Wicked Crown (Shattered Kingdom Book 2) Read online

  Gandrett tried hard not to frown as she glanced at the unmoving heap of soil before her, determined to ignore the Fae male as best she could. What did he know about struggling like this? If he was born with magic, trained from childhood—

  “These berries are delicious,” he noted in an annoyingly cheery voice, and she didn’t need to turn her head to know he was grinning as widely as he had that first day they’d met when he had mocked her. “You should really hurry up a bit or I’ll finish them without you.”

  Gandrett cursed between clenched teeth as Nehelon audibly sucked on his fingers.

  When she eventually turned her head, he shrugged. “They are so ripe they are dripping.”

  Her fingers were tensing as was her back and her legs as she fought to contain it. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of unsettling her. No. If she was already bound by her life-debt, she would not let him glimpse a hint of what his cunning, wicked behavior did to her. She had learned it at the priory, and she could do it even when her heart was tired from grieving her parents—her home—and her mind was preoccupied with either her brother or what she was going to do if Nehelon called in that debt.

  “I know I am hard to look away from even with the glamour.” Nehelon winked at her and hung the basket beside him on a higher branch then rested his forearms on his thighs and winked again. “Come on, Gandrett, try.” Gandrett felt heat rush through her as he winked again—not the exciting one but the heat of fury. “For me.”

  It happened so fast Nehelon had no chance to grab onto the tree when the branch snapped right by the trunk and he dropped to the ground with it, landing in the grass with a loud thud and a curse.

  Gandrett couldn’t hold back the laughter as the warrior leapt to his feet, brushing off leaves and grass. And something in her chest purred. Magic awakening, seeking a way out, growing impatient, coiling and prodding as she got to her feet, ready to ask if he’d eaten too many berries for the tree to be able to carry his weight.

  But Nehelon wheeled around, all amusement, all surprise, all humane traits gone as he let loose his glamour and it dropped like a curtain, revealing his pure Fae heritage. His features... She had thought she had seen them un-glamoured before, but what she beheld when she looked at him now was the glorious wrath of a young god, the timeless grace of a prince of destruction—and it was stunning, beautiful beyond measure. So beautiful that Gandrett didn’t realize he was prowling toward her, feline, lethal, ready to drain the air from her lungs with his magic or crush her with a whip of branches. The world—nature itself—was his to command, and Gandrett was his prey on the field before him.

  No. Not prey. Never a prey. She unfroze from her momentary spellbound state, breathed deeply, steadying herself against any attack, physical or verbal or … magical. She had spent a decade in training to become the best—she was the best fighter the Order of Vala had seen in a long, long time. No one would defeat her. Especially not now that she had magic. She had contained Linniue with her flames, would have killed her if the woman hadn’t sacrificed herself to the god of dragons, and now, this deadly creature before her, this creature of wrath and allure, of wind and earth and fire—

  Gandrett inhaled and exhaled, slowly, steadily surveying Nehelon as he approached her like an elegant, very inviting version of death, and waited, waited until he was close enough before she drew her sword faster than she had ever done in her life.

  And Nehelon… His hand darted for her wrist, grabbing it before she could direct the blade at him.

  “Not your sword,” he growled. “I don’t want to fight you with my blade.” He stared her down, eyes piercing blue and cold as the glaciers of the Northern Mountains. He bared his teeth and leaned closer, his grasp on her wrist tightening. As he placed the second hand between them, a turquoise flame dancing in his palm, the creature in Gandrett’s chest started raging in response. It thrashed under her ribs, bit and clawed at her from the inside, begging her to release it.

  “You can feel it, can’t you?” Nehelon said, his gaze wandering to her chest, to where Brax’s pendant was hovering under her tunic right above her breasts. “It is trapped in there.” His expression grew distant as if he no longer was seeing with his eyes but rather sensing—feeling—the monster that threatened to claw open her torso. “Release it, Gandrett.” His voice was pure command. The same as when he had set that woman in Alencourt on fire. And the flames in his long-fingered hand suggested he was ready to do it again. “Release it,” he repeated, voice quiet, a deadly calm gracing his glorious features. Power was emanating from every inch of his body as he took another step toward her until they shared breath, nothing but his hand and the cold fire between them.

