by Ella Fields
Merelda’s brows creased at that, deepening the lines upon her face. She had to be twice my mother’s age, her impatience proving that beyond her looks. “A tea party with the elves? What in the star-forsaken crud do you mean?”
“You didn’t hear?” Gwenn said. “They have been telling anyone who’ll listen. Beshal is mighty thrilled with herself. The black swan”—she wandered over to a mound of dough and plucked up a rolling pin—“dining with the elves, here to save us all.”
Merelda’s displeasure returned at that, and she hissed over her shoulder at the pixie. “The only thing you’ll need saving from is that rolling pin meeting your forehead if you talk such nonsense again.”
Nonsense? Saving them all was indeed a stretch. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to even bed the king, let alone lure him into a pretend game of love that might soften his heart.
“But the prophecy—”
Merelda clicked her fingers, and the pixie’s voice disappeared. Gwenn frowned, her lips still moving, then stamped her foot and scrunched her face before storming out into a leafy garden beyond an open arched door.
With a loaded sigh, Merelda watched her go, then looked back at me. I knew that look, had seen it upon many a face during my short life, so I braced myself—chin up, shoulders squared, fingers linked before me, and a small, patient smile in place.
“Child,” the cook, head cook I was guessing, started. “A warning to you, if I may?” It might have been a question, but it was worded as a warning.
Still, I nodded, my eyes trained on her stern brown gaze.
“I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know what you’ve got tucked up your silken sleeve, but I will say this—he might be infatuated, but he is still a king, and to usurp a king, especially one as powerful and revered as he…” She puckered her lips, tossing her towel over her shoulder. “The consequences would ripple for generations to come. This must end with yours. With him. No one else needs to bear what he has been forced to.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, and honestly at that, for even though I’d contemplated it, I knew I could not kill him, knew I’d need to turn the blade on myself after if it came to that. “He brought me here, and as much as I wish to leave, I can’t. I can’t because there’s…” I stopped and swallowed, releasing a slow exhale.
“There’s little to return to. It’s all perishing.” She said what I could not, not unkindly but in an even tone that spoke of no mercy and brutal facts. “Your land, your wealth, and those you love.”
Again, I nodded. “I do want to fix this,” I admitted, a little uneasy for doing so. “I do, but I don’t know how, and I am no murderer.” My words held more grit than I’d intended.
“Like Dade is,” Merelda said, brows high.
I drew in a sharp breath, knowing this was going nowhere and that perhaps the little I could do would go nowhere too. “Do not worry.” I smiled faintly. “For I can save no one.” My chest constricted at hearing those words out loud. “And your king is well aware of that.”
Merelda studied me for a moment, then tilted her head. With another sigh, she crossed to a basket of fresh fruit and plucked out a mandarin. “You might not be able to save anyone, but I hear you like fruit.”
Stunned, I watched as her warm hand took mine and placed the mandarin in my palm. She closed my fingers over it. “A monster will forever be a monster, you beautiful fool, so quit losing sleep.” With a pat on my hand, she released me, murmuring quietly as she drifted back to the counter. “But do remember that even the most violent of beasts can be brought to heel.”
The cook’s words stayed with me as I wove through the halls to the library tucked away in the long, narrow parlor beyond the grand staircase. A fire was crackling in the hearth, stalling my steps outside the open doors, but I sensed no one inside.
Tame him. It was evident that the cook, who I supposed knew this beastly king the stars had tied me to well, believed something was in him that many people—perhaps merely my own—could not see.
Trying to comprehend that when all I could see was blood spray and all I could hear were screams and the scent of smoke and the dead was impossible, yet… something told me I wouldn’t be standing here if that were not true. I would not be roaming shelves that towered from the floor to the ceiling, branch-made ladders leaning against rows to reach the higher shelves, if I thought all was lost.
I’d have gone home to spend what little time we had with what remained of my family and friends.
