Griogair grinned. “Could you not smile at me, Eilidh? Everyone in the castle thinks I have seduced you, and it would not do to look so…formal.”
“Faith,” Eilidh swore, then coughed when she realised what she’d said, and blushed as Griogair chuckled. “Then they will just have to think we have had a lovers’ argument.” She turned on her heels and marched toward the castle gates, his now earnest laughter ringing in her ears. It wasn’t too difficult to feign anger. Presumptuous… She stopped mid-thought because she couldn’t think of a word that fit how she felt about the prince at that moment.
Chapter 6
“How did it go?” Sergeant Hallward asked Munro, who sank into a chair next to the sergeant’s desk. He’d driven straight over after his meeting with the Professional Standards Department in Dundee.
“Well enough, I suppose. I did what you said. Told the truth as far as it made sense, pled memory loss where things got weird. I didn’t like it, but like you said earlier, it was the only thing to do.”
“I don’t like it either, son,” Hallward said. “I will tell you this much, I don’t envy them their job. Most hated men in the department. I know you didn’t do anything wrong with the…incident last summer, but questions had to be asked. There’s nothing worse than a bent copper. I’d just as soon someone rooted out the problems, and I’m glad it isn’t me having to do it. Hard enough to keep the public trust without giving people reason not to trust us.”
“Not that most of them need a reason.” Munro paused. “The worst part was it felt disloyal, like I was pinning something on my dead cousin.”
“I know you want to defend your family. It’s natural. But the truth of it is, if Frankie had come to you about his suspicions sooner, he’d probably be alive today.”
Munro wasn’t so sure. He’d faced the blood faerie, whose actions were explained to the human public as those of a cult serial killer. Munro didn’t think anything he could have done would have saved Frankie. If it hadn’t been Frankie lying dead in that clearing, it would have been one of the others. Munro sighed, feeling guilty that part of him wished it had been one of the others. They had families too, he reminded himself.
“All right,” Hallward finally said. “Get on out of here. Probably don’t have time to get back to Skye, though.”
Munro chuckled. “Aye, but my girlfriend is used to my odd hours.” It felt weird calling Eilidh his girlfriend. The word didn’t fit any part of their relationship, but he didn’t know what other term he could possibly use. Bonded faerie sounded strange, even to his ears. He couldn't imagine what Hallward would think of that, even though the sarge had heard the rumours she wasn’t human.
“You’re still looking pale. I know the doc cleared you, but you aren’t yourself. Go home. Get some sleep.” Hallward turned his attention to a stack of papers on his desk.
“Aye, Sarge.” Munro walked out to his car and went to run some errands. He wasn’t ready to face the empty house quite yet. While he strolled the aisles at ASDA, putting stuff in a shopping trolley without paying attention to what it was or how much it cost, he thought about what he was going to say to the other druids about going to Skye. In some ways, he didn’t know what his hesitation was. Long life, healing, magical power—most people would jump at the chance. Part of it was he felt like he was leaving Frankie behind. And he wasn’t sure he trusted all the other druids. Some may have taken a passive role in the deaths that summer. Once he took them to Skye, they’d all be part of his life forever, or at least for the next several hundred years.
He shook himself out of his dazed train of thought. All he would do was introduce them to some people who might or might not want to know them. It wasn’t his responsibility to decide who was and who wasn’t worthy of power.
When he arrived at the till and took out his wallet, Munro stopped, staring at his credit card, thinking of Eilidh. With a smile, he inserted his card into the reader and punched in his PIN, remembering the way she’d blushed when he confronted her about stealing. The clothes at the tourist shop cost him sixty quid, but it was worth it to see the wonder on her face when he explained credit cards. He loved how she took delight in little things, like the light in the refrigerator.
By the time he pulled up to his house, he knew Eilidh was inside. Earlier, he’d felt her coming and going from the Otherworld. She must have word from this prince of hers. Munro couldn’t put a finger on why the mention of the guy made him twitch, but he didn’t trust him.
He found Eilidh in his bedroom, rummaging through his closet. “Hi,” he said from the doorway. She didn’t have a key to his house, but with her newly flourishing earth powers, she could manipulate metal, including simple locks. It never occurred to her to knock, but Munro didn’t mind too much.
“Your clothes are all the same,” she said, turning to him with a frown.
“Since when do you care what I wear?” Munro was puzzled. He’d never seen her in anything but jeans.
“You’re meeting the prince-consort tonight.” She went to his dresser and started digging through his underwear drawer.
“Do you mind?” he said, taking a pair of boxers out of her hands and folding them again. “What difference does it make what I wear?”
“You have a queen, do you not?” Eilidh said impatiently.
“Yeah.”
“And she has a consort?”
“Prince Phillip. But it’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
“A guy like me isn’t going to meet Prince Phillip.”
