Untouchable (Wolf Kings of Twilight Book 1), page 20
“Aww, come on!” a man on the townsfolk side of the field grouses. “It was just getting good!”
Several moans of discontent and disappointment can be heard coming from the crowd on both sides of the field, but neither Damon nor Simon pays them much attention.
Damon walks over and takes one of my hands with his. “You’re coming too.”
“Of course, I am.” I’m coming to talk you out of doing something stupid, is what I want to say, but I rein in my sharp tongue until we’re somewhere without so many attentive ears.
Margaret and Simon follow our lead back into the castle while the onlookers are left to speculate about what will be said next between the two kings behind closed doors.
Damon leads us all to the small sitting room next to the ballroom.
“Damon!”
We all turn to see Oliver jogging up to us. “Do you need me to go get the package?”
The use of the word “package” takes me back to the moment Damon kidnapped me from the tower. Back then, he told Oliver to grab the package on his way back to the boat. It must have been their code word when referring to Tripp. I haven’t seen the little pup since we reached Midnight. To my shame, I’ve been so preoccupied with my own circumstances that I never did ask about the welfare of King Simon’s son.
“Not yet,” Damon says. “Stand watch by the door while we discuss things. I may need you to get the pup. It all depends on what happens in the next few minutes.”
Oliver nods and takes his position in front of the door.
After Damon closes it, he turns to face the rest of us.
“Why is my son here?” Simon doesn’t appear to be mad about the situation. He seems more confused than anything else.
“He’s here,” Damon says, “because Sophia asked for my help. Well, not my help directly. She wants my mother to attempt her cure on your son to see if she can reverse his condition.”
Simon’s gaze immediately turns to Margaret. “You can do that? How?”
“A little concoction I cooked up,” she says mysteriously. “However, its success rate is only ten percent. Don’t get your hopes too high because it has a ninety percent chance of failing miserably.”
“But . . .” Simon takes a deep breath in. “But you’ve cured other pups? You’ve actually done it?”
Margaret lifts her head slightly in pride. “I have, but I’m afraid your son will have to wait a little while longer before I can administer the cure to him.”
“Why?” Simon appears suspicious of the delay. “Are you withholding the cure from my son for a reason?”
“No.” Margaret looks downright appalled by the suggestion. “I’ve simply run out of the main ingredient. Someone,” she says, looking directly at Damon, “forced my hand the other day and made me use what little I had left to save his fool life.”
“And someone,” Damon says, placing his hands on his hips, “refused to do what I asked, forcing me to go to extremes. How was I supposed to know what I did would use the same medicine that you were using to cure the pups?”
“This family squabble is sweet and all,” I say sarcastically, “but I think it would be more productive if we concentrated on how to get the ingredient Margaret needs to help Tripp.”
“That, my dear, is going to be a bit tricky.” Margaret looks at us all. “What I need can only be found in the Barrens, as far as I know.”
“The Barrens?” Damon asks in surprise. “Why and when did you go out there?”
“I went a while back for my own reasons,” she says.
“And do you intend to return there anytime soon?” Simon asks.
“I’m not sure if I can retrieve more of the serum even if I go there.”
“Why?” I ask. Margaret might be a bit cold at times, but deep down she has a heart. I can’t imagine why she would purposely refuse to do whatever is required to help a child in need.
“It’s complicated.” Margaret’s answer doesn’t satisfy any of us, least of all Simon.
The king of Dawn walks until he’s standing right in front of her. He’s so close I’m sure Margaret can smell the glistening sweat on his skin.
“Then how do we uncomplicate things?” he asks. “My son needs your help, but it sounds like you don’t give a damn!”
“Well, of course, I give a damn,” she replies testily. “I simply don’t have the means by which to ensure that I can gain access to more of the serum.”
“Can you tell us how you got it the first time?” I ask.
Margaret starts to brush off an imaginary piece of lint from the skirt of her green dress.
“I . . . uh . . . well.” She clears her throat as she raises her head and dares to look us all in the eyes again. “I stole it.”
“That’s not like you.” Damon tilts his head slightly as he considers his mother in a new light. “Who did you steal it from?”
“I don’t know who or what he was exactly, and I’m not sure I can find him again.”
“Maybe if you start from the beginning,” I suggest, “we can help you.”
Margaret looks at me with gratitude in her eyes for my suggestion.
“A couple of years ago, I had reached a low point in my life. I felt like I had nothing left to offer the people of Midnight, so I decided to go on one last adventure to a place I had never been before, the Barrens.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Damon asks, looking troubled by his mother’s willingness to give up on life. Everyone knows that if you go into the Barrens the odds of making it back out alive are slim to none.
“I didn’t want to bother you, and I also knew you would try to stop me.”
“Of course, I would have stopped you. You’re my mother.”
“Which is exactly why you would have been the last person I told.” Margaret takes in a deep breath. Considering how strong-willed she is, I can only imagine how hard it is for her to admit she had a moment of weakness. It’s a feeling I can completely understand.
