Yew Queen Trilogy Read online

  Chapter 10

  After I’d changed into some holey jeans, a shirt, and my boots, I texted Hekla, wanting her far, far away from this horror show.

  I’m not up to climbing today, I texted.

  I’m coming over.

  No, no, no. I have a fever and am puking. Stay away.

  You need chicken soup, woman.

  Stay away or die of plague.

  I would risk plague for you and you know this.

  Please don’t. I need someone to run our business because I don’t want to live on the street.

  Good point. Fine. Talk soon. Call if you need me.

  I sent a heart and a unicorn then tucked the phone in my pocket. I put a charging bank in the other.

  In the kitchen/living room, Lucus glamoured himself to look human again, and at last, I sat down to eat my magnificent pancakes. Despite the comforting and familiar smell of maple syrup that surrounded the table, I felt like a death row inmate at her last meal.

  Lucus took a fifth bite of his pancakes before I’d eaten one, his black eyebrows bunched. I hadn’t wanted to give him a damn thing, but I thought maybe my kickass cooking would improve my chances in this scenario.

  Lucus swallowed, his throat bobbing. “These are quite good.”

  “You seem displeased at the fact,” I said flatly.

  “I haven’t eaten human food in a very long time. I hadn’t thought such fare could satisfy a fae, but now I realize I was mistaken. Normally, we only feed on the trees’ auras in our castle courtyard as well as the humans we lure each century.”

  Trees had auras?

  I chewed a cinnamon-and-nutmeg spiced mouthful, but then pushed my plate away, my stomach turning. “As Queen of the Human Food, I demand you tell me about this magestone. Again. Because I wasn’t really listening when I was trying to run from your ass or when I was attempting to destroy your handsome face.”

  His lips quirked up at one side. He wiped his mouth with one of my Halloween napkins, then set his hazel gaze on me. My heart stuttered even though he just looked like a regular handsome guy without those bizarre horns and whatnot. The horns were strangely hot.

  Remember, Connelly, I told myself silently. This guy is bad. Bad, bad news.

  “I’ll take you to the casting room in the castle. The magestone rests there. We can put a drop of your blood on the stone, and it will light up if you have magic in your veins.”

  “First, what happens if I do have magic?” Oh, geez. What had my life become? I really wished Aunt Viv could get a load of this.

  “It will depend on what type of power lies within you. If you are fae, then we will release you immediately. Your power will be useless with regard to the curse, and we cannot feed on fellow fae.”

  “But Aurelio already did.”

  “It would be forgiven because of ignorance. It is taboo. Not dangerous.”

  “He wouldn’t have…uh…tasted fae aura?”

  “No.”

  “That’s not a thing?”

  Lucus raised an eyebrow. “That is not a…thing.”

  “But Aurelio will die of starvation if he doesn’t feed on me.”

  “He will. But that law cannot be broken.”

  “What if I have some other kind of magic?” I asked.

  Lucus blew out a breath, and his fingertips sparked, emerald and bright. “If you have the power of a shifter, we may be able to use your blood to break the curse. They have very mutable blood magic that can be used to accomplish a variety of goals if handled properly.”

  I suddenly couldn’t swallow. Sure, I’d heard them say the word earlier, but it hadn’t sunk in. Coughing, I tried to wrap my brain around it all. A shifter. My blood. Blood magic. It was all too much. “Like a werewolf?” My voice was a squeak.

  “Shifters are rare. I don’t believe they are extinct, but that their magic sleeps. Some shift into wolves. Others into lions. Still more into birds such as falcons.”

  “I need a minute.” I whirled around, crossed my arms, and closed my eyes. Aunt Viv had never mentioned shifters. They’d hidden well, I guessed. I massaged my temples, knowing I had to absorb this whack info and get back to the conversation, considering Lucus had so casually mentioned using my blood. I probably needed to have a say in that action.

  I spun and faced him. “If my blood frees you somehow, you all will flit around Nashville, sucking people dry. I can’t do that, Lucus.”

