Kelten interrupted my thoughts, continuing his speech. “I would ask that you involve both me and the queen in the investigation’s update as we’ve lost Maddox to the tragedy, and we will likely lose Jossel.” I was struck by two things. First, that the king spoke of Maddox as if he were dead. Second, that he spoke of Jossel as if his death was imminent and unavoidable. I looked at the king hard, and he maintained eye contact. What was I looking for? Anything, I suppose, that would tell me why he was behaving this way.
“I think that it’s alright if you sit in on this meeting, but after that I’ll leave it up to the Council to vote on whether or not you can participate.” The king looked shocked that I would deny his request. The queen looked like she was still grieving. “Ma’am?” I said, looking at her.
“Maddox was my uncle,” she said, a bright sheen of tears showing in her eyes. “I have lost a member of my family, so forgive me if I am not thrilled to be a part of this discussion. Though I will not have you think that I am not sorry you were shot. I am. But I am grievously sorry you are sure that Maddox is the culprit.” Tears spilled over her bottom lashes, and she swiped at them angrily, turning to glare at her husband.
Apparently no one had shared with these folks that I’d been poisoned.
“Gaitha?” She spun on me, the festering rage in her eyes not schooled to misery yet. “I’m sorry, Queen Gaitha?”
She inclined her head at me, never breaking eye contact.
“I’m sorry for your loss, truly. If this meeting will be too hard for you, I’d encourage you to leave. There’s no reason to scrape at a pain that’s so fresh.”
“So you believe that I can disregard my duties as queen because it’s too hard?” she said in a tone that was very close to mocking me.
“Nooooo,” I said. “I just think it’s not humane.”
“And I am not human, Niteclif.”
She was right, and I was a fool to forget it sitting at a table surrounded by the surreal as I was.
We discussed the particulars of the case, as few as they were, though I was hesitant to offer my speculation as to why Maddox shot me. Since once again Bahlin didn’t bring up the poisoning, I said nothing. Discussion was loud and, at times, heated. Everyone seemed to think that political maneuvering was the foremost reason for the murders until I interrupted.
“Then why was I shot? Because all of this started before I even got here. To England, I mean.” Everyone looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
“Pardon us,” Imeena said. “We don’t presume to have a more thorough knowledge than the Niteclif of investigative procedures.”
“But—” I began.
Bahlin silenced everyone. “No, Maddy. Imeena’s right. We won’t know as much as you will about finding this killer.”
I was confused. Bahlin had worked with the last two Niteclifs, so he should be as adept as anyone. “But Bahlin, you—”
“No, Maddy. I mean it.” He looked at me pointedly. And I realized in that instant that his efforts, his identity, had all been concealed behind the fictional character of Watson. It was then that I remembered what he had said to me, “You’re the first person to put it all together.” No one knew who he was.
I nodded slightly and said, “Okay. Then I suggest that we save our individual speculations until I’ve had a chance to do some fieldwork. We can meet again, preferably in a neutral location, and discuss what I’ve found. Acceptable? Besides, I could use some rest.” And it was true. I was wearing down fast.
“Agreed,” said Tarrek.
Bahlin nodded back to me, looking relieved. We’d have to talk about trust if this was going to go on, us working together and putting our lives in each others’ hands. Because while I was undeniably attracted to him, I didn’t trust him. Or Tarrek. Or anyone in this room. I had a murderer to find, and no one was excluded from being suspect as of yet. No one.
Tarrek rose, helping his mother to her feet. She stared at me for a long minute then turned and walked out of the amphitheater. We all followed her lead.
Bahlin, Tarrek and I returned to the room I had called home for the last three unconscious days.
“What are the chances I could get some working clothes, Tarrek?” I asked, rolling my shoulders at the weight of the gown. I felt stifled and fraudulent. It just wasn’t my style.
“Of course, Maddy. I’ll go get something from one of the women and return shortly.” He took my hand and kissed it softly. I retrieved it as fast as I could without being bitchy. Behind him Bahlin rolled his eyes.
“Okay, Bay, tell me how likely it is that what you did earlier will cause any lasting effects with us.”
