by Helen Harper
“You can go now, Staines.” Corrigan’s voice was so quiet that I barely heard him.
Staines blinked and immediately relaxed, bowing his head and moving past me towards the door. My mouth hung open slightly in shock. Jesus, Staines had been ready to murder me a scant moment ago. That was some serious self-control. My eyes followed his departure, opening the wooden door behind Corrigan and stepping out, shooting me just one quick look of undisguised hatred, before he closed it and disappeared from sight. Corrigan for his part didn’t move a muscle.
“That’s what loyalty is, Mack,” he said softly. “Something that seems to be in short supply as far as you’re concerned.”
I stared at him, my mouth suddenly clawed to the roof of my mouth. Despite his calm voice, the tension seeping from every muscle of his body coupled with the hard glint in his eye belied his anger. He took a step towards me. I took a step back.
Running an irritated hand through his black as night hair he spoke again. “You do realise that I almost caused an interagency war on your behalf?”
I regained my voice. “Er…I’m not quite sure what you mean.”
“The mages. I thought they’d captured you.” He smiled mirthlessly. “I was coming to rescue you. But of course I didn’t know that you actually were one of them.”
I almost howled. “Corrigan, I’m not fucking one of them! They’ve done something to a friend of mine and I’m trying to make it right.”
He folded his arms across his chest. I tried not to notice the way his muscles bulged and rippled. “So explain to me, Mackenzie, how you suddenly happen to have magical powers.”
“I don’t have magical powers! How many times do I need to say that I’m not a fucking mage? As I said to your bitch slapped minion there, some witch up in Scotland put this necklace on me. Now I have freaky green flames that shoot from my fingertips. Up until last week, the most magic I could perform was pissing off everyone I came into contact with.”
A ghost of smile flickered across his face but was gone so quickly I thought I’d imagined it. “Well, I’ll give you the part about pissing people off, sweetheart. And yet,” he paused, his green gold eyes flashing sparks of ire, “you also appear to inspire the most bizarre acts of loyalty.”
“I thought you said that loyalty was in short supply as far as I was concerned.”
“Oh, on your part certainly. But tell me, if you are not a mage then why do your little Cornish friends refuse to open their mouths to state one single truth about you, even when I compel them to do so?”
I took a deep breath and raised my eyes to meet his. It was now or never. “It’s a geas, Corrigan. My mother dumped me with the Cornish pack when I was a kid and some kind of geas was placed on everyone to prevent them from revealing that I was human. It’s not their fault. It’s not the fault of anyone in Cornwall – they had no choice. You can’t invoke Brethren law against them when they couldn’t have done anything about my being there even if they’d wanted to.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. “You expect me to believe that you’re human? You can take down otherworld creatures that send the best of my shifters running for the hills, and you’re human?”
I shrugged and tried to smile. Corrigan circled the room with visibly coiled feline grace, before stopping right in front of me.
“I suppose on one level it makes sense. You never did smell quite right. You refused to shift for so long as well. And the alpha - Anton? That’s one of the reasons why he hates you so much.”
I jumped on the opportunity to put the Cornish pack in the clear. “Yes! He wanted me gone for years. We know it’s forbidden for humans to have knowing contact with the pack. He wanted to protect them. So, you see, Corrigan, it’s not their fault, you can’t hurt them.”
He looked momentarily puzzled. “Why would I hurt them?”
I stared at him as if he was stupid. “Because they harboured a human.”
The cloudy expression on his face abruptly cleared and Corrigan’s tired eyes suddenly gleamed. “Ah, yes, I see. And you think it’s against the law for shifters to consort with humans. There’s an easy way to solve that, you know.” He smiled predatorily. “I’ll just transform you. I don’t know why no-one did that before. Did your previous alpha not consider it?”
I let out a small squeak. Yes, he’d fucking considered it. He’d even tried it, but the bloody dragon part of me had rejected the change.
