Married by Treachery Page 15

  Edom roared as he swung a massive fist, but the Fake Edom ducked away—or tried to. Edom caught the coat’s hem at the last second, and he pulled.

  Sliding the coat right off of Jake.

  And then Jake was himself again.

  “There you are, little brother,” Edom spat, and he ripped the coat in two.

  King Issachar cried out.

  Jake glanced over as the king’s head rolled to the side, his milky eyes blank as they stared at the ceiling.

  “Father!” Jake yelled and started for him, but Edom’s gaze settled on Raquel.

  And Raquel ran.

  She’d made it two steps before Edom grabbed her skirts and jerked her back. Raquel gasped in surprise, then slipped the blade from her corset, turned, and tried to plunge it into his chest, but he grabbed her wrist and wrenched it from her fingers, not caring that the metal cut his skin. Not caring that he bled.

  He jerked her around and pressed the blade to her throat. “Enough!”

  Jake stopped two paces away from them. His eyes were dark, his expression lethal as he stared at Edom, at the knife against Raquel’s throat. “Let her go, Edom. Your quarrel is with me.”

  “Which is precisely why I cannot let her go,” Edom said. “She is the only way I can get your attention.”

  Raquel’s heart leapt at Edom’s little insinuation. Which was utterly ridiculous, considering he had a knife at her throat. But Jake didn’t deny it either, and that hope burned brighter.

  “Another step and she dies,” Edom said.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would.”

  “You know we need this.”

  “You need this. I have no use for her. You stole my birthright, traitorous worm.”

  Jake’s expression darkened, his body tensing. “You would destroy this kingdom and everything in it.”

  Edom looked long at Jake. “And you would be the king of nothing.”

  Raquel sensed Edom’s move the split second before it happened. Like a dream playing in slow motion, she watched, knowing what was coming but unable to move fast enough to stop it. She watched him pull back the knife, watched it arc down toward her chest. waiting and knowing it would cut right through her heart and spill her blood all over the tiles so that Jake could never use it.

  So that Jake could never heal this land from its curse.

  She tried to slip away, but she couldn’t move fast enough. The blade gleamed as it arched down, and down, and—

  Jake appeared right in front of her, shoved her away, and the knife plunged into his chest instead.

  22

  Raquel gasped as Jake’s body absorbed the impact, and he stumbled back into her.

  “You fool!” Edom crowed as he laughed.

  Jake’s weight was too much for Raquel, and she collapsed beneath him just as something exploded through the window.

  Giant wings flapped, and a horrible shriek echoed.

  A Depraved.

  What in the… what was a Depraved doing here? Now? Raquel’s attention was torn between this new horror and the man currently bleeding to death on top of her.

  The Depraved landed on the floor, its wings arched behind it like some avenging demon, and Raquel’s eyes widened as she realized she knew it.

  This was the Depraved from the forest. The smaller one that had stopped and looked at her as if…

  It had recognized her.

  And it was looking at her now.

  Familiarity pricked at Raquel—something that went beyond the physical. It shone in the soul trapped behind those glassy black eyes, and a chill swept over Raquel, head to toe. She remembered something Jake had said about the mist, the curse.

  It comes to claim all of us eventually.

  Jake had not lied. Adina had been alive when he’d last seen her. He just failed to mention he’d lost her to the curse.

  “Adina…?” Raquel’s voice fell out at a whisper.

  In answer, the small Depraved tipped its head and squawked like a bird of prey.

  Which Edom seized as opportunity, sword in hand.

  “Adina, lookout!”

  The Depraved looked over just as Edom nearly made contact, then flapped its wings and pushed off the ground. Edom’s sword sliced through air, but before he could regain balance, the Depraved grabbed hold of the back of his shirt and lifted him.

  Edom screamed and yelled and kicked and swung, but the Depraved did not let go. It hovered there near the ceiling as it looked at Raquel and cocked its head, and then it soared out through the window it had already broken with a howling Edom in its clutches.

