But the darkness would not be denied. As the taste of her faded, it swept across the land, wilting the flowers and blackening their stems, stealing all beauty, colour and life from his perfect vision of nature.
Vail bit back a growl and turned his face away from her, fearing he would tear into her flesh with his fangs if he remained near her.
“Leave me,” he snarled and sensed her withdraw.
The distance that opened between them ripped at him, causing a fierce ache behind his ribs and a yearning for her to come closer again, to ignore him and sit with him. He needed the warmth she brought with her. He needed the calm that she awakened in him.
He needed her away.
Cursed witch.
She had cast her spell on him somehow and already he was falling deeper into it, snared in her trap but not incapable of escape. He could still break free of her charms. No witch would control him, never again. He knew how to break their spells now. He knew how to free himself.
He would kill her.
No. Vail squeezed his eyes shut and his heart throbbed. Little Wild Rose was his ki’ara. She had healed him. She had shown him tenderness, compassion, and care. She belonged to him.
He belonged to her.
He clawed his hair back and growled as his fangs lengthened.
A witch had told him such a thing before. The words taunted him, echoing around his mind in her wretched voice. He belonged to her now. He would do all she bid.
He had shown her tenderness, compassion and care. He had healed her. He had thought that she had belonged to him.
He had ended up belonging to her. A slave. A sword. A whore.
Little Wild Rose would do the same to him if he gave her the chance. She had cast her spell, had taken the first step by tricking him into believing her to be his ki’ara.
Just as Kordula had done.
He dug his claws into his scalp and the sting of pain gave him something to focus on while he untangled the threads of past and present, slowly regaining his sanity.
Two huge demon males stopped outside his cell. The same two who had taken him before the king. The same two who had taken pleasure in stripping and beating him, teaching him a lesson in humility he had refused to learn.
He bared his fangs at them and hissed.
They eyed him with surprise, frowned at the witch where she stood behind him, still holding her wrist to her chest, and then exchanged a glance.
Vail schooled his features, unwilling to give anything away. They would know from his condition what had transpired, but he couldn’t allow them to suspect it went beyond an offering of blood to heal him. He would never allow them to know that Little Wild Rose was his fated one.
“She gave him blood,” the smaller of the two said in the demon tongue. “Should she be punished?”
Vail barely suppressed the growl that rumbled through his chest at the thought of these demons harming Little Wild Rose purely because she had sought to help him. The king had clearly ordered him healed and by her hand, and she had done just that. Only she had chosen a more merciful method of healing him, one that hadn’t provoked a violent response or pushed him deeper into madness.
The larger demon seemed to consider the other one’s question and Vail almost lost his grip on his temper. He wasn’t sure he could retain it, or his grip on his sanity, if they punished her. He didn’t think he was strong enough to bear feeling her pain and knowing he was the cause. He wanted nothing to do with a witch, but the instinct that said she was his mate and under his protection ran deep, controlling him and overriding the need to keep her away, replacing it with a desperate desire to pull her closer and shield her from the world.
Judging by how calm she was, unafraid of these demons as they considered punishing her, she didn’t speak their language and knew not what they were discussing. He was glad of it. If she had feared, he might have lost his head and threatened them. He couldn’t allow them to think he had any feelings for her, because he knew they would report it to their king, and their king would use it against him.
The big male grunted. “King Bruan said for the witch to heal him. I say she has done just that. I do not think we mention her methods to him though. He might punish us for not watching her.”
The smaller demon opened the cell door and beckoned to her. She cast a glance down at Vail before gathering the chain between her cuffs into her hands, walking past him and out into the corridor. The larger male took hold of her arm and Vail had to clench his jaw in order to silence himself and stop himself from warning them not to take her from him, and not to lay a hand on her.
The two demons spared him one last glance before locking the cell door and leading the witch away.
CHAPTER 8
Vail closed his eyes, locked his senses onto the witch and tracked her through the dungeon. The squeak of a metal door opening and closing brought him relief. They had taken her to her cell. She would be safe there for now.
He pulled his focus away from her and pinned it back on everything that had happened, able to look at things more clearly now that the witch was no longer present.
His mind ran in circles, leaping from one moment to the next, patching together the snippets he could recall from the times when the darkness had gripped him. With each pass, things grew clearer, but his focus began to slip back to the witch. He couldn’t smell her anymore. He could only feel her, and her emotions were as turbulent as his own. Fear stood out amongst them, potent and powerful. Why was she afraid?
He needed to know.
The bond between them was quiet, but it fascinated him. He had never felt anything like it. It was as if a part of him that had always been missing was suddenly there, filling a void in his soul and completing him, even though he knew he was far from whole. If this was a trick, it was a powerful spell behind it. He felt physically altered by the exchange of blood, could strengthen the link by nurturing it, coaxing it closer to the surface of his skin, until he swore he could feel her near him and smell her sweet scent of nature again.
