by Lisa Alder
"I will," he screamed and let go of a powerful ball of energy. As the blast hurled toward Barbas, Aine had no choice. In a split second, she raised her own palms and deflected the energy away from her lover. But the power bounced against her blast and rebounded back against her father. In a nanosecond, she realized her miscalculation. The punishment the king had intended to inflict upon Barbas had boomeranged back onto the king.
The expense of power to block her father's energy drained her even as she realized what she'd done. The action hit her right in the heart and slammed her back against her lover's body. Pain, dark, excruciating, and deep surrounded her, pulled her under, until she was deaf, dumb, blind.
ELEVEN
Barbas caught Aine as she fell, limp and unconscious. She slumped over, the effort to belay the power blast from her father had drained her body of energy.
Gods, the king hadn't killed her, had he?
The king. He was still as a statue. Barbas had seen what had happened to Leraye. Seen the horrible aftermath of a body frozen in stasis.
The guards rushed forward to the king's side but their monarch was suspended in an awkward position, his face contorted in a rictus of rage, brows lowered and mouth open as he'd jammed his hands toward Barbas.
Barbas lifted Aine away from the cold stone floor and into his arms. He carried her to his cot and lay her down on the rough cotton sheets. He stroked her hair and murmured pleas to her insensate body.
Aine returned to her senses slowly. He knew the exact moment she realized that she'd sacrificed her father for her lover. The consequence of that decision would stay with her forever.
Barbas wrapped his arms around Aine's slight form. Her body shook with the aftermath of both the physical effort to repel the king's blast and, he guessed, the reality that she'd just disobeyed the king's edict. The king had wanted him as good as dead. Maybe the blast had been a test? The energy would kill a mere Human but if it froze Barbas then the king would have known that he was a Demon. Except with his half Fae blood he likely would have been frozen too.
Barbas pressed her closer, and savored the feel of her body against his. He was shaking too. Not from fear. Amazement threatened to overwhelm him. She had saved him.
Her tears dampened his shoulder as she trembled against him. She felt almost frail and weak in the hard wrap of his arms. The moon's full power shone through the iron bars on the window and reanimated his strength. Soon he would be able to break free from this prison. That reality was not as exhilarating as he would have thought. He couldn't seem to focus on escape. Right now he only thought to comfort Aine.
She clutched at Barbas' shoulders as if he were the only support in her crumbling world and her sole focus had narrowed down to his arms.
The Fae definitely had a spy in the Castle. And now that he knew what the king had discovered, he could confer with Gaap. There was no way that his message to Gaap was common knowledge. Only a select few could know. The identity of the traitor was in their grasp. Assuming he could get his ass out of the Fae Realm and back to the Demon Castle.
"What have you done?" Finn stalked toward them.
Aine placated. "I only meant to--"
"You are a traitor to the Fae Realm," Finn said harshly.
"No." Aine ripped herself from Barbas' arms and stood strong and proud. "I am now your ruler." She glanced at her father. "Unless we can figure out how to unfreeze him."
A chill whispered over Barbas. He knew how to re-animate King Egogabal. But in order to divulge that knowledge he would have to reveal his other deception. His Demon half.
TWELVE
Barbas shifted toward the open window, and distanced himself from his thoughts. He couldn't reveal his Demon half. And then he thought about how he'd been willing to save her from her father's wrath and how she stepped in to stop her father from killing him.
And he knew what he had to do.
"You need to let me go," he said softly.
Aine was still in a standoff with the bodyguards who blocked their way. "Let me pass," she said haughtily, her chin tilted at a snooty angle.
The guards swallowed. They didn't know what to do. She was technically in command with the king incapacitated, but they were loathe to let her by.
"I command you to let me pass." Her voice swelled in the small enclosed space and the guards began to back away as if compelled by the sound of her voice. "Leave us."
And they did. Without a backward look at the king, they left.
"Did you just...?" he trailed off unable to express what he'd just seen.
"It is not a skill to be used lightly."
"So you could conceivably make anyone do what you want?" Barbas analyzed that information cautiously. He had known that Fae royalty could potentially bespell humans but to be able to command her servants to do as she asked when it was clearly against their will, that was an immense power.
She looked at him steadily. "Yes."
Barbas and Aine were alone with the statue of her father. Whom Barbas could free from his frozen prison. But at great personal risk to himself.
He was in a world of trouble. He didn't think the Fae could compel Demons, but he didn't want to find out if her power would work on him.
"That is...interesting."
"I would call it more than interesting," she said drily. "Frightening is more like it."
She lightly caressed his bald head and then broke away from his embrace. "I have got to figure out what to do with my father."
Barbas's heart sank as he realized that if he helped her with her father, he damned himself. To be alone. Without her. He'd gone from unable to imagine being with one person, to unable to imagine being without her.
Barbas had to figure out what to do next. He tried to pull Aine aside but she was circling the still figure of her father clearly trying to figure out how to heal him.
"What do I do now?" she whispered.
