Scorched Uprising (Reign of Fae Book 2) Read online

  “Tenebris? Ha! Hardly. No, he’s just Mary’s familiar.” Bram tousled the bird’s neck-feathers again. “Sorry, old friend. I meant no disrespect.”

  The massive raven tossed his head back and forth as if in answer to every word Bram had spoken. “No,” Bram said, turning to face Chloe, “I don’t possess what you might call a steed, in the traditional sense. I helped Mary conjure Tenebris, here, to life using dark magic, long ago.” He scoffed in amusement, reliving some long-forgotten memory. “Maybe that darkness is why he and I have such a strong bond.” Bram placed the bucket on the ground in front of the raven and made his way over to Chloe. “Dark through and through, aren’t we, Tenebris?”

  Tenebris nodded his head in agreement before returning to his bucket of flesh.

  Bram smirked at the scowl of discomfort splashed across Chloe’s face. Apparently, he thought the physical torture of keeping her big revelation a secret from him to be adorable. “But enough with avoiding the reason for the addition of your unwanted bodyguards.” He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “Spill it, Etain. I’m a big boy. I can take it.”

  Chloe let the air rush out of her lungs raising the heart-stone necklace resting against her chest. “It’s this.”

  “The Corda Aeternum? What about it?” he asked, gazing down at the ruby and gold pendant he’d given her.

  “Not about it, but about dividing it.”

  Bram nodded, recalling the moment when his dueling heartbeats had become individual and unique—one remaining within his chest and the other occupying the space within the heart-stone, beating independently from his own. That had been the moment he’d declared the stone belonged to Chloe.

  “Two hearts divided. I remember you saying that before we ran out to help Laszlo.” He looked confused but smiled at her anyway. Slowly, he traced his finger down her neck, over the hollow of her throat, stopping between her breasts. His touch lingered there, lightly, just above the zipper of her jacket, staring intently at the tan leather as if he could will it off of her body. “Loving someone happens from time to time. Not often for royals...for me,” he admitted. “But sometimes...”

  Chloe’s breathing deepened under his soft touch. Anticipation drove her body to cry out for more. If nothing else, he was proving to be an expert tease; a master at causing her body to react to nothing more than expectation of wonderful things to come. “You know you’re making it extremely difficult to concentrate, right?”

  “Not sorry.” Bram leaned in but didn’t kiss her. His breathing matched the depth of her own, and his heartbeat quickened. Crowding into her personal space and dominating her smaller frame, his body demanded that hers react to him.

  The heartbeat within the heart-stone remained slow and steady, and the calmer rhythm distracted her, temporarily allowing Chloe to think clearly. “I thought you wanted to hear this?”

  “I want a lot of things. And I want them right now.” Bram growled in a possessive tone.

  The need she heard in his sultry voice sent a jolt of excitement through Chloe’s body, but she fought to focus her thoughts. “Bram?” She poured a touch of irritation into her voice to force him to do the same.

  “Okay.” He reluctantly let his hand drop to his side. “So, how do you think dividing a Hearts Eternal from a royal has anything to do with ending the scorch, anyway?”

  Chloe had to pause and catch her breath. “You’re pretty much indestructible, right? All the royals are. Basically, you can’t be killed?”

  “Pretty much,” Bram alluded.

  “But these…” Chloe held up the heart-stone again. “Only royals have one, yes? The ruling caste of Horsemen?”

  Bram nodded.

  “Divided from you, this trinket becomes your Achilles Heel, the one thing that makes a Horseman vulnerable.” She whispered the next part. “So vulnerable, in fact, that I think while they’re divided, you could actually be killed.”

  Bram scoured the backyard, ensuring they were alone. He leaned in closer to her. “Are you sure?” His hushed whisper echoed her own intensity and severity.

  “It’s my best working theory, my only theory, actually.”

  “Chloe, this is important! Are you sure?” he hissed.

