Harper is pissing me off. Like really, if I could, I’d shapeshift into an ogre and eat her, I would, kind of pissed off. I’m not even positive why I’m so furious with her. I know she insulted me, but typically when that happens, I joke it off. Being calm is what I’m good at. Joking in serious times is what I’m known for.

So why the hell demons has this little pixie/faerie got me all worked up to the point where I’m considering biting her and not in a pleasant, drink-her-blood sort of way. No, I want to bite her and devour her blood until there’s nothing left. Vampire Rage is the proper term. It rarely occurs unless a vampire has drunk too much blood and become blood crazed, or if they’re starved and hunger consumes them, neither of which has ever happened to me. Sure, I haven’t tasted the sweetness of blood on my tongue for a few nights now, but it takes at least a week before that kind of hunger takes over.

Besides, Harper isn’t acting like her normal bouncy self either. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think her body had been possessed by Nadine’s mind…

Wait just a fucking second…

I slow to a stop. Or well, try to. But my legs have other ideas and I keep trampling through the snow after Harper as she races farther into the shadows of the trees and further away from Rhyland, Raven, and Dex.

Shit, something or someone has control over my body.

I reach for my holster and surprisingly, my fingers cooperate. But I painfully realize why when I find my holster empty. I must have dropped my sword somewhere, something I’m not sure I’ve ever done before, even during a duel.

“Harper!” The echo of my voice causes the piles of snow that have been building on tree branches to fall to the ground. I dodge out of the way as one just about lands on my head, but my movements are more sluggish than normal. “Harper,” I warn as I endeavor farther into the forest, the only direction I can seem to move in. “If you’re messing around with me, you need to stop now. I need to go back.” When my only answer is snow piles hitting the ground, I curse underneath my breath. “Look, I’m sorry for saying your skipping was slowing us down. You actually have a very nice skip.” I resist an eye roll. “It’s beautiful, in fact.” I manage to halt, but my feet won’t let me backtrack. “So can you please, please just forgive me and continue showing us the way to this safe place.”

“For the love of all pathetic vampires, you must be desperate.” Harper steps out from behind a tree trunk.

I immediately sense something’s off by the lack of shimmer on her skin, the dimness in her eyes, and the most obvious, the cruel smirk twisting at her lips. Harper is normally about as bubbly as a witch riding a magic high and never looks or acts maliciously.

“My skip is beautiful? Seriously, that’s the best you can come up with?” She struts toward me, yet another warning something isn't right.

Harper doesn’t strut. She skips just about everywhere.

“Who are you?” My fingers twitch at my sides, longing to be wrapped around the handle of my sword.

“Why Harper, of course.” Her smile magnifies. “Did you hit your head or something? You seem confused.”

“Don’t try to fuck with my mind,” I growl. “I know you’re not Harper, so fess up and tell me who you are.”

“Why? So you can shout to your little friends and warn them?” She stops close enough that she can touch me and splays her fingers across my chest.

I want nothing more than to swat her hand away, but until I can regain control over my body, I’m doomed to endure the touch of this unknown creature. Every muscle in my body winds tightly with my repulsion. I’m not a fan of being touched by a creature I don’t know. I’m not a fan of being touched at all, except for maybe by Raven. But even then, I struggle and I hate that I do—hate the reason I do. No one knows this about me, though. Knows that whenever I get close to someone, I numb myself and turn my mind off. And everyone thinks I’m a fucking vampire slut. But that isn’t even close to the truth.

Cursed.

I’m cursed in more ways than one.

“Are you thinking about it?” Harper whispers as her fingers trace a path up and down my chest, her gaze tracking the movement.

“Thinking about what?” I grit out, managing to fold my fingertips inward.

When my fingernails pierce my palms, the pain wipes away the panic and sweet relief bites through my veins.

Focus on the pain. Not her touching you. There’s only pain. Physical pain. And you can handle that, Kingsley. Don’t lose your shit right now. Numb yourself. You’re good at it.

Don’t let her see it inside you. The darkness. She might want a taste if she does.

“Don’t play dumb with me.” She stands on her tiptoes until her lips are a sliver of an inch away from mine. “I was there, remember?”

