Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) (6 page)

“I’m not sure I should. I don’t know where you stand with the Faery Queen.”

“Once again, you seem confused. You act as if there is only one Queen of the Fae, but there are several. Each with their own court and demesne. We’re actually on the outskirts of the demesne of the White Queen. Is she the one who troubles you?”

“I don’t know.”

“She’s a bitch, but she usually stays to her own neck of the woods, as long as the locals bring her a young man every so often.”

“They bring her one of their own? Why would they do that?”

“They have peace and security for a hundred years. It’s a fair trade.”

His matter of fact attitude about people paying tribute in their own flesh and blood chilled her. “That’s horrible.”

“Perhaps, but young men are prone to accidents anyway, and I hear she’s very generous to those that please her.”

“Do they get to come home afterward?”

He laughed. “Now Bryanna, what kind of a sacrifice would that be?”

Her food twisted in her stomach. She was unsure of her ground in this conversation. He knew so much more about Underhill than she did. If there was more than one queen, maybe everything she thought she knew about this place was wrong.

“Well, since you’re unfamiliar with the White Queen, maybe you could tell me your troubles and we can identify the perpetrator.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“I need you, Bryanna.” He leaned forward, and a waft of his warm, gingery scent came across the room. She inhaled. It was like dessert after dinner and it warmed her inside. “I’ve been trapped here fifteen of your human years and while I’ll live centuries longer than you it is grinding on my bones.” His smooth, accent slid out and caressed her worries, easing her closer to trust.

“If I tell you, you must promise never to use any of it against me.”

“You would bargain with me?”

“You’re the one who can help me leave this place and find my family.”

The candle light gleamed off the silver serving dishes as he leaned back. She could feel him contemplating her from under his hood. Bryanna folded her slick hands together under the table. She was lost, and alone, and desperate. And he held all the game pieces.

“I’ll give you a gift, something for free, my witch.” He leaned back in his chair. “The fae cannot lie. We can mistake, mislead, and misguide, but we cannot tell an outright lie. So, if I give you my word I will not use your story against you, you’ll know my word is true.”

Bryanna blew out a breath. She didn’t trust him, but she had to take the risk or she might never win free of this place. “My name is Bryanna MacElvy.”

He stilled. Even the candle flames stopped their flickering.

The unfamiliar food in Bryanna’s stomach grew heavy. “You know my last name?”

“I know of the MacElvys.” His voice was quiet and she had to strain to hear him speak. She wished for the ticking of a clock, or the whir of air conditioning, anything to make this unbearable silence go away. But there was nothing but the overloud sound of her own breath as she inhaled and took the leap forward into the gap.

“Then you must know that the Faery Queen is systematically killing our tribe. My mother, my sister, and I are the only ones left.”

She left out Trina. If her cousin could have come home, she would have. Trina was dead. Or good as dead. Bryanna swallowed past the lump of grief in her throat. Her cousin might be lost, but her mother and sister were out there somewhere. And they needed her to be strong.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding genuinely contrite. “I’m afraid I had no idea that things had progressed that far. The queen is indeed on a vendetta.”

“You know which queen now?”

“Oh yes. I know which queen.” The candles flickered and danced between them as Bryanna waited for his answer.

“Well, which one? White? Black? Turquoise?”

“It is no joke, Bryanna. You have the misfortune of being at the mercy of the Black Queen.”

“The same one who cursed you.”

“Yes.” The animosity in that one word lifted her up. “The very same queen who keeps me here year after year after year, thinking she can bend me to her will.” He rose, lurching across the room, the breeze of his passage blowing out most of the candles, until the walls were wrapped in more shadow than light. His cloak billowed out in a black cloud as he leaned behind her chair in the semi-darkness and breathed into her ear, “Now you have another reason to help me. Release me from my curse, Bryanna MacElvy, and I will take on the Black Queen.”

“You would do this?” she whispered back, unable to summon a louder voice.

He leaned closer. “The Black Queen owes me a great debt for keeping me here, and I would collect,” he said savagely, his breath hot on her cheek.

She trembled. At his words, at her fear, or in an odd unexpected brush of arousal at the touch of his emotion on her skin, she didn’t know.

“If you know of our family and the queen’s vicious quest, you must realize the urgency of finding my sister and mother. They’re all alone, and she hunts for them. If they’re in Underhill, like I am, she will be that much closer.” Bryanna turned her head. He was close, so close she could hear his harsh breathing under the concealing hood. She had a sudden urge to see his eyes as she begged for her freedom. She reached for him. “Please, let me go.”

“No!” A shaggy, brown paw with talon-like claws came around her, slammed onto the table, and rattled the china. “You must cure me of my curse, or there’s no hope for you. No hope for your mother or your sister or anyone you love.” His claws dug into the wood, gouging deep lines as he dragged his paw back under his cloak.

Wax dripped from shaking flames as Bryanna shrank back into her chair, every nerve screaming at her to get up and run.

“I’m sorry,” he said panting out the words. He pulled away, shoulders hunched. She could read the desperation in every cloaked line of his body as he moved further back. “Say you will at least try to help me. I pledge to you, once free, I will take on the Black Queen and do my best to save the remainder of the MacElvys from her destruction.”

“Will you release me?”

“If you succeed in helping me lift this curse, I will release you.”

“Not good enough.” How could she lift a faery queen’s curse? Her Gift was weak. She struggled to cure migraines and soothe fevers. Goddess only knew what his curse was, but she couldn’t cure it, and she refused to be stuck here forever while her family was hunted down one by one. “I’m not that kind of witch. I’m not a conjurer or a spell caster. I’m a healer.” She ducked her chin thinking of all her failures. “And a bad one, at that,” she added.

