The memory took root in my mind and grew more vivid, until I felt myself dancing and twirling along with the others, exhilarated by the music pounding through my blood, drops of dandelion wine on my lips. Lights floated above us, twinkling in the skies.
I hadn’t needed a man, but it was nice to dance with them.
And among the guests, among the flurry of faces, I glimpsed a newly familiar one—a powerful fae with an angelic face and eyes the pure blue of a Mediterranean sky.
The cold sank through my muscles and bones until I was sure I was pure ice. Was I dying in here? The water would envelop me and pull me deeper.
In the dark water, I caught a glimpse of long, white limbs, hair pale as snow, fingers straining for me. The shock of it snapped me out of my memories.
One of the dancers had followed me into the portal. Her bony hand gripped tightly to my ankle, fingernails piercing my skin. A long tongue shot out of her mouth, lashing the skin on my thighs. Sharp pain followed, shooting up my leg.
Chapter 10
A pair of strong arms pulled me out of the seawater, and I looked up into the golden face of the Ankou. In some twisted way, it was a relief to see him.
When I looked down at the portal, I saw the snow-white hag climbing out of the water, a hungry look in her red eyes. The pale creature had followed me all the way through.
The Ankou dropped me on his bed, my back resting on his pillows. My underwear was still iced to my body, hair frozen to my shoulders. My limbs had gone numb apart from the shooting pain in my legs where the wraith had licked me.
In a daze, I watched as the Ankou grabbed the snow wraith by her neck and pulled her from the portal.
Then, in a startlingly fast movement, he twisted her head sharply. The crack of bone echoed off the stone arches above us.
The creature’s neck jutted out at an odd angle, and her red eyes dimmed to black. The Ankou dropped her limp body back into the portal. Once her corpse sank under the surface, the portal disappeared within the silver ring. The floor smoothed over into flat sandstone.
My breath puffed through my chattering teeth.
The Ankou turned and looked down at me, his prisoner.
“I h-h-h-hate you s-s-s-s-so much,” I managed.
His attention was fixed on my thigh. Beneath my tan skin, it looked like my veins had been poisoned by a dark toxin. No wonder it hurt like the dickens.
The Ankou climbed onto the bed, staring at my legs, and then he climbed between them. He gripped the poisoned thigh. The dark blood was climbing higher up my body, moving to my hip. Fire shot through my veins, my nerve endings ignited.
“Don’t touch me,” I said through gritted teeth. The fury I managed to convey surprised even me. It was the wrath of a queen and not a frozen, half-naked wretch.
Apparently, it surprised him, too, because he pulled his hand away like I’d burned him.
Then, his deep blue eyes met mine. “If I don’t, the poison will kill you within thirty seconds.”
This was where Giles Corey would say more poison.
Except … screw Giles Corey. I was pretty sure he’d beaten one of his servants to death. He made terrible decisions.
“Fine,” I said at last. “Do your healing thing.”
He gripped my poisoned thigh tightly. With his other hand, he began to trace a slow circle over my skin. One of his hands was a vise on my thigh, the other light as a dandelion puff.
I wasn’t using my Morgen magic now, and yet I got a glimpse of how I looked to him. A quick flicker of how he saw me—breasts straining against the wet tank top, nipples hard, cheeks flushed, my legs spread a little, lips parted as I looked up at him. He was trying his best to resist his desire for me, trying to remind himself that my innocent appearance belied a dangerous spirit.
He swooped another circle over my thigh.
Slowly, the pain subsided, the fire simmering down. I sighed audibly as his magic danced over my body.
For a moment, his deep blue eyes were locked on mine, looking distinctly troubled. Then he focused on my thigh again. My pulse started to race as he leaned down. He pressed his warm mouth against my thigh, his tongue moving against my skin. My back arched a little at the sensation. He was going to suck the poison out.
