Claiming the Prince: Book One (20 page)

“In time,” Kaelan repeated in a dull voice.

“She can . . . regrow her soul?” Magda asked.

“The soul is like all living things,” Ouda said. “It flourishes with patience, attention, love. For now she must be guarded, for the wound within her soul remains open and leaves her vulnerable.”

“So she’ll never be who she was,” Kaelan said.

“No.”

Magda knelt next to the water to put more distance between her and Kaelan, whose emotions leaked like a bad pipe.

“Thank you, Ouda. Are you certain there’s nothing we can do for you?”

“Yes, Magdalena, Rae of the Eastern Cliffs, there is something you can do for me.”

“What?”

“Protect my forest. Protect the small folk that are my children. I am fading. The fols are not strong enough to keep me here indefinitely. But you are strong,
Ljósálfr
.”

Magda bowed her head. “I don’t know—”

“One thing more,” Ouda said. “The brownie does not travel to the Spire.”

Her head shot up. “Kirk?”

“He and the owl fly to the Elf King’s territory, to the Petra Islands. On the largest of them is a hidden entrance to the hall of the dwarf lord, Froenz.”

“Wh—why?”

“I cannot speak to their reasons, only to what was overheard by the wind and whispered back to me.”

Magda dropped her elbow to her knee and her face into her hand. “Damion’s going to love this.” She lowered her hand and gazed down through the calm clear water to the glowing creature drowned in its depths. “I’m sorry we were too late to help you.”

“You were not late,
Ljósálfr
. You arrived right on time.”

The fols’ rippling slowed and then stopped, their glow diminishing, though not going out completely.

Kaelan cocked his head. “What is
Ljósálfr
?”

“I
CAN’T,”
he said, his brow furrowed.

“What do you mean you can’t? Are you too tired?”

He released her hand. “No. It’s not that. It’s something about this place. I can’t travel out of here.”

She stared at him for a second and then up at the distant glow of daylight. “Shit.”

“Can you climb it?” he asked.

The sides were little more than spider roots and soft earth. When she tried to grasp it, clumps came off in her hand.

“With your knives?” he suggested.

“I guess I’ll have to try.” She released her knives.

He pressed back against the other side of the narrow shaft. “Watch those things.”

She gave him a dry look. “I know what I’m doing.”

His eyebrow quirked. “Is that why you jumped down here in the first place?”

“Oh . . . shut up,” she muttered. She glanced down at Hero on her shoulder. “This is your fault, you know.”

He turned his butt to her cheek, lashing her neck with his tail.

She stretched up and jammed her knives as deep into the earth as she could. Once they seemed lodged, she tried to heave herself up. The earth buckled and rained down on her. She stumbled back into Kaelan.

“Yes, I can see you know what you’re doing,” he said as he caught her and then gave her a push upright again.

She retracted her knives and shrugged the clods of dirt off her chest, brushing away as much as she could.

She could imagine Endreas’s smirk and what he would’ve said, “I told you to stay clean. I’m not your personal dry cleaner.” Of course, he wouldn’t have said dry cleaner, rather brownie or washer woman. Her heart lurched; bringing back to her attention the ache for him that never really disappeared.

“What are you thinking about?” Kaelan asked from close behind her.

She flinched, almost having forgotten he was there. “I was thinking that I need to stop finding myself trapped underground with you.”

He folded his arms and leaned back. “Now what . . . Mistress?”

She crossed her arms too, leaning against the opposite side of the passage. “Now you’re going to tell me just how long it was you were strung upside down by gorgon rope, and just how rotten were those apples?”

His jaw flexed. He looked away.

“Does it hurt a lot to be hit with a rotten apple?”

“You’re not funny,” he said.

“No, I really want to know. It was you, wasn’t it? You really were raised as an imp. You actually looked like one?”

“Yes,” he said. “I was disguised until I came of age.”

“The tail and the wings . . . the ears . . . everything?”

He scowled at her.

“And the scar. How did you come by that? Pixie skin doesn’t scar easily.”

“I’ve always had it,” he muttered.

“I didn’t thank you for healing my scars,” she said, brushing more dirt from her arm. A sharp flare of anger surged through her as she remembered Endreas piercing her skin with iron. “Iron scars are said to be impossible to heal. So, thanks.”

“Are we going to stay down here and chat all day, or are we going to come up with a plan for escape?”

“Damion will come,” she said, “eventually.”

He let out a heavy sigh. “You never answered my question. What does
Ljósálfr
mean?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You’re lying,” he said.

She tensed. “No, I’m not. I don’t know what it means.”

“But you know something,” he said.

“You’re reading my emotions,” she said.

“And you’re reading mine.” He sank further into a brood. “I hate being a Prince.”

“So you’ve said.” She shifted as the air between them grew itchy and hot. “Look, even if I told you what I know, I’m not sure you would believe me. I don’t quite believe it myself.”

“Tell me,” he said. “I will know if you’re telling the truth.”

For some reason, that didn’t make her feel any better. Still, she told him: about the Pixies and Elves being the same race, about the Elf King and the Crown being connected, about the prophecy of an Elf Prince who, once joined with the Radiant of the Eastern Cliffs, would bring peace, and finally, about his own prophecy, the one that said he would see war and bloodshed and the Throne bowing to the Crown.

As she spoke, his face grew taut, his eyes glowing like green stars. The only thing she left out was Endreas. She mentioned nothing about him.

“You should’ve told me,” he said before the last syllable had left her lips.

She chafed. “I
am
telling you.”

