Seduced by Darkness (Dark Court Rising)

by Bec McMaster

“It does—only you don’t believe in fate.”

  I eye him dubiously. “I thought that was only a line you used to seduce me.”

  He shakes his head. “I never lie, Vi.”

  “Then tell me your story.”

  “Five hundred years ago, I was in… a bad place. I had done something so foolish that I could never take it back again, and I knew that come morning, I would have to face my daemons.”

  “What did you do that was so bad?”

  Our eyes meet.

  And rage smolders to life in his eyes. “I intended to kill my father. I worked my way into a position where I would be able to murder him. I thought I was finally strong enough to do so, and I was waiting for him in an ambush, the knife in my hand… when I finally laid eyes on him.” He brushes his fingers against my thigh. “I knew in an instant I had made a mistake. My father is a monster. He was centuries older than me at the stage. Warped by Darkness. Twisted. And I hesitated just long enough that he passed my ambush and all I could do was sit in the snow and shake.

  “I returned to the nearest city, furious with myself for wasting my chance. Even if I couldn’t kill him, I needed to confront him. I yearned for it so badly I barely ate. Barely slept. My friend, Cian, tried to talk sense into me but I was lost to his words.” He shudders. “Cian told me I was becoming exactly what I hated so much. I was slowly losing myself to the same Darkness. If I didn’t give up this course then it would consume me.” Thiago’s eyes darken. “I hit him. I didn’t want to listen. I hit him until he stopped talking and then I walked into those streets, blindly. I was no longer in control of myself. I was exactly what he said I’d become. I was my father. And when I looked into the nearest shop window, all I could see was that bastard staring back at me from the reflection.”

  I can barely breathe as I trace small circles on his chest. “What happened?”

  “It frightened me so much I fled to the nearest temple of Maia. I was begging, desperate, on my knees in the middle of Her courtyard. Show me the light, I said. Give me a single sign this rage will end. Give me a shred of hope. Tell me I’m not a monster.

  “Lightning flashed. And there you were.” His lashes shield his eyes. “Staring back at me from the waters of the Pool of Serenity. You glanced back over your shoulder and smiled at me, and I knew you would be mine. One day. All I had to do was wait for you to come and find me. And every time I found myself lost in the Darkness, I would close my eyes and think of your face. Of your smile. And I would know hope.”

  He opens his eyes, seeing the shock in mine.

  And he smiles.

  “Of course I came for you the second I saw you dancing. How could I resist my salvation, Vi? How could I turn away from Fate? I was made for you, and you were made for me. I recognized you the moment I saw you.”

  I suck in a slow breath. Of all the things I ever expected, it was not a confession like this.

  It places an incredible amount of pressure on me.

  But it also feels tremulously like there’s finally a place for me.

  I will never be alone again.

  Thiago kisses my forehead and draws me into his arms. “I just needed to wait until you were finally born.”

  “How did you find your way to Evernight?”

  “Another story. A longer story.” His voice roughens. “I wanted a home. I wanted… something for myself. Something nobody could ever take from me. And so I took it. I claimed the throne. I became the Prince of Evernight. And I crushed any and all who opposed me.”

  There’s a long silence. I’ve heard it all before, of course—bastard-born prince; traitor; ambitious, murderous male—but I’ve never heard it from his own lips.

  “I still want it all.” There’s a hunger in his voice. “I have the people who have become my family. I have a castle, a fucking kingdom, a throne. It’s not enough. It was never enough. I want a wife. I want a family. I want to be normal—”

  “Normal?” There’s something about that one word that captures my attention.

  He stills. It’s a cool, controlled tension—so different from my mother’s—as if he locks it all down inside him, and breathes it out through his lungs. “There’s a darkness inside me, Vi. One I’ve fought against every day of my life.” A tiny little shudder runs through him, almost imperceptible. If I wasn’t pressed up against him like this, I would have missed it. He looks into my eyes and his thumb brushes against my lips. “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t scare me. I’d be lying if I told you it was locked away inside me, guarded by walls so thick it will never escape.” His voice roughens as his vision goes distant. “There are cracks in those walls. Sometimes the shadows slip through. Sometimes they whisper to me. I can feel it calling to me. I can feel the hunger, the yearning. It’s me. It’s the Darkness inside me. All I’ve ever wanted is to be whole, but if I do that, then maybe I cease to exist. Or the part of me that wants to hold you in my arms, to cling to you like you’re my lifeline. The part of me that could love you.”

