Cruel Enchantment

by Bast, Anya

  “How dare you.”

  Brother Maddoc’s face went red, then purple. “How dare you, Gideon!” he bellowed. “I should have executed you last year instead of showing mercy.”

  No doubt.

  “Hey!” said the nurse, rushing into the room. “No, Brother Maddoc. Stop that,” she scolded, waving a finger in his face. “As much as you are respected around here, I cannot have you upsetting my patients!” She touched Gideon’s arm and while the nurse’s face was turned toward Maddoc, Gideon cracked a smile that made Maddoc go even redder. “This man has just woken up from a coma. Now, please, go. The doctor is coming in to examine Brother Gideon shortly, anyway.”

  Maddoc stared down at Gideon for a heartbeat, smoke practically wafting from his ears like in some cartoon. “Fine, I’ll leave.” Maddoc pointed at him. “But you haven’t heard the last of this, Brother Gideon.” Threat delivered, he turned and walked out of the room.

  Gideon stared hard at his retreating form. Brother Maddoc hadn’t heard the last of this, either, and he wasn’t going to like the next part. Not at all.

  “How are you feeling?” the nurse asked with a friendly smile.

  Gideon wiped all traces of murderous rage off his face and smiled back. “Happy to be alive.”

  She laughed. “I can imagine.”

  He scooted down into his pillows and did his best to look pitiful. “Could you do me a favor”—he glanced at her name tag—“Nurse Teresa?”

  “Of course.”

  “I really need my cell phone. Can you get it for me? It’s probably still in the top drawer of my desk in my office over in HQ. The recharging cord should be there with it. I’ll need that, too.”

  She nodded and winked. “I’d be happy to do that for you. Sit tight and I’ll be back with it. The doctor will be here in a few minutes.”

  Gideon relaxed and closed his eyes. Everything was going exactly to plan. He just had to make a couple of phone calls to make sure they kept going that way. He smiled.

  EMMALINE blinked and a strange, opulently furnished room came into view. Noticing right away that she wasn’t cuffed, she pushed into a sitting position. Her head pounded and her stomach burned. Someone had bandaged her wounds and dressed her in a very feminine light nightgown that reached her toes.

  She blinked and glanced around, seeing nothing familiar. Where the hell was she?

  Didn’t matter. She hopped from the bed and limped toward the door on bare feet. If she had a chance to escape, she was damn well going to take it.

  A strong hand captured her upper arm. “Where do you—gugh!”

  She’d brought her elbow back hard into the man’s unprotected abdomen. She whirled, arms at the ready to do more damage, and saw immediately that it was Aeric.

  “Oh, Danu.” She touched his shoulder. He was bent over, holding his gut. “I’m sorry.”

  “No problem.” He straightened, wincing. “My fault for sneaking up on you.” He pointed at the bed. “Back to bed.”

  There was something very nice about Aeric ordering her to bed. Still . . . “I feel okay, Aeric, really.”

  “Back to bed.”

  She jumped at the lash of anger in his voice, but she knew it was because he was worried about her. She limped back the way she’d come, thankful she could lie down again. Weakness from standing had entered her limbs and her head and stomach ached.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the Black Tower. The queen has issued an edict. Any Unseelie who attacks you does it on pain of death. You should be safe here.”

  “Kolbjorn?”

  “Restrained. The Shadow Queen wasn’t pleased about the damage he did to Goblin Town. That’s all stuff the Black Tower will have to pay for. He’s being punished.”

  She nodded. “Okay, I trust the Shadow Queen.” Oddly, she did. Seemed like she shouldn’t trust any fae royal after what she’d been through, but she understood Aislinn’s history. Aislinn was a good woman, for all that she was the leader of monsters. “But I feel okay, Aeric, really.”

  His expression went rigid. “You haven’t asked how long you’ve been here.”

  “Oh, hell. How long?”

