Dark Prince's Desire (8 page)

Then Yelena was plunging out of his arms, through the
phae
gateway...

And into the white marble hallway where she’d first entered the
phaedrealii.

No! She couldn’t leave him to face the Queen alone.

Tumbling sideways from the momentum of his throw, she broke through the circle of the portal and clanged her head on the massive metal door set in the middle of the gleaming white stone.

She staggered to her feet, shaking the ringing noise out of her ears. Luckily, tiger skulls were thicker than human.

Why had the passage brought her here, and not sent her back to Mad Dog Valley as Raze had intended? What had he wished for in that heartbeat before he threw her away from him?

She knew damn well what she wanted. She’d fallen into this dream in the hopes of finding herself again. Instead, she’d found him. And now she was going to find a way back to where he’d abandoned her on that empty plain. She wasn’t a wistful, motherless teen anymore, too confused by her loss to fight back, and what she’d almost lost at that warlord’s hands was nothing compared to what she stood to lose this time.

Dread slammed through her at what might remain. She’d accused Raze of being worse than the Afghan warlord, but neither of them had anything on the Queen of the
phae.

Who could face down that menacing monster?

She blinked up at the black metal looming over her.

Cold iron, she realized. This was the court dungeon. She hadn’t made the connection when she’d intruded on Raze working his magic here, since iron didn’t mean much to werelings. But now she studied the huge cell door.

The construction would’ve been imposing enough for human smiths and must have slain any number of
phae
in its presence. The solid expanse of iron was cross-strapped for extra fortification and riveted with bolts the size of her human fist, and the padlock was almost as large as her tigress head. Though utterly imposing, the door was still finely finished. Smaller rivets were decorative only, and filigree—the etching almost invisible against the black of the iron—looped around the small rivets in a delicate floral pattern, like an apology for the punitive darkness.

A doorway fit for a King. An imprisoned King.

Yelena prowled the width of the door, whiskers bristling. She’d made so many mistakes while wanting only to make changes for the better. Could she risk making another failure?

If the alternative was leaving Raze to die while she made her escape...

The Queen might be a monster, but she was a beast. A big one.

She summoned up the power of her tigress—nothing magical, just fury and might and the desire to return to the one she’d chosen for her own. With a single blow of her huge paw, she twisted the lock on its thick eyelet. The iron was fatal to
phae
, but it was old. A second swipe tore the hasp loose with a grating scream. A third strike broke the lock in two.

With a more tentative paw, she latched her claws around the edge of the iron and pulled.

It was heavy and the hinges creaked a protest, her last warning.

She stood back and waited for the King of the
phae
to emerge.

Chapter Eleven

“Ruiner, did you think I would let this go?” The Queen stalked a tight, agitated circle around Raze.

Though his spine prickled in warning when she disappeared behind him, he could not bother lifting his head to watch her. The frigid scorch of iron manacles around his neck and limbs—bared by the leather vest since they’d stripped him of the spiderling coat—made the effort seem pointless. He’d beaten down several of her dark hunters, but that had just made the rest more eager to thrash him. Lashing out at her with the iron chain that bound him probably hadn’t been wise either, but he didn’t think submission was going to appease her anyway.

No, she wanted blood.

Not that he had much left.

“I should have known you’d betray me,” she hissed. “After all, you betrayed your own brother. He heard the song from your flute calling the warriors to the last battle, and instead you led the
phae
against him.”

That did force his head up. “Everything I’ve ever done has been for the
phae.
”

“I wanted the wereling for myself!”

Despite his precarious situation, he sympathized with the Queen. He’d wanted the wereling too. Which is exactly why he’d sent her away, and he’d regret that choice to his last breath.

Which might come any moment now.

The Queen’s entourage lurked around the edges of the throne room, drawn by the lure of her gathering power but reluctant to catch her serpent-yellow eye since they knew as well as Raze that her wrath could lash in any direction. Their restive, uneasy magic had no focus—the Queen being too incensed to bring the energy to any sort of convergence—so the throne room took no particular form. A drifting fog obscured the middle distances and left shimmering droplets on the curves of the Steel Throne, the only constant in the
phaedrealii.

The Queen emerged on his other side, her sulfurous eyes narrowed venomously. “EveStar is gone.”

He stiffened, not caring that the iron shifted to burn more flesh. “She left the
phaedrealii?
” Like him, EveStar was one of the old ones. If she had made her way to the sunlit realm, the trouble could be starting even now.

The Queen sneered. “Not left. Dead.”

Shock went through him, crueler than iron. “She was no threat to you.”

“I did nothing. The dryad burned through all her magic. Left not even enough cinders to roast the remaining geasa from your skin.” She glowered at him as if that was his fault.

