“Quit yelling at me,” Fredrick replies drolly. “I was defending her.”
“Oh,” Devon says, but his temper doesn’t improve. He closes his eyes and comes up with nothing. “Will someone please go and find her?”
“No, leave her. She is off licking her wounds. She will come out when she is ready,” Constantine huffs, clearly not concerned about his wife’s well-being.
“I can’t sense her,” Devon repeats yet again. “I don’t think she is on the castle grounds. She puffported out of here! That power is wonky, she could have ended up anywhere…” He looks towards the gates of the castle and then shudders.
“Of course she isn’t that stupid,” Constantine says. “She has probably just cloaked herself, not wanting to be found. Dramatics, nothing more.”
Devon gapes at the harshness of his words. “She doesn’t know how to use this power,” he argues. But he might as well talk to himself. Constantine is stalking off and everyone else has sloped off into the darkness.
“Great,” he mutters. “Well, I will find you then.” And even though fear slides down his spine at the thought of what awaits beyond the wards, he Astraports himself outside to try and find his sire.
The Light Fae Kingdom, January 2015 - Aefre
“Ugh,” I murmur. My head feels like someone hit me with a truck solely in that place. My eyes are shut, and my mouth is dry. I move, but I find myself restricted. That’s when I become fully conscious and my eyes fly open. I groan as the bright, white light of the room aggravates my headache. I look up and find my wrists bound above my head, in much the same position as before.
“Vito…” I mumble.
“Sorry, no. Your hero isn’t here to help you this time,” Anders voice comes from somewhere in front of me. I can’t see as my eyes haven’t adjusted to the light yet. That alone proves that I am in the L.F.K. and not at Cassis in France, where I had been headed. Damn, fucking, useless Faerie power! I recall landing somewhere near the palace and then…nothing. I must have been hit on the head and dragged here.
“Anders?” I question and he swims into view as he steps closer.
“That’s King to you,” he says mildly, definitely not the affable Faerie he used to be before. What is it about becoming King of the Light Fae that turns good men into dicks?
I tug on the binds, but I am not going anywhere. I flick my fingers, trying to ignite a spark of Dark Fae magick, but it is completely useless against the magick holding me.
“A King’s magick trumps your own,” Anders says smugly, and I am very well aware of that fact. “You aren’t going anywhere until I say so.”
I give him a level gaze, determined not to show him my fear. Without my Dragon, I am pretty vulnerable and that makes me think twice about the acerbic comment that springs to my lips.
“I didn’t kill Kalen,” I say instead. That is obviously the reason I am tied up here.
“So, you’ve said,” Anders says, spinning a basic wooden chair around and straddling it. He is dressed in white silk and it does nothing to help with my light blindness. “However, you aren’t to be believed.”
“You know I loved him,” I start desperately. “Before he spelled me, I loved him. Even after I found out what he did to me, I never wanted to hurt him. I didn’t kill him.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” he says. “But my people are a difficult race to convince otherwise when their mind is set.”
“You are King,” I pounce immediately. “Tell them and they will believe you.”
“Hm, if only it was that simple. You see, there is evidence against you. Motivation, cause.” He shakes his head. “Tomorrow you will stand trial for his murder.”
“What?” I shriek, the fear coating my skin like a blanket. If I stand trial here, I will be executed. “Anders, please. You know I didn’t do this.” I tug once again on my ties.
“You will stand before a tribunal of the Court and they will probably find you guilty,” Anders continues.
“That isn’t right!” I exclaim, twisting and turning to try and get myself out of the binds. It took Frederick’s immense strength to break Vito’s bonds, but I am nowhere near as strong as he is now, and Vito is no King.
Anders stands up again and approaches me. Stalking me almost. “They may go easy on you if they see you have already stood some form of punishment. A life sentence instead of death…”
“What punishment?” I ask, just to stall whatever is coming next. Hopefully it will be Drake to rescue me, but somehow, I doubt that very much after our last exchange.
Anders twists his hand in mid-air, and I spin around to face the wall. He rips my dress open at the back and runs a cold finger all the way down my spine. “Flawless,” he murmurs. “Let’s see if we can change that.”
“What?” I try to twist back, but the magick is holding me too tightly in place. I freeze when I remember that my Dragon is no longer there, he must know how powerless I am?
“Exquisite, really,” he carries on as if he is talking to himself. “It’s almost a shame to ruin it.”