by Mindy Klasky
Jonathan pulled out a drawer and selected a white plastic bottle. Something twisted inside me as his fingers gripped the cap, pressing down as they turned. He shook half a dozen plain white pills onto his palm.
“What are they?” I asked, trying not to be distracted by the hungry gleam in his eye.
“Aspirin,” he said. When I only shook my head, he elaborated: “Salicylic acid.”
“I don’t think burning Oberon with acid will give the result you’re looking for.”
“It’s the same chemical as willow tea. Just refined. The only question is how many tablets make an effective dose.”
Before he could object, I plucked one of the smooth white pills from Jonathan’s palm and set it on my tongue. Immediately, I tasted the bitterness of Willow.
“What the—”
I shook my head, cutting off his exclamation. I was willing to do anything, if only the pill worked. “Now,” I said. “We wait.”
It didn’t take long for the drug to take effect. I heard it in my ears first, the whisper of my blood flowing through my veins. Alerted by the louder sound, I glanced sharply at Jonathan, wondering if the rush of my pulse would trigger his predator reflexes. Or maybe something else, a reaction more enjoyable for both of us…
His fangs, though, were nowhere in evidence. I was buffeted by a major wave of disappointment. “What does a girl have to do to get bitten?” I asked. The words were out of my mouth before my brain could stop them. A quick blush burned my cheeks, hard enough and fast enough to make me dizzy.
Before I realized I was swaying, Jonathan’s strong hand closed around my right biceps. “Easy there,” he murmured. He moved two fingers to the pulse point in my wrist, glancing at the clock to count off fifteen seconds.
Whatever rate he detected made his eyebrows furrow. But not just two eyebrows—there were four. Two Jonathan faces floated in front of me. Four eyes. Two noses. Four lips.
What could he do with those four lips? And he had to have four fangs inside his luscious mouth… Four fangs that I wanted to feel, needed to feel, penetrating my jugular and sucking my overheated blood…
I slipped my arms around his neck and snaked a leg behind his knee, leaning into him, pulling him closer. The Willow pills sparked down my throat, up my nose, igniting a dozen tiny fires inside my head. “Mmmm,” I said, temporarily at a loss for words.
I thought we’d pleased each other before, but Willow made me realize how much we’d been missing. I gathered my hair off my neck, tilting my head to one side to give him an unobstructed view of my vein. “Drink, Jonathan. Let me give you what you really want.”
He groaned. The sound rattled from his belly, setting off a harmonic jangle in my bones. Before Willow could make me do anything else —wrap my legs around his waist, mash my mouth against his—Jonathan swept me off my feet.
He clutched me close to his chest. One arm was hard beneath my knees; the other curled around my back. His fingers tightened as I burrowed into his stony flesh, cheeping like a fledgling chick.
Willow whispered in my ears, feeding my frenzy. I was well past words, far beyond pride. I needed him like I needed air.
“Titania,” he said.
I fought to scratch my throat, to draw blood, to raise a scent no predator could refuse. “Drink,” I begged. “Feed from me. Take all you want, more. Drain me dry, just let me feel your fangs!”
“This isn’t you,” he said, grunting the words as he struggled to pin my wrists without dropping me. “This is the Willow.”
“It isn’t,” I sobbed. “Please, please, please! I’m a fae princess! Willow can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do! By the Green Man, turn me now!”
Setting me on the bed, he twisted out of my grasp. His fingers rattled around in the supply cart, scrabbling for something. I twisted to avoid the hypodermic, the sharp sting of the needle, the sudden rush of cold into my overheated veins.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as the Willow drained away as quickly as it had overtaken my body. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, as I started to shiver. “I’m so, so sorry.” He pulled up the sheet, pulled up the blanket. He smoothed my hair from my face. “Sleep, Titania.”
I slept.
17
I woke the following night knowing three things.
One: Aspirin worked as well on fae as willow tea.
Two: The full moon had risen a few hours before sunset, and with it my powers had reached their peak.
