“Kian?”
Something large inside the room crashed and roared. Bryanna held still, afraid to move in the total blackness. A soft slithery touch brushed her ankle, and she screamed.
“Miss?”
Far down the pitch black hall, a small glow appeared.
“Beezel,” she said, relieved to see the glow grow and the little gnome appear, lantern in hand.
“Come along, miss, I’ll take you to your room. You’ll be wanting a rest.”
Whatever had been holding her up since the morning suddenly gave way, and exhaustion overtook her. “Yes, thank you.”
Off through the bewildering series of hallways and short passages, small up-and-down stairs until, her fatigue dragging her down, they reached her room.
“All of these rooms on this hallway look the same, how am I ever supposed to know which one I’m sleeping in?”
Beezel gave her a puzzled look, his grey skin wrinkling in a frown.
“How do you find your way?”
“I don’t know, miss, I just do.”
Heaving a frustrated sigh, she entered the room. He handed her the lantern and backed out the door.
“Beezel, who lived here…before?”
“The goblins have been here for a long time. The gnomes before that.”
“Have you always lived here?”
“No, miss.” The little man’s globular eyes glassed over. For one horrified moment, Bryanna thought he would cry.
“I’m sorry,” she said, hastily.
He swallowed, the large lump in his throat bobbing up and down. “Not to worry, miss. If you need anything, pull the cord in the corner and wait. I’ll come as soon as I can.” His funny flat face turned hard. For a moment, she glimpsed, under the weak pathetic exterior, something dark that grew inside the gnome. “Don’t leave the room. The hobgoblins won’t bother you, but the others, well, the others are interested in things you don’t want to know.”
A trace of a shudder fingered up her spine.
“What others?” she asked, but he’d already turned to leave.
“Wait!” she ran and pulled the door open. He turned.
“Beezel, thank you.”
He hesitated, his lips working, his crepey eyelids fluttering in agitation.
“What is it?” she bent over and held the lantern closer to him.
“Miss, you can’t stay here,” he hissed, his mossy breath landing damply on her face. “He’s unstable. And worse…” His glance darted up and down the corridor, searching for unseen spies. “The queen will find out. She always does. And when she comes for you, we’ll all be lucky to end up dead.”
Shivering, Bryanna stared into his nearly colorless eyes, searching for the truth. “Why are you telling me this? Kian said you work for the queen.”
His eyes flew wide, and he backed up into the wall, bouncing off and moving quickly down the hallway. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Beezel, wait!”
His little figure disappeared into the darkness, a last whisper echoing down the stone corridor. “If she comes, she’ll take it out on us all.”
She closed the door and placed the lantern on the bedside table. Kian had warned her about Beezel, but the gnome seemed terrified of not just the queen, but Kian, as well. Kian was using her to win his freedom. But when she looked into his extraordinary violet eyes, a lost boy looked out. Anxious, nervous. And angry.
CHAPTER FIVE
The delicious spiced-rose scent wafted clear across the library, where Kian stayed far away from the temptation of the woman who might be close to curing his curse. The last two weeks deciphering the spell had been the best days he’d spent in his memory. And they’d been hell.
Even now, with every turn of the page of the book, every shift on the chair, every frustrated exhale, the taste and texture of woman and roses wafted to his sensitive nose.
“I think we have it.” Bryanna sat up and turned. “Kian, stop pacing and come look. I think I finally made out that passage.”
“Are you sure?” He crossed to her, unable to stay away. “The spell says we need to do this during the full moon, that’s tonight.” The torture of nearly being cured, of having this woman near him day in and day out for the last two weeks—and being unable to touch her—had him at the breaking point.
“Well, there’s this last sentence that I still cannot make out. It’s just too faded. I’d feel better if we knew what that said. But this word, ngythryn? Remember how I wasn’t sure what it said? I finally found a translation in here.” She held up another worn out spell book. “It’s in the old language. The one my people used to use to hide what they were doing from the authorities. And it’s changed over the years, so I wasn’t sure if it meant you had to be in the pentacle or I should be in the pentacle.”
“Would that even make a difference?”
“I don’t know.” She sucked in her lower lip and he fisted his paws under his cloak. Over the last two weeks he’d imagined plunging his cock deep inside her while sucking on that lower lip. Biting it. Savaging the tender plump flesh.
He stifled a groan. He was at the end of his tolerance.
If she didn’t cure him during this full moon he wasn’t sure he could be close to her, spending time not touching her, while they waited for another one. He desired her with the fierce hunger of having been too long without a woman, and she was the perfect woman. Smart, sexy, and seated inches away. But every time she looked at him, he knew she saw a monster.
“Kian?” She was staring at him. She must have said something more. He should be paying attention.
“I’m sorry. It’s getting so close, I’m having trouble concentrating.” Better she think he was frustrated with being close to curing the curse than the truth. That imagining her smooth, silky skin under that dress had brought him close to violence.
“I was saying, I’m not sure if it would make a difference, but I don’t want to leave anything to chance.”
“You haven’t.” She sat inches away. Her trust in his restraint was unimaginable.
“But, how can you be sure? That last sentence might change everything.”
