by E. A. Copen
Odette stepped between me and Titania. “Mother…”
“I’ll do it,” I said quietly.
Odette spun around, the expression on her face a mix of horror, disbelief, and pity.
“Speak up,” Titania ordered, standing.
This time, it was my turn to avoid looking at Odette. I raised my chin and cleared my throat so there’d be no mistaking what I said. “I will serve as the Summer Knight and protect Odette until your current knight recovers or dies and another is selected, provided I’m allowed to pursue my own interests within reason. I give you my word as the Pale Horseman. Though I’m not sure that will be enough, I’ll do my best.”
A wicked smile spread over Titania’s lips. “You choose your words carefully.”
“I’ve made deals with fae before.”
“Very well, Horseman.” Titania gestured for the guard to come forward. He marched up to her and stood by her side. She gripped the sword at his hip and drew it. “I will accept your formal oath of service immediately.”
I moved to step forward but stopped when I felt the weight of Beth’s hand on my shoulder. “Lazarus, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
I offered her what I hoped was a reassuring smile and placed my hand over hers. “It’ll be okay. Promise.” Her hand fell away as I walked forward.
Odette joined the queen as I reached her, standing opposite the knight and behind the stump throne. Her expression was unreadable, the same guarded look she had the night she’d been waiting for me in my apartment to tell me she was leaving. A mask, signifying it was all an act and she was just playing her part in the charade.
“Kneel,” the queen commanded.
I knelt.
In a flash of movement, she brought the sword to rest on my right shoulder. It was heavier than I expected and made me feel a lot more nervous having a potentially lethal blade that close to my unprotected neck. “I, Titania, the Matron of Flowers, Lady of Passion and Warmth, Conqueror of the Summer Sea and Queen of Life do accept your oath and pledge to you my own. From this day until the completion of your service, no hand shall strike you without reproach.” As she spoke, she moved the sword over my head to touch my left shoulder with the flat of the blade. “Arise, Sir Lazarus, as my Summer Knight.” She offered me a hand, and I took it, rising to my feet.
I expected some magical change, some transfer of power or understanding at least. Being the knight of one of the fae courts seemed like it should come with more than just a fancy title and the promise of vengeance if I got smacked around. But there was no swirl of magic, no big whammy of power.
“That’s it?” I tried to pull my hand from Titania’s grip, but she held tight. No matter how I pulled, she didn’t let go. Impressive for a lady.
“Not quite,” she said with a smirk and something sharp bit the inside of my wrist.
I looked down just in time to see the head of a green snake slide back up Titania’s sleeve. Two red pinpricks swelled to the surface of the inside of my arm. A line of burning green light slid up the vein, and I panicked, pulling back.
She let me go, and I stumbled back a step, suddenly overcome by dizziness. The forest turned into a tilt-a-whirl, and I went down with it but didn’t come up. Fire and light raced under my skin, filling every vein, artery and capillary and me with a pain I couldn’t begin to translate into words. All the deaths I’d experienced when I became the Pale Horseman, and all the stabbing, burning, and bruises I’d suffered since paled in comparison to the raw power that burned me from the inside out. I lifted my hand in front of my face, screaming, and watched it erupt in an ethereal viridian flame that traveled over the rest of me.
But it wasn’t just my body that was burning. A flame of magic sparked in my mind and lit every neuron on fire to make them all fire at once. Every emotion I’d buried and kept hidden surged to the surface at once. Loss and grief over Lydia’s death and Odette’s leaving, the anger at being stood up by Beth and cornered into the situation I’d had to endure with Khaleda, the pride I’d buried under false humility at being the best necromancer I knew. Every ounce of hidden emotion bubbled up and out in an anguished scream, and I was left naked, physically and emotionally, in front of everyone.
