“So mad at who?” Mac demanded, frowning at her. “Who made you angry? And why would that be a reason to lie about being pregnant?”
“Pregnant? Did I hear you correctly, McIntyre Callahan?” a voice asked from the shadows behind them.
Danice recognized it without turning, and while she wasn’t happy, she could hardly be surprised that Dionnu had managed to find them. After all, he’d had a head start of at least a couple of hours and a pack of trained hounds to work with.
No, what surprised Danice was the look of recognition and chagrin on Rosemary Addison’s face as the girl gazed past her toward the intruder. Rosemary Addison had already met the king of the Unseelie Court.
“Is someone expecting a blessed event?”
Twenty-four
Mac stiffened at the sound of Dionnu’s voice. He’d been hoping they would manage to stay another step ahead of the king’s hunting party. He hadn’t possessed a lot of confidence about it, but he had hoped. Now it looked as if they would have to count on Dionnu’s total disinterest in humans to convince him not to care when Mac, Danice, and Rosemary promised to leave Faerie immediately and never come back.
Mac turned to face the intrusion and felt a surge of relief that Dionnu appeared to have left his huntsmen and hounds out in the forest. He recalled hearing tales of the sacred grove and thought there were stories about animals being unwilling to cross its boundaries, so that might explain the Fae’s lonely appearance. The Faerie king stood at the edge of the clearing, his black clothing swallowing any light the trees cast in his direction. He looked like a slice of night, with his dark clothes and dark hair and the dark, empty pits of his eyes. Only his pale, smooth skin reflected back any hint of light.
Mac heard a gasp behind him and felt Rosemary grab on and cling to his back, using him as a shield between herself and Dionnu. Beside him, Danice pulled back her shoulders and faced the threat squarely.
And right there, he realized, was every reason he would ever need to account for why he’d fallen ass-over-ears in love with this woman.
He stepped closer to her and let his hand brush against hers as they stood together against the king.
“It’s not your concern,” Mac said firmly. “We’ve found what we’re looking for, and we’ll be happy to get out of your hair as soon as you point the way back to the closest gate to ithir.”
“Not so fast,” Dionnu purred, the very mildness of his tone setting Mac on high alert. “I think I should meet this person who caused so much havoc in my kingdom. Let me see her.”
The king stepped forward, and out of the darkness behind him a shadow peeled away to glide toward his side. Not a huntsman, Mac could see, although the size and shape appeared Fae. The figure wore a hooded cloak pulled low over its face, but as soon as Mac saw the midnight fabric in the reflected glow of the silvery trees, he guessed who it would be.
The hand that shot out to grab Dionnu’s forearm was slim and white and obviously feminine. Its mate reached up and swept Tyra’s hood back to expose her bright golden hair.
“My love, surely you have no interest in a human,” the sidhe woman mocked, her laughter brittle. “Let’s be done with the worthless creatures and send them back to the mortal world where they belong.”
Dionnu cast her a haughty, disdainful glance. “I thought I told you to remain at the castle, Tyra. Return there before I become angry with you.”
Even in the darkness, Mac could make out the flash of rage quickly suppressed in his mother’s eyes. She attempted to laugh off the order, but a hint of desperation colored the sound.
“Angry? Dionnu, my love, I am not one of the peasantry for you to order about. The blood in my veins is as noble as yours, and I will not be dismissed like a servant.”
Dionnu ignored her and beckoned to Rosemary. “Come forward, child,” he coaxed, his voice like oiled black satin, dark and viscous. “I won’t harm you. I just want to see you. There’s almost something familiar about you.”
Mac looked over his shoulder and saw Rosemary’s reluctance. “You don’t have to talk to him, but no matter what, I said we’d get you home, and we will. Remember that.”
The girl nodded and released half of her death grip on the back of his shirt. Still holding tight with one hand, she stepped out from his shadow and moved forward. Mac noticed, however, that she remained between him and Danice, as if appointing them her bodyguards.
Dionnu studied her for a moment, his expression tightening. “What is your name, human?”
Mac felt Rosemary tense and heard her suck in her breath.
“You don’t remember?” she demanded, her mood suddenly shifting from terrified and traumatized, to angry and indignant. “I can’t believe you don’t even remember my name, you disgusting pig! I spent an entire weekend in your bed, and you have the nerve to look at me like you’ve never even seen me before? You fucking bastard!”
Oh, shit.
Mac’s world suddenly shifted as missing puzzle pieces slotted themselves into place. The father of the baby Rosemary had pretended to be having, the reason Danice had been dragged into this mess, wasn’t some random club kid, some boy from the wrong side of the tracks whom her parents would dislike because he might be a fortune hunter. She had actually had an affair with the king of the Winter Court.
Was she brain-dead?
Mac had never heard of such stupidity in his life.
“What weekend was this?” Dionnu asked, not sounding at all fazed by the insults. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific for me.”
“You want specific?” Rosemary spat. “Try the weekend after Easter. The last day of April. Or had you already picked up some cheap whore that Saturday night, and I was just round two? Should I feel honored that I actually rated enough for a room at the Plaza and the whole damned night? Or maybe it wasn’t even that you thought I was that pretty. Maybe you just went back to the bar and saw it was almost midnight and you needed one more bimbo so you could cut a last notch in your belt before the end of the month.”