  “Bram it…it was all there! Inside all of Hadley’s research, decades of it, the answer was just sitting there, waiting. This is what it all pointed to. We’re just lucky that we’re the ones that found out first. The data is sound; I’m sure of it!” She glanced down at her feet. “I believe it’s the only way to end the scorch.”

  “Famke.” Bram stumbled backwards. “Defeating the one who conjured the curse is how we end the scorch. You mean by killing her, kill Famke? That’s what you’re saying.” He took another step away from her.

  The air tensed between them, becoming a tangible thing Chloe could feel against her skin, like a sudden, ice-cold drop in temperature settling over her. Every unspoken word created a cord of knotted tension between them.

  “You mean…killing my sister is the only way…”

  “Y-yes,” Chloe whispered. “I’m so sorry, Bram. I thought...I thought it’d be something else, like separating Famke from the others; maybe, I don’t know. Avery and Mortimer are the real monsters. I know that.”

  “Still...she made her choice.” Bram’s frame became rigid, his eyes defiant.

  “She’s still your sister. I’m so, so sorry.”

  The pair remained silent for a long time.

  Bram harrumphed under his breath. “This whole thing hinges on whether Famke’s heart-stone is even divided. I’ve never known her to have ever fallen in love with anyone. Ever.”

  “Her prayer in your apartment after the others left…”

  “What of it?”

  “I heard her plea. The sadness, the loneliness in her voice. Bram, she loves you deeply. It doesn’t have to be romantic love for this to work. Love is love. It just has to be strong enough.”

  Bram cringed inwardly at the idea. He turned his back to Chloe and looked up into the scorched sky. She wanted to reach out to him, to offer him comfort, but she knew he needed space for a moment so he could process the implications of putting Chloe’s theory to the test, she felt certain he was carefully weighing the consequences of such a choice. “The Gods are cruel bastards; aren’t they?”

  Chloe nodded. She didn’t know what to say.

  They both fell silent again, content with taking comfort in the presence of one another.

  After a long silence, Bram turned to face her.

  “Well, you know we’re going to have to test this theory of yours before we go marching into battle, right?” He tried to smile, but it wouldn’t reach his eyes. There was too much sadness within to allow any hint of happiness.

  “What? How?” Chloe started to grow nervous. She hadn’t even told Bram the entirety of her theory yet. She couldn’t. The worst part wouldn’t leave her lips. She had already broken his heart; the rest would crush him. Bram was right. The Gods were cruel bastards.

  “We’re going to have to test your theory on me.”

  “What? No!”

  Bram was already searching the ground for a sharp object to use in his experiment. After picking up a rock that resembled a crudely-carved arrowhead, he held out his hand and tried slicing his palm open. Nothing happened. Tossing the rock aside, he scoured Hadley’s backyard until he spied a pile of old rebar. He grabbed a piece and broke it in half creating a sharp edge. Chloe hoped royals weren’t susceptible to tetanus. She winced as he held out his palm and stabbed the rebar downward with his extraordinary Horseman’s strength.

  “Shit!” Chloe gasped, instinctively covering her mouth in shock, assuming the rod had punctured his hand. When he lifted his hand, however, his palm hadn’t sustained so much as a single scratch. The rebar, though, had come away mangled, twisted like the roots of a tree trying to grow around solid rock at the edge of a cliff.

  “Hmm,” he pondered.

  “Hmm?! Just hmm. Are you crazy?” she whis
pered.

  Bram chuckled and pulled a silver stake from inside his black-leather jacket. Before he repeated the process of self-inflicted harm, he looked to Chloe, who scowled bitterly at him. Deciding to behave a little less macabre for her benefit, Bram sliced across his skin instead of violently jabbing at his palm. A thin line of blood appeared, but the breach in his skin amounted to nothing more than a deep papercut. Only a few droplets pooled along the line. As soon as he wiped the blood away, the two sides of his skin began to knit back together. “Nothing out of the ordinary there.”

  Chloe presumed Bram had forged the silver stakes himself in her world, so she theorized a weapon from fae itself would prove to be more effective. One weapon in particular came to mind, but she didn’t want to test that deadly theory. Not on Bram.