“Little Wild Rose,” Vail whispered and reached for her without thinking, needing to sense that she was there at the other end of the bond and that this confused and concerned her as much as it did him.
“The demons said the king wanted you healed again so he could speak with you.” The male voice intruded into his thoughts and shattered the link he had fostered between him and the witch.
Vail looked off to his left, across the corridor to the incubus. The male rubbed at the thick dark beard coating his jaw and his green eyes gained a wary edge. The swirls, dashes and spikes that formed the lines of his markings along his forearms flared in hues of dark blue and dirty gold. The male feared him.
He recalled the incubus speaking with the witch, saying things about him. He narrowed his gaze on the male. An incubus was no match for an elf. It would have been wise of the male to hold his tongue rather than dare speaking to him.
The incubus sat beside the bars of his cell, leaned his bare back against the thick grey stone wall and rested his arms on his knees, his skin pale against the black jeans he wore. Vail noted that he wore the same cuffs as he and the witch, but was given more freedom than both of them. There was no chain holding the two cuffs together.
Vail stared at him, assessing his build and his physical appearance. Judging by the male’s long, shaggy dark hair drawn back into a thong and his unkempt beard, he had been a prisoner for some months, if not years.
“Don’t even consider hurting Rosalind.” The incubus’s markings began to change, obsidian and crimson chasing back the other hues, alerting Vail of his anger.
Vail snarled at him, flashing his fangs and warning him that telling him what to do with his ki’ara would end in his death. No doubt the incubus wanted her for himself. She belonged to Vail now though, and he would allow no male to touch her.
He paused.
Rosalind?
Was that her name? It was familiar. He searched his memories of their times tog
ether, caught a fragment of a moment when she had shouted at him that her name was Rosalind.
It was pretty. A fair name for a fair witch.
Vail caught himself and growled. Even the most black hearted of witches had fair sounding names. It was all another trick, a method of luring him into believing her weak and vulnerable, in need of his protection.
“Chill,” the male said in a flippant tone, one that drew another growl from him. “I’m not interested in the witch.”
Vail didn’t believe that for a second. He glared at the male. The incubus held up his left hand, revealing a gold band around the ring finger. The male was mated?
“I figure that since we’re stuck across from each other, maybe we should get to know each other… because you look like a man with somewhere to be and I have somewhere I need to be too.” The incubus lowered his hand onto his knee and twisted the gold band around his finger with his thumb, a distant look in his eyes. “The name is Fenix. I don’t suppose you like being called Mad Elf Prince so your name would be?”
“Vail,” he said, surprised that the male knew of him yet didn’t know his true name. Had history forgotten it? Was that all he was to the world now—the mad elf prince? Vail shook those questions away and focused on the male across from him. Incubi were strong and possessed an ability to teleport. The male could be useful in an escape. “You are mated?”
“Yes… and like your little bond with the witch… it’s complicated.”
Vail wanted to deny that he had bound himself to the witch, but failed to see the point. Incubi also had the ability to sense emotions in people, to influence desire and manipulate feelings. That ability and his position in the dungeon, directly opposite Vail’s cell, had given the incubus enough clues to piece together what had happened between him and the witch. If the incubus felt protective of the witch, perhaps Vail could use that to his advantage, playing on his feelings to convince him to be of service during an escape.
Fenix heaved a sigh and idly ran the fingers of his left hand down the bars of his cell, his ring scraping the metal.
Vail twisted his arms, lowering his left one and allowing the chain to slide through the ring holding it to the slab so he could bring his right hand to his face. He scrubbed the several days’ worth of stubble on his jaw and longed for his armour and his claws. With them, he would be able to scrape the irritating stubble away. He had no desire to end up looking as the incubus did, with a thick mass of hair covering the lower half of his face.
“Is your mate here too?” Vail said.
The male looked across at him and shook his head.
“Not anymore. She was here but the bastard Frayne killed her right in front of me… and now I do not know where she is.”
That didn’t make any sense to Vail. If the female was dead, then she was gone and this male knew exactly where she was. Had the male lost his mind on losing his female, or was there more to his bond than he was telling Vail?
“Frayne is dead, slain on the battlefield by King Thorne of the Third Realm. I witnessed it myself.” Vail inched himself up onto his elbows and studied the incubus for a reaction.
His fae markings remained deepest red and black.
“I knew of that, but it hasn’t assuaged my hunger for vengeance in her name. She had called herself Evelyn this time.”
“This time?” Vail couldn’t hold that question back. “You speak of her as if she comes back from the dead.”
A solemn smile touched the incubus’s lips beneath his beard. “She does. We are cursed. She more so than I, but I have the worst side of it. I have to bear being driven to find her, and then seeing her living out her life without knowing of me, and I know if I dare to make her love me again, she will die.”
Fenix closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands and Vail gave him a moment of silence, sensing his need to battle the surge of powerful emotions that had crossed his face and had coloured his voice, and his fae markings too. They shone in hues of black, purple and blue now, giving them a solemn appearance, one that spoke of suffering.
