Blood Tithe (The Lost Cove Darklings Book 2) Read online

  “Mmm,” he whispered. “And you even remembered my distaste for dainty teacups.”

  Nan pulled out the chair beside him and sat down, sliding a cup to Felicity before turning her attention to her own. “Ivy once sent a message through Spraff, asking me to order you a larger mug, if I recall. It said something witty on it, I remember.”

  Ardan smiled. “I still have it, actually. It says, ‘My wife is hotter than my coffee.’ I don’t drink coffee, but I cherish the sentiment.”

  Felicity almost laughed at the normalcy of it. She couldn’t imagine a dark Unseelie royal cherishing something as simple as a funny coffee mug. It was hard to imagine Queen Ivy as an ordinary wife after seeing her charging into Lost Cove, wielding a magical scepter and dressed for battle. Even with the formality of the Laltogs, it was hard to imagine Fhaescratch, Rowena, and Tristen settling down for a quiet meal or conversation together. The entire coven just seemed so...detached. Cold.

  “Did you know Ivy hasn’t served the orange tea since Lyric was banished?” Ardan asked. “Madra brought it on her breakfast tray, and she cried for two days straight. Madra never made it again.”

  Nan smiled in a way that made Felicity feel like an outsider. Lyric, Lochlan, and Nan had raised her, but they had an entirely different family...before.

  “Forgive us, Princess,” Ardan said. “I haven’t seen Nan in nearly two decades, but we are discussing a life you don’t know. It’s very rude of us.”

  “Yes,” Nan said. “And having another Fae granddaughter doesn’t mean I care for you any less.”

  Technically, Nan had two other Fae granddaughters. Ivy and Violet, who Tristen informed her was married to King Damarion of the Summer Court. Her mind whirled. She had never seen Faerie, and even from Lost Cove, where blood-sucking creatures morphed into giant bats, it was difficult to imagine.

  “Nan tells me you’ve been tasked with calling forth the ancestors at the Samhain Feast,” Ardan said, taking a long sip of his tea. “She says you’ve been practicing without much success.”

  Felicity’s eyes jerked in Nan’s direction. “That’s not exactly true.”

  “What do you mean?” Nan asked.

  So much had happened with the wards and getting knocked unconscious that Felicity hadn’t had a chance to tell Nan what had happened with her mother.

  “Before I got summoned to the castle, I managed to connect with the other side,” Felicity said.

  “Ooh, did you meet anyone interesting?” Ardan asked. “A fallen Queen? A bitter lover?”

  “My mother,” Felicity whispered.

  She didn’t miss the uncomfortable look exchanged between Nan and Ardan. Felicity knew well that Slaine had been an enemy of the Fae world and had even harmed Nan on more than one occasion.

  “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?” Nan asked. “I wouldn’t have been upset with you. It’s good you managed to connect with the other side.”

  “How did that little meeting go?” Ardan asked.

  She hesitated, eyeing Ardan skeptically, until Nan urged her on.

  So, Felicity told them what Slaine had said about Fhaescratch, about how he had betrayed her Aunt Teagan and ripped her beating heart from her chest.

  “Pity,” Ardan said. “I always wondered who had betrayed Teagan. But Slaine was right about not trusting Fhaescratch. The Darklings are driven by instinct, but when they learn to keep those instincts in check, they are perfectly amicable members of society, as the Unseelies have learned. But when the hunger for power drives them, they are far more dangerous than the average Darkling. Fhaescratch has proven that time and again.”

  Felicity recalled what Ardan had said about having a score to settle with Fhaescratch. “So, what did he do to you?”

  Ardan smiled, the look of it cold and lethal, despite the warm glamour he wore. “Oh, it’s not what he did to me, young Princess. It’s what he did to my wife. His creatures kidnapped Ivy and Juliet and held them captive in the Unseelie mines. He drank from my wife’s vein and then bottled her blood as if she were no more than grapes on the vine. And Juliet became a Laltog on his watch. My brother and I both have a score to settle with the self-proclaimed Laltog King.”