  “May I?” he asked, pulling Chloe from her thoughts. He seemed to be thinking along the same lines she was, unfortunately. Crap! Chloe thought to herself.

  He peered down at the faery whips wrapped around her wrist below the sleeve of her leather jacket and extended his hand.

  Chloe released a silent sigh of relief, unwrapped one of the barbed, deceptively-delicate-looking metal strands and handed it to him.

  With innate grace, Bram flicked his wrist, expertly wielding the weapon. The slash from the whip bit a little deeper into his palm, but only just. That wound, too, healed almost instantly.

  “Dammit!” he hissed in frustration.

  Chloe backed away slightly, her heart pounding. She tried to shield the blade holstered at her thigh from his better-than-human sight. Hoping to focus his eyes anywhere else, she nodded in the direction of the metal tipped weapons adorning Bram’s ears instead.

  He reached up and pulled one of the armor-styled metal pieces free. With the swirl of his fingers, the piece that masqueraded as jewelry transformed into a short double-sided blade reminiscent of a butterfly knife.

  “Nice!” Chloe blurted out. She coveted a pair for herself and wondered if they would conform to the plain, rounded edges of her human ears. “I knew those had to be weapons of some sort.”

  “Smart girl,” Bram teased. He slashed at his palm with the blade, inflicting the same kind of wound the faery whip had produced. As he handed Chloe back the delicate chain, he nodded in a determined fashion. “To kill a Horseman, you need the weapon of a Horseman.” He looked down at his weapon strapped to her leg.

  “Bram, I…” She began to back away.

  “Before we attempt this next part…” He cut her off, mid-sentence. “…you’re going to need more protection, just in case.”

  “Just in case...what?”

  “Now, hear me out,” Bram started to defend his line of reasoning. “It’ll be more protection for you just in case this actually works or, well, I die.” He tried to say the last part with a bit of levity, but Chloe didn’t find his words amusing in the least.

  “Not funny.” She scowled at him again with more malice.

  “Relax. I’m not that easy to kill; remember?” He was still trying to make her laugh.

  “Has a Horseman ever been killed?” Chloe whispered. She wondered how many Horsemen had existed throughout history and realized how many unanswered questions were running through her mind.

  “I think we’re about to find out.” He was evading her question. “But let’s worry about your protection first, especially if we’re actually thinking about taking the fight to the royals. Some will actually be expecting it, I’m sure...others, well, let’s just say it will definitely make a statement.”

  “Wait. More bodyguards? Ugh! Why, when we could potentially round up an army of Spree witches?”

  Bram quirked his head at her proposal. “Besides Mary, the witches won’t be so easily persuaded to join our cause. Things in Fae aren’t so pleasant for them.”

  “I can be very persuasive,” she stated proudly.

  “I know,” he teased. “But I also know the witches.”

  “Can’t you just conjure up some enchanted armor for me or something?”

  Bram crossed his arms and flashed Chloe a charming smirk.

  “Fine. We can ask if some of the soldiers want to volunteer to go with us,” she relented. “But soldiers only. No Laszlo, no matter how much he fusses.” Chloe paused before adding, “I want to be able to come home to people like him and my parents when this is all over. So, who will it be and how few can I get away with?”

  “If only it were that simple. And a glamour impersonating Famke isn’t going to work in Fae, either.” Bram seemed to be mentally weighing the odds of some crucial decision. “No, I’m going to have to do it.” He looked her dead in the eyes. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  Chloe’s exasperated expression demanded he disclose his intentions…or face her wrath.

  “I’m going to have to…” He finished the last part quickly, under his breath. “…claim you.”

  Chloe’s furious stare clearly stated she harbored no intention of belonging to any man.

  “Now, just hear me out.”

  “Claim me?!”

  “It will ensure your safety better than I ever could. Better, even, than an army of Spree witches. If I claim you, no fae will dare touch you, let alone harm you. And I can take it off at any time.”

  “At any time that I want it off, yes?”

