Fantasyland 03 Fantastical (13 page)

Uh.

What?

What was he doing here?

My head shifted back on the pillow, my eyes
darting to the nightstand.

“Looking for this?” I heard him ask, I
looked to him and saw his other hand raised, my knife dangling from
his fingers by the tip of the blade.

Blast!

He flipped the knife up, losing hold on it
but he caught it expertly by the hilt and he did this, no joke,
without taking his eyes from me.

“You didn’t think, did you, that my own,
damned horse was going to take you somewhere I couldn’t find
you?”

Salem, a traitor.

What a disappointment.

We’d ridden the rest of the night and all
the next day, stopping only to bum water and, for my part, answer
the call of nature. An hour or two after night fell we came upon
this hunting lodge which Salem, in his Salem way, assured me was
safe. He even reached out his powerful neck and pointed with his
communicative muzzle to the window ledge that held the hidden
key.

I thought he was my horse in shining
coat.

Totally a disappointment.

Now, clearly, as the sun was shining, it was
sometime the next day.

And I was back in the clutches of the evil,
black Prince Noctorno.

Foiled.

“I own this hunting cottage. It’s sacred
ground. It’s safe. My horse is no fool,” Noctorno went on.

Great. Marvelous.

Or, more aptly put, phooey!

I carefully rolled to my back and just as
carefully scooted up the bed until my back was pressed to the
headboard. I pulled my knees up and circled my calves with my arms.
I got in this protective position and held it all the while I kept
wary eyes on him.

His eyes swept my truncated body and came
back to mine. Then they warmed and he started to lean in,
murmuring, “Cora.”

My hand shot up, palm out, and I whispered
on a hiss, “Don’t touch me.”

His body stopped moving.

“Cora,” he repeated on a whisper.

“Tell me about the bones,” I demanded and
watched his eyes flash. I dropped my hand and narrowed my own eyes
at him. “I know you don’t believe me and yadda, yadda, yadda. Humor
me. Tell me about the
fucking
bones.”

He studied me. Then he stated, “They have my
saliva on them.”

“And?”

He studied me some more. Then he sighed and
continued, “And, they can track me through my saliva. They can do
it from miles away.”

“So that’s why you kept the bones in the
cave,” I surmised.

He nodded. “They had no clue it existed and
I use it for hunting or for war. I’m always careful, out of habit,
it’s been ingrained in me since I was born. In ancient times, they
could only track the females. They’ve adapted. Now they’ve learned
also to track the mates. So, along with searching for you, they
were searching for me. You threw out the bones, they found me or,
since the remains of our rabbit meal were amongst them… us.”

Hmm.

“And say, when we, uh… relieve ourselves.
Can they track that?” I asked.

“That’s acid so… no.”

Interesting.

“Just saliva?”

“That and other bodily fluids.”

“Like?”

“Blood. Semen. But not urine.”

Yuck!

Time to move on before he went on.

“Okay, that’s enough with the bodily fluids
and other, um… bodily functions. Can they track scent? Hair?”

“Fluids only.”

How weird.

So weird, my brows shot up. “Seriously?”

One side of his mouth twitched.
“Seriously.”

He looked hot with one side of his mouth
twitching so I decided I was done.

Therefore, I stated, “Thank you for the
lesson. You can go now.”

His eyes stayed glued to mine and I let them
mostly because I had no choice. The guy had proven time and again
he was freaking strong so I could never best him physically and
wasn’t going to try.

The bummer of this was, he didn’t move.

Then he said quietly, “We must talk.”

“Welp, Prince Noctorno, sorry to disappoint
you but I am way,
so
done talking to you.”

He shook his head. “We must talk,” he
repeated.

“I have nothing to say and
you
have
nothing to say I want to hear.”

“We need to talk about what happened in the
church.”

My body went solid. “No, we absolutely,
definitely, without a doubt, totally do not need to talk about what
happened in the church.”

“Cora –”

“Go away.”

“Cora –”

“I said go away. I’m tired. My body’s sore
from riding all day. I need sleep before I’m on my way again…” I
paused then finished, “
on foot.
”

“Cora –”

“Don’t worry, I won’t bleed on anything. I,
obviously, don’t have any semen so we’re good on that score and I
promise to be careful with my saliva.”

