“I hate to break up this moment,” he murmured. “But I need to check on my spear before another round. Uisnech hid it for me, but I need to see it for myself.”
That thing again? I pushed up onto my elbow and stared down at him. “Are you finally going to tell me what the deal is with that spear?”
He sighed and closed his eyes, his long lashes splaying across his cheeks. “I want to tell you everything, but I must admit, I fear what you will think of me.”
Every now and then, I could tell that Lugh had been alive for a very long time. His modern speech would slip, and the formality would roll back in.
I rolled over on top of him and slid my fingers into his curls. “There’s nothing you could say that would change my mind about you.”
He opened his eyes, pulled my face toward his, and kissed me deeply. “This is hard for me. I’ve only ever trusted two people in this world with my secret.”
A flicker of hurt went through me. “Does that mean you don’t trust me enough with your secret?”
“No, Moira.” He sighed. “It means I do. I’m just afraid I’m wrong, and you’ll run away from me.”
What could he say that would make me run? After what we’d been through together, after everything I’d seen him do. He was a good male. A great one, really. So what if he had a crazy powerful spear?
Lugh grabbed my hips and slid me off his body, and then swung his legs over the side of the bed. He grabbed his pants from the floor and tossed me an oversized t-shirt of his. “Come on. We’ll check on the spear, and I’ll show you what it is.”
My heart beat rapidly, and I pulled the shirt over my head in record time. He was finally going to tell me about his spear. I’d known there was more to the weapon than met my eye, and I eagerly wanted to know the full truth of it.
I padded after him in bare feet and out into the hallway. He led me to the end of the hallway where I noticed he’d begun to pile some books on a shelf. My lips quirked. I’d been the one to suggest a bookshelf. And I felt kinda smug that he’d listened.
Lugh reached beneath the top shelf, and a click echoed through the quiet palace halls. When the shelves swung inward to reveal a hidden passageway within the walls of the palace itself, my mouth fell open.
“Huh. Okay, that’s pretty wicked.” I squinted as I peered inside. A long tunnel stretched out before us, snagging to the right. “Where’s it lead?”
“To a room that no one knows about but me, Uisnech, and now you,” he said quietly. He reached inside and flicked a light switch, the hidden tunnel suddenly illuminated by a soft glow. “Come. I’ll show you the spear.”
Eagerly, I followed behind him. We padded down the hallway, and then made the turn right into a small room about the size of the one where I’d stayed in the residential building. There was a small cot lining one wall, and a desk on the other, hidden beneath mounds of books and papers. A space heater was plugged into the wall socket. Sitting right beside said wall socket was the case-enclosed spear.
Even though I had seen it several times by now, it still took my breath away. The magic seeped into the room, filling it up with a buzz of electricity that smudged the thoughts in my head.
Instinctively, I moved toward it.
Lugh held out an arm to stop me, and then cocked his head. “You’re drawn to the spear.”
“Yeah, I guess I am actually.” I peered up at the five sharp points before lowering my gaze to the gleaming golden rivets. “Is that its power?”
“What do you mean?”
“The magic rolling off of it,” I explained. “Does it have something to do with drawing people to it? And, on that note, is your power drawing people to you?”
“No one else is drawn to this spear, Moira,” he said quietly. “In fact, they’re terrified of it. Uisnech only moved it because he cares deeply for me. But it makes his skin crawl. It makes everyone’s skin crawl.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
He frowned, confusion rippling across his face. “You don’t?”
My hands clenched. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be doing this anymore. A dread had begun to seep into my bones, and warning bells clanged in my head. “What is this spear, Lugh? What’s going on?”
Lugh crossed the room without another word and unlocked the case. The door hung open, and the gleaming gold winked at me.
“This spear,” he began, staring at it with a strange expression on his face, “is part of me. And I am part of it. We’re linked in a way that is almost impossible to understand, though I will try my best to explain it.”
“It’s part of you?” I squeaked.
