Heir of Iron Hearts: Iron Crown Faerie Tales Book 2 Page 8

  “Violet is helping you?”

  Padraic didn’t even have time to process what Violet’s involvement meant before his father’s anger dulled and then faded. So what if they had brought a human with direct ties to the Winter Court into their realm? As long has his precious Alena was back in his bed, King Odrhan didn’t care who got hurt in the process.

  “Oh, big brother, heir to the throne and still so jealous of me,” Ardan said. “It’s pathetic, really. Heir to the throne of an entire realm, and you still have to take your jabs.”

  “Be that as it may,” Odrhan said before Padraic could reply, “I will need to know what offense Ardan has committed against his future bride.”

  So Padraic told him everything, from the leashed human girl, to the Fae wine and music to the public display. Such behavior wouldn’t be uncommon or scandalous in the Unseelie Realm, but the Winter Court held to their traditions when it came to the behavior of the royals, and Ardan knew better than to allow his lips and hands to roam over the heir to the Winter Throne. Slowly, the king turned to his youngest son, his body vibrating with dark magic.

  “I couldn’t help it,” Ardan said frantically. “She is a puzzle to me, one that I have to solve. If I don’t, I’ll go mad with desire for her.”

  “If you do not learn to control you ‘desires,’ you will prove the death of our entire realm. Two hours in the Cap room.”

  “Father, no!”

  Ardan tried his best to argue, but his father had already signaled to the Red Caps who stood guard at the door. A half-dozen of the little devils scurried in, all of them salivating at the promise of sweet, royal blood.

  “Father, please!”

  Ardan struggled against the Red Caps but it was no use. At the King’s magical will, Ardan’s own power was ineffective against the razor-toothed mob that carried him from the room.

  “You’ll pay for this, Padraic,” his brother screamed. “I swear it, you’ll pay!”

  “Does it amuse you to betray your own?” Alena asked.

  Padraic gave her a long, venomous look. Betrayal? Padraic hadn’t betrayed his brother to any other court or ruler. He had betrayed him to a father who would hopefully keep them all from getting killed by ensuring Ardan was punished for his recklessness.

  “Are you, of all those in the realm, lecturing me about betrayal?”

  “Calm down, both of you,” Odrhan snapped. “I’ve had quite enough petty foolishness to deal with under my own room without the two of you at each other’s throats, too.”

  Padraic ignored him. “What kind of game are you playing here, Father? How long before the Winter guards discover the empty cell where Queen Lyric’s murderous sister is supposed to be held? How long before you pay in blood for breaking the contract with Winter? I think this implies a direct violation of the terms.”

  “When I’m dead and gone, this realm will be your business. But for now, my games are my own. Now, leave me. And if you ever allow your brother to pull another public stunt like that, you’ll pay in blood alongside him. Now get out of here.”

  Of course, Padraic was ever his brother’s keeper. It was no small wonder Ardan and Alena got along so well. They were both spoiled younger children, jealous and selfish, who should’ve been put to death the second they uttered their first cries.

  This time, though, Padraic would not sit idly by while his brother and his father destroyed the realm he would rule someday. But first, he needed to know why Ardan was using a human girl to do his bidding and why he had marked her with an Iron Cross.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The decorative ceiling swirled above Ivy as she blinked herself awake. She groaned. Her head pounded in rhythm with her heart and she thought for a moment she might throw up.

  “Here,” a familiar voice said beside her. “It’s human medicine, but it will cure what ails you.”

  Ivy’s lashes fluttered against the daylight, displaying abstracted flashes of Jules McKinnon standing over her and holding out two aspirin and a cup of steaming coffee.

  So last night hadn’t been a nightmare.

  Her best friend had been dragged or tricked into Faerie, led by a leash. And Ardan. She groaned again. Not only had she become a wasted lush, betraying her mother, but she had also betrayed her own heart. She had kissed Ardan. Who knows what else she would have done had the setting been less public. If that was what her betrothed was capable of in public, what would happen to her if she were ever alone with him?

  “I think I’m going to die,” she finally whispered.

