by Linda Kage
“Because you called for him as if you already blamed him.”
“Of course, I blame him!” Caulder boomed. “Whether he helped you get it or not, you never would’ve thought that stupid bloody tattoo was so appealing if he didn’t have one.”
“That’s not true,” Nicolette muttered petulantly. “I thought they were neat before he even arrived at the castle. And he certainly can’t help having one himself, since it was given to him when he was an infant.”
“That doesn’t excuse the fact that he influenced you!”
“So what if he did?” Nicolette cried, throwing up her hands in an exasperated gesture. “Why are you so against the mark?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Caulder growled, “maybe because the one on Prince Urban caused him to lie to me and started up a completely unnecessary contention between him and Soren, not to mention it almost lost us our alliance with the entire kingdom of High Cliff. The damn tattoos are nothing but trouble, I swear.”
“My, my,” Yasmin murmured cheerfully, sailing in the room with a bright, perky smile. “Someone’s starting off the day in a temper. I could hear you two arguing all the way from the Throne Room, you know.”
Caulder whirled toward her, growling, “Where the hell have you been?”
Pausing in place with a surprised arch of her brows, the queen stared at the king a moment before slowly saying, “I was up in the East Salon, taking in the sunrise. Why, darling? What’s wrong?”
He scowled moodily. “You weren’t in bed when I woke.” Then he turned even gruffer, glancing conspicuously toward his sister before mumbling to his wife through gritted teeth, “I had need of you this morning.”
Immediately realizing what he meant, I grimaced. Eww. Had everyone in the freaking castle woken today with sex on the brain?
“Oh, you poor thing,” Yasmin cooed, striding to Caulder so she could cup his cheeks in her hands and press her lips to his. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you, my love. But I’m here now. At your complete disposal.”
He sniffed. “Except now I have Nicolette to deal with.”
“Why?” Yasmin asked, her voice dripping with sudden irritation as she glanced toward the princess. “What has she done this ti—Oh my God!”
Frozen, Yasmin could only gape at Nicolette’s mark.
The princess frowned back and turned slightly away from the queen so Yasmin couldn’t see the tattoo any longer.
“What….? When…?” Yasmin started, shaking her head. Then her eyes narrowed with rage. “How?”
Before Nicolette could answer, Urban strode into the room. “You called for me?” he asked Caulder, though his gaze strayed to me.
Suddenly remembering our dream from last night, I shifted, feeling all too warm and uncomfortable.
Urban skimmed his gaze over Yasmin and Nicolette before he settled his attention on the king. “What’s going on?”
I could tell he’d come straight from training. Not only was his face matted with sweat from his workout, but he was wearing the same tight pants, quilted vest, and sword belt as he’d been wearing the other day, with that same leather codpiece that seemed to catch Yasmin’s attention as fixedly as it had caught mine the first time I’d seen it.
When she went as far as to check out his backside and lifted her eyebrows in interest when he passed by, I narrowed my eyes, wanting to mutter something scathing about how I thought she found him to be too tall and brawny for her taste.
Realizing I was jealous of my own sister for merely looking at him, I glanced away, my face heating with shame and embarrassment.
Meanwhile, Caulder was glaring at Urban as he pointed toward Nicolette. “Did you know?”
“Know what?” Furrowing his brow, Urban glanced toward the princess in question, only to finally notice her mark. “Holy shit!” he exploded. “When did you get that?”
Nicolette bit her lip, risked a quick peek toward her brother, and returned her attention to Urban. “Last night.”
“My God,” he murmured, wandering closer so he could see the mark better. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
“It’s an outrage!” the king shouted. “No unauthorized magical people are allowed inside Donnelly. How could this happen?”
He looked right at Urban as he asked. But the prince merely frowned at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What? You’re asking me?”
“She has a permit,” Nicolette cut in, growing increasingly upset. “She got it to attend the wedding. She even showed it to me.”
“Wedding? What wedding?” the king boomed.
