She’d save his life today and he could hate her for it tomorrow.
Ronan bowed his head and made fists, working the blood through his arms and trying to ignore the slight sting of the iron. It was an effective torture for the fae. Normally charmed iron not only nulled a fae’s magick, it made him sick. Eventually, if the iron was left on the skin for too long, it would kill.
However as a mage who was particularly susceptible to the metal, he’d worked for years on developing a resistance to it. He murmured under his breath and blue green magick sparked in his palms. His magick wasn’t as strong as when he didn’t have charmed iron touching his skin, but it was strong enough.
Bloody hell, could it be? Did Bella still have a flicker of feeling for him? He thought he’d killed that off along with everything else good in his life a long time ago. For the first time in decades, hope flared to life inside him.
Maybe he had something to live for after all.
He needed to find out for certain. That meant there was no way he was going to rot in here any longer.
Not with Bella out there still caring for him.
And, bloody hell, she’d looked so good. His hands curled involuntarily remembering how satiny smooth her skin looked. He couldn’t wait to run his fingers over it, his tongue. That dress she’d been wearing was like sin woven into fabric the way it showcased her full, delectable br**sts and how it tapered down her long, slender, kissable back. He wanted to plunge his hands into her thick fall of dark hair, wanted her legs around his waist while he f**ked her until she couldn’t see straight. He wanted to put his claim on her, make her his in every way he could. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman.
None but Bella would do.
Bella was his. He’d given her up once, but he’d learned his lesson. No way was he ever doing it again.
Ronan began to plot his escape.
TWO
Bella crossed the stone floor of her living room, feeling the chill of the night even through her slippers.
Not even the thickly woven rugs her people were so famous for could keep out the cold. Wrapping her silk bathrobe more firmly around her, she sank onto a settee in front of the well-insulated floor-to-ceiling sheet of glass that served as her apartment’s outside wall. She had a wonderful view of Piefferburg from the third-to-top floor of the Seelie Court residence. Only the Summer Queen above her had a better view, and perhaps Aislinn Christiana Guinevere Finvarra, her even more highly placed friend.
The building was organized by social rank. Bella’s blood was very pure, her parentage nearly pristine Seelie Tuatha Dé Danann—no Unseelie, trooping fae, or wilding blood at all. As far as was public knowledge, anyway. Bella had suspected for a long time that she carried Unseelie in her gene pool. But as far as the Summer Court was concerned, she was descended from the original Tuatha Dé Danann bloodlines of Ireland. They themselves had been immigrants from Scandinavia, and before that . . .
Well, no one knew for certain, but there was much speculation about their origin.
When she’d gone to the Summer Queen to demand Ronan’s hand even though he’d told her no, she’d expected the queen to agree because of Bella’s high placement at court. The Summer Queen had denied her petition, however, wanting to see blood flow. Not even her rank and Ronan’s previously high status would sway the Seelie Royal. The queen wanted Ronan’s head and now she had every reason to take it.
Ronan would die in the morning. The Wild Hunt would collect his soul the next night. Bella had to resign herself to the reality of the situation.
Her stomach leaden, she glanced down at the large square that separated the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. The Seelie Court was called the Rose Tower because it was constructed of rose quartz. The Unseelie Court was referred to as the Black Tower because—never to be outdone—it was made from black quartz. The delivery of large quantities of each had been allowed by human society and the Phaendir, and magick had been employed to make them useable as construction material.
Below her she could barely make out two figures—brownies, she thought—cavorting and playing in the softly falling snow. The whole city was awash in Yule parties at this time of the season. Elderberry wine, the traditionally favored drink of the fae, flowed fast and furiously. Mortals even risked passage beyond the city limits to partake of the festivities, though not all would make it back. That was the rule of Piefferburg, a prison sometimes called Purgatory, borrowing from human Christian tradition, by those who lived here. No fae could leave the city, but humans could enter, so long as they understood they became prey to anything that lived here once they passed the boundaries.
They still came. The fools.
The Phaendir, a powerful guild of druids, had created and still controlled the borders of Piefferburg with warding. They called it a “resettlement area.”
If one wanted to be philosophical about it, the fate of the fae was poetic punishment for the horrible fae race wars of the early 1600s that had decimated their population and left them easy prey to their common enemy, the Phaendir. The wars had forced the fae from the underground, and the humans had panicked in the face of the truth—the fae were real.
On top of the wars, a mysterious sickness called Watt Syndrome had also befallen them. Some thought the illness had been created by the Phaendir. However it had come about, the result was the same—it had further weakened them.
That’s when the Phaendir had allied with the humans to imprison them in an area of what had then been the New World, founded by a human named Jules Piefferburg.
These days the sects of fae who’d warred in the 1600s had reached an uneasy peace. Trapped together in Piefferburg, they were united against the Phaendir because that old human saying was true—the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Most fae felt a surprising lack of animosity toward humans who’d been so frightened of the fae and so manipulated by the Phaendir.
But not all of the fae felt that way.
These days the humans weren’t just frightened of the fae, they were also highly fascinated by them.
They passed the borders of Piefferburg knowing they took their lives in their hands, yet unable to resist the draw. It had always been that way, since the dawn of human evolution. Humans were like moths drawn to the seductive and magickal faery flame. It was one of the reasons the fae had chosen to go underground so many thousands of years ago.
The Summer Queen had even allowed a human film crew to stay in residence at the Seelie Court. They produced a television show for the mortals called Faemous, which followed the social frolicking of the Rose Tower. Apparently it was the most popular program on human television. Humans were so enthralled with them that they would sit on a couch and watch fae lives played out rather than live their own lives. It was ridiculous, in Bella’s opinion.