Edging a thin gray novel from the shelf closest to the fire, I grinned at the faded title. A Love and A Lie. Rounding the piano, I set it upon the small stack I’d made on the oak table that had been marked by many a hot teacup, and then I stilled.
Fine hairs rose at the base of my neck. Gooseflesh pebbled my arms, and my every sense pricked, on high alert. The parlor had two entry points—the first sealed by two giant armchairs, the second the way I’d entered. I could move them, or I could face whomever it was out in the hall.
Or I could sit down and wait for them to appear.
I chose to collect the books and leave the way I’d arrived. As foolish as it might have been, I had faced worse, surely…
The hall was mercifully empty.
Yet when I rounded the stairs, I heard soft footfalls from behind and spun around.
No one was there, but the black tapestry, a white wolf with wings of flame howling at the glowing full satin moon, swayed.
And the scent of earth. Sweat and earth.
Tucking that knowledge away, I took the stairs at my usual swift stride, perhaps walking a tad faster, and nearly tripped on the steps leading up to my rooms when I felt someone behind me.
I turned at the top, my heart beating in my throat, and found no one there as I carefully slunk backward toward an alcove housing a statue. I bumped into it, cursing when it teetered and spinning fast to right it.
A hand fell upon my hip, warmth heating my back, and I swallowed a scream. The books raised in both hands, I whirled, ready to strike them over the head.
Then Dade’s voice blew soft against my cheek. “Have I ruffled your feathers, my pretty swan?” He laughed when my breath shook its way past my lips, catching the books before they toppled to the floor. “What in the stars were you planning to do with these? Book-bludgeon me to death?”
Snatching them back, I thwacked him in the chest with one. An attempt to make him back up a step or ten. An attempt that failed.
“Don’t you have innocent people to slaughter?” My cheeks burned, and I refused to meet his eyes, choosing instead to stare at his throat. The fine hairs that dusted it, crawling up and over that fiercely hewn chin.
“I’ve already crossed that off my to-do list,” he stated with such irritating indifference that I wished I had hit him with the poor books. “I wanted to see you.” I blinked when he carefully caught my hand. He placed it over my still pounding heart, his fingers, his entire hand, overlapping mine. “Your heart races.”
So large that hand, as it sat there a moment, and I lost the little control I’d had, finally meeting his blue eyes.
They were a bright turquoise, watching his hand leave mine to travel up my chest to wrap around my throat. “Such a delicate, perfect neck.” His voice was an edged caress. “Why, some would call it swan-like.” He grinned then, wicked and every inch the wolf he was, and then it faded from his eyes as they fell upon my lips. “I wanted to see you yesterday. The urge to lay eyes upon you a burn that never ceased. But I knew.” That huge hand tightened for a second, then slackened, his thumb brushing my thrumming pulse. “I could sense that you were not ready. Your shame, your self-loathing… it keeps you from me.”
“Dade—”
“I wish to lick you,” he groaned, effectively muting my meek protest. “Here.” His hold on my neck loosened, his touch crawling slowly to my chest. “These,” he rasped, fingers tickling the bare mounds of my breasts before dragging down to my stomach. “Here.” His hand roamed ove
r my hip, sliding over the bone and moving down to my ass. He squeezed it, groaned deep, and set fire to my veins. “Here. And lastly…” His eyes connected with mine, a darkening storm on the cusp of downpour within as he cupped me hard, and I shuddered. “Here. I want so badly to taste you again, to take my time with you, to savor every morsel of greedy need this pretty cunt will spill over my tongue.”
Trapped within the imagery of all he’d described, I could do nothing but begin to burn and stare into those intense eyes. He gazed back, waiting, watching, wanting. His desire clouded the air I struggled to inhale, the musky wood growing thicker with every second, and I forced myself to blink.
I found my voice, barely, and found it was embarrassingly breathy, whispering, “You cannot just say…” I swallowed. “All of that.”
I tried to peer around his shoulder, praying we were alone as I’d thought but not knowing for sure. His lips curved. “Why? It’s true, and I know you’ll enjoy it just as much as me.”
