Would Adonis be there tonight when we invaded Hampton Court Palace? Would I find my father again?
My shoulders had tensed so much they hurt. When I closed my eyelids, I saw my father’s face again: his golden skin, the gray-blue eyes. I never knew him as the Angel of Death—not until the end. I knew him as the man who brought me warm milk at night and read me Greek myths in bed by candlelight.
I’d see him soon, wouldn’t I? I felt his presence around me, and his rich scent of myrrh, the warmth of his hug. A phantom angel feather brushed my cheek.
That day, when Ruadan had invaded, my father had lost control. He’d killed everyone with his fear, waves of death rippling out from his body.
What had the shock done to him once he realized he’d killed my mum? When he’d seen her bleeding from the mouth? What if the trauma had warped him, turning him into a vengeful creature—one who wanted to spread death? One who’d be willing to work with Baleros?
The whispers grew louder around me, and now, I could hear what they were saying. They were repeating Ruadan’s thoughts.
Creatures like you were never meant to walk the earth.
Pivoting, I turned to pace the floor again. I wasn’t a proper horseman of death like my father was. I didn’t have the power that he did. I’d killed a few fae when they’d ganged up on me, but that was it. Only Adonis—Thanatos himself—could slaughter an entire city at once.
I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t like him. I wasn’t a monster.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized I was gripping my own hair, and Ruadan was staring at me.
“Something weighing heavily on your soul?” asked Ruadan.
“No,” I said sharply. “It’s just the poison. And I don’t know a mage skilled in the powers of the Old Gods.”
“I know of one,” said Ruadan. “But she doesn’t trust men anymore, and she’s unlikely to help me. How much time do we have, Melusine?”
“It says here that once language abilities deteriorate, uhh … you got about a half hour before Aengus kicks it,” she replied. “Maybe a bit more.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. We couldn’t let Aengus die. “Lead me to this woman, Ruadan. We’ll go together. I’ll do my best to charm her.”
Ruadan nodded. “Fine. I’ll summon the other knights to secure the fortress. Melusine, you make Baleros’s flag. A bundle of sticks. Raise it as soon as you can. I’ll try to get the antidote, along with Arianna or whatever her name is.”
“Bunch of sticks with an axe blade.” Melusine pushed up her glasses. “I know. You don’t worry about a thing, Grand Master Ruadan. I’ll get the flag flying faster than you can say … an epic poem of some kind. Something that would take about twenty-three minutes to say. In other words, it will take about twenty-three minutes for me to make it.”
BOOM.
I clamped my hands over my ears. Was it the delirium, or were these explosions growing louder?
“Where exactly are we going?” I asked as the ground rumbled beneath my feet.
The World Key at Ruadan’s neck glowed, and dark magic snapped around him. “Emain.”
The floor cracked and opened up under me, and I plunged into the cold water.
An hour and thirty minutes left.
I pulled myself up out of the portal, and freezing water poured from my body onto damp, mossy soil. Ruadan was already standing in the forest. Oak boughs arched over him, and the air smelled heavy with earth and musk and … apples? I breathed in again, closing my eyes. This was the land of my dreams.
I still felt confused, but here, the delirium had taken on a lighter feel, no longer as dark and sharp.
Ruadan nodded, his black clothing sculpting his perfect body, pale hair down his back. I pulled myself out and stood, my body dripping water.
Ruadan had gone still, tuning into something. It took me a moment to hear the distant sound of drums trembling over the earth.
“Why do those drums sound familiar?” I asked.
“Because you heard them in one of my memories. It’s the Wrenne Festival. The night of the sacred hunt.” Late sunlight sparkled through the tree branches, and Ruadan squinted in the honeyed light. “Nyxobas, god of night, will be covering this land at any moment, turning day into night. He draws down night, here, because he is worshiped.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean night will fall any moment here, just for the festival. Nyxobas does that.”
“Could you call in a favor with your granddad and ask him to kill Baleros on our behalf?”
