Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  "Trobhadaibh, the man said. "Come here," she heard.

  She stood still. Sean smiled his slow, mocking, lovely smile and shook his head.

  "You don't want me to release her yet," Sean said, while her mind stepped between sound and meaning. "This exquisite little kitten has claws and teeth."

  He turned to Maureen, and she melted under his gaze. "My dear, allow me to introduce Dougal MacKenzie, self-styled Laird of the Clan MacKenzie. He aspires to be your husband, your lord and master. I wish you joy of each other."

  He smiled again, as if mocking Dougal, and her, and even himself.

  "But...."

  "Bi samhach."

  Maureen's heart sank. She wanted Sean, not this strange caricature of a man. But Sean told her to be quiet, so she bit off the words and closed her mouth.

  He turned back to Dougal. "She's under a glamour now. Unless you want to take up the reins of it, I would suggest something more substantial to hold her. She can be dangerous."

  "I know how to handle dangerous animals," the little man rasped. "Padric, the irons."

  Blinking, Maureen noticed a third man. She had centered her whole existence on Sean to the point she barely knew where she was standing.

  Now she saw beyond her god, as if he had let her eyes loose to learn her new world. Padric, this one was called: tall, thinly muscular, dressed in battered leather coat and a pair of green twill pants over worn black boots. His eyes looked sad under long blonde hair, guarded, as if he was used to doing things he'd rather not talk about.

  He carried circlets of iron joined by thin chains. They burned with a peculiar cold heat when he locked them around her throat, around her wrists in front of her, around her ankles.

  Maureen jerked at the touch, eyes wide and appealing to Sean. Why did he allow this?

  "Sorry, love, we have a deal. I give Dougal what he wants; he gives me what I want. You may be very beautiful, but I'm not prepared to take the risk of keeping you. Dougal likes living dangerously. I have other needs."

  He turned away from her. "Dougal, old boy, I promised that no one would take her without her consent. I trust you won't make a liar of me."

  "Och, no," the little man drawled. "She will ask me to bed her before we are done. She will beg me. And nothing we do will mark this beautiful maiden--no scars, no blood, no fire. Just simple discipline and training."

  Sean gave Maureen a long look that drew flame to her cheeks. "Maiden? I think not. A virgin wouldn't have reacted the way she has to the glamour, wouldn't have such vivid thoughts of the smell and feel of a lover. Such complicated thoughts. She's known men before and doesn't like the species. She's more dangerous than your hawks and beasts. Don't blame me when you find her pulling your keep down around your ears."

  The heat faded from Maureen's belly, leaving sour ice behind. The word "glamour" echoed in her ears. That was the emotional touch Brian had used, to calm her after Liam's death and the strip-club fire.

  She was trapped.

  Kidnapped.

  Brian had tried to warn her. "Don't trust Fiona," he'd said. "Don't trust Sean. The Old Ones don't have what you'd call a conscience." What they could do, they did, no matter what pain it caused to others.

  She snarled and threw herself at Sean, hands out and fingernails turned to claws. Her feet jerked out from under her, and she smashed full-length into the forest dirt. She rolled, spitting rotten leaves, scrambling to kick and scratch and bite the slimy bastard who did this to her, to claw his eyes out and loop her wrist-chains around his throat and strangle him.

  Her feet jerked away again and dragged her backwards, twigs and leaves gouging into her bare skin where her blouse rode up along her back. The pull turned upward and she swung by her ankles, head just clear of the ground, thrashing around and screaming at three sets of feet.

  She finally calmed enough to see the thin chain hooked to the shackles around her ankles, then looped up over a low branch and held by Padric. A leash. They had her on a fucking leash, like some kind of dog.

  Maureen spat, again and again, until she cleared her mouth of all the forest trash. "I'll kill you! I'll kill every single fucking one of you!"

  Sean smiled that mocking smile again. "Too bad she isn't wearing skirts, Dougal. Pants just aren't as interesting in this position."

  Maureen's blouse hung loose around her neck, and that fucking bra-snap had popped open again so her breasts bounced free as she swung. She snarled and curled up, to reach the chain hooked to her ankles, but Padric yanked it higher and she fell back. Now even her hands didn't reach the ground.

  She twisted, helpless, jerking like a hooked fish. She didn't even try to cover herself, to hide her flushed breasts from their greedy eyes.

  "Okay, you bastards. Go ahead and rape me! Three strong men against one woman, you should be able to do it!"

  She glared at each of them, through her tears. If they'd just come close enough . . . . Sean looked amused, Padric frightened, while Dougal licked his lips as if he was considering her challenge. She hoped he'd try. She'd strangle him with his own goddamned chains.