  Gandrett’s heart was raging in her chest, thundering in beat with the thrumming energy that built in-between her ribs, and her breathing came fast and hard as she pushed the sensation back. She couldn’t fall into that same delirium again. If she wanted to stand a chance against the Fae male who was now so close his gaze felt like a physical touch, she needed to keep a clear mind. Needed to slow her pulse, to calm her breathing, to center herself—

  But the beast in her chest was unstoppable, scratching, clawing, making her vision blur with pain. The searing heat began right beneath her sternum and slowly, so slowly spread deeper into her heart, her veins, and the agony that came with it. Out. It needed out. She couldn’t tell if she had screamed the words or thought them, but Nehelon’s voice, an icy remedy to the current of fire inside of her, commanded again, “Release it.”

  “How?” She wasn’t sure if she was breathing, thinking. It was consuming her—again.

  A hand, so cold it made her heart stutter, touched her chest, right where the fire was originating, and she tore her eyes open, becoming aware she had closed them, had been losing the fight against that creature—her magic. “Focus,” Nehelon demanded in the background of the thundering in her ears. It wasn’t some creature. It was the flames that had incinerated Nehelon’s dagger and the chain around Joshua’s neck, and the canyons that had protected them from Linniue’s attacks. It was the fire she would need to free herself of the Fae’s grasp.

  “Look at me, Gandrett.”

  So she did.

  Her eyes zoomed in on him, his diamond-blue eyes, his sun-kissed skin, the thin lines of tension that furrowed his dark brows, his hair, silken as if it was made if liquid gemstone … his hand, resting on her chest.

  Her chest.

  Gandrett opened her mouth to tell him to take his Fae hands off her, but before even a word had left her lips, the heat collected in her arm, rolled patiently down and down until it coiled in her palm and then, so fast she couldn’t even think to stop it, it was out. It floated through her skin, carrying into the morning air, turquoise and blue, a mirror of the flame that had been burning between Nehelon’s fingers.

  Chapter Twelve

  It seared out of her like a flood of flame, making muscle, bone, and skin in her hand protest as her magic broke free. And her chest—there was no end to the thrumming and vibrating inside of it as if someone had broken a dam, and now, all that had been locked up inside of her, all that pain and lost hope and hardship of those past ten years washed through her, oil in fire, feeding into the flame, into the manifested wrath of a soul damned to servitude, of a prisoner struggling to break free, of a fighter who had found a new weapon … and was wielding it without knowing how to stop or the consequences.

  Her own scream hit her ears like the flat of a blade, savage and set on destruction. In her other hand, her sword weighed heavy, biting her skin even with Nehelon’s steel grip still wrapped around her wrist, and she opened her fingers, letting the iron blade drop to the ground.

  As if another channel had been opened, the fire flooded from her free palm, both hands now emanating a never-ending burst of fire and heat.

  “Good,” Nehelon’s voice carried through the unfamiliar sensation of power—of freedom, “now control it.”

  His command wasn’t as harsh, as col
d as before.

  So Gandrett tried. She closed her eyes, trying to find the end of that heat, to stroke the now purring creature in her chest to silence, but it wouldn’t obey. Too new that sensation of unchecked release, too thrilling the rush of being nothing more than a medium for that wild energy that twirled and twisted inside of her.

  “Now, Gandrett,” Nehelon said, his voice breathless, rough as if he was exhausted. “You have to stop now.”

  At the distress in his tone, Gandrett’s eyes snapped open, and she found Nehelon’s face distorted with strain, sweat beading his forehead, trickling down his temples, pasting his hair against his fire-lit skin. He gritted his teeth at her when he met her gaze, and Gandrett realized it was her causing this. Her magic, her fire. He was struggling to keep his shield up as her flames were breaking against him as if he was a rock in an angry river. Not a rock—a ship navigating through the current of heat. And slowly going under.

