“Syrus doesn’t consider you a servant. He thinks of you as a brother.”
“Yes. And I him.”
“You have the End of the Bridge, just in case?” Zeren asked.
Redge pulled the chain with the little red transparent ball on the end of it out of the front of his shirt. Zeren nodded and Redge tucked it back in. “I’ve never used one before.”
“It will only work once and you must not open it unless there is no other alternative. Keep it hidden, and if luck is with us, you will bring it back intact.” Zeren waved his hand in dismissal. “Go and keep your eyes open and your ears pricked. Remember Syrus is the future of Regia.”
Redge bowed and quickly left the room.
****
The hooded messenger trudged into Philippe’s apartments. With a small flick of his finger, the servant closed and locked the heavy doors, leaving them alone. The mole never came herself, she always sent sacrificial messengers. Philippe took a deep drink from a large goblet before standing up and approaching the messenger. He pulled the hood back and hissed, his lip curling in disgust at the female vampire. She gave him an equally disrespectful glare. Philippe stepped back from her and reseated himself.
“What crime did you commit, girl, to receive so great a punishment as to be sent to me?”
“Theft,” she answered curtly.
“You must have stolen a great treasure, tell me what it was.”
“Some of the queen’s jewelry.”
Philippe barked out a laugh. “Stupid girl.”
He narrowed his black eyes at her. Her skin was the color of warm cream, and Philippe thought she looked soft. Her platinum hair was wrapped and braided intricately around her head, her large amber eyes filled with insolence, and her pouty crimson lips twisted in a sneer. She was dressed plainly, but Philippe wasn’t fooled. He recognized the evidence of breeding. Maybe he’d keep her for a while after he retrieved the information she had for him. He hoped he wouldn’t have to torture her to get it. Not that he minded torturing, but vampires always seemed to fight longer than most.
“Are you prepared to deliver your message?” Philippe asked.
“I am.”
“What forms of torture would you prefer me to use to get the whole truth out of you?”
A small smile flashed through her sneer. “None, I’m sure.”
Philippe barked another laugh. “I know that’s the truth.”
The young woman lifted her arm, raising her hand towards him. The light glinted off the large gold ring set with a glowing orange stone. The ring was ornately carved and the stone gave off its own light, pulsing and flickering. Philippe gazed at it blankly. After a moment, she realized he didn’t know what she was showing him.
“It’s a collar,” she said emphatically as though he were a halfwit. “I have no choice but to tell you the truth and deliver the entire message.”
Philippe rose from his seat and grabbed her hand. His eyes danced with the flickering light of the stone and obvious greed.
“Give me the message.”
“The time is close at hand, but do not be hasty,” Her voice was flat, the words coming from her mouth like an automated recording. “The alliance between the Elves and the Vampires could undo all you have worked for. Zeren has a sting in store for you of a personal nature. Integrate the shifters; they will bring your killing strike. The Ogre’s are creating new weapons. I am working to destabilize from within. Gagnee can be trusted, but Frost is a traitor. Do as you like with the messenger, and keep the collar with my complements.”
Philippe paced in front of her as she talked, running his rough fingers through his beard. When he turned his lupine eyes on her, she held out her hand again, and the collar verified that she had finished her mission. The glowing stone turned as colorless as glass and slid easily from her finger. She sighed as Philippe took it from her, relived to be free of the cursed object.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Netriet.”
Before she could blink, he grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder, and carted her upstairs. She wished he’d have killed her. As soon as he dumped her back on her feet and grabbed her roughly by the shoulders, she made the mistake of screaming. His fist efficiently knocked her unconscious.
A wave of nausea rolled through Netriet as she regained consciousness. The room swam before her blurry eyes. The taste of blood was in her mouth and throat. She gingerly touched her face. Her nose was broken, and her lips were split and puffy. A generously sized knot throbbed on the back of her head where she assumed she’d smacked it against the floor after Philippe had punched her. Shock and indignation flared in her gut at the abrupt memory. She might be worth nothing, but she had never been brutalized like that before.
Netriet was sure Philippe had any number of unspeakable plans in mind for her, and she was equally sure that she would rather take her own life. She stood up slowly. The empty room swirled around her. A heavy chain pulled on her wrist. She looked down at it. He’d leashed her to the wall.
The night sky beckoned her through a wide-open doorway. It led out onto a balcony. The length of her chain allowed her to step out into the thin open air, but didn’t stretch far enough for her to look down. Still, she knew that she had never been up so high.
****
Kendel spent the second consecutive day ghosting around Fortress’ castle. He was extremely stiff from standing in a corner all day. It had been a fair few years since he had spent this long of a time invisible. He was certain there was a mole inside Fortress, and he was going to do his damnedest to find them out. Unfortunately, he couldn’t fully dedicate himself to the task because he still had regular duties to perform.
Kendel thought about Forest as his back achingly melded into the stone corner. Was she safe? Was she as uncomfortable as he was at the moment? Had she lost her temper and beheaded the future king? He wished he could contact her. And for the first time, he hoped she knew he was thinking of her, wishing her well. He wished she had been around the castle the last few days, because he knew she would have found playing with the new vampire weapon prototypes entertaining.
