The Cursed (League of the Black Swan) (36 page)

If they wanted her
now
, why hadn’t they wanted her
then
?

“She doesn’t like gifts,” Chance called out. “She already warned me not to give her any.”

Rio froze, not wanting to cause an international incident by refusing a gift from the person she was starting to be sure was the demon king.

“Ah, I only meant I didn’t want any gifts from
you
. Or any money. Definitely no money, or—what did you say? Accounts? Yes, no accounts,” she said, sure she was babbling like an idiot.

“You already bicker like siblings,” the demon king said, his beard quivering a little.

She almost thought he was trying not to laugh, but that couldn’t be possible. She’d heard too much about the grand and dour demon king to believe that he could have a sense of humor. Or maybe she was wrong about who he was, but she was too intimidated to ask, just yet.

“Do demon siblings bicker?” she asked, instead.

“Just like any other children,” the old man said, nodding sagely. “Bicker, fight, and cut each others’ limbs off in the annual challenge games. We are no different from the humans or the Fae.”

Rio swallowed and hoped she wasn’t turning pale. Cut each others’ limbs off. Just like in the convent, really. Food fights, leg amputation; it was all in a day’s fun.

No difference at all.

It was probably perfectly safe for Rio to be alone and unprotected in a place where her own brother might have hacked off her arm or leg if she’d grown up here. No worries. No problem.

Luke was going to
kill
her. Heck, for that matter,
Clarice
was going to kill her.

“I think I’d really love to have that ale now,” she said, flashing her best don’t-chop-my-leg-off smile.

“Perfect,” the demon who might or might not be the king said, beaming. “And then we will tour the fighting ring.”

Oh, goody.

Luke watched Elisabeth drink every single drop of the elixir before he finally pronounced himself satisfied. He left the little girl happily romping with Kit, who was playing puppy and enjoying belly rubs while she was at it, and gestured to Merelith to follow him out of the child’s silver-and-pink room.

He advanced on the Fae the minute she closed the door behind her.

“Rio is your niece? Elisabeth’s cousin? And you didn’t bother to mention any of this? What kind of heartless monster are you?”

If possible, Merelith’s face turned even paler than it normally was. “You learned the truth?”

It was the kind of nonanswer that Fae aristocrats normally got away with, and it pissed him off even more.

“Don’t play with me,” he said savagely. “You’ve been dropping all of those heavy-handed hints, but we hadn’t quite pulled it together, until the heir to the Demon Rift throne dropped by
to say hello to his sister
.”

“No!”

Luke continued, his voice a slashing weapon. “Chance Roberts just stole Rio away from me and flew her in a big-ass chariot over to Demon Rift, but he was kind enough to leave a dozen or so of his war guards to occupy my time.”

Merelith stumbled back a step. “No! She cannot—they cannot have her. I will not allow it. I owe her mother that much.”

Luke sneered at her.

“Save it,” he advised. “I know exactly how deep your family sentiment runs, after seeing what you’ve done to Rio over the past few days. The only reason you want to get your hands on her is that nobody knows what kind of powers she’s going to have. A hybrid of demon royal family and Fae royal family? She could be the most powerful being that any of the three realms have ever seen.”

“Or the two sides could cancel each other out, and she might have no powers at all,” Merelith snapped, but it was clear that she didn’t believe it.

“I’m going after her, and when I find her, you’re going to give us both some answers.”

Luke strode to the center of the damn fleur-de-lis, and then he called to the Shadows.

“Kit,” he shouted, and Kit came running out of Elisabeth’s room.

“It will be El’andille’s birthday at midnight tomorrow night, and then we will all have our answers,” Merelith said, her hair floating on the waves of her magic as she grew angrier. “But know this, wizard. Winter’s Edge will not allow Demon Rift to have her. No matter what happens at midnight on her birthday, the unlocked potential she carries is too dangerous for us to allow it to be used against us.”

Luke snarled and took a step toward her, his hands itching to throttle the arrogance off her face. She pointed one slender finger at him, and he was suddenly enclosed in an impermeable shield that consisted entirely of her magic.

“Do you think you can threaten me here, in the seat of my power?” Her voice rose in intensity until it thundered at him from all corners of the room. “She will join us, or she will die. If she remains in Demon Rift until the hour of her birth, we will march on the demon realm and declare war. Are you sure you want to get in the middle of that, little wizard?”

Before he could answer or counter with his own magic, no matter how futile that might be, Merelith twirled one finger in the air and the Shadows came at her call, hovering near him and Kit.

She laughed at his surprise, and her laughter hurt his ears. Kit, at his side, whined and ducked her head. “Yes, I know a few of your tricks,” Merelith said.

Elisabeth picked that moment to wander into the room, and her aunt immediately dropped the terrifying glamour and suddenly became nothing more than a concerned aunt. She wrapped her arms around the girl and pulled her close.

“Good-bye, Mr. Oliver. Good-bye, Kit,” Elisabeth said, waving, and he was forced to smile and wave back, so as not to scare her. “Thank you for my medicine.”