  Sean's quiet chuckle broke the silence. "I warned you, Dougal," he said. "Now you begin to understand what you've bought. I hope you still plan to pay."

  The gnome spat. "Oh, I'll help you capture your Pendragon. He'll come after her, right into our trap. And this little wildcat won't be that hard to tame. I've handled worse--bigger, stronger, and with real claws."

  Pendragon.

  Brian.

  Trap.

  She'd let her guard slip because her paranoia was more afraid of Brian than of real dangers. She'd turned off her fucking brain when she walked into the Quick Shop, and ended up in chains. Ended up as bait.

  Dougal stepped forward, expertly snagged her wrists, and snapped a second chain to those shackles. Then he tweaked her right nipple with his free hand, spun her around to smack her butt like a horse turned out to pasture, and motioned Padric to let her down.

  She thumped limp on the ground. Brian! she screamed, but only in her mind. The thoughts kept circling through her terror. He'd warned her. Now he was in danger because of her stupidity. And he was still hurt.

  She rolled to her knees, shaking herself. Padric loosened the chain from the limb overhead, giving her an instant's slack. She flung herself at him. Her arms snapped around against her motion, nearly ripping her shoulder joints apart, and she thumped back to the ground. A scream tore loose from her throat.

  Chains bit into her wrists. Chains chewed on her ankles. They pulled her taut between them, stretched helpless face-up on the forest floor. Fury gave her the strength to pull against them, and she gained an inch, six inches, a foot, before the raging fire in her shoulders stopped her.

  She lay rigid between the chains, panting. Tears streamed from her eyes and matted the tangled hair across her face. Something blurry hung over her head, dark and calm and sleek.

  "You'll only damage yourself, love," the blur said, with Sean's voice. "Dougal would be most upset if you scarred your pretty face. And those magnificent breasts of yours, so small yet womanly, so firm, so perfectly proportioned to your chest: you must protect them for the children you will suckle. You'll be a mother within a year, love."

  Cold clarity struck through Maureen like a flash of lightning. "And you'll be dead before the full moon shines upon your face. Your own treachery will kill you."

  "Ah, 'tis prophecy she's giving to us, Dougal. The witch blood speaks. You'll notice she even calls upon the sacred goddess of the night to witness her revenge. Do you have a fate to offer Dougal, love? Care to bring the heaven's wrath down on our unhappy Padric?"

  Her throat made words, without her will; they echoed strangely. "Padric will bring his own fate upon himself. As for Dougal, if he dares to taste my body, its fires will burn his body into ash. Beware."

  "The oracle speaks," Sean mocked her. "Maybe you should sell this lovely wench to a whorehouse, Dougal, her favors are so dangerous. That's an absurdly high price
for a piece of ass. Find yourself another bitch to breed your bloodlines."

  The chains pulled tighter. Maureen grunted, gritting her teeth against another scream. She wouldn't give them the pleasure of it.

  "A week," Dougal said, yanking again, "two weeks at the most. No bird or beast has ever taken more. She'll dine at my table when there's no food elsewhere; she'll wear the clothes of a proper woman when her choice is to go naked. She'll sleep with me, willingly, when that's the only sleep she'll get. What woman has the fierce will of a hawk or hunting cat?"

  Father Oak, she prayed, protect me. That was your limb they strung the chain across. Drop it on Sean's head. Trip his feet with your roots, burn him with the acid of your bark and acorns, smother him in the litter of your last-year's leaves. Call on the forest to lash thorns across his eyes, raise up the rotted dead to clasp his ankles, breathe poison from the flowers and fruits. Father Oak, protect me.

  Iron burned at her throat and swallowed her words. Her wrists and ankles caught an icy fire separate from the scrape of tension in the chains.

  Iron.

  Morgan had feared iron in White's tale of Arthur--the cold iron which had replaced the Old One's flint and bronze. Iron defeated magic. The shackles bound spirit as well as body.

  So Brian had been right. She bore Power, the Power of the Blood, and the bastards trapped her Power as neatly as they'd trapped her body. They knew her better than she knew herself.

  Brian, forgive me. I've done this to you, led you to a trap. I've led you to your death.

  The chains slackened again, and she curled in upon herself. Her bladder burned with the pressure of her fear. She fought against adding that to her humiliation.

  Dougal looked down on her, his form made even more lumpish by the blurring of her tears. "You can walk and have some dignity, or we can carry you on a game-pole like a gutted pig. It's your choice."

  "Carry me, you bastard!" Then words formed again in her throat, words that seemed to rise up out of the dirt pressing against her bare skin, words that were not truly hers but belonged to the land and to all women. Even the burning iron at her throat couldn't freeze her voice.

