Old Dog, New Tricks (17 page)

He bent closer, eyes cold. “She will kill your incubus if you try.”

“I’m all out of tries.” I jerked my chin higher. “I will succeed. Bet on it. Shaw is my future. Not this. Not her. Not you.
Him
. If she hurts him, I will put her in a box in the ground if it’s the last thing I do.” I flung out an arm. “Scratch that. I’ll douse the box with gasoline, set it on fire and then scatter the ashes.”

Rook shifted his weight onto his heels. “You really do love him.”

Knowing it hurt him, even if just his pride, I told the truth. “Yes, I do.”

Love for Shaw was heat in my bones, branded knowledge that when I was with him, I was whole.

“It’s true then,” he whispered. “You mated with him.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask where he got his information, but Rook kept feathery spies scattered throughout the mortal realm. The fact he knew about Shaw and my reconciliation shouldn’t surprise me. But it should have dawned on him before now that love was the magnetic force drawing us together time and time again. Then again, Rook might not understand what romantic love meant. Or any love for that matter. Had he truly set himself on this path out of love for his sister? Or had her disappearance merely been a perfect excuse to take action? I wasn’t sure, my butt hurt, and I was too tired to argue if he puffed up his chest and took the indignation route. I had zero time for arguments.

“Shaw mated me, actually, last year, before he was reassigned,” I corrected him. “He just didn’t bother sharing the happy news with me until after you kidnapped me, almost got me killed and—oh yeah—married me against my will.” I jabbed a finger in Rook’s chest. “He was prepared to die rather than admit what he had done would bind me to him for the rest of my life.
That
is selfless.
That
is love. Stupid and misguided love, but he is a man, so I forgave him.”

Rook blanched. “His claim predated mine?”

My gaze slid to Mac then back to him. “Pretty sure that’s what I just said.”

Tightness in his shoulders drew Rook straighter. “Then I owe him restitution.”

A flutter of hope winged through me. “Does that mean we aren’t married?”

“No.” His lips twitched. “It means I owe him payment for the use of his...
mate
.”

Blazing heat scalded my cheeks, and my jaw dropped.
“What did you say?”

Mac drifted between us, bringing a cool breeze with him. “Calm down, Thierry.”

Pissed as I was, I could have spat nails. Calm down.
Calm down?
“Bite me, Mac.”

Over his shoulder, Rook settled a pleased smile on his face.

“He is baiting you.” Mac forced me to hold his gaze. “You are better than this.”

A roll of Rook’s eyes said he disagreed.

Pivoting on his heel, Mac faced him, and Rook’s smugness vanished in a pungent whiff of fear. I breathed deeply, protesting when Mac sidestepped into my line of sight. “Imply my daughter is a whore again, and I will prevent you from siring hatchlings indefinitely.”

Shock immobilized me. No two ways about it, Mac was changing. Maybe I was a bad influence on him. Or maybe knowing his time as one-third of Faerie’s High Court triad was coming to an end had freed him up to do and say what he wanted versus what he ought to. The stone-cold moral code woven throughout the legend of the Black Dog was unraveling, and I enjoyed glimpsing his flaws.

Temper barely leashed, Mac filled the role of a dad protecting his daughter from her bad-boy ex to perfection.

The impulse to hug him rose and fell in me. Opening up to him now would be a huge mistake.

His life was in Faerie, and once I had Shaw, I never wanted to see this side of the realms again.

Ready to diffuse the situation, I nudged Mac. “How do we get in touch with Daibhidh?”

Voice low and respectful, Rook feigned contrition. “He won’t side with you on principle.”

“Considering I just demolished an entire wing in the Halls of Summer,” I parried, “I’m guessing Liosliath wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire. I need this handled before I—” I snapped my jaw shut.

“Our marriage...” Rook’s eyes rounded. “Mother can use our bond to nullify your magic.”

“Please.” I snorted. “This can’t be the first time it’s occurred to you.”

Mottled red splattered his cheeks. Even the tips of his ears glowed.

Crap.
“You never connected the dots?”

“There’s a chance she can’t—” he hedged.

“I will not risk Thierry.” Mac glowered. “Your union will be dissolved. Today. Right now.”

He snagged me by the arm and started dragging me toward the Hall of Many Doors.

“Wait.” Rook lurched after us. “I can help.”