  As she watched him struggle, panic struck. What was he doing? Why wasn’t he getting out of the way and saving himself? He didn’t need to stand and endure the flames unless—

  “Focus,” he instructed, the commander’s tone all gone, leaving his voice raw. “It’s like any other fire. Take away the air, and it can’t burn.”

  Gandrett inhaled, coughing at the singeing air that filled her nose and throat. The fire didn’t stop but flared higher and higher, enclosing Nehelon as a whole. Gandrett closed and opened and closed her hands, hoping to snuff out the flame, but all it did was make the fire spread unpredictably. Alvi whinnied somewhere in the background…

  “I can’t.” She tried and tried and tried. But her power had broken free from its cage, and she saw no way of leashing it.

  “Imagine … sucking it in … and”—he paused, cursing as Gandrett’s fire flared—“Gods, Gandrett … control your emotions.”

  She stumbled back—tried to, but his hand wouldn’t release her wrist. “Let me—”

  He just shook his head, obviously determined to sit it out until she was able to control herself—even if it meant he would get hurt.

  All right. Calm her emotions. She could do that. She had been drilled to do so for a decade. Detaching herself from everything, Gandrett went into that small place in her mind—not her happy place, she no longer had one, but a now empty, dark haze where once her hope to return home had lingered. A breath and another one. The pain and heat retracted an inch into her hands, her palms no longer the focal point of the fire.

  “Good,” Nehelon panted above her. “One more breath,” he encouraged.

  She hardly heard him as she spooled in her magic, finally able to envision it as something other than that raging beast. One inch after another, further and further into her chest it recoiled. Sweat pasted her hair to her neck, and her tunic clung to her like a second skin, sticking to her body. Her knees wobbled, her body shaking, exhausted as the cool breeze of a summer morning replaced the heat of her fire.

  “You are almost there.” Nehelon’s fingers loosed around her wrist, weak from exhaustion or just reassured that she wouldn’t burst out in flames again, Gandrett couldn’t tell. All she did was pull her hand to her side, desperately needing it to clench her stomach as she twisted to the side to heave bile onto the burnt soil in front of her. Once. Twice. Her stomach wouldn’t stop until she finally dropped to her knees and buried her head in her hands. Only then did the retching cease.

  Nehelon’s broad hand touched her back, stroking slow circles as she recovered, little by little, from whatever it had been that had happened just now.

  “Breathe,” he said, his own voice more stable now. “It’s completely normal to vomit your guts up.” Somehow, his tone wasn’t reassuring. “At least, for humans it is.”

  As Gandrett breathed as he had instructed, her body slowly relaxed, leaving her barely able to lift her head and glance at him from the side. Beyond that layer of sweat, Nehelon’s Fae features were twisted in strain, but his eyes…

  There was nothing left of that warrior, that cold-hearted Fae male who had mocked her and denied her the comfort of a shield to keep dry when she had been drained and needed a shred of kindness. Instead, his gaze was gentle, warmth filling his tired, blue eyes for once—care.

  He didn’t remove his hand as she pushed herself up to be level with him, but gritted his teeth into a somewhat smile.

  “What was that?” She asked, for once not bothering to school her face into ambivalence. And his smile broadened just a hint.

  “That, Miss Brayton, was your magic answering my call.”

  Nehelon didn’t care that he was kneeling beside a puddle of vomit. Because that puddle was proof that Gandrett’s magic had answered his call. After secluding her in the clearing, he had spent the past days carefully planning this moment—not the moment of almost kneeling in bile but the moment of seeing her magic dance again.

  It had cost him everything he had. Every ounce of restraint, of power, of reserves, to stand by her, to not let go of her wrist and break that connection. Of course, it would have been the easier path—for him. For her, probably, too. But it had stopped being about the easier path about four-hundred years ago when his homeland had fallen under that spell and gone dormant.

