The Cursed (League of the Black Swan) by Alyssa Day Read Free Book Online Page B

kitchen counter and hide until the woman left. Naturally, this made her lift her chin and plant her butt more firmly on the seat of the chair.
    “You have word of my niece?”
    Luke stared at the Fae. “How do you
do
that?”
    Merelith stalked toward them and then stopped about six paces away from Rio. She lifted her head and actually sniffed the air, and then her perfectly shaped head abruptly turned, and she locked that searing gaze on Rio.
    “You? You!” Merelith flashed across the room so fast that Rio couldn’t even think about running before the Fae was standing in front of her, invading the hell out of her personal space.
    Merelith caught Rio’s jaw in an unbreakable grip and turned her face one way and then the other. “It
is
you,” she whispered. “How is it possible—but you must be nearly twenty-five years old now, then.”
    The Fae’s perfume—or her natural scent—made Rio think of crushed ice over salted raspberries, and then immediately wonder why. The rich aroma deepened when Merelith leaned even closer and touched Rio’s locket with one long, slender finger.
    “So, you haven’t lost this? How . . . deliciously surprising.”
    Rio jerked away from the woman’s touch, her hand rising to cover her locket. “What do you know about my necklace?”
    Luke made a deep snarling sound, low in his throat. “You can’t trust anything the Fae tell you, Rio. Ever.”
    “But they can’t lie,” Rio protested. “Even I know that.”
    Luke never took his eyes off the Fae. “Get away from her. Now. Or you will have made an enemy that even you don’t want to make.”
    Merelith smiled mockingly, but she stepped back.
    “Fear not, little wizard. I won’t hurt your companion. But if you think to make her your bedmate, be advised that your chances of living past the dawn are slim.”
    Rio’s face got hot. “Maybe you should back off, Merelith. You may be from the High Court, but that gives you no right to make rude comments about me and my, ah, my—”
    Luke moved around the kitchen counter and put himself between Rio and the Fae. His fingers were glowing with blue flame again, and his voice had gone hard and icy.
    “Back away from her, Merelith, or you’ll be sitting on your ass in the alley before you can say another word.”
    Rio’s mouth fell open as she stared at Luke’s taut, muscular back. He was protecting her from a High Court Fae. An overwhelming urge to touch him—in support or plea, she didn’t know which—had her reaching out with one hand until common sense caught up with longing, and she yanked her hand back.
    Merelith laughed, the sound like ice cubes falling into a crystal glass. “I don’t want to hurt her, Lucian Olivieri. I am merely interested in the dynamic of why she would turn up now, in light of current circumstances. The Fates are amusing, are they not?”
    Rio pushed Luke out of the way as she awkwardly stepped down off the stool. “I’m a little tired of being talked about like I’m not right here. What are you talking about, and how did you know how old I am?” She looked into the Fae’s glowing eyes and swallowed. Hard.
    “Please?”
    Merelith swept a scathing glance over Rio from head to toe and back up again before she answered. “I expected you’d be taller,” said the nearly six-foot-tall Fae.
    “Why did you expect anything about Rio at all?” Luke sounded mystified, but he was still holding flames at his fingertips.
    “Rio? Is that what you’re calling yourself?” Merelith tilted her head, considering. “It’s actually rather fitting, since you almost drowned in that river, I suppose.”
    Dread rushed through Rio, starting in the back of her head and pushing heat through nerves and muscles. The river . . . the Fae’s words turned a switch in Rio’s mind that almost—
almost
—unlocked a tantalizing clue about a memory from her childhood. Something—anything—from the lost years before the nuns had taken her into their