by Eve A Hunt
“Don’t think I won’t try, pretty man. Don’t think I won’t try.”
Chapter 24
Fae outfits were not my thing. I was a black boots and jeans gal. I lifted the hem of my tunic thingamajig and shook my head. The glistening, embroidered branches around the edges were made of what looked like dew. I touched the watery lines, and my finger came away wet. Huh. I was never going to understand fae magic, but it did feel pretty nice on the skin. The rest of the outfit was soft as flower petals, and the dark blue color probably looked good on me. The boots they’d given me weren’t my favorite though—too flimsy for proper ass-kicking—but they’d have to do. I needed to look like I was going along with all this until we could escape.
Scratching at the braids the fae assistant had wrangled my thick locks into, I left the clustered pines that made up the changing area and followed the crowd toward the sounds of a party, my plan ticking through my head. First, get another fae knife. If Lucus dropped one, I doubt he’d be able to snatch it back before it plunged to the valley below, so grabbing an extra blade was just smart. Next, I had to look for a good time to slip away with Hekla. The Binder had told us the cells were past a forked path and a waterfall that sat behind the feasting location.
I didn’t know why I’d thought the feast would take place in the first spot where we’d met Arleigh, but I was wrong. The pines opened up to a large, moonlit meadow where low tables ran between mounded tufts of pale moss and shimmering, gray mushrooms big enough to sit on. Hundreds of fae lounged before plates piled with root vegetables, luminous sauces, and slices of some kind of meat. They lifted stone goblets with their unseelie hands, their fingertips black like watercolor paint running toward their palms, their veins glowing red through their skin.
Torches flickered at the edges of the meadow, and bare trees grew between them. My heart shunted through a long, sluggish beat. The bare trees were spaced evenly, planned out, and they extended into the woods. These had to be the blood trees, and there, beyond the feasting above a dais fitted with a row of oaken thrones and small tables, was the Yew Bow.
Suspended in the air by magic, the Bow flickered with a faint light in the color of deep purple and blood red. The bowstring caught a sliver of moonlight and blinked it back at me, and I couldn’t fight the oddest sensation that the weapon was…watching me.
Of course this was the perfect place for Arleigh to celebrate Nora’s upcoming sacrifice to the Yew Bow. I rubbed my eyes, feeling not a little bit overwhelmed. When I finally looked up, I saw Corliss standing at the end of the first table. She tucked a braid behind her black-tipped ear. Her eyes glowed like her veins.
I jumped back, startled, and someone grabbed my arm. Lucus’s scent drew me in, and I turned to slide into his arms, grateful for the company. “Their eyes are so freaky.”
He set his cheek against mine and whispered, “Please give me a sign just before you leave for the drop cells. I want to be aware, prepared.”
His breath sent shivers down my chest, and as his fingers curled against the back of my neck, I exhaled, my body warming and insisting I step closer. His teeth nipped at my earlobe, his mouth hot. Throughout our time here, he’d glamoured himself then revealed his true self, switching like moods. But it seemed like he’d given up glamours for now, because he was still in his real form. He even unleashed a bit of his lure, and the sensuous feel of the magic spread over me.
“Someday we’ll be done with all this and have loads of time for fun, right?” I whispered, enjoying the feel of his pointed ear against my lip.
The moonlight painted silver along his horns, over his slightly folded wings, and along the fabric that clung to his broad chest and muscular arms. “I wish for that every day.”
Hekla walked up and tugged at her own fae outfit, an ensemble of ruby red leaves and a belt made of golden beetles. “This outfit is badass.”
I touched a beetle. “I didn’t think you’d be down for wearing insects.”
“As long as they don’t come back to life and eat my eyes, I’m good.”
“Holy shit. I did not need that image.”
Hekla shrugged. “I’m trying to fit in.”
Lucus’s mouth lifted. “By acting dramatic? Is that how we immortals seem to you?”
She swallowed at the word immortals but soldiered on. I couldn’t help but be proud. “You’re completely dramatic. And intense as hell. I mean, what’s with all of this? They can’t just turn on a TV and order a pizza? If they can make their freaking veins glow, I’d think a simple night at home would be easy peasy.”
