Yew Queen Trilogy, стр. 30

“Was it delightful?” Kaippa smirked.

Lucus had the vampire’s throat in his hand before I could do it myself.

“Allow me.” I pushed Lucus off him, then smacked the hell out of Kaippa’s cheek, going old school. “Have some manners, assface. This is not a date. This is life or death shit.”

Kaippa sauntered toward the door. “I may be the vampire here, but you’re the one sucking the life out of this moment.”

He waved his fingers as he began to leave, but then he stopped at the door, forehead wrinkling. His tongue swept over his red lips. “You’re not a shifter, Coren. I can taste your mage blood.”

I did not like that grin of his. “So what?” My heart pumped too much blood through my veins, and my head pounded.

Kaippa shrugged. “Another secret for me to take to my grave, so to speak.”

“Ha ha.” I stared.

“Will you keep this to yourself?” Lucus asked.

“I will. This will make casting that much more powerful. I’m feeling quite good right now. Thank you.” He tipped an imaginary hat at me and left the room.

“All right. Okay. One down. One to go.” I rubbed my frigid hands together, ready to get this horror show on the road so I could return to my life and check on Hekla and the bakery.

“I would prefer to go to my chamber, if you don’t mind.” Lucus gestured to the door.

“Mage room cramping your style?”

“Something like that.”

And then I followed the fae lord toward his bedroom. Yeah. This was my life now.

In the corridor, Lucus stopped and turned, his gaze traveling from my eyes to my chin, then back again like he was making sure I was all right. “I want to share another memory with you before we go further.”

I stepped closer. “Which one?”

“If you are to break this curse, you will need every scrap of information I can give you. You need to see the curse as it happened.”

“Like the night the Mage Duke trapped you in here?”

“Exactly.”

I didn’t know jack about casting, so it certainly couldn’t hurt to know more. And maybe it would give me clues on how to control my magic. “Let’s do it.”

With a nod, Lucus spread his wings. One small vine snaked from the edge and slid across my shoulder, along my collarbone. The vine crawled around the back of my neck, and chills spread along my skin.

The corridor in the castle disappeared as the memory shimmered to life around me.

I stood in the castle’s courtyard, seemingly alone. Wind whistled past my ears and shook the leaves on the trees that grew in the center. Rose petals broke from their blooms, flitting into the night sky.

A whisper turned me around.

My heartbeat tripled. Memory or not, this quiet courtyard was seriously creepy. Two shapes moved beside one of the archways. I stepped forward, but that invisible barrier was up. The hissed conversation filtered through the barrier, and I understood them just as I had in the last memory Lucus had showed me.

“They aren’t here.”

“They must be.”

A third shape moved through the starlight to join the others. “Where are the guards?”

“It’s an ambush. Be prepared.” Emerald sparks lit three sets of hands.

I couldn’t tell who was talking to whom, but I knew it was Lucus, Baccio, and Aurelio. Had to be. They were here to murder the Mage Duke.

The three fae brothers flew to the top of the castle walls, the stars outlining their vine wings and dark, twisting horns. Their forest scent blew across my face, and an owl called out mournfully, and wolves howled from far, far away. I couldn’t help but wish they would just fly into the night and leave this terrible place before—

“Did you think I would wait here, sleeping like a dotard while your foul roots choked the life from me?”

I spun to see a man in shining armor. He wore no helmet, his dark curls dusting his forehead and broad shoulders. His round eyes should’ve belonged to someone kind and joyful, but the hate flashing inside them—ah. I fell back, realization rushing over me like a sickness. He could’ve been Aunt Viv’s twin. This was my ancestor, Mage Duke Ludovico Sforza.

Lucus and Baccio flew at him, teeth bared white in the near dark and wings snapping.

The Mage Duke thrust someone forward out of the shadows and set a hand against this victim’s throat. Magic crackled over the Mage Duke’s fingers, illuminating the captive’s face. He had chestnut hair and broad cheeks. His shirt was blood red.

Francesco.

“Should I kill him quickly as you did to my Lucilla?” The magic snapped, and Francesco hissed, his foot slipping as pain tore at his features. The Duke, his eyes welling with shining tears, pulled Francesco up, helping him stand while he scorched him with the jagged streaks of his power.

Lucus swooped over the trees of the courtyard and slammed down in front of the Duke, Baccio and Aurelio in his wake, hands flashing emerald and mossy green, wings snapping in the night air.

Lucus’s tangled emotions rushed at me like a windstorm, and I bent over, coughing, my head screaming with pain. I feared for his brothers’ lives, the idea of losing them like falling into darkness. The stark, hollow sensation that had followed my mother’s death engulfed me like yesterday had been her last. Lucus’s emotions rolled through me, stronger now, his regret for the loss of Lucilla trumping every one of his life’s agonies.

Sweat ran down the sides of my face. Panic spasmed in my chest, but I had to shake this off, to focus. If there were clues to breaking the upcoming curse, I had to see them now. Pressing my hands against the invisible barrier of the memory, I straightened.

The Duke gripped Francesco’s throat more tightly, fingers flexing and glowing the same color as my own magic, too lovely a color for such a dark purpose. “I think a quick death for you and yours is too easy. My Lucilla lost