Hood's Obsession: Kingdom Series, Book 9

by Marie Hall

  “So the Prince of Darkness requires I come to him, is that it?” She wet her lips, narrowing her eyes when she noted his never strayed south. What was this man? A eunuch?

  “No.” He shook his head. “He requires you to journey with me.”

  She laughed. “Show me proof or go away. You’re mad if you think I would willingly go anywhere with you, stranger.”

  He sighed. “So be it.”

  And then, reaching beneath his shirt, he pulled out a small amulet made of a shimmering silver metal that fairly glowed in the moonlight. Distrustful and curious, she stayed where she was but tensed her muscles, ready to dart to safety should it be a trick.

  Magic intrigued her. All forms of it. Mostly because of her own, paltry though it was. But Father had drilled into her from an early age that she was never, ever to use it. Aside from the shifting every wolf possessed, there was nothing more reviled among her people than for a wolf to possess magic.

  Any other creature and no one batted an eyelash, but for a wolf to own it was grounds for being cast out from among her people. Which she found to be a stupid and archaic rule, but what she thought was of no consequence to her kind. Anything different must be hidden or else suffer the wrath of the elders’ justice.

  The amulet no longer simply shimmered, it rippled like a heat wave and within its glow the face of Rumpel manifested.

  The impossible, devilish beauty of the man had always made her heart beat just a little faster.

  She smirked when the mirage of Rumpel’s eyes turned to her. “Ah, demon king, and to what do I owe the honor?”

  Rumpel’s chuckle was like an aged malted whiskey, rich and smooth. She remembered even at thirteen when she’d first met him she’d been horribly infatuated by the Dark Prince. “Giles, you’ll have so much fun with this little bitch.”

  She hissed when Giles simply inclined his head as if in agreement. Not that being called a bitch amongst her kind was an insult, but for anyone outside her species to use it usually meant they were insulting her, and that had always irked her.

  “Whatever.” She crossed her arms. “Who is this man?” She pointed. “He says I’m to go with him on a trek.” She finger-quoted the last bit.

  Rumpel nodded. “Aye. I’ve called your vow due. Journey with my man to reclaim the chalice of hope. Once done, you’ll be free of me.”

  Lilith growled. “That chalice is buried within the heart of Fyre Mountain.”

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  She tossed up her hands. “That is an impossible quest for an army, but a death sentence for just two.”

  His grin stretched across his smug face. “My dear Lilith, this is your quest. Do it or not. But if you don’t, your life is forfeit. You know how these things work.”

  Glowering at the silent Giles, she snarled. “I thought you’d married, grown a conscience. Your bride would be asha—”

  Rumpel’s face distorted and for a brief moment those golden eyes of his burned with fire. “My bride owns my dark heart, true enough, and for her I would raze an entire kingdom. But you are not she, I owe you nothing, and you owe me everything. So choose quickly.”

  “I hate you,” she spat.

  Laughing once more, Rumpel turned to Giles. “Goddess speed, and return as soon as can be.”

  “Sir.” Giles tipped his head and then the light pouring off the amulet vanished.

  “You are an automaton.” She crossed her arms. “Have you no emotion, no feeling other than to follow that man blindly? You do understand that the death sentence isn’t simply for me, aye?”

  He lifted a brow as if to say, If you say so.

  Furious, she stomped her foot and glanced over shoulder. She was bound by pain of death to complete this mission. “I cannot leave without saying goodbye to my family.”

  “We must make haste. But,” he continued when she opened her mouth to plead her case, “there is always time to say goodbye.”

  Disgusted, even though he was being unbelievably kind, she marched for home. Never glancing back to see if he’d follow or not.

  What was she going to say to Mother and Father? They knew about her deal with Rumpel, but, Gods, she’d hoped all she’d have to do was a little job, nothing harder than breaking and entering and her terms would be satisfied. Journeying into Fyre Mountain, it wasn’t so much the mountain that would make the task impossible. Though that would be difficult enough, but rather it was everything that came before it that would be the really tricky part of their trek.

