Enchanting the King (The Beauty's Beast Fantasy Series) (18 page)

“Buy the lot of it,” Thomas muttered.

She snorted. “I would if I had a single coin with which to cross his palm.”

Thomas smiled and plucked his own small money pouch off his belt.

“Such a wise ki—man.” She darted a nervous glance at the boy. “Philippe never carried his own money. He did not wish to taint his hands with such worldly considerations.”

“As a young man, I was stranded once after a battle on the wrong side of a river, in enemy territory. I didn’t have any money on me at all. Nothing to trade. I nearly starved to death before my father’s men found me.” Thomas thumbed through his pouch and came up with the smallest possible coin. It wasn’t that he minded paying more for the food, but he didn’t mean to let the shepherd know how deep his purse was.

The shepherd held his hand out for the coin. Thomas pressed it into the lad’s small hand. The lad flexed his fingers a little and grinned, clearly waiting for more. Thomas’s stomach chose that particular moment to betray him again by emitting another high-pitched growl. The shepherd gave him a toothy smile and wiggled his fingers again.

Thomas dug out two more of the small coins and dropped them into the lad’s palm. The boy at last pulled his hand back and dug in his bag. The first thing he came up with was another apple, and such an apple: perfectly round with a delicate red blush to the green.

As Thomas weighed the ripe fruit in his palm, it took all of his willpower to turn and offer the food to Aliénor first.

She gave Thomas a startled glance and tried to push the apple back to him. “No, no, you first.”

The shepherd made a sound of protest, frowning mightily, and let lose another long stream of angry words.

Aliénor frowned. “He says I must eat first. Bad luck otherwise. A local custom, I guess.”

“It’s fine.” Thomas clapped a hand over his gut in an attempt to muffle its unmannerly noises.

Aliénor smiled at him. “I’ll just take a small bite, then hand it to you.” Suiting action to words, she sank her teeth into the apple with a loud crunch. Juice from the apple dribbled down her chin, and Thomas laughed a little.

She froze and stared at the apple in her hand.

Thomas stilled too, watching her face contort. “What—”

She choked once, gagging, her frightened gaze darting to his face.

“
Aliénor
.” His heart clutched with fear.

She toppled backward, away from him, and the apple rolled out of her nerveless fingers.

Thomas reached for Aliénor as she collapsed, his pulse thundering with fear. “No—”

Movement at the corner of his eye made him instinctively flinch back. The shepherd lunged toward him. Thomas caught the boy’s wrist, anger and alarm flaring in the king’s gut. “What did you
do
to her?”

The shepherd let out a husky laugh, feminine and low.

Thomas gaped.

“Hello, King Thomas.” The shepherd’s skin cracked. The shepherd’s dark face shredded away to reveal Mistress Helen’s lighter cheek like a snake shedding its old skin. The last traces of illusion peeled away from the blood witch, and she combed her fingers through her hair, smiling at Thomas.

He jerked away, but she flicked out her sharp little knife, slashing at him. He dodged, trying not to topple over Aliénor in the small hut.

The blood witch bit her lip in concentration and threw herself at him again. Her shoulder slammed into his chest. He caught her hands, holding that accursed blade of hers away from his body. A nasty fighter, she managed to sink her teeth hard into the bare skin of his wrist.

He yelped as her teeth opened his skin and shoved her violently away from him, hard enough that she banged into the wall and made the whole hut rattle with the impact. Thomas whirled and fumbled on the ground for his sword.

“No, no. Stop that,” she snapped.

Thomas froze, but his hands shook as he tried to make his body obey his own will and not her damned spell.
Move. Go
. His muscles remained stiff and unyielding, under his command no more. His body might as well have been stone for all he could do with it.

“Turn around, King Thomas.”

Breathing heavily, stomach roiling with acid, Thomas wheeled around—and it felt as if an invisible hand were moving him the whole time, twisting his torso, shifting his legs.

Mistress Helen raked her gaze slowly over him. His blood still stained one side of her mouth, and she absently flicked her tongue out to lick at it. Her slow perusal of him complete, she met his stare at last, and her lips widened in a smile. “Well, this is lovely. A king to call my very own. A handsome one too. You and I shall be quite good friends, I think. Do sit down, Thomas.”

