Cassie flinched.
This was the Morrigan. Aeval was bad, but the Morrigan was worse. And while Cassie had never seen the third side of the queen, she’d heard stories. No one wanted to see the crone.
The door opened and Lord Haddon walked in, so carefree in appearance he almost sauntered.
“You!” The queen released Cassie and she backed as far away across the room as she could, rubbing at the deep gouges the queen had left in her forearm.
Haddon’s green skin turned a sickly shade of puke. “Your Highness.”
A wind had risen in the room, blowing ash out of the fireplace and moving the curtains. Cassie edged over to the French doors and slid behind a curtain. As quietly as she could, she eased the door open. She slipped outside and ran, the sound of the queen’s screaming echoing off of the stone walls of the hall behind her. But she couldn’t outrun the feeling she’d lost something important. All her trust in Bosco had gone.
Chapter Twenty-two
Cassie burst into the garden, running through a flock of flower fairies. They flew into the air around her in a cloud of oversize butterfly wings, the sound of their scolding chasing her as she ran down the lawn. She slowed to a walk, trying to catch her breath, but it felt like she was never going to get enough air into her panicking lungs.
Bosco had been taking money from Haddon to have sex with her.
She didn’t even know what to think. She stumbled to a bench and leaned back against the warmth of a brick wall. The sun was warm on her cold, cold skin. She raised her face to the sky and let it seep into her pores. From here she could see into one of the lower gardens. A group of mixed fae played croquet, the mallets sounding solid cracks. The sound of their laughter was hollow in her ears. Bright purple and yellow pansies encircled the bench she sat on. They were her mother’s favorite flowers.
Her vision blurred.
She had to get out of here and find her mother, Trina, and Bryanna, but the only way out was past the moat monster and into the hostile forest that bordered the fields outside the castle. Could she do that by herself? Venture into Underhill?
She had her own memories now of the last time she’d wandered into a magical forest unprepared. She’d nearly died. And then she’d had her mother with her and it had been in the pine forest of the north. This time she’d be alone. And it would be the Dark Forest where even full blooded fae refused to go. She’d be better off with Bosco, the traitor.
He’d taken payment to sleep with her. How much of what had passed between them had been real? Was he spying on her too?
She couldn’t get warm. She wrapped her arms around her body and held on tight. They didn’t really know each other, but she’d thought...
She’d thought there had been something between them. Maybe it had just been shared pleasure, but she swore she’d seen below the mask and into the man. She swore the person he’d shown her when they’d made love the night before was the true Bosco.
But what if it was all a lie?
What if he’d manipulated her from the beginning? What if that sad sensitive man who’d made her scream in bed had been another mask, and the true man was waiting for his pile of gold? If that were true, then she’d be a fool to trust him. More than a fool—she’d be an idiot, risking everything.
She was supposed to be down at the pond in a few minutes to meet him and run away with him. He might still be there. He didn’t know that she knew the truth. Should she go? It was the only way out. And she couldn’t do it by herself. She was depending on him to take care of the moat monster.
If she was going to go she had to go now. Before anything else could collapse.
She had no choice. She had to get out of here, today. She had to find her family, even if that meant facing the forest with someone at her side that she couldn’t trust. She had to tell the prince that she’d primed the way for him to attack. Not at the Black Court, where the queen would be sending her troops, but here at the Summer Castle. Where the queen and Lord Haddon waited with a stoned group of courtiers and Kian could attack with few guards.
She unwrapped her arms from around her shivering body. She didn’t have time to waste on self-pity. Not anymore. She had to meet Bosco and trust that he’d get her out of the castle. After that, even though he’d be next to her, she’d be on her own.
Bosco hurried through the castle aiming for the garden. He had to get to the pond and put the moat monster to sleep so Cassie and he could escape.
Gertrude stepped in front of him. “What’s your hurry?” Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin looked pasty under her tan.
