Bahlin reached over to lay yet another cautionary hand on my shoulder.
“I’d hate to see what qualifies for you,” I nearly shouted, shrugging Bahlin’s hand off and turning to him, my eyes blazing. “No, Bahlin. Hellion and I are going to settle this now. I’m tired of running scared and looking over my shoulder every time I leave a building. I’m tired of going to sleep afraid and waking up wondering if he’s in the room. Enough is enough.”
Bahlin nodded tersely and sat back in the booth. “Tread lightly, wizard.”
“Ah, so you got there first, did you? Tell me, Drago, how was she? As passionate in bed as she is right here, right now?” His words were suggestive and offensive, as if he were striving to take what Bahlin and I had and cover it in a layer of filth.
“I won’t dignify that with a response, Hellion, and neither will he. But you can answer a question for me.”
“I’d love to,” he growled, showing his teeth. “Just ask.”
“Did you kill Tarrek?”
He physically started, is eyes flashing with shock and he said, “Has the lad turned up dead then? I hadn’t heard. Damn this situation.” He took a long drink of water and then, with a mocking salute, he settled into his seat with a sense of resignation nowhere near defeat. “It’s always the good of the many over the good of the one. I will have my vengeance for Gretta’s death, Niteclif, but I will agree to wait until the murders are solved.” Sitting up straighter, he stiffened every muscle in his body and asked, “For the sake of the Council, how may I help?” He looked like asking to help had physically hurt him.
I sat there stunned into immobility, my face slack, and I shook my head. What the hell had just happened? I wondered. The action at this table was happening faster than a whack-a-mole-with-a-hammer game.
“While that’s generous of you,” Bahlin said, “you’ll find you’ve no recourse for retaliation once the Niteclif recounts her chronicle of events.”
“Don’t you mean her version?” Hellion asked, never taking his eyes off of me though he addressed Bahlin.
“No. I meant exactly what I said.” Bahlin’s voice dropped low, and his eyes changed color.
The waitress chose that moment to deliver our food, and the moment she broke the plane of the table, the spell dissolved. The sound of the restaurant roared over me like the gut-trembling roll of thunder during a storm. The dining room patrons’ voices seemed raucous following our unnaturally silent isolation.
I profusely thanked the waitress for our food, and Hellion smirked. Bahlin dug into his full English plate with gusto, and I picked at my order of egg in the basket. Hellion touched nothing, and it made me uncomfortable. Gee, poisoned once and here I was, paranoid.
Bahlin cleaned his plate and I offered him my breakfast, which he consumed without apology. Breakfast suitably finished, I stood and the men followed suit. We walked to the lobby three abreast and out the front doors. Bahlin acted for all the world as if nothing were wrong while Hellion, and I stood stiffly to either side of him. Bahlin ordered his car from the parking service.
Once the valet was gone, Hellion said, “I demand reparation, Niteclif, and I will have it. But you have my word I’ll wait until this is done. Find the boy—”
“Tarrek?” I asked, interrupting him.
“Yes, the fae. Find him, and if you require my assistance we may meet on neutral ground.”
“Where is neutral ground?” Having to ask the mage who wanted to kill me for clarification seemed cosmically unbalanced. It was something Tyr could have covered with me and I intended to ask him why in the world he hadn’t. Neutral ground could be the best way for me to stay alive.
“Any stone circle will do.”
Bahlin smiled snarkily at the other man. “What he’s not telling you is that you must be inside the circle and at least seven stones must be standing. Finding the circles isn’t hard—getting to and from them alive can be.”
Hellion sneered at me, his black eyes growing deeper and, impossibly, darker. “Do not think this is over.” And he walked away.
Chapter Seventeen
We drove for another five hours with little conversation, both of us reveling in our reestablished whatever-it-was and, equally, contemplating Hellion’s promise of help now and threat later. Bahlin held my hand as he drove, not even releasing it to shift gears but working our hands together on the shifter. I smiled.
