Charming Marjani

by Rebecca Rivard

  “What do you mean if I interest him?” She pressed the dagger’s point deeper.

  Blood welled up, and then the iron seared the tiny wound, sealing it. He had to be in pain, but he didn’t blink an eye. The man might be a manipulative, two-faced prick, but he was no coward.

  “Talk to him,” he urged. “That’s all I’m saying.”

  She bared her teeth. “And if I kill you first?”

  “That’s your choice, of course. But I’m your only friend in the court.”

  “My friend?” She sneered. “I’d like to see how you treat your enemies.”

  His eyes flickered but he stared back calmly until she cursed and released him. Stepping back, she dragged the back of her hand over her mouth in a deliberate gesture.

  Wiping the taste of him away.

  He had the grace to look ashamed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  “You think?” Her look should’ve fried him where he stood.

  Turning on her heel, she strode into the bathroom to rinse her dagger. She shoved it back into her boot and gripped the stone sink, Fane’s words thudding in her mind. If you interest him, he won’t let Lady B get hold of you.

  Boredom was a fae weakness, especially with an old fae like Sindre who’d been everywhere, done everything. She’d slit her own throat before she’d be any fae’s whore, but maybe she could use Sindre’s boredom against him. Play his games for a short while and watch for a chance to escape.

  Think, Jani.

  But even the most Gifted strategist needed data to work with, and there was too damn much she didn’t know. She could guess why Lady Blaer was capturing fada—she fed on their emotional distress—but why did Sindre allow it? And why have her followed? Was it standard procedure, or had he been watching for her—or maybe Adric—in particular?

  But anything was better than a cage. To be enclosed like that, trapped and at that fae bitch’s mercy…

  Her throat closed up. She gulped several breaths and then splashed cold water on her face.

  When she returned to the bedroom, Fane was seated on the wood chair gazing down at his clasped hands. He looked…so alone.

  Her growl was for herself. She was not going to soften toward the prick.

  As he rose to his feet, his gaze swept over her. She tensed, wondering if he’d try and take her knives from her. She’d beg if she had to—without the iron dagger, she was helpless against Sindre. Teeth and claws would be useless against such a powerful fae.

  But instead, he asked something totally unexpected. “Do you have to wear the quartz over your heart, or can you hide it somewhere else on your body?”

  She instinctively brought her hand to where it was tucked beneath her sweater. “Why?”

  He expelled a breath. “You didn’t hear this from me, understand?” When she nodded, he continued, “Because if Lady B captures you, you don’t want to be wearing that quartz. I can confirm this much—she’s figured out a way to control earth fada with their quartz. You can hide that one on your body, and I’ll get you another.”

  Marjani fingered the switchblade in her front pocket. Could she trust Fane? She was still reeling at the big fat secret he’d hidden from her.

  But it was true that the fada could be controlled by their quartz. With the right words, a fae could enslave a fada. And apparently Corban had been stupid enough to give Blaer the secret words.

  “All right. But I want your promise that you won’t tell anyone I switched.”

  “I promise,” he said immediately. “Unless Sindre asks me directly. I can’t lie to him.”

  Can’t, he’d said. And something else he’d said niggled at her.

  “What do you mean, you can confirm this much? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Haven’t you figured it out?” He eyed her sorrowfully. “I’m under a geas, love. I made a bargain with the king.”

  15

  A geas.

  Marjani’s mouth twisted. Fane was bound to the king…had been working for him all this time.

  He’d warned her that Sindre had spies everywhere. Hell, he’d flat out told her not to trust him. But had she listened? No.

  She’d willingly come with him inside the castle, slept in the same bed. She’d even allowed the bastard to kiss her.

  Holy singing crystals, did she know how to pick men.

  His eyes flickered, and she knew he’d seen her contempt. He stared down his straight nose at her. “Do you want another quartz or not?”

  “Yes.” She swallowed and made herself say, “Thank you.”