As the pain subsided, a pleasurable warmth washed over me. No, not just warmth—an animal craving. Heat was moving up my thigh, toward the apex of my legs as the toxins left my body. My breath hitched. All at once, I was acutely aware of the feel of the wet clothes against my skin, as if my breasts were growing heavy and swelling against the wet cotton.
Stop it, Aenor.
It felt like warm water was spilling over my cold skin. All the pain was disappearing, replaced by a new, more disturbing sensation: a burning need for him. My body was ripe with aching desire. His long hair brushing against my thighs was like a sexual torture, his lips moving against my thigh.
What was wrong with me?
I tried to ignore the raging desire. And yet my gaze lingered over his powerful warrior’s shoulders. I felt my chest and cheeks flushing, and molten lust spiraled out of control.
The entirety of my attention had narrowed to the feel of his mouth on my thigh. The ice was melting right off my body as my skin heated, curls of steam rising. Gods, please tell me he won’t see my flushed chest. That would be the only thing worse than enjoying this. If I lost control and let out a moan of desire, I could already imagine the smug smile he’d flash his little captive.
Another stroke of his tongue, and electric shivers rippled through me. I’m pretty sure my hips moved. Gods have mercy.
I hated men. I needed to remember that.
Crush your desire for him, Aenor.
I forced myself to think of Giles Corey—a bloated old man crushed by the weight of rocks, his swollen tongue sticking out. Total passion killer.
At that moment, the Ankou pulled his mouth away and spit the poison onto the floor.
Good. Okay. My breath was slowing, and we had spit and Giles Corey.
I tore my gaze away from his perfect face to look at my leg. The dark poison had started to disappear.
“It’s done,” I said through a clenched jaw. “You’ve done enough. Do not touch me anymore, and keep your hands and lips off me in the future, or I will cut them off.”
Just as before, he pulled his hands away like he’d been stung. Still, he snarled, “You’re welcome.”
All at once, the ice returned to my body, and my muscles seized up.
“What was that thing?” I asked through chattering teeth.
“Leanhaum-shee. That’s what that creature was. They have venomous tongues. Beira let you live, just about.”
Shivering, I said, “I want you to know that I have not enjoyed my time here so far, and I despise you very much.”
He pressed his hands on either side of my head, leaning down. His gaze slid over my bare skin like a caress. I knew that as much as he hated me, he liked how I looked. “You need to warm up.”
“Well, well,” I murmured. “You’re as perceptive as you are pretty. Was it my frozen hair that gave it away? Take the bindings off me or I will find a way to kill you with my mind.”
“We’ve established that I can return from the dead.”
“I will scourge you over and over,” I seethed. “And I will make it hurt.”
“I’m going to turn you over to get the bindings off.”
Without his magic, my muscles were frozen stiff. “I can barely move.”
He shifted me onto my side, facing away from him. I stared at the night sky outside. The setting sun had nearly slipped down past the horizon, a sliver of pumpkin under a blackberry sky.
My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.
I felt a strong tug as he ripped the bindings off my wrists, and I brought my hands in front of me to try to rub them, but my fingers weren’t moving properly. Next thing I knew, he was wrapping me in a soft blanket and pulling me into his lap. He held me against his hot chest, and I felt h
is heart pounding against the blanket.
As much as I loathed him to his core, I found my head resting against his shoulder. His body was warmer than the bed. I breathed in the scent of almonds. “Men are worthless.”
“I’m trying to warm you.” He pulled me in tight, close to his body.
My throat felt like sandpaper, and I glanced at a pitcher of water on the bedside table. Next to the water lay his arm sheath and dagger. I wasn’t sure which I wanted more, the water or the weapon.
I ran my tongue over my lips, tasting salt. Then I nodded at the pitcher. “I need water.”
He leaned over me, reaching for the pitcher of water, and poured it into a cup. He handed it to me, and I clutched my stiff fingers around it.
I didn’t think I’d ever been this close to a man for this long. I’d had precisely two sexual encounters in my long life, both quick and disappointing.