Three: Even with my magic completely restored, my Willow hangover was a bitch.
And then I learned a fourth thing: My pounding headache and lichen-coated tongue were for naught.
“Forget it,” Jonathan said. “I won’t dose him with aspirin.”
“What are you talking about?” My shout sent a million knives into the backs of my eyes. Nevertheless, I pushed for clarification. “You were thrilled at the chance to take him down last night.”
“That was before I saw what the drug did to you.”
“I’m fine!” I was fine. Even if I winced at the volume of the words I shouted.
“You can barely stand.” He guided me to the edge of the bed, his hand hovering by my elbow as I sat with painstaking care. At least the room stopped spinning when I was no longer trying to balance on my feet.
“So Oberon will have the mother of all headaches tomorrow morning. You’ll have Abigail. It will be a fair exchange.”
“I won’t beat him that way.”
“What way?”
“Come on, Titania! You were there! That drug turned you into a sl—” He cut off the word.
“Go ahead,” I challenged. “Say it. I was a slut.”
“I was going to say slave.”
“No. You weren’t.” I knew I was right because he refused to meet my eyes.
He doubled down. “I haven’t forgotten that night in the garden when you promised not to play your Games. I promised not to control you. If I had followed through last night… If I had taken everything you offered…”
“It’s one thing to talk in a garden! It’s another to fight for your life! Oberon is a monster!”
“That’s what people say about vampires.” Jonathan’s voice was deadly calm. “But they’re wrong. We have a code. That’s what keeps us men instead of monsters. Vampires fight fair. And it isn’t fair to drug a man past any semblance of clear thought, to force him to do things he’d never consider sober.”
I forced my voice to be gentle, despite my aching head. “Oberon Blackthorne is our enemy. He’s a highly trained fighter. He’ll do everything he can to destroy us.”
“Me,” Jonathan said. “He’ll do everything he can to destroy me. You’re not getting anywhere near the National Mall tonight.”
“Excuse me?” I could still summon royal imperiousness when necessary. “Perhaps you forgot, but I’m the one who challenged Oberon to a battle. You’re my champion. You don’t have any reason to fight if I’m not there. Vampire women may back down from a battle, but I’m a fae princess.”
“I know,” he said, every bit as frustrated as I was. “You mention that every chance you get.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have to, if you showed me the least bit of respect!”
But shouting wasn’t going to win this fight. What had Ashley told me? Give him his space. Let him believe he’s the one who’s come up with his own solution.
I didn’t have time to follow the witch’s suggestion. I’d have to rely on older wisdom, on tricks I’d learned as a child in the Seelie Court.
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine?” Jonathan clearly didn’t trust my sudden capitulation.
“You won’t give him Willow.”
“What’s the catch?”
I had to sell him. If I never convinced him of anything else in his life, I had to make him believe this one thing. Because if I failed, if he fought the Unseelie Prince without Oberon being drugged into submission, Jonathan’s life would be forfeit.
I held his gaze wit
h absolute control. “No catch,” I lied. Distract the mark. That was the lesson of all my Games. I breathed a prayer to the Green Man it worked this time. “But will you let me set a glamour on you? If he doesn’t recognize you, doesn’t know you’re Abigail’s father, you’ll have a little more time. That might be enough to make all the difference.”
I watched him parse my words. He was wary; he’d seen enough of fae ways in the past three weeks to mistrust me. But in the end, my offer made perfect sense.
“All right,” he said.
“I’ll have to come with you,” I warned. “The glamour will only last a little while. I’ll have to touch you again to keep it strong.”
He hesitated, but he’d already made the decision to rely on my magic. “All right,” he finally said.
I barely smothered my relieved sigh. “I’ll meet you in the foyer, then,” I said. “It’ll take me half an hour to pull together everything I need.”
He pulled me close for a hurried kiss. “Half an hour,” he said, whispering against my temple.
Trusting man. I didn’t need half an hour to set a glamour; I could do it with a quick twist of my powers. But I’d need every minute I’d asked for to plan my winning Game.