“I went into the Barrens hoping to discover why no one ever comes out of it. I walked through its desolate landscape, never seeing an animal or an insect, much less a person. Then, on the second night, I saw a campfire high on a mountain top. Since I was in my wolf form, it was easy for me to reach, but I kept to the shadows so the man wouldn’t see me. He was unlike anyone I had ever seen before. He had these,” Margaret places her index finger above the tops of her ears, “pointy ears and the most beautiful blond hair. It hung down to his waist and moved like silk in the wind. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.”
“Don’t you mean handsome?” Simon asks.
Margaret shakes her head. “No. I mean beautiful. His skin practically glowed in the moonlight. He was pure perfection incarnate. Anyway, the more I watched him the more intrigued I became by him. I wanted to know who he was and why he was in the Barrens. When he fell asleep, I snuck into his camp and stole the canvas bag he had with him. I knew it must contain something important. While he was awake, he kept looking inside it as if he was trying to make sure whatever he had was still there. My curiosity was piqued, so I took it and climbed back down the mountain to wait for sunrise.
“When I looked in the bag the next morning, I found several vials of the serum. I didn’t know what I had, but I knew it was important. I found a new reason to keep living and returned home as fast as I could. It took me months of experimenting, but I finally discovered the serum’s healing properties. So, you see how impossible it might be to find more of it. The man I saw looked like a traveler. There’s no guarantee, and quite frankly, I think it highly unlikely, that I would be able to find him again.”
“I have to agree,” Damon says. “It sounds like it was a chance encounter, and one you may have been lucky to survive. We have no idea who that man was or what he would have done to you if he’d caught you stealing from him.”
“I never got the feeling of danger as I watched him. All I felt was peace.”
We all fall silent for a moment. Simon is the one who breaks the quiet.
“I may have a way to find the man,” he says, immediately drawing all our attention.
Damon chuckles. “How exactly would you be able to work that miracle?”
“Well,” Simon says with a small lift of his eyebrows, “we’ve had a man, similar to the one your mother described, locked up in our dungeon for at least the past twenty years or so.”
“You what?” Margaret asks. She looks mad, flabbergasted, and slightly irritated by the news. “You found a man,” she uses her index fingers beside her ears again, “with pointy ears and you didn’t think that was worth telling my husband about?”
“Dawn and Midnight aren’t exactly allies,” Simon points out. “We simply tolerate each other.”
“Who is this man?” I ask. “What’s his name? Where does he come from?”
Simon shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. As far as I know, he hasn’t spoken a word since he was captured. We know absolutely nothing about him except for the fact that he doesn’t seem to age, or if he does, it’s very slowly, and he put up one hell of a fight when he was caught sneaking into the castle one night.”
Damon emits a harsh laugh. “If the man hasn’t spoken a word in over twenty years, what makes you think he’ll help us now?”
“I don’t, but do you have a better idea?” Simon fixes Damon with his eyes. “You made a promise to my wife that you would try to help our son, correct?”
Damon doesn’t look pleased about being reminded of that fact. “Yes. I did.”
“Then it seems to me you should do whatever you can to keep your promise to her. I will go back to Dawn and bring the man here. If he says we have to travel into the Barrens to find more of the serum, are you willing to go there with me, or do you intend to cower here in your castle?”
“I don’t cower,” Damon states. “I’ll go with you.”
“Then I’m going too,” Margaret says. When Damon opens his mouth to object, she holds up a hand to stop him. “Don’t even say it because I won’t listen to a word. I’m going and that’s that.”
“I’m going too,” I say, earning a surprised look from everyone except Damon. “Out of all of you, I’ll be the safest in the Barrens because of my curse.”
“Poison,” Margaret reminds me. “If you keep calling it a curse, people will always associate it with magic when it’s purely biological.”
“Poison?” Simon asks. “How does that work?”
“It’s a bit much to go into right now,” Margaret says waving Simon’s time-consuming question away. “Now, about this man you have locked away in your dungeon, I suggest we send some men with you on the ferry to retrieve him and bring him back here post haste. When does he shift? Day or night?”
Again, Simon looks slightly uncomfortable. “He doesn’t shift.”
“What?” I ask, dumbfounded. “Are you saying he’s like me?”
“Only in that respect,” Simon says. “Unlike you, we can touch him without being poisoned, and I don’t think he’s human. Like the man Margaret saw, this one looks almost perfect and perfectly preserved. Nothing seems to shake him either. My father tried to torture information out of him about where he came from, but he never said a word. In fact, rumor has it he didn’t scream no matter what the interrogators did to him.”
“That’s barbaric,” I say in disgust.
Simon shrugs. “It’s not my style, and it proved to be ineffective in the long run.” He looks to Damon. “Do you have some men who can be trusted to help me transport the prisoner?”
“Yes,” Damon starts to walk toward the door, but I’m not about to let them leave without an answer to my next question.
“What about this stupid one-on-one battle?” I ask. “Are you going to call it off?”
Damon turns to face me. “No. It’s not called off, but we will need to postpone it until after we get back from the Barrens.”
As if dismissing me from his thoughts, he opens the door and steps out to speak with Oliver.
“The two of you seem rather . . . chummy,” Simon notes, not looking pleased by my relationship with Damon. “How is it that he can touch you without being poisoned?”