  “Ah, your first hangover,” Jules said, as if Ivy’s reality would somehow be viewed as nostalgic later.

  Before she could groan again, the door creaked open and footsteps crept across the floor. Bear’s face blurred above her, his brilliant blue eyes wide with concern.

  “Madra will have kittens if she catches you in here,” Ivy whispered weakly.

  Ugh. Her mouth tasted like death. Her breath was probably atrocious. She pulled the sheet over her mouth self-consciously.

  “Relax, Ivy,” Jules said. “Bear is a super badass Fae guard. He’s faced down worse than your hangover breath.”

  Comforting.

  Oh, no.

  Did he know what had happened between her and Ardan at the party last night? If he did, he probably wouldn’t be standing over her with concern. He’d probably be avoiding her. Guilt thrummed through her veins, accelerating her heartbeat. She was suddenly homesick for Kingston Academy, for a Saturday spent at Nan’s drinking tea and talking about medicinal herbs. But those days were gone. Her new reality was trying to get through each day without humiliating herself, her mother, or her entire Court.

  “Ivy, whatever happened last night—it wasn’t your fault,” Bear said.

  So he did know.

  “Whatever he did to you, whatever you found yourself doing, was not your fault. It was the Fae wine and the music.”

  Even though Ivy felt that she did bear some blame—she had been careless with the wine and ignorant of the music—she heard every word that Bear couldn’t say. That Ardan had taken advantage of the situation. That he had acted shamefully. That he had made a fool of her in front of her people.

  “No visitors today, Bear,” Ivy answered. “I don’t want to see anyone—not Madra or Nareena, not even my mother. Just Jules. Please tell Queen Lyric I’m sick and need a day off.”

  Bear nodded and squeezed her hand, casting a worried glance at Jules.

  Jules. Her human best friend who had shown up in the Winter Court with zero warning.

  “How are you here?” Ivy asked. “How did you get here?”

  “I’ll leave you two to talk,” Bear said. “Lochlan will take my place in an hour, but I will tell him to make sure you are not disturbed.”

  Ivy closed her eyes again, feeling lonely, missing his friendship, the closeness they once shared, as his boots thudded across the floor, the door clicking shut behind him.

  Jules helped her sit up, piling pillows behind her back as Ivy reluctantly took the aspirin and coffee she offered. Her stomach was sour, and while she felt half-starved, the thought of food sent a wave of nausea that threatened to drown her.

  When she finally managed to swallow the two chalky white pills, Jules pulled up a chair beside the bed and sat down. “I sent for some toast. I know you don’t feel like eating, but trust me. If Fae wine is anything like the human stuff, the bread will soak up the alcohol.”

  “How do you know?” Ivy asked. “It’s not like you’re the life of the party at Kingston.”

  “No, but you forget that my parents have worked long hours apart for so long that they have no idea how to live together anymore. When we’re all home for Christmas, all they do is drink. It’s how they peacefully coexist during holiday dinners. Trust me when I say that yours is not the first hangover I’ve treated.”

  “God, it’s mortifying,” Ivy groaned. “Just when I thought I couldn’t hate Ardan anymore than I already do, he goes and pulls something li
ke this.” She paused a moment, trying to think of a rational explanation that would make him less cruel. “Maybe he didn’t know I was wasted.”

  Jules gave her a signature “You’re kidding, right?” glance. “He knew. Trust me, I spent two hours dangling by the leash he hooked to my collar. He knew exactly what he was doing.”

  Ivy nodded. “Did he, like, kidnap you or something? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  Jules shook her head. “Well, being led into a room full of faeries like a flea-ridden stray did a little damage to my dignity, but otherwise, I’m fine.”

  So she told Ivy, then, how she came to be in the Winter Court—about finding her empty room, about searching for her, about Ardan’s sudden appearance in her room. If only Ivy had just accepted the stupid necklace, rather than throwing it back in his face, maybe Jules would still be safe at school instead of being entangled in Faerie drama. What a nightmare.

  Ivy thought she had heard the worst of it when Jules took her hand.

  “There’s something else I have to tell you, but I can’t go into any details.”

