Shadow Cursed: A Noblesse Oblige Duet Book Two

by Sage, May

  "They could still be in Sandovar," Vlari guesses, her eyes going south, toward the city harboring the Court of Ichor. It is but a shadow in the distance.

  "It may work in our favor," Ina said. "The Ash traitor believed we intended to intercept the procession on its way to Hardrock. We could go to them, instead."

  I frown. We are seven. Hardly enough to take an entire city.

  "I could take us inside," Jules says.

  "You're sure, boy?" Ina squints at him.

  Jules has silver hair, and deep lines at the corners of his bloodred eyes. She looks younger than him—like his father, he has aged more than most of the folk do. But to her, he's just a boy. So are we, I suppose. Jules can't be much younger than Vlari or I.

  He snorts. "You don't want to know how many times I snuck in and out of the keep. My father had ideas about whom I should spend my time with. Whereas I had a particular taste for dallying with peasant girls."

  Ina shakes her head, though I can see she's amused.

  "The humans might guard the castle more thoroughly than your father."

  "You underestimate Father's fear of my fathering bastards. There were guards everywhere. But I may not have been the first in the court to have been fond of wandering off outside the gate. There's a path underneath the castle, leading outside. One has to know—and be able to perform magic—to find it." He's confident. "I can get you in. I don't know about getting us out once we're spotted, though."

  "We could create a diversion." Meda tilts her head. "Set something on fire. Detonate a bomb. And while they rush to see what's happened…"

  "Get the prisoners out." Ina nods, turning to Vlari.

  She hasn't said a word yet. Feeling the weight of all our attention on her, she says, "It's risky."

  She looks to me.

  Me.

  I shrug. "This mission is risky no matter what."

  She nods. "Jules, you know Ichor best. Where would they keep the prisoners?"

  "Under the castle, in the dungeons. The passage we'll take will come out close."

  "So, we can get the folk out that way. Where could we start the diversion to draw the attention out?"

  "The armory, or the watchtower."

  He draws a map of his home in the sand, and as we plan, this madness almost seems to become doable.

  Jules can lead Meda and Lucan to the watchtower, and blow it up with the gunpowder humans are sure to keep there. Lucan's fire will come in handy. Meanwhile Ive, Vlari, Ina, and I can lead the prisoners out. Ive will remain on the lookout to save our exit.

  We walk south for the rest of the night.

  We’re on top of a hill when I take notice of the landscape before me—all around me. My fists tighten at my sides.

  I haven't seen Tenebris from such a height since the beginning of the invasion. From here, I can see the damage. Entire forests have been razed, replaced by roads and villages. Smoke darkens the stars, polluting our land. The humans have started to reshape the unseelie realm into their ashen, barren desert.

  I think about the folk. Those left outside of Whitecroft. The smart ones hid deep in the wilder woods, but if the humans have hunted the elves, I doubt there'll be anywhere safe.

  My gaze darts north, past the Murkwood, to Denarhelm, the seelie lands. What do they make of our sorry state? I know they laugh at us. I laugh at us too, for once we were mighty and fond of our own importance, yet we've been vanquished by humans, who are led by a child. Denarhelm is supposed to be the weaker fae kingdom, as it's been centuries since they've stood together under one flag. Una, their last high queen, died without naming an heir. She had three children; Maeven, who already ruled the Court of Wind here in Tenebris, her twin Tharsen, cursed and cast out in the wilderness, and Fenemir, who declined the burden of the crown, content to rule the Court of Sunlight. No one insisted on her replacement—the local lords were happy to fashion thrones and call themselves kings.

  And yet we, the strong, united nation, fell. I'd wager they're also worried. Once the humans have taken all that Tenebris has to give, they will no doubt cast their eyes north.

  Reaching the seelie lands from the Alfheimr empire is all but impossible; the great canyons and waterfalls littering their western borders make for a better wall than any iron gates. At the first sign of an attack, they'd send archers to dispatch of the enemy army. The high ground gives them a considerable advantage.

