Midnight Enchantment

by Anya Bast

  “And if I don’t?”

  His voice dropped to a softly threatening purr. “If you don’t, well, then I’ll make you.”

  “You don’t seem the type to enjoy hurting women. I’m sort of disappointed to find out you are.”

  “I never said I enjoyed it, but there’s a reason I’ve been sent to do this job, Elizabeth.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m very good at finding things and persuading people. Let’s just say I always get what I want.”

  “Huh. Funny. So do I.”

  “Great, something in common. This should be fun, then, right?”

  She locked her jaw and stared out the window of the SUV. He guided the vehicle onto the main road and they drove for about fifteen minutes before he pulled onto a long gravel driveway that led to a cottage. After cutting the engine, he got out, came around the other side, and helped her out.

  She made her way up the path, and he opened the door for her. The inside of the cottage was comfortable, with overstuffed furniture and rough-hewn tables and chairs. A large creek stone fireplace dominated one wall.

  He led her into the living room and took an object from a small table. Holding it up, he said, “This is a charmed iron restraint.” He opened it, knelt, and snapped it around her ankle. Then, touching the hinge, he murmured a series of words in Old Maejian she could barely hear, and the hinge disappeared. Now it was a flat, smooth piece of charmed iron laying flush against her skin. She had no hope of getting it off, not without Niall’s magick.

  He stood. “Get it?”

  Numbly, she nodded.

  He removed the cuffs and jerked a thumb at one of the doorways off the short hallway that led to a bathroom. “I laid clothes on the bed for you. Get dressed while I make a fire.”

  She moved toward the bedroom.

  “Oh, and Elizabeth?” She turned to stare at him with an expressionless face. “Don’t get any bright ideas about running away. You know as well as I do that charmed iron will kill you if it stays against your skin for too long.”

  “How could I forget?” She shuffled into the bedroom.

  NIALL poked a twig into the sputtering fire, making it spit, yet not quite catch the logs. Fuck, he hated tricking her like this. Trapping Elizabeth was like trapping some wild, free thing. He had no illusions that he’d immediately crushed her spirit—she had plenty to spare—but she did seem a little less vibrant than she had before with that charmed iron cuff around her ankle.

  This would be so much easier if he didn’t have a whisper of admiration for her.

  He had to constantly remind himself that she was hiding the pieces, working with the Summer Queen. This woman was scum for betraying her people. He could say the words, but something stopped him from really feeling them.

  And, fuck, she was gorgeous. All that alabaster skin, the fiery long red gold hair, the swell of her hips, and the curve of her ass. Her breasts…

  Damn. There weren’t even words.

  He’d seen a lot of beautiful women in his life. After a while they all started to look the same to him, but Elizabeth was in a class all by herself.

  After she’d shifted and ended up nude, it had been really hard for him not to look his fill. He’d managed to refrain. That would have been wrong. She was at his mercy right now, and he was enough of a gentleman not to take advantage of that.

  The sound of footsteps behind him made him look over his shoulder. She’d dressed in the long, filmy white nightgown he’d given her. Eschewing the shoes he’d provided, she was still barefoot, the metal of the cuff glinting at her ankle. Her hair hung long and tangled over her shoulders. She hadn’t washed away the blood where she’d split her lip, and a bruise was forming on her forehead.

  She took him in, struggling with the fire, and knelt beside him, making a frustrated sound. “Don’t you know how to build a fire?”

  He rocked back on his heels. “Don’t go camping much.”

  “Obviously.” She rolled her eyes. In about two minutes a blaze roared in the hearth.

  She stood and backed away from him, gaze holding his.

  He studied her. “Why are you helping me?”

  She gave him a duh look. “Because we’d both freeze before you could make an adequate fire on your own.”

  “No, I mean, why aren’t you raising hell right now? Why aren’t you fighting me, trying to escape, something.”

  She smiled slowly, but there was an edge to it. Her eyes glittered. “Do you think I’ve given up? That I’ve accepted my fate? Do you think I’m.… resigned?”

  “I don’t have the slightest clue what’s going on in your head.”