I play dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t, huh? I guess I need to remind you.” Her lips move toward my ear, her teeth grazing my earlobe as she whispers, “Darkness lies where most believe there is light.”

Vomit burns at the back of my throat as her words pierce my chest. “Where did you hear that from?”

“Think about it really hard,” she purrs. “I think you should be able to figure it out.”

Flashes of those awful nights that forever branded me scorch through my mind like searing embers and reality gradually starts to crush down on me. There was only one other creature that knows about those nights, knows what happened to me the few nights everyone thinks I took off because I was upset with my parents. When I returned, I let them believe that was the truth, but it was far from it.

“Nadine,” I say in a flat tone. “So you’ve learned how to possess bodies now, have you? What a cute little trick.”

She slants back with a wicked grin playing on her lips—or Harper’s lips anyway. “Took you long enough to figure it out. I’m not sure why since only a few creatures know what those words mean.”

“I’ve tried to block that time of my life out of my mind,” I tell her calmly. But on the inside, I’m a mess. Nadine is here. Nadine is fucking here and Raven is just over there and there’s nothing I can do about it. “In fact, I barely remember anything about it.”

“Liar.”

“Believe what you want, but it’s true.”

“Is that so.” The evil glint in her eye makes the muscle in my jaw spasm. She scratches her fingernails up and down my arm. “If that’s true, then why do you cringe when I touch you?”

“Because you’re you,” I reply, loathing her touch, how it makes my bones feel as if they’re grinding together. It reminds me of those nights, of when I was a prisoner…

No, stop thinking about that. What is wrong with you? You’ve been doing so well at forgetting.

I must be fucking tired.

“There you go, lying again.” She increases the pressure of the scratching until her nails split open my flesh and the scent of rust and salt floods the air. “You cringe when everyone touches you. No one ever seems to notice, though. Or maybe they just don’t care.”

“That’s not true at all.” I dig my fingernails deeper into my palms. “I don’t cringe when your sister touches me.”

My words elicit a roar from her lips and she jerks back to strike me across the face. Not the reaction I was aiming for, but at least she stopped scratching the blood out of me.

“You know as well as I do that despite how you and Rhy Rhy act once Raven,” she spits out her name, “is chosen as queen, you do have feelings for me.”

“Yeah, feelings of hatred.”

Her fingers curl into fists. “I know you’re lying. There’s no way you can pretend to like me for all those years and it not be true.”

“You do realize everything about our lives is nothing but pretending and lying, right? Nothing about this is real and you know that. Just like I know you sided with the fey queen. Just like I know you’re a bitch. Just like we both know that all that light and darkness crap didn’t bond us—it broke us. So why are we even here talking about any of this?”

She leans in, her eyes darkening. “Not everything was a lie or pretend, no matter how hard you try to pretend it was. And what happened those nights to us… you won’t be able to forget them—there will always be a creature who comes along, sees, and reminds you. But the control, or lack of it, can be gone with some help.”

I want to jerk back, but I can’t budge. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I found a way to get help—to free myself from those nights and the burden of the mark.” A deliberate, malicious smile carves her face as her hands ignite with sparkly light—magic.

Realization dawns on me. “You made a deal with the queen to help hide your mark.”

“That’s part of why I made the deal.” She shrugs. “Honestly, though, I knew you all were eventually going to lose this curse so I decided I wanted to be on the winning side and I got some benefits out of it.” She waggles her magic kissed fingers.

I shake my head in disgust. “You’re such a piece of work.” A pleased smile touches her lips until I add, “That’s not a compliment. No matter what you’ve suffered through, what you’ve done and what you’re doing isn’t okay. And honestly, even before all those nights happened, you were still a backstabbing bitch.”

Her smile falters. “You’re going to pay for that.”

A tiny part of me wants to let her—let her destroy me. But my need to protect Raven is much greater than my self-inflicting misery. “What’re you going to do? Curse me to death while I stand here unable to move? Because I’ve got to say, that’s low, even for you.”

She lifts a shoulder. “Like I really care.”

“You should.” Rhyland’s voice sails over my shoulder. “But if you need more persuading, try to think about if the roles were reversed. If we attacked you when you were vulnerable.”