  Felicity shuddered. Fhaescratch was definitely intimidating, but she had never felt afraid for her life around him.

  “Make no mistake,” Ardan said. “Fhaescratch can be charming. He can feign loyalty. But it would be an error in judgment to trust him. Just look at what happened to Teagan.”

  Felicity allowed the words to sink in. She felt the truth of them swirling inside her. Even Tristen seemed distrustful of his own father, which spoke volumes. She took a sip of her tea, which tasted like home. Like a past life.

  “Do you think I’ll ever see her again?” Felicity asked. “I mean, I know she was a traitor. But..”

  “But she was your mother,” Ardan said. “And I don’t doubt it. If she came to you once, I wouldn’t be surprised if she made another appearance when the veil thins on Samhain. And if there’s one thing most Fae royals have in common, it’s a sad history of terrible parents. Trust me, I could write volumes.”

  Felicity should probably count herself lucky that Lyric and Lochlan had raised her. Based upon what she knew of her father and mother, she was glad she’d been raised by a different set of parents, though Lyric had once been Queen of Winter.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly seven o’clock. She wrinkled her eyebrows.

  “Nan, have you seen Raven?” Felicity asked.

  Frowning, Nan set her mug of tea on the table. “Not since this morning. She was so worried about you, she wanted to skip school and storm the castle, but I made her go. Last time I saw her, she was with Dante in the village square.”

  Felicity shrugged, hoping she was having some epic one-on-one time with Dante. She’d definitely press for details later so that she could live vicariously through her friend. Now that Felicity was apparently the town nun, she wouldn’t be doing anything exciting any time soon. But something was nagging at her, sinking its teeth into her without relief.

  “She’s usually back by now, though,” Felicity commented.

  A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. “I’ll get it,” Felicity said. “It’s probably Tristen coming to collect me for Evening Feast.”

  “You’re not on the menu, I trust?” Ardan raised his brows, eliciting a giggle from Felicity. He stood, pointing to the back bedroom. “I’ll be back here.”

  “It’s okay,” Felicity said. “You can trust Tristen.” Plus, she didn’t like hiding things from him.

  Shrugging, Ardan sat back down and lifted his cup of tea.

  She crossed the room and opened the door to reveal Tristen, who brushed quickly past her before she could stop him. Before she could say a word, the Laltog Prince had crouched in front of her baring his fangs.

  Ardan continued to lounge in his chair, sipping his tea.

  “Who is this?” Tristen growled.

  “No one to be so concerned about,” Felicity said. “No one who has any intentions of hurting me.”

  Nan pushed her chair back and pulled Felicity away, as Tristen continued to glower at Ardan.

  “This is the Laltog Prince, I presume?” Ardan asked.

  “You look human, but you’re not human,” Tristen said, his voice on the edge of a hiss.

  “Quite right,” Ardan said. “Felicity has assured me I can trust you, so I’m going to take a rare chance and introduce myself. I am Ardan, son of Odhran of the Unseelie Realm and King Consort to Queen Ivy of Winter.”

  “State your business,” Tristen growled.

  “I have been sent by the Unseelie Courts to investigate a large number of humans who have gone missing from their realm. We suspect they’ve been taken here.”

  “My father has nothing to do with that,” Tristen said.

  “Excellent.” Ardan clasped his hands together. “Then, you won’t mind telling me who does.”

  Tristen growled, his eyes fl
ickering red. Felicity pulled from Nan’s grasp and crossed the room, placing a gentle hand on Tristen’s arm.

  “He’s here to help,” she whispered. “You can trust him.”

  “I can’t trust anyone from Faerie.”

  “Then, trust me,” Felicity coaxed. “Trust Nan.”

  Tristen’s feral glare softened as he met Felicity’s eyes. Slowly, he stood from his crouch and turned his attention to Ardan. “Swear to me you won’t harm my father.”

  Ardan smiled. “Well, I do have a bit of a grudge against Fhaescratch, but I suppose vengeance can wait until we figure out where all these missing humans are being held.”