  “You’ve been mostly in and out of it for the last week, Emmaline. We kept you drugged while you healed up the damage done to you. You were broken when the Summer Queen gave you back to me.” He watched her tuck herself in. “So, you might feel okay now, but that doesn’t mean the way they brought you to me isn’t still fresh in my mind.” His eyes seemed to go dark and his body tensed. “They fucked you up bad, before I was able to get you out.”

  She averted her gaze, staring straight ahead. “I don’t remember much. She showed me my crossbow—Danu, it was like new,” she breathed. “Then . . . Lars. After that, I don’t remember.”

  “Lars?” His voice was sharp. “Was he the one who hurt you?”

  She gave a rough laugh. “The queen calls it gentling. There’s nothing gentle about it.”

  “Lars is going to die.” His voice was the coldest and most determined she’d ever heard it. It was a simple statement and he meant it. Lars’s death was on his To Do list. It was on hers, too.

  “I like that idea.”

  “You were conscious when they handed you over. You really don’t remember anything?”

  She shivered. “No. My mind used to shut down. It was a survival thing. Maybe I did it again.”

  He studied her, saying nothing.

  She settled back into the pillows and closed her eyes. Her body was far weaker than she’d first presumed and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what the Summer Queen had ordered Lars to do to her. All she knew was that her stomach hurt badly. “Before you go off on a hunt for Lars, which, by the way, is a fantastic idea, have you finished the key?”

  “Soon. It’s almost done. You just concentrate on healing and don’t worry about the key.”

  She opened her eyes and gave him a weak smile. “Thank you for getting me out.”

  “You won’t thank me when you find out what I traded for you.”

  Danu, she hadn’t even been thinking about that. She sat up. “You didn’t. Please, Aeric, tell me you didn’t.”

  He stared stonily at her.

  She pushed the blankets away and bounded from the bed. Her shin gave only the slightest protest. It was mostly healed, apparently. Her head pounded out a staccato rhythm and her stomach burned, but it was no match for her anger. “The piece wasn’t yours to bargain with!”

  Her knees folded and he caught her. She pushed at him, cursing a blue streak, but he only held her close to his body. “I understand why you didn’t want me to give the piece to her. Aislinn explained.” He spoke close to her ear. “I just couldn’t leave you in the Rose for the time it would’ve taken to devise an alternate way to get you out. Not now. Not now that I know about your past.”

  She sagged against him, feeling defeated. But what was done, was done. “Don’t you understand yet what a danger the Seelie Queen could be to the freedom of the fae?”

  He sat her on the bed and then sank down beside her. “One bridge at a time.” He cupped her cheek. “All I care about right now is that you’re out of there.”

  Was Aeric really cupping her cheek, gazing into her eyes and professing that he cared about her well-being? She blinked. Nope, not dreaming. This was even better than the sexual interludes they’d had. There was emotion here. Emotion of the nonviolent kind, even. Amazing.

  He lowered his mouth and pressed his lips to hers, his mouth slanting across hers. His tongue eased inside her mouth with long, slow sweeps. His arms came around her, warm and strong, bracketing her in an embrace she never wanted to leave. With a deep groan, he pulled her flush up against him, so close she was sure he could feel the stupidly crazy beat of her heart.

  He dragged his lips across hers once in a while, nibbling at her lower lip before sliding his tongue back within. His kiss was like the finest wine or the most potent drug. It made her forget her pains and aches, almost m
ade her forget how to think. She just wanted—needed—more. Her body was aware of his kiss in the most sensitive way—her nipples hard, her sex warm.

  Carefully he lowered her backward into the pillows, still kissing her. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were dark and his body taut. His expression could only be described as hungry. He wasn’t the only one.

  “Rest now,” he rasped at her, pulling away.

  “Rest? Are you crazy? You kiss me like that and then tell me to rest? It’s like taunting a starving lion with a steak and then telling it to go to sleep.”

  “You’re injured and if we continue this I’ll push too far.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “Yes.” He turned away. “I’ll send up some food. I’m setting guards I can trust at the door, too. Insurance against any fae who wants to break the queen’s edict.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I have to.” His voice was low and rough. “At least for a little while. I’ll be back.”

