Penelope and Prince Charming (Nvengaria #1)(68)

“He’s a demon who tried to kill us.” Damien spoke in Nvengarian so the boy would understand him as well.

Wulf shook his head, still staring at Penelope. “No. Princess.”

Penelope leaned forward. “Were you trying to kill me, Wulf?” she asked him.

He shook his head again. “Help.” His eyes rolled back, and he slumped against the wall.

Penelope got to her feet and started forward, but Damien seized her in a firm grip. “No, you don’t.”

“He’s a child, Damien. A hurt child.”

“He is a demon.”

“He has a name, and he said he was not trying to hurt me.”

Damien bit back exasperation. “Demons are most likely liars, my love. Perhaps they simulate being a tearful child to lure victims to them.”

From the look on Penelope’s face, she did not believe that, and neither did Damien, in truth. But his mouth was dry. If this logosh were only a child, how large and strong were the adults of its kind? And, terrible thought, where was its mother?

“You started to tell me a story, remember, before I fell asleep?” Penelope said. “About a beautiful princess and a logosh? How did it end?”

Damien thought back, at the moment barely remembering the tale. “The princess healed the logosh after he was nearly killed by hunters. He turned into a handsome prince, and married the princess.” He cast a glance at the half-conscious child. “He’s a bit young for you, I think.”

“Perhaps the story is true.” Penelope lifted her hands, as though stopping whatever argument he’d make. “I am certain the story has been embellished in the folktales, but perhaps a part of it is true—that a princess helped a logosh—and Wulf remembers that. Perhaps logosh will not hurt a Nvengarian princess.”

Damien grunted. “They certainly have no qualms about hurting a Nvengarian prince.”

“But when he saw me behind you, in the ballroom, he turned away. And when I came out here, he stopped.”

“Yes,” Damien had to concede. “I’d noticed that.”

Penelope’s hair snaked about her in beautiful waves. Her face had flushed with their argument, her eyes bright with determination. With the coverlet baring her shoulders she was almost edible—damn all enchanted sleeps and child logoshes that kept Damien from eating her up.

“He will die if we don’t help him,” Penelope said.

“He came here to kill me, love,” Damien pointed out. “When he feels better, he will try again.”

Penelope sent him a stubborn look. “If I can make him loyal to me, like in the story, he will not.”

Damien did not like the idea at all. On the other hand, the boy was pathetic, hunkered in a ball and certainly hurt. Logosh were technically his people, since they lived within the borders of Nvengaria, or at least that was how the stories went. He had an obligation to them as much as he did the rest of the Nvengarian people. Or perhaps the prophecy was pushing Damien into decisions he would not otherwise make.

He sighed and stepped aside. “Very well, love. But if you make a pet of him, he will not sleep on the bed with us.”

Penelope smiled faintly and moved toward the boy.

“Sir, are you mad?” Petri asked in amazement.

“Very likely. But wait.” Damien kept his hand on the hilt of his knife, ready to spring forward if the logosh made any move he didn’t like. Petri was tense beside him, but he held himself still.

Penelope approached the child warily, not foolish enough to rush toward him. Wulf began to shiver, whimpering in his half-dazed state. Penelope reached him. Damien moved closer, ready to drag her away if Wulf suddenly became demon again, but Wulf did nothing.

Penelope knelt beside Wulf and gently pushed a lock of hair from his forehead. The boy turned then, but only to fling his arms around Penelope’s waist. Red blood, human blood, from his wound smeared the coverlet. Penelope, tentatively at first, then more readily, gathered the child to her.

“It’s all right,” she crooned to him.

Wulf clung to her as might any hurt and frightened child, and Penelope rocked him in her arms. She looked at Damien over his head, her eyes so full of compassion that Damien knew he loved her all the way through, and not because of a piece of ancient magic.

“I’ll be damned,” Petri whispered. “She’s tamed a mother-loving logosh.”



* * *



“Do not tell me,” Alexander said heavily as Nedrak looked up from his scrying stone with an anguished light in his eyes. “It did not work.”

Nedrak shook his head, face paling. “No, Your Grace. I am afraid it did not.”





Chapter 20





Alexander got impatiently to his feet and stalked to the window.

It was sunset, the sky streaked with crimson and gold. Mountains soared above the city, turning the view into a glorious landscape that no human’s brush could ever match. The range’s highest peaks were tipped with snow though the slopes were dark green with summer.

These were harsh mountains, without remorse, but their stark beauty always pulled at Alexander’s heart. If he could find a way to close the gate to Nvengaria, to keep the rest of the world out and save this pristine place forever, he would.

But he knew he could not. Nvengaria depended on trade with other nations, and no good came of complete isolation. Alexander understood that. However, he’d be damned if he let Austria or Russia, or far-off England, swallow Nvengaria as part of some imperial conquest. Britannia could go rule someone else.