Curse of the Fae King (12 page)

Instinctively Meena reached up and stroked her rainbow curls. No other Witch had multicolored hair like hers. The red made her a warrior, the blue signified healing, and the purple was a supposed to be a badge of leadership. Yeah, right. Just like the green made her good with plants. She couldn’t even grow weeds!

Sweet Hekate, despite the out-of-control vegetation, it felt good to be home. Even the air smelled sweeter—untainted by man or machines. Tempting floral scents beckoned her into the jungle, and but for Leonidas’s grip on her arm, she might have succumbed to their lure. She and her Fae warrior stood on a rutted track that stretched arrow straight toward the horizon—a bare brown swath through a rustling sea of plants. Up ahead the vegetation had thrust exploratory tendrils over the well-trodden mud road, but they’d turned brown and died.

Leonidas surveyed the terrain, checking for animal life. “Remember what I said about the plants being carnivorous? Don’t leave the clearing, or they’ll home in on you.”

“What stops the plants encroaching on the pathway?” Meena looked down the trackway, then back at Leonidas. “I don’t understand.”

He took her hand in one of his and coiled the other around the handle of his bullwhip. “An ancient enchantment protects both the tracks and the wayfarers’ huts spaced along their way, but its strength and power are beyond us now. All the magic users, the Elves, Fae, sorcerers, and Witches came together and created a network of highways to connect the otherworld kingdoms. Then the Witches turned renegade, and now no other magic users will work with them. See, another reason to despise Witches. Oddly, this lethal jungle seems more rampant than last time I was here.”

“You’ve been on this road before? Why are we wasting time discussing plants when you know which way they took my mother?” She jerked his arm and set off down the trackway, but he didn’t follow.

“Meena, stop and think. The Fae Lands lie west, and the Elven Territories lie to the east. Mordred maintains a stronghold about two days’ march inside the border. You can see from the animal droppings and tire tracks that an ox cart passed this way recently. I suspect they used it to transport your mother.”

For once, Meena did as he suggested. “Okay, Leo, none of this makes sense. Why wouldn’t they just flash her to this stronghold? And why a machine to open the portal?”

“Everything smacks of humans, or beings without magic. Elves can’t cast strong spells, so perhaps they were conserving their strength, or maybe they’re up to something I don’t yet understand.”

Behind her, a cream-flowered anaconda vine filled the air with sweet perfume. She stopped and breathed in the scent of home, but the anaconda vine rustled, shot out a thick stem, and coiled around her waist. Normally the vines hoisted their prey high overhead and crushed the life out of them one slow inch at a time. Rotted corpses crumbled and fertilized their roots. Leo stepped toward her, ready to hack the stem to pieces with his sword. Before he reached her, the vine blackened where it touched her skin. A network of dark veins marbled its leaves. It wilted and died.

“Meena the plant killer, that’s me,” she scowled.

“Meena the survivor, more like,” he corrected.

She stared at the already decayed vine, horrified that her touch made it wither, but what did he mean “survivor”? Okay, she wasn’t a horticulturalist, but that vine’s reaction had been extreme. Whatever just happened was more to do with Lipstick’s fire and his spit on her cheek. It was nothing to do with her. “It was so pretty, and it smelled of marshmallow melting over an open fire. Why didn’t it kill me?”

He unwound the last tendrils of rotting plant from her waist. “Even a curvy sprite can make good fertilizer.”

There he went with the overweight thing again. She really wasn’t a porker, just a classic hourglass with the same vital statistics as Marilyn Monroe. By modern standards that meant she carried a few extra pounds. Did Fae women only come in tiny sizes?

And why did he insist she was a sprite? Part of her wanted to pat her chest and proclaim, “
Witch. I’m a Witch
.” Well, she wasn’t, really. Witches performed spells and magic. Apparently she killed otherworld plants—with a little help from Lipstick. Not exactly a life skill going on here.
Who wants dead leaves and withered flowers?
Certainly not the customers at Elizabeth Sybil’s Herb Farm.

