Masked Desire

  “Last time you did that, you nearly burned down the kitchen making Kraft Dinner. Cynthia was furious.”

  “Shut up, Eric. We left you some.”

  “You made it with orange juice.”

  Despite herself, Michaela smiled. “The fighting?”

  Estelle became serious. “I told the others already. I know more about the vampires allied with the Dawning.”

  “Tell me.” Facts would help bring her back to herself.

  “First, Madden has gone underground. No one has heard from him.”

  Michaela leaned forward, pushing back the many layers of worry that gnawed at her mind. Madden. Ex-mentor. Murderer. Poor Hiro.

  “I think I told you a bit about Madden before. He is very strong. He’s also not very well-liked. We have some”—here she paused as though deciding what to say—“issues among a few of the vampire clans.”

  Michaela remembered. “When Iverson was around he tried to make alliances with some of them.”

  “Yes.” This was no longer Estelle speaking, or at least not the Estelle Michaela was used to dealing with. In front of them stood one of the ruling class of the vampire clans. Whatever was involved in seneschal training must’ve been intense. “Madden picked up where he left off. He’s looking for trouble and he’s finding it. The same as you, we have our disenfranchised, our power-hungry, and our chauvinists. Iverson spurred your people to action, or at least some of them. Madden is doing the same to us.”

  “How many vampires are we talking about?” asked Michaela.

  “Many. At least a third of the vampires in North America, and I assume more would join a winning side.” Estelle ran her hand down her hair, smoothing out the stray strands. “Those on other continents will stay quiet until there is a need. They view this as our issue only.”

  A morose silence filled the room. The masquerada were the most populous of all of the arcane races, but vampires were not far behind.

  Michaela closed her eyes. She’d wanted something to distract her from Cormac.

  World war hadn’t been what she’d had in mind.

  * * * *

  Cormac was escorted to a small suite in the least salubrious part of the palace, near enough to the servants’ quarters that it was almost, but not quite, an insult. He didn’t care. The moment he was alone, he went into the bath. He assumed Tismelda had set a watch on him and he needed to check his sigil. Not until steam filled the room did he strip off his clothes and force himself to look. It was still there, but as dim and faded as a dry autumn leaf. He dipped under the water to run his fingers across it, praying for a connection to his mate.

  Nothing, but whether that was because of his location in the feyland or Michaela’s refusal to open to him was not clear.

  The door banged open, sucking the fragrant steam out into the main room. Cormac spread out his arms against the back of the tub and eyed the intruder.

  “Rendell. I hope you didn’t wish to join me. You’re not my type.”

  “You go more for the small, sad ones. Like your poor mate, fighting tears to walk through the Throne Room and all the fey mockery.” Rendell shrugged. “I can’t even give her the dignity of calling her your ex-mate, as she’s stuck with you.”

  Despite the hot bath, Cormac froze. “You took her through the Throne Room?”

  “Don’t play ignorant. Do you think the queen would have it any other way?” Rendell paused. “She did well.” A peculiar respect filled his voice.

  Cormac wasn’t sure who he wanted to pummel more—Rendell or himself. “Did you come here simply to taunt me or do you have a real purpose?” Their conversation had been in the nuanced fey tongue and the word he used for the last indicated that Rendell’s purpose was one disgusting to all living things.

  Rendell swept a deep bow. “Nicely done. I had worried that your time among the barbarians had dulled your already dismal wit.”

  “When in fact it was good training.” Another insult: that outsiders were better at wordplay than the fey, namely Rendell. Cormac rose from the bath and wrapped himself in a towel, then walked back to his room. New, fey-approved clothes were already arranged on the bed.

  Rendell followed him and made a sad noise. “Unfortunate. All those dull tones. So unfashionable.”

  Unfashionable, but he preferred that to looking like a butterfly. Cormac dressed quickly, giving his sigil a last secret touch. Still nothing.

  “I came to inform you that you are not to enter your forest, which is now the queen’s property. Guards are posted by your tree, and your sister’s.” The threat was clear—step out of line and he would be responsible for his own death, Isindle’s death, and indirectly, Michaela’s. He was a puppet on a string. It would be so easy to kill Rendell right now, he mused. He’d wanted to for years. Tismelda had already taken his family forest. What further punishment could she give?

  “You are to leave immediately for your meeting,” Rendell said. “Here.” In his hand was a paper with an address that he let drop to the floor before he left.

  Cormac’s pendant tapped against the table as he bent to pick the paper up. The leaf was brown and withered.

  His heart plummeted.

  His forest was almost gone.

  It looked like working for the queen was now his only hope at getting it back.

  And to save his mate’s life.

  Chapter 39

  When Michaela finally woke, the first thing she did was drink a glass of water, thirst luckily being the only side effect of the promised marathon drinking session with Caro and Estelle. They’d talked of everything but men and then gone dancing in a dark, seedy bar until the early morning.

  The second thing she did was flip her pillow to the dry side. Cormac’s pillow was on the floor where she’d pitched it in a rage after smelling his scent. Then she’d ripped the bed apart and remade it with fresh sheets.