Bahlin sauntered over to the chair by the door and sat, leaning back and crossing his feet at the ankles, arms over his chest. “Would it be so bad?”
“I don’t know how to answer that since I don’t know what it might mean that we’ve shared whatever it is we’ve shared.” I crawled up on the edge of the bed, the cumbersome skirts slowing my progress. Turning to face him, I continued with my thought. “Do I even have power to share?”
“You will, have power, that is. The longer you do this and hone your skills, the more power you’ll accumulate. You’ve already learned that you can sense when someone is trying to use magic to manipulate you.”
“I did?”
Bahlin sighed and said, “Maddy, you shut Hellion and Gretta down when they tried to compel you with magic to answer their questions. Right?”
“Yeah. How did you understand that?”
“I’m a dragon, love. We’re magical creatures in our own right.”
“I want to know more about dragons.”
A soft knock sounded at the door. Bahlin held his finger to his lips to silence me and motioned for me to get all the way back in bed. I climbed further in, pulling the covers up around my hips. He took three short, light steps to the door and peered out, exchanging soft words with the visitor before letting her pass. She was petite, blond and ethereal, seemingly ageless though she walked with the aid of a walking stick. I wouldn’t have cared if she was, literally, a hag, because she was carrying what looked like pants and a shirt. Bahlin followed her closely as she made her way into the room, keeping no more than a couple of lengths from her.
Moving with more glide than walk, she made her way to the side of the bed, depositing the clothes next to me gently. “Madeline Niteclif, I am Pirsen, the Seelie’s primary healer. I’ve been attending you since your arrival. I’d like to look at your shoulder.”
“Just Maddy.” I nodded, unreasonable fear flooding my veins. The blue tonic was what we assumed had poisoned me since it was the only thing I’d ingested after waking and I couldn’t help but worry that she was the responsible party. I watched her as carefully as a rabbit watches a coyote. She turned to the bedside table and picked up the blue sleeping concoction that had been left for me.
“I see you didn’t drink much of the draught,” she said. “Did you sleep freely then?”
I shook my head. “I took a bit and it made me—”
“She hasn’t needed it,” Bahlin interrupted, the underlying malice in his voice leaving no room for argument. “I used some of my skill as a healer to help move the natural process along.” He looked at me, his mouth settling into a harsh line. If he wasn’t telling her, either, of our suspicion that I’d been poisoned, I was pretty sure there was a good reason. He moved in behind the healer and cocked a hip up on the edge of the bed, the mattress depressing and rolling me toward him. I pushed myself back closer to the middle of the enormous bed with a grunt. Bahlin nodded his head so slightly that I wondered if I had imagined it. Then I understood. He wanted me further back from the healer in the event there was any conflict. We were both so much larger than her that the idea of us fighting with her was ridiculous.
Voice nearly devoid of inflection, Pirsen kept her back to us and said, “How much did she drink, dragon?”
“So you were the one to leave the sleeping dram? I suspected as much
when you were the one to return to the room instead of Tarrek,” he said conversationally. “So where did you stash the lad?”
Confused, I looked between the two and then it dawned on me. Tarrek had gone out for clothes and not returned. He wouldn’t have sent Pirsen in without sending word. He’d been too involved in overseeing my care and recovery to suddenly abandon his watch over me.
Pirsen sighed and her hair began to darken, lengthening from her shoulder to her hips in seconds and ending as a deep black. She curled in on herself and when she stood, her power flowed through the room sending a feeling like biting ants up and down my bare skin. Her walking stick glinted metallic and before she could turn around, Bahlin yelled, “Run, Maddy.” Then, instead of giving me a chance to respond, he grabbed the covers and flipped me off the opposite edge of the bed. I landed in a tangle of limbs, skirt and sheet on the floor, striking my hip hard enough to send pins and needles down one leg. If I survived this, I’d end up with a nasty bruise. There was a tremendous crash and a masculine grunt of pain followed by the sounds of flesh striking flesh. I crab-walked backwards trying to get my back against a wall and scanned the room for some type of weapon. The only thing I could see was the dagger Tarrek had taken off when he went to meet with Bahlin earlier. I scrambled to the dresser, grabbed the dagger and turned toward the fight.