  My heart goes still. A lead weight in my chest. I don’t know what to say.

  I don’t even truly know what he’s talking about.

  And he sees it.

  Thiago shoves himself upright. “Maybe it was wrong of me not to tell you first. To give you a choice.”

  “You did give me a choice,” I protest, sitting up and dragging the cloak to my breasts. “As I recall, I promised you forever. No matter what. I knew there are shadows within you. I knew I was taking a chance. I still made that choice. I’d still make that choice.”

  He looks at me then. “Even if you just married a monster?”

  I look at him and I can’t see it. All I can see are doors slamming shut. Shouts echoing through the hallways of Hawthorne castle. People’s faces cringing as my mother pronounces her whims upon the court. Vines stabbing up through the flagstone floors and spearing straight through a foreign emissary’s throat when he insults my mother.

  And me.

  Stealing refuge in the library because it’s the safest place in the castle. The constant pressure in my chest when I’m at court. Worrying that I’m wearing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, ingratiating myself to the wrong people.

  Never daring to make friends or smile at one of the servants, because my mother will use them to hurt me if she thinks I care about them.

  My mother would never care if anyone was afraid of her. Fear is the pressure point you push to get your own way, according to her.

  If there was darkness inside her, she would embrace it. She would trample all in her path and laugh as people pleaded for mercy.

  “I’ve seen monsters.” It’s a dawning realization I’ve never dared give voice. Here he is, worrying that the shadows inside him will take over. Worried that he hasn’t given me a choice in this, because he hasn’t given me all the information.

  My mother has never once worried if her actions will be perceived the wrong way. It’s always my fault when we argue, until I’m second-guessing every choice I make. It’s always my actions, my choices, my lack of magic…. You spend your entire life trying to juggle plates, and it doesn’t matter how well you juggle them, it feels like she’s throwing more plates at you. Faster and faster, as if to try and force me to fail so she can punish me again.

  She’s a monster.

  All those times I’ve apologized for something I haven’t done. The guilt. The weight of it eating away inside me until I decided that maybe it would be just easier if I didn’t care at all.

  Maybe it would have been easier if she’d just hit me.

  And that’s a ticking time-bomb of a realization because I’ve never dared consider whether the hurt she’s caused is… her fault. I’ve always allowed her to claim it as my own. I’ve always bowed my head and sought a way to make her happy—or if not happy, then to stop her from screaming. You try and you try and you try and it’s never enough.

  “She’s hurt you.” His hand strokes over my shoulder and down my back. Then up again, his thum
b rasping over my cheek. It’s a comforting thing. More than I ever expected really, and I shiver as I snuggle into his chest and wrap my arms around him.

  “Yes.” A quiet confession in the night.

  It makes me feel as though I’m something precious and he can barely stop touching me. As if I’m going to vanish if he dares let me go, even for a second.

  I want to hold onto this feeling forever.

  “I am a bastard, Vi.” It’s a whisper in the night. “Because I knew what I was asking you to walk into blindly. And here you are, trying to flee a monster of your own making.”

  I slide a thigh over him, straddling his hips. “I’m not scared of you. I’m not scared of any part of you. Because if you were truly a monster then you wouldn’t be warning me away.”

  He groans as he slides his hands up my sides. “Vi, Vi, you don’t know what you’re saying—”

  I find his cock, hard beneath me and slick with my own wetness. “If you give me the chance I will love every part of you. I promise you this. I will love your light. I will love your darkness. I will fight for you with everything I have.” The tip of his cock breeches me and I shove down, sucking in a sharp breath as he fills me to the hilt. It’s still new, still a shock to my body. And I love it. Love feeling those hands digging into my hips as he snarls and thrusts up into me. Together we can conquer the world.

