Chapter 14
Gerard might be out of place on this fae field and unfamiliar with local customs, but there was one truth that all of his instincts shouted as he readied for today’s challenges:
Lorelei was hiding from him.
Oh, she stood physically beside him in the autumnal morning light, along with their fellow competitors, but from the moment she’d sent him out of their tent that morning, she had withdrawn more tightly behind her veil of illusions than ever before …
and the disconcerting glamour that she’d cast over her face was the least of it.
He would never forget the sight of her that morning when she’d first awoken, her hair streaming around her in sensual abandon and her expression open, warm, and vulnerable.
The tip of her tongue had swept out to lick her upper lip as she’d gazed at him with unmistakable hunger …
And he’d nearly doubled over, mid-calisthenics, with the force of his own sudden, piercing need.
It was the first time he’d glimpsed the Balravian queen entirely unshielded.
Her usual sophisticated flirtation was all too tempting, but that open vulnerability had been nigh-on irresistible.
It had taken every ounce of his own willpower to breathe through the moment and maintain an unaffected demeanor …
And her disgruntlement, only a moment later, had been adorable. There was no other word for it. Rarely in his life had he felt so disappointed as when she’d cast that unsettling glamour over her features as a mask, smoothing over every touchable inch with chilling perfection.
On a deeper level, though, a new, hot spark of challenge had lit within him at that sight.
If ever-confident Lorelei actually felt any need to hide from him, that meant he’d finally caught the incorrigible queen wrong-footed.
In this obsessive, unstoppable competition that they’d been privately enacting for years, she had taken a seemingly insurmountable lead when she’d abducted him.
Now, though, he suddenly held the advantage.
He didn’t intend to let it slip from his hands again.
Had Lorelei exposed more of her true self last night than she’d intended?
Enough to make her this nervous now? Then he would hunt down all of her secrets while he was here.
Gerard wasn’t known as relentless for nothing …
and the sharp tug in his chest to learn even more, to know all of his contradictory captor’s deepest truths, was undeniable.
Besides, it made perfect political sense.
Without any fae blood of his own to guide him through the veil between worlds, he couldn’t mount any escape plans from the fae realm.
Therefore, his clear Imperial duty as well as his personal compulsion demanded that he turn around the trap she’d closed upon him and use it to ferret out every secret he could for his empire’s advantage.
Oddly, that rationalization felt more dampening than uplifting … but he shifted his emotional response aside. The only thing that could matter in this situation—or any other—was his duty. That was his deepest truth. Nothing could ever matter more.
So, with his hands clasped behind his back, Gerard listened calmly and attentively to all of Lord Oberon’s self-important pronouncements, and he waited with carefully hidden impatience to tackle the day’s official challenges … and his own unofficial hunt.
“Let Day Two of the tournament begin!” Lord Oberon finally declared with the over-the-top grandeur of an insecure man who’d been dying for real power for years.
Gerard braced himself for the inevitable, dizzying shift through a new fae portal into a new illusory setting.
Instead, he found himself suddenly standing alone on the tournament field as everyone else disappeared. Lorelei was gone, along with their competitors. Lord Oberon and all of the onlookers were missing, too.
A deep and strangely peaceful hush filled the air as Gerard turned slowly in place, looking warily upon the vast green field and the forest of orange-leafed trees beyond it that hid the tent where he had slept last night. Every stand erected for the tournament’s audience was empty.
Not a single threat was in sight. He couldn’t hear any sound, not even the soft whispering of the autumn breeze that had drifted across him only a moment ago.
Was this a new illusion that he was meant to break? Lorelei had handled all of the magical challenges for their partnership thus far, but perhaps, if he put his mind to it …
“CAREFUL.” It was a vast, sighing breath through the trees and across the field, so strong that it bent those distant branches and made the hair on his wrists and the back of his neck stand up. Goose bumps broke out all across his skin.
That was no mere illusion … and had it been a woman’s voice?
Slowly and carefully, Gerard slipped one hand to the hilt of his sword, but he didn’t draw it.
“Hello?” he called out. “I mean you no harm, madam.”
