Sweet Enchantment
Anya Bast
Table of Contents
Sweet Enchantment
Anya Bast
ONE
Bella had vowed to never bind her life to this man’s. Now here she was, about to do it. Worse, she’d made the decision only two seconds after learning of his predicament.
Ronan still didn’t know she’d entered his cell. He knelt before her, his arms extended to either side, his wrists wrapped in heavy charmed iron chain, and his gaze fastened on the cracked cement floor of the cell.
How low the great mage of the Seelie Court had sunk. The only charmed iron chain in the whole of the Seelie Rose Tower resided within the walls of Her Majesty’s Prison, and he was wrapped in every inch of it. His dark hair hung over his face, and his biceps and muscular bare back flexed as he moved uncomfortably against his bonds.
Bella liked the fact that the mage, Ronan Achaius Quinn, was in such a subservient position to her. He wasn’t a man who was subservient to anyone unless forced by charmed iron to be so.
For a moment she allowed her gaze to trace over him. She’d never seen a more beautifully made man in her life. Not before the day she’d clapped eyes on him and not afterward. The sight of him made a woman want the iron silk of his body rubbing up against hers, made carnal thoughts crowd the most prudish of female minds.
His long black hair shadowed his square jaw, the sensual pout of his mouth, and the icy blue eyes that were known for being able to draw the truth from the worst of liars. He wore only a pair of loose black trousers, leaving his feet and upper half bare. Ronan always wore black, even here in prison. His sculpted, powerful body moved a little as he tried to find the comfort his captors were so set on not giving him. He was strong not only in body and mind, but in magick too. However, the charmed iron neutralized the abilities he possessed. It was his sorcerer’s skills that normally kept him very high in the Summer Queen’s graces.
Not so tonight.
The Seelie wanted to kill him and she could hardly blame them. However, she couldn’t allow it. She couldn’t let Ronan come to harm, no matter what lay between them or what he’d done to land himself here. It didn’t matter that once he’d shredded her heart. It didn’t matter that she’d vowed never to offer any part of herself to him ever again. She’d been a fool to think she could ever keep a promise like that.
“I can smell your perfume, Bella,” Ronan said in a broken, gravelly voice, without looking up. “I’ve never forgotten your scent. I know it’s you.”
She shivered at his words and then shook it off. It was silly to think it was romantic. He was a mage, after all, even when stripped of his magick by charmed iron. He had a nose for different scents because of his work. His power was innate, allowing him to twist leaf, flower, and herb into powerful spells.
Not only was he a mage, he was only just on the barest side of Seelie. Ronan possessed Unseelie blood, enough to allow him to cast dark spells. The Summer Queen, the Seelie Royal, allowed him to remain in the Rose Tower because of the strength of his magick and, undoubtedly, his physical beauty. And perhaps there was a part of her that enjoyed thumbing her nose at the Shadow King, the Unseelie Royal, by denying him one of his strongest court members.
Ronan was one of the few members of the Seelie Court who possessed Unseelie blood, but he wasn’t the only one who had it.
She cleared her throat. “Ronan, it’s been a long time.”
“The last time we spoke in more than just passing, it wasn’t a happy occasion.”
A slight tremor shook her body. No, it hadn’t been a happy occasion at all. Ronan had broken her heart into so many pieces it had taken decades to put back together. Maybe it still wasn’t healed.
“Yes, and look at you now.” Her voice held the bitter edge of memory.
She walked around his body, her expensive gold and white heels clicking on the gritty cell floor and the trailing edge of her pure white stole brushing through dirt. She’d been at a Seelie Court ball sharing conversation with her dearest friend, Aislinn, when she’d received the news of Ronan’s arrest. It was cold outside—almost Yule. The Seelie often held balls, but they were especially frequent during this time of the year. Despite all that lay between them, not the foulest Unseelie goblin could have stopped her from racing to the prison.
She came to a halt in front of him.
Pulling against his chains, biceps flexing, he finally looked up at her. His hair slipped over his forehead, and he gave his head a sharp shake to move it to the side. The man was handsome enough to break any woman’s heart, and he’d broken more than just hers, Bella was certain. He was much older than she was—though they appeared the same age. That was the way it worked with nearly immortal Tuatha Dé Danann. Once they reached the age of thirty, their aging slowed to a crawl. However that didn’t hold for experience. At nearly a century her senior, he had far more life experience than she did, and that meant he’d broken far more hearts. He had kept his affairs quiet since their breakup, however. She had to give him that much. At least she hadn’t had to endure watching other women on his arm.
His gaze roved over her body—clad in a filmy white and gold gown. She knew what he saw. The dress was low-cut, delving deeply at her cleavage, and it was tight, appearing to be painted onto her waist and hips and dipping down to the small of her back. He looked at her like he wasn’t in chains, like she didn’t hold his fate in her hands. He looked at her like he had a right. It piqued her that he thought he could stare at her like that. It did other things too. Things it shouldn’t.
“It’s been a long time, Bella.” He paused, swallowed. “You’re still the most beautiful woman ever to walk the streets of Piefferburg.” His voice was rich and deep, full of the sincerity she’d fallen for once.
Her cheeks heated. Anger welled, and she forced herself not to pull the stole around her body.
She slipped a hand to her hip. “What were you thinking, taking a job from the Phaendir? Are you insane? You had to know that if you were caught the Summer Queen would want to kill you.”
He slanted her the cocky grin she knew so well. “Insane? Well, you know me, Bella. What do you think?”
She turned her face away and bit her lower lip. “They plan to take your head for this. Your status as the Summer Queen’s pet mage won’t protect you. No one allies with the Phaendir and escapes the consequences.”
“I’ve lived almost two hundred years, Bella. It won’t be a tragedy for the world to give me up, or for me to give the world up.”
“Sweet Danu, Ronan! “Do you have some kind of death wish? Is that why you did this?”
He only bowed his head in response, arms pulling at his bonds.
She paced away from him, toward the cell door, folding her arms over her chest and wrapping her stole more closely around her against the chill. The cold permeating her bones had less to do with the damp prison than with what she was about to do. She halted and closed her eyes, gathering her courage.
How could she just rip her heart out of her chest and lay it on a slab to be sacrificed—again—this way? But the alternative . . . She couldn’t bear to think about it.
“Ronan,” she started, turning toward him. “I’ve told the Summer Queen I’m taking you as my husband and she agreed to it.” She paused. “We’re getting married, you and I. It will protect you. It’s the only thing that will save you from the Wild Hunt.”
The Wild Hunt went out every night and gathered the souls of those fae who’d died. After the Summer Queen took Ronan’s head, the Hunt would be coming for him.
Ronan raised his head, but said nothing. For the first time in the thirty years she’d known him, apparently her words had struck him speechless. Finally, “Bella—”
“I can’t watch them kill you, no matter how stupid you are.” She lifted her chin. “I will marry you, but it will be in name only. You’ll get no . . . privileges from me. No money, because I’ll want you to sign a prenuptial agreement. You’ll have to live with me, of course, but my apartment is large and there’s only Lolly, my housekeeper, and I there now. We’ll be able to stay somewhat separated.” She pressed her lips together. “You’ll get to keep your life. It’s a good deal.”
“So the great Bella Rhiannon Caliste Mac Lyr of a pure Tuatha Dé Danann bloodline has finally selected a suitor and he’s a prisoner slated for death. A man who pulled a job for the Phaendir, no less. Marked forever for scorn in the Rose Tower. A thief with Unseelie blood. The Seelie are laughing at you right now. Back at the ball you rushed from, they’re snickering behind their gloved hands and into snifters of cognac at this whole situation.”
All true, but it didn’t matter. “You’re not a suitor.” Her voice came out in a harsh snap. “Once you were, maybe, thirty years ago. Briefly. Right now you’re just an old friend whose ass needs saving.” She turned away from him. “I can’t tell you how much I’m sacrificing to do this.” Emotionally. Psychologically. “Aren’t you even going to say thank you?”
“I’m going to say no.”
“No?” She whirled. “What? You can’t say no. You—”
He gave his head a shake and looked up at her. His normally icy blue pupils were wide and dark, his hands clenched. “I want you, Bella, but when we come together, we do it my way. On my terms. I’ll make you mine, not the other way around.”
Danu, the arrogance. Nothing about him had changed. “The only thing you’ll ever lay claim to is the worms that will nibble your flesh when your headless body is buried.”
She whirled and went for the door, then halted, laying her hand against the cool steel frame and closing her eyes for a moment. It figured this was happening at Yuletide, the time of greatest darkness throughout the year. Even as stupid and stubborn as he was, she wouldn’t let him die. She’d go to the Summer Queen and figure out a way to force him to marry her.
She’d save his life today and he could hate her for it tomorrow.
onan bowed his head and made fists, working the blood through his arms and trying to ignore the slight sting of the iron. It was an effective torture for the fae. Normally charmed iron not only nulled a fae’s magick, it made him sick. Eventually, if the iron was left on the skin for too long, it would kill. However as a mage who was particularly susceptible to the metal, he’d worked for years on developing a resistance to it. He murmured under his breath and blue green magick sparked in his palms. His magick wasn’t as strong as when he didn’t have charmed iron touching his skin, but it was strong enough.
Bloody hell, could it be? Did Bella still have a flicker of feeling for him? He thought he’d killed that off along with everything else good in his life a long time ago. For the first time in decades, hope flared to life inside him.
Maybe he had something to live for after all.
He needed to find out for certain. That meant there was no way he was going to rot in here any longer. Not with Bella out there still caring for him.
And, bloody hell, she’d looked so good. His hands curled involuntarily remembering how satiny smooth her skin looked. He couldn’t wait to run his fingers over it, his tongue. That dress she’d been wearing was like sin woven into fabric the way it showcased her full, delectable breasts and how it tapered down her long, slender, kissable back. He wanted to plunge his hands into her thick fall of dark hair, wanted her legs around his waist while he fucked her until she couldn’t see straight. He wanted to put his claim on her, make her his in every way he could. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman.
None but Bella would do.
Bella was his. He’d given her up once, but he’d learned his lesson. No way was he ever doing it again.
Ronan began to plot his escape.
TWO
Bella crossed the stone floor of her living room, feeling the chill of the night even through her slippers. Not even the thickly woven rugs her people were so famous for could keep out the cold. Wrapping her silk bathrobe more firmly around her, she sank onto a settee in front of the well-insulated floor-to-ceiling sheet of glass that served as her apartment’s outside wall. She had a wonderful view of Piefferburg from the third-to-top floor of the Seelie Court residence. Only the Summer Queen above her had a better view, and perhaps Aislinn Christiana Guinevere Finvarra, her even more highly placed friend.
The building was organized by social rank. Bella’s blood was very pure, her parentage nearly pristine Seelie Tuatha Dé Danann—no Unseelie, trooping fae, or wilding blood at all. As far as was public knowledge, anyway. Bella had suspected for a long time that she carried Unseelie in her gene pool. But as far as the Summer Court was concerned, she was descended from the original Tuatha Dé Danann bloodlines of Ireland. They themselves had been immigrants from Scandinavia, and before that . . . Well, no one knew for certain, but there was much speculation about their origin.
When she’d gone to the Summer Queen to demand Ronan’s hand even though he’d told her no, she’d expected the queen to agree because of Bella’s high placement at court. The Summer Queen had denied her petition, however, wanting to see blood flow. Not even her rank and Ronan’s previously high status would sway the Seelie Royal. The queen wanted Ronan’s head and now she had every reason to take it.
Ronan would die in the morning. The Wild Hunt would collect his soul the next night. Bella had to resign herself to the reality of the situation.
Her stomach leaden, she glanced down at the large square that separated the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. The Seelie Court was called the Rose Tower because it was constructed of rose quartz. The Unseelie Court was referred to as the Black Tower because—never to be outdone—it was made from black quartz. The delivery of large quantities of each had been allowed by human society and the Phaendir, and magick had been employed to make them useable as construction material.
Below her she could barely make out two figures—brownies, she thought—cavorting and playing in the softly falling snow. The whole city was awash in Yule parties at this time of the season. Elderberry wine, the traditionally favored drink of the fae, flowed fast and furiously. Mortals even risked passage beyond the city limits to partake of the festivities, though not all would make it back. That was the rule of Piefferburg, a prison sometimes called Purgatory, borrowing from human Christian tradition, by those who lived here. No fae could leave the city, but humans could enter, so long as they understood they became prey to anything that lived here once they passed the boundaries.
They still came. The fools.
The Phaendir, a powerful guild of druids, had created and still controlled the borders of Piefferburg with warding. They called it a “resettlement area.”
If one wanted to be philosophical about it, the fate of the fae was poetic punishment for the horrible fae race wars of the early 1600s that had decimated their population and left them easy prey to their common enemy, the Phaendir. The wars had forced the fae from the underground, and the humans had panicked in the face of the truth—the fae were real.
On top of the wars, a mysterious sickness called Watt Syndrome had also befallen them. Some thought the illness had been created by the Phaendir. However it had come about, the result was the same—it had further weakened them.
That’s when the Phaendir had allied with the humans to imprison them in an area of what had then been the New World, founded by a human named Jules Piefferburg.
These days the sects of fae who’d warred in the 1600s had reached an uneasy peace. Trapped together in Piefferburg, they were united against the Phaendir because that old human saying was true—the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Most fae felt a surprising lack of animosity toward humans who’d been so frightened of the fae and so manipulated by the Phaendir.
But not all of the fae felt that way.
These days the humans weren’t just frightened of the fae, they were also highly fascinated by them. They passed the borders of Piefferburg knowing they took their lives in their hands, yet unable to resist the draw. It had always been that way, since the dawn of human evolution. Humans were like moths drawn to the seductive and magickal faery flame. It was one of the reasons the fae had chosen to go underground so many thousands of years ago.
The Summer Queen had even allowed a human film crew to stay in residence at the Seelie Court. They produced a television show for the mortals called Faemous, which followed the social frolicking of the Rose Tower. Apparently it was the most popular program on human television. Humans were so enthralled with them that they would sit on a couch and watch fae lives played out rather than live their own lives. It was ridiculous, in Bella’s opinion.
Never to be outdone, the Shadow King, who ruled the Unseelie Court, had allowed a film crew in too, but they’d quickly become someone’s appetizers, or so Bella had heard.
She gazed across the great square to the hulking black quartz high-rise of the Unseelie Court, a place forever locked in a cold war with the shining Rose Tower. The Summer Queen only allowed in those with the untainted blood of the Seelie Tuatha Dé Danann, and even they were subject to a strict hierarchy. Although the occasional Unseelie nobles, if they possessed certain qualities, were permitted residence.
The Shadow King of the Unseelie Court took all kinds, any monster with fae blood, any creature bred between two immortals. The only prerequisite for being a member of the Black Tower was a willingness to spill blood, either into your mouth or onto the floor, it didn’t matter.
Ronan would be welcome. So, maybe, would she, since she wielded the dark arts. But the thought of living in such violence and chaos, among such monsters, made her shudder.
