Chapter Fourteen
“What have you done to Cinaed?” Arabella’s voice shook, but with anger, not fear.
Well… some fear.
Zephan’s nearly-clear eyes sparkled as she threw the words back in his face. He was still gripping her arm, holding her back from running to the edge of the cave, where he had flung Cinaed out.
“That dragon is unimportant.”
“He’s important to me.” She pulled out of Zephan’s grasp and stumbled back, bracing against the rock wall. She was trapped. Her heart was thudding in her ears. Lucian was gone. Leksander flew away. Cinaed was no match against the power of this fae prince—what possible chance did she have for escape? But she knew more than the last time she was trapped, alone, with Zephan, the prince of the Winter Fae Court. This time, she knew the treaty forbade him from killing humans… and that the fae held themselves bound to this law like it had real magic behind it.
She straightened up and gave Zehpan a hard stare. She was still a lawyer, and negotiating the finer points of the law was what she did for a living. At least until she found herself at the epicenter of an insane magical tug-of-war between species far more powerful than herself.
And that was key— humans were at the center of this. Specifically, her. Well, Lucian, really, but her by proxy. Which meant she held some cards in this crazy, high-stakes poker game.
She could work with that.
Zephan was coolly examining her as she stood next to the wall. “You’re a beautiful woman, Arabella. You can tell yourself that you didn’t enjoy my touch, but you would be lying.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You were using some kind of magic to trick me.”
“Exactly.” A small smile played across his face, but he didn’t come any closer.
She leaned back, wary. “What do you mean by that?”
“How much of what you see with your eyes can you actually believe?” He casually crossed the distance between them, coming close enough to touch her but holding back.
“Apparently, zero with you.” She had to fight the urge to make a run for the front of the cave. There was literally nowhere to go. She was perched on the edge of a cliff.
“I used a simple glamour trick.” He smiled, and then his cool ice-blue eyes and pale, angular face disappeared, replaced by Lucian’s amber eyes and strong cheeks.
Her heart leaped, and she couldn’t help reacting to seeing him, even if she knew it was a trick. Zephan-as-Lucian reached out to touch her, and she could swear it felt exactly as it did when the real Lucian ran his fingers along her cheek. She twisted her head away.
“How much of what you feel can you trust?” He leaned forward, placing a hand on the wall behind her head and peering into her eyes with a heart-stopping look, the kind Lucian gave her that make her hunger for him. The kind that made her fall in love with him. “I can hear your heart racing, little human. You know who I am, and yet a simple trick of the eyes, and your body betrays you. Trust me… I could have you at any moment. With or without the glamour.”
She swallowed. “Is this how you get every woman into your bed? Trickery, magic, and lies?”
His eyes went cold, and suddenly they were ice-blue again. He had dropped the glamour, but he was still crowding her against the wall. “You humans think you’re so intelligent. That you make your own choices and decide your own fate. But the truth is you’re just a bundle of chemicals and hormones surging around inside that delicate, mortal body of yours.” He touched her cheek again, and a surge of lust raged through her body, making her gasp. Heat pooled between her legs, horrifying her, yet making her crave his touch down there at the same time. It was terrifying, this literal magical control he had over her body. He leaned closer, as if to kiss her, but stopping just short. She almost bridged the gap herself, and only through an insane amount of willpower did she hold back. “Lucian’s touch gets you hot,” he whispered. “But mine will make you melt into a puddle of wanton desire. You may think it’s love that’s binding you to him, but it’s nothing more than hormones, my dear. A chemical soup of neurotransmitters that I can manipulate with just a touch and a taste of magic.”
“Leave… me… alone.” It took everything she had to breathe those words out between her teeth.
He pulled back, taking his touch with him, and the heat dropped out of her body like a cork had been pulled at her feet.
“I’m not even trying all that hard, Arabella,” he said coolly, a smirk on his face. “If I wanted you, I’d have you right up against this wall. And you’d be begging for more.”
“Say what you want.” Her body was still heaving with the after effects of the lust haze he’d induced in her. “Do what you want to me. But none of it will change how I feel about Lucian.”
His eyes flashed, and suddenly, she could see it— that was the core of all this.
He wanted to pull her away from Lucian.
No matter what happened, she vowed in that moment not to let him succeed.
“Are you quite sure about that?” His eyes were sparkling again as if he enjoyed the challenge as much as anything. Maybe immortal life was super-boring, and he got off on messing with people’s heads. Maybe he was just an asshole. Or maybe there were deeper reasons why he wanted to disrupt the treaty between the fae and the dragons.
Arabella didn’t know, she couldn’t figure it out for sure, and it didn’t matter anyway. All she knew was that no way in hell was the only proper response for whatever Zephan was trying to accomplish here.
“I’m very sure of my love for Lucian.” Arabella threw the challenge back at him. “And I’m not an idiot, Zephan. I know what you’re trying to do here, and I know all about the treaty. Maybe you can mess with my hormones, but you should be careful about underestimating a human. Especially one you have trapped up against a wall. We’re not as stupid as you seem to think.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Do you think you’re the first human I’ve taken to my bed?”
“No, I’m sure you got good at being an asshole through diligent practice.” She gave him her best look of loathing.
A smirk blossomed on his face. “Cara said almost the same thing.”
