Theda lifted her chin regally. “You stole the throne you sit upon, Portia. You and your partner, Marlon St. Just, murdered our people. You deserve punishment, not absolute control, the way you’ve plotted with this marriage of Keen Albrecht to Illa Radnor.”
Portia looked heavenward, and Reese sensed her annoyance. “St. Just is not my partner. Unlike you, I would never lower myself to an inferior consort.”
Marlon’s gaze shot to Portia. He looked longingly past her at Beatrice, who wouldn’t meet his eyes. “We have an agreement,” he said, loud enough for the room to hear.
“Oh, that.” Portia held out her arm, admiring the diamonds that winked along her red cloak. “Yes, well, it seems Princess Beatrice wishes a Fae union.”
Marlon’s face turned a mottled red, and he looked across the room toward Hakon Radnor.
“Do not look to me, child,” Hakon said. “You put my life and that of your sister in danger by releasing the virus in our land. Many suffered. Many died. I cannot protect you.”
Marlon took a step back, seemingly realizing for the first time how everyone looked at him. With hatred. With loathing. He had no allies. And he was in enemy territory, not the land of his dreams.
Reese’s presence might be undesired in New Kingdom, but Marlon was Halven enemy number one. He’d created the only disease able to affect Fae. Under Portia’s protection, he was safe, but she was turning her back on him.
Portia gave a subtle nod to Beatrice.
The strawberry blonde with the beautifully braided ponytail and deadly sword stepped back. She swung around her mother, and cut down Marlon where he stood.
Reese closed her eyes.
Marlon was a weasel. He’d captured her and sent her to this place. But he was also her half-brother. Portia had betrayed Marlon just as she’d betrayed Elena’s mother and so many others. Marlon should have stood trial, not been slaughtered before them.
Reese looked across the room to Hakon. He held his daughter’s hand, his expression stoic. His emotions were less so.
True sorrow rolled off the older Fae.
Beatrice used a cloth napkin from the table and wiped off her sword, dripping with Marlon’s blood. She returned to her mother’s side.
“You see, Theda,” Portia said, “I accede. St. Just’s methods were barbaric, and now he’s been dealt with.”
“He was not the only one who acted unjustly,” Theda said. “You supported and assisted him in releasing the virus into our land. Without your help, St. Just could not have accomplished all he did to weaken our people.”
“You dare speak against your queen?” Portia growled.
“I am queen.” Theda’s voice resonated strong and proud. The woman knew her place, and she wasn’t backing down.
Portia’s gaze swept over the palace soldiers, her manner the tiniest bit flustered. “Take her! She is a traitor and a betrayer of her people. Lying with a human and siring Halven is a sin. And this from a noble Fae? Utter hypocrisy.”
For a split second, no one moved. Perhaps because Portia had inadvertently confirmed Theda’s rightful place on the throne by acknowledging her royal blood.
Reese wasn’t all that big on the noble blood thing. Seemed to her that if a Halven like her roommate Elena could wield great power and save Fae from disease, Fae shouldn’t be so picky about little things like bloodlines. All Reese knew—and what she sensed everyone in the room silently acknowledged—was that Theda should rule New Kingdom, not Portia. But Fae, with their verbal pledges, couldn’t go against their word, and they’d pledged their honor to Portia.
Keen, the head of Portia’s guard, drew his sword first. He attacked the soldier closest to Derek. The rest of the New Kingdom soldiers attacked as well, making their way to Elena’s mother, who had her fiercest warriors protecting her while she fought to reach Portia.
Ulric must have given up on the door, because he stepped closer to Reese and stretched out his large arm, blocking her. She sensed his indecision, which had Reese puzzled. He must not have been one of the guards who’d sworn fealty to Portia if he was protecting Reese on Keen’s orders.
Ulric couldn’t take Reese out of the room while the doors were sealed, and he couldn’t fight and leave her defenseless either. So there they stood, neither of them moving, while all hell broke loose around them.
