12. The Lapsus #2
Lucais’s throat bobbed. “I think they were cornered by something in there, and it took me far too long to realise. Seven years ago, around the time I last saw Blythe, I caught something in the lapsus of the Court of Darkness’s wards.
I felt it—the immediate, undeniable sense of wrongness within it—but it disappeared.
When it returned two years later, I acted before it could move one way or the other, lest it escape from my reach again.
” He pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, squeezing his eyes shut.
“I didn’t realise I had shut down the entire function of the wards around Blythe’s Court, effectively locking everyone in and everyone else out, until it was too late.
I’d never had to do something like that before.
We were busy trying to work out where the fuck Blythe had gone, why the shadows were playing up on the Map and obscuring her Court—not to mention figuring out why all of those human women were showing up murdered inside the gateways.
Then…something moved . It was like a monstrous snake beneath the water, dangerous and stealthy, and it swam right into my net. ”
Cringing at the analogy, I pulled my hand back from his grasp and wrapped both of my arms tightly around myself. Lucais looked down at his hand like I’d cut off part of his finger in the process.
“I tried to find a way around it,” he carried on after a moment, “but the thing was using the ward’s connection to me as some kind of conduit.
It started feeding on my power, draining me of a microscopic drop of my energy each day.
The more attention I paid to it, the more it took.
I have reserves of power in spades, so I was able to ignore it for a while, but the problem was finding a solution for everyone else.
The few soldiers I sent into Blythe’s Court never returned, and the risks quickly outweighed the potential benefits, given that there are numerous other threats worthy of my attention. ”
The veins in his neck pulsed, his throat tightening. “The Malum, for one. The numerous faeries living in my city who would like to see me either ruling differently or decorating their table as an exquisitely handsome blond centrepiece, for another.”
I gave him a dubious look. “How do you know the thing in the lapsus isn’t Malum?”
“I don’t.” Lucais dragged one hand through his hair, leaning back on his other.
The hem of his shirt rode up, and I avoided peeking at the slip of skin it revealed.
I deliberately didn’t notice the curve of his hip, the line of taut muscle, the deep grooves and outline of something that travelled lower and longer.
“The Malum have a distinct presence on the Map. Have done ever since they came into existence,” he reminded me, oblivious to my straying interest. “They’re back to skirting the edges of Faerie within the Ruins again, and I can’t spot any inside of Blythe’s Court now that you’ve scared all of her shadows away.
Besides, the Malum should not contain anywhere near the amount of power or skill I can feel inside of the lapsus.
” He smacked his hand on his thigh. “Until the human killings began, the Malum had lived—well, not peacefully, but they weren’t violent, either. ” The High King shrugged.
I cocked an eyebrow at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring off through the window.
Not violent? I thought. Pfft. They were violent before they became Malum. They planned to rape the Witches.
“To be honest, I had a very strong suspicion that Blythe was the thing in the lapsus,” he confessed, sounding as though he was still partially convinced of it.
“Would’ve sucked to be her in that case.
If it was, though, then it wasn’t really her anymore.
Blythe may be a raging bitch, but she’s not vicious—and whatever is in the lapsus is .
I could feel it attacking me, each strike like a snake biting me repeatedly and injecting a speck of weakness into my powers every single time.
With each blow, it took something from me and used it to strengthen itself.
” Lucais stared at the wall in serious contemplation of his next words.
“Blythe is a bad decision maker, a sore loser, and she has one of the most unhinged belief systems I’ve ever had the displeasure of arguing about, but she’s not a thief. She wouldn’t try to steal someone else’s power. Wouldn’t know what to do with it if she did, honestly. She’s a purist.”
I choked down an unexpectedly sour taste in my mouth. “You know her that well?”
He frowned quizzically and turned to me. “I know everyone that well, little beast. It’s my job .”
“Pity for everyone, then,” I muttered, rolling my eyes skyward.
