Free Child of Darkness-L-D-2 by Jennifer Armintrout

behind her, Ayla rose from the throne and stalked toward the doors that led to her chambers. Malachi followed, as she knew he would. “I need Cedric,”
    she said, not bothering to couch her command gently. “Bring him to me. I’m sure you know where he’s gone.”
    “I do not,” Malachi responded smoothly. The liar. The two of them were thick as thieves most days. “But I will find him.”
    “Good.” She stopped, halfway through the little hallway to her chambers, and turned to face him. There was no sense in parting angrily with him, when it was not him she was angry at.
    “Thank you. I…appreciate that you are willing to do these things for me. And for the Faery Court.”
    “I do these things because I love you. I do not care about the Faery Court.” A smile ticked the corners of his mouth, where the ghosts of smiles past lingered. “Shall I come to you tonight?”
    The words elicited a spark that flared to full flame in her, and she nodded. She would be grateful for the respite of his arms, his body, his presence after a day that had already, in its infancy, proved trying.
    He stepped forward and drew her into his arms, his lips finding the skin between her ear and the high collar of her robe. Her Guild mark was there, indelible black against her skin, covered unintentionally by her hair and her robes, but the part of it he could reach he touched, traced with his tongue, and she shivered.
    Just as abruptly as he coaxed the flame to life within her, he doused it by stepping away. “I will find Cedric for you,” he said with another smile, and then turned and left in the direction they had come.
    Five
    N o matter what Ayla accused him of, Malachi did not know where Cedric hid. It was a testimony to how very easily her suspicions gripped her, that she imagined her two closest friends and allies somehow plotting to hide themselves away from her. Cedric had every right to leave the way he had. But leaving once was one thing. Leaving again, and staying away, was another altogether.
    The best place to start looking, Malachi supposed, was with the guards he had been sent to call off the search the night before. He made his way to the barracks, a distant part of the Palace that was too close to the dungeons for his tastes. He found, as he had expected, that the guards who’d been sent off to search for the missing heir had been granted a day of rest. They were making use of it, too, as evidenced by the Faeries lounging on their crudely constructed bunks.
    “Do not rise,” he said, holding up a hand when they first noticed his presence. As Consort to the Queene, he was due a certain amount of respect from the Court, but display of that respect seemed cheap to him, and made him uneasy. He would rather they respect him not because of their Queene’s preference, but because of the times he had fought at their side in the past twenty years. It was a vain hope, he’d concluded, but that did not stop him from wanting it.
    “Last night, Master Cedric found you in the Darkworld and ordered you to call off the search, yes?” He watched as they nodded uniformly in response. “And did he return to the Palace with you?”
    “No, Sire,” one of the soldiers spoke up. “He stayed behind, to look for any of us that got separated.”
    That did sound like something Cedric would do. “Had any of you become separated?”
    “No, sire.”
    That, also, sounded like Cedric. “And did you tell him this?”
    “Yes, sire.”
    “Thank you.” Malachi nodded to the guards and turned to go, when a voice stopped him.
    “Sire, I may know where he is.”
    There was a noise of clearing throats and the rustle of movement. Out of these, Malachi distinctly heard someone whisper fiercely, “You keep your mouth shut!”
    Malachi turned. A young Faery—or perhaps he just appeared young, as Malachi could never tell the difference—stood apart from the others. The rest all watched him with daggers for eyes.
    “You know where Cedric