A Veil of Truth and Trickery (The Veiled Realm, #1)

by Analeigh Ford

The line of his jaw could cut as surely as a knife, as surely as the downturned corners of his mouth would slice me with a curse spoken from those drawn lips. He towered over me, easily seven feet tall, with broad shoulders and arms that could squeeze the life out of a human without trying. He was no willowy creature of fairytale. He was massive, looming, and oh so very real.

It was the only person here who wouldn’t want me to choose faerie that made me choose it. I chose it for Sol.

“No, human. I can’t read your mind any better than you can read mine. If you want to keep your thoughts private, though, you might want to work on keeping them off your face.”

The trees—massive and ancient—were dotted with moss and mushrooms that gave off a glowing light of their own. Small insects blinked in and out of existence all around us. The very rivulets of sap that pooled between the grooved bark seemed to glitter darkly.

I’d make Caldamir and all the rest of the fae here rue the day they’d made the deal that brought me to this place. If Avarath itself didn’t kill me first.

His slender body was powerful in its own right, more lithe and narrow—but no less dangerous. His hair, long and rosy hued, cascaded over his shoulders in the softest waves. Full lips parted in an effortlessly sultry smile to reveal perfect, pearly teeth. On his head was a crown, not that he needed one.

This new bit of information begged the question—what kind of deal had been made that prompted a prince of the fae realm to come and collect? No fae are spotted in Alderia in decades, and the first one that is … is a prince?

His skin was more than bronzed, and his hair dark and coarse, so thick it could rival the mare’s beneath me. His eyes were lighter than either Nyx or Caldamir’s, a blue so bright they couldn’t be more different from the pools of black embedded in my own skull.

“Of course, you’re human.” “At home I was called fae-marked,” I pressed on. “It’s why Caldamir took me.” Armene muttered something like a swear under his breath, and this time it was his turn to glance over his shoulder toward where we’d left the other fae. “I knew it. The moment I saw you, I knew it.” My heartbeat quickened as he continued, half muttering to himself. “The hair, the eyes, how did he think we wouldn’t see it?” “So, I do look like fae.”

“If I do look like fae, why haven’t I seen any like me?” Armene’s brow drew into a scowl. “That’s because they’re gone.” Gone. “Where did they go?” Armene looked back over his shoulder at me. He seemed to consider me for a moment before tugging the horse away from one of the last buildings and toward where the forest grew thicker further in. “That doesn’t matter, not nearly so much as what they left behind.”

“The Pool of Indecision,” he said, nodding once as a grimace spread across his face. “The last great gift of the Starlight Court before it abandoned us.”

Armene’s eyes averted from mine as I hitched up the bottom of my skirts to keep from soaking them, but he was already trudging back up the stairs toward the horse before I could see if a blush had risen to match his sudden shyness.

He was more muscular than any of the other fae I’d met, or maybe he was just the first one I’d seen bare chested. His skin was so dark it nearly rivaled the inky blackness that had moments before been trying to lure me into their warm shallows, but it was his eyes that were really the most striking. They were a bright and luminous gold, the pupils slitted down the center into two, mirrored half-moons. Gold piercings glittered in his ears and brows, long braided plaits falling down across that muscular chest as he leaned closer to my face to look at me.

Right before I promptly vomited a lungful of water right into his open mouth. “I usually like to get to know someone before I let them do that to me,” he said, his one free hand reaching up to wipe the bottom half of his face. “Though I suppose we all have to start somewhere … and the story of how Tethys, Prince of the Sea, saved you from drowning before you vomited on him is going to make a good one.”

He took a risk, for me. There was only one explanation. They needed me for something. But for what … I supposed I’d just have to wait to find out.

“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked in the silence of heavy breaths that followed. “Or are the three of you just going to fuck already?” All three sets of eyes turned to me. The weight of it was enough to make me squirm. “You should have some respect for your betters. Language like that—” Caldamir started, but I’d had enough. “Won’t matter if I’m dead,” I said, squaring my own shoulders despite the way breath seemed to want to evade me. “I’m going to die soon, anyway. So, nothing matters. Right?”

“You’re my favorite, you know that?” I said, pausing with one foot swung over the sill. I glanced back once to the demon standing stoically guard at the door. He bowed his head to me slightly. “As the creature here most likely to eat you if I was allowed, I take it as an honor.”

“Tell me this isn’t your first time. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.” “It’s not,” I said, trying to steady my trembling lips. “There was another.” “Good,” he said. “Now I’m going to make you forget him.”

Our eyes met for a moment, before he climbed up into his own saddle. A pink blush rose in his cheeks, and with a shy flutter of lashes far too long for any man to have the right to be in possession of, he nudged his horse forward to rejoin Caldamir and Tallulah still arguing about plans up ahead.

“Nyx, I can honestly say you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on,” I said, trying without much success to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Human or fae.” His face lit up, that same rosy blush rising up to color his cheeks that I’d caught once before. “You … you really think so?” “Yes,” I said, genuine for just a moment. Then I heard my own name, the sound so distant it struck a panicked nerve inside me. “Now, can we get going?”

“And I think,” I said, nodding toward the light that had disappeared around another bend in the path, “that I’m not confusing you at all. I think you just want to be the hero. You don’t want to admit that maybe, just maybe, you’re the villain.” “Is that really what you think of me?” He turned back to look at me, but it was too dark for me to make out his face. I didn’t have to wait until we’d rounded the corner, until I could make sure that he saw the hate I felt plain on my own face when I answered. But I did, anyway. “Yes,” I said, setting my jaw once we were once again in the flickering torch light. “That’s exactly what I think of you.”

“Lovemaking in my court is a sacred bond,” he said, the words coming out strained as he formed them, as if he was trying hard not to offend me. “It wouldn’t be right for me to take you into my bed knowing the future I’ve condemned you to.” It wasn’t until he looked away and his hands curled up at his side, that I realized I’d read him wrong. His hands didn’t simply curl up, they’d turned white. His breaths were shallow and measured, as if he was carefully timing each one. More telling, still, was the way he tilted his body away from mine, one leg coming up to cross over the other in an attempt to hide the throbbing need between them. He wasn’t trying not to offend me. He was trying to restrain himself.

“Ah good, so you didn’t die.”

“I’ve missed the feel of you in my arms,” Tethys whispered. He leaned his salty lips toward mine so I could taste the sea on his breath again. “You say that like it’s been an eternity since that night.” “An eternity sounds about right. Though if we’re being exact … thirteen days.”

“You can’t know how afraid I was that I’d never get to see you again. Never feel the warmth of your hand or the …” “Stop, Tethys. Stop right now.”

“How can you say you were worried about me when you know … when you know what you have planned for me?” Tethys started to take a step toward me once more, but he forced himself to stop. “You think I wanted this?” His chest was heaving again, his voice growing louder. “I didn’t ask for this. For you. It’s not my fault that you consume my every thought. Night or day. Waking or sleeping. You’re there. You’re always there.” “What are you saying?” “I’m saying …” He moved forward, taking me up in his arms before I had the chance to decide whether or not I wanted him to. “I’m saying that I think I’m falling in love with you, Delphine.”

It’d been so long since I thought about my curse. I thought my curse was being brought here to Avarath, but I was wrong. I wasn’t cursed. I was the curse.