18
It wasn’t a Game. Not really. It was just a simple switch.
I wasn’t truly breaking my promise. I had to believe that. And I had to pray that Jonathan would believe my explanation—tomorrow and the next night and the next, all the nights after we rescued Abigail Weaver and banished Oberon Blackthorne from the Eastern Empire forever.
It was easy enough to take two aspirins from the supply in my hospital room. I slipped them into the pocket I’d cleverly glamoured into my forest-green gown.
I collected my reticule, the same one I’d carried at my ill-fated wedding. A quick thought stretched it, converting it into a russet-colored drawstring sack with two interior compartments. Avoiding possible complications, I turned the lining on one side crimson. I left the other golden brown.
My breath came short after I’d completed that transition. At least the adrenaline from my working was dissipating my hangover. I was steady on my feet now. My hands barely shook. My woodpecker headache had faded to a whisper at the back of my mind.
I stopped at the vending machine and purchased a bottle of Coca-Cola. The seal cracked when I opened it, and the drink fizzed. I barely resisted the temptation to take a slug for courage, but I couldn’t risk Jonathan smelling it on my breath. I dropped in the pills and watched bubbles attack them, already dissolving the disks into the dark, syrupy drink. After I twisted the cap on, I glamoured the seal, so no one could tell the bottle had been tampered with. The Coke disappeared into my sack, tucked neatly into the crimson side.
Jonathan waited by the front door. He’d collected a sword from somewhere; it hung from his waist in an ancient leather scabbard. For once, he’d set aside his white doctor’s coat, along with his dark trousers and his perfectly starched shirt. Now, he wore loose black pants and a matching belted jacket, the uniform of some obscure martial artist.
He held a bottle of Coca-Cola in his hand.
I kept my voice as light as I could. “One good thing about going somewhere with a woman. She carries a handbag so you don’t have to.”
I extended my glamoured reticule, taking care to gather the fabric so he only glimpsed the brown interior. He grunted and deposited the bottle exactly where I wanted it to go.
Time to distract him, lest he notice the bulge on the other side of the bag. “You really know how to use that thing?” I nodded toward his sword.
“I know enough. And I do have a vampire’s reflexes.” He was a cocky man. I loved that about him.
“Will you, though, after I glamour you?”
“No time like the present to find out.”
I opened the door and led us to the driveway. I needed to feel moonlight on my skin. I needed that surge of power as my magic came fully alive, as the most that I could be merged with the most the moon could be, as I became the true fae princess of the Seelie Court.
I’d thought about this moment while I was doctoring the bottle of soda. If I gave Jonathan the mien of a gnome, as I’d adopted for my journey to the Eastern Empire, he’d have endless stamina and the muscles of a burrowing race. But Oberon’s greater height and reach would ultimately prove too much an advantage.
I dared not make him a shifter, not with the full moon out. I couldn’t trust the combination of my own powers, a human form, and an animal core beneath. Jonathan might be caught transitioning from state to state when he most needed to concentrate on the duel.
Dryads, naiads, nymphs, and sprites—none was strong enough to defeat Oberon Blackthorne. Ifrits, too, and their more worldly cousins, the salamanders—those fire creatures thrived on deception and misdirection, which Jonathan had no time to master.
Centaurs had the brawn, but Jonathan would have to overrule their prey instincts, their innate desire to flee from conflict. Fauns were hopeless on any battlefield.
There were other creatures too, some I hadn’t even considered in my frenzy of planning. But for simple, brute strength, for unequaled stamina, I couldn’t do better than a gargoyle.
I gathered the image in my mind, sifting through the handful of gargoyles I’d met in person. I settled my hand against Jonathan’s jaw and felt the slight prickle of whiskers that had grown in the hours since he’d last shaved.
If I were a witch, like Ashley McDonnell, I’d recite a spell. But I was a fae, and we didn’t bother with words and explanations. We were an impulsive race, forging ahead with impressions and thoughts.
