by Anya Bast
“I fucked up last night. I’m getting too close to you. I’m not the man for this job.”
Hope shot a tiny blossom of light into her chest. “What do you mean?”
He stood and walked to her, flipping the blankets back. Cool air kissed the length of her bare body. He leaned over, touched her cuff, and whispered a power-laced string of words in Old Maejian. The cuff popped off. “You’re free.”
She kicked the cuff away like it was made of nuclear waste and stared up at him. Was this for real? Or was this just another layer of illusion? “I don’t trust you.”
He turned away. “Fine, then stay. But I’m out of here. I’m headed back to the Black Tower. I need to tell the queen I’ve failed and get someone else to come after you. Someone who can do the job.”
“Bullshit.” She hopped from the bed and followed him out of the room. She was still naked, but that was a secondary concern right now. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it all before…up close and in detail. “If you were going to send someone else, you would leave me in the charmed iron and just direct the next miscreant here to me.”
He rounded on her and bared his teeth. “I touched every inch of your body last night, Elizabeth. I made you come multiple times. Is it so hard to believe that I might want to see you live? By the time the Shadow Queen sends someone back to this cottage, you’d be dead from the iron sickness. The next guy can catch you, kill you. I’m done.” He stalked into the other room, grabbed a duffle bag, and paced to the front door. “Bye, Elizabeth. Good luck.”
She stood in the middle of the room, staring out the front door that he’d left open. Danu, she wished she knew if this was real or not.
After she’d heard the sound of his SUV driving off, she hugged herself, shaking off the disgusting feeling of the iron sickness that still clung to her, and trying not to feel like she’d just had her first one-night stand.
HE never came back.
Wrapped in a blanket on the couch, she waited and waited. Also absent was the sense she was being watched. No niggling from the recesses of her mind ever came. So, finally, she stood and dissolved.
Surrender. Permeating wood, sliding through cement, finding earth. Accumulating and leaking through rock, silt, humus, minerals, decaying organic matter. A stream not far. Merge. Rushing, rushing.
Ah, it felt good. So good to be water self.
She returned to full consciousness lying on her side at the edge of a river with sprae playing in bushes and trees opposite her. Sitting up, she hugged herself against the chill and analyzed her location. Her water self had led her to a clearing near her home. Better yet, this was a place where she kept clothing, thank Danu.
Standing, she pulled the cached set of pants, sweater, under-things, shoes, and socks from a heavy plastic bag secreted under a bush and pulled them on.
The sensation of being watched remained absent. Yet, something didn’t feel right.
More than anything she wanted to verify that the pieces were still hidden where she’d left them, but she couldn’t risk it. Not yet.
Instead she went to her house.
All was as she’d left it, though her ATV was still at the garden where Niall had caught her. She’d have to go back for that, but it was almost dawn, the time when her energy ebbed and she normally slept. The iron sickness still had its claws sunk deep inside her and would take time to fade, so she would wait and rest.
Visiting her mother would have to wait until evening, too. She would have to make up a story to explain her absence, maybe something about how she’d traveled to the ocean for a little impromptu vacation. She would apologize for not telling her beforehand, would feel terrible for lying…and hope like hell her mother didn’t give her any food that would compel the truth from her.
She made herself a dinner of stew, sipped fortifying tea, and snuggled into her bed to sleep. Dawn was just lighting the horizon when the phone on her nightstand rang.
“Hello?” she answered, already half asleep.
Silence on the other end. Finally, a man said, “Is this Elizabeth Cely Saintjohn?”
“Yes.” She sat up, pressing the phone more firmly to her ear and waking up fast. The unfamiliar voice had a note of threat threaded through it. “Who wants to know?”
“I know where the pieces are. I’m going to get them right now.” Pause. “Then I’m coming for you.” Click.
Elizabeth stayed frozen for a heartbeat, then slammed the receiver down and leapt from the bed. She needed to go now, dissolve, get the pieces, and hide them again. She raced out of her house in her pajamas and ran into her front lawn, ready to become her water self and get there before the unknown man.
Maybe there was still time. Maybe…
Wait.
Her jaw locked and she fisted her hands. “Why would someone hunting the pieces warn me they were going to get them?” she said loudly to the air around her, turning in a circle and looking up into the sky. “They wouldn’t. They would just take the pieces and then come after—”
For the second time, her front yard melted.
SHE sat up on the rug in front of the fire, still naked, body still tingling from the last orgasm Niall had given her. He stood not far away, dressed only in a pair of jeans, barefoot, and staring down at her.
“You’re a class A bastard, Niall.”
“You keep saying that. Can we just have a standing agreement that I am, indeed, a bastard so we don’t have to talk about it anymore?”
Angrily, she stood and pulled a throw from the couch, wrapping herself in it. The last thing she wanted was to feel naked and vulnerable in front of this man. What had she been thinking, throwing herself at him that way?
Never again.
His eyes were stormy. “I’m running out of options, Elizabeth.”
She collapsed onto the couch, every molecule of her body fatigued and sore. It was the iron sickness, coming on faster and faster. “Whatever,” she breathed, resting her head on the cushion behind her. “No matter how you try and trick me, I’m not leading you to the pieces. You’re just going to have to let me die, bastard.”
