Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1)

by Margo Bond Collins

  "My Prince, the herbs I forced down her throat slows her breathing. When the sun climbs over the mountains we will know for sure."

  His temper already volatile, his words came out gruff. "We are waiting for her to die?"

  "Nay," Jarlock countered. "We wait for her to live."

  "Shadows keep company with her pale skin."

  Jarlock's expression softened. "Ye must trust me. I have done all that is possible to save her." He twisted his neck and looked into his eyes. "I have not seen ye so pained over the welfare of a woman before. There is a demon inside ye crying for release. Is it guilt or love?" He turned his attention to Kira again. "And don't lie to me. Ye forget I've known ye since your arse was covered in rushes."

  Balion spat the words. "Then know this. If she dies, I will slay every wild boar residing in Locke Cress."

  "She did a fine job of helping ye in that regard."

  A shudder swept through him. "If I had not taught her the use of the spear…." He took his eyes from her still form and allowed the images to crash through his tortured mind. "If she had not climbed atop the rock, if I had not found her scent―"

  "Balion, ye must stop."

  He heard water swish through the bowl as Jarlock dipped the cloth into it, then wrung it out and placed it to her forehead. The soft fragrance of her skin reached him. He wanted to touch her, take her in his arms and hold her, but stubborn pride prevented him from acting on the fantasy.

  "I will sit with her now." Balion’s tone left no room for argument.

  Jarlock took full advantage of their close relationship. "If ye don't sit somewhere, ye'll soon be tripping over your own heart." Softer, in a tone meant to ease his troubled mind, Jarlock added, "Ye need rest, man. Ye have not slept since we brought her back to the keep."

  "And have ye? Nay, I did not think so," he snapped. "Now are ye going to give up your post or must I fight ye for it?"

  "Ach, ye are a stubborn ass." Jarlock unfurled his bulky frame from the chair. "If there is a change, ye will send for me?"

  Balion nodded and exchanged places with the giant of a man. As soon as he left the room, the prince ran his hand down the length of her feverish arm, closing his eyes against the velvety softness of her skin. He dragged the cloth from her forehead, sloshed it through the cool water and with great care, set it in place again. His fingers lingered on her flushed cheek. He lost track of how many times he exchanged the cool cloth which, within brief seconds, sizzled with heat. He didn't know and he didn't care. The feelings she invoked in him bordered on madness, utter lunacy. He didn't claim to understand it.

  An invincible bond connected him to the girl named after the sun, in his world, in hers and every world in between. Drawn to her like a scorpion risking cannibalism to effectuate the mating ritual, his feelings far surpassed lust. He wanted something in return from her. By the Saints, he wanted everything in return from her—her smile, her willingness, her favor. Never had he desired a woman with such depth of longing and hunger, and he knew he'd never be satisfied until she surrendered to him. Balion buried his chin in his hands and studied her features―the long, spiky lashes resting against her alabaster skin, the arch of her brows, the full, cherry lips slack in blissful forgetfulness. His exhaled breath did little to relieve the tension he felt through every ligament and tendon in his body. He knew one thing―if the forest nymph died a part of him would die with her.

  * * *

  Lucidity returned at a slow pace, but at some time Kira became aware they had arrived at the keep. She remembered little after the standoff with the wild boars—except for the side-trip to heaven and her brief meeting with Gran. Her head throbbed and her leg ached as though someone had severed it with a dull knife. Jeez, didn't these people have anything for pain, quasi a bottle of Percoset washed down with a tall Marguerita from the local tavern?

  Jarlock held something to her lips. "Drink, lass, will cut the pain."

  She didn't argue. Right about now, she'd drink swamp water if it would stop the tortuous agony. "How long have I been out?"

  "Two suns."

  The pain ebbed. Wonders never ceased with this Goliath. Whatever he'd forced down her throat left her giddy and pain free. And to think pharmaceutical companies spent billions on research and manufacturing.

  She lifted a heavy hand to her forehead. "There were too many, rushed me and I couldn't kill them fast enough."

  "Ye took out five, lass. 'Tis proud I am of ye."

  "The Light-Prince came. I remember him fighting beside me just before I went down."

  "Aye, he followed your scent through the woods and found ye surrounded. He sat here beside ye, tended the wound whilst ye visited the land of dreams."

