Tempted by a Rogue Prince (3 page)

But worse than that, she feared that now she knew how to kill, she could do it again if she had to, and next time it would be easier.

Rosalind opened her eyes and focused on the man in front of her, on the present rather than the past or what might lay ahead in her future.

The aura of danger clinging to him was growing stronger. He was healing himself. Was he one of the warriors from the war? If he was, what side had he fought on and what species was he?

The only way to find out the answers to those questions was to complete the task she had been sent here to do.

She blew out her breath and held her hands over his bare chest. As she lowered them, bringing them almost into contact with his skin, she channelled the only power available to her into him, seeking out his wounds and fixing them as best she could. There were so many.

Her power drained quickly and she had to take regular breaks to avoid overtaxing herself and passing out. She didn’t want to lose consciousness in a cell with this dangerous stranger, not when she didn’t have the power to protect herself.

The fast drain on her power confirmed something for her though. This man’s injuries and wounds ran deeper than those of the flesh that she could see. He was weak for a reason, whether that was a sickness of the body or of the mind.

His eyelids fluttered and she withdrew her hands again, her breath lodging in her throat as she waited. His long black lashes lifted, revealing steel-blue eyes. His dilated pupils swiftly narrowed and his hands shot up above his head. He snarled at the cuffs and pulled his wrists apart, tugging the chain between them taut. He heaved harder, his muscles tensing and rippling beneath his bloodstained pale skin, and growled when the chain didn’t break.

“They dampen our powers,” she said.

His gaze darted to her and narrowed, steel blue-grey that burned into her, sending a fierce shiver of awareness through her that drew every drop of her focus to him. What species was he? Vampire? Werewolf? Both of them had a human appearance and she had met many of their kind in the past, but none had affected her as this man did.

He struggled harder against his bonds and the metal sliced into his wrists, spilling blood down his arms. It didn’t stop him from fighting the restraints.

“Stop!” Rosalind snapped, her voice echoing around the stone cells.

He turned a murderous glare on her and flexed his fingers. His demeanour changed instantly, becoming distraught as his eyes went to his wrists and he flexed his fingers again. Over and over. He did it at least ten times before he began to growl and try harder, struggling against his bonds at the same time. Was something supposed to happen whenever he flexed his fingers?

He kept trying, clearly convinced that if he just kept doing it, whatever he was expecting would happen.

It wouldn’t.

She could sympathise. After the demons of the Fifth Realm had captured her during the battle and she had awoken in her cell, she had tried for hours to blast the bars and every demon who had strolled along the corridor and smirked at her.

She had been convinced that she could find the trick to get around the spell embedded into the metal.

This man was too.

His eyes went glassy and he sagged against the stone bench, his cuffed wrists dropping and slamming hard into his heaving chest.

Rosalind inched closer.

The man managed to slide his gaze her way, and passed out.

She sighed, carefully moved his hands back down to his stomach, and went back to work. She held one hand over his forehead and the other above his heart, closed her eyes, and shut the world out as she channelled as much energy as she could spare into him.

“Let him die,” the incubus whispered, a seductive proposition when healing the man was weakening her, leaving her more vulnerable than ever.

She lifted her head and gave the incubus a sorrowful smile. “I cannot. I must heal him. I took a vow.”

His expression turned solemn. “I understand the power of a vow, but if he wakes and kills you, I will say I told you so.”

She smiled properly for the first time in weeks. “I can take that.”

The incubus smiled too and muttered in the fae tongue. “We’re all fucked if he wakes up.”

Rosalind ignored that, sure that he knew she could understand the fae tongue since most witches could speak the language as they worked closely with his kind. He was doing it on purpose to distract her from her work. One tiny mistake and she could kill her patient.

She had to maintain rigid control over her healing spell. They were dangerous, with a tendency to go awry if the controlling witch’s link to it broke.

Awry being a polite way of saying inflicting crippling pain on the patient by attempting to heal anything and everything, even functioning organs and joints, before it fizzled out.