  “Yes.” He smiled at the way she’d clarified the semantics, but she remained silent afterwards. “Chloe, I…”

  She cut him off. “Ugh! Just do it before I change my mind.” She closed her eyes and straightened out the troubled lines creasing her brow. “I trust you.”

  Bram smiled at that and placed his lips against her forehead before unzipping her cropped leather jacket and letting it fall to the ground.

  “Just how intimate does this fae claiming a human ritual get, anyway?”

  He chuckled. “Dirty mind much?”

  “Hey, you’re the one undressing me, mister,” she teased.

  “True.” He rubbed her bare arms. “Are you cold?”

  “Not when I’m around you.” Her skin heated rapidly under his touch.

  Smiling, he gripped her upper arms and began to chant in a language Chloe didn’t understand. The words carried on the air between them, beautiful and ancient. Suddenly, her skin began to burn beneath his grip.

  Bram stopped, his eyes finding hers. “Are you ready? This part is going to hurt.”

  2

  Two of Hearts

  “You branded me?!” Chloe spat, furious. She tugged at the thin glowing bands encircling both her upper arms, looking at the bright light emanating from underneath her skin. The bands didn’t burn anymore and if she looked away using only her peripheral vision they weren’t just plain, solid bands anymore. The shapes twisted into undulating spells, eerily reminiscent of the glowing spelled beads found at the entry to the Spree in Seattle.

  “Marked, yes. But they come off the instant you demand it.”

  “You. Branded. Me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Chloe was fuming. But she knew why Bram had gone to such extremes. If the brand she carried meant no fae could lay a hand on her, she guessed the whole ordeal was worth it. Perhaps, she could even test the marks out on some scabs later; walk through a swarm of them like a boulder untouched by the waters of a great river forced to split and flow around instead of over. At present, she suddenly realized how visible her new adornments would appear to prying eyes, so she hastily grabbed her jacket from the ground and slid the long sleeves over their bright glow.

  “Don’t worry; humans can’t see them. Only fae will know you’ve been claimed, whether the marks are visible or not.”

  “Well, at least there’s that.”

  “Chloe…”

  She waved off his impending apology. “It’s fine. I just...wasn’t expecting anything like that.”

  “Cheer up. I’m going to do something to brighten your day.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re about to get the best reveng
e on me ever,” Bram explained. He went back to looking sincerely apologetic, but eager to make another attempt at proving her theory. “Let’s just hope the payback doesn’t kill me in the process.”

  “Wha?” Chloe’s annoyance had turned to horror. She was afraid she knew exactly what he had in mind and why he had insisted on claiming her before he executed his latest experiment.

  Bram glanced down at his bladeless sword, sheathed and strapped to her thigh, once again. “Grab the sword and call the blade.”

  “What? No!” She backed away from him rapidly.

  “Chloe, we have to. It’s the only way.” He pulled her back in his direction, grabbing her hand and then guided her fingers towards the sword’s handle as he unsnapped the holster. Being careful not to touch the grip himself, he placed the sword against his abdomen holding Chloe’s hand.

  “No. I can’t do this.” She struggled violently to break free of his hold.

  He tightened his grip ever so slightly and held her fast. “It has to be you. You know I can’t touch the sword.”

  “Why?” She shook her head. “Why can’t you touch the sword?”

  “Because I may not be strong enough to come back from what I become with that sword.”

  “That’s crazy. You’re strong enough to do any…”

  “I don’t know if I’ll want to come back!” he admitted

  His admission floored her. Chloe ceased her struggles and stared at him in a silence which became brutally loud.

  “A Horseman’s power is seductive. You’ve felt it; haven’t you? When you call the blade?” Bram looked to her then for acknowledgment.

  She nodded, her expression crumpling.

  “Just like the pendant holds my light, that sword draws upon my darker tendencies. The part of me who would gladly become War, completely, and never look back. Never come back, to you. I’m Dark Fae, Chloe. I’ll always be dark. That will never change. It has to be you.”