“Do you want to do this?”
“I need to know. And I need my Gift. You said it, I’m worse than a sylph. I look like dinner to half the guests. Let’s do it.”
He cast the circle, adding a layer of illusion that would send a person’s eye gliding right over them as if they were simply part of the forest. Then he settled down, crossing his feet. She sank down and mirrored his seat.
“Take my hands.”
She placed her long slender hands in his and he stared into her eyes, letting his aura touch hers and sinking into the crystalline emerald depths.
Chapter Seventeen
Settled in his protective wards, seated across from Cassie with her hands in his, Bosco reached out his magic. This time he was prepared for the trace of the black coiling through Cassie’s golden aura. He’d set up personal shields, keeping himself from going too deep. He’d even set up a glamour within his own aura, one that acted like a mirror, so the black oily spell wouldn’t even see him. He was able to really look at the blackness, and he could see what it was. A spell, twined into and around her aura, keeping her from accessing certain parts of herself. And it wasn’t a passive spell. It was alert and on the hunt.
“What do you see?” Cassie’s voice seemed far away.
“I see the spell in your aura. It’s complex. I think it’s doing much more than keeping you from your memories.”
“There’s a spell there? It’s not trauma?”
“No.” The spell was everywhere. “If I try to take it down, we’ll have the queen all over us.”
“She put a spell in my head?”
“In your aura, your magical soul. I’ll see what I can see.” He tiptoed metaphysically closer, holding his glamour up and shielding heavily. He’d touched her aura by mistake earlier when he’d saved her ball, and now he saw he must have jostled the spell. “It’s keeping you from your Gift, for sure.” He looked closer. “I can see recent memories.” He saw himself at the ball, dancing with her. Further back, dinner after dinner with the courtiers. Cassie escaping a leering man’s embrace and running up the castle stairs to lock herself in her room. Anger rushed through him and his fists clenched.
“Ow!”
“Sorry.” He loosened his grip. “These are all recent memories. Nothing from your past. Nothing from before.”
“Well, where are they?”
He pulled out. “I don’t know. I didn’t dare go too deep, I don’t want to trigger an alarm. But it’s not guarding your memories. All the recent ones are there. It’s simply keeping you from your Gift.”
“You have to try again. If it’s not the spell then maybe it is a trauma keeping me from my memories.”
He delved in again, this time avoiding the black spell and heading directly into the deep golden mists of Cassie’s aura. Sweet and seductive her essence curled around his but he kept himself aloof, merely looking deeper and deeper into her personality so as not to alert the spell that had tiny tendrils threaded into the gold like drips of tar. He was so focused on avoiding the vicious coils of the spell that he almost missed it, a gleaming thread of gold running out of her aura, connecting her to something else.
He broke off the connection.
“They’re not here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your memories aren’t here. You can’t access them and I can’t help you access them, because they’ve been moved.”
She frowned. “Well, who moved them?”
“I think it was you.”
“Why the hell would I cut myself off from remembering who I am?”
“It may be from trauma. Or it could be you knew you were under attack, but there’s no doubt you did this to yourself. In fact I almost missed it. I think you hid your self knowledge, your memories, away from the spell that’s inside your aura.”
She pursed her lips, her forehead creased. “If I did that, then I must have been afraid.”
He sat quietly and gave her time to think about it.
“What about my magic? If you can’t access my memories, then maybe if I have my magic I can do it myself. Did you see it?”
“Your Gift is still a part of you—it can’t be taken from you—but the spell has it so contained there’s no getting to it.”
“I need my magic, Bosco. We need to know what that spell is. If I’m hiding who I am from it, then it must be dangerous. I have to get rid of it.” She squeezed his hands, so tight he wiggled his fingers to loosen her grip. “Can you do it? Can you get rid of it and let me access my Gift?”
“Look, this isn’t a passive spell. It’s hunting through your aura, waiting for anything that might be a threat.”
