Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,28
as though that made any kind of sense at all.
“Could you maybe be a wee bit less abstract than that?”
“You are in the Ether,” he replied with another laugh.
Great. Like that was helpful.
“Could we skip the process of elimination breakdown and just tell me what that means?” I shouted in frustration.
“Ether…” Knox mused. The way he said that word made me nervous; more nervous than I already was. There was a knowing edge to his tone that made my hackles go up. And judging by the looks on the faces of Brunton and Foust, they shared Knox’s concern.
“It can’t be,” Foust said softly, stepping to Knox’s side.
“Or could it?” Brunton flanked Knox’s other side. “That was so long ago. He was little more than a ghost of a memory when we came to be, but maybe—”
“Well, good news, boys. ‘He’ is listening to every word you say, so maybe you should just fucking ask him and find out,” Kat said, pushing past the others. She pinned them with a look of irritation that I recognized well. It was the one she wore when her nerves ran high. When she feared that she was outgunned and in a whopping pile of shit about to go down.
Knox took a breath and searched the ceiling again for the source of the voice. “Etherian, is that you?”
His question was met with a long silence that did nothing to set the group at ease.
“Who is this male who knows my name and dares to speak it?”
“I am one of the four Originals—the first werewolves,” Knox answered.
“The Originals,” Etherian mused, as though he had not heard that name in some time—or possibly ever. “You are Phineas’ creations.”
“Three of them, yes. He has many others now.”
“I know he does. I have been collecting them as he casts them aside—just as he did me. He has a penchant for that—for discarding things that are no longer of use to him.”
“We know all too well what he does with things he no longer desires,” Merc replied.
Silence fell upon the cave yet again.
“I want to know why you’ve called me here, Etherian,” I said. “Why you sought me out. What you want…”
“I called you here, bastard child of Larken, because I want something. Something you can help me get.”
My blood ran cold at the thought because, let’s face it, whatever he said next wasn’t going to be good.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“The fey king’s head on a platter.”
Chapter Eleven
Laughter, wild and inappropriate, bubbled up from deep inside me until I couldn’t keep it down any longer. It erupted with a ferocity that visibly disturbed those around me. But really, of all the things he could have said, all the wrong turns that conversation could have taken, the cryptic and creepy whatever-he-was had landed on something I couldn’t have been happier to deliver—unless he’d asked for the fey queen’s instead.
“Why does the bastard princess laugh?” he asked. The menace in his voice stopped me short, and I cleared my throat to give myself a moment to pull my shit together.
“I laugh because I’d already planned to do what you ask anyway. Right after I kill the fey bitch that ordered my death in the moments following my birth, I will kill the fey king who endeavored to kill those I love most. I plan to do whatever I must to make them pay, and I will burn Faerie—or my realm—to the fucking ground if I need to in order to do it, consequences be damned.” I took a step forward, emboldened by my rage. “Because you see, Etherian, when you use the ones I love to come after me, I will move heaven and earth to see justice done at any cost. You’d be wise to remember that.”
More fucking silence.
“She ordered your death?” The voice was quiet this time. Thoughtful. Surprised.
“She’s a bit of a cunt, if you haven’t had the pleasure,” Kat said from behind me. “Though it’s not altogether surprising.”
“No,” he replied dryly, “it is not.”
I bit my lip for a moment, pondering something—a possible answer to our dilemma regarding the fey royals.
“So, are we actually in Faerie now?” I asked him. “I mean, can the fey king or queen detect us here?”
“That would presuppose that they could find here, bastard princess, and they most certainly cannot. I am a void that exists within their realm without their knowledge.”
I shot Merc and Knox a look, and the two nodded in unison.