Black Hearted, page 6
Oh no.
I realized I was in a nightmare.
This had happened before, and I hated it because it made it so much harder to reach the person. Zane wouldn’t see reason while he was stuck in a nightmare, and I needed him to. The only way to gain his trust in this situation was to join him. Even though we were not enemies in real life, in a nightmare, he might attack me, and I’d get nowhere.
I ran forward, pulling the girl into my arms and twisting her out of the way just as one of the men lunged for her. I moved in front of her and kicked the man between the legs. He went down, moaning.
“Nellie!” Zane bellowed, several men now between us.
Clutching the girl tightly, I crossed the room to get to him, twisting out of the men’s grasps as I went. Zane fought to reach us, and when he did, I passed the girl off to him. He picked her up, and she clung to his neck, nuzzling her face into his chest. My heart melted.
Who was this girl?
Zane held her close, his protective instincts palpable, and stared at me wide-eyed. “You’re here again.”
I nodded. “Zane, you’re dreaming. You can stop all of this. You can think them away.” I gestured to the angry men, who were now trying to stand up and go for a second round.
Zane’s brows bunched together, and even in a dream, I couldn’t help but be struck by his handsomeness.
“Zane,” I urged him. “I need you. Please, will them to be gone.”
At my words, he closed his eyes. One by one, the angry men faded from the tavern. The girl, Nellie, was still tucked tightly in his arms, now sound asleep. The speed with which he’d done all of that amazed me. Most fae would not be able to control their dreams or nightmares with such clarity, and it made me feel even more attracted to him. So capable as well as handsome. And then I shook myself. We had other things to discuss.
When he opened his eyes and noticed the men were gone, he staggered backward in shock.
“Zane, I don’t have much time,” I told him, and his gaze snapped back to me.
“Dream drifter,” he whispered.
“Dream walker,” I corrected him.
He rubbed his forehead, clearly trying to recall our last dream.
“Yes. This is real,” I assured him. “I’m really contacting you, and I need your help.”
He nodded and walked over to one of the couches at the back of the tavern. Gently, he laid the sleeping Nellie down and covered her with his coat.
When he strode back over to me, I couldn’t help it—I had to ask.
“Who is she?”
He glanced back at the girl, his expression softening into something like adoration. “A kid I met in the Harvest Mountains. She’s had some rough luck. I’m traveling with her to the Spring Court to reunite her with her aunt—and to see you.”
Hearing that he’d found this girl in the Harvest Mountains and was helping her made my heart flutter. But I couldn’t focus on that right now.
“Listen to me. I’m not in the Spring Court. Or at least I don’t think I am. Queen Liliana has kidnapped me—”
“What?” he bellowed, and then suddenly, he was inches from me, scanning my body as if searching for injuries. “Are you hurt?” he asked.
Oh, stars. I lost all train of thought then and had to take a half-step away from him to regain my wits.
“Not right this second,” I hedged. “But the queen is draining my power. She has some sick plan to go through the Spring Court mirror portal and …” I hesitated. His brothers were the Ethereum lords, so I couldn’t say the next words lightly. “Carve out the heart of one of your brothers.”
Grim determination settled over his features. “How long do I have?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know … Every time she siphons my power, I black out—”
“Does it hurt you?”
His concern was sweet. “Not really,” I lied.
“Where are you? I’m coming to get you right now.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure. But I’m afraid if you come to me, then she’ll kill you. That’s what she really wants. Going through the portal is just her backup plan.”
“Lorelei,” Zane growled. “There’s no way I’m just going to leave you with that monster. If she’s draining—”
I lifted my fingers to his mouth to stop him. As touched as I was by his concern, we were running out of time. At any moment, one of us could wake.
The instant my fingertips brushed his lips, Zane fell silent, and his pupils dilated. I meant to speak, but as I stared into his blue-and-brown gaze, my heart skipped a beat, and my throat suddenly went dry.
