Yew Queen Trilogy Page 8

  Aurelio pulled me close and poured his lure over me. I battled the urge to fall into his arms, to sway on my feet with desire.

  Setting my jaw, I locked my gaze on Lucus. “I can fight this lure,” I said, shaking with the need to let Aurelio have me, “or I can give in, and you’ll have a real mess on your hands. Your call, fae lord.”

  Lucus studied my face, his chest moving up and down more quickly. He stepped closer, his gaze falling to my throat, then grazing over my body. His magic sparkled around his hands—emerald, forest, sage. Chills of desire rippled along my skin, but I didn’t think they were from Aurelio’s lure. My body was reacting to the look in Lucus’s eyes, the look that said he wanted me, a look that had nothing to do with his brothers or the curse. I read it as clear as if the words had been written on his devastatingly sexy self.

  When Lucus finally spoke, his voice was the rumble of far-off thunder, and that odd euphoria filled me again, the feeling I’d had about him in the memory. “Release her, Baccio. Aurelio will not have Coren. She is mine.”

  Ignoring whatever was going on between us, I turned to watch Baccio sneer, then he begrudgingly let go of Hekla. The lighter green sparks of Baccio’s magic faded from his hands. He leaned close to Hekla’s ear and whispered something.

  “Hekla?” I started toward her, every movie night we’d shared, all our wild recipes, the poverty we’d gone through to accomplish our dreams for the bakery rushing through my mind.

  But Lucus held me back. “If you fully wake her now, she won’t want to leave. Don’t ruin the victory you’ve had here with rash behavior. Remember, I cannot lie.”

  I stayed with him, his words feeling true. But why was I trusting him now? I had no idea, but everything in my gut told me to listen up, and so I did.

  My stomach turning with the need to know Hekla would be okay, I watched her leave the castle. Baccio lowered the portcullis with a snap of vine magic, and then she was gone.

  Safe.

  Well, safe until these guys figured out how to get her back again. Hell, they could possibly lure the entire town up here for all I knew. Lucus had to know that was a possibility, right? Why wasn’t he mentioning it?

  One thing at a time.

  “Now, you must fulfill your end of the bargain,” Lucus said.

  “Yes. The blood. The magestone. Got it.”

  The flap of enormous wings echoed across the courtyard, and Kaippa landed between us, hands outstretched and nostrils flaring. “Ooh, did I miss something big while I was napping?”

  Sunlight danced over Kaippa’s snowy skin, and I wondered bitterly why some legends didn’t prove true when others did. I would have loved to watch the vampire burn to death on this pretty autumn day.

  “Leave us, Kaippa.” Lucus strode toward a hallway I hadn’t yet explored, and I reluctantly followed.

  The corridor engulfed us in flickering light and the scent of old stone as we left the others in the courtyard and headed toward the casting chamber.

  “I don’t think that I will, fae lord.” Kaippa said the phrase with as much venom as I had earlier. “I want to see what the magestone says about your fated mate.”

  I stopped in my tracks. “What did you just say?”

  Kaippa laughed until he had to bend double and support himself on his knees. Lucus extended a hand, and a vine slithered out of the walls to wind around Kaippa, but the vamp just kept on laughing.

  “Don’t you know, Coren?” Kaippa snorted. “Didn’t you feel the bond when it showed up? That wild pounding in your heart when he speaks? I don’t know what you were up to out there with his brothers, but something called up your fated bond.”

  Wild pounding. The thundering sound to Lucus’s voice. The feelings I’d had for him in the memory and then again when he’d fought Aurelio’s lure to keep me alive, to keep me for himself. The room tilted, and I nearly went over, Lucus catching my elbow.

  “Shut your mouth, vampire,” Lucus hissed.

  The vines around Kaippa tightened, and the vampire sucked a breath, the red fading from his lips.

  “Coren,” Kaippa sputtered, that stupid grin on his jerk face, “you are stuck with our grouchy Lucus now. You two are officially bonded. You are fated mates.”

  A thousand ways to deny a truth raced through my head.

