Five Kinds of Love (The True and the Crown Book 5) Read online

  Five Kinds of Love

  May Dawson

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  A Note from May

  Her Kind of Magic

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Also by May Dawson

  Chapter 1

  I wake with a gasp, grateful to surface from my nightmare. I dreamed that I lost everyone left in my world—Airren, Cax, Mycroft, the Fox himself—in one horrible handful of moments.

  Then reality thuds into my chest, stealing the breath from my lungs. My eyes fly open, but I can’t see anything. The darkness seems to press in on me.

  My cheek is sticky with drool from the deep sleep of someone who had been knocked unconscious. I sit cautiously, unable to see anything around me, and rub my hand across my face.

  Airren tried to tell me that he loved me, and not to blame myself, right before my magic burned through him…

  I shudder. When I think about him, panic rises in my throat like bile. I can’t fall apart right now. I have to think.

  I stretch out my hand, fumbling in the dark to my right—nothing but air there—then my left. The bed squeaks underneath me. My hand smacks into cool stone. A cell. I’m in a cell.

  Right. I can make light. I’d forgotten that.

  “Illuminate,” I murmur, performing the quick, simple cast: I fold the fingers of my right hand together against my left palm, then explode my hand outward, mimicking flames bursting from a fire. Sure enough, a silver-white glowing ball blooms in the air between my palms.

  I toss my hands into the air, and the ball of light flies to the ceiling, then hovers there. It casts soft white light to illuminate the cell.

  There’s a windowless door at the end of the room, and nothing else in here beside the bed itself and a bucket.

  Reality thuds into me all over again.

  Devlin betrayed me.

  And I betrayed my men because I believed in him.

  A sob catches at the back of my throat, but I swallow it. There will be time to grieve them later, after I make the people who killed them pay.

  There’ll be time to hate myself later.

  After my revenge, I don’t know how I’ll go on. I can’t stop replaying the scenes.

  Cax’s eyes were so bright green as he gazed at me, a resigned, stoic expression coming over his face just before my magic blasted him out of this world.

  Mycroft told me with his dying breath that he loved me, that I shouldn’t hate myself. He knows so well. Knew me, that is. Because I do hate myself now.

  Airren told me not to stop fighting. I can honor his memory with that, at least. I’ll end the lives of everyone who hurt my men.

  There are only two things magic can’t do: show the future and raise the dead.

  Maybe there are only two things that matter.

  There’s a footfall just outside my door.

  My head snaps up. I listen intently, waiting for another sound that never comes.

  The sudden movement left my head pounding. When I touch my temple, my fingertips probe a sore spot. Some of my hair is matted to my forehead, as if it had been gelled. I start to push it back, and pain spikes in my head. Right. Not gel. Dried blood.

  Devlin’s magician swung that staff at my face. He hit me with magic and also just slammed me into brain-damaging oblivion, all at one time. Those Vasiliks. For all their faults, like being evil and murderous, at least one has to admire how thorough they are.

  As long as I’m cracking jokes, at least I feel like I’m not actually losing my mind.

  Penny. My chittering, fiercely loyal dragon; where is she now?

  Aerowyn, my unicorn. We’re linked somehow, but when I close my eyes and try to reach out for her, I feel…nothing.

  The Vasiliks won’t have killed them. Not on purpose. Human lives might not be worth much to them, but magical beasts are valuable.

  All I have to do is escape the room with the locked door, find Penny and Aerowyn, destroy whatever traps them, and then… what?

  Once I’m free, do I rampage through the Vasilik castle, finding Devlin and his mother and their magicians and killing them? Or do I flee, regroup, then return and rampage?

  My entire life plan right now is pretty much summed up by the word rampage.

  The door swings open, as if on cue.

  I slip to the end of the bed and let my feet fall to the cold stone floor. Someone’s taken off my boots. I’m barefoot, and pins and needles tingle through my feet, as if I slept a long time. I flex my toes, mindless of the pain, trying to get ready to move. I have to get through that door.

  Devlin steps into the cell.

  He wears black, as usual: a black shirt closed at the collar, with his sleeves rolled back to reveal muscled forearms. His clothes are black as grief.

  Devlin’s always caused a lot of grief. His face is solemn, his expressive lips pressed together tightly. His crown is straight, for once, atop dark curls.

  Rage tightens my chest until I can barely breathe.

  “I’ll call when I’m done,” he says over his shoulder to an unseen guard, before pushing the door shut behind him. It clicks with dreadful finality.

  “Done with what? What do you want?” I demand.

  For all my anger, there’s a ragged edge of fear in my voice too.

  “Sit,” he commands.

  I cross my arms. The magic that made me his puppet must have broken when I was knocked unconscious. I no longer am compelled to obey him.

