The Ruby Kiss (20 page)

She froze in shock, her frantic breath jammed in her lungs. Silence hummed in her ears as she waited for the world to explode.

Nothing happened. A manic giggle burst from her lips.

“Hah! It hasn’t worked.” Was she safe?

The unbearable tension in her body eased; then a buzzing tingle ran up her arm and detonated a fireworks display in her chest. She sucked in air as the room revolved around her like a crazy fairground ride. Animals filled her head. She recognized Twister’s wolf, eagle, and stag; a huge owl screeched in her brain, making her wince. On the edge of her perception, other animals stalked her: a bear lumbered close, a panther prowled in the shadows, numerous other creatures flitted through her consciousness too fast for her to identify. She was no longer alone inside her skull. The space was full of creatures of every shape and size.

Ruby opened her eyes and blinked, trying to acclimatize to the strange sensation. “What are you? Bloody Noah’s Ark,” she managed to stutter.

Twister leaned close to her ear; his scratchy dreadlocks with their smooth rodent skulls brushed her cheek. His breath was warm against her hair.

“Meet my alter egos, my queen.”

Nightshade followed the directions a brownie gave him and pushed open the door to the Troll’s Armpit. The sense of unease plucking his nerves since Ruby had left flared to full-blown alarm as he barged in, shouldering aside a Whip who was blocking the door. His glance around the room revealed the few patrons with drinks were all staring in the same direction.

He followed their gaze and his blood froze. Twister had Ruby pinned against the wall. The three green stone rings of his Magic Knot rested in Ruby’s palm.

Nightshade’s heart hammered in shocked disbelief. “What . . . ?” He shook his head. “Why?”

Pain slammed through his chest, cutting off his already thin breath. His aching head throbbed harder. He staggered a few steps before catching himself against a wooden pillar.

“Ugh!” Ruby dropped the Magic Knot back into Twister’s hand as if it were poison. But it was too late. The bond between the two had been wrought. Nothing short of death would break it.

Her distraught gaze locked with Nightshade’s. “He forced me to touch those stones. I didn’t want to,” she cried.

Something inside Nightshade broke. His head dropped forward. He stared unseeing at the ground.

She was mine.

Twister might have forced her into the bond, but the whys and wherefores were irrelevant. Nightshade had now lost Ruby. How certain he’d been that she would be his. He would have been patient until she trusted him enough to bond with him.
His imagination had already joined them together at Trevelion Manor in Cornwall with their son in the nursery.

He turned his back, unable to look at her. On the opposite side of the room Devin was slumped on the floor against the wall, an open bite wound leaking trails of blood down his neck. Nightshade blinked, even more stunned. His friend’s predicament helped push all thought of Ruby from his mind.

He gathered his shredded wits and hurried forward. “Ye gods, Devin.”

“After my leftovers, pisky boy?” his father crowed from the corner.

“I tried to stop Dragon biting him,” Ruby shouted.

Nightshade blocked out everyone except his friend. The strong steady beat of the djinn’s heart eased his tension; Devin looked a mess, but the damage was not serious. Not for one with Devin’s extraordinary powers. Nightshade knelt, gathered the djinn’s upper body in his arms and examined the twin holes in his neck.

He’d come to ask Devin for blood in the hope it would help him recover from his sickness so that he could protect Ruby when she faced Fenrir, but now he’d have to manage without that help. He couldn’t take more blood from Devin, and nobody else was likely to offer him their neck. Ruby . . . . With a grunt of frustrated anger, he shoved her out of his thoughts and concentrated on the djinn.

He ran his tongue over Devin’s neck, sealing the fang holes and cleaning away the blood. Pleasure shuddered through him. Devin’s blood had the unusual addictive quality of his father Troy’s, the tangy taste and power a heady combination. If Dragon expected to control Devin through a blood bond, he had a nasty surprise in store. Experience had taught Nightshade how unlikely Troy’s bloodline was to be controlled.

