Hidden Game, Book 1 of the Ancient Court Trilogy Read online

  -I’m so sorry. I think you liked him, didn’t you? Olly typed.

  I dropped the phone and sank back into my seat. No. No. It couldn’t be true. But Olly wouldn’t lie to me. And Nic was being taken to the clinic when he’d left my room. To see Dr. Schmitt and try to overpower him.

  The moan began somewhere low in my belly and rose through my chest, coming out louder and louder until it turned into a scream.

  Nox ran back into the cabin from the cockpit, dropping to his knees in front of my seat. Other faces gathered around me as well, though I couldn’t tell you who was there. I could see nothing but a hazy red image of Nic’s battered body being carried through the castle’s dark, forbidding corridors.

  “Macy—what’s wrong?” Nox demanded, grabbing the phone from the floor and holding it up to someone behind him. “Check this.”

  He gripped my shaking knees, alarm filling his voice. “What’s happened?”

  I couldn’t speak, could only whip my head back and forth, hyperventilating.

  “Oh,” a female voice said from somewhere. “This is terrible. It seems to be from one of Macy’s friends back in the fan pod. She says she saw Nic—dead.”

  Nox got to his feet and took the phone from the girl while other hands replaced his, on my knees, my shoulders, my head. I tried to shake them off then slapped at them, flinging my arms wildly around me. I didn’t want to be touched. I didn’t want to be comforted. I didn’t want to be here. I had to get off this plane.

  Leaping from my seat, I lurched into the aisle, running barefoot toward the exit door. My shoes were on the floor under my seat somewhere. It didn’t matter. There could be a bed of coals outside waiting to sear me, a parking lot littered with razor sharp glass. Nothing could have kept me from running.

  “Macy,” Nox yelled after me. “Where are you going?”

  Ignoring him, I ran through the plane’s open door and nearly fell down the movable stairs that had been pushed up to it. Not that it mattered. Nic was dead. I’d never see him again. He was dead, and it was all because of me. I’d asked him to get involved, to save the fan pod girls. If he’d never met me, never fallen in love with me, he’d still be alive, driving around in one of his ridiculously expensive sports cars or maybe visiting Romigi and Teodora at the vineyard as he’d promised them he would.

  I charged down the stairs and started across the hot tarmac, running blindly, not knowing where I was going and not caring.

  “Somebody stop her—she’ll run onto the runway,” the girl’s voice cried.

  Footsteps pounded behind me, the hard pumping breaths of a pursuer. I ran all the harder. I couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I’d have to deal with the reality of this—I never wanted it to catch up with me.

  Suddenly I was captured in a vice. Hard arms banded around me, and I was plucked off my feet. Kicking in protest, I struggled to get free.

  “Macy. You’re going to get yourself killed.” Anders’ winded breaths filled my ear as he tightened his hold further, seeming not to notice my heels striking his shins repeatedly. He held me against him, my back pressed against his chest, until all the fight drained out of me.

  “There you go,” he said, loosening his hold and turning me to face him.

  He bent to level his eyes with mine, his large hands still gripping my shoulders—just in case I tried to make a break for it, I guessed.

  “I am so sorry.” His blue eyes were sad and sincere. “But running out in front of an airplane isn’t going to bring him back. He wouldn’t want that. And we need you. Help us fight back against those bastards who killed him. Okay?” he said. “Okay?”

  “He’s dead,” I said, beginning to face the truth for real now. “He’s not coming for me.”

  Anders’ face melted in sympathy. His voice was rough and low. “I know, pixie. I know. But you’re not alone, okay?”

  He pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me again. Too exhausted to protest, I let him. And then my knees gave out as wracking sobs took over my body. Sweeping an arm under my legs, Anders lifted me and started walking, carrying me in a cradle hold.

  “It’s okay. You go ahead and cry,” he said. “I got you.”

  23

  Nic

  Something was holding my eyelids down. Were they sewn shut? Taped? No, when I tried again, they lifted, and a blurry vision of light and movement came into view.