  And then the castle trembled violently.

  Raquel fell over Jake and covered him with her body as best she could until the trembling stopped, and then she finally looked at him, at his injury.

  At the blade sticking out of his chest, where blood bloomed bright and cruel.

  “I…told you she still lived.” Jake tried to smile, but then he coughed. Blood stained his lips and splattered his chest.

  “You idiot! Why did you sacrifice your life for me?” Raquel yelled at him, though she already knew the reason. The only reason anyone ever sacrificed their life for another. “I thought you didn’t—”

  Jake gripped her hand so tight. “I…saw them too.”

  Raquel blinked blurry eyes. “What? Saw what? What are you talking about—”

  “We named the boy Ronan. And the girl Adi, after your mother, and she”—he coughed more blood, and Raquel felt as if that blade were suddenly in her chest—“looked exactly like you.” Jake lifted a hand and placed it upon her cheek, and Raquel choked on her tears. “So…beautiful.”

  Raquel laid her hand over Jake’s. “Why are you telling me this now?” She was so angry at him. “Tell me how to help you! There has to be something…some form of magik—”

  The floor trembled again, and more bits of rock rained down. Raquel tried to cover Jake’s body, but he grabbed her hand and held it to his chest, beside the knife, where his tunic was soaked in blood.

  And he looked at her.

  His eyes were molten but dimming before her eyes. “It was never your heart I needed to claim. It was mine. And you did.” His expression relaxed, his hand slipped, and the light faded completely.

  “No…” Raquel shook him, again and again. “No!” Raquel screamed as more rock fell all around them. “We have a little house in the woods, and a child on the way, and you…” But the light was gone. His honeyed eyes dulled and stared at nothing.

  Raquel’s chest twisted in anguish, and she fell over him, sobbing. Not really sure why it hurt so much, only that it did, and she found it suddenly very difficult to breathe. “You told me you loved me, and I…I never got the chance to say it back.”

  Everything stopped. The trembling, the sound. Everything. The world was quiet, and then a bird chirped a fluttering melody nearby, and Raquel opened her eyes to…color.

  Bright and brilliant.

  A warm sun flickered through the treetops and mottled the forest floor in golden light.

  At first she wondered if the curse had broken. If the disease and rot had vanished and returned this kingdom to its former glory, except the details caught up to her fast. When she’d closed her eyes, she’d been in the palace, but she was no longer in that palace. She was in a densely wooded forest. One she knew well, for it was just outside of Harran.

  Jake lay on the ground before her, his eyes closed as though he were merely asleep, but that couldn’t be…

  Wait.

  Raquel stilled.

  There was no knife, no signs of any injury. No blood stained his tunic.

  “Impossible…” she whispered. Frantic, and a little hopeful, she pulled at the ties of his tunic and opened the front so that she could see where the blade had sunk into his chest.

  And then his hands wrapped firmly around her wrists, stopping her.

  Raquel’s gaze met his bright golds, which shimmered like the thread of the coat his mother had encha
nted. A coat he was wearing. How was that possible? She’d watched Edom tear it in half! But there it was, sure as the sun, and it was no longer brown but the warm honey of his eyes, and when he shifted, the fabric reflected light and all its colors, like a prism. As if the coat had trapped light and color inside of itself.

  “How… the knife…?” she stuttered, but then Jake released her hands and shoved himself to a seated position. He looked down at himself and touched his chest where the knife had been, and his brow wrinkled with confusion and wonder. His gaze shot to the trees, the high branches and blue sky and the sun shining brilliantly beyond.

  And then he closed his eyes.

  For a long moment, he didn’t move—didn’t seem to breathe. He simply sat there, his face turned toward the sun as a light breeze ruffled his hair, and Raquel couldn’t look away from him. There was color to his skin that had not been there before, a flush to his cheeks that made him even more striking—how that was possible, Raquel didn’t know.

