She was in the backseat of a car. A moving car.
She swung her feet to the floor and struggled upright.
Fuck. Her ankles were bound, too.
The world swung queasily around her. Bile coated the back of her sore throat. She squeezed her eyelids shut and tried not to vomit.
When the world righted itself, a long-limbed, dark-skinned man was regarding her in the rearview mirror with fierce gold eyes. A leather jacket and hoodie lay on the seat beside him, leaving him in a maroon T-shirt that exposed lean, ropey muscles—and the chunk of quartz hanging from his neck.
“Who are you?” The question came out as a rasp. She swallowed and tried again. “And where the fuck are you taking me?”
“There’s water in the pocket in front of you,” he replied, ignoring her questions.
She threw a wild-eyed glance around her. They were on a highway she didn’t recognize, and according to the dashboard clock, it was a little after nine a.m., which meant she’d been out a couple of hours.
They could be almost anywhere, and she was trussed up like a pig on a spit.
Her lungs seized. Drawing up her knees, she slammed her bare heels into the back of his seat.
“I want to know what’s going on. Now.”
A rough growl. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Do you know wh—?” She clamped her mouth shut. She’d been about to threaten him with Dion, but if the earth fada didn’t know who she was, it might be smarter to keep it that way.
She surreptitiously tested her bonds, but the rope was bespelled. The more she struggled to get free, the tighter it got, biting painfully into her wrists and ankles until she gave up, exhausted. Bile burned her throat again.
Water.
She worked the bottle from the seat pocket with her bound hands, awkwardly removing the cap and bringing it to her mouth.
Her throat felt too swollen to swallow. But she craved fluids. Water fada needed hydration more than other species.
She took a small, painful sip. The cool water slid down her throat. She took a few more careful sips before returning the bottle to the seat pocket.
Now that she was calmer, her internal GPS told her they were heading south, with the Chesapeake Bay ten or twenty miles to her left. So they were on their way to southern Maryland, or possibly Virginia. Not on I-95, though—this was a narrower highway with only two lanes in each direction. They passed through a small town and she tested the door, but her captor had removed the inside handles.
If only Adric would ride up on that black motorcycle of his… But he’d been gone before the earth fada had attacked her—or had he?
Her fingers curled into her palms. For a breath-stealing instant, she wondered if Adric was behind this.
No. He might be a hard, take-no-crap kind of guy, but he’d always been straight with her. He wouldn’t kidnap her in this underhanded way.
Hell, he’d left her sleeping in his bed, which hurt, big time. Still, it wasn’t the action of a man who intended to kidnap her.
She inhaled slowly, sifting the air for the driver’s scent. Definitely an earth fada, but his scent had an unusual overlay of silver, like he was mated to a fae…or under a fae’s power.
Fear scrabbled up her spine. She gripped her hands in her lap.
Nobody knew where she was. That note she’d left for Dion and Cleia? All she’d said was that she was going to Baltimore to be with Adric, and that they shouldn’t worry about her.
She glanced at her left wrist and groaned. Cleia’s protection charm was in the pocket of the jeans that she’d shoved into the backpack along with her boots and other clothes.
The backpack she’d dropped outside the shed.
She briefly closed her eyes, and then opened them to kick the backseat again. “Your alpha won’t like this,” she snarled. “I was in his den with his permission.”
The driver’s jaw worked. The pungent scent of anger filled the small space.
“He’s not my alpha—not anymore. And some river fada bitch doesn’t belong in his den anyway.” His mouth turned down contemptuously. “Especially the Rock Run alpha’s sister.”
So he did know who she was.
She frowned. “You’re not a Baltimore fada?”
“I am. But—” His fingers clenched on the steering wheel. He shot her a single, burning look in the rearview mirror and then shook his head, tight-lipped.
“Cleia won’t like this, either.” She spoke the sun fae’s name clearly and distinctly. “If you know who I am, then you know Queen Cleia is my brother’s mate.”