  “Show me your darkness,” I whisper, threading our fingers together and riding him. “Let me love it.”

  A gasp escapes him and he throws his head back, his fingers clenching in mine. “You’re too good to be true.”

  I lean down and nip at his throat. “No, I’m not. I’m tired of being good. I’m tired of being trapped in a cage, staring at the world through my own glass walls. Maybe I want to break free too. Maybe I want to be wicked. Maybe I want to be your queen.” The words fill every inch of me, lighting me up within.

  I’ve never had a dream. I’ve never dared.

  But hearing his words, hearing the yearning in his voice…. I want that too. And maybe this was reckless, maybe it will bring ruin, but it feels like I’m setting fire to the old Vi and out of her ashes dawns a new version. A phoenix of resurrection that will forge me into something whole, something stronger, something that can take on the world and win.

  I want to be this Vi.

  He’s given me that.

  The chance to bloom.

  I won’t ever let him surrender to the weight that bears him down.

  13

  Thiago

  The final morning of the queensmoot dawns, and with it, the last meeting of the alliance.

  The Council of Queens makes its way toward the enormous rocky outcropping that looms over the field of tents.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Eris tells me.

  So do I. “Enough, Eris. It’s done.”

  I’m still wearing the braided strip of material around my wrist that bound me to Vi for the night. When dawn kissed the sky she slipped from my arms, pressing a finger to my lips to still my protest before she kissed me.

  “I have to return,” she whispered. “Just this once. My mother must never suspect what has happened until it’s too late. We don’t dare give her the opportunity to plan ahead.”

  We spent half the night plotting together about how to play this.

  Adaia’s fury is a storm. It builds and builds and builds, finally breaking over you and hammering you until you’re bloody and defeated. We can’t afford to have her forewarned. Vi is leaving with me as soon as this meeting is done, before Adaia has time to launch a counterattack.

  Eris chafes at the order, but she nods. “Fine. The tents are being stripped as we speak. Lysander’s in charge. He thinks we should be packed and prepared to evacuate within the hour. Baylor’s got ten warriors nearby, just in case. We didn’t dare bring any more. We leave as soon as this is done.”

  I nod and duck beneath the lintel stones of the Hallow.

  Adaia shoots me a glare from where she’s murmuring something to Maren. Lucidia merely looks curious, as if wondering why I changed my mind about our negotiations yesterday.

  Kyrian is late, as usual, taking his seat soon after I take mine.

  I’ve barely seen him this queensmoot and the look he shoots me says he’s aware of it.

  Something I should know about, asks the quirk of his brow.

  “Another chair, if you will?” I say to the attendant, loudly enough to snag the attention of my fellow rulers.

  The attendant blinks. This is unheard of, and yet he snaps his fingers and a chair is produced, albeit somewhat less ornate than the one I—and the other rulers—sit in.

  Four sets of eyes lock upon me.

  “You need two chairs, Thiago?” Adaia’s lip curls in disdain.

  “Perhaps it’s for his ego,” Maren murmurs, smirking into the glass of water one of her servants has produced. She looks like she spent the night frolicking and is paying for her sins this morning.

  Lucidia’s eyes narrow. She alone seems to sense the tides shifting.

  “Yesterday, when we met, I spoke of peace,” I reply, lounging back in the thronelike chair. “I offered a conciliatory gesture toward the Queen of Asturia, and I am here to hammer out the details of such an arrangement.”

  “Mistmere is not yours to offer,” Adaia hisses, no doubt smarting from the loss of her bargaining chip.

  “But it is mine to concede,” I counter.

  “I thought you were no longer interested?” Lucidia asks.

  “In peace? Yes. Though the terms have shifted.”

  Adaia visibly seethes.

  Queen Maren taps her long red nails against her painted lips. “I cannot help but think such an offer seems too good to be true. Why would you give away any rights to Mistmere? This is not done out of the kindness of your heart so you must forgive us if we question your motives.”

