“I have come with a specific purpose, yes.”
“Oh, my dear, how lovely it is to see you.” Her father rose from the throne and strolled down the two steps toward her. He acted as though he hadn’t heard a single word of the conversation of the last three minutes. He clasped both of Ashryn’s hands in his and kissed them. “I’ve missed you so.”
A small smile played on Ashryn’s lips. “I’ve missed you as well.”
“Enough of this. What is it that you want? Tell me and be gone back to wherever it was that you came from.” The queen waved a dismissive hand toward Ashryn.
“I want Kylian.” She turned away from her father toward her mother. “And you will give him to me.”
A bark of humorless laughter burst from the queen’s lips. “He’s in the dungeon and my prisoner. You will have no such thing.”
“You’re being unreasonable,” Ash spoke through thinned lips.
The queen pointed toward her crown. “Queen; I don’t have to be reasonable.”
“I am going to use that line,” Nova muttered under her breath. “You know, for future arguments. It’s sound logic.”
“Now, be gone. We will have dinner soon.” She didn’t even look at Ashryn. This baffled me because she was clearly hurt by her daughter leaving, yet she never said so. There was an underlying tension between them, not the kind of tension I had between my father and myself. This was more like they were two sides of the same coin, and neither would budge.
“My dear, night has fallen.” The king strolled up to Ashryn and put his arm around her shoulders, giving her a little squeeze. “Surely a meal and a good night’s sleep is in order.”
“Fine, but at first light you will be gone.” The queen rose to her feet. “Colette, show them to their rooms.” She looked us all over and wrinkled her nose. “And have them change into something… just… better.”
Colette sauntered into the room with easy fluid movements. Her sharp blue eyes examined us from head to toe. She stopped just in front of the queen and clasped her hands in front of her, waiting. I didn’t see her as courtier in the queen’s court. No, this elf was something more. She was a warrior. It was evident in her brown leather vest and matching skirt. A dagger rested in the belt on her side and another in the side of her boot. Two things occurred to me in that moment. The queen didn’t trust us, and Colette was here to watch us and take us out if need be.
She tossed her straight blond hair over her shoulder and gave me a deadpan look. “This way.”
Friendly, super friendly. If she doesn’t stab me in my sleep.
Chapter 19
Astrid
Walking through the castle was like being in the land of Oz or Jumanji. Plants wound through the smooth architecture that was a mix of ultra-modern and greenhouse magic. Those little sprite-looking things buzzed up around the halls, leaving glitter dust everywhere. Diamond lanterns hung at sporadic intervals down the hall, bathing it in a warm blue light that caught on the silver castle and bathed the lush green plants in shining light. If we weren’t on a mission to save Logan, I could spend days here, just feeling the deep earthen magic that seeped from every inch of this place.
I followed behind Colette toward a wing of the castle that seemed miles from the throne room. The hall dead-ended into a flat wall that seemed to be the only one in the castle without a window. On the left side of the hall were two sets of double doors. Each of them was made of a darker metal, covered with light, swirling silver etchings.
Colette pointed toward the doors, and said, “Split up. There are two beds in each.”
She turned to look at me. “And use the closets to your advantage; the queen commands it.”
“Hey,” I said and glanced down at the dresses I had made with my magic, “they aren’t that bad.”
Colette made a show of looking me up and down. “Yes, my little niece has one just like it. You have ten minutes to dress and get to the dining hall.”
Ouch.
Both doors flew open, and the four of us hesitated. Nova pointed to the door farthest down the hall. “Ash and I will take that one.”
She turned and headed for the doors before Beckett and I could say a word. I shrugged, walked through the door, and froze. Two beds? Nope. Only one bed—one very, very big bed. It was a four-poster bed with a gauzy white canopy hanging around the bed from the posts. The material shimmered without even moving. My eyes widened. “Nice bed.”
Beckett closed the doors behind us then moved to my side. “It is.”