Corrigan’s eyes raked over my body. “I’m quite sure that you’ll end up being something slightly different to the were-hamster you were passing yourself off as. Problem solved.” He made to move towards me and I panicked and scuttled backwards until my back was against the wall.
“What’s the matter, kitten? Do you have something against shifters?”
“Fuck off, Corrigan. No, I don’t have anything against shifters. I consider my family to be shifters.”
“Nobody else has dared to tell me to fuck off for years,” he mused quietly, moving towards me until he was bare inches away from me. I prepared to move to my right to get away from him, but he placed both hands on the wall around me, effectively creating a cage. I could smell his deep musky scent and felt the bloodfire inside me respond with instinctual feeling. Oh god.
Corrigan tilted his head and seemed to see the state of my face for the first time. A strange expression flitted across his features. “You’re hurt,” he said softly, brushing his fingers against my wounded cheek.
I flinched and he scowled.
“Well, that’s what happens when you get shoved into a cage and tortured by a crazed mage with nothing but blood vengeance on his mind,” I said lightly.
The steely arms on either side of me tensed and I saw, not just sensed his shoulders jerk back with anger. Why the fuck was he angry? I was the one who kept being taken bloody prisoner by every single faction of the sodding otherworld.
“The Arch-Mage assured me that you were alright,” he growled.
“And I am.” I’d have stretched out my arms at that point to prove just how alright I was, apart from the fact that they were still bound tightly behind my back – Corrigan’s arms were still caging me against the wall.
“I will have words with him.”
“Jesus, Corrigan, I’m not a shifter. You don’t need to get all worked up on my behalf. I’m just a human. Now, please, tell me that you will leave my friends alone.”
I stared into his face, praying that he’d give me – and them – some leeway. He leaned in even closer, until I could feel his hot breath against my neck.
“As I said, kitten, I will transform you and then there will be no debt to be satisfied. You will become a shifter and stay here in London.” He paused and then licked his lips. “At my beck and call.”
Oh dear god. “You can’t do that, Corrigan.”
“I’m the Lord Alpha. I can do whatever what I want. Besides, your transgressions mean that you owe me. You owe the Pack.”
“Yes, but…” I started to stutter.
He interrupted. “But I can’t transform you. Not because you don’t want to be a shifter, but because you physically can’t be transformed.” He looked straight at me, confirming the truth of his words before continuing. “And the only reason that couldn’t work would be because you’re already not human. Your scent already tells me that. And I assume that this is your real scent that is assailing the air not some faked aroma that you have cooked up somehow. Not only that but you can hear and initiate the Voice. No human could do that. Do you think I’m a total idiot? You might have played me for a fool thus far but the buck stops here. With me.”
The look in his eyes was suddenly absolutely terrifying. I swallowed.
“So, Mack, if you are not a mage, and you are not a shifter, then what the fuck are you?”
“I said it before, Corrigan,” I obfuscated. “I’m nothing, no-one. I’m not trying to cause you or the Pack problems. In fact I’ve been doing my best to keep the hell away from the lot of you. Now, please, tell me y
ou are going to leave Cornwall alone.”
He snarled at me. “Tell me what you are and then I will leave them alone.”
Goddamnit. The bloodfire rose in my stomach in nervous panic. I tried to think. It didn’t really matter if Corrigan knew that I was a Draco Wyr if it meant that Julia, Tom, Betsy and the rest would be safe. But Iabartu had thought I was important enough for her to come to this plane to fight for. And Solus thought that my blood could be of use to the Fae. What if the Lord Alpha thought that he could use me to for some kind of nefarious Brethren means? It wasn’t as if I knew him all that well and now that he knew I wasn’t a shifter he’d have no reason to care whether I was dead or alive. I had no idea what the extent of my dragon blood actually meant, only that some people – some demi-goddesses at least- would kill for it. And my mother had abandoned me with the Pack apparently because of it, too. What if I told Corrigan and then he still destroyed the Cornish pack anyway and then took his newfound knowledge and did something terrible with it?