  “What do you get out of this?” Lucidia asks bluntly.

  “Peace. I speak of an alliance between two kingdoms that have been at each other’s throats for far too long.” I meet Lucidia’s eyes and then Maren’s. “The enmity between Evernight and Asturia affects us all. It weakens us against the threat of Unseelie.”

  “This alliance.” Lucidia leans forward hungrily. “What would it consist of?”

  “There have been treaties in the past,” Kyrian adds. “All broken. Why should this one be any different?” He cuts a look toward Adaia. “She’s not going to play by the rules.”

  “Because… this time there is a reason for both Evernight and Asturia to hold the peace.” I stand and glance back to where Eris, Lysander and Finn stand guard, holding out my hand. “Vi?”

  Finn and Lysander step aside and there she is, visibly swallowing. Gowned in white, she steels herself, tips her chin up and then strides forward with her skirts bunched in both hands. It’s the look of a queen focusing on the guillotine ahead of her. Defiant and proud until the last, but also choking down the lump of fear in her throat.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Adaia pushes to her feet abruptly. “Iskvien, what are you doing here?”

  “She is here because I asked her to be here,” I reply. “She is here because she is the answer to the war between our countries.”

  Vi takes my hand, her fingers warm in mine, and I give them a squeeze. Look at me. Look at me and not at her.

  It’s as if she hears me.

  Our eyes meet, and though she shields her emotions well, I can see she’s merely waiting for the lash of the whip to fall.

  “A marriage,” I say softly, though my focus is on her. “A marriage between two countries in order to hold the peace. Evernight will yield any claim to the lands of Mistmere if the Queen of Asturia stands her armies down and allows this marriage.”

  “Marriage?” Etan of the Goldenhills shoves out of the Askan delegation, his face mottling with color. “But she is already promised! To me!”

  Maren holds out a hand toward him, her cold eyes never shifting fro
m my face. Etan—to his detriment—doesn’t notice her warning, and takes another step forward. Muraid, Maren’s lover and most dangerous general, shoves him back into place. He meets her gaze, but whatever he sees there makes him flinch.

  He should cower.

  Vi was hiding from him the first night we met, and while I haven’t bothered to consider him a threat, I don’t like the way he looks at her. There’s something violent in that look, something threatening. Something possessive that doesn’t speak of an intent to protect and love, but the instinct to smother.

  Rip his fingers from their sockets, Ruin whispers, and he’s usually the least violent of the creatures trapped within me.

  “Control your dog,” I tell Maren with quiet menace.

  “How dare you speak to her like that?” Adaia’s face goes red. “How dare you lay claim to my daughter? I don’t care what you offer me, you’ll never have her. Never. As Etan mentions, I have promised her hand to him and the contracts are already—”

  “Her hand is not yours to give,” I tell her coolly. “Vi is of age. It’s her choice.”

  “Iskvien is mine and she signed those contracts of her own free will. If you think I will ever grant you my blessing to marry her—"

  “I’m not asking for permission, Adaia.” I tug Vi onto the throne at my side. “It is done. Vi agreed to marry me last night and our union was blessed by a priestess of Maia.”

  You’re too late.

  “You what?” Adaia’s eyes threaten to bulge out of her head. “You little slu—”

  “That’s enough.” It takes everything I have not to slip into the shadows right now. “You will not speak to her like that again. She is a princess of Evernight now.”

  “You speak of peace and ruining alliances, but you have no idea what you’ve done.” Adaia hisses. “Iskvien was betrothed to Etan of the Goldenhills, and her wedding was bound to cement an alliance between Aska and Asturia. It’s not just me you think you’ve thwarted. Maren, tell him. She signed the contract!”

  Queen Maren is Etan’s aunt.

  But she merely strokes her fingers along the edge of her carved chair, her glittering eyes watching the entire affair play out. Of all the queens in the alliance, she’s the one I am most wary of. Maren plays the long game, and while she’s not openly ambitious the way Adaia is, she’s dangerous in a way the Asturian queen could never hope to match.