Curse of the Fae King

by Delia E Castel

  A cool hand landed on my wrist. “Do not attract her wrath.”

  I snatched my arm away and turned in my seat. It was the gancanagh, still wearing that handsome, high-cheekboned face. A clay pipe dangled from his full lips.

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed.

  He didn’t react to the venom in my words. “Ailill has belonged to Her Majesty for a thousand years. She has a greater claim on him than you.”

  I balled my fists and glared at the wretched creature. The gancanagh had reported my whereabouts to increase his standing in the queen’s Court. Because of him, the Sluagh had come after Father and me, and because of him, I now had to thwart a plan to release unholy monsters into the realm of the living. If I ever got the chance, I would skewer the gancanagh through the heart.

  General Creach tapped me on the shoulder. “Neara, my dear. May I show you around my Court? It is quite lovely.”

  I shook my head, trying not to watch King Drayce at the head of the table. “We still have two more items to find for the queen, and I won’t have the time.”

  Queen Melusina stood and raised her glass. It made a ringing sound that dimmed the chatter around the table. Her lips spread into a smile I’d practiced several times in our small bathing mirror. “I wish to dance in honor of lost loves found.”

  The noblemen around the table gave her a polite round of applause, and servants fluttered from all corners of the room to pull back a wall. It revealed a larger section of space with child-sized musicians positioned on a podium at the far end. Their skin shone like ripe plums, and they wore forest-green tunics above their tights. Each held wooden instruments I didn’t recognize, which played long, airy notes that drifted over the table, light as a summer breeze.

  The melody lifted my spirits, transporting me into a state where nothing mattered except the music.

  A tiny voice in the back of my head, the part of me who had sat with Father at the leather tome, wailed at me to focus. I shook my head and blinked. The pipe music beckoned me to return to its enchantment, and I clenched my fists, letting its influence drift back into the ether.

  King Drayce stood, bowed, and offered his elbow to Queen Melusina. Instead, she took his hand, and they both glided toward the dance floor. It was an act. My insides trembled with a deep longing that made my eyes water. He despised the queen and wanted her dethroned. But the sight of them together, moving against each other as if they’d danced like this for years, made my heart twist.

  Father bowed his head, and his shoulders slumped toward the crystal table like an unused marionette. The other faeries took their human companions by the hand and guided them to the dance floor.

  Whatever resentment that festered in my gut about the queen striding off with King Drayce could wait. I had to speak to Father.

  “Would you care to dance, my dear?” General Creach’s voice carried over the music. He offered that pale, long-fingered hand.

  “No.”

  He stood and walked away. Presumably to retrieve the dead-eyed blonde woman he’d discarded for a chance to speak with me. I glanced across the table to find Father the only person left seated, and my breath quickened. I pulled myself up and stood, my heart hammering at the chance to speak to him.

  The gancanagh grabbed my arm. “May I have this dance?”

  “Don’t you have some innocent girls to ruin?” I yanked my arm away and headed around the crystal table toward Father.

  A winged servant helped him up.

  “This entire situation is one of Her Majesty’s tests. You may be her daughter, but you share too many features with Ailill, including his disloyalty,” said the gancanagh.

  I stopped to glare at him. Since when were prisoners supposed to be loyal to their captors?

  The corner of his lip curled into a smile. Like most faeries, he was a creature of wretched, preternatural beauty. Twinkling emeralds for eyes, thick, dark lashes, and full, curving lips that could melt a woman’s virtue. That much could be said for the appearance he currently used, as I’d already seen his true, noseless face. “A being who can kill her own mother could just as easily turn on you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His brows furrowed, but the action did nothing to mar his handsome features. “Did you think you were the first? Her Majesty has sent daughter after daughter searching for the Blood of Dana. Not a one has returned from their quest alive, and not a one has been mourned.”

  A chill permeated my bones. The Keeper’s brides, those desiccated corpses, had been my sisters! I coughed, stumbling forward with the weight of the revelation.