“Can you at least see if it really is the queen’s?”
“I’m sorry.” He let go of her hands. “I’m not touching that thing to find out.” She looked so disappointed he wished he could change his mind and help. But he had to think about his goals. He couldn’t get distracted by this redheaded beauty’s need to be rescued. He had his own rescue to think about. He had to stay focused. He had to think about Siobhan.
He rose and offered her his hand pulling her to her feet. “We’d better get back. Dawn will be coming soon and we still need to sneak back to your rooms.”
Her face fell, all the hope dropping from it. “Of course,” she said, waiting in silence while he took down his circle.
They walked back up the hill and he felt like the biggest coward. He hadn’t felt this way since he’d left the north, leaving Siobhan alone and helpless, frozen in the Winter Queen’s grasp. Then he’d been weak. Barely even a man. Unable to do anything but vow to come back when he was powerful enough to help her. Now, he was an adult, strong with magic and power. He could try to help this woman, but if he did, he risked everything.
For the first time in a hundred years he was distracted from his mission. And so close to the day he needed to go back and save Siobhan, that was a bad thing.
CASSIE CRAWLED INTO her bed, listening to the water run as Bosco took his turn in the shower. Her head was spinning. Was she a princess? What had happened to her when her parents had been murdered? Had she been so terrified that she’d hidden herself, her memories, from their attackers in order to hide her identity?
She picked up the ball and cradled it to her abdomen, curling on her side. Holding it calmed her down, reassured her that no matter what she was okay. But what if he was right? What if she wasn’t Princess Cassandra? Who was she? Was everyone here under the spell so deluded? Everyone but Bosco?
Beyond the heavy curtains the sun would be coming up soon and the day beginning. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. She stared into the ball, letting the visions run. Heavy sleep pulled her eyelids down. As she slipped closer into sleep they grew more defined. There was a wooden door painted a faded blue. The voices of the women were clearer. She could hear them calling her. “Cassie! Cassie, come out into the garden.” She walked to the door in her dreams and pushed it open.
BOSCO EXITED THE SHOWER and stared at his real face reflected in the mirror. He was still the same man who’d vowed to save Siobhan, but he was no closer to finding the queen’s Mirror than he’d been when he’d entered the castle. And now he felt like he owed the woman sleeping in the next room.
Why? He didn’t know. She shouldn’t be any different from any of the hundreds of lovers he’d had over the years, but she was. Her vulnerability had snuck past his walls. He found himself wanting to tell her things he’d kept hidden for a hundred years.
He shook his head at his face in the mirror and let a glamour slide over it. In the mirror Siobhan stared back. Same dark eyes, same white hair, but long, pouring in a straight fall down over her shoulders. Her face was more refined with a feminine catlike bone structure. They could have been twins, his sister and he. But they weren’t, she was older. And when it had been time to save him, Siobhan hadn’t hesitated. And here he was, staring at her face, reminding himself why and what he’d sacrificed to be here.
He coul
dn’t let Cassie’s vulnerability get to him. He was too close.
He grabbed a towel and dried off, going over what his next move should be. He’d been all over the castle, from top to bottom. Yes, there was a dungeon, but the troll guarding it was easily bribed and gave tours for entertainment. Bosco had tagged along with a group of courtiers laughing and hiding from the contained horrors of the dungeon. It was pathetic and sick, but there were no humans down there. Some chained up troll-kin. A crowd of skinny naked goblins, more starving and sad than scary. And a frightening, but not human, ghoul who’d lunged and given the crowd a scare.
What a waste of an hour.
He slung a dry towel around his hips and entered the bedroom. Cassie was curled into a ball, the child’s toy clutched in her arms, evidence of tears dried on her cheeks. She was fierce, he had to give her that. She’d stood up to Haddon, almost daring him to hit her. And yet here she was, looking so damn young and fragile.
