by Jessi Gage
He stood as tall as his shadow would allow. “You must pretend to be Danu,” he whispered. “Do not speak no matter what, or he’ll know something is amiss. Act furious, act proud, but do not speak. I must hide, but I will be close. I swear I will not leave you.”
“Why should I protect the goddess who created that awful race of beasts?” She had no love for wolfkind or Danu, but at least she followed his example and kept her voice low.
“Because I’m begging you to. Because I want the chance to show you goodness.” He wanted to say more, but they were out of time. Hyrk was nearly upon them. “Please,” he said before melting into the smallest shadow at the back of the dungeon.
Hyrk pivoted at the foot of the stairs, cape flashing its blood-red lining, and strode to the cell. He wore a gruesome grin and carried himself with the air of a conquering king. “Have you missed me?” he asked in his slimy, haughty voice.
Duff held his breath. Say nothing, love. For the love of all the realms, say nothing.
His prickly beauty folded her arms over her chest, lifted her chin and looked away, as if Hyrk’s presence was inconsequential.
That’s my brave girl.
“Are you certain you wish to ignore me? After all, this will be your last chance to speak with anyone.” He studied his fingernails, looking as though he had not a care in the world. “You see, I’m on the cusp of victory. These bars are about to close around you. Once that happens, there will be no escape. Ever. You’ll be mine for all eternity.”
Seona kept her gaze averted, but her flaring nostrils showed her fear. He prayed Hyrk didn’t catch on that she was someone other than Danu.
“Your precious Maranners are even greater fools than I thought,” Hyrk went on. “You see, they have ignored their most precious asset. Their children. So that is where I have focused my efforts. And wouldn’t you know? It’s working.” The demigod sounded slightly unhinged.
“It wasn’t even difficult. All I needed was to convince one of them, and give him my relic. The boy took care of the rest!” He clapped his hands with delight. “Would you like to know how I convinced him?”
Shite. Hyrk had once again given his relic to a mortal. Which boy had he singled out? Duff ought to warn Danu that another of Hyrk’s plots was afoot.
Seona remained silent while Hyrk continued to crow.
“I sympathized with him. That’s always step one. Step two is to dangle a carrot.”
The maniac sounded like he was reciting from the Handbook of Evil. If Duff weren’t so worried, he would give the haughty, little slug a piece of his mind. At least Seona was playing her part perfectly.
“Do you know what carrot I dangled, love?”
Duff cringed. Seona was his to call love, not Hyrk’s.
“You see, the children are all under the age at which their society considers them fully-mature. But do you know when one of your mongrels can begin breeding? At age sixteen.”
Duff’s blood ran cold. He had a sickening feeling he knew where this was going.
“And do you know what young men talk about when they’re old enough to have a cockstand but too young to join the breeding lottery? They talk about fucking. Some of them even fuck each other. You can imagine their eagerness when my Alexander told them there were females ripe for breeding in Larna.”
Seona’s hands curled into fists. He could only imagine what images these words were calling up in her memory.
“No, no, it’s not what you think.” Hyrk rushed to answer a question no one had asked. “I’m through bringing humans over. Those bitches served their purpose well, but the females I have in mind this time are even better. Wilder. You see, the females I intend the children to breed with are the mutts living in the mountains and caves since Jilken’s experiments.” He laughed, and the sound was too high-pitched. “They’re the rejects from the magic I gave the Larnian king all those years ago! But you know what they say: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. It so happens that the deformities these beings were rejected for make them so much more than Jilken ever imagined. More than I imagined. And I have them in my pocket.
“See how perfect it is? How it all comes together? The new wolfkind will be more vicious and powerful than you ever intended them to be. And that’s not even the best part.” He bounced on his toes like a delighted toddler. “The best part is that I am gaining power every minute. Didn’t you know, love? There is no force in all the realms as powerful as the faith of a child. Soon, I will be strong enough to raze Chroina to the ground, beginning with Glendall. The world will be repopulated with our new wolfkind, and they will be all mine. Unless.”