If Reese thought watching Marlon cut down was bad, the scene in front of her was nearly as grisly. Metal clashed and weapons impaled. No one fell the way Marlon had—he was Halven and couldn’t survive the physical attack from Beatrice—but blood poured everywhere. And that was before magic entered the mix.
Elena shot hail the size of baseballs at a group of Portia’s guards, knocking them into a wall.
The floor rumbled and darts of fire whirled toward Derek and his men.
An Oldlander soldier snuck up and touched the heads of New Kingdom guards, and their bodies froze where they stood.
All around her, battle took place, and it wasn’t just the soldiers—it was everyone: courtiers, guards, older Fae in elegant dress.
Ulric had backed Reese against a wall, blocking her body with his own and fighting off an Oldlander. She caught a look from Elena and thought she heard her friend yell at the soldier attacking Ulric, but she couldn’t be sure with the level of noise filling the room. Either way, the soldier didn’t stop his assault.
Ulric fought off one of Derek’s men, and was kicking some serious ass, until his head turned sharply.
Reese hadn’t heard anything over the commotion, but she looked in the direction he peered, and saw Hakon fighting alongside Derek and Elena. And Illa slumped against the wall, blood and singe marks crisscrossing the pale blue satin of her gown.
A roar erupted from Ulric. In two swift moves, he confiscated the sword from his attacker and broke the guy’s neck. Not a deathblow for Fae, but not something the guy would recover from anytime soon.
Ulric had been holding back—defending but not attacking—until he caught sight of Illa injured. The emotion rolling off him now was like a hundred-foot wave of rage and determination, crashing down and taking out everything in its path.
He shoved Reese forward. “Get under the table.” And bulldozed his way across the room toward Illa, who looked to be recovering somewhat, her face no longer pale.
Reese had stood there like a defenseless lamb while her friends fought and her sister bled. If she didn’t do something soon, she was no better than what everyone pegged her to be.
Weak. Useless.
Still, she got under the damn table and considered her next move.
Elena had pulled out that crazy null gun she’d made and was targeting magic users, shooting them one by one. Derek stood beside her, fighting off Portia’s supporters and inching closer to where Portia and Beatrice were.
Beatrice fought Derek and Theda’s men, while Portia glowered and shouted at her subjects, “Imprison the traitors!” over and over like a madwoman.
Keen battled the soldiers loyal to Theda as well, but never Derek or Elena. Yet he was still protecting Portia, honoring his promise, though he was using a loose interpretation.
Reese had witnessed what Keen could do in training, and this wasn’t him unleashing his full potential. He was holding back the way Ulric had. He fought Derek’s men and the men from the village that supported Theda, but he was herding them away from Portia, not fatally injuring them.
Keen glowered at Ulric, who was over by Illa and her father now. “Why are you not following my order?” he shouted over the din.
There was no acknowledgment that Ulric had heard Keen, even though Reese had and she was under the table. Ulric was wholly focused on Illa.
He picked her up and stormed toward one of the exits. To do what, Reese didn’t know. If they couldn’t escape out the door earlier, she wasn’t sure how he’d accomplish it now.
But the door that wouldn’t budge a moment ago exploded into a thousand pieces of wood, splintering out in every direction—lodging into wall and flesh on both sides
of the battle.
Because of Ulric? Why hadn’t he used that ability earlier?
He exited with Illa in his arms. A few Fae who appeared less enthusiastic about fighting followed him out, particularly the fancy courtiers of the palace.
Hakon stayed behind, but like Keen and Ulric, he seemed to be choosing whom he bloodied and whom he did not. He never touched Keen, though they stood nearly back to back. And he never touched Theda.
This was some politically touchy business.
Portia was in power and people had to follow her orders, but they could also choose which one of their enemies they fought. No matter how many times Portia screamed for people to kill or take Theda, the soldiers in her power deflected the order by fighting the person in front of them, as though they couldn’t quite reach Theda. They were protecting Portia, but never harming their true queen.
Keen looked at Reese again, and began hacking his way through the fighters, seemingly toward her.