"How long will the compelling work?" Barbas shoved aside the sick feeling as he probed her for answers. If she found out he was Demon, every question he asked would be one more nail in his coffin. And truly he could not turn off the analytical side of his brain as he stored the information away for later. The Fae were his enemy. He ignored the overwhelming need to throw up as she revealed Fae secrets with every answer.
"We have about twenty-four hours," she replied quietly.
"What will happen when that time is up?"
"Unless I can convince them that I did not do this on purpose, I will have a permanent home in the dungeon." Or worse, was implied.
"Do you have any idea how to...unfreeze him?"
"No. The first time we used the weapon was the first time the idea worked."
Barbas didn't want to know. Except he did. She took another step around her father and stumbled. Barbas caught her before she fell to the hard ground. "What's wrong?"
"Using the energy blast weakens us," Aine confessed.
Part of him didn't want to know, didn't want knowledge of a weapon against the Fae. He hugged her to him, pressed his face into her heather-scented hair, and grudgingly asked, "For how long?"
"My father was incapacitated for two days the last time he attempted this against a Demon," she said with her hand on her brow as she surveyed the frozen countenance of the king.
Barbas felt sick. He was strong enough now. He had the power to leave and take back information to the Demon Castle. And yet, here was another opportunity he couldn't pass up. "Why does your father hate the Demons so much?"
Aine responded. "I don't know."
If Aine didn't resuscitate the king then her life would be forfeit. He couldn't allow that to happen. And he couldn't take her with him as much as he would like to.
With a few words, Barbas sealed his own fate. For he would do anything to help her, even if it meant destroying his own chance of happiness.
"I can help," Barbas said softly. "But I need an assurance first."
"Anything," she replied.
"Perhaps you sho
uld hear me out before you agree."
"You would not hurt me," Aine refuted. "You tried to save me."
"But you might change your mind and I would have you agree with all your faculties present."
Aine took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The solemn look on his face scared her. Whatever he sought to reveal would devastate her. She knew with a prescience that took her breath away.
"Kiss me first," she demanded.
"What?" He raised an eyebrow. "You are sure?"
"Yes."
So, he pressed his mouth to hers in a chaste, reverent caress. A kiss to last an eternity. Barbas poured all of his emotions and feelings into this one last act because once she discovered his true identity she would hate him.
THIRTEEN
Barbas pressed one final kiss against her temple. If he clung just a little too tightly perhaps she wouldn't notice. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"What for?"
"You need to let me go."
Her face whitened. "You...want to leave?"
"No," he denied. "But you will want me gone." Actually she would want him dead.
"But--"
"You must promise that you will escort me from this realm unharmed." He hesitated. "And that no one will come after me once I am back in the Human Realm."
"Consider it done."
"I need your word as the leader of the Fae."
"You are worrying me."
"Your word," his voice was hard. "Otherwise, no deal."
"Fine." Aine said, "I give you my word as temporary leader of the Fae that no harm will come to you either in this realm or the Human Realm. I will grant you safe passage to leave."
"Will he abide by your promise?"
"I will make sure of it."
"Fine." This was it. Barbas took a deep breath. "I can tell you how to heal him." He would prefer that she didn't ask how he knew but that was impossible. And even if she didn't ask, she would figure it out.
"You...." Her mouth tightened and her face grew pinched. He saw understanding hit her at once. The Fae had only used this weapon once. Against the Demons. And as that understanding washed over her face, she stepped away. For one small moment, he mourned the loss of her body resting against his. But that was for later. Now he needed to give her the information and get the hell out of the Fae Realm.
Aine took another step back, chest and chin up as she focused on her lover. Her lying, deceiver of a lover. Pain pierced her chest like a dagger as she absorbed the weight of his admission.
"I do have a choice here." She forced a hardness into her voice, because if she didn't she was sure it would start to quiver. Goddess damn it, she'd given him everything and he'd deceived her at every turn. "I could kill you now."
He held very still. "True. But then you'd never learn how to heal your father. And you would end up in prison for the rest of your life."
She turned away from him to hide the sheen of tears, a weakness she could not afford to reveal. "You have put me in an untenable position."
"I am aware."
She shook off the melancholy. She would weather this. She was a Fae princess after all. "Tell me."
"After you release me from these chains."
Without a word, Aine lifted the key from the king's belt and unlocked his restraints.
"Now."
And so he did. "I would also request that you escort me out before you attempt to awake the king."
Aine hesitated. What if the entire procedure was a lie? "If it does not work I will hunt you down and kill," she stumbled over the word. "You."
"Fair enough."
"One last question. What are you?" She couldn't fathom what he was. He'd said half Fae, and she'd sensed no Demon in him. However she couldn't imagine that the Demons would let a Human in on the secret of how to heal the Fae zap.
He grimaced. "I am a true hybrid. My mother was Fae."
"So you lied about looking for her."
"I didn't say I was looking for her. I said I was looking for the Fae."