At that the girl dissolved into loud sobs interspersed with shouts of anger and hatred, none of which were coherent enough for Mac to translate. Apparently, Dionnu and Tyra had heard enough, though, because Tyra let out a scream of her own, this one a cry of rage, while Dionnu uttered a Fae curse laced with excitement.
“You were my Bealtaine treat, weren’t you?” he demanded, stepping forward, his stare intent on the girl’s face. “What was your name? Something plebeian. Natural. A flower? Lily?” he sounded as if he was talking to himself, but it was loud enough for Mac to hear. “No, not Lily. Not Daisy, either. Rose, I think. Or something like Rose.”
That at least shut Rosemary up. She stopped crying and sniffled, watching the king warily.
“Rosemary,” Dionnu finally purred. “Not a flower, but an herb. Now I remember. You were in that dance club, the one with all the purple lights. Yes, now I remember. And did I hear you say something about being with child?”
Mac swore and tugged Rosemary back, stepping in front of her to block her from Dionnu’s gaze.
Wow, just when he’d thought they were on the verge of solving this whole problem, it turned out to be a thousand times worse than his worst nightmares. For years, Dionnu had been looking to get himself an heir to ensure no part of his kingdom could be annexed by Mab if he were to be killed. He also had made it known he wanted a son in his own image so that he would have an ally who might eventually be powerful enough to help him move against the queen’s throne. Dionnu’s ultimate ambition had always been to rule over the whole of Faerie.
The king narrowed his gaze on Mac. “This is none of your concern, half-breed,” he snarled. “This is between the girl and me. Step aside.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Rosemary,” the king barked, holding out his hand. “Come here and tell me if you are carrying my child. If it is so, I will reward you in ways you cannot even begin to imagine.”
“Dionnu!” Tyra’s sh
out rang like breaking glass through the clearing. “I demand that you leave that human alone. She is worthless. Even if she is carrying someone’s brat, there is no way of being sure it’s yours. She might be lying, trying to trap you into giving her anything she wants.”
“If she carries my child, a child sired on Bealtaine night, she shall have everything she wants,” he retorted, not even bothering to look at his erstwhile lover. “Do you know what power would be contained within a child conceived on that night? It could prove to be my greatest weapon against that bitch Mab.”
Mac had always thought Dionnu’s eyes looked evil, a dark, hollow reflection of his soul, but now he saw a touch of madness there as well. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and he thought he saw Danice shudder out of the corner of his eye. Even Rosemary had begun to look slightly uncomfortable. She shrank closer to Mac and took a half step back, away from the Fae king’s grasp.
“No! I will not allow this!” Tyra punctuated her outburst with a stomp of her dainty foot. Mac knew it wasn’t her physical but her magical power that made the forest shake beneath that tiny impact. “Dionnu, you will not do this. You will leave this girl alone and forget about her. I will not allow you to bring her to court and install her above me, as if she meant something. You cannot treat me that way. I am your mate.”
The king turned on her, his mouth curved in a sneer. “You were a diversion, Tyra, nothing more. Unfortunately, you seem unwilling to recognize that I no longer find you amusing.”
Tyra drew breath and seemed almost to expand with the rage filling her. Her cloak blew back as if pushed by a strong wind, and the same unsettled currents rustled the leaves and trees until it sounded to Mac as if the forest beyond the grove whispered and gossiped in anticipation of a scene. He had no doubt that his mother could create a huge one, but he didn’t want Rosemary or Danice caught in the crossfire. He began to scan the area around them, looking for an escape route.
Come to think of it, he didn’t want to get caught in that crossfire, either.
A rustle of movement at ground level to his right caught his attention. He peered toward the tree line but saw nothing.
“I will not allow you to treat me with such disrespect,” Tyra hissed, moonlight painting her features with an unearthly glow. “I am not one of the human whores you use and cast aside on a regular basis. Or did you think I was ignorant of them? I hope you realize that you never made your little trips to that bordello the humans call Manhattan on your own. I always had you watched. I know the identity of every whore you’ve ever taken, and I must say you have been a busy boy. Luckily you have the attention span of a boy, so I only ever had to eliminate one or two. A few I merely visited. It’s a child’s trick to tamper with the memory of a human. They forgot you readily enough, once I finished with them. Once I’d made them pay. Didn’t you know how easily I could do that? And I could have killed them all, taken from you even those little pleasures you seemed to so enjoy. Did you think I lacked the power?”
Dionnu shrugged negligently. “I confess, I never thought of your concern one way or the other.”
“Oh, I could have destroyed them all,” she continued, as if the king had never spoken. “I’ve always known about your little human sluts, and I’ve taken great care to ensure none of them ever posed any real threat to my plans. Even before I lured you to my bed, I knew. I’ve known everything about you for ages, Dionnu Fair-Face. I knew you before you wed with the Summer Queen, and I knew you while you fought like two hungry wolves over who would rule your marriage. How do you think I just happened to be there, the first sight to welcome you back to your hall after Mab threw you out of her palace? I was watching you even then.”
