I really hoped Hekla and Nora would stay gone for a while.
Lucus took my face between his large hands and kissed me slowly, softly, his breath warm and his scent rising like we’d been dropped into a pine forest laced in his own special brand of ancient magic. His tongue swept over mine, and my chest rose and fell against his, my nipples peaking as his palm dragged its way up my torso to cup my breast. He smoothed a thumb over my shirt, and a quiet moan poured from my lips. Lucus’s kiss moved lower, his teeth nipping at my throat, his tongue glancing across my skin as his lure rose at once, all consuming, turning me into a flame of want and need.
Waving a hand over the earth, Lucus called up vines that twisted around us, giving us privacy as we kissed again, this time with more urgency. Spinning me around, he raised a hand covered in emerald sparks, and more vines snaked from the ground to create a second wall for us. His body was tense against mine, his want apparent and his skin sticky with heat.
Lucus lurched and fell away. I grabbed for him as the vines he’d drawn from the earth turned on him, wrapping him tightly and dragging him into the earth. The ground churned with more vines as he shouted.
I turned. “Nora! Help! Guards! What is this?”
But the guards either didn’t hear me from their spot down the pathway, or they were ignoring the fact that the ground was eating my man. Nora and Hekla ran over as I attempted to grab Lucus’s hand. His body was already partially underground.
Nora yanked me backward, and Hekla balled a fist to punch. “No!” Nora yelled over the writhing vines and rumbling earth. “Stop fighting, Lucus! The binding demands you refrain from using your power here. If you stop trying to escape, you will be free.”
I clutched Nora’s dress at the shoulder. “You’d better be telling the truth.”
“I am! I have no other allies. We are together in this!”
I didn’t really listen to whatever she was going on about. I couldn’t stop staring at Lucus as the dark dirt covered his head. He was gone.
Chapter 8
“Coren…” Hekla took my hand, her fingers as cold as a corpse.
“Ah, hell no.” I launched myself at the ground and began digging with my bare hands. Tears burned my eyes, but I kept those bitches back because we were not going down like this. Not only did I not want the one guy I seemed to gel with to die, Lucus was also the only nice magical person I knew in this insane, magical prison I’d portalled us into. On so many levels, I needed him.
The dirt was flying between me and Hekla, but Nora just kept telling us to stop.
“Lot of help you are. Stop fighting, she said. It’ll work, she said.” Dang it, my tears were beginning to ignore my commands. Two escaped and slid down my cheeks. My nail beds burned from digging.
“Forget what I said about sucking the life out of situations, Coren.”
I turned to see who was talking.
Kaippa landed beside Nora and tucked his bat wings in tightly.
“Fabulous,” I snapped. “More super helpful people.”
“Who are you?” Nora demanded, her palms crackling with purple light.
“Hush, dirty mage,” Kaippa said. “I’m Coren’s closest vampire friend.”
“My only vampire acquaintance. We are not friends.”
“Are you actually weeping for Lucus?” Kaippa let out a thunderous laugh.
Hekla threw herself at him, snarling incoherent threats to his manhood.
Kaippa held her off with one hand, still laughing. “Whoa, small woman who smells of wheat. Watch this.” He chucked Hekla to the side like she weighed no more than said wheat, then dove at the mound of dirt where Lucus was buried. He lifted earth in massive clumps, and before I could figure out how to pitch in to help, Lucus was sitting beside him and Kaippa was dusting him off.
Lucus was paler than I’d ever seen him. Of course, being buried would do that to a person. A human would’ve died from that little trick, but I guessed fae lords were made of tougher stuff. He gulped in air, his body shaking.
“Thank you, Kaippa.” Lucus, bleeding from his full bottom lip, scowled at the vamp. Lucus was most likely as confused as I was about why Kaippa had saved him.
Kaippa slapped him on the back. “Well, as much as I am not the one to sing your praises, it turns out we might just need one another, depending on how the magic goes. For one thing, I can’t seem to get through the barrier they’ve set up here. After hunting down a deer, I began to fly off, but a barely visible dome appeared, and it hit me hard. I tried a few more spots but was growing lightheaded with the effort. That barrier…” He shuddered. “Once I finished vomiting, I came to find you. Secondly, the curse.”
I fought the urge to hug the hell out of Lucus. I didn’t care to be obvious about how attached I was getting to the grouchy fae lord.
“What are you talking about, Kaippa?” Lucus checked the slip of red silk at his belt, his one reminder of his lost brother, Francesco.
“You haven’t noticed how frail we both look? I mean, even compared to how terrible we looked at the castle.” Kaippa waved at his face and then at Lucus’s. “We’re dying, and I think it’s because of the spell. I hate to tell you this, Coren, but I don’t think you actually broke the Mage Duke’s curse.”
I held my breath. “But I saw Lucilla,” I whispered, looking at Lucus, who had shut his eyes. His lips bunched, and he shook his head. “I know the curse was broken.”
Shrugging, Kaippa leaned over to sniff Nora’s hair, causing her to jump back and shoot off
