Unfortunately, she knew her “fix” would only help Xavier for a few days. Sooner or later, he’d get worse again unless she could somehow break the connection she was using to siphon his energy. She could continue giving him small boosts of energy to keep him alive, but to do so she had to be touching him. How would she explain that to Luis and Marina—or to Dion, for that matter?
And if she escaped, it was as good as a death sentence for the little boy.
At last they let her leave, Luis taking her as far as the dining hall and then hurrying back to his son. Cleia groped her way back down the hall back to Dion’s apartment, her stomach a sick knot.
She couldn’t let Xavier die. She couldn’t.
Yet to stay—or admit the truth—was to condemn her own people to a slow, painful death. No one else was strong enough to serve as the Conduit. Olivia would try, but she’d almost certainly fail and lose her own life as a result. Without Cleia to channel the sun’s energy, the sun fae would wither and die, and her cousin’s sacrifice would have been in vain.
It was an impossible choice. She felt as if she was being gripped and pulled in opposite directions, threatening to rend her in two.
Her breath moved harshly over the back of her throat. She pressed a hand to her mouth and with the other continued to feel her way down the hall until she touched Dion’s door. She pushed it open and made her way across the floor, instinctively seeking out the nearest sunbeam.
Light and heat touched her face, but it was weak. Too weak for her needs.
She snarled in frustration, then sank onto the floor beneath it, driven to soak up even that meager amount of energy. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she dropped her head on her knees and wondered dully what to do.
And all the time she was thinking: What kind of monster would harm a child?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tiago’s head felt as if a bass drummer was having an exuberant practice session on the inside of his skull.
He raised heavy lids and peered at the familiar stone ceiling. At least he was in his own room in the quarters he shared with several other unmated males.
He cautiously lifted his head. He was naked save for a pair of jeans, a sheet tangled in his legs. And for some reason his pillow was beneath one of his thighs instead of his head. He lifted his head a little higher and then groaned as the walls swooped queasily around him. Carefully, he set his aching skull back on the bed.
He lay there for a couple more minutes and then took a deep breath and pushed himself back to sitting. This time he remained upright, hands braced on the mattress, until the room stopped spinning.
Something in his back pocket jabbed him. He took it out and stared at it, vaguely recalling that it was a smartphone, given to him by the earth fada—Ric.
He blinked. After leaving the bar, he’d walked around for an hour to sober up, then ridden his bike the thirty-some miles back up I-95. Apparently he’d hung onto the earth fada’s gift.
He turned it in his hand, noting the smooth side. Curious, he touched the depression and the screen lit up. Hurriedly, he touched it a second time and it winked off.
Setting the phone on his nightstand, he massaged his aching temples, his mind swarming with the questions he should have asked last night. Chief among them was why a Baltimore earth shifter would give a valuable communication tool to a Rock Run fada.
He recalled discussing Cleia and how it was unhealthy for her to spend so much time underground. He frowned, then winced as pain gripped his head like a vise.
He hadn’t told them her name. He was sure of that.
So why did he feel so uneasy?
He drew in a breath and decided to worry about it later. Right now he had to get his ass in gear. He was due at training any minute and calling off sick wasn’t an option. Any fada could scent the reek of a hangover. If word got around, he’d be the laughing stock of his cohort.
He placed the smartphone in a drawer in his nightstand and came to his feet. The room wavered and bile rose in his throat. He staggered to his bathroom, where he leaned against the wall, swallowing dryly and wondering if it might be better to simply heave it all up. But his stomach settled down enough for him to drink a glass of water. He relieved himself, then filled the sink with cold water and doused his head in it before downing another glass.
That done, he was still unsteady, but his inner clock told him he was past due at training.
But first, he headed out for a cold dip in the creek. It was the only way he was going to get through the day.
* * *
Late that afternoon, Tiago hobbled painfully back to his room. He was exhausted, his muscles limp noodles.
