As he’d thought daily since he could remember: Gods give me the power to destroy Sylvan’s royal house. His colonizing, slaving, rapist father had succumbed, but what of the rest of his execrable line? The now-widowed queen and her spawn, Rune’s half siblings.
The guards dressed him in fine breeches, a billowing shirt, and shoes that pinched his feet. Leaving his hand bindings, they removed the muzzle, then traced him into an echoing chamber.
Unused to teleporting, Rune wobbled on his feet. Was this . . . the royal court? They must’ve taken him to the capital, to the Forest of Three Bridges. He gawked at the riches around him.
A single female awaited him: Magh the Canny, the queen who loathed him, begrudged his very life.
A mere scratch across her neck would bring her to her knees. But he could do nothing with his hands bound. The guards would block him before he could get his fangs into her.
She was seated upon her elaborate throne, her cutting blue eyes studying him. “You refuse to bow before your regent?” Her crown was a circlet of polished gold, and it rested far too comfortably atop her regal blond head.
Seething, Rune forced himself to bow.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“I’ve survived the fens for fifteen years.” He was strong and hardened, could do the work of two adult demons.
“Such bravado, cur.”
“My name is Rune.”
Her eyes gleamed at his challenge. “Your face isn’t handsome. And yet I understand you’ve made many conquests among the highborn females of this kingdom.”
Reminded of his success, he drew on the patience he’d learned when seducing empty-headed, thrill-seeking féodals. “Yes, my queen, they have honored me so.” Rune had slept with all those highborns to uncover his dam’s fate after she’d been taken from him. But none had been able to help him.
“Ah, you can be glib of tongue. You must be to convince them to risk your toxins.” She canted her head. “I suppose you must abstain from certain acts.”
Kissing and kissing below. If only he could find a female dark fey to enjoy. Another halfling who’d been spared.
The queen continued, “But what of your leavings? Are you demonic in that manner? Have you a demon’s mystical seal over your member?”
He scarcely believed he was discussing his seed with the queen. “I do.” A demon could know the pleasure of a climax but couldn’t spill semen. Not until he was inside his destined female and his seal disappeared.
In other words, never for me.
“I doubt abominations like you get a mate, especially since we’ve exterminated your ilk in Sylvan.”
His claws ached to rend her flesh. But Rune had feared the same. How many times had he heard that dark fey were creations never meant to be, outcasts from the reach of destiny?
“I wanted my husband to obey convention and dispose of you as well. To allow such a lethal being to remain alive, even enslaved, seemed a tremendous folly.”
Gods give me the power . . .
“But now I see more in you, and I can almost comprehend why those idiotic females risk your poison. You have the smoldering sensuality of the fey and the sexual intensity of a demon.” She gazed past him. “It appears I have a use for you after all.”
Chills skittered up his spine, and again he wondered if a stoning mightn’t have been a mercy. . . .
Jo’s eyes flashed open.
That hadn’t been a simple dream—it was a memory of Rune’s! She’d witnessed it as if from his eyes. She’d known his thoughts and language as if they’d been her own.
He’d suspected Jo would read memories from his blood. She must be—what’d he call it?—a cosaş vampire!
What memory would he kill to prevent her from seeing? Surely not scenes like the ones she’d just experienced.
She burned to find out what that heartless queen had wanted from him. What use would Magh have for sensuality and intensity?
Jo found it baffling that the arrogant Rune had once been a slave. She felt unwelcome sympathy for him. How he hated the fey! And he despised his blood. He’d longed for a female of his own species as much as she’d longed for a partner.
No wonder he hadn’t spilled semen on Jo. No wonder he’d been so stunned when she’d fed from him. He could do to her everything he’d dreamed of.
And yet he’d decided to kill her.
She pulled her knees to her chest, reeling from everything she’d learned. Entire worlds of freaks existed.
Fey and Wiccae kingdoms. Immortal dimensions with intrigues and wars.
Demons could teleport, or trace. Jo supposed she should get the lingo down. Tracing was disappearing and reappearing, traveling over distances.
So what did they call it when they ghosted or dematerialized or hung out in walls?
Could they?
If a fey world existed, then was there a place for creatures like her? Maybe her shooting hadn’t turned her. Maybe neither she nor Thaddie had ever been human. What if they’d crossed over from some fantastical realm—perhaps from a nation of ghost vampires?
Seventeen years ago, the docs had blamed her memory loss on a head injury. That could be why she’d forgotten her birthplace.
She shot upright in bed. If she could find out for certain, she’d have to go to Thaddie, to explain their origin and their powers and this entire weird world! She ghosted with happiness; then embodied with a frown.
Right now she didn’t have much to explain.
Rune might return to the Quarter tonight. Information for the taking.