“You don’t trust me.” He said it matter of factly but the tic in his cheek was back again.
“I hardly know you,” I answered.
“You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know me, kitten.”
I was confused. “What do you mean?”
He gave a short sharp laugh. “You cause trouble wherever you go. It seems far more prudent to keep you here where I can keep an eye on you.”
“You can’t do that!” I was suddenly alarmed.
“Why not?” He asked smoothly. “You tell me what you really are. I don’t hurt your little country friends. You stay here.”
My eyes widened. “Oh no no no no no, my Lord,” I protested, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t ‘good’ enough to call him that. “I need to go back to the mages.”
He suddenly stilled. “And why is that?”
“My friend, Corrigan. The one I told you they’d done something to? They’ll only release her if I go back to them.”
“Go back to them and do what?”
“Some weird mage training programme. Not that I’m a mage, as I keep telling you,” I said hastily, “but they seem to think that it means I won’t misuse my potential for power, such as it is. All I can really do is the green fire stuff and that clearly runs out of juice before I manage to do much.” I gazed beseechingly up at his tanned face, trying to avoid losing myself in his liquid gold eyes. “I gave them my word. And they won’t help my friend unless I keep my promise.”
He lifted a shoulder in an elegant shrug. “It’s of no matter. I’ll talk to them.”
I exploded in a fury of heat. “Fucking hell, Corrigan! It is of matter. I promised them I’d go back. And I am not going to let my friend down.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is this a special friend?”
“Of course, she’s a fucking special friend, you prat!”
He smiled oddly at that and relaxed. “Well, you have a choice to make then, kitten. Either you save your Cornish friends and stay here, or you save your special friend and go to the mages.” He moved back and grinned wolfishly. “Your choice.”
“What is with you and your megalomania? Why do you need me to stay here? After all, Corrigan, all I seem to do is piss you off. Just do the right thing for once and let the Cornish pack off and let me go.”
“Well, no, I don’t think I’ll do that, kitten. If the Ministry and the Arch-Mage think that you’re so bloody important that they’re going to send you to their academy and train you even though you insist that you are not a witch, then you must be something special.” The green sheen in his eyes became more pronounced. “And that means that I want you too.”
I shook my head in exasperation. I didn’t really understand what was going on at all. I’d assumed that Corrigan would immediately go running off to fulfill the Brethren’s need to keep their existence a secret and punish Cornwall. But he seemed far more interested in me, than in any of them. I thought back over everything that he’d said. I realised that he’d initially seemed puzzled that I thought that he was going to hurt the Cornish pack. Either that meant that they were of so little consequence to him that he really didn’t care what happened to them or he’d never had any intention of meting out the famed Brethren purge. Everything I’d always been told – and certainly everything that the Cornish pack, John included, had always believed was that if the Brethren knew that a human had been let into the shifter secret, then everyone in that pack would be destroyed as a result. But maybe that was wrong. If only my brain and my bloodfire were both a little less cloudy then I might be able to think my way out of this. The toll of the mages’ inquisition and the fight with the shifters was becoming apparent.
I looked at Corrigan who was staring at me with an unfathomable expression on his face. My eyes flicked down towards his wrist. Just visible under the impeccably tailored and brilliantly white linen shirt he was wearing was a gold watch. It was typically expensive looking. No expense spared for the magnificent Lord Alpha, I thought sardonically. I craned my neck ever so slightly. It was just after 6. It had be 6 in the evening because it had been light outside when the tiger brought me in. That meant I’d only been out for an hour at the most. And that meant that I still had just under fifteen hours to make good on my promise to the mages.
“I need a break,” I announced.
Corrigan arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow. Jesus, was everything about this guy perfect?
“In the last twenty-four hours, I have stormed the Ministry, been interrogated, been attacked and been kept against my will. I am tired. I need a break to think over what you have said.” I pasted a fake smile on my face. “Pretty please?”
