Authors: Sierra Dean
Holden licked the palm of my hand, and I shuddered, struggling to remember what I was trying to do. “I don’t care if it’s a spell.”
His phrasing nagged at me. “You
do
care.”
“I don’t.”
“Holden.” I pushed his face away. “You don’t want to be sloppy seconds, but you can’t wait to jump on me because of a spell?
Think
.”
“I don’t—”
“Shut up and
think
.” I pulled my hands and face out of his reach and got to my feet, putting distance between us. I still wanted to launch myself on him and taste every inch of his skin, both his blood and body. I trembled and took another step away.
“Come back here.”
“
This won’t work
,” I hollered. “You’re going to have to come up with a different test.”
Holden got to his feet and came close. I countered his advances by stepping back until I was against the wall. He continued to come towards me until I was braced between his arms and his nose grazed my jaw.
“I remember the first time I kissed you,” he said.
So did I, but I didn’t want to admit it.
“This won’t work,” I repeated, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I think it will work very well.” He laid a gentle kiss on the corner of my mouth. I shivered.
“No,” I said. “
No.”
“Oh, you’re no fun,” said the wall behind me a moment before it vanished completely.
I collapsed on my back with Holden heavy on top of me. Heavy and hard. Rolling him off me, I scrambled to my feet and nearly tripped into a woman so small she made me feel bulky.
“We were led to believe you’d yield easily to lust,” she said.
“Who
are
you?” My voice bubbled with rage. I’d just fallen through my bedroom wall after nearly being bespelled into screwing a vampire. My patience was wearing thin to say the least.
“His Majesty—”
“I asked,
who are you
?”
She frowned at me and shook her head. “I am of no consequence. I was simply sent to collect you should the first test be unsuccessful. I have clothing for you to change into, if you’d please.”
“No, than—” I stopped speaking abruptly before I let my politeness lead to my ruin. “No. What we’re wearing will be fine.”
The woman sneered at our wardrobe and Holden’s bloody shirt. “I think you should reconsider.”
“I think there’s nothing you can say or do that will convince me to take clothing—or anything else—from you. If you’re going to take us somewhere, you might as well take us as is.”
“Very well.” She tapped the wall behind her, and it opened onto a huge, brightly lit ballroom.
As soon as we stepped through I understood why she’d suggested we change, but I had no regrets about dismissing her hospitality. The room was filled with over a hundred wide-eyed fae of different kinds—primarily fairies, though—staring at us like the circus-sideshow freaks we were.
Holden, shaken out of his lusty stupor, came to stand beside me as we gawked at our bewildered audience. The room was lit by moving bulbs that resembled giant fireflies casting their glow onto long banquet tables groaning under the weight of huge platters of food. The array of roasted meats, candies and fresh fruit would have been hard to resist for most guests. Even to me, who didn’t need it to live, the proffered goods looked irresistible.
My stomach rumbled in spite of the fact I wasn’t hungry for food.
Aubrey emerged through the heart of the crowd, a sea of silk and satin suits and gowns parting to make way for him. “Please help yourselves to anything here.”
“Is Kellen here? If so, I’ll take one of her.”
The king winked. “Do you worry we have her locked away in some ivory tower?”
“Do you have an ivory tower?” It wouldn’t have surprised me.
“No.” He swept his hand outward and directed my attention across the ballroom. When my gaze came to a rest, it was on a beautiful couple, and my breath caught.
Kellen was wearing a gown the color of early twilight—deep purple blue—and her hair hung in long brown waves down her back. She was smiling up at a handsome blond man who was looking at her like a precious gem. His hand was tucked possessively at the small of her back, and they spun across the floor with more grace than I would have imagined a human girl could dance with.
After my experience in the bedroom, though, it didn’t matter how pretty the window-dressing was, I wasn’t buying it. Kellen had been here long enough, brought against her will. She had definitely been drinking the Kool-Aid.
“So you see, your friend is quite happy.”
“I can see my friend is alive. I don’t believe she’ll be
happy
until she’s back where she belongs.”
The crowd merged back around Kellen and the fairy who’d kidnapped her, leaving me to focuse on the king once again.
“You don’t take anything at face value, do you?”
“Of course not. Care to explain what that bullshit in our room was?” I stayed next to Holden, not wanting to get too close to the fairies. They’d begun to mill about, pretending not to watch us but doing a poor job of hiding it.
“What happens in my guestrooms is not something I try to make my business. Why…? Were there issues?”
The woman who had collected us chose that moment to wander off. “I think you know perfectly well what happened.”
“Not a clue. Of course if I did, you would have been well forewarned that everything you do here would be under scrutiny.”
“I didn’t think that meant you would attempt to
force
things to happen.”
The crowd stopped talking, and everyone stared at me and the king. I had no shame about my outburst, considering the guy had tried to make me do…things.
“Secret, walk with me, will you?”
“I’d rather not.”
“I’m sorry, you interpreted that as a request, which may have been due to a politeness of my tone. What I meant to say was, Secret, you will walk with me.”
Holden began to argue, but I grudgingly said, “Fine.”
“Alone,” Aubrey added.
“Naturally.”
The king offered me his arm. After a moment’s hesitation where I wondered if taking it would count as accepting a gift, I placed my hand lightly on his forearm and let him guide me to the center of the dance floor.
“I think a dance is in order,” Aubrey suggested.
