Yew Queen Trilogy, стр. 25
“Seriously. If I have the same magic as the Mage Duke, I might be able to break this curse as well as shifter’s blood could have. Right?”
Sweeping down from the ceiling, Lucus hovered above me, his wings buffeting the air around my face and stirring the candle smoke into a dark cloud that swallowed the small amount of light trailing through the windows.
“You are not simply any mage. Your blood whispered the name of your line. Sforza. You are the descendant of the Mage Duke, and because of what his curse did to my brother, Francesco, I am honor-bound to kill you.”
My heart thrashed against my ribs. “Wait, wait, wait. No. I’m not Italian. My parents were from Ohio!” I couldn’t believe I had magic. Why had I never felt it before or done anything cool with it? But it was true. There was no denying the blast from that magestone and the magic that rushed through me like a herd of wild horses.
The vines snaking from Lucus’s fingers and extending from his wings whipped forward and gripped me. Squeezing me and raising me so my face was level with Lucus, the vines tightened around my chest until I was gasping for breath.
I wished I knew how to use this power of mine, but it felt as though if I unleashed the magic inside me, the wild horses would trample me in the process. I was as scared of the magic as I was of Lucus.
His eyes had no empathy in them. They were filled with agony, desperation, grief. I knew he was seeing only the past and the Mage Duke’s slaughter of the fae. He was seeing Francesco leaving the castle, the younger brother who had turned to ash. He couldn’t even see my face right in front of him.
“Lucus. Please. It’s me. Coren.” A part of me insisted that I bring up that terrible fated mate bond thing, but I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want it to be true, so I was going to ignore it as thoroughly as possible. “You don’t know me very well, but I never would’ve killed innocent people. Innocent fae,” I choked out. My lungs burned, and my skin bled under the vines’ rough hold. “That was five hundred years ago.” An idea bloomed in my mind. I strained against the vines. “Can’t you see my memories like I saw yours?” I panted. The room spun, and black spots appeared, blocking Lucus’s face. My head lolled. “Sneak into my head. See I am not like the Duke.”
Well, this was it. The world went dark, and I was numb all over. A hot tear spilled out of my eye. Damn. I wanted to live. But I was just so tired…
And then I was in a memory.
I walked arm in arm with Hekla down Main Street. It was Christmas, five years ago. White lights curled around the lamp posts, sparkling in the plum-hued twilight. Cold air pinched my nose and cheeks as Hekla continued explaining her grandmother’s recipe for Icelandic leaf bread.
“It’s so thin that you can read through it.”
“Dude. That sounds super difficult to handle.”
“It is. But that’s not the toughest part of the process. You cut these little triangles into it and then lift the corners so that they overlap.”
It was exactly the sort of baking challenge I adored. Plus, Hekla needed a boost. She’d lost her house to a fire a month back and with it every picture of her deceased parents and grandparents. Her boyfriend had dumped her afterwards too. Such an asshole. Hekla had moved in with me, of course, but she’d had to give up her P.O.S. car to get some new clothes.
“We’ll make a crap ton of them and start a savings account for your Volvo.”
Hekla grabbed my arm and whirled me around to face her. “Are you serious?” She’d been pining away for a Volvo as long as I’d known her. It was a weird obsession, but who was I to judge?
“Yep. You helped me do this.” I jerked my chin at our bakery, just a couple of doors down from McCreary’s Irish Pub. “Without you, my dream would still be a dream. You are getting that Volvo, my lady.”
She hugged me so hard that we fell into a man with an armful of Christmas wreaths who had a surprisingly impressive cache of swear words I had never heard.
Our laughter faded with the memory, and then I was standing in front of Lucus. The vines held me still, but they weren’t annihilating me like earlier.
“Okay, that wasn’t the best memory. Getting someone a Volvo. I have better ones somewhere. Try again.”
The vines withdrew with a speed that made them blurry to my eyes. Lucus turned away, tucking his wings in tightly as he paced the casting room floor.
“You are not him.” Lucus’s voice was a distant drum, his grief weighing down every syllable. “And you are as innocent as those he has slain.”
I let out a breath. Thank God. “You don’t feel like you have to kill me? What about your brothers?”
“I will not tell them you are the Mage Duke’s descendant. They would end you.”
So a non-lying liar was in charge of keeping a secret from his family in order to keep me alive. Good stuff. Fun times. And that phrase: end you. That phrase sucked.
Chapter 18
“Thanks,” I mumbled. “Sounds like a fantastic plan that will definitely keep me alive.”
Lucus spun and glared. “I will allow my brothers and Kaippa to believe that you possess a good amount of shapeshifter blood.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “As a fae, you can use shifter blood to cast spells.”
“Anyone can work spells if they have a vial or more of shifter blood and they know the words and actions to complete the casting.”
“Like anyone anyone?”
“Yes. Even humans. This