Bound by the Vampire Queen (Vampire Queen #8)

Three more Fae with matching tunics were a few paces away. Their mounts looked like the muscular Lipizann horses of Earth, except the white coats had an ethereal, hazy gleam, and their large eyes were violet blue, enhanced by purple flowers braided into their manes. Runelike symbols were painted on their coats. As he watched, Noric sprang to his feet and rejoined the others.

Jacob. Come stand behind me.

Though it took an effort, he schooled his face to bland acceptance, and stepped behind her. The captain fol owed his movements, waiting a beat before sheathing the sword with the practiced ease of familiar use.

“Your escort is appreciated, Captain.” Lyssa nodded. “Do we walk or double your mounts?”

“I'l carry you in front of me. The vampire can wait here. None of our horses will tolerate his kind.” I don't need a horse to keep up, my lady. I'll follow.

“I'm surprised he came with you,” Cayden added.

“He serves me. Where I go, he goes.”

The captain shrugged. “That may be, but he'l likely lose his life here.”

Jacob flashed fangs, shifting a step closer so his chest brushed his lady's back, her loose fal of hair.

“Then I guess today will be a good day to die, right?” The Fae's eyes flickered over him. Though his expression gave away nothing, Jacob got the impression he'd said something of interest to the male. Whether that was a good or bad thing remained to be seen. Cayden jerked his head toward the castle hil s. “If you fal behind, we're headed for Caislean Uisce.”

The Castle of Water. The Fae had picked up some Gaelic in their history. Lyssa gave him a nod, then moved forward at Cayden's brusque gesture, directing her to his mount. His white horse stood apart from the other four, no need for the reins to be held, the equine a well -trained soldier himself. The saddle was a cinched blanket, no stirrups. Cayden moved to the horse's head to steady him, but otherwise didn't offer her a hand up. Lyssa gave him a sidelong glance. “Courtesy to a lady does not exist in the Fae world?”

The cool jade stare was capable of making most men squirm. Cayden was no exception. However, though Jacob saw him shift uncomfortably, he didn't budge, which suggested he had higher orders not to treat the Lady Lyssa as an honored guest.

Jacob knew she was capable of swinging lithely onto an untacked horse of nearly any size, having been a capable rider for more than nine hundred years, but her dress had a long skirt. With a disgusted look at the captain he didn't bother to disguise, he stepped forward and lifted her.

She'd barely gotten her seat when the horse's head swung around, the stal ion's ears laid back.

Jacob slipped back quickly, but the creature stil came away with a piece of T-shirt and an il - tempered look, shifting under the captain's soothing hand on his muscular shoulder.

“As I said,” he repeated evenly, his expression like stone. “They don't tolerate your kind.” Jacob ignored him. “My lady. I'l be right behind you.”

She nodded as the captain came around the horse's head. Cayden gave him a warning look he answered with a blank stare. Lyssa said he sometimes channeled Gideon. However, while his brother had a penchant for scathing repartee during the times it was most likely to get him kil ed, Jacob had enough restraint to limit his response now to the garden variety eat-shit-and-die look.

Cayden swung up behind her. A soldier would not all ow an unknown passenger to ride at his unprotected back, but it was obvious, as he gathered up the reins, that he found the more intimate body contact between them distasteful. It rankled Jacob to see anyone behave disrespectful y to his lady, but it also worried him. If this was the welcoming committee, it made the reception they would find at the castle far more uncertain.

One thing at a time, Jacob. He smells like . . . ice cream, oddly enough.

She sounded unaffected by the captain's posturing. Since riding a horse in that manner required intimate contact, Jacob wasn't unhappy about the captain's distaste. He hoped trying to stay so rigid made for an uncomfortable, spine-jarring ride for him. However, his lady had her own particular streak of devilry. She'd probably melt back into Cayden like molasses sliding down a particularly straight tree, just to be annoying. He pressed his lips in a grim smile and fel in behind them as the horses set off single file through the forest paths.

A couple miles later, when they broke out of the shelter of the wood, Cayden urged them to a canter.

The horses were swift, but no swifter than those in their world, so with a vampire's speed Jacob had no problem keeping up. As the castle approached, however, he couldn't help slowing to get a better look.

The waterfal s covering the castle wal s fel down into catch tracks shaped to move the water in multiple curved spirals. In contrast, straight, glittering sheets of water fel over window openings in place of glass. More than a year ago, he'd gone to a mal with his lady where she'd taken him into a large, decorative fountain, sliding behind a smal waterfal into an alcove just big enough for two people to take their pleasure of each other. She took more than that, feeding from him and giving him the second mark. The rush of the water, the glittering, translucent curtain, had given them the sense of a private haven away from the world.

