“I did.” He advanced toward her, his familiar midnight eyes flashing with an emotion she didn’t recognize. “Which is why I find it so concerning that it’s gone missing. Someone took it. I can’t imagine that someone would be anyone but you.”
“So what if I took it?” She cast her gaze at the open door. It was only a few steps away, but Lorcan blocked her escape.
His lip curled back in a snarl. “Because I ordered you to forget about it.”
She choked out a strained laugh. “Youorderedme?”
Lorcan slammed her against the wall and braced both hands on the smooth stone on either side of her head. He leaned forward, his entire body brimming with barely-contained rage. The scent of him surrounded her, but it wasn’t leather, smoke, and steel, the scent she’d dreamed of all those weeks they’d spent apart. It was something else. Ozone, iron, death.
“Give me back the book, Princess Reyna,” he hissed into her mouth. The scent of the iron burned her nostrils, and a horrible, twisted realization stormed through her. Her eyes flicked to the chalice. The red wine gleamed beneath the flickering candlelight.
It wasn’t wine at all. Reyna had memorized that scent. She’d spent too much time on battlefields to ever forget it. The chalice didn’t hold wine. It was blood.
The shock of it all hit her like a weighted fist. Her mouth dropped open, and a strangled gasp escaped from her parted lips. She’d known something was wrong with Lorcan. She’d sensed a shift in him. Something dark. Something cruel. But she had never once suspected this.
“What has this place done to you?” she whispered, the unbidden tears streaming down her cheeks.
He leaned so close that his nose brushed against her damp skin. Shuddering, she tried to pull away, but she had no place to go, not so long as he kept her trapped here. “I have become what I was always meant to be, and you, Princess Reyna, will not stand in my way any longer.”
She braced herself for the impact, for a knife in her gut or in her heart. But instead of death, freedom came. The weight of his body vanished as he stepped away from her. His eyes churned with hatred, and his jaw clenched hard. Shaking his head, he pointed at his open door. “Leave. Get out of here.”
Her veins filled with ice. “You want me to move to different quarters?”
“No,” he growled. “Leave Murias. Leave the Wood Court. Go home, Reyna. If you don’t, I can’t promise you that I won’t end up draining the blood from your veins until there is nothing left of you.”
She stared at him in horror, the male she loved. Never in her worst nightmares had she imagined that he would be the one to break her into a million pieces, that he would one day threaten to take her life.
“Please tell me what’s happened to you,” she whispered through the tears. “I know you’re in there somewhere. I can see it in your eyes, even if it’s hidden beneath shadows thicker than the mists. Just tell me what I need to do to help you, and I will. Lorcan…I…”
“Get out,” he said through gritted teeth, soft as a whisper, before he rose his voice to a shout. “Get out of here now, Reyna!”
Shaking her head, she stumbled back toward the open door. The world slowed to an excruciating stop as she stared into his eyes. Reyna hadn’t been lying. Lorcan was in there. In the soft specks of brown mixed in with the impenetrable darkness. But he was fading fast. Something else was taking over his mind, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
At least not here.
“I will find a way to save you,” she whispered before turning on her heels and racing down the corridor. She flew past courtiers, lords and ladies clinking chalices and dancing beneath the moonlight streaming in through the windows. Reyna’s stomach turned as she ran. Was that wine in their chalices? Or had they turned to blood as well? Were they the reason Lorcan had drank it in the first place?
No.
It had to be more than that. He would never succumb to that kind of pressure. He would never drink blood to play the games of court. Lorcan had never even wanted power to begin with. Something else had made him do this, and Reyna was determined to find out what.
Reyna flew through the corridors and raced out into the courtyard beyond the tower. Just along the edge, there was a grove of ancient trees whose trunks were wider than she was tall. With a deep breath, she plunged into the trees and slid before a small hole that creatures had burrowed into the base of the oldest and largest of them all. She dipped her hand inside and pulled out the book.
She clutched it to her chest, her heart hammering. Whatever was happening to Lorcan had something to do with whatever was in this book. Reyna was certain of it, in a bone-deep way she could not ignore. The only problem was, she couldn’t read the damn thing herself. It was all written in the ancient language of the Fomorians, and she only knew a few important words.
Nollaig might be able to translate some of it, but she’d taken her king’s side. There was only one other person Reyna could think of, someone who was part-Fomorian himself. It was still a long shot. Even if he did know the language, there was no guarantee he’d be willing to tell her what it said.
Still, Reyna didn’t have any other choice. This place had turned Lorcan into someone he was not. She had to get him back. She had to remind him of who he was. If she didn’t, if he kept drinking this blood, she might lose him to Unseelie forever.
The cruel dark god was trying to take him away from her. And she would never let that happen.
5
Lorcan
Lorcan struggled to remember why he had hated Ulaid Molt. The former High King of the Wood Court had done so much for his people. He’d transformed their lives. The Wood Court was far richer than Lorcan had ever realized. The cities were prosperous. Trade was booming. Even the poorest low fae wanted for nothing.
Yes, there was the pesky blood issue. Molt had killed a few of his loyal followers over the years. More than a few, actually. But the blood had given him power beyond imagination. Without it, Molt never would have been able to give the wood fae what they’d needed to survive.
