Page 16

But Kate had never had sex, had never done anything more than make out with a boy.

Roan was all man, everything that frightened and excited her in ways she barely understood.

She’d been hoping that in college she’d find a guy she liked and trusted, and then she’d take that step into exploring sex, but she was a long way from her college campus, a long way from that life she had been looking forward to.

Her previous life seemed strangely distant, as though another person had lived that life, and who she was right now... this was the real Kate. A woman stuck in a labyrinth with a grumpy kobold.

“You wished for him to bring you here. At least, that’s what the pixies said. He only did what you wanted,” Patch said.

“But I didn’t ask him to bring me here, I—” She stopped dead in her tracks, her mind replaying her whispered plea into the barn owl’s feathers. Into Roan’s feathers. “That... that wasn’t a wish,” she protested.

Patch glanced over his shoulder. “A wish is a wish if you truly want what you wished for. That means you wanted to leave wherever you were. And no, Lord Arun has never done this before. Now his father, Lord Bahden Arun, he liked human women a bit too much. When he stole that human queen... er... What’s her name.

..?” Patch muttered as Kate ran to catch up to him. “Gwendolyn... Wandavere?”

“Guinevere?” Kate suggested.

Patch snapped his fingers. “Aye, that’s the one. Well, that started a lot of nonsense in the human world, it did. Got ’em real upset.”

“Guinevere was real?” Kate’s heartbeat jolted with excitement. “You mean Guinevere as in King Arthur and Guinevere?”

Patch grumbled. “Of course I do, who else? Have you not been listening to a word I’ve said? Things here are real . You must stop thinking like a mortal, Kate of the Winslows.”

“It’s just Kate Winslow.” She wasn’t sure why she was correcting him. She kind of liked being Kate of the Winslows. It sounded... epic, like she was up to the challenge of the labyrinth. And God knew she needed some fun added to this whole nightmare of a deadly labyrinth.

He stuck his tongue out at her before continuing. “You are in our realm. You need to think like a Fae if you mean to make it to the center of the labyrinth.”

“So there is a way to the center. You said there wasn’t, but now you say it’s possible.” She couldn’t stop the grin that curved her lips.

Patch adjusted his bag on his shoulder and let out a weary sigh.

“Is that heavy? I’d be happy to carry it for you,” she offered. It did seem to hurt his shoulder.

He halted, a little reluctant, before he held out the bag to her.

“But you’d better not run off with it, girl,” he shot her a warning glare beneath his dark, bushy brows.

The bag was heavy, but she had strong shoulders thanks to being a member of the swim team in high school, so she swung the bag up and let it rest on her shoulder.

“Nothing is impossible here, but if anything came close... it would be the labyrinth. Lord Arun is the only one who knows the way through it without magic. He allows his soldiers and any others in his realm safe passage so they can reach the dark woods and the Black Hills, but that won’t help you. ”

“Why not?”

“Because he sends them on the Fae roads.”

“What are the Fae roads?”

“Pathways on the wind. Only the Shining Ones can create them. And as the strongest of the Fae here, Lord Arun is the only one who can counteract the enchantments above the labyrinth to create the Fae roads for the dark Fae to travel when we need to.”

“Patch, I thought Roan created the labyrinth. He said it was his. Why doesn’t he simply undo the enchantments to let his soldiers travel through it?” She and Patch walked together as the sun sank lower and lower into the sky until it was almost beneath the tops of the ivy-covered walls.

They took another turn in the walls covered in greenery, and Kate kept her right hand slightly lifted toward the outside wall so she wouldn’t lose her way.

“No one knows who created the labyrinth. It simply appeared here one day, and only Lord Arun was able to find a way through it. It wasn’t always so.

.. big. In its early years, it was smaller, simpler, but it’s changed and grown over the centuries.

Many others from the Twilight Court in the early days believed they could find their way to the center, and they were never seen again. ” The kobold looked up at her.

“I know Lord Arun has your little brother an’ all, but why would you care to leave our realm? You might find that what he desires, you desire too. The pixies say that those who are loved by the Shining Ones are blessed with pleasures untold.”