The instructors had known immediately he was hung over—that damn fada sense of smell—and had been in his face the entire frigging day, riding him until he’d been close to collapse. The Rock Run clan didn’t tolerate lack of control in any form, especially alcohol and drugs, the excesses of the bacchanalia still fresh in people’s minds.
But he’d gritted his teeth and hung in there, earning a slap on the back from the ensign in charge. “You’ll do, man.”
At least he’d sweated out the hangover. Now, after another quick dip in the creek, he pulled on a pair of shorts and went looking for Cleia.
Worry for her gnawed at him. He hadn’t forgotten that it was his fault she was here in the first place. If he hadn’t overheard a conversation between her and Olivia that led him to believe her magic depended on her ability to see, Dion would never have been able to bind her powers.
He rapped on the door to Dion’s quarters. “Cleia? Can I come in?”
There was a pause and then she said, “Yes,” in a barely audible voice.
He pushed open the door. The sala was empty, so he continued to the bedroom. To his surprise, she was in bed, the room dark save for a few fae lights. Outside, it was raining, so no sunlight came through the shafts.
He peered at where she was curled up in a ball, the covers up to her ears. “Cleia? Are you all right?”
She sat up and scrubbed at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “Oh, it’s you,” she said flatly.
He swallowed his hurt. “You were expecting someone else?”
She shook her head. But he knew the answer. Lately, every time he visited, his brother was there, hovering over her like a dragon guarding his treasure.
Then everything flew from his mind as she took a ragged breath and he realized she’d been crying. “Querida?” He sat on the mattress and touched her shoulder. “What’s the matter?”
She shook his hand off. “I’m not your sweetheart,” she muttered.
He stiffened and pulled back. “I beg your pardon.”
She jerked her head in acknowledgment. The cover had fallen to her waist. Her dress was wrinkled, her hair mussed, but she still managed to look like a queen, her spine an elegant line, her fine features regal.
He clenched his hands. If only he had the right to hold her, to comfort her. To kiss her tears away and promise that whatever was troubling her, he’d take care of it.
And then, when she was smiling again, he’d ease her onto the mattress, cover her body with his and love her until she forgot everything and everyone but him…
He tightened his jaw, painfully aware that was the last thing she wanted. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t help.
“Tell me why you’re crying,” he coaxed. “Maybe there’s something I can do—not as a sweetheart, but as a friend.”
“Oh, Tiago.” She pleated the cover between her fingers. “I’m not cry—” she started, then spoiled it by giving a forlorn sniff.
He regarded her helplessly. “Cleia…” He looked around for a handkerchief, found a soft cloth that looked like it would do, and pressed it into her hands.
“Obrigada.” She blew her nose and then sat there, shoulders drooping. He waited patiently and after a few moments she said, “It’s just—I’m so tired. I miss my friends. I miss the sun. I miss being able to goddamn see.” She
gave a savage tug to the scarf binding her eyes. “And now little Xavier is sick—did you know? I tried to help him, but he…it’s bad, Tiago.”
He swore under his breath. “I heard something yesterday, but—”
“He’s wasting away. He must have lost five pounds. And on a little one like him, that’s huge.”
He gulped. “The healers can’t help?”
“They’ve done all they can—that’s why Marina came to me. I was able to help a little. When I got there this morning, he was comatose and hadn’t eaten for a couple of days. He’s better now, but what I did won’t last. It’s only a matter of time before he gets worse again.”
He touched her arm. “I’m sure you did your best.”
“And if he dies, it’s not my fault, right?” The savage twist to her voice made him frown.
“But it’s not your fault—is it?”
She lifted a shoulder. He waited for her to say something more but she drew up her legs and rested her head on her knees. She appeared worn out, her skin wan. He tentatively patted her back. The muscles were locked tight. When she didn’t rebuff him, he rubbed in slow, easy circles.