Seeing his female living without him tormented this incubus, drove him mad with a need for her, even when he knew that if she fell in love with him, she was cursed to die.
“She is reborn upon her death, stripped of her memories, and placed back into the world. I have to find her… or the one who did this to us. Yes… I need to find him. I cannot bear it anymore. I must lift the curse before she ends up dead again.” Fenix pushed trembling fingers through his hair, dragging the long lengths back from his face, and looked up at Vail. The sombre hues of his markings changed again, black and red sweeping over them as his green eyes narrowed on Vail. “You want out of this place, and so do I. I have to get out of here.”
Vail wondered if he looked as crazy as this male, driven wild by the things that tormented him, and by his captivity.
The steady echo of footsteps warned him that now was not the time to discuss escape plans. Two guards approached, the same males who had taken Little Wild Rose from him.
They stopped outside his cell, both of them dressed formally now, wearing loose black shirts tucked into their black leather trousers. Vail assumed they had fixed their attire to make themselves more suitable for their task of bringing him before their king.
The smaller male grinned and held up a pair of black trousers, reminding Vail that he was nude beneath the strip of material Rosalind had kindly bestowed upon him.
“Perhaps we should make him walk naked.” The larger demon snatched the trousers from his companion, bunched one leg in each of his fists, and threatened to tear them in half.
Vail’s heart jerked in his chest and he pulled on his restraints, battling the sudden desperate need to ask these demons for mercy. He stifled that desire, schooling his features into an expression of indifference even when his insides were twisting in knots, tightening at the thought of having to walk naked through the entire castle, forced to endure another form of humiliation.
The warriors in the courtyard would see him, and no doubt mock him.
The bear and dragon shifters too.
The dark witches.
He clenched his fists, grasping the chain as his heart pounded wildly, driven to a thunderous beat by the thought of those witches seeing him nude and exposed.
Before he could stop himself, he looked at the largest demon and whispered, “Do not.”
Those words felt like an admission of weakness, as if he had just revealed a chink in his armour through which these two demons could hurt him, but he hadn’t been able to hold them back. He had clung to the tattered remains of his pride, had endured every lash of their whips and every taunt in silence, giving them nothing and not allowing them to see how they humiliated him, but he wouldn’t be able to cope with such complete degradation in front of others—in front of witches.
The demons seemed to consider his request and then the larger one smirked and waved the trousers at him, teasing him with them.
“I do not think he learned the lesson our king wished for him. Maybe a walk through the castle naked would help him learn his place and that humility.” The smaller demon went to take the trousers from his comrade.
Vail growled at him from between clenched teeth, on the verge of begging the males to let him have the trousers and a shred of his pride, and promising he would behave with more civility towards their king.
“Leave him alone, you bloody bastards!” The female voice rang through the dungeon at startling volume and with so much venom that many of the occupants of the other cells became restless.
Fenix chuckled.
The two demons looked shocked and the smaller one lowered his hands to his sides.
“King Bruan probably wouldn’t be pleased with us if we did make him walk naked,” the larger one muttered and gestured to the cell door.
His companion opened it, entered the cell and walked straight around Vail to the cuffs and the chain attached to the stone slab. He unlocked the ring that held Vail
’s chain, grabbed one of his restraints, and hauled him into a sitting position. The larger male unlocked the cuffs around his ankles and tossed the trousers at him.
“Dress. The king wishes to discuss his plans with you.”
Vail did so without hesitation, quickly slipping the black cotton trousers on and pulling them up. They were too large, but the waist was small enough that they didn’t fall down, but rather hung low on his hips. The larger demon fastened the ankle restraints back in place and then the other one pulled him onto his feet.
Neither male spoke as they led him from the cell and along the corridor, but Vail wouldn’t have paid them much attention even if they had. His thoughts collided, flitting between the witch and the king, and his current location.
He couldn’t fail to notice that they hadn’t restrained him in the same manner as before. The chain between his ankles was long enough for him to stride with purpose without the risk of tripping, and the chain between his wrists hung free, swinging with each determined step he made. They had given him more freedom, and were allowing him to walk sandwiched between them. Why? Was it on the king’s orders?
Instinct told Vail that it wasn’t a good thing. The king had treated him roughly before, had resorted to torture in an attempt to break him and convince him to comply with his orders and play a part in his plan. Now, that same vicious, cruel and manipulative male was having him escorted in a more comfortable fashion, given clothes and more freedom, and Vail suspected it was an attempt to lure him over to the king’s side.
The male had a new plan and Vail had a feeling he wasn’t going to like it.
He catalogued everything as he walked, making notes of all the details and the route the demons took. He scanned all the occupants of the cells too, but none of the males they contained were of any use to him. Only the incubus seemed healthy enough in mind and body, and had powers that could assist him in an escape.
Tempted by a Rogue Prince Page 9