  Why did she need her daughters to retrieve the items, and how many of us were still alive? By the time I’d shaken off my unease, Father had been taken away. An anguished breath left my lungs, and I checked all corners of the room. He was no longer there.

  The gancanagh’s eyes tracked my every movement. He inched closer and offered his hand. “May I take you to your chamber?”

  “Why, so you can trick me into absorbing your venom?”

  With a half-smile, he stepped back, raising both palms in a gesture men used to stave off a scolding. “I have no desire to end up like those two dead Sluagh Lords.”

  “Fine,” I growled, “But if you touch me again, I’ll slit your throat.”

  He chuckled. It was a melodic sound. “I do not doubt that.”

  The gancanagh escorted me out of the dining room, making sure to pass Queen Melusina pressing her body against an unprotesting King Drayce. It was a desperate move, designed to make me distrust my only ally and to make me look upon him with favor.

  “Are you all right, Neara?” he asked.

  “Tired.” I raised my chin, keeping my face immobile. The last thing I wanted was to give him the satisfaction of seeing me stricken. King Drayce was playing a game—

  that much I knew, but I clung to the hope that the person he looked to deceive was Queen Melusina, and not me.

  I left the room with the gancanagh who rambled about never having consumed a human soul. As though seducing women and feeding on their shame and despair wasn’t an act that made him worthy of slaying.

  “The girls of Bresail are safe from the likes of me,” he said, “although I have never encountered one with such rare beauty as you.”

  “What?” I spat.

  He stopped at a patch of hallway adorned with polished sheets of jet on the granite walls. “Your hair…” He reached out to touch a tendril of my orange strands but lowered his hand. “None of the other Princesses had the look of a druid.”

  I glanced away. “Are we going to King Drayce’s room or not?”

  “You are shy?” Laughter tinged his voice.

  “Where did you get that face?” I snapped.

  He stepped back. “I don’t know what you—”

  “You’re a shapeshifter. Tell me whose face you stole.”

  His expression fell. “When I look in the mirror, I only see a featureless visage. Only women see their heart’s desire on my face. Please, describe what you see.”

  “You said you’d escort me to King Drayce’s room.”

  Two lines appeared between his brows. “You mistrust me.”

  I placed my hand on the grip of my iron dagger. “If you’re not seducing young women and leaving them to ruin, you’re reporting them to high faeries for personal gain. I trust you to do exactly what’s in your nature.”

  His gaze dipped. “We cannot help our natures.”

  We walked around darkened hallways, passing blank-eyed human servants. One of them, a chestnut-haired woman with a beauty mark on her cheek, reminded me of Mairead, the girl in my village who had told me of an old woman in the woods who could turn my orange hair brown.

  Mairead had assured me that if I waited in a circle of mushrooms on Samhain with a dozen shiny pennies, she would appear and grant me my wish.

  “Mairead?” I asked.

  The woman walked past.

  “Human servants only hear the voice of the pe
rson who cast their enchantment,” said the gancanagh.

  I stared at her back. That couldn’t be Mairead. She would have been killed by the faeries in the massacre. The woman disappeared around the corner, and I continued along the hallway.

  “It was my pleasure to escort you this evening.” He stopped outside my room and held out his hand.

  I snorted and pushed the door open. “Nice try.”

  The room smelled of King Drayce: leather and cedar and treachery. Wall sconces flared to life, and I stepped in and slammed the door. What did the gancanagh want? From what I could tell, he had already predicted a potential power struggle and wanted to ingratiate himself with both sides.

  I parted the black leather curtains and sat on the feather mattress, staring at my hands. King Drayce and Queen Melusina seemed far too comfortable with each other to be enemies. Could I trust him not to betray Father and me?

  Curling my fingers into fists, I growled. I’d only known King Drayce for a few days, and putting Father’s life in his hands was too big a risk. The ship to Caledonia would set sail at the end of the week. If I left now, I could find where Queen Melusina had hidden Father and escape. He’d done it once before with the help of that boy. I had iron weapons, and he knew the route out of the palace.

