“Strewth!” She lurched back. Her heart raced, and she swallowed shocked little sips of air.
“It’s all right, Boulder. Move aside so I can see our guest.” At the command from the throne, the cyclops retreated. “I’m Twister, king of the Unseelie Fairy Court.” He crooked a finger at Ruby. “Approach.”
Ruby’s burst of anger faded with the realization that she was totally out of her depth. She’d learned to stand up for herself as a short, chubby, redheaded child, always on the move from school to school, but attitude and a smart mouth wouldn’t get her out of trouble this time. She needed help from someone who understood the fairy world.
“Is Nightshade here?” she demanded.
Twister’s eyes flared an inhuman gold. The inquisitive mumbling from the surrounding crowd stopped abruptly. Tension thickened the air, tightening Ruby’s muscles. Belatedly she wondered if she should have phrased her question more politely to royalty.
The sound of flapping accompanied by a sudden gust of air saved her from having to apologize. She threw an arm over her head and peered up as Nightshade dropped out of the dark sky to land at her side!
“Ruby, I thought it was you I heard calling for help.”
She was so relieved to see him, she stepped into his embrace as though that were the most natural thing in the world. For a few seconds she rested her cheek against his warm, solid chest, breathing in the smell of his skin. The fear twisting her guts slipped back a notch. It was almost worth getting dragged here by the beak-noses if it meant seeing him again.
“I’m sorry I got angry and sent you away,” she said.
“Don’t worry about that now. How did you get here?” he whispered.
She glanced down at her three abductors who had now prostrated themselves on the ground. “Those ugly morons kidnapped me.”
His lips thinned into a harsh line, and the potential for violence she had only glimpsed before gleamed sharply in his eyes. He tucked Ruby protectively under one arm before leaning over the three creatures and a growl vibrated in his chest. “What did you plan to do with her?” When he kicked the closest one, it hissed. “Tell me, or I’ll beat the truth out of you.”
“We want the reward,” it said.
“Reward?” Nightshade frowned. “What are they talking about?” he demanded, turning to Twister.
Before the king could respond, a spiral of smoke appeared in the air between them. A man materialized from it, his tawny skin radiating a soft glow.
Ruby crushed back against Nightshade, her pulse going crazy. “Blimey,” she said.
“He’s a friend,” Nightshade whispered in reply. “A djinn. He won’t hurt you.”
The newcomer glanced around, taking in the scene. He brushed back his black hair, revealing the pointed tip of an ear, while dark jewels adorning his ears and fingers glittered in the lamplight. His exotic masculine beauty took her breath away. When his gaze fell on Ruby, he flashed white teeth in a knowing grin, swept back the skirts of his long purple coat, and dipped downward in an elegant bow.
“I’m Devin, Master of the Darkling Road. You must be Ruby.”
With a beleaguered sigh, the Unseelie king came forward and rested an affectionate hand on Devin’s shoulder. “I should have known you’d contrive to involve yourself in this, djinn. You have a finger in every pie. You’re too much like your damn father for your own good.”
The men talked then. Ruby didn’t hear the words. She could only stare with horrified curiosity at the king’s arresting golden eyes and the ridges of scar tissue that slashed his once handsome face as though he’d been savaged. Tiny skulls were worked into his long dark dreadlocks, but they lost all shock value beside his fearful disfigurement. He wore a tooled leather jacket with an upright collar, the garment decorated with an intricate pattern of swirls and symbols burned or carved into the leather, all of the designs finished with embedded gold and jewels.
Ruby was so busy studying Twister that she only became aware of the grass creeping up her legs when their cold stalks reached the top of her boots. She jumped backward in surprise.
“Damn and blast!” She’d been standing safely on a rock and not noticed that the grass growing nearby had found her. Nightshade’s arms tightened protectively, but she struggled to get away from him.
“Let go. I need to move.”
By the time she managed to extract herself from Nightshade’s embrace, the grass had reached her thighs and was insinuating itself beneath the hems of her pajama shorts. Mortifyingly aware of her audience, Ruby yanked open her dressing gown and tore at the stems. But as fast as she pulled them away, more took their place.
