Fallen Queen (Lost Fae Book 2)

by May Dawson

  “Vacation?” I repeated in shock.

  “You look pretty,” her lips quirked playfully, “busted yourself.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She crossed the distance between us, and I stiffened. She paused close to me, but the sudden tension in my body was complicated. It certainly wasn’t because I was afraid to touch her or have her touch me.

  I’d just been remembering how much we used to touch each other.

  “I probably shouldn’t admit this,” she said, “but you’re pretty hot when you look all busted.”

  I scoffed, but she reached up and touched my face gently, her thumb resting on the cut in my lip. Her other hand rested lightly on my chest, steadying herself. I hoped she couldn’t feel my heart hammer.

  “I don’t know why they put me in here with you,” she said. “Another of Faer’s games, I’m sure. But I’m glad they did. I missed you.”

  “You shouldn’t be glad about anything. You’re in Faer’s dungeon and the Shadow Man is coming,” I said, my voice harsh. “You should be scared.”

  She stared at me, challenge written across her pretty face. I could never resist that look, the one that said she didn’t care how harsh my voice was or what I said. She always thought she knew better.

  “Well, I’m not scared,” she said lightly. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I was scared when we were separated.” Her silver eyes met mine, and even in the dim light of the dungeon, they seemed like pools of moonlight. “And I was scared swimming through a damned ocean to find you. And compared to that, being trapped in Faer’s dungeon doesn’t feel very scary at all. Not when you and I are together again.”

  My heart rose dangerously in my chest. “That’s because you’re an idiot.”

  She smiled. “You’re glad to see me.”

  “No,” I said, and the rancor in my voice came through so clearly that she pulled back a bit, raising a brow. “Nope. I am not particularly grateful that you came to rescue me and got yourself captured, like a fool. And now what will Faer do to you?”

  She shrugged. “Who says being captured wasn’t step one of my plan.”

  I gave her a stern look. “That sounds exceptionally moronic even by your standards.”

  “Duncan, in the minute and a half that we’ve been reunited, you’ve called me a fool, an idiot and a moron.” She glared right back at me fiercely, then gave in and smiled. “You can’t deny it; you have missed me.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “There you go again.” She leaned in close to me, close enough that the musty scent of the dungeon was overwhelmed by the sweet scent she carried, all roses and sugar and sunshine. She whispered in my ear, “Just say I’m glad to see you.”

  “I’d rather you were safe,” I grumbled, glowering at her. I gathered her wrists in my hand and leaned back slightly so I could see her face.

  “I know. Same.” She tilted her head. “At least now you can’t get away from me when I ask you to tell me the story of what happened to us before.”

  I scoffed at that. “Did you come all the way back to Faer’s dungeon and undo Raile’s hard work just to torment me? Nevermind, don’t answer. It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  Then I thought about how Raile had threatened revenge on her, and I said, “Did you have to get away from him? Did he hurt you? Did he do this?”

  My fingertips brushed underneath the bruise, the same tender way she’d touched me. The touch gave away more than I was willing to say, but I couldn’t stop myself. Her skin was soft as a petal.

  “So much fury on behalf of a girl you can’t stand,” she teased. “No, Raile was a perfect gentleman. Unlike you.”

  “Oh?” My brows arched.

  “Raile told me what he could about my past. You’ve been rather… unforthcoming.”

  I huffed. “Yeah, well, our past has been on my mind lately.”

  “Why did Faer do this?” she frowned as her fingertips traced lightly over my healing wounds. The dungeons were shielded from magic, so I couldn’t fix myself, but at least I healed faster than a mortal anyway.

  I didn’t want her to know Faer was trying to make her suffer, because she’d feel guilty—no matter what she said.

  “I told him that the Creator ruined a perfectly good asshole by putting teeth in his mouth.”

  Alisa ducked her head, hiding a faint smile. “I see. It seems to me like he overreacted.”

  “How was your adventure with Raile?”

