“Damn it!” The indigo-haired soldier bent down to pick up the gourd. Wine spilled over the ground, creating a large, dark puddle. He picked up his cup and headed back to the others.
Blood drained from my face. If the wine gourd worked the same way as the water skin and produced an endless supply, what if all the Keeper’s venom now soaked into the forest floor?
“It’s gone.” Captain Stipe sheathed his sword.
“What was it, sir?” asked Lysander.
“A bear with horns like an antler,” replied Captain Corpan.
General Creach grunted and headed back to the food he’d left by a fallen log. The indigo-haired soldier walked around the clearing, pouring wine into the cups of his comrades.
My heart sank. That accursed bear had ruined my plan. Even if some of the venom remained, it might not be enough to make the soldiers drowsy. I snatched up my plate and bit a piece of roasted dandelion in half. I’d failed to poison the meat, and now I’d failed to poison the wine.
It was time for another plan.
The flames of the campfire danced and flickered and popped. I stared ahead, picturing suitable endings for Drayce and the soldiers. What about the Sword of Tethra and my blood? If it could slice through the mist, it might be able to slice a hole into the Otherworld. My shoulders sagged. I had no way of knowing what would happen if I tried to open a rift with my blood.
Someone stared at me in the periphery of my vision. I glanced up and met the soulless, black eye of General Creach. Even with half his face encased in bandages, the faerie made my flesh crawl.
Still keeping his eye on me, he raised his cup and drank the wine in one, long drag.
“Ignore him,” said Drayce. “Tonight, when we sleep, I will wrap you in my shadows.”
I ignored Drayce. His plans for me were equally as gruesome as the general’s.
“Wine?” asked the indigo-haired soldier.
Drayce raised his hand and produced a cup out of his shadows. I eyed its opaque surface. This was the first time I’d seen him use his power for such a frivolous reason.
When he’d filled Drayce’s shadow-cup, the soldier turned to me. “Wine?”
I shook my head and forced a smile, and he left to approach another pair sitting under a short maple tree. A few more bites of roasted tubers made my mouth dry. I rubbed my throat and glanced around for the water skin.
Drayce lifted his cup to my lips. “Drink.”
“Water’s better.” I pulled myself up and headed for Enbarr.
The skeletal horse stood by a maple tree that split into twisted branches the shape of lightning bolts. Above it spread a sparse canopy of crimson and amber leaves. I rifled through his saddlebags, searching for the water skin.
“You went to fetch water earlier,” growled a voice.
A jolt of surprise hit my heart, and I whirled around to find General Creach looming over me.
Drayce approached. “What are you doing?”
“You won’t be able to hide behind Salamander’s magic forever,” hissed the general. “We will talk again after the night fowl crows.” He turned on his heel and stalked back to his log.
I held the water skin to my chest and bowed my head. If I didn’t escape tonight or find a way to incapacitate the soldiers, I would have bigger problems than being sacrificed in the future to Queen Melusina.
Drayce wrapped an arm around my shoulder, encasing me in his warmth and protection. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
“Let’s finish our food,” I said with a sigh.
He guided me back to the sycamore tree, and I nibbled at a piece of roasted dandelion root. If Lysander and Yarrow made a dwelling for me in one of these trees, I might be able to escape with my blood and the Sword of Tethra. A growl rumbled in my throat. The sword on my belt was the forgery.
“Neara?” asked Drayce. “What’s—”
“Hey!”
The indigo-haired soldier fell into his companion, spilling wine and food over the floor of the clearing.
My heart stopped, and my body stilled. Did he trip, or was this the work of the Keeper’s venom?
“Vervain?” His companion shook his shoulder.
“He’s drunk!” said Yarrow.
Lysander snickered. “Always the first to get to the wine! He probably had a skinful while everyone was watching out for the bear.”
Hunching my shoulders, I picked charred bits of root from the roasted burdock. Vervain, the indigo-haired soldier, had been the only one to drink the wine before it had spilled. In the morning, the others would realize he had been poisoned.