He couldn’t, no he wouldn’t, stop touching me, albeit very appropriately at all times. He held my hand and when we stopped for fuel he knelt by my open door and caressed my face, leaning in to kiss me gently. He was so profoundly affectionate, murmuring to me in Gaelic, that I wondered how I had doubted his sincerity despite the continued weight of the prophecy hanging in the back of my mind. Words, once spoken, were impossible to take back, including if not especially the three most important words between us. So while I believed he loved me, I was scared. But there would be time for that later.
We pulled into Edinburgh and drove about until we found a hotel. Again Bahlin got a single room, despite Hellion’s assurances. We made our way to the seventh floor and Bahlin laid down on the bed while I freshened up and hooked up his laptop to the room’s Wi-Fi. When I came out of the bathroom, the computer’s screensaver drew random lines across the black screen on the bedside table and Bahlin’s eyes were closed, his body relaxed. I tiptoed to the edge of the bed and looked down at him, his hair splayed over the pillow and his hands relaxed across his hard stomach. His eyelashes brushed his cheeks and his lips curved the slightest bit, smiling as if he were already having good dreams.
He spoke and I jumped, not anticipating the deep rumble of his voice in the silence. “Won’t you lie with me, mo chrid?”
“Bay, we have to get going. I checked and the moon has three nights before it’s truly full. That only gives us tonight, tomorrow and the following night until the moon crests to find Tarrek, save him and solve the murders”
“And Imeena?” Bahlin asked, opening his eyes.
Holy crap, I’d forgotten Imeena. “I want to save her as well, Bay. Where should we start do you think? What do we have to work with?”
“Tyr is a great resource and will be more helpful since you’re new. But he’s still a god, and they’re fickle creatures.” I snorted, and Bahlin grinned. “I see you agree.”
“Understatement made and duly noted. He said I could meditate and reach him.” I wandered to the balcony to look out at the new night.
“You’ve not the natural temperament or training for meditation, so sleep is your best option if you can think of him long enough before dozing off to establish the connection. It’s tricky, but you can do it.”
“Why does everyone think I’m so angry?” I asked, turning to face him.
Bahlin just arched his brow at me yet again, the physical silence which stretched between us heavily littered with conversations past.
“Okay, okay. I’m not Mother Theresa when it comes to temperament…or anything else. Fine. I’m a raging bitch, but I need help.” I stomped back across the room and threw myself on the bed, bouncing Bahlin. He used the momentum to flip over on top of me.
“Calm down, Maddy, and set your pride aside.”
“My pride?” I asked, incredulous. He thought this was about pride?
“Yes, your pride. You are an incredibly angry young woman, and within the boundaries of your own life you’ve a right to be…to a point. But you’ve got to learn to harness the anger and stop letting it control you. Otherwise you’ll spend your time as Niteclif looking over your shoulder for all the people you’ve pissed off who now have the means, and the desire, to kill you.” His somber eyes were empathetic, and he smiled just a little trying to soften the kill shot. “Your anger at the universe won’t bring your parents back.”
I closed my eyes, unshed tears burning brutally. I remembered my dad. He’d taught me to shoot a gun. But I got angry and frustrated at not being as good as he was. He’d admonished me to control my temper and har
ness my frustration to make me more effective because if I didn’t, he’d warned, I’d just end up a victim of my own making. “Dictate the terms of your anger and the actions you’ll allow on its behalf. Don’t let it dictate to you what it will and won’t do, Madeleine.” Sometimes it felt like he’d only been gone a day, other times it seemed he’d been gone a lifetime.
I rolled into Bahlin’s chest, trying to control my breathing lest I burst into tears.
Bahlin rubbed my back, murmuring softly into my hair. I relaxed and gained control of my emotions, slowly drifting to sleep. I tried to steer my thoughts toward Tyr before I ended up a marionette to my emotions. It worked.
“Hello, Maddy,” Tyr said. He was dressed in modern jeans, a T-shirt and flip-flops, his hair tied back with a leather thong. He sat on the sofa as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Though probably irreverent, it crossed my mind that with his size and the clothes he looked more like a modern day professional wrestler than a deity.