  “Strange,” she said. “I fought a shark!”

  She said that with the exuberance that had always made her magnetic to me, and I almost smiled.

  “And a sea monster,” she said. “But Carter and Julian would be so jealous about the shark. I was already the coolest hunter in the mid-atlantic region, but that definitely cements my position.”

  “Carter and Julian. Your Hunter friends.” I felt a flare of jealousy, but it wasn’t so much because she was close with them; it was because they lived in another realm.

  Alisa always brought trouble to my world, but I still didn’t want her to ever leave it again.

  She smiled at my face, at whatever she saw there. “Yes, my friends. You and I were a little more than friends, weren’t we?”

  Did we have sex, Duncan?

  Is it story time, Duncan?

  Her teasing, glib tone echoed through my mind.

  I shouldn’t trust her. She’d only ever hurt me before.

  Azrael really is the better brother in every way, isn’t he?

  “I wish you had your memories back,” I said, “because there’s something that happened between us…. Something that I want to think was complicated and different…”

  “Tell me,” she said. “Please.”

  It was the genuine worry that threaded her voice that made me wonder.

  So I told her the story, about the stupid bracelet, and what she’d said. When I told her about how she’d said Azrael was always the better brother, she gasped, then raised her hand to cover her mouth, as if she wanted to take those words back across all those years.

  When I looked at her, I saw the old Alisa too, and I knew she never would have said those awful words to me for no reason.

  But I went on. I told her how I’d thrown the cursed bracelet into the fountain, only to find Herrick watching me.

  “That’s the part that’s always bothered me,” I finished.

  Her eyes were worried, a rare frown denting the skin between her arched eyebrows.

  “Later on, when I thought about it. It was as if he was waiting. As if he wanted to watch you hurt me.” I tilted my head, staring at her. “As if he knew what you would say.”

  “Because he did,” she said. “I found my diary, Duncan. Well, and then I lost it. I didn’t get to read it all.” She pulled a face, but real frustration was written across her face no matter how playful she was. “But I know what happened to us. Herrick poisoned our wine. Do you remember drinking wine together?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We had our own private party to celebrate your birthday. But I never had any signs of being poisoned.” I paused, thinking. “Unless he could activate the poison with a spell.”

  “So I had a good reason to hurt you.” Her voice came out flat, and those words seemed to hang in the air between us.

  I raked my hand through my hair. I’d hoped for an answer like that one, and hated myself for hoping. I’d been so angry and to have that long-held fury that had protected my heart suddenly diffused… I didn’t know what to do with how I felt. The cell wasn’t big enough to hold me; I felt as if I was going to go out of my mind, as if I were going to explode.

  Then suddenly, she was in my arms, pulling me close. Her lips met mine.

  Alisa kissed me hard, kissed me like she loved me, and all of sudden I didn’t feel angry anymore. All I felt was desire.

  “I should have trusted you,” I murmured against her mouth between kisses. “I should have track
ed you down in the mortal world and told you I’d always be on your side. I should have realized you’d always be on mine.”

  Her lips quirked against my cheek, and she paused, her fingers twined in my hair. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard, Duncan.”

  “Oh?” I pulled back to raise my eyebrows at her.

  “Groveling.” Her lips parted in a delighted smile. “You do it exceptionally well.”

  I growled at her, then pressed her against the wall. I collected her wrists in mine again so I could pin her against the stone, but she couldn’t stop smiling against my lips.

  She pulled away suddenly. “I have one more question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What did we do exactly to celebrate my birthday?”

  My lips found the spot at the corner of her throat where she loved to be kissed. “Mostly this…”

  Her chest fluttered against mine, as if that felt good to her, and satisfaction bloomed in my chest.

  “And this,” I nuzzled her throat, down to her shoulder.

  Her hands stroked across my body, lighting fire everywhere her touch passed.

