Torched

by Donna Grant

  As she talked about venturing across Ireland in hopes of finding her mother without even knowing her name, Con felt his respect for Eilish grow. It took a lot of courage to take on such a task.

  He exchanged a look with Sebastian and Anson when she detailed her first run-in with a Dark Fae and how she’d fought—and won—against him. Then she told them about finding the building where she opened Graves and how she protected the small town. His interest grew when Eilish’s story turned to meeting Mikkel for the first time.

  “So he approached you?” Con asked.

  She nodded. “I’d never heard of him before he sought me out at Graves. He knew about my search for my mother. All those years of looking with nothing to show for it, and Mikkel said he knew who she was and where I could find her.”

  “Most anyone would’ve accepted his offer,” Sebastian said.

  Con had to agree. “What did he want with you?”

  “To kill Ulrik.” Her head turned to look at Ulrik. “Mikkel told me he was his nephew but didn’t give me a name. Mikkel mentioned Dragon Kings, and it caught my attention since I’d overheard some Fae speaking about the Kings.” Her gaze skated back to Con. “I only had to make a simple query to Mikkel, and he told me everything about you.”

  There was a loud snort from Anson. “Everything? I doubt that, lass.”

  “He revealed to me what had happened with Ulrik and his banishment,” she continued. “Mikkel also told me he was the rightful King of Silvers. I honestly didn’t care. I just wanted to find my mother.”

  Con walked to the foot of the slab. He stared at Ulrik a moment before nodding at Eilish to continue.

  She cleared her throat and said, “It didn’t take long for me to realize that Mikkel was ridiculously jealous of Ulrik. I watched Mikkel interact with others. I knew he was power-hungry. And I knew he wasn’t a good man.”

  “And still you worked with him,” Sebastian said.

  She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I was desperate to find my mother. I’d used both Druid and human resources to try and locate her but there was nothing they do without a name or a location. I just wanted something. I figured then I could get away from Mikkel. I carried on the charade for a long while. Even to the point of him asking me to kill you.”

  Con raised a brow. “Me? Why did he believe you could kill a Dragon King when you’d never met one?”

  “I’ve no idea,” she said with wide eyes. “It was a mystery to me, but he was convinced of it.”

  “Ulrik wasna scared of you, was he?” Sebastian asked.

  A quick smile pulled at her lips. “Never. He came to see me at Graves. Said he wanted to find the Druid who had agreed to kill him while standing in his shop.”

  That was exactly something his old friend would do. Con glanced at the wounds on Ulrik’s abdomen that had yet to fully heal. “And?”

  “We spoke for less than five minutes,” Eilish said. “But in that time, I saw he was the opposite of Mikkel in every way. I tried to get Mikkel to tell me something about my mother, but then he summoned me to Venice to make sure Sebastian could remember nothing of their talk. And ordered me to kill Gianna.”

  “To strike at us,” Anson.

  Con put his hands into his pants’ pockets. “Why did you no’ take Gianna’s life?”

  “As I told Sebastian, I’m not a killer.”

  “By defying Mikkel’s orders, you put your own life in danger.”

  Her lips twisted as she lifted a shoulder. “He needed me too much, so I took the chance.”

  “Thank you for that,” Sebastian said.

  Eilish accepted his acknowledgment with a bow of her head. “Mikkel asked me to unbind the rest of his magic. But I’d figured out what he overlooked in his haste to take over.”

  “That if you unbind his magic now, he’d be stuck in dragon form because he isna a King,” Con said.

  She wrinkled her nose as she nodded. “He was none too pleased about that, but I did get him to tell me my mother’s first name. The next thing I knew, Ulrik came to me and asked me to help Nikolai and Esther.”

  Con slowly walked to stand near Ulrik’s head. “Which you did. Why?”

  “I could tell you it was the sadness I saw in Esther’s eyes, or that I felt bad for messing with her mind as well as Kinsey’s. Both are true. But it was Ulrik. I could sense that there was a bond between him and Nikolai that went deep. When faced with all three of those things, I couldn’t say no. In the end, I learned about Donal.”

  Con had to admit, the Druid wasn’t at all what he’d expected. “How did you and Ulrik come to be together?”

