Spellbinder (Moonshadow #2)

Her interrogator released his bruising hold on her wrists. “Keep her here while I inform his lordship,” he ordered the guards.

As the male strode out, Sid backed against a wooden table so she could lean against it as she massaged her wrists.

After having been in the darkness for so long, her eyesight felt weak and oversensitive. Although most of the illumination in this room came from a fire in an iron grill, everything seemed overbright, and her eyes kept tearing without her having to resort to biting her cheeks. She avoided looking at the three other guards left in the room.

His lordship. Did he mean Modred?

Well, she knew it had to get worse before it could get any better.

If it got better.

She didn’t know if she would live to see another evening, and she regretted…

She regretted so many things. She was sorry she never got the chance to have breakfast with Julie in Paris. She wished she could see another sunrise. She regretted not being able to tell Vince what had happened to her, because she knew her disappearance would haunt him.

But she especially regretted not being able to look in her benefactor’s eyes as she told him good-bye and thanked him one final time. She wished she’d had that eye-to-eye contact with him, just once.

The wait felt interminable, her patience stretched tight from nerves. This time the sound of approaching footsteps was rapid. The door flew open, and Modred stalked into the room.

He looked the same as he had when she had first met him, a richly dressed, handsome Light Fae male, but now there was nothing pleasant in his hard expression. Striding over, he grabbed one of her wrists and yanked up her hand to stare at it.

She had been correct. Her body knew him, and every nerve rioted at his touch. Under his piercing gaze, she opened and closed her fingers.

He shook her hand under her nose and hissed, “Who did this?”

“I don’t know!” she exclaimed. With a quick yank, she took him by surprise and pulled out of his grasp. Before he could grab her wrist again, she hid her hands defensively in her armpits, her arms wrapped around her torso in a classic defensive gesture. “I never saw who did this or heard their voice. I certainly can’t see anything in that cell, and I wasn’t awake when it happened.” She looked at her first interrogator. “Somebody in this room has got to know I’m telling the truth.”

As Modred looked at him too, her first interrogator raised his eyebrows and gave an infinitesimal shrug.

Without taking his eyes off the other man, Modred said over his shoulder, “How many Hounds do we have on the castle grounds?”

“Not many, my lord,” the male said from behind him. “Most of them are on the search, on Earth. Perhaps three or four?”

“Get a couple of them down here to see if they can pick up a scent.” Modred turned away. He told her first interrogator, “Bring her.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Oh, yay! They were taking her someplace else. Almost anyplace else would be better than this horrible room saturated with blood and pain. Except for her cell. That wouldn’t be better. But from the sound of it, they had another destination in mind.

Don’t get your hopes up, she told herself as her first interrogator grabbed her arm and hauled her after Modred, who strode as rapidly down the hall as he had the first time she had met him.

She would have a collection of bruises on her arms from all the manhandling. “I’m cooperating, you know,” she told the Light Fae guard. “You don’t have to drag me along like this. I can keep up.”

He gave her a disdainful frown but released her. “See that you do,” he snapped. “Or you’ll end up in worse condition than you were in before.”

“I’m well aware of that,” she muttered through clenched teeth as she yanked her hoodie and worn T-shirt straight again. As bad as her captors were, her worst enemy was her own temper. She mustn’t let any of them get to her so badly she forgot her goals, because if she let that happen, she was done for.

Modred led them up the stairs and, just like the first time, through a maze of halls. Enchanted with the dizzying array of colors, textures, sights, and scents, Sid couldn’t stop staring around her. After days of sensory deprivation, the rich scenery was almost too much to take in.

He led the way past guards onto a verandah that opened to a walled garden filled with emerald green grass, flowering trees, and climbing roses. Travertine marble provided a cool, elegant floor, while columns of travertine punctuated the space.

Isabeau sat in the shade of an apple tree on the marble border of a large, round pool, throwing scraps of bread into the water while small ripples appeared as fish snatched at the food.

As before, the Queen looked strikingly beautiful, her long golden hair dressed in curls. She wore a light, sleeveless gown of pale blue silk with a plunging neckline. The material was so thin, it outlined the slender legs underneath it.

When the Queen glanced at them, her delicate brows drew together in a frown. She said in an edged voice, “Modred, I thought I told you I wanted the afternoon to myself.”

“Of course you did, my love,” he told her. “But trust me, you will want to hear this.” Turning, he gestured at the Light Fae guard, who reached for her arm again.

But Sid saw him coming and slipped neatly away from his grasp.

Throwing herself forward, she landed on her knees in front of the Light Fae Queen, bowing so deeply her chin almost touched the manicured grass. She focused her gaze on the delicate leather slippers in front of her.

“Your majesty, I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” she said. “When I first met you, I had no idea who you were. Nobody told me anything or taught me how to address you properly. Now that I do know, I’m embarrassed to be brought into your presence in such a state—filthy, unbathed, and in ragged clothing. This isn’t an appropriate way to have an audience with a queen. If it were in my power to choose otherwise, I would have presented myself in a way that showed much more respect for your person.”

With her head bowed, she could just see Modred’s long legs out of the corner of her eye. As she spoke, he shifted abruptly. The air around her seemed to sharpen, as if filled with invisible knives.

You threw me under the bus the first time, she said silently to Modred. Just watch. I can throw you under a bus too.

Then Isabeau said, her tone light, measured, “Well, it appears at least someone is thinking of the correct protocol. Even if it is only the ugly brown-haired girl.”

And you, Sid said to the Queen. If I could chew off your leg and beat you with it, I would. Maybe I’ll get the chance one day. Now there’s a goal to strive for.

“Trust me, my love. This is too urgent to wait for protocol.” Modred’s reply sounded edged.

“Was that true the first time you brought her to me?” Isabeau asked.