Taming the King (Witchling Academy Book 3) Page 11

  “What are you doing?” I whispered, and now tears did spark behind my eyes, burning to be released.

  He brushed a kiss over my hair. “I decided I would think better this way. You ground me. You help me understand the truth of things, and it seems like the lair of the Fomorian king was designed to cloud those truths. So let’s go over it together. You and I bonded together with Hogan magic.”

  “Yes,” I managed.

  “You accepted my bond and tied your magic to mine.”

  I pushed myself up against his chest so I could see him, and this time, he let me. I stared into his crystalline blue eyes, drinking in his calm, almost gentle smile, his resolute expression. What did he know that I didn’t? I mean, besides everything about Fae and Fomorian history? For the first time in what felt like forever, a tiny spark of hope flared within me. “Yes.”

  “Before I could make you my queen in a traditional Fae ceremony, you were taken across the veil to the land of the Fomorians.”

  I hesitated. “I was told to go,” I confessed. There seemed no reason to lie about anything now. “Cassandra said if I went, it would nullify the contract between the coven of the White Mountains and the Fomorian king. If I did that, the coven would stop harassing the rogue witches that I had pledged to protect. I hadn’t fully made up my mind about any of that, but it didn’t make much difference. The portal opened beside me, and I was pulled through. Once I was there, I figured I could at least understand what had happened and… I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. But I thought I could undo what the coven had done. And then everything went sideways and I’m not entirely sure what all happened after that.”

  Of everything I’d shared, my purpose for going into the Fomorian realm seemed to be the least of my problems, but it made Aiden scowl. “You sought to change a contract the coven had struck with the Fomorian king?” he asked, irritation gilding his words.

  Whoops. Once again, I’d forgotten that contracts were a trigger for these people. When would I get that straight in my head?

  “Not change it,” I said hurriedly. “Blow it up. This isn’t like my contract with you—that was my family’s obligation, like it or not. The agreement the Fomorians struck with the coven of the White Mountains had nothing to do with me, technically. I was just a lump-sum payoff. But if I could override the terms of that arrangement by showing up bodily in the Fomorian underworld, if that would make the whole thing go up in flames, then Cassandra wouldn’t be in danger anymore, and therefore she and her crew of assholes would leave me and all the witches and monsters I wanted to help alone.”

  Aiden tilted his head. “Cassandra is in danger,” he said thoughtfully. “In danger from whom?”

  I shifted my hands, but when I would have pulled away from him, Aiden’s hands came up to hold mine against his chest. I shivered with the power of his touch, swirls of magic skittering along my skin. “From the other witches, basically. It’s bad enough that the coven of the White Mountains entered into an arrangement with you guys. The Fae have long been enemies to witches, but as I always understood it, our arrangement to teach you magic brought peace to the human realm. You had no need to plunder what we willingly gave you, and with the High King in charge, the rest of the Fae would fall in line. There were, of course, some who strayed over, there’s always going to be that sort of activity at the fringes, but peace was maintained.”

  “And was peace still maintained these past hundred years when the Hogan witches did not honor their contract?” Aiden asked.

  I opened my mouth, closed it again, shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it was. I never actually thought about that, but you’re right. You didn’t storm across the veil, seeking magic by violent means. You could have.”

  “We could have,” Aiden said a little drily. “If that was something we’d ever intended to do. Isn’t it far more reasonable that the Fae never intended to seek out magic by violent means? As evidenced by the fact that we’ve not exactly been raping and plundering the witches’ covens for these several thousand years prior to the Hogan witch agreement? If the threat was there, it’s not as if we’d ever made good on it.”

  “But…” I trailed off, not knowing exactly what to say. We hadn’t, after all this time, determined what the Fae king had promised the Hogans specifically in exchange for magic. But I couldn’t deny the logic of Aiden’s words.

  He didn’t give me much more time to consider it. “So you went to the Fomorian king with the intention of undoing the contract,” he prompted. “What happened after that?”

