Keldwyn shrugged. “Our ways are tricky. A step left, when the dance seems meant to go right. You may have powers like ours”—he glanced toward the grove again—“but you do not yet know the way our minds work. We are creatures of random chaos. It is why our paths separated from humans and vampires so long ago. Because of their violent natures, they need order and structure. We do not.”
“Yet the Fae have a court and a queen. Two courts, even.”
“We have our own etiquette. It’s just far less predictable.”
“There are time distortions between the Fae world and ours,” Lyssa said. “What if I go there for a day and return to find a hundred years have passed here?”
“The queen is capable of managing such things. If you please her, it will not be a concern. Do you wish my suggestion or not?”
Not. Though I’d be happy to give him a suggestion or two.
Lyssa’s lips quirked at Jacob’s thought, but otherwise her face remained serene. “Of course, Lord Keldwyn.”
“Entrances to the Fae world used to be fairly easy to find. In-between places or times. Crossroads, forks in the road, stream edges, midnight or noon, equinoxes. The mists. Such circumstances are still required for an opening, but in your case the will of the Fae queen must be aligned with it as well. Bring an offering that impresses her, and she will make the crossing an easier one.”
Keldwyn’s focus moved back to that largest tree. “I walk in your world, in the places of old Earth, deep forests such as where we met. However, because of my age and strength, I can visit places like your cities, observing certain precautions. Our young are not so resilient. If, through foolish curiosity, they wander too deeply into the human world, and keep their soles too long on the things of earth men have made into their tools—concrete, steel, brick—the young Fae weakens. When their magic is dangerously sapped, their base instinct is to transform, as many of us can, into a pure earth form to regenerate. A tree, a plant, a stone.” Keldwyn’s gaze shifted to the necklace Lyssa wore, chunks of amber. Some of them had tiny fossilized creatures inside. The center pendant was a smooth teardrop of jade, speckled like a bird’s egg. It reflected the color of her intent eyes.
“But that is a trap,” he continued. “Once they are in that form, it becomes their prison. Only the touch of a Fae, one who has enough strength for it, can release them. Even then, the young will need to be taken out of your world of iron and structure, back to the Fae world, before their strength can truly regenerate.”
“So you want me to free someone to impress the queen.”
Keldwyn lifted a shoulder. “There is one, a dryad, lost to our world over two decades ago. The queen bore her affection and was grieved to lose her, but where she is, no pure Fae can reclaim her. The risk is too great, and the queen forbade anyone to try, because of the chance we might reveal ourselves.
However, you are as yet outside our world, our laws.
If you succeed, I am certain a gateway in the proper in-between setting would open for you.” Lyssa considered him. “You are ever helpful, Lord Keldwyn. Where is this Fae located?”
“In the city you made your home before your fall from grace with the Council. Atlanta. In a place surrounded with broken asphalt. I do not know her condition, but even near death, a dryad can live for a long time inside the shelter of a tree. I cannot give you the exact location, but she is in the downtown area, the decaying, crime-ridden parts. Perhaps in what you cal a parking lot, or an older, abandoned area?”
“That narrows it down,” Jacob noted dryly.
Keldwyn shot him a glance. “Yes. I expect you will have to spend some time finding the right place. But you cannot take too long. The queen will not wait beyond the next full moon on your attendance. Samhain approaches and other events of importance take place in the Fae world. At that point, she will get tired of your fumbling attempts to find a gateway and bring you to her. In that case, the crossing will be a far more unpleasant experience.” Because it already sounds like the perfect vacation hot spot now.
Once his message was delivered, Keldwyn headed back toward the forest, making it obvious he intended to depart, irrespective of whether they had further questions or need of him. It wouldn’t matter regardless, Jacob knew. He didn’t serve their interests, but that of an unknown monarch. And his own.