  “We have fed on humans since the beginning of time, and there is rarely a death. Mages and vampires are the ones who normally deal in death. But if we can end the curse and the protection it allows Kaippa, I will kill him myself.”

  “I don’t trust you.” I zipped my lips. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

  “Understood. But remember that I am motivated to keep you in my good graces.”

  “Hold on. You are not in my good anythings.”

  He continued like I hadn’t snapped at him. “If you possess shifter blood, I will need you to break this curse, and you can ask me to swear an oath to satisfy your qualms. Fae cannot lie. If we don’t break the curse during this cycle of the moon, either myself or one of my brothers must die. The curse will not accept Kaippa as a sacrifice.”

  “And last time, it was your brother Francesco.”

  Lucus nodded, his eyes going dead. “Francesco drew the shortest straw and left the castle, giving himself up for us. Every day, I regret allowing him to walk through that door. His ashes spooled into the night like ink in water, so dark, so final.”

  I almost wanted to reach across the table and touch his hand, to comfort him, but of course, I held myself back. He was a monster, and nothing about this required me feeling anything kind toward him.

  My throat felt dry, so I downed a quick swallow of water. “I have more questions. First, what is a casting room?”

  “A chamber designed to help a mage perform spells.”

  I gripped the edge of the table. “So like spell casting?”

  “Yes.”

  I swallowed. Of course. Because magic was real. “Are you a mage?”

  His gaze burned. “I am a fae lord.”

  “You can’t be both?” I held out my hands and accidentally knocked over the syrup. “You did all that vine magic—”

  “No. We are enemies, the mages and the fae.”

  Righting the syrup bottle, I shoved the rest of the napkins at him so he could clean up. “Where do shifters and vampires fit in?”

  “Shifters keep to themselves.”

  “So they’re Switzerland?” He looked confused, so I explained, “Neutral in the politics of war.”

  “Yes. As for vampires…The mages hire them as mercenaries.” Lucus said the word vampires like it was a curse in and of itself.

  It was bizarre to see him doing something as basic as wiping a spill. “Kaippa is stuck with you all, and he is your sworn enemy?”

  “Yes.”

  I frowned. “Why did he get thrown in with you all and your castle of curses or whatever?”

  Lucus ran a hand roughly through his hair. The emerald streaks weren’t as noticeable under his glamour. “The Mage Duke cast the curse. It is his castle. Enemy territory. My brothers and I infiltrated at night to kill the Mage Duke. He fooled us, trapped us, and cast the curse. Kaippa was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Why did you hate the Mage Duke? What’s that guy’s story?”

  The muscles in Lucus’s jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth. “He killed hundreds of my kind in revenge for one fae’s wild behavior.”

  Hundreds of his kind. A slaughter. I rubbed my hands together to warm them. “What did the fae do to the Mage to make him so angry?”

  “He murdered the Mage Duke’s eldest daughter.”

  “Why?”

  Lucus’s chest moved with a deep sigh, and he crossed the room, heading toward the front window. “I didn’t intend to kill her.”

  Chapter 11

  My body broke out in a sweat, my shirt sticking to my ba
ck. “Wait. You were the one who started this feud between your kind and the Mage Duke?”

  “It was the only time I have killed when feeding. I was young. An adolescent. I didn’t understand my power at the time. The act of taking the victim’s aura activated my alpha status.”

  It was undeniable now. I pushed away from the table, then stood behind my chair. “What did you do when you realized you’d killed her?”

  “I took her body to the Mage.”

  “Without anyone to back you up? You went by yourself?”

  Lucus looked at me, his face gaunt and his eyes filled with pain. “I will show you. You deserve to know since you have been pulled into my life.”

  Before I could say a word, his wings appeared, and the tiny vine from the outer edge shot through the room, speeding across the carpet, then up the leg of my chair before curling around my arm and pressing against a spot behind my ear. I mentally scrambled to figure out what was going on. This was what he’d done to find my house. This was—

  The world fizzled away, and a new one shimmered into view.

