“I actually didn’t take offense until you said ‘no offense.’ Anyway, your mum sounds brilliant.” I hugged myself, chilly in my damp dress. “Why are you telling me about Emain if it’s such a deep secret?”
“Because I know you’ll keep it.”
“I will.” The idea that he trusted me sparked a bit of warmth inside. I fought the urge to ask him about his wife. Curiosity burned in me, but I’d seen how he reacted to Grandma Elise, driving up her heating bill with his coldness.
Chapter 53
“You will become a knight,” Ruadan said. “The Old Gods desire it. You will live. And you will help me find Baleros. But first, you have to pass tomorrow’s trial. You’ll need to identify the angels and kill each one of them.” He held out his palm, and a silver ring gleamed in his hand. It glowed faintly with violet light. “I’ve imbued this with my magic. You’ll need to learn to channel it.”
I picked up the ring from his palm and slid it onto my finger. As I did, a jolt of heat raced through my blood. I became acutely aware of Ruadan’s T-shirt clinging to my body, my breasts peaking in the cold breeze. My mind flashed with a vivid memory of my dream about Ruadan. I wanted him to lose control of himself, to pin me up against a tree. Already, the blood was rushing out of my head and making it hard for me to think.
“You need to control it.” His magic licked at my skin, stroking up the back of my spine like a silky fingertip, an invisible caress. “Not the other way around.”
My pulse raced, my breathing quickening. “I’m perfectly in control.” I stared at my fingertips, which now flickered with violet light. Without realizing what I was doing, I reached for Ruadan’s sodden shirt. I pulled him close, and he stared down at me. He felt warm. I slid my hand up his powerful torso.
“Control it.” His voice was a blade wrapped in silk, and it only made me want to touch him more.
I rested my head against his muscled chest, looking up at his perfect face. My fingers slid inside the hem of his shirt, over his muscled abs, and I heard him gasp, his muscles tensing. His skin was soft, with pure steel underneath. I ran my hand higher up his chest, feeling his muscles. He leaned down, his breath warming the shell of my ear. He wasn’t pushing me away.
Fifteen years he’d been with London’s Institute. Fifteen years since he’d had sex. He must be desperate for it.
When I closed my eyes, the scent of apples grew stronger. A vision rose in my mind of an orchard on a rocky slope—Emain. Someone had decorated the tree branches with candles that flickered in the darkness like stars, and a distant drum beat through my blood. I stalked through the trees, hunting…
Ruadan pulled my hand off his body, his grip like iron on my fingers.
I gritted my teeth, trying to gain control of myself. “What the hells was that vision?”
“What vision?” he asked.
“It was Emain, with candles in the trees, and a drumbeat.”
A silence stretched out between us. “I think you saw one of my memories. It must be carried by the magic I gave you.”
“You were hunting something.”
“A woman. It was a fertility festival.”
I shook my head, willing my body to cool down. “Right. You know most people just get drunk and watch TV, but I do like the candles and drums. I take it the Emain Shadow Fae were not celibate?”
“Fortunately, no.”
It took me a moment to realize that I’d grabbed onto his shirt again and pulled him close, arching my neck to look up at him. Gods, I wanted to be there in Emain for that festival, to be hunted by Ruadan, pulled down in the dewy grass. I wanted Ruadan’s powerful hands to rip my clothes off while I writhed beneath him…
Through our damp clothes, his body warmed mine. I clenched my fists, still clutching his shirt, and I looked up into his eyes. He gripped my waist once more, and his heated gaze burned right into me. I felt an overwhelming urge to pull my wet T-shirt up higher. Darkness slid through his eyes as my arousal started to affect him, too. Even if he was supposed to be celibate, the incubus in him was responding.
When the chilly wind hit my thighs, raising goosebumps, I realized that I actually had inched the shirt up to my waist.
Now, I was desperate to kiss him, to feel his tongue sliding against mine. My pulse raced.
I wanted to get down on the damp ground with him, and…
Focus, Arianna.
