He placed his hand on the small of my back. “We have much to discuss.”
Our footsteps echoed on the stone floors. I slid my gaze to Drayce, who still hadn’t mentioned that I had chosen such a vicious and cruel way to murder him. Even if he’d meant for me to get angry enough to overhear his plot to hand me over to become Queen Melusina’s vessel, but at the last minute, I had taken my anger too far.
A jolt of apprehension shot through my spine, but I nodded anyway and willed the castle to produce a doorway to his room. A door to the left swung open, and we stepped through.
Drayce closed the door behind us. “Will you forgive my deception?”
My hand twitched toward his smooth, bronze skin. It was still hard to believe that the male standing before me wearing silk was Drayce. His screams echoed in my conscience, and I snatched my hand back. “How can you forgive what I did to you?”
“I needed you to love me.” He placed both hands on my shoulders. “And then I needed you to hate me enough to break the curse.”
"How could a curse need such a specific sequence of events to break?"
The corner of his lip curved into a smile. "Queen Melusina is a very determined being."
I bowed my head. The old me might have raged at him for being a lying, trickish faerie, but that was before I’d seen the true horror of the half-Fomorian creatures, like the Keeper of All Things, like Queen Melusina… like me.
Drayce lifted my chin, and I savored the warmth of his fingertips. “When you were born, Ailill told me your hair would make you strong enough to overthrow Queen Melusina and return my Kingdom.”
“You helped him escape,” I whispered. “How old were you?”
“Eleven… twelve?” He shook his head. “It was hard to let go of my only friend, but Ailill was convinced you were the one who would save us all.”
A lump formed in my throat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His eyes glistened. “I wanted to, but the curses she placed on me were too strong.”
“I see…” Everything he said made sense. I was glad Drayce wasn’t dead, but I still didn’t know what it all meant. He still needed his Kingdom back, and the only way to achieve that was to help me gain the throne. But I still didn’t understand his feelings. “Where does that leave us?”
A flicker of a grimace crossed his features. “I will spend the next thousand years proving myself worthy of your love.”
My throat thickened. “What are you saying?”
The door opened, and the gancanagh poked his head through the doorway. The usual unlit clay pipe dangled from his lips. “King Salamander, may I have my clothing back?”
I unsheathed the replica Sword of Tethra and pointed it at his throat. “Stop using that face!”
With a yelp, the gancanagh smoothed out his features into the noseless, expressionless face I’d seen in Calafort. It was ghastly but better than seeing Drayce’s face on a monster.
“P-please!” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m on your side.”
“Leave him alone,” said Drayce. “He's been searching Bresail for years, trying to find you. And I owe him a favor for lending me his pipe and clothing.”
“King Drayce!” Coleen rushed through the door, tears in her eyes. “You’re alive.”
Drayce’s brows drew together. “Coleen?”
“It was awful,” she howled. “I thought she’d killed you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s why you told Queen Melusina my location?”
“How was I to know she was a snake?” She dabbed at her face with her sleeve.
Drayce’s lips thinned. “Neara would have been killed or used to release the monsters in the mist.”
She lifted her chin. “I did what I thought was right.”
I shook my head. Coleen needed to speak to those who had suffered under faerie tyranny. “I have a job for you both. Go around the castle and free the human concubines.”
Coleen’s eyes widened, and she looked to Drayce for help. “But—”
“I’m the queen now.” I was no more the rightful ruler than Queen Melusina. But if the Court Princes had rejected her claim and been cursed, I had a good chance of being accepted as their ruler for breaking those curses.
The gancanagh bowed low. “I will carry out my new mission with the utmost diligence.”
“And don’t use your venom against the servants or concubines.”
“No, Your Majesty,” he replied. He turned to Coleen and held out his hand. “We may as well get started right away.”
Drayce jerked forward presumably to warn her that touching the skin of a gancanagh would get her ensnared by his sex magic. I elbowed him in the gut. Since she liked faeries so much, she could spend the rest of her tenure as a servant in his thrall.
She took his hand, and her eyes dilated. “Where shall we put the concubines?”
“Is there an infirmary?” I turned to Drayce. “I want healers to make sure they’re fit to go home.”
“Some of them might have been here for decades,” murmured Drayce.
I squeezed his fingers. “Then I’ll work out a way to help them.”
Coleen and the gancanagh left, and I made a mental note to get one of the more reliable servants to check on their work. Right now, I needed to learn of Drayce’s plans. With his powers restored, I didn’t doubt that he’d be able to send himself back to the Otherworld and regain his throne.
The door clicked shut, leaving us alone.
I turned, ready to ask Drayce of his plans, now that he’d regained his powers, but he caught me with the intensity of his gaze. His eyes—no longer slitted—burned like the sun shining through green thunderclouds.
The question died in my throat, and my heart pounded loud enough to shake my eardrums. “Drayce… I—”
In one, inhumanly long step, he closed the distance between us, standing so close, his warmth radiated through the silk of his shirt.
He slid his fingers over my jawline, past my earlobe, and threaded them into my hair. “Do you understand why I had to deceive you?”
My throat flexed. “There was no other way to break her curse. But it’s nothing compared to my viciousness.”
“Thank you.” He pressed his lips on my forehead.
I lifted my gaze. “You forgive me?”
Love shone in his eyes, so bright, it warmed my heart. “Neara, that brief moment of pain was nothing compared to the years I endured under the control of that monster.”
Drawing even closer until his chest pressed against mine, he placed another kiss on my right eyelid and then my left. “You’ve freed me, Ailill, and countless other beings who suffered under her tyranny. Thank you.”
The tight band of guilt squeezing my heart loosened. I exhaled and wrapped my arms around his waist. “Will you return to the Otherworld?”
He cupped my other cheek. “Not until you’ve freed the Courts, secured your throne, and put Melusina in her grave or back in the mist.”
“Then you’ll leave me,” I whispered.
“We’re mated.” He placed a kiss on my left cheekbone. “Nothing could part us.”
It took a few heartbeats for me to understand what he’d said. He wouldn’t return to the Otherworld and leave me here alone. “You’d really—”
“Yes.” He lowered his lips onto mine in a kiss that tasted of my redemption. “But first, we rescue the four High Courts.”
END OF BOOK ONE
READ BOOK TWO
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Curse of the Fae King (Dark Faerie Court Book 1) Page 23