Taming the King (Witchling Academy Book 3) Page 8

  “Mistress Belle,” he offered, and with his careful guidance, I managed to get the gown untangled, my arms through the light sleeves that were fluttery caps, and I stared down at myself, wondering.

  “It fits me,” I whispered.

  “It fits you beautifully.” The voice from the doorway was low and almost reverent. Jorgen stepped back, a smug look on his face as he turned to let Aiden see more of me and the dress, the faithful djinn fading backward, but not fully disappearing.

  “Belle,” Aiden continued as he entered the room. His eyes were wide, his hands up slightly, as if he was approaching a wild animal and not wanting to spook it, he stepped into the room. “Where did you get the dress? I’ve seen you in it before, I swear it.”

  I wanted to laugh, because of course that couldn’t be true, but the sound died in my throat at the flush in his cheeks, the intensity of his gaze. He looked for all the world like a man desperately trying to remember a long-forgotten dream.

  “A family memory, perhaps,” Jorgen offered from the corner, and Aiden blinked as if he’d already forgotten the djinn was there. He scowled as Jorgen continued. “The dress was found hidden away, quite old. The names of the Hogan witch and the first king who claimed her are hand-embroidered inside.”

  “The first…” Aiden stared back at me. “King Eric of the ocean Fae?”

  I reached out to the neckline of the dress, holding it forward for him to see. He seemed to steel himself, then took a few strides toward me, but he was shaking when he lifted his finger to the tiny embroidered placket. And then it was to fold it forward, pressing the material against my breast like a benediction.

  When I looked up to meet his eyes, they were swimming with emotion. “I used to dream of an angel gliding through the forest in a gown like this. I kept looking for her to have wings, large gossamer fluttery drapes like the ones humans have attributed to the Fae all these long centuries. She was every bit as otherworldly and ethereal to me, so small but so strong, so wild and part of the land. I could never see her face.”

  He lifted a hand to my braided hair, smoothing it back. “It always was down and loose, falling over her shoulders. I had forgotten that. I was young, but she stirred a possessiveness in me, a desire to hold and protect, but also a wonder that she was so far away and so beautiful, that no matter how long I tracked her through the forest, I would never quite reach her.”

  He dropped light fingers on the gossamer edges of the dress. “She was wearing this gown. It was…it remains the most beautiful gown I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  He looked at me, and without thinking, I lifted my own hand to his chest, pressing against the heart I could feel beating wildly. My own heart surged as well, and magic stirred between us, ancient and powerful. Part of me knew I should take advantage of the moment, because if we were going to do this, we needed all the strength we could get. Another part of me wanted him to keep looking at me like this, to hold on to this moment where he loved me, where I had become the thing he wanted most of all. I’d never sought that from anyone, never really wanted it, but now, it was like the very breath of air in my lungs.

  Something in my face must have given me away.

  “Jorgen,” Aiden said throatily. “I don’t suppose you know anything about the rites of a formal royal marriage between a human and a Fae?”

  14

  Aiden

  Making Belle my queen was the easiest decision of my entire life. Jorgen had sent one of the other djinn for Niall, who’d slipped away from the castle without fanfare to join us at the cottage of Belle’s great-grandmother overlooking the lake. The cups of the Hogan witches were still there, and Jorgen seemed to know exactly what to do, what to say.

  To me it was a blur of meaningless words and movements, my focus entirely consumed by Belle.

  She had never looked more radiant, her eyes the laughing gray of a spring morning after a rain, her smile wide, her skin flushed. I knew it wasn’t solely for the love of me that she appeared so luminous, because I could feel the power coursing through her, sense its echoing return in my own blood. And maybe there was a little of that love I wanted to sense in her so desperately. Maybe I wasn’t a complete fool for the human witch, with all her fears and doubts.

  She still could not believe she was meant for me, but I couldn’t believe I would survive a single breath without her in my life. Humility might not be a good look for the High King of the Fae, but it was one I was going to have to get used to.