  Was this Alfheim? My vision cleared, and I realized I was not in the afterworld but in my own bedroom. Someone moved around the room, humming. I swung my eyes in a lopsided arc, searching.

  I was alive. That thought cleared my mind a bit. I was alive, and apparently, whole. Lifting my hands in front of my face, I inspected them. No blood, no cuts. I probed the inside of my mouth with my tongue. It was intact. There was no pain. Had it all been a dream then? Some awful blood-soaked nightmare?

  “Ah, you’re awake,” my mother’s voice said. Her face came into focus beside the bed. Dark circles underscored her eyes, and for the first time ever, her forehead bore wrinkles. “How do you feel?”

  “Weak. Tired.” More tired than I’d ever felt in my life, in fact. It had to be the sedative Dr. Schmitt had given me. My heart plummeted to the floor beneath my bed. It had not been a nightmare. And I’d survived. The glass I’d swallowed must not have been enough. It had certainly felt fatal.

  “How long was I out?”

  “Two days,” Mama responded brightly. Artificially so. “Unfortunately, you missed the Americans’ departure. They were quite nice, didn’t you think? Especially that young Nox. You seemed to make a connection with him at the party the other night. He sent word letting us know they reached the States and thanking us for our hospitality. He said to tell you he’d love to return the favor whenever you’d like to visit there, that he’d be happy to show you around.”

  She continued to chatter as she unnecessarily straightened the already neat bedside table. “The cleaning staff said one of them left a piece of musical equipment behind—you could return it to them when you go. Nox said you’d especially like New York at Christmastime. Something about Macy’s being beautiful. I wouldn’t have guessed him for a shopper, but then, we all have our hobbies, don’t we?”

  And just like that, my heart sprang back into my chest, beating with excitement and relief. It was a coded message. Nox had managed to let me know Macy was with him and safely back home in America.

  I gave my mother a real smile. “I’d like that.” She had no idea how eager I was to get to America.

  She smiled back and stroked my cheek. “You need a holiday. You know, our life is not an easy one. You have to take what momentary pleasures you find to help make this eternity bearable.” She stepped away from the bed. “I’ll let Dr. Schmitt know you’re awake. He’ll want to check your stitches. For now, just lie as still as you can. I’ll visit you later.”

  Now my heart froze. Dr. Schmitt had survived as well. I’d hoped the knock to his head might have been enough to end the madman, but as usual, my luck was not that good. And she’d said “stitches.”

  Struggling to sit up, I lifted my bed coverings and probed my body. My fingers came into contact with a bandage. Oh God. The procedure. It had happened while I was unconscious. I’d failed. I hadn’t removed Dr. Schmitt from the picture or prevented him from taking from me the necessary materials to make his evil plan a reality.

  My door opened again, and the doctor strolled in, smiling widely. There was a fading bruise on his forehead, but otherwise he seemed perfectly fit.

  “I understand the patient has awakened,” he said pleasantly. “No, don’t try to get up. I doubt your legs will be steady enough to support you until later—this evening perhaps.”

  “What did you do?” I growled. “You operated on me?”

  “Of course. And you’ll be pleased to hear the extraction went very smoothly. Everything’s going exactly according to plan—despite your disgraceful show of temper.” He gave me a pointed glance. “The first group of gir
ls will be brought in today, in fact, for their treatments.”

  Nausea rolled through me in a violent wave. I pulled myself to the side of the bed so I could be sick on the floor.

  The doctor strolled to the door, impassively calling for someone to come clean the mess. “Feel better now?” he asked.

  “No.” Struggling to prop myself on my elbows I stared at him. “Just do me one favor. Not the little girl—Olly. She’s too young. She’s too small.”

  “Oh not to worry. I’ve already released her.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. Her and several other girls who were unsuitable for breeding. Wiped their minds and sent them home.” The weight on my chest lightened until he added, “Of course I injected them with the Plague before shipping them off to their respective countries—at least one per continent—just as we planned.”