As she watched the soft white flakes of snow fall into the velvety darkness, movement caught her eye across the square. Lifting off into the black was the Lord of the Wild Hunt and his entourage. That mysterious figure and his Host made her blood ice more than Jack Frost’s Yuletide decoration of her windows. No one knew the man’s identity. All anyone knew was that he was a member of the Unseelie Court, and that he and his Host sometimes meted out brutal punishment to those fae who broke the law. They also reaped the souls of the Fae after they died and escorted them to the afterlife. Every night they collected them.
They’d be coming for Ronan soon.
She turned her face away from the sight of the Lord of the Hunt’s Host rising into the dark, snowy skies on massive stallion hooves and the soft padded feet of netherworld hounds. To distract herself from her thoughts, she grabbed the remote and flipped the TV on across the room. Faemous exploded onto the screen. She should have known; her housekeeper loved the twenty-four-hour-a-day coverage of the court as much as the humans.
As she went to turn it off, Ronan’s face filled the huge dimension of the screen. Bella paused.
In other news, Ronan Achaius Quinn, once celebrated Seelie Court mage, is scheduled for a morning beheading after working for the Phaendir without the Summer Queen’s leave. It’s unknown what sort of job he performed for the Phaendir, but it was enough to incur Her Majesty’s wrath.
A photo of herself popped onto the screen and Bella rolled her eyes.
One must wonder how Bella Rhiannon Caliste Mac Lyr is feeling tonight. After a scorching romance all thought long extinguished some thirty years ago, today she attempted to save the mage’s life by marrying him. As we know, she has resisted all suitors and has done so for the last three decades, ever since they parted ways. Apparently our suspicions about her still holding a torch for Ronan were correct. The announcer’s voice lowered a bit, and you could practically hear the arch of the human male’s brow. Word is, he said no. We wonder—
Bella flipped the TV off. She threw the remote to the settee and looked around her spacious, luxurious . . . empty apartment. There had been a moment or two when she’d been looking forward to sharing this space with someone . . . with Ronan. The announcer on Faemous had been right—she’d never stopped carrying a torch for him. For decades she’d tried very hard to hide that from the rest of the court, but now it would be apparent to all and she would be a laughingstock.
She didn’t regret it. She’d done all she could to save his mangy hide. His death would not weigh on her conscience.
It would only weigh on her heart.
Making a noise of disgust that echoed through her living room and into her darkened kitchen, and made her feel even lonelier than she had a moment ago, she turned and walked into her bedroom. This place was huge, yet she felt strangled most of the time. The Seelie Court was the most luxurious place in Piefferburg, yet to Bella it felt like a morgue. Stifling, too close. She longed just once to go beyond the bounds of the court and see the rest of Piefferburg, like the Ceantar Láir, fae suburbs as they were called, where the trooping fae that weren’t a part of the courts or the wild places lived. Or even the Boundary Lands, where vine and tree grew within and intertwined with the shambles of old buildings, and where the wild and solitary fae had made their homes.
She also dreamt of seeing the human world. Like many fae, she wondered what it would be like to be free. Rumor had it Ronan had seen it. Ronan had been everywhere, seen everything. He was allowed so much more freedom as a partial-blood Seelie mage than she was as a pureblood Seelie Tuatha Dé.
The irony was that she wasn’t pureblood Seelie at all.
It was a secret she’d only ever shared with her best friend, Aislinn. Bella could twist curses with her thoughts. She’d first noticed it around the time she’d turned seven, the same time a fae’s magick normally began to awaken.
Her mother and father had lived in the Rose Tower’s courtyard, next to a great Seelie lady who didn’t like children. The neighbor’s pride and joy had been an elaborate flower garden in her yard which she kept nourished with her magick even through the dead of winter. One day Aislinn accidently left her favorite doll at the edge of the garden and the lady had incinerated it on the spot, making Bella’s best friend cry. Bella had been so angry that she’d stood in her parents’ yard and stared hard at her neighbor’s labor, those roses, lilies, and orchids she kept so perfectly tended, and had wished them to wilt and die.
By the morning Bella’s will had been done. All that was left of the woman’s beautiful garden was rows of drooping gray flower heads and scorched grass.
That was Unseelie magick, dark magick. B ella had begun to wonder about her bloodline. Began to suspect. And then she’d noticed some of her other stray dark thoughts begin to manifest: her wish that her mother’s piano would be destroyed so she wouldn’t have to take lessons anymore; her hope that the water main in the school would break so they would have a free day.
And then she’d known for certain she was strong Unseelie.
She’d wondered if her mother had had an affair with one of the Unseelie court males, but the Rose and Black Towers had almost no interaction at all. In addition, her mother’s blood hardly ran hot, and she was not at all inclined to passion or impulsiveness. No, it was more likely that her father was really her father, but that somewhere down her genetic line someone had strayed to Unseelie and by some trick of fate the blood had shown up so gloriously bright in her.
Unwilling to worry them, Bella had never confronted her parents about her dark art. If she was discovered with Unseelie blood, the Summer Queen would banish her entire family from the Rose Tower and, as their money was dependent on the court, they’d be left destitute. She’d simply learned to lock down her thoughts with an iron will, not allowing herself to do any damage to anyone, making sure she didn’t inadvertently back any negative thoughts with magick.
Luckily her ability to manipulate physical flame had also developed and she could present that soft, benign magickal face to the world. She could blow out candles from across the room and make the fire in her hearth grow brighter or dimmer—that’s all that power was strong enough for. But strength of magick wasn’t a prized asset in the Rose Tower. Here it was all about your bloodline . . . and your fashion sense.
It was better for people to think her a weak Tuatha Dé Danann with pure blood than the powerful Unseelie she suspected she was.
Bella had confided her secret in Aislinn because Aislinn also possessed Unseelie blood. It had forged a bond between them and they became closer than sisters. Perhaps some subconscious link had drawn them to be friends in childhood; Bella didn’t know. She was just grateful they had each other to lean on.
Maybe Ronan suspected the blight on her bloodline. Maybe that was why he’d rejected her . . . twice.
“Stubborn man,” she muttered and slammed her bedroom door shut.
ying awake in her bed, Bella heard a slight sound a moment before a huge hand closed over her mouth. Terror jolted through her veins and she kicked and struggled until Ronan’s face came into view.
“Don’t scream.”
She shook her head and he released her. Bella scrambled back away from him a little. “You scared a year off my life, Ronan! How did you get out? Why are you here?”
“I’m here because you’re here, Bell.”
Bell. Once she’d loved it when he’d called her that.
“Bella.”
“I came because I had to talk to you.”
“Talk to me? You broke out of prison just to talk to me?” She blinked. Was she still dreaming? Nope, wide awake. “You’re slated for death in the morning.”
He grinned. “Did you really think I was going to stick around for that?”
“I never thought you had a choice.”
He was not wearing a shirt. The realization slammed into her fast and hard. Not only was Ronan in her bedroom in the middle of the night, he was shirtless. A bare-chested Ronan was her worst weakness. She refused to let her gaze slide down past his broad shoulders to that muscular, golden silk-over-steel expanse. If she looked at his chest, she’d want to glide her hands over it, and she couldn’t afford such brainless impulses right now.
“Seems I did.”
“You turned down my offer of marriage. Did you prefer death to being with me?”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I?” She made a frustrated sound and looked away from him. “Look, I don’t want to bicker with you right now. I was sleeping. What gives you the right to break in here and harass me?” She waved her hand. “Just go off and try to escape. Good luck with that, by the way. I predict you’ll be back in charmed iron by morning.”
“You weren’t sleeping.”
“How do you know?” She hadn’t been, of course. How could she sleep knowing the morning would bring his head rolling across the throne room floor?
“I remember the way you breathe when you sleep, Bella.”
Her chest tightened and all rational thought left her for a moment. They’d never had sex, but they had slept together once. Just once. He’d held her from twilight until dawn. It was one of the times in her life when she’d felt perfectly content, so she recalled it vividly. “That was decades ago and it was only one time. There’s no way you could remember that.”
A slight smile twisted his full mouth and his light blue eyes glittered in the half light. “Yes, it was decades ago, but I memorized how you breathe that night. I replay it in my dreams.”
She went motionless, caught breathless with her gaze locked on his. She had no idea what to say to that, and definitely didn’t know how to feel. The moonlight streamed in through the window, bleaching the color from his face and painting it in shades of silver. His eyes were serious, focused—intent on her in a way that made her shiver. As if he’d decided she was his. After the rejection. After all these years.
Suddenly she knew how to feel—angry.
“I have to go soon. Before I leave, I have things I need to say to you.”
“You have nothing to say that I want to hear.” Her breath hissed from between her clenched teeth. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t tell you.”
She threw her hands up. “How did you get out of the prison?”
He flashed a cocky smile. “Did you really think they could keep me?”
“Yes, actually. They had you mired in charmed iron up to your neck.” She studied him. “If you could escape, why didn’t you do it earlier?”
“I didn’t have a reason until you came to see me, Bella. You still care about me. There’s still a seed of emotion in you for me. I thought I’d crushed it a long time ago, but it’s still there.” He held out a hand to her.
What? Her mind whirled with all the implications of his words.
She looked toward the door, needing a way out. There might be a bit of truth to what he said, but it wasn’t something she wanted to face right now. He’d hurt her so badly. The last thing she needed was to show him her soft underbelly again and allow him to snap out another bloody chunk.
“You presume too much,” she said in her best icy voice.
He dropped his hand.
A hard pounding on her front door made her jump. The Summer Queen’s Imperial Guard, most likely. She leapt from the bed and grabbed his hand, pulling him toward her walk-in closet.
He resisted a little. “Where are you leading me?”
“I have a secret room behind my shoe rack.”
“Why do you have a secret room?”
She glanced at him. “Do you think I would serve in a place as treacherous as the Summer Queen’s court without a safe place to go?”
She flipped on the light and pulled a knob on the wall containing her dozens of pairs of designer shoes. A panel slid open and she pushed him through.
He hesitated, looking back at her. “How do I know you won’t turn me over to them?”
“You don’t.” She gave him a final shove and closed the panel back in place.
THREE
Flipping the closet light back off and going into her bedroom, she grabbed her bathrobe off the end of the bed. By now Lolly, her house hobgoblin, should’ve answered the door.
“Can I help you?’ Bella asked, squinting against the light in the foyer and tying her silk wrap more firmly around her. Lolly, a knobby, wrinkled hobgoblin of about five feet tall, stood near the two guards. A more loyal housekeeper was never to be found, and right now Lolly looked upset that the keepers of fae law were shadowing their doorstep. The guards were both dressed in head-to-toe rose and gold metal and wearing heavy black boots and helms. Shining swords hung at their sides. The fae had never really gotten on board with firearms.
The Imperial Guard was primarily made up of lower-blood sons and daughters of the Tuatha Dé. All were fiercely loyal to their queen. They had unmatched speed and strength and were well suited for their position.
“We’re very sorry to disturb you, my lady. We are looking for an escaped prisoner,” said the one on the left.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Ronan Achaius Quinn, no doubt.”
“Yes, Miss Mac Lyr.”
Bella smiled at Lolly, who stood as if ready to defend her mistress’s home with her life. “Thank you for answering the door. You can go back to bed, dear.”
Lolly nodded once, glared at the guard, and melted back down the darkened hallway.
Bella turned her attention back to the men. “As you are already aware, since all of Piefferburg and the free world is also aware, I asked Ronan Quinn to marry me to save him from the Wild Hunt and he refused. He chose death over marriage to me. Why do you think he would come here?”
“By order of the Summer Queen, we’re checking everywhere.”
She stepped to the side and used a supercilious tone of voice. “All right, then, search my apartment if you feel the need, but it’s a waste of your time and mine. I’d prefer to be sleeping.”
“Apologies, my lady.”
She waved her hand dismissively and they moved past her. Sinking down on the edge of her couch, she watched as they searched her place. The soft recessed lighting of the room glowed on their rose and gold armor as they respectfully moved pieces of furniture and checked possible hiding places. She held her breath as they investigated her walk-in closet, but they found nothing.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter. You serve Her Majesty well,” Bella said, escorting them to the door. “I hope you find the bastard. Since he refused me, I’d just as soon see his head roll.”
“Causing his head to roll is our objective, my lady. Have a restful night,” one of them replied as they left.
Once the door closed, Bella leaned her hand against the wall and slumped a little, releasing the breath she’d been holding.
The sound of shuffling slippers met her ears. “Is everything all right, my lady?”
Bella straightened and smiled at her housekeeper. “It’s fine, Lolly. I just don’t like having the Imperial Guard looking for a fugitive in my home, especially when it’s the man who has made me the laughingstock of the court . . . twice.”
Lolly nodded her wizened brown head. “It’s been an eventful day, to say the least. Would you like me to make you some peppermint tea?”
“That’s kind of you, but I’m exhausted. I think I’ll just retire for the night and hope no one else pounds on our door. You should get some sleep too.”
Lolly bowed her head and turned. “As you wish, my lady.”
After the light in the hallway had flipped off and Lolly’s bedroom door was once again closed, Bella hurried in and released Ronan from the hidey-hole. “They’re gone,” she said, and then gasped as he pressed her backward, crowding her against the closet wall behind her. Magick snapped around his head like a blue halo, maybe triggered by . . . what? His emotions? Could his emotions be that strong where she was concerned? It seemed unlikely.
“Ronan, what are you doing?” Her voice came out a touch too breathy for her own peace of mind.
He said nothing in response; he only stared down at her with his eyes heavily lidded. Shadows concealed half his face, but she could still tell his expression was serious, and there were sexual intentions in his eyes that made her stomach tighten and anticipation pool a little farther south. Ronan didn’t touch her, didn’t even kiss her. He only dipped his head so she could feel the heat of his mouth near hers, scent the mint on his breath. He remained so close to her skin that heat radiated from his body and warmed her.
Her hands made fists at her sides as she fought her reaction to him tooth and nail. No way was she going to make this easy for him, not after what he’d done to her. No way was she just going to give in to him now. She was no longer the young, naïve woman she’d been the first time they’d been together. She was no longer dazzled by his good looks and power.
Although the touch of him apparently dazzled her body.
She moved a little, hyperaware of all the changes his proximity was eliciting in her. This was not good. This was not something she wanted, but the only way to get it to stop was to get away from him.
“Back away from me.” Her voice sounded surprisingly even. It was a Yuletide miracle that she could sound so calm right now.
“No.” He pressed in closer and she lost her breath for a moment. His mouth came down so close to hers that she could feel the words he spoke. “I need you.”
Something she’d been holding in, all penned up and tightly lidded, bubbled up from her depths, bringing with it a swell of emotion. It burst over her like a berry in her mouth, sweet and luscious, making her melt against him for a moment and close her eyes. It would be so easy to give in, to forget and just allow this. There was still a part of her that wanted him so much, more than anything.
“It was never that I didn’t care about you,” Ronan whispered. “Bella, don’t you know that?”
“How could I know that?” Her eyes popped open and she pushed him backward, which had all of the effect of trying to move a boulder, but he stepped back anyway. “Get out, Ronan. I’ve tried to save your butt twice now and I’m done. Get out, and good luck.” She started to force her way past him, but he caught her by the elbow.
