by Day Alyssa
"Such graciousness," she finally drawled. "Is it any wonder the Atlantean court is famed for its hospitality?"
His cheeks flushed a hot red, and his sensual lips pressed together. Goddess, but he was beautiful. Rich waves of dark hair she almost wanted to touch. Those amazing eyes, the color of dusk in the mountains of the Winter Lands.
Abruptly, she decided on a different tactic.
She stood and stepped out of the tub.
Erielle knew she was beautiful. She was Seelie Court Fae.
But she'd never experienced a reaction to her beauty that had pleased her more.
This man—this warrior—inhaled so sharply it sounded like a gasp. "You—you—"
His gaze swept her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and then back up, pausing only briefly to stare at one thing.
The daggers she held, dripping water, in each hand.
"Do you always bathe with your weapons in your hands?" His voice was a rasp.
"When in enemy territory, yes, if I bathe at all."
"I—" He seemed to abruptly realize where he was and what he was doing, because he backed out of the room and away from her doorway. "I'll put the food down out here."
"And leave," she called out.
"Not a chance, Princess,"
She smiled and reached for a towel.
By the time she'd dried herself, delighted in copious application of scented oils and lotions, and dressed in a loose shirt, pants, and sandals from the assortment the housekeeper had left with her, belted her sheaths into place on her hips, and put her daggers in them, the warrior was pacing her bedchamber with impatience.
She quietly took a deep breath, assumed the arrogant, expressionless mask she used for Seelie Court business, and strode out of the bathing chamber.
"You've fulfilled your duty. You may remove yourself to wherever the palace servants keep themselves when they're not playing like small boys on the training grounds," she said in her haughtiest, coldest, dripping-with-indifference voice she could muster, when inside she wanted nothing but to fall on the delicious-looking food like a starving beast.
It had been a long time since she'd eaten anything at all that tasted good. Let alone … oh, dear Goddess. Was that chocolate?
"You don't command me, Princess. Your kind murdered my brother, and I'm going to make damned sure you don't hurt anyone while you're here, which won't be long." His voice held so much pain and rage that her senses reverberated with it, echoing with his despair.
She instinctively put her hands to her head, covering her ears, as if that would matter. Her bloodline had always been attuned to the heightened emotions of others—particularly passion and pain. It's why so many of them used violence to spice sex.
It's why her uncle had tried to abduct her and force her to be his consort.
Sick loathing swept through her at the memory she worked so hard to suppress, and she dropped into a chair and clamped her hands on its arms to try to hide the fact that she was trembling. From hunger, exhaustion, or the deep soul-sickness she'd battled since the day she woke up chained to a bed and discovered what her father's brother had planned to do to her.
She still had the scars from the beating, but at least she'd escaped before he could perform that final, ultimate degradation.
"I won't hurt anyone. I just want to find my brother," she finally managed to say, wrenching her way out of the stained memories of blood and pain. "Just leave me alone."
She looked up at him to see that his anger was lessening, being replaced by something more nuanced. Confusion, perhaps? He didn't know what to make of her?
Fair enough. She knew nothing of him.
But, she realized, looking at the mountain of food on the enormous tray he'd carried to her, she had a time-honored way to learn.
"Break bread with me, Purple Eyes," she said impulsively. "Tell me of Atlantis. Help me pass the time until the ambassador and the queen return, and I can be on my way, which will make both of us very happy."
5
She was wrong. So wrong.
He didn't want her to go.
And Gabe didn't know how that had happened.
Well, if he had to be perfectly honest with himself, something he generally tried to avoid, it might have started when he looked into her eyes while her ass was resting on his chest and wondered what she might taste like.
Or it might have begun when she rose from her bath like an armed and dangerous Venus, her pale skin rosy from the heat, her long, tangled hair draped over her so that he only saw a hint of one pink, perfect nipple and the single, enticing glance he'd allowed himself of every other part of her far too slender, leanly muscled body.