Zane slowly reached up and took my hand. I licked my lips, and his gaze dropped to my mouth, heating with emotion.
Finding my words, I forced myself to slip my hand from his. “You need to get to the Spring Palace and rally with my mother. They think I’m just training with Queen Liliana. They don’t even know I’ve been kidnapped. My mother will bring in the royal guard, and once I’m free, we can destroy the curse.”
He nodded and ran a hand through his hair, clearly agitated. “Okay. I will. I’m coming for you, Lorelei.”
The way he said it, with such confident conviction, made me believe him. I relaxed a little, freeing up my mind for other things. “So, what’s the plan?”
He cocked his head in confusion.
“You know, the big plan to destroy the curse. The reason you’re in Faerie. There’s something we’re supposed to do together, right?”
“Oh, well, that’s … we’re not really sure,” he began, looking around the room as if searching for something.
I placed my hand on his arm, forcing him to meet my gaze. “I’m sorry, what? You aren’t sure? So there’s no plan?”
The shock of it made me feel sick. I’d hung everything on the belief that there was a way to destroy this curse.
“There is a plan. I have a note for you. It’s just not here.”
A note. From Dawn? Isolde? Of course, it wasn’t here. This wasn’t real. We were in a dream.
The tavern around us started to go hazy, alerting me that Zane was waking up.
“I have to go,” I said, beginning to back out of the room. But this time, Zane ran after me.
“No, not yet,” he begged as I stepped out of the door.
Trying to follow me, he slammed against an invisible barrier, wincing in pain. Only a dream walker could cross through there.
I wanted to stay and study the lines of his concerned face, but even as I watched, the dream around him started to dissolve until Zane disappeared as well.
Chapter Seven
Zane
I bolted upright, my heart hammering in my chest like a war drum, a thin sheen of sweat coating my skin.
The dream. Lorelei. It was real.
The dream, as well as the one I’d struggled to remember the night before, came back to me with full clarity. Lorelei was a dream walker, and she’d been kidnapped by Dawn’s delusional mother. I had to rescue her.
I leaped out of bed and turned on the kerosene lamp, scouring the dark space for my boots. The sun had yet to rise, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t stay here. I had to get to Lorelei.
A groan came from the other side of the room, and I glanced over to see Nellie asleep on the cot. I’d momentarily forgotten about her. Of course, I couldn’t just leave her here.
I went over to where she lay and shook her gently until her eyes opened to slits, and she stared up at me groggily.
“Grab your stuff. We’re leaving,” I told her, then started packing my own belongings.
Lorelei. Lorelei. Lorelei. Her name was a frantic call in my mind. From the moment I’d laid eyes on her in the vision with Isolde, all I’d wanted to do was protect her. And now, after seeing her in my dreams twice and knowing she was in danger … it caused my protective instincts to flare to unimaginable levels.
I’d kill Queen Liliana for this. And burn down whoever got in my way.
“You’re scaring me.” Nellie’s voice was small, and I froze.
I hadn’t realized I’d been aggressively shoving things into my bag and growling to myself in anger.
I took a second to breathe deeply and looked over at her.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that someone I care about has been taken. Princess Lorelei. I have to rescue her.”
Nellie sat up, looking concerned. “Okay … where is she?” she asked, her red hair mussed from sleep.
Now that I’d calmed down enough to think, I realized I didn’t have an answer to her question. “I don’t know, but I can get help from someone at the Spring Palace. And then I can return you to your aunt.”
She made a face. “Right. My aunt. Well, you can’t leave without that pretty dagger, right?”
I ground my teeth in frustration. Moving to her side of the room, I started stuffing her things into her small pack. She was right. I did need that dagger. It was far too valuable to leave behind.
“I’ll steal it back,” I told her. I wasn’t above breaking the law if it meant getting to Lorelei sooner.
Nellie frowned. “Then we go on foot to the Spring Palace with Mr. Donahue looking for us with his goons?”