  He walked toward the door and her gaze caught on an object she’d hoped she’d never see again. “My crossbow,” she breathed.

  He stopped and turned to her. “Wow, you really don’t remember, do you?”

  “Remember what?”

  “The Summer Queen tried to send your crossbow with you. I told her to shove it up her royal ass, but you stopped me and asked me to take it. Have you changed your mind? Hell, I’ll burn it for you if you want.”

  She stared at the polished wood for a long time before answering. “No. There’s a reason I asked you to take it. It’s time I faced my past. I need to stop letting it scare and control me. Leave it.”

  “Whatever you need, Emmaline.”

  SEVENTEEN

  AERIC shut the door behind him, nodded to the two guards standing watch outside, and then headed for the stairs. His hands were shaking in relief. He’d been so afraid she wouldn’t make it through. Then, when it had become apparent that she would pull through, he’d worried that after they’d weaned her off the drugs she might wake up different, permanently changed for the worse.

  Emmaline was the strongest person he’d ever met. He’d gone from hatred to unadulterated admiration.

  He rounded a corner and came face-to-face with Niall. “Hey, I’ve been looking for you all week,” Niall said.

  “Been a little busy,” he growled. Niall wasn’t the person he most wanted to see right now.

  “Look, I’m sorry for how hard I came down on you before you went over to the Rose for Emmaline. I can tell that you’ve developed some pretty strong feelings for her.”

  “And you don’t get it. Yeah, I remember this conversation.”

  “You risked your life for her by storming into the Rose, and, man, that’s a story that’s going to be told for the next hundred years. Then I saw how you carried her back here, what kind of shape she was in. You disappeared behind a door with her and didn’t leave her side until you healed her.”

  Aeric fidgeted. “Is there a point to this conversation?”

  “My point is that I see you’ve come to care deeply for a woman who isn’t Aileen. I remember you two.” Niall shook his head. “I didn’t think it was possible for you ever to love a woman other than her.” He pressed his lips together. “Your choice is a little strange—”

  “Who says I’m in love with Emmaline? That’s a little strong.”

  “Okay, maybe, but you can’t deny that your actions would lead the observer to think love.”

  “Point?” Aeric barked.

  “My point is that I’m old and I remember. I remember how fucking infatuated you were with Aileen, how you couldn’t see anything or anyone but her. You couldn’t even see she was sleeping with another man while she whispered sweet nothings in your ear.”

  Aeric went very still. “How do you know about that?”

  “I’m probably the only one who does, and I only know it by purest chance.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I saw them together once, walking in the woods. They were very deep in the forest, all alone. Holding hands and laughing.” He paused for a moment and looked like he was debating whether or not he should continue. “They looked like they were in love.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Niall laughed. “Fuck that. You would have killed the messenger. I kept that little secret to myself. I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all if it weren’t for Emmaline. If Aileen had been with any other man in those woods that night, I would’ve forgotten the whole thing long ago.” He drew a breath. “But she was with a Seelie, one that Emmaline offed—”

  “Driscoll Manus O’Shaughnessy.”

  Niall’s eyebrows raised into his dark hairline. “You know.”

  “All but one very significant part of everything you just told me, yes.”

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer, man. You’re not going to kill me, are you?” Niall glanced down at Aeric’s hands.

  Aeric forced himself to unclench his fists. “No.”

  “I still don’t understand what you see in the Summer Queen’s assassin.”

  “She’s not the Summer Queen’s assassin anymore. She’s just Emmaline.” Aeric pushed past Niall and continued on his way.

  Once in his apartment, he went straight into his forge and stood at the foot of Aileen’s portrait. Walking hand in hand in the deep forest. Laughing at one another’s comments. Looking like they were in love. Because they had been, of course. O’Shaughnessy had offered Aileen what she’d needed. Things that Aeric never would have been able to give her.

