Cruel Enchantment

by Bast, Anya

  David was glad that he was here for more reasons than one.

  He’d gone back to the coffee shop to take advantage of the Internet and the beautiful woman who’d given him the free drink who had been working at the counter. She’d given off every signal known to man of a woman smitten, yet shy. His resolve to stay on task had weakened and he’d struck up a conversation with her. Turned out the conversation had serious legs. David liked her. A lot.

  David gave himself a final check in the mirror hanging on the wall of his posh hotel suite. The HFF was funded by a few mysterious and deep-pocketed individuals. They only gave their operatives the best. “You’ll be able to tell if she’s linked to the Phaendir in any way, won’t you?”

  Calum nodded, shifting his enormous body on the couch. “If she’s got the stink of the Phaendir on her, I’ll smell it. If she’s fae, I’ll know it. When she gets here, I’ll check her out.”

  Calum was trooping fae, not enough Tuatha Dé blood to make him Seelie and no dark magick to make him Unseelie. Calum was just Calum—a geek who also happened to be fae. He was a fae scholar, who sometimes worked in the archives of the old fae tomes the HFF kept in Ireland. Calum was the one who’d deciphered the Old Maejian on the box and who had made the mock key that Emmaline had carried into Piefferburg for the Blacksmith. His magick was light and harmless—the only thing he could do was sense other fae and the Phaendir—and anyone who had the stink of the Phaendir on them. It was how he’d avoided the Great Sweep.

  “If I give you a thumbs-up, you’ll know she’s all right,” Calum finished. “No fae, no ties to the Phaendir.”

  At this point, it would break David’s heart if Kiya turned out dirty in some way. Maybe he was being overly cautious. Of course, in times like these, playing for stakes this high, there wasn’t any such thing as overly cautious.

  David was smitten with her. Probably a little more than he should be, since he was leaving soon and she would remain almost halfway around the goddamn world. He couldn’t seem to help it, though.

  Her name was Kiya and she was an Egyptian immigrant who had come from a rich family and attended boarding school in the U.K. as she grew up. Now estranged from her parents for reasons she wouldn’t discuss, she lived and worked in Haifa while contemplating what she would do with the rest of her life.

  He’d wooed her for a couple days, turning on his charm at the counter while she laughed and filled orders. After all, apparently he had time to kill. Why not make the best of it? Finally she’d accepted a dinner invitation. Now he was in his hotel room with Calum, waiting for her to arrive.

  Calum rose from the couch and clapped him on the back. It hurt. Calum was a big guy with a heavy beard, a mustache, and a bald head. What he lacked in hair on his head, he made up for in muscle. “Don’t look so worried. I’m sure Kiya’s fine. No sense in you sitting around here in the hotel room twiddling your thumbs while we wait for Emmaline. If you have a hot woman, you might as well get out there and spend some time with her. I haven’t seen you date anyone since the divorce.”

  Someone knocked on the hotel room door.

  “Ah, it’s the hot woman,” Calum said with a wink.

  David let her in. She was dressed in a filmy blue and white dress and her hair was pinned up against the warm weather, dark, loose tendrils falling around her slender neck. He had a sudden urge to lean in and nibble on that expanse of coffee-and-cream-colored skin. God, she was beautiful.

  She looked surprised to see Calum. “Hello.”

  Calum reached out to shake her hand and she took it. “Hi, I’m a colleague of David’s,” he said with a smile. “Here in town on business. Nice to meet you.”

  She favored him with a dazzling smile. “Very nice to meet you. I hope you enjoy your stay in our city, Calum.”

  Calum broke the handshake and gave the thumbs-up signal with a knowing wink at David. “You two have fun tonight.”

  David let out the breath he’d been holding. Of course she was clean.

  “You don’t want to come along, Calum?” Kiya asked. “We have room at our table for one more.”