The woman held a short sword and had split Bahlin’s arm from elbow to wrist and I could see the red of meat and muscle laid open to the room. That arm hung ineffectually at his side, but he was fighting well one-handed. My movement had distracted the woman, and he grabbed her by the hair and yanked, propelling her past him and knocking her off balance. Unfortunately Bahlin’s back was to me, and he inadvertently threw her in my direction. Bahlin spun around and the look of shock on his face had him pausing. I didn’t have that luxury.
With a shriek of rage, the woman gained her balance and launched herself at me, walking-stick-turned-sword raised over her head as she prepared to cleave my head from my shoulders. A primal survival instinct took me like a firestorm, and I lunged forward to meet her charge.
“No,” Bahlin roared.
I dropped to one knee and blindly struck out and up over my head, the dagger gripped in my fisted hands. The feel of the knife entering my attacker’s body was a shock. It wasn’t anything like the movies portray it, where the knife slips into flesh like it’s little more than butter. Instead there was brief resistance before my dagger pierced her flesh and grated across her rib cage. Her momentum carried the knife well into her chest cavity and, I would later learn, shredded her heart. At the time I didn’t care. It was her or me, and I was intent on it being me. She sagged on my blade, her sword falling back behind her head before her fingers relaxed in the first throes of shock and then death, and she dropped the sword to the floor with a metallic clatter. Her weight, combined with my position, left me with trembling arms that quickly gave out and her limp body fell on top of me.
Her breath rattled in her chest, and her glazed eyes sought mine. “I am only one spoke in this wheel, Madeleine Niteclif. My death changes nothing.” Blood trickled from her mouth and ran down her chin as she fought for air. “We won’t fail.” Her face went slack, and the last remaining tension in her body dissolved. She was gone, and I’d never been able to ask her what she meant.
Bahlin took several large steps toward me and yanked her body off me like it weighed no more than a bag of grain and tossed her haphazardly to the side, falling to his knees at my side. I lay on the floor, arms and legs akimbo like a crash test dummy. The first shakes of the receding adrenaline rush paired with shock, and I began to shake. He snatched me up to his chest, holding me so tight it was difficult to breathe.
Was he shaking too? I wondered. Because I felt like I was coming apart at the seams, and he was the only thing holding the pieces of my body and soul together. I had killed a woman and my mind was rejecting this new reality, trying to deny that I was capable of taking life. He was murmuring to me in Gaelic and rocking me gently. Through the haze of fear, I realized my stomach was wet.
“Bahlin? Bahlin,” I said in a reedy voice. “Bay, I’m okay…I think. We need to get up because I’m having a Fatal Attraction moment where I’m waiting for her to surge up and try to strangle one of us from behind and we never see her coming and it scares the shit out of me and I think my heart would stop beating if she twitched and—”
“Hush, muirnin,” he crooned, “hush. She’ll no be gettin’ up again, I promise ye.”
“But—”
“Hush, I say. Let’s make sure yeh’re okay.” Without releasing me completely he leaned my body back in one arm and concern creased his brow. He plucked at the bloodied dress and ripped open the bodice without pretense. Modesty be damned. I was too scared to look, afraid she may have snuck in a slice before I killed her, because I knew with certainty what my mind rejected. She was dead. The spreading pool of blood under her body was unquestionably unforgiving.
“Yeh’re fine, a stór. Yeh’re fine.” The relief in his voice was palpable. He folded the fabric back across my bared torso then gripped my shoulder and gave me a harsh shake. Apparently the compassionate portion of my recuperation was over. “I told ye to run ye fool. I’d ha’ taken her in a moment more.”
I had a flashback to the color of her eyes and a wave of nausea rolled up my spine and out my mouth in a heated rush before I could do anything about it beyond turn my head. He pulled me tight to his chest once the sickness passed. When I closed my eyes in relief, I remembered seeing parts of Bahlin’s arm that no human eye should ever see. I scrambled out of his arms and knelt in the heat of her slowly advancing blood and at the edge of my vomit and grabbed his wrists. He yanked one arm away while the other twitched in my hand.