Something moved under my back. Roots pushed out of the ground and into me, propelling me back to my feet. A carpet of white flowers sprang from the forest floor and raced to cover my feet as if they were alive. I screamed again as something pushed its way through the skin on my chest and arms. Looking down, I was terror-stricken at the sight of my body turning itself into a flower bed. Tulips, poppies, and sunflowers sprang from every pore of my skin as if it were nothing more than dirt in a garden. I flailed, gripped one of the flowers, and pulled its stem and root from my chest in a waterfall of blood and gore. Tree roots crawled from the ground and wrapped around my wrists, jerking my arms away. Nature held me, helpless, as it consumed me.
Above, a summer rainstorm brewed. Rain pelted me, every raindrop a sharpened lance. Lightning struck a section of tree root that had grown through my palm, and my world exploded in a blinding flash of fire and light.
For a time, pain and light were the only things I knew. Eventually, even the pain faded and I found myself on my knees in a field of poppies, gripping a gnarled five-foot length of braided wood. A new staff. Before me, the brightly colored flowers bowed. Beyond them, white sandy beaches dipped into a sea of sparkling blue. I closed my fingers around the wood in my hand and felt something else, something inside the wood, squeeze back. A glowing green miasma of power surrounded both the staff and my hands, and I got the distinct feeling of a presence inside the staff nodding in approval.
Power surged from the staff into me, and everything turned a shade of inky, dark green.
Chapter Four
I woke up in the very same bed I’d woken up in last time. This time, the room was dark and cool. Crickets chirped outside the window and fire danced inside the lanterns on the wall.
My head screamed. I groaned and lifted my hand to my forehead.
“I warned you,” said Beth’s voice beside me.
I turned my head and found her sitting in a chair, one knee pulled up and arms wrapped around it. She was still wearing the same fiery gown from earlier, though her hair was no longer in a braid, but hung in a loose ponytail.
“What happened?” My voice sounded thin and scratchy. I couldn’t understand why until I remembered I’d been screaming earlier.
Beth turned away. “You did something stupid again.”
“Not that.” I sat up. The pounding in my head only got mildly worse. “Why are you here? Last I heard from you, you were getting ready to board a plane to come see me.”
“I never got on the plane,” she said, shaking her head. “I sat down to wait for the boarding call and I must’ve fallen asleep. I don’t remember exactly. But I do remember waking up here. I was brought in front of the queen and informed that I’d be acting as a midwife for the princess. I wasn’t exactly given a choice.”
I cringed. There were stories in Faerie folklore about young women being carried off to serve as midwives for the fae. According to the stories, fae births were such a rare occurrence that even their healers didn’t know how to handle it. So, they sought out people on Earth who did and brought them to Faerie, forcing them to assist in the birth and rearing of the child. Beth wasn’t exactly an expert of birthing babies, but she was a healer. Her magic lent itself to that sort of thing.
But they still could’ve chosen anyone else. The only reason the Summer Queen would’ve chosen Beth was because of her connection to me. I didn’t know why, or what she hoped to gain from it. Maybe she hoped that having another ally here would make it easier for me to stay and say yes. Maybe it was all for the scene in the throne room. Who knew? I did know I didn’t like how Titania had used Beth to manipulate me.
None of that made it out of my mouth when she revealed what happened though. All I could think about on the surface was the date that had never happ
ened. “You didn’t stand me up on purpose.”
“Of course not, Laz.”
I suddenly felt like an even bigger jerk. While she’d been in Faerie, forced into servitude, I’d been off enjoying a dinner with Emma Knight, giving away the gift I’d bought for her, and sleeping with another woman. Man, I hoped I wouldn’t have to explain the last part of that right away. It was already going to be hard enough to ask her to accept what’d happened with Odette.
I cleared my throat. “So, uh, about Odette…”
Beth rose to her feet, going to the archways that led to the balcony. “Of course that’d be the first thing you’d want to talk about.”
“Would you rather I ignored the elephant in the room?”
“You could’ve told me before.” She crossed her arms.
“What was I supposed to say? Hi, Beth. How’s it going? I just escaped from Faerie where I killed the Shadow Queen and her knight with a tea bag and met up with my pregnant ex?” I pushed off the blankets and stood on wobbly legs. “I didn’t know, Beth. Not when she left me. Not when we ran into each other. Not until I came back.”