Nightshade solved the problem by lifting her into his arms and stamping the writhing green strands to mush on the rock.
“Th-Thank . . . you.” Ruby’s panicked breaths calmed, and she glanced around at Twister and Devin. Twister stared at her with a twinkle of amusement.
“That was an interesting little diversion,” Devin announced with a wicked sparkle in his eyes. “What do you do for an encore?”
Nightshade gathered her tighter against his chest and glared. “What in the Furies caused the grass to assault her?”
Devin held up his palms in denial. “That was a new one on me.”
Nightshade’s censorious gaze fixed on the Unseelie king, who thoughtfully rubbed a scar on his chin. He sidestepped Devin and grabbed one of the prostrate beak-noses by its collar, hauling it to its feet. The creature’s breath hissed in and out in distress.
“You claim this is the woman I asked you to find, scavenger?”
“Sniff her, my king. She is the new Mistress.” A murmur of surprise swept through the watching crowd.
Ruby had just decided she should explain that it was her own fault the grass attacked her, but the word mistress snapped her attention back to the men. How could she have forgotten what the beak-noses said when they kidnapped her?
She jerked upright in Nightshade’s arms, bracing an elbow against his chest, and glared at Twister. “You couldn’t pay me enough to be your mistress.”
Devin chuckled, and Ruby rounded on him with narrowed eyes. “Or yours, Mr. Eye Candy. I’m not for sale.”
“Hey, she thinks I’m eye candy,” Devin crowed, his grin widening.
Nightshade growled and jerked Ruby against him, his grip so tight she could hardly breathe. “They’re not talking about that type of mistress, woman. Be quiet and stop embarrassing us.”
A red mist filled Ruby’s gaze, and she punched Nightshade on the shoulder. “Embarrassing us? I’m the one who’s been kidnapped and dragged here half-naked.” She struggled in his arms. “Put me down!” She hated depending on anyone else. She could look after herself.
Nightshade lowered her to her feet, scowling; then the sharpness of his gaze softened and he released a pent-up breath. “I’m sorry.”
As he looked down at the ground, she felt a little kick of remorse in her chest. Nightshade had answered her cry for help and stood up for her. Yet, here she was taking out her anger on him when it was clearly the king’s fault she’d been kidnapped.
She touched Nightshade’s arm, and his eyes rose to meet hers. “I’m really glad you’re here. I wanted to see you again. I’m just a little stressed out right now.”
He gave a single brief nod, and she hoped she was forgiven.
Ruby faced the king with a questioning lift of her eyebrows. “Why did you have me dragged here against my will?”
Twister dug in his pocket and tossed three gold coins toward the beak-noses. Then he pivoted around and stared at Ruby. He subjected her to his brooding scrutiny while he fingered his scarred chin. “Tell me about your parents, Ruby.”
The coil of tension inside her wound tighter. She doubted he wanted to know that her mother had been obsessed with supernaturals and it had eventually gotten her killed. He wanted to know about her father. She did, too, but she had a nasty feeling her father’s identity was about to get her into trouble.
Nigh
tshade stepped closer, and his hand rested lightly at her waist. “You have nothing to fear while I’m here,” he said softly.
She drew in a shaky breath and released it. “If my mother’s to be believed, my father looked like an angel.”
Devin said under his breath, “I assume ‘angel’ translates to golden hair and white feathery wings. Got to be Kade.”
An excited chatter rose from the crowd, and people started to scatter with a patter of running feet.
“Thor’s blood!” Twister glanced around as if he’d just woken from a trance. “I should have known better than to do this in public. Word that we’ve found the new Mistress will get back to the Seelie Court within minutes. We must get her to safety before the Seelie huntsmen send out their specters to track her.”
The unquestioning acceptance that her father wasn’t human numbed Ruby with shock. Despite her mother’s stories and Ruby’s strange magical affliction, until that moment, she hadn’t entirely believed it was true.
“Hold on! Why’s she in danger from the Seelie Court? Tell me what’s happening,” Nightshade demanded. But Twister had already hurried away, issuing orders to break camp.
