“Of course I have, my dear,” he answered but something about his response made me suspicious. “As I said I would.”
For some reason, he didn’t want to elaborate anymore on the subject.
“Okay,” I replied.
“Now tell me more about your impromptu visit outside the castle,” he said as he cut himself a generous portion of steak. It took at least three seconds before he brought it to his mouth. Then he made a big show of placing it inside his mouth before chewing and swallowing. I wondered if he were attempting to intimidate me. Because it was definitely having that effect.
“There’s really nothing to tell,” I started.
“Oh, I doubt that very much,” he tersely answered as he watched me like a hawk. “A close encounter with any of my Furies could be called many things but ‘uneventful’ is definitely not one of them.”
“Well, I already told you how I was confused and I never thought I would be attacked if I just walked outside the front doors,” I said, swallowing hard before I swiftly concealed my discomfort with another swig of wine.
“And yet, that is exactly what happened to you, was it not?”
“Yes,” I answered, finding it difficult to meet his gaze.
“And this was the second incident you had with a Fury, wasn’t it?” he continued as my heart dropped.
“I guess so.”
“And you didn’t learn your lesson the first time?”
I swallowed hard. “I figured you would have informed the Furies not to try to kill me. I figured you wanted to keep me here…intact.”
“Well, while that is true—I do prefer you intact, it seems a fairly large gamble to assume that I would have done such a thing without asking me if such were the case?”
“Are you finished making me feel stupid?” I glared at him.
He smiled and shook his head. “My intention is not to make you feel stupid, my dear. It is simply to point out the flaws in your argument and to alert you that I do not believe a word of the drivel with which you are attempting to convince me.”
“You can believe whatever you want,” I answered, feeling like a spoiled child. “I know the truth.”
“And despite your confession that you dispatched one of my Watchers with the help of Donnchadh, you continue to insist you were not attempting to escape?”
“No, I wasn’t,” I answered before I shrugged. “I’ve resigned myself to staying here since there’s no way I can escape this place. And besides, we both know I would never leave without Tallis and Bill anyway.”
Alaire nodded. “That much, I do believe,” he said as he cut another piece of steak to slowly bring to his mouth. He took a good twenty seconds or more to completely macerate it.
“Then we can agree the subject is no longer worth discussing?” I asked. Looking down at my plate, I suddenly realized I hadn’t eaten a single bite of anything. I didn’t want Alaire to think I was nervous—or worse, that I actually was hiding something—so I took a bite of the scalloped potatoes and washed them down with a sip of chardonnay.
“I suppose not,” Alaire answered as he placed his silverware down on his half-eaten plate and studied me some more. “Tell me the truth, Lily… are you happy here?”
“Happy?” I asked with a facetious laugh. “Happy isn’t a word I would choose to describe my feelings for this place,” I said, eagerly swallowing more scalloped potatoes.
“Then, what exactly is the right word?”
I was about to describe how I felt about my prison as well as my feelings about him before I realized that wouldn’t help my cause. No, I had to make sure Alaire believed he was slowly wearing down my resistance, chinking away at my anger and sadness.
“I’m forcing myself to be content,” I answered, lying through my teeth. Yes, the only way I could keep him from suspecting the truth was to convince him he was slowly wooing me over to the dark side. “You treat me well and you have been taking care of my friends. So I guess you aren’t as bad as I used to assume you were.”
Hopefully, he bought that steaming pile of bullshit.
“And yet you have failed to join me in my bedchamber since your return,” he said pointedly.
I shrugged and fought the urge to shrink back from him. “I’m not there yet,” I answered in a small voice.
“You are well aware that I have enjoyed your body many more times than I can ever hope to recall, yes?” he asked, his voice no less impatient with me.
“Yes, all of Persephone’s memories are readily available to me at all times, so I’m well aware of that.”
Alaire shrugged in exasperation. “Then what precisely is the hold-up?”
“Remember that it was Persephone using my body at the time!” I answered, facing him squarely. “She did what she wanted with it, never what I wanted. So whatever sex you had with me, well, let’s face it; it wasn’t actually with me at all.”
The cunning gleam in his eye warned me that I may have gone too far. “Then you do not wish to share my bed with me?”
I gulped hard. Sure, I walked straight into that rhetorical buzzsaw and face-first. My response would determine how much he planned to hold it against me. “So much has happened,” I said finally. “That I’m just not ready to even consider it yet. Besides, I don’t think it’s right for you to try to push me.”
The look in his eyes softened and he tilted his head to one side as if he were conceding my point. “Will there ever come a time when you are ready?”
I took a deep breath before answering. “Maybe. It all depends on how you treat my friends. The only way to my heart is showing kindness to the people I care about.”
“Very good,” Alaire said as he glanced down at his plate and picked up his cutlery anew. The sound of the metal knife tapping against the porcelain plate as he cut his green beans neatly in half made me consciously suppress the urge to shove a steak knife straight through both of my ears.
“I hope you comprehend the importance of this situation to me,” Alaire continued.
“What’s so important about this situation?”