Once she found her mother and Leonidas left her—
leaves me? Sweet Hekate, no!
—she’d stick to facts and figures, and leave the green-fingered stuff to her mum. Of course, she’d have to get home safe first. With a bounty on her head, she needed to stay clear of the Witches. “Okay, since I’m clearly not cut out to be otherworld fertilizer, which way did they go? For once, I’ll willingly let you take the lead, but if we could stay away from the Witch homelands, I’d be really grateful.”

“I SWEAR TO the Fae Gods”—Leonidas briefly rested his palm over his heart—“that I’ll protect you from all things wicked and witchy. Those women and their dark magic corrupt everything good in our world. However, they live in the northern mountains on an almost unreachable plateau, and they've woven a shield of black spells around it to mask the roads and send travelers down routes that avoid the castle.”

The urge to love and protect his woman filled him. He wanted to hold her close and kiss away her fears, but a small guilty part of him admitted that when it came to Witches and curses, he couldn’t even look out for himself. For now he’d keep her away from the Witches’ homeland and guard her from the Elves. “Our journey takes us east, toward the sun, not north toward—what do those damn women call it? The Hallowed Land?”

“That or Athame Hollows.” Mena told him, then realized she’d said too much. As usual she took refuge behind her tongue. “Come on. We’ve got a long walk, and me without my sun cream.”

Behind them, the portal closed as abruptly as it opened. Leonidas studied the remnants of dead plant then stared at his true-mate. Damn it, he couldn’t let himself think of her like that.

Until now he’d thought her magic was…lacking. New possibilities opened before him, and just maybe she was a treasure beyond price. The anaconda vine’s delicate cream flowers had wilted, and their petals covered the ground like confetti. Every leaf blackened and drooped as the stems withered and died. Even the visible roots at the plant base crumbled, and the vine crashed down to earth. Nearby plants rustled and put forth new stems and roots as they claimed the ground the anaconda vine had fertilized with its victims’ bones.

He remembered the withered sage back at the herb farm—and both times he’d fucked her, he thought he’d picked a spot with lush vegetation. Afterward he’d blamed his lust for blinding him to the dying plants and drooping bushes. He’d wanted to take her on mossy banks covered with flowers. Meena’s self-deprecating wit made her claim she killed the plants her mother nurtured. Suppose she really did?

He grabbed her hand and turned her toward him. “Wait. This track carefully avoids the plant life, but maybe the plant life would do as well to avoid us—well, you, at least.”

Meena shrugged. “They eat us, not the other way round. And rats as big as cars? Would you rather be eaten or crushed? Now there’s a decision I don’t need to make. We should get away from this tropical nightmare and hurry on after my mum. I don’t suppose there’s a horse somewhere that we can beg, steal, or borrow?”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. Laughter shone in his eyes as he gazed down at her face. “No horse, querida. Besides, I do not approve of the way you would appropriate it even if there was one available.”

She gasped, but he caught her, lips parted, and slipped his tongue into her mouth. He kissed her with everything he had—his heart, his soul, and his sorrow. In response, she wrapped one leg around his thigh and rubbed her cunt against his leg. Their kiss stretched into minutes, an endless delight that gave him another damn cock stand.

When they finally came up for air, she asked, “So what happened to that wealth and position you boasted you had in the otherworld? Surely you could have paid for my horse in genuine Fairy gold. You know, the stuff you swear stays solid even when you turn your back.”

Perhaps this was the moment to admit he was the Fae king, but he loved how she teased him with sharp words. Even the sexual predator inside him craved more than just her body. It constantly tried to claw its way free so it could take her over and over. His Fae side loved her cheerful informality and dreaded her turning all correct and cold on him, so he stayed changed the subject instead. “I want to try something. Will you trust me?”

She never hesitated. “Always. I don’t suppose that means you want to try some sort of kinky alfresco sex?”

“Later.” he laughed. Sword in hand, he held her tighter and stepped closer to the tangled wall of plants.

She stiffened, unwilling to go anywhere near the seething mass of greenery; then she took a deep breath and moved toward them. A dozen plants—blue-trumpeted daffodils, anaconda vines, and sticky-leaved sundews among them—sent stems shooting toward her. One touch, one stroke of Meena’s skin, and they died. A mangrove plant pulled one root from the ground. It stretched into a long red finger, veered around Meena, and homed in on Leonidas. He spun her in front of him, and the instant it touched her flesh, it blackened and drooped. A moment later, the whole plant toppled into the jungle, and anaconda vines swamped it.

