Seduced by Darkness (Dark Court Rising)

by Bec McMaster

  Drawing her hood over her dark hair Iskvien glides toward me like a queen walking toward her doom. It’s what I’ve been dreaming of all these months, and yet the tension in my gut knots tight.

  This isn’t a dream.

  This isn’t my wife, the woman I fell in love with.

  This is… some sort of nightmare, conjured out of Adaia’s cruelty and malice.

  “Vi, you’re finally here.” I capture her cold hands. “You’re—"

  Vi wrenches her fingers from mine. “Get your hands off me, you monster. I may be forced into this little bargain between you and my mother, but that doesn’t mean I won’t fight you at every moment.”

  Monster.

  This cannot be happening. The world reels around me.

  “What did you do to her?” I demand of Adaia.

  “A little wedding gift, Your Highness.” Adaia smirks. “I was remiss in providing one last time.”

  “You swore you would not—”

  “Hurt her, kill her, turn her heart to ice, or deny her the ability to tell you she loves you,” Adaia says with a sneer. “And I haven’t. Perhaps she has finally opened her eyes to the truth?”

  “Mother.” Vi looks between us. She shakes her head as if she can hear something we can’t. “What is going on?”

  “You are to be given as tribute to the Prince of Evernight for three months in order to uphold a treaty,” Adaia says. “As always, Asturia honors its word.”

  You fucking bitch.

  “Vi.” I reach for her again. “Vi, come here. What has she done to you? What’s wrong? Tell me and I’ll fix it.”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Vi, you’re my wife. We were married at last year’s Queensmoot. You’re my wife. I love you.”

  “Your wife?” Her eyes go wide. But it’s the sudden surge of lightning I see in her dark irises that makes my breath catch. Magic breaking. I swear I’ve seen something like that before…. In Unseelie.

  “Vi?”

  She moans and staggers to the side, pressing her fingers to her temple. “Stop it. I don’t want to do this. Mother.” She digs her nails into her hair. “Mother, make it stop. It’s hurting. It’s hurting. Please don’t make me do this.”

  “What’s hurting?” I try to touch her again, but she lashes out, staggering back.

  And then her eyes roll back in her head—

  I catch her as she falls, cradling her against my chest. Blood drips from her nose and she groans, her eyes fluttering as they roll up in her head.

  “Thalia!”

  Thalia captures Vi’s face in her hands, her thumbs caressing her cheeks. She has some small abilities with healing. She bites her lip. “Call for the medic! Her brain is bleeding, I think.”

  Bleeding— I shoot her a horrified look.

  “It’s bad,” Thalia whispers, reading my mind. “A thousand tiny little bleeds as if something tore through her mind.”

  I seek and find Adaia’s merciless gaze and my words come out hoarsely. “What did you do to her?”

  The queen smiles malevolently. “Me? I did nothing. This is all your doing, you wretched prick. You think you can steal from me and remain unpunished—?”

  “I stole nothing that wasn’t given freely.” Hot fury leeches through my brain. Vi looked at me as if I was a stranger, a monster. She didn’t recognize me.

  And now there’s blood dripping from her nose, and she’s unconscious.

  “You cursed her.”

  It’s the only explanation.

  Cursing is a form of magic that’s most commonly found in Unseelie. The Seelie kingdoms generally abhor it as something that their darker, blighted brethren might conjure, and they keep their fingers well clear of it.

  But I spent years in Unseelie.

  I know what a curse looks like.

  Adaia cursed her to forget me.

  I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe. The daemons inside me howl and scream. And for a second my vision goes black.

  Curses are borne of magic, but they’re twined of hatred.

  It doesn't matter how much power you have when you lay a curse. A common hag can spit a curse so powerful it withers the ground around her for fifty miles, if she’s emotionally connected to the curse she speaks.

  Curses brew in hate. They smolder with resentment. And they find fertile ground in feelings of betrayal.

  The angrier you are when you speak the curse, the stronger it is. The more you hate the person you curse, the more it lingers. The death of the curser can undo a curse in some instances—usually after a few months or years as those feelings dissipate and the curse unknots—if the emotions that breathed it into the world weren't too strong.

  A curse that is spoken in pure rage and betrayal—one that eats enough of your magic—can linger long beyond the death of the curser.

  I curl Vi against my chest, pressing a kiss to her temples.

  Curses can always be broken.

  It’s just a matter of finding the right key to unlock it.

  And then Mariana is there, gently stroking a hand through Vi’s hair. Her eyes go vacant as she magically probes Vi, and then she gasps.

  “What is it?”

  Mariana looks troubled. “Who has done this to her? Her mind is laced with enough barbs that they’re tearing her to pieces.”

  “Can you fix it? Can you heal her?”