“Gods damn it, Cora.”

“Seriously! Go!”

He didn’t go.

Nope. He didn’t.

What he
did
do was dart a hand out,
wrap his fingers around my ankle and yank it out and straight down
the bed. Unfortunately, as my body was attached to it, it too went
down the bed. Then he shifted to lying and rolled right, smack on
top of me.

I shoved at his shoulders, shouting, “Get
off me!”

“Calm yourself,” he commanded.

“Get…
off
… me!”

“Calm yourself!” he barked.

“And what if I don’t!” I yelled back. “You
gonna shake me so hard I see stars? Or toss me around?”

“I had another idea to get you to obey.”

“Spanking? Whipping? Wait, that might draw
blood –”

“Cora –”

“Water torture?”

“No, Cora,
fucking
you so hard you
can’t bloody breathe and you’re so damned exhausted after, you
can’t move and you’re forced to shut your mouth and bloody
listen
.”

I snapped my mouth shut.

Shit, I should have never taught him that
word.

“That did it,” he muttered.

“You want to talk, talk,” I invited, my tone
surly.

He scowled down at me.

Then he sucked in a breath and started, “I
hurt you –”

“Yep,” I confirmed. “I checked and I’ve got
the bruises to prove it.”

This time the flinch was not nearly
imperceptible. This time he flinched flat out.

“Gods,” he whispered.

“You can say that again.”

His eyes warmed again and his hand came up
to cup my jaw. “Love, I’m –”

I jerked my head away, doing my best to
angle my body to keep it away. My eyes tilted to him and I reminded
him, “I told you, don’t touch me.”

“I scared you,” he muttered, studying me,
his hand dropping to the pillow by my head and I relaxed.

“Yep, you did that too. Shitless.”

His brows knit. “Shitless?”

“Yes, shitless, as in, you scared me so
badly, I was incapacitated. I couldn’t think. You made me
cower
in front of you like a weak thing. You scared me so
much you forced me to humiliate myself in front of you. So, you’ve
shaken me before, you’ve spanked me,
twice
, and done other
stuff that’s not very cool but that, that, Noctorno, I cannot
forgive you for. I could fight the vickrants with you and, I’ll
admit, I was terrified out of my brain while I did but you… it was
you
who scared me so much, I couldn’t… fucking…
breathe.
”

He closed his eyes slowly and with them
closed he whispered, “Cora, sweets –”

“Get off me.”

His eyes opened. “My love –”

“Don’t call me that!” I snapped and his hand
suddenly was back at my face, cupping my cheek, his thumb pressing
against my lips and his face dipped lower so it was all I could
see.

“Please, let me speak.”

I lifted a hand to pull his thumb from my
mouth and hurled, “Fuck that and fuck
you!
”

“I’m uncertain I understand all the meanings
of this word,” he replied quietly.

“I think you get the gist,” I guessed.

Then he suddenly stated, “We were
losing.”

I blinked in my surprise, letting my guard
down which was foolish. It was foolish because my fingers were
still wrapped around his thumb. He twisted his wrist, laced his
fingers through mine and then rested our entwined hands on the bed
by my shoulder.

“I was in a foul mood because I was
concerned because we were losing,” he semi-repeated.

“Losing what?”

“Against the vickrants.”

This was confusing.

“We were?”

“Yes, love.”

“But I thought we were kicking ass,” I told
him and his mouth twitched again.

Then he informed me, “We were but if that
village was a mile further away, they would have overwhelmed us.
What we fought was only the first wave. The second wave was coming,
I heard it, Salem heard it; they were close. If they made it to us,
they were triple in number, they would have overwhelmed us and you
would be gone.”

I felt my eyes grow wide as my mouth formed
the whispered words, “Holy crap.”

“I’m not certain what that means but the way
you say it makes me think it says it all.”

“It does,” I whispered.

He held my eyes.

“The second wave was
triple
what we
were fighting?” I asked.

“Minerva’s hungry,” he answered.

Oh dear.

“She needs both the sisters to complete the
curse over the land,” he continued.