  “O-kay?” Ivy said.

  Then, Jules pulled up the sleeve of her shirt, revealing the pale skin of her forearm. Just below the crease of her elbow was a small black cross. The image swirled around in her mind until the black letters of a text book to shape and formed words in her memory. She had just read about this curse a few days ago.

  “The Iron Cross,” Ivy whispered.

  Jules shrugged. “I didn’t know.”

  “And you’ve made an agreement with Ardan, but you can’t tell me what it is.”

  Jules nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  Ardan just kept getting better and better. So now, she couldn’t even trust her best friend in the entire world. Ardan had marked Jules with the Iron Cross, a curse that would kill her if she betrayed him. Though Ivy didn’t know—couldn’t know—what that bargain entailed, she would have to be guarded against the one person in the world that had never had to climb her walls.

  There would be no secret sharing, no private mischief. Because whatever happened in Ivy’s world could now be directly reported to Ardan, or Jules would die. From what Lores, the Winter timekeeper, had told Ivy, the Iron Cross was applied to ensure loyalty. Ivy’s best guess was that Ardan had lured Jules into Faerie as some sort of a spy—his eyes and ears inside Ivy’s most private moments. Tears pooled in her eyes as she reached for Jules and wrapped her arms around her. Jules returned her embrace, her expression just as hopeless as Ivy’s.

  Ivy’s new life had stolen everything from her. Now, it had stolen her best friend, too. She had no allies, no trusted confidantes. As she hugged Jules, the best friend she could no longer afford to trust, Ivy held on to the only thing she had in the world.

  Her secrets.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alena glanced over at King Odrhan, whose breaths were coming out in even, rhythmic puffs. Now that the king was asleep, she could tackle the next item on her endless to-do list. Moving as little as possible so as not to wake him, Alena disentangled herself from the sheets and slipped quietly out of bed.

  She headed through the bathroom and into her side of the walk-in closet, which had been vacated a few years ago by Queen Raakel’s untimely murder. Such a shame to lose a queen so young. But Alena had to admit, the dead queen had certainly given her an opportunity to seize. As she always did, Alena took full advantage.

  She slid hangers down the rack, searching for the perfect attire until she found what she was seeking. Considering her next destination, she chose a soft pink dress with ¾ length belle sleeves, covering herself from head to toe in the gauzy material preferred by the Fae of the Summer Court—a dress Alena kept hidden in the back of King Odhran’s closet for just such occasions.

  Alena and the Unseelie king were not exactly in a committed relationship, but she certainly hadn’t told him about her other closet in the private quarters the Summer King had reserved for her in his palace. Here, she could act more freely than in the Summer Court, where Queen Vera had numerous guards to spy on her husband, but even here, Alena still had to be careful not to wound Odhran’s over-inflated ego.

  She hastily dressed and slid on a pair of golden thong sandals lined with Fae crystals. Then, sneaking back the way she came, Alena opened the secret door through which she entered and exited the king’s quarters, peering into the hallway to make sure she wasn’t seen.

  The dark hallway was quiet and empty.

  She slipped into the cool air and slinked soundlessly down the hallway until she reached the room of portals. Walking past the cool, craggy stone of Winter, she stood before the largest rock, which was covered in plush green ivy, dotted here and there with periwinkle. Smiling and closing her eyes, Alena allowed the intense energy that buzzed in powerful waves to flow from the stone and into her. Absorbing its magic, she took a deep breath and placed her hands on the stones and fell through a vortex of black empty space.

  A dark tunnel appeared the moment her feet found solid ground, and she followed the bright light at the end until she stepped out of the portal, her feet sinking into a thick patch of soft grass. Though the temperatures in the Summer Court were pleasant at a constant eighty degrees, it had been some time since she had set foot in another court. Her dress clung to her perspiring back. Living nearly a thousand years in the Winter Court, Alena was not accustomed to the warmer temperatures, pleasant or not.