  “I saw him. He sat alone in a throne room, and we talked. He said he needed a wife. I said I was already married. He told me that didn’t matter for shit—and…and I think he wanted to show me something after that. Something important to him, but…” I closed my eyes, struggling to remember, but the images wouldn’t come. I sighed, then met Aiden’s gaze again. “I don’t remember anything else after that until I was fighting my way through what felt like seaweed. And then a portal opened and I was back in the Witchling Academy office. His laughter followed me the whole way until the portal closed. He seemed pretty happy, though. I think that’s my biggest freak-out about all this. He seemed super satisfied with…whatever happened between us. Like, happy that he’d beaten you.”

  Aiden said nothing, and I swayed forward with another surge of panic, self-disgust, and dismay, my shoulders drooping as I searched his eyes. “If he completed a ceremony against my will, would that be binding?”

  “If it were a ceremony with the Fae, it would be,” Aiden said. “And if what you’re telling me is true, the king certainly believed his ceremony would be binding as well. But why would he do such a thing?”

  “Oh!” I brightened suddenly, an answer surging up from something Lyric said so immediate, so crystal pure in its obviousness, that it almost burst out of me. I opened my mouth to explain it—and fire ripped through my brain.

  I screamed.

  20

  Aiden

  As connected as I was to Belle at that moment, her scream ripped through me right along with the pain. And with it came the visions. I saw what she saw, a violent explosion of possibilities, not merely portals opening and closing on two different parts of every plane I’d ever been to, but near-term ramifications of actions she could not discern. The two of us fighting, the two of us pulling apart, explosions of magic between us, the tangle of sex, the fury of rejection and betrayal.

  “It’s okay, Belle, it’s okay. I’m here, and I believe you. You’re safe.”

  She gasped, but I knew my words penetrated her hysteria. And it was legitimate hysteria. She believed she had betrayed me, and she knew why the king had driven her to that belief, but she couldn’t tell me without enduring incredible pain. Clearly, it was to the Fomorian king’s advantage for her to believe she had deceived me, that they had married in some arcane, infernal ceremony conducted against Belle’s will. He needed me to believe that. Once again, I was left with the question why.

  The flurry of activity in Belle’s vision parted and beneath all of it, there was a face. A face I had never seen before. A harsh angular face with a craggy jaw and deep-set teal-green eyes that sparked with long-banked outrage. I stared into the face of the Fomorian king, and I watched his hard mouth curve into a smile.

  Lyric, I thought. This asshole’s name was Lyric. He’d wanted Belle to tell me that, and she’d refused to honor that request. Another small defiance she’d managed to maintain in a tide of confusion and pain. But I could feel the name resonating throughout the images pounding through Belle’s mind. This creature before me was King Lyric.

  He thought he’d won, and he had every reason to think that. He had married Belle in some hidden rite before I had been able make her my queen. But he did not know about the bonding that had already taken place between us. He also might not know that we had already joined flesh to flesh. He only sought to outrage me, but I knew something else as well. Something Belle didn’t, though her fear was great.

&n
bsp; The Fomorian king had not assaulted her. He had told her he would, perhaps, and she’d certainly feared it. But his taint was not on her skin. It did not run in her blood. The fact he thought I would believe it did was to my advantage. King Lyric, for all his ancient magic and his twisting deceit, did not know Belle was my fated mate. Perhaps he didn’t believe in such things.

  Either way, he was going to be surprised.

  With slow, deliberate intent, I lifted my hand and drew it along Belle’s brow, swiping the hair from her face. Tears stained her cheeks, and the sight of them triggered my anger anew. King or not, Lyric would pay for making Belle suffer this way. Two kingdoms were in play, perhaps, but so was the heart of a woman who had already endured far too much because of the games of races outside of hers.