  “Not here. I need my full circle of seven behind me.” Mariana bites her lip. “It’s bad, my prince. I think I can save her life but I don’t know… if there will be any long-lasting damage.”

  Damage. The enormity of the situation hits me as I surge to my feet with Vi in my arms.

  Adaia merely smiles. “Long live true love.”

  “You fucking—”

  Thalia grabs me by the arm. “Vi,” she snaps. “We need to get her home. We need to get her back to Ceres. Now. None of this matters.”

  “Is this what you call good faith?” I demand of the other queens, both of them watching emotionlessly. “She has cursed my wife.”

  Maren glances beneath her lashes at Adaia. “I saw no curse. I only saw her faint when she saw you. It seems her love for you has faded, Thiago.”

  I stare helplessly at Lucidia.

  She leans on her cane, her face ruthless and implacable. “You swore to abide by the treaty,” she tells me. “You should have been clearer in your demands of the Queen of Asturia.”

  I never expected she would turn her own daughter’s brain to mush.

  I stare down at Vi.

  She loved me once.

  She can love me again.

  She just needs to be reminded of what she felt for me.

  Adaia thinks she won this round?

  Never.

  Vi’s my hope, my light in the darkness. She’s the fucking destiny I’ve spent my entire life searching for. I won’t let a fucking curse tear us apart.

  “Thiago?” Thalia lays a hand on my shoulder, searching my face for a hint of my intentions.

  “We’re going home.” I cradle my wife to my chest. Dark hair drapes over my arm like a banner and though her eyelashes flutter, she doesn’t wake. “I’m taking my wife home.”

  “Three months, little prince,” Adaia mocks. “And if she survives then you must bring her back to me.”

  Fury curls hot claws within me.

  I could kill her now.

  I could rip her heart—her soul—out of her chest with but a single thought.

  And I want to.

  But suddenly Eris stands between us—Eris who knows my Darkness only too well.

  Don’t, her eyes say.

  Vi is all that matters. I’ll make her fall in love with me again, even if it takes every day of the next three months. I will heal her. I will protect her.

  After all, if this curse is spawned of hate, then love must be enough to break it.

  We’ll find a way.

  I have twelve more years before Vi’s final choice will set us free of this horror, and ev
en though my head is on the chopping block, I believe in her.

  I have to believe in her.

  “Power the portal,” I snap at Finn.

  “It needs time to recharge,” he says in a quiet voice.

  The power required to shift an entire party from one location to another is immense. While the Hallow draws from the leyline, scholars have argued that the well of power beneath it is not immeasurable. It needs time to bloat with magic again. Time to suck in energy.

  I don’t have that time.

  I carry Vi within the portal. “Follow me when you have the chance,” I tell my friends. Carrying one or two people with me will be a lesser drain on the Hallow. “Mariana?”

  She hurries to my side.

  I stare at the three queens. All my life I’ve hidden what I am. I’ve quashed my power down small inside me, forced it within a cage of my own will. But now it unfurls within my chest as if it can sense my fury and my need.

  I need you, I whisper to the Darkness, for the first and only time.

  Instantly, the world drains of color. The pinprick pain of claws sinks into my mind. I’m listening.

  We cannot let them see what we are. We cannot betray ourselves, I warn it. But I need you to power this fucking thing.

  There’s a moment where I look down at the woman in my arms and I’m not myself.

  It’s like I look through another set of eyes—the eyes of something cold and hard and ancient.

  She’s dying, it tells me.

  She’s not dying. I will not let her.

  You’re not the one who can hold Death at bay, it mocks. Unleash me and I can save her. There’s no need to power the portal.

  No. I stand firm. I know you feel something for her too. I know you’re just as drawn to her light as I am. We cannot allow Adaia to snuff out Vi’s light. Work with me, this one time.

  There’s a long moment of silence.

  You can’t fend me off forever, it tells me, and then shadows begin to swirl around my feet. I will power the Hallow. But I will need blood.

  “Cut my palm,” I tell Mariana.

  She looks at me as if I’m out of my mind.

  “Just do it.”

  One neat little slice across my palm and then blood wells.

  Blood is where the power lies, whispers the creature inside me.

  “You’ll never get it to work,” Adaia mocks. “Perhaps one of my healers can assist you? Maybe there will be enough left of her if you let me help.”

  I look at her and know that the Darkness is staring back at her. Adaia actually flinches. “Know this, Queen of Asturia…. I have played by your rules. I have abided by your terms. I have given my word and I will not break it. But if anything happens to my wife, then I will come for you. We will not face each other over the heads of our armies. I will come for you in the night. I will come for you in your dreams. I will come for you and I will tear you to bloody pieces and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

  A dangerous laugh escapes me as I squat down and slam my bloody handprint against the cold stone beneath my feet.

  The Hallow ignites.