  But there's no such natural reinforcement between the borders of Tenebris and Denarhelm. The humans could march right up north if they so wish.

  No doubt, the lords of Denarhelm have sent forces and spies south, watching and scheming in the shadows.

  I suppose we’ll find out when we get to them.

  Come daylight, we agree to rest, though we're less than an hour away from Sandovar. This isn't the kind of mission to be undertaken while exhausted.

  "It's market day," Jules says cheerfully. "There'll be plenty of people in the town square—we'll manage to get to the watchtower undetected."

  We set camp in an abandoned goblin hole under a hill. It's far from comfortable and still smells of rotted leeches, but it's better than being exposed.

  I offer to take the first watch, and Vlari's quick to say she'll take it with me.

  I think I see Meda roll her eyes, but no one protests.

  They settle deep in the burrow, and I sit at its entrance, my back against the wall of the cave. Vlari joins me, her legs thrown across mine.

  Goblins are thieves and kidnappers, if given the opportunity; they like to dig deep walls with the smallest entrances that make them hard to find. We could have missed it if it weren't for the smell. A smell humans can't detect.

  We still have to remain awake and vigilant—and watch for dogs. That doesn't mean we can't afford distractions.

  I remove Vlari's shoes and proceed to massage her sore feet, my thumbs pushing deep.

  Then she moans.

  I didn't intend to go there today, in the wild, with five companions mere feet away from us, but that moan? I can't resist it.

  I drag her hips till she's sitting right on top of me, and proceed to open her green leather trousers. I slide them past her hips, along her thighs, leaving them on her knees. My fingers skim to her opening. She's dripping wet, ready for me.

  "You're going to have to be quiet," I whisper, curving my fingers inside her.

  She muffles another moan, making me laugh. "Your grandmother is right next to us. Do you want her to hear you fuck me?"

  "You're a rake."

  "What does that make you, princess?" I ask her, opening my crotch to free my length. I rub it against her wetness, pushing it against her sensitive spots, teasing her and denying us both.

  She tries to take charge, lifting her hips to impale herself on me, but I keep her waist down.

  "Drusk…" She breathes hard.

  "You're going to have to ask nicely if you want more."

  She groans, and bares her teeth.

  "What was that?” I ask. “Please, Rystan, make me cum?"

  "Throw yourself off a cliff," she counters, struggling against me to get my hands off her hips.

  I keep her there, and my length parts her folds at each shallow thrust, but never enters her. Payback for the way she rode me yesterday.

  "That wasn't very nice. One might think you don't like me. Perhaps I should stop."

  "I will murder you," she swears, her eyes flashing.

  My feisty little princess.

  "All you have to do is say please again. I quite liked when you begged yesterday. Is that so very hard?"

  In truth, I have to be inside her, and soon. I feel myself tighten, harden, already close to losing it. She does drive me insane.

  "Say it. Just one word. Say it, and I'll give us both what we need."

  I half expect her to slap me.

  "Please, dammit!" she practically yells.

  I growl in approval and angle myself, before lodging my length deep inside her in one hard thrust that has her
whimper.

  We're too loud. We could be heard—by humans, and most definitely by our companions. I cover her mouth with my hand, drawing my hips out and then back inside her, back home, muffling her moans. Each thrust is deep and faster and faster. I need to get both of us there, fast, before we endanger everyone. Right then, I can't say I care if my fucking Vlari kills us all. Being inside her is more important. She rises and falls on me, taking me deeper, harder. I feel it when I hit her sweetest spot: her walls clasp around me, and she's struggling not to scream—so much there are tears in her blue eyes. So I withdraw and thrust at the exact same angle, pounding in. Vlari moves her face away from my hand and shoves it on my neck, right above my shoulder. And she bites me. Hard, deep.

  Hard enough to draw blood and leave a mark.

  I lose control. I throw her on her back, pushing her feet to her shoulders. Her hips are in the air. I bend to them and screw her like an animal. She started it. She bit me. It'll scar.

