Sweet Ruin

TWENTY-THREE

With her head upon Rune’s chest, and his heart beating against her ear, Jo tried to stay awake to replay everything.

All the pleasure he’d delivered when questioning her, and then in the hours after she’d fed.

All the things she’d learned—about life, him, herself.

Before they’d even gotten started he’d told her vampires had to eat to be fertile. She’d never thought she could have children of her own. Now, there was the possibility.

She couldn’t get the last fourteen years back with Thad, but maybe she could have a kid who reminded her of him as a baby. Maybe, one day, he would be an adoring uncle.

Possibility. The future began to spread out so brightly before her. With that thought in her mind, she slipped into an exhausted sleep.

Dreams arose. More memories of Rune’s? Vague impressions filtered through her awareness. . . .

—Queen Magh viewing him in his court dress, her pride over the “sexual weapon” she’d molded.

—His sense of foreboding when he spied desire in her eyes, and then her fury at him for causing it.

—His sleepless nights leading up to his first mission. He’d traveled with a Sylvan delegation to the Wiccae nation of Akelarre, masquerading as the son of a fey ambassador. His presence was to be a token of goodwill from one healing kingdom to another.

But his target was not what he’d expected. Even to save his mother from a fate worse than death, Rune wasn’t certain he could go through with this.

Because Magh had no interest in assassinating the warlock who’d cursed her husband. She wanted the warlock alive to bear the sorrow of his beloved daughter’s death.

A girl turning sixteen years old—Rune’s age.

“You’ve been invited to her birthday celebrations. Seduce her, cur,” Magh ordered him. “Make her love you, as you have all the others. Then strike. She’ll die with a heart full of love, a mind full of dreams, and a body riddled with your poison. . . .”

Compliments through dinner, murmured flirtations during cards. It wasn’t long before the young witch was infatuated with him. She was fair of face, but young for her age.

Had he ever been so naïve?

She whispered in his ear, “I want you for my birthday present.” Then she gave him directions to a hidden alcove beside her bedchamber. “I’ll raise the protection wards for you.”

He forced himself to smile. She was guarded like a treasure by magicks and warlock sentries. Nothing could possibly get to her.

Nothing but me.

He followed her instructions, finding the alcove. There, he paced. If he saved his mother by carrying out Magh’s killings, would his dam be able to forgive him? If he confessed, “I took the life of an innocent girl to free you,” would the guilt be too much for his mother?

A door glided open. Eyes alight, the witch peeked out. She’d changed from her dress to her nightclothes and let down her hair. “It’s clear.” She’d foiled her own protections, unwinding those wards as she’d unwound her braids.

She took his hand, guiding death into her bedchamber.

Her room was a palace all its own, filled with charms and priceless jewels. At least her sixteen years of life had been plenteous.

She crossed to her bed, patting the cover beside her.

How could he go through with this? “Perhaps we’re moving too quickly. You’re young yet.” If he didn’t obey Magh, he couldn’t return to Sylvan. Where would he live? Here? Maybe if he told the witch the truth, she would be moved to help him.

And abandon my dam?

“Nonsense, fey. I’m old enough. As of this night especially.” In a wistful voice, she said, “Only one thing could make my birthday more magickal.”

I can’t do this. My gods, I can’t. “We’ll meet another time, dove. I know the way to your room and will come each night.”

Her eyes watered. “I want you now.”

“I’ll be here for weeks yet.”

“But no other night will be my birthday.” Tears spilled down her cheeks.

In lowered voices, the witch and Rune continued quarreling.

Finally she said, “I’ll scream for the guards if you go.”

His jaw slackened. Are all nobles so underhanded?

“I’ll do it!” She drew a deep breath.

He leapt for her, putting his finger over her lips. He could still tup her without killing her. He had with all his other conquests. But those females had been more mature; they’d known the risks and how to avoid them. This girl didn’t.

When he heard the sentries changing shifts outside, he glanced over his shoulder. He should trace away. But then she’d know what he was. And where could he go?

He turned back. “I need you to listen to me—”

Her mouth was against his. She’d lunged forward, pressing her opened lips to his.