Oh. Fucking. Dear!

“She’s waited millennia to do it,” he
explained.

Now it was oh shit.

“It’s been centuries upon centuries that the
vow has gone unbroken,” he carried on.

Ohshitohshit.

“That would be, I’m guessing, the vow that
the soulmates wouldn’t see each other prior to the wedding
festivities,” I guessed.

“That would be the vow,” he confirmed.

“Oh
shit!”

That time, I said it out loud.

His fingers squeezed mine. “She creates the
soulmates, love.”

I blinked again. “What?”

“Playing. Torture. She does it only so she
can tear them apart. She’s evil. Pure through to her core. She
creates them then plays with them, trying to trick them, showing
them the promise of joy beyond measure in the hopes to rip it
away.”

“My God, that’s… that’s…” I shook my head,
“I don’t even know what that is.”

“That’s Minerva.”

“What is she?”

“She was a witch. Through the years, her
power grew. Now it so closely rivals the gods’, she
is
a
god.”

“Uh-oh, that doesn’t sound good.”

“It bloody isn’t.”

“But you said the gods pick the
soulmates.”

“No, I said the
she-god
picks the
soulmates. Unfortunately, the benevolent ones have been forced to
let her into their ranks. We pray to our gods, we fear
Minerva.”

Crap.

Then it dawned on me.

“And so Dash had planned it all. Rosa was to
stay at her, I mean,
our
parents’ house and he was –”

Noctorno nodded his head. “You live miles
away in the opposite direction to your parents, the church and my
father’s castle. We stayed the night miles beyond that. Rosa wasn’t
supposed to be anywhere near there. We were dropping in mostly as a
joke. Dash wanted to tease you, guessing you’d sleep in. I knew,
however, that you
would
sleep in so, since you were on our
way, we stopped by to drag you out of bed.”

My eyes drifted over his shoulder and I
asked mostly myself, “I wonder how she got there.”

Since I asked mostly myself, I was guessing
this was why he didn’t answer.

Then my eyes went back to his. “If this was
happening for millennia, why didn’t Rosa know about it?”

His head tilted to the side and he examined
me. He did this closely, intensely. He was a pretty intense guy but
this was even
more
intense. It was like he was doing it for
the first time, or, perhaps, seeing something he hadn’t seen before
that fascinated him.

Then he said softly, “There are delicate
souls, some so delicate, you know, even a child just born, how
delicate they are. Rosa is one of those souls. Her parents, and
even you, throughout her life protected her from unpleasantness
that she couldn’t handle. She doesn’t only not know the curse
exists, she doesn’t even know Minerva exists.”

I thought of tra la laling Rosa and I could
see this girl had a delicate soul.

“I met her briefly,” I informed him. “I can
see this.”

“It’s hard to miss,” he muttered.

Then something struck me. Something bad.
Really bad. And my heart lurched as my body went solid when it
filtered through me.

“Oh my God, Tor,” I whispered, my free hand
lifting to curl around his neck. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

“Sweets,
what?
”

“Rosa’s delicate and Minerva has her.”

His jaw got hard. “Yes.”

“Oh my God!” I yelled and bucked, trying to
push him off.

“Cora –”

I stilled and looked up at him. “We have to
go get her!”

His brows drew together. “Pardon?”

“What are we doing?” I cried desperately
then blathered on. “Why were we holed up in a cave?
Here?
We
have to find her! We have to rescue her!”

“Cora –”

“We have to go!”

“Cora –”

“
Now!
” I shrieked and his mouth came
down on mine hard.

This time, his tongue didn’t sweep into my
mouth. This time, my bones didn’t turn to water. This kiss was
meant to silence me. It worked because it was hard but at the same
time also freakishly tender in a way I liked.

Therefore, my body melted under his and when
he felt it, he lifted his head an inch.

“Are you calm?” he asked softly after his
blue eyes caught mine.

“Calm…
ish,
” I answered
breathlessly.

“Orlando is leading the rescue mission to
find your sister,” he explained. “He has at his command my father’s
entire army and my warriors, all of them but my personal guard who
are at my castle, on alert should you and I need them.”