To Enthrall the Demon Lord

by Nadine Mutas

  Gradually, it lifted. Bit by bit she could haul in air again, forcing her lungs to expand and breathe. Plastered to the dashboard, she focused on her surroundings. The controls of the radio. The scent of the leather upholstery. The sunshine as it glinted off the metal knob of the stick shift.

  The empty driver’s seat.

  Feeling returned to her body, her limbs prickling like waking up after blood flow had been cut off. She blinked, looked around.

  The car was parked next to the curb, the evergreen trees of a Pacific Northwest forest creating a backdrop of breathtaking beauty, misted by soft rain. The door on the driver’s side hung open. A few feet in front of the vehicle, the sentinel—Warrick—stood with his back turned, hands on his hips, head lowered. His heavy breaths flexed the muscles in his broad back and shoulders.

  She slid out of the car, her bag still clutched to her chest, walked around the open door, and cleared her throat.

  Warrick turned, his features tense. “Are you all right?” His nostrils flared.

  She gave a shaky nod, swallowed past a thick throat. “It’s the scent, isn’t it?”

  For a shifter, with his sensitive nose, she must have been reeking of fear in that car.

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s hard to…remain calm when we smell…”

  It made perfect sense. The animal part of shifters, the aspect that wasn’t human, wasn’t controlled by millennia of civilized evolution, reacted to strong emotions based on instincts that warred with the human half. The smell of fear would send some animals fleeing, but in others—predators—it might incite a different impulse… She looked down, forced herself not to tremble.

  “Tell me,” Warrick rasped, “he died a bloody death.”

  She glanced back up at him.

  “The one who made you this afraid.”

  Her fingers curled into the bag clutched to her chest. “He was ripped to shreds.” Something deep inside her stirred in grim satisfaction, flexing talons in simmering darkness. She’d never get tired of saying that.

  “Good.” A muscle feathered in Warrick’s jaw.

  A moment passed while they looked at each other, and the tenuous bond that wove itself between them in those seconds made it possible for her to get back into the car, to breathe past the remnants of her panic and ride the rest of the way with him without another incident.

  He parked the car close to a lake, and then led her down a dirt path toward the water. The surface glistened in the midmorning sunshine peeking through intermittent clouds, an eerie hush in the air. The lake…the sight of it jogged her memory, and she drew in a small, sharp breath as she realized—

  “We’ll have to go through the lake,” she croaked.

  Merle had said as much of course, when she recounted how she and Rhun had gone to Arawn to beg for his help in finding Maeve. But Merle told her about it during those first days spent in the MacKenna family’s old Victorian after Maeve was rescued, and those days were hazy, Maeve’s mind and body still numb from her prolonged torture. She’d forgotten this was the way to travel to Arawn’s lair.

  Warrick nodded, face turned toward the still lake. “I hope you can swim.”

  Swimming wasn’t the problem. Her nails scratched over her duffel bag as she grabbed it tighter. She’d have to leave it behind. No way the contents would survive being dunked.

  Heart aching, she set the bag on the ground. Maybe…maybe she could ask to have it retrieved later. If she was allowed to make any requests at all.

  Warrick squatted at the edge of the rocky shore that fell sharply down into the lake. No gently sloping beach here. Only rough-cut stones and pebbles crunching under her shoes as she stepped up next to the sentinel, who had his hand in the water, making tiny circles with his fingers.

  A moment later, a head broke through the surface, and a beautiful naiad swam closer, her dark hair dancing in the waves stirred by her movements. Skin the color of moonlight, she peered at Warrick with eyes holding the depths of the lake she called her home, then glanced at Maeve.

  “I remember your sister,” she purred. “She was an ember, but you…you’re flame.”

  Maeve’s heart stumbled.

  “Come.” The naiad waved an elegant hand. “Let my water cool your soul.”

  Warrick cleared his throat. “Just take us to the other side, please. We need to see Lord Arawn.”

