Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [68]
I had a moment of panic. Didn’t the myth say you were supposed to avoid any food or drink given to you by a fairy?
“My lady,” Jonah carefully said. “We have need of—”
“Silence,” she ordered, the single word carrying enough power to lift the hair at the back of my neck. “We will speak of those things in due time. If you ask a boon, you shall give a boon. Sit at my table, bloodletters. Sit, and let us speak of pleasantries. It has been many moons since I have shared my hospitality with your kind.”
I wasn’t thrilled about the delay, but I didn’t think the two mean-looking mercenaries at the door would allow a slight.
“We would be honored to join you,” I told her, and her laugh tinkled through the air.
“So she speaks,” Claudia cannily said. “I am glad to know you are more than his guard and protector, child.”
“As am I,” I responded.
As we walked to the table and took seats of our own, a silver platter full of food—crusty loaves of bread, piles of grapes, decanters of wine—appeared in the middle of it. The platter sat on a bed of tossed rose petals in the palest shades of pink and yellow, the colors barely discernable but undeniably there.
I surveyed it suspiciously, and not just because she wanted a snack while the sky was burning around us.
Claudia poured a silver goblet of wine for herself, then did the same for us. “Drink deep,” she said, “for there is no enchantment in my hospitality. Had I permanent need of your company I could most certainly assure it without such lures.”
She raised her dusky eyes to me, and opened the door on the power she’d been holding in. There was a lot of it, and it wasn’t nice. Claudia may have projected elfish sensuality, but the magic beneath the shell was cold, dark, primal, and greedy. Crossing her, I decided, was not a good strategy.
“You are wise,” she said into the silence. I blushed at the intrusion into my thoughts, but held my peace. I was freaked out, however, that she could read minds. That was a trick no one had warned me about—and it certainly hadn’t been mentioned in the Canon. There was a siren in Lake Michigan, Tate had some sort of ancient power, and fairies could read minds. Maybe it was the English lit geek in me, but I was reminded of a line from Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Jonah reached forward and plucked a small plum from the platter. I opted for a grape nearly as big as the plum had been; smaller fruit, less enchantment by volume, I figured. And credit where credit was due—it was the best grape I’d ever eaten. As sweet as a grape could be, with a flavor that sang of springtime and sunshine and sun-kissed skin. If this was enchantment, sign me up.
Claudia glanced between me and Jonah. “You are lovers, I think.”
“We are friends,” Jonah said, shifting a bit in his seat, unhappy with the admission.
“But you desire more,” she countered.
Awkwardness descended, and Jonah and I avoided eye contact.
Claudia took a long drink of wine, then looked at me. “You are hesitant, for you have lost your king.”
I caught Jonah’s rueful expression out of the corner of my eye. The grape turned bitter in my mouth. “The Master of my House,” I corrected. “He was killed.”
“I knew the true Master of your House. Peter of Cadogan. He did a service for my folk, and he was rewarded in the manner of our people. He was given a jewel of great repute and fortune. It was nestled in the eye of a dragon.”
I’d seen that reward in Ethan’s apartment. It was an enamel egg around which was curled a sleeping dragon. The dragon’s eye was a great, shining ruby. Ethan had kept the treasure in a glass case.
“The dragon’s egg came to Ethan after Peter died. He treasured it.” The memory tightened my gut, and I forced myself to keep talking, to keep the tears walled away. “But I was told the egg was a gift to Peter Cadogan from Russian royalty.”
Claudia smiled faintly. “The worlds of the fae are not limited by