Her narrowed gaze zeroes in on something behind me—Rhyland, I’m sure. I want to twist around to see if he has Raven, hoping to all the vampire Gods he doesn’t, but my body won’t cooperate.

“That will never happen, though.” Her palms spark with magic, her skin hissing and sizzling. “Because I’m more powerful than you and Kingsley and my stupidly pathetic sister—I’m more powerful than almost any creature anymore.”

“Yeah, see here’s the thing,” Rhyland says as the sound of boots crunching against the snow rises from just behind me. “Most evil villains who say that sort of shit are usually more fangs than bite.”

Her brows lift, along with the corners of her mouth. “You want to find out?”

“Not really.” Rhyland sighs exhaustedly when Nadine smirks. “You’re in Harper’s body and I’d rather not hurt her.”

“Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we?” She sidesteps away from me and turns to the side, elevating her hands in front of her. “Some come on, Rhy Rhy, lets see how much you’re willing to do to protect your precious Raven,”

Rhyland appears in my peripheral vision as he steps forward. Relief sweeps through me when I see that he’s not holding Raven and that silver sparks of magic hiss from his palms.

Rhyland’s gaze briefly flickers to me. “You know, Raven was right. That nickname is fucking stupid.”

A smile tugs at my lips and the movement makes hope rise inside me. If I can smile at Rhyland insulting Nadine, it means Nadine is losing control over my body.

I try to move my hand and with a lot of effort, manage to make a fist. After some more wiggling of my muscles, I rotate toward my brother and the evil bitch, whose back is turned toward me.

Rhyland returns his gaze to Nadine. “You know I’ll do anything to protect Raven, so if you’re here to hurt her, I’ll hurt you, no matter whose body you’re in.”

“Then hurt me, Rhy Rhy,” she sneers. “Or should I say hurt Harper.”

Rhyland grinds his teeth as he lifts his hand up, his palm facing Nadine. “I will if I have to.”

Nadine raises her hand with her palm aimed toward Rhyland. “You can try, but I’m more powerful than you.”

The more Rhyland distracts her, the more the possession leaves my body. As I regain control, I inch toward Nadine, taking measured steps.

“That might be true,” Rhyland says with a shrug. “But you’re forgetting one thing.”

“I never forget anything.” Nadine grins haughtily. “I’m the most brilliant witch that’s ever walked this world—it’s what I requested when I made the deal with the queen.”

Rhyland’s lips spasms and then he busts up laughing, hunching over and clutching his side. I have to bite my lip hard to keep my own laughter down.

“Oh my stupid fucking vampires, are you really that stupid,” Rhyland says, howling with laughter.

“Shut up,” she seethes, her hands balling into fists, sparks cracking from her skin. “It’s true and you should be very afraid of me right now.”

Rhyland shakes his head, laughter still biting at his tongue. “You seriously think because you made a deal with the fey queen to be the most powerful witch in the worlds that it actually happened?”

“Yes,” Nadine says, but her confidence is faltering, as she dazes off, as if her mind is wandering back to a memory.

“Then you’re stupider than I thought.” Rhyland takes a step toward her. “Considering you know what happened when I made a deal with the fey queen, you should know that she twists deals around so in the end, nothing works out as she originally said or how you wanted.”

“She didn’t… She wouldn’t do that to me again… She promised she wouldn’t,” Nadine growls, stomping her feet. “Shut up, Rhy Rhy! Just shut up or I’m going to…” She elevates her hands in front of her, flames bursting from her skin. “I’m going to curse you even worse—”

I lunge at her, grabbing her by the shoulders and twirling her around. Her magic sizzles against my skin, burning my flesh, but I fight the pain as I wrap my fingers around her neck.

“Release your possession of Harper,” I demand, gripping her neck.

“Never,” she chokes out as she slams her palm against my chest, right above my heart. Her lips part and a magical chant starts to spill from her lips, “Expel—”

Rhyland rushes up behind her, muttering something under his breath, then a flaming ball of light shoots from his palm and hits Nadine in the back.

She gasps out, her face contorted in pain, and I squeeze her neck tighter.