Chapter Eleven
“JUST LET it go, Syrus!”
“I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t,” Forest spat.
“Don’t start with that ‘cause you’re a vampire’ crap again.”
Forest bit down on her lip. “Fine, why don’t we just stop talking altogether?”
Syrus was quiet for a minute. “Why don’t you just tell me why you hate vampires so much?”
“Like I told you before, it’s because of what they’ve done to me.”
“I like how you’re able to generalize so elegantly. It’s the mark of a true bigot.”
“If you think I’m going to rise because you call me names, you’re wrong.”
“Racist, prejudiced, blinkered, narrow-minded, intolerant, unfair…”
“Let me know when you run out of synonyms.”
Syrus was quiet again for another minute. “Seriously, Forest, why can’t you tell me?”
“Just let it go,” she said again.
“No.”
She huffed out a breath. “The way it started is my business, but after that, I never met a vampire who swayed my bad opinion of the entire race. There.”
“So, you’re saying that you’ve never met a vampire you liked?”
“Yes.”
“Until you met me,” he said triumphantly.
Syrus ducked just in time as whatever she’d thrown at him went whizzing past his head. Forest wanted to stop up her ears as he laughed at her.
“Well, maybe the word ‘like’ is wrong. Infatuated, obsessed, madly in love with. How do those fit?”
Forest stopped walking and faced him. “What are you doing?” she demanded in a quiet voice.
“Just seeing how susceptible you are to the power of suggestion.”
“Stop it.”
“Ha! I must be getting t
o you.”
“Please! Please stop it!”
The obnoxious grin on Syrus’ face vanished, and he was instantly sober and contrite. “I’m sorry, Forest. I’m just really nervous.”
“So you’re way of dealing with anxiety is turning into a complete jackass?”
His lips twitched into a small smile. “I guess so. I’ll knock it off. I just have a hard time not talking when I’m nervous.”
“Here, maybe this will help.” Forest pulled her MP3 player out of her pocket and thrust it into his hand. “Can you follow me without your hearing?”
“I’ll try. I think I can manage it.”
Once Syrus had put in her ear buds, Forest walked at a slower pace for a while. He murmured and hummed along to the music but mercifully ceased talking. Forest was so emotionally distraught she felt like she had ripped in two. One half of her wanted as much distance from Syrus as possible. The other half wanted to burrow under his skin. And she wanted to beat her head against the nearest tree until she blacked out, because both halves of her were equally strong and equally demanding. She was so relieved when he had stopped talking and yet had mourned the loss of his voice, annoying as it was.
The beginning of their journey had passed easily enough. Forest decided to keep off the roads, knowing that decision would cost them time, but it maintained the low profile. The terrain was amiable for the first few hours, but now it was starting to become rocky as they began to ascend the oblique hills that would take them behind Kyhael, the elf city.
Forest’s eyes constantly wandered over her shoulder to look at Syrus. Every time she looked at him, she hurt. Her eyes ached for his, and a white-hot sting would snake and snap inside her core, not to mention her scars. Every time her heart would clench for Syrus, she would swear she could feel Leith’s teeth sinking deeper and deeper into her scars. She turned her eyes back to the ground, and her two halves started arguing inside her head.
You’re pathetic! Stop looking at him!
I’ll look at him all I want. He’s mine.
He’s not yours, and he never will be.
No. He is mine…and he never will be.
Looking at Syrus when she should have been paying attention to where she was stepping, Forest stuck her foot right in a hole. Syrus caught her by the hand as she stumbled. Neither one of them said anything. Syrus smiled companionably at her and gave her hand a little squeeze. It was as easy as breathing. He continued to hold her hand, and she allowed it. He continued to hum along to whatever he was listening to, his face casually relaxed as though holding her hand was completely natural. Forest could feel her heart running into her hand, and she would have sooner cut it off than let go. They passed the next hour without saying a word. His thumb ran back and forth over her wrist, and tears slid silently down Forest’s cheeks.
****
Redge stalled as his men shuffled along in formation behind him. He could see Forest’s wall in the dense trees ahead. How long could he draw it out? Were Syrus and Forest far enough ahead of them that they could follow without interference? Redge held up his hand and the troop stopped. “There,” he said, pointing out the wall for the rest of them to see.
The troop moved ahead until they reached the wall. “How do we get through the gate?” one asked.
“We don’t need to,” Redge said. “They aren’t here. Use your nose.”
Every vampire in the troop took a communal sniff.
“So what do we do now?”
Redge turned and gave his men a stern look. “We follow them.”
****
Forest insisted they take a break in the afternoon. They rested under a large tree and shared a snack. Forest tried not to think about how Syrus had held her hand all that time and then abruptly let go of it as if she had an infectious skin disease. She told herself to stop being stupid about it and it was nothing to feel injured over, but since it had happened, she now skirted around him, careful not to touch him at all. They moved about each other like magnets of the same charge.
