You Can't Run From The Dark

{Part 18}

~Zaire~

"Few Fae still know how to get answers out of the Oracle, and even fewer are willing to sacrifice what is necessary to receive them. I thought that the Courts had left that barbaric practice behind. Hunting unbound mates was forbidden by the last sovereignty, and none have been slain in over a century. But the King and Queen must have been keeping a close eye on your mate for some time. Perhaps they knew of your desire to avoid the Mark, so they let her be. Their envoys surely informed them of your increased proximity to her, and they called for their sentries to apprehend her preemptively."

Zaire leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette, scowling at Talon's theory. If they really took his unbound mate to the Dark Realm, she wouldn't survive long without the Mark. He had read far too many books with stories of Sightless mortals who had wandered into Faerie. Most never made it back to the mortal world, and the only ones that had managed to leave with their sanity intact had plucked out their own eyes. 

"They are most likely holding her captive to see how you will respond - if you will leave her to die, or if you will come to negotiate for her," Talon's declaration held the vague semblance of an inquiry. "If they killed her outright, they would risk the disapproval of the Court, so I have reason to believe that they are keeping her presence in Faerie under wraps." Talon drank the last of his glass, his brows knitted together. "If you do come for her, I believe that they will demand that you agree to a blood rite."

Talon didn't need to explain what the blood rite would be for. It was clear that it would be an unbreakable oath not to challenge them for the throne. Taking a long pull from his cigarette, Zaire held Talon's gaze, straining against his reflex to object as he always did. He already knew that it made no difference how many times he had rejected the idea of overthrowing the King and Queen, the inner circle had never believed him. And if their envoys had seen Zaire near enough to his mate to Mark her, they would assume that they were correct in that he was lying the entire time, or he had changed his mind. Of course the King and Queen would do whatever they could to prevent him from claiming his full power. Zaire was already a threat to their sovereignty without the other half of his soul, but if he was bound to his mate . . . 

It was something that was worth breaking the decree, as long as most of the Dark Court remained unaware. And whether they did slay her, or just let her wither on her own - if word got out, they could blame her death on a hungry Dark Fae, say that they had snatched her up and brought her there, not knowing that she was fated to another, and simply forgot about their little toy. No one could argue that the King and Queen had any involvement in the matter, without proof that they had sent someone to the Oracle, hunted her specifically, and imprisoned her.

Talon appeared to be as conflicted as Zaire felt. If he agreed to the blood rite, Talon's hopes for him to rule the Dark would be dashed, along with the many others in the Dark Realm who vied for him to take over, and though it was never what he had wanted for himself, he was enraged at the concept of the King and Queen using his mate as a bargaining chip to twist his arm so that he could never challenge them. Zaire never wanted the throne and he never wanted to be bound to his mate, but he was being forced to choose as if he had. If he wanted the little doll alive, he would have  to bind with her now. She would be too weakened to make it to a seam, and crossing through the Veil would surely destroy whatever was left of her fragile mortal mind. The deck was stacked against him, and time really had run out. 

"It seems as though the decision has been made for me already," Zaire observed, finally. "You've won as much as you've lost, Talon." Zaire would be made whole, thanks to Talon's meddling, but he would also give up the crown. 

Talon bowed his head, staring into his now-emptied glass. 

"Truer words have never been spoken, my friend," Talon admitted grimly. "I fear that I will never live this down."

"I suppose it's a good thing that you have eternity to beg me for forgiveness," Zaire shoved off of the wall and flicked his half-smoked cigarette at Eon's limp body, offering his hand for Talon to shake. Talon shook his hand firmly with a pained, chagrined smile and they nodded at each other. Although it was Talon's fault for putting Zaire and his mate in this lose-lose situation, they both understood that fate worked in mysterious ways. Perhaps there was nothing that either of them could have done differently. Running from the Mark had been a miserable waste of time all along. It was a foolhardy attempt to challenge the threads of destiny, and now Zaire was more of a puppet tangled in their strings than he had been willing to believe. 

As Zaire trudged out of Talon's office, he ripped his leather gloves off of his hands and let them fall to the floor. 

.   .   .

After the retaliation from Talon's enchantment, and the effort that Zaire had used to vault himself, he was utterly depleted. Since he hadn't sent for the Fae to remove the ward on his door, he couldn't use the seam around the corner from The Den to cross the Veil without trapping himself in his house again. His only option was to drive until he sensed another one. As he drove, he cursed himself for not opening more seams in the Outskirts. He never thought that he would need more, and it wasn't possible to create a seam from this side of the Veil. His frustration mounted until he finally decided to go to the one that he already knew of - the one that was down the street from the little doll's house. Every fucking minute that he wasted, his mate was withering without him. It was easy to ignore that possibility before - all those years he had spent avoiding the Mark, but now that he had seen his other half, now that he had tasted her emotions, he couldn't pretend that she wasn't waiting to complete him. He couldn't make himself believe that she was better off without him, or that he was better off without her. It was time to claim her as his and share his immortality, before it was too late. 

Zaire pressed the pedal to the floorboard, raced to the park, found the seam and stepped through it. As soon as he crossed the Veil, he could feel her presence in the Dark Realm. Like both of them being in Faerie had amplified the invisible tether between the two of them, even without them being bound yet. He released his vault and when he did, he could almost faintly taste the phantom of - what had to be - her emotions, even with her nowhere near him. He wondered if she could feel him, too - if she could sense that her mate was coming for her. With so little energy, his shadows were sluggish and hardly rustled. Zaire hated that he was about to enter the Dark Court palace grounds in this weakened state. He should have shared a glass with Talon before he left, especially if he was expected to spill his own  blood tonight. 

Zaire took off running, leaping deftly over tree roots and weaving through the branches. Hounds howled into the night and he howled with them. The air in the Dark Realm undulated with its familiar rhythm and he breathed it in greedily. His shadows licked at the intangible colors that pulsed in the night and used it as sustenance. By the time that he broke from the treeline of the forest, he had regained some of his strength. The land of Faerie empowered the Fae, but in the same breath, it sucked the life out of mortals if their lives weren't entwined with their Fae mate. By imprisoning his  mate here, the King and Queen had delivered an ultimatum that had a fast-approaching expiration.Those fucking heathens,  Zaire seethed. Even if they did demand a blood rite, he would find a way to make the King and Queen pay for playing keep-away with the other half of his soul.