“He doesn’t do favors like that. He doesn’t care if I live or die. He only cares if he’s worshiped.”
I blinked. “He sounds charming.” I twisted the hem of my dress, wringing out the cold water onto the earth. “Where’s this friend of yours who hates men?”
“She’ll be at the festival.” When I looked up, I realized how close I was standing to Ruadan. I let myself indulge for a moment in breathing in his piney scent. We could just stay here….
“I don’t want the queen to know that we’re here,” Ruadan added.
Oh, right. The mission. “Any reason?”
“My sister will want a formal audience. She’ll want to know about our mother, what condition she’s in, what’s happened to her. Why we’ve been poisoned. She’ll want to know what my plans are, what my mother’s plans are, how I’ll capture Baleros, and so on. It will take hours that we don’t have.”
“How do we stay hidden?”
Ruadan stroked a hand down his chest. “Wrenne is a festival of disguises. We dress ourselves from the bounty of the forest and hide our faces.”
“So what exactly do we wear? Leaves?”
“Hemlock boughs, oak leaves, animal skins, furs, antlers.”
Was this his confusion, or did he really think we were about to rustle up some animal skins and antlers right now?
I looked up at the sun slanting lower on the horizon. Mauve and pumpkin stained a sapphire sky—Nyxobas’s unnatural sunset, starting already.
I toyed with the fabric of my wet dress. Once again, I seemed to have moved closer to Ruadan, as if drawn by an invisible thread. Now, I was only inches from him, and I felt an electrical pulse moving between us. My eyes lingered over his lips, and I remembered how it had felt when he’d pressed them against mine, how my body had lit up when he’d touched me.
“I’m getting distracted,” I muttered.
“Wrenne does that to people. Not to mention, our minds….” He trailed off. He’d gone completely still, but his magic pulsed onto my body, hot strokes up my neck, up my thighs.
I could have sworn I felt his magic licking between my legs, and I gasped. Was he doing that on purpose?
“We don’t have a lot of time,” he added. His voice stroked over my skin, an intoxicating caress.
Still, he wasn’t moving, and his eyes pierced me, taking me apart piece by piece.
What had I said to him after our moment in the sewer? That it had been a mistake, and it could never happen again. I’d already let myself get deep enough into this. I’d let myself care too much.
“Like you said.” My voice came out husky. “We have a time limit. Pressed for time.”
His eyes stayed locked on me as if he were mesmerized. “The drums.”
“The drums,” I repeated. I could feel their rhythm pulsing through my blood like a heartbeat. I forced myself to step back from Ruadan, and I glanced at the sky again. “We need that antidote.”
Between the leaves, the mauve hues had deepened to a dark blue, and the moon seemed to hang over us. I could still feel Ruadan’s heat radiating around me, his magic tingling over my skin.
When I looked down from the darkening sky, Ruadan had disappeared, and I was completely on my own.
I was utterly losing it. “Ruadan?”
Chapter 92
It took a minute before he answered.
Then, at last, his voice floated from the shadows: “You need a disguise.”
I too
k a deep breath, then bit my lip again to master my thoughts. I understood dressing like a human, wearing the appropriate outfits for nightclubs and bars, but clothing myself in leaves was a bit unfamiliar.
I crossed to an oak, its trunk wrapped with ivy, and pulled a knife from my thigh holster. I cut through the ropes of vines until I’d formed a large pile of them on the earth.
Then, I knelt on the ground and rifled through my bug-out bag until I found a plastic mini stapler. I smiled. How anyone got through life without a bug-out bag was beyond me.
I stood and began stripping off my clothes, starting with my wet shirt. The crisp forest air slid over my bare skin as I pulled off my bra, and my breasts peaked in the breeze. I slid off my knickers next. For just a moment, I lingered there, thinking of Ruadan, wishing he’d come back.
Focus on the mission.
I crouched, naked, on the earth. The forest breeze whispered over my bare skin, raising goosebumps. My mind turned back to Ruadan’s delicious magic, his mouth. I had to stop myself from hunting him down right now. Licking my lips, I shoved the shirt, my underwear, and my boots into the bag.