  Because if it kept her out of a cage, she’d be grateful to him even if it choked her.

  “We don’t have much time. Sindre’s an impatient man. But I know where I can get one outside the castle. I’ll be right back.”

  And then he was gone, like the Flash in those human movies. One second, he was there; the next, the room was empty.

  She sat down and fiddled with the checkers again. But she couldn’t focus.

  She gazed unseeingly at the red checker in her hand. I trusted you.

  She felt again his mouth on hers, his hands on her body. He’d been so gentle with her. Careful.

  A black rage filled her head. She slammed the checker down on the board, denting the inlaid wood and scattering the other pieces across the table. A few fell on the floor.

  With a growl, she gathered up the checkers and returned them to their box before getting up to pace restlessly to and fro. Forget him. It’s Sindre you have to worry about.

  After what felt like an hour but was really only about ten minutes, Fane slipped back into the room with a quartz about the same size as hers. “Will this do?”

  She turned the quartz over in her hand. It was an ordinary milky quartz, not amethyst, but it hummed a weak tune. If necessary, she could probably even make it glow to fool the fae.

  “I think so. Yeah.”

  She undid the knot in the leather cord securing her amethyst and tucked it into her bra before tying a new knot around the substitute quartz. She dropped the cord over her head. “I’m ready.”

  “Jani?” Fane reached for her. When she just stared at his hand, he let it drop to his side. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” Anger and hurt crammed her throat like sharp gravel. “I’m nothing to you. Just a job for the king.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She picked up her backpack. “Just take me to him.”

  He blew out a breath and then opened the door. “Fine.”

  This time, Fane did nothing to conceal Marjani’s presence. She attracted plenty of attention with her shaved head, drab clothes, and hiking boots. The looks ranged from coldly appraising to pity.

  She stomped past, deliberately slamming her boot heels onto the bright blue tiles.

  A pack of goblins trotted up. They swirled around her, snapping and snarling. She hissed and showed her fangs, and they gave high-pitched laughs like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard before continuing by.

  The maze grew increasingly complicated, crisscrossing itself and turning abrupt corners. At times the pearly walls pressed in so the two of them had to walk in single file.

  “I thought the king wanted to see me,” she muttered.

  “He has a peculiar sense of humor.”

  “Fucking awesome.”

  Disoriented, she drew on her quartz, and discovered that she could “see” a pattern in the maze: two lefts and a right, three rights and a left, and so on, always heading steadily north. It was kind of like plotting a path to kings row in checkers.

  She memorized the sequence. If she somehow escaped Sindre with her fur intact, she didn’t want to get lost in his damn maze.

  “This way.” Fane ducked through an archway. At the end of a long hall was a huge oak door, leading to what her internal GPS told her was the north tower.

  Her stomach knotted. She palmed her switchblade.

  “Put that away, damn it.” He grabbed her arm. “You can’t fight your
way out of this. You have to bargain with him.”

  He was right, much as she hated to admit it. She shoved the switchblade back into her pocket.

  “There. Now let me go.”

  His grip tightened. “I’m not your enemy. Remember that.”

  “So you keep saying,” she spat back. “And yet here I am.”

  Fane released her. “I’m sorry.”

  The black rage washed over her again. “Go to Hades,” she grated, and pushed past him.

  Fane easily passed her with those long legs of his and reached the door first. It swung open on silent hinges, and she stalked into the tower on that wave of anger.

  She was in a spacious antechamber. A big bodyguard with long black hair and silver eyes gave her a small bow. No scent, but maybe Sindre had given him one of those charms.

  “Welcome, senhorita,” he said in a southern European accent. “The king is expecting you. You, also,” he said to Fane. “Please, enter.”

  He indicated an arched doorway. Marjani nodded and continued through the door, Fane on her heels. They were in a huge, high-ceilinged room that took up most of the tower. She blinked.

  Because it was snowing.

