Bound by the Vampire Queen (15 page)

Cayden gave it a measured moment, then spoke a sharp word. The soldiers straightened, faced forward, and the mermaids dove back under the water, continuing their swim beneath the open drawbridge. Lyssa saw more than one soldier steal a glimpse as they came out the other side, the sweet curves of breast and hip, the pale white arms as the girls rolled and twined together, all playful, sensual innocence.

Cayden wasn’t one of those soldiers, his scrutiny remaining on Jacob and Lyssa with occasional sweeps over the guards patrolling the walkways that passed in front of and behind the waterfalls. They were armed with bows, swords and spears. “Are you expecting some danger, Captain?” she asked.

Cayden glanced at her, then forward again. “A wise man always does.”

He hadn’t addressed her by an honorific or even her name, Jacob noticed, though Cayden obviously knew who she was. Whether it was the same disrespect he’d been commanded to display, or the fact that Fae rarely used names when addressing one another, Jacob didn’t know. Cayden didn’t give him much time to ponder it as he led them under the open portcullis is and into the quadrangle. He dismissed his men there, dismounted. Out of habit, Jacob noted entrances and exits, and the makeup of the castle population.

Most seemed to be the staff one would expect in the household of medieval aristocracy— housekeeping, cooks, animal husbandry—as well as the armed guards to defend it. While the guards seemed to be of the same stamp as Cayden and his three, the staff were a variety of Fae species.

Everything from tiny, airborn Fae like the mother they’d seen, to large, knobby-kneed trolls, lumbering across the main bailey carrying bundles of goods in cloth bags or pulling wagons with the help of shaggy ponies.

As they prepared to pass through the archway into the castle hal itself, Cayden came to an abrupt halt, necessary because Lyssa did. She’d tilted her gaze upward. Due to the variety of waterfalls along the exposed walls, rainbows had occurred, some combination of magic or scientific phenomenon resulting in a crisscrossing of three of them before the archway. When Lyssa extended her palms, molecules of color patterned them. From where Jacob stood, a few steps back, it was like the three rainbows sought to plunge into the reputed pot of gold. Beyond the archway was a large fountain with a bronze statue of a racing pair of gazelles. The fountain caught the rainbow’s colors and sparkled with them, giving the gazelles’ hooves a sense of flashing movement.

Lyssa rocked from one foot to the other experimentally, shifting between the bands of color, letting them turn her skin red, yellow, blue and green as she moved. Looking back at Jacob, she smiled, pure and sweet.

Kane would love this, Jacob.

Cayden looked as if he’d suddenly found himself saddled with a creature of questionable sanity. It almost made Jacob grin, watching the guard try to figure out how to deal with her. Lyssa lowered her hands, her haughty expression flipping back in place like a well -oiled drawbridge. “We may proceed now, Captain. Thank you for indulging me.” If they had penny nails here, the captain would have looked like he’d swallowed a fistful. She’d neatly projected the idea that he was her escort, not a guard detail, and there was no way to correct the impression that wouldn’t make him look foolish. A dangerous game, but his lady rarely played it safe.

Cayden chose to resume their course without further comment. As they moved farther into the workings of the castle, Jacob noted a change in class. Clothes became more ornate, aristocratic trappings more distinct. These were all high court Fae, human in appearance except for their pointed ears and slender, elongated forms blessed with good looks. Rather than seeming entirely indifferent to their presence, the court Fae stared at Jacob and Lyssa, openly curious. The calculation he detected in some expressions suggested that more than the queen had known of Lyssa’s coming.

Whenever those same gazes fell on him, the reaction varied from mildly distasteful surprise to outright scorn. Big surprise there.
The vampire rabble is loose in the castle. Better call the exterminator.

They reached a tall pair of doors, outlined in silver.

The white dragon logo was stamped over the archway. Cayden nodded to Lyssa. “There appears to be a full court in session, in attendance on the queen. When you are so bid, approach her throne and stop within the circle marked on the floor. If you go past that circle, the protections around the queen will engage and it will be very unpleasant. If you try to withstand the pain to reach her, you will be killed.”

