by Eve A Hunt
Hekla kept a strong grip on my hand. “I’ll be right here.”
I hugged her and gave the Binder and Nora an encouraging smile over her shoulder. “I know, friend, and I am endlessly grateful.”
Ruis led me into the forest where the ruins of a medieval-looking manor house sat eerie and quiet. Curtains of ivy draped across what had once been a large front entrance. Ruis and I passed through the thick growth and into a room whose stone walls were covered in yellow and green moss. The unseelie seemed to have some way of making the place warmer than it should’ve been in northern England this time of year. The mulled wine scent suffused the air, and golden specks floated along a column of moonlight that pierced the broken timbers of the ceiling and the cracked slate of the roof.
Lucus was standing shirtless, wearing a new pair of trousers. Ruis murmured something and left, but I didn’t have any attention to spare. I was busy enjoying the lines of Lucus’s back muscles. They looked like they had been shaped by a master sculptor, smooth and powerfully crafted. His torso tapered into his trim waist. I had a really tough time remembering lives were on the line instead of very basely picturing how nicely his hips would serve as good grips for my hands.
He turned as I entered the room. “Coren.” His voice was a plea.
The circles around his eyes had grown darker, and his cheeks were hollowed out again. All my lustiness dissipated.
“Didn’t they let you feed from a tree? You look terrible. No offense.”
“Would you consider permitting me to feed from your aura?”
The question felt incredibly intimate—somehow even more intimate than it would have been if he’d asked for sex. I recalled the last time he’d taken my energy. We hadn’t been a couple then, and it had taken everything in me not to give myself to him. Now with the start of the duel only moments away and Ruis most likely returning at any second, we would have to stick to the aura thing for sure. But it made sense to help Lucus out by giving him my energy. If he failed in his duel with Arleigh, there was a good chance he would be killed. I didn't trust any of these unseelie. Even if he lived through the duel, if he was too injured and I couldn't manage to portal him out …
“Of course you can feed from my aura, Lucus. I don't know why I didn't offer before.”
“I know why you didn't offer,” he said. “It is a great thing to ask of a human. I didn't realize that before I met you. Before I knew you and Hekla.”
“But I'm a mage.”
He nods. “There are two sides of you. Please correct me if I'm wrong. You have lived your entire life as a human, and that part of you reigns supreme. The mage side of you is new, and your habits and emotions aren’t tangled in the rumination of that element of your existence quite yet. In you and in Hekla, in you humans, I see a fierce independence, courage, a thirst for being your own, owned and ruled by none. Humans do not seek an alpha with the passion that fae do. Humans don’t seek a master with the fervor that mages do. Humans long to become the master, to become the alpha. And so I don’t ask this lightly. I won’t do it unless you feel at ease.”
He was right about there being two sides of me. I felt it keenly. I wanted to allow him to access my aura because I cared for him as a person, I loved how he took care of my friend, I respected how loyal he was to his family. And I could not deny allowing him to feed from me was pleasurable. Saying yes to this was complicated, and there was a tiny voice inside me that wasn’t a fan. But the little voice was outvoted by the heat his touch sent through my body and the love for him building in my heart.
“You’re one of the good guys,” I said. “I want you to win.”
His eyes held the question repeated. Did I permit him to feed on my energy?
“Take me, Lucus,” I said, my words steady.
The scent of forests lost in time rose as he wrapped his arms around me and kissed his way down the side of my neck. Gently, he nipped at a spot near the base of my throat. Heat raged through my body, and I gripped those hips of his and drew him close. The strong feel of him against me pulled a moan from my throat.
His mouth near my ear, he inhaled like he was enjoying the bouquet of a fine wine. His lure spread over me like a silken sheet. Desire thrummed through every cell in my body. My heart soared, and my breath came in gasps.
My palms began to pulse.
I glanced down to see my hands shimmering with a red glow.
My heart stuttered, and I pulled away from Lucus. “The unicorn blood is back.”