  “No, thanks. I feel worse than a whore with—” He bit off his sentence and cleared his throat. “I mean I’m pretty jet-lagged.”

  “Oh. All right, well, I hope you get some rest, then.”

  David put his hand on Kiya’s waist—a thing he was more than happy to do—and led her out the door. “Don’t wait up for me, Calum,” David called over his shoulder.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Making small talk, they traveled the not very pretty, but oddly compelling, streets of Haifa to a nearby Ashkenazi restaurant, where they settled down to an amazing array of sweet and salty dishes flavored with aromatic spices.

  “So, what business brings you and Calum to Haifa?” Kiya asked. “I asked you before, but you never really did answer my question.”

  Yeah, no kidding. Time for some creative white-lying.

  “I’m here because I’m an archaeologist and a diver. I intend to explore the ruins of Atlit Yam. Calum is a scholar. He’s studying some of the artifacts that have been found around the site.”

  “Oh.” She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with interest. “How exciting.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “How long will you be in Israel?”

  “My time here is open-ended. I’m not really sure when I’ll go back to the States. Depends on when we get clearance to dive and what we find down there.” Clearance wasn’t in their program, of course. They just needed that fucking key.

  She glanced at his ring hand. “So you have no wife back in the States who is anxiously awaiting your return?”

  He looked down at his hand. There was still a thin white mark from his wedding band. Ah. He’d only recently taken it off, though his marriage had ended three years earlier. The question convinced him that she was interested in him. It seemed designed to make sure he wasn’t concealing a marriage, by forcing him to answer this question directly.

  He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “I wouldn’t have asked you to dinner tonight if I were married. I am not that kind of man.”

  Her whole body eased. “That’s good.”

  “I was married once,” he said. “I’m divorced now.”

  She swallowed her bite of food and set her fork to the side. “I would say I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but I’m not. If it had worked out you wouldn’t be having dinner with me.” She gave him a shy smile.

  He laughed. “Well, I was more interested in the marriage than she was.”

  Her dark eyes danced. “Not interested in a relationship with you? I find that hard to imagine. I find you very compelling.”

  “Very compelling?” He laughed again. “Should I be flattered or . . . ?”

  “You are handsome, intelligent, and interesting. Those qualities all combine to make you compelling.”

  “Ah, okay, then. I’ll be flattered.”

  “Your ex-wife—what was her name?”

  “Emmaline.”

  “How unique.”

  “An interesting name for an interesting woman.” He tipped his wineglass at her and then took a drink. He wouldn’t reveal the fact that Emmaline was fae, of course. Only a handful of humans knew that little tidbit, all of them trusted HFF. He set his glass down. “But that chapter of my life is now closed.”

  Because he didn’t want it getting in the way of any new chapters.

  His relationship with Emmaline had been short and disastrous. Emmaline was a long-lived fae and had been in and out of many relationships over her lifetime, but there had always been someone who’d retained a shadowy claim on her emotions. Some nameless man from her past. David had hated him. Because of that intangible tether—that untouchable competitor—she’d never fully invested herself in their relationship, and that missing part of her had destroyed their marriage in record time.

  He’d never really known the real Emmaline. Hell, she’d never eve
n shown him her true appearance, the one she was born with. He’d never pressed the issue, since he’d fallen in love with her heart and her mind, not her packaging.

  David still cared very much for Emmaline, but they were better off as just friends and colleagues. They had always worked well together at the HFF. Once upon a time they’d been partners. That was how they’d grown so close.

  Years ago she’d told him about the Blacksmith. Before she’d entered Piefferburg, she’d called David and told him how worried she was about this mission because of that man. But her skill in glamour was so strong that she could make the Phaendir believe she was human, so surely she could slip past the Blacksmith without him realizing her true identity. Although she’d been nervous, she’d believed that, and so had David. He’d reassured her that was the case.

  But what if they’d been wrong?