“If the pleasures are untold, then how can the pixies tell you about them?” Kate smirked when Patch frowned at her clever twist of his words.

“You don’t want to be the lover of the king? Foolish, that’s what I said when I first saw you, girl. Foolish.”

“It’s not foolish to want to be free to make my own choices, Patch.

” Kate bit her lip, searching for the right words.

“Ever since my mom died, I’ve been told what to do and what was expected of me.

This was the year that was supposed to change.

I was going to college to be free, really free.

But being here, a slave to Roan’s desires, that’s worse than being at home.

At least at home I could go back to the dorms and escape.

” Here she would be in a gilded cage, and yes, dammit she liked the way Roan kissed, but that didn’t give him the right to just. .. own her.

She curled her hands into fists. The raw pain from the rope had faded, and the red spots from the thorns were almost gone, both healing much faster than she ever expected. It was a small relief.

Patch chuckled ruefully. “No one ever escapes being controlled by others. That’s life.

Someone is always above you giving orders.

What you can control is how you react. Take me, for example.

I have three brothers, Grim, Gull, and Pinch.

We kobolds are born to mine and quest for treasure, but I didn’t want to spend my life underground.

So I carry the gems my brothers find to a spot where folks from the palace treasury will collect them.

I’m free in the open air and not beneath the dark earth with my brothers.

Got to be clever, eh?” He tapped his temple.

“Yes,” Kate murmured. “We’ve got to be clever.”

She had been clever sneaking out of Roan’s rooms. And by the look on his face when she’d seen him waiting below, he had found it amusing.

Of course, he’d nearly kissed the life out of her, then carried her off like some barbarian warlord.

A flush of heat rolled through her as she remembered the way he’d held her so possessively, as if she weighed nothing, and the way his blue eyes had swept over her face.

She’d sworn she’d seen affection beneath the cool exterior of his expression.

But he couldn’t like her. He didn’t even know her.

She was just a possession to him, and all she did was run away from him.

Wouldn’t that make him furious with her?

With an inner frown, she pushed thoughts of Roan away and studied the sky. The sun was overhead now, and she noted the changing shadows. They were starting to lean in the opposite direction.

As they turned a corner, a beautiful waterfall appeared out of the rock wall, framed on either side by ivy.

It poured into a vast pool lined with shallow stones.

Lily pads as wide as Kate was tall covered the surface.

The crystalline water coming down out of the rocks looked cold.

Kate licked her dry lips and started toward the water.

Patch snatched her wrist, halting her. “Drink from the waterfall itself, not the pool.”

“Why?”

“You might wake the morgens,” he whispered.

“What are the morgens?”

“Pretty things with shiny tails and long hair.” Patch waved a hand at his own tangled mess of hair.

“If you hear them sing, you’ll get close enough that they can grab you.

Then they’ll drown you. Before you die, their song will show you your favorite memories, to soothe you as they steal your last breath. ”

“Like sirens?” Kate asked.

Patch nodded. “But sirens aren’t carnivorous by nature. They don’t always try to drown you. Morgens, however, love to kill and will eat you.”

But Kate was so thirsty, part of her wanted to rush over and plunge her hands into the quiet pool to drink.

“ Only drink from the waterfall,” Patch reminded her.

They skirted the stone-ringed pool and approached the rock wall carefully. Patch cupped a hand and filled it with falling water, bringing it to his lips. Kate set Patch’s bag down on the ground and used her hands to cup the water and drink.

Then she heard a soft splash, and she turned around to see a morgen watching her from the ledge of the pool. Her orange tail swished playfully in the water. She brushed her wet blonde hair away from her face and smiled warmly at Kate.

“Don’t move, and plug your ears!” Patch hissed.

Too late.

The morgen opened her mouth. The kobold plunged his fingers into his ears, and Kate tried to do the same, but slowed... and stopped.

The sounds she heard were like honey upon Kate’s ears, making her feel warm and safe.

Her body longed to take a step closer to the beautiful creature.

The song reminded her so much of her mother.

How could such a beautiful Fae possibly harm her?