“You still care about me.”
She closed her eyes again. “Ronan . . . ”
“I’m leaving now, but I’m coming back for you. You’re mine, Bella. You always were and you still are.”
She wrenched her arm from his grasp and turned from him. “You’ve got no right to call me yours. You threw me away years ago, you bastard.”
“I made a mistake. I’ve regretted it for years. I thought at the time it was the right thing for you.”
Bella stopped short, but didn’t turn around.
“I was wrong. I have wanted to turn back the clock for decades now, make the other choice. I didn’t know until tonight that you still carried any residual feeling for me.” He paused. “But you do, don’t you? Otherwise you never would’ve offered marriage to save me.”
She said nothing for several moments, her hands clenched tightly at her sides and her mind in a whirl of surprise and confusion. Her words had left her completely. She didn’t know what to say anyway. How dare he tell her these things after he’d rejected her all those years ago and left her alone!
“I’m going to the Boundary Lands. There’s something there I need to retrieve, something I didn’t think mattered until you came to me at the prison. Now this object means everything. It will save my neck and make it possible for us to be together.”
The Boundary Lands. A little thrill went through her at the prospect.
She turned and studied him, her brow knitting. Memories of the years following his rejection of her welled up. A muscle in her jaw worked. “This object you need to get from the Boundary Lands, it’s what you stole for the Phaendir, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you, for your own safety. I’m going to retrieve this object, and when I come back, you’re mine, Bella.”
“I’m not yours. I’ll never be yours. You made sure of that three decades ago.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He didn’t believe her. Why should he? She barely believed herself. This man held a power over her that she could not deny. “As you wish.”
“I’ll see you safely out of the building and into the square. I’ll wish you luck and then we’re saying good-bye. Forever.”
His eyes clouded black for a moment. “I’ll take what I can get from you, but this doesn’t mean it’s the end. Now that I know you have a seed of emotion for me, I intend to make it grow.”
She stared at him, unable to believe the words he’d just uttered or the ferocity behind them. Not in the last thirty years could she have imagined she’d be hearing them from him. “It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late. I want you and I won’t give up until you’re mine.”
“You didn’t want me before. What makes you think I want you now?”
That made him blink. Good. His level of confidence where she was concerned disarmed and annoyed her. Her head was still spinning from the last twenty-four hours.
She turned and stalked into her bedroom, where she dressed in a pair of jeans, a warm gray sweater, and a pair of black boots.
He was lucky she had a whole stack of Yule gifts in her closet at the moment, waiting to be wrapped. Some of them were clothing items for men. After she found him a black sweater, a coat, and a pair of boots, she grabbed her own coat and they made their way out of the building.
Her shoes crunched the snow on the cobblestones as they kept to the shadows along the edges of the square. The Imperial Guard marched at the far end of the open expanse, a sight that made Bella far colder than the winter air biting through her heavy burgundy coat.
Above their heads, the Wild Hunt returned to the Unseelie Court, their pockets stuffed full with fresh souls, perhaps. The air above Bella and Ronan stirred, and the soft sounds of wings and the baying of the hounds broke the snow-laden quiet.
But Ronan’s soul wasn’t in that mysterious dark man’s possession. At least, not yet.
A block away, two revelers laughed and drunkenly slapped each other on the back, on their way home from a Yuletide fete, no doubt. All the evergreens around the edges of the square gave off a gentle glow of festivity, dressed with lights and ornaments. Even the much abused and hated statue of Jules Piefferburg, founder and architect of the fae prison, was dressed in Yuletide finery. He even had a sprig of holly tucked behind one charmed iron ear. Normally they dressed the statue as a woman or adorned it in rotten fruits and vegetables. If it hadn’t been made of charmed iron, much worse would have been done.
“There, you’re in the square. Good luck, Ronan. I sincerely wish you well. May you successfully evade the guard and return with the object, victorious.” She turned back toward her building.
A hand clamped down over her wrist. “Don’t put me too far from your mind, Bella. I’m coming back for you.”
She turned back to him with wide eyes, her surprised breath huffing out white in the cold air. “Let go of me. All I have to do is scream and the guards will come running.”
Magick tingled against her skin. A bolt of blue darted across his pupils, like lightning. “You wouldn’t. I know you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t make assumptions when your life is at stake.”
A rustling came from nearby. The tromp of imperial boots in the snow. Suddenly panicked for him, she pushed him backward into the shadows and then followed. The reaction was instantaneous; she needed to protect him. It proved everything he’d said, but she wasn’t about to admit it.
“Ronan Achaius Quinn and Bella Rhiannon Caliste Mac Lyr, stop in the name of the Summer Queen.”
“Gods damn it. They saw you,” Ronan growled. In one smooth move, he had her over his shoulder and was running along the wall toward the shadows between the buildings.
The guards shouted and gave chase, boots in multitude crushing the snow and ice in pursuit. Ronan muttered a few words of Old Maejian, the ancient language of the Tuatha Dé, and a duplicate image of Ronan and Bella split from their bodies and headed in the opposite direction, running across the square while they—the real they—melted seam lessly into the inkiness of the space near the base of the Rose Tower.
The guards took the bait, changed directions, and followed the illusion. Magick like Ronan’s came in handy.
“Let me down!”
He stopped and eased her to the snowy pavement. He’d covered their snow tracks with another illusion. He paced away from her, pushing a hand through his hair. “Bloody hell, Bella. You have to come with me now. I didn’t want this. It’s too dangerous.”
“Yes, well, I don’t want to go either.” Even though a part of her did. He was going to the Boundary Lands and she very much wanted to see them.
And maybe that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to go with him.
“I’ll tell them I coerced you into going with me.”
“The guards clearly saw me trying to protect you, Ronan.”
He swore under his breath. “It doesn’t matter. Once I have the object, I’ll be able to bargain with the Summer Queen for anything.”
She tried, and failed, to imagine what could compel the Summer Queen to forgive Ronan of all his trespasses, and Bella’s too. Her voice lowered. “What did you do for the Phaendir, Ronan?”
He smiled, his teeth white against his golden skin. “I stole something for them and then I stole it from them. Something very rare and powerful.”
FOUR
Ronan studied Bella as she walked under the soft glow of the intermittent streetlights with snowflakes catching in her long dark hair and on the shoulders of her burgundy coat. She glanced at him. She’d drawn her normally lush mouth into a thin line and narrowed her eyes.
They were making their way farther into the Ceantar Láir, the area where most of the fae in Purgatory lived, the trooping fae—all those who didn’t belong to one of the courts and weren’t wildlings. The Ceantar Láir formed a half ring between downtown Piefferburg and the Boundary Lands, and there was a lot of water in it and many bridges. They were walking because any other sort of transport right now was too risky. Metal amplified tracking spells.
“Give it up, Bella.”
“I’ll never give anything up to you.” She continued her march.
He missed a step at the venom in her voice and watched her walk past him. His objective was to make that a lie. Right now he lived for it. He wanted her to give everything up to him. He wanted to fuck her luscious body from twilight to morn—every way she’d allow him—with no sounds issuing from her lips but sighs, moans, entreaties for more, and his name.
The phrase I love you wouldn’t go amiss either.
He picked up his pace to catch up. “You don’t even know where you’re going so fast.”
“Anywhere far away from you is acceptable.”
“You wound me.” He fell into step beside her.
“I’d like to do more than just wound you.”
“You just saved my head, Bella. I don’t believe it, unless you mean something else,” he finished with a suggestive lilt to his voice.
She colored a little. With skin as fair as hers, it was easy to see even in the gentle glow of the streetlights. “I’m only coming with you because I have to.”
“Okay.” He shrugged one broad shoulder. “Like I said, I’ll take what I can get from you. Before we travel to the outreaches of Piefferburg, we need to visit a friend. I need the ingredients for a spell for magickal countermeasures.”
“What kind of countermeasures?”
“I need to block their tracking spell. Even now they’re figuring out where we are and coming after us. Is your magick strong enough to block a tracking spell?”
Bella hugged herself. “You know it’s not.”
“Then we need to make a stop first. Afterward we’ll find somewhere to sleep. It’s cold and we’re both exhausted.”
She eyed the rows of neat houses they passed. Each of them was unique to the type of fae it housed. The brownies’ abodes were small and round, while the Formorian houses were large enough to shelter a family of giants. The effect was discombobulation, unevenness, chaos. So unlike the neat suburban neighborhoods of the humans, where all the houses looked alike and everyone cut the grass to exactly three inches.
Dear Gods, how Ronan loved Piefferburg. He’d been beyond the borders, thanks to the Phaendir. He’d seen the human world. All the fae wanted out of here, but he couldn’t see why. There was no magick out there.
“I guess hotels are out,” she muttered.
“In a normal hotel, even with countermeasures, the guard would track us so fast our heads would spin off our shoulders.” He grinned. “Never fear. I know the perfect place.”
She gave him a suspicious sidelong glance. “Where?”
“A love hotel.”
Her steps faltered. “A what?” Her gorgeous brown eyes grew wide.
“You’ve lived a sheltered life. A love hotel is a totally anonymous establishment. You check in via an unmoni tored computer system and pay cash for the room. Very popular with the affair-having set. Small, simple rooms, since usually people don’t go there for the décor.”
“They go there for the bed.”
“They go there to fuck.”
She averted her gaze, looking straight ahead. “No way.”
“You’re going if you don’t want to freeze to death, or be captured by the Queen’s Guard, or both.”
“Why couldn’t you have just left me alone? I could be home in bed right now.”
His boots crunched the snow-covered ground. “Why didn’t you leave me alone? You could have left me in my prison if you’d wanted and you didn’t. I didn’t want to put you in danger. I didn’t want you on this journey, but maybe it’s better you’re out of your prison too.”
“Prison? What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Bell, you know as well—”
“Bella.”
“—as I do that all the Seelie nobles are locked in a prison.”
“Every fae in Piefferburg is a prisoner, Ronan.”
“You know what I mean. The Seelie are expected to behave a certain way. They’re indoctrinated into a restrictive culture and told half-truths and outright lies about the outside world. Being born into that court is akin to being born with shackles on for an eternity.”
“Wow, Ronan. You never used to feel this way. When I knew you, you weren’t so negative about the Seelie. Is it because they recently tried to get rid of you?”
He shook his head. “My opinion of the Seelie Court has never changed. I petitioned the Summer Queen to reside in the Rose Tower because I had a good reason to do so, that’s all.”
“What was your reason?”
His reason had been her. He’d visited on an errand for the Shadow King all those years ago, had met Bella and fallen in love with her. He’d petitioned the Summer Queen immediately for residency. Circumstances being what they were, he’d been forced to eventually end his affair with Bella, but he’d never wanted to leave her proximity, so he’d remained in the Rose instead of returning to the Black. No matter how much it had hurt to see her so often and never be with her, he’d remained. “I stayed at the Rose Tower for you.”
“Stop, Ronan. Just stop. You confuse me.”
“Let me explain.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You have no idea how badly you broke my heart. I don’t want to hear it. I just want to get through this.” She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. “Where is this hotel, anyway?”
“In good time. We’re almost at my friend’s place.”
She looked down the quiet, snowy, house-lined street. Then she looked back at their footprints on the walk behind them, quickly being covered over with a frosting of snow. “Your friend lives in the Ceantar Láir?”
“No, not exactly.” He murmured a low, magickally charged Maejian phrase, took two steps forward, and disappeared.
ella stopped short and blinked. His hand reached out of nowhere and yanked her forward . . . into nowhere.
The world was hazy for a moment, then grew clear and sharp once more. They were no longer in the Ceantar Láir. A dark, gritty street now surrounded her. No snow, but the chill bit deeply into her bones. He’d stepped them into a pocket, moved them from the Ceantar Láir back to the downtown area with one murmured phrase and a dash of strong magick.
Bella understood instantly that this was a part of the downtown area where the Seelie weren’t encouraged to visit. They were on the other side of Piefferburg Square, and the smooth black quartz of the Unseelie Court rose directly behind the small buildings to her right. This alley was nestled somewhere at the back of the Unseelie Court, right at its base.
“We’re standing in the shadow of the Black Tower,” Bella whispered, turning a wary circle on the snow-dusted cobblestones.
“Yes. We’re right at the door of the Piefferburg witch.”
“The Piefferburg witch is a friend, Ronan?” Her breath caught. “She’s Unseelie.”
He flashed his teeth. “So am I, Bella.”
It was hard to keep in mind that he’d been a member of the Black Tower a lot longer than he’d been a resident of the Rose. “You have some of that blood, but you’re not so . . . so Unseelie as the Piefferburg witch.”
“I am very Unseelie Tuatha Dé. Almost one hundred percent, in fact. Only a drop of Seelie to muddy the pool. Do you have a problem with that, Shining One?” The voice was old, broken, gritty as the pavement Bella stood on. The woman’s body matched. The Piefferburg witch stood in a narrow doorway, the light of a small room behind her glowing softly, invitingly. “Don’t stare, child. It’s rude.” The wizened crone disappeared into the tiny building. “Come in, please.”
Without hesitation, Ronan followed. Bella studied the doorway for a heartbeat, snowflakes drifting onto her cheeks and melting, then she entered.
Candlelight cast dancing shadows on the walls and revealed a table with three chairs. All along the walls were shelves filled with books, boxes, and jars. All of it was in terrible disarray. The scent of dried plants, herbs, and various other items used in the witch’s special brand of magic assaulted Bella’s nose.
The ancient-looking witch bowed with a swiftness and flexibility that Bella could not believe. “It’s an honor to have such a high-ranking Seelie in my humble shop.” The scorn in her voice said otherwise. “You are Bella Rhiannon Caliste Mac Lyr, descended without taint from the first Seelie Tuatha Dé Danann. I’ve seen you on Faemous, of course.”
Bella didn’t respond to the mockery she heard in the words.
With a wave of her hand, the crone transformed into a beautiful young blond woman wearing a shimmering green dress that hit her mid-thigh and a matching pair of kitten heels. Her makeup was flawless and beautiful; glittering bobs hung at her ears, and a matching pendant nestled in the hollow of her throat.
“Oh, my sweet Danu.” One might think that living in the Rose Tower would have exposed Bella to powerful magicks, but that was not true. None of the Seelie she knew had power like this. It had all been bred out of them in an effort to keep the bloodlines true. It was ironic and a pity.
“Don’t show off, Priss,” said Ronan, who was examining a crystal ball on the other side of the room.
The witch pouted. “I get so few pure Seelie. Let me play.”
Bella lowered her hand from her mouth and forcibly wiped the awe from her expression. “I’ve heard of you. You’re the only witch in Purgatory.”
“Incorrect.” Priss the witch raised an eyebrow. “I’m the only one of my kind in all the world.” She changed form again, this time to an older, pregnant woman. She wore overalls and a red kerchief wound through her auburn hair. Beautiful, maternal.
Maiden. Mother. Crone. She was all of them. A unique fae creature created from Unseelie and low-blood Seelie pairings, with unimaginable power. This was the Piefferburg witch.