“Tell me something,” he said. “Our own healers—did they do any better?” She shook her head mutely and he squeezed her shoulder. “There, see. A good friend of mine is training to be a healer, and she said that’s the hardest thing, accepting that there are some people you can’t help.”
A strangled sob escaped her lips. He regarded her in dismay. Deus, he was making things worse.
“Cleia? What can I do? Tell me, meu amor. I can’t stand seeing you so sad. I—I love you.”
“Oh, Tiago.” A tear slid from beneath the scarf. She knuckled it away. “You don’t love me. You just think you do. Someday you’ll meet your mate and forget all about me.”
He flushed angrily. He was sick of being treated as if he were a pup who didn’t know his head from his ass. He removed his hand from her back.
“Don’t tell me what I feel,” he gritted. “I do love you. And I’ve met my mate—she just thinks I’m too young to know my own mind.”
There was a taut silence. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “You’re right, I don’t know what you feel. But I don’t love you—and I never will.”
“Fine. If that’s how you feel, so be it. But at least let me help—allow me do that much for you.”
“Oh, Tiago. Thank you for that.” She touched his hand. “But what can you do? Your brother has me trapped. If I could get away, get this damn blindfold off, maybe there’d be something I could do. At least I’d have a chance of figuring out how to help Xavier and the others who are sick. I could consult my own healers, for example. But like this I’m no good to anyone.”
Tiago jumped to his feet and paced across the room. “Deus, Cleia. I want to help. You know I do. But ask me anything except that.”
“I wasn’t asking.” But they both knew that wasn’t entirely true.
“I’d be banished from the clan—if Dion didn’t just kill me outright. Don’t get me wrong—he loves me—but can’t allow anyone to get away with such a challenge to his authority. Not even his own brother.”
“I understand. Really. Please forget I said anything.”
Tiago closed his eyes. He thought of little Xavier, of how much he meant to everyone. He thought of Cleia, imprisoned here by his goddamn stubborn brother, even though the whole clan was starting to mutter that it was time to let her go, that she either wouldn’t or couldn’t help them.
And then he thought of that gray quartz in his nightstand drawer.
“But if someone else helped you,” he said slowly, “someone not in the clan—” The words seem to come from another man’s mouth. They hung in the air, dark, insinuating. He swallowed sickly.
However Cleia escaped, if he supplied the means, he was betraying his brother.
But this was his future mate, damn it. He didn’t care what she said about not loving him—sometimes it happened that way, especially if one of the pair was very young. In a few years’ time he’d reach full maturity, and then the bond would flower and she’d see he’d been right all along.
And everyone knew the mate bond was supreme, trumping even family and clan loyalties.
“But how?” she asked. “No one knows where I am. I thought they’d find me by now, but it’s only a few days to the solstice, and if they haven’t by this time…” She spread her hands in defeat.
Tiago crouched in front of the bed and took hold of her shoulders. “Swear it, Cleia. Swear that if I help you escape, you won’t turn around and take revenge on Rock Run.”
“I do.” She grabbed his forearms. “I swear that if you help me get home, I’ll consider us even. Truth.” She brought a hand to her heart.
“You promise that you won’t try to harm the clan—or Dion?”
“Yes. I swear it by everything I hold holy.”
Tiago drew in a breath. “Then I think I can help.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Please, my lord,” implored Lady Olivia. “The midsummer celebration is just three days away. You must help us.”
Dion crossed his arms and studied the sun fae noblewoman. He hadn’t wanted to meet with her again, but her communications had become increasingly aggressive. Now her obsidian gaze was suspicious, but she was clearly desperate. At least she’d come without Adric this time.
“Must I?”
She shuttered her fierce eyes and dropped to her knees. “Lord Dion, I’m begging you. The sun fae will do anything to get our queen back. Anything. Riches, spells…or take me instead, if you require a captive—just allow Cleia to return before the midsummer festival. Whatever she did, do all the sun fae have to suffer for her mistake?”
“Get back on your feet,” he growled. He wasn’t some jumped-up fae lord, to require a woman to plead her cause on her knees.