When she had no more energy to expend, she sat back on her heels and her shoulders sagged as she wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. He was looking better, but was nowhere close to being healed. She couldn’t do anything more for him right now. She needed to rest until her strength returned, and then she would begin again.

She stared at him, the incubus’s warning ringing in her tired mind.

Who was this dangerous and deadly male?

She willed him to wake and tell her.

She wanted to know him.

P
ain. It tore at him. Shredded his flesh. Smashed his bones. Devoured his soul. Blood. He needed it. Ached for it. Hungered. Darkness. It consumed him.

A floral scent swept around him, invading his senses, driving back the darkness and the agony. Nature. He was somewhere green and verdant, beautiful and soothing. He could see it in his buzzing mind, and could see it for himself if he could just get his eyes open.

He yearned to run his fingers through the tall meadow grass. He longed to lift the wild blooms to his nose and inhale their delicate fragrance. He needed to lay beneath the mighty oak and let the dappled sunlight play across his tired body as the melody of the branches swaying filled his mind. He wanted to breathe deep of it all and let it fill his soul with light.

Vail forced his eyes open, filled with a hunger to see the nature that brought with it such a sweet, enticing scent.

Black stone greeted his eyes. The rank odour of mould overshadowed the soft floral fragrance.

A dream?

Had he been dreaming of nature, a fantasy so real that it had crossed over into reality? He couldn’t recall the last time he had dreamed. Nightmares were his constant companion. Never dreams.

But there was no nature in his dark damp cell. No sunshine. No flowers. No meadow grass.

No beauty.

“You’re awake.” The voice was female, edged with a quaver that spoke of fear, and a sense of familiarity.

He shifted his eyes down to her. Beauty and nature stood over him and he saw blue skies in her eyes and sunshine in the spun gold of her hair. A faint scent of wild roses clung to her. He didn’t remember her, or did he? It was hazy. Her face seemed familiar.

“Remain still,” she said and he complied only because he wasn’t sure he could move, not even to snap her neck or tear her throat out with his fangs.

Why would he do such a thing to the delicate little wild rose?

She trembled, her shoulders shaking so violently that her matted fair hair tumbled off them and down her front.

He wanted to reach out and sweep that hair back into place.

Vail became aware of the cold heaviness of manacles around his wrists.

Hazy things started coming back to him, slowly gaining focus in his weary mind. The demons had done this to him. He was sure of that. He recalled the fight and wanting death, and waking to this female. He recalled her saying he was bound.

They had him chained and had a female in his cell.

She was a trap.

Crushing weight pressed down on his chest and his throat clogged. They had sent her in to hurt him.

To abuse him.

He snarled and fought his bonds, desperately trying to break the chain between them. He was stronger now, although he didn’t know why. Power flowed through him, strength he hadn’t felt in as long as he could remember. He used all of it on the restraints, bowing off the cold stone slab as he fought them.

“Please keep still.” She reached out to touch him.

To lay her hands on his flesh.

Vail bared his fangs at her and rolled off the slab, hitting the floor hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. He kicked off, scrambling as he attempted to rise to his feet and placing as much distance between them as he could manage.

“Keep away,” he said in English, using her tongue.

She shot to her feet and he growled at her, flashing his fangs in warning again.

“I cannot,” she barked and took a step towards him. “If I don’t heal you, they’ll punish me!”

Fear shone in her blue eyes. Eyes that implored him to believe her as she took another hesitant step towards him. Her arms shifted, coming forwards, and metal rattled. His gaze dropped to her wrists and he blinked.

She wore the same heavy cuffs as he, and had worn them for some time judging by her scarred wrists. A foreign sensation bolted through him on seeing the pale streaks of silver and red on her delicate skin. A need that he didn’t understand.

He felt compelled to take her hand in his and smooth his fingers over the scars, as if that action could erase the ugly marks of her captivity and restore her flawless skin.