Now, if I had been the kind of person who got excited over hot guys, I would have been thinking about the Ankou’s bulging muscles, or the strange tattoos that marked his skin. My pulse would race at the thought of his perfect mouth so close to me. I’d be picturing my legs wrapped around his body.
What on earth was happening to me?
I sipped the water. Had water ever tasted so amazing? My hands shook a little. When I had drained the cup, he pulled it away from me.
“Look at you,” I said. “Showing kindness to a dirtling.”
“I need to keep you alive. And you’re still not warm enough.”
He lifted me and carried me across the floor into a new room—one with arched sandstone windows that overlooked the sea and ornate copper lanterns that hung from the ceiling. An enormous marble tub stood in the center of the room, and steam coiled from the water.
Heaven.
He lowered me to the ground, and I let the blanket drop. I climbed into the bath, letting out a sigh as warmth enveloped me. I leaned back against the smooth marble tub. At last, my muscles started to relax.
A thin stream of blood coiled from my chest where the Winter Witch had pierced me, and it turned the water around it pink.
I folded my arms around my legs. Had the Ankou really made good on his promise about Gina? “Tell me where Gina is,” I said.
“At The Savoy Hotel. We established that.”
In the bath, my white cotton underwear had become completely transparent. But the Ankou wasn’t looking at me anyway.
Instead, he leaned against the wall in the shadows, staring out the window at the ocean, arms folded. The light from the lanterns danced over the beautiful planes of his face.
“Do you need to be in here?” I asked.
“I need to make sure you don’t pass out and drown while you’re in the bath.”
I glanced at his blackened wound, just barely visible above his folded arms.
Now that I had a moment of quiet, I had to wonder exactly who I was dealing with here. The seneschals had said he was divine. I was starting to think they meant literally.
“You’re a demigod, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Was it the rising from the dead that gave it away?”
“What’s your name?”
“Lyr.”
Lyr. God of the sea. Like all gods, the sea god had many names, depending on the culture. Dagon, Lyr, Poseidon, Yamm, and so on. This man, the Ankou, had been named for his father … the god I worshipped. No wonder I’d felt compelled to worship him when I first met him by the Thames.
Of all the people to kill….
Chapter 11
For the briefest of moments, Lyr glanced at me, then his gaze quickly darted away like he’d been burned. He was trying very hard not to look at me nearly naked in the bath.
I hugged my legs closer to my body. “So, you’re half sea god and half fae.”
“Yes.”
A breeze from the open arches rushed into the bathroom and lifted strands of his hair. A key around his neck glinted in the warm light. I wondered how much money I could fetch for a prize like that—whatever it was.
“And what exactly is an Ankou?” I asked.
His deep blue eyes shifted to me. For the briefest of moments, his face seemed to change, stoking a primal terror in the depths of my skull.
His eyes blazed with divine gold, his crown growing longer and spindly. The black tattoos on his body glowed with gold, shifting around his chest like living creatures. Shadows swirled around him, and his powerful body radiated light. He looked so terrifying and godlike that my heart stuttered to a stop.
This was how he’d appeared to me when he’d abducted me from my bedroom, but I hadn’t been able to see him as clearly in the dark.
Then, the image was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and I loosed another breath.
“You don’t know what the Ankou is?” he asked. “Do you remember so little from Ys?”
“The island drowned over a century and a half ago. It’s been a long time. I remember some things.” I took a deep breath. “I remember the day it drowned most vividly. I remember how the land lurched, and the palace towers crumbled, the bells ringing and ringing and then falling silent, crushed under gold and cedar and marble. Along with many of our people. I remember the screams all around me as the island sank, and how it felt when my true magic was pulled from my chest. The things that happened before aren’t quite as vivid. But I take it you lived in my kingdom?”
“In Ys, I served your mother, the queen, and I served the sea god as a high priest in the temple of the dead. I still do. I travel into the sea hell and help souls find peace. I grant solace to the worthy.”
