Fates Altered: A Halven Rising Prequel

Two weeks went by, with Alex and Theda getting into a rhythm that involved a lot of avoidance. She’d asked Leti to teach her how to cook, and when Alex was at work, Theda spent her days helping Leti with the baby and learning the basics of preparing food. It seemed boiling water and toasting bread were two more things the place she’d come from either didn’t have, or simply hadn’t taught her.

If Alex had to guess, he’d swear she’d been trapped in an underground bunker her entire life. But that didn’t seem right. And now he suspected things he couldn’t voice. Aliens? Some sort of magic? All he knew was that he cared about Theda. Really cared, which was why he couldn’t push her. She didn’t want to tell him, and he had to respect her wishes.

As far as Alex knew, Theda hadn’t spoken to any more animals, though he was suspicious of her relationship with Lucho. That dog was far too well behaved around her.

Alex couldn’t believe he was even thinking about his beautiful houseguest talking to animals, but he knew what he saw. And none of it mattered because it didn’t change the way he felt about her.

They’d stopped spending time together when they didn’t have to, which made Alex realize how much he’d enjoyed her presence before their fight. It had been damned awkward the one night Tony had stopped by and Alex put his arm around Theda’s shoulders. For appearances only, of course, but it had felt like electricity shot down his body where they touched.

Work had been a long one. He walked in the front door expecting to hear female chatter, but the house was silent. “Theda?”

No answer. She must be with Leti.

Instead of taking off his jacket, Alex grabbed a beer, went out onto the porch, and leaned his shoulder against a post. He popped the cap off his bottle. What was he going to do? Theda had him twisted up inside. He wanted so badly to help her, and she wouldn’t let him in.

He swallowed a large, cool gulp of beer. This was his favorite time of the day, twilight turning into evening with the sky a purplish blue, the trees shadowed. Only tonight he couldn’t relax, and it wasn’t simply what he didn’t know about Theda. Something felt off.

He pulled out his cell phone to call Leti and Tony and see if Theda was with them—when he heard her.

Or sensed her.

Theda was crying out, but not into the night. Her voice was in his head.

Panic filled his chest, his heart beating a mile a minute. He abandoned the beer and leapt off the porch, racing through the fields. He didn’t know how he knew, but Theda was in trouble.

He sprinted for ten minutes straight into the fields, sweat pouring down his temples. He skidded to a stop near a ditch, his head swiveling around, searching, but he didn’t know where she was, he only knew she was out here somewhere.

Going on instinct, he raced for the shed where he’d first found her. Why? No good reason. But she had to be there. Every sense he possessed told him she was.

Half a mile later, the sky was even darker, but not dark enough to hide the two figures wrestling in the dirt. The larger one hauled the smaller one up, and that was when Alex realized Theda was being held against her will by one of the biggest men Alex had ever seen.

She’d sought refuge. A moment away from the strain that seemed to fill every moment she spent with Alex now, and even the moments in between. Theda wanted so desperately to get closer to him, but after he’d witnessed what she could do with animals, she didn’t dare. So she went for a walk, returning to the place where it had all begun.

Theda found the shed where she’d first met Alex a mile or two from his house. It was locked, and she smiled, remembering how surprised he’d been when he first found her there.

Things were so tense between them these days. They couldn’t go on ignoring one another. She was learning to cook from Leti and had found ways to help around the house, but that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t fair to Alex. She needed to find her way in this world without relying on his kindness.

She stared out at the deep blue sky, growing darker as the minutes passed, knowing she must leave and not liking the idea. Not when it meant leaving Alex.

And then she sensed something.

Not something. Someone.

She spun around, staring into the fields.

Just beyond the shed, a man stepped out of a copse of trees, and Theda’s heart nearly stopped in her chest. Then she was running.

She didn’t get far before a large body slammed into her. She fell, her face and arm skidding across the dirt and gravel, his weight cutting off her air supply.

“At last, you are on your own,” the Fae said near her ear. “I worried I might need to expose myself to get to you, and then murder your little friends. I wouldn’t have minded if it weren’t so messy to clean up.”