  “I can keep you safe, shifter.” Softly spoken words cut through her muddled thoughts.

  Growling, she twirled on him. “Knight, I’m no maiden in distress, and if you offer to protect me one more time I should cut your balls off.”

  His lips twitched ever so slightly. “Indeed.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just…” She stepped lightly over a damp boulder in a creek bed. “I’m trying to devise a way to let my parents know not only must I travel unchaperoned with a male not of our clan, but also with one that looks like a devil incarnate. You are rather disturbing looking, knight.”

  He chuckled. “You would not be the first to say so. Though I am no devil—I do not have the horns or the forked tail.”

  She glanced down at his booted feet. “You sure you’re not hiding any cloven hooves there?”

  “I should hope not. It would make our journey in these boots quite impossible.”

  She snorted. “You don’t seem nearly as unhappy by all this the way I do. How could this not bother you? We’ll be walking through some of the worst, most nightmarish parts of Kingdom.”

  He shrugged. “Because I will succeed. There is no other option. And so I know I will not fail, nor will you.”

  Lilith rolled her eyes. “Because you’ll save me.”

  “I would be a fool to even think it.” He crossed his arms behind his back.

  Chuckling beneath her breath, because the man completely befuddled her, she stepped through a dense bed of shrubs, disturbing a nest of fireflies that sprang into the air with a dazzling flourish of glittering golds, greens, and blues. Bobbing and weaving through the night sky with each flit of their wings.

  The forest was strangely silent. The night birds did not coo, the insects did not hum—other than the ones they currently disturbed. She glanced at Giles side-eyed. “The creatures are never this silent. I would say they fear you, but I could not honestly see why—you’re as docile as a kitty.”

  Though not entirely true, he’d obviously dispatched a gang of alphas. But nettling him was fun.

  His lip pulled back as if offended, which caused her to snicker. But rather than answer her question, he asked her one of his own. “Why would your parents worry about your being unchaperoned?”

  “You are a boy scout, knight. Can you not sense it?” She lifted her brows, giving him a knowing grin.

  When he shook his head, she stopped walking and planted her hand on his chest. Stepping boldly into his body, she released her pheromones, inhaling his own scent of smoked cherry. “I am in heat.”

  He gave no reaction whatsoever to her blast of scent.

  “Ah,” he said stoically, “that would explain the behavior from earlier.”

  Thoroughly confused by him and a little perturbed that he’d not even batted an eyelash when she’d wrapped her scent around him, she shook her head. “I’m beginning to suspect there is something seriously wrong with you, knight.”

  Scratching his jaw, he shrugged. “I suppose so, shifter. What I can tell you is that if your parents worry for your virtue, they needn’t. I would never touch you.”

  The way he said it, like she was inconsequential and without any charms whatsoever, offended her mightily. If the man had made an attempt on her, she’d have shoved her claws through his jugular and laughed while she’d done it, but that he didn’t even want to…

  Goddess, that rankled. Of course it was probably for the best; there was the whole pact with the devil thing to consi
der. She’d been a fool to even try and flirt with the man, and she needed to remember who she was.

  Tossing her head, she shoved in front of him and walked the last few yards home in silence.

  Being stared down by the Big Bad Wolf, a mountain of a man with shaggy black hair and piercing golden eyes, was bad enough, but add the firecracker of his wife, Violet—a.k.a. Little Red Riding Hood, a.k.a. The Heartsong, a being of such infinite and dark power that all of faedom would tremble at the mere mention of her name—and for the first time in his long-lived life, Giles could admit to feeling a slight case of the nerves.

  And the tension only continued to mount the deeper into the den he went. Three other sets of eyes glared at him from within shadowy alcoves, shifter males whose throaty rumbles broadcasted much louder than words what they thought of the strange male entering their home.