Arabella choked for a moment, her air suddenly cut off at the mention of Lucian’s dead mate. Then she spat out the words surging through her head. “You did this to Cara?”
His smirk grew. “She was all too happy to moan and writhe in my bed. Pregnant women aren’t normally my thing, but I’ll admit to enjoying that one. Especially the crying afterward.”
Horror left her mouth hanging open. Then she forced it shut. “You’re lying.”
Anger clouded his eyes for a moment, then he leaned in fast and threatening.
Arabella plastered back against the rocky wall, banging her head as she went, but that look in his eyes… it was like he wanted to shred her apart, molecule by molecule.
“A fae never lies.” His hiss was visceral and sent a shiver through her. Then his anger cooled as fast as it had appeared. “Didn’t your dragon lover tell you? Oh right… dragons lie. But the fae are incapable of it. Just one of our many sterling personal qualities. We always tell the truth, Arabella—it’s just that the truth is so awful sometimes, so horrible, that people don’t want to believe it. And the truth is that Cara’s pregnancy failed because she doubted her love for Lucian—and the peculiarities of this magical treaty they live under made that a capital offense. Barbaric if you ask me, but I’ve been saying that for some time about this infernal treaty. But I understand her doubt—it’s a wonder to me that she survived as long as she did. Lucian’s broken in a way that cannot be fixed, Arabella. A way that has him finding pleasure in the most degraded of ways.” He leaned back and waved his hand at the rocky wall next to her head. It shimmered and disappeared, with a round portal to another place appearing instead. It was like a window straight into another cavern, only this one was dark and flickering with low light. And what she saw…
Arabella reflexively covered her mouth with her hand, holding in her gasp.
Lucian was writhing on the ground, moaning in a way that was definitely not pain. Two women were bent over him, their mouths latched onto his wrists. She didn’t know what exactly they were doing, but there was no mistaking Lucian’s king-sized erection tenting out his pants.
“Vampires,” Zephan spat. “Disgusting creatures. Like having sex with a Carnal Class demon. Not that I would know… I conjure them, I don’t fuck them.” He wiped away the portal or vision or whatever it was. “Lucian is forever marked by the death of his mate… a death he caused. He’ll lie about that in ways he probably doesn’t even recognize as lying. I, on the other hand, am a Prince of the Winter Fae Court. By definition, you’ll always have the truth from me… and more pleasure than you can stand.”
“I want nothing to do with you. Ever.” But there was a cloud over her heart. Why was Lucian with those vampires? What was he doing? Was he running so hard from her—from the possibility of loving her and losing her—that he was resorting to that in order to forget her? A black, inky ooze in her chest almost made her believe it. This is doubt, she told herself. This is what you have to not do. She steeled herself against that black feeling, staring hard at the mountains outside the cave and hoping she could hold out against all of Zephan’s tricks. Lucian, where are you? she couldn’t help thinking.
“Don’t you wonder why Lucian carries such guilt over the death of his mate?”
Arabella whipped her gaze back to Zephan, who was still leaning entirely too close. “It’s natural for someone to blame themselves when bad things happen.”
He shook his head. “That’s not it. Lucian’s had decades to get over this, Arabella. Decades. He carries the burden of guilt because it truly is his fault. He failed to keep his mate safe. Just as he’s failed to keep you safe. Where is he now, exactly? Oh right, getting off with vampires. Cara died because she doubted her love for him… and there was a very good reason for that. He failed her. And he’ll fail you, too.”
Those words… somehow those words rang through Arabella’s entire body like a clarion. Like an enormous bell had rung deep in her soul. She didn’t have magic like dragons or fae, but she felt something inside her shift, strong and hard and with a sizzling energy that felt magical.
She planted her hands on Zephan’s chest and pushed—not to move him, but to shove herself away. Then she jabbed a finger at him. “You stay the hell away from me!” She heaved as that soul-deep feeling blossomed and grew and filled every fiber of her being. It was a recognition of what Zephan truly was, and how she felt, deep in her soul, about Lucian. He was everything good and right and noble in the world, no matter how broken he might be right now… and maybe forever. Lucian loved hard and deep and carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, just as Cinaed said.
Zephan was a destroyer.
“You ,” she said, jabbing at him again. “You are an evil bastard who manipulates others. I’ve seen dozens of men like you in my practice, every day, preying on women, twisting their minds, their hearts, and their souls. You’re the worst kind of vampire—you don’t just suck away the life from someone; you take what’s good inside them and twist it into evil. You destroy them for your own fucked-up purposes. And then you turn it around on them and convince them that they’re to blame for being manipulated by you. Well, fuck you and every man like you, immortal or not. You stay the hell away from me. And you stay away from Lucian.”
Zephan’s eyes went cold and hard during her tirade. “You don’t hold the cards here, Arabella. I do.”
She lifted her chin. “We’ll see about that.” She was trembling, but it wasn’t fear. It wasn’t even anger. It was pure goddamn righteous I’ve-had-enough-of-your-shit. And damn if it didn’t feel good.
Just as Zephan lurched forward, his hand reaching for her, Arabella heard a screaming roar like nothing she’d ever heard in her life. She and Zephan both looked to the front of the cave where the terror-inducing sound had come from.
Three shapes were speeding like rockets through the air straight toward them.