by Caris Roane
He drew Rosamunde close to his side and kept moving her backward away from the Ancient Fae.
Once more, he tried to reach Harris. Are you there? Evacuate the Communication Center. Now!
Margetta’s violet eyes were enormous as she glanced between him and Rosamunde, then downward toward the earth.
Her eyes glittered like diamonds. He felt her begin to draw in the elf-lord power. She spread her arms wide and arched her neck. She gave a cry of sheer ecstasy. “The power of the elf-lords is everything I knew it would be. Isn’t it amazing, Mastyr Stone?”
When the first wave of power passed through her, she drew in a deep breath then focused all her attention on him, extending her arms in his direction. “I knew I could count on you to finally reveal the location of Ferrenden Peace. Rosamunde has been ridiculously stubborn for the past millennium. She was always such a good girl. But you and me, Stone, we’re alike and it’s time to join forces.
“I’ve felt it for several weeks now, who you really are in this world: One of the last two remaining elf-lords and together, we’ll rule the Nine Realms because tonight, you’ll be mine.”
Now that Margetta had attached to the elf-lord power, her golden light began to pulse. Look at me, Stone. Come to me. Join with me. Taste for yourself what it is to fully be an elf-lord. For I have the power to deliver it to you as my niece never could. Come to me and feel what your father, Kaden, has experienced all his life.
Stone began to move in her direction. In some part of his mind, he knew Margetta was enthralling him, yet he couldn’t stop his feet. Power flowed from her, tasting of both her incredible abilities and what she now streamed from Ferrenden Peace. She was as much a conduit as Rosamunde yet so much more.
“Stone!” When Rosamunde grabbed at him, he pushed her hands away from his arms. Still, she clung to him, yelling things that he couldn’t quite hear. He wanted no part of such a weak woman. She wasn’t a fit mate for an elf-lord.
When she continued to shout at him and grabbed both of his arms hard, he turned and shoved her with all his might. She didn’t just fall backward, she flew into the air, then vanished.
Good riddance. He was done with her for so many reasons.
You did the right thing. My niece was a weight around your neck, holding you back. This is your moment, Stone, and yours alone. She lifted her arms in a dramatic gesture then moved close enough to touch him lightly on both shoulders. Let the elf-lord power flow.
The same power that Rosamunde had channeled tripled in strength. This time his back and neck arched and he shouted. What he felt was an extraordinary rush of power, a vibration like none other. Ecstasy flooded his mind and he could see into the future. He sat on a throne much grander than Rosamunde’s, with the beautiful Margetta beside him. She was right; he would rule beside her. Together, they’d conquer the Nine Realms.
Suddenly, Rosamunde’s voice entered his mind. This isn’t the future, Stone. Margetta has overlaid your mind with her own vision. Think this through. She’ll bond her mating vibration to yours, she’ll have continual access to the elf-lord power because of you, then she’ll do as she pleases. Remember, that she killed her own sister. Think! And rumor has it, she killed her husband, Gustave. She’s been planning this for a long time.
His mind cleared just enough that he knew what Rosamunde said was true. He backed away from Margetta, breaking contact with her, but another wave of her channeled elf-lord power engulfed him.
The power took him into the air, spinning him slowly and filling him with a lust he’d never known before. He craved to hold each of the realms in the palms of his hands, to set the ruling mastyrs beneath him in a way that they’d never doubt his dominance. He experienced a profound need to rule everything in his realm, in all the realms; the industry, the arts, commerce, the news outlets, everything.
He knew what he could accomplish, the elaborate mansion and estate he would build in his own honor. He’d set the trolls and elves to laboring for centuries. And they’d do it for love. They would worship him as their ruler.
These thoughts spun in his mind the way the power kept him moving slowly through the air. He emitted a glow like Margetta, only his was silver.
Stone, hear me! Rosamunde again. He wanted to cut her off, but there was an odd part of him that refused. She continued, The elf-lord power is a seduction, like Davido said, and it must be fought, it must be conquered.
