A low howl pierced the air. “For killing my love, I will plunge Queen Neara into a nightmare terrifying enough to stop her heart.”
My stomach plummeted.
Melusina darted in front of me and spread her arms wide. “You will not harm my daughter.”
Shock coursed through my insides at this surge of maternal instinct, but I shook off those feelings and backed away. Of course she needed me alive. I was her last chance for a strong body that would survive in a realm without Fomorian magic.
The shadow lurched forward, engulfing Melusina, who screamed and dropped to the ground. The Fear Dorcha couldn’t destroy her—nobody could except for me. I sprinted backward, holding the torch in front of me like a sword, the pounding of my heart driving me to go faster. I needed to find the Sword of Tethra before the Fear Dorcha turned his anger onto me.
Strong arms wrapped around my middle. My heart jumped, and I spun around to find Drayce standing behind me, trembling with the pain of his injuries. He pressed my sword into my hands and leaned against the wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I felt Melusina slither away,” he said from between ragged breaths. “I couldn’t let her capture you, so I left the others inside a shadow and walked down.”
Guilt and gratitude squeezed my heart. My gaze darted beyond the dead doe to where the shadows had consumed Melusina, and I sliced my palm with the sword. The corner stone thrummed against my chest in unison with my hammering heart. If the sword and my blood could kill the Queen of the Banshees, it would surely kill the Fear Dorcha.
“What should we do?” I wrapped my arm around Drayce’s shoulder and lowered him onto the ground. “I was about to broker Erin’s life in exchange for breaking the curse on the Summer Court, but Melusina killed her.”
“Leave with me.” Drayce sounded like he was about to lose consciousness.
The Fear Dorcha’s shadow melted away from Melusina’s prone form and stretched to Erin’s dead body. “King Drayce,” he sneered from the dark. “Have you come to watch me kill your mate?”
My throat dried. I stepped between Drayce and the shadow with my sword pointed to the floor. Despite the Fear Dorcha’s cowardice, he still had the power to send us into an eternal nightmare. And from the way he engulfed Melusina, it looked like he was putting her to sleep.
A memory rolled to the front of my mind. When we captured Erin in the palace, she told us that the ooze had been the Fear Dorcha’s shadow. And in our dreams, the male had appeared as a shadow. What if this was his true form?
“Stop,” said Drayce.
A howling laugh echoed through the hallway.
“I have come to bargain.” Drayce raised his hand, releasing the specter of a woman with brilliant, green eyes and skin darker than the tawny pelt of the doe. Long, blonde curls tumbled down her shoulders onto a white gown wrapped around her willowy form.
“Erin,” the Fear Dorcha whispered, his voice trembling. After a pause, his shadow lengthened and thickened. “Her spirit belongs to me.”
I clenched my teeth and swallowed back a mouthful of bitter bile. As much as I disliked Erin, nobody deserved to spend their eternity as the Fear Dorcha’s prisoner. I turned my gaze down to Drayce, about to beg him to send Erin’s soul to the Otherworld, but a gleam in his eye told me to trust him.
Holding my silence, I gave him a slight nod.
Drayce bared his teeth, looking like it was the only thing holding him from falling unconscious. “I can place her soul back into her body.”
“Do it,” said the Fear Dorcha.
“What will you give me in return?” Drayce asked.
“I will forgive Queen Neara. You and your companions may have free passage out of the Summer Court.”
“No.” Drayce’s voice cut through the atmosphere like a scythe.
For the next few heartbeats, nobody spoke. The Fear Dorcha’s dark form thickened as though readying itself to snatch Erin’s specter. I held my breath, urging Drayce to demand that the Fear Dorcha break the curse.
“What do you want?” The Fear Dorcha’s voice thickened with desperation. “I can free the Summer Court.”
“That’s a start,” Drayce replied, his breaths labored. “But you must leave this kingdom forever and leave behind your sleeping mistress.”
I glanced at Erin’s spirit, who wrung her hands and mouthed something. Drayce’s fingers twitched as though silencing her. Perhaps Drayce could hear her because of his connection with the Dead.
“Alright,” replied the Fear Dorcha.
His shadow shrank, and light poured in through the arched windows, letting in streams of sunlight behind the thick vines that surrounded the palace. Erin’s spectral body remained standing next to Drayce, but her edges faded with the illumination.
The Fear Dorcha stood in the middle of the hallway, his shadowy form standing seven feet tall and nearly obscuring Melusina. She lay on her side several feet behind the dark figure, her platinum hair glistening in the light. Black blood pulsed through the vessels beneath her near-transparent skin and around a ribcage that rose and fell with gentle breaths.
