by Claudy Conn
My last thought before I did just that was, He is using a compulsion spell on me. Then, once again, the world went dark.
* * *
I awoke with a start and sat up.
Kian was right at my side. With one fluid movement he had me sitting up and asked softly, “Ah, love, better?”
I looked at his solicitous expression and wanted to smack him. He felt sorry for me. I couldn’t have him feel sorry for me. That was worse than all the rest.
Now all I had left was to get to Banks, so I said, “Banks? Kian, he has the Hallow.” There, it was business as usual. I wouldn’t let him know how broken I was inside.
“I know. Tara told me she found it yesterday morning and gave it to him, but hopefully Tara’s request to the Hallow for it not to respond to anyone other than a Fae will hold some weight.”
“Request?” I was momentarily diverted.
“As it turned out,” Tara said, coming to sit on the other side of the bed, “the Hallow evolved over the centuries and has a will, maybe even a mind, of its own. I don’t know that it will respect my request. If it wants to respond to him, it will. We can only hope it won’t.”
All I could think, even in that moment as I sat looking at them both, with all the world in danger from a monster, was that Tara was so beautiful and her smile so full of affection when she glanced Kian’s way.
“Wait!” I said as sudden dawning lit in my brain. “I need to know exactly what you are. I have my suspicions, but I want you to tell me.” I waited for Tara to answer. I was already pretty sure she was a Fae, and that made sense. He was an Immortal … stood to reason … an Immortal and a Fae …
“Doesn’t she know?” Tara turned to Kian, and I watched an odd glance pass between them. Inwardly I cringed and then cried.
“I was waiting for the right moment,” he answered her.
“Oh, by faith! They are all alike, males,” she told me. “All alike.”
I managed a fleeting smile. An odd thing happened as I looked into her bright eyes. I found I liked her. Well, at least I was losing him to someone I liked. Did that make it better? Noooo, but it didn’t make it worse.
“I have to go after him,” I said. “Now.” I needed to do something. I needed to get away from these two.
“And we will, soon. Ye are strong enough, because yer body healed. Tara and I applied hands … healed ye beyond what yer own magic could do.”
“And it is time you tell her,” Tara added.
“You don’t have to tell me anything. I can see for myself,” I answered and looked away. Here it comes, the big good-bye.
He took my chin in his hands and turned my face up to his. I saw Tara step back, but she continued to watch us.
He said, in spite of her presence, “Harley, lass … what do ye mean ye can see for yerself? Did ye always know, then?”
“Well, of course.” I frowned at him. “I knew you loved her—wanted her back. I just, I supposed, hoped that … when you and I … well …”
He stared with disbelief for a moment before he barked out a laugh.
Tara frowned and said, “She sounds a bit daft to me. I’m thinking it’s the blood loss.”
“No, I let her feed from me while ye were sleeping, Tara, so she now has our blood in her veins and always will. It isn’t that. It is only that you’re right, and she is daft.”
“What are you saying? You gave her royal blood? Kian … you know what that means? Well, well.”
Okay, maybe Tara was right and I had gone daft, because I wasn’t understanding any of this. I asked, “I fed on you? This is wrong. I don’t drink human blood … oh no …”
“No worries,” he grinned. “Not human.”
“Yes, but—”
“Ye were in the throes of agony and not healing fast enough. I was afraid I would lose ye. I couldn’t lose ye, love … I couldn’t, and I won’t. The only thing I could do to ease yer pain was to let ye feed on my blood.”
I stared into his ancient, glittering blue eyes and asked, “What are you, Kian of the House of Hara?”
“I am a Royal Daoine Fae,” he answered promptly, and I saw pride in his eyes even as he searched my face for my reaction.
I was not surprised to learn he was a Fae. I was, however, more than a little amazed to learn that not only was he a Royal but a Daoine, the highest caste of Fae. “Whoa,” I said and looked at Tara. “And Tara … also Royal Fae?”
He puzzled up and touched my head. “Not feverish.” He stared into my eyes and added, “Well, of course she is.”
“Why of course?” My turn to puzzle up.
“As m’sister, what else could she be?”
I felt my mouth drop. “Your sister … what do you mean, your sister?” I was totally flabbergasted. This was the best news I had ever had.
He put his arms around me as he pulled me close and whispered, “Lass, lass … what have ye been thinking?”
Tara clapped her hands and laughed. “Oh my, you never thought …?” She began laughing again.
I began giggling and crying all at once and buried my face in his chest. Relief flooded through me. Tara was his sister.
“I thought Tara—” I started to tell him.
“Was your lover,” Tara finished. “You never told her I was your sister, and of course she assumed such heat to find me and rescue me came from another kind of love.”
I sank back against the cushions and held my hand out, keeping him at bay as I demanded, “Okay, I want the whole story, and then, I am going to track and kill Banks.” I glanced at Tara. “Sorry, Tara.”
“Oh, don’t be. I was nearly done with him and already becoming suspicious of the charm he displayed. Kian was right from the start. I was never in love with him … only having a bit of sport.”
Kian raised a brow at her and then told me, “We are going to track and find him, and when the moment comes to kill him, we’ll see who has that honor.”