  “And now the ring,” Jorgen said, turning to me expectantly.

  I blinked at him, confused, but Niall chuckled.

  “Cyril gave these to me when Belle first showed up. He was adamant that I didn’t tell…anyone—stone and light, especially not you. They had appeared in his room the first day you brought Belle to the castle.”

  He held out the circles of hammered platinum, the rings looking like they had been pulled from the earth and given as little shaping as possible. They held no adornment of any kind, no inscription or stone.

  I scowled at them, surprised. “These are the rings of the High King of the Fae and his queen?

  “Fae rings of pure potential,” Belle said, her voice hushed. “Of life, of death. They will make you forget what you were supposed to remember and remember what you’re supposed to forget.”

  She glanced up at me, the fear I had come to despise marring her beautiful face once again. “Of life, but also of death,” she repeated. “Oh, Aiden. Should we do this? Are you sure?”

  If I hadn’t been sure before, that would have done it. I took the rings from Niall, surprised at how heavy they were, and glanced at Jorgen.

  “I assume there’s some sort of complicated ritual?” I asked drily. “This rite was made for the Fae, so there almost has to be.”

  To my surprise, Jorgen shook his head. “The books require only that the queen place the ring upon her king’s finger first, and then share what is in her heart. All that comes after leads from that.”

  Without me offering it, Belle reached for the heavier ring, taking it from my hand. With her own shaking, she slid the ring onto my ring finger.

  “I promise I will do all I can to be a good wife, a good witch, and to let you do all you need to save your people,” she said, her eyes wide and resolved.

  I lifted her ring, emotion surging up inside me. The very air around us seemed to shift and tremble, lights flashing at the edge of my vision. I had eyes only for Belle, standing there in the gown of the otherworldly nymph that had drawn me deeper into that mystical wood. My own fairy angel, out of reach, never teasing, never taunting, but drawing me on with hints of possibility and pure potential.

  “Belle, I promise you, I will be your husband, your king, your protector, your champion Whatever speed and power I have, it is yours, to help you be the woman and the witch you were meant to be.”

  Her eyes, now shining with tears, widened, the pure incandescent joy filling them the indication I needed to know I had said the right thing. I slipped the ring onto her finger, felt the jolt of magic erupt around us both, stripping us down to nothing, then filling me up again until I gasped.

  “Aiden,” Niall shouted, but I could see it now. I could see everything. Portals opening and shutting, glimpses of the Fae realm, the human realm, the monster realm, and a half dozen more I’d never seen, including one hung dark with shadows and doom. Could they see us?

  Did they know the deed was done?

  Sudden annoyance at our privacy being breached roared through me, and I flung my hands wide.

  “Go,” I commanded, and all the doors were whisked away. Unfortunately, so were we.

  15

  Belle

  I slammed into a cold stone wall so hard, it took my breath away. No longer was I in my beautiful Fae gown, but the worn T-shirt and jeans I was much more comfortable in, my dark gray Keds-clad feet jutting out at awkward angles as I struggled to catch my breath.

  The sounds of the street outside broke over me as my heari
ng came back online, and they sounded vaguely familiar. The sounds of a carousing keg night in the bar district, but not my bar district, I realized with some surprise. I drew my knees up tight to my chest, searching my legs and my arms for any injury, any weakness.

  I was in the Riven District, the same damned cell I’d been spirited into the first time I’d come to this goddess-forsaken hole. I look down at my left hand, and there was no ring. In its place was a warm and faded tattoo, a single band of light blue, like something I’d gotten done on spring break in high school, the equivalent of getting married to my best friend or some shit.

  I rubbed it absently, trying to understand. Why had Aiden sent me back to the Riven District alone? I knew without a doubt I’d seen Jorgen disappear into a bright portal. Niall had been sucked into a different one, and I and Aiden had leapt into a third, but—why? And what were my orders other than go?