They were out in the countryside again, with farmland on either side of them. The earth fada swerved onto the grassy berm, slammed on the brakes. “Don’t say her name.”
She lifted her chin. “Cleia! Help!”
“Shut the fuck up.” He lunged over the seat, catching her jaw in powerful hands.
She glared back. “Cleia,” she said indistinctly from behind his covering palms.
“You want to play with me?” He shook her—hard. Her head snapped back and forth and her teeth clacked together. “I could break your neck right here.”
Her heart raced. He meant it.
But what did she have to lose?
Her preferred animal might be a dolphin, but river fada could shift to any river-based animal—and some of them had teeth and claws. Now she brought her bound hands up and sliced her claws down the inside of his arm. The metallic scent of blood filled the air.
His face hardened. “Bitch.”
He surged the rest of the way into the backseat and flipped her onto her stomach. Pushing her face down into the vinyl, he shoved a knee into her spine between her shoulder blades. She was trapped, her hands caught beneath her chest, her nose and mouth squashed against the seat.
She couldn’t breathe. Spots swam before her eyes. She tried to buck him off, but he pressed her deeper into the seat.
Strong fingers closed around her bruised throat. A strange calm descended on her.
She was going to die. But at least she’d gone out fighting.
But as she started to black out, he lifted her enough to take a gulp of air—and then pressed her face down again.
“Listen, you crazy bitch.” A harsh growl against her ear. “I took you instead of Adric. You make me kill you, I’ll have to go looking for him. I’m under a geas.”
She stilled.
This was the earth fada lieutenant Adric had told her about. The man who’d broken into the B&B along with the fae.
“Yeah,” he said grimly. “I thought that might change your mind. His scent is all over you. The choice is yours. Come with me willingly—and that means no tricks. Or I’ll slit your throat and leave you here for a farmer to find, and then go after Adric.”
“Mmph.”
“Say it.” He lifted her off the vinyl. “I want to hear the words. You’ll come with me willingly. No tricks, including calling the queen’s name.”
She sucked in a breath. “Yes,” she said as clearly as she could, although it came out as a rasp.
“Yes, what? And use your name. Your full name.”
It would bind her to keep her promise. But she wasn’t going to try and escape now anyway.
“Yes.” She pushed the words out as best she could through her abused throat. “I, Rosana Marie do Rio”—she sucked in another breath—“will go with you willingly. No trying to escape or calling Cl—I mean the queen’s—name.”
“Okay, then.” He released her. “I’ll just take this, too.”
Sliding her stiletto from her back pocket, he returned to the front seat with a fluid twist of his body. As he pulled back onto the highway, Rosana rolled onto her side and lay there, lungs heaving. A tear trickled down her cheek. She knuckled it away and then pushed herself back up to sitting again.
With shaking fingers, she reached for the water, took a few gulps. She put it back in the seat pocket and then leaned back.
During their struggle, the leather cord of her pendant h
ad twined around her throat. She unwound it and tucked the amethyst back into her shirt.
Too bad it wasn’t one of those quartz smartphones. She could use it to contact Adric. But the six-sided stone was a comforting weight over her heart.
The earth fada eyed her in the mirror. “Ric gave you that?”
She moistened her lips. Would knowing the truth help her, or piss him off even more? But a lie would exact a cost, too.
“Yeah.”
The earth fada shook his head in disgust. “The clan will never accept you. You can’t be anything to him but a piece of ass.”
That hurt. But she was damned if she’d let this cabrão see it. “Go to Hades,” she said wearily and closed her eyes.
She must’ve drifted off again, because when the car stopped again, she jerked awake. They were deep in the forest on a narrow dirt track.
The earth fada rounded the car to open her door. “Out.”
She grabbed the water bottle and downed the rest of it before swinging out her legs.
“Hold still.” Flicking open a switchblade, he cut the rope around her ankles but left her hands bound. He grabbed her arm and helped her from the car. Not gently, but not roughly, either.
She stumbled forward, stiff and aching from their two clashes. As he righted her, his hand slid into her back pocket and she tensed.