  That had helped, but not enough to prevent her from finally shedding the tears she’d managed to hold back since Cormac left her without a moment’s thought.

  She curled up on her side and sniffed, wishing it was only her pride that had been hurt. In a way, it was. Michaela’s rage was based on Cormac’s infidelity, the breaking of a promise.

  Miaoling, on the other hand, had seen her heart ripped out.

  In part, her fury was self-directed. She’d known how stupid it was to get emotionally attached to any person. Look where it had got her, not to mention those she’d opened to. Yao—dead placing dynamite in her place. Ivy—soulless and half-dead. Cormac—happy and single, his exile reversed.

  Perhaps the last wasn’t the best example.

  The tears came again, and this time she didn’t even bother to check them. Here at least, in the privacy of this room, she let herself feel the grief she’d done her best to deny. She’d fallen for Cormac, fallen for all his talk about their bond. For the way he touched her. The mating had gone from a burden to a comfort. A need.

  Cormac hadn’t texted or called. She didn’t expect him to, although like a desperate idiot she checked her phone repeatedly. She glanced down at her chest to see the sigil was a dead gray.

  There was no point in touching this physical reminder of his rejection.

  She sighed and rubbed her eyes roughly. She’d had her breakdown and that was it. Time to pull yourself together, she scolded. You didn’t cry when Baba and Mama sent you to old Zhang’s house. You didn’t cry when you made your first shift unprepared. You didn’t cry when you ran from your uncle’s house as a boy on one of his competitor’s junks, leaving everything you knew.

  You were strong then. Be strong now. Put one foot on the ground.

  Nothing happened.

  Michaela. You will not let a man, of all things, beat you down. Ivy needs you. There is a war. Now. Get. Out. Of. This. Fucking. Bed.

  Nothing. She lay there.

 
Chui Miaoling. Now. Do it for Ivy.

  The image of her niece, almost as white as the bed she lay on, was what finally got Michaela out of bed. Isindle may have responded to Cormac’s message. There might be hope. A hot shower followed with an ice-cold rinse left her gasping and alert. She rummaged through the drawers and covered up her sigil with every bandage she could find. That would do until she could get it surgically removed.

  When she left the green bedroom she’d shared with Cormac, there was nothing left of the desolate, lonely Miaoling who had cried quietly into her pillow.

  She was Michaela again, and she was ready to get shit done.

  * * * *

  Michaela left the house without seeing anyone and made her way to High Park. A few morning joggers panted their way up and down the hills when she arrived and parked in the same spot as before. She would need to navigate by landmarks and it would be easiest to retrace her steps from a familiar point.

  Michaela left the main path. Apart from her boots crackling dead leaves and fallen branches, the forest was pleasantly quiet with only the occasional crow caw or owl. A familiar large rock at the base of a fallen tree told her she was on the right path, and Michaela moved more confidently through the forest.

  Then she stopped. There was someone close by.

  Not human. Fey.

  She shifted instantly into one of her older masques. Taili had trained as a temple warrior and was cunning, fast, subtle and deadly. If Yuri was a sledgehammer, Taili was a rapier. She bent down and picked up a strong stick, cursing herself for coming so unprepared. Had Cormac been taken unaware by an enemy?

  “No need for weapons, councilor. Violence is overrated, at least when directed at me.”

  Michaela didn’t relax. “Rendell. What are you doing here?”

  Now he came out from behind a tree. His dark hair melted into the forest shadows but his eyes had the luminous fey glow, though reflecting the sky rather than Cormac’s earthy forest tones. Draped over his shoulders was a long cape, which should have looked ludicrous but instead filled Michaela with an odd sense of dread.

  “Waiting for you, of course.” Rendell took a step forward, but instantly retreated when she raised the stick. “As I said, no need for violence. We’re both Pharos.”

  “That seems to mean less and less these days.”

  “True, but nothing lasts forever. That era is over.”

  He spoke with a certainty that made Michaela shudder but she refused to show him how his words affected her. “What do you want?”

  He looked her up and down. “An interesting look. Rather monkish and self-flagellating. He isn’t worth it, of course.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “To say hello.”

  “Not in the mood, Rendell.”

  “Perhaps not. By the way, did Cormac ever tell you the rest of the story about his losing battle?”

  She lost all patience. “Fuck off, Rendell.”

  “Soon. I like this story because I won. Imagine the final battle of a long and bloody war. He had a lovely formation and my heart sank when I looked at it. It was formidable, strength matched to my weakness. I was puzzled because I knew he didn’t have the forces.”

  “Point?”

  “His arrangement was designed to hide the weakness on his left flank. Naturally I saw it. He never forgave me for that one.” Rendell’s smile was exultant.

  “Take the rest of your pointless stories and leave.” She moved her stick from one hand to the other to underpin the point.

  “On my way.” Rendell backed off. “A word of advice, though. You’re better off to forget him. Cormac belongs to the queen now.”

  She was welcome to him. Returning to her natural self, Michaela moved around the forest looking for Cormac’s tree. She could almost feel it, but it was such a tiny flicker that it was probably her own mind playing tricks. His tree had looked like the rest, but she remembered looking back at it after they’d left. The branches of two nearby trees had bent towards it like sentries offering protection.

