A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 23

I never intended to get drunk, but as the wine continued to fill me, my concerns dampened to a barely audible simmer in the back of my mind. Duncan clearly was the same. We drank until time became nothing more than an inconvenience, and the meaning of fey and Hunter faded into nothingness. We tipped bottles back as though feather-light, replacing them with another and another. There wasn’t a need for gentle-stemmed glasses or tankards. Candles burned around us, covering the darkened space in a halo of amber and warmth. Not that we were cold with the alcohol roaring like a fire in our bellies.

The burning liquid hazed my mind and made my body sluggish. However, it did little to drown out the chanting of the church far below us. Floors beneath us, evening mass had begun some time ago, ensuring Abbot Nathanial was occupied. Just the thought of him finding the missing bottles had small laughs passing my lips alongside rushed hiccups.

Duncan sat upon the bed, leaning on his knees as he swung the half-finished bottle of dark wine before him. His fingers clasped the bottle’s neck as though it was a lover, grip as gentle and firm as one would desire. He had washed what felt like hours ago, his chest still shirtless. Duncan had only bothered to pull on trousers, which I was thankful for at the time. But now, with the rush of alcohol present in every vessel of my being, I cared little for where I looked.

And look I did.

When Duncan laughed the muscles across his stomach would ripple like water disturbed by a stone. Hair coated his broad chest, spreading down and thinning as it reached the extremely prominent V-shaped carving at his hips. His hair was still damp, even now. It was at a length that could easily be swept behind ears, all but the two pesky strands that hung at both sides of his face.

Skin cleaned of blood, and half-dressed in the clothes of a common man, Duncan didn’t like someone who had it in him to kill. He was my enemy yes, but somehow the more we drank, the less that title mattered.

“Ridiculous,” Duncan bellowed, jabbing the bottle at me with one eye squinted. “You are expecting me to believe that your father was a Hunter?”

My tongue lapped the dribble of wine off my lips. “Are you suggesting I’m a liar?”

Duncan had shown keen interest in my parentage, firing questions at me whilst we drank, preventing what could’ve been an awkward silence. But what he did was incredibly smart, hardly allowing me any time to question him.

And I had a lot of questions.

Duncan bit down on his lower lip, head shaking slightly in disbelief. “With everything you say, I uncover more about you. You’re like a puzzle, which is all well and good, until I find a missing piece. Then that’ll piss me off again.”

“You have patience for a puzzle? I don’t believe that for a second.”

“I too am full of surprises, Robin.” Duncan took a long swig from his bottle, prominent lump in his throat bobbing with each gulp. The silence was utterly controlled by him. And he knew it. Eyes never leaving me as he drank, he lowered the bottle and then spoke again. “By the time we reach Lockinge it would not shock me if we’ve revealed too much about one another.”

My thumb rubbed around the rim of the bottle, staining my skin red. “Have you not met the Hand before?”

The question came out of nowhere, whilst being one of the most pressing issues in my mind.

“A low life like me?” Duncan laughed. “No, never. The Hand is an elusive character. My orders come from higher stationed Hunters, whose orders come from those above even them. The Hand is occupied doing what one does when in commune with a god. We merely dance to his tune, and he dances to Duwar’s beat.”

My skin bristled at his flippant comment. “And if you don’t know the Hand personally, how did you expect to grant me my audience?”

“At last, he asks the question that I would’ve thought was most important above others.” Duncan sat back, stomach flexing and arms bulging. “The Hand will want to see you, even I know that. Son of one of the four fey Courts, your presence will be most interesting to him. Of all the fey he collects, it’s the royal bloodlines he likes the most. The Hand likely knows of you even now, expecting your arrival, which we will be terribly late for.”

“This sounds more like a hunch than fact.”

He winked, the dark pupils of his eyes taking up most of their colour. “A strong one I must add.”

It was my time to drink, doing as he had and not taking my stare off him. I took my time, enjoying the gentle burn as the liquid raced down into my belly, warming me from the inside out.

“Reading between the lines it would seem that I don’t need you,” I said, watching as his brows furrowed ever so slightly. “If you believe the Hand is expecting me, then surely I could leave you here and still make it to my destination without issue. Am I right in thinking that?”

“Indeed, you are,” Duncan replied, scar deepening as he smiled. “It still doesn’t mean I’m not going to be by your side as we reach Lockinge.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I need you.”

I scoffed, almost choking. “Need me?”

“That’s right. I need you very badly, Robin Icethorn.” Duncan winked, turning my uncomfortable shivers to a tender quiver, like cool breath over my skin.

“You spend a lot of time mocking me for a man who needs me more than I need him. I could freeze your skin, harden your bones until they were no different to shards of fragile glass. Leave you within this attic all without much effort at all. So, tell me, Duncan Rackley, why should I bring you with me?”

A cloud passed over Duncan’s expression, narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips into a line so straight they paled. If my hearing was stronger, I might’ve heard the wheels in his mind turning as he conjured his answer – or as he decided whether to make his response truthful or not.