  A hazy memory surfaced. "He took care of me?"

  "Aye." Jarlock gave a lopsided grin. "Me thinks he labors over his stern words with ye now, lass. Ye do not know the Light-Prince, but he is a kind man." A smile found him. "And a stubborn, proud jackass as well."

  "I think deep down I've always known it." Through a fog she remembered someone sucking the venom from the wound, and an intense sting as someone dragged a piece of thread through her torn flesh. "I will have a scar, my own little trophy of war?"

  Jarlock nodded. "Aye, in the shape of a half-moon to prove your courage. I did the best I could, knowing the softer side takes issue with such marks."

  She placed her hand on his forearm. "Thank you for saving me."

  "'Twas my pleasure." He patted her hand. "'Tis rest ye need now, lass. Ye are safe. No harm shall come to ye here."

  Taking refuge under a soft animal pelt, Kira willed her body to relax. She was so tired, and not just physically. Her eyelids felt heavy, the muscles in her face malleable. The last thing she saw before surrendering was Balion standing in the doorway, his expression an odd mixture of relief and…love?

  Chapter 9

  Balion slumped into a chair at the long trestle table in the Great Hall and dropped his chin into his hands. The forest nymph had almost died from the wild boar's venom. If Jarlock hadn't sucked the poison from her blood, she would have. For two days now, he'd avoided her, couldn't bring himself to look into those pale eyes. He longed to taste her lips again, suck the very breath from her until she whimpered for release. Every night he dreamed about her violet eyes boring into his, not with ambivalence or dread, but with love and longing. In his fantasies, she was beneath him again, not fighting him, but meeting him thrust for thrust and crying out his name. His cock ached and throbbed with unrequited desire until he could think of nothing but driving it into her hot depths.

  She had bewitched him. The volcanic fires of his blood stirred and burned with a fiery heat every time he looked at her. Hard to dispel was the image of her fighting the pack of beasts. Her young, supple body braced for battle, her long copper hair fanned out behind her. She dipped, twisted and stabbed, dispatched them with the skill of a great huntress. Harder yet to set from his mind was the night she courted death while he sat beside her until the sun passed over the mountains.

  An oath left his lips. He had never been so miserable. It pained him to see her eyes misted over with tears. He tried to imagine being cast from his homeland and plunged into a strange world. He knew he must forget about the way her body felt against him, erase her scent from his brain and turn from the fire in her eyes. Yet, here was a woman worth dying for. He remembered his promise to the Gods; he had vowed to let her go if they spared her.

  He slammed his tankard down on the table. "Not yet, not yet."

  How could he appear in her room while she ailed? He could think of no sound reason. Jarlock said she fared well, had even ventured from bed to walk the hallway that morn. He must find a way to draw her out. She could not refuse a command from the prince. If the woman wanted seduction, by the Gods, he would seduce her.

  Balion hauled himself from the table with tankard in hand and headed for the covered walkway leading to the kitchen. Entering the room, moist warmth crept through him as a pungent mixture of gin
ger, coriander and cinnamon drifted through the air and returned him to pleasant memories of his childhood. As a boy, he'd watched Helena's mother roll out delicate pastries on the butcher block and stop to remove monstrous flats of mouth-watering breads from the fiery depths of her ovens.

  Built of stone with a reed-thatched roof, the cook's domain was massive and stocked well. An enormous oven, large enough to roast two or three oxen at the same time anchored the wall at one end. To the left sat the scullery, the area where Helena's assistants washed dishes over a stone basin built into the wall. The room had its own water supply drawn from a cistern at a higher level of the keep. An assortment of serving spoons made of bone, pewter, and bronze hung from the low ceiling. Beside them, pronged flesh hooks constructed from iron kept company with an assortment of knives.

  Helena wiped her sweaty brow with the back of her hand. "My Prince, to what do I owe this honor?"

  "'Tis a feast I'd be wanting, if ye have it in ye."

  "Aye, ye have only to tell me when and what suits your palate."

  "This eve I'm thinking, but only if ye have the time. I leave the fare to ye, Helena."

  "Rest assured, sire, a banquet will be prepared. Is your father returning, then?"

  "Nay, I do not expect him."