With the drums pounding in my belly, I wasn’t sure I could keep my hands off Ruadan. Even without him here, liquid desire was lighting me up. I lifted the ivy off the ground and stood.
Focus, Liora. We’re here on a mission. Put on your damn leaf clothes.
I clenched my jaw, forcing my attention to the ivy. I began wrapping it around myself, and it skimmed over my skin, the leaves soft as silk. I stapled the leaves and stems together over my chest. Then, I tied the vines around my lower half, creating a short shirt.
When I’d just about covered up my bum, I turned to find Ruadan staring at me. “How long have you been standing there?”
Given the darkness in his eyes, I was guessing he’d been there for a while. He didn’t speak, reverting into his eerie animal stillness, and the forest wind whisked over us.
His chest was bare, now, and he wore a kilt of animal skins and a pair of antlers. A cluster of leaves covered the World Key at his throat.
“Where did you get all that?” I asked.
His dark gaze drank me in, sliding slowly down my breasts, my bare waist, my hips….
Then, abruptly, he turned to the oak next to him. He ripped a bunch of leaves from a bough. Frowning, he worked at them for a minute until he’d created two masks of oak leaves, each with eye holes and a strap around the back, made of the stems.
That was … impressive.
He handed me one of the masks, and I slid it over my head, smiling at him.
Then, I snatched my bag from the ground, slipping it over my shoulders.
We started walking in step, moving to the rhythm of the drum. The setting sunlight streamed through the tree branches, and night began to claim Emain’s forest.
Ahead of us, someone raced through the oaks: a woman wearing a scrap of animal skin, flowers over her breasts. She wore a floral wreath on her head, and ribbons streamed behind her, tangled in her ginger hair. Just a few paces behind her, a man ran past, antlers on his head.
I frowned. “So is this basically a festival where men wear antlers and chase women around in the woods and try to have sex with them?”
“Yes.”
Well, there it was. It was remarkably similar to what Uncle Darrell and his humans attempted in Richmond Park, except I assumed in Emain people here actually got laid. “And that’s it?”
“Sometimes the women chase the men,” he added. “There are bonfires, music. We sacrifice sixteen prisoners in a bonfire, and we eat things made with apples, like pies—”
“Wait,” I held up a hand. “Did you just slip in a bit about burning people to death?”
“The prisoners, yes. In the bonfire. Then we have pies made from—”
“I understand how pies work. That part doesn’t need that much explaining. I’m stuck on the burning people to death part.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, at the very least, don’t the tormented screams of the damned kind of kill the sexy vibe you’re all going for?”
He frowned, tracing a hand over his bare chest. “How so?”
My stomach dropped. “You know what? This is probably one of those things it’s better if we don’t talk about. Let’s just chalk this up to a cultural difference, and we will not talk about it, because I’m starting to think problems between people are better when you don’t talk about them.” I might have been babbling a little.
“You should really sleep more.”
I scowled at him. “It’s the poison making me confused.”
“In general, you should sleep more. In a bed, not on the floor.”
“In your bed?”
A wicked smile, just for a moment. “Perhaps.”
I liked Ruadan when he let down his guard. Too bad this couldn’t last.
An enormous bonfire gleamed in a clearing in the distance, roaring at least six feet high. Maybe that was where we burned the prisoners. I really hoped we’d be missing that part of the evening.
This time, when I glanced at the sky, it had darkened to a midnight purple. The moon beamed over the tree line—unnaturally large—and the drums rumbled in my belly. I closed my eyes, breathing in the heavy air, its scent mossy and sweet at the same time. The atmosphere somehow felt fertile here. I stole another glance at Ruadan’s bare chest.
