SWNOVELS Prince of Then: Chapter 18
Gade
are many ideas drifting through my mind, one more persistent than the others.”
“Holly,” she says, her chin raised. “And that makes two.”
For several moments, I am silent, entranced by her formidable expression, then my mind catches up to her words.
“Pardon? Two what?”
“I’ve had to remind you not to call me human twice since our meeting in the apothecary today. When you nearly knocked me over near the falcon mews this afternoon and just now.”
“You were busy laughing and staring goggle-eyed at Voreas, and you bumped into me.”
“Either way, I only have to remind you five more times, then you’ll address me correctly as you promised. Apparently.”
“Would you like me to repeat the term many times over and get it over with?” I ask.
“No, I actually look forward to catching you out.”
A chuckle rumbles in my chest. “I see.”
Although I barely know my mind around this girl, there is no doubt she amuses me.
I step closer, frame her face with my hands, and brush my lips against hers. When she gasps, I take her mouth and inhale her shock deep into my lungs. Power licks along my skin and over my scalp. I slit my eyes open to watch our hair; long locks of black and dark gold, rise and intertwine like dancing serpents.
With a groan, I draw her body closer, mold her soft curves to the hard angles of the leather armor I wear over my ceremonial tunic, inflicting, at the bare minimum, discomfort, if not pain. But still, she doesn’t shy away from me.
A warm floral scent infused with human earthiness infiltrates my mind, sweet, musky, and intoxicating. I draw back and stare into her desire-filled eyes. Every part of my being gravitates toward her, longing to merge and join with her in every way possible. To take everything her body, her alluring eyes, offer.
But it is the last thing I should do.
Fae lead humans astray, often with fatal consequences. We cannot help but use their flesh and bones until they tear, and snap, and break, and then crumble to dust. It has been this way ever since the first fae stumbled across a human and found their short lives, their fragility, addictive and enthralling. But not me. I’ve never derived pleasure from another’s tears.
More fool you, the curse snarls in my mind.
You pretend you are different and deny yourself unnecessarily. Take her. If the mortal is anything, she is yours, for you are the ancestor of Mab herself, and permission to take what you desire is woven into the fabric of your being.
You are Seelie.
Soon to be king.
Why hold back?
Why, indeed?
I grit my teeth against the poison’s taunting voice, desperate to give in, longing to obey.
Feel the way her body trembles at your touch, feverish desire addling her mind to your advantage. Now is the time, Gadriel, to take what you desire, just as the Prince of Five should.
Take.
Take her.
Silence, I tell the poison. Be silent.
But what stops you, Prince? The fear that you will break her?
You should not care what happens to her. After all, mortals are faeries’ playthings. Keep her as a pet for thirteen moon turns or until her little heart slows and her empty mind bores you. She is entertainment, and you, the Black Blood Prince, shall have your fun.
No.
I cannot.
I will not listen to the curse’s whispers. That way lies madness. Regret. And a first for me—shame.
And yet… what would happen if I took a small sip, no more, of the girl’s sweet nectar?
Nothing, the curse answers.
Not a thing.
If I want to, which I most definitely do, I could kiss her again, control my urges, and not take too much, not harm her. She is mine, and this is what I choose, not the poison that burns in my blood.
As I inch closer, I slide my hand through her hair and cradle the base of her skull. The moment our lips meet, power surges through me again. White light explodes, surrounding us, accompanied by a pulsing, droning noise that makes her break our kiss and stare up at me with dilated pupils.
“That noise—” Her body sways in time to the magical pulse. I cup her shoulders and steady her.
“Discharged Elemental magic. I won’t let it harm you.”
As the drone fades away, a bolt of connection arcs from her heart to mine, likely invisible to human eyes, but as real as her bones beneath my fingers.
Why does my magic rise like the tide toward the moon at her body’s command? It makes no sense, contradicts fae and natural lore, and is beyond dangerous for a human and fae ruler to be inexplicably magically bonded. For what purpose?
She isn’t a sorceress as I initially suspected—that idea was a figment of my imagination—but it’s possible she possesses latent magic and is unaware of it. Another reason for me to remain close by and watch her carefully.
Gently, I let my hands fall away from her body, but she curls her fingers into my tunic and attempts to draw me closer, her lips seeking mine.
“Gade, why did you stop?”
If she knew of the violent desire simmering through my veins, she would not ask such torturous questions.