  She's claimed me, and I'm claiming her right back with every thrust.

  I want to bite her back, and the only piece of flesh anywhere near me is her ass. I'll bite that. Or perhaps somewhere else, somewhere everyone can see.

  She tightens around me again, and drenches me in hotness. I hesitate, half tempted to withdraw and empty myself all over her so she smells like me, but I thrust one last time inside her.

  Then I remove myself, and wrap my teeth around her left butt cheek.

  I bite back, and I lick her, then bite again. I'm hard before I know it, and I do the only logical thing. I thrust back home.

  By midday, I'm more or less sated. Enough to pull her trousers back up and gather her against my chest. She falls asleep in no time.

  Twenty minutes later, Lucan joins us, holding his hands behind his head, with a straw of wheat in his mouth. He's the picture of casual indifference. "Maybe don't take guard duty together, yes?"

  I shrug unapologetically. "No promises."

  The Ashes of Ichor

  Vlari

  I sleep well after our guard shift, nestled against Drusk's chest. When Meda wakes us up, she hands us slices of bread and dry meat. We check our supply and set off on our way in silence.

  I don't think any of us take what we're about to do lightly. There's a high chance that some—if not all of us—will never get out of Sandovar.

  "If anything goes wrong," Ina says out of nowhere, "you know what to do, right?"

  Everyone else either nods or acquiesces, but I don't. A reminder that while they're soldiers and warriors, I haven't been raised like that, though Meda did teach me to fight.

  I have to ask, "What are you supposed to do? Get out?"

  There's a short silence, but Drusk breaks it. "Exactly. You abandon the plan and get out."

  I think I've missed something. Something important. I press, "Drusk?"

  Spill.

  He sighs. "If we're compromised, our priority will be to get you out."

  Me, not the rest of them.

  "That's preposterous! I can take care of myself. We should—"

  "I have a sister," Jules says, out of the blue. "Arva. Quite the clever thing—she's likely to succeed our father anyway. That savage queen has children and a husband. The rest of us…well, I like most of the people here, but we aren't relevant. You're the last in the line of Nyx. The moment you die, the usurper becomes the only person who is eligible to become high queen of Tenebris."

  I hate every single word he's just said, all the more because they're true.

  I cannot afford to die.

  I lick my lips. "I'm going to give you one clear order. If we're in a position where we're in danger, you will get to safety. Every one of you will think of nothing but your own skin. I demand it as high queen. Understood?"

  I'm met with silence. "I don't intend to die," I add. "But I'm a Void. I'm hard to take down. When I get out of there, I want you all to come out in one piece, too."

  We've stopped walking altogether now.

  Ina is the first to nod, slowly. "If the queen orders it."

  They each give me their word—everyone but Drusk. I glare at him, demanding his submission.

  He glares right back.

  “I'll never swear that. Ever.”

  I want to throttle him, and kiss him all at once.

  At long last, I give up. "Fine, be an idiot. We have to get going anyway."

  We would have reached Sandovar already if we'd gone straight for the main path, but Jules wanted us to circle it to reach the doorway he used to take. It's hidden in a cave, in the surrounding woodland hills. Jules thinks another horny boy had it built; part of me wonders if it was meant for this—to get people out in case Sandovar was ever besieged or taken.

  I'm reassured when we reach the cave: it's filthy, covered in dust and spiderwebs. No one has come here in a long time, which suggests the humans haven't found the path. And no wonder.

  The doorway, if it could be considered as such, has no handle, nothing marking it as special. It looks like it's part of the cave. Jules calls to earth magic and a hole opens up, giving us access to a path just as dirty as the cave. While there are footsteps, they're covered by layers of dust. No one has used it the last ten years, at least.

  "I suppose the boy isn't entirely useless," Meda remarks to Ina.

  I'm not surprised these two get along.

  They walk in first with Ive, then Drusk and I follow. Jules brings up the rear, and locks the door behind us with a wave of his hand.

  "Was it many peasant women you used to visit, or one in particular?" Drusk asks the ranger.