Though Lyssa asked Mason to remain at the grove, Jacob stayed a close step behind her, and she didn’t discourage him. When they reached the edge of the forest, Keldwyn paused, those onyx eyes settling back on Lyssa’s face after a brief flicker at Jacob’s. “Long ago,” he said, “a woodsman fell in love with a beautiful and mysterious girl he found in the forest. She agreed to marry him on one condition. She had to leave him from midnight to dawn every night, and he couldn’t ask her whereabouts or try to follow her. Since he loved her, he agreed. They were very happy, for a time.” He paused. “Eventually, they had a child together.
Since the woodsman had been busy with his trade, upon the child’s birth they only had an old cradle loaned to them by the village wise woman. One night, while his wife was gone, he couldn’t sleep, for he never slept well without her. He decided he’d pick out a tree to make a new cradle. Putting their daughter on his back, he carried her into the woods.
Not too far away, he found one that was perfect, the wood so smooth beneath his fingers. The baby smiled and laughed when he touched the tree, reaching toward it, so he was sure it was the right one. He chopped it down and made the cradle in that one fateful night.”
Now his gaze shifted back to Jacob, flat, unreadable. “His wife was a hama dryad, her life essence connected to a specific tree. To maintain that life essence, she had to return to a tree form for a certain amount of time every night. As I’m sure you guessed, he mistakenly killed her to make a resting place for their child. Fae lore is filled with many such cautionary tales about the wisdom of love between the species.”
“Perhaps if she’d just told him who and what she was, it never would have happened. Honesty is the best policy and all that,” Jacob suggested. As he met Lyssa’s bemused green eyes, he thought of how much he liked the porcelain smoothness of her face, the delicate features. “The problem I have with that old folk tale,” he added, “is how long he accepted her being gone at that time of night. When it comes to love, you don’t accept rationing. Over time, you want it all. He would have followed her.”
“He would have lost her that much sooner.” Keldwyn’s lip curled. “The Fae can make man or vampire believe what they want them to believe. For instance, you believe you and the Lady Lyssa are meant to be together forever. That you can have a happily ever after, like the fairy tales humans have bastardized. But in the end, if her path lies in our world, you and the half-breed infant will be left behind. Just like the woodsman and his daughter.” Despite Lyssa’s sudden still ness, a warning, Jacob stepped forward. He and Keldwyn were of like height, though the compressed energy of the male Fae was like standing within the incineration range of a star. It didn’t matter. Jacob was a ticking bomb himself. “At some point,” he said quietly, “you will acknowledge Lady Lyssa’s son.”
“Not as long as he is yours as well. Lyssa, you would do well to tell your servant to stand down, before there’s one more tree out there. One that can be snapped like kindling.”
Jacob, there’s a time for this. Go back to Mason. I need a few minutes of privacy, and I do not want you to listen in.
It was a firm order, but there was also a caress behind it, telling him she was quietly pleased he’d stood up for her and Kane. He rarely doubted her wisdom, though there were times it was hard to stomach, like now. He nodded to Keldwyn, his jaw tight. “I’ve said my peace.”
Turning, he sketched a bow to his lady. I’ll respect your wishes, but I’ll be close, my lady. I don’t trust your welfare to him. Not now, not ever.
He returned to his place on the concrete rubble, finding Mason back in his own place there. Though he gave him a nod, Jacob kept his attention trained on
Lyssa and Keldwyn. They spoke for only a few moments, and he could tell nothing from their expressions. At length, Keldwyn vanished into the rainforest.
“I'll leave you two to talk,” Mason said, correctly interpreting the mood as Lyssa moved back toward them. “We'll discuss plans shortly.”
Jacob watched his lady come toward him, all sensual grace in slacks and a cream-colored blouse open at the throat. Her long black hair was clipped at her nape, the hip-length strands playing around her shoulders and the nip of her waist. She was so fine-boned and petite, the result of her Asian vampire mother, but only a fool would ignore the royal power that emanated from those jade eyes. The fact of her bare feet didn’t impact that in the slightest. Of late, she seemed to prefer direct contact with the earth, another indication of the changes happening with her Fae blood. She looked pensive.
“Figuring out his motives is like trying to spear a fish with a straw,” he remarked.