  One of the males glared at Giles with murder clear in his eyes. The other two brothers had come around the young lad and pushed him back into a separate room, muttering low beneath their breaths at him.

  “Don’t worry,” Lilith whispered into Giles’s ear. “They smell the adrenaline of St. John and the pack on you and me. Erich is only fourteen and his wolf is a wee more volatile than the rest—he is simply confused. But they shouldn’t kill you once it’s all been sorted out.”

  She said it so blasé, and with a flick of her wrist, that he almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of his situation. Not that he wasn’t powerful, but a clan of five—and with one of them being the Heartsong—filled him with a shade more insecurity than he’d normally feel.

  Lilith walked with her spine ramrod straight several steps ahead of him. “Heel, boys,” she said matter of factly. “The knight’s with me.”

  The brothers simply nodded, but all eyes were on him. Swallowing hard, he inclined his head, knowing to show even a hint of fear was like the ringing of a dinner bell to predators of their caliber.

  The den was much larger than any Giles had seen before. Sectioned off into several different units. There were the main living quarters, with rugs scattered beneath large couches that’d been gashed and slashed from what looked like sharp claws. Then there were the areas where curtains hung across doorways for privacy—those he could only assume to be the sleeping chambers. A heavenly waft of sizzling meats filtered down the long hallway.

  The reddish walls were packed adobe that had small, drill-sized holes in them. The holes gleamed with a bright golden wash of light that helped the interior not get too dark. The den was colorful and homey. But being underground reminded Giles too much of his home in his past life, and what he wanted more than anything was to get above ground as soon as could be. Back to the expanse of a never-ending sky and the gentle sway of a springtime breeze.

  Lilith entered the living room and stopped, then pointed at Giles. “Father. Mother, meet Giles. He is the dark imp’s butler, and apparently I am to sojourn with him to Fyre Mountain. I’m starving; what’s for dinner?”

  Giles blinked, confused all over again by the woman before him. Outside in the forest she’d seemed aghast at the thought of being asked to journey, but now she acted as though it were no big thing.

  The rest of the family banded around Giles like a wave of sharks circling chum. He stood absolutely still and raised a brow, taking a turn to look them each in the eye.

  Some eyes were golden, others blue. All the men were tall, coming to head level with their father, but not all shared his dark head of hair. Some had blond hair like their mother—one even had a skunk stripe of white down the center of it. But all of them shared the same strong features.

  Lilith, Giles decided, favored her father more in her dusky-skinned coloration, although she had the cobalt-blue eyes and the slender, more feminine curves of her mother, Violet.

  Violet stepped forward.

  Unlike the rest of her family, she was not nude. Dressed in buckskin clothing that had been dyed a brilliant ruby color, she lifted a golden brow. Her porcelain skin and youthful features were at odds with the knowledge Giles possessed of her dark and dangerous nature.

  Years ago Rumpel had worried that the Heartsong might actually learn to become more powerful than even he, and there’d been a contingency plan in place should the wee woman ever become a thorn in the prince’s side. Thankfully it had never had to come to that.

  “Red,” Giles rumbled low, nodding his head in a show of respect.

  No longer did Giles sense the darkness in control of her, but the energy flowing off her was still plenty powerful. Enough to make the fine hairs on his arms stand on end.

  “Demone.” She smirked at him. “Please call me Violet. I have not gone by Red in years. And know that we allow no one into our home without knowledge of whom they are and what they want. My wolf may be”—she looked at Ewan with an amused grin—“a tiny bit unamused by all this. But I do know that you are indeed here for this quest and that my brash, thick-headed daughter—”

  “Mother!” Lilith scolded.

  Red’s laughter sounded like the chime of ringing bells. There was an ethereal quality about the Heartsong now, one Giles did not remember the woman possessing years ago. Before she’d been angry and full of righteous fury, but now she seemed almost domesticated and tranquil.

  Rumpel would eviscerate Giles for ever thinking so, but even his own prince seemed more docile these days since meeting and marrying his Shayera.

