by Chloe Neill
“And you toss aside your own queen?”
His eyes flashed hot again. “She would rather we die than renew our kingdom.”
“You told her there was a vampire-shifter conspiracy,” I said. “Convinced her the peace talks were some kind of revolution. You’re the reason she broke into the session.”
“She should have fought then and there. We made it inside the room. You were outnumbered and outarmed. But your father spoke, and she lost her nerve . . . as she ever does.”
“And Tomas? The vampire you killed at Cadogan House?” I shifted my gaze to the fairy who’d killed him. “You wanted to implicate the shifters to disrupt the process more?”
Ruadan’s smile was thin. “Disruption is the first step toward revolution. And revolution—upsetting the current order—is the first step toward getting the power and recognition we deserve.” His smile fell away, replaced by a pouty look that would have been better suited to a teenager. “Claudia believes magic and history have sealed our fate. We disagree, and sentimentality is not a weakness we share.”
I thought I’d seen desire in Ruadan’s eyes when he’d looked at Claudia. Maybe he was lying, or maybe it hadn’t been romantic desire at all. Just want and need for something he thought she could provide.
He moved closer, until his magic surrounded us both and I was forced to look up at him, and could see the shadows under his eyes and the fear that lived in them.
“I am too young to fade away, to become a shell of myself. A husk. So we put aside the obstacle to our resurrection.”
“Your queen.”
“She was wrong about this magic. But when we succeed, she will see that we were right, and she will celebrate it.”
“Given you kidnapped her and stuck her in an abandoned church, I doubt that. She’s not nearly as grateful as you seem to think she should be.”
His dark eyes flashed. “She will thank us.”
“For what? Your plan failed. Look around, Ruadan. We aren’t in the green land, and she knows it.” I tried to remember what Claudia had told us, what tampering with the green land would do. “Trying to bring the green land here will only screw up this world. She wanted us to convince you to stop.”
His eyes were mean. “Lies fall from your lips, bloodletter. We haven’t failed. We merely have not yet been successful.” He took a step forward, voice low and menacing. “I saw what you were at Cadogan House, when our magic enhanced the natural bloodthirst of your kind. I saw the red of your eyes, the magic that flows through you. We cannot do this on our own. But we can do it with you.”
Fear was a vise around my heart, a vicious, sharp-tipped hand. I didn’t want Ruadan knowing anything about me, much less about the monster.
“You and I were born at the same time,” he continued. “We were brought here by the same magic, the power that Sorcha spread across the city. That power allowed fairies and vampires to breed again. You and I were born of that same power. That means you can help us.”
For a moment, I simply stared at him, and then nearly laughed in relief.
He’d gotten it wrong. Never mind that I’d been kidnapped, didn’t have a weapon, and was completely outnumbered. The fact that he didn’t know about the Egregore and only thought I was different because Sorcha had sprinkled around some pixie dust loosened that knot in my belly. And I wasn’t about to correct him.
“You think the ley lines aren’t strong enough, but a twenty-three-year-old vampire can help you?”
“I think you don’t give yourself enough credit.”
“I don’t even know how to do that. How to access magic.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” Ruadan said. “We’re going to do it for you. Put her in position,” he ordered, and the fairies behind me prodded me forward again.
Magic began to tingle as thin green vines began to curl between the stones ahead of us. They’d tie me again, and this time there’d be no wolf to cut me free. So it was now or never.
I gasped, pretended to stumble forward. The fairy on my right stepped forward, reached for my arm. I grabbed his wrist, twisted it back, and reached for the knife belted at his waist.
“Secure her!” Ruadan yelled, and the other two fairies moved forward, grabbing my arms and pinning them behind me before I could take the weapon. They pushed me forward toward the crawling vines on the stones, and I began to feel very pessimistic about my chances.
“Begin!” Ruadan ordered, and the fairies held my arms wide while the tendrils curled into place around my left wrist.
The ground began to ripple as they began their magic. Ruadan stepped in front of me and pressed his hand to my wrist.
“Now,” he said, and the world became a blur.
It was like bees had taken up space in my body, an entire hive vibrating and moving beneath my skin as Ruadan sought to pull from me the magic he believed I possessed. But he hadn’t been right about the monster. He’d guessed wrong. And instead of convincing it to link its magic to theirs, he’d only made it angry. It climbed to the surface, claw over claw, and began to scream back its own vibration of magic.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to drown out the roaring tornado of noise in my head, trying to keep from losing my sanity in the vortex.
The monster flexed arm and muscle, and the tendrils at my right wrist snapped, and the magic fluttered in response.
“ATTENTION. ATTENTION.”
Was that Theo’s voice on a loudspeaker?
“YOU ARE SURROUNDED. RELEASE YOUR HOSTAGE AND PROCEED IN AN ORDERLY FASHION TOWARD THE GATE!”
“Do not stop!” Ruadan said as the magic stuttered around us. “Complete the charm!”
Before they could respond, the ground shook. And this time, it didn’t have anything to do with magic. Stones crumbled through the lower part of the outer wall about forty feet away, sending a ball of fire through the gap. Smoke began to pour into the courtyard, and chaos erupted.
