For a second Oberon entertained the idea that his bondmate had taken herself away, but quickly dismissed it. “Then explain why her guard was attacked from behind.”
“Indeed.” Duncan came and stood by Oberon, his own, more subtle power crackling around him in electric sparks. “Tell me, King Alrik, when did you decide to betray the High King?”
The silky tones of Duncan Malmayne’s voice betrayed the Sidhe lord’s anger, but the way his gaze bored into King Alrik told Oberon far more than his tone did. The Sidhe was rolling the king’s mind, looking for a way to get the man to open up and tell the truth. The Sidhe ability to cloud minds was strong with Duncan. He could appear to be anywhere, anytime, fooling his victims into believing whatever he wished. He could even appear in their minds as a completely different person, pulling from their memories and desires and causing them to open up to him in a way not even the most persuasive of Robin’s interrogation techniques could.
Whatever Duncan showed the man worked, because King Alrik bowed. “My queen, you know we are most loyal to you.” He continued, ignoring Duncan’s rapidly indrawn breath. Apparently Alrik was seeing Duncan as one of the queens, more than likely Gloriana. “We have done everything you’ve asked of us.”
“Indeed.” Duncan’s gaze darted toward Alrik’s queen and she curtsied deeply. “But the poison you provided failed to bring the High King to me.”
“Queen Gloriana, we didn’t anticipate interference from our outcast daughter.” Queen Andromeda wrung her hands. “We are being brought to the Gray Palace. We can contact our agent there and attempt the poison once more.”
“Once he loses his memory we’ll be in a position to bring him directly to you.” King Alrik bowed. “With the High King safely secured, your war with the Black Queen can commence immediately.”
“Our troops are ready to move on your word, majesty.” Queen Andromeda bit her lip.
“Who is your agent in the Gray Palace? He must be rewarded well.” Duncan was smiling, but the rage in him was visible in the way his power swirled around him. The sparks of the Sidhe were agitated, filled with the green light of his leprechaun lover and the gray mist of the vampire who just now sat up, quietly thanking Michaela.
“No one special, your majesty. Just a kitchen worker who has access to the high king’s bar in his private quarters.”
“Tell me the name, Alrik.”
“Alicia Hale.”
Raven nodded once and disappeared in a swirl of black feathers.
“How did you deliver the poison? We’ll need to come up with a different method this time.” Duncan kept his gaze firmly on Alrik and Andromeda, smiling slightly when Jaden stood with Michaela’s help.
“It was coated on the inside of the tumblers, your majesty. Our agent made sure they were washed immediately upon Oberon’s disappearance to insure no one else was harmed.”
“Good.” Duncan rubbed his forehead wearily.
“Is there anything else you need to know before Duncan releases them?” Jaden’s voice was scratchy. The vampire had lost a lot of blood and was probably starving, but he opened his arms to his bondmate Moira, who came racing into the room, frantically checking him over. She must have felt the same things Duncan had, but being on the other side of the palace, it had taken longer for the leprechaun to arrive.
“Where is Cassie?”
Duncan stopped rubbing his forehead and focused on the pair before him. “Where is your daughter now?”
“Demetria has taken Cassandra to the palace. Her bonding of Oberon was a mistake, one we plan to rectify.” Andromeda looked far too pleased with herself for Oberon’s liking.
“How?” Duncan’s voice sharpened.
“We will appeal to Poseidon to break the bond.”
Oberon cursed. The god could, indeed, remove the bond, but Oberon would have to consent first. Forcing the truebond to break would kill Cassandra and break Oberon. “That’s enough, Duncan.”
Duncan released his hold on the Atlanteans. “Your plan, your majesty?”
Oberon flicked his hand, obliterating the king and queen of Atlantis. Not even ash floated down to the floor. “Inform the Atlanteans that the royal house of Nerice no longer exists due to high treason.”
“Yes, sire.” Duncan bowed, swaying slightly on his feet.
“Never mind, Duncan.” He clapped the Sidhe on the shoulder. “I’ll have Robin make that announcement.”