His sister blinked at him. “Umm, the only wedding that’s taken place in the last year. Brentley’s wedding…you know…to Allera.”
“Oh.” Then Caulder frowned even harder. “Well, what the hell was she doing there?”
Nicolette shrugged. “She said she wanted to bless their union or something like that.”
Caulder whirled threateningly toward Urban. “Your sister had a magical priestess attend her wedding to bless it? Inside my castle?”
Urban sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. “No,” he said, dropping his hand. “She didn’t summon one, anyway, if that’s what you think. Our priestesses in High Cliff are usually eager to bless royalty—for the health of the entire kingdom—without being called in. And they don’t typically approach us to do it, either. They don’t have to. She wouldn’t need to touch or even talk to Allera to bless her marriage. I’m sure my sister knew nothing of it. The priestess could’ve blended in with the crowd of guests and did her thing anonymously without anyone being the wiser.”
“Or she could’ve damned and cursed the marriage anonymously without anyone being the wiser,” Yasmin muttered.
Urban sent her an annoyed glance. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, that’s not the case with magic folk. At least, that’s not how it is in High Cliff.”
Yasmin narrowed her eyes, but Nicolette quickly popped in, saying, “She showed me her visitor permit signed by you, Caulder. She was here legitimately. She wasn’t trying to plot anything underhanded, I swear.”
“Oh, well, she seems perfectly legal then,” Yasmin sneered, rolling her eyes. “Someone with magical power showed you a certificate, insisting it was real, and then led you to believe they were friendly and honest, so you just let them tattoo permanent ink into your body. My God, Nicolette! How stupid can you be?” Whirling toward Caulder, she cried, “This… This is why I have insisted over and over again that she go to one of those academies. Because she can’t be trusted to act responsibly. I mean, just look at her! Look at what she’s done this time. It’s probably not even an authentic love mark.”
“Well, that part’s easy enough to determine,” Urban said. “Tap it five times with your pointer finger,” he instructed Nicolette.
She immediately began tapping her temple. “Oh!” she exclaimed when green, electrical sparks crackled from the ink. “That tickles.”
Urban grinned and nodded, then turned back to the king. “It’s authentic.”
“Incredible,” I said, moving closer to see everything better. “Does your mark do that?” I asked Urban without thinking.
When he glanced at me, memories flashed through me of our dream, making my body shudder with longing. Suddenly, I wished I hadn’t spoken to him at all. Now I just wanted to touch him, and smell him, and kiss him.
Smiling lightly, he gazed at me and tapped his temple five times. Red sparks instantly crackled from his tattoo. “If you were marked as well,” he murmured to me. “You would also be able to draw sparks from my mark.”
Nicolette clapped enthusiastically. “See, I wasn’t swindled,” she reported gleefully. “She was a real priestess.”
Urban nodded. “And I can reassure you she couldn’t have any kind of dark magic in her, either. To qualify for mark giving, all magic women swear a binding oath, agreeing that they’ll cease to exist the moment they receive any darkness inside them. They get tested fully before becoming a
mark giver, too, and since they die the moment they go bad—the oath they made kills them—there’s no way the priestess who tattooed Nicolette was here in Donnelly with any kind of evil intent.”
“Dark magic,” Nicolette gasped, her eyes going wide.
“What about it?” Caulder asked, frowning at her.
The young princess waved her hand, calling attention upon herself. “I just remembered, the priestess said something quite disturbing about dark magic. She took my hands and looked at them as if she could see some invisible dirt on them, and then she said I had touched someone full of dark magic that very day.”
“What?” Caulder boomed. He whirled accusatively to Urban. “What the hell does that mean?”
Urban shook his head and dismissively held up a hand toward the king as he studied Nicolette intently. “And this was when, yesterday, you saw her? Who did you speak to yesterday? Where did you go? Did you go to the market or visit anyone else outside the castle aside from the priestess?”