  Regret flashed in the water nymph’s eyes, but she inclined her head, swam back to make room. And Warrick jumped right in without so much as a flinch. He popped up again, shook his head, and, treading water, raised his brows at Maeve.

  Alrighty, then. Deep breath, and she dove into the lake. The near-freezing water closed in all around her, shocked her heart into stopping for agonizing seconds, pierced her skin with a thousand fine needles. She hauled herself up, broke the surface and sucked in air. Her hair hung in her face, clung to her skin. She brushed it away with a quick move.

  And froze at the wide eyes of the water nymph, fixed on her scar. The heat rolling up from her stomach through her throat and into her cheeks dispelled the chill of the icy lake. Always, always, that hated reminder of how much her life had changed. Even if she had good moments, even if she managed to forget the horror for a little while, inevitably the reaction of others to the visible proof of how she’d been damaged would shatter whatever brittle shield of normalcy she’d tried to erect.

  A second nymph appeared, and after exchanging a nod with Warrick, she pulled him under. Maeve was still staring at where the lake had swallowed the sentinel when the first naiad swam up to her.

  “Ready?”

  As I’ll ever be. “Let’s go.”

  She glanced at the duffel bag sitting abandoned on the shore, and couldn’t manage to draw in enough air before the nymph grabbed her and yanked her down into the depths of the lake. Deeper, deeper they went, until her ears ached with the pressure, until the breath she was holding burned in her lungs, until there was nothing but darkness closing in on her. Panic beat along her nerves, not just for fear of drowning, but because of the dense, unrelenting black surrounding her.

  And then…the direction changed.

  The nymph pulled her up again, the pressure eased, light filtered through the murky water, and within seconds she broke the surface, gasping for breath with aching lungs. The nymph who had pulled her through inclined her head and swam away, leaving Maeve treading water in…a different lake. A sandy shore framed this one instead of jagged rocks, and the trees surrounding the water loomed much closer.

  She’d known about this magic way of reaching the heart of Arawn’s dominion from Merle’s tales, but to see it actually work, to realize she’d just crossed over what had to be miles in the span of mere seconds rattled her nonetheless. Warrick already stood on the small beach, wringing water from his T-shirt. Used to this style of travel, no doubt.

  Shivering from the cold clinging to her skin through her soaked clothes, she trudged out of the lake as well, joined Warrick as he took a trodden path through the undergrowth. The air was colder here, her breath almost fogging in front of her, and she barely kept her teeth from clattering.

  “Warrick.” The female voice drifted out from between the trees shortly before a woman stepped onto the path. “Aren’t you supposed to be on watch duty?”

  “I was,” Warrick drawled.

  The woman’s pale green eyes—striking against her brown skin—tracked to Maeve, who stood half behind Warrick. Taking a step to the side, the female angled her head, frowned as she gave her a once-over—and then those mesmerizing eyes widened.

  “Is that…?”

  “Yes.” Warrick shifted on his feet.

  “How…?”

  “She’s surrendering herself.”

  “And I do have a voice,” Maeve said quietly. That voice was scratchy, hoarse, her vocal cords permanently damaged by her screaming marathon while shackled to a dirty bed for days. But it was steady. Firm.

  The female blinked, and a small smile tugged
at the corners of her mouth. “Yes. Yes, you do.” She turned to Warrick. “I’ll run ahead and let him know.” She walked backward a few feet, still looking at Maeve. “And maybe I’ll make some popcorn. This promises to be interesting.” With a flash of a smile, she whirled around and jogged off.

  “Wait!” Warrick shouted. “Where’s he at?”

  “In the Grove,” came back the answer, the female almost out of sight. “Playing.”

  Maeve barely held back her flinch. She didn’t even want to imagine what “play” meant for the Demon Lord. She trudged behind Warrick as he followed the woman’s path, winding along a bubbling creek, between copses of trees that seemed to pulse with power—discernible even to Maeve’s dull human senses. Witchborn as she was, she should have a keen awareness of everything magical, but since her powers were bound inside her at the age of eight, she had no access to her witch heritage, nothing but a weak, unreliable inkling in the presence of strong magic.

