Chapter 38
SAPHIRA
Ijumped, my fingers tightening against the necklace I gripped as I whirled, putting my back to the stone railing and the city, coming to face a handsome male.
Oberon.
My surprise at being startled by him morphed to surprise to see him given what Rhyn had said about the Forgotten Princes.
But the tension tightening my shoulders faded as he gracefully bowed, dipping his head to me, and straightened, that familiar roguish smile curling his lips that were only a shade darker than his pale skin tonight.
I was angry with him too, but right now it felt so damned good to see him.
If anyone could keep Kalyn away from me while I got my head straight and banished the wretched things he had placed in it, it was Oberon.
Shrewd silver eyes raked over me and then the large moonlit terrace.
“If you wanted to make a break for it, now might be a good time,” he purred.
“A break for it?” My eyebrows knitted as I tried to decipher what he meant.
“Run. Away from this place. Away from Kaeleron.”
I hadn’t expected to hear one of Kaeleron’s friends telling me to do that.
“Why would I run from him?” I frowned at him, studying him more closely both with my vision and my senses, sure he was playing some kind of game with me and I was tired of those.
“A mere suggestion given how upset you seemed when you burst onto the terrace, disturbing my solitude.” He shrugged, rolling his shoulders beneath his fine black tunic that matched the ones the males inside the castle wore tonight.
Only no mask obscured his features.
I looked for it as he stepped towards me, the familiar pressure of his power swirling around me, weaving some kind of magic upon me as I relaxed further, glad of his company if only because it would hopefully stop me from thinking about what was happening in the ballroom.
Or how deep those claws in my mind were sinking with each passing second, letting all my doubts and fears free to torment me.
I released the necklace as I exhaled, attempting to banish those thoughts from my mind and the hurt from my heart so I could be reasonable, objective even.
Kalyn wouldn’t dare approach me when Oberon was with me. I was safe, for now, and I would use my time wisely.
Oberon’s sharp silver gaze fell to the necklace and he tilted his head as he studied it. “Not the safest choice of fashion accessory.”
“I’m aware of that. Now. But I can’t take it off. Kaeleron entrusted me with it. I don’t know why.” I hiked my shoulders. “Probably some game he’s playing.”
“Rare for him to play games.” Oberon moved to my left and then paced back to my right, his eyes on the stones the entire time as his expression turned thoughtful, his fine black eyebrows pinching above his straight nose. “Do they call to you?”
I looked down at the blue stones and considered his question, and how I had felt in the ballroom, when I had been circling the edge of what had felt like a powerful and consuming abyss. One that had beckoned me.
“A little,” I admitted.
“Curious.” Oberon lifted his silver gaze from the necklace and stared into my eyes. “Very curious.”
I wasn’t in the mood for his cryptic brand of speaking tonight, and the longer I stood on the terrace with him, the more relaxed I became and the quieter those poisonous words in my mind grew, the more my wolf side was snarling, baring fangs at him and demanding I say something.
I owed him a piece of my mind after all. I would keep that promise to Morden.
“I know what you did to Morden.” All softness fled my voice as I stared him down, straightening my shoulders and spine so he would hopefully take me seriously and not just wave me away as so many fae did, as if I wasn’t a threat to them.
“You didn’t have to do that to him. You didn’t have to hurt him.
It was sick of you to do that, turning him against himself.
I got a taste of it in the ballroom with that bastard Kalyn and believe me when I tell you that if you ever…
ever… even think about hurting one of my wolves like that again, I will show you how sharp my fangs are. ”
It probably wasn’t wise to threaten someone even a Nightmare King feared, but I had to draw the line, and was willing to risk my own life in order to protect those of my friends and my pack.
He was in my face in the blink of an eye.
His hands on my face.
His eyes scouring mine.
“Fiend,” he growled and I gasped, my heart pounding as I struggled against his hold, fear flashing through my blood. He sneered down at me. “Still, little wolven. Do not move. Do not breathe. This will not be pleasant, but if you fight me, it will be far worse.”
“What—” My words cut off in a half-snarl half-scream as it felt as if those claws in my mind were being dragged through it, cleaving great grooves as they desperately tried to keep hold of me.
My eyes watered, my teeth clamping together so hard I feared they might break, but I kept still.
