The Darkling Lord: Court of the Banished book 1 (Annwyn Series 4) (7 page)

“When I’m satisfied, she will give a good report.” When he was good and ready. Sending her away too soon wouldn’t help his cause and two could play the game that she wanted to play. He almost smiled, even though he knew it was the wrong reason to sleep with a woman.

“On what, your skills in bed?” Kaid’s voice was like a knife, cutting straight to the heart.

Henry gave a low laugh. He hadn’t had centuries to perfect his skills, so he doubted that he’d measure up to what she could get in Annwyn in that regard. However he didn’t doubt that she was interested. Some things couldn’t be faked, not even by a fairy. “There is nothing to report there.”

“Yet.”

Not even Penn or Marlis spoke to him like this. Challenging him. Did he rely on Kaid too much? Give him too much benefit of the doubt? Would Kaid quite happily turn and eat him if he ever got his bridle back? Henry shivered, and it had nothing to do with the chill in the air.

“I don’t trust her.” Kaid didn’t trust anyone.

“Neither do I.” Henry wasn’t stupid.

“You are blinded by lust, Darkling.”

“And you have never felt the burn of desire?” Seen the heat in a lover’s eyes and craved their touch? But he didn’t say that. That was too personal. Too often he’d been weak and his lover had paid the price. However, that was all old history and he knew better.

Kaid said nothing. He stared out across the Detroit River. A few lights reflected on its surface. Soon it would look like spilled ink littered with diamonds. Even though the veil had been fixed, there was still a taint here and people avoided it, as if they knew by some ancient instinct that it had been the rivers of the Earth that had carried the diseases and brought the world to its knees. When the veil had started tearing the river of the damned had started bleeding through into the rivers of the mortal world which had resulted in the plagues. He’d known the cause and it had still been terrifying.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Kaid took a step closer to the water and inhaled.

“I have a job for you tomorrow.”

Kelpie turned his head a fraction. His eyes were almost black in the growing darkness, but his skin was pale. Like anything fairy, he was pretty, but there was something alien about Kaid that most people recognized even if they couldn’t place. “What kind of job?”

“We need some cows, chickens and seeds.”

“Not this again.” Kaid rolled his eyes, in that moment Henry glimpsed the horse within the man.

“Yes, this again. Take Darah with you.” That would give him some breathing space, test her resolve, and give Kaid a chance to assess her.

“Can I eat her?”

Henry didn’t let the disgust show on his face. Kaid was goading him, looking for a rise. “Annwyn will send someone else. Better the fairy you know.”

Kaid grunted and jumped into the river fully dressed. He turned onto his back and looked at Henry. “And how well do you ever know any fairy, Darkling?”

Then he slipped beneath the surface. Henry scanned the mirror-like surface of the river. Eventually the head of a gray horse emerged. Someone would wake up with a bite and minus some blood.

As Kaid swam across to Belle Island to hunt, Henry knew that the only reason he came back was because of the damn bridle. Loyalty had to be earned, not taken. Henry turned around, but didn’t walk back. Instead he caught a bicycle taxi, and paid the driver well for his troubles. The driver handed over a business card with a cell phone number and offered his services at any hour. Henry thumbed the card before pocketing it.

Perhaps loyalty could also be bought.

It was what the mayor was doing. At some point they would need to meet face to face. At which point they would have to decide who was willing to gamble the most to claim the city.

Should he have aimed lower?

He was sick and tired of aiming low because of what he was. For once he wanted to be recognized. He wanted to be seen. No doubt all of the Greys felt exactly the same way.

D
arah stood
on the balcony of her assigned room. 214. Henry’s casino wasn’t that different to the castle in Annwyn. He had gaming halls and feasting halls and rooms for the closest of his subjects.

An ever-increasing number of subjects.

Now that she had a key she’d moved in, deciding it would be better if she looked committed to the cause. She’d also spent a little more time in the city trying to look past the dirt and smell to see what was really going on.

However people were erratic. They didn’t plan and scheme like fairies. It was much harder to make sense of the mortal world than she’d thought it would be.

