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“I know. Vojalie saw it in a vision.”
“I should speak with her.”
When she tried to get up, he pressed her back down. “Let me get you healed up. Now, I’m going to do something, but don’t worry about it.” She almost asked, ‘Worry about what’, but she felt a pressure on her head, then a stream of something that felt like the best wine she’d ever drunk in her life. She began to float, then she disappeared into a deep sleep.
~ ~ ~
Stone was colder than he’d ever been in his life. Margetta had him stripped down to his leathers and shackled to the wall of an ice cave. He was barefoot as well and his extremities had frost-bite. Though he was grateful he still had on his pants, he swore his cock had crawled up into his body to keep from freezing straight off.
She sat on a lounge about fifteen feet away, wrapped up head-to-toe in silver fur. Near her, several slaves kept a brazier heated up with white-hot coals. In the bed of coals was a single branding iron.
He’d never been this close to the Ancient Fae before. Some of her beauty seemed to have faded. In fact, she looked old, something very unusual in their world unless a realm-person was approaching the final years of life. Was it possible?
She sat up slightly, pulling her furs closer around her neck. “I see you’re noticing the wrinkles. It’s a waste, isn’t it? That we live such a long life then succumb to old-age just like a human. I feel like I’ve barely gotten started and now it looks as though I’ve only got a couple of years left. Ah, well, I intend that you and I will make the most of it.” She rose to her feet and drew the poker from the fire. The tip had a figure eight on it, the symbol of infinity, and it was red hot.
She moved slowly, her lips pursed. Her violet eyes were now a muddy color, almost brown-gray, and not pretty at all. Her lips turned down as she got closer. Getting within inches of him, she glared. “Did I tell you Gustave is dead? I killed him a week ago in anticipation of bonding with you. Now, of course, having awakened with my aging issue, I wish I’d kept him alive. He was the one who created the Invictus bond in the first place. He was a great scientist. He might have been able to discover a serum or something to correct my growing disfigurement. Ah, well. I will simply have to make the most of what I have left.”
She looked him up and down. “And I definitely intend to make the most of your body. You’re built, Stone. A masterpiece among the male species.”
If there’d been any way he could have killed himself in this moment, Stone vowed he would have done it. “I’ll never bond with you, Margetta. It’s that simple.”
She smiled then lifted the poker to eye-level so that he could see the heated end. She then jammed it into his cheek and held it there. He felt the burn over his entire face and deep into his bones. But he gritted his teeth, refusing to utter a sound.
She tossed the poker on the floor and he heard her minions scramble for it. They no doubt knew to keep the poker ready at all times. Margetta wouldn’t hold back on punishing any of her servants, if she felt the need.
Margetta remained close to him and stroked the uninjured side of his face. “You’re mine, Stone. No one will find you here, ever. And I have a thousand ways to make you take back your words. But let me give you another taste, only this one will be sweet.”
With his face throbbing, he steeled himself.
He felt the earth rumble and her troll minions screamed in fear. But he knew what it was. She drew the elf-lord power into herself then it flowed into Stone’s mind. Everything he’d felt earlier in the castle garden he experienced again. It was as though for a man with elf-lord capacity, the power hit every pleasure center his brain possessed, and then some.
Even the agony of the branding disappeared with so much feel-good coursing through his body that he moaned.
“You like that, don’t you?” Margetta leaned in and sniffed his skin then licked a line up his cheek. “Be with me, Stone. Take what belongs to you. We can make the Nine Realms anything you want it to be. Just join with me, accept your birthright, and let’s fly to the heavens together.”
Despite the seductive nature of the power, he forced his mind to focus on Rosamunde and what it had been like to be with her, to fight beside her when she was Aralynn and later as Rosamunde. He loved her spirit and her willingness to battle for what she believed. He knew now that learning to transform had given her freedom. Davido had been at the heart of it, helping her through the process. Davido, the wisest of the trolls and an elf-lord who had killed off all the cruel ruling elf-lords.
He understood now why it had been necessary for him to do so. The elf-lord power corrupted all who gave themselves fully to it.
The pain in his cheek slowly began to return, as well as the agony of hanging in shackles, and the freezing cold against his skin.
He shook his head. “Margetta, I will never join you. I can’t. I love another.”
Her aging features twisted in derision. “My niece? She’s as weak as her mother, Evelyn. And you’re a fool to give two thoughts to her, never mind your heart. But don’t you understand, if you don’t join me, I’ll have to kill you.”
At that, he lifted his chin and met her gaze full on. “Then have at it.”
~ ~ ~
Rosamunde sat on the edge of the marble slab, just as Stone had three nights ago. He would have died if she hadn’t brought him here. She would have died as well, if Kaden hadn’t used his healing arts to restore her burned skin.
She held a change of clothing in her hands that Joseph had brought to her. Not surprising, they were Aralynn’s clothes, pilfered from her cottage. But all she could do was laugh as she slid off the slab, removed her ruined clothes and put on battle gear once more.
Joseph had even provided her with one of her first daggers, the one she’d ‘lost’ the first week she’d moved into the cottage.
When she headed back to the front rooms, she found Davido seated in the chair by the window with Joseph perched on his shoulder. They were doing a crossword puzzle together. “You can’t use proper names, not in this puzzle. It says so at the top.”
“Where?”