His legs crumpled beneath him, and he hit the dirt hard. His mind seemed to throb with the effort to think, to resist the creeping numbness and confusion of her spell.
What can I do? How can I fight this?

Mistress Helen sat gracefully across from him, arranging her legs
just so
, then smoothing down the line of her masculine hose over her knee. “Dear Thomas, tell me: how large is your country?”

Over the next half hour, she asked many such questions of him. How large was his treasury? How many men could he muster at need to fight? How much land belonged to him alone?

“And the succession? Who is your heir?”

Thomas swallowed, the words bitter on his tongue as they forced themselves past his unwilling lips. “Gabriel. My nephew. But he’s gone missing.”

“Well, good.” Her lips pinched. “Although dead would be better. Well, I’ll take care of him eventually if I must.” She tapped her little dagger against her knee as she thought. Then she looked again at Thomas, and her face broke into a large smile. “Now, tell me true, dear Thomas: do you think it better if we marry here or wait until we reach Lyond?”

Marriage. Married to this harpy and his whole country under her thumb? Thomas had to lick his dry lips. His voice was thready, strained and throbbing with his own fury. He still answered her truthfully, though his tongue felt thick, his stomach nauseated as he did so. “I think, however you drag me back to my kingdom, the people will be suspicious. If we are unwed, they will more easily see you for the scheming, manipulative adventuress that you are.”

She narrowed her eyes, scowling, and let out a gusty sigh. “I suppose it shall have to be married and pregnant, then, with a lovely long tour through your country first to tell your people the good news.”

Married. Pregnant
. And Aliénor’s motionless body on the floor behind him. What sort of hellish, devastating land of nightmare had he walked into? And how could he free himself from it?

The blood witch peered out the hut’s small opening. “The rain’s letting up. We should be going. Get your cloak, dear Thomas.” She had a malicious glint in her eye as she said it.

Hands shaking, Thomas turned toward Aliénor where she lay unmoving on the floor atop his cloak. Her skin was blanched a ghastly white, but her red hair lay spread about her like a spill of rosy gold. His late wife, his dear Rosamund, had looked that pale, that still as he’d held her and watched the life leave her body. His eyes stung.
Aliénor
.

He had to lift Aliénor into his arms in a mockery of an embrace in order to yank his cloak free. Her limp body sagged in his grip, and he felt dizzy, off-balance, as if the world were tilting beneath him. Suddenly he knew the witch had given him this order to be cruel, to make him feel how futile all his half-imagined hopes and dreams were now.

Aliénor’s skin was corpse-cold, and no breath seemed to stir in her breast. “I’m sorry, Aliénor. I’m so sorry.”

The spell would not even let him hold her or touch her face, though he tried to make his hands obey. He could touch her only as much as he needed to in order to carry out the witch’s order, and no more. Once he had tugged the folds of his cloak free, he had to lay Aliénor gently back on the floor and step away.
Aliénor
. He gritted his teeth, a scream of fury and loss and fear building behind his locked teeth. But the spell choked his cry back as firmly as a hand round his throat would.

“Come along, dear Thomas.”

His whole body trembled as he turned away and left Aliénor’s poor cold body behind him on the floor.

To lose a princess was bad enough. To lose a princess and a king all in one day made Llewellyn feel an utter fool. And the princess’s ladies did not soothe his pride or his temper any either.

“Your king probably stole our princess in the night.” This was the younger one, Lady Violette. She’d been muttering such things the whole night through. The other one, the stout Lady Noémi, held her tongue. Still, she kept a wary eye on Llewellyn and all the king’s knights, and she made sure to keep little Violette close to her side like a mother hen with only one chick. Lady Noémi hadn’t liked any of them, but she’d trusted the Lyondi knights yesterday. Now she stayed with them only out of necessity.

Llewellyn understood the women’s suspicions, but he could do little to assuage their fears when he could not keep track of his own bloody king.
Oh, my king, what have you gotten yourself into this time?
He did not want to believe King Thomas had absconded with the girl, but everything had been so dark and chaotic the night before. They’d seen no sign of King Thomas or Princess Aliénor all the long night they had been searching. Now their whole group was wet through, tired, sore, hungry.