She was certain that this creature would wrap her in her arms and care for her. .. love her.

But something didn’t make sense. Why would she love her? It... all of it was wrong. The song’s intensity wavered, and her vision began to lose the golden glow that had haloed around the morgen.

Kate gasped, struggling to regain control of her own mind. Caden. Think of Caden .

She held on to the image of Caden as he grasped the bars of his cell, his frightened face as he called her name. The tremor in his voice, the darkness of the dungeons, and her desperation to free him. The truth that her brother needed her outweighed any pretty lie a song could weave in her head.

Patch’s hand lowered from his ears, and he began to walk toward the pool in a trance. The morgen ran her fingers through her hair like a comb, still singing her deadly song.

“Patch! Stop!” Kate lunged forward, but she missed the kobold and almost fell in the water. Patch leapt toward the morgen, who held out her arms to catch the little Fae creature as he jumped over the lip of the stone pool’s edge.

“No!” Kate screamed.

The morgen plunged into the water with Patch, vanishing beneath the lily pads.

Kate sprinted toward the edge of the pool and peered into the water. She saw the morgen swimming down into the darkness far below, Patch still in her arms.

“Oh, hell no!” She wasn’t going to let some evil mermaid thing take Patch.

Kate kicked off her boots, jerked off her sweater and jeans, and plunged into the pool, wearing nothing but her bra and panties.

She swam with powerful strokes, gaining on the morgen, who didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Once she was in reach, she grabbed hold of Patch’s arm and jerked.

Patch slipped free of the morgen’s arms, and the morgen twisted in the water and slashed at Kate with clawlike fingers, raking her arm.

Blood clouded the water, and Kate tried not to cry out in pain.

She kicked the morgen in the chest, using her as a springboard to push her and Patch toward the surface.

Stunned, the creature swam away into the vast deep below.

Kate struggled back to the surface, an unconscious Patch wrapped in one arm. The flickering circle of light above her seemed desperately far away, but she had to keep going.

At last she broke the surface and pushed Patch onto the stone ledge. He jerked, coughed, and sputtered water all over the ground. Kate breathed a sigh of relief, still clinging to the stone wall, then pulled herself up on shaking arms.

Something slithered around her ankle, and a second later she was jerked back under the surface, her scream choked by water. Two morgens were holding her ankles, tugging her back down to the dark depths, toward death.

No... can’t...

She tried to swim, but with only her arms free, she couldn’t fight the two powerful morgens.

She had no breath, and her lungs screamed in agony.

An eerie, beautiful sound echoed in the water like a whale’s song, wrapping her in its beauty.

The chill in her limbs turned warm and comforting.

Her eyes closed and suddenly she was home .

Kate was curled up by the fire, her mother’s arms wrapped around her shoulders as they read a story and drank hot chocolate from their favorite mugs.

“Mom,” Kate said uncertainly, too afraid to believe that somehow she’d been transported back in time. But she’d been in another realm, so wasn’t anything possible?

Her mother’s eyes were soft, sweet, full of that brown fire the Kate sometimes saw in her own eyes.

“I’m dreaming,” Kate guessed.

Amber Winslow shook her head. “You’re dying,” she corrected Kate gently. “But it’s all right. We can stay right here, in this memory, together.” Her mother squeezed her waist and kissed her forehead.

Stay here with her? Kate wanted that, wanted to stay in her mother’s arms. “Forever?”

“Yes, my darling,” Amber said softly and stroked her hair. “Just like this.”

Kate shook her head. No. Her mother was dead. This couldn’t be real. She couldn’t stay even if she wanted to. She had to do something.

The vision of her mother vanished, and once more her eyes sought the ring of bright water far above her. So far away... The view of the sky above began to fade back into the comforting sanctuary of her mother and the warm fireplace.

Then she glimpsed a figure blacking out the sun and plunging into the water, shooting toward her like a falling star as it began to glow with a light that was beyond words.

It made her think of Roan. She reached out her hand, wanting to touch that figure wreathed in light.

But it was too late. She couldn’t take it anymore, and in a desperate gasp, her lungs filled with water.

It all went quiet. All went dark.