Chapter 22
“What does this mean?” Lucus looked at my palms, but then his eyes shuttered, and he inhaled deeply again, still feeding from my aura. His wings expanded, then tucked in quickly as he pressed his body into mine. His breath warmed my forehead. We were so close that his heart beating felt like my own.
A spark tingled from his body into mine. The strange sensation rushed through me like a cooling wave—all the way to my toes. The wave began again, and I looked down to see emerald light blooming from his chest and leaping into mine.
Lucus's eyes went wide. “You’re taking some of my fae magic. How is this possible?”
“Am I hurting you?” Panic filled me. What if I wasn't helping him to prepare for the duel? What if I was weakening him? My palms pulsed again, and I held them up for Lucus to examine.
“It must be the blood,” he said. “The unicorn blood has made it possible for you to take on fae magic.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I don’t either, but it’s happening in front of our eyes.”
“Am I actually taking your magic from you? Like, lessening your power? Because I want you to have all the power right now. I can get juiced up later. I'm not about to fight a big giant scary queen lady like you are.”
“I don't feel weaker,” Lucus said. “Granted, the curse is slowly dragging me down, but at the moment, I feel better than I have since we arrived, so I don't think you're depleting my power. I think I'm simply making more and giving some of it to you. The power of the unicorn’s blood is strong.”
“So the unicorns of darkness really are on my side. Wow. I mean, how did the unicorn know I was bonded to you and would have access to your magic like this?”
“Perhaps,” Lucus said, “he gave it to you so you could take fae power and overcome Arleigh. Perhaps when he urged you to place your hands in the blood, his motivation had nothing to do with you and me. He wants you to take down the fae queen who has kept him and his kin trapped here.”
“Oh, that makes more sense. Right. Does he expect me to portal him out of here?”
Ruis returned, halting our treasonous convo. “If you are finished, Lord Lucus, I must see you properly outfitted for the duel.” He waved in a female fae who was holding a stack of fabric.
I gave Lucus’s hand a squeeze. “No matter what, we’ll be out there.”
He leaned down and placed his mouth against mine. The kiss began chastely, but Lucus parted his lips and things heated up quickly. He seemed hungry for me in more ways than one. The feeling was mutual.
“Please come with me, Mage Coren,” Ruis said, his words sharp.
Lucus nipped my bottom lip, then drew away, giving me one last glance of longing. “Soon,” he whispered, his thumb brushing across my ribs, just below my breast.
I swallowed. “You bet your ass soon.”
He chuckled as I left with the ticked-off Ruis.
I walked back out to the clearing, and the unseelie flew to the top of the hill to address everyone gathered.
“Welcome to the alpha duel!” Ruis’s words echoed across the mass of winged creatures. Hekla stood in the crowd beside the Binder and Nora, and I longed to be near them. “Now that both of our alphas are prepared, we shall begin. Queen Arleigh?” The unseelie faced the dark shadows of the forest, near the path where I’d gone to see Lucus.
“I am here,” the queen said from the darkness.
“Please name your second.”
“Corliss will be my second.”
Really? She wanted her teenage daughter involved in this? Of course, Corliss might have been like one hundred years old for all I knew, but still. That seemed a distinctly non-motherly thing to do.
I spotted Corliss in the crowd at the base of the hill, not far from Hekla and company. Corliss looked whiter than an Ohio beachgoer during Spring Break. She stared at the shadows where her mother stood.
Arleigh walked into the twilight and cocked her head of spindly antlers. I could just barely see her around the side of the hill. “Afraid, daughter? Surely not. You’re the most vicious of us all.”
“Fighting never proceeds as planned,” Corliss said quietly. “You know this, and yet you name me as your second without even a pause. You would give up my life for your entertainment.” Her voice was flat, her words not a question but a statement. Corliss’s features showed the wide eyes of shock, but the set of her shoulders betrayed the fact that she had always known her mother didn’t love her properly.
Arleigh regarded her daughter, her feigned puzzlement slipping away to show a queen of ice.
Corliss flinched and bowed. “Forget my words, my queen.”