  “Do you think I have all day?”

  The sharp question spoken in the all-too-familiar voice jolted me, and I flattened myself against the wall. I glanced down and saw I was fading into the rock, still substantial to my own eyes, but unless I studied my own legs hard, they simply weren’t there. I needed them to not be there. The door opened at the far end of the row of cells, and I stared across the corridor at another set of eyes. They were large and frightened; their owner couldn’t protect me. I couldn’t protect myself either. Meanwhile, at the far end of the room, a hapless guard led Cassandra down the hallway, her gaze sweeping back and forth, finally fixing on the creature opposite me. “She’s not here.”

  The Luacra guard stiffened.

  “She was here,” he said. “We got the alert the moment she entered, knew exactly where she was.”

  “An alert?” Cassandra sneered. “And yet, now she’s gone?” Imperiously dressed in a black silk suit, Cassandra tossed her dark hair and strode up to the creature standing opposite me. “You saw her. Where did she go?”

  In a flash, I could see this creature’s future—or futures, actually. Being hauled out of the cage, tortured. In half of them, it stayed silent; in others it screamed out the truth, in every last one dying a terrible death as Cassandra meted out her anger on it. I was done with her picking on the weak because she couldn’t get to the strong. I stood, still invisible, but the creature sensed it, a low laugh escaping its throat.

  “You think you’re the only witch with spies?” it hissed, and I blinked with surprise, finally realizing what I was looking at. It was a demon.

  Cassandra recognized it too, and doubtless recognized she hadn’t summoned it. She did what any witch could do without much effort at all. Lifting her hands, she sent it back to perdition, her voice rising above its cackling laugh. “Tell your keeper to hunt for Belle Hogan,” she snapped. “Despite all our efforts, she has betrayed us.” Then she disappeared too.

  Another second later, silence reigned. I was alone once more.

  Or…not quite alone. There was a shuffling at the door to the jail, and I looked up to see the guard still hovering there—a guard who could totally see me. I steeled myself for what was to come next.

  “You’re Belle Hogan?” The question was soft and lisping, in the strange, otherworldly tones of the lizard people. A chill ran through me. Not lizard people at all, I realized. Closet Fomorians embedded in the monster realm, planning their attack the way terrorist cells had been doing in the human realm for as long as there had been society. Not for the first time, it struck me how similar our two realms could be despite their more obvious differences.

  Still, I was tired. Tired of pretending to be someone I wasn’t, tired of not owning who I really was. For good or ill, I was Belle Hogan. The great-granddaughter of Reagan Hogan, a witch who had abandoned her post and left the High King of the Fae to fight his own magic battles because she couldn’t see her way through to helping the Fae survive, otherwise. I was done apologizing for her, I was done defending her, I was done living up to the decisions she made at a far different time for a far different reason. I was Belle Hogan, and I did things my way.

  I slipped back into fully corporeal form. There seemed no point in remaining invisible if this guard could see me anyway. I peered at him more closely, but it was tough to see much of him, hidden as he was beneath the dark brown hood he had pulled over his face, ending in a short cape that clung to his body. He looked more or less human, standing there, but I knew better. I’d seen these guys before—their faces ended in long, pointed snouts, and their tongues were slithery ribbons. I had no problem with him keeping those features hidden under his skater hoodie for the time being. “I figured you would pick up on that with the introduction Cassandra gave me.”

  “Her,” the lizard guard said with a surprising spurt of anger—or maybe resignation. “She has no idea who we are, what we are. Neither do you.”

  “I know what you are,” I shot back. “You’re a Fomorian. I don’t know how you were able to bend the rules of payment for your war crimes to slip back into the monster realm, even into this piece of crap location, but I know what you’re trying to do.”

  Throughout this little recitation, the guard didn’t move. His head tilted, he regarded me from the shadows of his hood, his face too hidden to discern. He lifted a hand, and the cell door clicked, the sound resonating in the room.