  Jules shrugs. "One at a time, many overall. I never saw the appeal of my fellow gentry. They either wanted me as a gateway to my father, or because they wanted pureblood babies—there are few enough of us that most lines are related, these days. And some gentry would rather bed a cousin than take a common fae—or a human."

  "Yet your mother was human, was she not?"

  "Yes, and my father's mother was, too. My father has no distaste for mortals, though he considers them inferior in many ways. Lower born, however?" Jules winced. "He swore if I ever fathered a half-sprite, he'd kill it, and the mother too."

  I grit my teeth. It's not the first time I've heard such a sentiment, but it always infuriates me. I'm a halfling. So is Drusk. What do the lords of the lower courts truly think of us? No wonder Ash was so quick to betray us.

  "Your father is a swine," Ina said, turning to Jules. "If he ever says such a thing in front of me, I'll open him up from one end to the next. The gentry are inbred, losing all magic because of that sort of stupidity."

  "Can I watch?" Jules asks cheerfully.

  Our chatter gets more subdued as we approach the city—I can hear activity above us. Footsteps and talks.

  Jules grows quieter, and jumpier. At one intersection, he stops us. "Hang on a minute. Something's wrong."

  I turn to him, alert.

  "We're close to the surface. We should be hearing things—people outside, shopkeepers, soldiers marching—even if it weren't market day. It's too quiet."

  He tiptoes to the path on our right that looks a lot dirtier than the one we've taken. "We should be able to peek into town from here."

  We follow him, careful not to make a single noise. Soon, the path ends with another blocked exit—he magics it open, and light floods our tunnel, bathing us in warmth.

  We're at a window inside the outer walls surrounding the city, with a view to what looks like the town center, right in front of the stronghold.

  There's something blocking the path. It's dark, charred black. At first, I don't understand what I see. Art, perhaps? If one can call it that. I never understood human tastes.

  "By the gods," Ina whispers.

  I hear Ive retch behind us. I can only stare once I realize.

  The charred statues at the gates aren't a mortal's poor opinion of art. They're people. Folk. Shy folk, burned to a crisp, and displayed right here.

  They were all throw
n together in chains, and then the humans had them set on fire days ago. It can't have been recent, otherwise there would be smoke, and a stronger smell.

  This was left as a message. A message for us.

  For me.

  I lose it.

  Darker Woods

  Drusk

  I can tell what Vlari is about to do less than a second before she moves to leap out the window, rush to the middle of Sandovar, and kill everyone in sight. Just in time to catch her hands and pull her back.

  She kicks, swears, and throws punches, screaming at me to let her go. I cover her mouth, and drag her back through the tunnels.

  This was exactly what the humans had intended, and I can't give them the satisfaction. I can't risk losing her, either. So I drag her kicking and screaming, taking each hit, keeping her as silent as I can until we're out.

  I only let go when Jules closes the path behind us.

  She punches me. I let her have the first hit, but I counter the second. "Not even you can take thousands of humans at once, Vlari. One would get to you. An arrow. A lucky dagger. Are you selfish enough to condemn your kingdom?"

  She yells and launches at me. I pull my sword, and block her with the blunt side. I know this is about releasing her anger more than hurting me, or I'd be dead by now.

  "We have to go. She was too loud," Jules urges us.

  I nod. "After you."

  He starts to run, and the rest of our company follows him. Vlari is still glaring at me, bloodlust brightening her gaze. "Are you done, or am I going to have to throw you over my shoulder?"

  I treat her like a child to make her realize she's acting like one.

  "They deserve to pay. They deserve to burn."

  I nod. "Certainly. And to see to that, we'd better be alive."

  She's shaking with rage, but I see her claws retract.

  "Come on. Jules was right, we were probably heard."

  We follow after the others, prioritizing speed over silence this time. They find us anyway.

  When I hear the dogs barking as they hunt us, I grab Vlari and place her over my shoulder as I promised I would. She's the slowest among us.