Come on, come on, come on, let go of your possession over Harper. Please don’t make me do this. Please don’t make me hurt someone again.

“Kingsley,” Nadine gasps as I lift her from the ground. “If you hurt me, you hurt your precious little disgusting half faerie/pixie abomination.”

“She’s not an abomination,” I growl out. “And I’m not going to hurt Harper because you’re going to let her go. If you don’t, you’ll end up getting hurt too.”

“No, I won’t...” she gasps, stabbing her fingernails into the backs of my hands. “I’m stronger than that—”

Rhyland hits her with another ball of fire and she screams out in pain. He moves to do it again, but staggers to the side, blood dripping from his nose as he collapses to the ground.

Shit, he’s too weak for this kind of magic. I need to get Nadine to let go of Harper’s body. Need to weaken her mind.

“Do you remember those nights we were prisoners, Nadine?” I whisper lowly, hoping Rhyland can’t hear me. “Do you remember what they did to us? Do you remember how we bled? Do you remember how they broke us, body, minds, and souls? Do remember how since we’ve returned, we’ve never really been free?”

“You said you didn’t remember,” she wheezes, her face tinting red. “I knew you were lying.”

“Yes, I was.” I lean closer. “I remember everything. Remember how they broke you… What they did to you. And while you may say that you found a way to get past it, I know you’re lying. Because we’ll never get past it. Our souls and minds are damned for all of eternity and maybe even after that. We’re marked forever.”

“No, we’re not…” She struggles to speak, her eyelids drifting shut.

Please just let go.

Her body goes slack and I quickly release my grip, sliding my hands down Harper’s arms to hold her up.

“Come on, Harper, open your eyes,” I beg. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t give up—”

Her eyelids pop open and her skin shimmers with light as she sucks in a huge breath. “Holy crazy trolls, that was intense.”

I let out a relieved exhale. “Yeah, you could say that again.”

“Holy crazy trolls, that was intense,” she repeats, a small smile touching her lips.

I shake my head, on the verge of smiling. “Only you would smile right after you almost died.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” She shrugs. “Besides, you saved my life.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Um, yeah it was.”

“I just strangled you,” I remind her, guilt clutching at my chest.

“But only to get that crazy witch out of my head,” she says as I slowly release ahold of her arms. “And just so you know, she wasn’t ever going to let me go. She was going to possess my body until she stole Raven and took her to the queen. Then she was going to release possession of me and have me killed.”

My brows pull together. “How do you know all of that?”

Her smile is as shimmery as the iridescent clouds. “Because while she was in my mind, I saw some of her thoughts.”

My confusion only deepens. “But that’s not how possession works.”

“Maybe for you vampires.” Her eyes glitter with amusement as she pats my shoulder. “But I’m a strange breed of faerie/pixie and magic usually works a bit wonky on me. I’m surprised she was even able to possess me at all.”

I scratch my head. “About when did that happen?

“When you insulted my skipping.” She sets her hands on her hips. “Which for your vampire information, I’m still mad about, so make sure to make that up to me.”

My smile just about breaks through, but I fight it back. “I’ll see what I can do.” I move toward Rhyland, grab ahold of his arm, and help him to his feet. “Where’s Raven?”

“I left her with Dex.” Even his voice sounds weak, his is skin pale, and dark circles have formed under his eyes. “We should hurry back. I don’t like her being so unprotected.”

“We’ll head back now.” Worry claws inside me, but my tone is even and composed. As he struggles to stand upright, I shake my head. “So how bad are is it? And don’t try to bullshit me. You just about passed out.”

He wipes the blood from his nose. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You need to feed.” So do I.

“We already talked about this.” He jerks his arms from my grip and staggers toward the stretch of forest behind me, calling over his shoulder, “There’s no one around for me to feed on.”

I jog after him. “Well, we need to figure something out, especially if you keep insisting on using your magic.”

“I can get you some blood if you need me to,” Harper says as she skips up beside me. “Once I get us settled into this place, I can get it. It won’t be fancy or anything—I know how you vampires love your powerful blood,” she teases, skipping backwards in front of me, “But it can help him recharge a bit until we can find some better blood.”