“Ah!” she said with triumph in her voice. “But if you did, you wouldn’t wear any of this, would you?”
“I’d probably wear a suit, I guess. You really expect me to wear a suit to meet this guy?”
“No, I’ve seen what you call business suits. They’re ridiculous.”
Munro sat on the bed and muttered, “At least we agree on something.” Then he asked, “What are you going to wear?”
He watched as she shifted her clothing into a long, dress. It was a beautiful earth brown with a high, square neckline. It flowed to the ground, hugging her hips in a way he found alluring, even though very little flesh showed.
“You look great,” he said.
Eilidh quirked her mouth into a grin. “The prince hates it.”
Munro stuffed down the irritation as quickly as he could. Something in her smile told him she enjoyed the idea of annoying the prince, and that bordered on flirting in his book. He went to his closet and pulled out some black trousers and a plain black button-down shirt. “This will do,” he said, trying to put finality in his tone.
“It’s very human looking.”
“I’m very human. He’ll have to deal with it. Besides, isn’t this a clandestine meeting?”
She nodded.
Munro rolled his eyes. “Then this’ll do.”
She looked outside, and he could feel her frustration and eagerness to be on their way. She made no motion to budge from the room, so he took the clothes into the en suite loo to change. He was just about to use the toilet when she opened the door and walked in. “We really should go now.”
He stood there, trousers undone, hand in his shorts arranging himself. “I’m takin’ a piss here.”
She shrugged. “Well, hurry.”
“Fine,” he muttered and went about his business. She just didn’t understand privacy. If they were going to be bonded for a few centuries, he’d have to get used to it, but she didn’t make it easy. He wasn’t raised to be so open and unselfconscious, but on some things, Eilidh refused to budge. She thought humans were strange and repressed about nudity, bodily functions, and sex. To hear her tell it, faeries had sex if they felt like it, and it was all good and healthy and open.
Except, of course, if it came to having sex with humans. It bothered him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if that meant Eilidh wanted to have sex with other men. Well, faeries. She seemed to care about him, and he would have known if she’d had sex with someone else since
they’d been bonded, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t eventually.
He washed his hands, and she said softly, “You’ve retreated into your thoughts.”
“Do you want him?” Munro asked. He liked that Eilidh didn’t mind a blunt question. He wasn’t quite used to asking them, but she never seemed bothered when he did.
“He’s mated to the queen. I told you, the royal family mates for life.”
“That isn’t what I asked you.”
“We should go,” Eilidh said, walking into the bedroom.
He followed, watching her closely. “Eilidh?”
“Quinton, you should know before we meet him. Prince Griogair has allowed the court to think he and I are lovers, so we would have an excuse to be seen talking alone. He may feel the need to keep up the pretence tonight. It depends who he has to bring with him.”
Munro’s gut clenched. “But it is pretence, right?” His anger boiled. “The royal family mates for life, you said.”
Eilidh looked embarrassed. “I was naïve, I suppose. He is mated to the queen, yes, stays by her side and always will. But it seems they both indulge their desires as any common faerie would.”
As annoyed as he was, knowing she wasn’t telling him everything, he said, “The idea upsets you. I can tell.”
“I suppose I believed a child’s dream, that the royals had a love that would make them special. There is a part of me,” Eilidh said, “that is jealous of human tradition, of taking one and no other.”
“It doesn’t always work out.” He gave up thinking she would leave him alone to change clothes, so he unbuttoned his shirt and hung it up.
“Did it work out for your parents?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He thought about them as he changed into the clothes he’d chosen for the meeting. “They were together nearly thirty years when my mum died. That’s a long time for us.”
Eilidh smiled. “Yes, it would be. And they were not a political family? Not officials or royal?”
Munro laughed. “My father was a painter and my mother a bookkeeper. Not official and definitely not royal.”
“Your father was an artist?”
“Houses, not canvases.” Munro chuckled and shook his head. He couldn’t help but think his father would have liked Eilidh. But then, seriousness overtook him. He hated the uncertainty hanging between them. “We need to talk.” He hated that expression. It always sounded like a break-up phrase, but he didn’t know what else to say.
“I know,” she said. “But we have many years ahead of us. Some things sort themselves out with time.”
He nodded, grabbing his wallet and keys and sticking them in the pockets of his black trousers. Some things did sort themselves out with time, he thought, but other things fell apart. “How far do we need to go?”
“Ashdawn.” Seeing the confusion on his face, she added, “It’s not far. We’ll run it from here.”
He hesitated, then sat down on the bed to put on his comfortable, rubber-soled black work shoes. “I’m not sure I can,” he finally said. “I’ve been weak ever since that night.” He knew he wouldn’t have to explain which one.