He paused and scented the air. A wicked smile curved his lips.
Duff inhaled. A sweet, metallic smell tickled his nose. Drops of blood dripped from Seona’s shaking fist. She had cut her palms with her fingernails, but she remained silent, likely as frozen with horror as Duff was, hearing this evil spew forth.
“Unless—” Hyrk sounded pleased with himself, as if the victory had already been won. “You fulfill your obligation and marry me.”
Seona made a choked noise.
Duff’s body coiled with the need to rush to her, to tell her it was just words. Hyrk was trying to get a reaction from her. He was painting Danu’s worst nightmare in bold strokes of lie upon lie. At least, Duff hoped they were lies.
He should go to Danu and inform her and Magnus of these ravings, but he did not know if he could bring himself to leave Seona here alone.
“I’m wai-ting,” Hyrk sang out. “Give me your answer, love. This is your last chance. And I do mean last.”
Wide eyed and trembling, his brave beauty shook her head from side to side.
“Have it your way,” Hyrk sneered. “You are dead to me now, and your people are now my people.” With a whirl of his cape, he stormed from the dungeon. At the top of the stone steps, the heavy door thudded shut.
They were alone again.
Duff waited until he could no longer feel Hyrk’s presence before sliding as close as he could to Seona’s cell. “By the immortal realms, love, you were magnificent.” Seona jumped at his voice. “You did wonderfully. I would kiss you if I could pass through the bars.” Her posture softened. She searched his shadow with tear-filled eyes.
“That thing is pure wickedness,” she said, wiping at the wetness on her cheeks. “He’s the one who took us all to be—to be—” She took a shuddering inhale, as if she was just understanding that Ari had been manipulated by Hyrk.
“Easy, love. He can’t harm you.” How he wanted to reach through the bars and comfort her, cold-iron be damned! But the space between the bars was so narrow, he would be lucky to fit a hand through.
“He said I would be locked in here for all time,” She said on a hiccup. “Can he accomplish such a thing?”
“I won’t allow it,” he vowed.
“Can he do what he said—about the children?” Her eyes focused inward, as if she were deep in thought. Perhaps she was remembering the children she’d encountered in Glendall. Perhaps she thought of Alexander wielding the same gemstone his father, Ari, had, making way for Hyrk’s evil. Did she regret playing into Hyrk’s hands, giving him the opportunity to steal back his relic?
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “He may have been saying those things because they would enrage Danu. She loves her creation. If anything would get her to crack, it would be the threat of perverting her wolfkind.”
Seona was quiet a long time. Finally, she said, “You must go to them.”
“To whom, my brave beauty?”
She snorted. “I’m no’ brave. You must go to them. To your goddess and to Magnus. You must warn them. If what that vile thing said is true, they need to ken it all.”
He shook his head, even though she wouldn’t be able to see. “I won’t leave you.” He couldn’t. Not after the taunting she’d just endured.
“You must. My sister is in danger. You heard what he said. He plans to destroy Chroina.” Her s
houlders rounded, but her voice was steel when she said, “You’ll go, and you willna fash over me. I deserve to be alone. The blame is mine. That bloody lunatic would never have laid hands on his relic if I hadn’t believed his lies. You must see him stopped.”
He sighed. She was right. “All right, love. I’ll go.”
She nodded, even as her chin trembled. She was in Danu’s body, but her expressions, her movements, her speech was all Seona. And he was falling in love with her.
He slid into a large shadow at the base of a jagged boulder. Putting his shoulder into it, he shoved the boulder toward the cell.
Seona screamed. “What’s happening?”
“It’s just me,” Duff said as the boulder met the cold-iron bars, casting a swath of shadow into the cell. “I’ll go. But not without leaving you with the only gift I can.” Keeping to the shadow, he angled his hand and slid it between the bars. “Come to me, love. Feel me. I’m here.” As his skin met the cold-iron, he hissed with pain. The substance was potentially lethal to the Fae if wielded against them as a weapon. A wound caused by cold-iron was the one thing they could not heal from with ease. He gritted his teeth against the pain. “Let me touch you.”