He smoothed back the dark strands of hair from Devin’s face and licked the last drips of blood from his skin.

“Get a room, pisky boy, we don’t want to watch you make out with Smoky,” Dragon laughed, but there was a telltale gruffness to his voice.

“Jealous?” Nightshade threw over his shoulder.

Dragon stood, scraping back his chair. He was spoiling for a rumble.

“Leave it,” Twister shouted. “We’ve had enough fighting. I want to get ready for Fenrir’s transformation.”

Nightshade crashed back to earth. He cast a murderous glance at Twister, sucked in a breath and released it slowly. He would keep his promise to protect Ruby even if she didn’t belong to him. The man to whom she was now handfasted certainly wouldn’t look after her.

* * *

“Nightshade, is Devin all right?”

Ruby’s view of Nightshade and the djinn was blocked by one of the Whips. She shoved Twister away in an effort to escape and get across the room to Nightshade. Twister grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She elbowed him in the belly, but all she did was bruise herself on a stud of his leather jacket.

“I’m not going anywhere near Fenrir until I know Devin’s okay,” she spat at the Unseelie king, who pulled her toward the door. She dug in her heels and craned her neck to see Nightshade.

“Ruby, don’t be so damned awkward,” Twister said. Dragon grabbed her other arm, and they lifted her off her feet so she couldn’t resist.

“Where are you taking her?” Nightshade shouted.

“To Fenrir,” Ruby answered, going floppy in order to make herself heavier.

Nightshade rose to his feet, and she was relieved to see Devin scramble upright as well. Whatever the nightstalker
did had revived him. The djinn was shaking his head, clearly regaining his bearings.

“Wait. We’ll come to help her,” Nightshade said.

Twister gestured to Boulder and the Whips, who moved to stop him. “No. I don’t want you interfering and upsetting Fenrir. Ruby’s bonded with me. I’ll look after her.” Then Dragon and Twister carried her out of the door and started along the corridor.

Ruby’s breath hissed out in mixed frustration and relief. Although she wanted Nightshade and Devin with her, neither of them was in any state to help. Not now.

As she relaxed, her strange link with Twister let her see behind his brusque mask. The Unseelie king wasn’t the coldhearted monster she’d expected. His emotions brushed across her awareness: an aching muddle of hope, fear, and guilt.

“Let me down.” She kicked her legs and forced her two captors to lower her feet to the ground. They kept hold of her arms.

“Have you decided to be sensible?” Twister cast her a disbelieving sideways glance, and he couldn’t hide his conflicting emotions. He didn’t want her hurt. Couldn’t she trust him to protect her?

Her anger faded a little. “I sense your feelings, Twister.” His jaw clenched tight, and he stared straight ahead, but his creatures crept back into her mind. The wolf groveled on its belly, whining and begging for her help.

“I
will
help with your father if I can, but you had no right to force me to bond with you.”

“It’s the best way to protect you,” he snapped. The wolf in her head rose and growled, and she sensed he believed this was true. The problem was that the mental link probably worked both ways.

She imagined pushing the animals out of her head and
slamming down a big metal door. “I won’t tolerate you reading my thoughts or trying to control me.”

Twister jerked to a halt, gave a sharp intake of breath. “You shut me out.”

“I don’t want you in my head.”

Dragon guffawed. “I think I like this one! She’s got a backbone.”

“Butt out.” Ruby cast him a murderous glance, but his laughter just escalated.

“If you hadn’t claimed her, Twister, I might have entertained myself with her for a few days.”

He was just trying to get a rise out of her. Ruby didn’t bother to respond. She turned back to Twister. “I mean it. I won’t have you trying to control me. Keep out of my head.”

“Bonding through Magic Knots doesn’t allow control. It’s more for . . .” He winced and looked away.

“For
luurve,”
Dragon filled in with a smirk.

Apprehension washed through her. “That is so not going to happen.”

“At least we agree on something,” Twister retorted. “Anyway, the bond is only half formed because I haven’t touched your Magic Knot.”