  With my heart completely freaking out, I stood, frozen with fear, in a forest where massive oaks threw dappled shadows across ferns and narrow animal trails. The air smelled fresh and cleaner than any I’d ever breathed. Where in the hell…

  A figure moved in the distance—a woman about Ami’s age with long limbs and a sheaf of bright red hair. She wore a dress, lifting its hem as she bent to pick something from the ground. Mushrooms, I thought. A basket swung from her arm, and she hummed quietly as she worked. She was a beauty.

  Was I really here? How was I seeing this? It had to be related to the vine Lucus had called up. I touched the spot where it pressed against my skin, but there was nothing. No vine. No Lucus anywhere. He’d said he would show me what had happened that day, the day he’d killed the Mage Duke’s eldest daughter. Did that mean I was somehow witnessing his memory? But it wasn’t from his point of view, was it? I held up my hands, and the world spun in a circle around me. I fell to the ground.

  My hands, my body, my clothing—I was nearly transparent.

  Was I inside Lucus’s body here? I didn’t see anything that indicated that. Oh, shit. I didn’t want to be inhabiting his body when he murdered that woman. Because that had to be her, the one collecting mushrooms…

  Beyond a rise in the forest floor, a tall fern shuffled, shaking sparkling dew from its green fingers. A hand slid between the leaves.

  I sprang to my feet and squinted. Could it be?

  A young Lucus emerged from the fern. Rawboned like any eighteen-year-old, he walked toward the redhead. He wore a loose shirt that appeared to be made of wide, pale green leaves from a plant I had no name for. His trousers were a dark brown, like a walnut tree’s trunk, and his boots were similar to the ones he wore as an adult, with a flap at the knee and as black as the tires of my motorcycle.

  The sunlight drifting through the branches touched his pointed ear, then glanced off the faint image of his wings and horns. His glamour was flimsy.

  Was it because of his youth? Or was that a tactic? He had a grace unlike the teens I knew, his feet moving with slow, deliberate confidence through the brush. His eyes were half-slitted, and his lips parted like he wanted to say something to her, to call out.

  Knowledge touched my mind. He had been warned off this woman, this high-born girl named Lucilla. But they had met before, and she cared for him.

  A black bird landed on his shoulder and nudged his temple. He whispered to the bird and dusted a hand over its glossy feathers before it flew into the green sky of the wood. The ferns shifted to help Lucus along more quickly, and I was mesmerized at the look of him here, in his home, in a place where he was lord and the world took notice. It could’ve been a beautiful moment, but I knew what came next.

  My throat went dry. Someone was about to die.

  Lucilla’s head jerked up as she noticed him. In one smooth motion, she stood and dropped her basket of mushrooms to the forest floor. Smiling like she knew and adored him, she took a step forward. Her eyes shuttered as he approached, emerald sparks dancing around his fingertips.

  “No!” I started toward them. “Wake up, girl! He is not what you think he is!” An invisible wall slammed into me. Neither of them appeared to have heard my shouting.

  Lucilla moaned and stepped into his arms.

  A strange nausea swamped me. I wasn’t a fan for a lot of reasons, one of which was the jealousy I was feeling. I bit my lip, trying to force that nasty feeling away.

  Why in the world did it feel like he belonged to me?

  No way.

  I wanted nothing to do with that feeling. It made no sense anyway. He was a monster, and he was most likely going to kill me in a manner similar to the way Lucilla was about to die.

  When his hand curled around the back of her neck, my hand flew to my own neck, where he had touched me the first day we met. My stomach turned, and I looked to the ground. I was equal parts desperate to avoid watching this scene and feverishly curious. I raised my head and decided I needed to watch to learn about Lucus and the threat of his kind. It would be weak and stupid to look away because maybe I’d discover some clue that could help me defeat him.

  Lucus’s onyx and emerald hair fell away from his forehead as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes, looking euphoric. Lucilla clung to him, fingers digging into his arms and one leg twisted around him like a length of ivy.

  The air around Lucus and Lucilla blurred suddenly, like water dropped on a watercolor painting.

  Lucus’s emotions poured into me.

  I gasped as I felt raw power surge inside his body. What was happening to him? Was this the moment his alpha-ness clicked on?

