Page 7 of Swords and Curses

Eldon waved her apology aside. "I expected something like this to happen. Magic usually awakens in different ways. Whatever happened last night must've triggered it." He raised a knowing eyebrow at Rosa, and she flushed, focusing on the silver torc and the pendants that hung from a chain around his neck. Anywhere but his face. He had a lot of lean, tattooed muscle on his tall frame that she wouldn't have pictured hidden under his clothes.

"So what now?" she asked.

"Now, I go back to sleep for a few hours and…oh, don't look at me like that, Rosa," Eldon huffed. "Fine, I'm going to have a shower. I'll meet you in the kitchen in half an hour."

"Thank you,cefnder," she said with a smile. "I like your tattoos."

"All women do," Eldon said and headed for the attic door. On his back was the tattoo of a tree, its roots and branches curling into each other in Celtic knot patterns. Rosa's eyes burned when she looked at it for too long.

"You can stop staring now," Balthasar said dryly.

"Kind of hard not to with all that wild raven hair and golden eyes. He's absolutely Unseelie and so much like Eli." Rosa looked over her shoulder at him. "I'm sorry about the roses."

"Don't be," Balthasar said, putting an arm around her shoulders. "When my magic woke up, I burned down a tavern in Florence."

Rosa laughed into the groove of his collarbone. "You're right, that would've been much worse. I don't mind the roses as long as they stay on the bedposts. I can't believe having sex last night made my magic manifest."

He kissed the top of her head. "Well, the sex was pretty outstanding."

"Does that mean you're going to come for a shower with me?" Rosa asked, letting him go and heading for the bathroom.

"Do you think that is wise, considering we needed Eldon to rescue us?"

"Only a shower then," Rosa agreed. "I shudder to think how he would find us if something went wrong."

The kitchen waswarm and inviting. With all the changes that she had been going through in the last month, the kitchen was the only place Rosa felt solid. Cecily and the three J's had gone to London to do some shopping, so it was blissfully quiet as Rosa brewed coffee and made breakfast.

When Eldon came in fifteen minutes later, he was wearing a mulberry-colored shirt and black waistcoat, his wet raven hair pushed back from his face.

"Hungry?" Rosa asked and put down a plate on the bench piled high with bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, and toast.

"That psychic link must be working still," Eldon said, sitting down and picking up his fork. She passed him a mug of coffee before sitting down opposite him with her own breakfast. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm freaking out," Rosa admitted truthfully. "I had to drink half a cup of blood this morning. That's new."

"I can imagine."

"Do you have to do that?"

"No, thank God," Eldon said, and put a piece of bacon in his mouth. "I was born, not created. I have all the Unseelie abilities if I want to use them but have none of the downsides."

"It's a small price to pay, I suppose. At least I'm not like the Gwaed Gam."

"They would turn out okay if they weren't batshit crazy when they were humans," Eldon replied. "Eli and the princes have their work cut out for them, I imagine."

"God, yes. The clans are going mental and have no Seelie to take their frustrations out on. I'm hoping when they find out Ryn is dead, they will settle down," Rosa said, cradling her hot mug in her hands. They still shook with the memory and sensation of cutting Ryn's head off, the way the sword hummed in her hands.

"Albion is not happy," Eldon said slowly. "I'm tied to this land, and it woke me up by screaming a few weeks ago. I would say when you and Balthasar found your way back from the Aos Si and killed Ryn."

"Why would that affect anything? Ryn was a consort, not a king."

"He carried the dead Seelie king's sword. That sword is now yours by right of conquest."

"I had dreams when I was turning about snow falling in the Seelie lands. Then you said the same thing. What was that all about? I know the Autumn Queen was going to be mad when she found out about Ryn, but I didn't think it snowed in Faerie." Rosa pushed a mushroom around her plate. "I thought the queen made it an eternal autumn."

"Shedid. That's why I got here as fast as I could. None of it made sense until you told me what happened there." Eldon looked sheepish for a moment. "I may have cursed the Wylts like a failsafe."

"Cursed us? How's a curse meant to be a failsafe?" Rosa demanded.

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