Tension hung in the air between us, and I didn’t know if I should throw myself at him or turn the other way. Ten minutes; we only have ten minutes, I reminded myself before I launched myself at him. Up until earlier today, I was drained from the whole dying thing and then the fight. But now, I felt like I could lift a train with my power, and I hadn’t been close enough to him since he risked his soul to save mine.
He pointed toward a door on the other side of the room. “Closet, I think?”
I watched him stroll away from me, and my eyes lingered on his long legs, trim waist, and wide shoulders. There was something beautiful about Beckett that I couldn’t turn away from, and I didn’t want to.
He disappeared into the closet, and a second later he called out to me. “Um, Astrid… you might want to come here.”
“What’s the matter, can’t find anything to…” My words died off as soon as I joined him in the closet.
On the left side were women’s clothes, except all of them were just… revealing. This was no Lord of the Rings movie, and I was not even sure how some of these outfits would work on me. I reached to the side and pulled a vibrant burgundy dress from the rack. My eyes widened. It was a halter dress with a deep-cut “V” in the front and no back. High slits were cut into both sides of the dress. “Ummm.”
He chuckled. “I think that’s the more covered-up option.”
Then he turned and grabbed a long jacket from the rack on the right. He held it up to me. It was almost a perfect match in color to my dress, but it had thick metal pieces on the shoulders and down the front of the lapels, like armor. There was a single pair of matching leather trousers. He arched his eyebrow at me. “No shirt?”
“Is this dinner or a strip club?”
He groaned, “Don’t remind me.”
He moved a step closer, lingering over me long enough for his clean fresh scent to envelop me. “The next time you decide to wear that little silver stripper get up, it’ll be my lap you’re dancing on.”
Yes, yes I will. I swallowed down the excitement at having him this close. I shook the dress at him and headed toward the door. “I’ll just go get changed.”
He took a small step to the side and pulled his shirt over his head, revealing all that tan skin and those flat abs, and my brain scrambled for a hot second. He chuckled. “Yeah, me too.”
I hurried out the door, fanning myself on the way. He was like a flame, and I was the freaking moth. At some point I was gonna fly right into it. The question was, did I really want to stop myself? My dress dropped easily from my shoulders, and I ditched my bra. I stepped into the other dress and only had to fasten the choker collar around my neck to hold up the whole dress. I fastened a belt around my hips to hold it closer to my body so I wouldn’t flash anything from the slits in the side of the dress. Even so, I felt exposed. The back of the dress dipped so low, I thought I was going to show my ass crack. The front showed off my navel and most of my cleavage. I wasn’t sure, but it felt like a bad joke to be wearing this here. A sharp breath came from behind me, and I whirled around to find Beckett standing there, staring at me.
His jaw dropped open. “I take it back.”
“Take what back?” I smoothed my hand over my hair.
“For my lap dance, I want you to be wearing that.” His eyes roamed over me from head to toe, and I almost felt naked in front of him. Yet, the thought of that didn’t bother me. He took a step toward me, and I was ready to lose the dress and whatever els
e he wanted to take from me.
A loud knock came from the door. “Dinner is served.”
Beckett hesitated, he straightened his coat, and cleared his throat. “Better get going.”
He pressed his hand to the small of my bare back, and a jolt shot through me. The air sizzled between us, and I leaned into him. This is not going to go well.
Chapter 20
Maze
“No, you can’t come with me!”
Ophelia stuck her tongue out at me and crossed her arms over her chest. “Next time I go on an outing, I’m not inviting you.”
“The Circus of Freaks isn’t a freaking play date.” Tilly kicked at me, yet it didn’t hurt— didn’t even make a dent. I jerked her to my side and wound my arm around her, holding her in place.
“So says you.” Ophelia turned around and started marching away from the small clearing in the middle of the woods in front of our house. Was she really throwing a temper tantrum because I refused to take her to a place seeped in dark magic?
“No one lets me have any fun. Get thrown a couple times, have a fight with a demon, but noooooooo, Ophelia, you can’t come to the circus.” She muttered a string of vile curses, all while stomping through the woods.
