Page 77 of A City of Emeralds and Envy
“Caer, Jasper, hold him,” says Riordan. “It should be easy—he lacks his Fae strength. He’s weak as a human right now. No healing abilities, either. The marks we make on him now will remain.” There’s a twitch along his jaw, right near one of his cheek-mouths.
“You were going to kill Dorothy,” Alice says quietly to West. “So she should be the one to end you. Unless you’d rather one of us did it, Dorothy… since you… well…”
“You think because I fucked him, I can’t kill him?” My voice sounds higher than usual, but it’s strong. “I’m Unseelie. I have no qualms about doing this.”
Taking the dagger from my belt, I walk forward, while Caer and Jasper shove West back against the wall and pin him there, his arms outstretched. His green skin and dark lips still gleam with drops of the well-water Caer threw on him. His eyes meet mine, deep-brown and sorrowful—almost desperate. Again he tries to speak—and again he can’t manage a word through his magic-stiffened lips.
Agony and despair wash over his features, but he nods, mute and resigned. Closing his eyes, he tips up his chin, baring his throat to my knife.
“Do it quickly,” Riordan says, tension in his deep voice. “You must transport us back to the Emerald City before midnight, or the bargain with the Wizard becomes void.”
“I know,” I hiss over my shoulder. Behind me, Alice whispers, “Leave her be, Riordan. This is hard for her.” In a louder voice, strained with sympathy, she says, “Dorothy, let someone else do it. Please. You shouldn’t have to—”
“Shouldn’t have to what?” I whirl, the dagger clenched in my fingers. “Shouldn’t have to kill someone I fucked? Someone who understands me better than any of you do—evenyou.” I point the knife at Riordan. “Or you, Alice—we were raised in the same realm, in the same region, and yet you understandnothingabout me. Nothing.Hedoes.” I whirl back to West, setting the tip of the dagger against the pulse point of his throat. My voice cracks, hoarse and hollow. “He sees inside me like no one else ever has. And yet I have to kill him because all ofyouwant him dead. Because youneedhim dead, to ensure your own happiness. What has he ever done to any of you?”
“He’s wicked, Dorothy,” Alice says gently. “He keeps all these people under his control. His family—”
“The people under his thrall seem perfectly happy and healthy,” I counter. “Certainly they’re better off than the rest of the inhabitants of this Isle. Sometimes people—Fae or human—need to be controlled, for their own good, by someone who knows what’s best for them.”
“As the temporary ruler of the Dread Court, for all of one month—I agree with you,” Riordan says. “But he has a blood-feud against you. He has sworn vengeance on your head for the death of his sister.”
“No.” I’m staring into West’s face, into his eyes, now open, fixed on me. Hope ignites in his gaze, and a fiercely tender look—the same one I saw on his face the last time he fucked me. I understand the message in those eyes, as clearly as if he has spoken it aloud. “No, he wouldn’t. Hecan’tkill me, any more than I can kill him.”
The knife drops to my feet, and I lift both hands, shoving Caer and Jasper away from West with a blast of magic. Caer lands on his feet, crouched low, snarling, while Jasper smashes into a dresser and picks himself out of the wooden shards, looking deeply offended.
I turn my back to West, my body shielding his. “None of you will touch him,” I declare, in a voice more powerful than any I’ve used in my life.
Riordan advances—so much taller and broader than me. His scarred fingers tighten into fists. “Don’t do this. I will not suffer hundreds of years in a suit of armor so that you can play queen to the last paltry king of this godsforsaken isle. I will not sacrifice my own happiness again—not even for you. Not even for my own blood. This I swear.”
“You’re not a fighter,” I say through gritted teeth, while my magic seeps into the stones of the tower, causing the floor to quake. “You can’t stop me.”
“Oh, but I can, little sister. And I will.” Red eyes blazing, he reaches for my throat. To my surprise, I have some of my concussive magic left—maybe my shoes are synced to me at last. I throw that force against my brother’s chest, and he flies backward, crashing into a bookshelf.
Caer springs at me next, but I push extra force into his jump and he soars over me, smashing into the open window and nearly tumbling out. Alice screams, drops Fiero, and runs to him, helping him scramble back inside. Freed from Alice’s protective arms, Fiero runs back and forth, barking frantically at all of us.
Jasper approaches me, his sword awkwardly angled toward my breast, a tortured look in his blue eyes. “I can’t lose them. Not after I just found them—please, Dorothy—”
I agitate the particles of his weapon, heating the metal until he drops it with a yelp.
Riordan is struggling to his feet, but apparently his hold on West’s tongue broke, because from behind me, the Witch shouts, “Stop, all of you! I have a way out of this, if you will only listen!”
“They won’t listen,” I grit out. “No one does. No one evercaresenough to listen.”
“That’s not fair, Dorothy,” Alice seethes. She’s truly angry now—flushed and flaming.
“Not just them, Kin-Slayer,” West says soothingly. “I need you to listen, too. Let’s all sit down, and I will tell you why killing me would end your life as well. I’ll explain my plan to fulfill your bargain with the Wizardandtrap him forever.”
Alice stares at him, startled. She flings out her hand, and Caer, who was just about to pounce on West again, settles for shredding the leather of the armchair with his ten claws.
Killing West would end my life as well? And he has a plan to trap the Wizard forever? What the fuck is the Witch talking about?
Riordan clears his throat, brushing off his green vest. “Well then. That sounds promising. Why didn’t you say so before?”
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“Killing you will end my life?” I exclaim. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a ritual adapted from the way our ancestors used to claim their mates, millennia ago,” he says. “Some Fae still believe in the practice of marking a mate, but usually it is done purely for erotic and emotional purposes, with little magical power behind it. However, for my family, marking a mate with your arousal and theirs, and being marked in return, carries a greater significance. When accompanied by a mutual love and desire to be each other’s eternal partner, that act creates a mate bond. I believe the Seelie have something like it in their royal family, but I’m not sure if it is still practiced. Here in Oz, a royal mate bond ensures ultimate loyalty, because the death of one partner causes the death of the other.”