Aine reviewed their conversation carefully. He was right. he hadn't lied. Except.... "By omission, then."
"True. I don't want to find her. She abandoned me and my father."
That brought up the second half of her question. "Your father?"
He looked at her, his dark blue eyes tormented. "Demon."
Aine gasped and fell back. "So you are here...."
"To spy on the Fae."
Aine's body rebelled. She leaned over and threw up the contents of her stomach into the bucket in the corner. Her lover...was a Demon. The most hated creature in her universe and she had not only welcomed him into her body, she'd allowed him access to the Fae Realm.
She'd given him everything. And he'd taken it all and betrayed her.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again. Barbas took the blanket from his cot and wiped the sweat and grime from her face.
As a truthsayer she knew he meant it but the words were meaningless.
"It's time," he said softly. "You need to let me go."
Aine's shoulders wanted to hunch in over her shredded stomach. To protect her insides the way she hadn't protected her heart. She moved with the hesitant, aching step of an old woman. As if her best years were used up and far behind her. "I will keep my promise."
Barbas nodded once. "I know."
"I hate you," she said but the statement lacked heat. For now, she was numb.
"I know." He tried to brush a strand of hair from her face, the gesture unbearably tender but she shied away from his touch.
"I am able to sense Demons. How did you hide your nature from me?"
"I can't tell you." His face was a mask of misery.
"Fine." She faced him, memorized his features, the strong blade of his nose, the soft sensitive curve of his bottom lip, the cut lines of his cheekbones, even the smooth roughness of his shaved head. "Once you leave, you are my enemy."
"We do not have to be enemies," he argued. "I will admit before I came to know you that I hated the Fae."
Her heart twisted, for hadn't she felt the same about Demons? Hadn't she believed them to be evil? And with the exception of hiding his true nature, hadn't he proven her wrong with his actions and words?
But that was inconsequential now. She had to banish him from this realm. And she really did hate him for making her want more. Making her want him. Making her think she was worthy of affection and touch. Making her question everything she'd ever known.
"Is that some Demon trick, to seduce?" she said bitterly as her regret overwhelmed her momentary melancholy.
"Seduction is the trick of the Fae," Barbas snapped. "I was sick of sex, sick of all intimacy, until you came along. So you tell me who seduced whom."
She turned away from him. "It's time for you to go."
"Yes."
Aine blindfolded Barbas.
"I am trusting you," he said softly.
"And I you." She glanced one last time at her father, knowing that when he awoke there would be a penalty to pay for her indiscretion.
Aine returned Barbas to the clearing. She purposely avoided looking at the old tree so she wouldn't remember their first encounter. Her first time. That moment seemed so long ago and yet, had it only been days. And the avoidance didn't work anyway.
"Goodbye, love," he said. The endearment pierced her heart.
Barbas melted into the forest. And she let him go. She had to. They were enemies. Forever.
FOURTEEN
Three months later
Aine gripped the bars of her Fae prison.
"Let me go," she demanded to the king. Fear fluttered in her stomach. She had been trapped here ever since the cure that Barbas had revealed worked and the king was back to ruling the Fae Realm.
In the last three months, the Fae had grown weaker, while the Demons continued to gain strength. There had been more battles. More losses. The Fae could not afford to go on as they had been.
She needed to escape for other reasons. She had a problem th
at she couldn't reveal to her father, yet soon everyone would know, unless she got some serious privacy.
"I can infiltrate the Demons." She would be reduced to begging soon.
Her father snorted. "Bah."
"I'll find him. Tell him you imprisoned me." Which was the truth. "I will spy on them. And if I can discover the Demon's secret to their gaining power, I will return with the knowledge for our people."
The king stroked his chin, his gaze trained far away. "How do you know he will accept you?"
"I don't." Aine was honest, at least in this. "I have nothing but my conviction that he won't throw me in the dungeon. But I believe I have a better chance than the random Humans you keep compelling."
Would he agree?
His hatred of Demons had only grown since Barbas took her virginity. At least that's how her father thought of it. In the deep of the night, she could admit to herself that she had given him her innocence freely. And she would likely do it again. Even to the lover who had betrayed her. The depth of his betrayal still gripped her heart, choking her like ivy vines around an unwilling host. The thought that she might once again see Barbas caused her heart to skitter for a beat as conflicting emotions warred within her breast.
"Why do you hate the Demons so?" She needed an answer. Needed to understand. Because she couldn't reveal her secret until she knew what was going on.
"Because they stole my love," her father roared.
Aine blinked. His love? Fae didn't love. Fae had sex, they had multiple partners, but they didn't love. At least that was what she'd always been told. So what was this?
"Your...love?"
"It was a long time ago," he dismissed her question with a flick of his fingers as he visibly reined in his temper. "It has no bearing on the present situation."
And yet, it did since he still hated the Demons and everything they stood for. So the only way she would ever get him to release her was if she could convince him that she was working for the good of the Fae, at least her father's interpretation of the good of the Fae.
