I didn’t want to see. I wanted to get us the hell out of here as quickly as possible.
Chapter 6
The fire crackled and sent sparks into the breeze as Nora seemed to shake her mind free.
“The magical boundary created by the Yew Bow keeps this kingdom hidden. No one can see us here. Not humans. Not other mages. There are no other fae we know of. Well, that’s what we’d thought. Of course, you’ve proven our assumption wrong.”
She cast a puzzled look at Lucus, then continued, eyeing me now, “Your portal spell must have been incredibly powerful. We’ve all tried to portal out of here, and none of us has been successful. Two mages have died in the attempt since I have lived here. If we simply attempt to walk through the invisible boundary, we are struck down, our memories damaged and sometimes our bodies as well. Arleigh has done something to the land as well because the vines they use to bind us now and again don’t react to my magic as nature does outside of this kingdom.”
With shaking hands, I dusted scone crumbs from my shirt then helped Nora wash the bowls and spoons in a trough of silvery water while Lucus spoke quietly to Hekla. She stared at him with the eyes of a gal who knows hotness when she sees it, but she kept her body angled away from him, her distrust apparent in the set of her shoulders.
I caught snippets of their conversation, bits about how auras worked and vague mentions of how my power functioned. It seemed as though he wasn’t going to tell her I was a descendant of Mage Duke Ludovico Sforza. If my crazy ancestor still lived like these folks thought he did, she probably needed to know. What if he chased Lucus down? Could he find us?
We had so much bad shit stacking up on us, how would we ever deal with all of it?
Like my thoughts had conjured evil, Lucus gripped his chest and slipped from his seat on the fallen tree. I ran to him, Nora on my heels. His face was slicked with sweat, and his eyelids fluttered like he was having trouble staying conscious.
“What is it? Do you need a tree or me or something?” I asked.
Nora frowned at me, but I ignored her obvious disdain at my offer to allow Lucus to feed from my aura.
“Maybe.” Lucus huffed, trying to breathe as we helped him stand. “Perhaps there?” He pointed to the oak whose roots made up the mages’ chambers.
Nora nodded, her mouth in a tight line like she just barely approved of this.
Past the other mage’s chamber, we helped Lucus put his back against the rough bark of the trunk. We stepped away, and he faded into the tree. A faint, shimmering line of pale green outlined the silhouette of his broad shoulders, the muscles of his arms, the vicious slant of his jaw, and the curve of his horns. His lure poured off him for a brief moment, and all three of us gals sighed deeply. The power he exuded seemed to light a fire under my skin, and I reached out to touch the tree, to run my fingers over the shape of Lucus, to feel his magic thrum through my body again. My hands ached to explore the planes of his chest and to lean into the scent of him, the heat, the—
Hekla gripped my arm with fingers like daggers and yanked me back a step. “I’ll never get used to any of this. Especially those devil horns. You really think he’s a good guy, hmm?”
We walked back to the fire. “Are any of us actual good guys? His life hasn’t been cupcakes and rainbows like most of mine. He had to make rough decisions that meant someone was getting hurt either way. It’s more than you probably need to know at this point, but I saw a few of his memories, and, friend, I tell you, he’s as good as anyone could be in his situation.”
Hekla was nodding as she pulled her frumptastic, knee-length cardigan more tightly around her small frame. “Right. I get that. I just wish I could unsee the horns.”
“Not the wings?”
She grinned shakily. “They’re pretty.”
Though my blood went cold as I thought about the challenge we had going on here, I wiggled my eyebrows. “But the horns are hot.”
Hekla chuckled, though her eyes were still dark with worry and fear. “You would think that.”
Nora joined us, but she kept looking back at the spot where Lucus had disappeared. “Before we train, I need to know about your relationship with the alpha fae. Did you know they can access your mind and show you images? He could control you with lust if he chose. Do you realize how dangerous he is even to one as powerful as you?”
Hekla pushed her straight bangs out of her eyes, then poked me. “Powerful Coren, my pal.”
“Nora, I do know. When we first met, he tried that crap on me, but I broke through it. Since then, through the vine-to-the-skull thing, he’s shown me some of his memories of why the Mage Duke cursed him in the first place, and Lucus feels true regret for killing the man’s daughter. I felt his feelings.”
“Vine to the skull…” Hekla shivered hard, her narrow shoulders quaking. “Couldn’t it have been a trick?”
Nora shook her head. “I agree they would try to trick us, but their memories don’t create false feelings. If Coren experienced regret and remorse while in Lucus’s memories, those emotions were true. And it surprises me. I’ve not met a fae with such a moral compass as his. The ones here…” She trailed off, but the wide and mournful gaze she turned toward the guards who remained at the path where we’d come in told the rest of the story.
The fae here were bad news.