You’d think that a man in an animal-skin skirt, a leaf mask, and deer antlers would look a bit off. It’s not a look you’re likely to find in men fashion’s blogs or on GQ’s best-dressed list. But somehow, it looked perfect on Ruadan. He looked like he’d emerged from the forest itself, a man hewn from its oaks and rocks, driven by wild, animal instincts. I found myself licking my lips. It took me a moment to realize Ruadan was staring at me, too, his eyes blazing at the sight of my tongue lingering on my lower lip.
When we reached the clearing, I surveyed the space around us. Here, revelers were dancing around the bonfire. Bare-chested men wore masks made of animal skins and feathers, faces blank, featureless. They’d painted their bodies with white and blue symbols. Like me, many of the women wore nothing but leaves, so I didn’t have to endure the flaming forest fuck-party faux pas of coming underdressed.
Across from me, a man in enormous antlers danced around the fire on oak stilts, his face covered in leather. Others wore what looked like burlap over their faces, the effect unnerving overall.
“Do you see her?” I asked in a loud whisper.
He sniffed the air, then shook his head. “She’s not here yet.”
“You know her by her smell?”
“Yes.”
“How well do you know her, exactly? That you can just sniff the air and smell her body?”
Firelight danced over his masculine features, and he didn’t answer. Classic Wraith move.
One of the masked dancers swooped closer to me, his head surrounded by raven feathers. The dancers were chanting something in the ancient fae language. Was it something about making sweet, sweet love to the sound of prisoners burning to death? It was anyone’s guess.
The fire blazed hot, dry heat wavering over my skin. I was at least twelve feet away from it, but it still drew beads of sweat on my forehead and the tops of my breasts.
I leaned closer to Ruadan. “We don’t have to join in the dancing, do we?”
“No.” He nodded at the forest path. “But if we stand here, we’ll draw attention to ourselves. We should wait in the cover of the trees until she arrives.
I was only too happy to move away from the creepy masked dancers, and I stepped backward to the tree line. The fire heated my skin even from here.
The atmosphere intoxicated me, luring me away from my task. Thoughts flitted through my mind like fireflies. Find the girl … bring her back to the Institute … kill Baleros….
Worship Nyxobas … worship the night … hunt. Join the hunt here.
Death blooms in you like a seed. Make the most of life.
A few
steps deeper into the forest’s darkness, and it was just me and Ruadan. My body heated.
Worship the forest.
Chapter 93
When I looked at Ruadan, I felt certain no one else in the world existed. I smiled at him, chest flushing. The drums pounded louder in my ears, the rhythms reverberating over my skin. As I studied Ruadan’s body—thickly corded, built to kill—heat swooped through my core.
The forest wanted me to enjoy myself.
My fingers slipped into the top of my leaf skirt, and I tugged it down. Why was I wearing this? The night didn’t want me to wear this. The night forest wanted me naked—wanted my palms and knees in the earth, hips up, legs wide on the ground underneath him.
The hunt was calling to me. I took another step back into the bosom of the forest, and my bare feet sank into the rich soil. Ruadan’s eyes were locked on me, and he prowled closer. His gaze took in my mouth, then lowered to the curves of breasts. My nipples tightened under his stare.
I wanted the leaves off me, wanted my knees in the dirt, wanted to gasp along with him. Wanted to breathe in his heat, his musk and salt. Wanted to fill myself…. I was hungry. I ached with need. My teeth, my tongue, my mouth needed his body. My body needed his mouth, tongue on my thighs, between my legs.
Another step back into in the woods’ embrace, and Ruadan was prowling after me, eyes gleaming with silver. He was a god of the hunt moving after his prey. I tugged down the leaves at my waist even more, showing him the curve of my hips. This is what you need. Ruadan’s muscles tightened.
Lure him closer….
I turned away from him, facing a tree. I wanted to feel his fingers brushing between my legs, his hot mouth on my throat. My back arched, legs spreading in invitation.
It took only another heartbeat for Ruadan to find his way to me. His powerful body pressed against me, warming me. Then, he slid his hand over my belly, and he brushed it down slowly.
I want. I want. I want.
His fingers traced over the hollows of my hips. My back arched, hips grinding into him.
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