Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [67]
I’m not sure what I should have expected to see in a fairy queen’s abode in the top of a tower. Ancient, dreary furnishings encased in a thick carpet of dust and spider silk? A broken mirror? A spinning wheel?
The round room was larger than it should have been given the narrowness of the tower, but it was tidy and decorated with simple hewn wooden furnishings. A canopy bed sat across the room, its round, fluted columns wrapped in flowering vines that perfumed the air with the scents of gardenias and roses. A giant table of rough-hewn, sun-bleached wood sat nearby. There were draperies of cornflower blue silk along the walls, but not a window to be seen.
What I thought was a delicate chandelier hung from the ceiling; on closer reflection, I realized it was a cloud of monarch butterflies. There were no bulbs in the chandelier, but it glowed with a golden, ethereal light.
And katanas weren’t the only weapons in play. As I suddenly heard the echoing sound of a lullaby played on an antique child’s instrument, the pressure in the room changed. A panel of wispy fabric was moved aside on the canopy bed . . . and she emerged.
The fairy queen was pale and voluptuous, with wavy strawberry blond hair that fell past her shoulders. Her eyes were dusky blue, and she was barefoot, dressed in a gauzy, white gown that left nothing of her curvy form to the imagination. A crown of laurel leaves crossed her forehead, and a long, ornate locket of gold rested between her breasts.
She walked toward us with shoulders back and an unmistakably regal bearing. I had the urge to genuflect, but wasn’t sure of the etiquette. Was it appropriate for an enemy of the fairies, for a bloodletter, to bow to their queen?
She stopped a few feet away and I felt the rush of dizziness again. I pushed it back and focused my attention on her face.
She looked us over, and after a moment, raised her hand, palm out. That being their cue, the guards lifted their swords.
“And you are?” she asked, a soft Irish lilt in her voice.
“Jonah,” he said, “of House Grey. And Merit of House Cadogan.”
She linked her hands together in front of her. “It has been many years since we allowed bloodletters to cross our threshold. Perhaps the riddles are not as strong as they once were. The magic not as concealing. The guardians not as careful.” Her eyes darkened dangerously, and I decided I had no interest in crossing Claudia.
“We have need to speak to you, my lady,” Jonah said. “And those who offered the riddle of your location were well rewarded for it.”
For a moment I saw the same avarice, the same lust for gold, in her eyes that I’d seen in the guards.
“Very well, then,” she said. “You are here to discuss contracts? It seems money is all vampires and fae have to speak about these years.”
“We are not,” he said. “We’re here to discuss events of late in the city.”
“Ah, yes,” she said with slow deliberation. She moved across the room to the table, then glanced back over her shoulder at me and Jonah.
She was quite a sight to behold, like a character stripped from a fairy tale painting: the hidden fairy queen, equally ethereal and earthy, gazing back at the mortal with innocent invitation, beckoning him into her woods.
I’d known women who used their sexuality to advantage. Celina, for one, was the type to entice men to do her bidding with overt sensuality. But Claudia ensnared men differently. The sensuality wasn’t a tool; it was a fact. She had no reason to try to entice you. You would be enticed. And if you were, God help you. I couldn’t imagine succumbing to the seductions of the Queen of the Fae, accidentally or not, was a safe course of action.
I looked at Jonah, wondering if he felt the pull. There was general appreciation in his eyes, but when he looked at me, it was clear the gears were still turning. He gave me a nod.
“I have means at my disposal other than seduction, child,” she said in a chiding tone, then took a seat in one of the