He had no such power, not over flesh and bone. Not anymore. He had forsaken it long ago when he had severed his connection to his people and his powers had withered over the endless centuries since then.

And he had no reason to desire to use it on this female.

“Please?” she whispered and he lifted his gaze back to meet hers. “I have to heal you.”

A healer.

What species was she? Many could heal and many of those appeared human.

Including witches.

He growled at her, unable to stop himself, a reaction to that word that would stay with him until death finally embraced him. She didn’t flinch away. She bravely stood her ground this time, although her heart missed several beats and he sensed the fear she held buried deep within her.

Not only fear of him. She feared the demons too. And something else.

Something unknown to him, but something he needed to understand. He wasn’t sure why. It ran deep in his blood, a compulsion he couldn’t comprehend and that made no sense to him. It tied him in knots, twisting his insides, making him feel useless and weak.

Cursed female.

He narrowed his gaze on her, studying her delicate features and the way she held herself, drinking in everything about her, searching for a clue as to the reason for his strange reactions to her. Perhaps they had drugged him. It was all a ploy to weaken him and lure him into her trap. They wanted to watch her bring him to his knees. They would laugh as he suffered at her hands.

They were attempting to play on his compassion, but that had been their mistake.

He had no compassion left.

It had been wrung out of him thousands of years ago.

“Please?” she said again and gestured to the slab. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just have to heal you.”

He didn’t want to lay on it and allow her to touch him. He didn’t want her hands on him. Caressing. Fondling. Groping. He snarled and flashed his fangs again, and she shrank back, a little gasp escaping her.

“I would do as she asks, Mate. She isn’t going to hurt you, but if she doesn’t do as ordered, the demons
will
hurt her.” The deep male voice was little more than a snarl and Vail cast a glance off to his left.

A male with long dark hair streaked with gold occupied the cell opposite his, casually leaning against the thick deep grey stone wall. Green eyes locked with Vail’s, holding him fast. Fae markings tracked up the male’s arms, flushed with blood red and ash black, a sign of aggression. He was handsome too, despite the thick dark beard. He folded his arms across his muscular bare chest, the twin cuffs he wore clanking and filling the heavy silence, but they had no chain between them.

If this male spoke the truth, then she did too, and the guards would punish her for her failure. Vail pressed his hands against the sides of his head, dug his fingers through his blue-black hair and clawed his scalp, raking his nails over it. Gods, he missed his claws. He missed his armour. He needed it back. It was the only thing that could ground him.

The male pushed away from the wall and moved to the bars. He wrapped his hands around them and his gaze slid to the female. Lingering. Possessing.

Vail bared his fangs and hissed at him, barely maintaining the human appearance of his eyes and ears. He had to hold on to his veil. He couldn’t let these people know what he was. Who he was.

The man shrugged and kept staring at the female. “I warned you, Little Girl. You play with vipers and you’ll get bitten.”

“And I told you I will never leave someone to suffer if I can help them,” she snapped and folded her arms across her chest. “Stay out of this, Incubus.”

The male muttered something in the fae tongue and shoved his hands into the pockets of his dirty black jeans.

The female cast a scowl at him and bit out something in the same language.

Vail had long ago forgotten it. It had become useless to him after he and Loren had decided to save their people by moving them from the violent mortal world to the realm of Hell. No one spoke fae down here in this shadowy realm, and he had not left the elf kingdom in centuries.

No. That wasn’t true. He had left it. He had turned his back on it. He had to remember that. He had gone to war with his own people.

All had forsaken him.

But not Loren.

Vail returned to the bench and sagged onto it, his heart heavy and aching behind his ribs. Loren had kept trying to save him. Why? Why hadn’t his brother given up on him? Gods, he had wanted him to. He had pleaded every god of his species to make his brother leave him and forget about him. The gods hadn’t listened to him. He had tried forcing his brother to end his fool’s crusade to save him and save himself instead. Loren had refused.