“And they kept it a secret, all this time? From Oberon? From me? How?”
Agrona laughed. “Why Prince Kian, don’t be an idiot. The only ones who knew were your mother, your grandfather, and myself. I serve the queen faithfully. And your grandfather…well, he didn’t last long after that.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Come.”
A bucket brigade of soldiers came in carrying buckets of steaming water. Kian brooded as the tub filled, thoughts and feelings tumbling through his head. His father might be Oberon, King of the Golden Court. His mother had known all this time and kept it secret from him. From everyone. And, if Agrona’s implication was to be believed, the queen had killed her own father.
Was this the source of his mother’s hatred for Oberon. What about her hatred for him?
He barely noticed Agrona pushing past the soldiers and heading for the door until she turned. “Oh, and Kian…”
His gut tightened at the gleeful look on her face and the anticipatory lilt in her voice.
“I know you have something hidden in that lodge. I’ve sent a few men back to find out what was so important to both you and the huntsman that you had to defend it with your lives, and the life of the puca. If you were my willing husband, I might not care.” She winked. “And I might not tell the queen.”
She walked out the door, waving her fingers good bye. “Ta-ta, lover. Tomorrow night, you won’t get to be so shy or it won’t only be Logan Ni Brennan who feels the wrath of the queen.”
The room emptied. The door closed behind the last solider. There was a solid thunk as the bar lowered into place, sealing Kian into his fate.
Bryanna took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can do it,” she said, her confidence leaking away as she watched Solanum’s life leak out onto the stones of the lodge floor. There was so much blood and the smell of it riled her stomach. “He’s losing blood fast. And he’s not even human. He’s not made up of the same things as us at all.”
When she opened her Gift and looked at Solanum, it was as if he wasn’t even on the same plane as she and Trina. His dull, dusty, purple aura seethed underneath with the color of a black hole. Dark, and despairing, and riddled with uncanny magic.
“Yes you can. Now try.” Trina’s voice held the confidence of someone four times her size and her bright green eyes, so much like Cassie’s, shone with encouragement.
Bryanna shot a sidelong glance at her cousin. “But what if I fail?” she asked.
She knew what she was really asking: If I fail this, can I ever succeed at anything?
“If you fail, we try again. You’re a MacElvy healer. You were born to do this.” Trina grinned. “Healing magical pucas? Beings of mist and magic that live on ether and stardust? This is nothing. You should try nursing plants to health in the dust and wind of Wyoming.”
Bryanna grinned back. “You failed a lot.”
“Yes, I did. But I was determined to grow something, and by the time we left that house, I had a pretty nice garden to show for it.”
Blowing out a puff of air, Bryanna rubbed her sweaty palms on the skirt of her dress. “Okay, but if I do this wrong, and he ends up with his head where his tail should be, it’ll be your fault.”
Trina laughed and the bright familiar sound buoyed Bryanna up, filling her with confidence.
“His head’s already up his ass,” Trina said. “I don’t think you can do much worse.” She closed the gap and squished Bryanna in a fierce hug. “Now do it, Bree. Do it before you think too much.” She backed away, giving her cousin space to work.
Planting her feet shoulder width apart, Bryanna reached down into the rich, fecund power slumbering under the earth, deep under the snow, where the sap from the trees waited for spring and dormant power waited to rise. She called down the bright blue wintry sky and mingled the two together the way she had for Trina, mixing and melding them until, once again she achieved a lovely healing blue.
She blew out a breath. She’d thought it might have been a fluke. That she’d been able to do it again, conjure a master healer’s blue was unbelievable—but there it was—gleaming, and glowing, and filling her with power.
She opened her vision and stroked the blue against Solanum.
His aura pulsed and spasmed, turning dull as the blood oozed out the gaping wound in his side. She tried to heal him, bolstering his aura with her energy, but her Gift slid off of its purple-black surface. His aura was strange, formed of magic in a way she’d never seen before, something she wasn’t sure she even wanted to touch. She tried again, but the aura roused, fighting her back like an intruding virus.
