The Dark Huntsman: A Fantasy Romance of The Black Court (Tales of The Black Court Book 1) (14 page)

Gnomes were not very bright.

“My lord Prince Kian requests that he be allowed a visitor, Your Majesty,” he said, his nasal voice barely audible over the din of the court.

“Louder!” The queen cracked out.

His large ears quivered. The visible round bump in his neck bobbled as he tried to swallow.

“Prince Kian re…re…re…quests a visitor, Your Majesty,” he repeated in a somewhat louder tone, the paper in his pasty, knobbly hands visibly shaking.

“A visitor? What sort of a visitor?”

“His Majesty humbly requests that he would like someone to play chess with. He grows bored with my poor playing ability and requests someone smarter than a common cave gnome.”

“He grows bored.” The queen’s eyes rounded. “He grows bored! Did you all hear that?” The ladies in waiting nodded in unison, the tiny wings on their shoulders flapping fast, and there was a general mutter of agreement from those of the court close enough to take the risk.

The gnome quailed at her words, the odor of his fear increasing as the queen’s volume grew. Haddon tried not to inhale too deeply and moved another step back until he was slightly behind the queen.

“Why does my son think I put him there? Maybe a little boredom will force him to think about my request.” Her fingers tapped out a nervous staccato. She looked down at the gnome, her fine, dark eyebrows pulling together. “Is that all?”

“N...n...no, Your Majesty.” The gnome swallowed again, put his thin shoulders back, and continued with his mission. “My lord, the prince, also humbly requests that you allow him his freedom.” His voice wavered, trickling off into a pool of dark silence.

The experienced denizens of the court had started working their careful, casual, calculated way from the throne the moment they realized the visitor was the prince’s emissary. Now, a few more of the less oblivious followed suit.

The queen’s voice dropped to an almost inaudible tone. The gnome moved as close as he dared to the throne, his huge pink-tipped ears flaring wide to catch every virulent word.

“You may inform my self-centered son that he may leave his ‘vacation’ when he has agreed to marry my niece, Agrona. I am tired of his constant petitioning and whining! He has been in that cave a mere fifteen years. And it is as charming as any palace in Underhill. Charming!” She glared at Haddon and he nodded his affirmation, wishing he dared take another step back. “My son should be thankful that he has you to attend to his every need. What more could he want?” She stared at the cringing gnome. Her purple eyes darkened and narrowed into slits. “Wait a moment, what’s your name? Beetle?”

“Beezel, Your Majesty.”

“Beezel. Don’t I have your wife and children tucked away somewhere?”

Haddon hadn’t thought it was possible for the grey skin of the gnome to get any paler, but it did. That was the moment a dark mist crept out from the queen’s skin, hovering about her form and slowly obscuring it, the moment Haddon’s day fell apart.

The queen had been in her pleasure aspect of Aeval when the gnome entered the court. Treacherous, lovely, and calm. Now all Haddon could see floating in the shimmering mist were her extraordinary purple eyes, like a cobra’s, ready to strike.

“I…I…I…” Beezel stammered.

Then the mist dissipated, revealing the dark beauty of the queen’s more dangerous aspect, the Morrigan. Far older than many could remember and from the brutal time period thousands of years ago when the Tuatha had come to Earth and the queen had dominated humanity in the form of a living goddess. Stark blue veins traced under her whiter-than-white skin. Her rambunctious red hair had metamorphosed into heavy, inky ringlets with lowlights of red, dark as dried blood, the snaky tresses moving with a life of their own.

Even her jewelry morphed from golden leaves to silvery, white skulls swinging from a wide-linked chain around her neck.

Her huge bat-like black wings unfolded, the iridescent, six-inch razor-sharp feathers blocking out the light coming through the tall trees. The gnome shrank away from the thrones and his shaking increased, his many teeth hitting each other like mallets echoing across the still court.

“You tell my ungrateful son that the next time he sends someone to me, it had best be about his wedding or I will come to him myself!” she shrieked, acidic spittle flying from a mouth contorted into a specter of rage.