Now she was back to crone. She cackled and crooked a finger at Bella. “I know what you two want and I have it.” She shuffled to one of the shelves and pulled a small wooden box from it. Slanting a sly gaze at her, the witch said, “I trust you can pay?”
She had a moment of unease. Arranging for payment with the fae was fraught with double meanings, loopholes, and treachery. “What am I buying?”
Ronan answered. “Supplies to weave a cloaking spell. A way to cover our tracks and make it more difficult for the Imperial Guard to track us.” He paused. “And I’m buying it.”
“Never mind. I’m giving the ingredients to you for free, just for the pleasure of watching the will of the Summer Queen thwarted.” The witch crackled again. “The circus is in town and I’ll gladly pay for my seat.”
Priss the witch shuffled back over to them with the box in hand. Both Bella and Ronan came close to peer inside as she pushed the carved top open on a whine of rusty hinges. Whatever was inside—Bella wasn’t sure she wanted to know—smelled dry and slightly decayed.
Whatever the contents, Ronan palmed the box like it was something precious and followed Priss to another shelf, where he gathered more vials and small boxes. Then Priss led him to the back of the room, where there was a counter with a large brass bowl and mystical-looking implements that Bella couldn’t name.
Priss caught Bella craning her neck to see, and she cackled. “Intrigued a bit by the dark arts, Shining One?”
Bella’s spine stiffened. “I’m not afraid of it, if that’s what you mean.”
“A Seelie who is not afraid of the dark.” The witch shook her head. “I never met one. You’re lying.” Summarily dismissing her, Priss turned and began fussing with the jars on her shelves in the dimly lit room.
Ronan worked at the back table while Bella peered curiously at her surroundings, wondering exactly how Priss achieved the clown car effect of such a large room existing in a space that appeared outwardly to be so tiny. Clearly her home was in an alternate pocket somewhere else within the boundaries of Piefferburg.
Leaving a scatter of dried herb on the table, Ronan approached her with the original rare wooden box in his hand. “The spell is woven. All we need to do now is set it in place.” He came close enough to her so she could feel his body heat.
Ronan murmured under his breath and power swelled in the air, putting pressure in Bella’s eardrums. She took a step back just as Ronan blew into the box, puffing the dry concoction into her face. Bella’s body shook from the inside out, a strange sensation that made her gasp. Magick clung for a moment on her skin and in her hair before dissipating into the air. As she shook and acclimated to the spell covering her body, Ronan inhaled his own dose.
“So this will keep us safe?” Bella asked.
Ronan shrugged one shoulder. “There are countermeasures for countermeasures. I was one of the queen’s mages and I know the others are all good. We can’t be totally sure we’re protected, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Better than nothing. Great.”
“Thank you for your help, Priss. Can you let us out near the Ceantar Dubh?”
That was nowhere near the Boundary Lands. Couldn’t the witchy subway system get them closer? “Ceantar Dubh? Why can’t she let us out—” She stopped herself before she blurted out more than the witch needed to know. Bella’s gaze darted to the old woman, who smiled at her. “You know, where we need to go.”
“Priss’s abilities in this regard are driven by the magick of the fae. The more fae in an area, the stronger her magick. Therefore, she’s limited to downtown and the Ceantar Láir.”
The witch shrugged and waved her hand. “Anything for you, Ronan. The location is set.” She grinned, showing broken teeth. “As always, I thank you for your patronage.”
"How, exactly, do you know her?” Bella asked as they “stepped back into the narrow alley.
He cast a sidelong glance at her. “Jealous of an old woman?”
“First off, I’m not jealous. I’m just curious. Second, she’s not always an old woman.”
Ronan glanced at her and gave her a small, secretive smile. “No, that’s true. Not all the time.”
Bella rolled her eyes.
“I know her,” Ronan said, pulling her down the alley, “because she stocks the ingredients necessary to create many of my spells. Out of all the fae in Piefferburg, with the exception of my brother, Niall, her magick is closest to my own. She’s not one of my lovers.”
One of his lovers. So, he had many. It pinched. Bella couldn’t deny that fact. She shouldn’t care, but she couldn’t help that she did.
FIVE
He murmured something and they stepped through another pocket, this time into a different part of the downtown area, one that Bella had been to only a handful of times, as it wasn’t an upscale shopping area.
Storefronts were closed this late at night and so close to the winter solstice. Yuletide lights blinked merrily in the windows, wishing passersby a merry season filled with joy. The occasional fae could be seen walking down the cobblestone street, huddled in a coat, but this was the downtown business district and there weren’t any Yuletide revelers to be seen like there were near the square.
In front of them rose a tall brick building with a red hostelry sign blinking on the front. They were at the infamous “love hotel,” apparently.
“See? We’re here. Knowing Priss can be very helpful.” He walked into the building.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Bella grumbled before following him and wondering just how many of his lovers he’d taken to this place. The thought left her stomach a little sour.
One computer stood in the small entry room, the cursor on the black screen blinking at them. Ronan went to it.
“Are you sure you trust this?” Bella asked, coming up next to him. “This place could be saturated in magick or inhabited with fae who are able to secret themselves away and spy. I mean, you said people use this place for conducting carnal affairs, right? Can you imagine all the reasons to monitor activity? Suspicious spouses? Blackmail? Pure unadulterated voyeurism?”
“The spell I cast on us will protect us from any magickal surveillance, Bella.” He typed something into the computer and paid for the room with cash by feeding the bills into the appropriate slots, and a key slid out near the keyboard. “Relax. We’ll get some sleep and we can continue our journey in the morning.”
Her body was achy with fatigue and her muscles tight with stress. He walked to her and laid his hands on her shoulders. The heat of his touch melted through the fabric of her shirt and into her skin. She stared at the collar of his sweater, where she could see a few dark chest hairs and his smooth, warm skin over hard, rippling muscle. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering what it all would feel like under her fingers, her lips. The scent of him teased her nose, a combination of his soap and aftershave—the quintessential smell that was simply him. It made her feminine muscles deep within clench with sudden desire, bringing her body to an almost abrupt sexual awareness.
Ah, Danu, just his proximity made her knees go weak. She had no defenses against this man. She hadn’t had them thirty years ago and she hadn’t developed any since.
“Bella, look at me.”
With effort, she raised her gaze to his.
“Relax.”
Fat chance of that in a love hotel with the one man she’d always wanted but could never have. Still, she did need to relax a little, or soon her clenched jaw would be churning out diamonds made from her teeth.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, I’m relaxed.” At least for a second or two.
He waved a flat plastic room key in front of her nose. “Good. Then let’s get some sleep.”
The room was small, barely enough space for two people to get around in. A window on the far wall revealed the lovely view of a fire escape and the brick side of the neighboring building. The bed—a king size—was the only piece of furniture. There were no dressers, no chairs, not even a lamp or a bad painting on the wall. It was clear what the room was meant for . . . and it wasn’t for relaxing weekends away from home. Bella almost turned and walked the other way once she’d crossed the threshold, but Ronan caught her arm.
“There’s only one bed.” It was a stupid, obvious comment, but her tongue couldn’t find any intelligent words at the moment.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take the floor.”
She eyed the small space. “There’s not enough floor for you to take.”
“I’ll manage. The rooms are small so they can pack a bunch into one building. These places make a ton of money.”
“Great.” She curled her lip at the garish green design of the coverlet and eyed the dark entrance to what was undoubtedly a closet-sized bathroom. “I think I prefer my apartment.”
“Not all the fae are as blessed as the Seelie, Bella.”
“Is the room clean, at least?”
“Spotless. It’s run by the Uruisg. You know how clean-crazy they are.”
The Uruisg were a breed of Scottish brownies, a slightly more nightmarish cousin to her house goblin, Lolly. Aside from being known for their cleanliness, in ancient times they’d had a tendency to harass unwary human travelers for the fun of it, back when the fae were supposed to be underground. Some of them had been unable to leave humans completely alone.
So, apparently, the Uruisg had gone from tormenting travelers to hosting them.
That was called irony.
He entered the room, pulling off his coat and his sweater with a tired groan as he went. Bella averted her eyes and lingered in the doorway. Stepping into that room was going to be like stepping into fire. She didn’t want to get burned, but the flame was so very pretty.
She fidgeted and frowned. “Maybe I could get my own room.”
He glanced at her and shook his head. “And if the Imperial Guard shows up? If you’re in your own unlocked room, by your choice, how could I convince them I kidnapped you?”
“They saw me helping you, Ronan.”
“I’d still try to convince them I’d coerced you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought you said we were safe with your spell on us.”
He spread his hands, shirt fisted in one hand. “No one can predict the future, Bella. No one can know every possible angle. Magick is a never-ending tangle of possibilities.” Ronan swept low in a courtly bow. “Please, enter, my lady. I promise I won’t bite.”
Maybe he wouldn’t bite, but the mischievous look on his face convinced Bella he might want to nibble a bit. The problem was she wasn’t completely sure she didn’t want him to nibble.
She entered the room anyway.
His hands went to the top button of his pants. She looked away. “I’m going to take a shower, if you don’t mind. I still have prison stink on me.” At the shake of her head, he headed into the bathroom.
With a grateful sigh of relief for a few moments alone to collect her thoughts, she sank down on the bed and stared at the closed bathroom door. The water was turned on, and after a minute steam rolled from beneath the door. She wasn’t going to think about Ronan naked, wet and soapy under the spray of the hot water.
So, of course, that’s all she did.
Pulling off her coat, she slumped back against the pillows and recalled the first time they’d met. The Seelie Court was small in comparison with the rest of Piefferburg, but it operated through a system of social cliques. Ronan had come to the court on an errand for the Shadow King. He’d lived in the Black Tower since he’d been a child, along with his brother, who still resided there. He and Bella had met in the hallway that day and it had been like an electric shock for her. She’d been immediately smitten.
Ronan had been scheduled to be there for a week on and off, acting as a messenger for his king. At the end of that week, he’d shocked them all by applying to stay in the Rose Tower. The Shadow King was incensed. The Summer Queen allowed it because taking one of the Unseelie was a way to embarrass the Black Tower’s Royal, and besides, Ronan was physically attractive and had captured the imagination of most of the women at court. It also didn’t hurt that he was a powerful mage. The queen quickly employed him as one of her personal assistants.
Due to the uniqueness of the circumstances—an Unseelie coming to their side of the square, even if said individual had some Seelie blood, was highly unusual—everyone assumed he was sleeping with the queen. That he was her pet, so to speak. Even Bella had believed that to be the case at first.
But of all the women at court, Ronan seemed to have his eye set on Bella. Every time they passed each other in the corridor, his dark gaze would hold hers with such a carnal intensity that her cheeks would heat and her heart would thump. At banquets and balls he always managed to sit near her or brush against her. Bella wasn’t the only one who noticed it. Aislinn had commented on Ronan’s fascination with her often.
Secretly, it had thrilled her.
It had also worried her, because if the queen had taken Ronan as her lover, Her Majesty would not be pleased if he was attracted to another woman. Bella rather enjoyed her head on her shoulders.
So one evening Bella took matters into her own hands. She cornered Ronan and asked him point-blank what sort of game he was playing with her life. That was when Ronan told her he wasn’t sleeping with the queen . . . and then he’d kissed her.
Ronan’s hadn’t been the first kiss of her life, but it had been the first kiss that made her knees go weak and her toes curl. It had been the first kiss that had ever blanked her mind clean of rational thought, made her bones turn soft as warm butter. It hadn’t been her last kiss from Ronan, nor had it been her last kiss, period.
Still, brushing her fingers across her mouth even now, she could recall the first touch of his lips.
They’d shared a strong romance from that day forward, though they’d never slept together. The court had buzzed about their affair and even the queen took notice. The Seelie Royal finally asked Ronan what his intentions toward Bella were and gave him her blessing if he chose to ask Bella to marry him. That’s when Ronan, in front of the entire court, had declared he was finished with her.
Just like that.
In love one minute and publicly dumped the next.
Bella’s heart had shattered. His rejection of her had been humiliating, but it had been her broken heart that had made her literally sick.
Even worse had been the years of having to live at court with him. She became a master at avoiding him, until she’d decided her pride couldn’t allow that kind of behavior. They said hello once in a while in a corridor, made small talk when forced. She’d tried to build a wall of non-emotion between him and herself. She’d never managed it. Not quite.
Ronan emerged from the bathroom wearing only a towel around his middle. Water droplets still clung to his chest, and his dark hair was slicked back, throwing his handsome face into sharp relief.
Bella sat up against the pillows and cleared her throat. There was not even close to enough fabric covering that man. His smooth golden chest, back, and arms rippled and flexed with every movement he made. She knew it was only some primitive female mating directive that made her react to all that muscle and strength. That’s what made her want to lick him all over. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact it was Ronan. Nothing. She fussed with the coverlet as Ronan moved around the edge of the bed, closer to her.
“I won’t drop my towel, I swear.”
Anger flared in a hot rush through her veins. She glanced at him. “It doesn’t matter to me. Drop it. See if I care.”
“Okay.” He removed the towel and she turned her head away, but not before she got an eyeful of his narrow hips and long, wide cock.
“You’re blushing, Bella. I thought you didn’t care.”
“Danu, Ronan.” She cleared her throat again and concentrated hard on the opposite wall. It was better to change the subject and fast. Something. Anything. “Tell me what it’s like in the Unseelie Court.”
“The Unseelie Court?” He pulled on his pants and zipped them up, then worked the towel through his damp hair. “I told you my impression of the Black Tower long ago.”
“Tell me again.”
He shrugged. “It’s dangerous, but not as bad as you’ve been led to believe. The Summer Queen likes to demonize the Unseelie. Although it’s true it’s where the dark fae live. It can be brutal and violent, but it’s not the absolute evil that most of the Seelie Court believes it to be. The Seelie Royal herself is darker than many of the fae who live in the Black Tower.”
Bella disagreed. The Seelie Queen’s magick was dark in nature, and she had the will to spill blood—which she’d demonstrated amply over her long lifetime—but her magick could not be used directly to cause harm. She could only take life if it was in defense of herself or her court, and the darker portion of her power was never passed on to her progeny. That was the law of the Seelie and the confines of the royal station.
“But to be Unseelie one must love to spill blood, that’s the saying. One must be able to kill with one’s magick. You don’t enjoy spilling blood and that’s why you came to Seelie.”
“No, you’re wrong.” He shook his head. “I came to the Rose Tower for you and no other reason, Bella. If I had never met you I would still reside in the Black.”
She looked away from him, her jaw locking. Right. Then why had he dumped her and broken her heart?
He dropped the towel on the bed. “My magick is dark and I can cast spells that will take someone’s life. It’s that capacity that makes me welcome in the Unseelie Court. I have the ability to kill with my magick; I just don’t have the will.” He paused and then said gently, “There are many more Seelie than you can imagine in the Summer Queen’s court who have Unseelie blood.”
Her gaze jerked upward and locked with his. She had the capacity to spill blood with her magick. Did he know that somehow? Did Ronan know she was Unseelie?