  Belle caught my mood enough to blink at me, her eyes clearing a little. “Do I want to know what you have in mind?” she asked, but I was heartened to hear the challenging note in her voice. Because of our connection, she already knew what I had in mind, and praise the Light, she welcomed it. That more than anything made me leash my control harder, tighter, as I brushed away the last remaining droplets on her eyelashes.

  “Probably,” I let my mouth curve into a soft, amused grin. Belle huffed a quiet sigh, her lips also curving as she shuddered—with laughter, but also relief. How much had she feared my rejection? My heart tugged hard to the side, but I knew she’d never fully understand the truth.

  I could never reject Belle. She was mine, and more importantly, I was hers, so long as I drew breath. This wasn’t the time to explain that to her, though. Not with her body heavy and pliant over mine, the heat of our connection rising around us.

  “We never quite got around to consummating the newest stage of our marriage. That seems an awful shame.”

  Her eyes were now liquid with understanding and a deep, intimate need. “But what kind of wife would I be to the Fomorian king if I had sex with his avowed enemy?”

  “The exact kind of wife a Fae king might fall in love with.” I leaned down and brushed her lips with mine, tasting the salt of her tears, the chill of her ebbing fear, and the burgeoning heat that swelled within her. My witch burned for me. That alone was enough to send my heart racing, my body hardening. But still, I convinced myself I would be able to show some restraint.

  Belle had no such intentions. Breaking away from my kiss, she scooted back, grabbing her stained and grimy T-shirt by the hem and pulling it over her head in one easy movement. The sight of her breasts encased in a halter of spandex shouldn’t have made my gut tighten, but this was Belle. Everything about her made me react, and every moment I spent with her drove me to distraction.

  She twisted a little, trying to worry the edges of the harness over her head.

  “A little help here,” she pleaded, muffled.

  I flicked my fingers, and the bra dissolved into ash.

  “Hey!” she protested. “I’m going to need that again.”

  “Not as far as I am concerned,” I assured her, and then my hands were on her, our bodies tight with urgency, my mouth assaulting her chin, the curve of her neck, the hollow of her collarbone, the soft curve of her breast. Every inch was a celebration, a revelation. Every sigh, every murmur burning into my mind. And when I got to the hem of her leggings, I lost all semblance of control. They disappeared along with my clothes, and the small grotto where we lay was cloaked in darkness. To any onlooker, we could not be perceived at all, but beneath that shadowing canopy, there was me and Belle and nothing else. I spread my hands over her body, cupping, stroking, swirling closer to where the heat fairly poured from her. This. I wanted this.

  “Yes,” Belle said as if I had asked for her hand in marriage all over again, and perhaps I had. She pulled me to her, our bodies pressing tight, and I felt the burst of liquid heat as I slipped inside her, with the undeniable knowledge that I was hers as much as she was mine. That I would give this human witch everything I could if she would grant me her body, her heart.

  Her soul.

  “Aiden,” Belle whispered. I realized my eyes had shut. I blinked them open to see her staring at me evenly. And then, belatedly, did I remember that she knew my thoughts as intimately as I could know hers.

  “Make me yours,” she breathed, and something hard and primal shifted inside me, a powerful magic that was as much need as desire.

  “You are mine,” I promised her. “No infernal magic or unwanted contract can defy the law of the king of the Fae.”

  With that, I plunged into her again and again, as she arched beneath me, her lips parting on a gasp, her body convulsing. She took everything from me, and I willingly gave it. And when we finally collapsed against each other, we fit together as if we’d been molded from the same lump of clay.

  “Wow,” was all she could manage at first. “That part of teaching the king never made it to the Hogan family story hour.”

  I chuckled, deeply satisfied. “It will from now on, I should think.”

  The softest tendril of sadness curled between us, then flickered away so fast, I felt I had to have imagined it.

  We slept.

  21

  Belle

  I jolted awake and couldn’t help the scream—but managed to stifle it enough so it came out as nothing more than a breathy whisper. It still was enough to wake Aiden, and his eyes snapped open. He scanned the chaos that surrounded us, then met my gaze without moving another muscle.

