigation before Dyson, half-carried between Hale and Tamsin, and Bo and Maia steadying them on the sidelines, found themselves within view of Tamsin's enormous, beat-up black truck. The doors were all wide open, and Lauren and Kenzi dashed out of the back seat to wrap their arms around Bo in relief.
"Oh my god, Bo. You're drenched!" Lauren leaned back, unwilling to quite leave the circle of her lover's arms, to look Bo over carefully and in dismay. She brushed a hand over the still damp blood stains that saturated Bo's top and pants, it had come away on Lauren's dirty white blouse and left faint red marks on her fingertips.
"It's okay, Babe. It's not mine," Bo smiled reassuringly at both women, relinquishing her hold on Kenzi just a little to allow the petite girl to wrap a trembling arm around Hale, "I'm okay, actually. I healed up before we left," she spoke in a quiet murmur, unable to meet Lauren's worried eyes now. Her words were heavy with the unspoken apology, and Bo bit her lip remorsefully.
"Probably a good thing, Bo-bo," Kenzi smiled tiredly at her best friend and reached around to wrap her thin arms around Dyson in greeting, "I don't think the Doc's going to be of much use to anyone for at least a day or so. At least in that department."
Dyson dropped a kiss on top of Kenzi's head and winced as he hopped around to lean against Tamsin's truck.
"It's okay, Bo," Lauren leaned back in to press a kiss to Bo's cheek, "I'm just so glad you're okay," Lauren's voice trembled a little. Bo could feel the dampness of unshed tears brush against her cheekbone, and leaned in closer, to press the side of her face against Lauren's reassuringly. So much remained unsaid between them: so much that needed to be said, to be discussed, and apologized for, and forgiven. But now, it was all they could manage to just hold each other, with the knowledge that they both lived another day to say the things that needed to be said, to apologize, and to forgive.
"It's good to see you again," Dyson murmured quietly into Kenzi's hair, his arms wrapped still around the small raven-haired woman and his relief plain in his voice, "we were worried about you."
"Pshaw, nothin' the Kenz couldn't handle," Kenzi smiled up at Hale, whose relief mirrored Dyson's own. The Siren held Kenzi's hand in one of his own, and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Although, speaking of which," she continued, turning a little in Dyson's arms to give everyone a pointed look, "I could definitely handle a burger right now. Or three."
"Girl's been yammering on about food for ages now," Vex hopped out of the front seat of the truck and leaned against its side, arms crossed over his chest and looking none-too-happy for being dragged out to the middle of nowhere, "can we get her something to eat so I don't have to hear her whine about it any longer, or are we just going to stand here and stare at each other?"
Despite the antagonism in his voice, the Mesmer grinned good-naturedly at the affectionate hand Kenzi slapped at his shoulder.
Tamsin watched the gang reunite from only a few paces away. Even Vex seemed to have an in with them, regardless that he was Dark Fae and had tried to kill more than one of them at some point in their somewhat brief acquaintance. They were an exclusive group, and Vex hovered on its sidelines, but was still mostly accepted as one of them. Destroying an ancient evil that had been a feared enemy of the Fae did that, she supposed.
A smile that was a little wistful quirked on the edges of her mouth. It must be good to have such close friends. They were like family to each other, and she would have been lying to herself if she denied that part of the reason she'd chosen to help bring them back together was in stupid, twisted hope that maybe, she could be a part of that.
She started to move forward, ready to get home now, to have a beer and get a good look at her wounds, when a hand slipped into hers and pulled her back. Maia stood beside her, looking at her quizzically, with her head tilted to the side and filtered sunlight glowing in her wild curls. The mousy locks burned a dark gold in the sunlight, and her skin looked almost translucent beneath the grime and dirt that caked it.
"Are you sure you're okay? You took a beating back there," the worry in Maia's expression widened the smile on Tamsin's face by a fraction. The Valkyrie paused a moment, relishing the idea that maybe, for a change, she wouldn't be alone anymore. At least for a little while. Maia took a step closer, concern twisting her eyebrows and flattening her lips. Somewhere, high up in the canopy, a bird warbled its short, sweet tune. The humidity that had plagued them earlier that morning was slowly dissipating too.
"Tamsin?" Maia peered into Tamsin's eyes, glazed over in thought, and her fingers gently squeezed Tamsin's hand in a subtle request for attention.
