Free Darklight by Lesley Livingston Page A

branches pinning her cracked asunder as, with a primal yell, Fennrys one-handedly tore the possessed tree literally limb from limb.
    Her upper body freed, Kelley fell forward into Fennrys’s arms, gasping for breath. It felt as though her rib cage had gone through a trash compactor, but glorious air surged into her lungs.
    “Sonny,” she gasped, disoriented.
    “No, sorry.” Fenn’s smile was pained. “Just little old me.”
    “Fenn—behind you!”
    Hooligan-boy had climbed to his feet and lashed out again in another roundhouse kick. The blow caught Fennrys on the shoulder, dislocating it with a horrifying sound. The Wolf hollered in agony and rolled out of the way, scrambling awkwardly across the grass. The enraged Faerie followed, fists balled and raised to strike, but his knuckles grazed only air. Fennrys was ready for him this time, and his good arm flew wide in a punch that caught the Faerie a cracking blow to the jaw and sent him sprawling. He hit the ground heavily and lay there stunned for a moment, a tangle of arms and legs, as Fennrys dropped to one knee, overcome by the pain of his injuries.
    The tree holding Kelley tightened the grip of its remaining limbs, branches snaking back up over her torso, pinning her to the rough bark. Kelley wriggled one arm free and, clutching the knife from her purse, lifted the blade high and jammed it to the hilt into the tree branch wrapped around her chest. The tree recoiled violently, with a sound like screaming; thick, reddish sap gushed from a wound that splashed upward onto Kelley’s skin—warm as blood.
    The tree sap tingled where it touched her, and the four-leaf-clover charm flared hot against her breastbone. She looked down—the charm was coated in crimson sap. Beneath the sticky wetness, the four-leaf clover glowed brilliantly, cycling through vibrant shades of green.
    The ground beneath Kelley’s feet felt suddenly electrified, and the power that was locked inside of her surged outward from her core, down into the tips of her fingers like a river through a burst dam. Dark light blazed: a color like rage—not purple, not quite red—flooded the clearing, melding with the green light of the charm.
    “No!” Hooligan-boy shrieked and threw a hand over his face as if the light burned. “No, no, no !”
    The malicious tree retreated completely and Kelley dragged herself free. She sliced at the air with her hand, and the darkness crackled and split, gaping wide in a rift that shimmered and spat sparks. Kelley wrapped her arms around Fennrys’s muscled torso and launched them through her makeshift gateway, willing it closed behind them as the screams of the thwarted Faerie echoed in her ears.

Chapter VI
    O n the banks of a wide, tumbling river, Sonny upended his leather satchel, dumping a small pile of laundry and a few cakes of tallow soap out onto the ground.
    Ah, the glamorous life of a Janus Guard, he thought.
    If he’d acquiesced to Auberon’s wishes and stayed in the Winter Palace, such menial tasks wouldn’t have been a concern. Even in the small cottage where he stayed, Sonny had a complement of helper sprites—tiny, winged fae that tended his hearth—but he was strangely loath to impose his housekeeping chores on them. Perhaps because he was feeling a little too much like a slave himself.
    He knelt at the water’s edge, just downstream from where a roaring waterfall cascaded down the face of a high cliff, filling the air with mist and fractured rainbows. From the corner of his eye he caught glimpses of the shining bodies of one or two of the river folk, leaping like salmon in the water. A swim before chores seemed like a good idea and so he took off his boots and stripped off his ratty linen shirt. Clad only in breeches, Sonny stepped down from the grassy shore, wading out toward the middle of the stream where the water was deeper. The cold water felt good to his sore muscles. He leaned back, closing his eyes, and drifted on the surface of the