Reaching between us, I removed his hand from me. I had to before I did something else foolish—like rock into it to feed the hunger he’d stoked to life.
The king watched me, brows hovering low over his eyes. Before he could goad me into anything else, I blurted, “Where have you been?”
He sighed as if I’d woken him from a good dream. “Nowhere important.”
Right. Staring at him, hoping some of the heat beneath my skin would recede, I waited for him to move. It didn’t, and he didn’t, so I huffed and ducked past him.
“What were you so afraid of?” he asked when I neared my rooms. “Just now when I returned? I won’t delude myself into believing it’s still me.”
“I don’t fear you.” I walked faster and opened the door. “But I do despise you,” I said primly, then slammed it behind me.
I heard his laughter and his words through the wood I leaned back against, trying to catch my breath. “Indeed, you’re all I fantasize about too, mate.”
The beginning of a smile wriggled my lips. I scolded myself and dumped the books upon the nightstand.
I woke with a heaving gasp.
A fine layer of sweat covered me from head to toe, my nightgown sticking to my body while my heart thrashed and wailed.
Inside the lukewarm bath, I sat with my knees tucked to my chest, watching the sun slowly chase away night and waiting for the remnants of my nightmare to fade. Beasts of blood and shadow and dagger-like teeth rolled into velvet green hillsides with children running, smiling, then screaming as those shadows crested the valleys and covered everything in crimson and night.
It was no nightmare, and that was what made it all the more terrifying.
In the gardens, I wandered through the dew-dotted grass, discovering plants I’d never encountered in our lands, yet with an inhale, I found I knew them all the same. Before the vegetable garden that ate a good portion of the western side of the castle grounds were two long rows of medicinal plants, herbs, and spices.
It was no secret our healers were being used by their armies, but seeing it and some of the plants from our land made it all the more sobering.
The Keep was quiet when I returned, marigolds and thinsilver tucked within the long, flowing sleeves of my sky-blue dress. The bodice was loose, the velvet covering the chest area shifting and sliding in a way that might have felt slightly improper back home as if it were a nightgown or paint smock.
But I was far away from home, and I found I quite liked the freeing cotton fluttering around my ankles. It was as though whoever created it had thought to bring nightwear to daywear and had found the perfect balance.
I knew such things were usually created by the gold Fae, but I was no longer naïve enough to believe the crimson did not have talented dressmakers of their own. I made a mental note to ask Gwenn the next time I saw her.
A russet-haired faerie, one of whom I’d not seen before, waded past me as I rounded the stairs to the foyer inside. I nodded, offering a brief smile, but she did not look up to meet my eyes. In her hands, her trembling hands, I noticed, was a pail.
And bloodstains on her apron. Fresh, I discovered when I inhaled.
Stars. What horrors was he unleashing now? And upon his staff? They seemed to respect him. Feared him most certainly. But I couldn’t deny the awe and loyalty of his people.
My hand squeezed the marble railing. I told myself to leave it alone. I wasn’t here to ensure his staff was well taken care of. I shouldn’t have been here at all.
A clang sounded from somewhere deeper within the Keep, and heartbeats after it, another whiff of blood. My feet carried me off the bottom step and down the hall that contained room after room, most of them grand and unoccupied, and eventually, took me to the kitchens.
Losing the scent, I backtracked, knowing all too well that Dade wouldn’t have lost it. He’d have already found the source with senses far more powerful than most of us. The irksome knowledge only fueled my quest to discover what had happened, so I turned back and found a closed door halfway down the hall. It wasn’t locked.
Knowing I was alone, for now, I opened and closed it behind me, shrouding myself in total darkness.
Bright light flared from my fingertips, and I found myself inside another hallway. A hallway just as beautiful as the one I’d vacated seconds before. So why, I wondered, was it so dark? And spelled, I realized, warded to keep the groans I could hear coming from the other end from seeping out into the Keep. I followed the noise, the rancid scents of death, blood, and other bodily fluids, down into the slow-sloping darkness.