At some point she felt him lift her and lay her in bed. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he murmured and touched the charmed iron cuff around her ankle. “Tick tock, baby.”
Exhaustion pulled her under.
ELIZABETH sat on the couch in the living room, staring daggers into Niall’s back as he built up the fire. Over the last two days, the iron sickness had dug its claws so hard into her body that it was an effort for her to move.
She was dying.
The ache in her body and the fatigue in her muscles made it so this fact was almost a blessing—something to look forward to. Her magick was entirely eradicated. She felt certain that if Niall took off her cuff, laid her on the earth outside, and took a step back, even then she wouldn’t be able to form water self. Her magick was completely gone.
Little by little, minute by minute, he was destroying her.
All she could hope for now was a swift passing to the Netherworld. At least the pieces were safe, and that meant her mother was safe. She had to stay strong in her resolve. The sickness leached her strength, but not her will.
That didn’t stop Niall from trying. Illusory scene after illusory scene, he battered at her, trying over and over to trick her into leading him the pieces. No matter how sick she was or how awful she felt, she foiled his plan every time.
He brought over a glass of water from the sink and sat down next to her. Refusing to look at him, she stared into the flickering fire instead.
“Drink,” he insisted, putting the glass to her dry, cracked lips.
She opened her mouth and water trickled in. Ah, water, how she missed it. It was an effort to swallow or speak. Walking was just a dream.
Not long now.
He set the glass on the table. “Nothing I do works.” He sounded discouraged, and it made her crack the smallest of smiles. “The Summer Queen was right to pick you.”
“S
oon,” she croaked. “I’ll be dead and the pieces will forever be hidden, from everyone, even the Summer Queen.”
“And the fae will be at the mercy of the Phaendir. Trapped in here, forever.” His tone sounded as bleak as his expression looked.
She had a twinge of regret. “I wish it could be different. I wish we could all have what we want, protect everyone we love. But there are always winners…” She took a deep, rattling breath. “And losers.” She closed her eyes, smiling. “I’m a winner.” Slowly, painstakingly, she raised her hand to her forehead and made an L with her hand. “And you’re a loser.”
Niall sighed. “You’ll be gone before dawn comes.”
“Oh, sooner…I hope.”
“Elizabeth, just tell me where the pieces are. I can heal you. You don’t have to do this.”
She sighed, resigned and surrendering. “Yes, I do.”
He stayed with her throughout the night, offering her water until she couldn’t swallow any longer. He pleaded with her to tell him the location of the pieces so he could take the cuff off, nurse her back to health, but he didn’t plunge her into any more illusions.
Finally, she let her eyes drift closed for what she knew would be the last time.
A light feeling entered her body and she floated upward. Somewhere below her, in the dark, Niall said her name over and over, more and more urgently, trying to call her back from the edge of death. Still, she drifted upward, away, the pain, the aches, and the exhaustion falling away like a heavy winter coat.
She was free. A million times lighter…happy…everything was perfect.…
NINE
“ELIZABETH?”
Niall’s voice pulled her up from what felt like layers of deep sleep. She woke sprawled on a hard surface of metal. A small camping lamp lit the area. Niall’s face loomed in front of hers, dark stubble marking his cheeks and chin. His hair was mussed and lines of exhaustion marked his face. He was dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing the night he’d captured her and he looked like he needed a shower. She was naked, but he’d put a blanket over her.
She glanced around. They were in the big trap he’d set for her.
What was going on? Where was the cabin? She’d died. Why was she here?
Throwing the blanket off, she scrambled to a sitting position and crab-walked back to hit the charmed iron wall behind her. The wall was cold and very real.
Breathing in short, panicked little spurts, she took stock, trying to gain a handle on the moment. Her body felt fine. A little tired, a little achy, but no advanced iron sickness plagued her.
Looking down she saw that no iron cuff banded her ankle. Her lip still hurt from where she’d smacked it running into the wall of the trap, but that was strange since the cut had healed days ago. Her stomach hurt from hunger, and she’d never been this thirsty in her life.
Her hair fell across her face and she stared at Niall through it. Suspicion and confusion played a symphony within her. “What’s going on?”
He sat back and pushed a hand through his hair. He looked defeated. “You died.” Pause. “At least, in the illusion. You went the whole way with the ruse, died, and woke up out of my control.”
“Illusion?” She glanced around the box.
“The cabin. None of it was real.”
“The cabin,” she echoed dully, “wasn’t real?”
He waved a hand as though it was nothing. “Everything from the time you hit that wall and I came in here and touched your arm. You reached out toward the open door, that’s when I put you under. You’ve been unconscious ever since. All of it was illusion. All in your head.”
“What?” She put a hand to her temple. She felt sluggish, stupid. “That’s not possible.”
“That fog in your head will clear. You’ll see that what I’m saying is true. My magick has a certain aftertaste, especially when I create more than one layer. For you I had to create about ten layers, since you’re the princess and the pea.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It felt like you were in the cabin for more than a week, but we’ve only been in this charmed iron box for a little over twenty-four hours. We need to get out of here, by the way. The charmed iron is starting to affect both of us.”
