Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(118)

The bed didn’t even shift as Falin joined me. I was lying on top of the turned-down covers, so he didn’t try to crawl under them. He slid his arm under my neck, and I scooted closer to him, resting my head on his shoulder. PC stood, circled twice, and then apparently decided he wanted human comfort more than a pil ow. He climbed over me and tried to wedge himself between our hips, though six pounds of muscle didn’t give him a lot of moving power. He ended up stretched out across both of us.

“I real y messed up with the queen, didn’t I?” I asked, close enough to sleep that I was thinking out loud.

Falin’s arm tightened around me. “You did okay in the beginning. The dancers were a test. The first was an insult.

If you’d accepted the changeling it would have acknowledged that you were not fae enough to be treated with the respect a Sleagh Maith deserves. The second was closer to your status, and was to appeal to your uniqueness. Offering the third accepted you as royal, and uniqueness. Offering the third accepted you as royal, and had you danced with Ryese, she’d have been planning your wedding ceremony by the end of the night. I think you threw her when you refused al three and then chose your independent green man.” His thumb drew smal circles where it touched my arm. “It was my actions that likely bought you an enemy.”

“So why serve her?”

“I have no choice. I am bound to her, to her wil and her word. When I became her bloodied hands, I became hers completely and truly. A monarch’s bloodied hands can be her deadliest subject, so the bond is the curse’s fail-safe. It makes me both a weapon against my queen’s enemies and ensures that I pose no threat to her.” He pul ed me closer to him. “I won’t be bound forever. The curse wil pass to the next bloodied hands when my service to her is complete.”

I thought about this as sleep pressed hard against me, but I wasn’t quite ready for it to come yet. “Why did you become her bloodied hands? Why would anyone?” Power, maybe, though it came with the loss of choice and wil , so it didn’t seem worth it. Love? I cringed, fearing that would be what he told me.

His gloved hand moved up to my face, and he brushed back my curls. “I was born to be what I am.” When I stretched to look up at him, he went on. “I was switched as an infant, and I grew up believing I was human. When I was sixteen I was brought to the court for the first time, to learn what I was, what I was meant to be. The queen’s assassin.

Her knight. Her bloodied hands. Sleagh Maith, while one of the most human-looking fae, have the lowest tolerance for iron and technology. With the changes in the world since the Awakening, she wanted her knight to be able to function as her great champion in both Faerie and the mortal world.

That’s why she had me switched.” He paused. “I see the fae woman who birthed me once in a while. She let the baby she switched for me grow until he is about four. He’s a she switched for me grow until he is about four. He’s a handsome boy. I wonder who he would have been, if it hadn’t been for me.”

I wrapped my arm tighter around him and hugged him because I didn’t know what to say. Though his delivery of the information was casual, there was a rawness to it that spoke of old pain. I recognized it. I’d heard it in my own voice before. So I held him, and he held me back, neither of us saying anything. I was drifting when he final y broke the silence.

“Alexis?”

“Mmm?”

He was quiet for so long that I thought he might have fal en asleep. I cracked my eyes open and found him looking at me. Then, as if he’d changed his mind about what he wanted to say, he pressed a kiss against the top of my head. “Go to sleep.”

I did.





Chapter 34


I was having the nightmare again. The Blood Moon hung red and swol en over my head. Coleman stood by my sister’s bed, a dagger in his decomposing hand. He looked at me, half his face sloughing off as he leered. He lifted the blade.

I screamed and tried to run but tripped over the hem of my gown. A gown trimmed with delicate ice roses. I’d never worn a gown in the dream before.

“Alex! Alex, wake up.”

Falin was suddenly in the dream, standing beside me.

He shook my shoulders. “Wake up.”

I blinked at him. The Blood Moon vanished. So did the bed and Coleman. But I was stil standing in the exact same spot, Falin holding my shoulders. PC pawed the air in front of me.

I looked around. We were surrounded by shadows with no discernible source. And nothing else. I took a step forward and loose sand shifted under my feet. Where in Faerie is a desert of sand and shadows? I frowned. And why could I tel there were shadows in the darkness? I didn’t know, but I did know that the shadows were somehow separate from the darkness.

“Where are we?”

Before Falin could answer, a scream shattered the darkness. My head shot up as a man in striped pajamas hurtled through the air, headed straight for us. His arms flailed around him, but that did little to slow his free fal . I ducked, which wasn’t the most rational decision, but how ducked, which wasn’t the most rational decision, but how often did people fal toward me? Not exactly a situation I prepared for. When the man was stil a dozen or more yards over our heads, he vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

I straightened, gasping for breath I didn’t remember losing. “What was that about?”