“Let me see,” I ordered him. With a long-suffering sigh he acquiesced. His forearm was still cut deeply, but the wound had begun to heal. Not as quickly as the aftermath of his fight with Tarrek, but it was healing. Blood only seeped from the tissue. It seemed that if I stared at it without blinking I could see the muscle reknitting itself as we sat there. I touched the clean edge of the gash, and he hissed.
“It may heal quick like, but it burns like a bugger while it’s doin’ it.” He glanced at me and then looked around the room, not quite ever making it back to my face. “And I seared the tissue.”
I looked at him questioningly, and he grinned a huge grin.
“I’m a dragon, Maddy. And speakin’ o’, I’m goin’ to have to get fuel soon. At this rate I’ll need a side o’ beef or a sheep. But there’s no way in bluidy hell I’m eatin’ anythin’ from this forsaken catacomb.” Pushing himself to standing, he reached for me with his good arm and helped me up.
I made it to standing and locked my knees, taking a partial page from Bahlin’s figurative book on coping and looked anywhere but at the body. “Is that who I think it is?” I asked, following Bahlin with wide eyes.
He moved around the room, picking up the short sword first and laying it on the bed. I looked away from him as he approached the body. I heard a squelching sound and assumed he’d retrieved the dagger from her chest. He looked back at me and nodded. “It’s Gretta, Hellion’s mate.”
“Hellion?” Not Hellion, I thought. Don’t let me hurt him.
“Remember? He’s the large bloke from the High Council. The wizard.” He picked up the discarded pile of clothes and shook them out a piece at a time. There was a pair of black leather pants and a white tunic. He laid each piece of clothing out on the bed and turned toward me.
I stood there staring at him in disbelief. How could he be so calm? I’d killed a mate of one of the High Council. After getting shot. And poisoned. And condemning a faerie to death. And losing Tarrek. Not bad in the way that an atomic bomb is considered an explosion.
“Was she mortal?” I asked.
“Yes. You’d have had a tougher time with her if she’d been immortal. She moved slow for all that she is, or was, magical.” He held out a hand and beck
oned me forward, holding out the dagger to me. I shook my head and he stalked toward me, took my hand and curled my fingers around the hilt. “I’m going to say this once, and I expect you to heed me, no arguments. You defended yourself. Now go into the bathroom and take the fastest shower of your life.”
I must have looked confused because he turned me toward the bathroom and gave me a little push. I took an unsure step forward, worried about being away from him. He smiled at my obvious hesitation.
“We have to get out of here immediately, pet. Shower, get out, get dressed and wait for me to come to you. I’ll only come in provided I’m alone in this room. If anyone else comes in the door, and it’s not Tarrek, and they make a grab for you, slit your throat. It will be a kinder, faster end than what they’d have planned for you. Once I come for you, we’re getting the hell out of here.” He gave me a very gentle second push toward the bathroom door. “And Maddy? Leave the door open, at least partially.”
This time I didn’t argue with him.
I was only in the shower long enough to rinse the blood out of my hair and off my body. Shampoo and soap would come later when I had the luxury of time. Oh, and the luxury of distance from the sithen. I dried off with a linen bath sheet and hopped into the leather pants, literally. It took hopping to get into them. Whoever they had been made for didn’t have hips or thighs. A man, maybe? I wondered. And a small, damnably skinny man at that. Figures. The pants laced up the front, and laces located anywhere on, near or around the pelvis are not user friendly. The white tunic slipped on over my head and was slightly sheer, giving me pause. I was entirely commando. I’m modest by nature, and the thought that there wasn’t even an option for panty lines and the fact my nipples showed through in even the slightest way was embarrassing. But if I had to give up an inch of modesty to gain a literal mile, or more, of distance from this hellhole, I was going to do it. Besides, there was the whole beggars and choosers and that lot…again.
Legacy: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 1 Page 11