“One kiss was not enough for you?”
“Not tonight,” she replies.
I clench my jaw to trap the dangerous question hammering behind my teeth, then ask it anyway. “Tell me, Holly, how much would you let me take from you?”
“At this moment, everything. Ask me tomorrow, and I’m sure my answer will be less generous. So, hurry up and kiss me while I’m in the mood to dally with the enemy.”
“Enemy? You are too harsh. We are not that to each other.”
“No? Then what are we?”
Good question. Another one I cannot answer.
The breeze flutters the spikes and feathers of my ruff, and she smiles, caressing it briefly, her lips plump and tempting. Internally, I shake my head at my foolishness. I must stop thinking of her this way—as if she is fae and about to become my lover.
Holly is human—inexperienced and vulnerable. Unimportant and insignificant.
Pain, equal to spoken lies, scorches through my blood, lust such as I’ve never felt before instantly eclipsing it. I grit my teeth, searching for a way to diffuse my reaction to her and end the torment of temptation.
“You are wine struck,” I say, employing the bluntest weapon available—cruelty. “You don’t know what you’re saying, let alone what you ask of me. A fae’s definition of everything is likely lethal to a mortal.”
“I’m not as frail as you think, and if I know anything, it’s this—if I live to be one hundred years old no one will ever kiss me that way again—as though I’m beautiful and worthy of desire.”
Rage clouds my mind and tightens my fists, knuckles cracking.
“Has someone told you that you aren’t these things? Who? Mortals from your village? If so, tell me their names, and before they come to the end of their insignificant lives, I will correct their bad opinions. These pitiful human men are wrong. And they must be deaf, blind, and ignorant to be immune to your appeal.”
Her jaw drops, her chest laboring with ragged breaths. “Gade—”
She lifts her fingers to my cheek at the same moment a tribe of wild faun flock in from the hall, dancing in a sinuous line along the balcony and weaving slowly around us.
They flick Holly’s hair as they writhe past and brush their slick-skinned chests and twisted horns against her bare arms.
“Begone.” I snarl. “Take your cunning pipes and entice a faery into your game. Have you not heard? This human is mine.”
A mischievous youth with more courage than sense, named Liefnarn, bows as he passes, his tongue greasing Holly’s cheek when he rises. In a breath, my blade is at his bobbing throat, the balustrade crumbling behind his back. “You wish to die tonight?” I growl.
The stench of fear pulses from his trembling body. “No, Prince Gadriel, I do not. Please… please accept my humble apology.”
“For what?” My hand squeezes his throat as I bend him backward over the railing, my control slipping along with my reason.
“For daring to touch what belongs to you… the girl… I should never have—”
I snarl into the faun’s white face, each word punctuated with a hard shake of his body. “Never. Touch. What is mine. Never.”
Warmth presses between my shoulder blades; Holly’s hand, then her voice. “Gade, you must let him go. He meant no harm, and he has said he’s sorry. Do it now.”
As if compelled, I step back, setting Liefnarn on his hooves and sheathing my knife.
“My Lady, My Prince,” he says and scampers away, joining the crowd of gaping faun near the entry to the hall.
I force a smile and clap loudly as I watch them disappear back into the revel.
Holly raises a brow. “You nearly kill one of them, and then praise their dancing with effusive applause? You confuse me.”
“I was celebrating their departure,” I say.
She huffs a laugh. “After what you just did, I really shouldn’t find that funny. I’ve heard stories of goat-like men with hooves, but I never suspected they were true. They’re quite… unnerving.”
“You’re wise to fear them. Although, they’re not as bad as actual goats. There are a few bearded beasts here in Faery that I wouldn’t trust as far as I could hurtle them.”
More laughter from her lips, and something akin to happiness spreads through my chest, shaking me to the core. The old Gadriel longs to dwell in the sensation, but the curse whispers for me to crush it. Crush the mortal and her beguiling smiles and straightforward, nurturing nature. Squeeze her until she cries. Screams. Then breaks.
No, that is the curse’s wish, not mine, and I will never give in to it.
Then hurry up and find your mate, it replies. Time is running out.
“I hope you don’t throw goats around on a regular basis.”
I grin back at her. “No. Not very often. But if you would like me to demonstrate… I’d happily oblige.”
Her laughter chimes like Beltane bells, and I marvel at myself—jesting merrily as if I’m the lighthearted youth I was long ago.
Before the curse.