  “Looking back, it’s difficult to say. Mikkel demanded I kill Ulrik in two days. He no longer wanted to wait. I went to Ulrik and told him. He offered to give me all the information on my mother if I stopped helping his uncle.”

  Anson asked, “Did you?”

  “I wanted to. And, yes, I contemplated it. While helping Mikkel, I did things I would never normally do. Ulrik said I was walking a fine edge of becoming a drough. He urged me not to go down that path.”

  Con was shocked, but he didn’t show it to the others. “And?”

  “Obviously, I didn’t kill Ulrik. I did nothing.”

  It was the way her gaze returned to Ulrik that told Con that his and Eilish’s relationship had solidified into something profound.

  “Mikkel came for me,” she continued. “His magic was so strong, I couldn’t defend myself. He busted through my wards and held me immobile with his magic. He kept asking about Ulrik. When I told him nothing, he broke both of my legs and knocked me out. I woke in a strange house where he said he’d take away the pain if I promised to help him betray Ulrik. I knew that if I couldn’t walk, I wouldn’t be able to fight him, so I lied and agreed.”

  Sebastian then asked, “What happened?”

  “I heard the Ancients for the first time. They helped me focus my magic on healing myself. Then Mikkel arrived with two women who tried to take me. I fought them and…”

  She trailed off, causing Con to scowl. “And what?” he urged.

  Eilish swallowed hard. “When I get angry, I feel my magic get out of control. That time, I didn’t pull back. I unleashed it and it transported myself to another place full of mist.”

  “That must have been when Ulrik went to the Warriors,” Anson said.

  Con nodded in agreement. When Broc hadn’t been able to locate Eilish, it was because she wasn’t on Earth. Somehow, her magic had taken her to another realm. No wonder Mikkel had thought she could kill a Dragon King. The Druid was even more powerful than Isla.

  “The mist attacked me,” Eilish said as she rose from the chair and stood beside Ulrik. “It wrapped around me. I don’t know how long I was there before I heard Ulrik’s voice calling me back. I don’t know how I got there, and I don’t how I left. But, somehow, I ended up in Ulrik’s cottage.”

  Con jerked his chin to her arms. “And the tats?”

  “Tats?” she asked in confusion, her face twisting. “Ulrik said I had red marks, but I don’t see anything,” she said and looked at her arms, twisting them one way and then the other. Her mouth fell open when she caught sight of the tattoos.

  So Ulrik had seen them before she did. Interesting.

  “Do you see them now?” Con asked.

  She nodded woodenly, looking from one arm to the other. Then she raised her shirt to reveal more tats on her torso. Her gaze lowered to her legs. “I don’t understand.”

  “None of us do,” Sebastian said, a frown furrowing his brow.

  Eilish shook her head as she dropped her shirt. “My tats aren’t important. What you need to know is that Mikkel stole my finger rings. They allowed me to teleport, so he now has that power. But he also used them to do this,” she said, pointing to Ulrik’s wounds.

  “Where? How?” Con demanded.

  “When I returned to Ulrik from the mist, he said he could feel the residue of my magic from the finger rings. We bounced all over the world
trying to find Mikkel. We tracked him to my family in Dublin where we learned they had given Mikkel their magic in exchange for me. Those vile people killed my mother to take her magic because they didn’t have any of their own. It’s a tradition that began centuries earlier. And they wanted to do the same with me.

  “With Ulrik’s help, I made sure no other Duffy would ever be put in such a situation. But Mikkel escaped again. We finally found him in the middle of some woodland where he had Donal. He and Ulrik fought, but Ulrik tried to get Donal and me out. That’s when Mikkel used my rings and vanished, only to surprise Ulrik.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “Ulrik fell unconscious, and I tried to stop the bleeding. He should’ve healed, but he didn’t. And I knew we couldn’t remain there in case Mikkel returned.”

  “So you brought him here,” Sebastian said.

  Eilish turned her head to Con and said, “Ulrik told me his story. Every horrific, ghastly, appalling part of it. No one should have to endure that kind of pain, but he did. He went insane and dug himself out of that. And then he made a plan.