With a frown, Eilidh knelt on the floor in front of him and looked up into his face. She put a hand on his chest, as though feeling for his heart, but she shook her head in frustration. “You feel too different to me. I cannot tell what is unbalanced and what is normal for your people.”
“It’s only been a few months. Maybe it’ll take a little time. If it wasn’t for our bond, I’d be dead right now.”
“If it wasn’t for me, none of this would have happened.” Her silver-green eyes swam with emotion. “When you told the conclave I could kill you with a thought…”
“Eilidh,” he began.
“You were right. I should never have taken from you that way.”
“Look. I’m a cop. I get it. Some things are more important than my aches and pains.” He ran his hand along her cheek, then tilted her chin so she would look into his eyes. “Some things are more important than me.” He took her hand and helped her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s go interrogate a prince.” He gave her a mischievous grin. “This should be fun.”
As they approached the front door, Eilidh formed the illusion that made her appear human. Although darkness was falling, she always took care when they went out together. Alone, she could flit through the streets, on rooftops and dance through traffic without anyone noticing. Munro slowed her down, and tonight, that fact weighed on him.
The place she’d called Ashdawn wasn’t far from the grounds of Scone Palace, as far as Munro could tell. Normally, he wouldn’t have any problem running that far, and Eilidh seemed surprised at just how slowly they had to move. Everyone told them their bonding would make him stronger, but instead, he still felt weak from the drawing she’d done six months earlier.
As they made their way through the woodlands, her eyes began to glow. He had to stay close, because he couldn’t see well, and she wouldn’t let him use the small torch he kept on his keychain.
A tingle passed over his skin. “There’s someone here,” he said.
Eilidh glanced back, her eyes shimmering green. “I know,” she said. “A Watcher.”
It felt almost like a ghost had passed, and fear tickled Munro’s spine. His senses grew sharper, and gradually, as though the moon shone brighter, he could see the outline of the trees. He thought he caught a glimpse of someone nearby, but the shape faded into the surrounding forest, and he couldn’t be certain anyone had been there at all.
The deeper they went, the more he noticed a rich, loamy smell. It triggered a memory he’d forgotten, his mother working in the garden when he was little, planting strawberries around a path border out back. He’d learned from Frankie that he must have inherited his magical abilities from his mother. According to Frankie, women carried it, but only boys manifested druidic talents. He wondered if his mother had any clue. Did the earth magic give her even the slightest affinity? It hurt him that the more time that passed, the more difficulty he had remembering much about her beyond flashes and glimpses that felt like dreams.
“We’re close,” Eilidh said, still holding Munro’s hand.
“I know. I can see.” He put his hand in front of his face and wiggled his fingers. It was pitch black out, but the darkness had receded. Colours had grown soft, and he could see his surroundings sharply now. It was like using night-vision goggles, but without the strange green tinge. Ahead, he could make out a glow. The pair walked forward together and came to an immense arching gate made of pale light. It stood nearly fifty feet tall and had intricate scrollwork, as though it was etched into invisible stone.
Munro reached out to touch one tall pillar, and when he did, it gave light resistance before his hand passed through. The gate stood open, but beyond it, Munro could see only darkness.
“We must hurry,” Eilidh said. “Prince Griogair will be waiting on the other side. He assured me you would be safe, but we shouldn’t linger longer than we have to.”
“You’re afraid,” Munro said.
“Humans do not pass through these gates. I’m not sure what will happen.”
Munro nodded in the darkness, knowing she could still see him better than he could see her. “Let’s get it over with then.”
Eilidh went first, and Munro followed. They hadn’t gone four paces past the gate before he let go of her and dropped to his knees, hands flat on the earth in front of him.
She darted back, crouching beside him. “Quinton?” He looked up, smiled, and breathed in deeply. “Are you all right?” she asked, a puzzled expression on her face.
Munro touched the ground, fingering a tall blade of grass in front of him. The landscape on the fae side of this gate looked very much like it had in the borderlands, but there was no mistaking one world for another. The moon hung large and low and cast a blue light. Fireflies danced in the air, and plants glowed with vitality.
“You must get up,” she said. “Can you stand?”
/> He nodded and she helped him to his feet. “I feel stronger. Lighter.” He breathed in again. Every time he inhaled, he drank in life itself.
“Come. We can wait for Prince Griogair nearby.” Eilidh seemed suddenly worried and wary, but Munro’s mind surged with robust confidence. In fact, he’d never felt better in his life. He’d never done drugs, not even in his teens, but he couldn’t help wondering if this was what it was like. He believed he could take over the world. “I thought he would be waiting for us.”
Eilidh shook her head. “He said he’d come if he could, but if he ran into trouble, he probably won’t come at all. We’ll go wait. He’ll find us when he arrives.”
Azuri Fae - Urban Fantasy (Caledonia Fae) Page 7