She stepped into the shadow and lifted her hand. When her fingers met his, she gasped. “You’re warm.”
He chuckled. “As warm as you are.” Turning his hand, he grasped hers gently. The cold-iron branded his wrist, but he ignored it.
She closed her hand around his, leaned forward, and pressed a kiss to his fingertips.
He sucked in a breath. “I wanted to leave you with a warm touch in this cold place, but you have given me a gift instead.”
She released his hand and took a step back. “Save your pretty words for those shores of Faerie you told me of.”
He would prove to her that a man could be good, and that a woman who trusted a man could know happiness. Or he would die trying.
Chapter 19
Danu paced Magnus’s bedchamber, fist secure around her moonstone. She ought to be rejoicing at having it back, and in a way, she was, but worry eclipsed her joy.
The children were missing.
They were the hope of her people. Without them and without her restored to her deity so she could bless them, wolfkind would perish.
Her pacing brought her to the window. A tapestry covered the opening to keep in the warmth. She lifted the corner to judge the time. Beyond Glendall’s manicured, frost-covered grounds, a faint blue glow on the horizon meant dawn was near. Magnus had been gone all night.
She wished she could be at his side, but when she’d offered to go with him, he’d reminded her that everyone thought she was Seona. It would raise too many questions if she fixed herself at his side after shunning him for so long.
Still, she craved the knowledge of all he’d learned. She wished to soothe him and to discuss with him this dark turn of events.
She squeezed her moonstone. Indecision pulled at her.
I could restore myself right now. In a heartbeat, I could be Danu Goddess of Wolfkind once more.
But she would have no power with which to bless her people. She would be locked in Hyrk’s dungeon, and Seona would be here in the bedchamber of her king, wearing her moonstone. Unthinkable. Not only would the human woman have no idea how to handle Hyrk, but she would offer no support to Magnus.
Magnus needed support. He needed counsel. He needed her.
She could not leave. Not yet. She must see Hyrk defeated first, and despite this fragile, mortal body, her current circumstance put her in a better position to fight than when she’d been locked behind enchanted bars.
That settled, she turned her mind to the children’s disappearance. Only Hyrk could be behind something so devastating, so there was no question of who. But why would he strike at the children? Why not go after the human women? Or the wolfkind women? Why not attack Magnus, Anya, or Riggs, the mortals who had thwarted his plan by killing his most powerful followers?
They needed information. And she knew just the Fae who could get it for them.
Focusing on her moonstone, she pictured Duff’s face. “Fae Lord of Darkness,” she said quietly, so as not to draw the attention of the guards outside. “Cursed by Arwan, Shadow Walker, Mischief Maker, by my power and for the good of wolfkind, I summon you to me now.”
She waited for her relic to warm in her hand as her power rose to meet its maker. And she waited. And she waited.
Nothing happened. Duff’s familiar voice did not call to her from the shadows, and shadows there were aplenty since the fire was down to glowing embers and all but one candle had sputtered and died.
She repeated the incantation. Still, the chamber remained empty save for her.
Her moonstone did not warm in her hand. It held her power—she knew it did, because Magnus had told her how it granted the holder the ability to understand any tongue. He had used it to speak with the rescued human women. Anya had relied on it as her only means of communication when she had first come to this realm.
Mortals, of course, could not access the true power the relic contained—an infinite galaxy of miracles within a tiny, inconspicuous housing. But power was known to bleed from relics. This was why, when in mortal hands, they could produce magical effects, like translation, or the opening of portals.
Of course!
She was mortal. At least temporarily. Her moonstone did not recognize her. It did not answer her because it did not sense the origin of its power within her human body. It was Seona who wore the cloak of deity the moonstone answered to. Not her.