  Shouting. Raging. Shoving. Kicking. Punching. Steely silence.

  But my heart knew the truth. When the bond had started in the memory, I’d had the strangest feeling, the most unique sensation. Euphoria. Insistent focus. Longing outside simple lust. It had been terrible and wonderful, and ever since, it had been near to impossible to turn away from him when Lucus spoke.

  But how? How could a human be meant for a fae? Or was I even human?

  A shiver rolled through me. The magestone would tell the truth about me. But supernatural or not, I couldn’t deny what I was feeling.

  I was fated to love a monster.

  Chapter 16

  Lucus left Kaippa restrained in vines as we continued down the dark corridor toward the casting chamber. The firelight from the wall sconces flickered like they trembled at what I had discovered, that this immortal being was meant for me. Crazy. Stupid. All kinds of nope. How in the world was I supposed to run a bakery in historic Franklin with an aura-sucking horned guy at my side? What, was he going to run the cash register? An insane laugh crept out of me, and I pressed my hand to my mouth.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Lucus kept his gaze forward, his eyebrows bunched and his hands curled into fists at his sides.

  It was pretty freaking obvious what he thought about our bond. “No, thanks. Not yet.”

  But I couldn’t stand this tension. Sometimes when it was really quiet, my ears rang. This silence had that sort of noise to it, practically piercing my eardrums with unspoken hostility and denials from both of us. A change of subject was in order.

  “May I make a request?” Lucus’s jaw muscles tensed.

  “You can try.”

  “Do not offer yourself to Aurelio again. I don’t think he can handle your powerful energy in a rush. He is too weak.”

  “Fine. But why is he weaker than you and Baccio?”

  “He always has been. Since birth. He nearly died as an infant. Between our appearances on the ley line, we sleep inside the trees of the courtyard to reserve our energy. Baccio and I have survived fairly well in that way, but Aurelio doesn’t have our strength.”

  They slept in the trees? How did that work? I imagined I’d have to see that to get it. Another question pinched at me, and this was as good a time as any to—once again—move the conversation away from what had just happened and all the baggage that came with it.

  “Why have you never killed Kaippa?” It seemed perfectly possible that he could have and would have wanted to. “Has he never tried to attack you in your sleep?”

  “The curse prevents it. The Mage Duke—”

  “Does that asshole have a name? I hate to give him such a fabulous title when he doesn’t deserve the respect.”

  Lucus paused and stared. When he finally started walking again, his gaze was distant. “His name was Ludovico Sforza.”

  “Like the Sforzas? From The Borgias?”

  “I assume you are asking if he was a contemporary of the Borgias? He was indeed.”

  “Didn’t he hire Leonardo da Vinci to do some stuff?”

  “He did.”

  The shocks just kept on coming. “So…you, like, saw Leonardo da Vinci?” I was no history buff, but dude. This was insane, and it was wonderfully distracting.

  “Once. His aura was a deep gray-blue. Like the ocean at night. Fascinating color.”

  I shook my head. Unbelievable.

  The corridor led into a domed, circular room with six slitted openings around the top of the walls. Light streamed through the windows and created an illuminated circle on the floor. Lucus picked up something small and struck it, then proceeded to light three sets of candelabras set around the room. The golden flames exp
osed another image of a wheel, similar to the one that had been on the wall in the other room I’d been in. This one was more detailed, and it covered the entire ceiling. Blue, purple, and glittering gilt-work showed winged fae in the clouds and humans working on the earth behind plows. Swirls of color, jagged lines that crossed at varying angles, and multiple other symbols crowded the space not occupied by the fae or the humans or the cows and birds at their sides.

  While Lucus fetched a fancy-looking box from a table opposite the door, I studied the floor. I could just barely discern wine-colored marks on the wide stones. They made no sense to me. It didn’t seem to be a language, just more symbols. The shapes and lines connected to echo the curve of the room, interlocking circles of markings that became smaller and smaller toward the very center of the room.

  I stepped onto the one symbol drawn in the center. A buzzing feeling started under my skin. It wasn’t painful. Just weird. Like I’d touched a baby power socket.