  My belly heaved again, emptying the rest of its contents.

  “Oh dear,” the doctor said, his tone facetious. “That anesthesia must not agree with you. We’ll have to use a different one next time.”

  “Next time?” I croaked, rolling onto my back again to glare at him.

  “Oh yes. I collected enough for the girls here in the castle. But of course, there are fan pods spread across the continent, not to mention in Australia, Asia… you get the picture. You’ll likely have to step up to the plate again, my friend, if we’re to provide enough slaves for all our people before the Plague takes effect.”

  “You’re crazy if you think I’m letting you use me like that again.”

  “No, my bedridden friend—you are crazy if you don’t agree here and now to cooperate with me. I’ve already told your parents about your little stunt in the exam room. They were not pleased.”

  “I don’t care what they think.”

  He waved a hand through the air. “No matter. I have what I need from you for now, and I have put a backup plan in place, should you try again to harm me.”

  “I wasn’t trying to ‘harm’ you,” I snarled. “I was trying to kill you.”

  “Yes,” he mused. “But you failed. Your entire feeble rebellion was a failure. I will have my master slave race. And the Plague is already out in the world, waiting for me—or my associate—to flip the switch, so to speak, and activate it. All I need now is to retrieve your diminutive American amour. It seems she managed to slip away somehow during the night. But don’t worry. We’ll find her and bring her back.”

  Now I did sit up, wincing in pain at the effect on my wound. “You don’t need her. You got everything you wanted.”

  The doctor laughed. “That’s the thing about getting everything you want—it only leads to wanting more. And what I want now is to have that remarkable girl back in my lab so I can study her, learn her secrets. Of all my discoveries, she may be the greatest.”

  Finally clear-headed enough to use my glamour, I dug into the doctor’s twisted mind. He wasn’t lying. His greatest desire was to find Macy and bring her back. The intensity of that desire terrified me.

  “What are you talking about, you lunatic? She’s just a girl.”

  His eyes gleamed with a maniacal light. “How do you think you survived your pathetic suicide attempt? Yes, I can see you’ve been wondering about it. You did manage to swallow enough glass to be fatal. And your attack on me might have been fatal as well…if the floor hadn’t been covered in all that marvelous nymph blood. I managed to ingest enough to heal my head wound.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear the rest of the brain fog. What was he talking about?

  “So you didn’t know then—I wondered if she might have told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “Your little human girlfriend… is not human. She’s a nymph. I’m disappointed I couldn’t detect it without the blood analysis, but you know they do have camouflage against their natural predators.”

  I shook my head again, half-suspecting I was still under the influence of the sedative after all. “Nymphs are extinct. They were killed off by satyrs, weren’t they?”

  The doctor laughed. “Oh yes, those satyrs made excellent scapegoats—pardon the pun. We all thought they were extinct, but the remainder of their kind must have gone into hiding.”

  All children in the Ancient Court had heard tales of great hunts, where Elvenkind tracked and captured nymphs, bringing them back to be kept in dungeons and drained of their valuable blood. It was said to have unparalleled healing power and even to boost male virility, which was probably the main reason they were hunted to extinction. It was also likely where the association between nymphs and extreme sexuality came from. But no one in my lifetime had ever met a nymph, and I’d always half-suspected the fantastic stories were made up to entertain gullible children.

  Was it possible Macy was descended from the ancient line of those mythical nymphs? She was tiny. And beautiful. She’d told me she was adopted. And as the doctor had pointed out, both of us were still alive, despite our injuries. Could it really have been her blood that healed us?

  The good news was if it were true, that meant Macy was also an immortal Fae. If I could ever locate her and get to her, we could be together—forever. The bad news was I was weak as a kitten, and for the moment, unable to get out of this bed and go to her.

