Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

R osa woke to the cloying smell of roses and Balthasar's aftershave. She rolled over, her hands pushing through the vines, thorns cutting her skin as she pulled him close. Vines . Rosa's eyes snapped open, panic seizing her.

"Bal!" she cried, her free hand shoving him.

His dark eyes opened slowly, his sleepy smile freezing. "Rosa, my love, what have you done?"

"I don't know," she gasped, looking around her. Growing out of the wooden frame of the four-poster bed were rose vines that twisted and bloomed around them, covering them in red and white petals.

"It's okay. Don't panic I can fix this," he assured. Balthasar moved his hand from under the cover and gripped the vine hanging closest to his face. Pale blue light filled his palm and spread along the thorny tendrils, but instead of loosening, they tightened.

"Shit! Stop, Bal," Rosa said, and his magic vanished.

"The roses are your magic, not mine," Balthasar said as he carefully moved to touch her hand. "Focus, Rosa. Make them go away."

"I don't know how! I don't even know how they got there to begin with." Rosa shut her eyes and tried to concentrate, tried to feel out the power inside of her, willing the roses to move off them.

Dammit, Eldon, where are you now to help me! she thought angrily.

"Breathe, Rosa," Balthasar soothed. "It will…"

The attic door was kicked open, and Eldon stormed in only a pair of black jeans and unlaced Doc Marten boots. "Rosa Wylt, you had best have a good explanation for waking me." Eldon stopped in front of the bed and started laughing.

"Shut. Up. Blaise. Get me the hell out of here," Rosa demanded.

"Steady now, Rhosyn," he said. Rosa saw a glow of golden light from the corner of her eye, and the vines lifted, slithering back into the bedposts, leaving only the flowers blooming. Eldon offered her a robe. "Still think you have no magic, little one?" He turned his back as she wrapped the robe around herself with trembling hands.

"I don't know… I didn't think…" she mumbled, shaking.

Eldon turned back around and hugged her close. "There now, you're okay. It was a minor mishap, so don't let it worry you."

"It didn't respond to my magic," Balthasar said, tucking a towel around his waist. "It made it worse. Why did yours work?"

"I'm over a thousand years old, and our magic is connected through our blood. No matter how distant the connection, it's still there," Eldon said and let her go.

Rosa took a few steadying breaths. "How did you know I was in trouble?"

"Your panic woke me up. I was halfway here when you started psychically abusing me." Eldon gave her a crooked smile.

"Sorry about disturbing you."

Eldon waved her apology aside. "I expected something like this to happen. Magic usually awakens in different ways. Whatever happened last night must've triggered it." He raised a knowing eyebrow at Rosa, and she flushed, focusing on the silver torc and the pendants that hung from a chain around his neck. Anywhere but his face. He had a lot of lean, tattooed muscle on his tall frame that she wouldn't have pictured hidden under his clothes.

"So what now?" she asked.

"Now, I go back to sleep for a few hours and…oh, don't look at me like that, Rosa," Eldon huffed. "Fine, I'm going to have a shower. I'll meet you in the kitchen in half an hour."

"Thank you, cefnder ," she said with a smile. "I like your tattoos."

"All women do," Eldon said and headed for the attic door. On his back was the tattoo of a tree, its roots and branches curling into each other in Celtic knot patterns. Rosa's eyes burned when she looked at it for too long.

"You can stop staring now," Balthasar said dryly.

"Kind of hard not to with all that wild raven hair and golden eyes. He's absolutely Unseelie and so much like Eli." Rosa looked over her shoulder at him. "I'm sorry about the roses."

"Don't be," Balthasar said, putting an arm around her shoulders. "When my magic woke up, I burned down a tavern in Florence."

Rosa laughed into the groove of his collarbone. "You're right, that would've been much worse. I don't mind the roses as long as they stay on the bedposts. I can't believe having sex last night made my magic manifest."

He kissed the top of her head. "Well, the sex was pretty outstanding."

"Does that mean you're going to come for a shower with me?" Rosa asked, letting him go and heading for the bathroom.

"Do you think that is wise, considering we needed Eldon to rescue us?"

"Only a shower then," Rosa agreed. "I shudder to think how he would find us if something went wrong."

The kitchen was warm and inviting. With all the changes that she had been going through in the last month, the kitchen was the only place Rosa felt solid. Cecily and the three J's had gone to London to do some shopping, so it was blissfully quiet as Rosa brewed coffee and made breakfast.

When Eldon came in fifteen minutes later, he was wearing a mulberry-colored shirt and black waistcoat, his wet raven hair pushed back from his face.

"Hungry?" Rosa asked and put down a plate on the bench piled high with bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, and toast.

"That psychic link must be working still," Eldon said, sitting down and picking up his fork. She passed him a mug of coffee before sitting down opposite him with her own breakfast. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm freaking out," Rosa admitted truthfully. "I had to drink half a cup of blood this morning. That's new."

"I can imagine."