Syrus drank from one of his bottles and was now absentmindedly eating fruit loops out of a sandwich bad. Forest ate a granola bar and drank a personal sized carton of coconut water as quickly as she could, wanting to get moving again.
“How much progress have we made?” he asked, talking for the first since she’d given him her MP3 player.
“Not that much, and we aren’t making anymore sitting here.”
Syrus smiled nastily. “Is that your charming way of saying, ‘Syrus, get off your butt.’?”
“As you like it.”
Syrus chuckled and put everything back into his backpack. They headed off, continuing up the rocky hills. Forest hoped that he would go back to listening to music but she had no such luck.
“Do you think it will be difficult to locate Maxcarion once we are in the Wood?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Have you ever met him?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said again flatly.
“Do you think Philippe is aware that a wizard is living the Wood?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you listen to music and stop asking me questions?” she said testily.
Syrus was quiet for a while, but when she looked at him, she noticed that he hadn’t put her ear buds back in. The terrain was getting worse, and both of them were beginning to feel physically taxed. An hour passed in silence, and Forest was feeling more and more uncomfortable. She thought about trying to begin a conversation just to break the tension but found there were no words in her. She would open her mouth hoping to say something trivial and close it again, at a complete loss. Maybe Syrus wasn’t bothered by the silence. His face remained impassive, but she could see the weight of his thoughts under the surface.
Two more silent hours passed, and the evening began to blossom over their heads. The only bonus Forest could see to them giving each other the silent treatment was that they traveled much faster. If they kept a steady pace, they would reach Kyhael before the moon achieved its zenith.
****
That night, Lush knocked lightly on Zefyre’s back door the way he used to when they had been more than just colleagues, and the memory made him irritable. She opened the door and gestured silently for him to enter. She quickly shut and locked the door behind him, and without a word, walked into her living room. The house was dark, and he might have felt disoriented if he hadn’t been there in the dark so many times before. Zefyre’s house was large and simply styled in the old Elfish tradition. She had never been happy living in the capitol city, mixed in with all the other races, so she modeled her home to resemble the one she had left back in Kyhael.
A few candles flickered around the living room, and Zefyre sat down on her flat uncomfortable couch and motioned for him to take the chair opposite. Lush’s irritation ratcheted up, and he dropped into the seat with a huff. She was trying to manipulate him, and the fact that she could only made him surlier. He wasn’t going to let her dictate this…meeting or whatever it was. He knew she was about to play hostess and offer him refreshment or something; he was in no mood for pleasantries.
“So, what do you want, Zef?” he asked aggressively.
She raised one eyebrow and gave him a look a mother might give to her naughty child. “Would you like something to…” she began.
“No!” he snapped.
She tisked at him and gave him a small sneer.
“You asked me to come here, now what do you want?”
“I want in-depth details about the new weapons the Ogre’s are designing.”
His face wrinkled up into a what the hell expression. “You have details on the weapons the Ogre’s are making. Or were you daydreaming through the last council meeting?”
“Oh no, I was paying attention. Paying enough attention to know that the information at the meeting was patchy and more a dance of misdirection. I want to know what is really going on in the bowels of the Onyx Castle.”
Lush leaned back in his ch
air and gave her a momentary piercing look before shrugging nonchalantly.
Zefyre’s eyes flashed at him, and he felt a little surge of pleasure that he had angered her.
“Don’t feign ignorance. I know you are in Queen Christiana’s pocket.”
Lush smiled. “And why shouldn’t I be? It’s warm and comfortable in her pocket.”
Zefyre merely hissed at him.
His smile broadened. “Jealous?”
Zefyre let her face go blank, turned her head to the side and yawned theatrically.
“You’ve turned into some sort of traitor, haven’t you?” he asked.
She didn’t respond.
“I should report you.”
Zefyre threw her head back and laughed heartily at him. “Don’t waste words with stupidity. You know you can’t threaten me. I’ll win any blackmail game you want to play, and you know it. Now tell me what I want to know.”
Lush crossed his arms over his chest. “Everyone’s entitled to have secrets,” he said dismissively.
They looked at each other like two hostile opponents over a chessboard. Lush could give her the information she wanted without feeling too guilty. He wanted to know what she was up to and feeding her intelligence made them partners. He smiled suggestively at her. She wouldn’t get what she wanted without a little give and take. “All this is just a ruse, isn’t it Zef?”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
He gave her a very hot stare. “You know what I’m talking about.”
She returned his heat with ice. “That’s over, Lush.”
He ignored her rebuff. “So you want to know about the new weapons. Anything else?”
“I want to know if Forest and Syrus were stopped.”
Lush stood up. “I’ll tell you anything and everything you want to know, but not in here.”
“Huh?”
Lush jerked his head towards her bedroom.
“No. I told you that’s over.”
He chuckled deep in his throat. “Now who’s being stupid? You can’t really expect me to tell you secrets in bed without first getting into bed.”
Forbidden Forest (The Legends of Regia) Page 12