He needed her to understand. Rosamunde. I see everything now as it should be. It’s my destiny to rule the Nine Realms. Try to imagine the beauty and order I could create.
But think what you’re saying, Stone. You never cared about such things. You only wanted to serve and protect your people, to help them be safe enough in their lives so that in turn they could live as free realm-folk, to order their own lives. Remember what Margetta did at Charborne?
“What’s going on, Mastyr Stone?” Margetta’s voice coupled with telepathy took him away from Rosamunde.
He found he’d stopped spinning. He looked down at her from his elevated position. He was thirty feet in the air and she hovered just above the garden lawn.
His mind flew back to Charborne, remembering that Margetta had ordered a massive attack on the village and surrounding farms. Margetta had killed his parents.
But Margetta hit him with another wave of the elf-lord power and his mind exploded with pleasure all over again and he wanted more of it. She rose in the air to levitate beside him.
“Look and see what we’ll be able to do.” She pivoted to face the castle. He could hear the earth rumbling as she channeled more of the elf-lord frequency. It grew louder and louder.
She held up both hands and her battle frequency flew from her hands in lightning bolts of gold. Each streaked toward the top ramparts of the castle and exploded the thick gray stone blocks. She kept firing and the explosions continued. Fire engulfed the wooden ceilings and floor supports.
His brain was drenched with chemicals now that felt too good to be denied. He wanted this kind of power that could tear apart enormous blocks of stone as though they were nothing.
“How do I access the elf-lord power myself because I want it?”
Margetta smiled. “You’ve earned this, Stone. You’ve sacrificed for centuries and now you’ll receive your reward. Come.”
She beckoned him forward then planted a hand on his shoulder. With her touch, the elf-lord power flowed into him in an even greater way. He was consumed by the power as he took it in, drank it in, soaked it in into every pore of his being. This was what he was always meant to be: An elf-lord.
Something hard struck his back.
Rosamunde. Again.
What the fuck?
She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. She held on forcefully, then pathed and spoke aloud as Margetta had. “Don’t do this, Stone! Think who you are in this world, who you really are! You’re the man who helped shape the Federation of the Nine Realms. You’ve fought against Margetta for centuries. She’s the one who killed your parents and tens possibly hundreds of thousands of realm-folk. For the love of the Goddess, think! Come back to yourself!”
“Leave him alone, Rosamunde! The vampire is mine.”
Stone’s mind cleared just enough to feel Margetta’s battle power strike Rosamunde, while she clung to his back. She had to be in enormous pain, but still she held on. Don’t do this, Stone. Her telepathic voice sounded weak and she no longer spoke aloud at the same time.
Please, Stone. I love you so much and I want you to be the man, the vampire, you’ve always been, a man of service and honor. Margetta will use you and cast you aside.
He felt Margetta siphon a new stream of elf-lord power then ramp up her battle energy again.
When she fired, Rosamunde screamed then slid off his back, tumbling to the ground. He whirled and found her face down, burned all along one side of her body where Margetta’s power had struck.
The sight of her did something to him and the pleasure that clo
uded his mind began to dissipate. He dropped to his knees and touched her shoulder. He let his own healing energy flow, but even amplified by the elf-lord power, it wouldn’t be enough to restore her.
What was he doing here?
He saw the silver glow coming off his arms. Margetta was with him. She was flooding him with the elf-lord energy so that his mind had begun transforming and not in a good way. He was in severe danger of becoming an elf-lord.
He looked back at the Ancient Fae. “She’ll die if she doesn’t get help.”
Rosamunde didn’t have to come back to the garden, to throw herself on him, to try to stop him from this madness. Rosamunde was the one who had sacrificed for a thousand years, not Stone. He’d served, but she’d lived in Ferrenden Peace, a life so solitary he didn’t know why she hadn’t lost her mind centuries ago.
“Let her be, Stone. She’s nothing to us.”
“She doesn’t deserve to die.”
