Witch Queen (36 page)

“That’s right,” I smiled. “I don’t care if
you’re a king or a prince. It makes no difference to me.”

I felt myself relax a little.

His smell was intoxicating, pulling me
towards him. Before I knew what I was doing I had taken a step
closer to him.

Suddenly I realized what was happening. He
was using magic on me. I could feel it like a sticky mist coiling
around me, trying to confuse me.

But my natural resistance and my love for
Jon were both strong. And I used them to resist his magic.

“You bastard,” I spat. “What? You can’t get
a female to bed you normally, so you have to resort to magic to get
them to do it?”

“What are you talking about?” he said a
little stiffly. “I don’t need magic to get any female into
bed.”

I stared at another empty goblet. Before the
wine got me into more trouble, I set my goblet on the table. But I
was already feeling the effects of the wine. The floor shifted and
wavered, and I knew something was wrong. Little alarm bells rang in
my head. There was something
definitely
very wrong.

“What’s in the wine?” I said carefully,
aware that each word was hard to form. “I haven’t had that much and
already…already I feel
strange
.”

My vision blurred. Red and yellow and blue
spots danced before my eyes. I had never had wine or ale that had
had that effect on me before.

The prince’s magecraft was ablaze with
yellow magic. The glow was so powerful it burned my eyes just to
look at it.

I stepped back. I was seeing
things…hallucinating. I’d never seen a magecraft glow like
that.

“What would you do if you saw Jon again?”
said the prince so softly that I wasn’t even sure he’d said it.

I let out a little laugh and said, “I’d kiss
him…I’d kiss him until I couldn’t feel my lips, until I felt
complete and whole again.”

Damn, the wine was making me too bold.

“Elena.”

My breath caught. I
knew
that voice,
and it wasn’t the prince’s. I blinked and looked up.

Jon was standing in front of me.

And then the world spun into blackness.

CHAPTER 31

I
WOKE UP THE next morning to a
pounding headache and in a state of complete confusion. I vaguely
remembered that something was very wrong, but couldn’t remember
exactly what it was. I was warm, but the room was piercingly cold.
I felt the thick quilt that was tucked tidily against my skin. My
naked
skin.

I sat bolt upright in my bed, and my pillows
bounced on the floor.

I was completely naked.
Why I would sleep
without my shift?

Then I felt a presence next to me.

Prince Aurion was sprawled in bed next to
me. His head rested on his arms, and from the little of the quilt
that covered him, I could see that he was as naked as I was. He
grinned when our eyes met.

“What the hell!”

I pulled the quilt tighter around me.

“What are you doing here? Where are your
clothes?”

The prince smiled lazily and raised an
eyebrow. “My clothes are on the floor next to yours, my dear.”

“But you’re completely naked!” I
shouted.

“So are you.”

“What the hell?” I shouted a little
louder.

“You just said that.”

The prince’s grin widened, and he inched
closer.

“Why are you hiding yourself? I’ve already
seen
all
of you. And it’s quite lovely. More than
lovely…”

I leaned back horrified. “Goddess forgive
me,” I breathed.

“Forgive what?” said the prince. “There’s
nothing more natural and more beautiful than the lovemaking between
a couple. There’s no shame in making love, Elena. In fact, the
Goddess urges us to explore our love and our bodies, to explore our
lovemaking.”

“I’m going to be sick.”

“Come, come now,” said Aurion.

His body was so close I could feel his heat
through the quilt, and his scent of lavender and musk covered the
quilt.

“Last night was really special,” he purred.
“I’ll never forget what we shared for as long as I live.”

The wine from last night was just about to
spurt out of my mouth, but I forced it down.

I tried to calm my thrashing heart.

“This can’t be happening,” I mumbled
unintelligently. “I would have never…ever have done this. You put
something in the wine. You tricked me. The last I remember is you
asking me what I’d do if I saw Jon, and then…”

And then I had actually seen him.

I felt a chill seep through my skin. “You.
Somehow you disguised yourself to look like him.”

I had betrayed the only man I had ever
loved. This wicked goddamn witch prince had tricked me.

My head fell into my hands. “What have I
done?”

“Plenty.”

“How did you do it?” I hissed, ignoring his
comment. I wanted to kill him.

“Simple,” said the prince, his silver eyes
rested on my lips. “I let you see what you wanted to see.”

“That makes no sense,” I growled.

I needed to be angry because I feared that
if lost my anger, I would lose myself to despair. “You’re from the
Dark Witches clan. How can you manipulate someone’s visions like
that?”

“My father was a dark witch through and
through,” said the prince, “but my mother was from the augur clan.
I have more of her blood magic than my father’s.”

Of course.
How could I have not seen
it?
His silver eyes, the fact that he never wore the Dark
Witches clan colors or emblems—the witch prince was an augur
witch.

“How could you?” I asked as the tears welled
in my eyes. “You tricked me into bed with you. That’s disgusting.
Shameless. You’re just as much a bastard as your father. You have
no heart.”

His face reddened, but he didn’t answer.

No. I wouldn’t cry in front of him like a
weak little female. I had had enough of these witches. They had
pushed me over the edge. In a rage, I lunged naked at the
prince.

“I’m going to kill you, you bastard!”

I shot forward, wrapped my hands around his
neck, and squeezed. But he managed to slip from under me, and the
next thing I knew he had flipped me over. He grabbed my wrists and
pinned me to the bed, his hard naked body pressed against mine.

I tried to fight him off, but the witch
prince was unbelievably strong. And then all my rage left me, and I
started to sob uncontrollably.