So he truly was the last. His head felt too heavy to hold upright. Perhaps it was just as well he too would finally come to an end. As Yelena had pointed out, the Iron Age was long gone. The Steel Born would forge themselves into something he’d never dreamed of. And their violent fire would be the light of the sunlit realm.

Despite his weariness, he met the Queen’s gaze. “You loved once.”

If he had struck out at her with his iron chain she would have not have recoiled faster. “I will pierce your tongue with iron for saying that aloud.”

He shook his head. “When the Lord of the Hunt came Undone, he claimed you loved him. He asked only that you admit it.”

Her lips drew back in a rictus of a smile. “His madness was not mine.”

“I think he knew it was. And in losing him, you lost a part of yourself.”

She lunged at him, her fingers curled like claws. But she stopped short of touching him, held at a quivering distance as if by some magic beyond her own.

“That love you lost,” he murmured, “give it to the
phae.
Give them what we couldn’t have for ourselves. Guide them to a place where that dream is finally real.”

She snarled. “What song and dance is this,
saturni?
You think to trick me?”

“No trick. Just a truth I didn’t see until now.”

Tendrils of fog coalesced around her as she pulled the
phae
power closer, finally giving it form. Her mass doubled, then redoubled, until she hulked over him in her parti-colored robes, though her face stayed the same size with the death’s-skull starkness and serpent eyes. “I will not be Undone by a fantasy that can never be, Ruiner. When you die, all the gateways will open. There will be nothing to bind us here, and we will take what we wish from the human world. The power will be all mine.”

Raze opened his mouth to entreat her once more, but the fog around their feet suddenly sucked toward the throne in a whining wind along with the air in his lungs. The Queen’s robes streamed toward the vacuum, and she staggered to hold her position.

From the swirl of fog, a dozen cypress trees shot upward, their thick, flared trunks in a rough circle. Hundreds of will-o’-the-wisps lit the needles that arched overhead, and the rich, woodsy scent made Raze close his eyes, thinking of Yelena....

A multitude of gasps from the lurking
phae
emptied the throne room like a second vacuum. Then whispers filled it like wind.

He looked up and his gaze locked on the golden-black beauty that prowled out of the unexpected forest. Impossible! He’d sent her away.

Anguish had him reaching up to tear at the collar around his neck, mindless of the iron scorching his already damaged hands. She couldn’t be here! The Queen would be—

His gaze ticked up another notch to the figure emerging behind Yelena.

The King.

As golden-haired as the tigress, with eyes of a piercing blue even the sunlit skies couldn’t match, the King strode toward the Steel Throne. He moved with the effortless power of an incoming wave, and his samite cloak, threaded with fractal flowers of gold, surged behind him, untarnished as if he hadn’t spent the last several millennia locked behind impenetrable iron.

Raze felt every link of his chains burning him with shame. Along with a furious joy.

The King paused, his hand on the back of the throne. Yelena stood on his other side, tail lashing.

Blue eyes finally lifted. “My brother,” he said softly, with a musical lilt that hadn’t been spoken in ages. His gaze shifted. “And you must be my betrothed.”

The Queen reeled back, her reptilian-slit pupils expanding with shock to engulf her eyes with pitch-black. Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, until a noise, uncharacteristically feeble emerged. “Who...?”

“Your Lord and Master.”

“I have no Lord.” Still, her voice shook. “You are an imposter!”

“And you are a thief.” He shook his head, and the plaited locks of his hair brushed past his shoulders. “Stealing my throne.”

“Not stolen.” The Queen hunched her shoulders, seething. “You lost it.”

“And yet I seem to have found it again.”

“That can change once more.” The Queen sprang forward, hands raised.

The power she released stripped the robes from her body, revealing her scaled bulk and the mane of grizzled hair down her spine, but the blast went astray. The cypress circle splintered in a rain of kindling, and the gathered
phae
fled in all directions.

Raze choked on a cry until he saw Yelena had dodged behind the steel bulk of the throne.

The King, however, didn’t move from his stance beside the throne, except for one hand, which summoned the swirling cloud of will-o’-the-wisps. Raze shook his head helplessly; his brother would have almost no energy of his own, trapped as he’d been behind iron for so long. He would be decimated.

But the wisps gathered in an angry whirl, the usually inaudible hum of their tiny wings rising to a menacing drone.

The King gathered the gold-streaked cloak around him. “You want all the power to be yours? Then take it.”

He pointed, and the wisps descended on the Queen in a funnel cloud streaked with the afterglow of their lightning.

She vanished behind the spinning cloud, but her scream, high and shrill, cut through the whine of myriad wings. A dark pool oozed from beneath the cloud of wisps, reflecting the arcs of lightning.

Raze closed his eyes, knowing he was next.

But a tug at his chains made him glance up. “Yelena! I told you to get out of here!”

“I tried. But I came back.” She fumbled with the manacles around his wrists, unfastening the simple latch. “Don’t you people believe in keys?”