Mac hesitated, causing my eyebrows to rise, and Rook wet his lips.

“I researched the High Court’s references on annulments and divorces after Thierry left for the mortal realm.” He cut me an unapologetic glance. “I wanted to be prepared in case she found a loophole on the other side.”

Mac changed position, lowering his shoulders. “I’m listening.”

“The only way the High Court can annul a marriage without a full hearing—majority or not—is if both parties agree to the separation and if both are willing to swear while holding a truth charm that the marriage was never consummated.” His words tumbled out faster and faster. “Only then can a simple vote dissolve a union.” He stepped closer. “You need me. Let me go with you. I can help. Thierry?”

“You aren’t worried about word of you helping me getting back to your mother?”

Old anger flashed behind his eyes. “She tried to kill me.”

A comment about the world’s smallest violin rose to my lips, but I kept my mouth shut. “Mac?”

“There are ways around it,” he grumbled, “but his cooperation would count in your favor.”

“Then it’s settled.” Rook beamed. “I’ll go with you.”

I put a hand to his chest. “Why are you in such a rush to be helpful all of a sudden?”

“Your incubus is starving to death,” he said flatly. “Whatever you two have been doing is done. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be rushing to find Daibhidh. No. This is the final step. You want to be free of any possibility the Morrigan can twist your magic through our union, and I want to be there when you kill her.” The skin around his eyes tightened. “I want to know it’s over. I want to see it myself.”

I weighed my options. His sincerity when speaking of his hatred for the Morrigan rang true. The thing was, I didn’t know if it stemmed from the loss of his sister, as he claimed, or something else. It was dangerous bringing Rook with us to the Unseelie consul. He might be tricking me—again—into doing what seemed harmless and beneficial then ended up hurting me to further his goals.

For whatever reason, I hadn’t told him about his sister yet. Not that Branwen was alive, though I bet he knew that thanks to their matching charms, and not that I had found her or that I could contact her.

Something told me less was more when it came to how much information I gave Rook.

“Deal,” I said before Mac changed his mind. “Grab what you need. We won’t be coming back.”

Let Rook think his reminder about Shaw had swayed me. Battles required cannon fodder, and as far as I was concerned, by pleading to join our mission, Rook had just volunteered for the position.

Ready. Aim. Bye-bye birdie.

––––––––

E
scorting Rook into the Hall of Many Doors and through a tether answered a few questions. Yes, others could enter the Hall if Mac or I opened the exterior door first. And yes, they could ride a tether as long as one of us opened the interior door, activating the tether, and shoved them through it.

I meant to ask Mac earlier out of curiosity and forgot.
Time
. There wasn’t enough of it, not nearly enough, and I couldn’t afford to spend precious minutes on questions that didn’t matter with Shaw’s hunger rising.

Goose bumps lifted on my arms when a chill breeze greeted us on the other side of the tether. A few leaves whirled around my right ankle, swept off the floor in Autumn. Ice crunched under my left foot, and frigid winds howled in that ear. A barren wasteland sculpted by ice stretched past infinity.

“Mac.” I wet my lips, and ice sheened them. “This is Winter.”

Okay, so it was the border, but standing here was asking for trouble.

Rook’s lips parted, eyes wild, and I began to believe him about his mother wanting to kill him.

Mac raised a hand. “This is the farthest Daibhidh is willing to travel.”

I jabbed Rook in the shoulder. “I thought you said consuls could project their likeness anywhere.”

“They can.” He sidestepped me. “I don’t understand.”

“Daibhidh is meeting us here.” A cunning glint lit Mac’s eyes as he removed a roll of parchment from his air pocket and tapped his temple with it. “Voices and projections can’t sign paperwork, and a verbal agreement isn’t as binding as blood. I want all traces of your bond to my daughter erased. It will cost me more this way, but I don’t see a choice. The Morrigan is too powerful to take chances.”

Except trusting Daibhidh meant taking a chance too when I suspected one or both of the consuls had orchestrated my running in the hunt in an attempt to lure out Mac. Not to mention the matter of a traitor among the magistrates back home. Out in the open, Mac, even as powerful as he was, was in danger in this new fae landscape, so eager to break the shackles he had lovingly applied to Faerie and her people in an effort to foster peace and understanding in the realm.

He was still powerful, but I had made him vulnerable, and his legendary neutrality was eroding.