Taking a seat on one of the lower concrete pieces, she crossed her legs and stretched her arms back to brace herself. Turning her face to the wind, she closed her eyes.
“Yes,” she said simply. Her velvet voice could caress a man’s skin, her vampire allure in perfect complement to the Fae. Though he was resigned to her ability to arouse with nothing more than her voice or her scent, long practice and intense servant training allowed him to focus past it, particularly when it was incidental, not targeted. When she wanted to arouse him, a battle against an army of Keldwyn's would be easier than resistance. Her lips curved, telling him she’d registered his thought, though the pensive look remained. The private conversation with the Fae lord had bothered her.
“I know you don’t believe his motives. Or his story about the dryad trapped in Atlanta.”
“As a queen, I know there are certain things you do and don’t do. The Fae monarch has many to do her bidding. If she was truly fond of this dryad, she would have sent someone after her long ago, even if she could not risk herself. I think it far more likely the queen imprisoned the girl there as a punishment, and Keldwyn has his own reasons for wanting us to free her, perhaps to rouse the queen’s ire, challenge her.”
“But you still think we should do it.” She glanced up at him from under thick, dark lashes. “You already know that.”
“Which is why it wasn’t a question.”
His tone won an imperious arch of her brow, but she nodded. “Keldwyn is duplicitous, secretive.
However, every piece of advice he’s given us contains a certain degree of wisdom. If I am able to release her and bring her to the queen, doing what another Fae can’t or won’t dare to do, then there is a status to that even if I anger her.”
Jacob snorted. “Only another queen would think about it that way.”
“But that is how I need to come to her. Not as a supplicant, but as an equal.”
He slid down next to her. Stretching out his legs, he rested on his elbows, tangling his fingers in a lock of her long hair. As he twined it around his fingers, he gave it a tug. She laid her palm on his abdomen, slipping her fingers beneath his T-shirt to trace the ridges of muscle. Jacob didn’t want to say it, but he knew he had to do so.
“You are superior in all ways, my lady, but what if your new powers are not equal to hers? What if she feels compel ed to teach you a painful lesson? Set you back on your heels for freeing this Fae girl?”
“That’s a risk I must take. Far better to appear assertive in such a situation than meek and scraping.” One long-nailed finger teased beneath the denim waistband, tracing his bare hip bone. “And that applies not only to queens. Not too long ago, I remember an insolent young man who presented himself to be my servant. Respect he had, but not an ounce of true submission.”
Jacob gave a half chuckle. “Yeah, and I remember how that night went. I got my ass kicked.”
“But it turned out all right in the end, didn’t it?” He looked up at her. Despite her Fae abilities, he could still get the jump on her with his vampire speed. Sometimes. Like now. In a blink, he’d moved them off the concrete and down below the mangroves, into the cultivated gardens where there was a patch of soft grass. He’d left her on top, but had her pul ed down against his chest, his arm around her back, his mouth warm on hers. She stirred against him, and he felt her pleasure with his body against the softer curves of her own. His cock hardened as her own flesh dampened, readying itself for him. Even when he’d been a third-mark human servant, he’d had the senses to smell her arousal. A third-mark was equipped to mostly keep up with a vampire’s insatiable carnal appetites. Now that he was a vampire, he had those appetites in spades himself. So her arousal was an irresistible perfume, an acceptable invitation to deal with the tension of the past couple hours.
But more needed to be said first. Seeing it in his lady’s eyes, he braced himself, pretty sure he wasn’t going to like whatever it was.
Lyssa pushed herself up, straddling his hips, but flattened her palms on his chest, a mute order to stay where he was. “Jacob, you know you’re staying here.”
“Like hell.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line. “You sound more like your brother, Gideon, than the servant Thomas trained so well for me.”
“Gideon and I have more in common that most people realize. Particularly Gideon.” His eyes didn’t waver. “I’m going with you.”
“We both know how the Fae feel about vampires.
It’s very likely the doorway won’t open for you, even if we manage to free this dryad and bring her along.”
“Is that what Keldwyn told you when you had your private conversation?”
Not exactly.
