Knight's Blood by Julianne Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

for my son.” What she really wanted was to go where the elfin bastard was and kill him. She guessed—hoped—the path to the past of least resistance would be within Nemed’s natural lifetime. If he sent her anywhere, it would be there.
     
    “I told you, I have no idea where you might find him.”
     
    “Then let me search where I think he might be. That Danu. Perhaps she would have an idea of where to look.” Danu had once given her a book of psalms, a gift Lindsay had puzzled over and had never understood why it had been given.
     
    “What do you know of the faerie queen?”
     
    “Only that Alex has spoken to her. That she took an interest in him and our situation. He used to talk about having met her in the forest on Eilean Aonarach. They had chats.”
     
    There was a long silence. Nemed was thinking about that. Lindsay looked around at the flat, gray room, and for a second thought she might have glimpsed the elfin king lurking against a wall. Two red eyes against a gray background. But it was only a glimpse, then it was gone.
     
    She addressed that space. “Send me back to where I can find her, then I’ll be out of your hair and will seek my son with her help.”
     
    His silence continued until she thought he’d gone for good and she would be forced to either press farther into the burrow or retreat empty-handed to the century from which she’d come. But then he said, “Go. The way you went before.”
     
    “Seriously?”
     
    “Just go, before I come to my senses. But be warned. You won’t find what you seek. I guarantee it.”
     
    Says you. It was with a deep relief Lindsay reached toward the earthen wall through which she and Alex had been thrust the last time. Her hand went into it, and it hurt. A burning sensation that worsened as she pressed on.
     
    “Ow.” She retrieved her hand.
     
    “I told you there would be a price. If you shrink from that little pain, you’ve no hope of making it to where you wish to go.”
     
    Asshole. She touched the wall again, and the burning came again. Her hand jerked back.
     
    “Who’s the coward now, eh, Sir Lindsay?” His voice was thick with derision.
     
    Disgusted with the scheming creature, she glanced around for him and wished he were there so she could take his head with her sword, watch it roll across the floor, then piss down his neck. But that wasn’t yet an option for her, so she turned back to the wall. Deep breath. Let it out. Another deep breath, then she leapt at the wall.
     
    As hard as she threw herself, it still wasn’t enough force to put her all the way through. Agony of burning took her. It began to consume her. She thrashed and struggled against the substance that held her, stuck in that place between centuries. A wail of pain wrenched her. She kicked, and swam through, burning all the while. Thoughts of fire and brimstone filled her head, and despair accompanied it. She had to kick harder, and somehow she found the strength to do it. Finally she was through, and collapsed. One hand gripping the hilt of her sword, she then fell mercifully unconscious.
     

CHAPTER 4
     
    The cold was at Alex’s core, and he was shivering. Shaking so hard his joints rattled. As he regained consciousness, the pain he felt was monstrous. Every inch of flesh, every nerve, each joint was in such screaming pain that he tried to return to blissful oblivion, though through the haze of semiconsciousness he knew he might die if he didn’t get warm soon. But then, it also seemed he might die if he became fully conscious of his agony.
     
    He wasn’t that lucky. Against his will he came to and found himself facedown in the rain, on grassy ground with his face pressed against a hard, black fungus. The drizzle was light but insistent, and rivulets ran from him here and there over his body. The realization he was naked seeped into his brain, and it made him feel even colder. When he tried to move, his stomach heaved. It hitched and rolled, and he swallowed