“Good.” Duncan grinned viciously. “I just wish I could be a fly on the wall when that happens.” His grin faded. “What will you do about Gloriana?”
“After I regain my bondmate, I will remind her of why I am High King.” Oberon stalked from the room, leaving Michaela to assist Duncan to Jaden and the hovering Moira. The three would be fine with some rest, and Michaela, despite Robin’s fears, was more than capable of taking care of herself. Oberon left them to it.
After all, he had a castle to storm.
“This is possibly the stupidest thing you’ve ever done in your entire life, Demi.” Cassie watched her sister pace in front of her. Demetria’s expression was worried as she stared out the window.
They were back in her parent’s palace, a place Cassie had hoped never to see again. Sculpted within an underground mountain, the palace was a wonder of swirled stone and curved archways, built to allow those who swam rather than walked to be comfortable within its environs. It flowed organically from one room to another, with the king and queen’s chambers toward the top of the mountain and the servant’s areas below the seabed. Coral lights were embedded into sculpted stone columns or into walls, enchanted with the same magic that gave the merfolk their glow. There were nooks and crannies set in the walls as well, places for merfolk to rest and chat that would seem odd to those who sat at tables or on sofas but made perfect sense to those who floated through water with fins instead of feet.
Cassie was bound, held in place between two stone warriors, carved out of the mountain as the entire room had been. She was chained with her arms pulled up above her head behind her back, forcing her forward in a bowed position. This was a room Cassie had never been in before, one she never wished to visit again.
Her parents’ private quarters.
Demetria had ordered her most loyal guards to bind Cassie to the statues. When informed she was Oberon’s truebond, they’d hesitated, but Demetria had forced them to obey. They’d been as gentle as they could, and for that Cassie would ask that they be spared from her truebond’s wrath. They were following the orders of their princess, and had to obey.
But the one who’d tried to kill Jaden, that one would die. He was the most vicious, and loyal, of Demi’s guards, and like her he’d barely been civil to Cassie and Dayton. Any pretense that he was dealing with a princess of Atlantis had gone by the wayside the moment she ran away from home.
It was him who’d forced her head down when the guards tied her arms, him who would feel Oberon’s lash of fury. If he were smart, he would run. Oberon was coming for her, and Cassie waited patiently for him to arrive. This was not going to end well for her family, but that was their choice, not hers.
“They should have been here by now.” Demetria bit her lip. “And do not call me Demi, Cassandra. It’s beneath you.”
Cassie blew a raspberry.
“Why couldn’t you do as you were bid and marry that boy?” Demetria’s fin swirled with agitated light. “None of this would have been necessary had you not interfered.”
“Why is Gloriana doing this?” She refused to give the White Queen the courtesy of a title, not after all this.
Demetria sighed. “You’ve never shared our ideals, Cassandra. You wouldn’t understand.”
She lifted her head as far as she could, ignoring the strain it put on her neck. “Then make me.”
Demetria flitted from the window. “You know what evil the Black Court is capable of, Cassa
ndra. You’ve seen it first-hand. Did you not save Robin Goodfellow’s pet seer from the poison of a Black Court monster?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing! You of all people should be on our side. You’ve seen what they can do to the innocent.” Demetria sniffed. “Of course, this means obliterating the Dark Court fae, but the majority of them don’t deserve even a modicum of mercy.”
“Not all Black Court fae are evil, Demetria.” The Pacifica court had proven that.
“They chose their fate when they sided with the Black Queen.” Demetria had no mercy for any who did not believe as she did. “With Oberon safely in the hands of Gloriana, we can finally rid the world of the evil that is the Dark Queen.” Demetria swam in front of Cassie, her face full of a fanatical light that terrified Cassie. “And no one will stand in our way. Not you, not the High King, not even the Hob.”
“Did I hear my name mentioned?”
Demetria froze, that fanatical light dimming as terror replaced zeal. She slowly turned to face the Hob. “Lord Goodfellow.”