If we do not find them soon…
Llewellyn winced and pushed aside the branch just ahead of him. The rain, at least, had petered out. Perhaps they might even have time to dry off before the next winter storm swept through to pummel them.

The sound of sheep caught at Llewellyn’s senses, and he cast his eyes around in the gray light until he saw what must be a shepherd’s hut. Perhaps he could leave the two ladies there with one of his men and take the rest of his knights to—

Lady Noémi gasped and pointed. “
Look
.”

Two dark figures had ducked out of the hut and were making their careful way down the muddy hill.

Llewellyn’s breath caught as he recognized the king’s form up ahead. The other wore hose and a tunic, but had the silhouette of a woman.

“Hallo there!” Llewellyn hollered and hurried forward.

Both figures froze. The smaller of the two yanked hard on King Thomas’s arm. Instead of this speeding him along, they lost their balance together and fell with a wet splat into the mud.

“Are you all right? My king?” Heart fluttering with an alarm he didn’t quite understand, Llewellyn jogged forward up the hill toward the two figures. He was certain now that one was King Thomas. But the other—

“Burn.
Burn
.” The blood witch’s voice boomed over the hillside, and a ball of red heat rolled off her palm like a flung stone, hurtling down the hill toward him.

Llewellyn threw himself into the mud, pressing flat. The heat rolled over him and hit against the trees. The princess’s women cried out behind him, and he heard the crackle of flame as the damp trees caught fire. A powerful spell, then, to make even the wet wood burn.

Llewellyn wasted no time and pushed to his feet, racing after the blood witch.

“Stop him, Thomas!” she hollered over her shoulder and took off down the other side of the hill.

Llewellyn raced past his king, then suddenly went flying, landing hard enough to knock the breath out of him. The king had yanked Llewellyn’s legs out from under him, and he leapt onto the magician’s back. Llewellyn thrashed as King Thomas ground his face into the cold mud.

Llewellyn gagged and bucked, clawing at the ground. Mud went up his nose, down his throat. He could feel desperate magic building in his chest, wild, dangerous spells.
I do not want to hurt you, Thomas
. Llewellyn’s eyes burned as the king’s fingers dug into the back of his skull, crushing Llewellyn’s face into the wet muck.

“No, my king.
Stop
.” The voices of the other knights. They hurled the king’s weight off Llewellyn’s back. He rolled over and coughed up the chilly black mud. Stumbling forward, Llewellyn touched the king’s hand as his friend thrashed and fought at the knights pinning his arms.

Llewellyn rubbed his fingers together, drawing up the purging spell, rolling the stinging filaments of magic between his palms like a glowing snowball. “
Out
.” He slapped the hasty spell-ball against the king’s chest, and it shattered with crystalline brightness. The witch’s spell coursed like poison through his king’s blood, but as his own magic worked, Llewellyn could smell a faint coppery tang. At last, his spell had burned the contagion out of King Thomas.

The king groaned, and his muscles seized up. With a gasp, the king collapsed in the other knights’ holds. Llewellyn himself doubled over in the mud, breathing hard, his heart racing.
Too much magic
. He blinked his eyes open, and the world spun. Rolling over on his back despite the icy mud, he gulped in several deep breaths, trying to regain his balance.

“The princess?” Lady Noémi rushed up, her hair in disarray. She threw herself right in the king’s face. “Where is the princess?”

The king’s face crumpled, still white with shock and pain. His eyes shone wetly. “The hut. The witch gave her an apple. I—Llewellyn?”

With a groan, Llewellyn rolled onto all fours. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” He did not move. His muscles were too tired, his head too dizzy.
If only I had a spell to compel my
own
body to move
. After a moment, young Ned yanked on Llewellyn’s arm, pulling him to his feet. The page would have stepped away, but Llewellyn clung to his arm and pointed to the hut. “There.”

With a sigh, Ned walked forward, Llewellyn leaning heavily on the page the whole time.

Lady Noémi raced in ahead of them, and her shrill cry when she hurried inside made the rest of them redouble their pace. Llewellyn ducked through the doorway and stopped short at the sight of the princess’s body splayed out on the ground. An apple with one bite taken out of it lay near her hand.

“She’s
dead
.” Lady Noémi’s voice shook, and tears spilled freely down her round cheeks.