Theda bucked to get him off, but he was twice her weight. And not just any Fae, but a tracker. Her nightmare had come true. “Let me go,” she said, gasping.

He flipped her over and pinned her hands above her head, pressing down his larger frame against hers. “Never. Have you any notion how long it took me to find you?” He tore the bracelet her brother had given her off her wrist and tossed it away. “Your little trinket might have hidden you, but once you used your magic, you were mine. It was only a matter of time.”

She’d acted impulsively, saving the animals for Alex. But she’d wanted to help, and now this man would return her to Tirnan. She’d worried about staying longer with Alex, being a burden, and now all she could think about was getting back to him.

Theda tried to free one of her hands. She’d brought her knife with her; she always did when she left the house. But it was in her boot and she couldn’t reach it.

The tracker’s eyes narrowed. He had a deep scar down the side of his pale face. Fae didn’t scar unless they’d suffered months of deprivation and were attacked with magic.

He gripped both of her wrists with one hand and patted down her body—touching her in a way that made her stomach lurch. “Much as I’m enjoying this, you could spare me the effort and tell me where you’ve hidden your weapon.”

“What weapon?” She feigned ignorance.

His mouth twisted and he slid his hand down both of her legs until he freed the dagger from her boot. “There she is.” He tucked the dagger behind him, presumably in a pocket, and slipped something around her wrists. Shackles made of magic and glowing a vibrant blue.

He hauled her up, but before he could straighten, she swung her locked wrists over his head and kneed him in the face with all her might.

The tracker grunted and Theda ran. Until he tackled her again. But this time, she twisted quickly and slid halfway out from under him. And then she heard it.

Alex, calling to her.

She looked in the direction the tracker did, to see Alex running full tilt toward them.

The tracker moved, and Theda grabbed her knife from where he’d tucked it in his belt. She stabbed him in the side a second before he knocked the blade from her hands and gripped her neck.

And then Alex was there and leaping on top of the tracker. He knocked the Fae to the side and off Theda.

She didn’t know what power the tracker possessed, but all Fae had something. And this man was much larger than Alex.

The tracker elbowed Alex in the stomach, forcing him back. Then he cracked his large fist across Alex’s jaw, dropping him to his knees.

Theda went to grab the dagger in the dirt several feet away, but the tracker locked his arm around her waist before she could get past him, hauling her into the air. “You’ll be coming with me.”

“No!” Alex shouted, looking up from where he’d fallen, his dark eyes desperate.

“It’s okay,” she said. The Fae would kill him; there was no doubt in her mind. She couldn’t let that happen. Not to this man. “It was inevitable things would end this way.”

The tracker waved his hand in front of him in the shape of a square. A second later, the air wavered. He had the power to make portals. Convenient for him, not so much for her.

It was over. She’d be returned to her father. Likely married off to Adelmar after she’d faced whatever punishment her father deemed adequate. But it had been worth it. Alex had been worth it.

Instead of stepping through the portal like she expected, though, the tracker suddenly lurched to the side.

She looked up and saw blood dripping from his mouth. Theda slid to the ground as his grip loosened and he fell away from her entirely, blood pouring from his back.

Alex stood behind them, his hand holding the dagger and shaking.

The tracker wasn’t moving, and the electric-blue shackles around her wrists sputtered and disappeared. That could mean only one thing.

Alex had killed him.

Few things killed Fae. But beheadings and direct strikes to the heart could.

Theda threw her arms around Alex’s neck, holding him tightly. He didn’t say anything, simply dropped the knife and held her too, his arms bands of steel keeping her upright.

“Will there be more?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know. I—I don’t think so. Trackers usually travel alone. It’s more efficient.” She let him go and grabbed her bracelet from the ground where the tracker had thrown it, putting it back on her wrist. “They’re not easy to catch off guard. He underestimated you.”

“No,” he said. “He underestimated the lengths I’d go to protect you.”

He pulled her close and kissed her for the first time in weeks, and she kissed him back as though she were starving. Because she was. Starving for him. She never wanted to leave Alex. She’d work it out—find a way to make herself useful and safe, and stay with him.