“No hurry.” He moved to step around her but she clung to him, her long fingers snagging his sleeve.
“You’re always trying to get away from me. I thought we were going to be friends.”
He worked on her fingers, trying to get them to loosen. “I can’t chat right now. I have somewhere I have to be.” He didn’t know if it was just too much nectar or if she was on something else, but whatever it was it made her damn strong.
“Are you running off to fuck your precious princess? You said she was just a distraction.”
Cassie was a distraction. One he didn’t need. One he enjoyed far too much. He finally worked free and backed away from her clutching hands. “We can talk later, my lady, I promise.” Much later. Like years from now.
“No. I want to talk now.” She waved her hand. From around separate corners two sets of guards approached.
Bosco looked from man to man and got ready to run.
The closest guard pointed the sharp end of a pike at his mid-section. “Going somewhere?”
“Not with you.” Bosco pushed Gertrude into the set of guards on his right. She knocked into the first one, taking him down like a bowler’s pin. He fell, pike out, and skewered his partner. Leaving a breach in the ranks. Bosco moved. Running fast he leapt, making for the gap. He saw a movement out of the corner of his eye and ducked. The point of a pikestaff stabbed where his head and neck had been. He kept running, dodging lords and ladies, he leapt over a tiger, landing in a fluttering pile of shrieking flower fairies.
“Sorry ladies,” he gasped and headed for the doors to the garden, only fifty yards away.
“Stop him!”
He put on a last blast of speed. His breath caught in his lungs. He was almost to the exit. He could smell the warmth of the summer afternoon. See the bright sunlight through the wide open double doors. Ten feet away he started to lose momentum, but it didn’t matter. He could sense victory. Once outside he could find somewhere to hide and put on his glamour. They’d never find him then.
A shadow blocked the sunlight, and then another. Ten more guards, pikestaffs bristling like a wall of hedgehogs, came in from outside, blocking the light and the exit. He skidded to a halt, the tip of a pike nearly touching his belly.
They took him down as a group, bruising and hitting him til he lay quiet and they could truss him up tighter than a spider’s victim in their ropes. They dragged him by his feet into the nearly empty ballroom, he did his best to lift his head, keep it from banging onto the stones of the floor.
They dumped him in a pile at the foot of the dias. “Here he is, Your Majesty.”
He raised his head. Haddon was nowhere to be seen.
The Morrigan, snaky black curls coiling around her head, glared down at him. “Bosco. You were my man. Mine! But you have betrayed me.”
“Your Majesty, I have no idea what you are talking about.” It wasn’t really a lie. She could be referencing so many betrayals.
“Can you deny you’ve colluded with Lord Haddon and dared to take Cassandra as your lover?”
“Your Majesty, I—”
“Shut up!” She screamed, rising halfway off of the chair. “She belongs to me. Me! If she’s to take a lover I’m the one who will decide. And it certainly wouldn’t be you. You belong to me too. It’s too bad you didn’t remember that.” She took a deep breath, visibly calming herself. Her eyes slowed in their whirling madn
ess and she sat back down and pointed to the guard. “Take him to the dungeons. I’ll be down later to make sure he never forgets that I’m the one in control. Me! Me!” Her cackling laugh followed him out into the hall and down the first flight of stairs as they dragged him down to the dungeon.
Chapter Twenty-three
Cassie sank onto a large flat rock that leaned over the pond, and dipped her toe in the water. She checked over her shoulder for what was probably the hundredth time, but might be number one hundred and one. The sun had inched lower and lower and Bosco still wasn’t here. She had to face facts. He wasn’t coming. He’d taken Haddon’s gold and abandoned her here.
She pulled her knees close to her chest and fought down the tears pushing at the back of her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry over him. He was an elvatian. An elf! She corrected herself. No matter what her exterior looked like, no matter that she’d gotten to know him as the princess, inside she was human and elves were the enemy. As soon as she’d told him the truth she should have known he’d do something like this. Why she would expect otherwise from an elf, she didn’t know. Her family had had nothing but bad to worse from the fae, and sitting here watching the sun drop she realized Bosco had proved himself no different.