  They stared each other down for several uncomfortable moments before Felicity couldn’t take the tension anymore.

  “Can we all stop acting like children and figure out how to break the wards instead?”

  Then, as if Tristen had recalled something, he caught Felicity’s hand, pulling her toward him. “Where’s Raven?” he asked. “Is Dante here?”

  Felicity shook her head at him, her heart slowing to a cold, sluggish thud. “I haven’t seen either of them. I was just asking Nan where she is.”

  Tristen’s jaw flexed, his teeth grinding together. The dread Felicity had managed to overcome returned with a vengeance. “Why?”

  “My father wants Dante to gather information from the humans. I went to Ms. Lola’s house with the commission, but she said she hadn’t seen him since he left for school this morning.”

  “Nan saw them after school, but that was hours ago,” Felicity said.

  “Do humans often go missing in Lost Cove?” Ardan asked. “It seems like a rather small community.”

  “Never,” Tristen said, “which is what makes it so strange that no one has seen them. And we just found Seth Erwin walking toward the woods, under full compulsion.”

  Ice swam through Felicity’s veins, telling her what no one else would say.

  Raven and Dante were missing.

  Chapter 21

  Lyric pulled a comb through her wet hair, staring into the mirror, her image blurred by the steam that had risen from her bath. It had been a long day filled with dead ends and worries, fears that Felicity would be caught up in whatever plot Fhaescratch was hatching in Lost Cove. With a sigh, she placed the comb in the vanity and began plaiting her damp hair.

  A tapping sound stilled her hands.

  Lochlan was meeting with King Padraic to discuss border security, which would likely take hours. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

  The tapping sounded again.

  Her lungs tightening, she opened the bathroom door and crept into the bedroom.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  There it was again. She turned toward the window to see Spraff, her longtime messenger, peeking in the window with wide yellow eyes. Smiling at her overreaction, she hurried across the room and unlatched the window, opening it just wide enough for the owl to step through.

  “Hello, my love,” she said softly.

  Spraff hopped inside, ruffling his feathers after a long flight.

  She extended her finger, and Spraff perched on top, careful not to nick her skin with his talons. She patted his head, stroking his downy feathers, as he made a series of low happy hoots.

  “What have you to show me?” she asked, raising the owl to eye level. As she stared into the golden orbs, the colors began to swirl like molten liquid until other shapes took place.

  Ardan appeared before her in his ridiculous glamour. She still couldn’t believe Magi Josiah had agreed to such a vain request. But that didn’t matter. She concentrated, watching his lips move until she could hear the message.

  “Felicity is safe,” he said. “I’m here with her and Nan at the cottage. Two humans have gone missing from Lost Cove, as well, and the Laltogs have discovered hidden wards in the forest. They think the humans are being held there, turned, and then trained. Felicity attempted to break the wards today and was injured. She has recovered, but we will work on finding a way in to see what is happening for certain. Felicity and Nan believe two Laltogs, Princess Kyla, daughter of Erroll, and an Elder called Conlan, are responsible for the human abductions. They do not believe Fhaescratch was a part of it, though we have agreed that he cannot be trusted. Find what you can on the two Laltogs and report back your findings.”

  When the message ended, Spraff blinked, and Ardan’s image disappeared.

  “Thank you, Spraff,” Lyric said.

  She rewarded him by scratching him on the head and under his beak until he hopped from her finger and back toward the window. Smiling, Lyric cracked the window, and Spraff flapped into the night.

  Lyric latched the window, making certain it was locked and then sat down on the settee beside the bed to finish braiding her hair. She allowed relief to wash over her with the news that Felicity and Nan were safe. She knew Fhaescratch himself would die before any real harm came to Felicity, but there were different kinds of safety, more than just the physical. It gave her comfort to have someone on the inside to look out for her. As for Fhaescratch’s innocence, Felicity didn’t know the Laltog King like those in the rest of the Fae world knew him. Centuries ago, during the great Uprisings, Fhaescratch had been a ruthless leader. The Unseelies and the Darklings had been justified in their anger against Endellion, Queen of the Seelie Realm, but Fhaescratch had been merciless in his role. It might seem like his hands were clean in the current matter, but that didn’t mean his hands weren’t plunged right into the thick of it.