“I am here at your queen’s request, Captain,” Lyssa said. “We have no plans to attack her. In fact, our hope, though I suspect it is a slim one, is to be back in our world in time for dinner.”

“You have no desire to stay in your father’s world?” Lyssa turned her gaze fully upon him. Though Cayden’s remained impassive, Jacob had the distinct impression the guard captain hadn’t intended to ask such an intriguingly personal question.

“This is not my world. It never has been, and it never will be. Does that relieve or concern you, Captain?”

In answer, he pushed open the door, gesturing her and Jacob to precede him into the large chamber.

Based on what Cayden had said, Lyssa expected noise, some chatter among retainers when the door opened—at least the queen conversing with an advisor or supplicant while the others attentively listened. Instead, the door opened into a completely silent hall, as if everyone inside had been listening to
their
conversation.

There were perhaps two hundred Fae in the room, lined up on either wall, leaving an aisle to walk up the center toward the queen’s throne. That aisle looked like a sheet of moving water. At sporadic points, tiny fingers of current licked outside the aisle’s boundaries at the ice blue marble floor, making small ripples of sound, the only noise. The high walls of the hal were likewise covered by sheets of silently falling water that disappeared into a low rolling cushion of mist. It drifted across the floor, bill owing around the feet of those in attendance on the queen.

Every eye had turned to Lyssa. The skill of viewing a crowd without making eye contact, while appearing confident and unconcerned by their regard, was second nature to her. While vampire beauty was consistently dangerous, earthy, blood-driven, she noted the beauty of high court Fae was like sculpted glass, all slim, flowing lines and cool expressions. Their fine clothing was inspired by their natural world. Leaflike shapes of fabric molded to the elongated bodies and they wore jewelry of uncut gems. Flower blooms and petals, forever preserved with magic, adorned hair, necklines, hems.

Sparkling gems sewn into the fabrics reflected motes off the wall of water around them.

She saw the occasional ornamental dagger, but for the most part they were not visibly armed.

Cayden had not checked either of them for weapons, an unusual thing for a captain of the guard, unless he was exceptionally careless or weapons had no power to harm his queen. Lyssa didn’t think he was careless.

Agreed, my lady.

She pressed her lips into a tight smile. Of course Jacob had noted the same thing.

As she walked along that aisle of water, intrigued by how the water flowed over her slippers but did not wet them or the trailing hem of her dress, she was aware that the scrutiny of all those retainers was intensifying. Curiosity was the primary emotion she sensed, the kind that was unpleasant, tinged with resentful anger. There was impatience, a bitter half bark of laughter swallowed back too swiftly to know from whence it came, not that she sought the source.

She moved down the center aisle at a steady pace, not faltering or hurrying, her head up.

Centuries of birthright and her own blood carried her, conveying the message she intended.

Yes, I am here to respect your authority, but I have authority in my own right. I’m
not
here to cringe before you
.

There was no welcome here, but like Cayden’s refusal to help her on the horse, she had to discern whether it was genuine or manufactured, a carefully prepared backdrop for whatever the queen wished to accomplish.

What Cayden had called a circle was a sphere rising out of the floor, forming a dome like the hill on which the castle sat. The water flowed upward, guiding her up the incline. When she put her foot on the edge, it shifted, a moving walkway, until she was standing on the top of the sphere. From this view, it looked like a glistening round stone, forever turning with the water’s flow even as the person standing on it remained stationary.

Up until now, the end of the hal had been shrouded with mist. But now it parted as if blown away by the breath of a Goddess. As she lifted her gaze, she sensed the magical barrier humming ahead of her position, as Cayden had warned.

However, when she saw Queen Rhoswen, she wondered why it was needed. She certainly understood why crude weapons were not a concern.

Ice blue eyes stared at Lyssa out of porcelain features and a frame of snow-colored silk hair that waved around her face and fell below her waist.

Rhoswen’s crown was an antlered headpiece, the antlers pressing close to either side of her skull, the points coming together at the back. Strands of diamonds draped from the antlers to twine in her hair. A white corset pul ed in to show the nip of the waist and rise of generous breasts for her slender frame. While a silver velvet cloak covered her bare shoulders, the diamond choker enhanced the slim grace of her swan’s throat. Her skirt was diaphanous silver, shot with blue threads and seeded with more diamonds. The skirt was slashed into strips that parted and gave glimpses of long, shapely legs. A silver anklet with beaded chains that hooked over her toes was her only footwear.