  “I know he’s done horrible things. I’ve seen glimpses of the real Ulrik. He hides his true self, though I can’t blame him. But he searched for me when Mikkel took me and when I was in the mist. He called me back from that horrible place. He could’ve beat Mikkel in the fight. It would’ve cost my father and me our lives, but Ulrik chose not to do that.”

  Con lowered his gaze to Ulrik.

  “That’s everything,” Eilish said.

  In a short amount of time, Con had learned a great deal about the Druid as well as Ulrik. And it caused him to reevaluate everything.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Eilish. It was Ulrik’s only thought as he pushed through the agony and obscurity to consciousness. Even before he opened his eyes, he felt her.

  Knowing she was there calmed him. He could hear her voice, though the words were jumbled. Focusing on her, he clawed his way through the last bit of pain and cracked open his eyes. The first thing he saw was the marks on her arms that were definitely tattoos now—and in the same red and black ink as his own.

  His gaze moved lower to her hand that rested near his. There was dried blood on her, and he prayed it wasn’t hers. He reached for her, wrapping his fingers around her hand.

  Her head swiveled to him. When their eyes met, she smiled. “It’s about damn time you woke.”

  The relief on her face ruined the stern approach she tried to take. He began to smile until he noticed that they weren’t alone. He and Con stared at each other for a long minute.

  “Don’t be angry,” Eilish said. “You wouldn’t stop bleeding, and I feared Mikkel would return.”

  Ulrik’s body was healing, but slowly. He gritted his teeth through the ghastly pain and sat up. Immediately, he saw Anson and Sebastian in the cavern with them. He glanced around for Nikolai, but when Ulrik didn’t see him, he realized Nikolai must still be with Esther on the Isle of Eigg.

  Instead of speaking to them, he turned his head to Eilish. “Is that your blood?”

  She glanced down at her hands and shook her head. “It’s yours. Mikkel never touched Donal or me. Thanks to you.”

  “Where is Donal?” Ulrik asked.

  It was Con who said, “Recovering. Your uncle couldn’t quite muster the magic to control the mortal’s mind, so he tranced him instead.”

  Ulrik swung his legs over the side of granite slab and took a deep breath, his determination set. “I have to finish this with Mikkel.”

  “I know,” Con replied.

  Ulrik had sworn to never ask Con for anything again, yet there was something he needed. And it was killing Ulrik to be in this position. “I’ve a favor I would ask.”

  “Name it.”

  The quick agreement from Con surprised Ulrik. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it either. Elated that Con was willing to help. But years of mistrust made Ulrik worry that someone who was supposed to be his enemy wouldn’t want to help him.

  But this wasn’t about him. It was about Eilish.

  “Keep Eilish here, safe. Until I finish with my uncle.”

  Eilish gaped at him, outrage sparking in her green-gold eyes. “No. That’s not what we agreed.”

  Ulrik swung his head to her and felt his chest tighten. The sound of her voice announcing that she loved him still had the ability to make his heart skip a beat. Didn’t she realize that she was important? That she had to stay out of Mikkel’s reach? “I can no’ fight him if I’m worried about you.”

  She didn’t argue. But some of the light went out of her eyes. She released his hand and turned to Sebastian. “I’d like to see my father now. And possibly wash up.”

  Ulrik watched her leave with Bast without another look his way. It stung, but he also realized she was hurt by his words.

  As soon as she was out of earshot, Ulrik’s mind turned to the matter at hand. Con. He braced his hands on the granite and dropped his chin to his chest. “How much did she tell you?”

  “Everything,” Con replied.

  Anson shifted near his position against the wall. “Are you in pain?”

  “It’s manageable.” Ulrik cut his gaze to Con. “I suppose I should thank you for healing me.”

  Con shrugged indifferently. “I couldna exactly refuse your woman.”

  “She isna mine,” Ulrik stated.

  Anson raised a black brow. “That’s no’ what it looked like to me.”

  Ulrik ran a hand over his face. It didn’t matter what he felt for the Druid. This went beyond him. Beyond all of them. “Eilish’s magic is powerful. Mikkel can no’ get ahold of her.”