"Do you have to do that?"

"No, thank God," Eldon said, and put a piece of bacon in his mouth. "I was born, not created. I have all the Unseelie abilities if I want to use them but have none of the downsides."

"It's a small price to pay, I suppose. At least I'm not like the Gwaed Gam."

"They would turn out okay if they weren't batshit crazy when they were humans," Eldon replied. "Eli and the princes have their work cut out for them, I imagine."

"God, yes. The clans are going mental and have no Seelie to take their frustrations out on. I'm hoping when they find out Ryn is dead, they will settle down," Rosa said, cradling her hot mug in her hands. They still shook with the memory and sensation of cutting Ryn's head off, the way the sword hummed in her hands.

"Albion is not happy," Eldon said slowly. "I'm tied to this land, and it woke me up by screaming a few weeks ago. I would say when you and Balthasar found your way back from the Aos Si and killed Ryn."

"Why would that affect anything? Ryn was a consort, not a king."

"He carried the dead Seelie king's sword. That sword is now yours by right of conquest."

"I had dreams when I was turning about snow falling in the Seelie lands. Then you said the same thing. What was that all about? I know the Autumn Queen was going to be mad when she found out about Ryn, but I didn't think it snowed in Faerie." Rosa pushed a mushroom around her plate. "I thought the queen made it an eternal autumn."

"She did . That's why I got here as fast as I could. None of it made sense until you told me what happened there." Eldon looked sheepish for a moment. "I may have cursed the Wylts like a failsafe."

"Cursed us? How's a curse meant to be a failsafe?" Rosa demanded.

"By all means enlighten us, Eldon," Eli said as he entered the kitchen.

"Ah, Father, join us."

Rosa got out more cups and poured coffee. "The other two won't be far behind him. There's no avoiding it." She had barely finished saying it when Balthasar and Saul came in.

"Coffee!" Saul exclaimed, accepting a cup from Rosa with a kiss on her cheek. "You're the best, Rosa. Is there more food?"

"In the oven. Help yourself," Rosa said and sat back down at the bench. "Eldon was just telling me that I'm cursed."

"It sounds so terrible when you put it like that," he huffed. "After certain events long ago, I put a spell on the Wylt line so that if any of the Seelie tried to kidnap them, it would cause the culprit hell. I didn't expect the Autumn Queen would be stupid enough to take a Wylt. I didn't think the spell worked until I saw the vision of it snowing in Faerie."

"Are you trying to tell us that because Rosa was in Faerie, she's broken the Autumn Queen's spell?" Balthasar asked.

"More or less. Her power is weakening rapidly."

"That is why you asked about our power," Eli said. "If the queen's spell holding the cycles of power is finally breaking, all the magic is going to flow to the Unseelie for the first time in thousands of years."

"Exactly. That's all of us and whatever is left of the Unseelie in Faerie."

"What about the Gwaed Gam?" Rosa asked. "Eli, you said they were hybrids of us. Will they get magic?"

Eli frowned thoughtfully. "I'm… I'm not sure. It's possible, but I doubt it. Only the royal blood, people directly turned by us, has ever shown any sign of magic. They may get stronger and faster. Whatever abilities they have will grow, but I doubt they will all be able to use magic. I should warn my brothers just in case."

"You can tell them to get ready for a fight too," Eldon stated. "You can bet your ass that the Autumn Queen will not go down peacefully. She'll be after Rosa's head just on principle."

"She'll learn that you live. She will want you dead," Eli warned.

"It didn't work out so well for her last time she tried."

"It didn't work out so well for your mother either." They all stiffened, feeling the fight brewing.

"Really, Father? I thought after our chat last night, we weren't going to fight." Eldon folded his arms.

"Please," Rosa said softly. "I'm freaked out enough this morning without you two at each other. If you are going to argue about Deryn, then at least tell us what you are arguing about."

"You haven't told them?" Eldon asked. "I should've guessed."

"I haven't told anyone about it since it happened to protect you. Foolish of me to think you would appreciate that."

"Keep arguing with me, and the Seelie bitch wins."

"And it's dull for everyone else," Saul stated, earning Balthasar's elbow in his ribs. "I don't care, Bal. I want to know what happened. I've never seen Eli want to hit or hug someone so much in my life."

"I did the worst thing imaginable," Eldon said, not taking his golden eyes off Eli. "I fell in love with the wrong woman."

"Will you tell us?" Rosa asked softly, her hand reaching across to touch his. "Please?" Eldon looked at her fingers for a long moment and then his frown softened.

"Tell me, Balthasar, is she always like this?"

Balthasar nodded, expression grave. "It's sometimes far easier to give her what she wants. Otherwise, she will keep pushing until you give up."

"By your leave, Father." Eldon looked questioningly at Eli, who nodded.

"Tell them."

"Fill your cups, my friends!" Eldon exclaimed dramatically. "For this is the story of how the great Merlin Wylt was destroyed by love."