“Many Seelie carrying the DNA of the Unseelie? That’s impossible. A couple, I could imagine.” Herself and Aislinn, namely.
He held her gaze in a way that unsettled her. “There’s more crossover than you might think. More liaisons between the Seelie and Unseelie than you can imagine. It’s secret on the rose side, considered shameful, but not so much on the black.”
She licked her lips and fiercely examined the fabric of the blanket covering the bed. If what Ronan said was right, they’d been fed a pack of lies about the supposed flip side of the fae coin. Even if it was possible that many more Seelie were in a predicament like hers and Aislinn’s, she still wished she could shake her attraction to the dark.
Just as she wished she could shake her attraction to Ronan.
Mastering her emotions so they didn’t show on her face, she commented, “Maybe one day I’ll see it, the Black Tower, I mean.”
“No.” Ronan shook his head and pulled his shirt back over it. For a moment Bella mourned the loss of his bare chest. “It’s not as bad as you think, Bella, but if I have anything to say about it, you’ll never find out firsthand.”
She glanced up at him. “Why? Don’t you think I can handle it?”
“You can handle anything, but the Black Tower is too dangerous for someone who hasn’t grown up there.”
“So what’s with being so protective of me?”
“You haven’t figured it out yet, Bell?”
Their gazes held for a moment, until she broke away and scooted off the mattress. “I’m going to use the bathroom.”
She inched around the bed and went directly into the bathroom to wash her face and shed as much clothing as she could to sleep better. When she exited, Ronan was on the floor, lying wedged on his side between the bed and the wall. She wasn’t going to think for a minute about how uncomfortable he must be. He’d been the one to get himself into this situation, after all, not her.
Bella crawled onto the bed and lay down with a heavy sigh.
She wasn’t going to think about what this bed was normally used for, either.
SIX
The light snicked out in the quiet air and the room sank into inkiness. Outside the window, fat snowflakes had begun to drift down again, catching and melting on the metal of the fire escape. Tomorrow night was Yule, and all the fae in Piefferburg were celebrating the coming of the longest night of the year. The day after Yule the light would begin to increase and rule the world once again.
“Why did you do it?” she asked, her voice startling in the quiet. “The job for the Phaendir? I know you won’t tell me what you stole for them, but can you tell me why you did it?”
Silence.
“Ronan?”
“Sometimes you guide your life down a path where it seems like you have nothing to lose, so why not?”
“That’s not really an answer.” She sighed. “You’re the king of non-answers and games.”
He remained silent for several moments before saying, “It is an answer. You’re just not listening closely enough.”
Rolling to her side, she sighed again. “Ronan, you’re a mystery to me. There was a time in our lives when I thought I knew everything about you, but now you’re nothing but an enigma.”
“You always did like puzzles.”
“Ugh. Go to sleep.” Bella flopped onto her back, closed her eyes, and tried to follow her own advice, but her muscles were tight with stress.
On top of it, every couple of seconds she would hear Ronan shift on the floor, trying to get comfortable.
“Ronan, get into bed. There’s no sense in you being down there when this bed could fit three people.” She winced, wondering how many times the bed really had fit three people.
He crawled onto the bed. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said on a groan as he lay down.
“Just remember it’s an invitation to get into bed, not into me.”
“I value my balls. I know better than to try anything with you right now.”
Silence and darkness descended, intimacy closing around them like a velvet fist. His body heat radiated out and melted into her, relaxing her better than a massage. The stress leached from her body and drowsiness closed over her. Finally, she slept.
ella awoke to a picture of enticement almost too strong to resist. Ronan lay on his back in just his low-slung pants, the top of his dark blue briefs visible at the waistband. His feet were bare, as was the muscled, lickable expanse of his chest. One strong arm was thrown over his face, shielding his eyes from the dawn streaming in through the uncurtained window—undoubtedly designed to get the hotel guests out of the room as quickly as possible in the morning. His other arm was thrown wide on the mattress, his hand reaching out in unconscious supplication toward her.
Bella eyed his broad hand with a mixture of alarm and contentedness.
Dear Danu, she needed counseling. Apparently this man was the worst kind of addictive drug. No matter how low her addiction brought her, a part of her still needed more. Maybe her hormones were reversed in some masochistic way, making her want only the men who were the absolute worst for her.
Her gaze skated down the smooth sweep of his chest, to the jut of his lean hip bones. Her teeth made furrows into her lower lip. It had been a long time since she’d had sex. That was obviously not a good thing, since her libido was unnaturally revved up by the sight of Ronan.
“Good morning,” came Ronan’s sleep-raspy voice.
Her gaze jerked to his face. She was well and fully clothed, but in that moment she felt naked in front of him. Could he tell that the sight of him excited her? Did he know that his mere presence in her bed helped her to sleep? Could he read all that on her face? “Good morning.”
“Sleep okay? You’ve got dark smudges beneath your eyes.”
“I didn’t sleep enough, but I’ll be all right. We should get going. I want you to get this object back, whatever it is, and clean this mess up as soon as we can so I can get back to my life.” Such as it was.
“That’s my plan too.” He pushed up on his elbows. “Thank you for coming with me.”
She finally felt able to look him in the eye again. “I only came because I had to.”
He held her gaze. “Really? Is that true?”
Her impulse was to look away, but she was mesmerized by the look in his eyes. “Why did you reject me all those years ago, Ronan?”
The question had slipped out on a whisper, without her even understanding she’d asked it until it was too late. Those words had been locked up within her for so many years, it felt great to finally let them free. Even though coldness at the possibilities of Ronan’s answer coated her stomach and throat. She’d imagined them all at some point over the years. I never loved you topped the list of her nightmares.
She barreled ahead, suddenly sorry she’d asked. “The queen was ready to allow us to marry and I really thought you”—she swallowed hard—“cared about me. Then out of the nowhere you stood up in front of the court and rejected me.”
He exhaled slowly. “I was stupid, Bell. I thought I was protecting you from what our union would bring.” He paused and rubbed his face with a hand, looking weary all of a sudden.
Bella blinked. That wasn’t one of the answers she’d imagined. “That makes no sense. What does that mean?”
Ronan reached for her hand, but she pulled away before he could touch her. His hand closed into a fist. “You have Unseelie blood.”
Her heart stopped, skipped, and then began beating rapidly. “How can you know that?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “I’m not sure how I know. It’s a part of my power. I just do. Your blood sings to mine. It’s one of the things that first attracted me to you, but, Bella, if they ever found out, the Summer Queen would toss you out of the Seelie Court. You don’t have the novelty of powerful magick to keep yourself in her favor.”
She swallowed hard. “I am aware.”
He took her hands. “Imagine if we had children, you and I. Any offspring of ours would have strong, dark magick and the Seelie Court would know. I thought that if I left you, if we never created a child together, you’d be safe. Even though it would kill me to watch it, I thought you’d find yourself a Seelie nobleman and have children with only a small bit of Unseelie in them. You’d be all right.”
She’d been so in love with Ronan—and so young—she’d never thought very deeply about the possibility of having children with him. Infertility was rampant among the fae, keeping their population low, but it was possible she and Ronan could produce offspring who had strong dark magick. And they wouldn’t be able to use birth control to prevent conception because no method of birth control for the fae seemed to work. Not even condoms were effective. When a fae female conceived, it was a little like magick—it just happened, no matter if the couple had been taking every precaution.
It was dumb. She should’ve thought about it. After all, she remembered the disgraced Maugin family who had been banished from the Rose Tower after their child had turned up Unseelie. That family’s wealth had been based on their lineage, and they’d been supported financially by the rest of the fae. Surely they’d slipped into poverty now, unless the Shadow King had taken them in. They’d lost everything. Her family would’ve too, if she’d been discovered as a child.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you love your place at the Seelie Court more than you loved me?”
“No!” He swore low under his breath. “I don’t give a damn about the Seelie Court. I’d leave it tomorrow if it weren’t for you. You cared about your place at court, Bella. That’s what I was protecting.”
She stared at him in stunned silence for a several moments before whispering, “I never loved it more than I loved you, Ronan.”
“I know that now, though I didn’t realize it back then. I made a mistake and I paid for it. I could never move on after I let you go. I found my soul mate in you and losing you slowly destroyed me over the years. Still, better me than you, Bella. Back then I thought banishment from the Rose Tower really would destroy you.”
“You were wrong. All I needed was you.” The rest of the words she could’ve said left her, and all the saliva on her tongue dried up. Bella exhaled slowly and got off the bed. She needed some time to absorb what he’d told her. She’d spent years imagining he’d say something . . . well, something other than that.
Once off the bed, she whirled to face him. Seems she had words after all. “Why didn’t you tell me back then why you were rejecting me? Why did you let me live all those years thinking I’d done something wrong or that you’d used me in some way?”
“I thought it was better if you hated me. I assumed that if I told you I knew you had Unseelie blood, you’d argue with me. You might have wanted to leave the Seelie Court to be with me and I couldn’t allow that.”
“Yes, you’re right. That’s exactly what I would’ve done.”
He pushed off the bed and paced to the bathroom and back. “You’re in the highest ranks of the Seelie, Bell. You’ve had money your whole life. You’ve had luxury and servants. If the Summer Queen threw you out of the Seelie Court, you’d have to give all that up. You’d live in poverty. You don’t know how hard it would be—”
“Don’t treat me like I’m a child, Ronan! Don’t assume I’m some ignorant, lovesick woman who, in her naïveté, assumed life would be all puppies and sunshine as long as we were together. I knew back then that leaving the Seelie Court would be hard. Don’t you think, knowing that I had Unseelie blood, I would have considered it?” She clenched her fists and made a frustrated sound. “All I want—wanted—was to be with you, Ronan. I would”—she made another sound of frustration—“would’ve given up any amount of physical luxury in order to bind my life with my soul mate’s.” She bored a hole into him with her gaze. “I knew back then you were my soul mate, Ronan. Knew it.”
Ronan only stood and stared at her with an unreadable expression on his face.
Bella drew a shaky breath, gathering herself, and waved a hand. “It’s done now, all over with. Out of love and a desire to protect me, you made a high-handed decision that ruined my life. I get it.”
“It ruined my life too, Bella. I can only say that I thought I was doing the right thing for you.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, you weren’t.” A breath huffed out of her. “So why tell me all of this now?”
“Because now I know you always loved me as much I loved you. Because now we have a way to be together.”
She stared stonily at him. “Who says it’s not too late?”
“I know it’s not too late. I know it because you came to me in the prison and proved that you still have feelings for me.” He paused, his jaw locking. “I know it’s not too late because you’re mine. Then. Now. Forever.”
She turned and walked toward the bathroom so he couldn’t see the expression on her face. When she got to the doorway, her knees went doughy and she reached out to steady herself with a hand on the doorjamb. “Why didn’t you ever come to me during these last thirty years? Why didn’t you tell me all this sooner?”
“I thought you hated me.” His voice came from right behind her, and his proximity made her shoulders tighten. “It wasn’t until you came to the prison that I had any reason to believe you might still have a flicker of love left for me.”
Bella closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as her world shifted a little to the left. “I don’t know what to say.”
“The Phaendir came to me. This object I stole for them, I never planned to let them have it. I never planned to allow the Summer Queen to have it either, but now that I know you still care for me, it gives us a chance. The Summer Queen will bargain for what I have to give her; maybe she’ll even agree to protect our union, no matter how much Unseelie blood our children may have.”
Gods, he wanted them to be together.
He was doing all this for her.
His hands cupped her shoulders, the heat of his body bleeding through the fabric of her sweater and into her skin. He turned her to face him, but she wouldn’t look up into his eyes. “Just give me a chance, Bell, that’s all I’m asking. I know I screwed up the first time. Give me a chance to show you I’m telling the truth.” He tipped her chin up, forcing her to look into his face. “I never stopped loving you. It never faded and it never failed.”
She blinked, her huge brown eyes coming into focus. “I can’t do this. I—”
He dipped his head and stopped her words with his lips. Bella stiffened and almost pulled away, but the sensation of his mouth on hers after so many years was like a balm on an old wound—healing, nourishing. He brushed his mouth across hers as though he had all the time in the world—like he was savoring her. Then he nipped gently at her lower lip and she melted.
Ronan made a low, hungry sound in his throat and dragged her up against his bare chest, his mouth slanting over hers. He eased her lips apart and branded her tongue with his. The taste of him filled her mouth, the scent of him teased her nose, and the hard, warm press of his body against hers did things to her she could only barely recall were possible. After so many years the sexual spark was still there.
Bella grasped his upper arms, trying hard not to think about the huge bed behind them and the part of her that wasn’t sure she could resist him if he pulled her toward it. She’d always been attracted to him on a primal, sexual level. Even though they’d never had sex, she knew it would be explosive between them. They shared the kind of chemistry that made it impossible for it to be any other way.
But there was so much more to love than just good sex.
She stepped back, breaking the kiss, and closed the bathroom door in his face.
SEVEN
Ronan stared at the closed door separating him from Bella. His lips felt electrified from her mouth, and his body was tight, anticipatory. His cock had gone rock hard in the very first moment of their kiss. He wanted her, had wanted her for years, craved the scent of her skin, yearned for the slide of it against his. Now he’d had a mere taste, and the need for more was nearly overwhelming. It made his hands curl involuntarily at the thought of touching her silky bare body. He forcibly caged the beast within that screamed for her.
It was an effort not to pound on the door or rip it from its hinges. He wanted to throw her down on the bed and use every sexual wile he possessed to lure her to him. If he tried hard enough, he could tempt her past her misgivings, make her forget that he’d rejected her all those years ago. If he put his mind and body into seducing her once she exited the bathroom, he could lure her into giving in to him completely . . . carnally.
But the problem was that he wanted more than just a coupling of their bodies. He wanted her heart and maybe just the slightest bit of her soul. Ronan wanted what he’d been so stupid to give up before—he wanted eternity with the one woman in the world whom he loved.
He wouldn’t obtain that by letting his cock rule his head. No, he needed to be patient and regain her trust. Ronan wouldn’t accept anything less than the whole of Bella.
He made a fist and almost slammed it into the wall beside the door frame as a way to vent the emotions that roiled within him. Next to the door he leaned up against the wall and rested his forehead against his forearm, trying desperately to get a handle on his lust and to calm the condition of his lower body.
It wasn’t the Summer Queen’s wrath or the Imperial Guard that Ronan feared might bring an end to him. It was Bella. Could he survive being this close to her and not being any closer?
The door opened, and Ronan stepped back as far as the edge of the bed would allow, clenching his hands at his sides so he wouldn’t leap on her. Just the scent of her skin made him crazy. He wasn’t sure how much longer he would last without a deeper taste of her. He wanted the flavor of her on his tongue. He wanted to drown in her.
She drew a long, slow breath and studied him without speaking, while Ronan’s heart dropped out of his stomach at her expression. He moved his gaze downward to avoid the accusation and anger on her beautiful face and found that her body told a different story. Her spine was slightly arched, breasts thrust out a little, as if inviting him to look at them, touch them. Even her lips were parted and moist. She wet them again as she glanced at his mouth.