“Since no one can touch them, the locks have always been enough.” But not anymore.

He feasted his gaze on her naked curves, and the tiny hairs on his body prickled with the tingle of the
verita luna
still clinging to her skin. He wanted to grab her, hold her against him, never let her go. Not again.

But he saw the
phae
creeping toward the throne, uncertain but curious. Through gritted teeth, he said, “You have to leave. My brother will—”

“I explained your reasons to him.”

Disbelief forced a laugh from Raze’s aching chest. “He can’t have forgiven me.”

“Well, no. But you haven’t apologized to him yet.” She unclipped his iron collar and threw it aside with an oath. “How could she do this to you?”

“Because I deserved nothing more.” Wincing with the pain of his iron-inflicted wounds, he stripped out of the leather vest and draped it around Yelena. It was long enough on her to cover the curve of her backside, which he regretted perhaps more than anything in his long life. “I’ve done everything wrong....”

She pushed up on tiptoes to kiss him. “Maybe, but after all this time, you’re getting a second chance.”

The warm brush of her lips filled an empty place inside him. Not where his magic should have been; he was still drained from the touch of iron. But her touch...

No illusion and no truth could mean more to him than that.

So he stood his ground as his brother approached.

The King stopped a few paces away. “It has been a long time, Arazael.”

Raze started to explain the
phae
did not use true names, not when that intimacy caused such problems. But he stopped himself, though he still used the shortened version of his brother’s name. “Because I imprisoned you, Kel.” When Yelena cleared her throat, he added, “And I am sorry for it.”

The King made a noise in the back of his throat. “You would do it again if you thought it the right thing.”

Raze shrugged. “Yes.” Yelena groaned, so he amended, “But I would still be sorry for it.”

Kel’s lips quirked, not quite a smile. Then his gaze shifted to the cloud of wisps that had tightened around the bulk of the deposed Queen. “She would have been my wife. Her blood was right—” he stared at the black pool beneath the wisps “—and she would have ruled by my side. But she wanted it all.”

Raze shook his head. “She just wanted something, which she wouldn’t have had if you’d led us to our doom. That was why she took the throne.”

Kel lifted his head. “And you?”

“I never wanted the throne. I just wanted the
phae
to live.” Raze met Yelena’s golden gaze. “But I am told my definition of living left something to be...desired.”

She smiled at him, a glowing expression that filled him like the sun rising.

The King gestured, and the wisps spun upward in a loose spiral, glimmering brilliantly with devoured magic. In a huddled heap, the once Queen moaned, a small, helpless sound almost lost in the King’s dismissive growl. “I should kill you.” He glanced at Raze. “Kill you both.”

Yelena straightened, the
verita luna
brightening her edges. “You promised—”

“Promises...” The King waved his hand again. “Have you learned nothing of the
phae
while spending time with my brother?”

“I learned people—all people—can change,” she said. “That’s why I took a chance and let you out.”

Kel looked at Raze, disbelief sending his eyebrows upward. “This is what you choose? Sharp claws and a sharper tongue?”

Unable to resist any longer, Raze stroked his hand down the strong curve of her arm, drawing her closer. “That is only one side of her.”

She made a sound halfway between a purr and a growl and leaned into him.

“Then you are trapped,” Kel said.

Raze closed his eyes briefly. “That is a fair trade. If you wish to put me behind iron for the time I imprisoned you—”

“No,” Kel and Yelena said together, Yelena with alarm, Kel with amusement.

The King shook his head. “If you were gone, who would rule the court?”

Raze stiffened. “You.”

“Not I.” Kel stared over his shoulder at the Steel Throne, his expression dark. “I want nothing more to do with metal chains, no matter how lovely the form.” He looked back at them and smiled, the gesture coming more naturally now, although something bleak and cracked still lurked in the clear blue of his eyes. “If there is a new shape for the
phae
, you and the wereling will find it without me.”

Raze wavered. Together with Yelena...

She glanced up at him uncertainly. “I can’t stay locked in the
phaedrealii.
”

He kissed her, taking strength in her skin against his, her breath mingling with his. “Half my geasa are gone; I can’t lock the court again. I won’t.” The thought of the alternatives made his head spin, or maybe that was loss of blood and the nearness of his tigress.

So he kissed her again until the dread was gone and all that remained were the dreams.

When he lifted his head, Kel and the deposed Queen were gone too, and the throne sat empty, waiting.

Yelena’s mouth was flushed red and her eyes bright with desire. She lifted his scarred hands to her lips. “We can make this world anything we want, Arazael, a place for everyone.”

He tightened his grip. “I already have what I want.”

She stared up at him, hope brighter than any sun. “Can we really do this?”

He placed her palm on his bare chest over his heart where he knew she would feel his pulse and know he spoke only the truth. “Anything is possible.”