“No.” The princess shook her head with certainty. “My guard escorted me straight to the priestess’s room at the Cotton Maker’s Inn and then straight back home afterward.”
“And did you talk to or touch anyone on the road there or back? Or at the Inn? Did anyone approach you, trying to sell you anything or give you anything, hand you anything?”
“No.” She shook her head more insistently, frowning as she thought it through before shaking her head again. “Not at all. I only spoke to and touched the priestess.”
“What about inside the castle?” Urban asked.
“Well…” Nicolette heaved out a shuddering breath. “No. I mean, yes, of course, but only the usual people. Family, servants, guards. People I see every day. It’s hard to remember everyone, but it wasn’t anyone I didn’t know. I had no contact with any strangers at all.”
Urban shot the king a hard, knowing glance and sighed wearily.
“What?” Caulder demanded. “What does this mean?”
Urban shook his head. “I thought you said you didn’t allow any magical kind inside your castle, Your Majesty?”
The king grew alarmed. “I don’t.”
“Well, it sounds as if one is here, anyway.”
“What?” Caulder stormed closer to Urban. “Who?”
“I don’t know, not who or how they got in. But if it’s someone with dark magic in them, then it’s no one with any kind of good intentions.”
“That’s impossible,” Caulder blustered. “I banished all magic.”
“Yes,” Urban muttered sarcastically, “and I’m so sure someone with evil intent would follow every letter of your law and not conceal their powers from us, either.”
“Well, I don’t want them in my castle. I don’t care if their magic is good or bad.” He pointed threateningly at Urban. “Find him. Find him, and get rid of him.”
Urban’s eyes flared with shock. “Me?”
“Yes, you! You’re the head of my army, aren’t you? My leader in protecting the kingdom and providing its security? Well, secure my castle.”
“But I’m merely a mortal human. Only magic can even begin to detect other magic.”
“I trust you to ferret this scum out the mortal, human way, because I forbid any more magic inside my walls. Is that clear?”
“Not at all,” Urban started incredulously, but Caulder was done talking to him as he stormed from the room, his crew of guards following him.
Urban jerked up his hands in frustration. “Un-fucking-believable.”
Chapter 27
Vienne
“You know,” Yasmin said conversationally as her husband departed the Blue Chambers. She turned to smile at Nicolette. “From what you and Prince Urban said, this woman sounds like she might actually be the real deal. Maybe I should get a tattoo from her too, to prove to my husband they’re not so evil after all and that he is my one true love. Where did you say she was staying again, darling?”
“Oh! She’s at the Cotton Maker’s Inn,” Nicolette answered. “The top suite. But she plans to leave tomorrow, so you’d have to visit her today.”
“Yasmin,” I started cautiously. “I’m not sure Caulder would appreciate you getting a mark after we just saw the way he reacted to Nicolette’s.”
But my sister merely laughed off my concerns and waved a hand. “Oh pish. He can never stay mad at me. Why…” Smile brightening, she added, “We should go together and each get a love mark. Don’t you think, Vienne?” Her sharp smile slid toward Urban. “Maybe your one true love isn’t even the prince, here.”
Urban merely narrowed his eyes. “I doubt I would’ve been able to bring her back from the dead if I wasn’t.”
Or share dreams with each other, I silently added.
Yasmin sniffed, her smile deflating. “Maybe she wasn’t dead when you decided to put your High Cliff mouth all over hers. Maybe she was merely passed out from the pain. She had just given birth and lost all that blood.”
“What the hell does it matter to you?” Urban snarled, glaring. “The only person it affects is me, and my life is none of your fucking business, so who the fuck cares about any of it?”
“Oh, I think it might affect Vienne, who happens to be my sister, which I have a vested interest in.”
Urban glanced toward me, unable to argue, since his mark did affect me quite a lot… In our dreams.
“Please,” Nicolette started, growing visibly shaken. “Don’t fight. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t gone to that woman and brought the dark magic into the castle, none of this would be happening. Now we’re all in danger.”