She turned around, her mouth set in a hard line. “You had a month. We had e-mail, text, phone calls until two in the morning.”
I clenched my fists. “If I’d told you about Odette, what would you have said? Tell me you wouldn’t have broken it off immediately or suggested this wasn’t going to work?”
“I don’t know what I would have said. You didn’t give me a chance to say it.” She turned away.
Inside, I cursed myself. She was right. Whatever my reasons were, they weren’t good enough. I’d asked her to trust me, and I’d lied to her by omission. Not just a small lie either. This was big, Earth-shattering, life-changing news. It wasn’t something I could just sweep under the rug and pretend like wasn’t happening. It was.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what else to say.”
She didn’t answer.
I closed my eyes and sighed before crossing the room to lean on the opposite side of the arch. At first, I studied the profile of her. Beth was one of those girls who never saw herself as pretty, no matter how many times you told her otherwise. She looked in the mirror and saw a face that was too long, a body that was the wrong shape, and hair that was too thin. She’d once told me she thought her eyes were her worst feature because they were brown. Brown, she’d said, just like everyone else’s.
I disagreed. Nobody else I’d ever met had eyes that lit up like hers whenever she talked about some obscure historical fact. Nobody else’s eyes had the weight and depth hers did. Looking into them was like staring into the core of the Earth itself, like the first time I’d touched magic, real magic. Deep, powerful, mysterious magic. It may have appeared blue or red or any other color when pulled into this plane, but I could never imagine really powerful magic as being any other color than the same onyx brown of Beth’s eyes. I’d have told her so but saying things like that out loud sounded silly. And she wouldn’t listen to me anyway.
I looked out through the arch at the waving trees in the sunset breeze. “I met her outside a radio station, of all places. Some local program called me in to do an interview. Turned out to be more of a point-and-laugh session since no one there believed in the supernatural. After it was over, I walked out feeling pretty sorry for myself and stopped to get a hot dog at one of those crappy carts. She was in line in front of me and short twenty cents. So, I did what anyone would do and helped her out. We sat down on a bench and ate hot dogs together. She’d heard the broadcast and thought the radio show hosts were jerks. We hit it off after that. Or seemed to.”
“Seemed to?” She gave me a sideways glance.
“Didn’t find out later that she’d influenced me with Faerie magic. Used her power to make me like her and feel protective of her. Eight months she did that, Beth. I didn’t know. Not until she was gone.” I sighed and wandered away from the arch to pace. “She was in the Shadow Court as their prisoner when I arrived to confront Nyx. I was pretty damn shocked to see her. Even more shocked to find out she was pregnant with my kid. We talked. Decided we’d play things by ear going forward, but that we were over. We’re on weird terms, me and Odette. But anything I felt for her wasn’t real.”
“That didn’t stop you from jumping to her defense.”
The bed squeaked loudly as I sat down on it. “She’s the mother of my child, Beth. A child who hasn’t done anything wrong, I might add. And even after what Odette did, she doesn’t deserve to die for it.”
“No.” Beth closed her eyes and cocked her head to the side. “I guess not. Still doesn’t mean I can’t be mad at you for not telling me.”
“Be mad. I deserve it. Just quit raking me over the coals over this for now, will you? I’ve sort of got bigger problems.”
“Like turning into a ghoul?”
I grimaced. “You know about that?”
She opened her eyes and offered a small smile. “Who do you think treated your wounds for three days? My magic might not work on you, but you’d be crazy to think I was going to leave it up to these Faerie quacks to patch you up and treat your fever. They wouldn’t understand human anatomy and physical limits if you beat them with a biology textbook. Anyway, it looks like you and me are in a similar situation.” She started across the room, but her foot caught on the ornate rug and she stumbled.
I surged to my feet and tried to stretch to catch her. Her hands closed on mine, but she didn’t stop falling and wound up pulling me down with her. We crashed to the floor together, me hitting hard on my knees. “Jesus, Beth,” I said, wincing. “You’re going to be the death of me, you know that?”
“Sorry. Guess I’m still clumsy me.” She started adjusting her dress so she could get up.