“I can’t do this. It’s too hard!” She let the power go and sank to the floor. She was too tired, and he was nothing like a human, or even an elf. She had no idea what to do next. None.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Trina said. “You can.”
“It’s too much for me. You and Cassie have powerful Gifts. Me, I’m just good enough to patch paper cuts.”
“Not true. You healed me, you saved my baby.”
“That wasn’t healing. That was letting your system take back what it naturally wanted to do, kicking it back into gear. Your body wants the baby. Your heart, your soul. You just needed me to hold back the spell and show you the path. You healed yourself.”
“Bryanna, you can do this. You’ve reached the age where your Gift is growing stronger. Reach inside and take it, don’t push it away like you always have.”
“But I don’t know how! You had all those herbals from your mother to help you. Cassie barely blinks, and she has a vision. Me? I’ve had nothing and no one to help me learn to heal. Few books, no mentor. I can barely heal a migraine.” She sank down on the stoop next to the puca. The black shield overhead had faded to a sickly shade of grey, but continued to hold. How long, she wasn’t sure. And when it went, they’d be vulnerable.
“Look what I did to Kian,” she said.
She’d messed up. If she’d known better what to do, he’d be a whole man. Instead, he was still imprisoned in his mother’s curse.
“You didn’t do that to him, that bitch of a queen did that.”
“But I couldn’t cure him!”
“You damn near did. You’re halfway there. You! A partially trained witch who has barely been able to study because she’s been taking care of everyone else around her. We’ve all leaned on you so heavily you haven’t had any time to learn your Gift. You took on the queen’s curse because Kian needed you, and you damn near won. Do you know how powerful you must be?”
“Me?”
“Quit whining. Stand up, pull up your britches, and get to work.” Tiny Trina glared down at her, and as she’d always done, Bryanna stood up.
“You’ve changed,” she said. “I don’t remember you being so strong.”
“I’ve grown up, fallen in love, and I’m becoming a mother.” Trina smiled. “Everything changes when you’re forced to leave your family and forge your own.”
Bryanna gave her cousin a weak grin.
“No more wasting time, he needs you now.”
She reached for the power and it sprang to her hand like it hadn’t really left. Maybe she’d known she would try again. Maybe she had more faith in herself than she knew. Kian had told her he believed in her magic. He’d believed in her. She wished he were here to cajole and bully her into this. She half-smiled to herself. Just like Trina, he wouldn’t let her back down.
She shook her head and refocused on Solanum, his aura, and the wide wound cutting through his muddied, black hide. His eyes were closed, and his barrel chest barely moved up and down, but he was still alive. Still pouring his energy into shielding them, despite the deathblow. She couldn’t let him down.
“Hold his head, Trina.”
“Are you kidding? Have you seen his teeth?”
“Hey, you’re the one who wants him healed. I need you to hold his head.”
Trina moved cautiously close to the puca. Coming up from behind his head,
she knelt and wrapped her arms around him. His eyelids twitched.
“Do you have him?”
“Yeah, but don’t forget, you just healed me. Don’t want to have to do too many of these in one day.”
“You’re telling me.” Bryanna pulled more energy, using some of it to bolster her already tired powers. “I’m going to use my Gift to stitch up the wound.”
“You can do that?”
“I don’t know, but I’m out of options. He’s not letting me in to heal his aura, so I’m making it up as I go.” She pulled additional power from the stars far above the roof of the lodge. Prickly star power would form a point better than the solid, slow-moving earth and maybe, just maybe, it would work better with the puca’s own ethereal nature. She took the cord of blue power, tipped with star energy and used her thumb and forefinger to roll and pull the tip into a sharp point. Then she knelt in the blood next to the puca.
“Hold him.”
Trina took a better grip, anchoring one hand in his mane, the other across his muzzle. Bryanna jabbed the power into the black skin. He lurched.