  I gave in and lost myself to her, all over again. Our lips clashed together; her hands went to my jaw, pinning me still, her mouth claiming mine fiercely. I cupped the back of her head, and she smiled against my lips at the possessiveness before the smile was lost to our kisses. I teased the tip of my tongue between her lips, and her mouth parted for me.

  Just before she pushed me back toward the bed. I let her shove me but caught her hips, drawing her with me. Her fingers slid down the front of my pants, brushing over my massive hard-on before she shoved the thin material down.

  “In a hurry?” I demanded, stopping to rip her own shirt over her head. I threw it over my shoulder; her lips were parted with desire, her hair wild around her face.

  “I wanted a kiss for good luck before I faced the Shadow Man,” she teased.

  “Just a kiss?” I cupped her cheek with my hand, holding a distance between us, but I couldn’t resist caressing the fine line of her cheekbone with my thumb. “I think we’ve done that.”

  “If just a kiss is good luck, then fuck me and I should be unstoppable,” she said.

  I groaned with desire at those words, my fingers sliding back to tangle in her hair as I kissed her. She tilted her face up, kissing me back hard, her hands delving lower. She pushed my trousers down my hips to draw my cock out, and her hand wrapping confidently around my cock as if it belonged to her had me so hard that it almost hurt. She touched me like she owned me. The two of us yanked each other’s clothes off, until she was naked and gorgeous, shining in the dim light.

  I glanced behind us at the ancient straw-stuffed mattress. “I don’t think you want to make much contact with that bed, Princess.”

  “Still claiming I’m a snob, huh?”

  “Oh, that’s just one of the many names I’d call you,” I promised her. I ran my hands down her hips, felt her grind forward against me. She pressed herself against my thigh as if she needed me, and I could never resist that.

  “You’re such a sweet talker,” she said.

  “I save the nice words for nice girls.” I grabbed her hips and spun her around so her back was to me. Her ass pressed against my cock as she pressed her back to my chest, tilting her face up, her eyes heavy-lidded with desire.

  “Oh, bullshit. There are no nice girls for you. There’s only me.” A faint, cocky smile crossed her lips, but then, she spoke the truth.

  “Arrogant princess,” I whispered.

  “Wretched prince,” she murmured, as if some part of her remembered. Warmth curled through my body like the summer sun shone on us even in the perpetual dusk of the dungeons.

  My lips brushed hers in a sweet, tender kiss, no matter that the two of us could never stop insulting each other.

  I put a hand on her lower back and pushed her down, and she grabbed the edge of the bed, looking over her shoulder at me with a smile—and still, I could’ve sworn, that damn edge of challenge.

  I pressed my tip against her and it slid easily in her wetness. “The dungeons get you hot, hm?” I teased as I rubbed myself in circles around her opening, teasing her.

  She pressed her ass back against my cock, seeking more. “Actually, it’s the prospect of rescuing your ass and having you forever in my debt that turns me on.”

  “You don’t want to play a game of payback with me, Princess.”

  She looked at me over her shoulder, her beautiful mouth shaping into a smirk. “Oh, I think I do.”

  I thrust inside her, and her back arched, her fingers tightening on the bed. She was still smiling, though, and I knew what she liked hadn’t changed. She still felt so good, too, her pussy tight around my cock. I pounded into her, and the rhythmic sound of my balls slapping against her seemed to echo through the chamber. She bit her lower lip, hair flying, shoving her ass back as if to urge me to fuck her even harder.

  I ran my fingers over the curve of her ass, teasing against her rosebud, and her hips jerked in a familiar way, her channel tightening around me. The two of us moved together, both of us panting, until she slammed her hips back against me and paused, her moan breaking the air. I stopped too, buried deep inside her, feeling her thighs tremble. I wrapped my hands around her hips, holding her steady, still buried deep inside her, making sure she wouldn’t fall.

  She pulsed around me, and the power of her orgasm pushed me over the edge. I began to pump into her again as my cock twitched. I tried to hold back a groan of my own, but I never could with her; the sound wrenched from my lips as I erupted.