Cross sighed and smacked his hand against the side of his jeans like he was dusting them off instead of letting out his frustrations. “Great, just great. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You couldn’t just let her go to the damn circus? Now Imma have to hunt something or do like hours of training, and let me tell you, my abs still hurt from the last time she decided we needed a workout. That was days ago, dude.”
I groaned, “Since when did we all get like, ‘Hey family trip to the circus of freaks, where we may or may not die or end up imprisoned in something awful for life?’ I don’t have time for this.”
“She just got the crap kicked out of her for your demon soulmate…” Cross’ gold eyes sparked with annoyance.
Tilly hissed in his direction and tried to wriggle out of my grip. I held her tighter. Cross hissed back at her, “You don’t scare me.”
“Because you lie with that one.” Tilly nodded in Ophelia’s direction. “Nothing should scare you.”
“Well, it doesn’t. So come at me, baby demon.” Burgundy smoke slipped from Cross’ hands.
“Dude, come on,” I snapped, getting his attention. “Leave her be.”
“Whatever, man, that’s your problem now.” His brows furrowed and the muscle in his jaw ticked. “I gotta go try to make O feel better. And trust me, it’s gonna hurt me more than it’s gonna hurt any of you.”
“We all agreed to help.” I couldn’t take them to my home to let them see the shame that I grew up with. Ophelia grew up in a castle, Cross in one of the richest homes in all of Evermore. And me? I grew up in a freaking tent.
“Never mind, man.” Cross turned and followed Ophelia. I instantly regretted saying no to them. If they wanted to see my shithole of a childhood, who was I to say no? I’d seen theirs through all my visions. I groaned to myself. At some point, I’d have to bring them, but for now, I’d take my soulmate to the one person who might be able to help me get her back. I opened the pocket of my pants and let my magic summon the card I was looking for. Green smoke poured from my hands, and the card flew up toward my fingertips.
Tilly’s arm shot out, and she caught the card before it could come to me. What the hell was it with my cards? No one could touch them, not ever, and yet she toyed with them like they were playthings.
I snapped my fingers for it. “Hand it over.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, hesitated for a moment, then flicked it in my direction like she was chucking ninja throwing stars at me. But I’d been playing with them longer than she ever had. I easily caught it between my pointer and middle finger. “Thanks.”
She shrugged and gazed off in another direction like the game had only begun. Are we playing games, my Til? Sure, I’d captured her, but would such a cagey creature stay captured, or was this the calm before the storm to come? She barely struggled against the bindings; even now she was still beside me. Something inside of me dreaded to find out if this was indeed a game of hers, but then, a hidden dark place, deep beside the hole where my soul should’ve been, wanted to know more. The curiosity made this moment all the more intriguing. My Tilly, the real Tilly, was buried in there, and I would play whatever game I had to in order to bring her out and have her back. I gave her a sideways glance, and my powers began to take over. The words from the card filtered through my head.
I am The Fool, dare a journey with me...
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Work your magic again.” I threw the card down at the crystals I’d already spread on the ground. It smacked into them, and a rippling portal shot upward. It looked like a puddle of water standing on its side with a hint of my green magic. My card soared back into my pocket. I held tight to Tilly. I leapt through, and she yanked at our manacles, yet my magic held strong. We were going through the portal faster than I’d intended, and when we popped out on the other side, we came out at a run.
“Weeeee!” Tilly jogged in a circle around me then came to a stop and yanked at the cuff. My arm nearly came out of the socket, yet I was able to pull her back.
I yanked her back to my chest just as I felt the air move to my side. Not again. Tilly’s arm shot up, and she caught a knife sailing right for her temple. She held it there for just a moment, then with one hand, she bent the blade in half and dropped it to the ground.
“Ma! You do not just throw knives at my sou—friend.” I let Tilly step away from me and turned to the side to face off against my mother.
“What girl is worthy who can’t catch a little knife?”