Reese maneuvered out from beneath the table, the dagger she’d hidden in a strap at her calf gripped in her hand. She focused on the emotions of Portia and Beatrice and attempted to find an angle from which to help the others. Until an ice ball punched her in the chest.
She rocked back and fell against the table, the knife flying from her hand.
Across from her, a Fae grinned.
She clutched her chest, breathing shallowly until the pain and stinging subsided, and stumbled back under the table for shelter.
Theda was making her way to the front of the room—to Portia—while Elena and the others fought off the New Kingdom guards.
From beneath the table, Reese closed her eyes and tuned out all of the emotion hammering her senses. She focused on Portia. If she could use the woman’s emotions to predict her next move, it might help.
Too much fear, anticipation, and anger filled the room. Reese couldn’t distinguish from which point the emotions came. She needed to get closer to Portia.
Reese crawled along the perimeter of the table toward the front of the room, dragging her pale green gown with her, careful to not make herself a target for another A-hole Fae who thought she needed a hole in her chest.
She made it a few feet from Portia and her guards, and peered through the damask tablecloth. The queen whispered something to Beatrice, and her daughter nodded.
Beatrice slowly made her way to Elena and the others, along with one of Portia’s men.
Inflamed. Eager. Hateful. And the deepest, rawest resentment slammed into Reese. And it wasn’t coming from Portia. It came from Beatrice, who angled around Theda and seemed to be heading for Derek and Elena. But her eyes were on Elena.
Hell. No. Reese saw murder in the girl’s emotions, and there was no way she’d let anyone take down her best friend.
She looked desperately toward Keen and the others, but none of them were paying attention. Theda was still fighting off New Kingdom soldiers and keeping an eye on Portia. Keen was fighting to reach Reese, though he was still too far away. And Derek and Elena were fending off a circle of guards who’d swarmed them. No one was watching Beatrice’s steady movement forward. The guards knew to put extra protection around Theda and, of course, Derek, their king, but not Elena.
If Reese shouted, she’d call attention to herself—making herself another target. She had to be sure she was right about Beatrice’s intentions. That it was Elena and not Derek they were after.
And then Keen looked directly at Beatrice. His brows pinched and he glanced worriedly at Elena.
He knew. Was reading their thoughts.
Reese climbed from beneath the table, grabbed the heaviest object she could find—a crystal goblet—and threw it at Beatrice’s head. “Elena!” she shouted.
The goblet hit the back of Beatrice’s skull. A glancing blow that barely slowed the girl, but it was enough to catch Elena’s attention. She turned at Reese’s voice.
“Beatrice!” Reese screamed, but by that time, she’d drawn the attention of Beatrice and several of her soldiers.
Elena attempted to turn in Beatrice’s direction, but it was too late. Beatrice was directly behind Elena, a dagger in her hand.
Call it a mother’s sixth sense, or whatever, but Theda, who’d been standing close enough, broke Beatrice before the girl had a chance to touch her daughter. That was the only way to describe what had happened.
One moment, Beatrice was standing with a dagger aimed at Elena’s back where her heart would be, and the next Beatrice was coughing up her own blood.
Theda knocked the dagger from the girl’s hand and gently eased her to the ground at the same time Portia let out a high-pitched shriek like that of an injured animal.
Multiple soldiers swarmed Theda, swords slashing at her arms, her midriff, her throat. Reese lost sight of Theda as she fell to the ground.
“No!” Reese screamed.
After what seemed like minutes, though it was probably only seconds, the soldiers attacking Theda slowly stepped away, their faces expressionless.
And then Reese heard Elena’s screams, her voice raw, as if she’d been doing it the entire time. Which she probably had been.
Elena stumbled for her mother and Reese ran toward both of them, heedless of the swords and magic flying by her head—but someone grabbed her around the waist, stopping her.
“We must go,” Keen said.
This was all wrong. Theda wasn’t supposed to be harmed. “We have to help them!”
