The Cursed (League of the Black Swan) (7 page)

“I’m so sorry,” he rasped, leveraging up onto his elbows and then into a sitting position before taking the vial from her. “I should be taking care of you, and I’m useless.”

“You can owe me one,” she said, trying to smile and failing miserably.

Luke poured about half of the yellow powder into the glass of water, where it dissolved into an unexpected bluish-purple shade, and then he tilted his head back and drank the entire glassful without stopping.

She watched his throat, oddly fascinated by the movement as he swallowed, and then she forced herself to look away as she took a long, deep breath. Her muscles, which had been tensed and ready to fight or flee all day, relaxed bit by bit until she wanted to curl up in a ball next to Luke and fall asleep.

He finished the water, inhaled a long breath of his own, and then put the glass down on the floor next to him. She could almost see the color returning to his face and awareness to his eyes.

“That’s better,” he said. “I think I’m okay now. Let’s get you something for your ankle.”

She laughed a little bit and shook her head.

“Come on,” he said, a half grin quirking up one side of his sensual mouth. “You’ve pretty much seen me at my worst. Fair’s fair.”

“I was feeling a little like Alice after she fell down that rabbit hole,” she admitted. “And then you downed the Drink Me potion . . .”

She laughed again. She was sitting on the floor, watching an injured wizard drink a magical potion, but for the first time since she’d witnessed the kidnapping, she no longer felt afraid. Something loosened in her chest at the realization, and she caught her breath at the warmth in his eyes. This man—this gorgeous, seductively handsome man—could be a real danger to her self-control.

“How about we get some rest and find the White Rabbit tomorrow morning?” He stood up in one smooth motion, pulling her up with him. “I really do have something that can help your ankle, too.”

“I—I don’t want to take any magic potions,” she said quickly. “I don’t mean to offend you, but—”

“Advil,” he said dryly.

She nodded and let him help her to one of the tall, leather-padded, wooden-backed stools on the living space side of the kitchen counter. Her ankle was throbbing miserably, and now that she was standing up, she realized that she was exhausted to the point of nausea.

“This wasn’t how I expected today to go when I woke up this morning,” she offered, by way of apology for jumping to conclusions.

“Days never go how I expect them to go, so I quit having any expectations at all,” he said, taking a green-and-white pill bottle out of a cupboard and then reaching into the gleaming stainless steel refrigerator for a bottle of water. “Smarter that way. Less prone to disappointment.”

Rio knew more about disappointment than most, but she said nothing. Her life wasn’t an anecdote to be traded in casual chatter. She downed the pills and drank the water while he retrieved his glass from the floor near the doorway and closed the door.

Luke put his cup in the sink and looked at her. “Now let’s find . . . Wait.
Child
. You said child. I’m an idiot.”

“What?”

“Child. You saw a child being kidnapped. Just today a client hired me to find her missing niece. I’m only now putting it together.” He clenched his hands into fists. “Damn that venom. Rio, what did that girl look like?”

A deep gong, like that of a very old church bell, sounded before Rio could reply, and she shivered. This gong carried tones of menace rather than reassurance; foreboding wrapped up in a musical tone.

“Luke? What—”

“It’s the doorbell. Sort of.” He shoved a hand through his hair and sighed. “And it’s not one I can ignore.”

He waved a hand and muttered a few words under his breath that Rio didn’t catch, and an unobtrusive door past the edge of the kitchen area glowed silver around the edges of its frame. The door slammed open, and the most beautiful woman Rio had ever seen glided into the room, moving so smoothly that it seemed as if her feet never touched the ground.

“Hello, Merelith,” Luke said wearily. “I told you I’d call you when I had news.”

Merelith, who was clearly Fae, glared at Luke, and Rio wondered how he had the strength to keep from falling on the floor under the power of the woman’s gaze. Icy silver hair trailed down from Merelith’s perfect head to the top of her rounded, feminine hips. She had deep red lips and eyes that glittered with an opalescent green fire. She should have been wearing a fairy gown, not simple black pants and a white shirt, Rio thought numbly.