He glided toward us on unmoving legs. “Give me my love—”
Finger bones pierced through the Fear Dorcha’s shadowed form. He howled and melted into the floor, revealing a tall skeleton wearing dusty rags in his place.
“My brother was a traitor, a weak-minded fool,” the skeleton rasped, “But you will not find me so easy to defeat.”
He raised both hands, creating a whirlwind. Dust rose from all corners of the hallway, lashing at my skin.
Squeezing my eyes shut against the onslaught, I clenched my teeth as intense hunger hollowed my stomach and leached all the energy from my bones. My muscles gave way, dropping me to my hands and knees. Palpitations squeezed my heart, making me struggle for breath.
Hunger clawed at my stomach, gnawed at my flesh. If I didn't eat, I would consume my insides and devour my own husk. Behind me, Drayce groaned, but the noise faded into insignificance, and I focussed my gaze to the dead doe. Pain quickened through my insides, and my mouth flooded with saliva.
I needed to eat. Now.
Clutching the sword, I took a crawling step toward the doe, but Drayce grabbed my arm. Hot fury coursed through my veins. Did he want the deer carcass for himself? I jerked my head back, met his half-lidded eyes and snarled at him to release me.
Shadows wrapped around us, encasing our bodies in a cocoon of black. The intense hunger ebbed to a dull ache, allowing me to breathe.
I shuffled back to Drayce and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “What was that?”
“Erin says it’s the Fear Gorta, who holds the curse over the Autumn Court,” Drayce replied, his voice fading. “His attacks can cause a hunger fierce enough to make people tear each other apart.”
My throat thickened, and I nodded my understanding. Even injured and eaten half to death, Drayce’s shadows could cleave my flesh into fillets. This barrier was the only thing keeping us from the curse of our new enemy.
Just as my breathing calmed, a heavy weight pounded on Drayce's barrier of shadows, making me flinch.
“Is the Fear Dorcha dead?” I whispered.
Drayce didn't reply, and I could barely hear his breaths. I squeezed him tighter and pressed a kiss on his cooling skin. Was this like the time he got poisoned by the Keeper of All Things, and I returned from gathering herbs to find him not breathing?
Light flooded my eyes as the shadows surrounding us melted, leaving us sitting in the hallway.
Standing over us was a trio of males with skin as dark as mahogany, each with long black hair that twisted into rope-like locks, and each clad in white robes embroidered with gold that exposed muscular chests and arms. From the gilded, leather bracers on their forearms, they were probably warriors.
The one in the middle wore a crown of a golden circlet surrounded by crystal spikes that reminded me of rays of light. He held a golden sword with a blade that shone bright
er than the sun.
My throat dried. This could only be Prince Calor of the Summer Court.
“Identify yourselves.” His voice was rich and deep, with an authority that shook my bones. This was a millennia-old high faerie, who had probably just driven the Fear Gorta out of his palace.
I didn’t dare keep my eyes off these males, didn’t let my gaze drop to the dead doe still lying on the marble floor, didn’t turn to look at Drayce. As far as they knew, we were intruders who had possibly killed Erin.
“Queen Neara of the Faeries.” I raised my chin. “And this is my mate, King Drayce of the Otherworld. He just broke the curse Melusina had her servant place on your Court and needs a healer.”
They exchanged glances. Cold fingers of dread reached into my gut and twisted. I knew what they were thinking. The last time they were awake, Melusina had murdered Queen Pressyne, and King Donn still ruled the Otherworld.
Prince Calor’s gaze moved from Erin to the Sword of Tethra. “Explain yourself.”
My heart jumped into the back of my throat, and words jumbled through my mind. Drayce lay beside me dying, and more Summer Court faeries joined the powerful trio, all looking to me for answers.
In halting, stuttering words, I told them everything from how Father accidentally pulled Melusina out of the mist a thousand years ago, how he escaped to the mortal realm with Drayce’s help, how Drayce and I drove Melusina from the palace, to how Drayce bargained with the Fear Dorcha to release the curse on the Summer Court.
At the end of my story, Prince Calor’s eyes softened. “You favor our mother.”
“And Dana,” added his companion, a man with equally as dark skin but with eyes that glistened like topaz.
My throat thickened at their words, and relief loosened the tightness of my chest. If they were kind enough not to compare me to Melusina, then they probably accepted that I wasn’t malevolent.