“You should’ve told me sooner. As soon as you knew,” he said, looming in front of her.

“I—” she started.

“There’s more,” he cut in, crowding her. “What else are you not telling me?”

“I’ve told you everything you need to know,” she said, placing her hand to his chest and giving him a firm push back. That slight second of contact allowed a fresh burst of his feelings to race into her: more anger, frustration, fear, grief . . . and hunger. Not for food, but for her.

No wonder he was so angry about being a Prince. It must’ve been very confusing to be mourning the woman he loved and, at the same time, experiencing such raw, unwanted desire for another.

She wasn’t offended by the fact that he hated how being around her made him feel. On the contrary, she sympathized. She wished she could turn off the power of their birthright as much for herself as for him. Then perhaps she could’ve viewed Endreas with a clear head.

She pressed against the tunnel. Still, the hot swell of their instinctual attraction filled the slim space between them, shortening her breath, bringing beads of perspiration to her chest.

Suddenly, he spun and slammed his fist against earth, spraying more dirt over her.

Hero shook out his fur. Grit flew into her eye and she cringed. Heavy tears formed to dislodge the debris.

He half-turned, shoulders falling. “I’m sorry,” he grumbled.

“For what?”

“You’re crying,” he said.

She raked her fingers across the earthen wall. Clumps pelted his chest. “You’d be crying too if you had dirt in your eye.”

“Oh . . . I thought . . .”

“That I was crying because you hurt my feelings? Really? I know you haven’t been a Pixie long, so I’ll clue you in. If you hurt a Rae’s feelings, she doesn’t cry. She kills you.”

“Even a Rae who’s not like the other Raes?”

“Oh . . . shut up. Where’s Damion?”

“Right here!” Damion called down.

She craned her neck back, blinking through the tears. “Thank the gods. Thank you for not listening to me!”

Against the pale light, he was nothing but a dark silhouette. He chuckled. “Anytime, Mistress.”

“Please tell me you have a rope!”

“Nope,” he called down.

“Don’t worry!” Another silhouette of a head popped up next to his. A voice sing-songed down to them. “I can help you!”

“He brought Honey?” Kaelan muttered.

“Here it comes!” Honey called down to them.

More dirt rained down on them, big balls of it.

Magda plucked Hero from her shoulder, turning her back to the shower, curling over Hero as they were bombarded.

Kaelan huddled over her, shielding her head as well as his while she sheltered Hero. The simple gesture of kindness abated her annoyance at him.

Her crying? Over him? Yeah, right.

For someone who had spent much of his life as an imp, he certainly didn’t lack for ego. Not that she was surprised. He had obviously come of age—when a Pixie turns seventeen—more than a few years ago. He’d had plenty of time being beautiful in that green-eyed, slightly tortured, sexy-scar way. How long could it really take for a Prince to get so full of himself?

Besides, anyone who smelled like caramel melting on a wood-fired stove in the midst of a cedar forest probably hadn’t had any trouble turning all of the nymphs’ heads.

As the heat of his breath skimmed across her jaw and her throat like fingers slipping over her skin, her pulse quickened.

She forgot about the hail of dirt and that they were crouching at the bottom of a hole while Damion and Honey waited above.

A warm haze spread through her, stripping away her breath. A sudden sensation of rising, gradually accelerating, overwhelmed her. A new ache blossomed deep inside of her—for Kaelan.

And he was right there, eyes of green fire wide and dilated and full on her. He held himself preternaturally still, like a predator lying in wait to strike.

Hungry.

“Whatever you’re thinking, Magda” he said in a strangled rasp, “you have to stop.”

Her gaze fixed on the flushed hue of his lips. “I’m not—”

Before she could quell her Rae instincts, Kaelan’s mouth dove to hers.

He tasted better than he smelled, like warm salted caramel. He pulled at her, devouring her, with his mouth and then his hands. They dropped from their shielding position to grasp the back of her head.

His tongue plunged between her lips.

Hero wriggled from her grasp . . .

Her hands caught on Kaelan’s tunic, clutching the fabric tightly, craving the touch of his skin underneath.

Images unfurled in her head of his naked body against hers, down in the dirt, in this dank hole, it didn’t matter. Just so long as she could taste him, so long as she kept on soaring, so long as she could feel the searing heat of him all over—inside and out.

His hand slipped from her head, down the curve of her back. The other caught briefly on the top of her shirt and then slid over the swell of her breast, coaxing the peak with his fingers.

He was a Prince and she was a Rae. And in that moment, as her thigh pressed against the thick ridge straining against his trousers and the heat built inside of her—her own hunger—she didn’t know anything else.

And then a hard clump of dirt crashed onto her head.

The soaring halted and she fell, snapping out of the spell of her primal Rae instincts.

Kaelan ripped away, breathless and wide-eyed.

The dirt-shower ended.

“Magda.” His voice was ragged. He backed away, covering his mouth like he might throw up.

With the need for him still thrumming through her, the salty sweetness still on her tongue, she could barely breathe, let alone speak.

He glanced upwards.

Along the shaft of the passage, a root ladder had formed. But that wasn’t what he was looking at, she knew. He feared that Honey had seen. That she’d find out.

Clearing her throat, Magda straightened her shoulders and caught his gaze.

“It was just an accident,” she stated firmly. “It didn’t mean anything. We’ll be more careful in future. Won’t we, Prince?”

Hero clamored back onto her shoulder.

Without another word, she started climbing the root ladder—not bothering to test if it would hold her first—fast as she could.