I felt the need to explain. “They glow because they are unseelie. Dark fae.”
Hekla eyed Lucus. “Right. I remember someone mentioning that. Their dark magic is visible in their blood. But you, Lucus, you’re not unseelie.”
“I am not,” he said quietly.
Glancing between Lucus and me, Hekla pursed her lips. “Still dangerous as fuck.”
Lucus’s right eyebrow rose. “Indeed.”
Hekla started forward. “Well, I’m glad I have at least one monster on my side.”
Lucus was watching her walk away, a funny look on his face.
“What is it?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“I trust you so much more because you have a loyal, honest friend. The mages I battled in the past, they knew nothing of inspiring loyalty in their soldiers or mercenaries. Kaippa, for instance, hated the Mage Duke. He only worked for him to gain riches and blood.”
“Wait. Hekla isn’t my soldier.”
Lucus studied the feasting, his gaze sliding to Arleigh, who had just emerged from the far side of the meadow, her antlers stark in the moon’s milky light. “Are we not heading into war?”
A bitterness rose in my throat, and I swallowed.
“Is Hekla not risking her life for you and your goals without argument? She is your loyal knight, Coren. Make no mistake.” Lucus held his arm out for me, and I took it, grateful for the warmth of his touch.
How would this little war go? I shivered in the autumn breeze as Hekla sat on a mushroom beside the Binder. What would my one soldier suffer by the end of the night?
Chapter 25
Lucus and I were almost to the dais where Arleigh stood beckoning us when two drunk, male fae stumbled out of the shadows, hanging on one another and laughing.
Aurelio and Baccio.
Lucus stiffened at my side.
Arleigh joined in their laughing. “Come, brothers of our guest. Have more wine. Ah!” She turned as guards brought four people to the center table. “We have auras in ocean blue, oaken green, and the palest sunrise pink for you to enjoy.”
One of the humans, a guy in a business suit with a head of riotous bleach blond hair, said something I couldn’t quite hear and walked in a daze toward Aurelio. A woman in a slinky, silver dress trailed him, her lips parted and her hands in her hair like she was going crazy.
Aurelio looked better than I’d ever seen him. His cheeks were flushed, and he seemed to have gained serious muscle in his arms and legs.
Lucus nodded at his brothers. “I looked for you today. Though I’m glad you’re well, I am curious about where you have been hiding.”
Aurelio smiled kindly at Lucus before kissing the man’s neck and tucking the woman under the shelter of his arm. “Good to see you, Lucus,” he mumbled, his words slurring. “We’ve been enjoying the quieter side of Queen Arleigh’s court.” Aurelio’s gaze found me. “Thank you again for shattering the curse, Coren.”
I shuddered. Did these humans have the willpower to say no to this if they chose? I seriously doubted it. Aurelio was feeding on them right now, and I wasn’t doing anything about it. But I couldn’t. If I did, I’d upset Arleigh and ruin our chances to escape.
Baccio’s harsh voice interrupted my thoughts. “Don’t act as if you were truly worried for us.” He was staring at Lucus over the head of the other two humans. “We know where your loyalties lie now, brother.” His gaze slid across my throat like a k
nife.
My stomach twisted as I raised my chin in defiance. I refused to show any fear here. “It’s not like he had a choice, Baccio. Queen Arleigh wished to see him, and so he went.”
“Exactly so,” Arleigh said silkily, her eyes shifting to watch me.
I was a guppy in a shark tank, but I had to remember this guppy had lightning hiding behind her little fins.
Arleigh waved her hands casually, and a woman about my age, wearing leggings and a wide-necked sweater, walked forward, her lower lip trembling and her human eyes glazed over. A sick grin tugged at Arleigh's mouth. The fae queen's fingers spread wide, and magic poured from her fingers. The human woman dropped to her knees, the lure working on her just as well as it did on all of us non-fae.
"Please," the human whispered. She pulled at her sweater like she wanted to rip her clothes off.
Arleigh tilted her head, antlers casting jagged shadows over the human. Then Arleigh’s hand shot out and gripped the woman's hair. The fae queen yanked the human woman's head back, then used her grip to haul the woman to her feet. Arleigh ran her nose along the human's neck, feeding on the woman's aura as she slipped her other hand down the woman's sweater to cup her breast. The woman moaned and fell against the fae queen.