“May we please see a healer?” I turned my gaze to Drayce, whose shadows couldn’t staunch the flow of blood from his gut. “My mate holds Erin’s soul. If he falls unconscious and lets her go…”
Realization flashed across the prince’s eyes. He turned around to address the crowd. “Dian, please see to our rescuers’ needs.”
The warriors parted, and another dark-skinned male with hair as white and as fluffy as clouds stepped forward, clutching a newborn fawn. I sucked in a breath through my teeth. Erin had mentioned not being cursed because she left the Summer Court to see a healer about her pregnancy. Was this her baby?
After handing the fawn to one of the other males, the man continued toward us. He wore no gold on his body, adorning his face and arms and chest with white sigils. Silver light crackled between his clasped palms. “Please ask your mate to remove the barrier around his wounds.”
I turned to Drayce and placed my palm on his chest. Only the tiniest of movement indicated that he was still alive. The color leached out of his skin, reminding me of the pallor of the scales he used to wear when he was cursed.
“Pull back your shadows,” I murmured into his ear.
His eyelids twitched.
“Drayce.” I rubbed his chest.
With a groan, he let the shadows encasing his torso melt into the marble floor.
The white-haired healer knelt beside us and drove his power into Drayce’s middle. Drayce arched his back, squeezed his eyes shut, and clenched his teeth.
Holding my breath, I hoped this magic would be enough to counteract the spider’s attack. After several heartbeats, Drayce’s muscles relaxed, and his breathing deepened.
I turned to the healer. “Did it work?”
His brows drew together. “I can reconstruct lost flesh and repair the lacerations, but my magic is of the living and this child’s is of the dead.”
Prince Calor lowered himself into a crouch. “Dian, don’t speak in riddles.
We must help Queen Neara’s mate before I give them a blessing.”
Dian exhaled a long breath. “To restore his power, the young king must bathe in Slainge’s Well.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“Deep within the Autumn Court.”
A shudder ran through my insides. It was where the Fear Gorta resided and where I had poisoned a group of guards and left them to be eaten by faeries cursed into beasts.
The males of the Summer Court stared down at me, waiting to hear what I would say next. I still had the Dagda’s ultimatum hanging over my head like an executioner’s ax, but with the Fear Dorcha’s curse broken, the oak sprite would repair the staff and save me from becoming the demigod’s sword maiden.
Melusina was either trapped in the Fear Dorcha’s nightmare or still weakened from my attacks, and Drayce still needed to restore Erin’s soul.
Footsteps stumbled behind us. I turned to find Rosalind, Aengus, and Cathbad walking into the hallway, surrounded by dark-skinned warriors and looking like they had just awoken from a troubled sleep.
“Could you lend us some transportation, please?” I turned to Prince Calor. “We need to prepare for a journey into the Autumn Court.”
END OF BOOK TWO
READ BOOK THREE
Delia E Castel’s Books
Curse of the Fae King Series
She bargained her maidenhead, but he will steal her heart. A fantasy romance for fans of Sarah J. Maas.
Curse of the Fae King
Mate of the Fae King
Darkbloods Series
Vampires are our enemies. So, why can’t I slay Alaric? When my slayer sisters left me for dead on a routine hunt, only one man came to the rescue.
Alaric Severin is a master vampire who awoken a desire within me that I can’t resist.
Vampire Bonds
Thanks for reading!
Writing as Cordelia Castel
The Princess Trials
"When the revolution comes, border guards won’t harass Harvester girls and water will be available to everyone—not just the Nobles. Until then, it’s just me and my poison darts."
A dystopian romance for fans of Hunger Games and The Selection.
The Princess Trials
The Princess Games
The Princess Crown
The Gauntlet Series
There are two types of people.
The hunters and the hunted.
http://gauntlet.theprincesstrials.com
The Seven Kingdoms Series
Cinderella swaps her glass slippers for combat boots. A high fantasy series based within a world of fairytale villains.
The Magestaff
The Academy
The Witch-Hunt
The Betrothal
The Usurper
The Banishment
The Kingdom
The Frozen Heart
The Bluebird
The Princesses
Dragon Mage Academy Series
She bonded with a dragon condemned to death. Now she must save the realm from an ancient evil.
Princess of Dragons
Poacher of Dragons
Plague of Dragons
Protector of Dragons
Prisoner of Dragons
Pariah of Dragons
Patron of Dragons
Dreamer of Dragons Series
When a dying dragonet cries out for help, Ashira thinks it’s a dream, but consorting with dragons will either lead to adventure or execution.
The Dragonet
The Rapier
Mate of the Fae King (Dark Faerie Court Book 2) Page 25
