by Mindy Klasky
6
Oberon Blackthorne had kidnapped Jonathan’s daughter.
So, kill me. I underestimated the Unseelie Prince. Again.
I’d intended to call Oberon’s bluff, to refuse to play his ham-handed version of the Abduction Game. But Jonathan insisted on going to the Smithsonian Castle—despite my warnings about the Unseelie Prince’s power, about his desire to drag me back to the Thousand-Oak Grove.
A concerned vampire father can be even more compelling than a dark fae prince. At least when that vampire glares with his grass-green eyes and sets his rock-hard jaw and refuses to leave your side until you see so-called reason.
So I accompanied Jonathan to the Smithsonian Castle, taking what little comfort I could in the familiar golden glow of the ley lines that stretched beside us as we traveled. I expected we’d reach a motte and bailey structure placed high upon a hill, a fortress that could withstand siege engines and undermining for days, weeks, even months.
Instead, I found a tourist information center, a massive pile of red sandstone squatting beside a field of grass. The National Mall, Jonathan called the plain. It stretched between the towering obelisk I’d passed in my gnome form—the Washington Monument, I now knew—and the pile of white marble that dominated the eastern horizon. The Capitol. Jonathan was serious about his role as my guide. Or else he craved distraction from the danger Oberon represented.
Iron posts ran around the edge of the Mall, supporting chains that hung at knee-level. Well-spaced signs commanded: Keep Off the Grass.
Someone, though, had disobeyed. A perfect fae ring gleamed beneath the moonlight, centered on that self-same grass.
Oberon had done his work well, even though he’d labored as a stranger in a very strange land. Casual human eyes would never notice the circular structure in their midst. The Unseelie Prince had woven in distractions, lures that invited casual onlookers to study the grass, to reflect on the symmetry of the gravel-strewn paths, to back away from the forbidding iron posts and chains.
He’d poured a fae command into the signs. Keep Off the Grass had become a compulsion. Any mortal creature would suffer for disobeying that command. One step, and he’d feel dull, distracted. Another, and his stomach would start to roil. A third, and his heart would gallop, his breath coming short. He’d fight a losing battle against sheer panic.
Lucky for us, neither Jonathan nor I was mortal.
I stepped over the iron chains, taking exquisite care not to brush them with my feet. Jonathan followed suit a lot more abruptly, his face grim in the moonlight. Taking his hand, I led him across the boundary of the fae circle.
And his fingers clenched in violent reflex, nearly breaking my fingers, when he saw what lay within.
Oberon Blackthorne wasn’t playing the Abduction Game. He’d actually done the work of tracking down and capturing his kidnap victim.
Abigail Weaver was stretched out on a bier. Her head rested on a crimson velvet pillow, blonde hair framing her face like the fluff of a dandelion. Her strong jaw was relaxed in sleep. Incongruously, she wore blue jeans and a plaid shirt.
Oberon had spent too much time listening to the old stories. He’d always had a soft spot for sleeping princesses. Seelie Court rumor said he routinely cast his paramours into deeply spelled sleep, then had a grand time awakening them with a kiss, rogering them before they were fully conscious.
Ick.
And Exhibit 1,479 for why I would never return to the Thousand-Oak Grove with my erstwhile fiancé. At least there was no evidence that Oberon had taken Abigail Weaver as his lover.
Jonathan surged toward his daughter, keening her name. He would have fallen on his knees by her bier, if not for the invisible wall Oberon had set around his prize. With my fae senses, I could see it arching over Abigail like a crystal dome, a separate barrier within the confines of the fae circle.
Pulled up short, Jonathan roared and pounded on the clear boundary like a man demented. He kicked at its base. He lunged against it. He expressed his fangs with a sickening pop and snarled as he tried to gnaw his way through.
“Tut, tut, tut.”
I whirled around, already recognizing Oberon’s voice. And yes, he actually said that—“Tut,” three times, like some plummy aristocratic villain in a Golden Age mystery.