“There are many tragedies in a war. My niece has always chosen the wrong side. Your parents didn’t need to die. If Rosamunde had just contacted anyone in your realm, I would have aborted the mission. She’s the cause of your parents’ deaths, not me. You need to remember that.”
He felt the Ancient Fae’s hand on his shoulder once more and again, the elf-lord power flowed. He understood now why the original elf-lords had succumbed. Worse, he didn’t know how to resist the pleasure that flooded his mind.
But what had Vojalie said to him? Embrace the power of love.
Though the seductive nature of the elf-lord power worked in every part of his being, he forced himself to remember all the evil Margetta had spread throughout the Nine Realms for the past millennium. For as long as he could remember, the Invictus – her creation – had terrorized his world. Had his people ever known a moment’s peace because this woman was intent on conquering the Nine Realms?
Margetta had killed Rosamunde’s mother, which in turn forced Rosamunde to spend centuries sustaining a veil of mist that would prevent the very thing Stone had just brought down on the Nine Realms. And he’d done it because he was stubborn, arrogant and impulsive.
Margetta now had her own, permanent access to the elf-lord power. She’d created a path to Ferrenden Peace through which she’d be able to return at will and take from the infinite source. She might even, as Rosamunde could, access the power from all other parts of the Nine Realms now that she’d established the connection.
Despite how strongly the elf-lord power called to him, he chose in that moment to follow Vojalie’s path.
He reached deep inside himself and found love, a very deep permanent love that Margetta could never understand. He loved the Nine Realms. He loved his world. He loved the realm-folk that he’d served from the time he could remember, even long before he joined the Tannisford Vampire Guard.
He also loved the woman lying at his feet, barely conscious, but shaking and moaning. She’d thrown herself on his back, knowing what she risked, to help him return to himself.
He turned toward Margetta. “I won’t go with you. I won’t embrace this horrendous power. I won’t become an elf-lord, or rule beside you. I’m staying here, with Rosamunde.” He drew in a deep breath and squared his shoulders, ready to fall when she struck him down with her deadly battle energy. Enhanced as it was, he was no match for her.
Margetta’s beauty suddenly distorted as rage took her over. Her violet eyes turned black, her gold hair flew around in twisted writhing strands. She lifted both her hands, forming them into claws as she drew in the elf-lord power. Black and gold sparks flew from her fingertips.
Tonight, he would die.
His life rolled through his mind like a deck of cards flipped in his hands. He saw Davido sneaking into his room at night, talking to him, when he was very young. Davido had always been there. He saw his wonderful troll parents who had loved him like their own and who had rebuilt their house at least three times to accommodate his enormous size compared to their five-three heights. He saw the first wraith-pair he ever fought. He’d only been fifteen, but he’d had all this ability from the time he could remember. He saw his first few weeks in the Vampire Guard and how much he loved being among a band of warriors, of like spirits and minds.
On the brisk memories flowed, of the various women he’d loved at times, though his heart had always remained with the Guard and to his commitment to fight for his fellow realm-folk.
Images of his parent’s funeral pyre came next, of the depth and longevity of his grief. Then his rise to mastyr status came and he knew it wouldn’t be long before he surpassed the then ruling Mastyr of Tannisford. He’d spent the next several months searching out every corner of the realm to learn its geography. He visited every village in his spare hours, every town, every outlying farm.
He recalled the agony of the crippling stomach pain that accompanied mastyr level blood hunger, then most recently the arrival of Aralynn and the discovery she could ease that suffering because she was a blood rose.
Now he was here, with Aralynn as Rosamunde, lying on the ground behind him, moaning softly in her own dying pain.
Death would come from those black and gold sparks flying around Margetta’s hands and there was nothing he could do. Even if he revved up his own battle energy, Margetta would slay him. He knew it in the same way Rosamunde had always known that Margetta’s visions had been a heinous burden intended to open a pathway into Ferrenden Peace.
But it was better to die than to spend even a second bonded to Margetta.
Margetta suddenly began to spin, creating a gold whirlwind and he wondered how painful his death would be.