  “You want to see what we are? I’ll show you. What we are, what we were, and what we plan to be.”

  The words should have sent another chill running through me. I cast ahead for the future of this creature, but either my magic had been stunted, or its wards were better than most human or even Fae wards. It would take time for me to understand the workings of Fomorian abilities, time I no longer knew if I had. Still, he made no move toward me, and I didn’t want to stay in this cell all day. I might as well meet my future straight on.

  But at least I didn’t think any of our futures entangled with each other…which didn’t make much sense, since he looked like he was going to be taking me somewhere.

  I stepped out of the cell.

  “I’ll be looked for, hunted. I’m now married to the king of the Fae.”

  “Not the story we heard, but it doesn’t matter,” the guard said, once again surprising me. “Wars will continue to be fought at the highest levels, while we make our way somewhat further down the chain. We’re not just surviving the lowest levels, though, not anymore. You’ll see.”

  He didn’t say anything more, and I stiffened as, with a wave of his hand, shackles snaked around my wrists, binding them close. We turned the corner, passing a knot of guards, all of them Luacra, arguing in a side room in a language I didn’t recognize. One of them glanced our way, became bored with what he saw, and returned his attention to the argument.

  “I’m cloaking you,” the lizard man beside me said, but he didn’t speak the words aloud. They resonated in my mind, and I swayed at the jolt of pain that accompanied the idle remark. The lizard man reached out and steadied me, reducing the pain to a mild queasiness. I glanced down at his gloved hand, wondering if he was hiding scales beneath the leather. “You’re fighting it. You can’t fight it,” he said in my mind.

  Panic flared within me. “Fight what?” I thought back, though my question sounded strangely garbled, my thoughts turning back on themselves spinning in different directions.

  “Night and death,” the guard grunted, but he had the grace to sound dismayed. “The games continue, only the games of kings and queens now. If you’re the queen of the Fae. Queen twice over, more’s the danger for you.”

  At least that’s what I thought he said, but bile rose within me at his words, stoked by fear. What was he saying? What did he mean? I thought of the look in Aiden’s eyes as I pleaded with him not to marry me, not to have anything to do with me. He’d been angry, dismayed, confused. But he hadn’t looked stricken. He hadn’t looked betrayed. And then I thought about how he’d looked at me when he’d made me his queen.

  Was that a mistake on his part? What had I really done?

>   At length, the guard turned down a narrow hallway that led to a small door, nondescript and unguarded. Shrugging his cape back to clear his gloved hand, he reached out and opened the door. Daylight, or what passed for daylight in the Riven District, loomed beyond.

  “It’s always good to see the sun,” the guard murmured aloud as we stepped outside, and I shot him a skeptical glance.

  “I hate to break this to you, but this isn’t actual sunlight.”

  His responding chuckle was quick, self-assured. I never liked confidence in an enemy, but the Luacra guard’s appeared hard-won. “When you have lived your entire existence in the darkness, a lessening of the gloom is what you humans call a miracle. Fomorians don’t need miracles—or we didn’t, back during the fullness of our power. Everything we could conceive, we could create. But our manifestation abilities have boundaries and chains now, as they have since the humans and the Fae joined together to drive us out of existence. Succeeded too. Relegating us to an underworld where the sun never truly shines.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you?” I asked, trying for flat dismissal. Unfortunately, my words came out more as curiosity. “You wanted to rule the earth and all its people. Are you going to deny that now?”

  “Not at all,” he said, still hidden in his hood, though I thought I caught a familiar gleam in his shadowed eyes. “Humans were fools and tools in those early days, barely willing to succeed at more than conquest and war. And yet capable of great beauty, great order. And we were an ancient race who had both in spades. But our place was not in the human realm, nor was it the Fae’s, though I have come to understand they haven’t been completely exorcised from the home of your people, as we no longer have been fully exorcised, thanks to your coven.”