“I like clumsy you.”
Beth’s eyes shot up, away from the fabric twisted around her heel and met mine. Hungry fire sparked in the bottomless depths of those brown eyes. I couldn’t help myself. I cupped the side of her face and leaned in to kiss her. Her lips were soft and warm, not scorching hot like before, but still left mine tingling. New hunger filled me, different from what I’d felt at the kitchen door but no less powerful. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered that what I was doing was a bad idea, but the rest of me didn’t listen. When Beth leaned into me, deepening the kiss I lost all control. I needed her like I needed breath. More than I needed life itself.
It was only when she shoved me away hard enough to lay me flat on my back that I realized something was wrong. I blinked. Her bottom lip seemed unusually red, and there was a strange coppery taste on my tongue.
Beth touched her lip with two fingers, wide-eyed, and brought them away red. “What the shit? You bit the hell out of me!”
I spat blood into my hand and grimaced. So much for romance as a ghoul. Apparently, my brain was already hardwiring itself to think of people as meat. Dammit. I was going to have to keep anything that was even remotely similar to meat away from my mouth and that included kissing. “I’m sorry, Beth. It’s this ghoul thing. I swear, it’s not me.”
Someone in the doorway cleared their throat. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
I turned my head. Odette stood in the doorway in the same dress from earlier, fresh curls in her hair, her hands folded under her oversized belly.
“No.” Beth scrambled to her feet, grabbing a folded white rag from the bedside table to put pressure on the lip. “I was about to bring him to you.”
I didn’t miss the appraising look Odette gave Beth, sizing her up, deciding if she were a threat. My standing up interrupted her gaze. “Guess there’s no need for that. You’re here. I’m here. We’re all here now.”
Odette finally stopped glaring at Beth to offer a blank look to me. “Mother is holding a banquet in your honor to introduce you to all the noble lords and ladies. You’re to escort Roshan and me.”
“Roshan?” I wrinkled my nose and tried to put the name to a face. The only person who would be escortin
g her would be her fiancé, whom I hadn’t been introduced to yet. “You mean Man-Bun?”
Something in Odette’s face changed. Her eyes widened, and she pressed her lips into a thin line, but none of that kept her shoulders from trembling. After a moment she couldn’t hold it in any longer and turned away, putting a hand over her mouth as she broke out in a fit of giggles. I looked to Beth for an explanation. She just shrugged, so I turned back to Odette.
“I’d forgotten how ridiculous you could be. Thanks for that. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good laugh, Lazarus.” Odette drew a finger under her eye, wiping away a tear. “I wouldn’t repeat that if I were you. Prince Roshan would be very offended.”
“Prince, huh?”
“Of course. Who did you think the Summer Princess would marry, Lazarus?” There was no accusation or scolding in her voice, but there was a hint of sadness. In that moment, I realized she didn’t want to marry Prince Roshan. Like everyone else, she was just playing her part.
Don’t get involved in the personal stuff, I reminded myself. I’m not here for that. I’m here to work on a cure and keep everyone else alive while I do it.
Odette forced a professional smile. “I’d better let you get dressed. I’ll send Declan in to assist you. Beth?”
Beth gave me a heavy look. I didn’t know what it meant other than that I’d screwed up. Again. At that thought, my stomach protested, reminding me I was your average red-blooded American Southern man. I’d much rather have a Po’ Boy loaded with plenty of deep fried shrimp than a salad. That hunger was too dangerous to feed, no matter how much meat I was craving.
I sighed. I hope this feast has a vegetarian option.
Chapter Five
As it turns out, having a feast thrown in your honor when you’re the Summer Knight doesn’t mean you get to enjoy it.
Walking into the feast hall packed with unfamiliar faces, all I could think about were the potential threats. The head table where the royalty sat—including Odette and Prince Roshan—was up on a dais. Since whoever had made the last assassination attempt had used magic, they didn’t necessarily need a clear shot, but they did need a line of sight which they would have from anywhere in the room. The balcony lining the upper floor seemed the most likely spot for an assassin to stand if he were going to zap somebody.