“There’s more if anyone wants it,” said Lysander.
A pair of soldiers walked across the clearing, holding their empty cups and plates. They both wore bandages from the attack of the Dullahan.
The shorter of the two said, “And more wine, too.”
Before they reached the fire, the shorter male fell.
“Prata!” His companion knelt by his side. He shook the other male once before falling onto his back.
A thrill of triumph spread across my chest, but I held my breath, keeping as still as the sycamore tree at my back. Until they were all paralyzed or dead with drink, I couldn’t count my victories.
“Corpan?” Captain Stipe’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
Captain Corpan lay on the ground, motionless. Captain Stipe and General Creach stared at their fallen comrade, only for Captain Stipe to slump onto his superior officer.
Shouts broke out across the clearing as one by one, the soldiers fell. My breathing quickened, but I didn’t dare move. Not until every single one of them had fallen.
General Creach’s head snapped up, spearing me with his livid, one-eyed glare. He shot to his feet and bared his teeth. “You!”
The bottom fell out of my stomach.
I glanced at Drayce, who stared at the commotion with half-lidded eyes. His head swayed, and his mouth fell slack.
“You poisoned the meat!” The general strode across the clearing, his hands curled, ready to wrap around my neck.
Drayce’s arm around my waist dropped, and he slumped against my side. Gulping, I rolled out from under his weight and skittered around the sycamore tree.
“What did you do?” bellowed the general.
Somewhere in the distance, a roar echoed. My blood chilled. The only chance I had of escape was via a capall, but they were on the other side of the clearing.
Midnight-blue, dark magic wrapped around the tree and encased my wrists. It lifted me off my feet and around the sycamore tree. A cry caught in my throat, and I struggled against its grip.
General Creach beckoned with those inhumanly long fingers, and his magic brought us eye to eye. He ripped off the bandage, revealing not an empty eye socket, but one filled with a starry sky.
My throat turned to ashes.
“Tell me what you did to my men,” he said in a voice as soothing as a caress.
“I-I-I didn’t—” His magic squeezed all the air out of my lungs in a single, pained rush.
“Then I will enjoy extracting the truth.”
Tears filled my eyes, and I glanced at Drayce’s fallen form. Had the general only pretended to drink the wine? Did his superior power give him immunity to the poison? My lungs burned, and I struggled for air. Somehow, I had to get him to release his grip, so I could reach one of the weapons on my sword belt.
“You—” The stars in his empty eye socket dimmed, and he stumbled back.
The magic around me loosened, allowing me to suck in a huge, noisy breath. Then the dark magic vanished, and my feet hit the ground.
“Fiend!” He cried before falling onto his back.
I doubled over, my forearms braced on my knees. “Thank the saints!”
It was time to leave. I unsheathed the counterfeit Sword of Tethra and plunged it into General Creach’s unmoving chest. The faerie didn’t flinch. Next, I turned back to the sycamore tree to check on Drayce. He wasn’t breathing, and neither were a
ny of the others.
My eyes clouded. Not only had I become someone who could no longer touch iron, I now murdered in cold blood.
After re-sheathing the sword, I walked to the other side of the clearing and released all the capall in case a kindly soul came across the soldiers and found a way to wake them. Then I strode to Enbarr and pulled out the real Sword of Tethra.
“Neara.”
I whirled around.
Drayce stood behind me. “What are you planning?”
Chapter 19
Cold shock barreled through my gut, and the Sword of Tethra slipped from my fingers. My breath stilled, and my limbs went numb. Drayce loomed behind me, his presence the calm before an avalanche. One that I could not outrun, could not escape, and could not survive. I’d made a fatal error, forgetting he’d survived the Keeper’s venom. Fought against it for two nights and gained an immunity to its effects.
And now, I was at his mercy.