I expected him to be annoyed, because so far, I was completely failing to effectively channel the magic. But I had to prove to him that I could do this. His faith in me was not misplaced.
I willed my heartbeat to slow, still staring into his eyes. And as I gazed up at him, I saw something new there. Something almost possessive. Or was it protective?
“How, exactly, do I control it?” I asked.
“It’s the magic of life,” he said, his voice an erotic rumble through my belly. “And the opposite of life—”
With an iron will, I forced myself to take a step back from him. “Death. You want me to think about death?”
“Fill yourself with darkness. It will help you control the power as it dampens the lust magic.”
A dark smile curled my lips. “Oh, believe me. Death is something that comes naturally to me.”
While the lust magic continued to heat up my body, I closed my eyes, summoning my worst memories of destruction: fae blood staining the soil, bodies lying at my feet in the arena. Vacant eyes. Hearts ripped, still beating, from bodies. Like ink spilling through water, the darkness pushed out some of the lust magic from my core, moving it to my extremities.
“There,” said Ruadan, his voice wrapping around me like velvet. He traced his fingertip from my shoulder, down my arm, and tingles raced in its wake. “I can see it moving through your body, the way it should.”
I took a deep breath, in control once more, and I stepped away to look at my hand. Violet magic throbbed at my fingertips.
“Good.”
The approval in his eyes made me smile—at least for a moment, until I mentally excoriated myself for caring so much what he thought. I shouldn’t want his approval as much as I did.
“Of course it’s good.” I stood tall. “The Amazon Terror is nothing less than amazing.”
“That’s a ridiculous name.”
“Okay, Wraith.”
“You’ll notice I do not refer to myself in the third person. In any case, now you’ll need to learn to hurl the magic at a target.”
“Right.”
“I’m going to move through the trees. Try to hit me with it.”
“Won’t you be overcome by an overwhelming desire for hibbly jibbly?”
He shook his head. “No. The magic comes from me. I’ll be fine.”
With a hissing sound, he disappeared, leaving only a whorl of shadows behind.
I tracked his movements through the trees, and he slowed to a normal walking pace. I looked down at the pulsing violet magic at the tips of my fingers, and I flung back my arm to try to hurl it at him. Except, on the back stroke, the magic flew off my fingertips. I watched as it soared through a glass window into Grandma Elise’s house.
I sucked in a deep breath. Looked like she might be in for an interesting evening.
Once that burst of magic had left my body, the lust magic began surging again, heating my skin. Even from across the orchard, I could feel Ruadan’s unmistakable masculine allure. I closed my eyes as I walked barefoot through the dewy grasses, breathing in the sensual scents of the orchard. The night air felt heavy, and the wet T-shirt slid against my bare legs. My breasts, too, seemed fuller in the shirt. If I took off all my clothes, could I tempt him to hunt me?
My gaze slid over every inch of Ruadan, the moonlight washing over his muscled body, his powerful arms. I could imagine the feel of his mouth on my throat, my bare legs wrapped around his waist. Molten heat surged, and my hardened nipples chafed against the wet shirt.
The rush of cold air over my bare thighs told me that once again I’d started hiking u
p my T-shirt. Death. Blood, broken bodies, rotting flesh, vacant eyes.
Darkness spooled out through my limbs, chasing away the sensual magic until it pulsed from my fingertips once again.
I lifted my hand, taking care to throw the magic faster this time. It hit Ruadan in the chest, his back arched, and a smile curled his lips. Then, magic surged through my blood once more, and erotic heat stroked over my skin, pooling between my legs.
I closed my eyes, letting my body fill with the dizzying weightlessness of death, until the darkness pushed the violet magic out to my extremities again.
“This time,” said Ruadan, “when you throw it, try to toss it into the air and disperse it over the orchard.”
“How do I do that?” I asked.
“It’s all in the throw. Splay your fingers. Just practice.”
I hurled the magic into the air, my body rocked by each burst. It took me four or five tries until I could flick my fingers in just the right way that the magic spread out, raining down over the orchard.