His next step was obvious. She had to be the key to what the queen and Haddon were hiding. And they had to be hiding the mirror. If he couldn’t get her to access her memories he’d need to find out where she’d stored them, and break into them himself. Find out what she knew.
She murmured in her sleep, moving restlessly under the blanket. He wasn’t sure he could do it. She trusted him, and no one had trusted him in a very long while.
For the first time he acknowledged he might not get this last power bolus. Could he head north without it? Were the six boluses he had stashed away enough to augment the power he’d already been given?
Cassie moved and the ball rolled out of her grasp. The pictures solidified and he saw what was happening inside like one of those film reels from the human’s world.
In the globe a tiny Cassie had her back to him. She was talking to a human, a blonde, whose lips curved up in a wide smile. The woman was tall and curvy in a tight white t-shirt and very short shorts. He moved in closer to see better. They were working together in a garden with strange plants and a lot of dry dusty soil, but it didn’t look like they were getting much done. He smiled to himself. Dreams were funny. Cassie had given herself a break from the stress of life in the castle. A small cottage was in the background, its worn painted boards and patched roof a far cry from the perfection of the queen’s castle.
From around the house a petite woman with waist-long, dark hair came into the scene, scolding the two of them and they laughed back at her. Cassie tossed a clump of dirt and grass at the woman. She turned her head and her golden red curls blew back.
And that’s when he saw it. Her ear was softly rounded. Cassie was human too.
Large dark clouds rolled into the scene. The three women flinched at the same time looking up as lightning shot across the sky.
Cassie stirred. Her forehead creased. “Run,” she said, still asleep.
Back in the ball the blonde screamed, her mouth wide and soundless in the convex surface. The three of them raced around the side of the house and piled into a green square vehicle. This had to be Earth. Nowhere else in the worlds connected by the portals used technology like this. The scenes in the ball blurred breaking up into bits and pieces of the women’s faces. Lips and eyes swirled together as Cassie tossed and turned in her bed.
Chills chased along his spine.
He couldn’t believe it had been there all along. Her face was different from the golden redhead in the ball. Her cheekbones slanted higher and her eye sockets were a larger, almond shape. Even her body’s bone structure was longer and more elegant.
Shit.
He’d realized there was something different about her from the moment he’d seen her, but he’d never guessed, hadn’t even begun to imagine, that she was actually born human.
He thought he’d lived with one of the most manipulative of the royals when he’d grown up in the court of the White Queen, but the blood sacrifices that must have been used to attain this on a cellular level floored him. The White Queen would never imperil herself this way. To achieve something like this the queen and Lord Haddon must be desperate.
Who the hell was she and why would they do this? Why create the spell and this elaborate charade? Why make her a Princess of the Black Court? And how was she related to the human witch he needed to find?
And then it slammed into him like the winds of the portals themselves. His legs gave out and he sank down, groping blindly for a chair, unable to tear his eyes away from Cassie sleeping soundly a few feet away.
If it were true, the queen had been very clever. And he was in danger. More danger than he’d ever been in, even living in the White Court. He was sleeping in the bed of the queen’s most prized possession. A possession he now needed to steal.
Chapter Eighteen
Bosco stared at the woman in the bed as if she were a stranger. A narrow band of early afternoon sun streamed across her features, turning a section of her hair to red fire. This was a woman he’d spent time with. He’d laughed with her. Had wild sex with her. Hell, he’d even been inside her aura—and he hadn’t had a clue.
Cassandra, supposed Princess of the Black Court, was human.
The queen and her advisor had been clever, oh so clever—they’d hidden the mirror in plain sight. And they’d also been very stupid. Haddon must be feeling over-confident, letting Bosco get this close to Cassie. Letting anyone get this close he had to have confidence in both spells: the one over the castle. And the one binding Cassie.
Now that Bosco knew the truth, he also knew something else—he was in grave danger. And so was the woman in the bed.