As King of the Fae, he valued her plant-killing power above rubies and gold. As her lover, he was lost. She’d save his people, and once he sorted out this mess with her mother, she might aid Mordred and the Elves. Always assuming Elizabeth Sybil forgave them.

He hated that he’d have to take her to the Fae court first. It meant he’d have to spill family secrets the court had guarded for years. Confessing his origins and his curse to Meena would be bad enough. Worse, it might make the queen dowager relive all the humiliations King Herodotus had piled on her.

Meena would hate their strict etiquette and endless formality. Besides, it would crush the life her out—just as surely as she’d have suffocated in an anaconda vine’s grip—if she watched him flit from one woman’s bed to another. After finding her, it would definitely destroy him. For now he’d think only of the present and concentrate on finding her mother.

Chapter Thirteen

“Querida, you have more power than you think. Or perhaps you are too modest to show your strength,” he teased.

“Me?” Meena faltered. “Power? No way. My mother abandoned everything when we fled to the human world—but if I’d possessed even a spark of magic, then we could have stayed.”

He thought a moment. “Is that why you fear the Witches? Did they threaten you in some way? Is that why you and your mother live in Whitby rather than the otherworld? Whatever they said, you should always remember that you are the greatest prize either the Fae or the Elves could possess. You have it in you to stop the incipient famine threatening our races. I swear we’d combine forces, and war with the Witches to keep you safe. Elves’ blood, if the Witches ever discover how weak Mordred’s bloodline is, they’ll turn on him too. It’ll be genocide.”

She tried to turn away, but his firm hold on her hips kept her close. Rather than get into an undignified tussle, she blushed and settled for a half truth. “You’re right about the Witches wanting me dead, but genocide?”

“We Fae bond with war dragons,” he told her, “and it boosts our strength, but the Elves come way down the bottom of the magic stakes. Once they were strong enough to appease the Witch council, but they’re getting weaker, and no one knows why. See? There’s no such thing as good Witch. The fact they want you dead proves that. Are you up for a lesson in otherworld politics?”

His curse forced him to fuck a different woman every four weeks, but he was in no way a chauvinist. Everyone, male or female, young or old, added something to the Fae culture—but they needed to relax their stifling grip on the old ways. As king, his duty was to care for them above all else. Then he’d met Meena, and his worldview changed. Nothing, neither his duty nor his people, was more important than protecting her.

He watched her eyes glaze with concentration, so he told her more about otherworld species than the Witches ever had. Obviously he was filling her head with new ideas. “The Lykae, Vampire, and ogres are magic, which means they can’t wield it. They can flash from place to place, but that’s about it. The Witches tolerate them because of their magical origins and savage fighting skills. They judge everyone and everything by the strength of their spells and enchantments. If they could, they’d obliterate anyone who fails to meet their high standards.”

He kept rubbing her back, anything to keep his hands on the woman he loved. The woman he’d lose when the month was up. Just looking at her turned his dick as stiff as a poker, and they had a cross-country hike coming up.

APART FROM THE fact that they wanted her dead, some of Meena’s best friends had been Witches. They were kind to small children and never hurt cute, furry animals, but they’d turned on her like rabid dogs. Not that she blamed them. The Witch Council was strict, and consorting with someone who lacked magic was courting trouble. The council had judged and condemned her without even giving her a hearing. Not that she could have mustered much of a defense. Goddess, maybe her friends weren’t as heartless as she’d thought, and even wondering about that made her feel better.

Leonidas dropped a tender kiss on her neck. “Mordred blames the Elves’ failing powers on the last battle with the Lykae—the one he never wanted to fight. He hadn’t stamped his authority on the Elves back then, and some idiot killed the Lykae king. His Son, Caleb the Cold, took a terrible revenge and almost wiped the Elves off the face of our world. Now the Witches want to do the same.”

“Are the Witches truly that evil?” Meena asked, unwilling to think so badly of the people who’d raised her. It hurt that, much as they’d filled her childhood with hugs and laughter, they’d turned on her like jackals the instant her weakness showed.