The Valkyrie's lips twitched into a grin, and she threw an arm across the human's shoulders, ignoring the short stab of pain that stretched across her torso at the casual movement.
"Please. For a centuries-old Valkyrie, that was just a romp in the park," Tamsin threw a swagger into her step, dragging Maia around with her under her arm as she strode to her truck and pulling a laugh strangled with pain from Maia's lips. Nervous worry crept into the Valkyrie's eyes as she pulled away and leaned against the front end of her truck, anxious that she'd caused the fragile human too much pain with her mild roughhousing.
But Maia only grinned back brightly at her and gave her shoulder a rough, friendly shove.
"Hah, I guess you didn't really need me to save your ass in there, then, huh?" sarcasm dripped from Maia's words, and one eyebrow lifted teasingly in response to Tamsin's eye roll.
"Just get in the car, Human!" Tamsin chuckled, clearly relieved by Maia's resilience and playfulness, and shoved Vex out of the way to hop in behind the wheel, "take the back seat, Wolf-Man. Stretch out your leg. I'll drop you and Hale off at the Light Compound, okay?"
Dyson nodded and mumbled his goodbyes to Lauren, Kenzi and Bo, and slid back into the car with a little help from his old partner. Hale did the same, only running around to the other side of the car to hop in and help Dyson lean back comfortably.
"Hey, um… before you go," Bo's fingers hooked around Maia's elbow, bringing her around to face the Succubus that smiled gratefully at her, "thank you. For coming back for me, and Lauren and Kenzi."
Maia shrugged, the movement brought a slight grimace of pain to her eyes, but she returned Bo's smile with a small one of her own and gave a dismissive wave of her hand.
"Not like I could just leave you guys there. I owe you my life, remember?" Her small smile turned a little lopsided as Kenzi and Lauren joined them.
"Well, I think it's us that owe you now, so thank you," the sincerity in Bo's voice brought a light blush to Maia's cheeks, and she shrugged again and bobbed her head in response.
"And um…" Bo's voice was nervous, her hand slipped from Maia's elbow to her fingers and gave them a light, sympathetic squeeze, "I'm sorry. About Seth. I should've – "
"You did everything you could," Maia interrupted hastily and pulled her hand from Bo's. From the guilt that saturated Bo's tone, Maia could see her regret was sincere, but the gaping hole Seth had left behind when she'd died was still sore, still throbbing and aching and bleeding, and Maia couldn't deal with that on top of everything else.
Uncomfortable, strained silence stretched between them for what felt like far longer than only a few seconds. Lauren moved in to embrace the grieving human, but Maia shrugged and stepped back suddenly.
"Kinda need to rush to the hospital here," Tamsin's words were short and terse, she turned the engine over quickly and it roared to life before settling into a steady, chugging purr. Maia jerked and skipped away, her smile at Lauren, Kenzi and Bo tense, uncomfortable, and absent in her dark eyes.
"Thanks," she stuttered softly, and fluttered her fingers in a half-hearted farewell before slipping into the seat beside Tamsin. The truck's tires squelched over mud and bracken, and slowly, it trundled out of the small semi-clearing to leave the girls and Vex standing alone and somber. Only Vex's expression was bored as they watched the truck disappear behind the line of trees that shielded the highway.
"Come on, Bo," Kenzi's fingers brushed against Bo's arm, bringing the Succubus' attention back to the here and now, "let's go home."
Silently, the group trudged to the big, yellow Camaro hidden in the clearing not a quarter of a mile away.
Author's Note: So, this final chapter is a long one. There is one more chapter coming up next week, it's short, and is more of an epilogue/lead-in than a chapter. Still, I want to stop and give a huge thank you to everyone who followed, favorited and reviewed. You all brightened my days and weeks, and made posting this story that much more worth it, so thank you, all of you, so much!
I am currently still writing the sequel to Faevor for a Faevor, and as far as I have decided, the tentative title for that is Where the Fae Sun Rises. I will do my best to keep you updated via my profile, and hope to have it finished and to start posting it within a month or two, work, time and energy permitting.
So, one more time: thank you all for all your interest and feedback. It was a blast writing and sharing with you! I can't wait to share the sequel with you! In the meantime: Keep calm and carry out experiments! ;)