  It seemed love, even on Kingdom, was a powerful magic.

  Laughing, Violet shrugged. “You know you are, my beautiful child. More headstrong than all three of your brothers combined. And we will talk about what St. John did today.” Then, leaning in, she whispered something into Lilith’s ear that caused the spitfire to blush furiously.

  Red’s look was knowing and irritated, but not at her daughter specifically. “Trust me that your father will handle that situation.”

  With the way she said “that,” Giles could only assume she was referring to the incident in the glen. When Ewan popped his knuckles, Giles knew his assumption was correct.

  “But as this is your going-away party, let us not talk of such violent things,” Violet finished with a bright smile. “Your brothers have captured and killed a buck earlier today, and now we will roast in celebration of you and your speedy return.”

  Giles was more than confused by Lilith’s clan’s reaction. He’d expected weeping, begging for him not to do this, not to take their only daughter on such a perilous quest. Ewan clapped him hard enough on the back that he stumbled forward two steps.

  “Come let us eat, demon knight,” Ewan boomed.

  At the sound of it all the males threw up their fists and then turned on their heels, racing down the hall toward the overwhelming scent of roasting meat. Only Lilith and Violet stayed with him.

  The younger woman had her head bowed, but not as though bowed from humility, rather like she was attempting to hide her humor at the whole situation.

  Violet chuckled and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Welcome to the lives of wolves, sir knight. In time, you’ll get used to it.”

  Lilith’s head snapped up at this words and she glared at her mother, not with anger, but with a question burning in her bright blue eyes.

  He nodded, keeping pace with the women as they led him toward the kitchen. “I apologize for any inconvenience my coming here might cost you both—”

  Violet waved his words away. “You were expected, Giles. Though not by my daughter, I’m sure.”

  Glancing at Lilith, Giles was surprised to see her still wearing a mask of astonishment. She tucked a black thread of hair behind her ear but still refused to ask her mother any questions. Though even he could sense them rolling around on her tongue. He wondered what could make the fiery shifter so tongue-tied all of a sudden.

  Patting his arm, Violet smiled. “You will rest here the night, then in the morning I shall pack you a basket of food that will see you through to the next day, when food will become easier to rustle up.”

/>   He shook his head. “I’d just as soon leave this night.”

  She laughed. “No, that won’t be happening. There is a powerful nor’easter ripping through the Howling Canyon. It will wipe away anyone attempting to walk through the valley. You will wait and leave on the morrow.”

  Frowning, he glanced back at Lilith, who was now attempting to hide her chuckle behind her wrist. Giles had allowed no one but his prince to dictate anything to him, the only reason he stayed his tongue was not because he was currently surrounded by a pack of barely leashed tempers, but because he knew the power the Heartsong wielded. If she said it was bad, he’d have no choice but to believe her.

  “Then I shall do as advised.”

  Her smile was huge. “Come, then, let us break for supper and talk of this quest.”

  Turning the corner, Giles suffered a moment’s pang of homesickness. The kitchen was massive and hewn from the same red clay as the rest of the home. The table and chairs were obviously whittled by skilled hands. A deep, burnished mahogany wood that mingled with the rich, meaty brine of roasted haunch gave their kitchen an old-world feel.

  The entire leg turned on a spit over the flame inside the massive hearth. The drip of liquid fat sizzled on the heated stones beneath and made his mouth water.

  Ewan and the rest of the clan were seated in their places, smiling broadly. A wolf’s love of meat was well known.

  “Sit.” Violet pointed to the three empty seats on other side of Ewan.

  Taking the one directly beside the Big Bad Wolf, he sat and waited as the woman lifted the meat from the spit, bringing it to the center of the table that was already overflowing with baskets of cheese, fruit, and bread.

  He expected the moment the meat hit the table that it would be an all-out brawl to get at it, but the men stayed calm. Though their gazes never swerved from the juicy leg.

  Lilith took the seat beside him and Violet the one across from him.