He shrugged. “You must come to care for me of your own free will. After you mentioned as much to me, I gave myself time to ruminate over your words. In the unfortunate example of Persephone, I reached the conclusion that I agree with your thesis wholeheartedly. It was her and not you that I have been with all this time and it is you that I did and still do desire above all others.”
I sighed with relief. Sure, he could have been lying through his teeth, as usual. But hearing him acknowledge that aloud seemed like a small step of progress to me. Better still, it bought me some time.
“After all, any fool can force himself upon a woman—” I involuntarily shuddered at the sickening thought of Alaire forcing himself on me– “But only the finesse and charm of a gentleman can manage to turn hatred into love.”
“Well said,” I added as I faced my plate if only to try and hide the redness in my cheeks. I couldn’t wait to escape from this cruel mockery of a man. Right then, all I was living for was the chance to retire to my bedroom. I had to figure out what the hell I would do next.
Alaire held up his wine glass and downed what was left. “So are we still friends then, you and I?”
Before I could answer, the door to the dining room swung open. I looked over but saw no one standing in front of it.
“What is the meaning of this?” Alaire demanded, his attention riveted on the doorway with a look of supreme displeasure. He was watching something that, judging by his eye movements, was coming closer. Alaire suddenly narrowed his eyes and appeared to be listening to someone talking in his ear. As I watched the strange event playing out in front of me, I heard the faintest whisper, almost like a soft breeze gliding through the room.
“He did what?!” Alaire bellowed. The wine glass in his hand shattered, and the pieces were soaked red with the remnants of the claret and Alaire’s blood. The crimson shards fell to the floor and further shattered on the hard stone below.
“What happened?” I asked, facing him with bewilderment and shock.
Alaire’s attention left his invisible minion and all of his anger suddenly landed on me. “Did you know anything about this?”
My stomach dropped down to my toes. “About what?” I asked while shaking my head. I wanted it to be known that whatever happened had nothing to do with me. Of course, I doubted he believed me.
Alaire rose from his seat to grab the table, his arms and neck straining slightly as he braced himself against it. “The angel is gone,” he said with a chilling calm.
My eyes widened in actual shock. “What?”
“The angel is GONE!” he repeated at the top of his lungs. He flipped the table on its side with blistering speed, sending all the food, wine, dishes and silverware flying in all directions with a terrible clatter.
I screamed before jumping out of the way, and knocking my chair over in the process while barely dodging the errant missiles.
“How did this happen?!” he continued yelling at the invisible messenger, “Those beasts were loyal to me!”
“Wait, Bill had help?” I asked, disbelieving my own ears.
He once again fixed me with a suspicious glare. “Oh, yes. Apparently, one of the Furies helped that disgrace to Heaven’s ranks make his miraculous escape.”
“There must be some misunderstanding,” I said as I held my arms out in front of me in a sign of submission. The fear in my voice wasn’t hard to fake. Even though I knew I was immortal, I had no clue what Alaire might do in his angry rage, especially to Tallis. So the last thing I wanted him to think was that Bill’s escape had anything to do with me. Even though it probably did. I couldn’t figure out what could have inspired that feathered fiend to offer Bill a quick exit however.
“In this castle, there are no such things as misunderstandings,” Alaire railed at me as he strode forward, and his long, lanky body suddenly seemed twice as big. I was sure it was just a trick of my mind. At least, I hoped it was a trick of my mind.
“It had to be the Bladesmith!” Alaire said, stomping his feet over the carnage that was previously our dinner as he paced the room. “Who else would have had the time and opportunity to tame such a creature?”
On one hand, I was slightly relieved and glad he forgot about my close encounter with the Fury. On the other hand, blaming Tallis wasn’t much of an improvement.
“Tallis?” I asked as I shook my head. “It couldn’t be. He’s… he’s human now! And he’s been weak for days on end, trapped inside the dungeon since his arrival. It’s not like he could have interacted with any of the Furies.”
“He’s still a Druid,” Alaire replied, shaking his head insistently as his pace sped up. “Those devious tree-worshippers maintained their grip on Angle-Land for centuries by making pacts with wild creatures.”
I’d never heard the term “Angle-Land” but deduced it was probably just another name for Britain.
Alaire suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, as if he’d just made up his mind about a crucial question. “This is just the latest—and I might add, final—sign that I’ve delayed the inevitable long enough.” He started to walk past me towards the door.
“What do you mean, ‘delayed the inevitable’?” I asked, my brows knitting as I wondered what in the hell he was talking about. It didn’t sound good no matter what it meant.
“I believe it’s now time that I fulfilled Persephone’s other most persistent request,” Alaire said, flashing me an evil smile. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards him.
“What was that?” I demanded, my tone rising, making it clear I had a pretty good idea of the answer.
“I’m going to make Tallis Black pay for his sins with his life.”
My heart plummeted straight into my gut. The wine and small amount of dinner I’d eaten boiled up into my throat. Somewhere from oblivion, I was certain that the ghost of Persephone was laughing at me “You can’t blame Tallis for this! You can’t place all the responsibility on him for it!”