Before Stone knew what had happened, he was spinning as well and rising into the air with her. He tried to stop, to return to the garden and Rosamunde, but he was caught up in Margetta’s fury and her newly acquired elf-lord power and there was nothing he could do.
~ ~ ~
Rosamunde lay shivering on the lawn, the flames from the burning castle flickering oddly on the nearby shrubs. Through her pain, her fingers clutched at the grass. Tears trickled but not because of her suffering. Instead, she knew tremendous relief that in the end, Stone had rejected Margetta’s offer. He’d even thought he would die.
So had Rosamunde.
But Margetta had taken him away in a whirlwind of black and gold light.
She took shallow breaths, the best she could do.
Her thoughts became fixed on Stone. Because Margetta hadn’t killed him, she no doubt had other plans which probably meant enthrallment or torture or a combination of both to bend Stone to her will.
But where she’d taken him, Rosamunde didn’t know.
She had to find out and she had to help him, though she had no idea how she could possibly counter Margetta now that the Ancient Fae had channeled elf-lord power. Rosamunde couldn’t imagine just how much stronger Margetta had become.
But before she could do anything to change the situation, she had to survive the agonizing burns.
She knew one man who could help her. She teleported just as she was, smoking clothes and all, to Joseph’s front yard. If she’d been able to land inside she would have done so. But Joseph had his no-special-powers rule protecting his house.
She then reached telepathically for Davido. I need Kaden’s healing power. I’m outside.
Just as Davido, in Kaden’s form, appeared beside her, the small door to Joseph’s underground abode banged open. “You can’t bring her inside, unless she pays a toll.”
“Joseph, you’d better get your trolley or I will ring your fucking neck.”
Joseph levitated just above Kaden’s shoulder to stare down at her. She was shaking badly and looked up at him. “Sweet Goddess, you look like a fried turnip. What happened?”
She could barely talk, but she managed anyway. “I was cooking and caught on fire. What do you think?”
Joseph made a fat raspberry sound. “No need to be sarcastic. Besides, I hear you can’t cook so maybe it makes sense.”
&nb
sp; Kaden gripped Joseph by his reedy neck and shook him twice. “Stop it. Let us both in, or I’ll finish you off for good and I’ll auction every last bit of your stolen wares so that your wife won’t get a cent.”
“As if you ever would.” He offered a crooked smile. “Fine. But I’m only doing this for my wife’s sake.”
The corner of Kaden’s lips twitched. “Now who’s being sarcastic?”
Joseph waved an arm and Rosamunde felt the spell break. She was then moving through his home at lightning speed. Kaden had control of her now and she began to relax. Help was at hand.
She ended up on the same marble slab as Stone before her, though it had a motor oil smell to it this time. Whatever else forest gremlins were, they were a busy, restless sort, always doing. Maybe he’d been working on something he’d stolen recently.
But the shaking returned, harder than ever. Kaden placed both hands on the top of her head and a cool flow of healing eased the burns. She cried out from the relief of it.
After a moment, she said, “Kaden?”
“Yes, Sweetheart?”
Tears trickled once more. “Margetta has him. She took Stone away after he refused to become an elf-lord.”
“I know. Vojalie saw it in a vision.”
“I should speak with her.”
When she tried to get up, he pressed her back down. “Let me get you healed up. Now, I’m going to do something, but don’t worry about it.” She almost asked, ‘Worry about what’, but she felt a pressure on her head, then a stream of something that felt like the best wine she’d ever drunk in her life. She began to float, then she disappeared into a deep sleep.
~ ~ ~
Stone was colder than he’d ever been in his life. Margetta had him stripped down to his leathers and shackled to the wall of an ice cave. He was barefoot as well and his extremities had frost-bite. Though he was grateful he still had on his pants, he swore his cock had crawled up into his body to keep from freezing straight off.
She sat on a lounge about fifteen feet away, wrapped up head-to-toe in silver fur. Near her, several slaves kept a brazier heated up with white-hot coals. In the bed of coals was a single branding iron.