I reached for the ladle, and the maid ran over with her apron swishing. She pulled it out of my hand before I could dip it into the boiling soup to grab a taste, her fingers brushing mine, and I felt a tug at my heart. It was gentle and stopped the moment the contact ended, but it was enough to leave me gasping for air.

My hands trembled and looked pale, while her cheeks now held a rosy sheen and healthy glow. Her eyes remained wide in shock and fear as she backed away from me, still gripping the ladle in her hands like it could save her from being executed. That’s what King Grath had told the court, anyway. Anyone who touched me would die.

“It’s fine,” I gasped. “I’m fine. No one needs to know. It was an accident.” I held onto the countertop, hoping it would keep me on my feet as dizziness overtook me. “I just need a moment.”

I’m not sure if I was trying to reassure her or myself, but neither of us were convinced when I kept hyperventilating. Searching the kitchen for something to draw from, my eyes fell on a half-chopped bundle of parsley. I wobbled my way over to it and pressed my palms over the chopping board it lay on top of.

Freshly picked. That was good, better than if it’d been in the cooler for a day or two. This one had been grown in a pot which weakened the power within considerably, but it had been watered regularly and sat in a sunny place. I gathered all of that from pressing my hands against its delicate leaves.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, then pulled at the strength it held onto even in its chopped state.

The parsley wilted and dried under my palms, losing all of its qualities until it was nothing more than a pile of ash. It was sufficient to regain enough of my strength that my feet stopped shaking and my breathing turned to something close to resembling normal. My vision cleared to make out the maid now standing back at the doorway to the kitchen, eyes round and wide.

Next to her stood a much bigger shape, gripping at the woman’s upper arm and preventing her from escaping.

My nerves were back as my eyes trailed over black leather-covered muscular chest, roving up to a curly beard shades lighter than the rest of the death fae I’d seen, finally stopping at striking blue eyes—a colour I hadn’t seen on any other dark fae before.

My breath hitched, this time not from any physical touch nor malnourishment. As if I’d been caught doing something forbidden, my heart galloped, and I could feel heat rising to my face.

I despised this reaction, for it gave away my unease.

I hadn’t heard him approach, but not everyone was clumsy enough to trip over things and announce their presence. Death creeped up on you quietly, and that was surely the case with Karmuth hovering at the entrance to the kitchen.

The maid squirmed in his hold, her healthy blush fading into pale skin as some sort of energy transfer transpired between the two of them. It left her weak, and her fingers loosened from around the ladle. It fell to the floor with a clang that rang like a gong in my ears.

“Let her go,” I ordered, and Karmuth’s eyes narrowed.

Face set in a grim line, his gaze roamed over me as if to devour me whole. His hold on the woman did not waver one bit, and I squinted at him.

It’s about all I managed without needing to move. While before this little excursion my stomach had been grumbling, it was roaring like a monster now, a giant bottomless pit. What little energy I’d recovered from the parsley burned through my body, attempting to fix what was taken, but not managing to fill in the gaping hole. There were two Karmuths flickering in and out before my feet gave out  from beneath me. Then there was nothing.

Chapter 4

KARMUTH

FOR THE SECOND TIME IN SO MANY DAYS, ISAY FELL TO THE GROUND without me being able to do anything about it. I gripped the servant tighter, and she let out a quiet whimper.

“How much did you take?” I asked in a gruff voice, eyes jumping between Isay and the servant.

She sputtered, “I-it was a-a-a quick br-brush of skin. A-an aci-accident. I didn’t me-mean to…”

Did we ever? Not that it mattered. What was done was done, and there was no giving back what was taken. The king had to know about this, but first I needed to make sure Isay was still breathing. A quick brush shouldn’t have left her breathless like the way I saw her. She’d been wheezing like she’d contracted a lung disease when I walked by following her scent without meaning to.

I’d had my fill from the previous night’s activities and didn’t need to feed, but Isay’s alluring smell had been hard to resist. That’s something I just learned the hard way.

After the wedding party settled down and several more Void Sundances later, I’d excused myself to do what I always did when my skin began to crawl and an itch in my stomach gave no relief, not to mention the itch even lower down. Sela had known to wait for me and welcomed me to her bed with open arms.

It was a relationship of convenience. I knew she bedded other fae from the court and couldn’t care less. I also knew I was the only one who took what others couldn’t.