I sat up and looked at Bahlin who had crashed beside me, hogging the bed as usual.
“When I see you like this, am I dreaming or am I having an out-of-body experience? Because everything seems the same except you’re here.”
Tyr smiled and said, “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
Divine avoidance. Fabulous. “So I’ve made it to Edinburgh and I’m only about an hour from where I suspect Tarrek’s being held. I need some help, Tyr.”
“Ask your questions.”
“Imeena is missing. Is she with Tarrek?” I asked, unsure he’d answer such a direct question, but he surprised me.
“Yes.”
“Huh. Is she there voluntarily?” I pressed, wrapping my arms around my knees. I was getting a bad feeling.
“I won’t answer that. You must use logic to take this last step, Madeleine…Maddy,” he said with a snort. “You butcher such a beautiful name with a nickname.”
I didn’t comment, thinking about what he said. The sick feeling was back in the pit of my stomach, and I wasn’t sure what to do.
“Is there anything you can tell me?” I reached out and touched Bahlin. He didn’t move though I saw him breathing, and the feel of his skin didn’t register to my fingertips. It was as if I was nothing more than a dream, and then it dawned on me. I didn’t exist. Not in this plane.
Tyr saw the understanding on my face and said, “This is what it is like to have never existed, Maddy. To see and touch and feel, and to be of another dimension. Don’t fret,” he said as I began to hyperventilate. Apparently breathing was still a necessary function. He stood and walked toward the bed, confidence in motion, reaching me and stroking a hand down my hair and across my cheek and cupping my chin. “Is there anything I can tell you?” he repeated. “There are eons of information at my fingertips.” He snapped, and we were standing on the shore of a crystal-clear lake with mountains in the background and a hawk crying out overhead. He snapped again and we stood in the middle of a desert, the night sky filled with an infinite number of stars. He snapped once more, and I was back in my hotel room. “But what you want the most I cannot give you.”
“And what is it I want?” I whispered, reeling from the reality of Tyr.
“Reassurance that what you know to be true will not kill you.” He bent and kissed my forehead and was gone.
I woke with a start, my heart pounding out a staccato rhythm. I gripped Bahlin’s arm, and he rolled toward me in his sleep. I laid down next to him and pulled his trunk of an arm around me and he snugged me up close to his body. I was chilled, and even his body heat didn’t feel like it was enough. What did Tyr mean I wanted reassurance? What was it that I was afraid would kill me? Hellion, whispered through my mind and I gave an involuntary jerk.
Bahlin grunted and opened his eyes to small slits of midnight blue. “What’s the matter, my love?” His sleep-roughened voice was seductive, and my nipples tightened.
I knew he wasn’t really awake, but I needed him to be. I twisted around in his arms and tugged his hair, looking up at him. “Bay?” I stage whispered. “Are you awake?”
“No,” he muttered, “I’m not awake. Are you?” He arched his neck to look down at me, pulling back slightly so he could see me.
I sighed. “Sorry to wake you.”
He propped himself on his free arm and continued to look down at me. “Did you reach Tyr then?”
“Yeah.” Skipping the conversation about the alternate realities, I told Bahlin about the statement Tyr had made regarding reassurance.
Bahlin’s brow creased in concentration, and he tapped his fingers against my hip. This went on for several minutes before Bahlin finally said, “Let’s get a piece of paper and work this out.”
He grabbed the notepad the hotel had provided on the telephone desk and we sat at the small table. Putting my name in the middle, he said, “We know you’re worried about Hellion.” He wrote Hellion’s name above mine and drew a short line connecting the two. He did the same for Tarrek and Imeena. “Who else are you worried about?”
I thought about all the monsters I’d met in my short time here. I glanced at Bahlin and immediately looked away. Without a word he wrote his name on the pad of paper.
“It’s only fair,” he said softly.
“Honesty?” I asked.
“Remember? Always.”
“Brylanna.”