  “Why in Vala’s name would my magic do that?” Gandrett, a shivering bundle, weak after the first intentional release of her power, was pale as the morning light.

  And naturally, she would ask for an explanation. Gandrett Brayton wasn’t the type to simply accept information. So he had better come up with something that wouldn’t scare her. Something that thoroughly bent the truth, but not just a lie—how he wished he was able to lie. His days would be so much less dangerous and his nights so much fuller of rest.

  “When a mage is triggered by another being of magical gifts, either it ends up like last time—” He could hardly think about the moments he had been dreading she would snap under the strain of her magic, her hallucinations as they had galloped toward the forest when he had set the corps of the Shygon worshipper on fire. “Or—”

  Her eyes, moss green and clear as the rush of magic had left her system, deep and full of wonder as she beheld his true form. His Fae form. For a moment so brief the Gods couldn’t have noticed, he wondered what she saw when she looked at him. If she saw him for what her culture had taught her in legends and scary bedtime stories or if she saw something more—something beyond the monster the human race had made themselves believe the Fae were.

  “Or what?” Gandrett called his attention back to where it should be. To explain, to take away her fear. But as she eyed him, hardly able to keep upright, there was no fear in her eyes. Not in her scent, either. He had gotten so used to reading her scent rather than her features even if that scent made it difficult for him to think of anything else. Intoxicating.

  She swayed in her kneeling position, heaving again.

  With a smile, Nehelon admitted to himself that the scent had been better. Also that both of them had been in better shape. It had cost him everything to keep up that shield so she wouldn’t incinerate him.

  But Nehelon hadn’t been afraid. Death had long ceased to scare him.

  “Let’s clean you up and get you something to eat first. We have plenty of time later, now that the first step has been taken.”

  Gandrett hardly made it into an upright position. She didn’t object when Nehelon pushed his hand under her elbow to support her weight. Under normal circumstances, she would have taken his eye out with her blade, but after having hauled her guts up at his feet, she no longer cared. She knew she should, but right now, he was the only lifeline.

  “The stream will be warm when you step in,” the male informed her in a tone that was so—she didn’t have words for what the tone was like.

  Her steps were slow, dragging. Even Alvi whinnied from nearby as if to ask if she needed help.

  Nehelon got it, she wanted to say to the horse, but she couldn’t get out the words.

  When Gandrett made it to the stream w
hat felt like minutes later, the stream the way she had seen it this morning wasn’t what she found. The soft curve that snaked through the clearing had grown a small side-branch, which widened into a pool double the size of a large bathtub and then closed into the narrow branch again, bringing water back to the main arm.

  “You made this,” Gandrett acknowledged with a nod of thanks. Not the actual words. She wouldn’t make that mistake again even when Nehelon was behaving like an actual human being right now—apart from the Fae traits and powers.

  “I did.” She couldn’t tell what the emotion in his voice meant. If it even was emotion or just exhaustion taking over.

  Gandrett stopped at the side of the pool and let Nehelon help her sit at the edge. He crouched beside her, leaving enough distance between them that his scent didn’t hit her face full-force but close enough that his tired, weary eyes let her guess that he needed that bath as much as she did.

  “You can go first,” she offered and gestured at the water from which tendrils of steam were rising.

  He raised an eyebrow in response. But when Gandrett folded her arms and laid back in the grass, Nehelon shrugged and fingered open the threads that held together his leathers. “It’s your call,” he simply said and shrugged off the top part and his shirt, the latter drenched in sweat, to reveal his sculpted chest and abdomen. Gandrett couldn’t help but give in when her lips twitched at one side.

  “Still pleasant, isn’t it?” He jerked his chin down at his body, but the lightness, the mocking, the Nehelon he knew was gone, leaving her with the urge to, for the first time, agree.

  Gandrett closed her eyes, wrapping her arms more tightly around her chest as the lifting of clothes, followed by the sound of breaking water filled the air. She inhaled the early summer air. Flowers and grass and moving dew.