  And this territory here, this land, the earth itself breathed such magic that even Maeve could perceive it. No way to tell if this was Arawn’s influence—a sample of whatever strange, otherworldly power he commanded—or if it was a result of all the magical creatures he “collected” and kept close through favors and cunning. She’d spotted swarms of fairies flitting past, several kobolds peeking out from the undergrowth, dryads—tree nymphs—watching her with forest-green eyes from their perch atop branches, and even the light itself seemed different, as if dancing, iridescent…alive.

  Even though this was a forest, she couldn’t shake the feeling of walking through a city instead, a bustling hub of otherworldly activity teeming with inhabitants. She couldn’t see most of them, and yet their presence was so palpable it buzzed over her skin.

  She’d once been to New York City, and the feeling…it had been so similar. Only now, instead of walking among a jungle of steel and glass and concrete, she was a tiny speck amid an enormous maze of wood and stone and shadow and light, woven with magic that raised the hair on her arms and neck, feeling a thousand pairs of eyes on her, tracking her every move.

  Up ahead, a tighter grouping of trees loomed at the end of the path, set apart from the rest of the forest, like a building within the woods. The branches formed an intricate, interlocked pattern reminiscent of the elaborate grillwork found in windows and doors of faraway palaces, stretching down to the moss-covered ground, giving the impression of walls.

  Scattered leaves fallen from the few trees shedding their autumn foliage rustled and crunched beneath their shoes as Maeve and Warrick approached the grove. A high double door of branches and vines opened on a silent wind before them, and they stepped into the…well, the best way to describe it was cathedral of trees.

  “Grove” seemed indeed too small and humble a word for it. There was nothing humble about this building of living wood and green. Towering trees rose on all four sides, stretching up so high that Maeve had to crane her neck to make out the lofty, vaulted ceiling of twining branches above her. Moss covered those branches all over, some hanging down in gossamer threads and casting the light pouring in through the tracery in glowing green.

  Its haunting beauty rivaled the cathedrals of old, the ancient mosques and temples decked out in carvings and glittering stones.

  Power such as she’d only felt once before brushed her senses, snagged her attention away from the glory of this natural architecture, to the source of that force. Her heartbeat pounded in every cell of her body as she looked over the plush carpet of moss covering the floor toward a dais at the end of the vaulted hall, to the set of black chaise lounges facing each another, a table with some sort of board game in between, to the hulking form of the Demon Lord.

  Sprawled on one of the chaise lounges, opposite another male who was about to make a move on the board game, Arawn was…a challenge to her vocabulary. She’d seen him before, when he came to claim her after her rescue and Merle made that ill-fated deal with him, and then—as now—he pooled darkness around him even without a change in lighting. The very fabric of the world appeared dipped in ink around the contours of his shape, and instead of glinting off his onyx hair, the sunshine seemed to be absorbed by it, as if sucked away. As huge as this cathedral-like space was, his presence alone filled it.

  Black dress pants molded to his long, muscled legs, and a burgundy button-down shirt hugged his massive frame, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing forearms corded with more muscles. There probably wasn’t an inch of him that was soft, wasn’t forged in brutal strength and unforgiving harshness, the epitome of hard masculinity. That thought alone should have catapulted her into dizzying panic.

  She waited for it.

  And waited.

  But when he turned that face of dark bronze and bored arrogance toward her, when those eyes the color of shadowed woods swept up her body in a languid perusal with a whisper of sensuality underneath, she didn’t cower in fear. She didn’t wince. The part of her that recoiled in instinctive terror in the presence of males—the more powerful, the more she shrank away—now lay silent…and watched, in deference, as another, long-forgotten part of her stretched its talons in welcome…in appreciation.

  There you are, it seemed to say. I’ve been waiting for you.