Wow. If I hadn’t already known about Arleigh’s bad side, that little exchange would’ve said it all. Arleigh merely gave Corliss a look, and the girl crumbled like last week’s scones. Poor thing. Geez, I hated the shit out of Arleigh. I had zero tolerance for abusive assholes like her.
The entire court stood motionless, their breaths clouding from their beautiful mouths. Arleigh turned her back on Corliss and began beating her wings. She waved a hand at the spiky-haired fae who seemed to be running the show.
Ruis raised his hands, and everyone looked his way. “And your second, Lord Lucus?”
Though I couldn’t see him at the moment, I had to guess Lucus was looking back at the trail leading to the forest where his brothers had disappeared. Baccio and Aurelio would be his natural choices for backup. Where were they anyway? Did Arleigh have them locked up? Had they been killed already? And if so, if I only took the rest of us back to the castle in Nashville, would the curse demand its sacrifice at the end of this month’s moon, leaving only Kaippa or Lucus as options? Oh, hmm. I remembered Lucus telling me Kaippa couldn’t be sacrificed because the Mage Duke had set up the curse so each sacrifice had to hurt Lucus emotionally. Only sacrifices that made Lucus feel deep pain counted toward the curse’s demand.
Ugh. I had to save that puzzle for later. Right now, we had a duel to make it through.
“I’ll be his second,” I called out. I didn't want to, but what choice did we have?
“Good,” Ruis said.
Lucus and Arleigh flew to the top of the hill as the unseelie’s shouts and cheering rose into the fiery, pink sky.
The two alphas faced off. Arleigh rose into the air, her wings blotting out the first stars as she spread her hands wide. Her black gown spilled around her like ink, and her eyes blazed like fire. Her glowing veins wrapped her bare arms like decorative sleeves, curling up her shoulders and neck until they disappeared under her chin like a high-necked collar. Red hair flowing freely and her antlers crossing the bright of the gibbous moon, she looked like she belonged to the evening sky.
Lucus was rocking his alpha-ness as well, no doubt about it.
“Damn,” Hekla whispered as she stared up at him.
With wings twice the size of Arleigh’s, he flew on level with her and set his fiery gaze on the unseelie queen. His long, obsidian tunic rippled in the wind as he fisted his hands at his sides. Emerald magic whirled around his forearms like those gauntlet deals medieval guys wore. They’d put a belt around his trim waist, and it looked like it might have been made out of the gold coins I’d scored during the game. Reflecting the myriad of stars, his ebony horns curled away from his face, the shape highlighting his high cheekbones and proud, straight nose. The power coiled in his lithe, tightly muscled form made me think of a wolf stalking its prey, about to leap into the fight. His lips parted. A flash of his white teeth showed, a clear threat to the unseelie gathered along the edges of the circle. A thrill of desire rushed over me, heat gathering between my thighs as I imagined that vicious, glorious body on mine. Psycho, I know. But hey, sometimes near-death experiences made one horny.
“Damn fully seconded, my friend,” I said shakily, falling back on my usual attitude to hide the sheet of ice fear had slid under my skin.
Across the clearing, sage-hued fire leapt from Arleigh’s thumbs and forefingers. The magic spanned high, then arced to create a circle of light.
Thorny, black vines rocketed from the ground. They poised, moving side to side, like cobras ready to strike.
Then they shot across the earth toward Lucus.
Chapter 23
I held my breath as Lucus’s wings beat hard and lifted him away from the thorny vines. Bits of dirt ricocheted off the hill and into the crowd. The scent of turned earth and pine resin was everywhere. Magic spinning around his hands, fae light glancing off his horns and the planes of his face, Lucus dodged the whipping motion of the thorned arms, then shot his own dark green vines toward them. Lucus’s vines overtook Arleigh’s and thrust them into the dirt to the gasps of the unseelie.
It was Lucus’s turn to strike.
