He spun around and glared at the gnome, his raised voice echoing across the wide cavern. “Get your ass over here, or you’ll have more to be scared of than ancient ghosts.”
Beezel scuttled up behind him. Kian barely glanced at the shivering grey gnome, all his focus was fixated on the dark patch of rock where he was sure Bryanna had gone. “Try to get through.”
The gnome walked toward the narrow tunnel entrance, his laggard pace stretching Kian’s patience, until he hit the spell and stopped. “I’m sorry, Sire.”
“Maybe she didn’t go this way.” A glimmer of hope rose inside him. “Maybe the spell kept her contained and she’s hiding somewhere. Did you check everywhere? Did you check every empty bedroom? The throne room? Your room?”
“I don’t think so, Sire.” He lifted his hand and pointed his long, knobby finger toward the tunnel. Kian lifted the torch. There, caught on a jagged broken stalagmite was a piece of the blue brocade gown she’d worn earlier.
Fear wrapped its hands around his throat, choking off his breath.
Somehow, like the goblins, she’d made it past the spell. “We have to find her,” he rasped out. “She can’t know what lies down this tunnel.”
Beezel’s face turned ashen. “Sire, I believe it may be too late.”
Down the tunnel was the reason he’d never had to worry about anyone coming in through this entrance, not even his mother. Down the tunnel was the lair of a snow dragon, one of the most vicious of the White Queen’s introductions to the area and a major reason why the gnomes of Cairngloss had finally abandoned their palace.
“Even if she got past the dragon there are a hundred other dangers in the woods. Goblins and trolls and snow tigers.” He swallowed, trying to get rid of the vice around his throat. “Naive, stupid, girl,” he said bitterly. But she’d been his. For a moment.
“She’s lost to us, Sire. Neither one of us can go after her.”
“She would have been better off if she’d stayed.” Kian’s shoulders drooped, and his torch sagged toward the ground. “I can do so much more for her once I’m whole. I’m one of the most powerful of the fae.”
Bryanna lost in the woods. Her family alone and defenseless. And if any of his men had survived the queen’s purge they were fated to struggle on alone.
“By this action, she’s doomed us all.”
A small hoot sounded behind him. A lone hobgoblin had followed him down the stairs and braved the crystal cavern. He stared at the little bugger and, for the first time, realized that this was all he would ever have as a companion. Ugly, mindless, vermin swarming him wherever he went in Cairngloss.
He was truly the Goblin King, and these were likely to be his only subjects for the rest of his very long life. He bent down and stroked its slimy head, its gaping eyes glinted blackly at him. He smiled, a sad and bitter smile. Out of the hole it had for a mouth came an evil cackle as it bit down on one of his fingers.
“Damn it!” He yanked his finger back. But as he sucked on the blood, he realized that this was not the only goblin that saw him as a king.
He started for the stairs. Then he began to run.
“Sire, where are you going?” Beezel’s out of breath call pursued him up the stairs as Kian took them two at a time.
He didn’t bother answering. There was little time. He had other companions, and they were frightened enough of him to back him when the time came. Little did they know the time was now.
Up the stairs, down the hall, back to the sealed door. Kian broke the locks, wrenching the bar out of place, and tore open the door. He stepped into the kitchen of the goblins.
It was empty.
Behind him, he heard scuttling feet as an out of breath Beezel caught up. He held the sputtering torch and lit up the room. The fire guttered on the hearth. A half-butchered carcass lay on the table. Piles of old bones and stinking furs filled the corners, but where he’d always before found dicing and drinking companions, now he couldn’t find one single goblin.
A trace of battle sense crept along his spine.
“Sire?”
“Shut it, Beezel. Something’s wrong.”
From out of the shadows stepped a figure in a garishly striped purple and green gown. Taller than Kian by a foot and outweighing him by much more than half his own weight, she smiled with her bloated, part-elvatian face. “Oh no, my love,” she said. “Now that I’m here, something is about to finally go right.”