  Chapter 2

  Few things had the capacity to surprise Arawn. One didn’t live as long as he had, seeing everything this world had to offer, from the blunt reality of unnecessary, undeserved cruelty to the depths of grace in the face of darkness, without acquiring a sometimes-tiresome prescience regarding unfolding events, an acute understanding of the ways the minds and hearts of creatures big and small worked.

  But he hadn’t seen this coming.

  There she was, the witch he’d been watching for the past six months—the duration a mere blip compared to the lifetimes he’d experienced, the coming and going of seasons and eras that honed his appreciation of patience—now standing before him, upending all his plans and carefully laid-out tactics.

  And most curious of all? She didn’t quail. Not a whiff of the acidic fear he’d smelled when he first went to claim her months ago, no sign of the terror that had frozen her that day. No, those delicate hands didn’t shake, her posture not quite defiant but far from cowering. And when he locked gazes with her after a slow survey of her soaked appearance—had she indeed come through the bloody lake?—her eyes didn’t shimmer with tears. They burned with an inner fire he hadn’t seen since…

  His magic stirred, as if in response to a silent greeting. How very, very interesting.

  Maeve’s eyes cut to the male seated on the chaise lounge opposite his, and she winced. A move so minuscule, he might have missed it, but the reaction following it was striking in its clarity. The sharp aroma of fear filled the air. If someone could tremble without actually moving, the witch in front of him managed it. Her already light skin lost even more color, the ginger freckles dotting her face now all the more apparent.

  “Maeve MacKenna,” Arawn said.

  Her attention flicked back to him.

  He rose from his seat, and she watched him with the alertness of a doe facing a noise in the woods, but her scent…calmed.

  A movement on the chaise lounge next to him, and Maeve flinched as if ready to take a step back.

  Deimos, he said mentally, without looking at his second in command.

  I’m not even doing anything, the male replied along the pathway Arawn had opened for their telepathic conversation. Deimos shifted again on the seat, leaning back into a more relaxed position.

  Maeve inhaled sharply, her hands curling to fists.

  I never thought I would be less intimidating than you, Arawn said mentally. Yet here we are.

  Deimos’ chuckle echoed in his mind. I’ll…leave you to it, then.

  Check on Anselm’s family and find out if there’s anything else they need. Putting his hands in his pants pockets, he strolled down the dais, glancing from the youngest MacKenna witch to Warrick, who rose from where he’d bent
the knee in deference to his lord.

  Yes, sir, Deimos said.

  His second made his way down the steps as well, trailing shadows in his wake, and when he passed Maeve going to the door, she scooted to the side, glancing furtively at the impeccably dressed male who moved with silken grace, his human shape betraying nothing of the nightmare of his true form. Yet those with finer senses—and a healthy instinct of self-preservation—always seemed to catch on to the lethal threat underneath the semblance of a charming appearance. Did Maeve belong to that group, or was her caution courtesy of a general fear of males?

  “To what,” he addressed the witch as the doors closed behind Deimos again, “do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

  He knew, of course. Lucía told him as much when she bounced in here a few minutes ago. She’d barely toned down her excitement, and was now leaning against one the wooden pillars holding up the vaulted roof of the Grove, arms crossed and eyes sparkling.

  Maeve cleared her throat and swallowed, and the ripple of her throat muscles drew his focus to the elegant slope of her neck, to the water droplets clinging to her creamy skin. One of them ran down to the high neckline of her thick navy sweater. “I’m surrendering myself.”

  So hoarse. A result of her torture, obviously, and yet…the smoky quality of her voice seemed to echo the same aspect lighting her eyes just moments ago.

  He sauntered toward her. “Did your sister send you here?”

  Her answer didn’t surprise him. “No. She doesn’t know.”

  Given that he’d just returned from Merle MacKenna’s home a little while ago, where he paused the deal with her after he found out the Elder witch was with child, it would have been highly unlikely that Merle would order her sister to fulfill the original bargain he made with her. And if Merle didn’t know, if she hadn’t sent Maeve to him…