Before she could fully consider the implications, the door to the chamber opened. Two guards strode in, and behind them was one weary-looking king.
“Magnus.” Without thought, she ran to him and threw herself into his waiting arms.
“My love,” he said, and he embraced her with such strength she forgot about her failure to summon Duff. Once he had set her on her feet again, he took her face in his hands and kissed her. Slowly at first. Then fiercely. “I’ve missed you,” he said, whisky-gold eyes ablaze in a face wearing the stress of the night.
“And I you,” she said honestly. “You need rest, my king.” She would prefer to carry on where they had left off earlier, or even to discuss all he’d learned while he’d been away. But exhaustion etched lines into his handsome face. It shadowed his eyes and dimmed the air of virility she found so irresistible.
“There is no time for rest. I’ve only come to freshen up. We’ll break our fast in the solar with my advisors. I trust you slept well, dear lady?”
She frowned at his insistence on breaking his fast when he had not slept a wink. “Of course I didn’t sleep. I was worried sick for the children. And for you.”
His whole face softened. He tucked her nose to his neck and held her there, their bodies pressed together so they shared their warmth. “You do not need to worry for me. I have spent many sleepless nights in service to my people.”
“You should not have to,” she said, arms tight around him. He felt strong and wonderful. Her fingers delighted in exploring his lean waist and muscled back, his broad warrior’s shoulders. Even unwashed, he smelled divine. Like earth and man and leather and—and like sex. The scent of her new body’s arousal clung to him. Her face heated with remembrance even as pride filled her that she had managed to mark her man.
“In a perfect world, I would not have to.” He spoke into her hair. His body relaxed in her hold, as if being with her brought him respite from his troubles. “But our world has not been perfect in a very long time.” He sighed, and guilt pricked her heart.
“It’s my fault,” she whispered. “I let myself be fooled by that—that—”
“Hush, now.” He petted her head and back. His roaming hands soothed her guilt. “We all look back on mistakes and see how we could have avoided them. But none of us—not even a goddess, I’d wager—can go back in time. We must learn from our mistakes.”
“Goddesses should not make mistakes.
”
“Kings should not make mistakes. But we do. All the time.” He smiled sadly. “Let’s put it right together.”
Her heart lifted with hope. Magnus almost made it sound like everything could be fixed. The children found, her deity restored, wolfkind flourishing once more. His quiet, humble confidence turned despair into possibility.
“How?” She was not accustomed to asking questions. Usually, she was the one with the answers.
“I do not know.” He held her securely. “We need to find the children, but we have no clues, no idea where to begin our search.” He led her to the ewer and removed his shirt while explaining that the children seemed to have disappeared as a group from the schoolyard.
They shared a look that said they both understood what that meant.
“Hyrk’s relic has been found,” she said.
Magnus nodded as he poured water from the ewer. She loved watching him move about in nothing but his kilt, the way his muscles bunched and slid beneath his bronzed skin. “But by whom?” he said.
Before he could wash himself, Danu took up the cloth, soaked it in the cool water, and wrung it out. Never before had she thought to serve a lover, but it seemed natural to run the cloth over her king’s sculpted chest and ridged abdomen. Oh, if she only had the time to claw her fingers through all that decadent hair. The coat of dark blond hair covering his chest tempted her like nothing else. But they were discussing Hyrk’s stone.
Forcing her mind to the problem at hand, she said, “Tell me all you remember from yesterday morning.” Had it only been a full day since she’d become mortal? It felt as though much more time had passed.
Magnus recounted his confrontation with Hyrk and Seona’s fall while Danu washed his strong shoulders. Lifting his arms, she cleansed the soft hair growing there. At the mention of a hawk flying overhead, she froze.
“The hawk,” he said, no doubt noticing her stillness. “Could one like him take the form of a wild bird?”
“No. But he could slip into the mind of one as he did with the prisoner. He could control it for a time.”