Agrona, his official fiancée, half-breed, and eater of men’s souls, stepped into the torch-light.
His battle sense rocketed to full alert. Palms dampened, heartbeat sped up. He reacted, backing up and running for the door. But it was too late. From deep within the shadowy corners, two bulky troll-kin seized his wrists.
“Your mummy is very unhappy with you, Kian, and I can see by that gorgeous face that you’ve been a very bad boy.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Only a few feet away from Kian, Bryanna pressed into her hiding spot behind a rock. She didn’t know if it was her humanity, or the locket, or if the spell was weakening, but she’d gotten through. She’d almost expected him to push through as well, but both he and Beezel were trapped.
She waited to move until the sound of Kian’s footsteps had long faded away.
The husky vibration in his voice had licked over her skin, reminding her of his touch, and the hours they’d spent making love. Her muscles and bones had softened and she’d nearly left her spot and run back to him. The suspicion he cared tugging at her own confused emotions.
He hadn’t lied about being stuck in Cairngloss. If he’d been able to make it past the spell, he would have. His anguish had been clear. But the main question remained. If she were able to cure him, would he still keep her here against her will? What if she couldn’t? What then?
There was no way to know for sure, but he’d given his word he’d help her. And, he needed her. He believed in her.
Somehow, over the last two weeks, she’d realized there was a person inside the beast, and finding out last night he hadn’t had the benefit of a loving family, had shifted her thinking about his motivations. He wasn’t the bad guy, he was just as much a victim of the queen as she and her family.
Unshielding the lantern, she emerged from her hidden corner and held it aloft. Sparkles of reflected light flashed back at her, but Kian was gone. She clutched the locket in her hand, her thumb rubbing the etching that covered the otherwise smooth exterior. Her mother and sister needed her, but rationally, she’d never reach them in time to save them from the huge tigers. Even if what the pool had shown her was accurate, it might have happened yesterday, or last week. She’d have to get past the dragon, and she’d have to go out into a strange world, just to see if she could track them down. They could be miles, maybe even worlds away.
But she could do something for Kian. If she stayed.
And maybe that would help her family too.
Her Gift had pulled at her during the spell, urging her to make subtle changes to the words and herbs, but she’d ignored it, gone with more traditional, rational decisions. The kind her mother would have pushed her to do. But what if she’d made those changes? Her changes? Would he be cured now? Would her mother and sister be safe? What if she made those changes tonight and succeeded? She was free now. She could leave.
But what if she could do it?
She’d nearly reversed a fairy queen’s curse. All by herself. Just the thought made her smile.
No one would believe it. No one, but Kian, who’d always told her she could. Did she owe him something for that? Did she owe herself the chance to prove, if only to herself, that her Gift was just as strong as the other witches in her family?
And she had no idea what faced her once she left Cairngloss. It had been hours since she’d seen the tigers attack her mother and sister. They were either dead or had saved themselves.
She shuddered. No, she’d know if they were dead. She had to trust they would keep themselves alive and safe until she could find them.
Even if she did find them, she couldn’t magic them back home, to Earth. She’d need Kian whole and well and able to open a portal.
She stuffed the locket back into her chemise, gripped the thin handle of the lantern, and faced the queen’s barrier spell. Opening her Gift, she could see it. Dark purple threads wove a web that blocked not just the tunnel, but spread up to the high ceiling and extended into the rock.
Pulling power from the earth, she wrapped it around her in a protective cloak, and pushed into the sticky strands of the spell. The web-like tendrils dragged on her, gripping her face and skin. She fought through, bursting into the crystal cavern and leaving the spell intact behind her.
Thin, sticky strands of magic clung to her. She used a bit of power and brushed them away, relieved when they crackled to the floor. She dropped her shield and crossed back through the room, not even glancing at the lure of the deep blue pool. Her heart sang as she climbed the stairs back up to the inhabitable area of Cairngloss, and left the malevolent cavern behind.