When my parents lived and loved and all was well in Faery.
Behind the girl’s shoulder, a dark shape swoops over the forest, and Lleu flies past three heartbeats later, the breeze from his wings tearing our hair and tangling it together.
We laugh as my fingers work to separate our strands—dark and light—and I press a handful of tiny gemstones that fell from her locks into her palm.
The crash of the waves below keeps time with our breathing, the revel fading farther and farther away until nothing exists but the two of us. I tuck a lock of hair behind Holly’s ear. “Is it true what you said earlier? You think I’m handsome?”
“Without a doubt, all fae are a feast for the eyes,” she says.
“That is a highly unsatisfactory answer.”
“Well, Prince Gadriel, it’s the only one you’ll receive from me tonight. And since you’re refusing to provide any further entertainment, I must bid you goodnight.”
She dips her head, slipping out of my arms and moving quickly through the archway, melting into the crowd of courtiers before I can recover. She left without my permission.
Fool, hisses the curse. She was yours for the taking, and you let her drift through your fingers.
“And yet she is still mine and always will be,” I mutter.
I roll my eyes at myself.
By the Elements, must I bed the human to exorcise her from my thoughts?
I push away from the balustrade and take the winding seaway stairs down to the tournament oval, fireflies lighting my way as the moon retreats behind a thick bank of clouds. I wink at them, and they form elemental symbols in the sky.
Sylphs and sprites hover around me, their breezy whispers of my king, my king fraying my nerves.
“Not yet,” I tell them. “I am not your king yet.”
“Soon, soon,” they reply. “Soon you will be the King of Five.”
“Be gone. I wish to brood alone this eve.”
A blast of my air magic sends them racing up the hillside, snickering and screeching as they go.
Musing on why my power recharges in the human’s company, I force my tense muscles to release, and I breathe the briny air deep into my lungs.
A group of sea witches senses my presence and draws closer, singing as they dive over the waves towards the cliff I’m perched upon.
“Beware, Prince of Five,” they cry. “Danger seeks you from many directions.”
Shooting to my feet, I cup my hands around my mouth and shout, “Then name my enemies. Tell me what you know.”
Pain strikes immediately, a bolt of dark power throwing me backwards onto the grass before I have a chance to raise a shield. A whorl of magic slides along the point of my ear, then into my mind, and I lose consciousness, entering a dreamworld where the landscape is dark and bleak.
The abrasive voice of the annlagh echoes through my head. “Your air mage has taught me a verse, Princeling. A very interesting one.”
Mocking laughter grates against my skull. I attempt to sit up but can only move my limbs, my torso pinned to the earth.
The voice continues. “Let me see… I believe it went like this: If by another’s hand the chosen dies, then before their blood fully weeps and dries, black will fade to gray, gray to white, and white to never. Never was the darkest taint and never will it ever be. Or… take the chosen for a bride, and the poison ceases deep inside.”
My knuckles crack as I dig my fingers into the earth beside my body, long-hidden memories of the day Aer cursed me and the words she spoke rushing over me.
Yes.
Now I remember.
I remember her speaking similar words.
“I’ve heard it before,” I say aloud. “Your recitation is boring. Go away, and let me slumber in peace.”
The annlagh snorts. “But you haven’t heard the whole of it, Prince.”
“Well, then, if you think yourself so clever, tell it to me.”
“Alas, I cannot. The air mage prevents me from revealing the whole.”
“Then why are you here? How did you invade my mind?”
“You doubt my strength because I am of the wild fae and you are royal? Your cursed blood does not make you better than me. Look at you, weakened by your own mage’s curse. Whereas I am older than the rocks your castle sits upon, more ancient than the dusty bones buried under your faery hills.”
“When you finish boasting, perhaps you’ll deign to answer my questions.”
“First, as you guessed, I am here to gloat. And, second, I will tell you the how of it. When I rose from the earth and met your mortal, I witnessed something of great interest—your magic bonded with hers. While you were under my spell, in exchange for leaving you unharmed that day, I asked to borrow a sliver of this power so I could reach your mind at a future time to relay an important message, and the little human agreed.”
A memory explodes in my mind, my jaw cracking with the force. I see Holly’s head close to the annlagh’s, her nodding, and then stepping away. This is what she gave in exchange for my safety.
The first rule of Faery is to never bargain with a more powerful creature than you. Does this not apply in the human world? Where there is great power imbalance, extreme caution must reign in all dealings.