“My fae power is skill with a spear, but this particular weapon goes beyond that. When I use it, my powers are far greater than anything else most have ever seen. That’s why the fae ran from me when I caught them attacking you in Mag Mell. It would strike them down. It would steal the breath from their lungs, the blood from their veins, if I touched them with it.”
Fear shuddered through me.
“But there is a downside to my powers, which is why I keep my spear locked up and hidden from those who wish to steal it from me.” Lugh reached out and wrapped his hand around the spear, slamming the shaft onto the floor by his feet.
In an instant, my world changed. Something inside my soul snapped tight. Magic rushed through me like a category five hurricane. Power crackled between Lugh and his spear, and the entire room was engulfed by it.
My heart pounded as I stared into Lugh’s midnight eyes. Lips parted, I shook my head. The magic pulsing between us clenched tight in my gut, and a strange sensation swirled between us. His power pummelled through my heart, but my own magic rushed right back toward him.
Fear tripped through me. I’d heard about this before.
I knew what it was.
“No!” I clutched at my heart and backed away from him, shaking my head in horror. “No, no, no.”
“What is it?” Confusion and alarm flashed across his face. “What’s wrong? I thought my spear did not scare you.”
“You’re my mate,” I whispered. “You’re my actual mate.”
He shook his head, still confused. “Of course I am. Didn’t you know? Didn’t you feel the bond snap between us the moment we met? If not then, the moment in the training room?”
That moment he’d looked at me and laughed about the cruelty of fate.
“No.” Closing my eyes, I twisted away. I couldn’t bear to look at him anymore, not knowing the truth about our bond. Lugh Tuireann was my mate. The prophecy roared in my head, drowning out a moment that should have been one of the happiest of my life.
The King of Wraiths was my mate.
Which meant I would kill him one day.
18
I tore out of the castle. Now that I knew the truth, I couldn’t stay here anymore. Every moment I spent with Lugh was another moment when I might stab him in the heart.
He caught my arm as I shoved my feet into my boots. “Moira, you have to explain what’s going on. I realise it’s an intense moment, finding your mate, but I honestly thought you already knew. All these times we’ve touched, I could feel it in my gut.”
Tears stung my eyes. I kept my gaze on my boots. I couldn’t look at him anymore. “Saoirse isn’t the first druid I’ve met. There’s another. Her name is Caer.”
“I’ve heard of Caer,” he said suspiciously, dropping my arm. “She tends to deal in prophecies that are a matter of life and death.”
“Exactly.” I tightened my laces and headed for the door. Then, I stopped, twisting to give him one last look. He stood tall beside his harp, a piercing reminder that he was brutal and fierce but also soft, caring, and heartachingly perfect. I wanted to memorise his face. It would be the last time I ever saw it. Coal black hair, fierce black eyes, sharp jaw and cheekbones that could cut glass. Hands that were strong enough to pummel foes but soft enough to make me melt.
I closed my eyes. “Caer told me that I will one day kill my mate. I don
’t understand how it happened, but it turns out that’s you. That’s why I have to leave.”
I was a warrior. I loved to fight. My blood sang when battle called. I’d always needed someone the same. I understood that now. I should have known from the moment that I met Lugh that he would be my mate. We mirrored each other in a way that I could scarcely believe.
And that was why I had to leave.
With that, I pushed out the door and raced toward the castle gates. I wasn’t sure if he would try to stop me when the shock of my words wore off, but I didn’t want to stick around to find out. Instead, I clambered over the gates and dropped onto the ground on the other side. The guards shouted at me, but they didn’t hold me back. They weren’t there to keep us from leaving. They were there to keep enemies out.
And now I was one.
The city spread out before me, but the glittering lights had faded as the moon stalked toward the horizon. It was the middle of the night. Most places were shut tight until morning. No trains ran this late, which meant I was kind of stuck. For now, I’d have to find a pub and crash for the night, until I could leave the next morning.
