Carved in Stone_Protectors of Magic_Book 2

by Jenna Wolfhart

  The king narrowed his eyes. He didn’t buy my story. Not for a single minute.

  “My guards would not disobey me like that,” he finally said. “They know you are off-limits. For now.”

  I cocked an eyebrow before finally picking up my fork and digging into the pile of mashed potatoes I’d spooned onto my plate. “You might want to do a little better with your compulsion then, because that dude was two seconds away from sinking his teeth into my skin. You really want to know why I went for my sword? To protect myself. Because the members of your Court don’t want me safe.”

  It was that moment that finally lowered his guard with me, at least a little. Because he invited me to dinner again the following night.

  Chapter 20

  King Oberon and I feasted together for a full week before I started to get impatient. I needed something, anything that could help us escape from this place, but I hadn’t yet managed to get anything interesting out of him. Part of that was my fault. I was much too timid in asking questions. The last thing I wanted to do was to alert him to what I was up to. As it stood, it seemed as though the fae king thought I enjoyed dining with him.

  Little did he know that while I sat in my chair, I imagined the various ways I could attack him. Sometimes I thought about launching at him with a fork. Other times, I thought about throwing the steaming gravy into his face. It wouldn’t burn him, at least not permanently, but it might give me enough time to make my move.

  The problem was, I had no move. I knew how to get into the tunnels, but I didn’t know what to do from there. And I certainly wasn’t about to leave Marcus and Rhiannon behind, even if I did get a chance to run.

  “Don’t go,” Marcus said, wrapping his hand around mine and pulling me down to the cot where he rested, eyes open, breathing steady. He’d slowly been recovering from his wound, though his skin still felt hot and feverish. Tonight, he would shift to stone for the first time since the fight. Rhiannon remained convinced that it would speed along his healing.

  I hated that I wouldn’t be here to stand by his side.

  “You know I have to go.” I squeezed his hand. “The king won’t take no for an answer.”

  He quirked his lips. “You would go even if he didn’t insist. I might be jealous if I didn’t know you want nothing more than to throttle him.”

  “He seems to be relaxing around me,” I said. “I’ll try to get more information out of him tonight so that we can make our move soon. You’ll be healed, we’ll have a plan. What could possibly go wrong?”

  The slight smile transformed to a full-on grin. “If the past week is any indication? Absolutely everything.”

  “Damn straight. Lucky for us, we’re a good team.” I grinned back, my breath catching when he began to rub his thumb along my skin. I dropped my eyes to our interwoven fingers. Even though he was weak, his hand looked strong and powerful next to mine, folding over me completely.

  “Rowena,” he said softly. “I never thanked you for what you did for me.”

  It was difficult to speak. “What in the world would you need to thank me for? You saved me. Not the other way around.”

  His violet eyes glossed over, and he slid a hand up to my neck, brushing his fingers across the edge of my chin. My stomach clenched, my heartbeat in my neck thrumming against his gentle touch. Lips parting, I stared down at him, a strange conflicted feeling tumbling over me. I felt caught in a whirlwind, one I couldn’t—and didn’t want—to escape.

  “You’re wrong, love,” he said, voice hoarse. “You saved me. And in many more ways than one.”

  A throat cleared, and I jerked away from Marcus. I stood, and his hands dropped back to his sides. Disappointment flashed in his eyes, but he hid it with his smirking grin, the dimples erasing whatever had just happened between us.

  “Sorry,” Rhiannon said, brushing her white hair back from her pale face. “I heard the guards coming, and I thought it was probably for the best that they didn’t catch you...doing whatever that was.”

  “We were just talking,” I whispered, cheeks flaming as if I were caught in a storm of fire.

  “Right,” she said dryly. “That’s definitely what was happening.”

  The guards appeared only seconds later, ushering me back upstairs to have yet another dinner with the fae king. Only this time, Oberon didn’t seem quite himself. His brilliant green eyes were alight, almost gleaming underneath the chandelier. And he perched on the edge of his chair as if he might jump up at any moment.