Eyes slitted, Arleigh whispered in the woman's ear, then threw the human backward.
The woman cried out, her hair ripped from her scalp where the fae queen had grabbed her. Stumbling to her feet, the woman began to run at Arleigh, but the fae queen waved her fingers and sent vines to wrap the human's throat and feet. Arleigh laughed as her vines pulled the woman in opposite directions.
"Please! Take me!" the woman shouted.
My stomach rolled. She was begging to serve the fae queen even as Arleigh was tearing her apart.
The vines slithered away from the woman, and two fae escorted Arleigh’s mumbling victim to the far end of the first feasting table.
“Please.” The fae queen took one of the high-backed, oaken chairs on the dais and gestured to the seats beside her. “Sit with me, and we’ll talk.”
Lucus and I joined her, each accepting a goblet from a pair of waiting servants. The mulled wine’s smell was nearly overpowering right there under my nose. No way I was drinking that. Especially considering the faerie wine might have been what had intoxicated Aurelio and Baccio so thoroughly. If it could take down two big dudes, I had no chance, and I needed my wits as sharp as they could be right now. I lifted the goblet and tilted my head back like I was drinking, but I kept my lips firmly shut against the ruby liquid. Setting my cup down, I licked my lips to allow some of the faerie wine to stain my mouth, making me appear more amenable and ignorant.
“May I ask where the other mages are?” I kept my voice light and kind of airheaded-ish. I knew the Binder was with Hekla at the next table, but I wasn’t sure where they’d carted Nora off to in order to prep for her appearance tonight.
While I waited for Arleigh to answer, fae guards brought in another fifty or so humans who stumbled into the feasting crowd, grinning and giving up their energy to the unseelie. The sight of that many people in such danger… Ice filled my chest. I forced myself to remain seated.
The Yew Bow’s magic hummed a few feet away, and my fingers tingled with the desire to touch it, to take it up, to draw the string back and aim. But for what?
When I dragged my gaze from the Yew Bow back to the queen, she was watching me with those freaky-ass glowing eyes. I did my best to smile like a fiend, like someone who belonged here. Her razor-sharp cheekbones pulled back as she grinned, sending an icicle down my back.
“It’s stunning, isn’t it?” Her half-lidded gaze slid to the Yew Bow quickly before returning to my face.
I swallowed and felt Lucus’s hand on my knee. With one eye on his brothers, he was talking to another fae male over a plate of black-and-white-speckled berries. Aurelio and Baccio seemed to have finished feeding on auras and were lounging on moss tufts and mushrooms with their glazed-eyed victims. It was tough to tell whose arm or leg was whose.
“I can feel the Bow’s magic from here,” I finally said in answer to the queen.
“I feel its power throughout my kingdom. The dark magic it pours into this place beats in the earth like a drum. The trees have begun to echo its rhythm.”
Servants brought out platters of milk-white cheese, black fruit that looked like giant grapes, and slices of meat. They also gave everyone a fae blade. Pretending to scratch my leg, I slipped my blade into my boot, hoping the tight legging things they’d insisted I wear would protect me from cutting my foot off.
“What does it do?” Of course, I wasn’t supposed to realize we were trapped here. Arleigh had no idea Nora and the Binder had told us everything. But she had to assume they would, right? I was a mage. They were mages. And she’d allowed us to train together. Regardless, I needed to know what she was willing to be up front about. There was information here that I might glean.
“The barrier, as I’m certain you heard about from your associates, protects my people from the outside world.”
“You’re so powerful. Why would you want to hide from the outside world?”
“I do not hide.” Arleigh pushed a lock of pale red hair behind the blackened tip of her ear. “I only long for peace. To be undisturbed by humans and mages.” An undefinable emotion flickered through her freaky eyes. It almost seemed like she’d winced. Had she been hurt in the past by humans or mages?
“What about vampires? Our friend Kaippa returned to…visit, and your guards took him captive. Has he disturbed you, Queen Arleigh?”