Were fae crowds still watching him from those empty stands? This didn’t feel like any of the challenges he’d faced yesterday.
Perhaps it was one of those more difficult trials that Lorelei had promised would arrive on the second day. Was he about to be posed an enigmatic riddle? Or set upon some sort of quest?
The trees beyond the field began to ripple even before that sighing voice reached him once more, sounding both massive and impossibly distant.
Its power resonated through his body but forced his ears to strain after every word.
“WE ONLY HAVE … MOMENT … TOGETHER,” that impossible voice sighed out.
“YOU … NOT OF MINE, BUT STILL … WARNING:
“BE CAREFUL WITH HER!”
With the force of that final, urgent command, a blast of cool air swept from the forest across the field, nearly knocking Gerard off his feet.
Staggering, he squeezed his eyes shut against the painful, stinging force of it—and breathed in the sudden, overpowering scent of fresh greenery mingled with sweet-smelling rose blossoms.
“Lorelei?” he whispered, his voice caught in the unnatural wind.
A storm of sound erupted around him in answer.
Opening his eyes, he found himself transplanted into a new setting after all, standing—heart still pounding and skin hotly prickling—in the middle of a lushly crowded greenhouse with a high, rounded ceiling.
The warm, moist air was filled with cheeping, singing, and squabbling birds who strutted proudly along the pathways and flew over his head, their wings flashing bright shades of blue, yellow, and green.
The floor itself was lined with rows of tall green plants.
Colorful flowers bloomed all around, and several of Gerard’s opponents stood braced for action nearby, looking as startled as if they, too, had only just arrived …
but not nearly as shocked as they ought to if they’d experienced anything like his unnerving interaction beforehand.
Had any time passed for the rest of them since Lord Oberon’s announcement?
Gerard couldn’t help the irrational but powerful conviction that time had somehow held still for him alone on that field, as if he’d been scooped out from the ordinary turning of the day by someone—or something? —to receive that enigmatic warning.
But why? Gerard, of all people, hardly needed any magical intercessions to warn him against his own abductor.
… Who, he realized abruptly, was nowhere to be seen.
Lorelei wasn’t the only one who was missing. As Gerard swiftly catalogued the competitors around him, he realized that everyone here had been separated from their partners for the first time since the tournament’s opening trial.
That challenge had been designed to prove that each partner had the strength to fight on their own, without their partner’s help. What was this new trial meant to test?
A deep and ominous bell chimed in one corner of the greenhouse, and Gerard’s gaze snapped to the face of the tall clock that stood there, surrounded by glistening yellow flowers. His brows lowered as he watched the thin second hand move steadily in the wrong direction.
Fae time might not match up with the mortal world, but he’d never heard of it ticking backwards …
Aha. This wasn’t a real clock at all. It was a visual countdown device.
Judging by the pace of those slow ticks, Gerard judged that he had less than ten minutes to complete the full trial before failure would be declared.
As so many of this morning’s competitors had been planted in the same room together, he must be in competition to complete it before anyone else.
And in order to complete it …
Of course. Letting out a controlled breath, Gerard finally wrenched the last of his scattered thoughts out of that empty field he’d just left and squarely into the moment of this challenge.
What else could the goal be? There was just one thing everyone here was missing … and oh, how the fae did love their illusions!
Every sense alert for clues—and danger—Gerard began to slowly pace the rows of the greenhouse, searching for his missing partner.
Around him, other fae were calling out to their own partners without any luck.
This had to be a true spell in action, not just an illusion, if it had taken away the volition of all those lost competitors as well as disguising them.
Lorelei wouldn’t be able to come to Gerard herself or offer him any helpful hints.
He would have to hunt her down on his own, regardless of her disguise. Otherwise …
What was it that Oberon had said to everyone at the beginning of this challenge? “Many others may be lost to us forever.”
A chill formed at the base of Gerard’s spine, spreading rapidly upwards.
What would happen if he didn’t find Lorelei in time?
Regardless of whether or not they won this challenge, would she be set free at the end of it?
Or would she remain trapped in her spelled shape in this lush greenhouse forever?
He thought back to the self-satisfied smirk on Oberon’s face and knew the answer.
“Forever…”