Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) (17 page)

The moon would be full in a few minutes. Another night would be on its way to oblivion, leaving him with only tomorrow night to make this work or delay the spell until the following month.
If
he retained his elvatian shape at all and wasn’t forced back into the beast by the passage of the moon. To spend another month in that shape having tasted the freedom of his own, that would be torture.

The sliver of white grew and so did his unease.

“Screw it,” he said, and headed for the door.

As his fingers reached for it, the bronze handle moved. A crazy surge of relief rushed through him, shaking him from the inside out. He dropped his hand from the latch. She was here. She cared, at least enough to put aside her anger and help him cure his curse.

The door opened, and Beezel stood shivering and alone in the dim hallway.

The wild rage of the beast lurking inside him rose to the surface. “Where is she?” he growled and pushed past the cringing gnome into the hallway, but there was no sign of Bryanna.

“G-g-gone,Your Highness.”

Kian looked at Beezel as the words entered his ears but refused to penetrate his brain. “Gone?”

“Y-y-yess, Sire, gone.”

“Did you check the library?”

“Y-y-yess.”

“And the dining room?”

“Y-y-yess. She has fled the warren.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The spell is still in place, there’s no way to leave. She must be somewhere.”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, I’ve checked everywhere. She’s gone.”

The first flutters of anxiety started deep in his chest, growing bigger and stronger, until they pounded, frantic with denial.

She’d left him.

He pounded his fist against the heavy, carved door, anger, frustration, and fear rushing out of him in an enormous roar. Beezel ducked down, covered his ears and scrambled for a corner.

Kian slammed the door back, hitting the wall again and again until the wood sagged on the ancient hinges. “How could she be so stupid as to unlock that door again?”

He ran down the hallway, heading for the door to the goblin occupied remains of Cairngloss and one of the passages to the front entrance.

Beezel ran behind him, his bare flat feet slapping on the stone floor. “No, Sire, she didn’t go that way,” he gasped out.

Kian turned on him. He shoved his face next to the quaking gnome’s and bared his teeth as if he still had his tusks and fangs. “What do you mean?”

“The door is bolted and barred and the locks show no trace of tampering. She didn’t go that way.”

Kian’s hand was unsteady as he straightened up and brushed loose hair out of his face. His eyes unfocused, he stared past Beezel, the knowledge of where she must be lodged painfully in his chest.

“This is my fault.” He’d shown her the Goddess forsaken pool. “She went to see them again.” He pictured her fascination the first time he’d shown her the pool. The way she’d nearly fallen in trying to get to her loved ones. He spun on his booted heel, turned and ran the other way, Beezel’s pattering steps fading behind him as he hit the stairs to the cavern and raced down the slippery stone spiral.

The cavern was pitch dark. No sign of Bryanna, but a wisp of rose scent spiced the air.

He shouted up the echoing stair. “Light! Bring me a fucking light!”

Beezel descended too slowly down the stairs. Kian grabbed the torch out of the gnome’s hand and held it high. The cave sparkled and shone as if full of treasure, but he knew the ugly truth. The glistening cavern held nothing but darkness and misery for any who came here. He thought he’d known the price of showing Bryanna the pool, but as he scanned the room, he had the sinking feeling he’d been wrong.

“Sire?” Beezel stayed on the last stair, his eyes bulging in fear. “Did she get out?”

“I don’t know,” he snarled and stalked through the huge room, heading for the far side where there was another entrance to Cairngloss. One he knew was there, but had never been through. Just before the small hidden passage to the exit tunnel, he hit an invisible wall. He rebounded back, his bones jarring.

Not a wall in sight, but even the torch in his hand refused to pass the invisible barrier of his mother’s spell.

“Beezel!”

“Sire?” The gnome called back from where he stood on the very bottom of the stairs. As long as they’d been trapped here, Beezel had refused to enter the cavern.

“Come here and try to get through the spell.”

“Sire, no, I cannot.”

He spun around and glared at the gnome, his raised voice echoing across the wide cavern. “Get your ass over here, or you’ll have more to be scared of than ancient ghosts.”

Beezel scuttled up behind him. Kian barely glanced at the shivering grey gnome, all his focus was fixated on the dark patch of rock where he was sure Bryanna had gone. “Try to get through.”

The gnome walked toward the narrow tunnel entrance, his laggard pace stretching Kian’s patience, until he hit the spell and stopped. “I’m sorry, Sire.”

“Maybe she didn’t go this way.” A glimmer of hope rose inside him. “Maybe the spell kept her contained and she’s hiding somewhere. Did you check everywhere? Did you check every empty bedroom? The throne room? Your room?”

“I don’t think so, Sire.” He lifted his hand and pointed his long, knobby finger toward the tunnel. Kian lifted the torch. There, caught on a jagged broken stalagmite was a piece of the blue brocade gown she’d worn earlier.

Fear wrapped its hands around his throat, choking off his breath.

Somehow, like the goblins, she’d made it past the spell. “We have to find her,” he rasped out. “She can’t know what lies down this tunnel.”

Beezel’s face turned ashen. “Sire, I believe it may be too late.”

Down the tunnel was the reason he’d never had to worry about anyone coming in through this entrance, not even his mother. Down the tunnel was the lair of a snow dragon, one of the most vicious of the White Queen’s introductions to the area and a major reason why the gnomes of Cairngloss had finally abandoned their palace.

“Even if she got past the dragon there are a hundred other dangers in the woods. Goblins and trolls and snow tigers.” He swallowed, trying to get rid of the vice around his throat. “Naive, stupid, girl,” he said bitterly. But she’d been his. For a moment.

“She’s lost to us, Sire. Neither one of us can go after her.”