When he'd clutched the tray so hard that it was a wonder he hadn't dented it, because his brain had shot an image straight to his cock of her straddling his face right then, exactly then, nude and damp and gloriously sensual, and he'd wanted nothing more than to pull her hips closer and eat her pussy until she dripped her honey into his mouth while she screamed his name.
Which she didn't even know.
Because she was Fae, not a potential fuck buddy, his guilt screamed at him.
"Well?" She took a piece of bread and tore off a small piece to eat, though his instincts told him she was starving.
Seelie Court manners, no doubt. Beauty masked vicious power struggles. Manners masked evil and deception.
"My name is Gabriel, not Purple Eyes, Princess," he said abruptly, forcing himself to sit in a chair across from hers. So long as he had his eyes on her, she couldn't harm anyone.
Or at least that's what he pretended was his reason. Not that she was just so damn easy to look at.
Because—and again, being honest, which he hated—she was intensely beautiful beyond his capability to describe. Her skin gleamed like it was dusted with sunlight, and her long, lush waves of hair shone purest gold as it dried around her delicate, perfect face. Her bone structure was so distinct, so perfectly sculptured, that T'Naath herself would have begged to memorialize them in marble or stone.
The tips of her pointed ears inexplicably made him want to touch them almost as much as he'd wanted to put his mouth on her nipple.
She abruptly put down the piece of bread and blew out a shaky sigh. "I will confess something to you that would shame my family, Gabriel. I can no longer sit here and politely banter with you and pretend that I do not want to dive into that food like a starving lion on a gazelle. I have had no food for more than six days. Please either eat with me or go."
The hint of vulnerability in her eyes; the stark admission that she was desperate to eat—they combined to shake him out of his dark thoughts of anger and lust for long enough to see her as a person.
"I will leave you alone to eat, Princess. I'll be just outside the door." He stood and bowed; a courtesy he didn't realize he'd be giving he until he felt himself doing it. Her courage to face what she must have faced, if her story were true, and her confession to him that must have gone against every ounce of her haughty, royal, pride—he couldn't hate her for that.
Surprisingly, he even felt a glimmer of respect.
A quarter of an hour later, a messenger came racing up to the door to tell him that the king and queen were ready to meet the princess in the throne room. Before Gabe could knock, Erielle opened the door, her haughty, aristocrat's face firmly back in place. She nodded at him and then marched down the hall after the messenger. When Gabe glanced in the chamber she'd just left, he saw that the tray, which had been filled with enough food to satisfy three warriors after a day of battle, was empty.
The satisfaction he felt that she'd finally been able to eat scared the miertus out of him. Who was this woman, that she awakened such a protective instinct in him?
She was the enemy. And yet, so far, he'd wanted to fight, fuck, feed, and protect her.
He was losing it.
He followed her down the hall, viciously swearing at himself beneath his breath when he caught himself watching the sway of
her lovely little ass.
One of the older women on the palace staff, walking past him in the hallway, raised a white eyebrow. "I think your poetry is declining in elegance these days, I'm sad to say. Also, asshole doesn't really rhyme with lust-brain-warped."
He bowed. "Thank you for your assistance," he said, with as little sarcasm as he could manage.
Everybody was a fucking critic.
* * *
The ambassador knew the princess.
In fact, he knew her well enough to embrace her and kiss her cheeks, over and over, protocol be damned, before she'd even been introduced to the queen.
Gabe suppressed an urge to growl. What in the nine hells was happening to him? Now he was feeling possessive, too?
It was ridiculous.
"Princess," the ambassador said gravely. "I am so pleased to see that you are alive and well—" He hesitated and fidgeted with his ceremonial silver-and-green robes, refusing to meet her eyes.
Gabriel tensed for the hammer he suspected was about to fall.