Bahlin’s head snapped up like I’d slapped him, and he looked at me closely. “My sister has nothing to do with the disappearances.”
“True, but she’s done nothing to help either. Shouldn’t a Seer—or would that be Seeress?—be more involved with solving a series of crimes that affect her brother?”
Bahlin dropped the pen and shoved away from the table, nearly sending it over on its side. He stalked to the balcony window and threw it open making the glass vibrate heavily in its frame. “Sodding hell,” he yelled to the sunless sky. He spun to face me, his eyes wild. “No,” he whispered. But the seed of doubt was cast.
His body shivered and muscles moved beneath his skin as he fought not to shift. He turned away from me and the fabric of the shirt stretched, seeming to strain to contain the twin mounds his wings made as they tried to push through his skin. He was as close to losing it as I’d ever seen him, and it frightened me.
I picked the pen up off the floor where it had landed when Bahlin had shoved away from the table. I wrote Brylanna’s name at the bottom of the page and drew a connecting line to me. Bahlin stood there, chest heaving, pleading with his whole being for me to say it wasn’t a possibility. But we’d promised each other honesty.
“Come back to the table,” I said gently. “We have to discuss this, Bay.”
He walked back to the table with jerky movements, nothing like the graceful predator in motion he normally projected. “Give me another name,” he said, his voice gravelly.
“There’s no one else,” I said, reaching over to lay my hand over his clenched fist. He relaxed incrementally, and I squeezed his hand. “The other Seer is dead, the Council all but disbanded in the wake of Imeena’s disappearance. Whoever has planned this has done a very thorough job of dismantling the only semblance of organization in the paranormals’ society.”
We sat staring at the names on the paper. The killer’s name was on that sheet. I was sure of it.
“According to Tyr, one of my skills is determining truth when it’s in front of me. Let’s see if he’s right,” I said. I tore off the top sheet of paper, setting in the center of the table. Then I wrote each individual’s name on a separate sheet of paper and each sheet in a corresponding circle on the table. I picked up Bahlin’s sheet first.
“You’re serious,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless.
“I have to rule you out officially.” I reached for his hand again, but he withdrew it before we touched. “Bay, I am about to sentence someone to death. I have to be able to defend my position without prejudice. You taught me that first rule. Tell me why you didn’t do it.”
�
�Because I love you,” he roared in that gravelly voice. I crossed my arms under my breasts and met his heated gaze with my own cool one. He slapped his hands on the table and the little eddies of air he created sent the paperwork fluttering about. He stood and towered over me. “I love you, and that should be enough.”
I held my ground despite my fear that this would create a new, irrepairable fissure in our relationship. “It is—for me. But explain it to me as if you were on trial before the High Council.” It was too early in our relationship for such slippery conversational ground and I resented it on some level.
Bahlin fell back into his seat, and it groaned at the onslaught of his frame. “You’re right. I know you’re right.” He pushed his hands through is hair, pulling it back from his face harshly and fisting it at the nape of his neck. “The first two murders were committed before you arrived, so you’ve no point of reference or proof that anything I tell you is other than hearsay. After you arrived, the murder of Meyla occurred while we were together. However I could have tipped the room while you were downstairs with Sarenia. You never did see it, anyway. You just took my word for it. Tarrek disappeared in the sithen. I’ve no explanation for that beyond Gretta. And Imeena disappeared while we were separated.” He paused, sighing and releasing his hair. It fell back around his shoulders and he relaxed slightly. “It looks poorly for me, I know.”
I picked up where he left off, not giving him a chance to continue. “You weren’t at the sithen when I was shot, but I suppose you could have hired Maddox. Though had you been inclined to shoot me, you could have, and like would have, done it when you first came to my rooms to disclose my evolution. You’d no need for a proxy killer when the opportunity to kill me presented itself so simply.”
Bahlin’s shoulders relaxed even more as he realized I didn’t think he was guilty.
I crossed his name off the list and removed his individual sheet of paper, letting it float to the floor.
Legacy: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 1 Page 25