  A few yards away, she made her way to the dusty path that led to the Summer Castle, which rose in splendor from atop a grassy hill, surrounded on all sides by the Midsummer Forest. All around her the warmest of the seasonal courts bloomed in a sweet-smelling array of oleanders and zinnias, rhododendrons and laurel, poppies and lilies. Thick vegetation whose leaves and petals swayed gently with the ever-present breeze caused the leaves to whisper secrets only they understood.

  The higher Alena climbed and the closer she came to the castle, the stronger the scent of the queen’s roses. They overwhelmed her senses with their heady scent, and she was faintly aware of the familiar singing of the Summer Girls who lived to serve the court’s prince, Damarion.

  As she rounded the corner, still keeping to the dirt path, she caught sight of them, dancing rhythmically in a perfect circle, Damarion watching them with lazy delight from a grassy spot in the middle. The sheer gauze of loose fabric they wore floated on the warm breeze like paper-thin drapes that covered open windows. In typical Summer Court fashion, the dresses left little to the imagination, leaving Damarion entranced by their carefree beauty.

  Alena smirked. This was the reason Violet had betrayed Queen Lyric. Despite the girl’s years in Faerie, she had always been painfully human. Even if she did catch the eye of Prince Damarion, it wasn’t in the nature of the Summer Fae to be loyal. It’s why the Queen—a blushing bride plucked from the archaic Autumn Court some years ago—bribed her guards to keep track of her husband’s indiscretions. Alena laughed as she continued up the path. Perhaps some terrible accident would befall Queen Vera just as it had Queen Raakel of the Unseelies.

  “Alena?”

  The sound of her name pulled her from her thoughts. When she looked up, the Summer Girls had stilled, all of their tanned faces settled into disappointed pouts, as Damarion’s attention strayed and he rose from his spot on the lawn and sauntered toward her.

  “I thought you were in Queen Lyric’s dungeons.”

  “I was,” she said, shrugging. “But then, suddenly, I wasn’t.” That’s all she would reveal about the details of her escape. “I sent my lady ahead of me with official papers. Has she not arrived?”

  “Ah, Mistress Violet,” Damarion said with a smirk. So the human changeling had managed to catch the prince’s eye. “An exquisite choice but perhaps too innocent for my taste. Even a prince as carefree as I would feel some measure of guilt in being the ruin of such a beautiful human girl.”

  Alena huffed. “Do as you please. I am here to see your father. Can you sneak me in, or shall
I have to see your Lady mother?”

  “Come,” Damarion said. “I’ll take you in the back way.”

  With simultaneous sighs, the Summer Girls’ expressions wilted, their bodies drifting to the ground in disappointment like dehydrated flowers.

  “Don’t fret, my lovelies,” Damarion said. “I will be back as soon as I deliver Lady Alena to the King.”

  Their expressions transformed into child-like smiles, conjured up by their prince’s promise to return. It was sickening, really, but the prince’s girls were never taken to court against their wills. Rather, they offered themselves up to his service on the eve of his fifteenth birthday, promising loyalty to him and him alone, completely in his confidence for all the years of his life. Had Damarion been born female, the same gift would have been granted when she came of age. Such were the customs of the Summer Court royals.

  “Have you been free long?” Damarion asked as he pushed aside a thick tapestry to open a hidden door.

  “Hours only,” she said.

  “You didn’t waste any time,” he said, his honeyed voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “When one finds herself so close to victory, every second counts, don’t you think?”

  He nodded in reply, gesturing with his hand that she should climb the familiar stairs that curved to the top of the tower where King Zane kept his study.

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” Alena said. “I’ll let you return to your Summer Girls now.”

  She turned from him, then, and climbed to the top of the steep, winding stairs, hesitating for only a moment before pushing wide the door to the Summer King’s study.

  She found him leaning over his desk, looking over some sort of official-looking documents. When the door hinges creaked, he looked up, taking in the full sight of her.

  “Alena,” he said quietly.

  There were few things Alena loved more than the element of surprise. He gaped at her for several seconds, stunned, until he pushed back the chair, rounded the desk, and walked purposefully toward her. Her lips curled into a smile as King Zane took her into his arms and pressed his mouth to hers.