  An image of King Drayce, lying on the forest floor, flashed in front of my eyes. This version of him had been left for dead.

  I shot off the bed and paced. What in the name of all that was holy had happened to me? Since Samhain, I’d only relied on myself to keep Father and me safe. Now, my resolve wavered for a male I barely even knew.

  A knock on the door broke me out of my thoughts and brought my feet to a halt. My hand hovered over the dagger on my leather baldric. “Who is it?”

  The door swung open, and King Drayce walked inside. As soon as he caught sight of me, he closed his eyes and exhaled. “When I didn’t see you in the dining room, I feared the worst.”

  “I didn’t think you’d notice, seeing as you were dancing with the queen,” I said, turning my head. The way he loomed by the door reminded me too much of how he’d loomed in the corner of our house just before we’d struck that treacherous bargain.

  He advanced on me, green eyes sparkling with challenge. “One would think you were jealous.”

  Digging my heels into the ground, I raised my chin, mustering up a wall of defiance. He wouldn’t intimidate me with innuendo. “Or I’m concerned about King Drayce, the deceiver.”

  A slow grin spread across his face, showcasing even, white teeth that had no business on a face so scaly. I bristled, spine stiffening at his mockery. In a low purr that made my spine tingle, he said, “Call me Drayce.”

  I stepped back, and my hamstrings hit the edge of the four-poster. “What happened between you and Queen Melusina?”

  “Do you really wish to know?” He stepped close enough to feel the heat radiating through his leather armor.

  I pulled my shoulders back. “Actually, I—”

  He cupped my cheek and lowered his mouth onto mine.

  Firm lips, softer than I had imagined, brushed against mine in the lightest of caresses. Sweet, tentative, safe. His warm, leather scent engulfed my senses and pushed away the doubts that had plagued me earlier. My eyes fluttered closed, and I yielded to his touch.

  Just as I became accustomed to his kiss, he drew back and examined my face with those slitted eyes. There was something skittish in his gaze, the expression of one waiting for a rebuke. When I smiled, he kissed me again.

  I slid my hand over the leather encasing his forearm, over his strong, hard bicep, wanting, needing more.

  The night fowl’s crow filled the air.

  Drayce broke the kiss and drew back.

  I lurched out for him, but he stepped away.

  “Goodnight, Neara.”

  My heart sank like a lump of iron. Somehow, the wretched faerie… demigod, whatever in the three realms he was, had made me care for him.

  Chapter 14

  For the next hour, I sat on the feather bed, my hands trembling in unison with my heart. What had I done? If King Drayce hadn’t left, I would have… A shudder ran down my spine. Maybe it was the strain of the past few days, but something was terribly wrong with me.

  After the Samhain incident, I’d never wasted time on frivolous matters like looking nice or attracting the opposite sex. But now, when the worst had happened, and I was deep in the realm of the faeries, I was considering having four husbands and kissing my abductor? He had probably used some kind of spell to make me desire him. Maybe his species used a magic word or an eye enchantment, and a woman would act like she was under the gancanagh’s venom.

  My throat dried. Only the crowing of the night fowl had stopped him from taking advantage of my ensorcelled state. It wouldn’t happen again. We were partners in dethroning the queen and nothing else.

  I pulled myself off the bed and straightened. What was I doing, acting like a fae-struck fool? Right now, I should be searching for Father, not ruminating alone. I padded across the room to the door, opened it a crack, and peered out.

  General Creach stood outside, fist raised, as though poised to knock.

  An icy fist of shock struck my stomach, and I sucked in a breath through my teeth. How long had he been standing there?

  His lips spread into a smile. “Neara, I missed your enchanting company on the dance floor. Would you care to walk with me on this moonlit night?”

  Something was odd about his eyes. Empty. Fathomless. I didn’t think I’d looked at them during dinner, but their irises were of a black so deep, they merged with his pupils. My mouth dried. If I looked into them for a moment longer, they would suck me into their depths.