“Oh, sweetheart, no,” I told her kindly. “The danger was already here. Your visit to the priestess only made us aware of it.”
“Well, I don’t want to be aware of it,” she complained passionately. “I want to go back to when everyone was safe and free from any kind of darkness.”
And she ran from the room in tears.
I sighed, not sure how to make her understand she’d done nothing wrong.
“You should go after her and talk to her,” Yasmin suggested.
I nodded and hurried from the room after the young princess. But I only got halfway down the hall before I slowed to a stop.
Wait a tick. Yasmin had never worried about soothing Nicolette’s feelings before. Instantly suspicious, I backtracked to the opening of the doorway and peeked inside to find that only Urban and Yasmin remained, with no servants lingering about.
And she was back to staring at his codpiece. “Do you really think you can find this dark…whatever that’s wandering around the castle?”
With a tired sigh, Urban ran his hand through his hair. “Hell, I don’t know. But I’m certainly going to try. I don’t want dark magic around my sister or…other people in the castle any more than the king does.”
Yasmin laughed lightly. “Other people, hmm? You mean, my sister? You can say her name, you know. Vee...yen. You don’t want dark magic around Vienne.” Wandering closer to him, she sent him an encouraging smile. “Go ahead, Prince. Say it. Say Vienne.”
His return frown was suspicious. “I don’t see why I need to say it if you already know what I’m talking about.”
Without answering, she simply murmured, “Hmm,” and tapped her chin as she studied his face. Then she dropped her hand suddenly as if ready to try a new track to get under his skin. “You know, I think it’s simply delicious how devoted you are to her.” Trickling out a flirty laugh, Yasmin walked her fingers up the center of his chest, making him lurch back and gape incredulously.
“Oh, don’t be shy, darling,” she said, shifting closer to him. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. In fact, I could make you feel very, very good.”
My mouth fell open, unable to believe what I was hearing. But had she just… No. No. Yasmin wouldn’t… But then… Holy shit. She would, and she had. She’d totally just propositioned my man.
Urban narrowed his eyes and shook his head, squinting. “No, thanks.”
“No?” she asked on a questioning smile. “Are you sure about that? Because…if you’re waiting on Vienne to decide to be disloyal to her husband so you can finally have her for yourself, you may be waiting a very long time indeed. She simply doesn’t stray from her vows. But me, on the other hand…” Her laugh turned husky as she pressed a hand to her chest. “Let’s just say, you wouldn’t have to wait that long for me.” Then she winked. “Or at all.”
“No,” he said again, his voice stronger and sterner this time. “I know she won’t be disloyal. And I’m not waiting. I just have no interest in you.”
Yasmin gasped from his rejection. “Why, you…” She swung out her hand to slap him, but he caught her wrist before she could make contact.
“I know why you’re sniffing around me,” he spoke quietly. “But it won’t work. There are some things that belong to your sister that you just can’t take.”
“You really are a stupid, High Cliff bastard, aren’t you?” she snarled, jerking her hand free from his grip. “You’ll regret this.”
“I doubt it.”
Sniffing, she spun away and stormed from the room, leaving through a different exit than the one I was hiding behind.
With a muttered curse, Urban rubbed the palm of his hand on his thigh as if trying to dispel her touch before saying, “Never fear, my lady. I would’ve turned her down even if I hadn’t felt you near, listening to everything we said.”
Since he’d already addressed me, I stepped quietly into the room with him.
He glanced my way. “Did you know she was unfaithful to the king?”
I shrugged. “It hadn’t occurred to me before, but it doesn’t necessarily surprise me.”
He nodded and glanced down before lifting his gaze again. My cheeks instantly heated and I had to turn away, unable to keep eye contact with him for too long. I irrationally feared I might burst into hormonal flames.
“I…I should go,” I said, already stepping toward the exit.
“You’re uneasy around me today,” he said softly. There was confusion in his voice.