Why was a twelve-year-old making more sense than my own thoughts right now?
Lorelei, Lorelei, Lorelei.
Her soft brown hair and those sharp purple eyes pierced into my very soul. I had to get to her. But was I being too hasty?
I stopped what I was doing, clutching Nellie’s small boot in my hand. If I stayed another day and participated in that fight, I could win enough money to buy a horse. That would cut our travel time to the palace at least in half, making up for the day I’d lose here.
I let out a shaky breath, and Nellie laid her small hand on my arm, startling me. I hadn’t even noticed she’d padded over to me. She stared up at me with understanding in her eyes.
“I get scared a lot, too. I was really scared when my nana left,” she said, voicing what I hadn’t yet admitted. That I was terrified of losing Lorelei before I’d even had a chance to get to know her. “How about you just leave the dagger with Mr. Donahue? Then we can set out on foot right now and save the princess. I can even help.”
My gaze dropped to the hole in the bottom of her boot I was still holding, and a weight settled on my chest. She couldn’t last another day on foot.
“You need new shoes, kiddo,” I told her, inspecting the boot closer.
“It’s fine,” she snapped, her sassy personality coming back out to play.
“Hey, don’t worry. It’s not just about your shoes. I need that dagger. It might be important.”
“So you gotta compete in the fights?” she asked, and I could see the fear in her eyes.
I didn’t want to fight for this money. I wanted to forget about the dagger and leave town right now. But I didn’t even know where Lorelei was, and even though I had no idea how, these daggers might be important to ending the curse. I couldn’t just leave one here.
Nellie needed new shoes, the sweets I’d promised her, and we had to get a horse to make the best time. According to what Evander had told me, we could reach the Spring Palace in twenty-four hours if we rode all day and night. That was more than twice as fast as it would take us on foot.
It was obvious what needed to be done.
“You ever ridden a horse?” I asked her, and her eyes lit up.
“It’s only my favorite thing in the world.”
“Good. Tonight, after I win the fights, we’ll ride all night and day to make up for lost time. Okay?”
She nodded enthusiastically, but then her face fell. “What if you don’t win? What if you … die?” Her bottom lip started to quiver, and I reached out to squeeze her hand.
“Remember my shadow magic? The secret magic you’re not supposed to tell anyone about?”
She nodded as a tear welled in her eye, and she batted it away.
“Well, that makes me really hard to kill.”
She frowned. “But you’re not allowed to use magic in the fight.”
“Right. And I won’t. Unless I think my life is in danger. Then it’s okay to break the rules.”
I was confident I wouldn’t need my magic, but I wouldn’t hesitate to use it if the fight turned dirty—which something told me it might. Rules tended to get broken in these kinds of fights, leaving you to rely on whatever you had at your disposal. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but I’d do what I had to. Most importantly, I wanted Nellie to feel safe. For the time being, I was all she had.
She nodded. “And if it comes to that, I’ll use my magic to protect you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tipped her chin high.
Did I have that much confidence at her age? No, I didn’t.
This kid had grown on me. Beneath her tough exterior was something soft and vulnerable, and I wanted to protect that.
“I need to get a message to someone in the Spring Palace. Do you know where I could do that here?” I asked her.
If I wasn’t going to head out immediately, I at least wanted to warn Lorelei’s parents and let them know I was coming to help.
“I do,” she told me, then pointed to her stomach. “But I need to fill this first.”
Despite the situation, I grinned. “Oh, is that a fact?”
The kid could be bribed to do anything for food, which was a little scary. She was also very bony, and that made me wonder what she’d been living off of until I found her.
I glanced out the window and noticed the sun was finally starting to rise. “Come on,” I said. “Get dressed, and we’ll go find Evander and Elida to see about breakfast.”