  Something had fucked up. It didn’t take a genius to understand that. He knew Emmaline could handle herself, but if anyone hurt her—that fucking blacksmith, for example—fae trapped in Piefferburg or not, David would find a way to hurt him back.

  There were other enemies inside Piefferburg, too. Emmaline had made more than her fair share of them in the Unseelie Court. David knew her past could catch up with her. If it ever did, it would wallop the piss out of her.

  “Well,” Kiya said, “selfishly, I hope you’re staying here for a while.”

  He smiled. “I’m all yours.”

  She leaned into him, sliding her hand into his. “Music to my ears.”

  AERIC couldn’t look at any one piece of furniture in his apartment without thinking about how Emmaline would look sprawled on it naked. The couch was an especially bad thing because he could so easily envision her bent over the arm of it, lovely ass raised and thighs parted as he took her in long, driving strokes from behind.

  The shower wasn’t much better because all he could think about was Emmaline in it, warm water running down her body and her tight pink nipples peeking through white soap-suds. He envisioned himself slipping into the shower with her, pinning her face-first against the tile wall, and easing his cock deep inside her from behind. Hell, it almost drove him to take baths, and he never did that, not since the shower had been invented.

  It was like a sickness, this sudden and overwhelming sexual need for a woman he should hate. He guessed a psychiatrist would have a field day plumbing the depths of that one.

  The way he saw it, he had two options. He could give in to his driving need to nail this woman, put her in his bed for a night of screwing each other’s brains out, and hope that excised the demon that was riding him so hard. Or he could go back on his vow to keep her and let her go. But then what? Would she go back to the Summer Queen and take up her old life as an assassin?

  He turned over a charmed iron knife he’d made as he sat at his kitchen table. It was an elaborate piece, the grip carved into the shape of a dragon. The handle was the body; the top the sleek, scaled tail. The mouth was the hilt from which the blade protruded like a tongue that could cut a man to bloody ribbons. A part of his fae gift was the ability to carve iron like it was wood and this was one of the pieces he’d created by hand, one of the pieces he was most proud of.

  He flipped the knife onto the tabletop. It spun to a stop, tip pointing at him. He’d come down hard on Emmaline for her work as an assassin, yet he had no room to cast stones. No room at all. His handiwork during the wars had killed far, far more fae than Emmaline had. His weapons had rendered fae magickless, sucked their life force away while they’d languished in prisons. His weapons had killed and maimed thousands.

  He was a hypocrite to judge her.

  The only difference between them was that her kills had been up close and personal. It was his weapons, created by his magickal hands but wielded by others, that had claimed his victims. And that was really no difference at all when you got down to essentials.

  Back then he’d been fighting for the survival of his people. The Seelie had taken it upon themselves to try to exterminate all the Unseelie they could, and the Unseelie had retaliated in kind. Just as the goblins had decided to exterminate the red caps, the sirens had declared war on the selkie, and the Hu Hsien had decided to off the phookas. The fae race wars of the sixteen hundreds. It had been utter chaos and had ultimately outed them to the humans.

  But just as he’d thought he’d been helping his people to survive, so had Emmaline. They’d simply been on opposite sides.

  He remembered how hot it had made Aileen when he’d crafted all the charmed weapons that the Unseelie had used in battle. She used to sit in his forge and tease him by playfully flashing her thighs and bending over so he got glimpses of her breasts. Finally he would end up taking her on his workbench. Her orgasms always seemed more intense when surrounded by weaponry—things that caused pain.

  That was not a good thing for him to think of now, yet it was only one of many memories that had been floating through the gentle clouds of goodness that he’d surrounded Aileen with over the last three centuries. There were things about her he’d suppressed that might fit into a scenario in which she’d been sleeping with O’Shaughnessy, a man whom, appropriately, the Unseelie had called the Butcher.