Somehow, I kept still.
“Out, fiend,” Oberon snarled, his face twisting, ashy black spreading from his brightening eyes as he stared deep into my soul. “Out and do not return.”
A gasp burst from my lips as my body jerked, as if someone had been pulling on it and had suddenly released me, and my knees buckled.
Oberon kept me upright, quick to catch me before I could collapse in a heap on the flagstones.
I felt empty.
So strangely empty.
And then like a gentle wave washing over a pristine shore, thoughts and feelings began to return. My thoughts. My feelings.
“Better?” Oberon said brightly.
I managed to nod.
He released me, his tone matching the one he’d had before he had suddenly seized me and torn Kalyn from my mind, as if nothing had just happened.
“I have seen how sharp your fangs are, and knew I risked your bite when I set out to do what I did to your wolven friend. This confrontation would have come whether Morden had told you or not. I keep no secrets. I would have told you if he had not. My actions were necessary. I do what I must to keep the Shadow Court safe and I needed to know if the wolf was a threat to it.”
I rubbed my temples, waiting for Kalyn’s words to fill my mind again, but there was only blessed silence. “Well, you didn’t delve deep enough into his head, because Morden was a threat to me. He meant to betray me in order to save his sister.”
“But he did not.” Oberon came up beside me and leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the stone balustrade, his long, elegant fingers picking at the lichens as he sighed and gazed at the city. “Many of us would do far worse things to protect our siblings.”
I turned to face the same direction and looked at the sprawl of buildings and avenues below us. “You seem very fond of the Shadow Court, and very protective of it.”
He shrugged again. “I am protective of everyone and everything I care about.”
“So protective that you might, say… come to a ball you weren’t invited to, and without a mask to conceal yourself?” I gazed at his noble profile as his lips slowly curled into a smirk.
He slid me a sly look. “The white wolf is as cunning as a cat. She plucks knowledge from the air and tucks it away, as if she were a dragon and it were treasure.”
“Hardly. Rhyn told me you weren’t invited.”
His smile held. “Another king in your arsenal. Soon you might be the most powerful female in these lands. Two kings at your disposal.”
“And one Forgotten Prince.” I leaned against the stone beside him and he chuckled softly. I glanced at him. “Why do they call you that?”
“Because these old courts have forgotten us. My brothers are not of my blood, but rather wanderers from these lands, lost in time or through circumstance, or forsaken by their bloodline. Our blood is so muddied none of us know where we came from originally and our names have been scratched from the histories of the courts. Now we call the Stygian Isles our home.”
There was a cold sort of sadness about that and about him as he gazed blankly at the streets of the seat of the high king.
“Which are you?” I kept my tone soft, quiet, part of me afraid to disturb him when he looked so melancholy, but the rest wanting to know more about him as I felt a strange kind of kinship with him. “Lost or forsaken?”
He heaved a long sigh and was silent for almost a full minute before he whispered, “Both.”
He shoved back from the wall so suddenly he startled me, popping to his feet beside me and all trace of whatever sorrow had plagued him erased with a bold smile that looked as much a mask as the wolf one I wore.
How these fae loved to hide their true feelings.
As if they feared them.
Or perhaps they feared how those feelings might be used against them by another.
“Why are the Forgotten Princes not invited to the balls?” It seemed cruel to exclude them simply because they held no allegiance to the courts.
“The high king loves order above anything. We princes are beyond the sphere of that order… pawns he cannot control as he does with the kings and the courts they rule, no matter how fiercely he tries. Consider us rogues. Powerful fae who do not obey his rules or bend the knee to him.” Oberon glanced beyond me, towards the doors and the wall of glass that revealed the ball.
“Although the high king would be displeased to see me in particular at one of his balls. The bastard has been trying to unearth my lineage for some time now, and has failed at every turn, which has made him quite vicious towards me. When he finally manages it, we shall be in for a most amusing confrontation.”
He grinned at the ballroom.
I couldn’t bring myself to look there, not when that dreadful tune was still playing. I didn’t want to see Kaeleron dancing with another woman, even if he had no say over whether it happened or not.
“Can a king become a wanderer?” I said and wished I hadn’t when Oberon’s gaze narrowed and shifted to me. “Forget I asked.”