He hoped it was one with blue eyes.
* * * *
Macsen passed down a long curving stair and out into the wild celebration of his court. Shouts of welcome and screams of glee greeted him. His presence meant the highest point of the rite had come. With deliberate steps, Macsen passed through the crowd and came to stand at the foot of the stairs that led up to his throne. Talaith was waiting for him, holding a woman spellbound by dark allure.
He took the sacrifice into his arms, stroked her auburn hair and ran his fingers over her skin, pale in the starlight. Her eyes were blue, but not the shade that he was hungry for. Still, Talaith had chosen well as he had known she would. Eight hundred years at his side had taught her his preferences.
Macsen held up the sacrifice before his people and listened to them howl for her death. She was only a human captive from last year’s Hunt, but tonight she bore the full attention of the Red Court. Under the pressure of Macsen’s allure she submitted to his grasp, to the hungry howl of the sidhe. She was a creature without a will of her own.
The Red King put her down on her feet and gathered up the length of her hair in one fist. He addressed his court in a ringing voice.
“For the Hunt, and its power!”
A tide of whispers from his court returned the words to him.
“For the Hunt and its power!”
“Because I am your king, unless one among you would challenge me!”
Below him, a hundred sidhe drew a breath in unison. No one spoke. He hadn’t thought anyone would. His power was legend, as much to his own as to humans.
Macsen smiled, and bent to open his mouth around the succulent curve of the woman’s throat. He penetrated deep with sharp teeth made for this one purpose. A rough groan, some bestial noise, slipped out of Macsen’s throat between swallows of red. He drank in the rich flow of blood, endless and all encompassing…until it ended. Then the woman lay still in his arms, but not in languor.
Slowly, enjoying the morsels of flavor, Macsen Cadoc licked his lips and teeth clean of the sacrifice. He dropped her body to the ground and left it. It would be taken care of. Already, small seekers of soft flesh were crawling hungrily out of the crowd toward the fallen body.
Macsen stepped out of the whirling that was the dance as it was reborn, and climbed up to his shadowed throne. Ecstatic taste and energizing sensation wound through him. The living blood he had drunk moved in him, mixed an afterglow like the pleasures of sex with the euphoria of strong wine.
He fell into his high seat and turned his gaze down toward the dancers. There was beauty here no mortal had ever survived, a striving passion beyond all human desire. Over it all, his gleaming winter demesne, Macsen sat enthroned—the Red King. Yet he found that despite the sacrifice, despite the affirmation of his rule, his being hungered for more than just the flow of blood. That desire was the basest of his being, but it wasn’t the only thing that moved him…or shouldn’t be.
The truth was that he was bored. Ennui had been creeping up on him for years. He had taken the Red Throne in a storm of power when he was only ten years old, but that time was now a thousand years ago. Every day, every decade since had begun to fold into unbroken sameness. He had fought wars and ended them, had drunk the lives of men and women and strange creatures of magic and power. Despite this, or maybe because of it, eternity had grown long for him. Empty. His mind turned on forever, contemplating. He watched the movement of color and light below him, but it was the wind that distracted him from his brooding.
The leaves of the wood overhead shivered and rustled like ancient silk. The land to which he was bound by will and magic shuddered under that wind, a wind that foretold the approach of…something.
In the next moment, Macsen felt that something approaching. What would it be? He scented neither fear nor fire, only purpose, an odor ripe as fresh fruit. What was it? Who did it belong to?
He pushed himself forward on the arms of his throne and looked out across his court. At the very edge of the dancers, he saw a figure move, circling, a figure that did not fit in. Macsen’s whole being tingled with watchful alertness, with a sudden and complete awareness of the truth. Intruder! Trespasser! Stranger, invader, thief!
A rush of murmurs washed up from the court and the disrupted dancers as many others became aware of the stranger’s presence. The smooth, perfect movements became stillness. The pounding of the drums became an equally pounding silence. Many voices reached Macsen’s ears, all of them speaking the same thing.
“A woman is here among us!”
“A human woman!”
Macsen stood before his throne and looked down. A hundred shades of mist and silk parted before his eyes and revealed a single figure standing alone. She was indeed human, a fair-haired young woman. She was tall and slender and as she came forward, Macsen saw that she was dressed in worn but well-fitted armor. Her green eyes flashed with a steely edge, and her narrow face spoke only of death.
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About the Author
Belinda currently lives on the New England coast with her fiancée, their roommate and her cat. When she’s not writing, she’s working toward degrees in Philosophy and English, embroidering or reading.
Belinda writes in several genres, but a little lust and love always work their way into her stories.
Email: [email protected]
Belinda loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.totallybound.com
Also by Belinda Burke
Wolf of the West
Undone
Eight Kingdoms: Dark Side of the Sun
Eight Kingdoms: The Circle Unbroken
Eight Kingdoms: The Burning Season
Eight Kingdoms: The Shadow Road
Deathless Page 8