  She put her hand against the crevassed bark of an oak and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself before searching further. She had to find it. Ivy’s cure might be right here, only meters away. Her palm itched where she’d laid it on the tree but before she could move it, a soft song rose in her mind. No, not a song. It felt like a song, but there was no music or melody.

  The tree spoke to her and she blinked, suddenly seeing hidden connections between the many living beings that lived there. Insects that lived for days and trees that lived for centuries. They were all interconnected, and pulling her in. Below her feet was an entire network passing information to each other.

  She yanked her hand away with a gasp. This was as bad as convergence, when a masquerada risked losing their natural self among the many masques they had created. As part of the forest, she would stop being Michaela.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and moved away from the siren tree in the shape of an oak that had lured her in. From now on she would be cautious about what she touched. A fey might be able to withstand that call, might already be so deeply embedded in the natural world that they would have no fear of losing themselves in it, but she was not fey.

  One good thing came out of that experience, though. With unerring feet, she walked straight over to Cormac’s tree.

  * * * *

  An hour later Cormac stood on the corner of the deserted parking lot on the far eastern edge of the city. His message to Frieda had been answered with disturbing promptness and precise instructions. Now he waited alone, surrounded by concrete.

  About to betray Michaela for his forest and his sister.

  Several black cars pulled into the lot with their lights off. He stood his ground—after all, wasn’t this what he was waiting for?—and managed to watch the procession with a bored expression. In some ways, the situation was almost humorous. The black cars, the creepy lot. It might have been taken out of any of a thousand human movies.

  When the man in a long leather jacket and sunglasses got out from the car to motion him in, Cormac nearly laughed out loud. This bunch was too much.

  They’d also threatened his mate and her ward. That sobered him up, fast.

  A woman sat in the back seat of the car, waiting for him. Knowing he was with masquerada, the woman could be anyone, but chances were good that it was Frieda Hanver. The car started.

  “Cormac Redoak. So pleased to meet you.” The woman didn’t offer her hand. Her face was so perfect it was hard to know where to look—a mix of Barbie and Aphrodite, the same as the masque Michaela had taken on in Eric’s war room. He very cautiously kept his eyes away from how her curves filled out the plain black tank and jeans she wore.

  “Queen Tismelda sent me.”

  She giggled, a disconcerting sound from a being he knew was at least two hundred years old. “Of course she did. I asked for you.”

  Cormac decided not to play her game. “Do you have a message for the queen?” Not his queen. Never his queen.

  “Tell me about Eric. I know you’ve seen him.” Conflicting emotions flickered across her face. Hate. Desire. Jealousy. Rage.

  He could tell her that Eric and his consort were wrapped in a passionate love that would span a thousand lifetimes, but instead said, “He’s fine.”

  That terrible giggle came again. “No, he’s not.” She leaned forward. “We’re about to blow his world open. It’s time for arcana to take our place in the open again.”

  This situation was bad enough without having to listen to a bigot run through her grievances. He tried again. “The message for the queen?”

  “In a hurry, feyman?”

  “My haste is for the queen.”

  “Fine.” Frieda sat up facing him. Her fragrance, a thick amber, filled the back of the car and he wanted nothing more than to get out and into a cl
ean forest. “Tell the queen her offer is accepted and the terms are agreeable.”

  Cormac paused. “Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You couldn’t send her a message?”

  “I will. Or rather you will.” She cocked her head to the side. “Didn’t she tell you?”

  A sense of dread overtook him. “Tell me what?”

  The car stopped and the driver opened up Frieda’s door. She thrust her leg out. “You can send the message from here. She’s offered you as a military consultant. You’re with us now.”

  Chapter 40

  They’d taken his phone for “security reasons” Frieda explained smoothly to him over dinner. He’d made a point of eating heartily, not wanting to give her any indication of his inner turmoil. There was now one way of being able to possibly beg Michaela’s forgiveness, and it involved returning with the most information possible.

  That was presuming that she even let him live long enough to tell her.

  They’d been served with the main course when Frieda smiled sweetly. “I’m sure Michaela will not be in the best mood when I return you.”

  Cormac laughed out loud. “You assume I’m going back.”

  “No?” She took a sip of wine and looked over the edge of the glass, blue eyes wide.

  “The queen was generous enough to make me a deal. My help here for a reversal of my exile.” Cormac shook his head. “I’d be a fool to give that up.”

  Frieda frowned slightly and he prayed his lie would hold up. He’d never get information if Frieda thought he valued his life with Michaela. Every word he uttered was like sand in his mouth.

  “I was told you were mated,” she said.

  “A mistake that will be remedied once I’m back in the Queendom.” He made sure to make eye contact and hold it. “I’m not one for monogamy.”

  “Mmmm,” she purred. “Good to hear.”

  She even licked her lips. Better tone it back.

  “More wine?” she asked. Cormac refused. They were dining alone in a small room that gave the impression of being underground, though it was brightly lit. When their plates were cleared and they’d been served a delicate dessert of candied flowers, she gave him a smile that said they were about to get to the real business.