She closed her eyes and tried to pretend the city below didn’t exist. She was back in Annwyn, and there were grass and leaves instead of carpet beneath her feet, and the walls of the room were made of the trees that formed the castle.

Home was too far away. This place could never be home. It was too dirty and noisy and full of people. There were more people in one place than there were fairies. It was too crowded and she was trapped.

As usual, she was being watched. She’d almost grown used to the constant shadow and she certainly wasn’t going to acknowledge the spy. Her lips twisted in to a smile. The spy was being spied upon. Her hands gripped the railing. She would do anything to get home.

“It’s not that bad here that you have to think about jumping.”

Darah opened her eyes and turned. Henry was leaning on the door frame, watching.

It was the first time she’d seen him today. She’d been wondering if Marlis had whispered some unpleasant thing in his ear.

She took a moment to enjoy the view inside the hotel. His black shirt was all but untucked from his jeans. Unlike a fairy, his clothing was plain and unadorned. But then he wasn’t fairy.

He’d never seen Annwyn and never would.

However she’d glimpsed his ambition, and for a man afflicted with a soul there was something rather captivating about him. Although the knife edge of the situation could be responsible for the increase in her heartbeat.

“I was contemplating the differences between Annwyn and the mortal world.”

“Ah, you do realize that one city doesn’t represent the whole world?”

“Of course.” She’d watched the news on television, but it had all seemed rather similar to her.

The seconds ticked by. She had to make a move one way or the other. “Did you want to come in?”

He gave a single nod and peeled himself off the doorframe. Perhaps she should’ve closed her door, but she wanted to appear accessible. “Thank you. A gentleman always waits for a Lady’s permission.”

“I doubt you were ever a gentleman.”

His gaze narrowed for a moment. His blue eyes were as pale and unreadable. “I wasn’t born one, but I have taken the place of many.”

She bet he had, but she hadn’t meant her comment as a jab, merely an observation. “After taking their souls?”

“I needed an identity and I wanted to live well.” He displayed his palms as if his reasons were obvious and that he had nothing to hide.

How had Annwyn never noticed him before? But she knew the answer. The Court had been wrapped up in their own games. Perhaps one darkling had been nothing to be concerned about while the old Queen was upsetting the balance.

She sat down on the bed and beckoned him to join her. There was nowhere else to sit together in the small room. He didn’t shut the door, but he joined her. That was progress. He’d been pushing her away ever since the kiss. Because he didn’t trust her—smart move and one she could respect—or because others, like Marlis, had warned him away?

That odd man, Kaid, didn’t trust her. He was definitely not human, and even though she could feel the magic of Annwyn round him, he was like no fairy she’d ever met. Was he wild fae? But that didn’t seem right either, as wild fae avoided cities and Annwyn and didn’t usually look that human.

She didn’t like people she couldn’t work out. If she couldn’t work them out, it meant that she had no leverage. At the moment the only leverage she had with Henry was that he was attracted to her, even if he wasn’t acting on it. He needed to act.

“So is Henry Saint one of the personas you stole?”

He nodded. “I have been Henry Saint many times over the last century. I am my own great grandson at the moment.”

Of course no mortal would accept that a man could live for decades without aging. “What is your real name?”

“I have no idea what my mother called me.” He looked away, his gaze landing on the television. The reporter was talking about high unemployment despite the decreased population and the need for new businesses to start up. The feed cut to farming communes in the southern states. For some reason, it was like looking into the past. Then she realized animals were drawing ploughs and every woman was dressed in long skirts and was either pregnant or holding a baby. The farmers were talking about their success and how returning to the bible was the way forward.

“Going back is not going forward.” Henry said as he shook his head.

“But isn’t that what you want to do?”

“Not like that. I want it to work because people want it to work, not because they have been compelled or they have nowhere else to go.”

“At least they have food.” That seemed to be rather intermittent here.

Henry shook his head. “I’d rather go hungry than lose my free will to a man who simply wants to enforce his world view on everyone else. That is what he is doing. Who there looks happy?”