Merelith had to be High Court Fae, maybe even on the royal council, and suddenly Rio wanted nothing more than to crawl under the kitchen counter and hide until the woman left. Naturally, this made her lift her chin and plant her butt more firmly on the seat of the chair.

“You have word of my niece?”

Luke stared at the Fae. “How do you
do
that?”

Merelith stalked toward them and then stopped about six paces away from Rio. She lifted her head and actually sniffed the air, and then her perfectly shaped head abruptly turned, and she locked that searing gaze on Rio.

“You? You!” Merelith flashed across the room so fast that Rio couldn’t even think about running before the Fae was standing in front of her, invading the hell out of her personal space.

Merelith caught Rio’s jaw in an unbreakable grip and turned her face one way and then the other. “It
is
you,” she whispered. “How is it possible—but you must be nearly twenty-five years old now, then.”

The Fae’s perfume—or her natural scent—made Rio think of crushed ice over salted raspberries, and then immediately wonder why. The rich aroma deepened when Merelith leaned even closer and touched Rio’s locket with one long, slender finger.

“So, you haven’t lost this? How . . . deliciously surprising.”

Rio jerked away from the woman’s touch, her hand rising to cover her locket. “What do you know about my necklace?”

Luke made a deep snarling sound, low in his throat. “You can’t trust anything the Fae tell you, Rio. Ever.”

“But they can’t lie,” Rio protested. “Even I know that.”

Luke never took his eyes off the Fae. “Get away from her. Now. Or you will have made an enemy that even you don’t want to make.”

Merelith smiled mockingly, but she stepped back.

“Fear not, little wizard. I won’t hurt your companion. But if you think to make her your bedmate, be advised that your chances of living past the dawn are slim.”

Rio’s face got hot. “Maybe you should back off, Merelith. You may be from the High Court, but that gives you no right to make rude comments about me and my, ah, my—”

Luke moved around the kitchen counter and put himself between Rio and the Fae. His fingers were glowing with blue flame again, and his voice had gone hard and icy.

“Back away from her, Merelith, or you’ll be sitting on your ass in the alley before you can say another word.”

Rio’s mouth fell open as she stared at Luke’s taut, muscular back. He was protecting her from a High Court Fae. An overwhelming urge to touch him—in support or plea, she didn’t know which—had her reaching out with one hand until common sense caught up with longing, and she yanked her hand back.

Merelith laughed, the sound like ice cubes falling into a crystal glass. “I don’t want to hurt her, Lucian Olivieri. I am merely interested in the dynamic of why she would turn up now, in light of current circumstances. The Fates are amusing, are they not?”

Rio pushed Luke out of the way as she awkwardly stepped down off the stool. “I’m a little tired of being talked about like I’m not right here. What are you talking about, and how did you know how old I am?” She looked into the Fae’s glowing eyes and swallowed. Hard.

“Please?”

Merelith swept a scathing glance over Rio from head to toe and back up again before she answered. “I expected you’d be taller,” said the nearly six-foot-tall Fae.

“Why did you expect anything about Rio at all?” Luke sounded mystified, but he was still holding flames at his fingertips.

“Rio? Is that what you’re calling yourself?” Merelith tilted her head, considering. “It’s actually rather fitting, since you almost drowned in that river, I suppose.”

Dread rushed through Rio, starting in the back of her head and pushing heat through nerves and muscles. The river . . . the Fae’s words turned a switch in Rio’s mind that almost—
almost
—unlocked a tantalizing clue about a memory from her childhood. Something—anything—from the lost years before the nuns had taken her into their sanctuary.

Curiosity raced to the forefront; caution pushed it back. “Your niece?” Rio finally said, choosing the path of the least terrifying unknown.

The child. They needed to find the child. Mysteries about Rio’s past could wait.