Cassie almost laughed at the sight of the Hob. Robin had to be different. Instead of the typical ocean colors most merfolk sported, Robin Goodfellow’s scales and fin were fiery red, encompassing all the colors that danced in his hair. His eyes sparkled with green light, obliterating the blue. Even his skin had a distinct reddish hue as he floated nonchalantly behind Demetria.
“My queen.” Robin bowed. “How are you?”
“Well enough, my Hob.” Cassie grinned. “But my accommodations could be more comfortable.”
Robin waved his hand and Cassie was free. “My king sends his most abject condolences on the death of your parents, Demetria Nerice.”
Demetria paled, her light dimming. “What?”
“I’m afraid the House of Nerice is no more.” Robin grinned. “My king will arrive shortly to express his emotions himself, I am certain.”
“Queen Gloriana is behind this.” Cassie rubbed her wrists, wishing she could do the same for her shoulders. But she’d been held in that position long enough that her muscles were beginning to scream in protest. She could barely lift her hands past her chest.
“We are aware of that, my queen.” Robin turned his attention to his long, black nails, but Cassie wasn’t fooled for a moment. “Who else was behind this, Demetria Nerice?”
“What?” Demetria floated backward, as if that could save her from the wrath of the Hob.
“Do not lie to me.” That green gaze froze Demetria in her tracks. “This was no mere White Court plot. How did Titannia factor into this?”
“I would never work with the Black Queen.” Demetria’s chin tilted upward. “I would die first.”
“Then slit your wrists, my dear, because you were a pawn in more than one Court.” Robin’s gaze turned toward the window as the palace began to shake. “Ah, he comes.”
“Oberon.” Cassie swam as fast as she could toward the window, gazing down into the courtyard below.
In the distance, a bright light moved ever closer to Atlantis, the rumble of shifting rock and scrambling life creating a wave of sound and fury before it.
“Oh, he’s ticked.” Cassie smiled as the light moved ever closer. “Someone’s gonna get it,” she sang as the light crashed into the city walls. Cassie couldn’t find it in her to feel at all sorry for Demetria. She’d made her bed, and now she’d get to die in it.
“No. I won’t die this way.” Demetria lashed out at Robin, who easily evaded her blow.
But instead of making a run for it, Demetria quickly pulled Cassie into her arms, holding a blade to her throat.
Robin’s form blurred, swirled into a formless mass of jagged edges and flashes of light. In the center, glowing green eyes held steady in the mass of chaos the Hob had become. His voice echoed eerily from within that ball of fury. “Let her go.”
“No. Cassandra is my only way out.” Demetria tightened her hold, the dagger nicking Cassie’s neck. Her blood scented the water.
A bellow of pure rage shook the castle, disrupting the magic that caused the lights to glow. They were plunged into eerie darkness broken only by their own personal lights and the rapidly approaching High King.
“He’s going to kill you in ways you can’t possibly imagine,” Cassie warned her sister. “Your suffering will last centuries.”
Demetria shuddered. “I have no choice. My queen commands and I must obey.”
“You always have a choice.” Robin’s amorphous form floated toward them, forcing Demetria to pull Cassie back. “You just chose poorly.”
And in that moment, the light of the Lord of the Gray was upon them, and Cassie smiled as its warmth touched her soul.
Oberon swam into the room, his body transformed into that of a merman. His upper body scales were pearly gray, slowly growing darker the closer they came to his tail fin until they were just shy of black. That pearly gray color traveled up his torso to his upper arms, darkening down to his hands to gunmetal gray. His nails had grown to sharp points, glittering metallically. His hair flowed around him in white and silver strands and his eyes…
Oh, his eyes. The whites had disappeared into mer eyes, and they were the same gray as his tail fin. They glittered with hints of light, like pinprick stars in a midnight sky.
He was the most beautiful, lethal thing she’d ever seen, and the court of Atlantis would never be the same.
Chapter Eighteen
There was a knife being held at his truebond’s throat. Her blood was in the water, a stain that should not exist.