The large black wings beat the air faster and faster, raising a huge wind that blew the little gnome back even as he struggled in vain to make his bow. He fell forward. His feet flew back and he landed on his face, grasping at handfuls of the grassy floor in a vain attempt to halt his progress as he skidded across the wide empty court. The enormous doors of the court swung open and Beezel blew through, hitting a pillar hard on his head and sliding down to lie in an unmoving pile. The heavy doors clanged shut.

The deserted court was silent. Everyone who could flee had fled the wrath of the queen. The only sound the slight brushing of the shaking leaves in the trees.

Fifteen years ago, the prince had disappeared. All of his supporters had been exiled or thrown into the dungeons. No one in the court knew where he was. No one asked. No one dared.

The wind blew harder. Haddon’s feet lifted off the ground. He grabbed for the throne, his fingers sliding on the smooth wood, his legs sailing out behind him. He spoke in as calm a tone as he could and still be heard over the storm. “Your Majesty, please. It does you no good to get so upset about His Highness. He will come to his senses eventually.”

The queen’s wings slowed and the wind died. Haddon’s feet touched the ground and he let out a small sigh of relief under his breath. The queen eased her wings behind her back and folded them into a tense position, ready to spring out if needed as she subsided onto her throne, her darting eyes still vivid with anger.

“If that stupid huntsman would finish his job and track down all of the MacElvys, I wouldn’t have to keep my son confined. It’s for his own safety, you know.”

“I know.” Haddon soothed, relieved to have his feet once more touching the ground and the queen thinking about covering up her true plans. “And once you have him wed to Agrona, she will keep him safe.”

“Safe, yes. I just want him safe.” She smiled slyly and winked at him. “Laila!” One of the queen’s many ladies-in-waiting rushed over. “I need some plum wine.” Laila scurried off. The queen leaned in to whisper in Haddon’s ears, “Kian is nearly causing too much trouble. Once the MacElvy’s are dead and he’s married to Agrona, he’ll be much easier to manage.”

Yes, he would be. Agrona would suck the prince of his Gift, his virility, and eventually, his life. And the queen would take all of that from Agrona and use it to wreak her vengeance on the Golden Court of Oberon.

Haddon patted the queen’s shoulder, soothing and fussing as he poured the wine and served marigold biscuits. The crisis was over, but he’d spend the rest of the day working double-time to keep the queen from killing anyone. She’d need her ego soothed, disruptions kept to a minimum, and her lusts slaked. And he was the person she would go through for everything. He’d made sure of that.

Even he, who had done terrible things in the name of advancement, things that turned his stomach, quailed at the thought of being wed to the queen’s niece. Agrona, a product of generations of royal inbreeding combined with some distant troll blood. Not only would the prince be losing his freedom and his powers, he would end up an empty shell, a puppet, when Agrona turned her life-sucking Gift on her husband.

The prince would be safe from harm, no longer a threat to the queen’s rule or peace of mind. And the prophecy would be nullified.

All of this worked in Haddon’s favor, as long as the prince stayed locked up. It had taken years for Haddon to become the man next to the throne. The throne was next. All it would take was patience, cunning, and a little manipulation.

Long ago, during the violent, early years of the queen’s childhood, when the queen’s father had stolen him from his parents to be the princess’s whipping boy, Haddon had perfected the art of inner concealment. It had kept him alive. Later, iron control and a willingness to do what was needed had done more than help him survive, it had helped him move up the ranks from bullied, crawling servant to trusted retainer. Now he was finally in a position to make his move. And he’d be damned if he let the prince or the queen ruin his plans.

Chapter Nine

Trina snuggled into to the warmth of a firm body, waking slowly to the safe solid sound of a rhythmic heartbeat. She yawned, rubbed some sleep out of her eyes, and watched the dust motes drifting on the early morning light that shone on Logan’s hair.

How the hell had she gotten downstairs? And how the hell had she ended up naked and in bed with the elf? Her breaths grew short and shallow as she struggled for air against reality’s bitter sucker punch.