  It made me uneasy, to say the least.

  After our first course and the usual exchange of daily pleasantries, I patted my napkin against my lips and took a deep breath. Time to make my move. “You seem awfully excited about something.”

  “Oh yes.” His jagged smile sent ice through my veins. “Things are finally moving along now. It’s been brutally boring, but I dare say, it won’t be for very much longer.”

  It took every ounce of self-control to stop myself from leaning across the table, digging my fingernails into his skin, and demanding he tell me everything.

  “I’ll admit, it’s far too quiet around here.” I brightened my face. “I’m glad to hear it’s going to get a bit more lively. What do you have planned?”

  He cocked his head and regarded me with a gleam in his eyes. Tonight, he’d had me wear a dress very similar to the one I’d chosen myself. A deep violet gown that whispered against my calves. Light and airy and soft. Only this one dipped low between my breasts, showing off more than a little bit of cleavage.

  “So ravishing,” he said. Inwardly, I flinched. He reached across the table and ran his fingers through my wavy hair. Gritting my teeth, I kept my butt rooted to my seat. I didn’t dare move, for fear he’d realize just how much he revulsed me. “Tell me, how is the gargoyle?”

  “He’s fine,” I said through clenched teeth. “Still recovering, but fine.”

  “That blade is certainly nasty, isn’t it?” he asked, winking. “It’s too bad you will never wield it yourself.”

  He was baiting me. Teasing me. Playing with me. All he wanted in this moment was to get a rise out of me, and unfortunately, he was playing me like a fiddle. Over the past week, he’d done his best to learn my weaknesses. The tiny comments that would grate against my nerves. And he relished in using them against me, just to see me squirm.

  “You should pray to the goddess that you’re right,” I snarked back before thinking things through. The words just popped out of me, spilling from my lips like uncontrollable vomit.

  King Oberon’s eyes widened, and then he scoffed. “Careful, girl. You might make me think you’re not so fond of my company if you say things like that.”

  I hate your company.

  It was torture of the worst kind, sitting here still and pretty, smiling inanely at every word he said. I hated biding my time. I hated waiting for him to make a mistake, for him to let the detail I needed slip from his curving, devilish lips.

  One of these days, I wanted nothing more than to punch him in the face, regardless of the fact that it probably wouldn’t hurt him.

  “Apologies, King Oberon,” I said with a too-tight smile. “Sometimes my jokes don’t come out the way I intend.”

  “A joke.” His gaze pierced my soul.

  “Of course. Your sense of humor tends to be on the more morbid side, so I thought...” I fell silent. He wasn’t buying this any more than I bought his strange faux niceness. We were both playing a game here, and we both knew it. I pretended to enjoy his company so that I could continue coming to these dreadful dinners, and he pretended to be kind to me in order to watch me squirm. He enjoyed having power over me, enjoyed watching me say things that felt like acid on my tongue.

  “Would you like to hear a little story, Rowena?” the fae king asked as he poured some more wine into his goblet. He never offered any to me, for reasons I didn’t understand. But I also didn’t ask. I wanted to be nothing less than stone-cold sober in his presence.

  “Sure. Thoug
h I doubt I have much of a choice, now do I?” He didn’t miss the venom in my voice, and I didn’t try to hide it.

  He took a deep gulp of the wine, four golden rings gleaming on his long and slender fingers. “Once upon a time, there was a demigoddess who did not want to raise her own child for fear that others would want to murder it.”

  I froze, all the blood draining from my face. Oberon didn’t need to name names for me to know exactly who he was talking about. My mother. And me. Tears sprung into my eyes and I gripped my fork tighter in my hand. I wasn’t ready for this. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  But he merely continued on, taking sips of his wine between sentences. “She decided to take the child to the Seelies, hoping to barter with them for protection. Fortunately, I intercepted her.”

  “Fortunately?”