Bloody hell, what a dichotomy. She wanted him, but she was also frightened. No doubt terrified he’d hurt her again.
Never.
“Bella? Come here.”
To his absolute amazement, she came. She walked straight into his arms. He enveloped her in his embrace, and every bit of tension he’d been holding released in a wave of silent exultation and relief. He’d waited so long for this, had imagined it so often.
It was better—much better—in reality.
For a moment, he held her close and nuzzled the top of her hair, breathing in the scent of her and letting it intoxicate him. He found a bit of bare skin and stroked it slowly, savoring the silkiness of her body and wanting more, so much more. She shuddered against him and he pulled her backward toward the bed.
With a sigh that heated his blood, she allowed it. He pushed her down onto the mattress and rolled her beneath his body, his mind and heart a riot of fantasies fulfilled. Her hair spread out around her head and she looked . . . ambushed. Ambushed and beautiful and willing. Her eyes were a bit wide and her lips parted.
Gods, he was going to have to hold himself back. All he wanted was to devour her, but he had to take this slow. What he wanted most was to give her pleasure right now, to taste her and feel her explode in orgasm against his lips and tongue. He wanted to slide deep within her and feel all her hot silk close around him, ripple and pulse as he drove them both to climax. He wanted to brand her as his and mark himself indelibly in her mind and heart.
“Ronan, I don’t know about this.” She stared at his mouth.
“I do. I want you, want more of you.” He lowered his lips and rubbed them over her mouth slowly, making her shiver beneath him. “Give me more, Bell.”
She melted against him, her fingers curling around the curve of his shoulders. He dropped his hand to the button of her jeans and undid it, then the zipper. They’d never made love before. It was difficult for fae women to conceive, but he’d been too afraid they’d manage to beat the odds and make a baby. Now Ronan wanted a baby with her more than anything, and maybe if his plan succeeded, they could work on that.
He’d work on that every single day if she’d let him.
He eased her jeans off, along with the black silk thong that made his cock hard from only a glimpse. Then she was bare and beautiful under his gaze, to his touch. He lowered his mouth to the smooth skin of her abdomen and heard her breath shudder out of her. He ran his lips down over the silky swell of her stomach, dipping his tongue into her belly button, and then went lower. She tasted better than the finest wine, and he couldn’t get enough.
Placing his palms flat against her inner thighs, he opened her for his mouth. He skimmed his lips along her skin and sank his teeth lightly into the tender place where her thigh met her hip. Bella shuddered beneath him and made a sweet, low moan that heated his blood and made his cock go hard as steel.
“I can’t wait to taste more of you,” he murmured, blowing lightly over her beautiful sex until she squirmed beneath him. He moved up her body so he could look into her eyes. “You’re gorgeous, Bella, and so aroused. You want me to do this, don’t you?”
“I need you to do this.” She raked her teeth against her bottom lip. “I don’t care if this is a mistake,” she breathed against his mouth. “I need you inside me, Ronan. I don’t care if the world ends right now, that’s all I want.”
Ronan plunged his hands into her hair and forced her mouth to his as she pushed his jeans down past the head of his jutting cock and her fingers closed around the length. He groaned against her lips. All he wanted was to sink into her velvet softness, to lose himself inside her and become one with her.
But a sound that didn’t belong had entered his awareness.
The hair on the back of Ronan’s neck rose and magick in the center of his stomach twinged. He stilled and she followed suit.
“What’s wrong?”
“The world ending?” he whispered. “You just might be prophetic. Get dressed, Bella.”
He moved away, cursing under his breath, pulling his jeans up and reaching for his discarded sweater. Bella quickly reassembled her clothing too—a true pity.
Sounds of tromping boots and masculine shouts filtered in from the corridor beyond their hotel room door. The Imperial Guard had found them.
“Ronan—” The rest of her sentence arrested in her throat, she looked at him with wide eyes.
He shrugged loosely. “So much for my spell. I told you there are magickal countermeasures for countermeasures.”
It was also possible the witch had turned them in on purpose. The old ones loved a little chaos to ease the boredom of their lives. That’s why they were hard to trust, even when you paid them well, which Ronan had a history of doing. Most of the fae weren’t inherently trustworthy. Anyone who’d read Grimm knew that.
He held out a hand to Bella. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”
The guards pounded mantled fists on the door. Ronan led Bella to the window. He unlocked it and eased it up, letting in cold morning air to freeze their skin. He helped her out onto the fire escape. There was no time even to grab their coats.
He scanned the alley below them, but it was clear that was not the best way to go. “This way.” He pulled her toward the sky.
“Up there? We’ll be trapped on top of the building.” She pulled back.
“I’m asking you to trust me, Bella. Do you?”
She took his hand.
They climbed. Behind them the door splintered open, kicked in from the boots of the guards.
They climbed faster.
The frozen metal of the railing seared his hand like fire and the clang, clang, clang of their shoes on the stairs sounded extra loud in the new snow of early morning. They reached the end and he helped her up onto the rooftop, just as the first shouts of the guards below them began to echo down the alley. They hadn’t yet figured out that their quarry had gone up instead of down, which bought them a bit of time, but not much.
As he pulled her across the top of the narrow roof, they passed a gargoyle hanging on the lip of the building that stared at them with a wise and bemused look on his old, pinched face.
Ronan said the words that would get them back to Priss’s, but no pocket appeared, just more cold, snowy rooftop. So Priss had canceled his quick escape and had been up to no good. The next time he saw her, he’d let her know how unhappy he was. Right now he had other concerns.
The buildings in downtown Piefferburg were old, built mostly in the 1600s and 1700s and restored and renovated over the centuries. That meant they’d been built very close together, since back then there’d been no automobiles. Still, they were far enough apart that they’d have to use magick to jump rooftop to rooftop, until he ran out of juice. Once they were far enough—or he tired too much to safely get them across—they’d descend.
Muttering in Old Maejian, he wove the spell they needed to bridge the buildings and hurried across. He aimed them in the direction they needed to go—toward the Boundary Lands.
He watched her float across the last gap between the roofs. The chill had painted her cheeks rosy, made her dark eyes sparkle. A smile had overtaken her features, bright and beautiful. Despite the cold temperatures and the danger they were in, being away from the confines of the Rose Tower suited her. The pinched, severe expression she normally wore was gone.
If Ronan had his way, it would be gone forever.
He’d made a mistake thirty years ago, one that had affected them both in a negative way. He had every intention now of making it right. Fixing that wrong. He wanted Bella more than he’d ever wanted anyone in his life. She was his anchor, his hope, his love.
She was his and there was no one who could take her away from him. Not again. Not ever.
She came to a stop in front of him, her eyes still lighted and her smile still beaming. The light faltered a little as she saw the expression on his face and in his eyes. He knew how he looked. Hungry. Determined. She tried to step back, but he caught her arms and dragged her up against him, his mouth coming down against hers hot and possessively.
She didn’t pull away. Making a little sound in the back of her throat, she pressed into him further. His cock noticed it. Every part of his body did. His heart really noticed it.
“Bell,” he breathed out, breaking the kiss. He pressed her forehead to his chin and let out a long, slow breath. “We’ve wasted so much time on fear.”
“Maybe too much.”
He didn’t like the tone of her voice, or the tremble in it.
In the distance, the commander of the Guard yelled.
“We have to get down. I don’t have much power left.” His magick wasn’t limitless.
They left the last step of a nearby fire escape and their shoes sank into the ever-thickening layer of snow in an alley. Hearing the sounds of the Imperial Guard fanning out to search the area, he pulled her down the narrow alley and around the corner of a building, only to glimpse a force of Imperial Guards coming around the side of the same building, right for them.
They ducked back around and pressed up against the brick wall of the building behind them, both panting. The snow was coming down so heavily that it was covering their footprints. That was a stroke of luck.
“There!” Bella pointed at a vehicle some ways down the road. “If we can make it to that truck, we can hide beneath it.”
With his magick almost drained to the dregs, it was their only chance.
They reached the rusty old red truck and got beneath it from the side least likely to reveal marks in the snow. He pulled her beneath him, rolling her under the warm protection of his body. Their breathing was heavy with exertion and showing white against the cold air. He hoped the queen hadn’t become desperate and employed the Unseelie Court’s magickical bloodhounds. If she had, they were doomed.
The boots of the Imperial Guard tromped past them in two lines and Ronan stared down into Bella’s large brown eyes. They were beautiful eyes, flecked with caramel and amber. Her lips were parted and her breathing still came fast, probably more from fear than physical exertion.
As the boots stomped past them, he dropped his head and kissed her. She tasted even better when she was afraid and clinging to him. She was a strong woman and able to take care of herself, yet he liked it when she thought she needed him. He couldn’t help that caveman part of himself.
After all, he needed her.
Finally the sounds of the boots disappeared into the distance and he reluctantly broke the kiss. He didn’t let her go, though. This was a totally inappropriate situation for arousal, yet his body was primed for her, aching for the feel of her.
“Ronan, this isn’t the time.” But Ronan suspected her words lacked the rebuke she’d meant them to hold. Her facial muscles were slack and her lips rosy and swollen from his mouth. She looked warm, but he knew she had to be freezing.
He murmured one of the many spells he had memorized and wrapped magick around her body to keep the chill away. He didn’t have enough power to cloak both of them, but at least she would be comfortable . . . for a while.
They needed to get to their destination and soon. Luckily they weren’t far from the Boundary Lands and the place he’d hidden the object of power that the Phaendir wanted so badly. He rolled off her and helped her from beneath the truck.
Bella brushed the snow from her clothes. “Thanks for the magick, but you know it doesn’t mean anything.” A muscle worked in her jaw. “Neither have the kisses.”
He pretended it wasn’t like a stake through the heart. “That’s okay, Bell. I fully expect you to push me away. Turnabout is fair play.”
“Hey.” Her spine snapped straight and she turned to pierce him with her gaze. “Don’t act like you and me are a foregone conclusion and I’m just playing at making you pay right now.”
He contemplated her for a long moment. “I would never take anything for granted with you. But even you can’t deny the powerful pull between us.” He paused. “Can you?”
She stared at him for a moment, her eyes going dark and her expression unreadable. Bella opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and then turned and walked away.
EIGHT
The Boundary Lands were everything Bella had imagined them to be. Covering their skeletons like hair and flesh, trees and plants wound their way through the bones of old structures built on the remnants of the very first settlement of Piefferburg. Crumbling walls and rotting wood combined with verdant lushness to create a place of more beauty than Bella thought her heart could hold.
Even in the dead of winter here, fae magick kept the plants from dying. Snow glistened on the furled heads of roses and drifted slowly to rest on wide green leaves. Yuletide was celebrated here by the wildling fae, and lights nestled here and there on trees, their limbs intertwined with red and green bulbs and sparkling ornaments.
After losing the guards, they’d walked to the edge of the city, steering clear of every person they encountered, and had found the boundary where all the wildling fae lived. Letting the foliage envelop them, they’d entered, and been unable to avoid a few of the inhabitants, but Bella felt like here it didn’t matter. This part of Piefferburg was different from the rest, set apart like a different world, and worked under its own set of laws. She was confident—for whatever illogical reason—that these fae wouldn’t turn them in to the Summer Queen.
He led her through a copse of birch trees, their shoes crunching over ice-laced fallen leaves. “We’re almost there.”
“You’re not going to pull me through a pocket again, are you?”
He shook his head. “Priss is the only one capable of creating those.”
He took her hand and guided her through a space between two monstrously tall birch trees. Beyond them lay a clearing with a large, aging brick structure.
Heavy lavender blooms dripped from the crumbling overhang of the building, tangled with long vines of red trumpeted flowers. She stared at the strange beauty of it—the juxtaposition of the vibrantly alive things and the dying building. By all rights the flowers shouldn’t be growing, not at Yuletide, but who knew how much magick the fae caring for them possessed?
Much of the magick of the Seelie Court nobles had been bred out, choked from eons of breeding within a small population to keep the Tuatha Dé bloodlines true. But the magick of some of the other fae, most especially the wildling fae in the Boundary Lands, raged savage and strong.
Snow began to fall, making her gasp. She turned her face up to it, letting the flakes drift onto her face, melt, and slip down her neck. For the first time in so long, sweet Danu, she felt alive. Out here, she felt freed from the confines of the court, the queen, and her bloodline.
A warm hand pulled her up against a solid chest. Ronan’s lips found hers and pressed. She opened her eyes and dissolved against him. For the first time since that fateful Yuletide ball, she just . . . allowed. Cool melted snowflakes mixed with his hot tongue as it brushed hers. He pushed her against the crumbling stone wall. Fragrant blossoms that had no business growing in the dead of winter crushed beneath their weight, releasing sweet scent to the chilly air.
“I love you, Bella,” he whispered roughly against her lips in between kisses. “I never stopped.”
Ronan slanted his mouth more firmly across her lips and plunged his tongue into her mouth as if to consume her. Something Bella had been holding clenched tightly in the center of her chest unraveled and released. Her muscles went loose as she threaded her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. Sweet pleasure suffused her, driving the chill from her bones and filling them with slow, warm honey.
He pulled her lower lip between his teeth, rasping it gently with his teeth, and her sex pulsed. Her fingers found the material of his coat and fisted. If he pushed her into this building right now and began to draw off her clothes, she would let him. She would . . .
“Hello.”
She jerked in surprise at the feminine voice and pulled away from Ronan enough to look in the direction from which it came. Not far away a woman dressed in long, white, gauzy gown stood half-hidden behind the trunk of a tree.
Bella blinked. “Hello.”
Ronan took a step backward. “Bella, please meet Aurora. She’s a lady of the birch.”
Bella had heard of them. The ladies of the birch had their roots in Czechoslovakia. They were primarily light nature-based fae, females who helped guide human females toward their dreams. There weren’t many of them left. They’d largely been wiped out by the sickness. The wildings had been particularly susceptible for some reason, and owing to fae infertility they hadn’t regained much strength in numbers. Only the goblins had done that.
The woman stepped toward them, a smile on her full lips. Her long reddish blond hair curled riotously past her thin shoulders, twisted through with small twigs, the leaves still attached. Oddly, it suited her. Her wide midnight blue eyes shone from a heart-shaped face, clear of any trace of makeup. She wore little to clothe her slim body, but she didn’t seem cold. Her feet were bare and dirt smudged her dewy, luminous tanned skin here and there like she’d been gardening.
She was lovely. Prettier than the Summer Queen. More beautiful than any Seelie woman Bella had ever seen. And from the way she was smiling at Ronan, she knew him well.
Bella’s limbs had been like warmed butter a moment ago, but now they’d gone wooden. This little twinge of jealousy was a stupid thing to feel. He’d been free to do as he wished, as she’d been free too. They’d both had lovers since their parting so many years ago. She had no claim on his romantic entanglements of the previous years.
The woman smiled and all Bella’s ill feelings washed away in a moment. This person was like a part of nature herself, a wild and beautiful thing—like a refreshing rainstorm on a hot summer day or a gentle deer stepping out of the woods unexpectedly right before you. It was impossible to feel anything but joy in her presence. “I’ve never been with Ronan in the way you’re thinking,” she said warmly. “We’re only friends.”