  "What is the occasion, my prince? If ye are fixing to impress the woebegone lass injured by the wild boars, I should be thinking of something to whet her appetite." Helena blew an errant lock of hair from her damp forehead. "The girl doesn't eat enough to sustain a wren."

  "A fat pig stuffed with apples and cumin and your confections mayhap would tempt her."

  "Sweets, my Prince; is that what you think she hankers for?"

  "Tell me true, Helena, is there a woman alive who can resist your sugary concoctions?"

  "Nay, sire, or man." She gave him a reassuring look. "Take your leave now, Balion, and be assured the girl will not be disappointed."

  With a quick nod and a word of thanks, Balion left the kitchen and searched for Jarlock. He didn't have to venture far from the keep, for moments later, he found his friend in the stables tending his stallion.

  "'Tis a feast Helena is preparing for this eve."

  Jarlock kept his eyes on the task at hand. "And ye wish me to inform the lass she is expected to attend."

  "Aye, if ye think she is fit."

  "The wound to her leg is faring well, but I fear ye will do more damage to the wound in her heart." He snuck a peek over his shoulder. "And your heart too."

  "Have ye added soothsaying to your skills of fighting and healing then?"

  Jarlock came to his feet and faced him. "I think of ye, as I have since we were nestlings. If it be true she hails from a distant world, what good does it serve ye to win her, my prince?"

  "'Tis better when ye are defending me or tending my grievous wounds."

  "Aye, I'm sure 'tis, but one of us must rule with his head and not with what sits between his legs."

  With an affronted look, Balion countered, "Ye think I wish to bed her and be done with her?"

  "I think ye are mired in sludge on this journey to her heart and no good can come of it."

  Assuming the tone of a prince rather than a friend, Balion snapped, "I will not ask ye again. Have the lass in the Great Hall for this eve's meal." He turned to walk away, stopped and mumbled over his shoulder. "Summon Gwyneth and the devious one she calls her brother and tell them they are expected as well."

  "The minstrels and jugglers, my prince?"

  "I will carry the word to the village meself." He turned to face his friend. "Unless ye take issue with that too."

  With a shake of his head, Jarlock tossed the curry comb on the ground and left the stables, sweeping past him without another word.

  * * *

  Seated at the table in the Great Hall, acrimony didn't begin to describe Kira's disposition, particularly after Jarlock informed her, willing or no, the Light-Prince had spoken. However, within minutes of arriving at the feast, her vow of belligerence dissipated amid the cheerful villagers and boisterous merriment. Balion sat at the head of the table with Gwyneth to his right, Jarlock to his left, and the shifty-eyed Garrick to his sister's left.

  Platters of food entered through a side door–an assortment of fruit similar to what she'd sampled the day at the baths, a roasted pig, its jaws clamped around a juicy green apple. And something resembling yams drowning in a syrupy glaze, loaves of fresh bread, and an assortment of pastries and confections a sugar addict would kill for.

  Apart from the gaiety, undercurrents droned around her like mad hornets. Jugglers performed, minstrels strummed, and ale flowed, yet the air was thicker than ice blocks. Balion had Jarlock's ear cornered, his expression somber, and Gwyneth, well, what could one say about the woman? Not even flaming strawberries over ice cream could thaw her cool exterior right now.

  Their hunger appeased, the music started up again, tunes about lost love and feckless adventures. In an abrupt gesture, Garrick clapped his hands, and the music came to a halt. A masked trio of troubadours rushed into the room with a makeshift platform and set it down several feet in front of the stone fireplace. Kira wondered what they were about now.

  Garrick came to his feet. "In tribute to our honored guest, the minstrels and jugglers wish to enact a play." With a flourish of his hand toward the Light-Prince, he bowed and waited for sanction.

  "And by what name is the act known?" Balion asked, his gaze fixed on Kira.

  "Fall of the Queen, my Prince, and I fear we will require Kira's partaking. Might she play the part of the queen?"

  "Oh, no, I couldn't." Kira shook her head, the Machiavellian glaze in Garrick's eyes chilling her to the marrow.

  "Come now, lass." Garrick beckoned her with outstretched arm. "It is a painless venture. Ye need only sit on the royal throne and the actors will make the effort to entertain us."

