Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Mirror, Mirror

The creature in my castle is a seductress. She smells like sweet roses, and she clings to me like the cold despite the fire she’s started in my blood. I want her. The need for her runs deep in my veins. It goes beyond soothing the swell of my cock.

In her presence, I can taste freedom.

“You will be the death of her.”

“Did I summon you?” I asked, turning toward the jagged piece of mirror on my wall. It was one of seven pieces, the other six belonging to my brothers.

I could not see my reflection as I glared at him. He had made his visage dark, which was usual. When the mirror was clear, it meant anyone with another piece could spy. Though it was not as if I minded. My brothers would likely only catch me participating in various lascivious acts.

“You do not have to summon me. I am always watching.”

“Charming,” I said. “Will you linger while I pleasure myself too?”

“I have little choice. I am only a mirror.”

“Suit yourself,” I said, reaching for my erection, which strained against the fabric of my trousers. I had no shame, but before I had a chance to touch myself, the mirror spoke.

“Do you really think this mortal will learn your true name?”

I curled my fingers into a fist. “I would not have chosen her for the task if she did not show promise.”

“You did not choose,” the mirror drawled. “Your brothers sent her.”

“It does not matter how she came to me. She is here. She is flesh and blood. She can set me free.”

“If she falls in love with you.”

“A small detail,” I said.

“Small?” the mirror repeated with some surprise. “I would hardly call that detail small.”

“I do not wish to speak on it,” I said, my voice harsh, and my mood darkened, descending like shadow in the dying dusk.

I knew the mirror was right.

I needed her to love me, but I had waited nearly ten years for someone to come along with enough reason to learn my true name. This creature, she wished to be free, and if she wished hard enough, she might just set me free too.

“Do you truly believe they would send you a clever thing?”

“Perhaps you could tell me,” I said. “Do you not exist in six other palaces and know all my brothers’ secrets?”

“Five,” he said, a reminder that one of my brothers was dead and that someone already had his piece of the enchanted mirror. It had once been whole and hung in our father’s hall, but as he neared death, he broke it into seven pieces, one for each of his sons, and declared that whoever put it back together again would be king of the Enchanted Forest. “I only exist with five of your brothers now.”

“Which of them managed to snatch Eero’s piece?”

“None,” said the mirror.

“None?” I asked, arching a brow. “Who has it now?”

“A pretty, petty thing.”

“Hmm.”

That will make things interesting for the others, I thought.

Especially Silas, who, of all my brothers, desired to be king most. Personally, I did not care for the crown, but I did not wish to give up my mirror either. He was a gateway, a portal to other parts of the Enchanted Forest.

That was the kind of power I wished to keep.

“You do not seem at all concerned,” the mirror observed.

“I find it difficult to be concerned with anything beyond myself at this moment.”

The mirror did not have expressions, but I could feel his disgust.

“You would think you would worry more about your life than your cock.”

“I was talking about my life,” I snapped. “But thank you for reminding me of my intention to fuck myself.”

“To the image of your brother’s murderer?” the mirror asked.

“Yes,” I hissed.

I would have thanked her for it had I not wished to tangle her in my web.

Eero might be my brother, but blood meant nothing unless it was spilled in the Enchanted Forest, and at that point, it was currency.

Good fucking riddance, I thought, though it was not as if he would not be born again as all fae were. He’d likely crawl from the bell of a foxglove, as poisonous as ever.

Thinking of my brother darkened my mood.

“Show me the woman,” I commanded, wishing to rekindle the desire that had inflamed my veins.

The mirror brightened, and now I looked on the vicious creature who had disturbed my night. She lay on her back, her arms splayed. She looked pale, even with the warmth of the fire igniting her limbs, though it did make her blond hair look ablaze.

I clenched my jaw, frustrated at how easily she slumbered, not at all caught in the throes of arousal like me.

Cruel creature.

It made me doubt she could love me at all, doubt that she could end this curse bestowed on me by the Glass Mountains.

“I need her to love me,” I said.

“Love is learned,” said the mirror. “Has it ever occurred to you that is the lesson the Glass Mountains hoped to teach you when they cursed you?”

I knew what the mountains were doing, but it was no lesson.

It was vengeance.

The Glass Mountains were a source of life within the Enchanted Forest, and they called the beings that sprang from their depths their offspring. What was born of them was immortal and moral.

I was immortal and immoral, born from the earth, and after I mixed my blood with one of their own, the Mountains cursed me to forget my true name unless it was spoken by my one true love.

That was nine years and three weeks ago.

I had one more week until I forgot my true name forever—until everyone forgot.

And if my name was forgotten, I was forgotten.

A name precedes you, and without one, you are nothing.

It was the truth of our world.

“A fool’s errand,” I said even as I stood before the mirror, aching and yearning for this creature in a way I had never before.

“For a foolish prince,” said the mirror.

I might have reacted to his comment had the creature not rolled to her side. I was given a view of the dark bruises blooming across her back, reminding me that she had come to me injured.

My brothers were despicable creatures, but they would not have harmed her…physically at least.

My head became hot with rage.

“Show me who hurt her,” I said, and the mirror rippled. My creature vanished and a man came into view. He was in bed, hovering over a woman, thrusting into her. She writhed beneath him, moaning in false pleasure.

I wondered why he had hurt my creature and if he had thought long it.

I drew nearer, pressing a clawed finger to the vision, anger gnashing my teeth.

“Fragile man,” I growled. “I will break you.”

The image went dark, and my reflection peered back at me, fierce and feral. The mirror laughed.

“Your lust is making you reckless.”

“It is not reckless to make a mortal swallow his cock for hurting a woman,” I said, and a slow grin spread across my face as I imagined the horror and pain that would contort the man’s face. “It is…satisfying.”

“You cannot curse anyone while you are cursed,” said the mirror.

As if I had forgotten.

“I can be patient,” I said.

I would take great pleasure in wounding the man who had wounded her—if she helped me end this cruel curse.

“You will be the death of her,” the mirror said again.

“You are not a mirror of prophecy.”

“I am a mirror of truth,” he said.

I turned and crossed to my bed, and as I rested on the coverlet and took my aching length in hand, I thought of the creature and her rose-smelling hair and recalled how she fit against me. I pumped my hand faster, a little harder, until my head teemed with fantasies about how I would fuck her when she finally gave in.

“She will live. Long enough to speak my name,” I said between clenched teeth just before I came.

I waited for sleep to take hold, but instead of my limbs growing heavy and my eyes sliding shut, my muscles grew tight, and my body filled with blood as if I had not found release at all.

“No.” I sat up.

Vicious creature.

Vicious brothers.

They had sent me a siren.