  “She’s welcome to remain here,” Con said.

  Ulrik straightened and nodded once. “Thank you.”

  “You’re no’ seriously leaving,” Anson said in dismay as he walked to him. “You’re still healing.”

  “And my uncle willna wait.”

  Con said, “I have a proposition.”

  Ulrik wanted to leave, but something made him hesitate. He wasn’t sure if being back at Dreagan surrounded by his brethren was the cause, or if it had something to do with Eilish’s earlier declaration. Either way, he decided to hear Con out. What could it hurt? And it would give Ulrik more time near Eilish. “What might that be?”

  “We both track down the bastard.”

  Ulrik was so taken aback that he couldn’t respond immediately. “You want to fight Mikkel together?”

  “I think it’s an excellent idea,” Anson said with a half-grin.

  Sebastian walked in then. “I want in on it.”

  Con raised a brow, waiting for an answer.

  The first thing Ulrik thought of was that it was a ploy by Con to kill him. Then he realized if Con wanted him dead, he’d had plenty of time to do it. Including the last couple of hours while Ulrik was unconscious.

  Ulrik looked at each of the Kings. Then he thought about Mikkel and his devious ways. Ulrik took a deep breath and immediately regretted it with the pain that movement caused. “I can handle my uncle on my own.”

  “I’ve no doubt of that,” Con said. “But after the things he’s done, we’d like a little payback.”

  Ulrik held his old friend’s gaze. “I’ve also done my share.”

  Con lowered his eyes to the floor for a moment. Then he looked at Anson and Sebastian. “Ulrik has been carrying a secret of mine for a verra long time. He’s threatened to tell all of you. Now, I’m going to. First, to the two of you. Then later to the others.”

  Ulrik watched Con, waiting to see if there was some ulterior motive.

  “You see,” Con continued. “Ulrik was there when I fought to become King of Dragon Kings. I battled Tarel for days. It felt as if it would go on forever. But I wasna giving up, and neither was he. Once I issued the challenge, only one of us would be alive at the end.”

  Leaning back against the granite, Ulrik listened, Con’s words reviving memories and taking him back to that time.

  Con ran a hand over the back of
his neck. “I was wounded, and Tarel went down. I thought he was dead. Instead of checking, I looked at my injury. That mistake nearly cost me my life. Tarel attacked, tearing open my wound. I lost track of time after that. I was suddenly on the defensive, and then he knocked me out.”

  Ulrik looked away, not wanting to hear any more. It was bad enough that he had witnessed the event.

  “You see,” Con said, “if Ulrik had no’ been there, Tarel would’ve killed me.”

  “We doona do that,” Anson said in consternation.

  Sebastian wore a deep frown. “It’s an unspoken law that challenges are met and carried out with honor. No one would accept a Dragon King who killed one of their own who was unconscious.”

  Ulrik pushed away from the granite and faced Con. “Stop.”

  Con shook his head. “It’s time everyone knows the truth.” He looked at the others, meeting their gazes for a long, quiet moment. “I woke to find Ulrik holding Tarel back. Ulrik’s intervention allowed me to regroup. The fighting resumed for another few days. When Tarel fell again, I believed it was another trick. Ulrik saw the truth and tried to warn me, but it was too late. Tarel was merely unconscious. But I’d already killed him. While Tarel lay there, totally defenseless, I ripped out his heart.”

  The silence in the cavern was deafening. Ulrik closed his eyes. At one time, he’d dreamed of telling the Dragon Kings of Con’s disgrace. He’d longed to see his brethren turn against their King of Kings.

  Now, he wished Con had never spoken of the secret. Though Ulrik wasn’t the only one who knew. Kellan, who kept the history of the Kings, was aware, as well. But not once had Kellan’s trust in Con ever wavered.

  Ulrik opened his eyes and looked at his old friend. “Anyone in your shoes would’ve done the same. Tarel had already pretended to be dead to trick you.”

  “I should’ve checked. You would have,” Con said.

  Anson said, “I agree with Ulrik. I would’ve done just as you did.”

  “You’re my King,” Sebastian stated. “It was an honest mistake, witnessed by your best friend.”