“Would it matter if I didn’t agree?”
“You’d look awfully silly with me dragging you around the floor. I think it better if you went along with it.”
I blew my bangs out of my eyes, and when he placed a hand on my waist and another on my shoulder, I fell naturally into a waltz position.
“You know how to dance,” he said with an impressed flourish.
“I’m a queen, you know.”
“Indeed.”
The music picked up, drowning out the eerie silence that had filled the room. I let Aubrey take the lead as he swirled me across the floor, but I kept pace with him, never allowing him to show me up.
“Tell me something,” he began. “Why is it you seem to dislike me so?”
“Do you want me to answer that?”
“I never ask a question I don’t want the answer to.”
I laughed coarsely. “I doubt you’d say that if people were always honest with you.”
Aubrey’s grip on my waist tightened, pulling me closer to him. “Why don’t you let me get used to your honesty, and we’ll take it from there?”
“You asked for it,” I warned.
“I did.”
“Overlooking what you did to me and Holden in the bedroom just now, I came here with an already negative view of your
court
.”
“How so?” He spun me out, then twisted me back into a half dip, cradling my back and dropping himself into a kneel so we were close to the tiled floor. Standing, we resumed the standard waltz steps.
“One of your people is killing in my territory.”
“There are fae in your world who do not listen to the rules of mine,” he replied.
“No. There is a pure-blood fairy stealing aura energy from teenagers and leaving them dead.” I thought using the plural would hold more weight rather than telling him only one boy had died. “So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t come here with the best opinions of you and your people.”
He stopped, still holding me but no longer dancing. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. I don’t accuse people—or fairies—of murder, unless I’m sure. But people
are
starting to point fingers. And they’re pointing them at Calliope.”
“Calliope?”
“She’s the center of some very unwanted attention right now,” I explained, laying on the guilt as thick as I could.
“I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do…”
Either one of the firefly lights had flown over me, or a metaphorical light bulb had gone off above my head. “There
is
something you can do.” I wasn’t about to endear myself to Aubrey, but at this point I didn’t care. “You control all those in your court, don’t you?”
“I do,” he answered cautiously.
“Then promise me none of them will
ever
kill in my territory again.”
Aubrey’s hand twitched on my back, and his perfect smile faltered. “A second promise?”
“You did say if there was anything you can do. This is it. And if you
really
have control over your people, you should be able to keep this promise without trying.” Batting my eyelashes innocently, I swayed into the next step of the dance, claiming the lead but making it look like he was still in control.
“You know how to push the boundaries of my hospitality, Miss McQueen.”
“Oh, was this you being hospitable?” I cocked my head to the side and gave a look that said,
Let’s not kid ourselves
.
Aubrey squeezed my hand and reclaimed the lead, dancing us back to where we started. Before letting me go he stopped and stared at me a long time, and there was nothing friendly about his expression.
“I will make your promise, but you should understand something else.”
“What’s that?”
“You haven’t begun to understand how
hospitable
I can be.”
Chapter Thirty
Once Aubrey had melted back into the crowd, Holden and I were stuck in the ballroom with no obvious way to get back to our room. Not that I was in a massive rush to return if it was filled with Aubrey’s sex magic.
“Care to dance?” he asked.
Seeing no way to leave, and considering I wasn’t currently afraid to touch him, I didn’t think I had a reason to say no. “What the hell?” I replied, taking the hand he’d offered.
He pulled me to the center of the dance floor, the fairy guests parting around us to give us space. Holden clasped a hand on my waist, and though his movements were not as smooth or graceful as Aubrey’s had been, we soon found our rhythm and fell into step.
“This place gives me the creeps,” he admitted.
All around us gilded fairies were gawking like we were the strangest things they’d ever seen. Maybe we were, but it was hard to believe that in a world where ogres were a real thing.
“It’s certainly unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.”
“That’s saying something.” He smiled lightly and spun me, then pulled me close so we were cheek to cheek and his lips were against my ear and mine were at his.
“Are we going to make it out of here?” I asked.
“We’ve gotten out of worse.” His fingers tangled in my hair, and I felt a thrill of heat in my veins that had nothing to do with a spell. “We always manage when we’re together.”
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”
“I didn’t exactly kick and scream, Secret. I’d follow you anywhere.” Holden pulled back and met my gaze. His eyes were the brown of fresh dirt after a summer rain and made me think of wildness and the freedom of the woods.
“About what happened…”
Holden shook his head. “We don’t need to talk about that right now.”
“We have to go back there eventually.”
He traced his fingers down my cheek, and my pulse tripped. “When we go back to the room, it will be you and me. There won’t be a spell. Not this time. Magic can’t trick us if we’re honest with ourselves.” Stooping close to my neck, he whispered in my ear, “And I think we both know that magic would only be pushing us to do something we already want to do anyway.”
I swallowed hard. “You think you’re stronger than it?”
“I think that spell is long gone.”
We moved across the floor, and for a brief while I forgot that we were the weird ones here, in jeans instead of formal wear. For a small window of time I might as well have been Cinderella, because being in Holden’s arms made all the worry, rage and uncertainty melt away. I let myself forget why we were here and rested my cheek against his, breathing in his cool familiar scent.
This was a place I knew well, the bubble of safety inside Holden’s arms. How many times had we been on the brink of certain disaster, only to come away unscathed? How many times had his touch grounded me, reminding me everything was all right?