I waited, watching as Duncan finished the dregs of his bottle. Once it was emptied he discarded it on the floor and reached for the next. Lifting the new bottle to his mouth, he pinched teeth around the cork and pulled, the pop shattering the quiet between us.

“I require an audience with the Hand as well.”

“Excuse me?” I said, unsure if I’d heard him correctly.

“Have I not expressed that we share similarities?” Duncan said, his grin faltering. “I also need to speak with the Hand personally. One on one. Delivering him a fey royal will grant me that.”

“And here I had been left to wonder why you became so involved with helping me. Even freeing Althea to stop Briar. Standing against Erix when he came for me. You need me, far more than I need you.”

“Well, if you say it like that, then yes. Tell me, Robin, what are you going to do with this information? The power is quite literally in your hands. The choice is all yours.”

I sat up straight, uncrossing my legs in the chair and rooting them back on the floor of the attic. It was impossible to discern if the room spun because of what I had uncovered, or if it was the bottle of wine I had downed. “Is the Hand truly mysterious, so much so that a general of his Hunters cannot even request his time?”

Duncan shrugged, clicking his tongue across teeth. “You say it as though I’ve not already thought about or tried that approach too many times to count.”

“You know my reasoning. Is it not fair that I know yours, since you’ve been plotting to use me this entire time?”

“Oh, Robin.” Duncan pouted, gaze trailing me from head to toe. “Has my deceit hurt you? Did the wine make you forget who I am, and what you are? Do not grow comfortable because enemies break bread and drink from the same cup. They both do so with poison painted across their lips.”

“Stop doing that,” I groaned.

“What?”

“Changing the subject when it doesn’t proceed down a path you are comfortable with.” I stood from the chair, bottle tight in my hand and legs swaying as though the church was built upon wild seas. “Just answer the question, Duncan.”

If I was honest with myself, I never believed he’d tell me. In the short time I’d come to know him I was prepared for the subject to change, or him to choose silence other truth.

Then he did the opposite and spoke the truth. I believed that’s what it was the second the words left his mouth. I read the honesty in every crease across Duncan’s forehead, and the heavy emotion that darkened his eyes. Most of all, Duncan looked nowhere else but at me. And his truth cut deep like a silver-forged blade.

“Names. Names only the Hand has access to. Dangled over my head from the moment I left Abbot Nathanial until now. A promise of the names of those who stole the lives of my parents. Names I would do anything to get,” Duncan revealed, voice gritty with tempered emotion. “That’s why I need you.”

Perhaps it was the wine that made me take steps towards him, forcing me to cross the candle-lit room with nothing but the desire to provide Duncan with some form of ease. He shivered with the feeling that haunted him, not sadness or anger, but something guttural and wild. Desperation. A scorching desire that would have made him do anything to appease it. A feeling I knew all too well.

Duncan watched me with large, wide eyes. He didn’t even flinch as my hand reached the side of his face. The tips of my fingers met his skin first, melting upon him until his cheek rested in my palm. His skin was warm. The scent of him freshly washed was as beautiful as a breath of fresh, winter air.

“What are you doing?” he asked, allowing me to step between his legs which he parted with a shuffle of his feet.

I peered down at him, feeling a lump form in my throat as I replied. “You’re right, we do have many similarities. I wish it was different circumstances for the both of us, but here we are, products of the world around us. How can I look at you any different for what you desire when I wish the same for another?”

In a single moment, the tension between us shifted, guided by my unseen hand.

Duncan discarded the bottle, careless of the wine that spilt across his sheets. With straight, strong arms, he pushed himself upwards, face coming to meet mine with nothing but a sliver of distance between us.

I didn’t move back, but the momentum caused my hand to fall from the side of his face like the tears he fought so hard to keep from spilling.

“After everything I’ve done to you, to your friends, to the fey, what do you see when you look at me?”

“I see a man who’d do anything for his family,” I replied, voice no more than a whisper. “And I see a boy with scars, some visible but most unseen, looking for a remedy to ease their discomfort. I see you, Duncan Rackley.”

His expression softened, the creases around his eyes dissolving into nothingness. For a moment I obtained a peek at the boy he would have been before, free from haunting torment and twisted desire for vengeance.

Duncan’s face grew closer until the tips of our noses tickled one another. Spiced grape washed over me as he exhaled through slightly parted lips. “Do you care to know what I see when I look at you, Robin?”

I was fearful to know his answer but nodded anyway.

“Mercy. A chance for my mercy at least.”

Somewhere, far beneath the room, Abbot Nathanial preached the teachings of his faith, telling those who cared to listen stories of the Creator through word and song, all without knowing that, within the attic, something strange occurred. A Hunter ran gentle, knowing hands up the arms of his enemy – at least that was what his enemy should have looked like; pointed ears and powers unknown to humans.

Duncan’s eyes asked permission, flicking between my lips and my wide, unblinking stare. And before I could contemplate it, his permission was granted. I lifted onto toes, drew myself towards his face and stopped only when our lips met in a joining of flesh and desire.