Lucus’s hand drifted toward the red silk tied to his belt, his head bowed in thanks. When he looked up, his eyes had gone flinty. “Now that you’ve heard our story, would you mind if Coren met with the mages in residence?” He gestured toward me.
“She does look a bit wan.” Arleigh clicked her tongue, frowned at me, then waved a hand at two large males standing near the oaks—where she had been when we’d walked up. I realized there was a sort of throne there, a tangle of pale green, snake-like vines that formed the shape of a large palm where Arleigh must have sat when holding court. The males left the grove, disappearing over a hill. What were they up to?
Another jolt of my magic knocked me on my ass.
Hekla shrieked, then dropped to wrap me in her arms as amethyst lines of magic crisscrossed my body, threading pain through my chest and down my legs.
Lucus knelt beside me and took my hand, sweat beaded on his forehead as my body arched, my muscles on fire. “Soon you will tame this power, Coren. We are so close now.”
I wanted to believe him.
Tears shone in Hekla’s eyes as she looked to Lucus. “Can you hurry up whatever needs to happen?”
Arleigh stood over me, and I had never wanted to be on my feet more in my life. “Guards, you and you, please take our mage guest to meet the others.” Her eyes glinted with an unnamed threat.
The magic attack faded, and I gripped Hekla and Lucus as I stood. “How about the other mages come to me?”
Ignoring my suggestion—possibly because the fae queen wouldn’t be up for any such thing—Lucus got between Arleigh and me. “I will remain at her side.”
“As you wish,” Arleigh said. “But you must agree to a binding if I’m to allow you, another alpha, to roam my kingdom.”
Lucus’s jaw muscles worked. “I have no desire to rule your people, my lady. I promise you this.”
“Either that, or we can take the time now to battle.” Arleigh’s grin was a scythe.
Sweat broke out over me. “Lucus, please just stay here. Feed on one of these big fabulous oaks. I’m fine. I’ll be with other mages.” I had no idea if I’d be safe, but what choice was there? I didn’t want him bound—whatever that meant—or fighting this bitch.
“Bind me.” Lucus held out his beautiful hands, the hands that had been warm on mine, the hands that had defended me against his own brother Baccio.
Arleigh nodded as four guards—three females and one male—surrounded us. A lean female with hair like a carpet of fine moss and larger wings than most called a vine from the ground and whispered over the curling plant. Emerald light sparkled over the vine as it looped around Lucus’s wrists. Then with a sticky sound that turned my stomach, the vine sank into Lucus’s body.
Lucus took the whole process stoically, like none of it bugged him, casually letting his magically bound hands to fall to his sides. So he wasn’t physically bound? Maybe the binding limited his fae power over the trees and vines and whatnot. Now I was on my own. Hekla didn’t have any magic to fight these maniacs if it came to it.
“What about Hekla?” I asked, my mind foggy from the combination of my magic’s smackdown and the panic clutching my chest.
Arleigh’s lip curled. “Take the human too.”
The guards led Lucus, Hekla, and me away from the prying eyes of the court into a stand of beech trees whose dead leaves rattled like bones above our heads.
Chapter 4
As the guards ushered us around a tight bend in the path, the trees grew so thick that I almost forgot it was morning. The guards’ bare forearms seemed to glow from within. A ruby color shimmered along the paths of their veins and arteries like their blood was made of light. What was happening? Lucus and his brothers never looked like that in the dark. It was then I noticed the guards’ fingertips. It was tough to see, but their fingertips—those that weren’t of the twig variety—appeared jet black, the ebony hue bleeding toward their palms. It was on their ears too. The tips had gone the color of midnight, the darkness reaching in tiny, blurred lines toward the rest of the ear.
I caught up with Lucus, leaving Hekla behind a step. “Do you see that, or am I imagining things?” I asked Lucus, keeping my voice quiet.
Lucus’s eyes widened, and he spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “They are unseelie. I had thought their existence was nothing but legend.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Unseelie are the dark fae. If the tales are true, they enjoy the parts of life that seelie fae such as myself, mages, humans, and even vampires fear. Pain. Betrayal. Twisted games of chance.”
“Fantastic. This sounds like a real picnic we’re in for here.”
Lucus’s breath shuddered out of him, and he pressed his lips into a line. He didn’t look thrilled about this unseelie thing either. “The fact that their guards are unseelie means all of them are unseelie. We have entered into the world of the dark fae.”
I sighed.
Beyond a campfire and a few piles of seasoned wood, two structures formed out of living trees stood, unearthly and eerie. Roots had risen from the ground like giant hands, fingers arched over the brush to create what looked like prison cells. A woman in a dull red gown emerged from the first structure and paused, seeing us.
She wiped a clod of mud from her cheek and eyed the guards warily. “What is this?” Her accent was different from the fae—French, perhaps—and when she met my eyes, a zing went through me like I recognized her even though I’d never seen her long nose or square jaw before in my life. Dropping the bag she’d been toting, she walked over.