"Ambassador. You will disclose the news you are so hesitant to speak. Now." For the first time, Gabe saw the Princess with a capital P in Erielle. Not the warrior, not the vulnerable woman—the royal who demanded obedience.
It turned him on.
He was in big trouble.
The king and his gorgeous wife, Queen Riley, who had a smile like the sun rising over the horizon, both looked concerned.
"Is there a problem, Ambassador?" The queen held out a hand to Erielle, smiling. "Please, Princess, have a seat. From what little we know of what you went through, I am amazed that you are able to stand upright. I'd be locked in a room with nothing but pillows, bubble bath, and all the food and chocolate in the world, if I'd been trapped in a demon dimension."
Her obvious kindness and sincerity must have touched something in Erielle, who smiled back at the queen.
"Your Highness—"
"Oh, please, call me Riley, Princess. We're not formal here."
Erielle blinked, obviously not used to such casualness from royalty. "Ah, yes. Riley. I, please call me Erielle."
But then she turned back to the Ambassador, who'd turned a greenish shade of pale. "Tell me. Now."
He cleared his throat, but he knew when he was beaten. "Your brother, Princess. Prince Ferrian. Shortly after you disappeared, he—"
She took two steps forward and grabbed him by the shoulders. "He what?"
"He was taken, Princess. He … your uncle. Zaran na' Zoratan. He took the prince, and we've seen nothing of either of them, since."
She cried out and fell back and away from the ambassador, but Gabe didn't hear what the princess said to that, or what anybody else said, either, because he couldn't hear anything over the roaring in his head. Before anyone could move to stop him, he raced across the room and lifted the ambassador into the air by the throat.
"Say that again. Now."
Denal and Conlan were there in a flash, trying to yank him away from the ambassador, but Gabe's rage lent him the strength to resist them.
"Tell. Me. Now," he shouted in the man's face.
"Princess Erielle's uncle, Zaran na' Zoratan. He, he, took her brother, Prince Ferrian," the man gasped, just before the king of Atlantis pulled back one arm and punched Gabriel in the head.
The next thing he knew, he was on his back on the floor, staring up at the king, the queen, Denal, and Princess Erielle. The ambassador was off making choking noises on the side of the room.
Gabe's eyes locked onto Erielle's. "Your murdering bastard of an uncle killed my brother. I'm going to find him and kill him."
Her smile was filled with a wild, vicious intent. "My murdering bastard of an uncle kidnapped me, beat me, scarred me, and tried to rape me. I'm going to find him and kill him, but first I'm going to rescue my brother. Are you in?"
"Try to stop me."
She held out a slender, scarred, hand, and he looked at it for a moment, somehow knowing that taking it carried far more meaning that appeared on the surface. Her green, green eyes dared him.
He accepted her challenge, took her hand, and rolled up off the floor.
For a moment, he was far too close to her, and she raised her head and murmured in his ear. "You seem to like being on your back around me, Purple Eyes."
"Perhaps when this is done, I'll have you on your back, Golden Hair."
Her teeth gleamed in a smile that immediately faded. "We shall see."
6
"Absolutely not."
The warrior speaking, hard-faced and dead-eyed, had immediately jumped in and tried to shove Gabriel out of the room.
Erielle had protested.
Strongly.
"You are nothing to me," she told him, ice coating each word. "You are neither queen nor king. I am a princess of the High Court, Seelie Fae, and I demand this boon."
He opened his mouth again, but this time the king held up a hand for silence.
"We are concerned that Gabriel may be too personally involved to be objective," the queen said.
"I neither desire nor need his objectivity," she told the queen, but more gently. "I know where my uncle is. He built a palace in the demon dimension from which I escaped. I've spent more than a year hiding from him while trying to return home. Had I known—"
She had to stop and take a breath, to keep her voice from breaking. Had she known he'd taken Ferrian, she'd have stormed the castle singlehandedly and ripped the monsters guts out while he was still alive to watch her do it.
