by SM Reine
Chapter Two
“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest—not that she was shy about her nudity, but she didn’t know him and refused to do something even more stupid than she’d already done this night.
She could do her other thing, her “magic” trick, but she doubted Father would appreciate her showing off that way. It was a source of shame for any wolf to have any magic at their disposal besides the fire of shifting. A lifetime worth of indoctrination that under no circumstances was she ever to use her magic within the realm of shifters stayed her tingling hands.
He nodded. “I see. You do not know me. ‘Tis understandable, shifter. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Giles Damian of the genus Demone and butler to the dark prince, Rumpelstiltskin.”
He banded an arm around his waist and bowed low.
Her heart jerked. “Rumpel. Bloody hell,” she growled. “Piss.”
His ruby red eyes widened at her words, which was ridiculously adorable, a big, strong man looking as if she’d just spit on his liege rather than issue a minor insult.
“What, knight?”
Dark brows gathered into a tight vee. “How did you know I was a knight?”
Feeling more at ease in the face of his obvious discomfort, she chuckled. “It is the way you act. The ‘‘tis’ and the bowing.” She fluttered her wrist. “You act like no butler I’ve ever met. And just what did you do to those trolls, by the way?”
Leaning against the tree, she crossed her ankles. A thread of breeze whipped through the glen, whipping up the scent of ripe autumn leaves.
“I dispatched them, female.”
“Good gods,” she groaned. “Are you for real?”
Again he looked as if she’d slapped him.
Chuckling she waved her hand. “I can see that you are. At any rate, I thank you for your kindly assistance, though I’m sure I could have handled it. I am a wolf, after all.” She sniffed, tipping her nose into the air.
His eyes narrowed. “Pardon my saying so, but the men had you dead to rights.”
A threatening rumble reverberated through her chest. The words he said were true enough, but for him to even so much as hint that she’d needed the assistance was truly a slap in the face. It was a sign of weakness among her kind and an insult she could not let slip.
Letting her wolf bleed through her eyes, she pounced on the impossibly dark-skinned man. He only had time to band his arm around her middle before they landed with a hard thud on the mossy surface of the forest floor.
Still in human form she pulled her lips back, exposing the sharp length of her canines. “What did you say?”
His brilliant red eyes practically sparkled as he studied her. This man was a predator; she could smell the violence of him. The way his blood quickened, how his heart pounded in his chest. But it didn’t seem to be erratic, as though thumping from terror, no, this thumping was a little harder, a little more fluttery. Like it was heat and fire and excitement rushing through him.
With skin that could so easily blend into shadow and bloody, jeweled eyes; the strong, hawkish nose and the jaw with the slight cleft in its chin when he spoke—she’d only ever seen his kind once before, and that was the night she’d signed her bloody signature on one of Rumpel’s notes.
She’d been an idiot and a fool and had hoped that after five years the blasted man had forgotten about her part of the agreement.
Lilith clenched her razor-sharp nails into the knight’s chest, making him hiss.
She was viscerally aware of the smoothness, the firmness of his body. Like polished marble that heated her palms. He felt wicked and lovely.
She snapped her jaws when he made to wiggle out from beneath her. “Answer me, Giles Damian.” Her voice blended with that of her wolf. A lesser man would have pissed himself by now.
But Giles wore a smirk. “You think to frighten me, wolf, but you cannot. There is nothing in this realm or any other that I fear. Let me up and we can be civil.”
Blinking, intrigued and confused by him, she called her wolf back deep inside and cocked her head. “You fear nothing. That means you’re either dangerous or a fool.”
He dug his fingers firmly into her biceps, easily lifting her off him. So easily, in fact, that she knew he’d allowed her to hold him down. The thought galled.
Laughing, she hopped to her feet. “I’d say you’re a bit of both, knight. Am I right?”
He stood and brushed at the dirt on his black shirt. “Perhaps.”