“Run along to your room, dear, and I will send for some juice,” Merelith said, and Elisabeth waved again and then dutifully left the room.

As soon as the door had closed behind her, Merelith dropped her pretense.

“Remember what I have said, Lucian Olivieri. I owe you a debt for what you have done for Elisabeth, and I will endeavor to repay it, but I will not forfeit my claim on my sister Berylan’s lost daughter or her potential powers.”

With that, she
pushed
, and the Shadows took Luke and Kit and hurtled them through space. When he stepped out of the vortex at the entrance to Demon Rift, he realized that at least he now had the answer to two questions about Rio’s past. He knew her mother’s name, and he knew Rio’s birth name.

El’andille. It was lovely, but he liked Rio better. Rio was
his
. El’andille belonged to the royal intrigue, in all of its deadly, backstabbing, deceitful glory, of two different courts.

Yes, he definitely liked
Rio
better.

He took a deep breath and stared up at the city’s blue marble walls. By now, Rio probably knew her father’s name as well.

“Hello, guard,” he called out. “My name is Luke Oliver, and this is Kit, and I am here to escort a friend of mine back to Bordertown.”

A squat, heavy guard trundled out to meet him. “We know who you are, Luke Oliver. Do you begin your campaign for sheriff here?”

Luke didn’t know whether to smile or blow something up. He’d never been as tired of hearing about anything as he was of hearing about that damn sheriff’s job.

“I am not running for sheriff,” he said from between his teeth. “I am here for Rio Jones. Or she might have said Rio Green. Or even Rio something else. None of it matters; they’re all names for the same person, and I am here to get her. Right. Now.”

The demon’s eyebrows beetled together, and he stomped his feet three times in the traditional warning that offense was about to be taken. It was a serious matter, in spite of the comical nature of the gesture. When a demon took offense, somebody was usually lying bloody on the ground soon afterward.

“I don’t mean to cause insult,” Luke said cautiously.

He realized it might be a bad idea to cause Rio trouble with her new family on the first day she met them, but his concern for her safety far outweighed his concern for demon family protocol.

A new guard, who was much bigger than the first one, marched up to them and pounded the butt end of his spear on the ground three times. Again with three times. Luke got the feeling he was soon to be in big trouble here.

“She does not want to see you,” the newcomer growled. “The princess is occupied, and she ordered us to tell you that she would see you later, and that you are not to enter the palace.”

Luke didn’t know who looked more surprised; the first demon guard or himself.

“The princess?” The first guard squeaked a little and stared up at the big guy. “So it’s true then?”

“Yes. The princess has returned to Demon Rift,” the guard intoned, with a sense of drama that made Luke want to salute him or punch him.

He was leaning toward punching.

“I don’t believe you,” Luke challenged the big guy, stepping forward and getting in his face.

The demon remained calm. “She said you wouldn’t. She said to tell you to watch out for a tree, and that you would understand her meaning, and you would go away.”

Luke started to tell the two of them they had no freaking idea what she was talking about, and then a snippet of memory about Rio and movie lines flashed into his mind. It was true, then. She didn’t want to see him. The curse, crouching inside him like a beast waiting for a chance to explode into the world, howled out its fury when a searing wave of pain struck Luke so hard and so fast that it nearly crippled him.

She didn’t want to see him. Maybe she was even leaving him, forever, now that she had a new family.

“Believe me now, don’t you?” taunted the demon.

“Now would be a good time for you to back away from me,” Luke said calmly, his words coated in ice.

The flames started in his fingertips and then wove their way up his arms, spreading and spreading until blue flame covered his entire body. The guards pulled their weapons, but in their surprise they hadn’t done so quickly enough.

“I find that I have a need to destroy something, and I’m guessing you would prefer that it not be you,” Luke said. He pointed at the little guardhouse from which the two had come. “Is there anybody left in there?”

The first demon—the little one—frantically shook his head. “No, it’s only us. You need to leave now.”

The other demon elbowed the first one, but Luke only vaguely registered it because he was done with them. Instead, he focused the howling pain threatening to crush him into a blast of heat, and he hurled it all at the guardhouse.

“Ignatio!”
He shouted the word of power as he destroyed the building, leaving nothing but a charred piece of ground, and then he turned, slowly and carefully, and walked back into the Shadows.

It wasn’t until he arrived in the middle of the road in front of his house that he realized that he was alone. Kit had abandoned him, too.

They’d toured the palace and some of the grounds, and all of it was amazing, but now Rio was tired and starving and very appreciative that they were finally sitting down to eat. She’d filled her plate with so much food that Chance had given her one of his patented sneers, but she didn’t care. She needed fuel.

When her stomach was full, she felt a little bit calmer, so Rio didn’t even flinch when the guards marched in with reports about the confrontation with Luke and the fact that he’d destroyed the guardhouse. The king, for she’d learned that indeed he was the king and also her grandfather, merely nodded and fixed his gaze on Rio.