I gathered my moon-magic, the power flickering and humming as I confined it to my fingertips. I set my palm against Jonathan’s jaw. I pushed.
The glamour washed over him. It soaked into him. It captured every cell of his body, stretching and pulling and changing.
He resisted the touch. Most people did, the first time they transformed. I was ready for his pressure; I pushed harder. “Trust me,” I whispered.
And he did.
His familiar vampire face wavered and rippled. For one moment, no remnant of Jonathan remained, but then the structure of his bones asserted a shape beneath his new skin. His body followed suit, arms lengthening, legs thickening. His chest grew broader and his waist expanded to match. His body filled his cotton trousers and jacket; the once-roomy fighting clothes now strained at their seams.
His hint of beard disappeared beneath my palm; the skin all over his body turned smooth. At the same time, it hardened and darkened, growing even more chilled than his vampire flesh.
Like most supernatural creatures, gargoyles had ways of passing in the world of men. They could take on human form—a little too tall, a little too stiff, but recognizably mundane.
Jonathan wasn’t passing now. He was a gargoyle warrior, ready to stride into battle.
“Stand back,” he said, and he only seemed a little surprised by the rocky gravel of his deepened voice.
I took a step away, and his hand closed over the grip of his sword. He flexed his fingers, knuckles white as pebbles. Taking a deep breath—he breathed as a gargoyle, deeper than he ever had before he’d become a vampire—he swept the sword from its sheath.
He worked a fighting form with all the speed of a vampire. I could scarcely follow the blade’s path, barely make out its shimmer in the moonlight. Jonathan was balanced and fluid and fast, fast, fast. He was perfect.
He closed his stony palm over the edge of the blade and tightened his grip. A vampire’s hand would have been sliced through; cold blood would have welled up, black in the moonlight. Jonathan’s gargoyle hand, though, resisted the steel edge. With enough pressure, with unrelenting force, he could have cut his flesh, but for now, he stood fast.
“Why doesn’t every creature in the Eastern Empire take on a glamour?” he asked, his voice rumbling with wonder.
“Most creatures have never met a fae,” I replied, grinning despite mysel
f. Then, I sobered. “It’ll only hold for a couple of hours. When I glamour myself, the flow of magic is constant, but I’ll need to restore your mien if we’re out too long.”
“Then let’s do this thing.”
He led the way around the corner of the hospital, past the emergency room door to a small, asphalt-covered parking lot. We stopped in front of a sleek black vehicle.
Even in his race to reach Abigail, Jonathan didn’t forget chivalry. He opened a well-oiled door for me and set a protective hand beneath my elbow as I ducked inside. He made sure I was comfortable on the seat before he closed the door.
I took a deep breath as Jonathan strode on gargoyle legs, rounding the automobile to his own door. The heady scent of leather filled my nose. I couldn’t help but run my fingers over the polished wood before me.
There was iron, too, plenty of it. But I was nestled in a cocoon of leather and wood, safe and secure as Jonathan punched a button to bring the vehicle to life. He adjusted his mirror to accommodate his new height before he conducted us onto the tree-lined city street.
The sun had set hours earlier. The sidewalks were deserted near the hospital. Lights gleamed in the windows of nearby townhomes, and a dog barked from one small back yard. A few cars coursed down the street, but Jonathan had no problem accelerating past them.
He drove the way he did everything else—with a fierce intensity that set my nerves afire. His feet pumped the pedals before him smoothly. His fingers closed around the ball-topped stick between us as if they’d been born to the task. The vehicle surged to answer his commands, pulsing beneath us as if it were a living thing.
As we cut through the night, I turned my attention to Oberon Blackthorne and the battle that awaited us in the fae circle on the Mall. Otherwise, I’d be tempted to dwell on the not-a-Game I was about to play on the man I loved.
19
Oberon waited just inside his fae circle, swathed in a cloak as dark as a new moon.
As before, Jonathan couldn’t see the limits of the circle. He crossed the grass at an oblique angle, one that would take him toward the glowing subway entrance without ever touching Oberon's enclosure.
