Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) (7 page)

“You said earlier you brought me here. Did you use magic?”

He nodded.

“Why can’t you do this yourself? Don’t all elves have magic?”

He let the insulting “elves” go and answered her question. “We do. The oh-so-clever queen found a way to use my own magics against me.” Unable to keep still, he stalked away from her until he reached the nearest wall of shelves before turning and stalking back. “My Gift keeps me trapped, feeding the curse and keeping it strong.” He couldn’t keep the bitter irony out of his voice. “I’ve been trying to use witch’s magic. Witches pull power from other sources besides their Gifts; the sun, moon, the earth itself. But I continue to fail!”

Kian crisscrossed the room, desperate to work off his anger, to not lose control and frighten her until she refused to help him. He slowed his breathing until he was able to speak calmly. “I’ve only had small successes.” He leaned in close. “Until I brought you here.”

Doubt flickered across her face.

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure you did bring me here,” she said slowly, her fingers flexing at her side.

“What do you mean?” He moved in close. “I worked the spell, and you showed up.”

“Not exactly.” She backed away, aiming for the door as she spoke. “We used something…a magic globe. It’s what helped us escape.”

The last of his elation at his success drained away. It hadn’t been him. It was never him. His power was locked away where he couldn’t reach it. Damn the queen. “A globe. Of course.”

His one big success with witch magic and it had been assisted by an elvatian transport globe. “Did you all try to use the one globe?”

“Yes.”

“Damn it!” Self-loathing and frustration coiled inside his throat, leaving a bitter aftertaste. He wouldn’t be any help. But he had her. “No matter,” he said. “You can do the spell.”

“Kian, I’ve told you. I’m a healer. This isn’t my kind of magic.”

“So heal me!” he roared.

She backed away. “I don’t even know what’s wrong with you!”

A deep shudder racked his body.

He wanted to take her and shake her and extract her magic by force. He wanted to strip her of her faery princess gown that tortured him with each sway and rustle, and take her on the library table. She was his answer to everything; his curse, his loneliness, his lust.

But she stood there, at the edge of the circle of candlelight, refusing to help.

It all rose inside of him, rushing out, the dam on his emotions threatening to break.

She lifted her hand and reached toward him. “Kian, I’ll try. But I need to see you.”

“No,” he said, his voice as harsh and strained as his will. “You don’t need to see me to work the spell.” At dinner, she’d shown some sympathy to his plight, then she’d flinched at the sight of his paw. There was no way she’d have sympathy for a monster.

Let alone desire.

“How do you expect me to help you when I don’t know what I’m dealing with?”

“Just read the damn spell!”

She jerked, and another wave of self-loathing washed through him. He turned away, disgusted with himself. “What can I do?” he implored. “How can I make you see you’re my only shot?”

She sighed. “I’ll look at it.”

Each moment taking longer than the last fifteen years, he waited and watched her turn the pages back and forth, studying not just the spell, but looking at each page in the book until Kian shook with the strain of not tearing the vellum from her hands and throwing it against the wall.

Her lips pursed. “I’m having a little trouble translating this, but I think it’s for a werewolf.”

“I know.”

“Are you a werewolf?” She rested a hand on her hip and cocked her head.

He ducked, lowering his hood so she wouldn’t see his face. “No, I’m a…… It doesn’t matter. It’s to change an animal back to a human, isn’t it?” He’d had trouble with the ancient gypsy language of the text, but he thought he’d gotten that right. “Can you work it?”

“It’s not that simple.” She tapped her chin with a slender finger. “It’s not a healing spell. I’ll need to alter the words, the intent and I need to make sure I’m translating everything correctly first. It won’t be easy.” She furrowed her brow and gave him a serious look. “And I can’t do it unless I know what you look like. I need to see you.”

“No.”

“Then you might as well let me go now.”

A sudden trembling seized him, and for the first time in hundreds of years, he, Prince Kian of the Black Court, was unsure of himself with a woman. He didn’t know what to do. His desperation for a cure warred with his need for her to see him first as a man. To desire him. If he showed her his current form, even after he changed back, would she only see the monster?

He’d done dark and dangerous things as a prince. Too much power, too little restraint, and raised by a mother who thought sex and torture were the same thing, had not combined to make his life angelic. But he had one thing separating himself from his mother: he’d never lowered himself to rape. And in his current form, taking her now would not just be rape, it would be bestiality.

She extended a hand. “Kian, I’m a healer. It is not just my Gift, it’s my nature. You don’t have to be worried.” The flushed tips of her fingers reached out, beseeching him to show her and let her help.

He turned his back on her and removed his cloak. Taking a deep breath, wearing only a kilt and feeling foolishly vulnerable, he turned around.

Her face blanched. “Oh Kian.”

He twisted the cloak between his fisted paws. Not since he’d been a boy with his first crush on a faery a thousand years older than himself had he felt this humiliated. “I don’t need your sympathy.”

“I’m sorry. I said I would be professional. Let me look at you.” She circled around, examining him from all sides. Under the weight of his fur, a rush of heat swamped him, leaving him feverish and mortified.

“You’re nothing like a werewolf. Do you change at the full moon?”

“No. I’m like this always.” Day in, day out. Year in, year out.

“This spell won’t work. It’s not a healing spell. Even if it were, I’m a terrible healer.”

He squeezed the cloak, his claws digging into the fabric. She was giving up.

“You said you would try. You must try!”

He fought for control, but the beast within him burst out. His muscles bunched, his claws dug into the cloak, and his jaw dropped open in a raging roar.

Her face went hobgoblin white. She wrapped her bare arms around her body as if sheltering her heart from a storm and ran for the door, reaching for the latch.