Bella sucked in a breath. “Are you telepathic?”
“No. The question was in your expression.”
She turned her face away.
“It’s all right, Bella,” Aurora said. “I understand the history you have with Ronan. I’ve known him for many years now, and the only woman he’s ever wanted was you.”
Bella looked at Ronan for confirmation of her words. He said nothing, only stared at her, his expression serious and his eyes wide and dark and very, very warm. His gaze did interesting things to her body and made her chest fill with something light. Hope?
“I still have what you gave me to keep,” Aurora said, drawing them both from the way they’d fallen into each other’s gaze.
He shifted to look at the birch lady. “Good. I never thought I’d come back for it.”
“And yet here you are. Don’t worry, it’s safe.”
“I thought we’d stay for a little while before heading back to the Summer Court.”
“Stay as long as you’d like. You’re safe here.” She ducked into the structure. “Your object is this way.”
Bella tried not to gawk as they followed her in. The front of the structure was crumbling brick, but that was only a fa çade. So much in the world of the fae was not as it seemed. The ceiling was made of glass, showing the towering birch trees above that dripped with leaves, flowering vines, snow, and ice. A fire burned in a corner fireplace and comfortable overstuffed furniture abounded in the room, all draped with cozy-looking throws. A four-poster bed dominated one corner, and a tiny kitchen occupied the opposite corner. It was a small house, but it was clearly a home, very comfortable. Bella had the impression she could live here forever and be content.
“Stay here a moment,” said Aurora. She exited the back of the cottage and returned with an item wrapped in cheesecloth. She gave it to Ronan.
“Thank you for keeping it.”
Aurora inclined her head and smiled. “Stay here in this cottage for as long as you’d like. We’ll be watching out for you, so don’t fear the guard.” She looked at Bella meaningfully. “Relax, if only for a little while. You’ve had a long journey and it’s far from over. You both have many more miles to go before you find peace.” Then she left.
Why did she think that Aurora wasn’t talking about physical distance, but emotional? There was a dark edge to her words that Bella didn’t like. They almost felt prophetic.
“Can we trust her?”
“I would trust Aurora with my life.” He paused. “I would trust her with your life, Bella, and that’s the most precious thing in the world to me.”
Ronan held her gaze, and the moment between them stretched. The look in his eyes could have kept her warm forever. Breaking the magic of it, she cleared her throat and stepped forward, toward the object. “What is it?”
He set it down on the table near the bed. “Never mind that. There’s only one important thing right now.” He closed the distance between them and pulled her against him, letting his hot mouth close over hers. His lips slid across her lips like silk, tasting her gently until it seemed he had to have more. Then he parted her lips and slid his tongue within.
Shivers of pleasure enveloped her. Three decades’ worth of wanting welled up, and this time she didn’t suppress it. Relax. She let it wash over her, sweeter than anything she could imagine. Surrendering to her desires, she twined her arms around his shoulders, feeling the strong bunch and flex of his muscles as he made minute movements, and made her want to run her hands—her tongue—over his warm bare skin.
He walked her back until her calves hit the edge of the bed, then dropped his hands to the button and zipper of her jeans. He worked them over her hips and down her legs, taking off her boots and socks with them and leaving her in only her thong.
NINE
She pulled his sweater up, revealing his sculpted washboard abs. She dusted her lips across them, tasting his skin with the tip of her tongue and feeling his muscles tremble as she pushed his sweater up and over his head. The touch of her hands on him made him shiver, made him groan. It felt powerful to have that kind of an impact on a strong man like him.
She ran her palms over his chest, hardly able to believe she was here—in a place she’d never thought she’d be—with a man she’d long ago stopped hoping for. This moment had played out in her fantasies, but she’d always assumed that’s what they’d stay—fantasies.
He pulled her shirt over her head and looked down at her wearing two silky bits of almost nothing, then he made a hungry sound deep in his throat and pushed her back onto the bed. For a moment he stood over her, making her shiver as his gaze swept her. He looked like he intended to devour her from head to toe.
Kicking his boots off, he followed her down onto the bed. The fabric of his jeans scraped against her bare skin as he slid between her thighs to plunge his hands into her hair and kiss her. He nipped at her lower lip and then dragged it gently through his teeth, making goose bumps erupt all over her body. Her hands strayed to the button fly of his black jeans, eager to stroke what she’d never been able to touch so many years before.
“You’re mine,” he growled into her ear. “I’m making love to you now and claiming you as forever mine. Do you understand that, Bella? There’s no going back this time, no denying what we have between us.”
Biting her lower lip, she found his gaze and nodded.
“Are you ready for—”
She stopped his words with her mouth. Breaking the kiss, she whispered, “Shut up, Ronan, and put your hands on me.” To seal the deal, she cupped his cock through the fabric of his pants and stroked it. He groaned her name.
Using the pressure of his mouth, he pushed her back into the pillows while her fingers sought and freed the buttons of his jeans. There was something incredibly erotic about undressing this man and having him slowly undress her. The deliberate revealing of warm, bare flesh. The leisurely press and slide of skin against skin.
Undressing alone took her breath away.
Then they were completely naked and he was kissing her throat, nipping the tender part of her neck just under her earlobe, and Bella’s rational and ordered cognition disappeared.
He rasped the edge of his teeth along her skin, raising goose bumps and making her nipples go hard, then slid his tongue along her skin, headed toward her breasts. In the back of his throat he made a low noise like the taste of her skin was intoxicating.
Stopping at one nipple and then the other, he gave both lavish attention, tracing every pucker, every hill and valley, with the tip of his tongue until she squirmed beneath him, arching her back.
He dropped down, dipping the tip of his tongue into her belly button, and then moved even lower. One strong hand planted on her inner thigh, he forced her legs to part then lowered his mouth to her sex. He teased her clit with the tip of his tongue, flicking back and forth until it grew swollen with need. Rubbing his finger around her opening, he petted her until she wanted to scream, before spearing two thick digits within and thrusting in and out. He sealed his mouth over her clit at the same time and worked it with his tongue until she writhed and bucked beneath him with the need to come.
He didn’t allow it.
Building her toward an incredible, explosive climax instead, he kneed her thighs apart and braced his hands on either side of her head. The smooth head of his wide cock nudged her entrance, and all her female muscles deep within clenched in anticipation.
He stared down at her. “I haven’t been with a woman since I met you, Bella. There is only you for me.”
Her eyes widened and her breath caught. Then he thrust the head of his cock inside her, parting her folds and stretching her muscles. Inch by slow, mind-blowing inch, he fed her his wide, long shaft. Her head fell back into the pillows on a moan, and her spine arched as he went to the hilt inside her, filling her completely.
Tears pricked her eyes. “Ronan.” His name came out broken. Grief for the years they’d lost warred with the joy of their reunion. The joy won.
Then he was thrusting in and out of her and primal lust took over.
“Look at me while you come,” he commanded.
She forced her gaze to focus on his as the climax he’d withheld crashed into her with double the force. Pleasure filled every part of her body and mind as she came around his pistoning cock. Bella cried his name, tears squeezing from her eyes as sweet emotion and sexual ecstasy ruled her. As it ebbed, she held on to him, shuddering, her body eager for more.
He nipped her earlobe before dropping his head to lave over a diamond-hard nipple, nipping at it gently with the edges of his teeth. “There are so many different ways I want to take you. We have decades to make up for. Turn over.”
He turned her to her stomach and slid a hand under her hips, forcing her bottom to fit against the hard jut of his cock. Parting her thighs, she dropped her head and offered herself to him completely. He ran his fingers over her sex and thrust inside, making her shudder. Then he guided the head of his cock in and drove it to the hilt in one long, hard, deep thrust that made her eyes roll back into her head.
Gliding a possessive hand from her breast, over her abdomen, and between her legs, he found her clit, engorged and sensitive, and petted it lightly as he mounted her. He slid in and out of her, slowly at first, teasingly rubbing around her swollen clit and stroking down farther to play where his cock thrust inside her, then back up through all her sensitive folds. Under his masterful touch, she was lost in a sea of pleasure and clawed the bedsheets.
He thrust faster and harder, finding her clit and rubbing it as he took her.
Pleasure built, swelled, and then exploded through her. She called his name as it crashed over her in waves, each one more intense than the last. He milked every last ounce of it from her that he could, pushing her from one stuttering climax into a second one. She heard Ronan cry her name as he came and they collapsed to the mattress in a sated tangle.
After a moment of heavy breathing, Ronan rolled to the side and dragged her along with him. The blankets and sheets were in an awful knot, and she had a twinge of regret for messing up someone else’s bed, but somehow she thought that’s exactly what Aurora had expected, had wanted even.
She snuggled into the curve of his body with a happy sigh. “Remember what you said on the rooftop about fear robbing us of so many years?”
He stroked her bare shoulder with his hand. “Yes.” His voice rumbled out of him deep and steady. It could lull her to sleep, that voice.
“Let’s not let fear steal any more time from us.”
He tightened his embrace. “No, my love. No one is stealing anything away from us now, not even the Summer Queen herself.”
Bella shivered. She hoped not. That was a bridge they had yet to cross, and the queen was not the forgiving sort.
Nor was she the bargaining sort.
They stayed on the bed, letting the fire warm and illuminate the room and watching the snow gently drift down past the tree limbs above them, land on the glass ceiling, and melt. Day faded to twilight and then to darkness. Tomorrow night was Yuletide Eve. The winter solstice.
The longest night of the year.
Ronan allowed his hands to stray over her body, touching her possessively. He stroked her breasts and nipples constantly, brushed her shoulders, back, and stomach as if trying to memorize every inch of her flesh.
Often he delved between her thighs and thrust his fingers inside her over and over, let them play on her clit until she was a messy jumble of panting desire. He brought her to shuddering climax after climax until she could barely think, let alone walk.
In the middle of the night she awoke to him between her thighs, his shaft thrust within her and his hands stroking over her as though he were starving and she were sustenance he could consume through touch.
She orgasmed yet again in the dead of night with his mouth covering hers and his cock buried as deep within her as possible—joined at lips, hips, and heart.
After their shower the next morning, Ronan unwrapped the cheesecloth with Bella near him. It was a small piece, made of crystal, steel and bronze, smooth on one side and jagged on the other, making it look like a misshapen half-moon. There was part of a pattern on the front. It looked like junk, unless you were sensitive to the power it gave off. It rippled and pulsed with magick against his palm, cavorting with his own and sending little shocks up his forearm.
Bella sucked in a breath and went to touch it, but pulled her hand back at the last moment.
“Do you know what it is?”
“Oh, Danu,” Bella breathed. “One of the sections of the bosca fadbh. It’s one of three puzzle pieces that unlock part of the Book of Bindings.”
He nodded. “That part of the book contains a spell that will tear down the warding around Piefferburg.”
She looked up at him sharply. “This is what the Phaendir contracted you for?”
“It was being kept in a vault of a government building. I had the right skill set, magickally speaking, to break in. They contacted me, trying to appeal to my Phaendir blood, and offered me more money than I could use in three fae lifetimes. I agreed, but not because of the money. I pulled the job with the intention of never letting the Phaendir have the object.”
The Phaendir were druids, strictly speaking, though both Ronan and his half brother, Niall, had a touch of druid blood as well. The Phaendir were powerful beings, powerful enough to trap and imprison all the fae of the world—as long as the fae were weakened in some way. Their magickical ability was mostly based in books and spells, in knowledge. Though over the years they had evolved a sort of magickal hive mind and that’s where the power that kept up the warding around Piefferburg was stored. Still, they lacked the natural raw inner magick of the fae, lacked many of the abilities that Ronan and his Tuatha Dé mage brethren possessed.
It really chapped their hide too. They had hated having to come to him for help. Ronan smiled even now when he thought of it.
“Why didn’t you give it to the Summer Queen? She could obtain the other pieces, and the Book of Bindings, and break the walls of Piefferburg.”
He shook his head. “No, Bella. We can’t get the other pieces or the book, because they are beyond the walls of Piefferburg. It’s an impossible task. I wanted to ensure that the Phaendir never got their hands on this piece of the bosca fadbh. So I hid it here, in the lair of the most powerful fae I’ve ever encountered. I knew the birch lady would keep it safe. She wants peace, just as I do. Giving it to the Summer Queen will accomplish nothing. It will only assuage her ego.”
Bella took the piece in her hand and stroked it with the pad of her index finger. She was still naked from the shower, and her nipples were hard from the slight chill in the air, as red and suckable as pert little berries. “It’s so unassuming.”
Ronan reached out and fingered a tendril of her hair. “I believe this piece is worthless in the face of having not recovered all the rest of the necessary items, but now it’s my pass to freedom and to my life again. Now it’s valuable. The Summer Queen will want this and will bargain with me to obtain it. She’ll give me my life.” He paused, holding her gaze steadily. “Will you be in that life again, Bell? This time for good?”
“What about the Unseelie blood we share? What about our potential offspring, Ronan? Aren’t you still afraid we’ll be exiled from the Summer Court?”
“With you at my side, I’m not afraid of anything. Are you?”
“After seeing the beauty that lies beyond the Rose Tower, how could I be?” She cupped his cheek in her hand. “I want you, Ronan. I’ve always wanted you, no matter the cost. I wish you could have realized that thirty years ago.”
She stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and went up on her tiptoes to press her lips to his. The kiss was teasingly light and he wanted more. He caught her against him, pressing the piece of the bosca fadbh between them and slanting his mouth hungrily over hers. Then he lowered her to the soft mattress and kissed her lower down, taking her clit against his tongue and tasting the center of her until her cries echoed through the room and made the soft buds in the trees above the cottage explode into bloom as the magick in the air around them reacted.
He’d been in love with her since the moment he met her, and it had never abated, not in the thirty years since they’d parted ways. Now he felt flush with her, filled with the love he’d always needed from her but thought he’d never be able to accept without ruining her life, tearing her from the safety of the Seelie Court, and eventually making her resent him for it all.
He pulled her close to his body and inhaled the delicious scent of her hair. Even after all this time, he still remembered that distinctive fragrance of shampoo, perfume, and natural scent. “Ready to go back?”
Her embrace tightened a degree. “I’d rather stay here.” Her voice held a note of fear in it, fear that she’d lose him again. He could feel it in her.
TEN
Bella didn’t want to do this. Oh, dear Lady, she didn’t want to face the wrath of the Summer Queen, didn’t want to run the risk of Ronan disappearing from her life again.
They walked into the square, and Ronan released the glamour he’d been holding around them for the last twelve blocks. A layer of snow had fallen throughout the day and coated the square in a glimmering sheet of white and ice that reflected the silvery light of the full moon above them. Lights in the evergreens twinkled and sparkled with a Yuletide Eve merriment Bella didn’t feel. Ordinarily she would be at a fete tonight, dressed to kill and drinking champagne.