Licking her lips, she tossed her hair over her shoulders. If power wouldn’t work, perhaps seduction might. She straightened her shoulders, thrust her breasts out and slightly notched her knee, fixing a subtle pout to her lips.
“So the Prince of Darkness requires I come to him, is that it?” She wet her lips, narrowing her eyes when she noted his never strayed south. What was this man? A eunuch?
“No.” He shook his head. “He requires you to journey with me.”
She laughed. “Show me proof or go away. You’re mad if you think I would willingly go anywhere with you, stranger.”
He sighed. “So be it.”
And then, reaching beneath his shirt, he pulled out a small amulet made of a shimmering silver metal that fairly glowed in the moonlight. Distrustful and curious, she stayed where she was but tensed her muscles, ready to dart to safety should it be a trick.
Magic intrigued her. All forms of it. Mostly because of her own, paltry though it was. But Father had drilled into her from an early age that she was never, ever to use it. Aside from the shifting every wolf possessed, there was nothing more reviled among her people than for a wolf to possess magic.
Any other creature and no one batted an eyelash, but for a wolf to own it was grounds for being cast out from among her people. Which she found to be a stupid and archaic rule, but what she thought was of no consequence to her kind. Anything different must be hidden or else suffer the wrath of the elders’ justice.
The amulet no longer simply shimmered, it rippled like a heat wave and within its glow the face of Rumpel manifested.
The impossible, devilish beauty of the man had always made her heart beat just a little faster.
She smirked when the mirage of Rumpel’s eyes turned to her. “Ah, demon king, and to what do I owe the honor?”
Rumpel’s chuckle was like an aged malted whiskey, rich and smooth. She remembered even at thirteen when she’d first met him she’d been horribly infatuated by the Dark Prince. “Giles, you’ll have so much fun with this little bitch.”
She hissed when Giles simply inclined his head as if in agreement. Not that being called a bitch amongst her kind was an insult, but for anyone outside her species to use it usually meant they were insulting her, and that had always irked her.
“Whatever.” She crossed her arms. “Who is this man?” She pointed. “He says I’m to go with him on a trek.” She finger-quoted the last bit.
Rumpel nodded. “Aye. I’ve called your vow due. Journey with my man to reclaim the chalice of hope. Once done, you’ll be free of me.”
Lilith growled. “That chalice is buried within the heart of Fyre Mountain.”
“Yes.” He nodded.
She tossed up her hands. “That is an impossible quest for an army, but a death sentence for just two.”
His grin stretched across his smug face. “My dear Lilith, this is your quest. Do it or not. But if you don’t, your life is forfeit. You know how these things work.”
Glowering at the silent Giles, she snarled. “I thought you’d married, grown a conscience. Your bride would be asha—”
Rumpel’s face distorted and for a brief moment those golden eyes of his burned with fire. “My bride owns my dark heart, true enough, and for her I would raze an entire kingdom. But you are not she, I owe you nothing, and you owe me everything. So choose quickly.”
“I hate you,” she spat.
Laughing once more, Rumpel turned to Giles. “Goddess speed, and return as soon as can be.”
“Sir.” Giles tipped his head and then the light pouring off the amulet vanished.
“You are an automaton.” She crossed her arms. “Have you no emotion, no feeling other than to follow that man blindly? You do understand that the death sentence isn’t simply for me, aye?”
He lifted a brow as if to say, If you say so.
Furious, she stomped her foot and glanced over shoulder. She was bound by pain of death to complete this mission. “I cannot leave without saying goodbye to my family.”
“We must make haste. But,” he continued when she opened her mouth to plead her case, “there is always time to say goodbye.”
Disgusted, even though he was being unbelievably kind, she marched for home. Never glancing back to see if he’d follow or not.
What was she going to say to Mother and Father? They knew about her deal with Rumpel, but, Gods, she’d hoped all she’d have to do was a little job, nothing harder than breaking and entering and her terms would be satisfied. Journeying into Fyre Mountain, it wasn’t so much the mountain that would make the task impossible. Though that would be difficult enough, but rather it was everything that came before it that would be the really tricky part of their trek.
