Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) (32 page)

“If you think the Gold King will come so close to the White Queen’s demesne to take on your mother, you have another thing coming. Two queens? He may be powerful, but he’s not stupid.”

The Gold King.

Kian’s head reeled.

Why would Agrona think his father was Oberon, the King of the Golden Court? He couldn’t picture his mother even greeting the king, let alone taking him to her bedroom to screw. She hated Oberon with a passion that put her desire to destroy the MacElvys to shame. And yet…he wouldn’t put anything that gave her power past her. And a son with both royal houses in his blood would be powerful.

A strange tingling excitement raced through him. Could it be true?

“Agrona,” Kian interrupted her tirade about the weakness of the Golden Court. “It’s a huge secret about my father. How did you find out?”

She frowned at him. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”

“I’ll let my mother know you let it slip, and where will that leave you?”

“Are you threatening me?” Her face reddened to a shade close to ripe cherry and she ground her teeth together. “You should think twice, lover. You’ll be under my power soon.”

He’d hit a nerve. She was trying to hide it, but she was afraid of the queen.

“No, I won’t be under your power any time soon,” he said. “But if you tell me the truth I might not tell my mother that you let the cat out.”

“Swear.”

“I swear, if you tell me the truth of how you came to know the information about my father, I will not tell my mother that you told me.”

“Or anyone else.”

“I swear, if you tell me the truth of how you came to know the information, with all of the details, I’ll not tell my mother, nor anyone else at court.”

She frowned and worried at her bottom lip with her large front teeth.

“Agrona, if you don’t take this deal, I’m not offering again. It’s the best I’ll do. Now take the bargain.”

“Fine.” She moved away from him, and stared out the window. Though she tried to block him from seeing them, her hands were twisted up in front of her waist and the knuckles were white. “I was there.”

“Where?”

“I was there…when your mother was a concubine in the Golden Court. Your grandfather sent me as a back-up, should anything go wrong.”

Kian’s head spun.

“Wrong with what?”

“You don’t know.” Her face twisted in rage. “You tricked me.”

“You took the bargain, now you must tell me.”

“When I have you at my mercy, you’ll regret you did this to me.”

“Tell me.”

“Your grandfather wanted an heir. A powerful heir with the magic of both courts, so he arranged for your mother to be glamored into a human sex slave and he sent her as a present to Oberon.”

Kian’s head whirled, but he kept his face stoic. “And?”

“And that’s it. She became pregnant, we left, and you were born.”

“And they kept it a secret, all this time? From Oberon? From me? How?”

Agrona laughed. “Why Prince Kian, don’t be an idiot. The only ones who knew were your mother, your grandfather, and myself. I serve the queen faithfully. And your grandfather…well, he didn’t last long after that.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Come.”

A bucket brigade of soldiers came in carrying buckets of steaming water. Kian brooded as the tub filled, thoughts and feelings tumbling through his head. His father might be Oberon, King of the Golden Court. His mother had known all this time and kept it secret from him. From everyone. And, if Agrona’s implication was to be believed, the queen had killed her own father.

Was this the source of his mother’s hatred for Oberon. What about her hatred for him?

He barely noticed Agrona pushing past the soldiers and heading for the door until she turned. “Oh, and Kian…”

His gut tightened at the gleeful look on her face and the anticipatory lilt in her voice.

“I know you have something hidden in that lodge. I’ve sent a few men back to find out what was so important to both you and the huntsman that you had to defend it with your lives, and the life of the puca. If you were my willing husband, I might not care.” She winked. “And I might not tell the queen.”

She walked out the door, waving her fingers good bye. “Ta-ta, lover. Tomorrow night, you won’t get to be so shy or it won’t only be Logan Ni Brennan who feels the wrath of the queen.”

The room emptied. The door closed behind the last solider. There was a solid
thunk
as the bar lowered into place, sealing Kian into his fate.

Bryanna took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can do it,” she said, her confidence leaking away as she watched Solanum’s life leak out onto the stones of the lodge floor. There was so much blood and the smell of it riled her stomach. “He’s losing blood fast. And he’s not even human. He’s not made up of the same things as us at all.”

When she opened her Gift and looked at Solanum, it was as if he wasn’t even on the same plane as she and Trina. His dull, dusty, purple aura seethed underneath with the color of a black hole. Dark, and despairing, and riddled with uncanny magic.

“Yes you can. Now try.” Trina’s voice held the confidence of someone four times her size and her bright green eyes, so much like Cassie’s, shone with encouragement.

Bryanna shot a sidelong glance at her cousin. “But what if I fail?” she asked.

She knew what she was really asking:
If I fail this, can I ever succeed at anything?

“If you fail, we try again. You’re a MacElvy healer. You were born to do this.” Trina grinned. “Healing magical pucas? Beings of mist and magic that live on ether and stardust? This is nothing. You should try nursing plants to health in the dust and wind of Wyoming.”

Bryanna grinned back. “You failed a lot.”

“Yes, I did. But I was determined to grow something, and by the time we left that house, I had a pretty nice garden to show for it.”

Blowing out a puff of air, Bryanna rubbed her sweaty palms on the skirt of her dress. “Okay, but if I do this wrong, and he ends up with his head where his tail should be, it’ll be your fault.”

Trina laughed and the bright familiar sound buoyed Bryanna up, filling her with confidence.

“His head’s already up his ass,” Trina said. “I don’t think you can do much worse.” She closed the gap and squished Bryanna in a fierce hug. “Now do it, Bree. Do it before you think too much.” She backed away, giving her cousin space to work.

Planting her feet shoulder width apart, Bryanna reached down into the rich, fecund power slumbering under the earth, deep under the snow, where the sap from the trees waited for spring and dormant power waited to rise. She called down the bright blue wintry sky and mingled the two together the way she had for Trina, mixing and melding them until, once again she achieved a lovely healing blue.