“Okay.” I toyed with the end of my braid to keep my hands busy. “When do you summon him?”

“I already have.” Mac’s gaze skated over the icy landscape. “He should arrive in a moment.”

A pinpoint of black caught my eye in Winter, and I backed into Rook. His heavy breaths hit my nape, and I elbowed him aside until I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mac. Inhaling did no good. It was too cold, scents locked too close to the ground or stolen by the wind. Great. We were head-blind.

I squinted through the flurries. “Tell me that’s Daibhidh.”

Four more dots joined the first one.

“I knew it was a mistake to come here,” a dry voice rattled behind us.

Startled, I spun around, left hand thrust out and palm glowing.

Faint green light illuminated a walking mound of black rags that hung in artfully tattered lengths like feathers. A gaunt face stared out at me, eyes black and merciless, lips blue and glazed with sleet.

“Easy.” Mac clutched my wrist and lowered my hand. “It’s Daibhidh.”

“That’s Consul to her.” He sniffed, eyes widening on Rook. “I thought you were dead.”

“Not yet,” he muttered sourly.

“Stand out here any longer, and you will be.” The consul shook his robes. “Follow me.”

I spared one last glance behind us. A soft
chirrup
carried to me. “Aves?”

“What else would they be?” Daibhidh glared at me. “Stop wasting my time and move.”

The shuffling figure hustled into Autumn on spry legs, and we three jogged to keep up with him.

“He’s fast,” I panted.

“One has to be if one wishes to avoid being caught,” Daibhidh replied without a hint of strain.

His hearing is top-notch too.

As a stitch tightened my side, the consul glided to a halt beside a collection of boulders covered in damp moss. He strode up to the nearest, placed his palm on top of it and vaulted onto the next one.

He turned back, taking in our awe with a wicked grin. “Well, are you coming?”

Mac mimicked him exactly, but Rook closed his hand over my elbow and held me back.

“Does this look familiar to you?” he whispered.

A memory clicked into place. “No way.”

Rook and I had tried to escape the hunt by climbing these very rocks. We got nowhere thanks to a nasty bit of glamour that made it seem as if we were moving when we had been stuck in an illusion while standing still—in easy reach of the hounds—the whole time. Daibhidh’s rock had almost killed us. Now I wondered if that wasn’t by design.

“I don’t like this.” His grip eased. “The consuls never show themselves.”

As much as I agreed with him, I trusted Mac to get us out of this in one piece.

“We don’t have much choice.” I broke free of him. “Keep your eyes open, okay?”

His lips compressed, but he nodded and gave me room to make the first jump. By the time I reached Mac and Daibhidh, they were standing in the mouth of a cavern. My skin crawled as I picked my way to them. The spell messed with my vision and caused me to stumble where magical feedback interfered with my sight. Sparkles cascaded over Mac’s shoulder, and I stifled a shudder.

I did not like this. Not at all.

Once Rook caught up, we entered the cave ahead, and Daibhidh sealed the glamour behind us.

I went to Mac’s side and waited. “Will the Aves be a problem?”

“They are welcome to try the walls of my home if they wish.” Daibhidh’s robes swirled, tattered edges slapping my legs as he spun and headed deeper in the dark. “All tire of the climb eventually.”

Rook and I shared a glance tinged with remembered frustration.

As much as I wanted to credit him with saving my life and cut the guy some slack, knowing him, he counted on it and was playing me like always. Warped as he was, kindness only confused him.

Speaking of confusing, I was stumped. Daibhidh’s cavern left me scratching my head.

Past the rocky entrance, down a short and murky hall, the space opened into an enormous living room with a glass wall straight ahead. The décor was black-on-black-on-red, typical Unseelie tastes. The floor-to-ceiling windows, though, were an unexpected relief. At least until I remembered what I had discovered about Summer earlier, that their light and crystal was nothing but glamour and deceit.

“Take a seat.” Daibhidh’s hands flew over a series of hooks running down the front of his coat, and he shrugged out of his tattered fabric.

Mac gestured toward a chaise butted against the wall, and I sat. He dropped down beside me. He jerked his chin toward a chair several feet away, and Rook ambled there and took his place. With all of us seated, Daibhidh towered over us. Judging by his preening, he was enjoying presiding over our impromptu gathering.