Yew Queen Trilogy, стр. 7
Where was I? Was I still dreaming? Yeah. Maybe. I had imbibed quite a bit of pinot.
Four walls set with arched passages and peaked windows surrounded the courtyard. I stood among enormous trees that reached wide limbs past my head to block out most of the glittering stars. Five oaks at least four feet across clustered around me, and another type of tree I didn’t recognize grew along the back corner, nearly as large as the oaks. Pines stretched silvery arms among maples, and thick-leaved vines twisted around the tree trunks and along patches of tall flowers with elongated, sapphire petals. It was stunning. Well played, dreams. Not bad. Not bad at all.
I pinched myself. “Ouch!” Wiggling my toes, I felt new grass and rough roots.
My heart jogged up my throat. I. Was. Not. Dreaming.
Pushing through this strange forest, I realized the leaves were too green and robust for October. It was like spring or summer here, a mismatch to the fall foliage that had taken over weeks ago. And it was so quiet. The only sound was the movement of my feet on the soft grass between the gnarled tree roots. Why weren’t the crickets making their usual racket? And if this place was less fall and more spring, why weren’t the peeper frogs going wild?
Past a cluster of birches, my bare feet found cobblestones, cold and gritty under my toes. The walls of the inner courtyard stretched up around me, and I knew.
I was inside that castle.
A shiver rocked me. The strange sensation of being watched trickled down my back. I spun to find the source. The starlight reflected in a pair of eyes at the top of the walls.
“Please be a cat,” I whispered. “Pretty please? A big, fat floof of a thing…”
A shadow surrounded the eyes. It was a human, but giant wings the shape of a bat’s spread out behind it. The wings looked different from the wings of the man I’d seen earlier.
Frost lined my veins. Another winged man? There were two? Oh, hell no. Now I was damn scared. No way this was just some Shakespeare troupe or Renaissance Faire promotion. It was so over the top. This was freaky and dangerous—and not the fun kind.
I sprinted for the largest archway, the one I hoped held the door I’d been in that morning, then slammed into a wall. No, into a man.
The green-flashy-eyes man from earlier today looked down at me.
A pine-and-sage-scented breeze tossed my hair around my face. My lips had gone numb.
I stared up at him, then back at the shadow of the other winged man on the walls, adrenaline sparking through me like fireworks. “I don’t know what kind of bullshit you have going on, but this is going to stop. Now.”
Zipping around him, I made for the open gate, the metal prongs of the portcullis above my head. A hand shot out of the near dark and grabbed my arm, pulling me back inside.
The dark-haired man’s eyes flickered with green fire, his features cold. His wings were all ivy and vine, and they unfurled behind him, leaves shuffling, as shivers of dangerous pleasure slid through my body. Warmth tingled over my skin, making my heart beat more slowly. I felt like I’d had a second bottle of pinot in one go.
I jerked my arm away and turned to run, but his iron grip latched onto my shoulder as I crossed the threshold of the castle, and he came along for the ride.
Shouts erupted from the inner courtyard as the horned man stepped from the castle and into the open starlight, his hand still braced tightly on my shoulder. The steel look in his eyes had fallen away to show shock, his full lips parted in awe as he stared at the midnight sky.
He dropped his gaze to look at me. “What are you?”
He actually appeared scared, and for some reason, that made me less so. “A baker. A Franklin gal. A human.” It felt so bizarre to say that out loud, but who were we kidding here? This was a supernatural situation, and I was honestly expecting Dean and Sam to come walking over at any moment.
“I am called Lucus. Please know that I take no delight in doing this.”
“No delight in doing what?” A sweat broke over me. What was he about to do?
Mind going blank with fear, I lunged away. There was a flash of moss-green light, and then the world faded to black.
Chapter 6
I woke to two men looking down on me. Not cool.
Swallowing, I tried not to panic, and I kept my eyes slitted so they’d think I was still asleep. Despite my situation, I felt oddly revived. My insides buzzed like I was excited about a new scone recipe or a trip to Universal to ride a new roller coaster. I didn’t think I was hurt. I still wore what I’d put on for bed—a pair of grannie panties and the XL Titans jersey I liked to sleep in. As I discreetly checked myself for injuries, squeezing muscles here and there, I memorized the men’s faces so I could pick them out of a line-up if I ever escaped.
Lucus was there—the man I’d met first outside the castle’s door—but now he appeared human, no hint of the green flashing eyes, horns, vine wings, or oak leaf eyelashes. Had I imagined it? No. Not a chance. He turned his head a fraction, and his pointed ear showed. I swallowed, trying not to move, to give myself away. Why did he show some physical weirdness but not all of it?
The second fella was pale as hell. He had wavy, shoulder-length black hair and large dark eyes. His gaze darted from my hands to the golden ring on his first finger. A large L marked the surface of the ring, and the skin around it was pink, swollen slightly like it