“I can keep you safe, shifter.” Softly spoken words cut through her muddled thoughts.
Growling, she twirled on him. “Knight, I’m no maiden in distress, and if you offer to protect me one more time I should cut your balls off.”
His lips twitched ever so slightly. “Indeed.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just…” She stepped lightly over a damp boulder in a creek bed. “I’m trying to devise a way to let my parents know not only must I travel unchaperoned with a male not of our clan, but also with one that looks like a devil incarnate. You are rather disturbing looking, knight.”
He chuckled. “You would not be the first to say so. Though I am no devil—I do not have the horns or the forked tail.”
She glanced down at his booted feet. “You sure you’re not hiding any cloven hooves there?”
“I should hope not. It would make our journey in these boots quite impossible.”
She snorted. “You don’t seem nearly as unhappy by all this the way I do. How could this not bother you? We’ll be walking through some of the worst, most nightmarish parts of Kingdom.”
He shrugged. “Because I will succeed. There is no other option. And so I know I will not fail, nor will you.”
Lilith rolled her eyes. “Because you’ll save me.”
“I would be a fool to even think it.” He crossed his arms behind his back.
Chuckling beneath her breath, because the man completely befuddled her, she stepped through a dense bed of shrubs, disturbing a nest of fireflies that sprang into the air with a dazzling flourish of glittering golds, greens, and blues. Bobbing and weaving through the night sky with each flit of their wings.
The forest was strangely silent. The night birds did not coo, the insects did not hum—other than the ones they currently disturbed. She glanced at Giles side-eyed. “The creatures are never this silent. I would say they fear you, but I could not honestly see why—you’re as docile as a kitty.”
Though not entirely true, he’d obviously dispatched a gang of alphas. But nettling him was fun.
His lip pulled back as if offended, which caused her to snicker. But rather than answer her question, he asked her one of his own. “Why would your parents worry about your being unchaperoned?”
“You are a boy scout, knight. Can you not sense it?” She lifted her brows, giving him a knowing grin.
When he shook his head, she stopped walking and planted her hand on his chest. Stepping boldly into his body, she released her pheromones, inhaling his own scent of smoked cherry. “I am in heat.”
He gave no reaction whatsoever to her blast of scent.
“Ah,” he said stoically, “that would explain the behavior from earlier.”
Thoroughly confused by him and a little perturbed that he’d not even batted an eyelash when she’d wrapped her scent around him, she shook her head. “I’m beginning to suspect there is something seriously wrong with you, knight.”
Scratching his jaw, he shrugged. “I suppose so, shifter. What I can tell you is that if your parents worry for your virtue, they needn’t. I would never touch you.”
The way he said it, like she was inconsequential and without any charms whatsoever, offended her mightily. If the man had made an attempt on her, she’d have shoved her claws through his jugular and laughed while she’d done it, but that he didn’t even want to…
Goddess, that rankled. Of course it was probably for the best; there was the whole pact with the devil thing to consider. She’d been a fool to even try and flirt with the man, and she needed to remember who she was.
Tossing her head, she shoved in front of him and walked the last few yards home in silence.
~ ~ ~
Being stared down by the Big Bad Wolf, a mountain of a man with shaggy black hair and piercing golden eyes, was bad enough, but add the firecracker of his wife, Violet—a.k.a. Little Red Riding Hood, a.k.a. The Heartsong, a being of such infinite and dark power that all of faedom would tremble at the mere mention of her name—and for the first time in his long-lived life, Giles could admit to feeling a slight case of the nerves.
And the tension only continued to mount the deeper into the den he went. Three other sets of eyes glared at him from within shadowy alcoves, shifter males whose throaty rumbles broadcasted much louder than words what they thought of the strange male entering their home.
