The monster who had once been a man stepped nearer, surveyed her openly, licked his ugly, charred lips, and reached out to touch her arm. She thought she might heave, something Fae just didn’t do …
She must not allow him to see how frightened and uncertain she actually was. She had to treat this situation as a test, a test she had to score one hundred percent on if she were going to make it out of his fortress and back home alive.
She had to bluster. She had to puff herself up and appear more powerful and bring him down a peg, enough to anger him and make him act irrationally and with more fury than skill. She had to draw out the monster in him, for monsters when enraged rarely thought clearly!
“Why? Why have you allowed yourself to dissolve into … what you are?”
“Do ye know how many centuries I have been here alone?” he asked, but she could see he wasn’t really looking for her answer. She kept quiet and went through the planning steps and paces in her mind.
He shook his head. “’Tis why I spelled the Peckering to bring me the first person that touched her—and now I have ye both.”
Royce eyed him and answered caustically, “I’ll bet you didn’t expect to get a powerful Seelie Fae, though, did you?”
“Powerful in many realms, but not so here …”
“You haven’t had enough experience with the Fae to know that. I can see you aren’t sure of your words. There is no conviction in them.”
“If ye were powerful, ye would have already left.”
“Do you think so? Think again. Obviously you didn’t die. How were you put here? Had you no contingency for escape? No … you are not infallible, obviously not all-knowing, for you were trapped here. So I count myself more powerful than you, for I am not trapped here.”
“Are ye not? Why then are ye still here?” He shook his head. “My contingency is to usurp your powers, yer magic, combine it with m’own, and escape this hell.”
“And how could you even begin to do that?”
“By absorbing ye, Seelie Fae, by absorbing ye and all ye that ye are,” he answered on a sly and confident note.
“Fool.” Royce sneered. Now, she thought, now let’s tickle that monster temper he must surely have. Let’s play with his convictions. “I am not just a Fae, but a princess of the House of Nimrough. Do you actually believe I can be overpowered and, what did you say, absorbed?” She snickered at him.
She was correct. His ego could not take the injury. He stepped forward, his dark features contorting with anger, and then he stopped himself as though aware of what she was trying to do.
A tremor shook her when he grinned, it was so damned wicked, and then she was filled with revulsion as he leered at her. Malevolence throbbed and pulsated all from his body and into the air around them.
“The House of Nimrough, eh? As though that would mean anything to me. Doona think that will help ye, woman. It was yer queen that imprisoned me, but not before I spelled the Peckering and put it where the Fae should not have found it. Ye Fae doona know how to find yer own artifacts … so it’s wondering I am how ye managed it. Was it by accident?”
Right then, she thought; she had not known that the queen had imprisoned him. That was a good thing. If royal magic had been used to create this terrible hellhole for him, then royal magic could be used to get her out. Right? Well, yes, in theory, she told herself, but then the queen’s royal magic was above all others.
“You don’t know anything about Fae power and certainly less about royal Fae power. I found the Peckering—and not by accident. Think what else I can do.” She stalled for time. “And now I think I will leave you to whatever you do here …”
“Ah, but that would be rude, and besides, ye canna leave here at will. What enters this dimension, stays …” He laughed insanely.
As she stood her ground she began silently chanting. She had to call on black magic and demand it recognize and submit to her white Fae magic; she had that power as a Royal. Then she stopped, stunned, as the Fallen Druid morphed into something else.
Mesmerized, frozen with shock, she watched him grow into a hideous beast nearly twelve feet tall. Saliva—green and festering—drooled from his mouth, and red heat glowed from his eyes.
Fear took a swipe at Royce, but she immediately beat it off. She was a Royal Fae—she couldn’t allow fear to enter the mix.
She stared at him as his voice reverberated off the walls. “It has been a long time since I have eaten anything so delectable …”
Time to run, she told herself. “Peckering—out, get us out of here!”
The Peckering immediately obliged, but once outside there was nowhere to hide.
She pressed herself flat against the stone fortress and tried silently chanting again. She had to break through the black magic the Fallen Druid had threaded into this world. She had to get through to the queen’s white spell. What she needed was time—time to figure out which ancient words would work.
Trouble, she thought again. I am in so much trouble.
“Okay … are you still under his command?” she asked the Peckering, who was still in her tight fist.