My mother stood in the middle of the empty field, the moonlight shining overhead bathing her in gray light. Dark shadows passed over the field, and when I looked up, I saw it was the clouds moving across the sky. Lights from the circus glared beyond the trees to the right of us. The distorted sound of the music carried on the air along with the voices of humans in awe to be at the Circus of Freaks.
“The kind of girl who doesn’t have them thrown at her.” I wanted to look Tilly over from head to toe for a scratch, but she just stood there, studying my mother—not the same way she looked at Ophelia, but with more open curiosity.
“Then not worthy, but this one… she is different.” She motioned to Tilly. “Not what I saw for you.”
“You’ve seen her?” My mother, though a hard woman, possessed a fraction of my powers. My visions came from the Castalia bloodline; they came from her.
She took long strides to get to my side. She looked at Tilly’s lack of shoes and clothing, the handcuffs between us, then toward the circus. “Not what I expected. Come along.”
She turned away from me and tossed her tangled mess of midnight and gray hair over her shoulder. It was pulled back from her face and fell in a single long twist down her back.
“What did you expect with her?” I glanced from Tilly, who seemed to be silently taking everything in, to my mother.
She glanced at me over her shoulder and arched her eyebrows at me. Heavy makeup covered her face, dark coal lined her eyes, bright red rouged her cheeks, and obnoxious red lipstick colored her lips. It was so much bolder than the last time I’d seen her, but it was now nighttime, and this was business time for her, so of course she was in full show regalia.
“I expected more… pep.” Her words carried the heavy Spanish accent of our Castalia ancestors.
She’d seen visions of the old Tilly, then. “We’ll see what’s to be done.”
“If anything can be done.” She tugged on the bottom of her corset, straightening it, ensuring that her saloon-girl pirate-captain look was well in place. In reality, she was the ringmaster of all this, and the corset, leather pants, and pirate-like boots that hung loosely around her calves were part of the show.
I’d seen magic do incredible things. It saved Tilly from death; it would save her from demon blood
too. “It will be.”
As we trudged through the thin line of trees into the circus grounds, I was staggered to see how many people were running and screaming their way through my mother’s little enterprise. “Raking it in, I see.”
She shrugged. “We have our good days.”
This kind of place was like a drug to humans. They thought they were in for something fun and deviant, perhaps a little dark and daring. Little did they know, they all courted death by being here. This carnival was full of the lowest of the low in Evermore. My mother ran it, and my father stayed with her because of it and because her name gave him the status he so clearly craved.
A dilapidated merry-go-round groaned and creaked, and a high-pitched squeaking sound pierced my ears. Tilly shrank away from the sound, covering her ears and hissing at it. Yet people still waited in line to sit on the damn thing like it was the next greatest American Horror Story. The plastic horses children would ride were falling apart. In some cases, they looked they like they were about to die. Tilly made a move to swipe at one of the passing horses, and the people just laughed. I yanked her back. “Claws in, sunflower.”
She stiffened against me, so I let her go. When she didn’t move, I gave my hand a little tug to keep her from walking. Threadbare tents made two lines facing each other, essentially forming a main street for the exhibits. To my right, a line of humans waited to see the wolf boy in action. Though I couldn’t see the shifter, I heard his howls. I rolled my eyes. Matteaus would have a field day with this place. Humans purposely exposed to magic was illegal as hell, yet my parents didn’t seem to give a flying shit. An older woman, dressed in stereotypical long rags and shining glitter, sat at a table offering humans psychic readings. I scoffed. No self-respecting witch would do that. But the trash here at the circus would in a minute. A wall of potions lined her stall. Potions to humans—way illegal.
A man stumbled from the succubus tent, fastening his pants, looking disheveled as hell. He staggered into our path, and his eyes locked on the cuffs between Tilly and me. He came even closer to her—too close—only inches from her face. “Hey, beautiful, I’ll let you chain me up anytime.”
Wicked Curse (The Royals: Warlock Court Book 4) Page 12