One of the males glared at Giles with murder clear in his eyes. The other two brothers had come around the young lad and pushed him back into a separate room, muttering low beneath their breaths at him.
“Don’t worry,” Lilith whispered into Giles’s ear. “They smell the adrenaline of St. John and the pack on you and me. Erich is only fourteen and his wolf is a wee more volatile than the rest—he is simply confused. But they shouldn’t kill you once it’s all been sorted out.”
She said it so blasé, and with a flick of her wrist, that he almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of his situation. Not that he wasn’t powerful, but a clan of five—and with one of them being the Heartsong—filled him with a shade more insecurity than he’d normally feel.
Lilith walked with her spine ramrod straight several steps ahead of him. “Heel, boys,” she said matter of factly. “The knight’s with me.”
The brothers simply nodded, but all eyes were on him. Swallowing hard, he inclined his head, knowing to show even a hint of fear was like the ringing of a dinner bell to predators of their caliber.
The den was much larger than any Giles had seen before. Sectioned off into several different units. There were the main living quarters, with rugs scattered beneath large couches that’d been gashed and slashed from what looked like sharp claws. Then there were the areas where curtains hung across doorways for privacy—those he could only assume to be the sleeping chambers. A heavenly waft of sizzling meats filtered down the long hallway.
The reddish walls were packed adobe that had small, drill-sized holes in them. The holes gleamed with a bright golden wash of light that helped the interior not get too dark. The den was colorful and homey. But being underground reminded Giles too much of his home in his past life, and what he wanted more than anything was to get above ground as soon as could be. Back to the expanse of a never-ending sky and the gentle sway of a springtime breeze.
Lilith entered the living room and stopped, then pointed at Giles. “Father. Mother, meet Giles. He is the dark imp’s butler, and apparently I am to sojourn with him to Fyre Mountain. I’m starving; what’s for dinner?”
Giles blinked, confused all over again by the woman before him. Outside in the forest she’d seemed aghast at the thought of being asked to journey, but now she acted as though it were no big thing.
The rest of the family banded around Giles like a wave of sharks circling chum. He stood abso
lutely still and raised a brow, taking a turn to look them each in the eye.
Some eyes were golden, others blue. All the men were tall, coming to head level with their father, but not all shared his dark head of hair. Some had blond hair like their mother—one even had a skunk stripe of white down the center of it. But all of them shared the same strong features.
Lilith, Giles decided, favored her father more in her dusky-skinned coloration, although she had the cobalt-blue eyes and the slender, more feminine curves of her mother, Violet.
Violet stepped forward.
Unlike the rest of her family, she was not nude. Dressed in buckskin clothing that had been dyed a brilliant ruby color, she lifted a golden brow. Her porcelain skin and youthful features were at odds with the knowledge Giles possessed of her dark and dangerous nature.
Years ago Rumpel had worried that the Heartsong might actually learn to become more powerful than even he, and there’d been a contingency plan in place should the wee woman ever become a thorn in the prince’s side. Thankfully it had never had to come to that.
“Red,” Giles rumbled low, nodding his head in a show of respect.
No longer did Giles sense the darkness in control of her, but the energy flowing off her was still plenty powerful. Enough to make the fine hairs on his arms stand on end.
“Demone.” She smirked at him. “Please call me Violet. I have not gone by Red in years. And know that we allow no one into our home without knowledge of whom they are and what they want. My wolf may be”—she looked at Ewan with an amused grin—“a tiny bit unamused by all this. But I do know that you are indeed here for this quest and that my brash, thick-headed daughter—”
“Mother!” Lilith scolded.
Red’s laughter sounded like the chime of ringing bells. There was an ethereal quality about the Heartsong now, one Giles did not remember the woman possessing years ago. Before she’d been angry and full of righteous fury, but now she seemed almost domesticated and tranquil.
Rumpel would eviscerate Giles for ever thinking so, but even his own prince seemed more docile these days since meeting and marrying his Shayera.