Jonathan gathered himself to pounce. The only thing stopping him was the pack of hounds that coursed behind the Unseelie Prince, each standing as high as the vampire’s waist. The dogs snarled through spittle-flecked lips, apparently intent on tearing the good doctor limb from limb. They were only held back by Oberon’s raised hand.
“One step closer,” the Unseelie Prince drawled, “and I’ll set them free.”
“He will, Jonathan,” I said, before the vampire could test Oberon's resolve. I’d seen him order the destruction of a twenty-point stag, just to prove he could hunt out of season. He’d hardly hesitate to destroy an unknown vampire thousands of leagues from home.
“What did you do to her?” Jonathan demanded, frustration rolling off him like the stench of rotting flesh.
“Nothing dire,” Oberon said with a dismissive shrug. “She returned late from work last night, hungry and tired. The least I could do was offer her a bite of chestnut bread.”
I stiffened. The same bread that had sustained me in the Eastern Empire would ground a mortal to the Thousand-Oak Grove. If Abigail was not freed by the next full moon, she’d be bound to the Unseelie Court forever.
Jonathan glared. “She’s not an idiot child. She wouldn’t take food from a stranger.”
“Of course not,” Oberon agreed. “But I wasn’t a stranger.”
He rippled as he stood before us. One moment, he was the Unseelie Prince, tall and dark and lean as a sapling. The next, his shoulders filled out, along with his chest and belly. He shrunk a handspan. His hair transformed into a wild tangle of red shot through with gold, matching the beard that sprouted on his face.
“I was Matthew Drake,” Oberon said, his voice lowered to a bass rumble.
“You son of a bitch!” Jonathan shouted, launching at the fae.
“Hold!” I cried, springing between them. Before either could strike, I clutched at the grass beneath my feet, pulling up a tussock. I tossed it into the air behind Oberon, muttering a word in the Green Tongue, the one that means “Grow.” A woven thicket immediately blocked the Unseelie hounds from Jonathan, their prey.
The beasts began to bay in frustration, a sound that froze my marrow. Jonathan clapped his hands over his ears, falling to his knees. The howls echoed back at us, doubled and redoubled by the outer limits of Oberon’s fae circle.
The imago of Matthew Drake plucked a coin from his pocket. Tossing it to the ground behind him, he spoke his own word in the Green Tongue, the one that means “Wall.” His accompanying smooth gesture set a silver barrier around the two of us.
Instantly, I ceased to hear the hounds’ baying. I imagined Jonathan on the other side of that sleek metal structure. He’d be trapped, caught between the pain of Oberon’s baying hounds and the burn of silver, all the while raging at his inability to rescue the daughter who didn’t know him.
He wouldn’t last long.
Still clad in Matthew Drake’s skin, Oberon crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned against the silver wall as if we stood in a palace bedroom. “Ill met by moonlight, Titania.”
I set my teeth, determined not to claw the smirk from his handsome, terrible face. “All right,” I said. “You got me here. What do you want?”
He threw back his head—that red-crowned, undeniably human head—and laughed. His rounded belly shook like an aspic on the royal feasting board. “That should be obvious, my dearest betrothed.”
In a flash, he transformed to the Oberon I knew and hated.
“You,” he said through his own thin lips. His own grey eyes glinted in the moonlight. His own lean fingers curled in a cruel invitation, beckoning me one step forward. Two. Three.
I shook my head, clearing my daze
d senses before he could cup my cheek with his hand. “Never,” I said.
“Your parents bound you to me on the day that you were born.”
“My parents have old-fashioned notions of bodily autonomy.” See? My tutors had served me well, even if they hadn’t taught me the names for all the buildings in Washington DC.
“You’re a princess of the royal blood. You can’t stand before me and say you don’t understand your duty to the Thousand-Oak Grove. To the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. To all our people.”
“I don’t understand my duty,” I deadpanned.
But that was a lie. I did understand my duty. I was expected to bridge the gap between Oberon’s court and mine. I was destined to sacrifice my personal goals and desires to heal the rift between our peoples once and for all.
There was only one small problem.
Oberon would never change his ways. He’d run rough-shod over the Seelie Court the same way he had over his own people. My realm would be destroyed like my poor kitten, like the stag in the forest, like all the other harmless creatures Oberon had ruined. Marriage to me would never rein him in.
