Seducing Shadows (Fae Revealed Book 2), page 1
Seducing Shadows
Fae Revealed
Katie May
Quinn Arthurs
Expresso Publishing, LLC
Copyright © 2022 by Katie May and Quinn Arthurs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by Claire Holt of Luminescence Covers
Edited by Lindsey Loucks of Midnight Library
This book is dedicated to everyone who wants to give up. We see you. Hang in there. I promise you it’ll get better.
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Afterword
About the Author
About the Author
Also by Katie May
Also by Quinn Arthurs
Foreword
Please be aware of the following triggers, including but not limited to: chronic illness, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation, drug use, and sexual assault. Readers’ discretion is advised.
Chapter One
Serafina
"We need to talk?” I screech the words, staring between my parents in utter shock. Cleo whimpers from her spot on the bed, but I can’t tear my focus away from the lines of strain on my parents' faces. It makes them appear older, haggard, as if they have somehow found themselves in a time machine, traveling fifty years into the future. “Why the hell do I look like you?”
I desperately want to reach up and touch the wrinkles adorning my once-unblemished skin—the same wrinkles currently prominent on my mother’s face.
My phone vibrates on my desk, Gage’s name flashing on the screen, but I force my gaze back to my mom.
Sharp, stabbing pains sear into my abdomen, making me moan. I have no idea if it’s the stress of this—whatever the hell this is—exacerbating my sickness or if it’s something else entirely. It almost feels as if someone took a knife to my stomach, and now they’re rummaging around my insides.
“Sit, sit,” my mom encourages, ignoring the way my skin ripples under her fingers as she settles me down onto the bed.
I push the pain to a separate pocket of my mind, focusing on my parents’ distressed faces.
“What is happening?” The words are a mere whisper, horror making my stomach roll as I watch my skin twitch and squirm, reforming into a man’s hands rather than my mother’s slender ones. A whimper works its way out of my throat, the sound dark and husky. I refuse to look towards the mirror, to see what—or whom—I’ve become now. “I’m not hallucinating. Would I know if I was hallucinating?”
God, please, don’t let me be hallucinating. My body failing me is hard enough. If my mind begins to fail me as well, I have no idea how I’ll manage to function anymore. I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough.
“Breathe, sweetheart,” Mom soothes, stroking a hand across my head, heedless of my changed shape. “You’re not hallucinating, I promise.”
My dad slumps against the wall, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Sera…” He shakes his head as if he can’t begin to come up with the correct words. His eyes are rife with a dozen emotions I can’t name. Frustration, maybe? Sadness?
What can he even say to me?
You’re a freak, an abomination, a weirdo, a monster.
My phone buzzes again. This time, it’s Tristan’s name flashing on the screen before the vibrations knock it off the edge of my dresser and onto the carpet.
I glance between my parents, waiting for something, anything, but it seems as if the words are stuck, trapped in a landslide. My parents have always seemed so strong, even through my hospitalizations and my health problems, yet looking at them now, all I can see is fear entrenched in every line of their faces.
“If I’m not hallucinating, what is it?” My skin distorts, my voice shifting as I speak and becoming deeper. I shudder at the unfamiliar sensation. The shift isn’t as painful as the last, but it’s not comfortable either. It almost reminds me of ants skittering across my body, their tiny legs biting into my arms and hands.
My mom sighs, squaring her shoulders as she shifts herself so she can keep her arm around my changing shape. “There are things in this world that are hard to explain. Magic, in some forms, is real.”
Oh god. Is she delusional or something? Did she hit her head?
“Magic is real,” I repeat slowly, the words foreign on my tongue. I half wonder if I misheard her. My head feels like it’s full of rocks, and those rocks have now become dislodged from a cliffside, tumbling around inside of my skull. They create a persistent thump-thump-thump that nearly drowns out my parents’ next words.
“Not all magic, of course, and most of what you read in books or see on television is false,” my dad interjects, his voice gruff. He almost sounds indignant, as if he’s upset by the changes media made to his precious magic or whatever the hell he’s talking about.
This can’t be happening. This honestly can’t be happening. My parents are two of the most logical people I know. They don’t truly believe that the Wizard of Oz is real, Dumbo can fly, and unicorns can shoot fire out of their asses, right?
“So, I have magic? I’m…what? A witch?” My skin bubbles again, and I shudder at the sensation, knowing that my lips are thinning, my hair is growing longer, my skin is stretching over bones and muscles as I shift yet again into who the hell knows. “I didn’t realize changing my appearance was a witch thing.”