“What power do you speak of?” I snarl. “The girl doesn’t have any.”
“Does she not? Well, if you believe that, Prince of Five, then you’re far more foolish than I suspected.”
“Fine. If you won’t explain yourself and have performed a sufficient amount of gloating, release me or I will make it my life’s sole purpose to hunt for your sleeping mound and seal it off forever.”
A shriek sounds above, announcing Lleu’s arrival. The moment he lands on my chest, his talons sharp even through the leather, the annlagh’s spell is broken and my mind freed.
“Thank you, my friend.” I stroke his golden head, relieved to feel no residual trace of the annlagh in my mind.
Lleu emits a series of angry noises, bouncing on my stomach like a newborn eaglet.
“Yes, yes,” I reply. “You are right. The annlagh risks much by meddling with a prince of Faery, as did you when you interfered with his golden boar.”
“Watch out, Prince,” shriek the sea witches as an arrow of purple light shoots from behind the sacred hazel trees that ring the oval, skimming Lleu’s feathers and sending him screeching into the sky.
As I sit up, Aer slinks from the shadows of the trees.
“If you’ve hurt him, you’ll pay dearly, air mage,” I tell her.
“Lleu is but a coward.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong,” I reply.
As she steps lightly over the grass, a vision dressed in gold to match her traitorous, coin-colored gaze, she mocks me with an insincere bow.
I don’t bother rising to greet her. “Harm my eagle and exile will be the least of your fears,” I say.
In a blur of movement, she sits beside me, her knees folded against her chest like a youth, and far too close for comfort.
“I would never hurt you, Gade, only what stands between us. You should know that by now. And besides, you would require all four of my sisters’ help to cast me from your land forever. They would never forsake me.”
“Perhaps I know them better than you do.”
She flicks her gold hair over her shoulder and laughs like a flirtatious imp. The air mage is no such innocent creature.
“Who would balance your kingdom’s air element?”
An important question, for which I have no answer. But I will search until my final breath to find a way for my land to exist in peace and harmony without her.
Aer’s shoulder bumps mine. “Is this human girl really worth moping over in the dark of the night, Gadriel? A mortal who makes promises to your enemies?”
“I do not mope over any girl—fae or human. Leave me be, treacherous mage. The mortal sought to protect me from the annlagh. Unlike you, she didn’t betray me and curse my line to slow and torturous deaths if we cannot find our mates. When will you give up your hopeless dream of becoming queen and let my family live in peace?”
“When the last prince of Talamh Cúig’s heart thuds its final beat.”
So never is her answer, then.
“You helped the annlagh,” I say. “Another deed of a traitor.”
“I will always assist those who rise against you.”
“Why?”
“To hurt you, as you have hurt me.”
With the weight of a kingdom pressing down on my shoulders, I shake my head, pity for the air mage softening my rage. What must it be like to live every moment of one’s life motivated by jealousy and hate? I pray to the Elements I never find out.
“I may need you for now, Aer, but know this: one day, I will find a method to stabilize the magic of my land without you. Then not only will you be irrelevant, but also dispensable.”
Far out in the ocean, the sea witches wail, and Aer’s eyes flash red, uncertainty lining her brow. “Impossible. But if that day comes, it will be me who vanquishes all opponents and is left standing on the rubble of your kingdom.”
“Then taste the dirt you’re so keen to conquer.” I roll away, leap into a crouch, and summon earth magic, blasting the ground beneath her.
In a spray of earth and rocks, Aer swoops into the sky, but not fast enough for me to miss the gratifying sight of her spitting dirt and stones or to hear her bitter parting words.
“Beware of the mortal, Gadriel. If you don’t guard yourself well, it will be she who conquers you.”
Lleu alights on my knee, and I whisper soothing words and stroke his feathers, calming both our trembling fury.
Still shaken, I decide not to return to the revel. Instead, I spend a while plotting ways to defeat Aer for good, then my thoughts wander to the human—her smile, her clear, amber eyes, the power of her touch.
As my eagle and I sit together, listening to the songs of the sea witches, I ponder the air mage’s words, and one thing becomes abundantly clear.
If Aer has warned me against Holly, that is good enough cause to draw the mortal closer.
I grind my teeth in a futile attempt to stop myself from thinking about the other reasons, such as attraction, desire, longing, and something else I dare not name.
Not yet.
Not yet.