She always made sure to come fully fed to our meetings, because once I was done, she’d be left empty once more. She never questioned our arrangement, and I was quite certain she enjoyed the thrill of being sucked dry within inch of her life force as much as she enjoyed the sex.

I didn’t even register pulling at the servant’s ecos before she whimpered. I let go of her then. She’d grown pale and was cowering against the door frame. I felt the surge of energy I’d drawn from her course through me stronger than anything I’d ever felt. My body vibrated with new life, Isay’s life. It couldn’t be anything else. It ran as a soft warm current through my veins, reinvigorating parts that’d laid dormant for a long time.

I’d thought I’d had my fill from Sela, but the tide of power overtaking my senses begged to differ. I’d never felt so alive.

“I thought you said it was a quick brush?” I growled at the servant as the energy twirled around my fingertips, refreshing my pores inside and out and moving lower, igniting fires throughout my body, waking up a thirst I didn’t know existed.

My ecos was overflowing, waking up something else deeper within I didn’t care to investigate. Not now.

“I-it was o-only a s-s-second,” the woman whimpered, pleading. “I pulled away im-immediately.”

If she was telling the truth, it meant Isay was very susceptible to the touch of death. The king had to know as soon as possible. We might’ve joked about shaking her hand or even stealing a kiss, but if an accidental skin-to-skin contact made her faint, it was no longer something to laugh about.

I doubt the reunion between Grath and Siya would start with desired results if she were to find out her daughter was as good as dead within our court.

Her ecos practically jumped at any opportunity to be devoured by us. I could feel it calling to me from across the room.

“What was on the countertop? What did she touch?” I asked the servant. Her eyes had misted over, and she was shutting down. I had to ask again for her to understand me. I might’ve accidentally taken too much of her life force, but she’d done the same to Isay.

I regretted nothing.

“Parsley,” she whispered.

Parsley? It had to be a source of power. “Is there more?”

I was incredibly unhappy when the servant girl slid down the doorpost she’d been leaning against and hid her face in her knees, no longer paying any attention to me whatsoever.

I marched into the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets as I went. It was unlikely I’d find anything fresh in them, but I was past the point where I ran on logic. The power surging through me needed an outlet and slamming doors in frustration worked slightly, but it also worked up even more anxiety when I didn’t find what I was looking for.

After my search, Isay was still lying on the cold tiles, her chest rising and falling so slowly I was afraid it would stop completely. Not under my watch; I’d be killed together with the servant girl if that was to happen.

On a whim I rushed to the service entrance, leaving the double doors wide open behind me. The early morning sun blinded me momentarily and gave me a short pause until I saw the flowerbed planted for the queen’s arrival. I ran across the courtyard, dropped to my knees, and hurriedly pulled out several tulips and narcissus, enough to fill up my lap and create a gaping hole into the rest of the plants. I couldn’t think about that now—I had a princess to wake up.

If anyone had seen me then in my black leathers, carrying an armful of colourful flowers toward the kitchen with a slightly frantic glint in my eye, they’d question my sanity. As it were, the courtyard remained empty, which was the best I could’ve hoped for.

Back in the kitchen, I stood over Isay and dropped the load on her, not sure what else to do without touching her and making things worse. I didn’t know if she’d do what she’d done with the parsley in the first place when she was unconscious. I just hoped something would happen.

For a moment, Isay looked like the perfect representation of the character Sleeping Beauty, with her golden-brown hair framing her pale face as she laid on a bed of flowers. More like a bed of flowers laid on her.

In this moment, Isay wasn’t defensive. She didn’t need to fight for her place in our court nor impress anyone with her wit. Her face was relaxed; even her scent while still making my head spin was less intrusive. It’s as if all of what made her tick lay dormant for the time being.

And then the flowers wilted away a lot like a person would if I drew too much of their life to myself. The only difference? When Isay gasped, her eyes shooting open, she grasped at the remaining ashes and tried to fit them all together, make them live again.

Her accusing eyes fell on me looming over her. “You pulled them out? You just crushed their leaves and pulled them out! We don’t do that, we don’t ever do that!”

While she was shouting at me with a fury of a thousand gods, all I could feel was relief. For if she could be enraged about a handful of flowers, she would at least be all right.

“It helped, didn’t it?”