Page 22 of The First Trial
‘Joo… Ni… Purr…’
I beamed at him, probably looking like completely unhinged, given my current position, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. There was something seriously wrong with me…
‘Right! I’m Juniper. What’s your name?’
He looked behind me with a single eyebrow raised as I assumed he was having a silent conversation with the person attached to the blade. When his gaze moved back to me, the intensity caused my core to clench, a gush of warmth leaking from me as every atom in my body lusted for him.
I wondered then if this reaction was a magical side-effect of some sort because I had never responded like this to anyone, let alone a stranger of myth. Besides Hawthorne, of course, but that was different. My attraction to him had started as puppy-love and evolved as we’d grown older. This was sharp, instantaneous, and highly suspicious.
I narrowed my eyes at him, about to call him out on it, but then he spoke again.
‘Evander,’ he said, patting his chest.
I blinked, then my earlier reservations dissipated into thin air, and I grinned again. ‘Evander. It’s nice to meet you.’
I stuck my thumb out and jabbed it towards the guy still holding me hostage. ‘And him?’
Evander’s lips twitched as if he were fighting a smile. ‘Arden.’
‘Well, Arden.’ I reached back and patted a muscular thigh. ‘Would you mind removing the stabby thing, please?’ I asked in my sweetest tone while I gestured toward my neck.
Evander said something to his friend in his own language, so I didn’t understand what he was saying until the blade was lowered and I was free to step away from the danger. I turned so my back was to the entrance of my garden, already knowing they wouldn’t be able to follow if I needed to make a quick escape, and took stock of this Arden fellow.
He was shorter and leaner than Evander, with hair worn the same way, only a shade darker. His ears were also a little longer and devoid of any adornment. His features were a lot more delicate, rounder, almost feminine, though his build was undeniably male.
I was a little disappointed. He was attractive, but not like Evander. That man was… something else.
None of us spoke. The silence between us built as we studied one another with complete and utter fascination. At least on my end. They wereFae, for fuck’s sake. A race of supernatural beings that were believed to have gone extinct a long time ago, if they’d ever even existed. Well, clearly they did, but that didn’t change the fact that they weren’t supposed to be real. Not anymore.
With the way they were looking at me, I wondered if they thought the same of Humans. Were we merely myths and legends to them as they were to us? What an odd concept.
I didn’t get to mull that over any further, though, because I heard it. The drumming was back. It was subtle at first, a quiet thumping in the back of my head that I didn’t notice until now. It crescendoed until it was all I could focus on, all I could hear. My head twisted as I attempted to gauge which direction it was coming from, and I almost missed the way the Fae men did the same. Could they hear it, too?
‘The drumming,’ I all but whispered, my voice lost beneath the sound.
And then we were moving, their bodies in sync with mine as the magic took hold and we were pulled towards the sound. It seemed none of us were strong enough to fight its grasp, and I wasn’t sure I even wanted to. It wasn’t a feeling of safety, but more like a necessity. Ineededto be wherever it was leading me. I felt it in my bones.
I lost track of the Fae, my instincts telling me that they weren’t important right now and that they posed no threat. I didn’t think that would last forever, but for now, they weren’t something to worry about.
The drumming got louder, faster, and more intense with every step closer to the source. I strode out into the middle of the courtyard I’d stood in yesterday morning, the one where we’d all gawped at the structure with the strange, Fae-like markings. I could see it now, though it was just a vague black mass obstructing my vision beyond what I really needed to be looking at. In fact, it brought it into better clarity.
A shimmer in mid-air, like a heatwave on a blisteringly hot summer’s day, iridescent and fixed in place. It started off small, just a spec floating above the ground, but then it widened and stretched into something so large it could engulf a bus.
I’d never seen one before, but I knew what it was. A portal. And it wanted me to step through.
Chapter 8
Phenex
There was a commotion outside my door. Thundering footsteps, raised voices, each one trying to be heard over the others. The energy was frantic, but brimming with intrigue.
Something had happened.
The assembly earlier had been uninformative at best and pointless at worst. We had essentially been told to stay in our rooms, keep our noses out of it, and let the ‘grown-ups’ get the job done, like we weren’t fully grown adults ourselves. We weren’t even told what was happening or what they were doing to fix it.
I tried not to let it affect me. The idiots in charge were typically from the House of Pride, so I didn’t take their words or actions to heart. They always enjoyed blowing hot air up their own asses to inflate their own egos, which usually included putting someone else down to make themselves feel more important. Whatever was going on outside, whichever realm we had been transported to, and why, they only saw it as another opportunity to play the ‘hero’.
That was one of the reasons I loved my own caste so much. Greed may have been our defining characteristic, and that came with its own stigmas, but at least we were honest about our predilections and didn’t treat the others as if they were beneath us. Well, there would always be someone who thought they were better than everyone else, and Greed was no exception, but Pride always took it too far. I had my own opinions, but I didn’t strut around like a puffed-up prick constantly spewingshit. I cultivated my hoard and minded my own business. Pride, unfortunately, went hand-in-hand with arrogance.