  “Ah, pity,” he murmurs, as if he too realizes the spell is broken.

  “Why?” I demand. “You used me all that time, you pretended to be the Fox—”

  “Did I pretend?” His smirk curls up one corner of his mouth. “You people want to believe so badly. I could save a few Vasiliks who never mattered anyway, and people would give me anything I wanted…as long as I wore the mask.”

  “And what do you want?”

  “A few things.” He raises his hand to tick them off on his long, graceful fingers. “Avalon in flames. A pet dragon of my very own. The dark lord’s daughter as my bride.”

  “Never going to happen.”

  “I think you’ll find I’m hard to resist, Tera.”

  I did find him hard to resist, not that long ago. I made terrible mistakes that cost me the people I love because of it.

  “I might find you hard to resist when my mind is under your control.” I tilt my head, studying him. There’s a tremor of rage in my voice, despite my best efforts to be cool. “But you’ll never really have me.”

  “I’m not going to control your mind in such cumbersome ways, Tera,” he promises me. “B
y the time I’m done with you, you’ll be glad to be mine.”

  “You killed them.” I can’t hold back the words anymore.

  “No, you killed them.” His lips twitch in a cruel smile I’ve never seen before. “You were angry at them, weren’t you? You hated them for lying to you, for winning your heart, for making you stupid.”

  “No. I don’t hate them.” My voice comes out sure. I love them. The only thing I could count on in this world was that I loved them, and they loved me, no matter how hard things were between us for a season.

  Devlin goes on as if I haven’t spoken. “My magic was the key in the lock. It was your hatred that boiled out.”

  “You’re lying. I never would have hurt them.”

  “And they died believing in you, that’s the best part.” He continues as if he hasn’t heard me. His eyes fix on me, the smirk dropping away, and his face is suddenly intense. When he speaks again, it’s with Airren’s posh accent. “Now. Later. Whatever happens. Don’t stop fighting. We love you, Tera Kate—”

  Airren’s words on his lips make me boil over.

  I launch myself at him. There’s a dozen feet between the two of us, and he has plenty of time to prepare himself. When I slam into him, his arms wrap around me. I punch his kidney, once, twice, hard enough to make him grunt as my momentum carries us both across the room.

  As the two of us stumble back, he spins, then slams me against the wall. His hands are bruisingly hard around my biceps as he holds me there.

  We’re being watched. We need to keep fighting. It’s his voice in my head. It’s the best cover while we communicate.

  Get out of my head. I yank my arm loose and slam my fist into his jaw as hard as I can. His head snaps back. With his grip loosened, I twist out of his reach, moving quickly across the room. But there’s nowhere to go. I’m trapped with him.

  When he looks at me, as he rubs his jaw, his mouth twists in rage. Fear flutters in my chest, displacing some of my anger.

  He takes a few quick steps toward me, fury in his posture. His hands fold into fists, and he holds himself in check, staring at me. “Let’s stop this now, Tera. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

  They’re not dead.

  I stop. I stare at him, right before he takes the last few quick steps to grab me in his arms. He presses me against the wall, his grip painfully tight on my shoulders, then his mouth claims mine.

  They’re not dead, he says again. I had to trick my mother. Just like now.

  You’re a liar. Tears rise in my eyes along with the sudden rush of hope in my chest. I saw them die.

  It was just a spell. An ancient spell few know—the Basilitiun. You stopped their hearts, but you didn’t kill them.

  He pauses, and my mind reels. Is it true? Dare I trust him again?

  They’re your sleeping beauties.

  It’s the edge of mockery, mixed with admiration, in his voice that convinces me that he means it.

  I shove him away from me. My vision is blurred. When I blink, hot tears spill down my cheeks.

  “Is this really what you want?” I cry out. “You want me like this? When I hate you?” Where are they? Did you do the spell to wake them yet?

  His tongue darts out and licks the tear from my cheek. He pins me with his forearm barring my throat, pressing painfully hard. It’s difficult for me to swallow, and my mouth is suddenly thick. He looks skyward, as if he’s thinking, judging, as if he’s going to write a Yelp review for my tears. No. I can’t get to them—I have to stay here, I have to keep unraveling my mother’s plans from the inside.

  “Yes,” he says. “This is how I want you. It’ll be a pleasure to break you, Tera Donovan. I think that having you murder our own men is a good start.”

  You can’t stay here. Your mother is suspicious. I remember her face when the Fox’s mask was torn from Devlin’s face. She’ll kill him if she suspects anything.

  “I’m going to kill you,” I tell him fiercely.

  “That’s a bold statement for someone who can’t breathe,” he says, leaning his body weight into me. The knife-edge of his forearm presses into my throat. I grab his arm, trying to tug it away from my throat, but he’s unmovable.