  “No, thank you.” I pushed the door closed, but something invisible held it in place—his magic, most likely.

  The hallway lights had burned themselves to embers, casting the general in semi-darkness. Light glinted on his teeth, straight, white cleavers sharp and bright. They belonged to a predator, though I wasn’t sure of what kind. He glided forward but flinched, as though he’d hit a barrier. The lights returned, as did the thinnest veneer of gentility.

  With his features now a tight smile, he said, “It would appear that I cannot enter King Drayce’s chamber. Can you step outside?”

  Edging away, I pressed my lips together, holding back the sharp retort on my tongue. Why, in the name of all that was holy, would I go anywhere with a faerie who kept an ensorcelled human woman as a companion? And hadn’t Queen Melusina told him to keep away?

  “Come,” he crooned. “I can give you pleasures beyond mortal comprehension.”

  A pleasurable death, I imagined. Without replying, I stepped further into the room and out of sight of the doorway.

  “Neara,” he hissed. “I will not ask you again. Come outside!”

  My heart kept a hard, steady beat. If he was angry, it meant he couldn’t reach me until I left the safety of the room. I retreated to the corner furthest from the door and sat with my back against the wall. Drayce had once told me to scream if I needed help, but would he come after the crowing of the night fowl? He’d secured my room, and the general’s entreaties couldn’t hurt me. I was safe here.

  Wrapping my arms around my bent legs, I rested my head on my knees and stayed hidden. He continued threatening and cajoling all through the night, even when exhaustion turned to slumber.

  * * *

  Hours later, a large hand landed on my shoulder. I jolted awake, heart thudding, eyes bulging. Drayce knelt in front of me, raising hairless brows.

  A cry of relief flew from my lungs, and I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders. “General Creach tried to come into the room last night!”

  He stilled. “Did my enchantment hold?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, “But he wouldn’t leave.”

  He wrapped an arm around my back and stroked my hair. “I imagine that he sees your progress with the blood as a threat. I am sorry.”

  “But I though
t he was loyal to the queen.”

  “The enchantment she used to bring my father’s betrayers from the Otherworld has loopholes,” he replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Every being in this palace is either human or fae,” he murmured so low, I could barely hear it above the pulse pounding in my ears. “Who among them would benefit from the release of the Fomorians?”

  None. And those who valued their freedom needed me to fail. That was why Captain Stipe had swung at me in the Keeper’s cave. Telling them I planned to overthrow Queen Melusina would be risky, as anyone eager to ingratiate themselves with her, like the gancanagh, would report my plans and get me executed.

  “I need to see Father.”

  “Ailill would not want you risking your life by walking the hallways alone.”

  It was true, but I couldn’t stand the thought of Father being pawed and violated by that creature. I rested my head on his shoulder and inhaled his comforting, leathery scent. Despite our contentious beginning, I now associated him with safety and friendship and promise.

  Two sharp raps on the door made me jolt in his arms.

  Drayce pulled us to our feet and backed me into the corner. “Stay here.”

  Wiping my damp hands on my skirts, I nodded. A dethroned god of death had to be stronger than a faerie General.

  The door swung open, and the sullen blonde woman from before walked in carrying a pair of steaming jugs and a pile of toweling linens wedged under her arm. Unlike the blank-eyed servants I’d seen in the palace, she kept her black dress and apron in good repair.

  “Coleen will run you a bath.” Drayce’s green eyes glimmered. “Will you need my protection while you bathe?”

  I pursed my lips. “You can guard me well enough from the hallway.”

  Drayce chuckled and walked out of the room.

  “Excuse me?” I tilted my head to catch Coleen’s eye.

  She either ignored me or was too far into her enchantment to hear. With the brisk efficiency of a servant accustomed to working in an inn or a grand house, Coleen placed the jugs on the dresser and pulled on a tassel in the wall, revealing a stone bathing room the size of our home with a bone-white, claw-footed bath. I tried speaking to her again, but she just picked up the jugs and poured endless amounts of steaming water into the tub.