The only way I could serve was to refuse the role my parents had cast for me.
“Come, Titania,” Oberon said, extending a hand in a mockery of peace. “Leave these foolish mortals. Our people await us across the sea.”
Our people. I’d been raised from the cradle to reign over the Seelie Court. Marriage offered me the opportunity to rule the Unseelie Court as well, to command the entire Thousand-Oak Grove.
I set my fingertips on Oberon's open palm. I watched a cruel smile tilt the corners of his mouth. I saw the tiny lines deepen beside his eyes, the squint of an expert marksman measuring the path of his last stone-tipped bolt.
“Never,” I said.
And I kicked forward with all my strength, as if I were dancing a jig.
My dance instructor would have been appalled. Many a night, he’d drilled me on the pavane and the waltz and the sarabande, forcing me to repeat the steps again and again. My obedience had given me a flexibility that was useful now.
Oberon doubled over in outraged pain, his silver wall collapsing. I wasted no time grabbing Jonathan’s hand, but it took all my strength to tug the vampire to his feet.
“Come on,” I urged, gathering up my skirts. Foolish me, still wearing my wedding gown. But I’d thought maybe those trappings would convince Oberon to do what was right. What an idiotic plan. “Let’s get out of here.”
Jonathan pulled me toward his daughter’s bier. “Abby,” he protested, even as Oberon’s hounds redoubled their baying beyond my hastily erected grass wall. My spell couldn’t hold the beasts back much longer. Not with their master writhing on the ground, clutching between his legs and wailing his own canticle of revenge.
Jonathan was too heavy for me to drag to safety. I had no choice but to pull him forward with a lure.
You want me, I thought, drawing on the power of the moon. You can’t imagine living the rest of your life without me.
His fingers reached for me, as if they belonged to another man. I danced one step away, adding a smile to my magical summons.
Come play with me beneath the moonlight, I teased. We’ll please each other in ways you can only imagine.
His mouth stretched into a rigid grin, a humorless rictus that spoke of pain and rage and rebellion.
Behind him, on the grass, Oberon managed to straighten his legs. He caught a trio of fortifying breaths, each louder than the one before. He pushed himself up on all fours, arms trembling, back swaying as he gathered himself to stand. The howling dogs reached a new frenzied pitch.
I’m yours, I told the vampire. But first you have to catch me.
I pulled away, one step, two, three. I watched behind my vampire as Oberon raised his hands, tightening his throat around another word of Green Tongue power.
I had no choice. I spoke my own word, melting away my gown. I left myself sky-clad beneath the midnight stars, utterly bare before the man I wanted to seduce, the man I needed to save from my vengeful bridegroom.
Come! I thought to Jonathan, lading my Word with desire as naked as my flesh. I pulled him to me with ancient magic, tumbling into his greedy arms. He carried me past the edges of Oberon’s fae circle, then over the iron chains and beyond the Keep Off the Grass sign.
At my whispered thought, he set me on feet when we reached the gravel path. His arms, though, stayed tight around me. The wool of his trousers rasped against my bare legs. He lowered his face to my neck, and his fangs scraped my jugular, the threat of danger smoothed away by the velvet promise of his lips.
A steady pulse filled my body, a magic even more ancient than the ley lines surging beneath my feet. My body melted, the shuddery promise of pleasure magnified by the ley power surging through my soles.
So much power… So concentrated… So intense…
It filled me. It burned me. I needed to use it, to spend it, to cast it out before it consumed my very heart. Still clutching Jonathan close, I gathered the ley energy together, imagining it as a golden ball, a child’s perfect plaything.
As Jonathan’s lips found the sensitive hollow beneath my jaw, I collapsed into the ley magic. I tumbled into the golden river, rolling and riding, clutching at Jonathan’s shoulders as if he were my sole anchor in a storm-churned sea.
The ley light pulled us past the towering elm trees, beyond the hulking museums that lined the humans’ laughable National Mall. It rushed us past the oaks on Capitol Hill and through the city streets, past unknowing humans’ mundane eyes.