  She shot a look up, but no, a glass-and-steel dome capped the tower. And yet, fat white flakes drifted down to settle on the marbled granite floor and the furniture scattered here and there in intimate groupings.

  Silver and blue fae lights floated through the falling snow, augmenting the natural light from the long, narrow windows, and leafless trees around the perimeter stretched gnarled limbs toward the feeble sunlight. The walls held towering bookcases filled with leather-bound books and museum-quality vases and statuettes, and an arched doorway like the one they’d come through marked each of the four compass points.

  Presiding over it all was an impossibly beautiful man on an ivory velvet couch, one sinewy arm slung along the back, head tipped to the snowflakes. His white-blond hair spilled over broad shoulders, and he wore pale gray pants and a collarless white linen shirt that hugged his lean torso.

  Sindre.

  She didn’t need Fane’s whisper to know who he was. The man reeked of silver and power, the kind only an old, old fae could gather.

  Not that he looked his age. She knew the king had seen more than a thousand turns of the sun, but he could’ve been Fane’s slightly older brother. They had the same sculpted features with slanted cheekbones and a straight, definite nose.

  He lowered his chin to look at Marjani. She concealed a shiver, because his eyes gave his age away. They were the cold gray of glacial ice, the eyes of a man who’s seen entire civilizations come and go.

  “Marjani Savonett.” Sindre scrutinized her as if she were a butterfly pinned to a corkboard. “Welcome to my court.”

  The knot in her belly tightened another notch. It was never a good thing when a fae addressed you by your full name.

  Setting her backpack by the door, she squared her shoulders and made herself walk forward. “Your highness. Peace to you and yours.” She inclined her head. “I apologize if I’m intruding.”

  Those frosty eyes bored into hers. She forced herself not to squirm.

  “You couldn’t have entered the castle without an invitation. Who invited you, I wonder?” He glanced at Fane, who remained a little behind her and to the side, feet apart and hands at his sides like a soldier at attention.

  “I followed a man in,” she said before Fane could reply. “A dark-skinned man with silver hair,” she added, carefully sticking to the truth. “He didn’t see me. He was on a motorbike.”

  “Lord Jon?” Sindre asked Fane.

  “I wasn’t there, your highness.”

  “No matter.” The king returned his gaze to Marjani. “I wanted to meet you, anyway.”

  She swallowed. “Oh?”

  A snowflake landed on her cheek and instantly melted, leaving an icy droplet behind. She brushed it away as Sindre unfolded his long body from the couch and strolled toward her. She clenched her toes in her boots and remained where she was.

  He paused a few feet away, smelling of silver and snow.

  She had to tip back her head to meet his eyes. He was even taller than Fane, with eyebrows and lashes the same white-blond as his hair. The snowflakes caught on them, forming glittering crystals.

  Her fingers twitched. She’d never craved the reassurance of one of her knives so much, even though Sindre would probably freeze her in her tracks—literally—before she could stick a blade into him. Ice fae drew life-energy from the movement of molecules. Even young ice fae could suck the energy out of liquid water, turning it to ice, and the most powerful could draw energy from living things.

  “You did well, Fane,” Sindre said without taking his gaze from her. “Bringing her to me. I like a man who thinks for himself.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fane give a tight nod.

  Her lungs constricted. Was that what he’d done? Brought her to Sindre?

  Fane shot her a miserable look.

  Don’t think about it. Whatever Fane had or hadn’t done wasn’t important now. Not with this beautiful, deadly male eyeing her like a hungry lion would a rabbit.

  Her chin lifted. “I brought myself. If Fane helped, he was only doing what I wanted.”

  Sindre quirked a brow. “I beg your pardon.” His voice was soft and silky. Mocking.

  She shrugged, out of her depth and sinking fast. Gods, she hated playing fae games. But the rage still burned in her, and it was rapidly being transferred to this mocking male.

  She set her jaw. “Are you going to put me in one of those iron cages?”