Emerald fire rolled across his forearms, and his lips moved as he spoke some spell in his ancient language. As he raised his hands above his head, the largest pine in the tree line, a beast of a thing that stood behind Arleigh, shook its boughs. She spun in the air as the great pine swung two of its limbs at her. Green light exploded from her hands, but before she could fight it off or whatever she was planning, the pine grabbed her like a giant and lifted her high. Light burst from her body. A crack sounded. Starting where the tree touched Arleigh, rot sped up the pine’s branches. Within a few seconds, the dark stain spread down the trunk and into the tree’s lush needles. The decay moved with an unnatural crackling sound not too different from fire, and an odor of death swirled into the last few minutes of twilight. The pine seemed to exhale, bending backward, before it released Arleigh and crashed to the ground, taking several other trees with it. The entire pine was deader than dead, as Aunt Viv used to say.
“Wow,” I whispered.
“Our queen is mighty,” the fae beside me said.
The queen’s hands moved quickly through the air as she prepared her strike.
Lucus hovered just above the hill, his boots touching the ground and his fingers glowing with the emerald light of his magic.
The ground under Lucus exploded like a geyser. The roiling dirt engulfed him, and he was gone in an instant.
My heart stuttered to a complete stop. The unseelie crowed over their queen’s victory.
“Lucus! Come on!” I started up the hill as if I could do anything. But I sure as shit wasn’t going to just stand here doing jack. “Lucus!”
Before I crested the rise, the ground trembled. I fell back as the earth erupted and Lucus flew into the air, moss-colored light swirling around his arms and hands. Every pine that lined the clearing tore its roots free and raged toward Arleigh with branches outstretched. Fae flew out of the way, shrieking and growling as they fled Lucus’s army of pines. The trees gouged the ground with their roots and left massive ditches behind them. The first of the pines clawed into the hill with their wide lower branches until Arleigh was flying just above them, magic spinning from her blackened fingers. The pines made a loud groaning noise, and a cloud of dust blasted into the clearing. The dust wrapped Arleigh and threw her to the earth. Then I realized it was pollen. Her hair and skin were coated in bright yellow, and she coughed like she might lose a lung.
Lucus was winning this thing.
The pines closed in on the unseelie queen, boughs creaking and needles raining down. She shouted something in fae, then threw a ball of light at the nearest pine.
Nothing happened.
Was her magic not working?
I looked back at Lucus, who flew high now, far above the action.
Then what sounded like a heavy sigh crossed the dueling field. All the pines, the grass, the oaks, and beeches too—all of them turned black and crumbled into powder.
The silence that followed was so loud that my ears buzzed with it.
Arleigh flew above the ruin, a quiet laugh pouring from her horrible, gorgeous face. Her fae took up the sick gaiety and ran with it. They began to dance in the blackened earth, to kiss and grope one another, and to sing off-key songs.
“That’s enough dueling for now, don’t you think, Lord Lucus? We will continue after the feasting if it pleases us. After all, neither of us is properly blooded. I do hope to enslave you for the time the curse gives you to live.” Her smile cut through her face.
Eyeing the queen and her court with disgust, Lucus joined me. His clothing was stained with dirt and his hair matted.
I was cold down to cell level. The whole area was just…dead. Unseelie were so messed up. “I’ve run out of descriptions for the horror that is this place.”
Lucus set his mouth against my head. He smelled like the earth stuck in his fingernails. “We will rise above this, Coren. We must.”
“Yeah, if they don’t have proper baked goods at this shindig, that’ll be the final nail in their coffin.”
“So you’re holding back on your commitment to our plans based on bread.”
“And cake.”
“Understood.”
I grabbed his fancy belt and tugged him into a walk, following the crowd into the woods, toward the trees that still lived. “I swear if I have a pretty bite of fae cake in my mouth and that woman pulls the black rot trick, I’ll portal the lot of them to the bottom of the sea.”
“Could you?”
I snorted, knowing full well that wasn’t happening. I didn’t want to imagine how hard it was going to be to portal just our group back to Nashville, but I shoved my Negative Nelly crap down and took on a joking tone.