His voice dropped low, echoing around the chamber, and something swirled through the air around them, something fae and magical and beyond her ken. “Bryanna MacElvy, I pledge to you that if you try, and are still unable to cure my curse, I will release you.”

The hairs on Bryanna’s arm rose.

“Do you accept this bargain?”

She shouldn’t. There was something she’d forgotten, something important about bargains with the fae, but she was desperate. She would try, and then he would have to let her go.

“I accept.”

The air pressure in the room snapped, and a gust of wind blew through the chamber. Bryanna let go of the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

“One thing you should know, Bryanna MacElvy,” he said, re-seating himself at the end of the table. “Beezel is the queen’s servant, not mine. He’s her spy. If he finds out your name, you’re as good as dead, and all our opportunities will be wasted.”

Bryanna gripped the arms of her seat. Where the hell had she landed, and what the hell had she committed to?

CHAPTER FOUR

Kian’s heart slammed in his chest as he led the girl down the twisting, underground corridors of Cairngloss. He’d done it. She would help him. Willingly. Or at least with the bright, shiny carrot of leaving dangled in front of her grasp. Soon, he’d be released from the torment of being held in this mishmash of shapes, then the queen herself would weep.

His savior’s full skirt brushed against the stones of the walls behind him. The subtle swishing sound reminding him of dances long ago. Of women’s laughter…and flirting…and sex.

“Why did the queen trap you here? It seems…odd.”

Her voice cut into his reverie and he jolted back to the present. “Why put me in an abandoned palace, you mean?”

“It is a palace, isn’t it? Not a prison.”

He snuck a glance backward.

She darted a wistful look into a dusty, open chamber. “I mean, it’s confusing and empty and dark, but hardly a dungeon,” she said.

“The queen has a twisted mind,” he responded, and turned back around. He didn’t want to tell her this was more of a prison than a dungeon with fellow inmates would have been. By secreting him here in the abandoned shell of a palace, he had daily reminders of his isolation, and no fellow prisoners to rally to his cause. The queen knew him well.

“We’re here.” He pushed the elaborately carved double doors wide, held his candelabra to the side, and bowed.

She entered, the trail of her scent sneaking under his cloak, teasing him with its rosy, feminine lure. His eyes closed, and his muscles tensed as she passed dangerously close. He resisted the urge to touch the curve in her waist. Snag a golden lock of hair. Or use a claw to tear open the skirt of her dress and reveal the treasure beneath.

There was a scraping behind him. He whipped around and growled at the trailing hobgoblins that followed him everywhere like faithful dogs. They scattered, shrieking and hooting into the dark.

He carefully shut and locked the doors behind them. She was his, and he wouldn’t share.

“It’s huge.” Her green eyes widened, her pale pink lips formed a wide O and he damned his current shape. If he wasn’t cursed, he would abandon the library and have her back in his chambers, her soft flesh twined around him in a quest for another kind of release.

If he wasn’t cursed.

“Where are all the books?” She moved into the center of the cavernous space.

Grateful for the cloak covering both his bestial shape and his hard-on, he followed the tempting sway of her hips and held his candelabra high. The light flickered over the empty floor-to-ceiling shelves and wide, bare tables. “Once this held the knowledge of the Gnome King and his advisors, but they took it all with them when they fled the White Queen, and abandoned the palace.”

“So, what are we using for reference?” Her voice wavered. “I don’t think I can do this without a spell.”

The insecurity in her voice and the self-doubt in her eyes intrigued him. He’d always been a sucker for the lost ones, the victims. And here she was, sexy and vulnerable. If he didn’t know he’d done this to himself, he would think it was a clever move on the part of his mother to increase his torment.

“What I’ve collected is over here.” His voice came out harsher than he’d intended, and she flinched. He breathed deeply in order to collect himself, but it didn’t do much more than take the edge off. He was so close to being cured, he didn’t think he could control his impatience for too much longer. He led her to the corner where he’d stashed his books and placed the candles on the table.

“The queen let you have these?”

He snorted as he looked at his pitiful collection of twenty or so tomes, gleaned painfully over the years. “The queen doesn’t think much of spells in books. The fae typically have no need of them.”

“I don’t understand. If you can get the books in, why haven’t you left in search of a cure, or someone to help you?”

“I can’t leave.” He forced the anger and rage out of his voice and explained his prison. “I’m trapped by a spell.”

“But you still have the books.” She pointed to the books.

“Like spell books and rats, the queen finds goblins to be beneath her notice. They can go in and out as they please. They bring me small gifts. Books, wine, trinkets.”

“And none of them can cure you or bring you someone who can?”

“Enough!” he growled. She startled, and he lowered his voice. “We’re wasting time. If the goblins could have saved me, they would have years ago. I am the Goblin King, you know.” His laughter bubbled up, rising higher and higher until he was sure he’d finally cracked. The irony of it all was that it was nearly pleasurable. He was closer than he’d ever been to getting free, and this girl wanted to waste time going over barren ground. She had no idea how close he was to breaking.

And if he broke, she would be the first thing he would take with him.

She edged away from him toward the center of the room, and the smell of her fear was an aphrodisiac.

He forced his hysteria down. “I’m sorry. I’ve been alone far too long and forced to bear what no man should.” He pointed to a book lying open on his work table. “This is the best transformation spell I’ve been able to find. It’s witch’s magic. I’m hoping you can make it work.”

It was more than hope. It was a desperate, clinging demand that held him back from forcing her over to the pages and saying the words. He needed this. Needed it more than he needed to touch her. And after fifteen years of no women, he found himself needing to touch her badly.