Ley magic cast us through the gate of Empire General, dazed and awed and panting. I was panting, at least; Jonathan was still his normal, unbreathing vampire self. Or maybe he was just stunned at having been pulled across half of Washington DC with a naked fae princess.
I didn’t have time to think about still being sky-clad. Instead, I gathered the last of my energy, reaching out to torque the ley magic behind us. As Jonathan gaped, I pulled the golden lines from their long-accustomed beds. I twisted the ancient roads, knotting them into a new pattern. They buckled like a mundane highway twisted by a mighty earthquake.
I reached deeper, deeper, draining the final drops of magic I’d managed to restore after my headlong flight only two nights before. I forgot about holding back to lure a man other than Jonathan. I didn’t bother salvaging the least ability to glamour. I forfeited the right to use a single Word of power, to speak any type of spell.
If I knew the Unseelie Prince—and, sadly, I did—he was tracing our magic flight even now. At any moment, he might attack my ley-wall with his bloodthirsty hounds. I dared not hold anything back. Our lives depended on keeping Oberon Blackthorne at bay.
As the last of my power drained away, the twisted ley energy settled into place. The rucked lines swelled against the hospital’s iron fence like a golden fruit, close to bursting with ripe magic.
But my work held. The bound ley-wall was solid as an ingot. It kept us safe.
Kept us captive.
We were imprisoned within the Empire General grounds as surely as Abigail Weaver was held beneath Oberon’s fae circle on the National Mall.
7
Jonathan roared.
My vampire hero wasn’t stunned to silence any longer. And he certainly wasn’t captivated by my sky-clad body.
For the second time that night, Jonathan threw himself against a wall of fey making. The ley-wall, though, was even stronger than Oberon’s construction. It drew on the very spine of the earth beneath this man-made city.
Nevertheless, Jonathan fought to return to the mundane streets. He snarled like a maddened bear. He pounded on the barrier with the base of his fist, blow after blow that would have broken down man-made bricks but only left him with a dark and spreading bruise. He scrabbled at the ground, trying to work his fingers beneath the arc. He only succeeded in ripping his fingernails from his flesh.
His hands closed on my shoulders, bleeding fingers
pinching to the bone. I clapped my own hands on his forearms, repeating his name, trying to penetrate his visceral rage with logic. He growled and shoved me to the side, turning back to fight for a purchase against the enemy that kept him from his daughter—the wall, or Oberon, or maybe even the creature had turned him into a vampire decades earlier.
“Dr. Weaver!”
The shout rang out with such authority that we both whirled to face the speaker. I suddenly remembered that I was sky-clad. If I’d had more energy, even a scintilla of strength, I might have been embarrassed.
As it was, I could barely keep my feet as an ifrit nurse skittered to my side. With clinical precision, she draped a sheet over my shoulders. She gathered it in front of me and lifted my hands from my sides, closing my fingers over the fabric to preserve what little was left of my modesty.
Blinking, I looked beyond the nurse, only to find another vampire. This one was a few inches shorter than Jonathan, but wider in the chest. He carried himself like a fighter, all tight-wound tension and eagle-sharp walnut-colored eyes. His hair was cut short like a soldier’s. His black shirt and matching trousers bore no insignia, but he wore them like a uniform.
Reflexively, I shuffled through my repertoire of Games. I needed something, anything, to give myself an advantage.
The Hireling Game perhaps… I could offer him a position in my retinue, if only he paid a deposit for the privilege. I could even run the long version of the Game, the one that had blossomed in these days of modern record-keeping. I could hire him and collect his personal data, then have my staff drain his accounts dry.
If I had my staff readily at hand.
I clutched my sheet and ordered myself to concentrate. I wasn’t going to hire this new vampire. I’d be lucky if he let me walk away.
“Jonathan,” he said, making the name a command. He took a single step forward as if he knew he’d be obeyed.
And he was. Jonathan’s fingers relaxed first, each digit curling in toward his palms. Even as I stared, his torn skin began to heal, knitting itself together as if by magic.