And yet she stayed. Waiting—while the afternoon wasted away—and hoping he’d show. Hoping she was wrong. She dragged her fingers through the clear water, spooking the fish. She didn’t know what she was going to do without him to help her. She couldn’t bait the moat monster without his drugs. She could get drugs, they were all over the castle. But that would take time. Time to find the drugs. Time to steal something from the kitchen for the monster to eat. Time to swim under the wall she’d barely survived swimming under the first time.
And she was running out of time sitting here waiting for him to show.
She should get up. Go. But instead she sat, giving him just five more minutes, her heart drooping under the wait.
At least she had magic now. It wasn’t the same as the Tuathan fae that surrounded her, but it was hers and it sang under her surface like a happy little song, buoying her up despite her desperate circumstances. It wasn’t elvatian and it wasn’t fae, and Goddess knew, it had changed into something she didn’t even know if she could fathom. But it was hers.
Being a psychic was different than any other Gift the Goddess gave. But she’d always wished she had a more active magic like her cousin Trina’s green magic. Something you could train up with words and spells and control. She had some of that kind of active magic, all gypsy witches did. But it was small and weak, not powerful like Trina’s or full of potential like her sister Bryanna’s healing ability.
Unlike other witches her Gift didn’t always come when called. Her whole life her psychic ability had been like being hit by a bus. It ran over her, leaving her with migraines and cryptic messages that everyone else thought were amazing.
But wait a minute. Cassie sat up straight. She hadn’t had a migraine since she’d been at the castle. Since she’d been turned into—what the hell was she? She looked like an elvatian, but she didn’t have the flow of magic the fae had. Her Gift now was so much more than it had ever been before and she could access it without pain. And, for the first time in her memory, she’d brought her power at her bidding, not the Goddess’s.
She checked up the hill and around the pond. She was alone. Everyone was up at the castle doing Goddess knew what to get ready for the ball. She was safe here. For the moment. She relaxed, closing her eyes and centering herself she reached in to give a quick look-see to understand what her Gift looked like now.
It flowed along the same channels it always had, but the currents were stronger, the gold brighter.
During the session with the queen she'd seen time like a river with branching streams where small changes could shift the future. In one, Prince Kian died and the queen took over court after court, ruling first Underhill and then taking over multiple worlds. In another he lived, and the queen died. In still another they became allies. There were so many, she couldn’t look at them all. It was dizzying, amazing, and frightening—all at the same time.
Inside she still felt human but the underlying power coursing through her Gift told her that was wrong. And today she’d found out she could lie like a human. So she wasn’t a true fae. None of them could utter a falsehood, but she’d lied to the queen and opened the floodgates of her Gift. Accessed futures that she had no idea how to sort out into any semblance of reality.
She let it all go and opened her eyes. The afternoon sun was warm and gave her the illusion that all was well. But she, of all people, knew better. Her plan with Bosco counted on their getting a message to the prince’s forces. If she stayed here, Kian would never know that the queen believed him to be attacking the Black Court. He’d miss the opportunity to take her here at the summer castle. She knew that at least.
She had to get out of here. Her Gift, while supremely changed, still wasn’t the type of practical magic she needed to get past the moat monster, and once past, survive the dangers of the forest. She needed Bosco if she were to find the prince and her sister.
He wasn’t a hero. She stood up and slipped on her shoes, snorting to herself and shaking her head. No, he might have had the potential to be a prince but for all her kisses he’d turned out to be a lying toad, one who took gold for her virtue and left her here to rot.
She didn’t have any choice. If he was still here he was her best shot at escaping and saving, not just her family and Kian, but possibly all of Underhill from the depredations of the queen. She had to find him and make him take her with him. Once beyond the castle walls, she’d brave the forest on her own.