But instead, she'd been running and hiding, like a fool.
Like a coward.
Never again.
She pointed at Gabe. "I will take that one with me, or I will declare that his attack on our ambassador was an act of war, and you will deal with the consequences."
"Fae can't lie," the hard-faced man spit out.
"And, so we cannot," she told him, letting her determination show in her eyes. "I will gladly lead our armies against you myself."
King Conlan raised his eyebrows. "Well, seeing as how I have no desire for war between our peoples, and considering that Gabriel himself wants to go, I propose a compromise."
"I do not compromise. Prepare for war." She turned on her heel and prepared to leave.
"My compromise is this: Take Gabriel. But take more of our warriors, as well."
She stopped walking. Faced him. More warriors meant a better chance for her brother.
"I accept."
The king bowed to her as elegantly as any High Court Fae. "Th—Yes. That's good."
Clearly, then, he was smart enough not to thank a Fae.
He pointed to the hard-eyed one. "Denal. Take your lead from her. If you can't do it, tell me now."
If looks could kill, as the saying went, she'd be dead on the floor, but Denal finally said. "I'll take her lead."
"Griffin goes, too. He'll be able to work the portal stone, to get you there and back."
The mage, who'd been silently standing near a wall all this time, nodded.
Erielle shook her head. "I can get us exactly where we need to go. My magic will not get us back, however. The demon dimension reduces and twists it."
"I can get us back," Griffin said.
She inclined her head. "I accept."
"Who else is here?" The king looked at Denal, who shook his head.
"Nobody with any experience in the demon dimension."
"We four will be enough," Erielle said. "There, it's better to be few and stealthy than many and blunder into our own death."
"I agree," Denal said grudgingly. "We'll gear up and go tomorrow—"
"We go now," she told them, in a frenzy of need to go and find Ferrian. Please, goddess, let him still be alive.
* * *
In the end, it took them nearly three hours to get ready. They'd found her a set of leathers and a new bow, and they'd given her a beautiful elven-made sword. Each of the four traveling carried a backpack stuffed with provisions. She'd hated every minute o
f delay, but she also understood that what they carried might keep them alive to rescue her brother.
They assembled in the garden, though Erielle had told them she could call the interdimensional portal from anywhere.
"Let's just do it outside in an excess of caution," the mage said dryly.
She looked at him when they walked outside. "Who are your bloodline?"
The mage slanted a silver-eyed glance at her. "That, Princess, is none of your damn business."
She shrugged. "True enough."
In an open space, near masses of the most beautiful flowers she'd seen outside the Fae lands, their small party stopped. The king and queen, and the ambassador, who'd continued to stay far away from Gabriel, stepped back.
Griffin, holding an enormous sapphire that they called a portal stone, Denal, and Gabriel stepped forward. Erielle called to her magic, which responded as quickly as a tame pet coming to heel, and opened the portal to the last place in the world she wanted to be.
The sight of the green sky turned her stomach, but she presented a calm face to the king and queen. "We will be on our way now. If we do not return, know that I did my best to protect your people."
She didn't wait to hear what they might see. She waved Gabriel in and then stepped across. When she turned to watch the others enter, it was only to see both Denal and Griffin bounce off the still-open portal.
"I don't understand," she shouted through to them. "I'm holding it open, and my magic is still connected to Atlantis. There is no reason why you should not be able to enter."
She could tell they were shouting at her, but she could only hear silence. Not even the sound from Atlantis was coming through.
Gabriel grabbed her arm. "What kind of trick is this?"
"Why would I perform such a trick? Do you think I want to be trapped here again? To have my brother trapped again?" She shoved him away from her and poured even more of her magic into the portal, but—still—nothing. In fact, it started to narrow.
The mage shouted yet another thing they could not hear and then pulled his arm back and hurled the portal stone at them. Erielle breathed a sigh of relief when it sailed through. Gabe leapt up and snatched it out of the air.