Cruel Enchantment (6 page)

He rubbed a hand over his chin. “Try that with a weapon again and I’ll break it against your body instead of the floor.” He indicated the ax, which now lay in two pieces at her feet.

He turned and left the forge, locking the door behind him.

“YOU
stink like whiskey. Kieran told me you’ve been trying to kill off a bottle all on your own tonight.” Gabriel, Lord of the Wild Hunt, wrinkled his nose at him as he came up to the top of the tower. “You never drink. What’s going on, Aeric?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he growled, pushing past him and joining the rest of the host.

Melia regarded him closely with her naturally heavy-lidded eyes, her bright red hair shadowing half her face. She was a battle fae, capable of much destruction in times of war. “Ooh, grouchy,” she gently taunted in her low, raspy voice.

Aelfdane, her Twyleth Teg mate, sat mounted on a dappled gray beside her, also studying him with a steady, curious gaze. He was Melia’s opposite physically—tall, thin, and light of coloring, whereas she was short, curvy, and fiery headed—in more ways than one.

Despite the surface differences, they shared a soul and a brain. They were both thinking the same thing right now—
what the fuck is up with Aeric?
He wasn’t about to enlighten them.

Bran, the last member of the Wild Hunt, sat on the roof of the Black Tower, talking softly to his pet crow, Lex. Taliesin and Blix, the sleek black Netherland hounds that appeared every night with the horses to sniff out souls in Piefferburg, lounged happily near him. Bran’s magick lay in the realm of nature: he could communicate with animals. One would think he’d live out in the Boundary Lands with the nature fae, but there was a quirk to Bran’s power—he could control animals, too, make them maim or kill. That was what made him Unseelie—that ability to spill blood with his magick.

The hunt horses were there. Beyond their regular mounts; there were six of them tonight, to carry the six souls of the fae they would collect. Aeric pulled himself up on a bay with a long, flowing mane and a white star on his forehead. Every night the hunt horses and hounds appeared on the roof of the Black Tower and every morning they deposited the host back on the roof and carried the collected souls back over the rainbow. That was what it looked like, anyway. They rode into the dawn every morning and then winked out of existence, presumably gone back to the Netherworld.

Gabriel mounted the lead horse, Abastor, a huge black without a spot of light anywhere on his muscled body. “So, did you hear the news? A human’s gone missing somewhere in the Boundary Lands.”

Aeric’s hands tightened on the reins. “Really?”

Melia chimed in. “Some woman. She was supposed to be an addition to the
Faemous
crew over at the Rose Tower, but she never made it. My money is on Will the Smith, but it could have been any one of the boogeys out there in the Boundary Lands. The birch ladies can’t help everyone in need.”

Will the Smith was a man so evil it was said that even the sluagh had rejected him. Spat back out from the Netherworld, he’d been given a second life and the ability to torture or kill anyone he liked—and he liked, very much, to kill all sorts of people. Most humans knew him as the Will o’ the Wisp, luring the unsuspecting to their deaths by taking the form of a pleasing light that compelled the viewer to follow. In reality he was a sociopath who also happened to be a fae. His magick was death related, which made him Unseelie, but he was a loner and wanted nothing to do with the Unseelie court. The court wanted nothing to do with him, either.

“It’s strange,” said Gabriel. “The Boundary Lands have been safe for humans for more than ten years now. Aside from that
Faemous
crew at the Black Tower becoming a goblin dinner some years back, I can’t remember the last time a human was attacked out there in the woods.”

“No one’s looking for her?” Aeric asked.

“The Summer Queen has the Imperial Guard combing the area,” Aelfdane answered. “But, strange or not, it does appear a loner dark fae like Will the Smith got her. By now the chance of anyone finding anything but pieces of that woman are slim.”

“It’s bad public relations for us,” Melia added. “Every time a human falls to one of the dark fae, it hurts our possibilities for getting out of here.”

Bran gave a scoffing laugh. “Right. You really think we have any possibility of managing that, short of opening the Book of Bindings, Melia?”

“Maybe. There’s the HFF, after all. They’re fighting for us.”

Bran shook his head. “One small group of humans fighting for fae rights. They’re overwhelmed by the ones who want to keep us here and, worse, the majority of people who just don’t give a shit.”

Melia blew a strand of hair out of her face in a gesture that revealed her frustration with the conversation. “I’m just saying we have a lot of uncontrolled, bloodthirsty fae in here that need to be leashed. Having them run loose isn’t helping our image.”

The host went on to discuss all the possible monsters that could have picked off an unsuspecting human traveling through the enchanted woods to Piefferburg City. They didn’t suspect for a moment that the monster was Aeric.

Interesting
. So Emmaline had been posing as a human
Faemous
crew member and had intended to go to the Rose Tower. What was her game? Had she been planning to take up her old job with the Summer Queen? That was the only possible explanation Aeric could come up with. Maybe she’d grown tired of living among the humans or had some other reason for coming to Piefferburg and wanted to secure a place for herself in the Rose.

Apparently he’d botched the return of the deadliest assassin the Summer Queen had ever employed.

All the better he’d waylaid her. Piefferburg was better off.

 

 

GIDEON
drummed his fingers on his desk and stared out the doorway of his office. Emily hadn’t checked in yet from the Rose Tower, according to Brother Maddoc, and he couldn’t keep his mind on his work because of it. That lack of focus was telling, since usually nothing kept his head out of the game.