  And then those eyes snapped open and landed on her with such force, it knocked the breath from her lungs.

  “You saved me,” he said so softly.

  Raquel was speechless, trapped in his gaze, her heart feeling suddenly too large for her chest. Especially as he reached out with one hand, cupped her cheek, and threaded his fingers into her hair, gazing at her in the way that Dream Jake would have done.

  “The heart I needed to claim was never yours. It was a mortal heart I needed to claim…for myself,” he said, putting the pieces together for both of them.

  “So you are mortal now,” Raquel managed, struggling to follow but also entirely distracted by the warmth of his palm upon her cheek.

  He pulled away to grab her hand instead, then pressed her palm to his bare chest, where his heart beat a strong and steady rhythm. “As mortal as they come, my bride.”

  Raquel was caught somewhere between overwhelming joy and fear for him. “But what about your magik? How will you ever survive in your own kingdom?”

  He glanced past her, at the trees above. “I do not think I am going back to Canna.” A beat passed, and his brow furrowed. “I do not…feel the veil anymore.”

  “Does that mean the curse is broken?”

  An errant breeze stirred his hair. “I do not know.”

  “But what about Sienne, and the children—”

  He squeezed her hand firmly, and he looked back at her. “Whatever has come of Canna’s curse, Sienne is strong, and she will do her best to help our people endure.”

  Because King Issachar was gone. “I’m so sorry about your father,” she said.

  Jake inhaled deeply as his thumb traced little circles inside her palm. “I am too, but he is finally at peace now. And my mother…well, she has always been adept at taking care of herself. Wherever she is.”

  “She did not mend your coat?”

  Jake shook his head. “I did. I found the thread while we were searching her private residence, and mended the coat while I followed you and Edom to the palace. Though nothing I did made it appear like…this.”

  They sat quietly, gazing upon this wondrous and iridescent fabric while his thumb continued tracing circles on her palm.

  “You knew about Adina,” Raquel said at last.

  “I stole her from Edom and hid her away at my mother’s in hopes of winning her affections, but she escaped into the forest and intercepted the Depraved.” He stopped tracing circles and looked at her. “Given how much you cared for her, I thought it a cruel thing to share.”

  “I was right,” she whispered, and Jake arched a brow. “You did have a heart all along.”

  His lips curled, that familiar mischief lit his eyes, and he released her hand to hold her chin instead.

  Raquel stilled, held captive by his touch, and her heart drummed so hard and so fast, she thought it might beat right out of her chest.

  “It seems you were right about me all along,” he said lowly, then leaned in close, his eyes hooded as his warm breath feathered across her lips. “You also mentioned we had a house in these woods.”

  Raquel felt suddenly hot all over. “You heard that?”

  His lips brushed hers. Teasing, taunting. “And I believe you were going to tell me you loved me back.”

  Raquel pulled back an inch, bewildered that he had heard any of it, but then he smiled that mischievous smile she so loved, pulled her in, and kissed her mouth once. Twice. Just a touch, but not nearly enough, and yet it still sent shivers through her body.

  “You’ve haunted me every moment of every day since I first laid eyes upon you,” he whispered upon her lips. “I figured I might as well let you have me and be done with it to end my misery.”

  Raquel smiled. “Let me have you—?”

  Jake flipped her onto her back and positioned himself over her. He rested his weight upon his elbows, his hips upon hers. His face was a handsbreadth away, and his eyes were huge and dark as they bored into hers. “I had never known love, until I saw pieces of it in my dreams. Of you.” He brushed the hair back from her face, so tenderly. “My beloved bride.” His finger trailed her lips, and it took everything in her not to pull his lips down to hers right then, but he was not finished speaking. “You were right. Love is far more valuable than living, and so I traded my immortality for a heart.” His thumb pressed into her bottom lip, his gaze burned into hers, and suddenly she understood what he’d been trying to tell her about the curse. About his needing to claim a heart.