  Balion offered a smile, albeit hesitantly, and then the blond demigod surged to his feet and came to her. Warmth radiated up her arm as he clutched her elbow and led her to an ornate chair canopied in the standards of Locke Cress. Easing her down, his hand lingered on hers before he stepped back and took up a position several feet distant.

  The troubadours serenaded her, one with a viola, the other a lute, ending their renditions with flair. One joined her on the platform, his enlivened oratory about the wicked queen's atrocities captivating the audience. By the time he came to the part where she poisoned the King, an eerie silence fell across the Great Hall. Aware of the ice-encrusted vibes sweeping into the room, every muscle in Kira's body tightened. Balion's grim expression and tense stance did little to convince her all was right with the world.

  The masked orator swept into an exaggerated bow, revealing the cold, steel-gray eyes behind the mask. His gaze ran the length of her body, settling on the gold chain about her neck. He seemed drawn to it, and two questions remained—what did he think it was, and why did he want it? Damn Gwyneth. She should have known the woman courted duplicity this afternoon with her honey-laced words. "Wear the gold chain this eve, lass. It will be lovely with your hair."

  Similar to the chain holding the talisman, the man wanted it, and Gwyneth had all but stamped her chest with a giant red bulls-eye. Malevolence whispered around Kira, yet she remained rooted deeper than the molten sludge of Mount Vesuvius. In slow motion the troubadour advanced, his gunmetal eyes fixed on the chain, his hand reaching out with, dear God, a dagger!

  Kira heard a scream–hers–before chaos erupted.

  Balion struck with the speed of a python and leaped through the air in a golden blur of hard sinew and potent strength. Shoved from the throne, Kira clutched her abdomen in a frantic struggle to recapture the air knocked from her lungs. Well-muscled calves feinted and parried above her—Balion's and the masked assassin's. Daggers glinted and the sickening sound of metal on metal echoed in her ears. A tortured groan fell from the man's lips as he hit the stone floor with a resounding thud, his blood painting a nearby wall with ribbons
of crimson.

  Screams roared above the din as mothers grabbed wailing babes and panicked male voices cried out for order. Shadows crept forward from darkened corners—sixteen Kira counted peering between her spread fingers. Surrounding the Light-Prince and dressed in black leggings overlaid with knee-length kaftans, evil hissed behind their ebony masks. Emerald jewels adorned their sashes and a solitary gem of the same anchored the midnight turbans swathed about their heads.

  A strong hand reached out and grabbed Kira's leg, thank the Good Lord not her wounded one. Dragged across the floor lizard-like, hands spread at her sides, nails clawing at the plank floor boards, she bucked and reared against her unseen enemy.

  Jarlock's voice flooded her with relief. "Kira, yield, lass."

  Her body slackened and none too soon as the giant shoved her under the trestle table, drew his broadsword and hurled his mammoth body into the fray. With her face nestled against a sturdy post, her heart in misery, the ebony-clad bodies moved in like tarantulas and surrounded Jarlock and Balion. Back-to-back the giant and her Light-Prince fought against the menacing invaders, their flanks exposed and vulnerable.

  A boy, no older than fifteen, had joined them. Dressed in peasant garb and striking with the velocity of an enraged viper, the sword of Locke Cress hummed through the air. Wielding it in both hands, the boy struck, cleaving a head in two. Pride swelled Kira's heart, though she had little time to cherish it. With a flick of Balion's hand, the dagger flew from his long, bronze fingers and sketched out the eye of his enemy. Brought up high, Jarlock's broadsword keened sharp and shrill as he lifted it over his head and brought it down with lightning speed. Heads rolled and limbs shattered as one-by-one the enemies of the King crossed over into the gates of hell.

  An omnipotent stillness came to the hall. Kira looked up, her heart pounding faster than a frantic sparrow's. Commanding her disobedient legs to move, she remained riveted to her spot, dazed by the carnage. Blood from severed limbs ran in all directions and gray brain matter oozed from cracked skulls. And it had all happened in the blink of an eye. Her stomach heaved as waves of dizziness threatened to take her down. A flash of movement near the side door caught the corner of her eye. The creature moved so fast, Kira snatched only a glimpse of the beast's long tail as it ducked into the darkened hallway.