  The Butcher, the Blacksmith. The Candlestick Maker? Aeric wondered who else Aileen might have been sleeping with. He hated that he doubted her fidelity now, after all these years—though he’d doubted back then, hadn’t he? It was only after her death that he’d elevated her to the status of angel and washed over all the bad in his memory with rosy hues of happiness.

  That’s what people always did after people died, right? All the bad became good. The dead became saints. In Aeric’s case, he’d perhaps made his relationship with Aileen into the one he wanted, rather than the one it had actually been.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. Fuck. It was true that you had to be careful what you asked for in case you got it. He’d been praying to Goibhniu that Emmaline would eventually be caught in his trap. Here she was, caught in his trap. With her had come an emotional earthquake. His reality might not be the one he’d always assumed. Aileen might not have been the woman he’d believed her to be.

  Emmaline, too.

  He stood and went to the forge, glancing at Emmaline, who lay sleeping on the floor, before he went to the painting of Aileen. The image he’d painted of her had been created with hands of love and through eyes of adoration. It was not a true image. Even if Emmaline was lying about Aileen being in bed with O’Shaughnessy, it still wasn’t a true image. It was time he came to terms with that.

  When he turned away from the painting, Emmaline was awake. She was sitting with the blanket around her waist, his too large sweatshirt making her look like a marshmallow. He knew exactly what she looked like under that marshmallow and he wanted to pull that stupid jersey off her. Wanted her naked on the floor, moaning for him, thighs spread and his cock buried to the hilt inside her. The look on her face told him she didn’t want the same thing. Not today.

  “How dare you, you fucking bastard!” Emmaline yelled at him. She’d pulled her knees up protectively against her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “How dare you come to me like that, take advantage of me that way? You asshole!”

  His lips twisted. “This is kind of a delayed reaction, don’t you think, sweetness? I seem to remember moaning, sighing, rubbing up against me, grinding your—”

  “Shut up!” Her face flushed.

  “Two orgasms with my hands on you, fingers inside you, coming apart in my arms, begging for my—”

  She leapt to her feet. “Stop it! I may have been caught up in the moment, but I’ve had time to cool down and think. What you did was wrong.”

  “I’m glad you finally see me for who I am.” Her whole body was shaking with anger. “But I don’t think I need to point out that you wanted it.”

  “You took advantage of me, of the situation.”

  “Oh, sweetness, I could have gone further. I was holding
back.” He walked to her and got in her face. His voice was low and harsh. “If I had given in to my urge, I would have fucked you senseless right up against this wall, Emmaline. You would have come with my cock inside you, over and over, moaned till your throat was raw, and you would have begged me for more.”

  “You’re an arrogant bastard.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” he snarled.

  “You’re an arrogant bastard and you know I want you.” She paused and her eyes narrowed speculatively. “But you want me, too. That’s quite the quandary for you, isn’t it? Wanting the woman who killed your true love. That must be rough.”

  He tipped his head to the side. “Now who’s being arrogant?” He wanted to kiss her. Fuck. He backed away a little.

  “Answer me.” Her voice and gaze were like steel, a lot like her backbone.

  “Yeah, I want to fuck you. I want you bad, Emmaline, and I know damn well you killed my soul mate.” He shrugged like it was nothing. “I’ll deal.”

  A muscle in her cheek twitched and she looked away from him. She swallowed hard. “I know you don’t believe me, but I’m sorry. I regretted Aileen’s death that night and have regretted it every night since. She was an innocent woman and I killed her. Those are the facts. Even if she was having an affair with O’Shaughnessy; it wasn’t like she was helping him do what he was doing. She was blameless.”

  “Emmaline—”

  She held up a hand to stop his words. “You can say a lot about me, and you would have the right to say it all, but most of the people I killed under the Summer Queen’s command were people guilty of heinous crimes.” She stopped, drew a deep breath. “Not Aileen. Killing her rocked my world. It changed my life forever.”

  “I’m not sure how innocent Aileen truly was.” The words hurt to say. They pulled from the heart of him like a bloody string.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”