“I might have been on that bed, but my soul was wrestling with creeping moss, tangling vines and strangulating trees.”
My brow furrowed. I was about to ask how he managed to leave that awful room, when he snaked an arm around my middle and kneaded my flesh with his fingertips.
“Besides…” His deep growl made my nipples tighten. “You promised me a reward for getting out of that bed.”
Heat rose to my cheeks. “You remember that?”
“I remember how you distracted me from the pain of the moss you tore from my back.” He pressed his hardness into my behind. “I remember that tight grip and how you made me beg.”
The pulse between my legs pounded in time with my heart, and heat flooded my core. I squeezed my thighs together and bit down on my lip. “It was…” Drayce’s hand made languid circles over my belly. “It was the only way to get you to agree.”
He brushed my hair aside. “You were all I thought about when that curse held me captive.”
I gulped. “How long was it for you?”
“Weeks?” He pressed a soft kiss on the delicate skin of my neck. “Months.” He trapped my earlobe between his lips and sucked.
Arousal rippled deep in my core. “Drayce, I’m covered in bone dust.”
“It’s less macabre than the first time we made love.” His other hand gripped the leather of my skirt and pulled it up to my hips. “Besides, a few dry bones won’t kill the King of the Otherworld.”
I was about to reply when a sharp pain lanced through my gut, making me crumble into the door with a cry tearing from my lips.
“Neara.” Drayce’s arm tightened around my middle, the only thing keeping me from hitting the ground. “What’s happened?”
The pain quickened through my insides, a lightning storm of agony that filled my vision with white. I squeezed my eyes shut and ground my teeth.
A stone chamber filled my mind, similar in size and height to the one where I had pulled Aengus from the mist. Moonlight streamed through ventilation holes in the ceiling, illuminating the paler hues on the flint walls. A slender figure moved across the chamber toward an arrangement of concentric arches carved around a wooden door.
The door consisted of another arch with a seam down the middle and no keyholes or handles or pulls. Wooden swirls decorated its surface splitting and curling like branches on a tree.
Delicate hands the same shade of brown as the wood pressed on the door. Red light streamed through the door’s joints, making it swing open. The figure stepped back, and a substance as dark and as thick as honey streamed across the chamber floor.
“Someone’s just opened a doorway.” Through clenched teeth, I described the images playing through my mind. A cold, slimy sensation crawled over my skin, making me shudder with disgust.
“The palace has an intruder.” Drayce pulled me to a cushioned seat against the wall and guided me down.
I sank into a soft cushion and leaned against the wall. The black substance filled the chamber, and the dark figure disappeared from sight. “What?”
“Melusina always knew when assassins entered the palace.” He knelt at my feet and wrapped his hands around my balled fists. What he said next was a jumble of words.
Pain pulsed through my skull in time with my cramping belly as the darkness oozed across the stone floor. My vision blurred and turned black, only for me to blink and meet Drayce’s concerned eyes.
“Seal them,” he said, sounding like he was repeating himself.
“Alright.” I squeezed my eyes shut and commanded the palace to close off all means of escape for the intruders. The pain receded to a dull ache, and I exhaled a long breath, relief loosening my muscles. “Do you feel strong enough for a fight?”
Drayce smiled and pulled me to my feet. “Only if you can open a doorway via the mess hall.”
I blinked several times, trying to tether myself to the here and now as I remembered the room where Aengus took his first meal at the palace.
Drayce placed a hand on the small of my back and guided me out of my seat. I opened a doorway into the dining hall, where moonlight streamed in through the colored glass windows, making the jewels of Dana’s crown shine like stars.
The soldiers sitting around the tables stood and bowed. Captain Maith, who I met in the throne room rushed to my side, his violet eyes wide. “Your Majesty, may I be of assistance?”
“Follow me.” I crossed the room and made another doorway into a windowless stone chamber.
“We have an intruder.”
Following after us, the captain turned to the rest of the hall and motioned for a group of males sitting close to rise. Drayce and I continued to the smaller chamber with the soldiers at our backs. The chamber was thirty by thirty feet, with wall lanterns close to the ceiling that drenched the space in light.
The captain positioned himself on my left. “What are we expecting, Your Majesty?”
“Do you remember Crom Cruach?” I had already told Drayce about the soul-trapping spiorad that had disintegrated into liquid gold and how we had trapped his melted form in jars which were now separated around the castle. “This one is black and gelatinous.”
“I will contain it with my shadows,” said Drayce. “Everyone else will attack with their elemental powers until we work out which hurts it the most.”
Apprehension rippled through my gut. I couldn’t control water or fire or air. Outside the palace, my powers extended to being able to cut through anything with my blood and sword. Without meaning to, I stepped back, but Drayce secured an arm around my back.
“Neara,” he murmured. “We don’t know the extent of the intruder’s capabilities. If we can’t destroy what’s in that chamber, you must trap it within the stones.”
My posture straightened, and I turned to meet his concerned eyes. “Alright.”
I filled my lungs with air, steadying myself for whatever was lurking in