“In the end,” he continued, speaking those three words through his teeth, “I had to make a decision. I had more pressing matters to attend to, which required most of my power to be conserved and not tainted by whatever was in there. So, instead of holding the wards closed on both sides, keeping the thing away from whatever might be left in the Court of Darkness and the rest of Faerie at the same time…” He took a deep breath.
“I dropped the inner ward. I used a fraction of that power to further reinforce the outer ward, ensuring that it couldn’t be broken through and endanger the rest of Faerie… ”
A tense, lengthy pause.
“And effectively trapping that thing inside of the Court of Darkness, along with any of Blythe’s surviving faeries and any Malum who had actually infiltrated their Court.
” The atmosphere grew dark and heavy. His voice became a rasp.
“They were alive, Aura. The whole time… I’d ignored them for two years.
Protected them in exile for five. And then, one day, I just stopped… ”
His irises were sparking like fireflies trapped in a dark jar.
“I didn’t let the monster out. I sealed it in with them .”
No. My mind was an echo chamber of desolation and disbelief.
Lucais heard it. His own reply was grim. Yes.
Burying my face in my hands, I took a deep breath and spoke directly into my palms, cupped over my mouth to muffle the sound. “How long ago did you drop the inner ward?”
One. Two. Three seconds. Four.
“Lucais.” I parted my fingers so I could glare at him. He was already shaking his head at me softly, eyes crinkling, lower lip caught between his teeth. “How. Long. Ago.”
The High King exhaled in a long, melodramatic sigh. “When. I. Met. You. ”
Oh, High Mother.
Hands falling from my face like boulders from a volcanic mountainside, I leaned back as far as I could go without tipping over and made an incoherent shouting noise at the roof. A thick, hot lump of saliva caught in my throat and burned when I clarified, “ Because of me?”
Lucais wore an expression of great offence on his face, though I was beginning to memorise the cracks in his mask.
“I could not concentrate when I was with you, thank you very much,” he snapped, sitting upright with his elbows braced on his knees.
He stared me down, the steady smoulder returning to his eyes.
“I was too distracted. And you can wipe that look off your face, you blasphemous vixen, because I told you to go away, but you simply had to come back, didn’t you? ” He waggled his finger at me angrily.
I rolled my eyes, biting the inside of my cheek to hide an incredibly inappropriate smile triggered by the memory of that day.
He had been so obnoxiously confident—and unsavoury—as he waited for gratitude that would never come after he’d torn apart my bookstore while saving my life.
“Well, thanks to you,” he pressed on, swapping his eyes on my face for the kitchen window again, “the thing in the lapsus caught onto the fact that I was preoccupied—saving the life of the fucking bane of my existence—and doubled its efforts.” Lucais scoffed.
“You probably made it jealous. It was like it could sense you through my thoughts, like my power reacted to you and gave everything away. So fine .” He whipped his head back to look at me, his golden eyes searing with determination and desire.
Innately, I wanted to shy away from the conviction in his gaze, but there was a part of me emerging from the shadows around my heart that wanted to lean forward to greet it.
“You can win this one, Auralie. Maybe I wasn’t desperate to reclaim the extra power I was using to hold the thing in the lapsus at bay.
Maybe I didn’t need to forsake the hope for all of those faeries,” he said, his voice rising in volume.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have condemned Blythe and her Court simply for being the nuisances that were taking my attention away from you . ”
Me. My heart balked.
Lucais paused to drag a ragged breath into his lungs, eyes flaring wildly as they drilled into mine. His voice was scathing in the most romantic way when he spoke again, the tension in his shoulders buckling and collapsing.
“But I couldn’t take any chances with you, now, could I?” he said. “Not with you. Never with you. You just had to be the one thing I can never risk, and you had to fall straight into my lap, glaring up at me with those perfect blue eyes like I was the one who put you there.”
I was falling, spiralling, sinking.
I’m so in love with you, it’s made me sick.
Aura, my love.
Will you please pick up the dagger at your feet and kill it?
You’re going to be the death of me, bookworm.
I wish it was different, bookworm. I really do.
I have a mate.
He’s a very lucky man.
Bookworm.
“Lucais.”
“Auralie.”