Page 62 of Savage Blooms (Unearthly Delights #1)

The earth wrapped the boy in a loving embrace, cushioning his descent with lichen and loam.

Craigmar’s secret subterranean passages opened wide as they pulled him down into the dark and damp.

It had been so long since there was a Kirkfoyle beneath the earth, so long since that hot, noble blood had enriched the soil.

When the boy ripped his forearm open on a sharp stone as he tumbled into the deepest chambers of the earth, the mycelium and microscopic bugs and filaments of roots from the trees above lapped greedily at his offering, all the sweeter for his suffering.

The boy lay a long while in darkness, still as though in a slumber with his cheek pillowed on moss. Then he groaned, like his body was one big bruise, and cracked open an eye.

The packed earth beneath his feet held steady as he pressed his palms against the dirt, trying to get his bearings.

It was dark down here, that unspoiled dark of caverns where no light had reached for centuries, and he was human yet.

His eyes weren’t strong enough for the dark, nor glamoured to pierce the shadows.

The bioluminescent mushrooms did their best to glow valiantly for him, pulsing blue light softly through the chamber at the intervals of their shared heartbeat. The boy moved his limbs tentatively, like he was checking for broken bones.

Then, just as the boy was beginning to hyperventilate, taking shallow panicked breaths in the dark, footsteps approached.

Craigmar would know that sound anywhere, the leisurely click of the gleaming boots of their beloved keeper.

The boy heaved in a breath, ready to pull himself to his feet and fight, but suddenly there was a boot on his shoulder, holding him down.

The boy craned his chin up as far as it would go.

The king underground stood over him, all sinuous grace with skin the color of burnished bronze and hair spilling over his shoulders in a cascade of jet.

He wore an ankle-skimming black oilcloth cloak, battered from the weather and splattered with mud, and the hunting attire that had been the height of fashion the last time he had ventured aboveground.

It could have been ten years ago, or a hundred.

Craigmar was too old to keep track of such minuscule increments.

The king gave the boy a thin-lipped smile, his almond-shaped eyes glittering like shards of onyx. They were black all the way through, black as a night without stars.

“Eileen’s eyes,” the boy gasped, only loud enough for the earth to hear.

“Easy, little knight,” the king said, in that voice like icy water, clear and crisp and entirely devoid of human warmth. “No need to draw your blade just yet.”

“Who are you?” the boy demanded.

“I’m the oldest friend your family has,” the king replied.

“I’ve never seen you before,” the boy blustered. He was trying to buy time.

“You might not have seen me,” the king went on, unhurried.

This was his domain, after all. He had more time to fritter away than any mortal man could dream of.

He could wait until the boy acquiesced, if that was what it took.

The boy would get hungry eventually, after all.

Thirsty. Starving for warmth and a gentle touch. “But I’ve certainly seen you.”

“When?”

“At night, when you sleep. And during the day, when you were playing your little game of pain with the Kirkfoyle girl by my mushroom ring.”

“Let me go,” the boy demanded, panic rising in his voice.

“There’s nowhere else to go. Not home, and not into the past. There is only the now, and the gateway I offer you into the future. Will you step through it with me? I can make it quite pleasurable for you. And I will explain everything you long to understand, in time.”

The king removed his boot from the boy’s shoulder and then held out the hand of peace to him.

“Welcome home, Adam Kirkfoyle,” he said, smiling with a mouthful of pointed teeth. “I’ve been so desperate to meet you.”

The boy held his breath as he deliberated and Craigmar held its breath with him, every bit of flora under the earth trembling and tense.

Craigmar ached for equilibrium, for the veil so long drawn between the aboveground and the belowground to fall away.

It longed for bloody, euphoric catharsis, and for the old magic to rush back in and reign supreme.

In the end, there was no other option besides the one that had been put before him. It was the only path that had ever been laid before any Kirkfoyle who walked the road of this story.

With a shuddering sigh of surrender, the boy took the king’s hand and let him pull him to his feet.