He waited as Lady Olivia rose gracefully back up. Her fine features, so like Cleia’s, were somber; her copper hair braided into a shiny rope that fell to the middle of her back; and she was wearing a silky green tunic and pants. She seemed to be trying to appear less powerful, more approachable. It worked, up to a point. Nothing could completely mask the woman’s innate authority.
Not for the first time, he wondered why Cleia was queen and not her older cousin.
“Tell me,” he asked, “what makes you think your queen is at Rock Run? When last I saw her she was well.” Which was the truth, of course. “But who knows? She could be anywhere—even dead.” Also the truth.
Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “Let us speak freely, my lord. We sun fae may not have your animal-enhanced senses, but we have our own ways of tracking people. As soon as we discovered Cleia was missing, the queen’s bodyguards followed her trail. The storm had washed most of it away, but we had enough information to narrow her capture down to you or the Virginia night fae. We’ve now eliminated the night fae. But just to be sure, in the past two weeks we’ve visited or contacted every fae and fada clan in the Americas—and many of those overseas as well. They all swear they haven’t seen her. Can you swear the same? If so, tell me now and I’ll turn my search elsewhere.”
Dion kept his face blank, but inside his mind raced, considering his options. She was finally certain enough to force the issue, leaving him just two choices: tell the truth or lie outright, which would exact an enormous personal cost, leaving him sick and drained of energy at the worst possible time.
Yet if he admitted having taken the queen, it meant war. The very war he’d sought to prevent by kidnapping her in the first place.
He forced himself to meet Lady Olivia’s suspicious gaze. “I can’t,” he admitted.
She stiffened. “As I thought.”
He inclined his head.
She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “There’s no one else, you know. No one who can take Cleia’s place in the midsummer ritual. What I tell you now is known to very few people outside the sun fae. Can I trust you to keep it a secret?”
“Yes, of course.” He was desperate for any information that might break this impasse.
“This is for your ears only.”
He nodded and flicked his hand. He’d brought only Rodolfo this time, leaving Luis to watch over his sick son. Now he waited until the tenente had moved out of earshot before turning back to Olivia. “Go ahead.”
“Queen Cleia isn’t just our ruler, she’s our Conduit. Do you know what that means?”
When he replied in the negative, she went on, “The Conduit is the only one who can link directly to the sun and then only on midsummer’s day. As Conduit, Cleia has the ability to tap the sun’s energy and then in turn share the energy with every other sun fae. The talent may pass to either a man or a woman, but almost never to someone outside of Cleia’s direct line. I can try to take her place, but she’s the chosen one. We pray that one of her children…but she’s never mated. And like you fada, the fae rarely have children outside the mate bond.”
“I’m sorry.” He stifled a pang of guilt. He reminded himself that this wasn’t his fault, that he was only doing what he had to ensure his own clan’s survival.
“Truth.” Olivia touched her breastbone. “If Cleia doesn’t return by the summer solstice, the sun fae will die. We’ll do anything to get her back.”
And this time, Dion understood, she wasn’t talking about riches or magic, but war.
“I see.” He scrutinized the sun fae lady’s severe face. It went against the grain to let an outsider, especially a fae, know how bad things were at Rock Run, but she’d entrusted him with one of her own secrets. And she needed to understand that he wasn’t imprisoning her cousin on some cruel whim.
“The last thing I want, my lady, is to harm the sun fae, but if I allow your queen to go on as she was, my clan will die.”
“What do you mean?”
“Each time Cleia took one of my men as her lover, she drained energy from both him and the clan. But worse, even after they came home, she was still drawing energy from at least some of them. Meanwhile, you grow stronger and more powerful, while we’re barely surviving. Our crops are failing. Our people are dying. Even”—his throat worked as he recalled little Xavier that morning, pale and unconscious, his small body bone-thin—“our littlest ones.”
Seducing the Sun Fae Page 14