“She would have been better off if she’d stayed.” Kian’s shoulders drooped, and his torch sagged toward the ground. “I can do so much more for her once I’m whole. I’m one of the most powerful of the fae.”

Bryanna lost in the woods. Her family alone and defenseless. And if any of his men had survived the queen’s purge they were fated to struggle on alone.

“By this action, she’s doomed us all.”

A small hoot sounded behind him. A lone hobgoblin had followed him down the stairs and braved the crystal cavern. He stared at the little bugger and, for the first time, realized that this was all he would ever have as a companion. Ugly, mindless, vermin swarming him wherever he went in Cairngloss.

He was truly the Goblin King, and these were likely to be his only subjects for the rest of his very long life. He bent down and stroked its slimy head, its gaping eyes glinted blackly at him. He smiled, a sad and bitter smile. Out of the hole it had for a mouth came an evil cackle as it bit down on one of his fingers.

“Damn it!” He yanked his finger back. But as he sucked on the blood, he realized that this was not the only goblin that saw him as a king.

He started for the stairs. Then he began to run.

“Sire, where are you going?” Beezel’s out of breath call pursued him up the stairs as Kian took them two at a time.

He didn’t bother answering. There was little time. He had other companions, and they were frightened enough of him to back him when the time came. Little did they know the time was now.

Up the stairs, down the hall, back to the sealed door. Kian broke the locks, wrenching the bar out of place, and tore open the door. He stepped into the kitchen of the goblins.

It was empty.

Behind him, he heard scuttling feet as an out of breath Beezel caught up. He held the sputtering torch and lit up the room. The fire guttered on the hearth. A half-butchered carcass lay on the table. Piles of old bones and stinking furs filled the corners, but where he’d always before found dicing and drinking companions, now he couldn’t find one single goblin.

A trace of battle sense crept along his spine.

“Sire?”

“Shut it, Beezel. Something’s wrong.”

From out of the shadows stepped a figure in a garishly striped purple and green gown. Taller than Kian by a foot and outweighing him by much more than half his own weight, she smiled with her bloated, part-elvatian face. “Oh no, my love,” she said. “Now that I’m here, something is about to finally go right.”

Agrona, his official fiancée, half-breed, and eater of men’s souls, stepped into the torch-light.

His battle sense rocketed to full alert. Palms dampened, heartbeat sped up. He reacted, backing up and running for the door. But it was too late. From deep within the shadowy corners, two bulky troll-kin seized his wrists.

“Your mummy is very unhappy with you, Kian, and I can see by that gorgeous face that you’ve been a very bad boy.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Only a few feet away from Kian, Bryanna pressed into her hiding spot behind a rock. She didn’t know if it was her humanity, or the locket, or if the spell was weakening, but she’d gotten through. She’d almost expected him to push through as well, but both he and Beezel were trapped.

She waited to move until the sound of Kian’s footsteps had long faded away.

The husky vibration in his voice had licked over her skin, reminding her of his touch, and the hours they’d spent making love. Her muscles and bones had softened and she’d nearly left her spot and run back to him. The suspicion he cared tugging at her own confused emotions.

He hadn’t lied about being stuck in Cairngloss. If he’d been able to make it past the spell, he would have. His anguish had been clear. But the main question remained. If she were able to cure him, would he still keep her here against her will? What if she couldn’t? What then?

There was no way to know for sure, but he’d given his word he’d help her. And, he needed her. He believed in her.

Somehow, over the last two weeks, she’d realized there was a person inside the beast, and finding out last night he hadn’t had the benefit of a loving family, had shifted her thinking about his motivations. He wasn’t the bad guy, he was just as much a victim of the queen as she and her family.

Unshielding the lantern, she emerged from her hidden corner and held it aloft. Sparkles of reflected light flashed back at her, but Kian was gone. She clutched the locket in her hand, her thumb rubbing the etching that covered the otherwise smooth exterior. Her mother and sister needed her, but rationally, she’d never reach them in time to save them from the huge tigers. Even if what the pool had shown her was accurate, it might have happened yesterday, or last week. She’d have to get past the dragon, and she’d have to go out into a strange world, just to see if she could track them down. They could be miles, maybe even worlds away.

But she could do something for Kian. If she stayed.

And maybe that would help her family too.

Her Gift had pulled at her during the spell, urging her to make subtle changes to the words and herbs, but she’d ignored it, gone with more traditional, rational decisions. The kind her mother would have pushed her to do. But what if she’d made those changes? Her changes? Would he be cured now? Would her mother and sister be safe? What if she made those changes tonight and succeeded? She was free now. She could leave.

But what if she
could
do it?

She’d nearly reversed a fairy queen’s curse. All by herself. Just the thought made her smile.

No one would believe it. No one, but Kian, who’d always told her she could. Did she owe him something for that? Did she owe herself the chance to prove, if only to herself, that her Gift was just as strong as the other witches in her family?

And she had no idea what faced her once she left Cairngloss. It had been hours since she’d seen the tigers attack her mother and sister. They were either dead or had saved themselves.

She shuddered. No, she’d know if they were dead. She had to trust they would keep themselves alive and safe until she could find them. Even if she did find them, she couldn’t magic them back home, to Earth. She’d need Kian whole and well and able to open a portal.

She stuffed the locket back into her chemise, gripped the thin handle of the lantern, and faced the queen’s barrier spell. Opening her Gift, she could see it. Dark purple threads wove a web that blocked not just the tunnel, but spread up to the high ceiling and extended into the rock.

Pulling power from the earth, she wrapped it around her in a protective cloak, and pushed into the sticky strands of the spell. The web-like tendrils dragged on her, gripping her face and skin. She fought through, bursting into the crystal cavern and leaving the spell intact behind her.