War of Hearts(89)

At some point they would have to discuss Thea’s immortality and their inability to have children, but it was a discussion for later. For now, they just needed each other. Their bond gave them strength, and Thea needed all the strength in the world to finally face the man who had brutalized her so many years ago.





They grabbed a quick bite to eat and then an exhausted Conall slumped down on one of the lounge chairs, his legs sprawled, while Thea sat on the seat next to him. He pulled Thea’s legs onto his lap, her feet dangling over the seat on his other side.

Her seat was next to the wall, so it meant she could recline.

“You should lie down,” she said. The book she’d stolen from Vik rested on her knees. She’d gotten some sleep in the car while Conall had none.

He patted her knee. “I can sleep anywhere.”

And true to his word, Conall closed his eyes, his head resting against the wall behind him. His breathing evened out quickly. Thea watched him sleep, her chest aching.

Hers.

He really was hers.

Wondering if she’d ever get used to the fierceness of her emotions, Thea reluctantly pulled her eyes from him and cracked open the book to a slightly yellowed page.

FAERIE

A Journal by Jerrik Mortensen

Oxford:

First Printed for Jerrik Mortensen

At Oxford University Press, Oxford





1963





Jesus, Thea mused. She wondered who Jerrik had in his thrall to get his book published at Oxford University press in the seventeenth century. Someone with a rare first edition had gone on to have it printed again and somehow, Vik, the obsessive researcher, had gotten his mitts on one.

Thea felt a little flutter of nerves as she turned to the page. According to Vik, Jerrik had been much older than when the journal first began, so he hadn’t chronicled his time as a vampire until centuries later.

She read, falling into his descriptions of a fae world that was exquisite and brutal, and hours passed as Jerrik told his story to her from beyond the grave …

(Roman Calendar Year 132 BC)

Geimhreadh, Faerie

There is never a day here I do not wonder at Faerie. My brother and I move through this world without need of protection; the bright star in the sky here does not burn as it does in our world. Days of running free through the other lands to reach Geimhreadh. The journey on horseback would take weeks. Months. Our vampire speed holds us in good stead. Yet as soon as we cross into Geimhreadh, we feel peace. A world of eternal darkness, the moon here impossibly brighter than our own, a light upon our skin that soothes rather than burns. If I could, I would live here for all my days as the creature that was made of me. Eirik does not agree. Although he enjoys some pleasures afforded by Faerie, he takes more pleasure in the power he holds over humans back on Earth.

The eternal night is not my only sanctuary here. I fear that Eirik’s growing distaste with Faerie has more to do with my mate than anything else. My mate. My slow, beating heart gallops faster at the mere thought of her.

Andraste.

A princess of the Night Lands.

Mine.

My mate.

As Eirik and I slow our speed upon entering Réalta, the royal city of the Night Lands, I cannot help but stare at the world so vastly different from ours and find joy in it. Eirik thinks me a fool. That I have not yet grown used to their superior living. But our world seems primitive in comparison. Our squat, brick dwellings with holes for windows. Here there are towering buildings carved into mountains, windows that stretch for miles, shielded from the outside by the opaque sheets called Gleamings. Some were transparent. From my lady’s chamber, I can see every glittering star in the night sky.

Others, like those along the front facade of the Geimhreadh Palace, were stained with colors so exquisite the beauty was almost too much. The palace itself was built entirely of a material like the marble used in the city of Rome. Yet the Romans built with brick and merely covered facades with the expense of marble, a show of power and wealth. Once upon a time, I thought Rome the most superior place I had ever visited.

That was before Faerie. Where entire villages are built from marble.

The marble here was inset with the tiniest gemstones that sparkled like diamonds beneath the moon’s glow. I had never seen its like.

We moved as ghosts over paving stones across the Royal Square where market dwellers sold their wares. There were stalls of meats, sweet pies, clothing, furs, jewelry, weapons, and even blood for their visiting vampire kin for sale.

A shriek drew my attention toward the center of the square where a large water fountain stood. It was a marble sculpture of my beloved and her two sisters, their hands raised as if to the heavens. Water fell from those hands by way of magic.

Another shriek tore my attention from the middle sculpture of Andraste. A human female was crying and begging as fae wearing royal guard uniform tore at her clothing, hell-bent on taking their pleasure from her. Another shriek rent the air but not from her.

Only feet from her another human woman was on the ground, her gown ripped open to reveal a back that was now bloody from a flogging. A tall fae I recognized stood over her, wielding a weapon much like the flagrum I’d seen in Rome.

It was Lir, the queen’s captain, a brutish son of a bitch who found joy in human misery.

“The queen is here,” I said to Eirik.

I turned to him. Eirik’s eyes blazed at the scene playing out on the square.