Merelith paused and then inclined her head, a regal gesture of agreement. Rio didn’t want to know what it looked like when Merelith disagreed with someone, but she had the feeling it involved pain. Lots of pain.

Luke leaned back against the counter, still between Rio and the Fae, and he finally allowed the flames at his fingertips to disappear. Then he casually put a hand on Rio’s shoulder, while not taking his eyes off Merelith.

“You should sit back down and take weight off that ankle,” he said quietly.

Merelith made an impatient sound and held up one slim, white hand. “Is that what’s making her grimace like a stuck pig? Why didn’t you say so?”

Rio narrowed her eyes. “I do not look like a pig, you—”

The band of icy cold that wrapped around her ankle caught her off guard, and she fell back onto the chair, staring at her foot. Within seconds, the icy feeling vanished, and so did the pain. Rio cautiously twisted her foot from side to side, and then she stood up.

“It’s healed,” she said softly. “You—thank you, Lady Merelith.”

“Apparently cessation of pain helps you remember your manners, if not your good sense, Halfling,” Merelith said dryly. “Now sit and stop annoying me while Luke and I discuss how to find my niece. You are not the imminent problem.”

Luke frowned at Rio. “How long have you lived in Bordertown that you don’t know better than to thank a Fae?”

Rio’s mouth fell open, and for a moment she was too stunned to decide which one of them was ticking her off more. She decided to deal with Luke later, since Merelith was the clearer threat. She was pretty sure Luke would never hurt her; she had no such illusions about any one of the Fae.

“Halfling? No, never mind. You’re right, the little girl is more important,” Rio said. “Does your missing niece look almost exactly like you, or at least like you if you were ten years old and human?”

Luke and Merelith’s eyes widened simultaneously.

“Did Luke tell you that or did you see her?” The Fae pushed forward again, as if to grab Rio, but Luke’s arm dropped down like a barrier barring the way.

“Back off, and we may find out what she knows,” he warned Merelith.

“She will tell me, or she will die screaming,” the Fae countered, her eyes glittering.

“There’s no need for all this drama,” Rio said. “I came to Luke for help finding this little girl. If she’s your niece, I’m more than happy to help you in any way I can.”

She quickly described the events of the day to Merelith, who grew more and more agitated.

“That’s her. It must be her. If this monster who stole her is Dalriata, I will tear his bones from their sockets and snack on their marrow,” the Fae shouted, her lovely face twisting into something inhumanly dark and dreadful.

Rio’s stomach shriveled up into a cold, hard ball as Merelith’s rage and magic washed over her in an icy wave.

“Dalriata?” Luke shook his head. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“He recently arrived from Europe,” Merelith said, as she began to pace back and forth in the space between the heavy wooden dining table and the kitchen counters where Rio and Luke stood. “Rumor has it that he’s a Pictish king. He has failed to present himself at court to announce his intent, thus we believe it is foul.”

“Why would he want your niece? And aren’t the Picts a small race? The man I saw was nearly as tall as Luke.” Rio thought about it for a minute. “He probably wasn’t your guy, though. The evil villains usually have minions.”

Luke laughed, and even his laugh was sexy. It was decidedly unfair to Rio’s equilibrium.

Merelith’s gaze suddenly snapped to Rio as if she were a pet dog who’d performed an interesting trick, and Rio blushed, wondering if Merelith had read her thoughts on her face.

“Picts have intermarried so often since the old days that their height is no longer a defining characteristic,” Luke said, apparently unaware of the entire interplay between the women in the room.

Merelith pinned Rio with a sharp stare. “Ah. Smarter than you look.
Why
would he want Elisabeth is the pertinent question. She is half human and will never have claim to the Winter’s Edge throne. She has little if any discernible magic and plays no part in politics. The abduction makes no sense.”

Rio tried not to show how appalled she was at the cold assessment of a child’s possible value as a kidnapper’s victim. The Fae were not an outwardly emotional bunch, though; the fact that Merelith was willing to hire Luke to find Elisabeth probably said more about her true feelings for the girl than anything else.