He stepped through the doorway into the Unseelie mound. The shiver that raced down his spine didn’t concern him, didn’t make him hesitate. The memory of Saule’s betrayal steeled him against any emotion that might deter him from his goal. His guards walked on light footsteps, the barest disturbance of earth beneath their feet letting him know they were behind him. Even without the sound of the earth shuffling beneath them, he wouldn’t have worried. He trusted them at his back.
The walls to either side of him moved. Aldric froze, his hands going out to the sides as his brain scrambled to figure out if it was him moving or the sithen itself. The walls of the passageway hissed by him like grave dirt raining down on the dearly departed. Before he could properly regain his bearings, the walls vanished altogether and Aldric found himself standing in the center of a large room.
A quick glance behind him assured him his men were still there. He gestured for them to move back to back in a circle, facing every direction. The doorway they had come through seemed to have vanished, as if the entire sithen had slithered forward and left them in a completely new location. He let his gaze travel around him, searching for signs that they were not alone.
The room stretched out like a cavernous cathedral all around them. Enormous black tree trunks lined the walls like colossal pillars leading up to a raised dais. Eerie silver light came from no discernable source, illuminating a black throne. Like polished ebony, it gleamed in the ethereal light, mocking him with its emptiness.
The monarch was nowhere to be seen.
Aldric frowned. He had not come to the
Unseelie Court
without taking certain precautions. His mind traveled back to the yard at the inn where the pisky he’d managed to trap waited for his return from within his iron-barred cage, half buried in the earth. The little imp had said nothing of a living sithen, nor had he mentioned any royal penchant for sneaking up on invited guests. Had the little fey deliberately withheld information to leave them vulnerable to Unseelie torment? Had any of the information he’d offered been true?
Aldric gritted his teeth as anger burned up his spine. Impossible. He’d seen the burns on the fey’s flesh where the iron cage had touched his skin before he stuffed the silk handkerchief inside the prison. There was no way he would risk being left in there any longer than necessity dictated. Aldric had been clear that if anything happened to him, no one would be coming to free him from his deathly prison and the little pest couldn’t stay wrapped in the silk forever.
He glanced around again, the weight of the iron bar braided into his long red hair a comforting weight against his back. At least he knew iron was truly an effective weapon against the fey—the pisky’s burns had proved that. As long as Dubheasa didn’t try to run her fingers through his hair, he would have a last recourse should matters go badly. He took a deep breath and tried to force the worst case scenario from his mind. Perhaps the queen just enjoyed making a dramatic entrance.
Turning his mind to the comfort of tactical analysis, he studied the room again. Between the columns of tree trunks, thick red curtains hung over what must be small alcoves carved into the earthen walls. The queen could easily have tucked herself away in one of those. He narrowed his eyes. That would hardly be much of an entrance though. He tilted his head in thought. With all of them facing different directions, it would be impossible to sneak up on them. Unless . . .
Aldric jerked his attention up, his shoulders tensing in anticipation. The tree trunks that lined the walls continued to grow up and up until their branches slithered across the ceiling in a thick canopy of rustling leaves. The strange light that permeated the room didn’t pierce the heavy boughs hanging overhead. Aldric’s eyes twitched as he strained to see into the darkness.
Even with his vampire sight, he could not see anything above him. It wasn’t just the absence of light. The shadows in the branches seemed to eat the mysterious glow around the cavern, consuming it until it became a black hole of nothingness. Pins and needles pressed against his flesh as though hundreds of tiny eyes watched him from that impenetrable gloom. Waiting.
“Ah, Lord Aldric, you have arrived!”
Shocked by the jubilant voice shattering the silence, Aldric ripped his attention from the ceiling just in time to see Dubheasa, Queen of the Unseelie, emerge from one of the red-curtained alcoves. The first thing that caught his eyes was the white column of her neck, bared by the way her long dark hair had been pulled up in a high ponytail on top of her head. Over the centuries, Aldric had noted that most women who knew what he was chose to leave their hair down, covering their throats with their tresses—often in addition to a high collar. Aldric wasn’t sure if the queen was trying to demonstrate a lack of fear or deliberately taunting him. He suspected both.
As the sidhe royal moved forward, her black and grey ball gown swirled about her in a dance of fabric. Aldric had to try not to stare too hard at the material or it wavered and moved, playing tricks on his eyes. The pisky had said that the Queen of Air and Darkness often clothed herself in shadows. He wondered how much of the garment was actually material at all.
Dubheasa smiled brilliantly as she sashayed toward him, something thick and heavy hanging from one hand. The scent of blood wafted over him like a wave of perfume and his nostrils flared. Hunger stabbed at his belly and his gaze locked onto the mysterious object, his eyes widening with interest as it twitched in her grasp.
“There is no need for the title, your majesty,” he murmured, silently shoving away the intense hunger brought on by the scent of fresh blood. “Aldric is sufficient.”
“No title?” The queen tilted her head, her black eyes glittering at him like the stare of a raven. “What do your men call you?’
“Master.”
The queen threw back her head and laughed, the sound coming from her belly and echoing throughout the room. The branches overhead rustled and Aldric had to fight not to look up, trusting his men to stay alert. The pisky had been very clear on one thing: all attention must go to the queen unless she directed it elsewhere.
“Oh, my, Aldric. You are a delight.”
He hadn’t said anything funny. Unease began to curl at the base of Aldric’s spine. In his experience, people who laughed at things that were not funny tended to have a somewhat skewed vision of the world. They were unpredictable. And dangerous.