  Lucus approached me, his eyes steely. He held a knife and a sparkling cluster of amethyst.

  “It’s beautiful.” I touched the cold crystal, marveling at its size. Candlelight flickered off the facets.

  Lucus’s eyebrow lifted a fraction, and his lips tightened. “I suppose.”

  “So this casting chamber and this amethyst belonged to Ludovico, to the Mage Duke?”

  “Yes. Would you like me to cut your palm, or would you rather do it yourself? You only need a small amount. A minor cut will do.”

  “Does it have to be blood from my palm? It’d be loads smarter to cut the top of my arm instead of my hand. I’ll be bleeding all over stuff when I use my hands the rest of the day, because I’m assuming you don’t have a sweet little Band Aid up in here.”

  “The blood must come from a place where your magic gathers. The palm is most likely preferable to the forehead, I assume?”

  I shuddered. “Uh, yeah. Palm it is.”

  “Remember. You only need a few drops.”

  My stomach turned, but I had to marvel at the change between us. Not only from the bond tugging at my heart, begging me to understand him, but also from what I’d seen with my own eyes. Witnessing his past had seeded trust in me. Sure, he would kill me if he had to. But I knew he wasn’t going to just stab me with that thing unless he had a damn good reason.

  I remained furious about him endangering Hekla, but I also understood why he’d done it—for that boy in his memory, Aurelio, the one who’d sheltered under his protective arm as the Mage Duke’s attack began. Lucus didn’t want to hurt anyone, but he had family, and they had a way of living that wasn’t exactly in tune with what I considered fantastic. He was a bear. I was a rabbit. But maybe with this magic of mine, I could even the playing field.

  “I’ll try to do it. Not positive I can make myself go through with it, self-preservation and all of that.”

  He handed me the knife. The handle was a pearly color, and an S was inscribed in the middle. I opened my left hand and poised the blade over my skin.

  “I really hope this doesn’t screw up my ability to bake the best pumpkin muffins the world has ever eaten.”

  “The true loss would be your pancakes.”

  “Possibly.” Unfortunately, I was shaking a bit. I took a deep breath, heart racing, then dragged the knife’s tip across my palm.

  My stomach dipped as blood welled along the opening. I’d never been a blood wimp or anything, but this kind of sucked.

  “Now place your hand on the magestone,” Lucus said.

  My lips felt cold. “What’s going to happen?”

  “That is what we’re here to find out.”

  I breathed through my nose, steadying myself. I had to do this. If I ran, Lucus would lure me back. Possibly any of them could lure me or Hekla. Something about my aura had affected the curse, and now it wasn’t just me, the first woman to see the castle, in danger. Everyone in my town was in trouble. All bets were off.

  I grabbed the magestone, and the world exploded.

  Chapter 17

  Amethyst lightning crashed across the room. An unseen force threw me backward. I slammed into the wall and landed in a heap on the floor, panting. The buzzing I’d experienced earlier was now a full-blown tremor running through me. I felt a crack in the stones under me, a crack that hadn’t been there before I’d touched the magestone. The candles had guttered out, and I could hardly see, the windows’ light watery and pale.

  Where was—

  I gasped.

  Lucus hovered high above me in the domed ceiling of the room. Vines extended from his fingers, and his wings had grown to twice their size. Emerald fire blazed in his eyes, and magic spiraled from his body in bright arcs.

  “You.” He spat the word like a curse, and then I knew.

  Only one outcome would ignite such a reaction. I was not a shapeshifter. Not a fae.

  I was a mage.

  Shaking my head, my body buzzing and my brain melting with the fact that I had magic, I scrambled to my feet and glared up at Lucus. “Listen. I didn’t choose this. I can’t help what I am. It’s not like I’m the Mage Duke. I’m Coren. I make cookies! I am not a part of this horribleness!”

  It was true, but it also kind of wasn’t. I was fully planning on finding a way to trap him and the others and let the curse eat them alive or whatever it would do when they didn’t offer a sacrifice by the end of this lunar cycle.