Ruadan prowled closer to me. When he was only a few feet away, I threw more violet magic at him. His back arched as it hit him. All at once, the magic recharged in my body, and heat arced through my core until I could think of nothing but how my naked body would feel sliding against his.
I grabbed him by the shirt, then pushed him down to the stone bench. Without entirely realizing what I was doing, I straddled him, my shirt riding up, exposing my panties. His fingers clamped around my waist, hungry and possessive. I leaned in to kiss him, my tongue licking his. My hips rocked against him.
The kiss deepened, and my breasts brushed against his chest. His fingers slid up my wet thighs, higher and higher, until he was gripping my bum. When I pulled away to look into his eyes, they’d turned completely black with the unrestrained lust of an incubus. His magic slid over my skin, stroking me all over.
He shoved his hand into my hair, and he pulled my head back, exposing my neck. His kiss seared my throat, and my back arched further. With his tight grip on my hair and my waist, he was in complete control of me now, and my body was on fire. My thighs clenched around him.
But something he’d said rang in the hollows of my mind. Angels were never supposed to be on this earth…they are the face of true evil, and they must answer for their crimes. A scourge…
My blood turned to ice, and I pulled away from him, jumping to my feet. I smoothed down my damp T-shirt, taking a long, slow breath. I forced my pulse to slow. “Let’s not do that again.” My voice sounded sharper than I wanted it to.
For just a moment, I thought I saw a flash of vulnerability in his eyes, and I felt the impact of it like a pang in my chest. Then, his gaze shuttered.
Now that’d I’d stood up, I was freezing.
“You’re right,” he said. “Of course. And it seems like you’ve mastered the skill we came here to practice.” He rose, and his eyes faded from deep, animalistic black to their usual cold violet. He wasn’t looking at me anymore. “Tomorrow, when the trial begins, you will need to hunt down the enclave of angels. Use the lust magic.” Already, he was moving for the house, eyes straight ahead. He did not want to look at me at all. “You’ll see the angels begin to transform before your very eyes. Then, you just need to slaughter them.”
“I take it you don’t think I need any extra lessons in slaughtering demons.”
“I have no concerns about your ability to kill. Just make sure you get there before Maddan does. Don’t leave anyone for him to slaughter. If you succeed in this trial, Grand Master Savus will have to accept that the Old Gods have chosen you. It will be over for Maddan, or Savus will lose his crown for good.”
He pulled open the door to Grandmother Elise’s house.
She stood in the center of the room in a cream bathrobe, her cheeks flushed. She took a sip of a pink cocktail, her cleavage on full display. She really didn’t look like a grandmother.
She crossed to Ruadan, swishing her hips. “Big strong man like you, going to waste.” She gripped him by the belt of his pants and pulled him closer. Her drink sloshed as he slammed into her. “I’ll tell you what, Prince of Misery, I will ride you hard until I put a smile on that face.” She nodded at me. “Your friend can come too. I’m not greedy. I will share.”
He disengaged her hand from his trousers. “Thank you for your orchard, Grandmother Elise. I’ll visit again soon to fix your curtains.”
Ruadan ushered me toward the door with his hand on the small of my back, quickening his pace.
“I want more than just curtains when you get back here. Gods-damned waste,” she muttered as we left.
Chapter 54
Maddan and I stood before the Institute’s gates, and our mentors flanked us. At least His Royal Twattiness had the good sense to leave the crown behind. I wore a black dress and boots—the dress short enough that I could easily run.
For our angel-hunting mission, I wore a sword slung over my back—my favorite weapon. Ruadan’s ring sat tucked in my pocket, and I was ready to slip it on when I found the angels. I was keeping it hidden for now. No need to let Maddan know what I had planned.
This time, we had to hunt down our targets on our own. All I knew was that the angels were trying to live like primitive humans to learn about human culture, and that they wanted to infiltrate our world again— covertly. But it wasn’t much to go on. They could be hiding, disguised as humans, anywhere in London. I had no idea what to make of the whole “primitive” idea.