  Several screams meet my ears as the queens stagger back. I stare at Adaia as Edain wrenches her out of the way of the swirl of magic.

  “You will pay for this one day, Adaia,” I whisper, knowing that she can hear me. “I promise once. I promise twice. I promise thrice. I will be the end of you. Nothing will take Vi from my side. I give you this promise of Darkness. Keep it close to your heart. Because at the end of our thirteen years, nothing will stay my hand. You think me weak?”

  I smile at her.

  Darkly.

  And then I unleash all that power into the world, feeling the portal suck us into oblivion. I do what no mere fae should ever be able to do.

  I power the Hallow myself.

  There’s a cold pit in my heart as we arrive in the Hallow chamber in Ceres. The sudden cessation of magic makes me stagger and I go to one knee. There’s a ringing in my ears. A blind spot in one eye. The voice inside my head is quiet, but something inside my chest feels broken.

  It feels like a crack appeared there, somewhere in the prison I’ve formed around the Darkness.

  Are you there? I whisper.

  There’s no answer.

  It’s gone. For the moment.

  Vi stirs in my arms as if the transfer woke her.

  Our eyes meet, her pupils dark enough to blot out the blue of her eyes.

  “I promise you this,” I whisper in a voice that’s not entirely mine. “We will never let you go. We will never allow anyone to hurt you. You are ours. Forever and always.”

  “My prince?” There’s a tentative hand on my sleeve.

  Mariana.

  I blink and color drenches the world. “Here. What do you need?”

  “Are you all right?” she asks. “You sounded different for a moment.”

  Forever and always. It’s a strange echo in my head.

  Enough to make me search again.

  Hello?

  Silence.

  It’s gone. Definitely gone. Buried down so deep I can barely feel it. I take a deep breath. “Take me to the healers. We need to break this curse.”

  I will have Vi back.

  No matter what I must do.

  And if the curse doesn’t break?

  Then I will win her heart all over again.

  BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE DARK COURT RISING WORLD

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for reading Seduced by Desire. I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into the past when Vi and Thiago first met.

  Next up is Curse of Darkness, the last book in the trilogy!

  The Darkness is coming…

  Iskvien must face her darkest challenge yet, in order to save her world.

  Her husband.

  Available now:

  Promise of Darkness

  Crown of Darkness

  Seduced By Darkness

  Pre-order:

  Curse of Darkness

  Want to know more about future release dates?

  Make sure you sign up to my newsletter to be the first to know when they’re available.

  Here are some ways to stay updated:

  * Follow me on Amazon

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  * Visit my website at becmcmaster.com

  *Or join my Facebook Fan Group for all the exclusive stuff!

  I hope we meet again between the pages of another book!

  Cheers,

  Bec McMaster

  Also by Bec McMaster

  DARK COURT RISING

  Promise of Darkness

  Crown of Darkness

  Curse of Darkness

  Novellas in same series:

  Seduced By Darkness

  LEGENDS OF THE STORM SERIES

  Heart Of Fire

  Storm of Desire

  Clash of Storms

  Storm of Fury

  Master of Storms

  Queen of Lightning

  Legends of the Storm Boxset 1-3

  COURT OF DREAMS SAGA

  Thief of Dreams

  Thief of Souls

  Thief of Hearts

  LONDON STEAMPUNK SERIES

  Kiss Of Steel

  Heart Of Iron

  My Lady Quicksilver

  Forged By Desire

  Of Silk And Steam

  Novellas in same series:

  Tarnished Knight

  The Clockwork Menace

  LONDON STEAMPUNK: THE BLUE BLOOD CONSPIRACY

  Mission: Improper

  The Mech Who Loved Me

  You Only Love Twice

  To Catch A Rogue

  Dukes Are Forever

  From London, With Love

  London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy Boxset 1-3

  DARK ARTS SERIES

  Shadowbound

  Hexbound

  Soulbound

  Dark Arts Box set 1-3

  BURNED LANDS SERIES

  Nobody's
Hero

  The Last True Hero

  The Hero Within

  The Burned Lands Complete Trilogy Boxset

  SHORT STORIES

  The Many Lives Of Hadley Monroe

  Burn Bright

  About the Author

  Kidnapped by a dread pirate when she was a child, USA Today Bestselling Author, BEC MCMASTER, was raised on myth and legend, and offered her younger siblings to the goblin king many a time. Unfortunately, he did not accept.

  Now she writes epic fantasy romance with a dark and sexy twist, which is almost as much fun. She has a secret weakness for villainous heroes, wicked fae princes and dangerous vampires, though in all her daydreams she’s the one rescuing them.

  Bec lives happily-ever-after with her very own hero and princess-in-training in the wilds of Australia, where she can often be found drinking tea or plotting her next travel adventure.

  Escape the ordinary at www.becmcmaster.com