“If Damon wanted you to know, he would have mentioned it already,” I say. “Look, don’t you think it would be better if the two of you called off this winner takes all bet? One of you dying doesn’t benefit anyone.”
“Sure it does,” Simon chuckles. “It benefits the last king standing.”
“Even if you win, you can’t rule Midnight effectively,” I point out. “You’ll be in wolf form for the majority of the time they’re human.”
“True, but with you as my queen, it won’t matter. You can stay here and rule Midnight while I remain in power in Dawn. We don’t have to live in the same castle to have children together.”
“I will never have your child because the chances of me letting you between my legs is zero.”
Margaret snickers.
Simon scowls.
Damon walks back in noticing a different tension inside the room.
“Did I miss something?” he asks, looking uncertain if he should even ask the question.
“Oh, Ivy here was just reminding Simon that even if he wins the fight with you that it doesn’t automatically mean she’ll start popping out babies for him,” Margaret says, looking pleased. “Personally, I agree with Ivy about this ridiculous fight between the two of you. Neither of your people will benefit from losing either one of you.”
“It’s the way it has to be,” Damon says. “Neither of us will ever give Ivy up. She means too much to the survival of our people. If we didn’t do it to the death, and Simon won, I can guarantee you he would have to kill me anyway to take Ivy out of this castle.” Damon looks at Simon. “I assume the same can be said for you?”
Simon nods. “We both need her. If I do win, will I be given the secret to how you’re able to touch her without suffering any ill effects from her poison?”
“Yes. My mother will tell you the secret.”
“But—” I try to interject.
Damon raises his hand to stop my next words. Apparently, he sensed I was about to say that if we don’t return from the Barrens with more of the serum, Simon and I having the ability to have children together is still practically zero.
“Things will work out the way they should,” Damon says. “Now, if you will all excuse me, I need to make some arrangements. Mother, would you mind staying with Ivy? I don’t want her to be alone. Also, the two of you might want to check the library. Oliver told me Boris is in there. Apparently, he fell asleep reading a book last night. The change will be happening soon. I would hate for him to ruin the clothes he’s wearing.”
“Damon,” I say. “Can I have a word with you in private?”
“Come along, Simon,” Margaret says. “We should let these two lovebirds have a moment together.”
Simon looks puzzled. “Lovebirds?”
“I don’t believe I stuttered,” she replies testily, taking his arm and directing him toward the door.
Once they’re gone, I walk up to Damon and wrap my fingers around the front of his vest.
“Have you lost your mind?” I ask angrily. “You can’t fight Simon to the death!”
Damon places his hands on my waist and smiles like he won a bet. “Does this mean you care just a little bit about what happens to me?”
“Of course, I care, you idiot! Call the fight off, please. I’m begging you, Damon.” My heart swells with despair at the thought of Damon dying and leaving me all alone to face a world without him in it. “I don’t want Simon. I never wanted him. I want you.”
A single warm tear slides down my face. Damon leans in and kisses it away. He rests his forehead against mine and I close my eyes, breathing the scent of lavender and vanilla from the soap we both washed with earlier.
“I will never leave you,” he promises. “I won’t be the one who loses the fight because I have more to live for than Simon does.” Damon gently cups my face with both hands and pulls away. I open my eyes and see the confidence he has that he’ll be victorious in his fight to the death with the king of Dawn.
“A long time ago, while I was with Anya, my mother asked me if I could see my future with someone so selfish. Honestly, I couldn’t. My time with her was short, and I knew she would never be the one I married. But you, Ivy,” he smiles, “I can see forever every time I look into your eyes. You may not believe you’re ready to be queen, but everything that’s happened in your life, the good and the bad, has been leading up to me and to this moment in time. I’ve never been one to put much faith in destiny but meeting you and having you in my arms has made me a believer.”
His tender words bring more tears to my eyes. I never dared to hope I would find a man who would call me his destiny.
“Do you honestly believe there’s any way in hell I’m going to let you go to that fight now?” I ask, freely crying in front of him because there’s nothing about me that I want to keep hidden from Damon. “I can’t risk losing you. Not over something so stupid.”
“Do you have that little faith in my ability to beat him?”
He looks hurt by my request. I instantly shake my head.
“I have all the faith in the world that you’ll win, but whether you win or lose, you lose, Damon. You’re not the kind of person who views killing as a sport. You still wear the scars of killing your father, and I don’t mean these,” I say, lightly tracing the three scars over his brown eye with my fingers before I rest the same hand on his chest. “I’m talking about the scars that moment left on your heart. By all accounts, your father was a horrible man and got what he deserved. But Simon isn’t a bad man. He may be selfish and egotistical, but he’s always placed the welfare of his people first, just like you. What kind of scars will killing a good man leave on not only your heart, but also your soul?”
Damon takes in a deep breath and slowly releases it as my words sink in.
“Maybe we should cross that bridge when we have to,” he suggests. “Right now, I need to prepare things before we go to Dawn.”
“You’re going there yourself?” I ask in surprise. “I thought you would send Oliver or Edmond to handle it for you.”