“Please.” He fell to his knees on the cold, hard stone, shaking. Trying to contain the rage that he’d spent years nurturing. “I’ve no one else to help me. You’re my best chance. I believe you can do this.” He stayed where he was, head down and penitent. Waiting for her decision.

She dropped her hand from the latch. Her small, even teeth worried at her full bottom lip. “I said I would try.” She took a step closer. “And I will.”

Black spots danced in front of his eyes, and his chin dropped to his chest as a dizzying relief rushed through him. After all these years, he would have his revenge.

Bryanna stared at the enormous creature kneeling before her, head bowed. Kian’s misshapen shoulders were covered in a moldering fur of many colors, thick coarse patches of black and brown hair. Long tusks ended in sharp points just beyond a wolfish pointy muzzle and, instead of human feet and hands, he had big, heavy paws with long, curved, razor-sharp talons.

The pounding of her beating blood roared in her ears.

He was like nothing she’d ever seen before, and now that she’d seen him, seen the rage and the power in his crystalline violet eyes, she was afraid. Afraid he’d gone insane trapped here, alone for far too long, in a shape never meant for him. Afraid he would break, and rage, and hurt her with those viciously sharp teeth and claws. Afraid, even if she tried, she’d fail.

He lifted his head. She fought through the fear and focused on his supernatural eyes. Eyes she’d never seen on a human being that somehow conveyed a very human pain.

“Thank you,” he said, his lyrical brogue somehow managing to navigate between impossibly sharp fangs and a lolling tongue.

Bryanna struggled to sound normal. “I’ll need more light, and some paper, and something to write with.”

“Of course.” He rose. His large shape blocked the feeble candlelight, and she reflexively backed away. He bowed his head, but not before she saw the flash of anguish in his eyes.

He’d been just as large a presence under the cloak, but as he stood he seemed bigger. Powerful. His joints didn’t quite fit together, forming instead a random puzzle made from interlocking pieces of mismatched animals. Now she could see why he moved the awkward way he did.

A pang of pity washed through her. “Is it painful?” she asked.

His laugh was bitter as he ignored the question, and she was grateful for the low light that hid her blush.

“I have paper and ink in the top drawer.” He waved a paw toward a narrow, painted cabinet hidden in the shadows.

“Can you write?”

He snorted. “Alas, no. But Beezel makes a decent secretary.”

She pulled paper, a quill pen, and a bottle of ink from the drawer. “Do you have all the ingredients listed in the spell?” She asked, examining the pen. She’d never even seen one of these outside of pictures.

“I do.” Kian moved closer. She did her best to not flinch.

“Even the…wolfsbane?” She pointed to the nearly invisible word on the leathery page, using the movement to put space between them.

He leaned in, and she closed her eyes, fear stiffening her fingers on the paper. The spicy scent of musk, ginger, and fresh greenwood rose from him. She inhaled. His scent roused in her a response she didn’t understand, alerting everything inside of her that he was male.

He spoke.

“Yes, I have everything you could ever need.”

And with her eyes closed, under the golden lilt of his affirming answer, she heard the soul of a man.

Heat flushed her cheeks and a wave of desire prickled her skin.

Her eyes burst open. This was not a man. He was a beast, and under that beast lurked something worse. Fae. The MacElvy’s sworn enemy.

“Do you think it will work?” he asked, and once again, she thought she heard a strange misplaced vulnerability.

“I…I don’t know, it’s written in a language we don’t use anymore. I know a little.” She reached out and touched his hairy paw lying on the table next to the book. “I’ll do my best.”

“Don’t touch me.” He growled and snatched his arm back, lurching away from the table.

Bryanna cowered and hit her hip hard on the table. “I think…”

“Don’t think! You don’t need to think, just use your magic and do the fucking spell.”

He scooped up the book, and paper, and ink and shoved it into her arms, pushing her out of the room and into the hallway. The door slammed behind her leaving her in the absolute darkness of the underground passage.

“Kian?”

Something large inside the room crashed and roared. Bryanna held still, afraid to move in the total blackness. A soft slithery touch brushed her ankle, and she screamed.

“Miss?”

Far down the pitch black hall, a small glow appeared.

“Beezel,” she said, relieved to see the glow grow and the little gnome appear, lantern in hand.

“Come along, miss, I’ll take you to your room. You’ll be wanting a rest.”

Whatever had been holding her up since the morning suddenly gave way, and exhaustion overtook her. “Yes, thank you.”

Off through the bewildering series of hallways and short passages, small up-and-down stairs until, her fatigue dragging her down, they reached her room.

“All of these rooms on this hallway look the same, how am I ever supposed to know which one I’m sleeping in?”

Beezel gave her a puzzled look, his grey skin wrinkling in a frown.

“How do you find your way?”

“I don’t know, miss, I just do.”

Heaving a frustrated sigh, she entered the room. He handed her the lantern and backed out the door.

“Beezel, who lived here…before?”

“The goblins have been here for a long time. The gnomes before that.”

“Have you always lived here?”

“No, miss.” The little man’s globular eyes glassed over. For one horrified moment, Bryanna thought he would cry.

“I’m sorry,” she said, hastily.

He swallowed, the large lump in his throat bobbing up and down. “Not to worry, miss. If you need anything, pull the cord in the corner and wait. I’ll come as soon as I can.” His funny flat face turned hard. For a moment, she glimpsed, under the weak pathetic exterior, something dark that grew inside the gnome. “Don’t leave the room. The hobgoblins won’t bother you, but the others, well, the others are interested in things you don’t want to know.”

A trace of a shudder fingered up her spine.

“What others?” she asked, but he’d already turned to leave.