  Lucus’s wings appeared, deep green and dark brown, and the tip of a horn caught a lock of Lucilla’s flame-bright hair as he bent his head to place his mouth below her chin. He gripped her more tightly, and she shivered against him as he fed from her aura. She grimaced, seemingly tortured by the pleasure of his lure, then in a sudden movement, he spun and brought her to the ground, his body underneath hers. His hips moved against her body as he rucked her dress over her thighs.

  I wanted to stop watching, but there was no way I could tear my gaze away. It was like I was locked there, frozen again, turned on and scared to death at the same time.

  Lucus flipped the Mage Duke’s daughter onto her back and cupped her breast as his lips dragged over her throat. His body burned with desire, and I felt every beat of his heart like a beat of my own. We needed Lucilla’s aura like a drowning man needs air. We wanted to fill her body with heat and joy.

  Lucilla’s moans grew softer.

  I stepped forward, pressing my transparent hands against the invisible wall, desperate to help, to change history, to save her and him both from this horror.

  Lucilla’s hands fell away from Lucus’s shirt. He jerked back, holding her at arm’s length, his eyes going wide with shock.

  He turned his face away, squeezing his eyes shut as his fingers dug into the dead woman’s arms. It seemed like he was willing her to be alive.

  But I knew the ending of this story, or at least, the most important part—he had killed her.

  Shaking himself, he lifted Lucilla and cradled her in his arms. He began walking toward a break in the trees, and as he passed by, silver tears streaked down his pale cheeks.

  Chapter 12

  The memory shifted, and I was walking behind Lucus, my feet numb and my body moving without any nudge from me. In front, Lucus’s wings shuddered as he carried his unintended victim toward the cursed castle. Lucilla’s hair spilled over his arm and shone so brilliantly in the sun that it almost looked like fire.

  The surrounding birdsong was muffled along with the bang of Lucus’s fist against the castle’s wooden door. A beast of a man in white and black livery answered, and when his gaze fell on Lucilla, he tore her from Lucus, shouting, spittle flying from his mouth.

  I strained to hear as more c
alls rang out and more men appeared at the door, swords drawn. They pushed Lucus back and he held out his hands, eyes downcast and shoulders sagging.

  The urge to go to him and stand beside him, to explain how the murder had been an accident—and how sorry it seemed Lucus was—tugged at my chest. But he was guilty. He had hunted Lucilla, and he had killed her. No amount of regret changed that fact.

  Soon, twelve men with swords circled him, and another strode out of the castle. He had dark, curly hair and very round eyes that looked familiar somehow. The circle of swordsmen parted for this man who I assumed must be the Mage Duke. I wanted to hear what he was saying and what Lucus was replying, but it was like cotton had been stuffed into my ears. I couldn’t make out a word. Of course, they were probably speaking in a language I didn’t know anyway.

  The Mage Duke extended a hand toward Lucus. A haze of amethyst light shimmered around the Duke’s ringed fingers.

  The night of the storm, the night Lucus’s castle had appeared, flashed through my mind. The lightning had been the same color as the Mage Duke’s power.

  Was the Duke going to cast the curse now? I was confused, my brain whirling with the impossibility of the situation.

  But no, the Duke pointed toward the forest and Lucus turned to leave, his mouth a flat line and his eyes gone cold.

  That bizarre fog rolled in again, and I strained to see through the mist for what felt like hours. My body grew tired, but I was suspended in the memory, unable to do a damn thing about it. How long would I be stuck here? I could barely move, let alone do anything about this weird magic.

  The forest materialized around me. Oak leaves like hands blocked the sun, tree seeds floated like snow on a sweet-scented breeze, and pines whispered to me as I walked, entranced and under Lucus’s control. The young version of him trudged down a path not one foot in front of me, and I had the oddest sensation that his feelings were reaching back to soak into my mind and body. An ache filled my chest. Deep regret. Fear pierced me like a blade, and I hung back, gasping and watching the shadows for an attacker. What had the Mage Duke said to him? Why had he just let him walk away?