She blew out a breath. She’d thought it might have been a fluke. That she’d been able to do it again, conjure a master healer’s blue was unbelievable—but there it was—gleaming, and glowing, and filling her with power.

She opened her vision and stroked the blue against Solanum.

His aura pulsed and spasmed, turning dull as the blood oozed out the gaping wound in his side. She tried to heal him, bolstering his aura with her energy, but her Gift slid off of its purple-black surface. His aura was strange, formed of magic in a way she’d never seen before, something she wasn’t sure she even wanted to touch. She tried again, but the aura roused, fighting her back like an intruding virus.

“I can’t do this. It’s too hard!” She let the power go and sank to the floor. She was too tired, and he was nothing like a human, or even an elf. She had no idea what to do next. None.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Trina said. “You can.”

“It’s too much for me. You and Cassie have powerful Gifts. Me, I’m just good enough to patch paper cuts.”

“Not true. You healed me, you saved my baby.”

“That wasn’t healing. That was letting your system take back what it naturally wanted to do, kicking it back into gear. Your body wants the baby. Your heart, your soul. You just needed me to hold back the spell and show you the path. You healed yourself.”

“Bryanna, you can do this. You’ve reached the age where your Gift is growing stronger. Reach inside and take it, don’t push it away like you always have.”

“But I don’t know how! You had all those herbals from your mother to help you. Cassie barely blinks, and she has a vision. Me? I’ve had nothing and no one to help me learn to heal. Few books, no mentor. I can barely heal a migraine.” She sank down on the stoop next to the puca. The black shield overhead had faded to a sickly shade of grey, but continued to hold. How long, she wasn’t sure. And when it went, they’d be vulnerable.

“Look what I did to Kian,” she said.

She’d messed up. If she’d known better what to do, he’d be a whole man. Instead, he was still imprisoned in his mother’s curse.

“You didn’t do that to him, that bitch of a queen did that.”

“But I couldn’t cure him!”

“You damn near did. You’re halfway there. You! A partially trained witch who has barely been able to study because she’s been taking care of everyone else around her. We’ve all leaned on you so heavily you haven’t had any time to learn your Gift. You took on the queen’s curse because Kian needed you, and you damn near won. Do you know how powerful you must be?”

“Me?”

“Quit whining. Stand up, pull up your britches, and get to work.” Tiny Trina glared down at her, and as she’d always done, Bryanna stood up.

“You’ve changed,” she said. “I don’t remember you being so strong.”

“I’ve grown up, fallen in love, and I’m becoming a mother.” Trina smiled. “Everything changes when you’re forced to leave your family and forge your own.”

Bryanna gave her cousin a weak grin.

“No more wasting time, he needs you now.”

She reached for the power and it sprang to her hand like it hadn’t really left. Maybe she’d known she would try again. Maybe she had more faith in herself than she knew. Kian had told her he believed in her magic. He’d believed in her. She wished he were here to cajole and bully her into this. She half-smiled to herself. Just like Trina, he wouldn’t let her back down.

She shook her head and refocused on Solanum, his aura, and the wide wound cutting through his muddied, black hide. His eyes were closed, and his barrel chest barely moved up and down, but he was still alive. Still pouring his energy into shielding them, despite the deathblow. She couldn’t let him down.

“Hold his head, Trina.”

“Are you kidding? Have you seen his teeth?”

“Hey, you’re the one who wants him healed. I need you to hold his head.”

Trina moved cautiously close to the puca. Coming up from behind his head, she knelt and wrapped her arms around him. His eyelids twitched.

“Do you have him?”

“Yeah, but don’t forget, you just healed me. Don’t want to have to do too many of these in one day.”

“You’re telling me.” Bryanna pulled more energy, using some of it to bolster her already tired powers. “I’m going to use my Gift to stitch up the wound.”

“You can do that?”

“I don’t know, but I’m out of options. He’s not letting me in to heal his aura, so I’m making it up as I go.” She pulled additional power from the stars far above the roof of the lodge. Prickly star power would form a point better than the solid, slow-moving earth and maybe, just maybe, it would work better with the puca’s own ethereal nature. She took the cord of blue power, tipped with star energy and used her thumb and forefinger to roll and pull the tip into a sharp point. Then she knelt in the blood next to the puca.

“Hold him.”

Trina took a better grip, anchoring one hand in his mane, the other across his muzzle. Bryanna jabbed the power into the black skin. He lurched.

“Hold him!”

“I’m trying.”

Bryanna gently picked up his organs and pushed then back into the open wound. With one hand she held the slippery flaps closed and she stitched with the other, lacing the power in and out.

Solanum thrashed and his aura lashed out, slapping her arm away.

She lost her grip and the wound gaped. “Damn it!” Her forearm oozed from a burn the size of a handprint. “Trina, use your Gift. Hold him back.”

Her cousin’s green and brown power wrapped around the puca, and Bryanna kept stitching. Every inch of the long gash was a struggle. In and out, in and out, until she finally pulled the last knot tight.

She stood. “There, that part’s done.” She wiped the sweat off of her forehead and inspected the magical stitches glowing in a jagged blue line over his dark, sweating hide.

“That part? There’s more?”

“I still need to heal him. If I don’t, I don’t think he’ll make it.”

“Will he let you?”

“I don’t know. I’m hoping that now that my power is in his skin…I should be able to activate it.” She forced herself to sound confident, but she was weaker now than before. Two healings in one day, and this one wasn’t over. But there was no one else, and so far, this method was working. The healer blue stitches appeared to be holding everything together and the gush of blood had slowed.