Really? He was going to grope her—now?
Then she felt the stiletto he’d slipped back into her pocket.
Her heart bumped. She slid a sidelong glance at him, but he marched her into a small clearing and halted.
A tall blond female emerged from the shadows between a pair of towering maples. It was her. The mixed-blood fae from Lewes.
Rosana’s right hand twitched, itching to go for the stiletto, but she forced herself to remain still. Adric’s life might depend on it.
The earth fada inclined his head. “My lady.”
The fae sauntered out of the trees on strappy high heels, long legs bare under a short silver dress, hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket. She was model-thin with a fine-boned face and a sharp chin. Pointed ears poked from pale shoulder-length hair and coffee-colored brows arched over large eyes so unnervingly dark you couldn’t tell where the pupils ended and the irises began.
“What’s this, Luc?” She eyed Rosana as if she were a piece of day-old fish. “Your orders were to bring me Adric.”
“Yes, my lady. But this is Rosana do Rio. I believe you’ll find her even more useful.”
“The Rock Run alpha’s sister?” A single dark brow flicked up.
The earth fada—Luc—nodded.
The fae pursed her full pink lips. “And you brought her instead of your alpha because—?”
Luc held himself soldier-stiff, but Rosana scented his uneasiness.
“Adric has escaped me. Twice. But his scent is all over this woman. Take her to the prince, and chances are, Adric will walk right into New Moon.” Luc’s mouth twisted. “I know him, you see.”
Rosana’s fingernails dug into her palms. Devious fucking bastard.
“Ah.” The woman’s mouth curved in a cold smile. “A man who thinks for himself.”
He gazed steadily back without saying anything.
The fae lady paced forward, circled the two of them. “But your orders were to bring me Adric Savonett.” Her voice was icy. “Weren’t they, Luc?”
He released Rosana, took a step away. “Yes, my lady.”
The fae homed in on him. Dark magic crackled in the air.
Rosana gave a hard swallow.
Luc clenched his fists at his sides and stared stonily at his fae mistress. She grabbed his quartz, and he jolted. She murmured a few words and a cold white energy crackled around it. Luc jolted again, sinking to his knees with an agonized groan. The blond fae bent with him, the pendant held tightly in her hand.
Rosana gasped as frost covered his torso, spread out to his limbs. Only his face was left untouched.
His claws slid out. He glared up at the fae, chest heaving.
She gazed back, a smile on her lips. Darkness slithered around the two of them as if the very shadows had come alive.
Rosana growled and took a step forward. “Are you feeding on him?”
The woman pinned her with an icy midnight gaze. “Come any closer, and I’ll freeze you, too.”
Rosana stilled until the fae turned her attention back to Luc. Then she twisted her arms around her body, trying to reach the stiletto in her back pocket. Luc might be a cabrão, but she was damned if she’d stand by while the woman tortured him.
But before she could work the stiletto free, the fae released the pendant and straightened up. Luc’s head dropped to his chest. His breath sawed in and out, the sound harsh in the quiet clearing, as the frost slowly receded.
Rosana brought her hands back in front of her body.
“You will bring me Adric Savonett,” his mistress said. “That’s an order, Luc.”
The earth fada’s head came up, eyes blazing with hatred.
The fae lady only smiled before turning to Rosana. “The Rock Run alpha’s sister, hm?”
Rosana swallowed queasily. Then she pulled back her shoulders.
“That’s me. And if you’re smart, you’ll let me go, because my brother will come after you with everything he has. Hang on to me, and you’re a dead woman.”
“I’ll let the prince worry about that. Come.” She held out an imperious hand.
Rosana found her feet moving. Long fingers clamped around her arm, cold even through her hoodie.
Ice fae, Rosana realized. The woman was an ice fae/night fae mix, her scent a swirl of snow and decay.
“Go,” the fae told the still-kneeling man. “Find Adric and bring him to me. And this time, don’t fail me.”