I glanced at Maddan again, and the violet lumen stone glowing around his neck. He’d be able to leap all over the city with that thing. Unfortunately, I was stuck moving around in much more mundane ways: walking or crammed between drunk, sweaty men on the Tube.
As I turned it over in my mind, mist roiled over the ground, bubbling like a cauldron brew. Footfalls echoed off the stone, and Grand Master Savus shifted out of the shadows and into the moonlight. His silver crown gleamed on his head—now slightly restored. Apparently, his failure to execute me had him back in the Old Gods’ favor.
“Tonight,” he began, “You must act like real trackers, the way the Shadow Fae must track in real life. Somewhere, in the great city of London, the angels have made it their mission to learn the primitive ways of the human species. These angelic spies seek to live like primal human beasts, connecting themselves to the earth. They want to study the wild impulses of the human race.”
I frowned, fairly certain they’d arrived several thousand years too late for that sort of caveman thing. Then again, if the Millwall football team lost, they might be in luck.
“We’re not telling you the targets’ location.” Grand Master Savus’s silver hair flitted in the breeze. “Your task is simple. Find the angels, and kill them.” Then, Savus glared at me, his silver eyes glinting. “I will be watching your every move through my scrying mirror. Ruadan will follow you to make sure you don’t attempt an escape. I’m sure you understand by now that you cannot escape him.”
Nope. He finds me through my sex dreams.
The gate groaned open to a stony esplanade before the Institute. In a blur of dark shadows, Maddan was off, the wind whooshing past me as he dashed away. I had to hope that he had no idea what the hells he was doing.
Now, how to find the angels? I closed my eyes, letting my mind go blank for a moment.
Mentally, I reviewed what Savus had said. Primitive. Primal. Beasts. Wild. Connected to the earth.
As I rolled the words over and over, a seed of an idea took root in my mind, until I knew exactly where to start.
In the mildewed hall of my old squat, I knocked on Uncle Darrell’s door. A shuffling noise sounded on the other side, and then the door creaked open.
As soon as I saw his face, I knew I’d made the right decision. He stood before me wearing a bicycle helmet with stag’s horns duct-taped to either side. In addition to the antlers, he wore a wool poncho with no trousers, and about forty-seven crystal necklaces.
He beamed. “Arianna! What ha
ppened to you? Did you hear all the rumors that the spell-slayers got you? I told people, I said no—” His gaze darted to Ruadan, who stood behind me, and he fell silent.
Then, he dropped to his knees. “Oh ancient one! Oh masterful fae! Being of eternal light!”
“Darkness, really,” I corrected him. “Never mind. Darrell, please stand up. We need your help.”
As he rose, the tips of his antlers knocked into the top of the doorframe, and he winced, straightening them. “Took a lot of time to put this together,” he muttered.
It smelled heavily of spliffs inside.
He brushed off his hands on his poncho. “What can I help you with, then?”
“I’m looking for a…some kind of primal, primitive event. I don’t know what you’d call it. People acting like beasts? Connecting to the earth?”
“The midsummer festival. Yeah, I’m on my way now, actually. Men only to start, but we could use a real fae, like your friend here. You’ll really connect to the earth; do you know what I mean?” His lip curled in a “hurts so good” face. “Feel Mother Nature’s glorious embrace like a…” He grunted and made a cupping motion with his hands, and I tried not to imagine what the gesture was supposed to represent. “Do you know what I mean?”
Ruadan just stood there, his arms folded, darkening the hallway with his magic. The air misted in front of my face, and I thought of Grandma Elise complaining about her heating bill.
I scratched my cheek. “Yeah he’s not into that so much. I think he’ll be hanging back, actually. You said it was men only?”
He scrunched up his face. “It’s sort of a man thing, you know? Recharging our testosterone from the earth’s roots. Really reconnect to our balls.” He raised his eyebrows at Ruadan, as if hoping for some sort of approval.
The lights in the hallway flickered on and off.
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