Would it feel like that, staying in one of those rooms curtained by a waterfal ? As they approached the outer moat, which rivaled a Caribbean sea for blue color, tiny cat's paws of foam lapped up from its surface, touched by the playful breeze.

“I'd like to get down, Captain.”

As the captain stopped to oblige her, relief evident in his features, Lyssa slid off the mount, bracing herself on his thigh as she did so. He didn't flinch, but it was a near thing, despite the fact it was purely functional, not the teasing caress Jacob knew she'd enjoy using if she was real y trying to unsettle a male.

However, he was satisfied to see the captain had unbent enough to support her elbow as she dropped to her feet. Jacob came to her side, drawing her attention upward. On the highest tower, a large white and silver creature crouched, eyeing them with blue eyes. A moment later, it emitted a loud roar, the wings spreading out in magnificent, intimidating display. Along with the roar came a spout of flame.

“A dragon,” Jacob said, with deep satisfaction. “A real fucking dragon. God, I wish Gideon were here.” Lyssa couldn't help but enjoy his reaction and entwine it with her own. Dragons perching on castle turrets, fairies putting their babies to bed in flower blooms and gnomes braiding ribbons into the beards of goats . . . Even surly Cayden, in his mail and gauntlets, hair rippling over his back as he rode his white charger. all of them were images captured in fantasy literature and art time and again by a world longing for the reality of their existence. And she and Jacob were here among them.

“We can't tarry,” the impressive but irritable captain said. “Fol ow me now.”

Lyssa sedately proceeded across the drawbridge, Jacob a pace behind. The mist from the myriad fal s settled like tiny kisses on her face and hands. The two water channels that ran on either side of the drawbridge down into the moat sounded like chuckling laughter. She saw a school of rainbow colored fish swim beneath the bridge, joined by a pair of mermaids, one with golden hair and one with brown, the strands caressing their bare shoulders like silken seaweed. They swam hand in hand. As the mermaids registered the passing soldiers, they came to the top, their heads breaking the surface.

They spoke in a language Lyssa didn't know, but it was obvious from the smiles exchanged that fielding the undines' flirtatious comments was a normal routine for the guard.

Cayden gave it a measured moment, then spoke a sharp word. The soldiers straightened, faced forward, and the mermaids dove back under the water, continuing their swim beneath the open drawbridge. Lyssa saw more than one soldier steal a glimpse as they came out the other side, the sweet curves of breast and hip, the pale white arms as the girls rol ed and twined together, all playful, sensual innocence.

Cayden wasn't one of those soldiers, his scrutiny remaining on Jacob and Lyssa with occasional sweeps over the guards patrol ing the walkways that passed in front of and behind the water fal s. They were armed with bows, swords and spears. “Are you expecting some danger, Captain?” she asked.

Cayden glanced at her, then forward again. “A wise man always does.”

He hadn't addressed her by an honorific or even her name, Jacob noticed, though Cayden obviously knew who she was. Whether it was the same disrespect he'd been commanded to display, or the fact that Fae rarely used names when addressing one another, Jacob didn't know. Cayden didn't give him much time to ponder it as he led them under the open portcul is and into the quadrangle. He dismissed his men there, dismounted. Out of habit, Jacob noted entrances and exits, and the makeup of the castle population.

Most seemed to be the staff one would expect in the household of medieval aristocracy— housekeeping, cooks, animal husbandry—as well as the armed guards to defend it. While the guards seemed to be of the same stamp as Cayden and his three, the staff were a variety of Fae species.

Everything from tiny, airborn Fae like the mother they'd seen, to large, knobby-kneed trol s, lumbering across the main bailey carrying bundles of goods in cloth bags or pul ing wagons with the help of shaggy ponies.

As they prepared to pass through the archway into the castle hal itself, Cayden came to an abrupt halt, necessary because Lyssa did. She'd tilted her gaze upward. Due to the variety of waterfal s along the exposed wal s, rainbows had occurred, some combination of magic or scientific phenomenon resulting in a crisscrossing of three of them before the archway. When Lyssa extended her palms, molecules of color patterned them. From where Jacob stood, a few steps back, it was like the three rainbows sought to plunge into the reputed pot of gold. Beyond the archway was a large fountain with a bronze statue of a racing pair of gazel es. The fountain caught the rainbow's colors and sparkled with them, giving the gazel es' hooves a sense of flashing movement.

Lyssa rocked from one foot to the other experimental y, shifting between the bands of color, letting them turn her skin red, yel ow, blue and green as she moved. Looking back at Jacob, she smiled, pure and sweet.