Drayce’s hand encircled my arm, and he turned me around. Shadows surrounded us like a curtain, closing me off from the clearing and from my only means of escape. I clenched my teeth and reached for my last remaining weapon, but he caught my wrist.
“Where are you going, Neara?”
This was just like when he’d restrained my arms before our bargain, so I couldn’t drive my iron dagger through his heart. His eyes, green stars in a midnight sky, bore into mine, and the hands enclosing my arms tightened.
I couldn’t even tap my ears and pretend they were still ringing. Poisoning a troop of soldiers was proof enough that I’d uncovered their plans to hand me over to Queen Melusina as a vessel.
His head flicked toward the capall. “Explain yourself. Where were you going?”
“To find Father.”
“Why?”
“That vision of me sitting on a throne. Who was inside my body?”
His pupils narrowed. “I cannot tell a falsehood.”
An angry, prickly heat flared across my chest, spread up my neck and into my cheeks. How dare he withhold the truth when we both knew I’d uncovered his deception. I jerked my arms, trying to break his grasp, but he held tight. “Don’t touch me!”
“A geas prevents me from revealing everything Queen Melusina planned for you.”
I clenched my teeth, still writhing in his grip. “But it didn’t stop you from offering me up to her as a sacrifice!”
His grip loosened. “You know?”
This was my chance. I pulled out of his grasp and backed away. The shadow at my back yielded, restoring my view of the clearing.
One capall remained to return me to the palace, but even if I got a head start, Drayce could overtake us with Enbarr. Fighting him would be futile. He would overpower me in seconds. I had to distract him and wait for the right time to slip the knife between his ribs.
A gasp slipped from my quivering lips. I had no choice but to reveal the truth of what I knew. “I heard your conversation with General Creach. You never intended to put me on the throne.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled. It was one of those elongated breaths, full of restraint, as though he was trying to appease a lunatic. “Neara, we were always meant to be together. It is our destiny. Can you not feel it when we touch?”
My breaths quickened. I had felt something special, but it was only his supernatural trickery. If a low faerie like the gancanagh could affect a woman’s desires, a demigod, or whatever Drayce was could touch my heart.
“No.” I raised my chin. “I felt nothing at all.”
“Neara…”
“If we have a shared destiny, why put me on the throne only to return to the Otherworld. We’d be apart!”
His gaze darted behind me to Enbarr. “I have a plan for us to be together.”
I stepped to the side, keeping both him and his skeletal mount in sight in case they planned on an ambush. He was trying to distract me, but why did his eyes look so pained? I was missing something.
As Drayce reached for my arm, an idea dropped into my head that made my gut churn. I staggered back, reeling with disgust. “If the queen takes my body, I’ll die.”
His expression blanked, save for the slight widening of his eyes, and his hand dropped to his side. His breathing quickened, but he tried to conceal his alarm by holding his body into a semblance of calm.
“And she’ll give you back your kingdom as a reward… where I’ll be waiting, because I’ll be dead.” With each word, each dawning realization, my voice rose to a shriek. “That’s how we’ll be together, isn’t it?”
Drayce’s shoulders drew up to his neck, and his chin dipped long enough to signal his guilt. Then he straightened and reached again for my arm. “Neara…”
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, “Or I’ll drive my short sword into your gut.”
He spread his arms wide. “Then you must do it now. If you don’t love me, send me back to the Otherworld.”
My heart jumped into my throat, but my hand made no move toward my sword belt. Did he know I could no longer touch iron?
Drayce took advantage of my hesitation and stepped forward. “You can’t. Because you know deep in your heart, we were meant to be together.”
I shook my head. He was a deceiver who seemed to enjoy using sweet and calculating words rather than strength to achieve his aims. But he had overpowered me once and would do so again if I continued my defiance. The only way to beat him was to play along with his deception until I found an opening.
“Then why do you always walk away from me?” I let my voice shake.
He stroked my cheek with the back of his smooth, leathery fingers. “I won’t leave you tonight.”