“Thank goodness for small mercies.” For the first time she was glad that her father had kept hers.

The corridor narrowed as they approached Fenrir’s pit. Instead of continuing along the route Devin had taken them, however, Twister angled off down a side turning.

“I’m going to the gallery to watch,” Dragon said, releasing her arm.

“If it looks like Ruby’s in trouble at any time, I want you to get her out of there,” Twister said.

Dragon shrugged. “Anything you say.” But, as he turned away, the sly smile on his lips worried Ruby.

“If he’s your backup plan, I’m in trouble.”

“He’ll do what he’s told,” Twister said, but she still wasn’t convinced.

“Right,” he continued. “Time to behave like a responsible adult and use your power for someone else’s good.”

She poked him in the chest, annoyed. “Hey. However much you want to justify treating me like this, you are
not
in the right,” she pointed out. “You’re forcing me to do this.”

Twister yanked on her arm, making her stumble. “Just shut up and listen. When we get inside the pit, you wait against the wall until I approach Fenrir and calm him down. I’ll signal you when I want you to come up beside me and put your hand on him.”

Ruby’s breath caught, and her knees trembled. Sparring with Twister had taken her mind off the trial to come, but now it was all flooding back. “I can’t remember what I did when I transformed you,” she pointed out.

“Concentrate on the result you’re after. That usually works with magic.”

“Your guards won’t let Nightshade in here, will they? I don’t want him hurt.”

Twister frowned, which exaggerated the scars across his face. “I don’t get it. If you feel that strongly about him, why didn’t you let him bite you?”

Ruby stared at the dirt beneath her boots. A band seemed to tighten around her chest, making every breath a pained struggle to drag air into her lungs. Even now, the risk of being controlled through a blood bond frightened her. But the thought of losing Nightshade was worse. If she got out of this alive, she would let him bite her. He had earned her trust and she would accept him for what he was, no matter the danger.

“I understand,” Twister said softly. Too late, she noticed the wolf had crept back into her mind.

“I said keep out of my head!” She thumped him halfheartedly on the arm.

He caught her hand and held it. “I don’t expect anything more from you than my father’s restoration. Afterward, you can leave with Nightshade. Go to Cornwall with him.”

Ruby raised her gaze to meet Twister’s. She didn’t know how to respond to this new sympathetic version of the king. She preferred it when he was being a jerk and she could hate him.

He fished his Magic Knot out of his jacket pocket and looped the gold chain around her neck. “So Fenrir senses me in you,” he explained.

She glanced down at the linked green rings against her skin. They pulsed disturbingly, as if they were alive.

“Remember,” he said as they reached a small wooden door reinforced with iron bands, “stay against the wall until Fenrir’s quiet. I’ll be in wolf form, so I won’t be able to speak to you, but I’ll send you directions via our bond.”

He shot back the four metal bolts securing the door. Fear surged inside Ruby, a mind-numbing rush of hot then cold that squeezed her guts and tightened her skin.

“Time to go in.”

A slow agonized breath filled her starved lungs, and she nodded.

The Unseelie king whispered an incantation and sketched a symbol in the air. Untouched, the door creaked open. Fenrir lay curled asleep on the far side of the circular pit. Twister turned and put a finger to his lips. The air shimmered, and a wolf stood in his place.

With a hand pressed over her nose against the disgusting stench, Ruby sidled through the doorway after him. As the door magically closed itself with a thunk that left no doubt it had relocked, she pressed back against the wall. How the hell would she get out again? She flattened her palms against the rough stonework. Cold seeped into her back. Grit and gooey algae stuck to her trembling fingers.

Twister’s wolf padded silently across the filthy straw and
halted a few feet from Fenrir. One of Fenrir’s golden eyes opened; his ears twitched, and he raised his head. Twister pranced about like a pup wanting to play, then he dropped to his belly and crawled forward, whining. The mad beat of Ruby’s heart slowed as Fenrir responded like a dog, nuzzling and yapping in welcome.