Ruby had been wondering the same thing. On unsteady legs, she took half a step back against the reassuring solidity of his body. His arms closed around her, and his warm strength helped ground her.
Devin closed in and placed a hand on Nightshade’s shoulder, making sure to keep his whispered words quiet. “Kade is one of the few winged individuals in the Seelie Court. His mother was the Mistress of the Beasts. I’m sorry to be blunt, Ruby, but I haven’t time to dress up the truth. Kade’s one of the Seelie huntsmen, and he’s a nasty piece of work. Eavan and Nairne, the Seelie king and queen, have threatened to throw him out of their court many times, but they’ve never followed through because they couldn’t risk offending his mother. Now his mother’s dead, his only chance of maintaining his privileged position is if he controls you.”
So, her father was a selfish jerk. No surprise there after the way he’d seduced her mother, then never shown his face again.
“I’m not a lost bag he can reclaim now he thinks I’m useful. He can go to hell,” Ruby snapped. “I don’t belong to anyone.”
“I’m afraid that’s not how things work here,” Devin said on a sigh. “If you are the new Mistress of the Beasts, you’re a valuable commodity. As an unbonded female, some male will claim you. We must make sure whoever it is has your best interests at heart.”
Ruby laughed without humor. “The man who tries to claim me better have balls of steel.”
A grin flashed across Devin’s face, and he slapped Nightshade on the shoulder. “You might have met your match, my friend,” he announced.
Nightshade glanced suspiciously at the nearby crowd. “I must take her to safety.”
Devin ran his gaze over Ruby, annoying her. “She’s well built. Can you fly carrying her?”
“Hey, pretty boy”—Ruby poked Nightshade’s friend in the chest—“I’m not deaf.”
His hands skimmed through the air, outlining the shape of a curvy woman. “Well built in a good way, Ruby. Take her to the Unseelie Court,” he added to Nightshade.
Nightshade glanced at her, clearly seeking her agreement. “Sounds like the safest place for you at the moment,” he said.
She huffed a frustrated breath. What she really wanted to do was return home with Nightshade and take up where they’d left off, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think she could protect herself if these Seelie huntsmen followed her home. “Where exactly is the Unseelie Court?”
“Follow me.” Twister appeared out of the bustling crowd and snapped his fingers to capture their attention. The air shimmered. His outline dissolved, then re-formed in the shape of a golden eagle, and without touching the ground the bird soared into the night sky.
Ruby’s mouth dropped open. “Strewth,” she whispered. “He just changed shape!”
“That’s what he’s named for.” Devin glanced up when the eagle swooped low with an impatient screech. “Twisting means changing shape. Better get going before you lose him.”
After seeing Twister morph into an eagle, being carried into the air by a man with wings seemed almost prosaic.
* * *
By the time Nightshade landed near Twister beside a grassy hump, Ruby was shivering with cold on the outside but tingly and hot on the inside. With all the kerfuffle before they took flight, she hadn’t considered what it would feel like being in Nightshade’s arms while he flew. The intimate ripple of his muscles against her body as he powered his wings soon wiped all worry from her mind and reminded her of the excitement of having his big body pressed over hers in bed.
Between one blink and the next, Twister had transformed back into a man. “We need to get inside. The Seelie specters have found her.”
Ruby followed his gaze to see two ghostly white shapes streaking through the air toward them. A shiver racked her already chilled body. They exuded malevolence.
“Open the damn door,” Nightshade shouted.
Twister kicked a boulder half buried in the ground, exposing a hole in the side of the mound. Nightshade jumped through, carrying Ruby, Twister close on his heels. The door thumped shut behind them. They caught their breaths in stunned silence.
“Were those ghosts?” Ruby whispered, having found the insubstantial white creatures more disturbing than anything she’d ever seen.
“Seelie hunters send out specters to track their prey,” Twister explained. “As far as I know, specters are thought forms created by the hunter’s minds. The strength of a specter depends on the strength of the hunter. Some specters can only track; others can disable prey until the hunter arrives.”