“Hold him!”
“I’m trying.”
Bryanna gently picked up his organs and pushed then back into the open wound. With one hand she held the slippery flaps closed and she stitched with the other, lacing the power in and out.
Solanum thrashed and his aura lashed out, slapping her arm away.
She lost her grip and the wound gaped. “Damn it!” Her forearm oozed from a burn the size of a handprint. “Trina, use your Gift. Hold him back.”
Her cousin’s green and brown power wrapped around the puca, and Bryanna kept stitching. Every inch of the long gash was a struggle. In and out, in and out, until she finally pulled the last knot tight.
She stood. “There, that part’s done.” She wiped the sweat off of her forehead and inspected the magical stitches glowing in a jagged blue line over his dark, sweating hide.
“That part? There’s more?”
“I still need to heal him. If I don’t, I don’t think he’ll make it.”
“Will he let you?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping that now that my power is in his skin…I should be able to activate it.” She forced herself to sound confident, but she was weaker now than before. Two healings in one day, and this one wasn’t over. But there was no one else, and so far, this method was working. The healer blue stitches appeared to be holding everything together and the gush of blood had slowed.
“Back away. I don’t want him to lash out with his magic and hurt you.”
“You could have been worried about that the first time,” Trina said, and moved hurriedly across the room.
Bryanna sent up a prayer and pulled more energy. It poured into her exhausted body as if the Goddess Danu herself wanted her to heal the puca. Who knew? Maybe she did.
She took the sharp point of power and softened it, heated it to a glowing point and ran it over the wound. The stitches in Solanum’s hide glowed, dark blue heating to white. His aura shuddered and bucked, but the stitches held. Bryanna pushed more power into Solanum. There was a bright flare of blue and white mixed with purple and black.
The last of her energy drained out. Bryanna collapsed next to Solanum, her pants soaking up blood as both the puca’s body and his aura spasmed, and he screamed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Haddon surveyed the masses of boxes, bags, and servants the queen insisted they take with them to the Brethren’s keep. This was the last thing he wanted to do, take nearly the entire court to a tiny outpost near the White Queen’s territory, but he couldn’t see any other way to get this situation solved.
He clapped his hands together. “Everyone must carry at least four pieces of gear when they go through the portal.” Food and drink and dresses. Far too much and all of it necessary to the court’s sense of pomp and circumstance.
The queen’s uncle Niall hobbled past the piles of luggage, tents, and paraphernalia. “Damn foolish waste of money, if you ask me.”
It was. But the court was jubilant. Not only had the prince appeared, but he was to be married, and arrangements were in full force. Even if it was in a hurried up ceremony in butt-fuck nowhere.
Haddon smiled at Niall and bowed. “Your Lordship.”
No one must see his anxiety or his anticipation. This was his moment. Everything must go according to plan. They must get Agrona and Kian married and Agrona must suck up all of his powers. Then, with Kian out of the way and the queen not yet in possession of the prince’s Gift, he himself would engineer a disaster.
The prince and his lovely fiancée would die, the queen would have a final conniption fit, and the court would be grateful to let him take over and rule.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Bryanna, are you okay?”
Bryanna shook her head and sat up. She ignored Trina and the black spots floating in her vision. All her attention was focused on her patient. A black mist obscured his equine shape and in the inky darkness, two glaring red eyes appeared, seeming to pin her in place. Then the mist evaporated, and instead of the jet black stallion, there stood the devastatingly beautiful youth she’d met the first night. The blood and mud were gone, and he was impeccably dressed in black jeans and a t-shirt that showed off his sleek muscles. His dark eyes flashed red as he demanded, “Bloody hell, woman. How the fuck did they find ye here?”
Bryanna couldn’t answer. He was fine. More than fine. He had clean clothes, clean hair, and spanking clean leather boots. And he was cursing up a storm.