  “You can bet your sweet little tush it isn’t surrender. Not to you.” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t think for a second I’m going to make this easy on you.” She paused, her smile widening. “I’m going to make it impossible.”

  He smiled his own hard, glittering smile back at her. Yes, he would wager her will was strong, but it couldn’t hold a candle to his.

  Let the games begin.

  ON a narrow gravel pathway that was only wide enough for one vehicle, Gideon parked the small, rusting junk heap he’d stolen back in Sioalte and vowed that next time he’d swipe something with a little more class. The door squeaked open and he slammed it shut, then made his way through the prickly bushes and overgrown hedges, into yet more of the Labrai-cursed Boundary Lands.

  The air was redolent with the scent of pine and fresh flowers. A distance away, he could hear the crash of the waves on the beach. All around him birds twittered and sang, happy to be alive.

  It disgusted him.

  Every moment he spent in Piefferburg was another moment that the corrupt magick in this land seeped into his flesh like a cancer, fouling his very DNA. Sometime after he’d entered, a bitter grimace had settled onto his face and nothing seemed able to remove it.

  It was just lucky that none but two people in the entire area of Piefferburg could recognize him. Over the years he’d been careful to keep his face off Faemous, the frivolous twenty-four-hour-a-day human TV coverage of the Rose Tower. The two women who had seen his face in person, Emmaline Siobhan Keara Gallagher and Charlotte Lillian Bennett, resided in the Black Tower, so he was unlikely to happen upon them. Eventually he would seek them out.

  They were both on his list of people to kill.

  He walked for what seemed like forty-five minutes, his mood growing blacker with every step. The weeds grew more tangled and the trees scrubbier as he made his way in. The scent of seawater teased his nose. He was growing close.

  Finally the pathway opened into a clearing. Here the scrub ended and roses bloomed in profusion. Lilies and tulips competed with hyacinth, and all the trees glittered as if hung with jewels. He stopped and stared, working his tongue around the sour taste in his mouth and grimacing as if in pain. The air was malodorous with spring even though it was nearly winter.

  Flashy. Beautiful. Arrogant. Over the top. Just daring the world to tell her stop.

  He would expect nothing less of Caoilainn Elspeth Muirgheal. Even in hiding, she was a show-off.

  Before him rose a cliff of crumbling rock. He made his way to the small opening at the bottom and stepped within. The stone of the huge, high-ceiling “room” had been polished and cleaned. The walls and floor were mostly even, but free of adornment. Fire flickered in mounted lanterns, casting long, flickering shadows over the rock walls. Two rows of the gold-and-rose-bedecked Imperial Guard stood on either side, still as statues and obviously loyal to their queen to the bitter end.

  One of them moved to greet him. “Gideon Amberdoyal?” His voice echoed doyal…yal…The man’s eyes glinted with malice, and Gideon knew an acute moment of unease as he studied the man’s very pointy sheathed sword.

  “I am.” His voice ricocheted sharply off the walls and ceiling.

  “Come with me. You’re expected.”

  The guard walked toward a crack in the far wall and Gideon followed, their footsteps echoin
g. He was led down a narrow flight of stairs carved into the stone. Fire flickered over the rough stone walls from intermittent sconces, throwing shadows that crawled over the guard’s back, the steps, the walls.

  Somewhere nearby, below them, came a crash that seemed to make the entire stairway vibrate. “What was that?”

  “Waves. We’re in a cliff overhanging the ocean.”

  At the end of the stairway, the guard led him through a small room, what passed for an antechamber. The wide doorway ahead of them radiated pure white light. They stepped into a room that was much colder than the rest of the place, and Gideon shielded his eyes, blinking.

  Another wave crashed against the cliff as his sight adjusted. The guard was gone, leaving him alone in an immense room of polished white marble shot through with veins of rose. Enormous pillars were scattered throughout, rising to a beautiful fresco stretching the length and breadth of the ceiling. The scene? Of course it was the crowning of Caoilainn Elspeth Muirgheal, the Summer Queen of the Seelie Tuatha Dé Danann sídhe.

  She sat on a throne in the center of the immense space, with a group of men standing at the base of the dais. Gideon recognized the cadre of his Phaendir who had entered Piefferburg the day before he had—the ones who would be his hive in here, allowing him to wield magick.