Above them the clock in the center of the square struck the witching hour—winter solstice. The moment the twelfth chime ended, fireworks were launched from the top of every building, raining down sparkles and bursts of light. Booms, whizzing sounds and the joyful cries of the spectators filled the air.
Their uncertain future unfolded before them. The winter solstice was the shortest day of the year—but it also marked the point when the daylight would begin to increase. She would hold on to any bit of positive symbolism she could find.
It took only a handful of steps before the Imperial Guard marching in the square—undoubtedly on high alert—spotted them and trooped over. Harsh hands grabbed her and pulled her away as two of the men muscled Ronan to the ground and handcuffed him in iron.
“Get off me!” She shoved at the guard manhandling her, her hands finding only smooth, cold rose and gold metal.
“I abducted her,” Ronan yelled. “She’s been a prisoner ever since I broke out of Her Majesty’s Prison. Leave her alone!”
“No.” The guard released her, and she glared at the hulk who’d put bruises on her upper arms. “He’s lying. I went with him of my own free will.”
“Then you’re under arrest too,” answered the guard, turning her around and forcing the charmed iron around her wrists. She gasped at the touch of the metal against her skin and the empty way it made her feel—even her parlor trick amount of Seelie magick was gone.
They heaved Ronan to his feet, and he gave her a look of exasperation as they hauled them off toward the reaching rose-quartz spires of the Seelie Court, past the throng that had begun to form and the camera crew of Faemous, who were out of breath from their run to catch some footage. Bella was sure that even now the two of them were “breaking news.”
The guards pushed and prodded them up the marble staircase and down the gilded halls of the highest tower, straight to the throne room of the Summer Queen. The huge room was devoid of all but her advisors and favor ites. Aislinn was there, white-faced with fear for her friend. Bella met her eyes briefly and tried to smile, but it was stiff because she was afraid too—for Ronan.
The Summer Queen, Caoilainn Elspeth Muirgheal, sat on her heavy, carved rose-quartz throne, royal buttocks cushioned by velvet. The rest of the court had adapted and changed with the times where fashion was concerned, but not the Summer Queen, who was thousands of years old. Ancient even for a Tuatha Dé Danaan, and of the purest blood that could be found. Her long white blond hair was coiled and pinned around her pale, oval face. Her gown seemed to be woven from starlight and gold. She was heartbreakingly beautiful. Delicate looking, but stronger than any fae with the exception of perhaps the Shadow King, her power was linked to her position as the Seelie Royal. Eyes the light blue of a husky dog’s stared at them as they entered. Disapproval etched lines in her timeless face.
They came to a stop in front of her and both knelt, which was difficult to do, given the position of their hands behind their backs.
“Ronan Achaius Quinn, do you understand the severity of the charges leveled against you? Do you understand that the punishment fits the crime?” Her voice held power, strong Seelie magick, and it made all the hair on the back of Bella’s neck stand on end.
“It couldn’t be any worse than the punishment leveled against me before I escaped, my queen.”
“Oh, Ronan, you’re so young. There are fates worse than death.”
The timbre of her voice made Bella shudder. It wasn’t fully natural. The queen was very angry, and magick was slipping into her words.
The Summer Queen turned her frigid gaze toward Bella. “It’s you I’m most surprised at. Ronan has always had a rebellious streak, but you’ve never caused more than a moment’s stir at court. The guards tell me you say you went willingly with him. Did you help him escape the prison too?”
“No!” Ronan shouted. “Leave Bella out of this. I dragged her into this mess. It was all my fault.”
“I went willingly with him,” Bella raised her gaze to the queen’s. “And I’d do it again.”
The Summer Queen stiffened. Her spine looked rigid enough to crack. “If you care about him that much, you’ll suffer his punishment alongside him.”
“I have something for you, my queen,” said Ronan. “Something that might sweeten your mood toward my transgression.”
The queen seemed to ice over for a moment. She went perfectly still and white before speaking. “The object you stole for the Phaendir, no doubt. There’s nothing you could have that would sway me in my opinion of what you have done, Ronan.” She gestured to the guards. “Take them away until I’ve settled on a fitting fate for them both. Believe me, it will be something to impress the Unseelie.”
Dark, bloody, and violent. That’s the only thing that impressed the Unseelie.
The guards yanked Bella to her feet, making her gasp.
Ronan shook off the guards. “You don’t want a piece of the bosca fadbh?”
“Halt!”
The guards immediately stopped dragging Bella and Ronan toward the side door, the one that led to the prison.
“Where is it?” The queen’s voice stung Bella’s skin like the lash of a frozen whip, making her wince.
“It’s hidden with magick. You’ll never find it on your own, but before I reveal it to you—”
“I’m the Summer Queen. What makes you think I couldn’t find it?”
Bella stifled a cry. The queen’s voice cut into her mind, becoming more like knife than a whip with every syllable she uttered.
“I kept it hidden from the Phaendir and I can keep it hidden from you.”
His tone held a note of arrogance. Sweet Danu, they were all going to die.
Ronan continued. “I’ll reveal the location of the piece, but you must agree, in front of witnesses, to several conditions.”
The queen took a breath, regaining control—thank Danu—before replying. “You’re not in a position to make demands, Ronan.”
“Well, my queen, I have the piece.” He paused. “And you don’t.”
For a moment Bella thought the queen might explode. Her icy, angry reserve had taken the leap to hot lava in the span of a heartbeat. “I can’t do anything with your piece of the bosca fadbh without its mates. So you see, dear Ronan, your offer might not be as juicy as you presume.”
“But if you have the piece, then the Phaendir does not. I do not need to point out that the Shadow King would also not have it. That should be tempting enough. And perhaps, if you don’t shout Off with his head! I might be able to get the other pieces of the bosca fadbh. Perhaps even the lost Book of Bindings.”
“Impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible if you know the right people and pay the right price.” He paused and lowered his voice. “You of all people should know that.”
The queen said nothing. She only stared at him, her fingers clenching around the polished rose-quartz armrests of her throne, her perfect, beautiful face revealing no hint of what she might be thinking. The entire room seemed to hold its breath—including the guards who still loosely gripped Bella’s arm.
“You’re aiming far too high and assuming far too much about me, Ronan. I dislike it.”
“Forgive me.” He inclined his head. “I seek only to give you what the Phaendir want desperately to possess. Aren’t you at least a little curious about why they want it so badly? I am.”
The queen jerked her chin upward. “Before I make my decision, tell me your terms. Tell me what kind of trade you want me to make for the piece.”
“I require that Bella remains unharmed and unpunished for coming with me to obtain the piece, and for her to retain her position in the Seelie Court, no matter what, until the natural end of her days. No matter what information may come to light about her in the future, no matter what she may do, so long as it’s within the bounds of Seelie Court law.”
The wording was precise and he did that for a reason. The queen was known to try and wriggle through the loopholes of a promise.
The Summer Queen eyed Bella with undisguised curiosity. “That makes me think Bella has a secret or two.”
“No matter what secrets might be revealed about her, she must never be cast from the Seelie Court.” Ronan’s voice was steel to the Queen’s ice and contained a thread of resonating magick of his own. “Not her progeny either. Or her husband. All in her family must be safe from exile.”
“I take it you’re not finished, since you haven’t asked for your life yet.”
Ronan inclined his head. “I wish to retain my life and for all charges against me to be dropped.” Ronan turned and met Bella’s gaze. Holding it, he finished, “And to marry Bella, if she’ll have me.”
The queen drummed her fingers. “You’re asking for too much. Two lives, Ronan? No punishment for your crimes and a happy ending with Bella?” She shook her head. “You’ll undermine my credibility, and my enemies will begin to think I’m going soft and sentimental. I can’t have that.” She considered them for a long moment. “I will bargain for one life. Whose is it, Ronan? Yours or Bella’s?”
“No!” Bella shouted. “Don’t do this, Caoilainn Elspeth Muirgheal!” Names had power, so she invoked all of the queen’s. To no avail.
“Answer!” the queen demanded of Ronan.
Bella knew what Ronan would say before he said it. She had no question he would protect her life over his. Tears pricked her eyes and choked her throat. “No, Ronan, please!” The guards clamped down on Bella’s arms and drew her backward. She kicked and struggled against their strength. This couldn’t be happening.
Ronan met her eyes. Sorrow had turned his pupils a dark blue. “Bella’s life will be spared.”
“I thought as much. Now reveal the piece to me.”
“Ronan! No!”
The guards’ pull was something she couldn’t fight, couldn’t shake off. Inexorably, they dragged her backward, through the huge double doors of the throne room and into the corridor, where her cries echoed as they uncuffed her. Just as the massive doors swung shut, she glimpsed the piece of the bosca fadbh floating eerily in front of Ronan and a guard behind him, a silver sword glinting viciously in the reflected light of the piece of the bosca fadbh.
ELEVEN
The doors slammed shut, Bella stared at the closed entrance to the throne room for a moment in complete shock and then rushed toward the doors, only to be blocked by an implacable row of shining rose and gold.
She whirled and ran down the corridor, pushing past anyone who got in her way, until she reached the front doors of the tower and burst through them. In the square outside the Seelie Court, she went down hard on her knees in the snow. It immediately soaked through the fabric of her jeans and numbed her skin, but that only made that part of her body match the rest of her.
All around her, revelers stopped their singing and laughing and stared at her. To Bella it truly was the longest, darkest night of the year.
Before her, on the other side of the square, loomed the Black Tower of the Unseelie Court. All the dark art she’d tried so hard to suppress fluttered deep within her and rose on grief-encrusted wings. All the curses she’d never given voice to beat against the box within her mind where she’d locked them, those for the queen most especially strong. Long-repressed magick bubbled inside her, ready to explode.
She closed her eyes. No. She might have Unseelie blood flowing through her veins, but she wouldn’t give in to the impulse to hurt others because she was feeling hurt herself. That was not Bella and never would be.
Maybe she could manifest something good. Perhaps instead of weaving curses, she could weave a wish instead. Maybe if it came from her heart . . . She closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could on the outcome she wanted. Magick bubbled out of her like water quenching dry earth.
Please, Danu, please.
It wasn’t possible that she could have come this far, lost Ronan for so many years, only to find him and lose him again this way. His soul was a perfect match for hers, singing and twining in a beautiful song within her heart. Even his magick complemented hers—more than she could have ever known.
This ending simply wasn’t possible.
Would she be able to feel it when they killed him? Would a cold, dark place open up inside her? Maybe they’d already done it. Maybe he was already dead.
She looked up at the Unseelie Court rising across the square. Around her, revelers gave her a wide berth as they sang Yuletide carols. They downed mugs of warm cider and toasted one another with Wassail bowls, yelling in the traditional Old Norse, “Ves heill!” Be well and be in good health.
Bella dry-heaved in the snow.
She would never again step foot in the Rose Tower. She could never look upon the queen’s face again and not want to give in to the dark impulse within to curse her. Maybe she would give in to the dark pull of the Unseelie Court. It was time to put her fear aside and start a new life.
Someone touched her shoulder and Bella looked up to see Aislinn. The entire square had fallen completely silent. All the fae stared at someone standing behind Bella.
Taking Aislinn’s offered hand, Bella stood and turned.
The queen stood in the square, backlit by the light spilling through the open doors of the Seelie Court and dressed in a thick white fur coat, the hem trailing in the snow. No red spray of blood marred its perfection. Hurray for small favors.
“It’s Yuletide Eve,” she said. It was quiet enough to hear the snow fall. Not even a murmur could be heard from the Unseelie side. “Therefore I’ve given you a gift.”
That was when she noticed Ronan standing to the left of the queen, hidden in the shadow of her glow. Bella’s heart stuttered and then started again, beating twice as fast. She took a step toward him, but something in the way the queen stood made her halt. The queen seemed like a raptor ready to strike—one false move and she’d sink her fangs in deep.
“Happy Yuletide to you both, but it’s not all sunshine.” The queen drew a breath. When she spoke next, it was loud enough for everyone around them to hear, including the Faemous film crew. “Bella Rhiannon Caliste Mac Lyr and Ronan Achaius Quinn are hereby banished from the Seelie Court, effective immediately.” She turned and walked back into the tower, a brace of guards following her.
The doors shut behind her with a final-sounding thump.
Bella ran to Ronan and threw her arms around him, concerned only with one thing—he was alive, warm and real in her embrace.
Ronan pulled her up against his chest and slanted his lips over hers. His tongue slipped within her mouth and heated her blood, making her forget the snow and cold, making her forget all the other celebrating fae in the square who looked on in curiosity.
When they broke the kiss, she drew a trembling breath. A look of sorrow had enveloped his face. “Because of me you’re banished from Seelie. You’ve lost everything. It’s exactly the thing I was trying to prevent all those years ago.”
“Oh, Ronan.” She reached up and cupped his cheek. “No. Don’t you see? I have everything because I have you.”
“Even if we have nowhere to sleep tonight?”
“We’ll figure it out. We’re together now and we can overcome any obstacle in our path. Why did she let you live?”
“I’ve had contact with the Phaendir. I know who might be able to be swayed for a certain price. The queen held a blade to my throat and demanded that information from me after you left, but I refused to give it up. Instead I told that when she had need of me, I was hers. So long as the rest of the time I could be yours—warm and alive.”
“So pragmatism won out over her slighted pride.”
“The banishment is her way of saving face in front of the court.”
“Where do we go now?”
Ronan looked at the Black Tower and squeezed her hand.
“Unseelie,” she said.
He nodded. “I don’t know how this will turn out, Bella. The Shadow King is not pleased with me for turning my back on the Black Tower, and now I’ve given the Summer Queen a piece of the bosca fadbh, something he would like to possess.”
She chewed her lip. “Bodes ill.”
He pulled her toward him for a quick kiss. “I have reason to believe he’ll take us in despite all of this. Leverage, Bell. I have it on both the royals.”
“It’s a dangerous game we’re playing.”
“Life in the courts is always dangerous.”
They turned and walked toward the center of the square. Bella supposed she ought to be nervous about the fact she was now banished from the only home she’d ever known, yet all she felt was gratitude and happiness, leavened with a dash of excitement for the adventures to come and the things they’d see.
Aislinn stood near the maligned statue of Jules Piefferburg that marked entry into Unseelie territory. “I’ll miss you,” her best friend said, staring up at the Black Tower.
“I’ll miss you too.” Bella gave Aislinn a hug, feeling a cloud of loss rising up into her chest and throat. When people were banished from the Seelie Court, that meant no contact with its members. She and Ronan had given up a lot to be together. Bella wiped away a tear. “Can you make arrangements for Lolly?”
“Of course I will.”
She parted from Aislinn and took one last look at the Rose Tower. There were many people she would miss—Lolly, her other friends, her family. Ronan caught her hand and followed her gaze. He’d be missing people too.
Then they looked at each other and smiled. They didn’t have to say a word, because they each knew what the other was thinking: The sacrifice was worth it.
Hand in hand, they walked farther into the square. Above their heads fireworks sparked and exploded, and all around them Yuletide bonfires glowed. The celebrations had resumed and lighter days were on the horizon.
Before them lay their future, a brand-new path they’d create and walk together.