  He reached up and took the portrait down, turning its face toward the wall.

  “Good-bye, Aileen.”

  AFTER Aeric left, Emmaline pushed from the bed and crossed the room, approaching her old crossbow as if it were a poisonous snake that might lash out at any false move. Finally she reached it and, swallowing hard, picked it up.

  Touching it made the last three hundred-plus years disappear in a heartbeat. Suddenly she was back in Ireland, in the polished halls of the Seelie Court hidden under the hills with her crossbow and quiver slung across her back. The weight of the crossbow felt good in her hands, the wood rubbed smooth where she’d always held it. Her finger brushed the trigger and she remembered the way it felt to aim and release, the backlash of the weapon against her shoulder, the sound of the bolt slicing through the air to find its target.

  She remembered the rest of it, too. The way the light would evaporate from her mark’s eyes as he died, the sound of the bolt finding flesh, the thump of the body falling. She remembered the cold timbre of the Summer Queen’s voice as she ordered death after death.

  And Emmaline had obeyed her.

  Emmaline set the crossbow down and backed away from it.

  GLIMPSING the man she wanted through the trees, she flipped back the edge of her cloak, readied her crossbow against her shoulder, and sighted his back. The bolt was already nocked; she’d been stalking him all morning.

  His name was Aydan Corrigan Mac Gearailt. She didn’t know what he was guilty of, but it was probably excessive killing of Seelie in the war. Generally, those were the ones the queen sent her after—the ones capable of mass murder through magick—in an effort to even up the odds between the courts.

  When it came to killing, the Unseelie had a pretty big advantage.

  It didn’t matter what he was guilty of. Mac Gearailt was her task, and once the queen chose a task for her, she thought of nothing but completing it—delivering death. Guilt or innocence meant nothing. Getting it done. That’s what she’d been made for.

  She drew back the string, keeping the Unseelie in her sights while she hid behind a clump of trees. This one had magick enough to crush bones with his glance, and that meant she really didn’t want him looking her way.

  He stopped, went still.

  Her whole body went rigid, her breathing puffing white in the cold air of the woods in twilight. She shifted her weight and a branch cracked, sounding as loud as cannon fire
in the quiet forest.

  Mac Gearailt turned, magick gathering.

  But it wasn’t Mac Gearailt when he turned; it was Lars.

  He smiled, showing sharpened metallic teeth. Then he was there, behind her. She turned and he was to the side of her, blocking her way. She whirled and he was in front of her. Disappearing. Reappearing. Too fast for her to track.

  She dropped her crossbow to the ground and he leapt, his knifelike teeth ripping a bloody chunk of meat from her shoulder.

  She came awake with a scream and with shakes racking her body. Aeric stared at her in the murky half-light of the room, his face an inch from hers. His hands were grasping her shoulders as if he’d shaken her out of a nightmare.

  His face looked tense, lined with worry and exhaustion. “Are you okay? You were screaming in your sleep.” He pulled her close and she melted against him.

  A second later she realized she’d molded herself to his body and backed away. “Yeah.” Except she was still shaking. She curled her arms over her chest and licked her lips. “Just a bad dream.”

  His lips curled into a sardonic half smile. “Gee, can’t understand why you’d have those. Want to tell me about it?”

  “No.” The word snapped out of her like a bullet. She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself. “But thanks for the offer.”

  “What do you need?”

  “A shower, a change of clothes, a good stiff drink.”

  “Luckily I can provide all of those.” He pointed toward a shadowed doorway. “Bathroom is in there. A change of clothing has already been placed on the counter. I’ll order us some dinner, okay? It’ll be here when you get out.”

  “Wow, you really seem to want to fatten me up,” she complained gently as she stood. “You sent that huge meal before I fell to sleep and now dinner.”

  He caught her wrist before she could move away. “I want you to keep your strength up so you can heal.”

  She stopped and gave him a shaky smile. “Be careful. Someone listening might think you care about me for more than just my ability to procure the piece of the bosca fadbh.”