While the queen riveted primary attention, her throne came in a close second. It sat on the crest of a waterfall that split into four parts and splashed down onto an array of crystals in a pool below it. A narrow set of short steps that would require exceptional grace and balance to traverse was the only path of descent.

As Lyssa met the gaze of the potentate, she expected to feel the touch of strong magic and she did, like the prick of a hundred icicles along her skin.

From their reception thus far, she hadn’t expected the Fae queen to be overly friendly. However, whereas those gathered here radiated vapid curiosity for her and a more intense version of Cayden’s practiced disdain for herself and Jacob, what came from the queen was different. It was real, not manufactured or commanded at all, which made it all the more dangerous.

It was pure, undiluted hostility.

Though the beautiful features were expressionless, Lyssa knew she wasn’t wrong.

She’d been a queen too long herself not to be able to read another one. Whatever the cause, it meant things were not likely to go well. And coming here had been a mistake, no matter how little choice they’d had.

This isn’t a complaint, mind you, because she looks like a Victoria’s Secret pinup, but why do powerful queens insist on wearing uncomfortable clothes? If I was queen, I’d wear jeans all the time.

T-shirts with my favorite logo. Something like:

“Fairies Rule, Vampires Drool.”

Jacob’s impertinent reminder of his presence at her back steadied her, much as it annoyed her to know she’d needed it. Goddess, had the past two years really robbed her of so much confidence?

You’d look better in that corset than your ratty T-shirt,
she retorted.

You’d look edible in either one. Though black is your best color. You’re more badass than angel, my lady.

That was why she loved the insolent, noble idiot.

Sending him a quelling thought, she didn’t even flinch when the double doors closed with a thud. Cayden placed himself ahead of and to the right of Lyssa.

Despite the obvious impregnable barrier the magical protection provided, apparently Cayden preferred to reinforce that with more manual means if needed.

Queen Rhoswen’s ice blue gaze shifted toward a new arrival that stepped through the wall of water on her left. Cayden’s mouth tightened as if he disapproved of the unorthodox entry, but the queen’s sharp eyes merely narrowed. Following her gaze, Lyssa saw Keldwn there.

The first time she’d seen Keldwyn, they’d been deep in ancient forest, and the Fae lord had not bothered to disguise himself. Most Fae were associated with one of the elements, and Keldwyn’s was Earth. His cloak had been an unfamiliar fabric that reminded her of layered brown, gold and red leaves that drifted to the ground in autumn, the edges curled and colors muted. On the inside of the cloak was a delicate inner web of gold thread, like leaf veins. If he’d spread it out with his arms, a fanciful hiker might have thought the cloak was wings, their gaze confused and caught in that enchanted web. In truth, the cloak
was
wings, when it suited Keldwyn to have them. He’d worn glinting gold mail under his plain brown tunic.

At Mason’s estate, he’d exercised his ability to pass as human—technically. He’d dressed in simple dark clothes, and his pointed ears lay flat against the sides of his head, almost lost in the tangle of a loose black mane. Tall and lean, the broad shoulders notwithstanding, his face elegant and chiseled, he’d actually reminded her somewhat of Mason and his patrician air, a comparison she was sure Mason would not have appreciated, but Jacob would.

However, pointed ears visible or not, he’d emanated

Otherworld even then.

In these surroundings, it was obvious that this was Keldwyn’s world.

He was back in his Fae raiment, only here, the magic with which it was infused was even more apparent, the mail gleaming, the pommel of his sword a deep bronze hue.

“Why, Lord Keldwyn. How nice of you to grace us with your presence after your self-imposed… retreat.” The frost in Rhoswen’s cultured voice resonated through the hal like the rush of the water. It actually lowered the temperature in the room, a power she herself possessed, one of the first Fae skill's she’d used in her role as a vampire monarch. It was a subtle ability that could easily be disguised as an emotional reaction to intimidation.