He wished he could take her hands, and pull her close. Tell her that he believed in her in a way that she would accept mind, body, and soul. But he couldn’t. Even if she’d accept the contact, if he touched her, he’d be lost.
He wrapped his cloak close and captured her gaze with the only thing left to him that was still recognizable in his face, his eyes. “I’ve watched you pore over that spell. You’ve double checked it, and worried over it, more than a new mother with her first babe. If I’ve learned nothing about you over this fortnight, it’s that you would sooner die than fail.”
Her eyes widened, the long lashes blinking in surprise.
He swallowed, containing his body’s instant response to her unconscious flirting. “You may not acknowledge it to yourself, you may continue to say these words, that you’re not ready. But—” He leaned in. Close enough that the soft pants of her breathing skimmed the fur on his cheeks. “—you know inside, you’re ready. The spell is ready. And the full moon will not wait.”
Her hands fluttered at her sides, and the strain of having her there, nearly touching him, was more than he could take. He broke.
Moving back to his pacing area on the far side of the room he raised his voice. “Bryanna MacElvy, you are a witch, whether you like it or not, and tonight you will prove it to yourself.”
And if they failed, then they failed. But they wouldn’t have given up. He was never giving up.
She stared at Kian as if he were amazing. As if no one in her life had ever told her she had a powerful Gift. Could that be true? This golden girl-woman who knew so much more about magic than she gave herself credit for. He could see she knew what she was doing. Even as blind as he was to the ways of magic and, with his Gift tied up in knots, he could sense she had power.
Why couldn’t she?
“Well, okay then
.” She turned back to her books and papers. “We do this tonight.” Her voice was shaky. “We should get everything ready.”
“No.” Kian stopped by the bell pull, looped it in his claws, and gave it a tug. “You’ve been working for days. You need a break.”
“But, we need to get everything ready.”
“It’s ready. You’ve made sure that we’re prepared. What could you possibly have to do that can’t wait until tonight?”
“We could double check the spell, re-measure the ingredients, the space. Go over the timing.” She bit that lower lip again. He wasn’t sure he could stay here and watch her do that one more time. “We could see if we could somehow make out that last line. You know I’m worried about that. I can’t read it, it’s too worn out.”
“No. No. And no.” It was time to change things up. Before he forgot that he wasn’t elvatian in form, and made a move she would never forgive.
The door opened and Beezel poked his head in. “Sire?”
“Beezel, we need a picnic.”
“A picnic?” The gnome’s surprise was mirrored in Bryanna’s echo.
“Yes. You need a break. I need a break. You’ve been nowhere but here and your own room for the last two weeks. Time to go somewhere else.”
“There’s somewhere else to go?”
For a moment he felt a flash of guilt. He’d kept her busy. She’d done nothing but study and work, knowing that everything, and everyone, depended on her freeing him from his curse.
“Beezel, bring the food and a blanket to the ballroom.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“The ballroom?” Bryanna frowned at him. “Kian, we should work.”
“No, you need rest, and food, and something to take your mind off of the spell. The ballroom is perfect.” He bent into a bow and waved her toward the door. “After you, my lady.”
She got up from her chair and crossed to him, moving past him and out the door. As her skirts brushed close, the heat from her body stroked along his fur and chased down his nerves.
His blood pulsated.
This was a bad idea. Being alone with her, watching her work, was dangerous. Being alone with her, without the distraction of the spell, was insane.
He picked up a candelabra and followed her through the door.
Bryanna followed Kian along the chilly corridors and to a small door. “Not a very big entrance for a ballroom,” she said. That was a pretty stupid thing to say. But for some reason she was nervous. For the last two weeks they’d been together working on the spell. Bouncing ideas off of each other. Struggling to be sure if the old words meant pentacle, or triangle, or something totally different.
It had fostered a strange sense of intimacy.
She knew how often he got hungry, and what he liked best to eat. He’d started anticipating her desire for hot tea and making sure Beezel brought not only her drink, but scones and a particular type of jam made from some berry they didn’t even have on Earth. He’d been thoughtful, and careful, and every inch the gentleman. But sometimes she felt him watching her.
And that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst thing was she was almost starting to like him.
“Just wait, here.” he said. “I’ll be right back. Hold this.”
She took the candelabra and he plucked a single lit candle from the fixture and took it with him through the door. She waited. The air was as cold as usual in the warren. Beezel made sure her fire was lit and her room stayed warm, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to the chill, and she missed the hot New Mexican sun.
The door opened and she crossed through into the light.
On the other side of the door, an enormous room stretched out. The ceiling was filled with glittering candle chandeliers and lit torches on the walls flickered their reflections on mirrors. There were mirrors everywhere and they bounced back sparkle after sparkle of glimmering light.
Kian waited for her, multiple Kians reflected into the distance. “Do you like it?” The desire to please that was innate in the question made her smile.
“It’s amazing.” The opulence took her breath away. Between the largest gilt edged mirrors she’d ever seen, outside of pictures of Versailles, the walls were made of pink marble and the floor was a mica-flecked pale grey. “The gnomes built this?”