  She twisted in my arms to press a kiss to my lips.

  “And here I thought you hated me,” she murmured.

  I scoffed, cupping her jaw with my hand. “Don’t be stupid. What’s between us has never been as simple as hate.”

  She raised her brows at me, her lips quirking ruefully. “You are such an ass.”

  “What does it say about you that you…” I was mocking her, but I hesitated just for a second over the words want me.

  “Love you?” she filled in. “I guess you’re right, I really must be stupid.”

  I stared at her and she stared right back. Had she really meant that?

  There was a clanging sound down the hall. My heart began to pound. They were coming for her, I just knew it. I grabbed her shirt and threw it at her, and she caught it out of the air and hastily pulled it on over her head. Her eyes were wide and at first I thought she was afraid, as she dragged her pants over her hips.

  She looked up at me just as half a dozen of Faer’s guards rounded the corner. He really wasn’t taking any chances with her.

  “Trust me,” Alisa mouthed, giving me one last smile before she turned to face the guards.

  She didn’t look back when they took her away, but then, she never did.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Alisa

  When they dragged me in front of Faer, he looked disgusted, but then he so often did.

  The guards pushed me down to the cold marble floor, and I hit my knees hard, but my spine went very straight—the perfect posture of a princess. Faer lay comfortably on his couch, his feet propped up on the fabric.

  He regarded me with cold amusement. “How did you find Duncan?”

  “In good spirits, as usual. You know him. Always sees the bright side.” I shifted on my knees,

  “Mm.”

  I started to rise to my feet, but he shook his head. “No, don’t bother to get up.”

  Suddenly, vines that crept up the wall raced across the marble floor and knocked me over. I landed hard on my ass and was instantly rolling, fighting, but the vines slithered everywhere, faster than I could fight them off. I thrashed as they snaked across my limbs, curling around my skin, then stilled when I realized I couldn’t escape. Not yet.

  But I had my magic, because it wasn’t restrained down here like in the dungeon, and my wits. So not the best odds, but I could work w
ith that.

  “Why do you hate me so much, Faer?” I asked. “We were close when we were kids.”

  “You were a spoiled brat who always got what you wanted… until you didn’t get the kingdom.” He shook his head mournfully. “A girl should know her place.”

  I was sure that Herrick had enchanted him somehow. Was he ever going to break free of that enchantment? Was there a way to save him?

  He leaned forward suddenly, a goblet of wine in his hand. “You know there are people whispering your name, Alisa? Saying the queen of summer is here to save them.”

  He leaned back with a grunt. “They’re as ungrateful as you always were.”

  “You have a hard life,” I said with mock sympathy.

  He waved a finger, and the vines tightened. I gritted my teeth, I couldn’t help it.

  He looked pleased at the expression, then frowned, his gaze finding the bruise on my cheek. “Someone hurt you.”

  “You seem awfully upset about that for someone who currently is engaged in…hurting me.”

  “Your beauty’s always been the one worthwhile thing about you.” He waved his fingers, and warmth tingled across my cheek. The wound must have healed, because he sat back with a look of satisfaction.

  “How was your time with Raile?” His voice was tight.

  I wondered if he and Raile had communicated. Raile and I hadn’t exactly left on good terms, but I couldn’t see him as my enemy either. Not anymore.

  “Lovely. I should have visited the undersea earlier.”

  “Then we could have avoided all this unpleasantness.” He gestured with the goblet. “Did you really come back for Duncan?”

  His voice dripped with condescension as he added, “He hasn’t cared for you since you broke his heart that night in the garden. Oh, you should have seen it, Alisa. You were such a callow creature.”

  That night in the garden.

  He spoke as if he remembered it. But it had been Herrick, not Faer, who had been there. Unless Herrick had told Faer about it.

  Or could Duncan have remembered wrong?