She followed the familiar path up to the kitchens and like she had many times she slipped in the back door. But everything was different now. In the kitchen human serfs worked and laughed with some low-level fae. Before, she hadn’t thought about how humans had gotten here in Underhill, but now she wondered. Were they here willingly? Were they slaves? She’d had no idea as a princess and she couldn’t take the time now to figure it out. Her world had shifted but she had to act as if everything was normal.
Walking through the halls she felt insulated from the guards and the guests alike. Like being here was all some strange dream and she’d wake up in her own bed on Earth. But she was awake now and none of it was going away. She headed to check her rooms first. Bosco had no idea she knew he’d taken the money. Maybe he’d be there waiting for her with some story about why he hadn’t come to the pond. She headed to her room.
But the only person there was Gertrude sitting on her couch and drinking something pale and pink in a fluted glass. “There you are,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you for an hour. I almost left.”
“How did you get in here? Wasn’t it locked?”
“Of course it was, dear. I used my magic and opened it.” Gertrude smiled like she’d just licked cream from a bowl. “Poor thing, you can’t put a magic lock on it, like a normal princess would.”
Cassie had to bite her words back. Letting her secret out would do nothing. Besides, the other woman was right. Even her new stronger magic wouldn’t hold Gertrude out of her room. “Why are you here, Gertrude?”
“I came as soon as I heard.” Her eyes gleamed. “I knew you’d need me as soon as I found out.”
“Found out what?”
“You don’t know, do you?” She laughed. “How delicious. I’m so glad I’m here to hold your hand—like a true friend should.”
“You’ve never been my friend.”
Gertrude’s eyes widened.
Crap! Cassie realized she wasn’t acting the way she’d been all these months. She needed to take a step back but she was tired of pretending. She just wanted to find Bosco and get the hell out of Dodge. She sighed. “Please tell me.”
“I suppose I will, though I’m only doing this for your own good.” Gertrude poured herself another glass of pink liquid and tipped the tall bottle pouring out another glass. Sh
e held it out to Cassie. “Would you like some? I think you might need it.”
Cassie held back from screaming and just stared, waiting the other woman out.
“Very well.” Gertrude put Cassie’s glass down and leaned back, sipping her own drink. “I’ve heard the most delicious gossip. You know that man, Bosco? The one you’re sleeping with. Did you know he was the queen’s lover?” She waited for the words to sink in.
Cassie kept her face still. She’d had good practice over the last few months. Gertrude loved baiting her, but this news made her already bad day worse. He’d been the queen’s lover. She should have known. He was only out for the main chance. “Of course I knew,” she lied. “Why do you think I took him in?” She wasn’t going to give Gertrude the satisfaction of seeing how much it hurt.
“Hmph.” Gertrude frowned. “Well then, you might not know that the queen pitched a fit today when she found out that you’ve been sleeping with him and she threw him in the dungeon.”
Cassie lost her breath. She sank down on the couch next to Gertrude and held out her hand. Gertrude smirked and gave her the full glass of nectar. She swallowed the sickly sweet alcohol in one large gulp.
Her head spun. He hadn’t left her waiting by the side of the pond on purpose.
She couldn’t help it, a huge grin crossed her face. He hadn’t forgotten her. He was still a toad. He’d worked for Haddon after all, making a deal trading sleeping with her for money. But at least he had a good excuse for not helping her escape. He hadn’t shown up because he was locked in the dungeons.
Gertrude’s forehead wrinkled. “You’re pleased?”
Cassie had to think fast. “Of course I am. I was wondering how I could shake him loose. Now the queen’s done my work for me.”
Gertrude’s face fell.
A stone she hadn’t known she was carrying released from Cassie’s heart, and she felt suddenly free. The other woman had been a thorn in her side for months and now Cassie was in control.
Enchanted: A Fae Fantasy Romance (Fae Magic Book 3) Page 17
