"I know you," I whisper as I approach the tree she climbed on. "You're the fae from Halloween who helped me that day with the vampires. Why do I only remember you now?"
"I think there are better questions you could ask me, Adeline," the redhead says, descending from a higher branch and stopping on the lowest one. She wasn't so hidden by the dark now and I could take a better look at her. Tamarie, as I recall her name being, looked different from the last time we met. Her once fiery, long hair was now a pale blond, shining white in the moonlight and cut short, just a palm over her shoulders. Her face was no longer kind or soft like a dandelion and though the green in her eyes shone vivid, her stare was void. It made her look like the folk portraits of fairy children; a little, enthralling demon who kidnapped the guardian angel that helped me before and assumed her life. A changeling.
"New look?" I ask and she shrugs.
"I heard blondes have more fun," she says that old-as-time phrase and I roll my eyes. Thomas told me that trends or technology arrive even decades later in Faedom, but jokes seem to be even more ancient. I'll have to remember to downgrade my humour for my mission.
"Are you going to play fairy godmother again? Or are you here to watch this time?"
"I'll help you help yourself and your friends, Adeline."
I nod at her and prepare to lunge back into battle, believing that the fae would join me. Only she made herself more comfortable on that branch, swinging a leg above my head and smirking like the chesire cat.
"I remember now why I hate your kind, Tamarie," I say in a sigh and don't let spun another smart remark. "What's your price?"
"What's your name, Adeline?" She asks sweetly and I don't understand her question for a moment.
"You want my baptism name."
"Your true name for my help," she tells me in an enchanting tone, her voice as soft as a lullaby and alluding as a siren's melody. What is her deal now? She didn't act this way before. And I have never someome from Faedom trying to use their charms on humans since Thomas.
And he only got this way after he betrayed his kind and allied himself to the Darachs. And even if he allegedly got better in the Hunt and was able to break free, the darkness inside him didn't go away.
"You better hurry; your friends' chances aren't looking very good now."
I whip my head back to the battle and I see Will fighting a vampire, before he manages to finally stab the bastard. Just as he was about to retrieve his weapon, another bites his shoulder and he struggles to get him off, just as the trainee shoots the monster dead. The kid was a real pro in archery, but it looked like it was his only valuable skill. And he'll run out od arrows pretty soon. Hayder and Thalia were ripping through bodies and spilling blood everywhere, looking fresh and bloodthirsty, but I knew they'd not be able to fight off the entire hoarde that keeps pouring from the shadows and encircling them tighter and tighter.
"Adeline Ariane Thrussell," I tell her when my eyes lock with hers. "That's my full name, now help us!"
"I didn't ask the name others chose for you, but the one it was given to you at birth," Tamarie explains and I'm starting to grow tired of all her fae —or Darach— shit.
"I don't know what bloody name I was given other than the one I told you."
"I do," she answers and I motion her to go along. I was awaiting for some kind of masked insult at hunters or my family's history, but the words she said next didn't sound like either. "Ay-Noor. The Moonlight."
"Ay-Noor?" I ask, shaking my head just as I speak the words. "It doesn't sound like a name at all."
"Because it isn't the kind you give to people to call you with, but is the name of your soul. Your true name, Adeline."
"Good to know."
I have no idea in Hell how this fae knew my soul name —whatever that means, but my gut was telling me that isn't something good. Nothing about Tamarie was right, neither her appearance or her strange behaviour. But I still need her help so I'll ignore all my instincts and play her game in exchange for a better chance at fighting these monsters.
"I could tell you so much more," she says in a whisper, looking as she was outweighing her moves. Or her words.
"I'd love to chat with you, but can we do this after my friends' are no longer battling vampires?" I ask and she rolls her eyes as if I just ruined her whole mood. I drew a throwing knife from my pocket and pointed it at her. "I'm done with your fae tricks, Tamarie. Help me or get the hell out of here before I turn you into my target practice."
"I already told that I'm only trying to help you save them yourself."
"How?" I shout at her and in a moment she jumps in front of me.
She lands a couple of steps away, the closest she ever dared to be to me. She pointed a look at my knife and I put it back into my pocket. It wouldn't help me now, so I decide to unsheath one if my long swords, keeping it casually on my hand. Tamarie doesn't seem to care in the slightest about the pointed blade that I could rip her throat open with in a single swing, but stepped a feet closer and looked me dead in the eye.
"Do you remember home?"
"Home?" Does she mean London? Or Europe? Or my family's mansion?
But before I can ask anything else, a sweet, sweet melody sounds in my ears. An image of a grassy field flashes into my mind, the wing singing through the wildflowers and carrying their whispers to me. I was looking from afar as the sun scorched the green scenery, but its light was never harmful. At least not on this land he loved dearly. I braced the stone balcony, breathing in a familiar perfume. I turn around but there was no one there. But still the smell persisted, a beacon toward which I started moving. It lead me to a door inside the great, antique-looking nursery and I opened it right away.
I opened my eyes and I was back in the woods, but it was no longer night and the surroundings did seem a little different from the glade in which our battle erupted. No, I know this place.
"Adeline, remember."
Tamarie stepped next to me as we both looked at the group of vampires encircling their victim. Me.
I looked at myself, my fists clenched and bracing myself for a final fight. One I knew I wasn't going to win. I closed my eyes for what I thought to be a second, but then it happened. A beam of pure moonlight started glowing from my core, shining bright and making the monsters step back. But then it was gone, just as a will-o-wisp, hiding away. But just as the flickering stopped, Asher appeared and tore through the vampires as if they were mud statues. It was gone before I reopened my eyes and my past self's eyes locked with my mates. And for a moment I could also see through her eyes and gaze into his emerald stare. I reached to touch his perfect face, but then I felt something sticky on my hand. I gasped when I saw red, fresh blood pooling from my hands and on Asher's unmoving body.
Tears rolled down my eyes just as a shadow caught my attention. I slowly raised my eyes to face him, but I felt a hand pulling me away. Pulling me away from my past and back to that place in-between.
"Stay focused on the memory, Adeline."
Tamarie tells me and I wipe my tears and nose with a piece of cloth I kept around one of my daggers. My eyes followed Thomas stalking closer, just as I laid my head on Asher's chest to hear his fading heartbeat's and to pray for a miracle. Just as he was about to reach me, Thomas jerked his hand away. Burns marks appeared from the tip of his fingers and up to his elbow and he staggered away, his eyes staring at me in disbelief. A light, similar to the one I used on the vampires earlier, sparked now brighter from me, enveloping me and Asher as in a cocoon. I looked as our figure were fading inside the cage of light, before he disappeared altogether. I looked around, but it was only Thomas on the empty street, his stare fixed on the pool of Asher's blood.
I turned my head to Tamarie to ask for explications, but the scenery changed again. We were back in the forest she teleported us that day to escape the vampires.
"Do you remember this place, Adeline?" She asks in the same ethereal voice and I nod.
"What is it?" She demands and I was ready to reply, but I felt like my voice ripped from myself. And they took it to give another answer.
"Home," I hear my voice sounding without my mouth opening to let the words out. "This is my home."