  “Oh yes. You would have not been safe with those imbeciles. They are neither cunning or ruthless enough to do whatever it takes to ensure your safety.”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” I mumbled.

  “I may not have been the fae she was looking for, but I was fae all the same. Strong, immortal, full of power. And I swore a verbal oath to protect you, one that I am bound to until the day I die, which could be centuries upon centuries from now.” He swirled the wine in his goblet. “So, you see, Rowena. What might seem like drastic measures to you is merely me doing whatever is within my power to keep you from harm.”

  There was something off about his words. He was speaking of the past, but there was much more to it than that. My mind flipped through the night so far. The look in his eyes when I’d first sat down. His cryptic comment about an exciting new development. And now...this. His confession that he himself was compelled by an oath he’d made to my mother.

  “What is it that you plan to do now?” I asked, half-hoping he wouldn’t tell me. Because whatever it was, I was certain I wouldn’t like it.

  He lowered his goblet and met my gaze across the table. “At first, I must admit that I was considering waging war against the humans. They’re the ones trying to kill you. If they were out of the picture...” He lifted a shoulder and smiled. “It would make my life inherently easier.”

  Blood roared in my ears, and my fingers gripped the table. “You can’t mean to say that you’re actually considering fighting a war with the entire human race? And what? Kill them all? There are billions of mortals on this planet. Billions. How can you even think such a thing?”

  “I do not care for mortals,” he said, voice dripping with venom. “Why would I? Their lives are meaningless to me. They are nothing more than scavengers, set loose on this planet like an infestation of rabid rats.”

  I sat back in my chair, at a complete loss as to what to say. I’d never heard anyone speak so...so heartless, so merciless. “They are living beings. And, in case you’ve forgotten, this is their realm. Not yours.”

  “And it’s not yours either, demigoddess.” He tipped back his head and drank his goblet dry before slamming the empty drink on the table. “Fortunately for them, I enjoy the taste of their flesh far too much to obliterate the entire species. So, I’ve decided the best move forward is to continue on with your little deception.”

  “My deception?” I asked, heart hammering at the thought he might have figured out the entire reason I’d agreed to dine with him each and every night.

  “Your little tumble into the Thames.” He flicked his fingers at the fae behind him, demanding a refill of his drink. “The humans believe you are dead. We need to keep it that way so they won’t renew their search for you. This means obliterating every evidence of magic in this realm. A good place to start? The City of Wings. We’ll be launching our attack in three days.”

  Chapter 21

  When I returned to the dungeon cell, I was beside myself.

  “He’s insane.” I paced from one end of the tiny cell to the other, noting that Marcus had finally shifted into his stone form. “The king of the Unseelie Court is barking mad.”

  “Not insane,” Rhiannon said, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. “Just psychotic, and he loves chaos. I believe you mortals call people like him sociopaths.” She stopped short, shaking her head. “Sorry. I keep thinking of you as a mortal, even though I know you’re a demigoddess, because you...well...you...”

  “Because I’m nothing like a god,” I said flatly. “I’m weak. I have no powers. And I’m an idiot for thinking we could get one step ahead of the Unseelie king.”

  “I was going to say that you seem so human,” she said, pushing off the wall to stalk toward me. “Which is not an insult. Immortals are often distant, cold, uncaring. You are none of those things.”

  “And look at where it’s got me,” I said, lifting my hands so that my fingers brushed the sides of the cell. “I go from one trapped existence to the next. To the next. To the next. People are out there getting killed, and I am absolutely useless!”

  “Hey.” Rhiannon took my shoulders in her hands and shook me hard enough to rattle my skull in my head. “Listen to me. We might be a little bit of a rag tag team here. We’ve got a wounded gargoyle, a fae who is compelled to obey her king, and a demigoddess who hasn’t been able to unlock her powers. But we will not let them beat us. Understood?”

  With a heavy sigh, I shook my head. “It’s not that simple, Rhiannon. It’s not even about us anymore.”

  Her face clouded over. “What are you talking about?”