Tara began jibber-jabbering then, telling me everything that had happened to make her run off to Ireland and how she had met Banks and thought him quite a specimen, for she had never known a hybrid before. When she was done I shook my head and said, “How old are you Tara?”
“I will reach my Fae majority next month when I turn twenty-five. We immortals don’t easily reproduce, so it was a long time after this one—” She poked her brother. “—that I was born.” She regarded me. “I think I am a bit older than you?”
I laughed. “Not enough to matter.”
Kian said, “That’s why she is so spoiled—an unexpected present to my parents.”
“Not spoiled. What would you do, Harley, if you didn’t want to marry a Royal and your parents arranged a marriage? Of all the outdated traditions!” She started huffing.
“Well, I might take off, like you did.” I shook my head. I really didn’t know Tara well enough to get into this yet. I sighed and changed the subject. “You know, it isn’t going to be easy because Banks isn’t just Banks any longer. He seems to have evolved somehow,” I said worriedly.
“No matter,” Kian said. “He is no match for us.”
She giggled and said. “Indeed, time to do what you must, and then I suppose it’s home for us, eh, brother?” She sighed. “Although I am not looking forward to the lecture I’m going to get from our parents.”
My smile vanished.
Kian would return to Faery, and once again, I would lose him. He was a Royal Daoine Fae and could never present to his court a hybrid as his mate. I knew something about their reputed sense of superiority not only over humans but over even the Seelie Fae.
Kian has a habit of reading, he says, my expression and was on me the moment I had this thought. He grasped my shoulders and pulled me in for a kiss. It was light and gentle as though he were afraid to break me, so I threw my arms around him and turned it into something else.
In the background I heard Tara laugh and say, “Oh, puh-lease—still here, you know.”
Kian whispered, “Do ye think
that I would stay anywhere without ye? Don’t ye know, by Danu, that I am bonded to ye, love, now and forever? There’ll be no separating us. Do ye ken?”
I laughed. “Politics might get in the way … and not sure I want to live in Faery.”
“No problem. We can bounce around, don’t ye know.” He stroked my head, pulled on a strand of my hair, and kissed my lips.
At length I sighed and asked, “Tell me, how is it you have an Irish accent and Tara has only a slight … Gaelic accent?”
“Hers is Danu because on Daoine we often speak in Danu, and that is all she has known for twenty-four years. She is but a baby.”
Tara smacked him.
He laughed and continued, “But I, as I told ye, loved Ireland when we Fae came … after the destruction of our beloved Danu. I as did my brethren lived in Ireland, which resembled our Danu, until the war with the Milesians. Then our Queen and the Seelie Queen created Daoine and the Isle of Tir.”
“Oh … and still, Kian … you are—”
Tara had walked away, and Kian took me into his arms. “In love with ye and always will be. We are what a wolf would call imprinted.”
“So now, what comes next?” I asked.
“We are going to find out what Banks has inside him and kill them both,” Kian said.
I had to wonder how Tara would feel about that. She might not have been in love, but she had enjoyed some months with him as her lover. She left us to ourselves, but I felt for her. Still, nothing was going to get in my way now.
~ Twelve ~
TARA HAD A MIND of her own. Kian wanted her to return home and stay out of the fray, but she said that this was her fault and would do nothing of the kind.
I was down with that; we could use her help.
She believed she knew where Banks and his beta guardians had gone. Without Tara, they couldn’t shift.
I knew where he was going. My inner witch was sure.
Banks would return to familiar territory. He would go home, and he would go to the home I had shared with my parents for twenty-one years. I knew it in my gut.
I told them this, and without a word my Daoine prince took my hand and hers and shifted us.
I couldn’t believe it when my feet touched the earth and I looked around.
We stood near my mother’s grave.
Nothing had been disturbed. Everything looked—not felt, but looked—the same. “He isn’t here yet,” I said and my voice sounded vicious even to myself.
“No,” Kian answered. “That is the plan. We lie in wait. He will arrive later today, and he will come with his pack.” He held me and said quietly, “He knows we’ll come after him, and I don’t think he believes a hybrid could withstand the power of a Fae, which can only mean he has something on his side that we don’t know about.”
I agreed with this way of thinking because I had seen it. Banks wasn’t who he had been. He was more.
Even so, I knew this was it. Revenge was at hand, and I felt … oddly, not as elated as I’d thought I would feel. I was anxious because of my last encounter with him. I should have finished him then. He no longer had Tara to help him, but Kian was right: he had something else on his side. What?
So we huddled in the house and made our plans.
It was dark, and he had chosen this night because a bright and full moon would allow his pack to attack as werewolves.
I heard them less than a mile away and looked at Kian. He and Tara had heard them as well.
We went outside and took our places. We stood, the three of us with Kian in the middle, with the edge of the ravine behind us.
We could not be circled in this way. They would have to face us to attack. The thought made me smile.
We were each armed our with own Death Weapon. Mine was my silver blade, which I had spelled. I meant to rip as many rabid wolves apart as I could. No, they weren’t wolves. They were abominations. Wolves were normal, proud, and beautiful. These were grotesque monsters.