Ruby hugged herself, hoping she didn’t meet the Seelie hunters whose minds had produced those two sinister creatures.
The door opened again, and Devin stepped through. “The specters have chased you down,” he announced.
“Old news, Dev,” Twister replied. “Show Ruby and Nightshade to my study. I’ll be back shortly.” He strode away down the hall.
Ruby shivered. Devin shrugged off his coat and held it out.
Nightshade stiffened. “I’d have given you my coat if I had one,” he whispered.
“I know you would.” She pressed her cheek against the bulge of his pectoral muscle, his heart thumping steadily beside her ear. She didn’t know what she would have done without him tonight. She was deeply in his debt.
He lowered her to the ground and draped Devin’s coat around her shoulders. Ruby snuggled into the warmth of the oversized garment and closed her eyes. The fabric smelled wonderful, like the incense she burned in her art studio while she worked.
Devin led them along a corridor of hard-packed earth. Ruby kept a wary eye on her feet, ready to evade any attack by rampant plant growth that might occur. Devin noticed.
“You can relax. No one’s powers work in the Bunker,” he said. “The place is ensorcelled to absorb all magic to feed its protective spells. Nothing gets inside the Bunker unless Twister wants it in.”
Magic? In the back of her mind, she’d known her power to make things grow was magic, but since her mother died in suspicious circumstances she had tried to rationalize magic away. It seemed she couldn’t hide from the truth any longer.
The short earthen corridor soon gave way to a stone-built hall that sloped down at a gentle angle, taking them deeper underground. Wooden doors were set into the walls at intervals. Every ten yards, a narrower passage led off to either left or right. After about ten minutes, Devin took a turn and opened the door at the end of the corridor.
“These are Twister’s private rooms,” he announced, holding the door open. Nightshade went in first and checked to make sure it was safe.
She had no expectations of what she’d find on the other side of the door, so Ruby was momentarily transfixed with surprise when she entered. All green leather and dark wood, the room seemed a masculine study lifted out of a historic ho
use and buried underground. A Chesterfield settee flanked by matching chairs sat in front of a roaring fire in a hearth. The richly polished antique furniture glowed in the firelight, along with gleaming brass knobs and handles. Lights flickered within glass sconces on the walls, giving the room a slumberous glow. The only modern thing visible in the room was an Apple MacBook on a desk at the far end.
The upside of having no windows was extra wall space. Bookshelves stacked with old leather-bound volumes covered one wall, while a fascinating collection of metal contraptions decorated the other three. Devin dropped into one of the chairs, but Ruby and Nightshade both circled the room examining the whirring, ticking, clicking metal curios: circles spun within circles, hands clicked back and forth, pendulums rose and fell, and small doors opened and closed on tiny figures and animals.
Nightshade stopped by a leather-topped table holding a complex model of a wheel containing ball bearings. “One of Leonardo Da Vinci’s perpetual motion machines,” he said, dropping to his haunches to get a better look. He glanced around with awed incredulity. “Fascinating. All these devices must be perpetual motion machines.”
“Are you an enthusiast?” Twister asked from the doorway.
Ruby turned, surprised she hadn’t heard the door open. Twister tossed her a blanket. She removed Devin’s coat, wrapped herself in the blanket like a disaster victim and, feeling shell-shocked by the bizarre changes in her life, sagged into a chair before the fire.
Nightshade and Twister discussed perpetual motion, so Ruby sank into a sleepy stupor. She roused when a small creature with brown stick-thin legs and arms, which she recognized as a brownie, brought oatcakes and mugs of mulled wine. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she started eating. But as she chewed, a terrible thought hit her.
“My house is unlocked, and I’ve forgotten about my poor dogs.” She put down her plate and forced herself up on aching legs. What she wanted to do was sleep for a week, but she couldn’t leave her dogs alone.
Twister cast her a veiled look. “If you leave the Bunker, you’ll be an easy target for the Seelie hunters. Once they have you, you’ll be lost to me. Lost to us, I mean.”
The Ruby Kiss Page 5