  I explained what I’d learned. The king, in his frenzied glee to keep me safe, had decided that every witch in the world should die. He’d already taken out most of the blood mages. Next up? The Shadow Coven. And right now, they were currently still hiding out in the City of Wings. And he’d take out the gargoyle shifters while they were at it. And after that? America, where they’d track down every bone and sun mage they could find.

  Magic would die, not because the hunters killed me. But because the Unseelie fae would erase every evidence of it from this world.

  “Three days.” Rhiannon frowned and tapped her chin. “At least that gives us time to break the fuck out of here.”

  “Two days to break out of here,” I said. “We’ll need a day to get to the city and warn the others. Don’t forget we need to beat the fae there.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, the gargoyle statue began to ripple. His slate gray form shimmered, his arms and legs pulsing with an impossible magic. I stared, transfixed by the change coming over him. I’d never actually seen one of my shifter guardians change from man to stone or stone to man. His left arm broke free of stone, chunks of jagged rock tumbling to the floor. A roar split from his gray lips as he dropped back his head, twisting his neck free of his stone bonds.

  He slowly uncurled his hunched body, flesh and bone pushing through the last of the stone. The rocks that had broken free of his skin were now nothing more than dust and ash.

  And…he wore nothing. A flush crept up my neck. I parted my lips to speak but no sound tumbled out. Other than a slight gasp.

  A very embarrassing gasp.

  A sound that brought back Marcus’s lazy smirk as he opened those violet eyes and winked. “Alright, love? If I’d known my shift would get this kind of reaction, I would have done it a hell of a lot sooner.”

  “Can nothing stop that unbearable cockiness of yours?” I asked with a roll of my eyes, though I couldn’t help but smile back. The wound on his chest—now that I was able to drag my eyes away from his lower body—was no longer angry and red. It had scabbed over, leaving nothing but a faint mark where he’d been stabbed. The shift had truly worked, thank the goddess.

  All I wanted in that moment was to fling my arms around him and squeeze him tight, but I couldn’t. Not when he was like this…buck naked. From head to toe. And he wasn’t ashamed in the least. He stood tall before me, every single inch of him on display.

  I swallowed hard. “What happened to your clothes?”

  “They’re destroyed. Looks like I’ll have to stay like this.
”

  “What?” My eyes widened.

  “Oh, he’s just being an idiot. His clothes are right here.” Rhiannon shoved his jeans and shirt into my hands and rolled her eyes. “Look, I know you two want to jump each other’s bones, but can you please wait until I’m not five meters away from you? Preferably when we’re not all in the same cell.”

  I let out a weird noise that resembled a cough or a snort. Or maybe a combination of both. “Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t want to jump each other’s bones.”

  “Speak for yourself, love.” Marcus strode closer and carefully took his shirt from my trembling hands, pulling the material over his thick muscles, his perfect abs, his skin that looked smooth enough to kiss.

  Wait, what? I pushed that thought aside. What a ridiculous thought to pop into my head. It was just Rhiannon’s fault. She’d turned the conversation in that direction. It wasn’t truly what I thought.

  But my chest felt tight, and my cheeks were so hot that I could light a fire with my skin.

  “Don’t look so worried,” he said with a laugh, finally sliding into his jeans. Now that he was fully dressed, I felt as though I could breathe a lot easier. “I was just messing around with you.”

  “Sure you were,” Rhiannon said, but Marcus shot her a pointed look. “Right. Shall we discuss what Rowena has learned? I’m guessing you heard everything she said when you were doing your whole stone statue thing.”

  “I did. Here’s the plan. Rowena, you need to get the guard’s attention and call him down. Tell him you need to see the Unseelie King because you have important information about what the Shadow Coven is doing in the City of Wings.” He turned toward Rhiannon. “You’re going to stand on the left side of the gate. Act like you couldn’t be less interested in what he’s doing. I’ll lie on the cot and pretend like I’m still sick. When the guard opens the gate...”