Spoken like a true fairy. Free will was everything. It was the one guarantee, which was why deals were always carefully considered, as they chipped away at free will and narrowed the path.

Felan had swept away all the old guideposts and people were struggling to find new ones. It might have been smarter to make small changes, although she had to concede he had discovered who were his friends and foes very quickly this way.

She looked at the people on the screen. Not one was smiling, except the man in charge. No one had been smiling in Annwyn either toward the end. She’d watched and noticed even if she hadn’t been able to take part. Being a shadow at that point had been a blessing through the transition, as it meant that the old Queen had no power to coerce her and all shadows looked the same so she’d been unidentifiable. She’d been faceless and nameless. For the most part it had been awful.

But this wasn’t Annwyn. And while the farmer’s subjects were unhappy, they were unified. Henry didn’t have that control, in part because he had no rules of his own. Even Felan had brought in new laws to gain control. A leader must lead. Although a good leader didn’t attempt to squash the will to live out of the people.

“You already have dissent among the Greys and exiled—”

“They are free to leave. I came here to make an investment and turn a profit. To help a city that I once loved, and that took me in. I want to create something. To do something worthwhile instead of taking so that I might live. I didn’t come here to build an empire or rule a bunch of Greys.” He looked away as though admitting his ambition only went so far was a sin.

That was interesting. The Greys around him weren’t part of his plan. His plan wasn’t about Annwyn at all. He was afraid that he’d vanish without note just like most other mortals. However he wasn’t entirely mortal, or fairy, and he was caught in the middle. Never aging and always having to reinvent himself so people didn’t realize what he was. He was always erasing who he was. “Even if the humans don’t know your name.”

He gave her a small smile. “Yeah.”

Henry didn’t know it yet, but what he wanted was to be the Darkling King of Detroit. He wanted to rule by giving the people their freedom—even though it wasn’t what mortals were used to—the same way as it worked in Annwyn.

For a moment though, he looked lonely, his blue eyes haunted. Maybe he was. He couldn’t take mortal lovers as he’d kill them. The only people he could hang around with were Greys. Ugh, depressing. Did he sleep with Greys aside from Marlis? Darah was sure that something had gone on there. Not all Greys were ugly, at least not at first. Had he made the mistake of having a mortal lover only to learn what happened? The questions burned her tongue. She hadn’t lied when she’d said that he intrigued her.

“What about you? What do you want?” His gaze sharpened as if seeking a lie.

She could avoid the truth, omit and dance around the edges, but that wouldn’t get her any closer. She was aware that even though they were sitting only inches apart, the distance between them was more than she could bridge with a single touch. “I want to go home.”

“To Annwyn.”

Darah nodded. “All fairies want to go home, even the Greys who act as though they have made peace with their fate.”

He shook his head as though she couldn’t be more wrong. “I don’t want to go there.”

“But are you truly fairy? Changelings aren’t, I mean not really. They are mortal, but have some small magic from their fairy blood. You are something else…not mortal, not fairy and yet you need a soul to live.” She frowned as she watched him. “Perhaps in Annwyn you wouldn’t need a soul; you could stop killing and just be.”

“Be what? I know you have a strict hierarchy there. I am not naïve when it comes to Annwyn and fairies…though I must admit I haven’t met many Court fairies.”

“Ah, but you have met some.” How many and what offers had they made him?

“One. Many years ago, a powerful Lord paid me a visit. Told me what I was and warned me against killing for fun or profit. I started haunting hospitals on my birthday after that…and then eventually the gutters. My body isn’t fussy about the quality.”

“And you steal it with a kiss.”

A slow, single nod. He gaze was on her. She could see the desire in his eyes, reflecting her own. The heat made her ache. Her skin craved to be touched. That was the cruelty of being a shadow, beyond the loss of status or name—the loss of touch and friendship of any kind. Each shadow lived in a bubble of their own existence with plenty of time to reflect on their crimes and serve the Court in reparation.

“I could give you more than a kiss.” Her voice dropped to a soft purr, the kind that made human men drop to their knees to worship her body. Henry watched her more intently, as if expecting a trick.