  He also recognized the big, red-haired form of Liam Connall Deaglan Mag Aoidh, leader of the free fae, who had entered with the Phaendir. Liam and his free fae didn’t want the walls to fall because most of them had killed fae and would be reaped by the Wild Hunt. They’d been helping the Phaendir thwart the efforts of the Shadow Queen and her ilk to procure the pieces of the bosca fadbh but they’d failed twice.

  They’d all failed.

  The first time had been in Israel, when Emmaline Gallagher had retrieved the second piece from the depths of the ocean where it had been hidden in a charmed box. The second time they’d failed to stop Charlotte Bennett from taking the third piece from the base of the Stone of Destiny in Ireland.

  “Well.” The young, yet somehow old, voice of the Summer Queen rang out like poisonous bells. “We meet again, Gideon. How long has it been?”

  He walked toward the group, satisfied beyond all measure that he was tracking dirt all over her pristine white marble floors. His clothes were dirty and ripped, his shoes ruined. He looked like he’d crawled his way up from a grave. “Three hundred and seventy years at least.”

  She looked the same. Fair, young, fresh face framed with a riot of soft blond curls. Just as the last time he’d seen her, she was swathed in head-to-toe silk and satin, gold and rose. Sapphire jewelry winked from her ears, wrists, and the slender column of her throat.

  He gave her a slow, cool blink, his jaw locking. “Not long enough.”

  Her smile felt cold enough to frost his skin. “Indeed. It would have been better were we never to meet, would it not? Not even all those centuries ago.”

  “Not for the Phaendir,” he ground out. He wasn’t going to say thank you for helping them create Watt Syndrome all those years ago. She’d helped them for her own selfish reasons. In return they’d made a nice show of “capturing” her and “imprisoning” her in Piefferburg. “Nice place you have here.” He swung an arm wide. “Very big, very…polished.”

  “Did you think I never prepared for this eventuality? I had this stronghold created under strictest secrecy not long after Piefferburg was formed. Everything in this place is designed to suit my will, even the very cliffs you’re standing in now. It took me centuries to erode the land to create them.” She smiled. “I enjoy cliffs. They have a certain raw beauty.”

  Gideon grunted. He hadn’t seen them, but he imagined they looked a lot like the White Cliffs of Dover. “Interesting.” And yet, not. “Let’s get on with business.”

  She waved a hand to encompass their group. “And here we are, you and I. Partners once again. We are the triad of doom, are we not? The head of the Phaendir, the leader of the betrayer free fae, and the treacherous, scheming Summer Queen?” Despite her words, there was no note of self-loathing in her voice. Instead she sounded proud, even a little amused, like this was all a game to her.

  Maybe the whole Piefferburg experience had been a game to her, from Watt Syndrome to now, and she didn’t want the game to end. She didn’t want her little court to be distracted by the wide world, to stop worshipping her.

  Liam forced his jaw to unlock long enough to answer, “United for a good cause.” Bitterness and sarcasm infused his voice. He clearly wasn’t happy to be here, either. After all, he and his free fae had escaped the Great Sweep only to be separated forever from their friends and family. Liam probably hated being forced to ally with the people who’d made Piefferburg possible.

  Gideon understood the desire of the free fae to keep the walls standing, hate them though he did. But, one day, when he didn’t need the free fae anymore, he would find a way to get rid of them.

  The Summer Queen’s reasons for keeping the bosca fadbh from the Shadow Queen were a little more elusive. They had to do with her ego, of course, the monster that had created this polished marble room on the edge of a cliff in nowhereland. Within Piefferburg she was one of the most powerful beings. Outside Piefferburg she would be lost, alone. Her Seelie Court would scatter, seduced by the gleaming, glittering modern world. Outside Piefferburg she would be nothing to no one.

  To a woman like Caoilainn, that was worse than death.

  Gideon would have liked to say he’d kill her, too, when this was all over—but no one could kill the Summer Queen, short of herself or…“The Shadow Queen hasn’t sent the goblins or the sluagh for you yet?” he asked with the sweetest smile he could manage through his permanent sour grimace.