Every book I ever read has witches wearing pointy hats, using broomsticks for transportation, and creating strange liquids in bubbling cauldrons. They definitely didn’t change faces.
Perhaps I’m a defective witch…
Great. Just great. Another thing I’m failing at.
“You’re not a witch, Serafina. You’re fae.” My mother’s voice is quiet as she squeezes me against her in a side hug.
“Fae.” My mind blanks for a minute, too overtaxed with everything to function. “As in a fairy? You mean, what, like Tinkerbell?”
I may be tiny and like sparkly dresses, but I sure as fuck am nothing like that petty, immature bitch who almost died because she didn’t get enough attention.
“The fae are nothing like Tinkerbell,” she scoffs. “There are many different creatures, all of which are a subset of fae.”
“What are you two?” I ask, my brow furrowing as I look between them. My nails dig deeply into my thighs.
Cleo whines, shoving herself against my hands, breaking my clenched fists, and forcing my hands into her fur. Her warm weight across my legs is grounding, and I focus on combing my fingers through her thick fur, relishing the feel of the silken strands.
I’ve always had a specific view of the world, where everything has a little pocket they fit snugly into. Facts. I believe—or believed—in facts. Statements like the sky is blue and the grass is green. My parents’ words absolutely obliterate the teeny tiny bubble I’ve lived in for so long. I can’t even accuse them of lying when the truth is…well… The truth is me.
My mother stiffens imperceptibly. My dad’s gaze lowers, shadows blackening his irises, emanating from his normally shrewd gaze.
“We’re not fae. We’re human.” My father’s voice is no more than a husky whisper.
I freeze, my vision darkening slightly at the edges. I swallow down the gritty taste of sand in my mouth.
Human. They’re human.
I’m no genius, but it doesn’t take one to figure out that if they’re human and I’m not, then they can’t be my parents.
Unless it’s something that happens when you’re bitten…
Have I ever been attacked by a radioactive spider before? A wolf at night? Surely, I would remember something as traumatic as that.
Footsteps pound down the hallway outside my door, halting the words that want to spill from my tongue. A fist bangs against my door.
“Dad! Mom!” Cal’s panicked voice calls through the thick wood.
“Cal, it’s not a good time!” my dad responds, leaning his weight against the wood to stop him from entering.
Fuck, does Cal know? Does Maddox? Are they adopted too? My brain whirls with questions I can’t even begin to voice, tumbling over one another until I fear the organ is permanently jammed.
“The boss called!” Cal yells. “It’s Devyn. He’s in the hospital. He’s been stabbed.”
The blood drains from my face so fast, the room begins to spin. Well, it spins even more than it already has been. Instead of a mere wind, it feels as if a tornado has whi pped through my bedroom, throwing me across the room and into a wall. I feel like Dorothy being transported to Oz, only this Oz is overrun by beasts and monsters, the sky a sickly shade of ink that blankets the world in darkness.
Devyn? My Devyn? I don’t even have a chance to analyze the possessive pronoun in my head as my eyes are drawn to where my phone is vibrating for the one-hundredth time on the floor.
Pain sears through me as my flesh ripples and dilates, the sound of ripping seams echoing through the room as my body changes yet again. A scream wrenches its way through my lips as my limbs begin to tremble, my muscles jerking and seizing as pain tears through all of my nerves, burning and consuming every part of me.
I hear the door slam open, raised voices blaring through the roaring in my ears, but all I can focus on are Cal’s panicked words.
Devyn!
His name is a desperate plea in my mind before unconsciousness claims me.
Chapter Two
Gage
I still remember the panic in Kian’s voice when he screamed into the hall of the hospital, demanding that we come quickly. Tristan had practically pushed me aside in his rush to get to his older brother’s bedside, where the normally strong and stoic fae is currently dying from a poisonous blade to the abdomen.
And now, all we can do is watch—the people who love Devyn huddle around the small hospital room as the healers attempt to save his life.
Devyn’s body jerks upwards, his features twisted in agony as a low moan rumbles from his parted, cracked lips. The healers cluster around his body, their hands brushing across his sweaty skin, though nothing they’re doing is making a lick of difference. Agony is still splayed across his face despite their attempts to heal him.
Fucking useless. All of them.
I may be in high school, but I’m one of the best damn healers in the city. If anyone can save Devyn’s life, it’s me.
"Move!” I growl at the healers. I shove my hands on either side of Devyn’s head, pushing my power into him in a vicious wave.
His back arches as his heart lurches into an unsteady beat.