“The delight is mine,” he said carefully. “I was pleasantly surprised to receive your invitation.”
“Ah, yes,” Dubheasa nodded. “I do hope you enjoyed the picture?”
Desire flooded his veins as the picture the queen referred to leapt into his mind. The photograph had depicted Saule in her human form, glaring into the camera from her position in the center of a darkened room. All he’d been able to make out were the silver chains holding her arms above her head and her naked breasts bared to the camera, framed by the golden waterfall of her hair. The anger burning in her gaze had excited him more than her nudity. Such spirit always made the surrender all the sweeter. She would open to him just as her daughter had.
“I shall take that as a ‘yes,’” the queen murmured.
Aldric didn’t have to look down to know that his body had revealed his arousal. He didn’t care. He felt no shame for his reaction and the pisky had been quite graphic in his descriptions of the queen’s “perversions.” There was little fear that she would be taken aback by his reaction. Especially since it had been her wish that he arrive nude.
“I am most flattered that you thought to invite me,” Aldric spoke up, tentatively taking advantage of the Queen’s distraction to prod for more information.
“Well your reputation does precede you, Aldric. A vampire who goes around killing entire villages, all over a vendetta against a sun goddess . . . why it’s almost poetic.”
A sinking feeling weighed in Aldric’s stomach. “If any of my victims were under your protection—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the Queen waved him off. “I’m not the slightest bit put off with you for the bloodshed. If anything, it marks you as a practical man.” She raised her eyebrows. “I assume the villages in question were the homes of the Russian soldiers who invaded your little village?”
The almost condescending tone in her voice tightened his skin until he had to put considerable effort into maintaining his composure. He had not made a secret of his motives, or his killings, but he hadn’t expected the Queen to be interested enough in him to find out the particulars. Before he could think of anything to say, the Queen continued.
“Tell me, Aldric,” she said conversationally. “Since I am being so terribly generous, what with offering up your fondest dream on a silver platter and whatnot, would you mind offering a little something in return?”
Alarm bells went off in his head and tension sang through his muscles. The desire in his veins ebbed as he turned his attention to the playful tilt of the Unseelie monarch’s head. The gesture made her long black hair swing forward like a thick black snake, a dramatic contrast to the smooth ghostly pallor of her skin. She watched him like a crow watches an injured warrior crawling on a battlefield. Amused, patient, and hungry.
“I am not sure what I could offer one who has as much as your majesty,” Aldric said carefully. “What would you ask of me?”
“Oh, do not look so paranoid,” the queen chastised him, her eyes shining with merriment. “I simply want to inquire into a hobby we both share.” She sidled up closer to him, the bloody tentacle still dangling from her hand. “Tell me, what method of torture have you found most effective?”
Unbidden, a memory of a story he’d heard as a child leapt into his mind. The story of a wicked woman who was asked what punishment should be inflicted on the person accused of a crime she herself had committed. Not knowing that her culpability was known, she gave a horrendous punishment and was then put through it herself, suffering her own sentence. He couldn’t think of the story’s title, but the lesson was plain.
A false answer may save him the wicked woman’s fate, but if the queen had heard of his reputation, a false answer could turn her favor against him. A non-creative answer could lead to demonstrations of alternatives. Aldric’s spine ached with tension as his mind pieced out his options.
“Am I asking too much of you, Aldric?” the queen asked softly. A dangerous tone crept into her voice as she began to circle him, dropping the tentacle to the floor. “Is the entertainment I am offering you for tonight not worth such a small piece of information?”
“Forgive me, your majesty.” Aldric bowed, a small gesture of apology. “I was merely thinking on your question.”
“And?’
“Humiliation,” he answered, hoping that his decision to tell the truth had been the correct one. “Humiliation is the most effective form of torture.”
The queen’s eyebrows rose. “Humiliation?”
Now that he’d made his decision he thought on the matter as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. “A great deal of my enemies are immortal, or very near. Physical pain is motivating for some, but there are those who manage to withstand it.” His emotions stirred as the conversation brought to mind the woman waiting for him in the belly of the sithen.
His mind drifted, floating on the anger and hatred he usually kept under tight rein. This was a subject he had thought long and hard on. The men who had invaded his village had died by his own hands. One by one he’d killed them and their descendants, staining his hands with his vengeance. But for his vengeance to be complete, they were not the only ones who needed to pay. No, the goddess who had turned her back on him—she was the one who needed to suffer.
Unfortunately, it was nearly impossible to get revenge on a deity. Even if she did come down to earth, she was the goddess of the sun, the one thing he could not face in his new, more powerful, vampiric form. No, he’d had to think long and hard about how to get revenge on Her.
“Pain can be recovered from,” he continued, carefully riding the swell of his emotions. “With the right spell, it can even be forgotten. But humiliation is not just in the mind of the victim. It is in the minds of everyone who witnesses it—everyone who hears of it.” He stared into Dubheasa’s eyes. “As long as the memory lives on, so does the torment. A veritable eternity of suffering,” he whispered.
“You are almost poetic in your machinations, my dear Aldric.” Her eyes traveled down his body, lingering on his faded erection. “Had I known what depths lay beneath your macabre reputation, I would have arranged our meeting sooner.”
The pisky’s voice echoed in his head, responding to Aldric’s announcement that the queen had insisted he arrive nude. The pisky had warned him of Dubheasa’s pride, telling horrible stories of men whose bodies had insulted her with their disinterest. Fortunately, Aldric had no problem performing under pressure. The prize waiting for him in the depths of the
Unseelie Court
was worth a few moments of ego-stroking.