He hesitated for the briefest moment and then snapped off a short grunt of agreement and turned to the door.
“Uh, Corrigan?”
He twisted his neck back towards me. “What?”
I jerked my head down and back in the vague direction of my bound hands. “Can you…?”
“No. Don’t push your luck, Mackenzie,” he growled. “I’ll send someone to tend to your wounds.”
“I don’t need anyone to look after me,” I started to call after him, but he was out the door too quickly and my complaint was swallowed up into the small room. I gave myself a brief nod, however. I had a bit of breathing space and a bit of time.
Chapter Twenty-Two
After Corrigan’s departure, the silence in the room was almost deafening. My wrists chafed under the bindings and I cursed him out loud for not loosening them even slightly. What exactly did he think I was going to do? I was surrounded by hundreds of shifters; I was hardly a danger.
Sighing loudly, I leaned against the wall and let my legs relax till I slid down and hit the floor. It seemed to be my lot to keep being trapped in little rooms. I supposed that at least this one didn’t have a magical cage stuck inside it. Without any idea about when Corrigan would return, and aware that my time was limited anyway because I had to get back to the mages, I closed my eyes. I was in desperate need of some rest, even if just for an hour, if I was going to have any chance of doing verbal battle with the Lord Alpha. Almost immediately I felt myself drifting off into sleep.
Usually, when I’m tired enough to fall asleep within heartbeats, I don’t dream. Something about the setting perhaps and the stress of the last twenty-four hours changed all that. I dreamt that I was standing in a ring of fire. Mrs Alcoon was with me, holding a cup of herbal tea and flicking hot droplets of it at me with her finger.
“You let me down!” she screeched. “I gave you a job! I took you in! Now look at me!”
I tried to speak but no words came out. From the other side of the fire circle, Alex and Arch-Mage grinned at me. “You can’t trust a dragon, Your Magnificent Sublime Most Fantastical Highness,” said Alex.
“You’re right, Mage Florides,” commented the Arch-Mage. “We have no choice but to exterminate the old lady.”
He flicked a finger and I stared in horror as Mrs Alcoon let out a blood-cu
rdling scream and vanished in a puff of blue smoke. The cup of tea that she had been holding smashed on the floor but, instead of the remnants of tea spilling from it, thick oozing blood trickled towards me.
“It’s no good, my Lord,” stated Anton solemnly. “We knew she wasn’t a shifter. You’ll have to kill us all.”
From the other side of the circle, Corrigan looked at me and winked, blowing me a kiss from his chiseled lips, then with one swipe of a massive furry black paw, cuffed Anton so hard on the side of his head that it came clean off his shoulders and rolled to the edge of the flames.
The bodyless Anton continued talking. “It’s all your fault, Mackenzie Smith. All your fault. All your fault.”
The repetitive phrase banged inside my skull. I felt heat inside me, and smelled burning. Looking down, I realised that where the blood from the teacup had touched me I was burning, my clothes and skin blackening into charcoal. I tried to run away but the flames were pinning me on all sides and smoke was rising and getting into my eyes and my throat.
I could hear Julia’s voice although by this point I could no longer see her. “It’s all your fault, Mack.”
John joined me in the circle and looked at me sadly, shaking his head. “I had such high hopes for you. You’ve just let me down.”
I started to scream; heat and terror and anguish all mixing up inside me. I couldn’t breathe, it was all too much, I couldn’t do anything…
“Red? Wake up!” A hand was shaking my shoulder.
I blinked myself out of the dream and managed to sit up. “Tom?”
“You were having a nightmare. Jesus, Red what the hell have you been doing?”
Although it had only been a scant day or two since I’d seen him at the restaurant, I was so happy to see a friendly face that I almost cried. I tried to fling my arms around him, forgetting that they were still tied behind my back, and just succeeded in sprawling myself across the floor by his feet. Tom bent down and gently brought me back up to a sitting position.
