Sharon Ashwood - Unchained

“Is she there?” Ashe made a confused sound. “Do you think he’s right?”

“He said something about dark fey working with Belenos.”

“Oh, Reynard,” Ashe choked out, her face growing cold with dread. “He’s going to fade if he goes in there. Why is he doing this?” But of course she knew why. Because of Eden. Because Reynard was who he was. Gratitude and anger collided. I can’t lose either of them!

“He said there was no time. He was afraid of what the fey would do.”

“Son of a . . .” Alessandro started swearing in a language she didn’t know.

Ashe vibrated with desperation, her stomach so knotted it hurt. “Goddess! I have to get there. I’m going to kill whoever has Eden! I’ve got to get him out of there!”

Alessandro Caravelli’s red T-bird was parked at the curb. Ashe took off, bolting across the lawn toward it. Alessandro beat her to it by seconds.

They got into the T-bird and took off with a scream of tires.

Once inside the Castle, Reynard followed the crystal’s direction. His boots echoed on the stone floor, every scuff rustling in the dark recesses of the corridors.

So far, he felt well enough to carry on with his mission—which wasn’t saying much. Like so many others from his time, he had marched under the scorching sun of India while dressed in a wool uniform suited to Britannia’s fog and rain. He was used to soldiering on through discomfort.

Still, he could tell the urn was far away—a different dimension counted more than miles. Strong as he was, there was a limit to his energy. It was draining like sand in an hourglass, each minute depleting a little piece of him.

He had anticipated this, so he paid attention to those occasions when the crystal took him near one of the patrolled areas. He meant to find a guardsman and send for help.

Unfortunately, no one was at their usual post. Had something happened to call them all away? His plan counted on reinforcements; if he couldn’t finish the search for Eden, someone else had to.

He walked on, his pace brisk. The corridors crisscrossed with mindless regularity, pools of torchlight just bright enough to give the shadows shape. The stone walls exhaled a clammy chill.

At the next post he reached, he called out. The echoes of his voice faded into the dark, drifting like dust. The dark halls were empty. No one was there to help.

Reynard paused for the barest fraction of a second and then pushed on, calculating the distance to the next post and how far he could go before he ran out of strength to generate a portal to safety.

And if no one was at the next post, either?

He had chosen this risk. He would see it through. Am I being an idiot?

Ah, well, he had dueled while drunk more than once. He had gambled and lost fortunes. He had bedded women who were as adept with poisons as pleasure, full well knowing that night’s death might be of the literal rather than the poetic kind. He was an idiot. Or at least he had been, before he came to the Castle. He didn’t take unnecessary chances anymore.

Now he knew the real face of danger. He had lost everything, all his choices.

Except this one. He chose to save the little girl who had given him hope. For her, he would gamble with the last scraps of his life.

For Ashe, who had given him back a taste of joy.

Reynard froze, listening. There was a scuffle of footsteps, soft soles on cold stone. Almost too soft to hear. Moving very, very fast.

Before he could draw into the shadows, a group of five vampires rounded the corner, moving smoothly as a school of sharp-toothed fish. Their pale faces floated in the dim light, eyes seeming lit from within. They came to an abrupt halt, staring at Reynard.

A tall red-haired male stood in the center of the group. The others surrounded him like an honor guard. All were armed and disheveled, as if they’d been in a fight. One had a gash in his temple, already scabbed over, a trickle of dried blood trailing down his cheek.

Well, that answered the question about who had drawn the guards away from their posts. They were forming search parties, looking for this group of intruders.

“Stand aside,” growled the red- haired one in the middle.

Belenos, I’ll wager. A cold smile spread over Reynard’s features.

Eden was silent as she walked with Miru-kai through the Castle’s grottoes and torchlit halls. Deep in thought, she barely seemed to notice her surroundings. Or perhaps she was too afraid to be curious about the dark, stony prison. She was probably thinking about her grandparents.

Sadly, fey magic didn’t include taking back words he had no business speaking. The prince cursed himself.

It wasn’t like a fey to wonder about a human’s thoughts, but Miru- kai had human blood. It made him ponder things no other fey would worry about. For instance, every child taken by the fey changed the future. Their threads dropped from the weave of human history. Deeds would be left undone, future children never born—the effect as absolute as if they had lost their lives. Did the fey have the right to cause such changes in the pattern?

Right now he wished he were fey enough to simply grab the girl and count his blessings. Instead, his rudimentary conscience—a very human attribute—was forcing him to think hard about what he was going to do next. What futures might he alter by interfering with her destiny?

He could feel her unhappiness. Empathy was something Simeon had tried to teach Miru-kai, and now he couldn’t shut it off. The very air around the child screamed with how much she wanted to go home.

How did humans get on in life with everyone else’s feelings to worry about? It was exhausting. On the other hand, he couldn’t indulge in emotion all the time. He had to keep several thousand monsters in line. That called for a cool head.

“Sometimes,” he said, “it is difficult to be a prince.”

“Why?” Eden responded, startling him.

He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud. He looked down at her, and then decided to finish his thought. Listening and advising. That was what human companions were good at. That was what Simeon had done for him.

“I was a pirate once. That was much more fun. Gratuitous amounts of robbery and liquor.”

“So, why’d you change jobs?”

Miru-kai sighed. “The fey were weak. They needed a leader, and I was a prince. Then others came along—changelings, goblins, the unwanted and ugly species no one would take in.”

“Why do you want to rule them, if no one else seems to?”

“I understand what they need.”

Miru-kai stopped. They had reached a vast space ringed with balconies. In the center was a dark pool rimmed by white marble, the carved lip of the stone fluted and curving outward. The overall shape of the pool was squares overlapping squares in a geometric pattern. Rather than torches, fires burned in the four corners of the space.

The hall had seen better days. Tiers of stone benches rose up a sloped balcony, but many had been broken during the last battle inside the Castle. The curious fact was that some kind of night-blooming plant had begun to grow there, twining around the ruins and breaking them down to rubble. And yet, there was neither sun nor water. The sweet-scented vine had to be a freak of the Castle’s errant magic.

Eden reached out to touch one of the red- veined trumpet flowers, but the prince caught her hand. “I wouldn’t touch that. I’m not sure if it’s safe.”

Her face turned to him, and his heart grew still. There was gratitude in her eyes, and a glimmering of trust. The look made his chest hurt. Few people ever looked at him that way.

Eden put her hands back in her pockets and sat down on a stump of stone pillar. She looked sleepy. Dimly, he remembered that children needed rest.