Time to go home. My heart squeezed. When I’d left London, I’d ached to stay, and now the very opposite was true. I didn’t want to go back.
A few pubs on a street just off the High Street had their lights still blazing through the windows. I picked one called A Knight’s End and pushed inside. A little bell clanged as I sauntered over to the bar, dropped onto the stool, and sunk my elbows onto the sleek wood.
“Rough night?” the bartender asked through a beard that could rival the thickest brush. His sandy hair matched, thick and hanging down to his shoulders. He wore a black t-shirt with a reaper illustration, and he had a tattoo on his arm of some sort of Celtic symbol.
“You have no idea,” I muttered. How could I explain to a human that I’d found my mate and that I could never see him again? Because of a prophecy. From a druid. Who had originally come from the magical land called Faerie. He probably wouldn’t serve me a drink.
“What’s your poison?” he asked, flipping a shot glass in his beefy hands.
“Give me a shot of your best whiskey.” I twisted on my seat to see the vacancy sign flashing just outside the window. “You have some open rooms?”
“Sure.” He poured the drink and slid the glass toward me. “A hundred quid a night.”
I made a face.
He let out a low chuckle. “Sorry. Prime real estate right here. Views of the castle, a one minute walk to the High Street. Tourists love it here. Plus, we have access to Mary King’s Close, right across the street. Guests here enjoy free entry, and we do private tours every day at noon. Though tomorrow’s already booked up.”
Ah, Mary King’s Close, the most famous close in all of Edinburgh. Once, it had been part of the Royal Mile, a bustling main street for businesses and homes. Over the years, the close had been built on top of, again and again until it was buried beneath the city. The area had been sealed shut. No sunlight, no fresh air, and no escape for plague victims. A lot of people had died in that close, and what humans didn’t know now was that over half of them had been due to hungry vampires.
“So, you charge extra for being across from a veritable graveyard.” I downed the shot and winced as fire burned my throat.
He shrugged. “Tourists are convinced supernatural shit is going down in there, especially after all those weirdos came out of the closet. You know some of them live in the castle on the hill? All this time, I thought the place was shut to visitors because the military was doing super secret training in there, but it turns out a fae king bought the damn place. Can you believe it?”
I swallowed hard. I was not yet ready to be reminded of the mate I’d left behind. “I heard the fae help keep the vampires in line.”
He grunted. “They’re all the same to me. Vampires, fae, werewolves. Did you know there are also magicians out there?”
“Sorcerers,” I corrected.
“Yeah, sorcerer magicians.” His grin widened. “A friend of mine bought this pretty cool drug off a magician the other day. It’s called sapphire blue or something. And lemme tell you, that thing was pooooooootent.”
My head jerked up. “Oh yeah? You got a name for this guy?”
The bartender jerked his head back and forth. “Nah. I just know he deals out of Mary King’s Close but not at this time of night. You’d have to catch him during the day. But it’s hard to get to him. Other than the tours, that place is shut to the public. I don’t know how he manages.”
Right. Of course he did. My mind ran a hundred miles an hour. If I could talk to the sorcerer, maybe I could find out which fae he’d sold drugs to, and then we could get a lead on who took Saoirse. I needed to get out of this town, for Lugh’s sake, but I could check things out tomorrow before I got on the train.
“I got some weed though if you’d like that instead?”
“No, thanks. I think I’ll take another shot, and then head up to bed.”
“You got it,” he replied, pouring the drink before I could start babbling about fae mates and kings and evil prophecies. He didn’t seem too keen on supernaturals, and I needed a room. Best to keep mum about the whole thing. Like Lugh liked to do. Lugh. My mate.
Argh! I couldn’t think about anything without my mind circling right back to his raven hair and perfect biceps.
I downed the shot and decided I should probably call it a night. Two whiskeys and my head already buzzed. The bartender tossed me a set of keys and instructed me to head to the third floor, first room on the right.