I tilted my head back, breathing in the heavy, steamy air. It smelled of sand, salt, and faintly of verbena. I never wanted to leave the bath, though I wished I could bathe alone. My eyes kept drifting to Lyr’s chest, which irritated me.
“Do you ever wear a shirt?” I asked.
“I still have iron in my blood, courtesy of you. The sea air helps it to heal.”
A sharp sting pierced my own chest, and I touched it. It occurred to me that the Winter Witch had hurt me in the exact same spot where I’d shot Lyr.
“What happens next?” I asked.
“You seem to be recovering. Next, you get dressed. At dinner, we will explain your task to you.”
He turned and crossed out of the room, leaving me with a few unanswered questions.
Specifically, what was I supposed to wear? And would Melisande be there to make me bash my head against a rock?
I rose from the bath, my skin now pink from the warm water. Bathwater dripped off my undies onto the stone floor. A pile of neatly folded cream towels lay on a marble sink, and I grabbed one of them to dry off.
Through the open windows, the breeze smelled like the Mediterranean—balmy and tinged with lemons.
I glanced at the archway that led back to Lyr’s room. Where did he expect me to change my clothes? I wasn’t getting dressed in front of him. Not only did I not want him to see me totally naked, but I didn’t want him seeing the scars under the tank top. Carved into my belly were the names of the demons who’d attacked me long ago, burned into my skin with iron.
What would the demigod think if he knew I’d been permanently defiled by demons?
I tucked the towel under my armpits and crossed back into the room with the bed. For the first time, I noticed all the bookshelves built into one of the walls across from the windows.
Lyr sat in a chair in the corner of the room, a book in his hand. He was still bare-chested, but he now wore a thin cloak over his shoulders.
He lifted his gaze from what he was reading. For one moment, his eyes burned with gold, and I could see his grip tightening on the book. “For the love of the gods, put some clothes on.”
“What clothes?”
“Behind you.”
I turned to find a gown on the bed. It was a deep blue, with tiny pearls inset into the delicate fabric. There wasn’t much fabric, either—a bodice that plunged down, and a slit in the front that w
ould expose one of my legs. Not the other, though. I could maybe make use of that discarded dagger and the sheath.
A pair of shoes lay by the dress, too: simple blue flats, not the heels I usually wore.
I turned and shot him a sharp look. “Will you close your eyes?”
“My eyes are on my book.”
“Good.”
I snatched the dress off the bed, then turned, glaring at him while I backed toward his bedside table. His eyes were, in fact, on his book.
Swiftly, I lifted the arm sheath—dagger included—off the table. I folded it into the dress.
“I’m going into the bathroom to change,” I added. “Stay where you are.”
With the weapon hidden, I slipped back into the bathroom. I dropped the towel, keeping my gaze trained on the door.
First, I slipped the dress on over my head. Where had it come from? Maybe it was Melisande’s.
In any case, the smooth silk slid over my skin, and I let out a long breath at how good it felt against my body.
I’d once worn dresses this fine every day. I’d once sat on a throne—
I bit my lip, reminding myself I couldn’t get used to luxury. I was only here for a short while, then it was back to life as a dirtling. I’d been a princess once, but I wasn’t now. I’d spent the last hundred years carving away the vulnerable parts of myself, and I couldn’t let myself go soft again. Attachment to luxury would make me weak again.
The important thing to remember here was that everyone in this beautiful palace wanted me dead or hurt. And that’s why this dagger might come in handy.
I glanced at myself in the mirror. The difference between the dresses I’d worn long ago and this particular number was that this one showed off much more of my body. Apparently, aristocratic fae fashion had changed over the years.
The dress didn’t leave me many options for concealing the arm sheath. I couldn’t use my arms. The large dress slit would likely expose both calves when I walked. One thigh would stay hidden. Lyr’s arms were huge, but would it really fit around my thigh? Not as it was.
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