I tried to make myself focus despite the spinning in my head and punched out, caught the closest fairy beneath the chin. He hit the ground and I fell on top of him, trying to wrap my fingers around his knife. I began to saw at the vines on my other wrist. But my vision was double, and I struck the ground twice—sending shocks of pain through my arm—before managing to break through a single strand.
Someone grabbed my arm and I swung back, struck out.
“Elisa! It’s me! It’s Theo!”
I stared at him, waiting for his face to come into focus. “Theo?”
“Yeah. Let’s get the hell out of here, okay?”
I blinked, nodded, offered him the knife. “Can you get this one? They magicked me, and I think my aim is off.”
“Sure,” he said, and sawed through the vines.
“What . . . was the noise?” I asked, opening and closing my eyes again until he had only a single head.
“I sacrificed the Auto parked outside.”
“They hacked my Auto account.”
“Yep. You didn’t show this morning, and we couldn’t reach you. Lulu found your katana outside her apartment when she came back from a run, called me. And then Petra checked your account and learned they brought you here. She says she’s sorry about the hacking. And you should change your password. But not until she makes sure you aren’t charged for the entire car.”
“I will do that . . . at the first opportunity. What’s a little privacy violation between friends?”
“My thought,” he said with a smile. “We reported this to the CPD, but dispatch is overwhelmed because of Lincoln Park and the looting and the protests. But let’s discuss that elsewhere.”
We ran across the yard, fairies shouting behind us.
“Doors!” I said, when we got into the gatehouse, and we grunted as we pushed them closed, then flipped the steel bar down to give us more time. Then we ran through the building to the ou
ter wall. And I stared at the empty lawn.
“Where’s your car?”
“Outside the gate,” Theo said as we took off down the stone path.
“You couldn’t park next to the door?” I asked.
“I didn’t want to drive on their lawn. That seemed rude.”
“They kidnapped me.”
“We don’t all have to be assholes.”
We’d made it twenty feet when something whistled over us. We both covered our heads, then stared when an arrow pierced the grass in front of us, still quivering with energy.
Another whistle, and a second arrow pierced the grass a few feet to our right.
“Figures they’ve got damn arrows,” Theo muttered. “Let’s haul ass.”
We pushed harder, arms pumping as arrows whistled through the air like angry hornets. I was faster than Theo, and I was working up a nice lead when I heard the muffled scream of pain behind me.
I looked back. Theo was on the ground, an arrow through his thigh, pinning him to the ground.
“Oh, damn,” I said, and ran back, sidestepping another arrow that nearly tagged my calf.
“Shit,” Theo said as I went to my knees beside him. “Shit.”
“Yeah, you’ve got a little bit of a problem,” I said, and looked it over. The arrow had gone right through the middle of his thigh, spilling blood across the ground. Not enough, I thought, to have nicked his femoral artery. But enough to worry about.
Blood scented the air like wine. And that was enough to silver my eyes.
“Oh, damn,” Theo said, his pupils enormous. Shock was going to be a concern if I didn’t hurry. “You’re not going to—”
“Bite you?” I said with a grin, trying to keep the mood as light as possible. “No. It’s just a reaction to the blood.”
I fought to keep my fangs from descending, as I didn’t want his heart pumping harder than it already was. The point was to keep the blood inside him. Not on the ground, and not in me.
An arrow whistled above us. I ignored it, made myself focus on the arrow that had already become a problem. The shaft was probably a quarter-inch in diameter, and the diameter stayed the same from top to bottom. Based on the length of the other arrows around us, it embedded in the ground four or five inches.
There wasn’t going to be an easy way to do this. Not without pain, and not without risking further injury or keeping him in the open for longer than was safe.
“Theo, I’m going to hold on to the arrow and lift your leg to raise the arrow out of the ground.” Sliding the arrow out of the dirt and threading it through his leg seemed like an injury risk, and while I might be able to snap the arrow in half, I didn’t want to hurt him further.
“As soon as you’re free, I’m going to pick you up and carry you to the car and drive us the hell away from here.”
He swallowed hard. “You’re going to leave the arrow in my leg?”
“For now, yeah. I want someone more skilled to remove it. Someone trained in keeping the blood actually inside your body. My expertise is kind of the opposite.”
“Okay,” he said with a forced smile. “Okay.”
I wiped my hands on my pants, smearing blood and dirt, then reached beneath his leg and gripped the arrow. I put the other hand beneath his knee, prepared to lift his leg straight up. I pulled, but my fingers slipped away, and I ended up slamming my hand into his leg.
“Damn,” he said through his teeth. “Oh, damn.”
“I’m sorry, Theo. One more time, okay? For all the marbles. Brace yourself.” He sucked in a breath, readying himself for the pain. And I didn’t make him wait. I gripped the arrow again. With Theo rigid and shaking beside me, I lifted his leg and managed to keep the arrow in place, removing it from the soil one slow inch at a time.
A volley of arrows made a quick ring around us, a Stonehenge of armament.