  “That’s one of their talents—hiding,” the doctor continued. “But I’ve already got a team on the way to the States to bring her back. They’ll find her. And when they do…” He rubbed his hands together in villainous anticipation. “So many plans, so many possibilities. Of course, I’ll have to drain her slowly. She is so small after all, and I can’t have my experiments ruined by having her die too quickly.”

  Enraged, I threw off my covers and set my feet on the ground, prepared to charge him and this time succeed at snuffing out his miserable, sadistic life. My legs folded beneath me like empty straw wrappers. I went down hard and heavy on the bedroom floor.

  The doctor made a tut-tut noise as his shoes came into view. “I thought your mother told you to rest. I warned her… if the effects of the ‘poison’ you ingested were still present when I examined you, you might need to be kept under sedation a while longer… for your own good.”

  “No,” I yelled.

  The last thing I remembered was the sting of his needle under my skin and the frightening image of a modern-day great hunt—with Macy as the prey.

  24

  Macy

  I sat there, staring at the announcement on my computer screen, the top story on my home page.

  WORLD CUP CHAMPION RETIRES IN SHOCKING AND SUDDEN MOVE

  My heart tripped over itself in frantic beats as I scrolled down and scanned the story beneath the headline, eager for any information about Nic, a quote from him perhaps, and maybe even God please God a photo?

  There was a photo of him, but it was old—taken during the aftermath of his victorious final match. The article explained that soccer phenom Nicolo Buonaccorsi had announced his retirement from his team and from the sport by email, that having achieved the pinnacle of his game and citing exhaustion, he now wished for solitude and privacy and would not take part in any sort of ceremony in his honor, nor would he do any interviews or even take written questions.

  It was clear from the tone of the article that his teammates and coaches were sorely disappointed and that members of the sports media were puzzled, maybe even offended by the abrupt decision and his apparent aloofness. He had not responded to phone calls from anyone.

  “It’s like he’s dropped off the face of the earth,” one of them commented.

  So that’s it. The frantic beating slowed to a sluggish tic-tic, my heart feeling barely alive.

  I closed the laptop, getting up and walking to a window overlooking the serene Malibu beach. I had stayed in L.A., hoping, wishing, praying for word from Nic. Or about him. Anything. Hoping beyond rational hope that maybe Olly hadn’t seen what she thought she’d seen. Praying she was wrong, and that he was still alive.

  But it was an empty wish. The
feelers Nox had put out in the Ancient Court had come back with nothing. No one had seen Nic or heard from him for weeks.

  “The royal family must have decided to keep his death under wraps, fearing political repercussions within the Court because of the circumstances,” Nox had theorized. “If others knew Dr. Schmitt killed a royal, they might not be too eager to keep working with him.”

  The repercussions for me were never ending. I could barely function. Yes, I got out of bed every day, showered and dressed, but then… I couldn’t tell you where each day had gone since I’d first gotten word of his death.

  And now it was time. I’d taken up space in Nox’s guest quarters for long enough. I’d told him and his friends everything I could think of that might possibly be helpful in stopping the Ancient Court’s plot. It was time to go. I didn’t belong with these people. And being around the members of his perfected race every minute of every day only reminded me of Nic. The constant ache in my heart was tunneling a hole that was bound to become permanent if I didn’t do something.

  The only thing I knew to do was leave. I didn’t belong at home in Missouri either, so I’d go back to what I’d been doing before I’d ever taken that fateful detour to Corsica and met the guy who would change my life forever. I’d travel. Alone.

  I didn’t kid myself that going back on the road would stop the hurt entirely. I’d never forget Nic, never get over him. And I’d always be proud of him for making the ultimate sacrifice, trying to stop the evil plot against the humans—he’d chosen to die rather than allow the sinister doctor to use him to impregnate the fan pod girls. He was a hero. He was the love of my life.

  But I’d have to live without him. Without love. Somehow. The knowledge made me cold and hot and numb all at the same time. I’d start by getting moving, and I’d keep moving until maybe, someday, I’d outrun these sweet and terrible memories. I would inform Nox of my decision that evening when he returned to the mansion.