The air grew colder with each step down the cleverly hidden ramp masquerading as a hall. A sharp turn at the end, followed immediately by another, and I shielded my eyes, the warmth in my fingers snuffed. Flames danced in sconces upon the walls of what appeared to be a dungeon. Cells, iron-barred cells, all of them empty save for the ghosts of souls long perished, lined one of the long stone walls of the narrow space.
On the other side, chains and other torture devices hung from the stone and the ceiling in at least ten different places, and in the center, chained to the ceiling and the floor, his arms and legs flayed wide, was a swollen eyed, bloodied prince.
“Heddo?” he mumbled around the metal gag strapped to his mouth. “Who ’ere? Who?” His head whipped side to side as though he could see where I was. But he couldn’t see, or else he’d have known I was now standing right in front of him, my fingers pressed to my mouth and my stomach sinking to my toes.
Prince Bron was hardly recognizable. If it weren’t for his scent, smothered as it was beneath the sweat, blood, and other less than appealing fluids, then perhaps I wouldn’t have even known it was him.
Where have you been?
Nowhere important.
My teeth snapped together.
The chains clanged, and Bron moaned, a sound akin to a blubbering wail following, snot and blood exiting his nostrils. I backed up, unable to remove my eyes from the ribbons of blood covering him, the cuts, deep gashes, and bruises and the recently cleaned space on the floor beneath him.
I had to help him. He’d tried to have me without my permission. Against my will. He might have been heavily intoxicated, but I wouldn’t make excuses for him.
He was just as much a monster as the creature who’d rescued me from him.
Yet surely I couldn’t just leave him to die.
But I couldn’t make my feet move or find a way to help him either.
Tears threatened, but my eyes remained dry. Slowly, I waded back out of the haunted, narrow cave made for pain and murder until those shadows again collected and darkened with each turn.
At the closed door, I waited. I waited until I heard footsteps pass, Gwenn’s voice and laughter intermingling with another’s and eventually fading on the other side.
Then I returned to my rooms, where I sat on my pretty bed and stared at my useless hands.
Dade
Snot-nosed princelings are not so easy to steal but easily lured.
; I caught ours the morning before returning to find my swan in the hall outside our rooms—the mere sight of the arrogant fuck’s face enough to make my blood boil when I thought of how she’d allowed his unworthy lips to grace hers.
I’d given the warriors instructions, then I’d warped back to the Keep to lay eyes upon Opal. Which had nearly earned me a book to the face.
I still smirked at the thought of her using a book as a weapon. She could fight, most definitely, yet she so often forgot her own strength in the face of fear.
The prince had been sent a letter from a friend of mine who excelled at imitating handwriting. A letter from my dear Opal stated she was on the run and requested to meet with her alone near the Well of Wishes. The ancient well sat a few miles from the border between Sinshell and Errin, deep enough into Sinshell’s land that the human soldiers did not see us coming.
And neither did the prince. Although he was idiot enough to believe the letter’s contents, he wasn’t so stupid as to arrive on his own.
His eight comrades were now sea dragon bait thanks to legion three, and after watching in horror as they’d flown over the cliffs to dump his men into the Night Sea, the prince had little choice.
He’d glared at me, indignant even as fear rolled off him in a putrid wave. “W-what do you want?”
I’d grinned. “I thought you’d never fucking ask.” Then I’d knocked him out with a fist to the face before instructing my uncle to see to the prince’s delivery to my dungeon.
What I wanted was his guts oozing between my bloodied fingers, my talons still embedded in his stomach. What I wanted was to devour my swan in front of him, to show him what it was to have her be a willing participant, to show him that he’d never, not in this life or any after, know what that was truly like.
What I wanted was his fucking head on a pike atop my keep, but I could not be hasty. No, I’d take my time in getting there. I would savor every moment and make him regret the day he first laid eyes upon my mate with extreme care and attention to every fine detail.