Bound by the Vampire Queen (Vampire Queen #8)

The park was silent, of course, the main gate closed.

When Lyssa opened the door, Jacob slid out of the seat, carrying the dryad. For a moment they considered one another. Despite his elevated temperature and the hammering at his temples, the pain warning him to get below ground, he leaned forward, adjusting his hold on the Fae girl to close the distance to his lady's lips. He gauged her mood enough not to make contact. Instead, he stopped just short of her mouth, teasing her with the proximity, earning a flash out of those mesmerizing jade eyes.

“Let's just do it, my lady. Whatever happens, I love you.”

“You are a pain in my ass. Always.” Her jaw was tight, but the dark strands of her hair fel over her forehead, framing the mysterious power of those long-lashed eyes, tempting himto close the distance.

She shut her eyes at the brush of his lips, then opened them when he drew back.

The next moment didn't require an exchange of thoughts, a mutual decision. Their hearts were shared, after all. Putting her hand on his face, she went to her toes. Reading her emotions, he bent his stance enough that they could press their foreheads together, even as he held the dryad between them.

They both understood the need not to alarm their son, but as one, they briefly touched his subconscious once more, leaving a lingering feeling of love, acceptance and reassurance there.

She straightened, held his gaze one vital second.

Then, giving him a nod, she turned. Together they walked around the main gate, which was designed only to keep cars out, and took the second walking trail identified by signs.

In her winged Fae form, Lyssa had visited many of the forested areas of Atlanta in the dark hours of night, even the more sparsely wooded ones. Now she guided him without hesitation toward a creek. It wasn't a large body of water, probably unknown to most people who didn't leave the walking trail. As they moved deeper into the woods, the canopy helped ease some of the scorching itch between Jacob's shoulder blades. He wondered if the faint smel of smoke was coming from his skin. There'd been recent heavy rains, and so they heard the creek's rushing, bubbling noise before they reached it. Jacob drew the cool smel grateful y into his nostrils.

The trees thinned, and there it was.

When Lyssa glanced at him, he saw her note his soaked T-shirt clinging to his body. The dryad's body pressed against his chest was an abrasive friction.

Dawn was perhaps five minutes away. A vampire didn't have to breathe, but he was doing so, and the sound of it was labored. The dryad stirred, making an uncertain noise as if picking up on the disturbing changes happening to her cradle. Lyssa's brow creased, her lips thinning. Jacob shook his head, setting his teeth.

“Focus on the doorway, my lady.”

If he couldn't cross over, he'd barely make it back to the car using vampire speed. Or he'd dig himself underground, as he'd indicated. There was no time for her to consider alternate possibilities. The fact that he was right didn't make her any happier about any of it. She set her jaw.

“Give her to me. If you don't cross over, I need to be the one holding her.”

He gave her a look, but that same time constraint prevented any more discussion. As he shifted his burden, the dryad's gray-green eyes opened briefly.

“We're taking you home, lass,” he murmured. “Hang in there another couple minutes.”

“You have great faith in my ability to open this portal,” Lyssa said, worry making her tone sharp.

Jacob settled the Fae in his lady's arms. Lyssa held her capably even though it looked incongruous, the two females of like size. In fact, the dryad was slightly tal er. Since he was already in trouble with his queen, her arms were occupied, and he might be dead or at least in excruciating pain in the next few moments, Jacob gave his lady a healthy pinch on her delectable ass, adding a squeeze that he couldn't help but make a caress. Her freezing glance became something else as she picked up on his shift in emotion. “You did say I was a pain in the ass, my lady. And I have total faith in you. Always.” It was the right combination, for it jabbed at her royal temper, even as it reassured. She stepped to the bank of the creek. Jacob stopped at her side.

Closing her eyes, Lyssa breathed in, tuning everything out, the dryad's fading life spark, the fact Jacob could be incinerated in the next few moments.

She made it all go stil , reaching out for whatever it was her Fae blood could sense. It was close to the dividing line of night and dawn and they stood at a body of moving water in a park that had been here for many years. It had to work.

Jacob stayed stil beside her, trying to hold his breath, trying not to sway on his feet as the flames of hell began to lick at the soles of his feet, sweeping upward. He wasn't bursting into flames, but he could feel it coming, any moment.

“Put your arms around both of us, Sir Vagabond,” she said, in a frustrated tone. “I have no idea how this is going to go, but I can feel—Now. Put your arms around me now.”

At the snap of the sudden command, he wrapped his arms around her. Their combined weight slid them off the bank, and she staggered, having to hold on to the dryad rather than use her arms to balance.