Rhyland and I trade a look and he shakes his head.

“Eventually you’re going to have to drink some blood, unless you want to black out,” I tell him. “So it might as well be sooner than later. At least that way, you’ll be around to help with Raven.” If that won’t persuade him, I don’t know what will.

“Fine,” he utters then quickens his pace, stumbling through the snow.

“What are we going to do about Nadine?” I call out after him. “She knows where we are now and she can possess. That means no one and no place is safe.”

“We can put up some anti-possession spells on us,” Harper chimes in. “It’ll take quite a bit of magic, but if we can succeed with the spell, it should make it so the five of us are safe from any creature taking over our bodies. And as for Nadine knowing where we’re going, that’s not going to be a problem.”

I glance at her. “Why?”

She beams, her skin glimmering as she winks at me. “You’ll see.”

I hope she’s right. About everything. But there’s still one more problem. Well, one more problem on top of a seemingly ever-growing list.

“Even after drinking blood, Rhyland’s not going to be powerful enough to cast that big of a spell,” I tell her, swatting tree branches out of my way. “He needs to feed off Raven’s blood in order to get back to full strength, but he can’t do that until Raven is better and has her strength back and also…”

The fucking curse. It’s taking hold of me again. Not completely, but a little bit.

“I know how the curse works, Kingsley,” Harper assures me. “I know what needs to be done.”

I nod, relieved she understands what I’m getting at. “Then you know it’s probably not going to happen anytime soon, which means Rhyland won’t have his full strength back for a while.”

“I know. And I wasn’t planning on him doing the spell. I have a friend that could help. A witch doctor of sorts, and she’s very powerful.”

“Is she trustworthy, though, because that’s where we run into problems.”

She nods, growing serious, which is a rarity with Harper. “She’s a bit different, but I would—and have—trust her with my life.” I open my mouth to ask more questions, but she places a finger against my lips, shushing me. “You’ll just have to trust me on this, okay?”

“I hardly trust anyone.”

“I know.” She offers me a comforting smile then twirls around and skips ahead of me, calling over her shoulder, “I can do a blood oath if you need me to.”

That helps alleviate the tension from my muscles a bit. But only when I spot Dex and Raven through the trees do I relax.

From what I can tell, Raven appears in the same condition as when we left her and is lying on the snow in her frozen state, her raven black hair contrasting with the snow. When I get closer to her, though, I notice that a few more cracks have webbed across her face.

“I hope we can fix it soon,” I mutter to myself. “Or she’s going to fall apart.” The idea of that, of losing her, makes my chest feel like it’s splintering apart.

“I may have an idea for that too.” Harper pops up beside me, startling the living bats out of me.

I press my hand to my chest. “For the love of fucking bouncing pixies, you really do have a habit of popping up out of nowhere, don’t you?’

She's all smiles and pride. “It’s a gift.”

“That it is.” I tug on a strand of her hair and her smile broadens. “Are you sure you’re okay?” My gaze travels to her neck. No marks are visible on her skin, but with how hard I grabbed her neck, I worry I may have hurt her.

A grin breaks across her face. “Aw, does the moody vampire have a soft spot for the faerie pixie?”

Instead of answering with the truth—that I do—I throw her sarcasm back at her. “Did you just refer to yourself in the third person?”

“Not quite.” She pats my cheek. “Relax vampire. You didn’t hurt me. But you did hurt Nadine, so that’s good.”

My head tilts to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, before she left my body, I could tell she was going to have a hard time recovering from what you and Rhyland did to her.” She gives me yet another reassuring smile.

It dawns on me then, like a stake to the chest, that if Harper was mentally present while Nadine and I were chatting, she heard everything we said. If she did, she could very well take advantage of that information.

I swallow down the vile burning in my throat. “What else did you hear while she had control of you?”

“Not too much.” Then, for the third damn time in the last few minutes, a smile graces her lips. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone your secret. My pixie side is very good at that.” Then she skips away, as cheery as can be, leaving me no choice but to trust her, something I haven’t done with anyone in a very long time.

In fact, the last time I fully and completely trusted someone, led to what started the secret to begin with.