His eyes flickered with some strong emotion she couldn’t read. “It is done. If you remain, they will murder you the way they’ve murdered Theda.”
20
Reese kicked, but Keen was being a bastard and holding her tight. He carried her from the room of fighting Fae. “Let me go!”
“We must get you out of here,” he said, his voice strained with what sounded like fear and a bit of desperation. “After the outburst that got her daughter killed, Portia will have your head.”
“Theda is queen. Or she will be as soon as this is all over.”
“Theda is dead.”
That was what he’d said earlier. Reese squirmed some more to get out of his hold. “She can’t die. She’s Fae; Theda will heal.”
He set her on the ground in one of the corridors inside the palace and grabbed her shoulders. “Theda is dead. Fae are almost immortal, unless the injury or abuse is severe.”
Reese couldn’t read Keen’s feelings the way she could everyone else, but that didn’t mean he was without any signs of emotion. She’d heard the fear and strain in his voice, but now she saw it in his eyes—and that undid her.
“No, no, it can’t be…” She went numb.
She didn’t object when he grabbed her hand and urged her to run with him down the hallway, up two flights of stairs, and to the end of another hallway. And then they were rushing through a door and past flashing light—spinning and whirling through what could only be a portal.
Reese fell on her butt, and Keen would have landed on top of her if it hadn’t been for his quick reflexes that had him dodging her at the last moment.
They were outside. In the town she’d traveled to with her friends. The cobblestones, the gas lamps… “What are we doing here?”
“Hiding you.” At some point during their mad dash through the palace, Keen must have grabbed a cloak, because he threw it at her. “Put it on and do not show your face.”
The air outside was cool, and Reese shivered. She’d shaken for days when she first arrived in Tirnan. Keen had told her it was a part of her gaining her magic. This shaking wasn’t from magic, though; it was from adrenaline, from worry over her friends, and from the fear that what Keen had said was true. Theda was dead.
What would happen to Elena? Who would rule New Kingdom? Leaving Portia in charge was unacceptable. The woman was using the Fae code of honor against them.
Keen helped her with the cloak, pulling it down low over her eyes and covering her hair. He grabbed her hand. “You are my pet, should anyone ask.”
“Your pet?”
He stopped and turned to her, squeezing her hand. “Your position at the palace was precarious. Theda murdered Portia’s daughter tonight. Portia will have you all slain, do you understand? I need you to do as I say. I cannot fight you and save you at the same time.”
“I don’t need a man to save me.”
He sighed. “Here, in Tirnan, you do. But I must also help Elena. Will you cooperate so that I may help your friend?”
She hated that he was right. “Yes. Of course. Where are we going?”
“To Lucifer’s Larder.”
“The brothel? Is that why you want me to tell people I’m your pet?”
“Lucifer’s Larder has lodging. You will be safe there. No one will touch you if they believe you are with me.”
“But they saw me last time. They know I’m Halven.”
“It was not a Halven who killed Beatrice. By the time the details are worked out, I’ll have moved you somewhere safe.”
“There’s just one problem. Why are you helping me at all, when you should be helping Elena? Or, better yet, Portia? You know, that lady you’ve pledged to protect?”
“Elena has Derek. He will get her out of the kingdom.”
“And Portia? You’re supposed to be protecting your queen.”
He sidestepped a muddy puddle and guided her around it. “Portia isn’t in danger at the moment. The fighting has ceased.”
“How do you know?”
He cut her a look. “I’m listening.”
His ability.
“We’re here.” Keen opened the door to the tavern and ushered her across the room. It wasn’t as busy tonight. In fact, only a couple of patrons occupied the space. Which made sense, because Reese could swear she’d recognized several people fighting for Theda from her previous visit to the tavern.
A proprietress with light brown hair pulled into a tight bun came out from behind the counter. She was wearing a sturdy gown similar to what Reese’s seamstresses wore. Kind of conservative for a brothel owner.
“We need a room,” Keen said.
“Certainly.” The woman tapped a bell on the counter, and a young man scurried out. “Watch the customers,” she told him.
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