The creek rocks stabbed through the thin slippers she wore. Jacob wore boots, but the rush of water soaking his jeans was bliss. He tightened his grip on both women, bracing himself to hold them steady.

But he could only hold them steady against the things he knew.

He felt it then, too, what Lyssa had sensed. An energy rushing down upon them. And music. The melody was familiar, tugging at him like a mother's lul aby, cal ing him . . . somewhere. The doorway and the music were in that energy rush, forming a bil owing mist as it rol ed toward them.

It wasn't coming fast enough. Raising his head, Jacob saw the dawn light pierce through the trees, sucked in a breath as sunlight stabbed through his chest like a stake. Then that sunlight expanded outward, blinding him, and the water rushing over his feet became diamond shards, slashing his skin.

Once, when working at the Ren Faire, he'd been thrown from a horse. His foot had caught in the stirrup and the mare had panicked. As she bucked and twisted, her hooves hit him in the head and other far more tender parts. She'd dragged him a good pace before they'd been able to calm her and get him free. That was a fond memory next to this. The slam into hard ground, like a giant had picked him up and hurled him against a brick wal , made the rocky pasture ground he'd bounced across seem like a feather bed in comparison.

“Shit.” He didn't use the word often, but the moment seemed to require it. He tried to move and none of his limbs responded. Panic sliced through him. Surely he hadn't arrived in the Fae world injured and unable to protect Lyssa, a complete liability to her. Of course, knowing his lady, she'd get tremendous female satisfaction from winning the coveted I-told-you-so laurel.

If you are able to be a wiseass, I'd say you are fine.

He'd located his lady in the first second, but was relieved to find the mind-to-mind connection was intact. In the next breath, he realized she was right.

He was hurting too much to be paralyzed, an ironic relief. A shudder racked him down to his bones, making him bite down another heartfelt curse. He felt like throwing up, but managed to push that back as well.

Now she knelt, sliding his head into her lap. Her hair brushed his face before she gathered it up, pul ed it away, though he liked the silk of it against his flesh. It distracted him from the fact he felt like ten pins scattered across a lane by a truck-sized bowling bal .

“Give yourself time, my love. Look at it all. Just look at it.”

Hearing the solemn wonder and rarely used endearment, he took the time to do just that.

He pried open his eyes. She'd straightened so he was staring right up into the sky. He'd viewed many beautiful night skies, that tremendous expanse that made the soul feel inexplicably smal and yet treasured at once, as if he were gazing into something far deeper than his eyes could see. This was as if that screen had been pul ed back, so he could see why his soul felt that way. A carpet of stars spread out in random swirls against the deep purple expanse. The large yel ow moon hung among them, tiny wisps of dark clouds making it look as if it was drifting, a ship at ful sail. He wondered if Van Gogh had ever visited the Fae world in his madness.

Three shooting stars burned a path below the moon. Then he realized they weren't shooting stars at all.

Fireflies danced in the air above him, so bright they blended with the stars, except instead of clean white light, there was a touch of red flame in their afterburn. When one came in range, he was staring at a tiny fairy, no bigger than one of Lyssa's fingernails. A naked male with long silver hair and tiny black antennae protruding from it, just above his ears. He studied Jacob with insectlike green eyes.

Instead of almond-shaped, they were perfect, pupil-less circles. The wings of the firefly Fae were like a hummingbird's, moving so fast they were invisible except for a tel tale blur of motion. His skin abruptly glowed bright with that reddish light, then he zoomed back up to his fel ows again.

With the pain receding enough for his nerves to register something other than agony, Jacob realized he was on a soft bed of green grass, his elbows tickled by nodding wildflowers. As he processed that, the dryad stepped into his line of sight.

She paid no attention to him. Her gaze was on the skies as well , the fireflies specifical y. Though she was stil obviously weak, she was standing on her own. The way she was breathing—deep, from the soles of her feet—it was obvious she was pul ing in energy, holding herself up with it. When she reached up, the tiny creatures landed on her slender fingers.

At the contact, her mouth tightened, making her thin face even more painful y drawn. Her gray-green eyes, like the bark of an ancient tree, overflowed with tears.

Lyssa laid her hand on Jacob's chest. He closed his fingers over hers.

Stillholding the tiny creatures, the dryad shifted her attention from the skies to the green field that spread out to her right, populated by white flowers that glowed silver and gold in the moonlight. Jacob fol owed her gaze to the edge of the meadow. A thick forest marked the boundary, but beyond the forest there were four hil s, so substantive they looked like the overlapping domes of four planets on the horizon. Even in the darkness, it wasn't hard to see their shape, because of their size and what was perched on the top of each one.