She would save Kian, and he would in turn help her save her family. She could do it. He had faith in her, she would have faith in herself. And faith that once he was free he would keep his promise. There was a flicker of doubt inside her heart. But it almost didn’t matter. Without him she would just be one more person lost in the wilderness, running from purple-striped tigers. Vulnerable to whatever Underhill had to throw at them. No, she needed him. She would have faith.
Her foot touched the top stair, and she heard an unfamiliar female voice and smelled the dank stench of trolls. She ducked behind the narrow door and peeked out. Trolls had come after her family before. They were mean, smart, and brutally violent. She shielded her lantern and quietly snuck down the hall and around corners, following the dank smell of troll until she found the source of the voices. Crouching behind the wall, she listened.
“Now Kian, be a good boy and behave for me, and we’ll have you all better by tomorrow.”
“You can’t do this, Agrona. You aren’t powerful enough to reverse the damage to the spell.”
“I can. See this?”
Bryanna peered around the edge of the wall. Two huge male figures in war gear stood on either side of Kian, not quite as big as trolls and not quite as brutish. Kian was weighed down with heavy manacles of iron, what the witches called elf’s kryptonite. His head hung low, and his mouth dripped blood onto the pristine whiteness of his shirt, the stain spreading out over his chest.
Beezel huddled against the wall, cradling an oddly bent forearm. He shuddered and shook as he whimpered and pressed against the stones. His eyes fixed on the creature that grinned cruelly at Kian.
Dressed in a shirt, riding breeches, and boots, Agrona was just as tall as Kian, topping well over six feet, with large teeth and wide, thick lips. Her golden yellow eyes, and those of her companions, glittered with the odd elvatian crystalline quality Bryanna found so mesmerizing in Kian’s eyes. Her ears were pointed, but her skin had an odd, lichen quality and a slight green tinge. Her features were broad and flat where his were fine and narrow. Mud-brown hair was pulled back from her face into a thick brushy tail. Next to Kian’s lean, muscular elegance, everything about her was rough and awkward, as if she were the model in clay and he, the final draft.
“The queen gave me this.” Agrona pulled a black diamond the size of her fist out of the pouch hanging from her sword belt.
Bryanna opened her sight. The stone contained the same dark amethyst signature as the spell that bound Kian and warded the cavern below.
“If I use it, you’re back to your old hairy self.” Agrona juggled the jewel back and forth in front of Kian’s face. “This will make your spell permanent, my love, but I don’t have to use it. It’s up to me. Or maybe it’s up to you.” She held the diamond’s glittering facets close to his cheek.
He flinched and turned his head.
Agrona lowered her voice to a near whisper that Bryanna strained to hear. “If you’ll marry me, Kian, you can be this handsome all the time. No more monster. No more curse. We can leave here right away and we’ll celebrate our wedding at court.”
Kian snorted. “What makes you think it will be that easy? The queen’s using you,” Kian said. “Once she has what she wants she’ll toss you away like she has so many others.”
“She’s already given me powers. Look at how easily you were caught.”
“If I had my magic, you would never have caught me.”
“So you say.” She relaxed against the wall across from him and tossed the gleaming, glittering gem from hand to hand. “So, what’s it to be?”
“You know my answer. I’ll never marry you. I’ll stay here and rot first.”
“Never is a long time to waste away, alone, here in the dark. Meanwhile, your poor loyal followers are rotting away, locked in the queen’s dungeon and thinking you’ve abandoned them to their fate.”
Kian lunged against his chains, straining his captors’ muscles as they pulled him back.
“Oh, did I strike a nerve?” Agrona laughed. “Well, think on this, lover boy. The queen grows weary of waiting for you to behave. If you don’t marry me, she might do worse than torture the ones that are left.” She leaned in and dropped her voice.
Bryanna craned her neck, but she couldn’t make out what she whispered in his ear.
Kian’s head drooped.
“Cat got your tongue? Well, that will be one of the first things to go on some of those lovely delicious men of yours. It’s so easy to remove, and it leaves them so much more pliable.” She laughed again. “Oh, come on, Kian. Let’s get it on tonight. You know I’ll make you forget about everything.”
