Page 2 of Veil of Monsters

She offers me her small hand, but I don’t know if I can take it, if I can crawl myself up off this ground. I’ve picked myself up so many times, and now everything has been taken from me. I’m used to fearing loving anyone, because they could be taken from me, just like all my foster parents. I’m used to death. It’s been my shadow for so many years, but this is so much worse. To have someone you’re deeply in love with remember nothing about you. It’s like he has died, or the part of him that loved me has. I don’t know how I’m going to get him back. It’s been hours since we were thrown in here, and I can’t stop imagining my city—Ethereal City—burning to the ground. Louie—gods above—Louie standing in the flames.

He is coming for me, and at this point, I don’t have anyone to stand by my side. For all I know, Emerson would happily hand me over in exchange for peace. I look up at Posy, who waits with her outstretched hand. I’m not sure if I like her more as a mortal than as a bat. “You didn’t need to slap me.”

“I’ll do it again if you don’t pick yourself up and take my hand,” she firmly replies. “I could see it on your face. You were giving up. In the name of the old gods, I don’t blame you, but I’m not letting you do that, because I’m here to help. I’m not giving up and neither are you. Even if I have to drag you, kicking and screaming, to your feet.”

I sigh. “I’m not sure you can help me, Posy. I made a deal with a god. It’s gone very bad, as you have witnessed. Except for you. I’m happy for you. But you owe me nothing, and it won’t matter for long. Louie is coming for me, and no one knows who I am except you.”

“For fuck’s sake,” she growls at me. I swear I smell a strange magic rise in the air with her anger. “No. You don’t get to give up and wait for your death. You’ve survived so much, Calli, and you’re family to me. So stop being a self-pity-wallowing bitch, because we both know you’re not one. You’re the strongest person I know, even if you are down on your luck.”

My lips twitch and I take her hand. “I should have found a way to turn you back into a mortal earlier if it meant I got compliments.”

Posy pulls me to my feet. “Yes, but you’re only getting compliments because I feel sorry for you. We aren’t going all mushy now.” She grins at me, and I smile right back until I remember Emerson, and my heart smacks hard in my chest.

I cross my arms. “We need to get out of here.”

Posy tucks some hair behind her ear. “Lucky for you,” she begins, “I’m not mortal even though I scent as one. Unless you smell my blood, no one knows what I am. I was captured by the witches because of who my mother is. I was safe with my father when I was no more than a toddler, but they attacked and killed him, taking me and hiding me away where my mother couldn’t sense me. She couldn’t get to me or send anyone else. The witches used me for years to feed their own power, to make themselves stronger, but now my power is returning to me. I sense my mother calling for me.”

I look her over. “What are you then?”

Her smile is coy. “That’s a long story, and I’d prefer to tell you it with my mother. I don’t want any listening ears to hear my truth.” She leans close to me, her voice near silent. “You just need to trust me. I’m powerful enough to get us out of here.”

“If you have power, couldn’t you have used magic to protect yourself as a bat?”

She rolls her eyes. “It doesn’t work like that. My magic was locked away from me until now. I’m here now, and I owe you. I owe you my life a thousand times over, so I’m going to help you get Emerson back. Your love sickens me. It’s too sweet and shit, but I know you’re half a person without him.”

“Not just Emerson, Lorenzo and the others too,” I comment. “We need them all back.”

Posy tenses at Lorenzo’s name, and I almost forgot he named her as his mate. “His memories returning would be ideal so he gets rid of this insane mate theory and stops looking at me like some love-struck puppy. He needs to remember that I absolutely hate him because he nearly got me killed in the Conquest, and now he represents everything I’ve always feared. Another prison, in the name of mating. I-I’m not a good person and he is. I’ve done things in my past; I’ve killed witches and been called a monster. He needs to stay away from me because we are both traps for each other. I won’t let another male own me again.”