I let my eyes flutter closed and moaned, as though fevering for his touch. It wasn’t wholly an act. The warmth of his leathery skin filled my soul with sweet promises. I’d been so careful not to eat the faerie fruit or drink their wine, but I hadn’t guarded my heart.
Drayce’s lips descended on mine, sparking pleasure through my skin.
Gasping, I drew back, heart pounding, eyes wide. “What—”
“You feel it, now,” he murmured, before kissing me again and filling my mouth with his warm, wet tongue. His arm encircled my waist, pressed me into his hard chest, so I couldn’t escape his embrace.
I melted into his kiss, into those long, languid caresses of the tongue that set my skin aflame. All plans of slipping my iron sword between his ribs evaporated, replaced by the well of heat simmering between my legs.
I’d allow him one last kiss. Then I’d return him to the world of the dead, and he’d be out of my way. I threaded one hand through his silken hair and the other around his lower back, pushing his hardness into my belly.
I’d never been in the spell of the gancanagh, but I imagined that kissing Drayce with such fervor would be similar to such an enchantment. A dizzying maelstrom of heat and desire. Every caress of his fingers, his lips, his tongue, drove me deeper into his thrall. From the pounding of his heart against my chest, he’d also lost control.
“Drayce,” I murmured.
“I know,” he said between hot, panting breaths. “This is how it is between mates.”
I hadn’t kissed him since inhaling the Banshee Queen’s last breath. But the implications of what I’d become no longer mattered. All I cared for was his hand, his tongue, that hard length grinding into me. The pulsing, aching heat between my legs quickened, needing more.
The night fowl crowed.
My heart stilled, and I gripped him tighter. “Please. Don’t run.”
“I could not,” he rasped, “even if I wanted.”
My hands slid over the smooth scales on his neck to the buckle on his collar. This time, Drayce let me undo the cool, brass fastening. I wanted to expose him, scale by glorious scale, but the ends of his garment would not budge. “How do I take it off?”
“You must undo every buckle and slide the jacket off my shoulder.”
“All right.” The words were breathless, urgent, wanton.
&
nbsp; My hands skittered across the leather doublet, releasing the buckles over his chest, down his torso, and on his cuffs. Each unbuckling made him hiss, but it wasn’t with pain.
“Neara,” he moaned. “Hurry. There are fastenings on my breeches and boots.”
I quickened my movements, running my hands over the leather, enjoying the muscles flexing under his skin. The armor warmed and shuddered under my fingertips, much like his scales.
At last, as I knelt at his feet, I undid the last buckle of his boots. “What now?”
He threw his head back, chest heaving like a pair of bellows. “S-slip your fingers under the leather.”
The scant light in the woods highlighted a gap in the seam of his doublet that exposed a glimpse of flesh. I pulled myself up, slid the pad of my index finger in the seam, and gently pushed it open. It made a slight tearing sound.
“Oh!” Drayce moaned.
His voice went straight to my pulsing core. Maybe the scales underneath the armor were extra sensitive. Each movement of my fingers made him jerk and spasm.
Drayce gripped my shoulders, panting into my neck. “Faster!”
I slipped four fingers into his seam, and with the sound of shredding cloth, I ran my hand up his chest. Drayce shuddered, his fingernails digging into my own leather armor, blunt teeth grazing my neck.
With both hands, I slid the jacket over his shoulders, exposing not pale scales, but smooth, tanned flesh.
My breath caught. “You’re—”
“It’s my curse,” he moaned. “By day, I must exist within my armor and scales, only able to become myself after the crowing of the night fowl.”
I had to know what was beneath the scales. I pulled at the armor, enjoying the way it ripped from his skin like fabric, revealing beautiful, dark flesh. It wasn’t the deep mahogany of the Summer Court Prince, but it was richer than any I’d seen in the inhabitants of Bresail.
Drayce squeezed his eyes shut. “Take it all off.”
Curse of the Fae King Page 17