  We’re supposed to be pretending, but my vision turns black at the edges. I stare at his smirking face, perplexed.

  “I know it’ll take time for you to love me,” he says. They’re cargo, en route to my new summer house in Minsk. You know the one. “But in the meantime, I’ll accept obedience.”

  The darkness thickens. I try to whisper something, but I choke instead.

  He braces himself with one hand on the wall by my head, and leans his weight off me. “What’s that?”

  “Please.” The word comes out in a whisper that burns my throat. How do I get out of here?

  He strokes his fingers down the shape of my cheekbone. His face is so near mine, his eyes full of arrogance. My feelings are a tumult; I don’t know if I trust him or if I hate him. I don’t know if he really saved us all at the edge of the sea, or if this is yet another trap.

  But I have to cling to that hope that my men are alive.

  You’re going to have to figure that out. My mother is letting me keep you, because she thinks you can be useful with the True. But your two previous lucky escapes have me in dangerous territory… and I need to stay here, on the inside. Where I can help you all bring her down.

  “I’ll be back to visit you again in the morning,” he tells me. “You’ll be grateful to see me.”

  There are two guards at your door. Neither of them have the key to leave the hall—that’s kept by the officer of the guard on the other side of the barred door. And lastly, there’s a final door from the dungeons into the courtyard, and my sorcerers unlock that door at guard change—at eight o’clock in the morning, four in the afternoon, and midnight. Do with that what you will.

  “I wouldn’t gamble on that,” I shoot back, but my voice comes out as a rasp. My mind races as I try to commit that information to memory. My best chance to escape will be at one of those guard changes.

  He smiles, a slow, cold smile that has me doubting everything that’s been said between us in secret. Your pets escaped, by the way. That unicorn gored an ungodly number of Vasiliks, protecting that dragon of yours.

  I exhale. Penny and Aeroywn will come when I need them, then. Most importantly of all, they’re safe.

  “Such a brave girl,” he says, stroking the back of his fingers across my cheek. I tense at his touch, and I don’t try to hide it for the sake of whoever is watching us.

  He turns his head over his shoulder. “Guard!”

  When his attention is turned away from me, as the guard’s about to open the door, I slam my knee up between his thighs. Mycroft taught me that was a risky move, but I’m already dangerously close to Devlin; I might as well risk it.

  He doubles over before he tries to grab me, but I’m already spinning out away from him, under his arm.

  The guard yanks the door open. I glimpse the guard’s surprised face as he suddenly reverses direction, trying to drive the door closed. Outside the room is a long corridor; there’s got to be forty feet down the stone hall to the floor-to-ceiling wrought iron gate.

  I slip through the door before the guard can get it closed. I hit the guard as hard as I can, using all my momentum to drive my fist into his throat. My knuckles pop under the impact, but I don’t stop moving.

  There’s another guard down the hall, moving toward me now with purpose written across his face. Devlin came through all those locked doors somehow. Either Devlin came down here near guard changeover, or he came with a sorcerer to unlock the door.

  Devlin slams into me from behind, knocking me into the stone.

  “I guess my sorcerer addled your brain when he knocked you unconscious,” he says, his arm catching around my neck.

  I roll forward, bucking him over my shoulders, but he’s waiting for it; he drops his weight, and the two of us slam together into the hard stone floor.


  The two of us wrestle desperately, trying to get the upper hand. On the other side of the gate, the guards have arrived. One of them begins to chant a spell. From what I can glimpse in hurried glances, interspersed with Rian’s rage-filled face, none of them carry wands. I hoped I’d be able to steal one.

  I was probably never going to make it out of here, but I need to understand what I’m facing so I can figure out how to escape

  “Sleep.” Devlin snarls, getting his hand across my face. The heel of his hand presses hard against my nose, his outstretched fingers covering my eyes.

  His fury is the last thing I see before I fall into darkness.

  Chapter 2

  There’s a lot of time to think when I float back to consciousness in my dark cell. I’m hungry, aching, and miserable. I’m alone with my own thoughts, and one of them is something I never would have expected.

  Just a few months ago, before I came home to Avalon, I never thought I’d say: thanks, Dad.

  During those few precious weeks that I’d had my father back, he had been in his right mind. Sanity made him miserable. He’d often seemed morose, lost in the memories of the things he’d done.

  But he’d always come alive when I walked into the room. His eyes brightened, and his smile was unabashed, wide and open in his lean, tanned face. There’d been no denying the way he looked at me, full of hope and pride and wonder.

  He’d been so eager to teach me, but I’d been afraid to learn his spells. The first time I cut my palm for a blood magic scared me. The blood welling up against my palm filled me with fear because of the kind of power I was tapping into.