She’d stolen his kiss.

He flung her away and traced to a wine service, hastily pouring a goblet. Maybe the tales of his poison had been exaggerated. How did they know? He returned to her in an instant. “Drink!”

Eyes wide with terror, she choked on the liquid. The poison was already in her system. Her limbs contorted, muscles knotting.

The pain in her expression . . .

He watched her body ceding its life, the sound of her panicked heartbeat fading to nothing. The young witch perished in seconds.

The tales hadn’t been exaggerated. Rune was deadlier than anyone had ever suspected.

He turned to the side and vomited over and over until nothing remained in his stomach. He wiped his mouth, comprehension dawning: he’d stepped upon a path and could never go back. . . .

Jo woke, opening her eyes, confused she wasn’t in a magickal bedchamber filled with girlish charms and death.

Rune was petting her hair, his breaths deep and even.

She stifled shudders from that lifelike memory, fearing it’d only gotten worse for him. When he’d been even younger than Thad was now, Magh had forged him into a lethal lover with a kiss of death. She’d used Rune’s mother against him, the mother who’d been everything to him, just as Thad was everything to Jo.

What would Jo have done to save her brother? Anything.

Absolutely anything.

Did she want to relive more of these memories? Would they come each time she took Rune’s blood?

Her preferences didn’t matter. Though she fought against sleep, she drifted off, lulled by the steady drumbeat of his heart.

Another dream began to play out. She was in the Sylvan court. She could hear water fountains, could smell the rose arrangements and candle wax. Magh sat upon her throne, gazing at Rune, now a grown man.

She’d summoned him because she’d come to a conclusion: his utility had reached its end. . . .

“You’ve done your job so admirably, I have few enemies left. The remaining ones know of you, are on their guard against a silver-tongued fey who disappears into shadows.”

“And spying? Interrogation?”

“The same problem. Who will you target?”

“Then I’ve kept my end of our bargain,” Rune told her, excitement building inside him. “You vowed to reunite me with my mother.”

“So I did, cur,” she agreed.

Too easy. He’d spent enough time in fey company to pick up some of their ever-rational ways, so he knew his hope was illogical. He should expect trickery from Magh. Ultimately, she would make him suffer.

If Rune’s mother was in a slave camp, Magh would dispatch him there, enslaving him as well, but he didn’t care. He pictured his mother’s affectionate blue eyes, and the smile she always had waiting for him.

Together he and his dam would escape. They would start their lives over. All the killing, all the disgust, all the hatred over these years could finally come to an end.

Magh snapped her fingers for a guard. “Take us to the cur’s mother.”

A reunion is truly happening? At long last? Rune’s heart thundered as they traced to a realm wrapped in night and buffeted by winds. He squinted against the gusts, seeing nothing but a towering mound of dirt.

“There she is.” Magh pointed to the mound.

“Wh-what are you saying?”

Her demon guards traced in front of Magh. “She’s buried there, with hundreds of others. Has been for centuries.”

Shock engulfed him.

“She was a favorite of my husband’s, enjoying his protection, but your position was precarious.” Magh’s voice sounded distant. “Your mother knew I had you in my sights, would soon strike. She begged me to spare your life. I vowed that I would, but only if she agreed to quietly abandon you for a life as a pleasure slave in a faraway brothel. Anything to save you! Alas, the poor dear hadn’t been frozen into her immortality yet—which she must have known.” Magh sighed. “Ah, the sacrifices we mothers make. Don’t worry, she wasn’t long in that hellish place. After a bit of rough bedsport, she was . . . broken.” Magh examined the end of one of her flaxen braids. “Her life was short, her death brutal, and now her bones are naught but dust.”

Buried.

Brutal.

Dust.

His lungs constricted. His legs buckled. As he knelt in front of the mass grave, Magh’s guards collared him and bound his wrists.

“On to the next stage of your life,” she said in a mirthful tone. “I have a new occupation for you, cur.”

“Gods give me the power,” he bit out. The collar prevented him from tracing, the bindings from fighting. “I will destroy you and all your spawn.”

“Oh, I think your next employment will keep you far too busy for that. . . .”