  The Queen of the Unseelie had power over the goblins, able to command them as she wished. In addition, Aislinn Christiana Guinevere Finvarra was a necromancer, married to the leader of the Wild Hunt. Together they had the ability to summon the sluagh, an immortal army of unforgiven dead.

  The Summer Queen might be able to fight off the goblins, but not the sluagh. Not for the long term. A protective barrier would work for a while, but eventually the flesh-eating monsters would break through.

  “Pah! She’s too weak. She cares too much about the rights of the goblins to order them around, and if she calls the sluagh for me she risks never locating the pieces of the bosca fadbh.” She waved a glittering hand. “She’s useless. Anyway, I have defenses against anything the Shadow Queen sends my way.”

  “I’m surprised one of your own guards hasn’t slit your throat yet, Caoilainn.” Liam’s voice sounded just like how his face looked—hard, mocking. Not even his flowing Irish accent could soften it. It was a dangerous attitude to take with a woman like the Summer Queen. Yet, Gideon suspected Liam didn’t care much. Either that or he was just stupid.

  She swiveled her head around and stabbed him with her icy blue gaze. The air cooled to the point of giving Gideon the shivers. Her magick was related to her emotions, which meant the room in which she sat was always a few degrees colder than anywhere else. “I have surrounded myself with my most loyal. Never doubt my judgment, boy.” She held up her hand and pointed to the Summer Ring, the piece of jewelry that became a part of the Seelie Royal’s very body, imbuing the wearer with eternal life and power beyond imagining. “And never think anyone can harm me.”

  Liam spat on the floor. “I don’t give a shite if you’re harmed. I just want to keep the fecking walls from falling.” His gaze moved through the Phaendir to Gideon’s face. “Then you can all die and rot in hell.”

  Gideon smiled. “Well, aren’t we a happy little triad of doom.” As if to punctuate his sentence, a particularly huge wave crashed into the cliff, making the room shake.

  “The fae whore,” Gideon said, getting down to business. “Where is she?”

  “The one I gave the pieces to? The asrai?” The queen waved a hand. “Running around the woods like always. The Unseelie mage, Niall Quinn, the one with the blood of the Phaendi
r, is chasing her, but he will never get the pieces. She’s protecting her mother.” Her gaze met Liam’s. “Her motivation is a lot like yours. She will never reveal the location of the hidden pieces, not even under threat of death.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Long ago I looked into the soul of Emmaline Siobhan Keara Gallagher and saw that she would make the perfect assassin for the Rose Tower. For many years, she did. Don’t you think I used my abilities to look into the soul of Elizabeth Cely Saintjohn to discover the strength of her will before I gave her the pieces? I’m confident in the decision I made. The pieces are safe, safer than they would be even with me.”

  Gideon trusted no one, not even the Seelie Queen and her powerful magick. He definitely didn’t trust her judgment or opinion. He stroked his chin. “Do you know where she hid them?”

  “No. Once I handed them over, she concealed them, and she won’t even tell me where they are.”

  “Pity.”

  “Why?” She shrugged a shoulder like it was nothing. “They’re safe as can be.”

  Gideon looked up at her with daggers in his eyes. “The only time they’ll be safe is when they’re in my hands, and in my hands they shall be.”

  “Well, I guess you should have contacted me sooner, before I was forced to hide them on my own. Now they’re out of your reach.”

  He ignored her excuse. “Now I’m going to have to track this woman down and torture the information out of her.”

  Frost tipped his nose and his skin turned blue. The Phaendir near him, faces dark within their hoods, flinched. “What did I just say about doubting my judgment?” she snapped. “When I told you the woman won’t give up the location of the pieces even under threat of death, I meant it.”

  Gideon’s lips peeled back from his teeth in an attempt to smile. “My dear Summer Queen, there are things worse than death.”

  FIVE

  ELIZABETH sat on the couch and toyed with the silver cuff around her ankle, all the while trying to kill Niall with her gaze alone.

  He’d done something to the doors and windows, locked her in magickally somehow. She knew that because she’d tried to climb out the window in the bedroom. She’d been neither able to unlock it nor break the glass.