When Jacob rejoined Mason, Lyssa hadn’t watched him go, though she usually took great pleasure in the attractive flex of muscle in all the right places, the warrior’s grace and power enhanced by the vampire blood.
Keldwyn lifted a shoulder. “You counsel your servant wisely, Lady Lyssa.”
“Don’t flatter yourself overmuch, my lord. Cal it a challenge to Fae superiority all you wish. I know male posturing, regardless of the species.” He lifted a brow. “What is it you wish to say to me that required this private audience?”
“It wasn’t Fae allure or any power of mine that convinced Jacob we were meant to be together. He convinced me.”
“Then you are as much a fool as he is. Many things change, but not someone’s fundamental nature. It matters not what species they are.”
“That is my point, exactly. And Jacob’s.” He studied her for another moment, then inclined his head. “I wish you well, Lady Lyssa. As always.” When he disappeared from view in a blink of time, she didn’t bother to try and track him as she had when he’d first started visiting them. Unlike vampires, it wasn’t speed that gave him that ability, but a Fae’s capacity to blend. He could be within a stride of her, cloaked not only in the colors of the forest, but its scents and life energy, a perfect chameleon. So, anticipating he was still close enough to hear her, she spoke, taking the final word.
“Better a fool in his arms, my lord, than a lonely Fae who haunts the forests and doesn’t know how to smile. I wish you well. Also as always.”
Chapter 2
RETURNING to the present, she knew she wouldn’t be able to convince Jacob the Fae world was closed to him, mainly because she didn’t know that for certain herself. He’d had exceptional intuition long before he had the ability to delve into her mind.
Demonstrating it now, he closed his hands over hers on his chest, with enough pressure that her blood stirred at the challenge. “Even before I became a vampire, lying to me usually didn’t work out so well for you, my lady.”
“Take care that you don’t overestimate what you know of me, Sir Vagabond.” But her mouth softened.
“Jacob, there’s Kane to consider. Would you abandon him?”
Letting out an oath, he set her aside, getting to his feet. “That’s unfair, and you know it.”
“I never said I was fair. If Keldwyn is not telling th
e truth about the time distortion, or if I don’t survive this, or can’t get back for any reason, Kane needs one parent in his life. We both know how critical it is to have at least one blood parent watching over a vampire infant. As great as our feelings are for each other, he is the summation of those feelings. He comes first.”
Jacob strode a few paces away, his fists clenched. After a long moment, they eased and she heard his dry chuckle. “You almost had me, my lady.” He glanced over his shoulder, those blue eyes shrewd. “What would Kane think of me if I didn’t do everything to protect his mother? We both know Mason is just as capable as I am of protecting Kane.
More so perhaps, though I'll deny it if you feed his overinflated ego. Plus, Kane has an uncle who will defend him to the death. An uncle who—by some unprecedented miracle or freakish aberration in the universe—is the bonded servant of one of the most powerful vampires either of us know. This has nothing to do with Kane, and everything to do with you protecting me. I thought we were past that.”
“As much as we are past you always trying to protect me?” She rose. From the stubborn set of his jaw, she knew her eyes were flashing fire. “Set aside your damned code of chivalry, Jacob. It’s far more likely you could be kill ed in the Fae world. What if we step through that doorway at night, and it’s bright daylight on their side, with no cover in sight? That’s the capricious type of cruelty the Fae excel at.”
“Then they'll have barbecued vampire fumigating their pretty, sparkly world.”
Now it was her turn to curse. He looked impressed by the sound of it, the number of syllables. “What was that?”
“A particularly virulent oath Mason taught me, years ago. I just insulted twelve generations of your obstinate Irish heritage.”
That made him smile. The handsome charm of it never failed to make her heart trip a little faster, but now her reaction made her frown, at herself as much as at him. “Earlier, when you challenged Keldwyn, you said, ‘Lady Lyssa’s son.’ Not ‘our son’ or ‘my son.’ Why did you say it that way?”
Vampire Queen 8 - Bound by the Vampire Queen - Joey W Hill Page 2