As I pushed up the stairs, the door to the pub opened, and a wave of cold air rushed inside. The little bell clanged, and the murmur of voices drowned it out. Huh. Guessed I wasn’t the only living thing out there wandering the streets in need of a drink at two in the morning. The place was called A Knight’s End, after all.
But something stopped me from heading up the stairs.
I wasn’t entirely sure what set off the alarm bells. Something about the way the air moved as the new arrivals whispered through the bar. No. It wasn’t that at all. It was the way they smelled. Lavender, iron, and dead leaves.
My heart dropped. It was the crew from the night of the attack in Mag Mell.
Gripping the banister, I eased into a crouch to see into the pub, but my view was blocked by the half-shut door.
“Yeah, can we have a round of bourbon? Here’s a little extra for you to find something interesting in your stock room back there. We have some business to attend to out here. Trade secrets and the lot.”
“Yeah, alright.” The bartender’s voice sounded pleasantly surprised. They must have passed him a tidy sum to make him vanish. At least they hadn’t decided to kill him for his trouble. A moment later, footsteps thudded on the hardwood, and a door slammed shut.
“Ugh, humans.” The female’s voice dripped with disdain. The leader. The one who had the magic sword. “I’m so sick of having to pretend to care about them. Can’t talk about supernatural stuff in their presence. It’s time this world had a change.”
“Nemain will make certain that our lives are for the better once she returns from the underworld,” a quiet male voice replied. “Patience, Fiona.”
I frowned. Nemain would change the world alright. She would make sure the humans of the world were her slaves, and she’d destroy every other supernatural race. I couldn’t believe that there were other fae out there who wanted the same thing.
“It’s been weeks,” Fiona whined. “We’ve got the cauldron. Why won’t it work?”
So, we’d been right. The Cauldron Tossers had gotten their hands on the magical item, but they had no idea how to use it. That was a good sign, though their next words sent a chill down my spine.
“It won’t work because we don’t have his spear,” the quiet male continued. “The prophecy girl said we needed to get it.”
Prophecy girl. Saoirse. My heart flipped over. She was okay. She was still al
ive. And they were making her do prophecies for them just like we’d feared.
And we were back to that damn spear again.
“No matter,” the male sniffed. “According to my source, Lugh is alone tonight, unguarded. His spear has been hidden away, which means he cannot use it against us. His little goblin is busy with another task. We’ll take him tonight.”
Wait. I leaned forward and the bannister creaked beneath me.
“I don’t understand,” Fiona said. “I thought we needed his spear.”
“The prophecy made it clear we need something potent, which Lugh’s spear is. But if his spear is potent, he will be, too. We will sacrifice the King in order to get our Queen back.”
My heart roared as the enemy’s words echoed in my mind. I’d left Lugh alone back at the castle, and Uisnech was off feasting on...whatever hobgoblins feasted on. The guards were in place at the gates, but would they be able to stop this attack?
“Ooh, sacrifice the King,” another voice said, cackling. “I love the sound of that. Let’s hit him now, while he’s asleep. He’ll never see us coming.”
19
I paced the warped floor in the pub’s rented room. My hands clenched and then unclenched. Shaking my head, I tried to solve a puzzle that didn’t seem to have an answer. These fae were going after Lugh. I needed to warn him, but...I couldn’t risk being in his presence. What if I killed him?
Get a grip, I shouted at myself. It wasn’t like my arm would move in independence of my body. There might be a prophecy that I would kill him, but it wasn’t like it would just come out of nowhere.
With a frustrated sigh, I punched a number into my cell. Lugh’s number. Even if I couldn’t go to him, I could warn him about what was coming his way. His phone rang and rang and rang. Swearing, I tried Uisnech next. If I couldn’t warn Lugh himself, the hobgoblin was second best. He was out doing his feasting thing, but I was certain he would go back to the castle if it meant protecting Lugh.
Confessions of a Dangerous Fae (The Supernatural Spy Files Book 1) Page 16