She reached out and caressed the bulge in the front of his pants. He thrust away from her touch, dragging the men back with him.
“You’ll take all my memories, you mean.”
“Isn’t that what marriage is all about? Giving over all you own to your wife? What do you want with memories and power anyway? Power just gets you into trouble. Men are so much happier when all they have to think about is their dicks, and once you’re married to me, that’s all you’ll care about.”
The soldiers braced their legs, holding Kian still as she trailed her hand down his chest and belly. Dipping lower, she reached between his legs and squeezed.
“Back off, Agrona! I’d rather stay here as a monster for another millennium than marry you.”
“Think about it. Together, we could do so much.”
“You mean you and the queen could do so much with my powers.”
“Why Kian, whatever do you mean?”
“I know she’s figured out how to siphon the power you steal from your husbands. Look at poor Troy. He was nothing but a moving husk at the end. You killed him. You both killed him.”
“Troy didn’t have your stamina or your power. He didn’t have it in him to be a royal, but you do. Besides, look at what sharing his Gift did for me. The queen has promised you to me, and once we’re married I’ll be even more important at court. I’ll be someone to reckon with.” She caressed his chin.
He yanked his face back.
She dropped her hand to her side, arched her brows, and gave him a superior look. “And when I have power, I’ll do something for you. I’ll free your men.”
“The queen will never let you.”
“I’ll do it before I share the power. I’ll make it a condition.” Her voice hardened. “I’m not stupid, no matter what you and those fool Tuathan pure breeds think.”
“You’ll take my Gift and my soul, and then you’ll let my men rot.”
“Since I can’t lie, you must realize I’m telling you the truth. Your men safe, out of prison. And Kian, they are truly imprisoned.” She waved a hand at the walls of Cairngloss. “Not secreted away in some luxurious, abandoned palace.” She backed away and waggled a finger at Kian. “Think about it, lover boy. And if you’re worried about my following through, I’ll even swear a bargain with you. You married and willing in my bed, soul
and powers included, and I’ll free your men. Or stay here and rot as a monster while the queen tortures your loyal servants for the next thousand years.”
Kian stared at Agrona’s glittering, citrine eyes. He’d never hated someone so much in his entire life, except his mother, the queen.
Agrona turned to Beezel, who had pressed himself deep into walls until Kian could hardly see the little grey gnome against the stones. “I want food.” Her foot lashed out and she caught Beezel in the ankle. “Now.” He moaned and pulled away from the wall. Limping, he led them down the hall and around the corner towards the dining room.
The troll-kin guards pushed Kian into his room. He stumbled, and they dragged him to the wall, chaining his wrists high to an iron sconce and leaving him hanging, his shoulder joints already protesting his position.
The door closed. He hung his head as the spelled iron itched and irritated his wrists. He’d failed.
In the morning, if he didn’t go with Agrona, his men would pay an even bigger price than they already had. He knew his mother, and her idea of increasing their torture would be excruciating. He couldn’t let that happen to men he’d already once failed.
If he married Agrona his mother would steal all of his power and put into action her plan to move into the Gold Court and take it over. Once she had the Golden King’s power, she would be unstoppable. Not that he’d care. He’d be a mindless zombie serving Agrona until he wore away to nothing and died. No ambition, no power, and no brain. So, he was left with the unbearable choice of both his balls on the blade of the sword, and which one to choose.
And there was no guarantee that, even if she’d follow through, Agrona could protect his men from the queen. In fact, there was only a slim chance that she could. Or would. She might not be lying now, but she could easily change her mind. Or just never lift a finger to fulfill her bargain. And he would never know the outcome. He would be worse than dead with his marriage to a soul-sucking troll.
Depression swung through him and the only thing he found to be grateful for was Bryanna’s escape. If she’d been discovered here, and Agrona put it together that she was one of the hated MacElvys, she would have been swept off to court to be executed. Or worse.
Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) Page 13