* * *
At breakfast, I told Evander about a friend I needed to help and explained that I had to procure a horse and supplies to get to the Spring Palace. I mentioned that I wouldn’t have the money to pay until later this evening. Evander offered to help, reaching for his coin purse, but I waved him off. Evander and Elida had just lost their home and livelihood. They needed that money for themselves, and besides, it might not even be enough.
I explained to them that I planned to win a fight to get the funds I needed. Elida raised an eyebrow when I told her but said nothing. Evander nodded with respect and then gave me some pointers on keeping my arms up high and protecting my head.
After Evander and Elida graciously paid for our meal, Nellie and I set off to the messenger’s barn to send a note to the Spring queen. Once we arrived, I found someone willing to send a message via raven for me on loan. He was a fan of the fights and said word had spread all morning that the exceptionally tall outsider was Mr. Donahue’s new champion.
I sent a brief letter to Queen Gloriana explaining that Lorelei had contacted me in a dream and that I was coming to help rescue her. I also mentioned that I had a plan to end the curse, though I didn’t elaborate. I avoided saying I was from Ethereum and instead claimed I was a powerful fae from the Fall Court and a friend of Lorelei’s.
I didn’t know if the Spring queen would believe me—I was a stranger, after all—but if Lorelei hadn’t visited her parents in a dream yet, they needed to know what was going on. I hoped my message would spur them to ready their troops for a rescue.
Once I got to the Spring Palace and dropped Nellie off with her aunt, I was going to find Lorelei, and nothing would stand in my way. But having an army of troops at my back wouldn’t hurt.
“Now what?” Nellie asked as we walked through the shops.
I ran my hand through the longer strands of my hair for the hundredth time that day. I hated waiting. Sitting around and doing nothing was my least favorite thing to do. But the first fight wasn’t until sundown, several hours from now.
I glanced at the sweets shop we were about to pass, then down at Nellie. She grinned up at me, her expression softening something inside me in a way I hadn’t expected. I found myself wondering if Lorelei wanted kids, and if so, how many. I’d always wanted a big family. At least five children.
With those thoughts, a burning ache flared in my chest. I had to find something to occupy my mind, or I’d go crazy, so I stepped into the sweets shop.
Twenty minutes later, after a lot of charm-filled wooing, I convinced Britana to give Nellie a free bag of sweets in exchange for coming back just before closing in a couple of hours to sweep the entire shop and wipe down all the counters.
As we walked down the lane, Nellie fisting chocolates and shoving sours into her mouth, she glanced up at me with bright eyes. “I could get used to this,” she mumbled over a mouthful of candy.
I chuckled, though my smile didn’t quite reach my eyes. I could only enjoy her happiness a little, knowing that Lorelei was hurt and counting on me. The fight wasn’t for another eight hours, and waiting that long before doing anything to rescue the woman I was pretty sure was my mate was going to be one of the greatest challenges of my life.
Fate help me.
Chapter Eight
Lorelei
I’d come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t physically overpower Queen Liliana, at least not without using my magic. But I didn’t have access to the part of my magic that could help me. Giving life and healing ailments were useless when you were kidnapped in a barren wasteland devoid of life. Instead, I used a rusted nail I’d pried from the cell door and worked at the lock.
Lock-picking was not a skill a princess should possess, but our parents had taken to locking up the sweets in the larder. When I was ten, I decided to ask one of the stable hands, who was known to have a colorful past, to teach me. For two years, my parents couldn’t figure out how the sweets kept disappearing until my mother caught me with a hairpin mid-lock-pick. I thought she’d be furious, but instead, she grinned, called me resourceful, and told me not to do it again.
Now, this nail was five times thicker than my trusty hairpin, but it fit in the lock, and I was determined to keep trying until my fingers bled. My arms were shoved through the bars at an awkward angle, my hands cramping, but I wasn’t going to give up. Every time Queen Liliana fed on my magic, I grew weaker and weaker. If I didn’t escape—and soon—she was going to kill me. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to find Zane and destroy this curse.