  How that was the only thing that could heal their rotting kingdom.

  “And I will love you with all of it for the rest of my numbered days,” he continued. “And I will love our children, and their children, until I have no days left, but I’ve realized there is no death when one loves, for love is its own sort of immortality.”

  Raquel smiled up at him as she wrapped her arms around his neck and played with a clump of his silky black hair. “I am relieved to hear you finally speaking sense.”

  Jake smirked and slowly lowered his mouth to her neck, where he planted one soft kiss. Then another. Each touch was a little flame to her skin, and Raquel closed her eyes, reveling in his warmth and the solid weight of his body. Wanting more. She slid her hand down his back, feeling the muscles shift and flex, and his breath shuddered.

  “You also mentioned we had a child on the way…” he murmured against her skin, and his fingertips danced over the ribs of her corset.

  Raquel’s heart skipped a beat. “A third. Yes.”

  “Then we had better get started, because, as you said, my days are now numbered.”

  Raquel laughed, Jake smiled like the sun, and he kissed her deeply.

  EPILOGUE

  Deep in the woods, there stood a little house. And at this house lived a little family: a father, a mother, and their three children. Two boys and one girl. Most would call them poor, for they did not possess much in the way of material things, and what they did own bore the scars of age and ample use. But they understood—as very few understand—that it is not things that make one rich.

  It is love and the relationships rooted within it.

  And that, they had in abundance.

  They could have sold the coat. That gleaming gold anomaly from another place, from another time. It would have earned them a treasure of coin, this artifact from the other side of the veil. But the father knew well what gold did to a man and what greed did to a kingdom, and they held fast to this symbol of what had been, of what they had overcome.

  So that they would never be tempted into depravity again.

  And so one night, while the children were asleep, after Jake had told them the story of the coat for the hundredth time and he saw how that golden hue gleamed in his eldest’s eyes, he and his beloved bride neatly folded it up, wrapped it in cloth, and buried it deep in the earth. They tried to destroy it first—tried to throw it in fire—but this coat was from another world, and it could not be harmed by this one.

  As Jake dumped the last bit of dirt ov
er the buried treasure with his shovel, Raquel slipped her fingers through his and rested her head against his shoulder.

  “It won’t stay buried forever,” she said. “The truth never does.”

  “Then let it stay buried for now,” he replied as he squeezed her hand gently. “Until the world is ready to receive it.”

  THE END…

  ….for now.

  About the Series

  Arranged Marriages of the Fae is a multi-author series of short novels written by seven romantic fantasy authors on the same theme. These books can be read on their own, but you’ll have so much more fun if you read the whole series!

  As authors, we want to thank you for getting swept away by our fantasy romances and we wish you hours of enjoyment and escape!

  Married by Wind

  Married by Fate

  Married by Scandal

  Married by War

  Married by Treachery

  Married by Starfall

  Married by Dusk

  FIND THEM ALL HERE

  ALSO BY BARBARA KLOSS

  THE GODS OF MEN SERIES

  The Gods of Men

  Temple of Sand

  A Symphony of Stars

  THE PANDORAN NOVELS

  Gaia’s Secret

  The Keeper’s Flame

  Breath of Dragons

  Heir of Pendel

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Barbara studied biochemistry at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA, and worked for years as a clinical laboratory scientist. She was lured there by mental images of colorful bubbling liquids in glass beakers. She was deceived. Always an avid reader, especially of fantasy, she began drafting her own stories, writing worlds and characters that were never beyond saving.

  She currently lives in northern California with her gorgeous husband, three kids, and pup. When she's not writing, she's usually reading, trekking through the wilderness, playing the piano, or gaming—though she doesn't consider herself a gamer. She just happens to like video games. RPGs, specifically. Though now that her kids are getting older, she's finding she has to share her gaming consoles more than she would like.