Ambrosia (Frost and Nectar, #2)(5)

She sniffed the air, and she spoke in a lilting, unfamiliar tongue.

“Sorry, I don’t understand.”

She sniffed again. “Cromm. Isavell.” She smiled. “Mab.”

She seemed friendly enough. I smiled back and touched my chest. “Ava. Mab…that’s the queen? Sorry, is your name Isavell?”

She smiled at me, eyes shining. “Isavell.”

Gods, I felt like an idiot. I looked like an Unseelie, but I didn’t speak one word of the language.

Isavell, if that was her name, giggled. She raised herself from the water, showing off a silvery sleeveless dress that clung to her body, damp with river water. She really looked enchanting. Maybe the Unseelie weren’t demonic at all. Maybe they’d been demonized by their enemies over the centuries, but they were actually very sweet.

I wondered if Torin had decided I was safe by now.

I was trying to decide what to say next when Isavell pointed at a flowering tree. I took a tentative step closer, and she smiled at me encouragingly. Little purple berries grew between the flowers. When I pointed at them and raised my eyebrows, Isavell nodded.

Maybe she wanted a snack?

I gathered a handful of berries and brought them over to her, crouching down at the edge of the river. She put one in her mouth, smiling at me. Then she gestured. She wanted to feed me one? Something more intimate than I was used to with strangers, but maybe this was how the Unseelie made friends.

It didn’t seem like a Court of Sorrows.

I opened my mouth, and she popped a berry in. When I bit into it, sweet, tangy juice exploded on my tongue. I knew the warnings about eating the food or drinking the wine in Fae realms, but I was one of the fae.

As I crouched by the riverbank, we shared the rest of the handful of berries. When we’d finished eating, purple juice stained my palm. I stood, wanting to ask her what I’d find if I kept walking. Would I find a town? A city full of beautiful, snack-eating fae?

But I didn’t know her language, so I pointed down the river and raised my brows.

The merrow sniffed the air again, her smile slowly fading. Did she sense the presence of the Seelie king? Dark shadows slid through her eyes, and her lip curled to expose brutally sharp canines.

I staggered away.

She threw back her head, and her feathered cap fell into the water. She opened her mouth and let out a loud, wailing song with one word I recognized: Isavell, followed by the word Morgant.

My pulse quickened.

This didn’t seem quite as friendly anymore, and I ran back into the foliage. From the other direction, footfalls and cracking branches echoed through the night. My heart slammed. I was being hunted.

Before I could fully comprehend the danger, a sharp pain pierced my shoulders, and another plunged into my lower back. Immediately, the air was sucked out of my lungs as agony shot through my muscles and bones. I heard Torin call my name as I fell to the damp earth. He scooped me up in his powerful arms, held me tightly against his bare chest, and ran.

My muscles spasmed as a toxin spread through me, and I struggled to keep my arms around his neck. The darts tore at my skin.

“That was a mistake,” Torin said, stiffening, and dropped me to the ground.

Pain shot through my back, and I rolled over on the mossy earth. With blurring vision, I scanned the forest floor for Torin. Darts jutted from his bare back like St. Sebastian, and he was struggling to push himself up on his arms.

On his hands and knees, he crawled toward me and snatched the darts from my flesh. I moved to help him, but a boot slammed into him, pinning him to the earth, and someone yanked me up from behind.





4





AVA




Irolled over, staring at the man whose boot was pressed into Torin’s back, a towering fae with broad shoulders wrapped in bronze armor. He wore a crown of gilded scorpions that rested against his horns, and long white hair draped down his back.

I swallowed hard.

“Wait.” My mouth had gone dry, and I could no longer think clearly. “Let him go. He doesn’t belong here.” Could he understand me at all?

Black wings spread out behind him. They were gauzy and thin, like butterfly wings. He might have been beautiful if not for his expression. He looked ready to beat Torin to death.

He glanced at me, narrowing his amber eyes. Slowly, he lifted the boot off Torin’s back.

Torin flipped over, snapping the darts, and grabbed our attacker’s leg with both hands, twisting the Unseelie’s ankle in one direction and his knee in the other .

The white-haired Unseelie fell to the ground, the sound echoing through the forest.

But the stranger was only down a moment, and neither Torin nor I could stand. More Unseelie closed in on us. Dressed in furs and armor, leather, and moss, they shouted in their strange language.

An Unseelie with antlers grabbed me by the arms and jerked me to my feet. “Morgant,” he said, addressing the fae with the scorpion crown.

Panic started to crawl up my mind as I thought of what would happen to Torin here in hostile territory.

My body vibrated with pain from the toxins, and I wanted to curl into a ball somewhere and vomit. But I couldn’t because Morgant was pulling me onto a horse. Tossing me facedown over the animal’s back, he sprang up behind me and started down the forest path.

Lifting my head, I glanced back, horror hitting me like a fist. Tied to a rope, Torin was being dragged behind the horse.