He rose slowly, painfully, to his feet as if every bone in his body ached. “To New Moon?”
“Yes. I’ll instruct the wards to allow you both to enter.”
Rosana swallowed. If only she could warn Adric somehow. But she could do nothing but stand by helplessly as Luc trudged back to the car.
Blaer murmured something in fae and the air around them bent in a dizzying way. Rosana braced herself to be teleported, and then the bottom dropped out of the forest. For a vertiginous moment, everything went black, and then the two of them reappeared inside a large, dimly lit room.
Rosana’s eyes went night glow.
They were in a large, quietly elegant library. The walls were lined with books, the floor a cold white marble veined with black. The tall, narrow windows were covered with dark shades, the only illumination a few fae lights the color of black opals floating near the ceiling.
At one end of the room was a graceful Art Nouveau sofa and two chairs in a blue burnout velvet, and at the other end, a wide mahogany desk gleamed. Museum-quality statues of smooth black stone were scattered on pedestals around the room—a snarling panther, a feathered raven, a winged woman with flowers spilling from her hands. A table near the window held a silver vase with a single red rose.
Rosana’s heart jittered. She could’ve sworn the room was empty—she hadn’t even scented him—but now a man was seated at the table near the window. Like Blaer in the forest earlier, it was as if he’d coalesced from the shadows themselves.
A night fae, casually dressed in a loose white shirt and black pants, his pale, elegant feet bare. One long-fingered hand toyed with a pair of black dice.
Prince Langdon.
He tossed the dice on the table. She watched, stunned, as they transformed into two iridescent blue butterflies and flew away to perch on the snarling panther’s head.
The prince rose to his feet. Onyx eyes examined Rosana.
Power emanated from him. Cold. Dark. And so strong she could literally feel it, like an icy black ocean sucking at her.
“Lady Blaer,” he murmured without taking his gaze from Rosana. “What have you brought me?”
23
A few tardy snowflakes sifted do
wn as Cleia and Dion slipped out the back door of her mansion for a morning stroll, leaving Brisa to eat breakfast under her nanny’s watchful eye. Cleia loved Rising Sun in the summer, when the gardens were a mass of colorful blooms, fruit swelled in the trees and the surrounding meadows were a soft, fecund green. But the overnight snowfall had touched the grounds with a sparkling wand, turning the gardens into a sugared wonderland.
Dion steered her onto a little-used path and pressed her up against a tree. His mouth took hers in a lazy kiss. She slid her hands under his leather jacket and kissed him back. Even with a nanny to help, a busy toddler meant they didn’t have much time alone.
A low, sexy growl. “I could take you right here,” he said against her throat, “if it wasn’t so cold.”
“Who’s cold?” Her hands went to the zipper of her own jacket…and then fell away.
Rosana’s in trouble.
Cleia clutched Dion’s shoulders, ears straining.
His hands tightened on her waist. “What’s the matter?”
She held up a hand, silently asking him to wait. A full thirty seconds ticked by before she gave up.
“It’s Rosana.” She swallowed hard. “Something’s wrong. She called my name—four times.”
“Where?” he bit out.
“Not close by.” She scrunched her brows, focusing. “Somewhere south of here. Virginia, or maybe southern Maryland. It was quick—a brief touch, and then nothing.”
Their eyes met. They’d spent the night at Rising Sun. Neither of them had seen Rosana since yesterday afternoon.
Dion muttered a nasty Portuguese curse. “She’s supposed to be at the base.”
“I’ll ’port to her.”
“Take me.”
She nodded and took Dion’s hand and teleported to the approximate location she’d sensed Rosana.
They were on a narrow country road, although that didn’t stop cars from hurtling past. A field of dormant winter wheat stretched along one side of the road, and on the other, stubbled cornstalks marched off to the horizon.
Dion turned in a circle, scanning the area. “We’re still in Maryland, about five miles from the Potomac River. What in Hades is she doing down here?”
“I don’t know,” Cleia said. “But she hasn’t tried to contact me again.”
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