“Almost there,” I told Theo, ignoring the flash of an arrow in my peripheral vision. I grabbed his leg, the arrow, and pulled.
He stifled a scream as he was freed.
“Hold the arrow,” I said, then climbed to my feet, pulled him up.
“Put your arm around me,” I said, putting an arm around him and trying to avoid jarring the arrow that still stuck sickeningly through his leg.
“Lean on me,” I said.
“I’m bigger than you,” he said, chin trembling as he fought against the pain.
“I’m a vampire,” I said as we hobbled across the yard toward his car. “But are you made of Adamantium, by chance?”
“No.”
“Or possibly dark matter?”
“No,” he said, the word falling to a grunt as he stumbled a little. “I sure as hell would like to see the goddamn getaway car right now.”
I thought I was losing him, that he was going loopy because of the blood loss, because there wasn’t a single siren on the wind.
Until the enormous black SUV burst through the open gate. It roared toward us, then spun to a stop with a spray of dirt and grass.
And then Connor was throwing open the back door.
“’Bout time,” Theo muttered, and his head slumped against my shoulder.
“I’ll get him,” Connor said, casting a curious glance at the arrow and then picking up Theo with a grunt and loading him into the back of the SUV. He closed the door just as an arrow buried itself in the door panel.
Connor swore. “Eli is not going to like that.”
Another arrow flew overhead, but I couldn’t stop staring. Or smiling. “What the hell are you doing here? You should be in, I don’t know, Iowa by now.”
“Good to see you, too, Lis,” Connor said, and his smile was as cocky as his tone. “Get in the vehicle.”
“I called Connor, too,” Theo said in a singsong voice from the backseat. “And he rode to the rescue again. Really screwed up the lawn, though.”
* * *
• • •
I called Yuen as Connor drove to the nearest hospital, explaining what had happened and arranging to meet him at Cadogan House when Theo was on the mend.
We got Theo situated in the ER, which was full even in the middle of the night, and walked outside to get some air. And talk. Because we needed to talk.
“I thought you were leaving,” I said, when we sat on a bench in a small garden area.
Connor leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I was. And then Theo called, said you’d been taken to the castle. So I borrowed Eli’s SUV, and there you go.”
That this gorgeous man who’d had his pick of women for years seemed flustered in this moment made me relax.
“I guess I owe you for the second rescue.”
He slid a glance my way. “Maybe you do.”
We looked at each other, years of memories and history and insults between us. “What— What is this?” I asked.
“I don’t have the foggiest idea, brat.” He looked down at his linked fingers. “Confusing?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“But also maybe . . .” He trailed off, and then he turned to me again, and then his hand was on my cheek, pulling me closer, and his mouth was on mine, hard and hot and possessive.
I am kissing Connor Keene.
I tried not to think about that, tried not to think about anything, tried not to let rules or roles take me out of the moment. Instead, I put a hand against his chest, grabbed a handful of T-shirt, and pulled him toward me.
He growled happily and deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue between my lips, wicked and teasing.
“Brat,” he said against my mouth.
“Yes?” My voice sounded husky, even to me, and I could feel his smile against mine.
“I’ve got to take care of something,” Connor said. He pulled back and looked at me, and his eyes were swirling and stormy blue. He was almost unfairly gorgeous, lik
e every line had been carefully and intentionally carved.
“You are . . . beautiful,” he said, then kissed me again, softer this time. “I have to get the vehicle back to Eli.” He stood and looked down at me. “Take care of Theo, Lis. I’ll see you.”
I didn’t have the courage to ask him when.
* * *
• • •
Three hours later, Theo hobbled on crutches, his leg thoroughly bandaged, into the waiting room.
“You really should stay overnight,” said the doctor who followed him, and who looked barely older than me.
“Things to do,” Theo said, swinging into the room. “It didn’t hit anything vital, and you gave me some fluids, and I’m now at one hundred percent. And she’s a vampire. You don’t let us go, she might give your blood bank an extra look.”
The doctor gave me a skeptical look before sighing and heading back through swinging doors.
“Ready when you are,” Theo said.
“There’s an Auto outside.” We walked outside, and I got him settled in the backseat. The Auto was too small for his crutches, so the ends stuck through the open windows. But at least we were getting the hell out of the hospital.
“Why did you call Connor?” I asked Theo on the way back to Cadogan House.
“He was the only person I could reach.”
“My parents?”
“Deal with the Ombudsman’s office,” he said. “Sending them to the castle to accost fairies seemed a little over the line, even for me. But they’re so busy, anyway, and the story had a happy ending.” He glanced at me. “I take it he left for Alaska?”
“I’m not entirely sure.” And I didn’t like that I wasn’t sure. But there was nothing to do about that now. “Either way, probably better not to mention that he helped us. At least until he talks to Gabriel or whatever.”
“Not a problem. They tricked you, huh?”
“What?”
“The fairies. They tricked you.” He yawned, dropped his head back on the seat. “You didn’t know they were in the car.”
“Yeah, I guess they did.” And that had me thinking. . . .