  Still, it made sense that there were factions against him in Lost Cove, given the way he had seized the throne. Erroll was, of course, notorious in Faerie for his role in the original uprising against the Seelie Realm, and when Queen Endellion had banished them, he had disappeared, along with a slew of others, rather than retreating to the darkness of the Unseelie Mines with the rest of the Darklings. Lyric couldn’t blame them, really. She never had. What Endellion had done to the Darklings was wrong, and it had taken far too long for her to pay for her transgressions.

  With a sigh, she bound the end of her braid with a ribbon. Lochlan probably wouldn’t be back for hours, and there was no way she could sleep after Spraff’s message. Perhaps the Darkling Queen would join her in finding out more about this King Erroll and who he was before the first Uprising. Juliet had graduated from Kingston Academy at the top of her class, and if there was one thing she loved almost as much as she loved Padraic and Ivy, it was research. Her decision made, Lyric grabbed her robe from the hook on the bathroom door and slipped it over her shoulders before heading down the hall toward the royal bedchambers to find Queen Juliet.

  In the library of the Unseelie castle, Shadows flickered across the room from the sconces on the wall as Lyric pored over a volume of Seelie Court history. She would never get used to the perpetual night of the Unseelie Realm and longed for the combination of frost and sunlight that had made her royal duties bearable in the Winter Court. While Seelie was constant light, Unseelie was a never-ending night cherished by the dark Fae who occupied it.

  Frustrated, Lyric slammed the book shut, a cloud of dust erupting from its pages like a noxious gas.

  “Didn’t like that one?”

  Juliet smirked, glancing up at her from a volume of her own.

  “I am just...irritated. None of these books are telling me anything I don’t already know: that Erroll emerged as a leader of the Darklings and eventually led the Uprising alongside Fhaescratch. Then, he fled without a trace, which can be explained by the establishment of Lost Cove.”

  “Keep looking,” Juliet said. “If it’s one thing I know about research, it’s the delightful tedium of it. Just when you’re ready to give up, you typically find exactly what you’re looking for.”

  “What do you have there?” Lyric asked.

  Juliet was leaning over an ancient looking text written in the old language. The leather-bound cover was worn thin around the edges, its red color faded to a dingy rust. The pages were yellowed, the ink faded at t
he edge of uneven margins.

  “It’s King Eoin’s personal diaries and letters,” Juliet said. “He ruled Unseelie just after its split from the Seelie Realm. He was King Odrhan’s father.”

  Lyric shuddered at the mention of Padraic and Ardan’s traitorous father, who had carried on an affair with her sister, Alena. They had both conspired against Lyric to steal the Winter throne—and nearly had.

  “Yes, I remember hearing tales about him growing up,” she said. “Anything interesting?”

  Juliet shook her head. “Nothing about Erroll yet, but I’m finding some delicious information about Endellion.”

  “Well, that’s no surprise. Anything I wouldn’t know?”

  Lyric cringed internally had the mention of the power-hungry mother of King Barrett. The entire Faerie world would have remained united and intact if not for Endellion’s intolerance of all Fae who did not look like her or conform to her ideas. The Darklings—Laltogs, Hellhounds, Red Caps, and other dark Fae creatures—were fine to be used as servants and soldiers, but when they had demanded equality, she had murdered them by the thousands, using the other Seelie Courts to carry out her nefarious agenda. Lyric had been a young queen during the first uprisings. In her naivety, she had, to her everlasting shame, carried out Endellion’s orders. The only thing that comforted Lyric whenever she thought of the fallen Seelie Queen was the knowledge that she had been the one to kill her. The act had saved Ivy, united the Unseelies with the Seelie Courts, and given the Darklings a new queen in Juliet. Ridding the world of Endellion was well worth Lyric’s banishment from the realm. Plus, it had given her the blessing of raising Felicity in the human realm. She had never regretted her actions.