  Lucus was seething, his chest rising and falling and his fists sparking with power. Power that might be aimed at me in a second if I didn’t calm him the F down.

  “Seriously. If I have the same magic as the Mage Duke, I might be able to break this curse as well as shifter’s blood could have. Right?”

  Sweeping down from the ceiling, Lucus hovered above me, his wings buffeting the air around my face and stirring the candle smoke into a dark cloud that swallowed the small amount of light trailing through the windows.

  “You are not simply any mage. Your blood whispered the name of your line. Sforza. You are the descendant of the Mage Duke, and because of what his curse did to my brother, Francesco, I am honor-bound to kill you.”

  My heart thrashed against my ribs. “Wait, wait, wait. No. I’m not Italian. My parents were from Ohio!” I couldn’t believe I had magic. Why had I never felt it before or done anything cool with it? But it was true. There was no denying the blast from that magestone and the magic that rushed through me like a herd of wild horses.

  The vines snaking from Lucus’s fingers and extending from his wings whipped forward and gripped me. Squeezing me and raising me so my face was level with Lucus, the vines tightened around my chest until I was gasping for breath.

  I wished I knew how to use this power of mine, but it felt as though if I unleashed the magic inside me, the wild horses would trample me in the process. I was as scared of the magic as I was of Lucus.

  His eyes had no empathy in them. They were filled with agony, desperation, grief. I knew he was seeing only the past and the Mage Duke’s slaughter of the fae. He was seeing Francesco leaving the castle, the younger brother who had turned to ash. He couldn’t even see my face right in front of him.

  “Lucus. Please. It’s me. Coren.” A part of me insisted that I bring up that terrible fated mate bond thing, but I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want it to be true, so I was going to ignore it as thoroughly as possible. “You don’t know me very well, but I never would’ve killed innocent people. Innocent fae,” I choked out. My lungs burned, and my skin bled under the vines’ rough hold. “That was five hundred years ago.” An idea bloomed in my mind. I strained against the vines. “Can’t you see my memories like I saw yours?” I panted. The room spun, and black spots appeared, blocking Lucus’s face. My head lolled. “Sneak into my head. See I am not like the Duke.”

  Well, this was it. The world went dark, and I was numb all over. A hot tear spilled out of my eye. Damn. I wanted to live. But I was just so tired…

  And then I was in a memory.

  I walk
ed arm in arm with Hekla down Main Street. It was Christmas, five years ago. White lights curled around the lamp posts, sparkling in the plum-hued twilight. Cold air pinched my nose and cheeks as Hekla continued explaining her grandmother’s recipe for Icelandic leaf bread.

  “It’s so thin that you can read through it.”

  “Dude. That sounds super difficult to handle.”

  “It is. But that’s not the toughest part of the process. You cut these little triangles into it and then lift the corners so that they overlap.”

  It was exactly the sort of baking challenge I adored. Plus, Hekla needed a boost. She’d lost her house to a fire a month back and with it every picture of her deceased parents and grandparents. Her boyfriend had dumped her afterwards too. Such an asshole. Hekla had moved in with me, of course, but she’d had to give up her P.O.S. car to get some new clothes.

  “We’ll make a crap ton of them and start a savings account for your Volvo.”

  Hekla grabbed my arm and whirled me around to face her. “Are you serious?” She’d been pining away for a Volvo as long as I’d known her. It was a weird obsession, but who was I to judge?

  “Yep. You helped me do this.” I jerked my chin at our bakery, just a couple of doors down from McCreary’s Irish Pub. “Without you, my dream would still be a dream. You are getting that Volvo, my lady.”

  She hugged me so hard that we fell into a man with an armful of Christmas wreaths who had a surprisingly impressive cache of swear words I had never heard.

  Our laughter faded with the memory, and then I was standing in front of Lucus. The vines held me still, but they weren’t annihilating me like earlier.

  “Okay, that wasn’t the best memory. Getting someone a Volvo. I have better ones somewhere. Try again.”

  The vines withdrew with a speed that made them blurry to my eyes. Lucus turned away, tucking his wings in tightly as he paced the casting room floor.