Mac felt his eyes widen involuntarily. If his mother was telling the truth, she had been virtually stalking the Unseelie king for centuries. What she described was nothing like love. It bore not the slightest resemblance to what he felt for Danice, nor what he’d seen any committed mate feel for their partner. No, what his mother described amounted to an obsession.
To madness.
Dionnu wore his mask of unrelieved boredom, but Mac thought he could detect the glitter of anger in those soulless eyes. “And when you were taking your own human lover? When you were bearing his son? Did you think of me then, my pathetic little Tyra?”
“Not of you, you arrogant piece of filth.” Tyra laughed, a sharp, bitter sound containing little amusement. “My only thought from the beginning was of your power. I said that I watched you, not that I ever cared for you. My interest had always been in the power you represent. I knew you would never succeed in wresting the Summer Throne from Mab. Only a fool would try to move against her, and you have always been a fool. A fool so hungry for the light half of the year that you have never been able to appreciate the power of the dark.”
Dionnu’s eyes blazed, and he took a threatening step toward her. “A fool is one who contents himself with half a loaf when the tastiest bits lie just out of his reach.”
“You will starve to death reaching for the tasty bits. That has always been your trouble—your greed. Greed and the inability to recognize the worth of what you already held in your hand.”
“I hope you do not refer to yourself when you speak of what I already held in my hand.” Dionnu’s voice cut with the cold bit of a winter wind. “Because you never meant any more to me than a moment’s pleasure.”
“Never meant more? Never meant more when you would have launched a doomed army against Mab in a war you could never win, had I not talked you out of it?” Tyra sneered. “Never meant more when I counseled you to patience all the times when Mab taunted you with her missives, trying to goad you into the sort of foolish action that would have cost you your own throne? Is that what you would have me believe?”
“It is only the truth.”
Mac felt a jab to his side and looked down to find Danice’s elbow resting against his ribs.
“Uh, I don’t think Tyra is going to like hearing that very much,” she murmured. “What are the chances we can slip away while she and Dionnu are…keeping each other occupied? Do you have enough juice left to magic us far enough away that we can make a run for it?”
He shook his head, peering into the darkness once more. He could swear he heard something rustling just beyond the trees. He hoped like hell it wasn’t one of Dionnu’s huntsmen coming to see what was holding up the king. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be. He thought he was beginning to understand how Tyra had gathered her intelligence on Dionnu’s activities on the human side of the veil. She had paid a spy to watch her lover and report on his activities. Probably even to hire native talent if she ever lost track of a particular woman she wanted to keep tabs on.
“No way,” he whispered back. “That was big magic for me, even in Faerie where magic goes farther than back home. I had enough left to dress us, and maybe enough to light a path or something, but teleportation is definitely beyond me.”
“Okay. Then we need to think of something else. I have a feeling things could get violent around here at any minute.”
Mac was only surprised the violence hadn’t already started.
And then it seemed Fate heard Danice’s words and took them as a personal challenge.
“Fine then. But know this, Dionnu of the Winter Court,” Tyra bit out, her form visibly shaking with anger and barely suppressed power, “I will not be cast aside like refuse from your plate. If you wish to tell me that I meant so little to you, I will give myself a meaning by taking away something that means the world to you. Something the means your very future. You will watch your human whore and her misbegotten brat die!”
A million things happened in the space of a ragged heartbeat. Tyra turned, her rage booming in the air of the grove like a thunderclap. She raised her hands and pointed them toward Rosemary. Dionnu screamed out in fury and denial. Rosemary screamed in fear until Mac thought his ear drum would burst at the volume. The persistent rustling in the underbrush stopped because its source
, which turned out to be Quigley, screamed his own denial and threw himself at Tyra’s legs, and Danice threw herself toward Rosemary, knocking the girl out of the vengeful sidhe’s line of fire.
And placing herself directly in its path.
Twenty-five
Danice came to several realizations in the frozen instant after Tyra shouted her death threat into the chill night air. First, she realized that hell really did have no fury like a woman scorned. Second, she realized that while never before had she thought any man worth that kind of explosive reaction, Mac might just have changed her mind. Because if she ever found out that he had screwed around on her with another woman, she would cut off the man’s balls and hang them from her Christmas tree.
And finally, Danice realized that somewhere deep down inside her, in a place she hadn’t even realized existed, something like a streak of heroism had been lurking, waiting for this moment to strip her of all sanity and make her throw herself in front of a proverbial bullet for the sake of a person she didn’t even really like.
Christ, who would have thought?
Obviously, Danice didn’t think. If she had, logic would have told her that Rosemary Addison had brought all this trouble on herself; that the girl was spoiled and selfish and irresponsible, and thought she could manipulate the world into doing whatever she wanted by twisting the truth and throwing tantrums when she didn’t get her way. But for all that, she didn’t deserve to die, and that was the only thing in Danice’s mind when she threw herself on top of the other woman and knocked her to the ground.
And then she waited for oblivion.
Prince Charming Doesn’t Live Here Page 21