Cassie curled tighter around her ball. She was the picture of an elvatian. Delicate pointed ears, crystal eyes. Tall and willowy and strong. He sank onto the mattress, watching scene after scene blur by inside the ball. No wonder they hadn’t been able to access her memories. They were trapped inside the glass, rolling around like a silent film of her life. He’d bet Haddon had no clue about this or he would have taken steps to hide it better.
She moaned, thrashing on the bed and tangling her long legs in the covers. He stroked her forehead. The tension in her face eased. He wasn’t even sure what to think. He’d been all over the castle looking for a human psychic and she’d been under his nose the entire time. Goddess, he’d had no clue.
Cassie, the Princess of the Black Court, was the human witch he’d been sent to find. It boggled the mind. He nearly slapped his own forehead. He’d had her out of the castle only an hour ago. He could have whisked her away and none the wiser.
Guilt ate at him. When he’d told his employer he’d turn over the human he’d had no idea it would be Cassie. Sweet, sexy, sassy, Cassie. But if he didn’t turn her over he wouldn’t get paid. He ran the risk of not only pissing off his employer, but not having the last power bolus.
Siobhan had waited so long, her hundred years was almost up. He’d put off leaving to rescue her, waiting until he was strong enough to make sure it would be a success. But what if working to get this last power boost he missed the deadline?
She’d be dead and all his efforts would be useless.
He stroked Cassie’s fine golden red hair, letting it run through his fingers like silken threads.
If he saved Cassie and missed getting this payment... he might not have enough to challenge the White Queen. Siobhan would be lost forever.
He couldn’t bear it.
She’d sacrificed enough. A hundred years of her life frozen in the north. All for him. Now he had to do the same for her.
It had been a mistake to get involved. If he’d maintained his usual aloofness he would be able to fuck Cassie and turn her over without any problems, but now? Now it was going to kill him to do this, but he had no choice in the matter. He had a binding contract and he had Siobhan to save. If he didn’t get to the Winter Court by the summer solstice, everything he’d done would be wasted. He had to turn Cassie over. Even if it was one of the worst jobs he’d ever had to do.
He touched the smooth glassy surface of the ball.
Three young girls, blond, redhead, and brunette, sat on a blanket spread out on a field of green grass, sipping pink liquid in mismatched tea cups, and eating bread and butter on a shared cracked plate. Her childhood. Not in a castle. Not in Underhill. A fierce sense of longing for that kind of uncomplicated life rose in his chest. He struggled to breathe past the pressure.
She had a past he envied. Memories of a safe and happy childhood. Memories he could give her back, now that he knew where they were hidden.
And once she had them, he’d take her to his employer. He had no choice.
He steeled himself for what he had to do. Cassie had to be stolen out from under the queen, but he wouldn’t just hand her over in her current be-spelled state where she’d be vulnerable. He couldn’t undo the black spell in her aura, but he could do something for her. He’d help her find her memories and maybe in turn, she’d be able to fight the spell and access her Gift. He wouldn’t leave her defenseless.
“What are you staring at?” Her sleepy inquiry drew his attention to her face. She rubbed her eyes and stretched, the blanket dropping away from her breasts.
“You’re awake.” He wanted her. With a fierce hunger that only came from knowing that this was the end. He wanted one last time before he betrayed her. She’d admired his honesty, but she was wrong. He was a spy and a thief, dedicated to only one cause—saving Siobhan.
He wanted to tell her everything, let it all out. Tell her he’d never meant for it to be like this, but there was no way he could say any of it.
“You look sad.” She reached for his hand lying on the mattress and tangled her fingers in his. “I know we couldn’t break the spell, but we’ve only given it one shot.” She gave him a slow smile. “I bet I know something that will take that look off your face.” She tugged on his hand. “Come here, lover.”
He let her pull him close. Let her brush her lips against his.
Enchanted: A Fae Fantasy Romance (Fae Magic Book 3) Page 14