“Oh, of course not. He is welcome. I simply had to restrain him until I knew for certain he was your friend. I will send for him now.”
She clapped her hands, and before I could say anything to Lucus, a servant had been sent on his way to get Kaippa. I supposed that was good. One less prisoner to free? Somehow I didn’t think we’d be that lucky. I waited for the other shoe to drop, for her to say Oh, by the way, you’re not getting out of here ever, and my blood trees are super pumped about feeding on your boss magic.
The queen leaned forward. “Lucus, would you like a human to feed on? You look terribly pale. Are you ill?”
Lucus seemed to consider whether or not to reveal what Kaippa had clued us in on. His eyes moved as he watched Baccio finish a goblet of faerie wine and laugh. Aurelio gently kissed the woman draped over his legs. “I fear the Mage Duke’s curse is not broken. Until my brothers and I return to the castle where he first bound us, we will suffer. I have had one serious attack already, and I believe we will all die if we don’t return soon.”
Baccio slung an arm around a fae female with a heart-shaped face. His gaze remained on his new date even as he spoke to Lucus. “I feel better than I ever have, brother. Embrace our new haven as we have, and you’ll suffer no more.”
“Sadly, I don’t think you’ll remain healthy forever. Your feeding is merely offsetting the first of the foul effects of how we have twisted our way around the curse.”
“What makes you the expert?” Aurelio said with surprising vehemence. I was pretty sure panic skulked under that attitude.
“I scented deer blood on Kaippa when he arrived at the mages’ camp. He fed and felt well for a while, but then he too experienced the effects. I wish it weren’t true, but we must leave.”
Arleigh ran a finger around the edge of her goblet. Her stone rings twinkled in the light of the gibbous moon. “I do hope you’ll reconsider your desire to return to that horrible place.”
My mouth opened to spew out things like This place is just as shitty, lady! There are trees MADE OF BLOOD. But I held it in, practically frothing with the effort, and managed to take another fake sip of my wine. I also nabbed the fae blade they’d given Lucus for his meal, then tucked it into my other boot while Arleigh’s head was turned. Lucus had his own blade, and now I had two. We were good to go.
The feast continued for what felt like hours with such entertainments as a group of
fae contortionists who did very strange things with tree branches and ivy, some dancing to creepy-ass classical music played on instruments that—I shit you not—were made of beetles and bones.
Reacting to some cue I’d missed, Arleigh and Corliss stood and took a spot at the front of the dais.
Finally, a line of black-robed fae with veiled wings led in the guest of honor, Nora, the next to die.
Chapter 26
They’d decked her out hard core. She was in head to toe blood red. These unseelie were sick fuckers. The emotion we had pulled out of the closed-off, shell-shocked Nora during our brief time talking and training appeared to have left the building. The poor gal didn’t blink once, and her mouth hung half open like she was barely alive. Flanked by the dark-garbed fae, she looked like the bride of death.
As she walked the moonlit path of moss between the tables, everyone rose and bowed to her, bringing that whole bride metaphor right on home.
I was about to puke. This was seriously the most messed-up thing I’d ever witnessed.
Nora made eye contact, and I tried to convey We’re with you, girl with my gaze. I’m not sure it came across. The crowd like a veil dragging behind her, she climbed the dais steps and stood beside Arleigh and Corliss.
The beetles and bones orchestra started up, and the fae began dancing, whirling and tossing back more of that spicy wine. They were getting sloppy, letting the dark drink spill over their beautiful mouths and sloshing it as they raised toasts to Nora and the Binder. The Binder remained seated even though it looked like Arleigh was attempting to order him up there with a glaring look from her glowing red eyes. He watched the revelry and the numb Nora with a look of disgust.
The dancers were making me dizzy, and I wasn’t even drinking. I turned to find Lucus gone. He was with Aurelio, his eyes flashing with anger and his wings partially shielding their conversation. Aurelio seemed to be listening—well, at least he’d sent away the woman and the man, and he wasn’t shouting back. I wondered where they’d taken the humans, presumably back to the real world, memories altered by the lure. Lucus needed to get away, but maybe he was setting that up. Maybe he’d pretend he was super furious and then leave to get some space from his brother.