Page 63 of Duncan

The Therion Fae’s lips parted and curved around her teeth, which were stained with dark blood. “But I came all this way to see you and your brothers, my darling boy. The time has come to pay for what your father did to me. ”

NICOLE TOOK hold of her pendant, but instead of clutching it as she usually did she tugged on the chain until it snapped and she gripped it tightly in her fist. “You have business with me first, Enchantress.”

Derdrui’s gaze shifted to her, and her smile turned into a sneer.

“Ah, and here is the image of that sniveling princess Mar was so desperate to marry.” She sniffed. “You even smell like her. Do all Woodland Fae sluts wallow in the scum of the forest?”

Looking at the dreadful beauty of the Therion Fae made Nicole dizzy; in her obsidian eyes red streaks flickered in and out. It was the same as staring into the mouth of a volcano ready to erupt and seeing lashings of magma shooting up from the lava bed.

The enchantress circled around her, as casually as if she were sizing her up for a dress fitting. “You are a halfling, too. I know Eilonwy would never stoop to bed a mortal. Are you one of her sisters’ spawn?”

That was the lead-in Nicole needed.

“You know that I am. I had no idea you had so many half-mortal daughters. It’s good to see you keep them close to you.” Nicole saw all of the Cait Sith around them go still and stare at her, and regarded one heavy-set female who appeared especially thunderstruck. “Do they call you mother, or is there a special Therion term for the woman who gave birth to you?”

“She is our sovereign, no’ our màthair,” the shifter said.

“Prince Mar had only sons with his mortal wives,” she told the Cait Sith, “just as my Fae mother could only have a daughter with my human father. Female Fae who breed with mortals may only give birth to female halflings.”

“Be silent.” The enchantress wrenched a torch from its bracket and threw it at her, but Duncan batted it away. “Pay her no heed, Speal. The mewling slut knows nothing of our kind.”

“You’ve Woodland Fae blood,” the heavyset woman told Nicole. “We’re of the Therion. We’re no’ the same.”

“It doesn’t matter what type of Fae your parent is. With mortals, females have only daughters, and males have sons.” She glanced at the enchantress. “Why didn’t you ever tell them the truth? They are your daughters. I know you can’t lie if they ask you a direct question.”

“You know nothing of my Cait Sith. They will always be loyal to me.” Derdrui looked around at the faces of the crew. “Why should you listen to her? She seeks to drive us apart. Tell them, Speal.”

The heavyset shifter took a step back from the enchantress. “Are you our màthair?”

“I am the princess you swore to serve for the rest of your worthless lives,” the enchantress said, shrieking the words. “That is what matters.”

All around the ship the sea began to roil, and dozens of huge black and white orca barreled past, heading for the shifters and aquatics still fighting in the bay shallows. Nicole saw Merrick riding on the back of the biggest killer whale, his Selseus crown still on his head. The huge swath of orca were followed by hundreds of dolphins.

The hybrids didn’t kill the king. He went to get help.

Nicole noticed Duncan had taken a familiar-looking crock from his bag and uncorked it, and stepped in front of him.

“I’ve shared the memories of one of your daughters, Enchantress. She watched you violating your male victims while you tortured them.” She glanced at Speal. “Derdrui roamed here for close to a thousand years while she hunted Prince Mar. What do you think she did with all the daughters she conceived by raping those men?”

As the enchantress lunged at Nicole, swiping at her with her talons, Duncan got between them and took the blow instead. The swarm of woodland imps he’d released from the crock attacked the enchantress, who blasted them away with a wave of her magic.

“You think your little creatures can harm me?” the dark Fae demanded, seizing Nicole by the throat as her form swelled and shifted into a nightmarish giant bat.

The deck fell away as the enchantress took to the air, carrying her in one claw as she flew to the island. Nicole didn’t try to resist, but hung helplessly as if she’d fainted. As the cold night air buffeted her, and the dark Fae’s claws dug into her neck, she thought of Duncan on the ship, and prayed Julianne would go back and rescue him.

Silently she reached out with her power, hoping her thoughts would reach the mind of the animal that the enchantress had become. Take me to the forest made of stone. You can finish this there.

The bat began to drop slowly, descending as it passed over the cove and the woods beyond it, and for a moment Nicole thought she had failed. Then the creature finally dropped down, alighting just outside the Stone Forest, where she threw Nicole to the ground.

“Now I shall finish you,” Derdrui said as she changed back into her female form while retaining the bat’s giant fangs.

At the same time Nicole remembered what Merrivane had told her. If you use it properly, child, nothing in this world or in any other can stop you. But only the once.

“You can end this right now without hurting anyone else,” she told the enchantress as she pushed herself up, and eyed the closest tree, a petrified ash. “Or I can.”

“You possess only a dribble of Woodland Fae blood.” The enchantress’s hands turned into feline paws with enormous talons. “As for that enchanted bauble that whore or her sisters gave you, the charm is useless against me.”

“It’s not a charm. It’s the depository containing the last of my aunt’s elemental magic.” As soon as she placed her empty hand on the tree, her pendant shimmered. “You know that dominion over an element is the ultimate power. Prince Mar had dominion over water, and his wife had her own.”