She sat up and pulled the lavender scented sheet of the big brass bed up high around her bare breasts. She clearly remembered returning to the cottage, sneaking past a snoring, sound asleep Logan, and climbing the ladder into the loft. She remembered the pang of guilty relief as she put off the confrontation, instead falling into fully-dressed, restless sleep between cold, lonely sheets.

Now here she was, naked as the dawn and in the downstairs bed, inches away from her sworn enemy.

Logan muttered something and rolled to his side, tugging and taking the sheet with him, his hair a silky, black waterfall too near Trina’s fingers. She snatched her hand back, smothering the sharp desire to pull aside that long dark hair and trace along his sleeping body.

She’d start at the deltoids, down across the lats, cruise along the valley of his spine to where the sheets covered the hills of his glutes, touching his smooth skin and firm muscles. Sliding along the dips and fissures, first under her palms, then under her tongue. Licking salt and smoke and the taste of male.

A warm, weakening ache slid straight to her core.

She shook herself free of the fantasy and got out of the warm bed. Shivering in the early morning cold, she resolutely turned her back on the temptation of Logan’s sexy hair and warm skin and got dressed in the mysteriously repaired green dress folded neatly on a chair.

Last night, she’d sworn she would stay away from him. She didn’t remember being weak, sneaking downstairs, and crawling between the sheets. But here she was. She had to get back on track, remember her family’s danger. No more indulging her physical desires…no matter how delicious Logan’s smoky bare skin would taste.

Her stomach rumbled.

“Damn.”

She had to cook breakfast. On the fricking wood stove.

Trina loaded and fired up the stove, hauled and heated water, and started breakfast, all the while studiously ignoring the provocative temptation sleeping across the room. When Logan finally rose, buck naked and glorious, stretching and flexing his six-pack in the sunlight, Trina turned to the stove, stirred her oatmeal, and swallowed hard.

He donned a robe and crossed to stand behind her. Touching her shoulder and tugging her hair aside, he buried his morning-rough face in the sensitive curve of her neck. Her chin dipped, giving him access for one weak second.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said, his lips brushing her skin.

Her insides pulsed.

She stiffened, jerked away, and turned to confront him. His mischievous eyes promised a good time, if she wanted it.

She wanted it.

Wanted him, standing too close, relaxed, and somewhat sleepy, the heated scent of his skin rising warm and woodsy from his muscular chest. This man had her doubting with one look everything she knew to be true. Her stiff jaw, her legs, her body, everything softened in anticipation of taking him inside.

Then she thought of her cousins and aunt, fleeing for their lives, thinking her dead. And her resolve hardened.

She held up the wooden spoon and backed away. “Last night was a mistake.” She firmed up her voice. “For both of us.”

“Was it now?” He took a chair and chose a fresh raspberry from a bowl. “Why is that?”

“Look, we’re stuck together for a year,” she said, oatmeal dripping from the spoon onto the floor. “There’s no reason why we should complicate it with sex. I don’t know you, I don’t like you, and I don’t want anything to do with you. But I have a job to do. You’re sort of my boss.” She threw the spoon back in the pot. “Everyone knows that sort of thing never works.”

“All right.” He sucked the ripe berry into his mouth and bit down. His eyes closed, his head fell back, and his features contorted in a fruit-induced orgasm.

Trina’s mouth exploded, her juices running in response to his bliss. She could almost taste the tangy wet fruit, the sweet flavor of each bite, the exquisite pleasure on her tongue.

“All right?” she asked, struggling to remember the conversation.

His eyes opened, their blue intensity a deep reminder of how he’d looked the night before as she’d straddled his cock. He reached for another raspberry. She sat, so he wouldn’t notice her trembling legs.

“Sure, if that’s what you want,” he said. “I’m not the kind for forcing women.” He ate the berry in eye-closing rapture. Trina rubbed damp palms on her skirt, squeezing her thighs tight together.