“The Galentian Gnomes are very fond of dancing and parties.”
“I can’t imagine Beezel dancing.”
“He’s a different kind of gnome, and no, cave gnomes don’t like music. I don’t think they have the ears for it.”
His arm reached out from under his cloak and for a moment, she thought he meant to offer his hand to her. But as his claws extended out, the sharp talons gleaming in the light, he yanked them back under the billowing fabric.
“After you,” he said, his voice strained.
Strangely disappointed, she followed him to the blanket set up in the middle of the room and the delectable feast set out on a silver tray. She sank down and stared around the room. “I’m not sure if I should eat or just marvel.”
He laughed. The sound was full, and masculine, and the first genuinely amused laugh she thought she’d heard from him. It rippled along her skin like a warm tropical wave.
She was startled into looking at him.
Somehow, every time she saw his malformed shape, it was a surprise. She continued to think she’d see a man, and instead, it was Kian’s huge, awkward, cloaked shape sinking down onto the blanket across from her.
Her palms were slick and she was trembling. He was a beast and the enemy. And for a moment, at the sound of his laughter, she’d had the insane desire to pull his cloak back from his face, and kiss him.
CHAPTER SIX
Haddon, Secretary to the Queen of the Black Court, leaned on the empty consort’s throne carved from one of two huge living trees soaring up to the clear, blue afternoon sky. He surveyed the chaos of the throne room, watching impassively as a common cave gnome cowered on the grass at the base of the dais. A few of the courtiers, who had been brave enough to creep back after the queen’s earlier explosions of the day, eased away, escaping through gaps in the rose-studded hedge enclosing the court. Haddon had no doubt that the queen had lost her audience to safer distractions. Dalliances behind closed doors, tea parties in one of the many other courts, or hunts through Underhill. The Black Court would be mostly silent for the remainder of the afternoon. The grassy swards, empty. The smaller ante-chamber beyond the huge twenty-foot tall doors, deserted.
The queen would not be pleased. She liked an audience. But Haddon was pleased. His plan of discrediting the queen was working. With the prince imprisoned, and the queen so close to insane, soon it would be easy for him to take his place and become regent.
“What do you mean you cannot say? I asked you a question, gnome,” the queen demanded. She was in a rare mood this afternoon, her temper barely controlled. She’d woken this morning in a rage, the Morrigan had been present all day, and even Haddon would have liked to see her change into her lovely, sweet, but still dangerous, Aeval aspect.
Her rare Gift of true-shifting her appearance with her mood kept her secure in her power. Not many had the power or the sheer balls to rule an Underhill Court. It took wit, and politics, and a quality of magic that only a select few were ever born with. Her majesty, Queen Aeval Morrigan de Dannan, had been born Gifted, born royal, and born beautiful. She’d been tested by time and magics and her family and she should have ruled for thousands of years more. But not now. Now, because of Haddon’s finely hidden manipulations, and meticulously administered drugs, she leaked power wherever she went, at the mercy of her emotions and out of control of her shifting.
But none of that mattered today.
The gnome lifted his groveling face off of the grass and spoke, “I have given my word, Your Majesty, no word may pass my lips.”
The queen’s death-white skin mottled, the stark blue veins thick and throbbing, and her violet eyes whirled. Her large black
wings unfolded, the sharp-edged, iridescent black feathers gleaming in the afternoon sun. The wings began a slow broad motion, stirring up the breeze. The ancient trees’ leaves shivered, and a small fairy caught napping in the branches batted its wings as it attempted to flee.
Haddon surreptitiously stroked the polished wood of the throne, admiring how the deep almost-black of the ancient wood brought out the green of his skin. He hid a small smile as the queen’s snaky black ringlets, dark with blood-red lowlights, twisted and turned and lashed out, the hair hooking the tiny fairy and tangling it in its coils. It hung, screaming, until the queen plucked it from her hair’s grip and popped it into her mouth, crunching down and chewing, all the while staring at the gnome.
Damp patches appeared under the creature’s arms, and the murky odor of gnome sweat rose. Haddon pulled out a scented handkerchief and held it to his nose.
“My queen, perhaps we can find a way around this issue.” The gnome dared to look at Haddon, but he raised his eyebrows and stared back until the little beast shrank down, nearly forming a ball on the grass. “Gnome!” Haddon snapped. “When you made this particularly bad bargain, did you say you would not write of it?”
“No, My Lord,” he whispered.
“Excellent. Bring pen and paper for the gnome, and be quick about it!” Haddon clapped his hands. A pageboy flew into action, his slender legs moving fast. Haddon stared at the boy’s soft, touchable skin, and licked his lips. He was new here. Fresh.
The trembling page boy handed over the writing supplies, and the shaking gnome dipped the quill into the ink. Drips of black spattered as he scrawled his answer on the paper. He finished and threw himself flat on the ground, the quill stabbing deep into the grass beside him. The page boy handed Haddon the paper. He grew light-headed as he read it and knew his skin must be as pale as washed-out lettuce.
“What is it? What has my wretch of a son done now?”
“The gnome writes that he’s close to undoing the curse.”
Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) Page 6