My power allows me to see the inner workings of every being—how their blood flows, the way their organs twitch, every muscle and limb and how they connect to one another. Not only that, but it allows me to sense what’s wrong with a body as well. If someone has high blood pressure, I can sense it and work my magic through their body until it lowers. If they have a broken bone, I can wrap my magic around the limb like paper on a present complete with a sparkly bow until it’s as good as new. Every anomaly a person possesses flashes through my mind’s eye when I embed my magic beneath their skin.
But the poison in Devyn’s blood?
It’s unlike anything I’ve ever sensed before.
My magic doesn’t quite recognize the sludge-like liquid destroying his body from the inside out. It’s not a poison I’ve ever encountered before in the human world. It feels almost otherworldly, ethereal. My legs begin to buckle under the onslaught of it, and I grip the armrest on the bed with my free hand to not fall completely.
I push more of my magic into Devyn’s skin as sweat drips down the back of my neck. “Xander, don’t you dare let his spirit leave this room!”
As a necromancer, Xander is able to communicate with and trap souls, otherwise known as his shadows. If I can keep Devyn’s heart beating and Xander can trap his soul in the room, then we’ll figure this out.
I will not let him die. I won’t, no matter what it costs me.
Devyn’s eyes fly open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling as he begins to shake. Pink and silver sparks of light flicker across his irises.
“What are you doing?” The oldest of the healers lunges for me, reaching for my hands.
Tristan and Foster grab him, preventing him from breaking my connection with Devyn’s cheeks. Black bands of shadow—courtesy of Xander—wrap around the large man’s body, holding him to the bed as he begins to seize. I grit my teeth, refusing to break contact with him.
“His eyes,” Xander murmurs, though I barely hear him over his mother’s strangled sobs. I only nod, keeping my focus on Devyn as my magic pulses through him, combining with a magic that's decidedly not my own.
I can’t describe what’s happening with words. It’s almost as if…
It’s almost as if the poison cascading through his bloodstream is a sickly black tar, one I can see wreaking havoc on his system. As I use my magic to try to heal him, a decidedly pink presence joins mine and sucks up the poison like a vampire draining blood.
No, not a pink presence. A pink magic. It brushes at the edge of my awareness, wispy strands that feel almost teasing as they caress my skin, before settling back into Devyn.
For a brief moment, Sera’s face flashes through my mind’s eye—her features etched into pain and horror as the black sludge exits Devyn’s body and enters hers—before the image dissipates and I dismiss it as nothing but my imagination. A product of my overworked mind.
It doesn’t change the fact that Devyn’s coloring is beginning to return, and I can feel the poison dissolving from his bloodstream. Whatever that strange magic was that joined mine, it helped save his life.
“Gage?” Tristan’s voice cracks as he says my name, the uncertainty clear as day.
“Whatever the poison is is draining away,” I respond, unwilling to close my eyes and break my connection with Devyn. “It’s not gone, but it’s weaker now.” I shove wave after wave of magic into him, ignoring the nausea curling in my stomach as my power butts up against whatever is in his system. I can’t identify what the toxin is, but it almost feels as if it’s draining me as it fights against my magic.
“Th-that’s not possible!” the healer sputters, though he no longer fights against Foster’s hold. “We have tried everything, yet nothing we did worked. We have centuries of experience on you, boy.” His words are as sharp as his eyes as he focuses on me. “How’re you doing this?”
“Don’t distract him,” Tristan hisses, pushing in front of him and blocking his view. His eyes are wide in his pale face as he stares at his brother. Devyn is panting heavily, sweat popping out on his skin as he soundlessly screams, his head tilted back as he writhes in the bonds that Xander created. “I don’t care how the hell he’s doing it. He’s saving his life!”
Slowly, the seizures quiet as my magic battles against the corruption inside of him. Devyn relaxes back into the bed, his breathing easier and his heartbeat a steady, constant beep on the monitors.
“It’s not all the way gone,” I explain, my magic beginning to waver. “He should be able to fight it now, though. He’ll need sleep. Time to finish the healing.” My words are raspy, like I've been the one screaming, every muscle in my body aching from pushing myself too hard as I drew on that foreign well of power.
Xander withdraws his shadows, letting Devyn rest quietly against the pillows, and the foreign light fades from the sick man’s eyes. Devyn groans, blinking slowly as if clearing a fog from his vision.
His family surrounds the bed, jostling me out of the way. I stagger, catching myself on the end of the bed, my ears ringing sharply, camouflaging the ecstatic and worried cacophony now filling the room.
I meet Xander’s shocked, confused gaze as I fight to stay upright. Weakness thrums through me and makes my knees quiver and my head throb.
Devyn’s mouth moves, though no sound comes out.
Only one word, over and over again.
“Sera.”
Chapter Three