No one in the history of the world would suffer as much as Demetria Nerice would for daring to draw blood on Oberon’s truebond.
But first he had to get the ex-princess to release Cassie before something happened they would all regret. He was far too strong, too angry, to attack Demetria while a blade lay so close to Cassie’s life blood. He couldn’t risk Demetria killing Cassie in her death throes. He would use Robin, the Hob’s gift tempering his own, shaping his raw fury into a suitable punishment for the last of the line of Nerice. “Let her go.”
“I’m not stupid.” Demetria kept an eye on both Robin and Oberon, the blade shaking in her hand.
“Could have fooled me.” Robin reformed, his red merform taking the place of his true self. “Only a truly dim-witted individual could have conceived of this plan.”
“It should have worked.” Demetria’s hand shook harder, nicking Cassie’s neck a second time. “Oberon would have been safe. We would have protected him from Titannia. Gloriana doesn’t seek his death, only his safety.”
“And yet Titannia somehow knew I’d been poisoned.” Oberon drifted closer, watching Demetria so closely he almost missed how his light meshed with Cassie’s dimmer glow. Her song burst inside him, her fear adding sour notes to her harmony. “I wonder how that happened.”
“It wasn’t us, I swear.” Demetria pulled Cassie farther away from both Robin and Oberon, stopping only when she ran into two statues.
Two statues of mermen that looked remarkably familiar. Shane’s sculpture now made sense. Cassie had been tied between those two stone figures. Robin must have released her when he arrived. He was glad he hadn’t witnessed it. Atlantis would have suffered a second sinking, one they wouldn’t recover from.
“Please. We don’t want to fight you.” Demetria’s gaze darted toward the archway, no doubt expecting reinforcements.
Reinforcements that would never come. Oberon had seen to that. While others watched his frontal assault, his Blade had taken out Demetria’s guards. The selkie he’d had Robin assign to the Atlantean court had been more than willing to break his cover in order to save his queen, and Oberon had rewarded him by seeing to it he got home. “There won’t be a fight, I promise.” He smiled, aware how vicious the expression was. “Release my bondmate.”
Demetria’s gills flutter
ed madly, the siren equivalent of hyperventilating. “The war will come. You can’t stop it.”
“Ah, more of the same.” Every now and then some White Court fool or Black Court sycophant would attempt to garner favor by pursuing a course of action that the gods themselves had decreed could never occur. “You and yours miscalculated.”
“Gloriana herself has raised the cry. The Child of Dunne will change the world as we know it. Now is the time to strike, and end the evil that is the Dark Queen once and for all.”
“It’s far too late to stop the Child of Dunne.” Oberon stared at Cassie. “He has already acted.”
Demetria’s gills stilled, then fluttered shallowly. “How?”
Oberon held out his hand. “Let my bondmate go, and I’ll tell you.”
“And you’ll let me live?” Her lips trembled. “The Hob will too?”
Oberon and Robin exchanged a look. They’d danced a similar dance before. “Of course.”
“You have my word,” Robin bowed. “You will live a long, quiet life.”
Far too slowly for Oberon’s liking the blade withdrew from Cassie’s neck. She swam to him as fast as she could, sighing as he pulled her tightly into his arms. “I knew you’d come.”
“I always will.” His gaze never left the princess, and though his tone was soft, his stare was not. She deserved none of the gentleness his bondmate was receiving. “Tell me the plot, Princess.”
The title seemed to ease her, though it was no longer true. He’d ended the line of Nerice with her parents’ death. Her siblings were in custody, other than Prince Dayton, who’d chosen to remain with Pacifica and his fiancé at the Gray Palace and had denied all knowledge of the plot to overthrow Oberon. “Our agent was to drug you and take you to a special meeting place, where you’d be handed over to Gloriana’s agents. You’d have been safe on White Court lands while we finally dealt with Titannia.”
That name no longer made him flinch the way it used to, not with Cassie so close to him her hair brushed against his skin, her tail twining with his. “Go on.”
Siren's Song: The Gray Court, Book 5 Page 19