They stalked with the moon’s rays shining down through the trees. They came, saliva drooling from canines bared and ready. Their eyes glinted red, and the sight of them like that brought it all back to me and turned whatever light energy I had inside me to dark.
“He wants to engage us first with his wolves and slip in between while we are busy,” Kian suggested. “He doesn’t understand—he never did. We are Daoine, Fae of the elements. Water, earth, wind, and fire are ours. He believes, and it is usually so, that we wouldn’t interfere with the Human Realm. He forgets that while he lives in the Human Realm, he is not under that protection. He is a supernatural and not a part of the original Treaty.”
He blinked, and, fascinated, I watched as the earth began to erupt, the sound of thunder crashed through the sky, and a multi-forked lightning bolt zapped through the forest and took out five weres. They weren’t dead but stunned. They would be dead—soon.
He shifted me, and in quick order, while he slashed them with this Death Sword, I gutted them with my silver blade. I couldn’t lie to myself about how I felt. I hadn’t thought it would feel so good, but it did. I just kept seeing them rip my clan apart and did the same to them. You could say mine was the overkill.
Kian must have said my name, as I heard it in the distance before he shifted us once more to Tara’s side, where she waited at the edge of the cliff.
The wolves charged with power and speed then, and for a few moments we had our hands full as we slashed and killed creatures that should have beautifully represented their counterparts. Wolves are beautiful, family-oriented beings, but these … these were monsters from hell.
Blood and gore were everywhere, but they kept coming.
As some died more slowly than others, I saw them writhe with pain in their final moments. I felt a twinge of pity and tried to banish such sensations. I thought I was too bent on revenge to feel pity, but it came unbidden, and quickly I put them out of their misery.
Kian flicked his wrist, and their bodies vanished. A look of utter adoration came into his eyes, and he said softly, “Sweet Harley. Never mind. It will soon be over. I have sent their bodies to another realm where the inhabitants feed on the dead.”
“Eeww—too much information,” I said and turned to find yet another vicious were, canines ready, snarling and biting the air as he charged at me.
I stood my ground and prepared to take his weight. I lifted my silver blade and gutted him.
No pity—I must not feel any pity, but I knew these werewolves were being sacrificed by Banks. He didn’t care about them.
It must have dawned on Kian at the same time. It was all too easy. They were a distraction.
I don’t like easy because things rarely are, and when they are, there is usually a price to pay.
And there it was.
Within five feet or so of my house, a place I knew was an epicenter of power due to my mother’s legacy, I saw a rippling affect.
A swirling hole the size of a melon was growing faster than I could imagine. Inside that hole of massive energy was another ball of energy, and it appeared ready to burst.
I knew … something awful was about to happen.
“Kian!” I shouted and pointed even as yet another charging werewolf came at me. I did what Mike taught me and waited until the werewolf was in the air and sidestepped. Not easily done when you see snapping jaws and drool coming at you.
Kian shouted at his sister, “Damnation. It’s a portal! Tara, we have to close it.” He shifted, and I saw the two of them working a spell as they desperately tried to stop whatever it was that was about to burst out of the portal.
Carsen Banks stalked out of the woods and into the clearing. He reared his huge wolf form and stood on two for a moment before dropping back down.
His eyes were coal black and dead.
I knew at once something besides Carsen Banks was in his body.
His face was drawn and held no expression whatsoever. He raised his arms heavenward as he chanted in a voice that was oddly raspy in s
pite of the volume he produced. He spoke in a foreign language, but Kian’s Fae blood had already changed my inner workings, and I understood at once: “Come … come, my legions.”
My legions? Oh, not liking the sound of that.
Holy shit!
I stared at the portal as it erupted and screeching filled the atmosphere.
We put our hands to our ears as they came.
We stood for a moment in disbelief as they spread across the land.
They were black slime and moving faster than I thought possible. Dark, glistening, giant slugs, spreading black slime as they slithered.
Tara and Kian got the portal closed but not before hundreds had escaped. I could only imagine how many were still in the portal. I wanted it more than closed. I wanted the portal destroyed, and Tara went to work on doing just that.
The giant slugs, the size of small dogs, were fast and made their disgusting paths towards the werewolves. I have to admit that for a moment I was stunned into watching.
And then it happened.
I heard the wolves begin to whimper as all hell broke loose. The slugs attached themselves to the wolves and then melted into their insides.
A howling as I had never heard before filled the air. Pain and horror filled their voices as the demon slugs entered the bodies of the wolves.
I took a step back.
Kian called to me.
Matters had taken on a frightening change, though with the portal closed, for now at least no more of those things would get through.
“Damnation, woman, come to me!” Kian called again.
At hyper-speed, I did just that. We stood with my house at our backs as the demon wolves began to slowly advance towards us.
“What the hell?” I asked, hoping Kian had an answer.
“Demon spawn,” he answered.
“How do we kill them?”
One of the demon weres leapt through the air at that particular moment and made the mistake of landing on Kian’s Death Sword.
“Like that,” Kian answered as the wolf fell to the ground. However, I saw the giant black slug wriggle out of the were’s body, leaving a gaping hole where it had been. It stood and screeched.