“Perhaps I am not making myself clear enough to you. One, he orchestrated the angel’s escape, unlikely though it seems. Two, he’s been a pain in my backside for long enough. Which leads to three… he dies tonight.”
Alaire tried to walk past me again but I sidestepped my way right into his path.
“I won’t let you do anything to him without a fair trial,” I said defiantly. “None of this is legal! Afterlife Enterprises needs to have as much input in this as they did in the deaths of your minions!”
Alaire’s pupils looked like cold blast furnaces of unrestrained hate. “Get out of my way, woman.”
“I won’t,” I replied staunchly, my eyes and voice just as hardened as his. “You can’t touch a hair on Tallis’s head without AE’s involvement and that means he gets a fair trial! You know I’m right! Think about this logically, Alaire!”
When Alaire tried once again to move past me, I did the only thing to keep him at bay. It was something I never dreamed of doing. I put my hand on his crotch and kissed him. The kiss was long and deep, my tongue diving down into his mouth. I put my free hand behind his neck and held his head close to mine. My other hand rubbed his pants until I could feel the bulge between his legs growing larger and hotter. Honestly, I wanted to throw up right into his mouth but I resisted the urge. Tallis’s very life may have well depended on the successful suppression of my gag reflex.
Alaire grabbed my hands and pushed me away. “What… in the hell… are you doing?”
“I… Something just came over me and I couldn’t hold it back!” I wanted to cringe. My words were so poorly chosen, even a Harlequin romance novelist would have called them cheesy. But I needed to sell my lie to him. Putting on a sultry, if slightly drunken look, I pulled the skimpy dress off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
“We will play when I return,” he growled but I knew his interest in going after Tallis was fading, if only a little. I just had to keep talking in order to make him back off.
I pushed myself against him. “How do you know it was Tallis? You’re just searching for a scapegoat and he’s the easiest target.” I took a deep breath as I thought of another angle. “Maybe it was AE who orchestrated Bill’s release? I mean, he is one of their employees.”
“And why would AE strike a blow against me at this juncture?” Alaire demanded.
I shrugged as casually as I could manage. “Streethorn is just as much of a scheming bastard as you are, no offense…”
He shook his head and I sensed he cared less about manners and more about my reasoning. But he had paused in his trip out of the dining room and he was giving me the entirety of his attention which meant I was buying Tallis time.
“Streethorn doesn’t have the same strength as you do but a man in his position is no fool. He knows what it takes when it comes to handling his rivals. And it’s fairly obvious you’re trying to take his power away from him.” Actually, it wasn’t obvious at all. But there was something in the back of my mind that told me Alaire was trying to take over all of AE so he could build The Underground City into an empire.
Alaire pondered my words as I continued gyrating against him. “Why…” Alaire started to say before his eyes rolled back when my fingers burrowed their way into his pants. He shook his head and tried again. “Why would Streethorn… do that?”
It was pretty obvious that my unofficial porn star audition was giving him a hard time because he failed to comprehend the nonsensical logic I was throwing his way.
“Because he fears you,” I explained, begrudgingly gripping his hardening member. “He knows what you are, and what you can do. You are the true master of the afterlife. Not Jason, not AE, not Tallis, it’s you.” I squeezed him to emphasize what I was saying.
The doubt practically fell off Alaire’s face. I’d never seen him so flustered… or more compliant.
“Yes… I am,” he said, his eyes rolling back in his head. “They are no more than insects compared to me.”
“Alaire, I’m having trouble breathing,” I said softly.
He didn’t seem to hear me and kept talking. “As you said, Tallis could not have had any contact with the Furies.”
“That only leaves Streethorn.”
Alaire began to shake his head. “That does not follow, darling. I pegged Streethorn as a potential threat long ago and we have certainly had our run-ins, but something does not measure up. AE was not aware that I was holding the angel against his will. That leaves us with the million dollar question: how could they have released him when they were not even aware of his whereabouts in the first place?” He paused for a second or two. “What I am less than certain about at this moment, my dear, is you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Lily
I shook my head, afraid Alaire would unravel the plot I took such pains to weave. “You saw what the Fury did to me, how she nearly killed me with her claws. That’s not exactly a show of loyalty.”
“It is not the show of loyalty I am concerned with,” Alaire stated as he eyed me narrowly. “It is more that Donnchadh is the only entity besides myself who possesses the strength of will to cow a Fury.”
The hand that was squeezing my butt shot up to my neck. Alaire’s fingers wound around my throat and clamped down hard. I tried to get a plea for mercy out but couldn’t breathe. My tongue was dead in my mouth as he continued to squeeze on my larnyx.
Panicking, I focused on Donnchadh and the runes that ran the length of my forearm. Of course, I wasn’t sure what would happen if I released the spirit. Alaire claimed to have control over him just like I did. But if it were a choice between that and strangulation…
Donnchadh, I free you to command my body and defend us from Alaire, I thought with the last remnants of my energy.
Strength surged into my limbs and my entire body thrummed with renewed power. Jerking backwards, my eyes eclipsed everything in a wash of black. Seconds later, I was being crowded in the furthest regions of my body as Donnchadh swelled inside me, his fury all-consuming.
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