She nods to herself. I want to remind her that the line between hate and love is so thin, but I have a feeling she wouldn’t take it well. Mates are rare and it makes sense to me why Lorenzo was always saving her. Not for me, for himself. He must have sensed something, even when she was a bat. Either way, their mate bond is something I definitely don’t want to touch.Complicateddefines them. Lorenzo is engaged to someone else, and Posy is… well, Posy. She did save his life in the sea, so I suppose that’s something for them to build on. Mates are meant to be together, like Emerson and me.

Posy walks to the bars, looking down the long corridor to the massive steel door at the end. This place is laced with magic. My fire and ice do nothing on the bars, or I would have gotten us out of here. I’m sure the door is guarded by Wyerns, and we are high in the mountains, but I know where the mirrors used for traveling are. “Can you break the bars? If you can, we can fight our way to the mirror room, and I know the way.”

Posy smiles widely. “I can do much better than that. I can make a portal out of the air.” My eyes widen. What in the goddess is she? “I’m a bit rusty, because I was young when I last used the power, trying to escape the witches. I only managed to make a portal small enough to put my arm through because I didn’t have my full power. The witches drained too much of my full power.”

“Remind me to go on a witch hunt when this is over,” I vow. They will pay for what they did to Posy as a child. It wasn’t right.

Posy’s eyes sparkle. “When I’ve repaid my debt to you, I’m going after them. I’m not a weak child anymore.”

My eyes soften. “You don’t owe me a debt. You’re my family, Posy.”

Posy ignores me and clears her throat. “Thankfully, my mother’s place isn’t too far from here. We will have to move quickly.” She pauses and looks at me. “I need to warn you that, to fix everything… it won’t be without a price.”

“Who is your mother?” I ask just as I hear the corroded lock being messed with from the door, right down the corridor. Posy hears it too, I assume from how she moves a step closer to my side, which tells me everything I need to know about her supernatural hearing. Both of us look at each other and nod in silent agreement. If we’re going down, we’re going down fighting together. I have to hope that Emerson doesn’t hate me, doesn’t want me dead just because I’m fae.

Lorenzo’s scent fills the corridor as he walks down past the prisons and stops in front of the bars. Full leather armor covers him from the neck down, and weapons are littered around his body, from a massive sword on his back to a dagger on his hip. An axe lies next to his thigh, and I bet there are more weapons hidden. He doesn’t even look at me; his eyes stay fixed on Posy. “I’m sorry you’re in here. As my mate, you should—”

She interrupts him with a tone of ice, colder than anything I could make. “I’m no mate of yours, Lorenzo Eveningstar.”

His eyes harden and my heart breaks. Lorenzo wants love, acceptance, and a mate. Not this. He must be hurting. I almost lift my hand to reach for him, but I stop myself when he looks my way. There’s no recollection in his forest green eyes. I gulp. “How many people have survived in the city? Please, I just need to know. That’s my city. I grew up there, and many of my fae friends, and mortal too, lived in the city.”

Lorenzo rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry for your loss, fae. Death is never to be celebrated, even if our races are at war.” He pauses, looking torn before he decides, a cold mask slipping over his face. “That information is not to be shared with you. Someone stole our memories, stopped the curse, and the only clue we have is both of you. Somehow all of the fae royal family are dead. A massive Rift has let monsters into our world, and we are at war with the sea. I’m unsure how this all happened, but it seems you both know, and you will tell us.”

All of the royal fae family? Does that mean the Fae King is gone? I wondered what the aching was in my blood, in my chest. I’ve felt it since getting here. I don’t feel any need to find the Fae King anymore. I’m free of him. “What exactly do you last remember? Do you remember me at all?”

“No,” he says flatly, looking over us both. “I don’t remember either of you, but I would know if I met you.” He means Posy. “What’s your name?”

Posy lifts her head. “My name is Josephina Adhair, but my friends call me Posy.” She wrinkles her nose. “You are not allowed to call me that.”

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