“Twenty-four hours,” she echoed, her mind working lethargically. “No, it’s been days and days.”
“I told you. You’re not listening. That was all illusion.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “You let yourself die, Elizabeth, rather than tell me where the pieces are.”
“I told you I would.” She spat the words at him, pressing the heel of her palm to her eye socket.
His full lips twisted, but there was no hint of amusement there. “Lots of people say that, but when the time really comes they go weak. They give in.” He trailed off, studying her with fascination. “Not you, though.”
“How do I know this is real? How do I know this isn’t just another layer of illusion?”
“Wait for the fog to clear.” He stood and walked toward the door of the trap, stumbling a little. “We need to get out of here. The Blacksmith made this place with only enough charmed iron to prevent you from dissolving, but it’s still too much for us to handle for long.”
Realizing suddenly that she was naked, she snatched the nearby blanket back and covered herself with it. Dumb, since he’d seen her naked already, come close to having sex with her. Of course, none of that had been real.
Supposedly.
This could just be another mind fuck for all she knew.
The door to the trap opened with a screeching whine of metal. Niall stumbled out into the twilight and didn’t even look back at her.
Was he that confident she wasn’t going to run?
She pushed to her feet, needing to get out of this charmed iron box just as much as he did—whether the box was in her head or not—and gingerly forced her sore muscles to work. Her bare foot touched the soil outside and she closed her eyes, savoring the sensation. The fog was clearing. Drawing deep lungfuls of air in, she took a few more steps into the woods, holding the blanket around her.
This was real. Now she could feel the difference.
Under Niall’s magick everything had felt not as tactile as this, though she hadn’t noticed it while she’d been under. Now, here in the woods, she felt the realness of life and knew she wasn’t under Niall’s spell anymore.
Unless he’d designed it to feel that way.
She rounded on him. “Is this just another layer, another trick? Did you do all that and then bring me here, upping the tactile sensations of my environment to make me think it’s all over?”
He turned to study her, a grin playing along his full lips. She knew those lips very well now.… “I don’t have that kind of power, baby. I’m done with you. You won.” He motioned to the woods. “This is all real.”
“I don’t believe you would up give that easily.”
“Easy?” He laughed, shaking his head and pushing a hand through his hair. “That was not easy. You drained my power to the dregs, and you still let yourself die.” His voice lowered a degree, to a dangerous level that made the hair on her nape rise. “But don’t think I’m giving up, woman. I don’t do that.”
She turned in a circle, making a sound of frustration. “How do I know for sure this is real? How will I know anything is ever real again?”
He shrugged, unapologetic. “You’ll figure it out eventually.”
She stared at him, a million thoughts running through her head in a jumble, mixed with emotions that ranged the spectrum. “So you’re just letting me go.”
“What else am I supposed to do with you? You’ve just proved you’d die before giving up the location of the pieces, and you’re no good to me dead.”
“I haven’t seen the last of you yet, though, have I?”
He tipped his head to the side and grinned. “Awww, have I grown on you?”
“Like a wart.” She paused. “Bye, Niall.”
“Bye, Elizabeth. I’ll be s
eeing you soon.”
She needed to rest, to eat and drink. “Not if I have any say in it.” She dissolved, the blanket fluttering to the ground as she sought her water self.
NIALL stared at the blanket she’d left in the leaves, then scooped it up. It was still warm and smelled like her.
“Fuck.” None of that had been real, yet it was still as though they’d spent all that time together. He’d gotten to know her, grown close to her, begun to like her…a lot.
Too much.
Around him the birds and bugs whistled and chirped and a low breeze rustled the leaves of the trees. Storm brewing. He could feel it. He needed to get back to the Black Tower and tell the Shadow Queen what had happened—let her know he’d failed. Again.
It was time to bring the others in on this. He needed a new plan of action.
* * *
LIAM burrowed his hands into the soft, giving earth of the Boundary Lands and focused his magick on finding Elizabeth. He sought the pieces in this area as well, hoping to get lucky. Maybe he if could happen upon the pieces, they’d be able to leave the asrai alone.
He wasn’t hopeful.
This was the fifth area he’d searched in the last twenty-four hours. He was staying close to the woman’s home and the gardens she kept just because he had no other criteria to search by.
Near him stood Gideon. His band of Phaendir, robed, silent, and creepy as hell, were housed somewhere in Piefferburg City. Gideon had brought them because they were loyal to his cause and could create the hive magick he needed in here. Every night more Phaendir crept in, focused their power on Gideon, making his strength grow.
Gideon was so full of evil Phaendir juice he could just look at things and blow them up now. The fact Liam was helping them made him want to smash his fist into a tree.
Trying his best to tune out the nasty presence of the archdirector and tune into the lush beauty of the woods around him, Liam spread his mental fingers and sifted through his immediate surroundings.
The Summer Queen had provided them with the location of Elizabeth’s house and where she kept her gardens. They didn’t know much else. It was unlikely Niall Quinn, the Unseelie sent to capture Elizabeth, had been successful, but it was possible. If Niall hadn’t succeeded in gaining the location of the pieces, they would.