“Well? You were safe here. How did the Brethren find the fucking lodge?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking helplessly at Trina.
“Bullocks!” Solanum stalked toward her, sniffing the air. “Don’t deny it. It’s masked, but you have something—something you shouldn’t.”
Bryanna’s hand formed a protective fist around the locket in her pocket, and Solanum’s eyes tracked the motion.
He held out his hand, palm open. “Hand it over.”
“No.” She shook her head and scrambled back on the bloody floor. “It’s mine.” Even though she knew Beezel had been a traitor, the locket still worked. And with Logan and Kian gone, she needed it now more than ever.
Solanum’s face softened. His smile was gentle. Seductive. “Let me see the trinket, lass.”
As if drawn by a string, Bryanna pulled the chain out from its hiding spot. The golden locket slid out and dangled from her fist over Solanum’s patiently held out palm.
“Please, Bryanna, he’ll be able to tell if that’s how they found us.”
She didn’t want to let it go. It didn’t matter if it was a tracking device. It was the secret to her heart’s desire.
“Now lass.” The puca’s voice vibrated with power. It tingled inside her bones. The chain slipped from her slick fingers and dropped into Solanum’s waiting grasp.
“No!” She lunged, but it was too late.
He’d already snatched the locket back from her grasping fingers and had turned away. He sniffed the gold, his elegant nose wrinkling. “It reeks of the magic of the Tuatha De Dannan.” He held it out of her reach, the shiny surface glinting as it spun on the end of its fragile golden chain.
“Beezel said it would lead me to my heart’s desire. I need it to find Mama and Cassie. Now, maybe we can use it to find Logan and Kian.” She stretched out her fingers, but Solanum yanked the locket out of her reach. “It’s mine,” she said. “Give it back.”
“You trusted a gnome?” He shook his head at her. “Stupid git. They’re nothing more than money-grubbing rats. They have no loyalty except to their own kind.” Solanum snapped open the locket and examined its smooth surface. “Ah,” he said, and snapped it shut.
“What?”
“It does what he said it would, it shows you the route to your heart’s desire, but there’s an added spell to it. Look with your sight.” He laid the locket flat in his palm, and Bryanna focused her Gift. The bright
white light of the locket’s heart’s desire spell sprang into her vision. Then Solanum breathed over the locket. In the fog of his breath, the shiny surface flickered with lurid, yellow runes that disappeared as the heat of the moisture dried.
“I didn’t see that before.”
“You were glamoured not to see, but you should have looked anyway.” His expression told her she’d fallen far below the mark.
“What are those marks?” Trina asked.
“It’s spelled to be a beacon. It calls out and reveals its location to the one whose name is inscribed there.”
“And who is that?” Bryanna asked. She suspected she knew.
“Why, your trustworthy gnome, of course.”
She’d wanted to believe Beezel. Wanted to trust him. Was she so gullible she’d let just anyone pretend to be her friend? Why hadn’t she trusted Kian instead?
Solanum pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and unfolded its crisp, starched folds. He wrapped the locket up and tossed the bundle into the air. At the height of the toss, it disappeared.
“No!” Bryanna stretched out her hand, too late. It was gone. “What have you done?” She sagged onto the floor, suddenly more tired than she ever thought she’d been before. “Now I’ll never find any of them.” Her exhaustion took over and a deep depression settled into her body.
“You don’t need it,” Solanum said. “I know where your mother and sister are being held.”
“Where?” She lurched up, nearly grabbing the puca’s black sleeve.
“Hmm, anxious are we?” He waggled his brows at her. “I might tell you.” His pretty features contorted into a ghastly leer. “But I think I want something in return.”
She flinched away.
Under the youthful exterior there was something so dark about the puca that she wasn’t even sure what he was. She’d healed him, and she still wasn’t sure. One thing she did know, she’d glimpsed what he was truly formed of and he had nothing that bound him to her or her family. And the binding that held him to Logan was as thin as the life of a man.
Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) Page 24