Chapter Three

Thud.

Something hit me in the leg. I didn’t have enough energy to open my eyes and figure out what. The scent of soil filled the air. Soil? In an empty L.A. warehouse?

Thud.

I cracked one eye open. Grayson kicked me again, proving that it was him who’d been the culprit in the first place.

A wave of dizziness hit me, and I took a moment to be surprised I was still alive. And not panicking.

But then, I still wasn’t with it enough to panic. I blinked a few times, and it helped with the dizziness. Chilled, I reached up to rub my arms and looked around me.

Wait.

This wasn’t a warehouse. This wasn’t even L.A. I bit my lip, trying to focus. The cobwebs in my head weren’t helping.

“Jay? Jayla?” Grayson sounded worried.

Heck yeah, he should be worried. Why were we in a forest?

I leaned back and looked up, trees towering above us. Trees, but purplish instead of green. Why were they purple?

“Jay, you’ve get it together and get my hands free. We have to make it back through that portal before we’re both dead.”

Okay, dead was definitely a strong motivator. I rolled my head to the side. There. My attacker. He wasn’t paying attention to me at all, too busy arguing with the pink-eyed fae woman from back in the warehouse. My hands still tied, I felt around for my gun.

“They took them,” Grayson said.

Watching them, I scooted closer to Grayson.

“Jay?” he asked again.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. The word shifted, and I had to close my eyes for a second.

“Are you okay?” Grayson asked. Finally.

“Been better,” I ground out. I fumbled around trying to find his hands. Zap! As soon as I touched the rope binding them together, pain knifed through my finger. “Ow!”

“What?” Grayson asked. “What happened?”

“It shocked me!” I paused. “Or something like that.”

Grayson was quiet for a second. “Okay then. We’re just going to have to leave it for now. Don’t be obvious about it, but look behind you.”

I dropped down on my back, not minding a second to breathe. Then I turned my head, the grass incredibly soft beneath my face, and blinked. The headache wasn’t a nine out of ten anymore, but it was still bad enough to make me foggy.

The portal. Glowing on the other side of two angry looking fae. How were we supposed to get back there?

They argued in another language. Even though I couldn’t understand a word spoken, the whole exchange felt really aggressive. Were they like Russians or Germans and just sounded that way? Were they talking about the weather?

Or discussing the best place to dump our bodies.

The woman with the pink eyes pulled a knife and stabbed the other fae in the shoulder, driving him down to the ground. She leaned down close and said something to him before knocking him flat, her blade pulling free and dripping blood.

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Red. Red blood. So strange that it was the same color as mine.

“Keep it together, Jay,” Grayson said. “Now’s the time, while she’s distracted.”

I flipped over on my stomach and inched to the left, worming my way to the side of the fae. The one she’d stabbed managed to get back onto his knees. Wow, he could take some serious damage. He’s been shot twice and knifed once in the last hour or so. He bowed his head to her and seemed to be giving in to whatever it was she had demanded.

That was bad for us. As soon as this distraction went away, her full attention would swing back in our direction.

“What?” the pink-eyed fae asked. “You think I don’t know you’re awake? You think I don’t know you are getting ready to make a run for the portal?”

I froze, my mouth going dry. Could she read minds? One of the articles I’d read about the fae speculated that they had superhuman abilities. What if the person who’d written it was right?

She walked over and used the toe of her boot to flip me on my back. “So. The name of the little human who thought she could spoil my plans is J. Just a letter in your human alphabet? You aren’t important enough for a full name?”

Were all fae this rude? And could all fae hear as well as this one could? That was a more optimistic assumption than she could read my mind.

Grayson struggled to his feet, hands still bound. “I’m Grayson. Her full name is Jayla. What’s your name?”

Using the negotiating skills we’d all had to learn in a clinic a couple months ago. Smart when we were at such a disadvantage.

“You aren’t worthy of knowing my name.” She ignored Grayson and squatted down to eye level with me. “You weren’t much of an opponent.”

“I was there to help. I didn’t know we were opponents.”

She snorted. “Ha. Everyone is an opponent. But you’ll either figure that out yourself, or you’ll die young.” She stood and glared at Grayson. “Who told you that you could get up?”

Grayson stayed standing, somehow staring her down.

“Fine then.” The woman whipped out her knife. She lunged at Grayson.

With no time to think, I just reacted. I jumped her, knocking into her at the knees. We hit the ground and rolled.

Or at least I did. Before I knew what happened, she was back on her feet, laughing. “Well! Maybe you do have some spunk in you after all.” She yelled something to the male fae in the other language without looking away from me.

I slowly stood, fighting down the nausea my headache sent in waves down my throat.

The stabbed fae walked over and pulled his sword.

I didn’t move. Showing weakness was death.

He swung and cut my hands free, flipped the sword over and handed it to me by the blade.

I took it without hesitation.

The woman did a slight bow. “I am Ghira. And I have nothing to do while I wait for my husband to arrive. Provide me with enough entertainment, and I’ll kill you quickly instead of leaving your fate to Faerie.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Faerie isn’t kind. Trust me.”

The other fae knocked Grayson back to the ground.

She reached behind her and a sword magically appeared in her hand. Not the shorter blades that she’d used until now, but a full on sword.

This was not good.

I lifted the tip of my sword just a little. Police Academy had not covered sword fighting. If this woman knew anything at all, I was screwed.

Whack! The tip of her sword nicked my blade. The reverberation of the blow made me drop it.

She laughed.

“She isn’t trained for this,” Grayson said from the ground. “How is this amusing for you?”

Ghira turned and kicked him in the face, knocking him flat without his hands to catch him. Blood spilled from his nose, lost in his dark uniform.

“Hey!” I shouted. “How does that make you a good opponent? Striking a man with his hands tied?”

Ghira shrugged. “I never said I was a worthy opponent. Sportsmanship is a human thing.” She leaned in closer to me, like she was sharing a secret. “All the fae care about is winning.”

When she looked back over at Grayson, I jerked my head toward the portal. One of us had to make it back to let the Army or Chief of Police, someone, everyone, know that there was a portal with an insane fae on this side in the middle of L.A.

He didn’t give me any kind of acknowledgement that he’d seen me, but I didn’t expect one. She would notice.

“Take up the sword,” Ghira purred, her voice gentle, like she was about to teach me how to use it.

“Why? You’ll just knock it out of my hand again.” I had to keep her distracted. Anger was the easiest way to do that. Unless I made her too mad and she just killed me. With the lack of effort it had taken to disarm me the first time, killing me would be absolutely no problem for her.

“Because I said so!”

“Wow. Just like my mom.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

Ghira screeched something in the other language, and the male fae walked over. He bent down and picked up the sword from the ground, not looking me in the eye as he held it up.

“Take it.” All humor was gone from her voice.

Getting myself killed by making her too angry wouldn’t help Grayson any. I reached out slowly and took the sword, letting it hang loosely in my hand. If only I’d taken fencing instead of gymnastics my entire childhood.

His eyes fixed on us, Grayson inched his way toward the portal.

A pang of abandonment went through me. I shoved it down. He was doing what he had to. Without our guns, we didn’t stand a chance against this woman.

Ghira came at me, sword up.