“Why? Why me?” I gasped between sobs. “You
could have had any other female in the fortress, but you chose to
ruin
me. You spineless prick. I hate you.”

His breath caught, and for a moment he
seemed genuinely uncomfortable, even sorry. But his empathy was
gone as fast as it had appeared.

“Elena, you don’t understand. I—”

“Get out!” I yelled.

The door burst open, and Celeste and Luna
stood in the threshold. I’d never seen Celeste’s eyes as wide
before. She looked from me to Prince Aurion. Only when she realized
that it was the very
naked
prince of Witchdom in my bed did
she curtsy and lower her eyes. Luna quickly followed her
example.

“My apologies, Prince Aurion,” said Celeste.
“I did not know—”

“It’s fine.”

The prince rolled off of me and pulled his
shirt over his head. He dressed quickly, but I could feel his eyes
on me the whole time. I stared at a spot on the sheets, feeling
that my despair was about to consume me whole.

“I’ll see you later at the ceremony,” said
the prince.

“Go to hell.”

And then the prince was gone.

I sank low into the bed.
How could this
have happened?

I couldn’t remember. All I remembered was
that I’d seen Jon. I’d been so certain it was him. I couldn’t stop
shaking from the shame of what I had done to myself and to Jon. I
fell to the ground, pulled my knees to my chest, and cried. I cried
and cried until no more tears came. I knew that one day I would
have to tell Jon how utterly I had betrayed him.

It took Celeste two hours to console me.

It was only when she reminded me about my
escape plan and told me how everything was arranged that I truly
snapped out of my self-loathing stupor.

Nothing would keep me from getting the hell
out of this place.

“It’s going to work,” I said. I needed to
convince myself.

“Of course it will.” Celeste nodded as she
pulled the red gown tighter around my breasts. It was truly a
beautiful gown of Witchdom silk. The traditional red and gold
colors of the Steel Maiden clan were radiant. Too bad I wasn’t in
the mood to care.

“I’m getting out of this god forsaken
place,” I said. “I’ll find another way to stop the priests. I swear
it.”

Luna went to fetch some water and snacks,
and I told Celeste what had happened with the prince. Her face
paled.

“I had always thought he was a dark witch
like his father,” she said and then added. “Dark magic usually
dominates. Dark witch blood magic will show itself in children at a
very early age. But if his mother was from the augur clan, it would
make sense. Sometimes other blood magic prevails.”

“What happened to his mother?” I asked
before I could stop myself.

“She died of a rare degenerative bone
disease. At least that’s what I heard.”

She hesitated then added. “But I also heard
that she died soon after the witch king had taken Enelyn as his
second wife.”

I frowned. “How convenient.”

If the prince had suspected Enelyn of
killing his mother, that would explain the open animosity he showed
towards her. But I didn’t care what the prince or any of the other
royal idiots thought. I just wanted to get this wretched ceremony
over with so I could finally go home.

“But I’m shocked to hear what the prince
did,” said Celeste as she finished pinning up my hair in a soft
bun. “We’ve all heard the rumors about how much time he spends with
females in his private quarters, but I’ve never heard of him using
magic to…”

“To sleep with them.”

“It’s not like him.”

“Well, he did it.” My anger returned just as
Luna appeared through the door.

“They’re ready for you,” she said. My heart
dropped to my feet. I hadn’t realized how late it was.

After squeezing Celeste’s hands and knowing
that our plans were in place, I had the strength to put one foot in
front of another.

I followed the two coven guards down the
hall in silence. My heart pounded, and I feared I might fall. But I
didn’t. I never faltered. I willed myself to move. This
had
to work. I had to agree to the wedding ceremony in order to slip
out when they weren’t expecting it.

It was a good plan, and it
was
going
to work. When we arrived in the throne room, my breath escaped me.
The hall had been transformed. The tables, benches, and stools had
been pushed back against the walls, and a raised dais decorated
with plush rugs stood next to a table that was covered with candles
and silver censers that emanated coils of gray smoke. The dark
witch colors of black with a red hand covered the throne and hung
from the walls.

There were some fifty or sixty people
present. They were all dressed proudly in their clan colors. I
spotted a few members of the Coven Council among the crowd of
onlookers. The other members of the council were no doubt too old
and weary to be out at this late hour.

All heads turned to the lower end of the
hall as I approached.

The witch king stood on the dais dressed in
black and red. He watched me with a malicious gleam in his eyes. I
was his new toy, and I stiffened under his gaze.

The witch queen stood below the platform.
She was surrounded by coven guards like a prisoner. The guards
partly slightly, and I caught a hateful glare from her violet
eyes.

But Prince Aurion was not there.
Was he
purposely forgoing his father’s wedding?
I was shocked that he
hadn’t had the courtesy to show up after what he’d done.

I felt hysterical. My legs were heavy. It
was too late to run.

Heartened by the thought that I’d be out of
this hateful place soon, I accepted my fate and stepped onto the
platform next to the witch king.

The high witch said something in
Witchtongue, and then he and the witch king kneeled together on a
plush golden carpet.

Reluctantly I did the same. I flinched as
the witch king grabbed my hand tightly, no doubt to prevent any
last-minute breaks for freedom. I cringed at his warm callused
hand, and I could taste bile in the back of my throat again.

I didn’t look at anyone. I kept my eyes
focused on a spot on the rug in front of me and counted the minutes
until I would be free.

The handfasting ritual happened in a daze.
To make matters worse, I couldn’t understand a thing. The high
witch kept repeating words in Witchtongue the entire time, but the
words only echoed somewhere in the pit of my stomach. I felt
numb.