  “What the hell is this?” he whispered fiercely.

  “I don’t know.” I was more than a little relieved he at least saw it as well. Light swirled all around us, comforting and terrifying at once, an unreasonable stream of shapes and forms winking in and out of existence. Glyphs, runes, squiggles and spikes, Cyrillic lettering, and finally, words I could actually recognize, portions and measures and mathematical symbols.

  “Are they spells?” I asked, recognizing a few strains.

  His laugh was low and rueful. “You would know better than I would, but I take some comfort in knowing I’m not that far behind you. I constantly seem to be playing a game of catch-up when it comes to your abilities.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I muttered, but together, we sat up slowly, trying to get our bearings. We were still in the center of the grotto, the heavy shadows draping us giving us the illusion of privacy. Beyond that ephemeral barrier, the sun peeked through the clouds. I tried to gauge its position, and Aiden grunted beside me.

  “Time doesn’t pass here,” he murmured. “You called this place the Hallows. I begin to see why.”

  “Niall and Celia?” I asked, and Aiden sighed.

  “Hopefully, they know we’re in here, but without the passage of time. Either way, we need to get moving. You can bet King Lyric has not been idle.”

  Just hearing the name made me tense up. “Do you think he knows what we, um, did here?”

  “Oh, my sweet and beautiful Belle, I’m counting on it,” Aiden said. “And that leads us to two potential outcomes. One, he can see us completely, in which case attack is imminent. Alternately, he has been restricted from the access he craves, and so he is left to wonder. If that’s the case, then he’s going to try something else, and soon. A king’s patience can only wear so thin.”

  All the while he spoke, I watched the shapes and squiggling patterns of the light. Their pattern, though strangely restful, also stirred my memories.

  The Luacra guard had let me escape from the Riven District, had begged me to escape, in fact. He’d also shown me his family, made it seem like they were trying to do their best, to live someplace where they could almost see the sun.

  Aiden shifted beside me with irritation, clearly reading my thoughts. “It was a trap,” he accused. “Or it was Lyric himself, influencing one of his own.”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But if it was… I was there, Aiden. In that underworld prison. I can remember bits and pieces of it, but what hit me most was the darkness. The despair. The cold. I don’t know how the F
omorians lived before they came to be exiled, but seriously—outside of Lyric’s great hall, the place totally sucked.”

  “They lost,” he said with such finality that I winced.

  “They did lose,” I agreed. “And if they’d won, I’m sure they would’ve been as big of assholes to the Fae as you are to them.”

  It was clear Aiden understood I didn’t fully believe my own words, and I sighed. “I know, I know, I’m not you.”

  “No.” He grunted in agreement. “You are neither Fae nor Fomorian. You cannot put your morals and belief systems upon us and expect there to be a perfect fit. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “And I still have no clue about the human role in any of this. One of the downsides of being a rogue witch is you don’t have automatic access to the archives of any coven or the ability to ask for clarification. Or at least it’s not handed to you on a silver platter. You have to seek it out.”

  Aiden sighed. “Meanwhile, because of the rage of my grandfather and the weakness of those around him, I have to seek out ever more ancient information to understand how to fight a battle between the Fae, the humans, and the Fomorian. I’ll have to go back to the castle for that. And you will go to the academy?”

  I appreciated that he put this last as a question and not an absolute, but I clearly surprised him when I shook my head. “No. I need to go see someone with information in the human realm.” My nerves quivered, and I remembered what Jorgen had told me. I braced myself, waiting for Aiden to tell me I couldn’t go back to the human realm ever again. But surprisingly, he just nodded.

  “You will be safe,” he said with finality, and I felt the truth of his words. It gave me confidence. I didn’t quite understand the long-term ramifications of my marriage rites, but if I could move around freely in the short-term, I was good with it. Maybe I was allowed brief visits?