  Displeasure flitted across his face. “You know about the cages?” The falling snow came down harder, and the already cool tower grew even chillier.

  “Why? Are they a secret?” She deliberately didn’t glance at Fane, but Sindre did.

  “A secret? That’s a strong word for it.” He paced a slow circle around her, his expensive leather shoes kicking up the snow into small white clouds. “But an envoy should know better than to share my private business.”

  She turned with him. “The man in that cage is my business.”

  “Not anymore. He renounced your brother as his alpha.”

  Was there anything Sindre didn’t know? Fuck trying to talk her way out of this. She might be a strategist, but she had the feeling he was five moves ahead of her.

  She slipped her iron dagger from her boot. “Look, just let me leave and—” At a sound behind her, she broke off and whirled around, backing up so she could keep Sindre in sight.

  The big, long-haired guard sprinted toward her, an iron dagger in each hand. She gripped her dagger and took a fighting stance.

  The king flung up a hand. “Stop. I’ll handle this.”

  The guard halted, and then with a jerk of his chin, sheathed his daggers. But he remained in the tower, standing beneath a twisted gray tree with his arms folded over his broad chest.

  She turned back to Sindre. “I swear I’m not here to mess with you or any of your people. That fada you have in the cage? He’s my enemy. I’m not here to release him—in fact, I came to kill him.”

  “And if I’d like you to stay here at the court for a few days? We get so few fada visitors.”

  “A few days? And then I can leave?”

  The king’s mouth curved. “It’s a deal.” He held out his hand for Marjani to shake.

  Behind him, Fane gave a tiny shake of his head.

  She licked dry lips. Fane had deceived her—and yet, for some damn reason, she trusted him to help her to the extent he could.

  “What, exactly,” she asked Sindre, “are the terms of this deal?”

  The king brought his hand back to his side. “You owe me, Marjani Savonett. You will stay for as long as I desire.”

  Crap, there was her full name again. At least he didn’t know her true-name, the one given to her by her parents. But she still felt a pull to obey him.

  “I owe you? How?”

>   “You spent the night in my castle. You ate my food, drank my ale.”

  Fane made a small movement. “That was my food, willingly shared. She ate and drank nothing of yours. And she stayed in my room.”

  “But I own you,” Sindre returned.

  Fane’s eyes flickered. But he just replied calmly, “Room and board when I’m at the court are part of the terms.”

  Marjani’s gaze darted between the two men. Was it true? She didn’t actually owe Sindre anything?

  The king’s mouth compressed. He strolled past her, hands clasped behind his back. She stayed in place, gripping the dagger and turning with him in a strange little dance.

  He halted. “Name your price. Cash. Land. Precious stones.” He flicked his fingers, and a handful of diamonds the size of walnuts showered onto a round marble table.

  Marjani’s jaw slackened.

  “Well?” Sindre demanded.

  She wrenched her gaze from the glittering pile. “I’m not for sale.”

  “No? Then take it and give it to your brother Adric. He’s done his best, but it will be a long time before your clan recovers from the Darktime. And meanwhile, you live in your cramped city dens instead of running free as your animals. You have so few young—one or two live births a year at most. If something doesn’t happen soon—or if Adric dies—your clan won’t survive.”

  “Damn you,” she breathed. Because it was true. Every word of it.

  And together, those diamonds were probably worth more than the entire clan made in a year.

  She fingered the dagger’s ivory handle. “Stay here at the court. What does that mean?”

  “You’ll be my guest. No cages, I promise.”

  “And how long is a few days?”

  “That’s negotiable. A turn of the sun, perhaps more.”

  “And my duties?”

  Suddenly, Sindre was right in front of her. He ran a finger down her cheek. “Take the diamonds. I promise you’ll enjoy yourself. And your brother will thank you.”

  She sent a last look at the diamonds and backed up. Because she couldn’t do it, not even for the clan. And Adric wouldn’t thank her. In fact, if she sold her freedom for the clan, it just might break him.