A viscous dribble of blood crept slowly down his wrist, tickling his skin. He wiped at it with a tissue, but not before it marked the papers on his desk with a brown stain. He’d shown his love to Labrai only twenty minutes earlier, using the small room off of his office reserved for his daily self-flagellation. The cat-o’-nine had bit deeply into his flesh today, deeper than usual, because he was so disturbed by Emily’s disappearance. One wound still refused to close up.

Brother Maddoc passed the doorway and Gideon bolted from his seat, racing out into the hall. “Have you heard anything yet, brother?”

Archdirector Maddoc turned, the lines of his annoyingly pleasant face etched deeper than usual. “No. I’ll be sure to let you know if I have any more news. I must say I’m surprised by this occurrence. Humans have been traveling without trouble to and from Piefferburg City on that road for many years now, ever since the fae began actively courting the sympathy of the humans. It never occurred to me to deny Emily’s request to hike to the Rose Tower.”

Gideon scowled and nodded. “I agree. It’s more than passing strange.”

Except it
was
more than passing strange. On that, as much as he hated it, he agreed with Maddoc. Maybe Emily had just had bad luck and happened upon a rogue fae with an urge to harm her.

Or maybe there was something else odd about this situation. Something odd about Emily.

Gideon’s intuition had been niggling all morning and he didn’t like it.

No
. Emily Millhouse was a wonderful, upstanding, pious Worshipful Observer. Nothing more. Hopefully she was still alive and would contact them soon. He would pray to Labrai that it might be so.

“You’re dripping blood on the carpet.”

He looked down to see that he was indeed plopping dark brown drops of blood onto the cream carpeting of the hallway. Maddoc wore an expression of distaste.

Gideon used his other hand to close the cuff of his sleeve. “My demonstration of faith was exceptionally vigorous today, my brother.”

Maddoc’s lips curled in mild revulsion. “Yes,” he drawled.

White-hot rage raced through Gideon’s veins. In bright flashes, he imagined backhanding Maddoc, jumping on him, and beating that expression off his face until his head was nothing more than bloody pulp and a caved-in skull.

Gideon forced a smile. “All praise Labrai.”

“All praise.” Maddoc turned and walked away.

Gideon let his expression transform to pure hatred as he stared at his superior’s back. He couldn’t wait until it was time for Maddoc to suffer all he deserved. He was soft. He’d forgotten the old ways, had grown compassionate and feeble in his dealings with the fae. Labrai would punish him eventually and Gideon would be more than happy to be His tool.

Abruptly Maddoc stopped and turned. Gideon quickly pasted a bland smile on his face. “Brother Cederick has taken ill and has been admitted to the hospital.” Maddoc pressed his lips together. “We fear the worst.”

“Oh, no.” He filled his voice with the sympathy that would be expected of him. “This is the first I’ve heard of it, though I have noticed he hasn’t been in his office lately.” His very nice corner office with a view of the gates. The office Gideon would soon be occupying. “What illness has he contracted?”

“A mysterious one that our physicians are at a loss to explain. Tests are being conducted.” Maddoc pressed his lips together in that gesture that made Gideon want to smack him. “You’re quickly moving up to occupy your former seat, it seems. Our brothers have had very bad luck this past year.” Light suspicion threaded his voice, but there was nothing Maddoc could do and he knew it.

Gideon bowed his head, hiding his smile. “I am Labrai’s hand, directed where He wills me.” When he looked up, Maddoc was gone.

HER
head humming with a dull ache, Emmaline lifted her head and cracked her eyes open, seeing a warm red glow penetrating the black. She pushed up as best she could with her wrists bound and saw Aeric at his forge.

His hands and forearms were covered in thick leather gloves, but that was almost all he wore. In one hand he held a red-hot length of iron into a fire that burned white hot in the middle of a huge metal table. Shirtless from the waist up, his powerful back and shoulders flexed as he removed the iron from the flames, picked up a hammer, and began to work the piece with strong, ringing clangs.

Molding. Shaping. Bending the ordinarily inflexible metal to his will. That was Aeric Killian Riordan O’Malley. Strong. Fiery. Passionate. He always had been, always would be.

She hated that her body reacted to him. Right now she should fear him, detest him, loathe the very sight of him, but the feelings she had for Aeric were just as strong now as they’d been hundreds of years ago. There was something very, very wrong with her. If she ever got back out of Piefferburg, she was seeking a psychiatrist pronto.

Could she blame him for hating her? He thought she’d ruthlessly killed his soul mate in a fit of jealousy. If she were in his place she would feel the same way. Maybe she would have waited years and years to take her revenge, too. Perhaps she would have dreamed of ways to make the murderer pay for what he’d done.

She wasn’t happy to be here, and she would fight tooth and nail to survive this, but she understood his motives.

At least, she understood his motives from his current perspective—from the lie he believed. If he knew what had truly happened the night she’d killed Aileen, she might not be sitting in his forge as a prisoner, wondering if she would live or die.

Here was her dilemma—if she told him the truth, it would alter his view of his soul mate forever and destroy his memory of Aileen. Stupid her, she’d sacrificed a lot to keep that memory pristine.