  "May the axe turn in your hands when you go to cut the tree, may the falling trunk drive branches through your skull, may the bark blister your hands at the touching of it. May the sap poison you, may the splinters of the tree's flesh drive into your own flesh and fester there." She gasped for breath.

  "I curse you by the forest, I curse you by the meadow, I curse you by the mountain and the river. I curse you by the bog and by the well and by the roof-beam of your fucking house!"

  "Such a lovely tongue the lass has in her head," mocked Sean. "And I was thinking the Celtic blood ran thin in her."

  Dougal spat, just missing her bare belly. "Padric, cut a pole."

  She saw Padric hesitate before tying her ankle-leash to a tree, with a glance at her that might have been fear if she could read his face clearly through her tears. He moved slowly and carefully, selecting a slim tree well free of any others. So a curse could truly bite, in this world?

  Sean stepped away with a negligent wave of his hand. Frown-wrinkles ringed his eyes, though, as if even his mockery was troubled by the words using her throat. Suddenly, she saw blood in his eyes and strangling green fingers wrapped around his throat. His vision-mouth screamed in agony.

  The vision faded even as she drank it in.

  "Dougal, my friend, I will leave you to your lady-love. I must prepare a greeting for my beloved brother. You will remember to tell your pets to let me pass?"

  The gnome chuckled. "If you are such a mighty mage, friend, none of my pets should be a threat."

  "Oh, I just don't want to hurt them. You might be angry with me. Some of them would be so hard to replace."

  Padric returned with a thick pole, stripped of limbs. No matter how she thrashed against the jerking chains, she couldn't fight them as they slipped the pole between her wrists, between her ankles. And then she was swaying, hanging, bumping against rocks and tree-trunks and clawing thorns, with the cold iron rings gouging fiery pain into the skin of her wrists and ankles.

  Warm blood trickled down her wrists, and she concentrated on the feel of it, struggling to block out the pain of its source. Fire stabbed at her shoulders as if muscles or tendons had torn loose in her struggles, and slowly ripped further with each bounce and swing of the trail.

  "Pain is optional," Brian had told her, one time while she re-taped his ribs. "You can overcome pain with an effort of your will and mind. Concentrate on something greater, on survival or on revenge, and the pain will go away. Pain is optional."

  Bullshit, her critic answered. Pain is nature's way of telling you that you just fucked up.

  Her head throbbed along with the beat of the trail--a dizzy, nauseated migraine of a hangover like her worst morning-after ever. Was it from Sean's glamour, or from her own thwarted Power, or just her raging hatred? She twisted sideways against the agony of her shoulders and vomited in great racking spasms.

  Dougal and Padric walked on, ignoring their burden. They followed a clear trail, beaten as if well traveled but by men or horses only. It was too narrow and rough for carts.

  Watch the path, the voice in Maureen's head ordered her. Ignore the pain; ignore the rampage in your belly. You are going to escape. You'll need to know your way through this forest.

  She marked down a rounded lump of rock through the woods, here, a massive grandfather beech, there. The path dropped into a gentle valley or glen, down to a brook crossed by a ford, the feet of the men splashing quietly. Then the trail rose again, through switchbacks on a steeper pitch, the ground rising as if Dougal set his keep upon the heights, for a view or for defense.

  Padric's foot slipped, and he cursed. Maureen matched him word for word and topped him, as the jerk lanced through her body and struck fire from wrists and ankles and shoulders and head. She vomited again, the twisting of her belly just adding to the white heat agony.

  Pain is nature's way of telling you that you just fucked up.

  Fucked up, big-time.

  Maureen cursed between the jolts and the spasms in her belly, silently but fluently. She wouldn't believe one man who was kind of nice, wouldn't obey a rational warning. Now she was trussed up like an animal for a zoo. Now she was helpless, a slave to men who wanted to breed her like she was some kind of fucking cow.

  No, pig. Cut the mixed metaphors, Maureen. Hanging from a game-pole like a gutted pig, the bastard said. Pig-headed Maureen.

  Heads floated into her nightmare.

  She saw heads by the trail, skulls, on poles. The bastard decorated his path like a cannibal, for Chrissakes. They stared at her with sightless hollows for eyes, the same bleak stare her vision had placed on Sean's head just before he left.

  The head was where the soul lived. She remembered Grandfather telling tales out of Irish legend, of heads talking even when severed from their bodies, living on for years and carried across the seas. Telling of trophies, the heads of enemies preserved and handed down from generation to generation as treasures of the family.

  Maureen remembered Grandfather's face, the Dies Irae face when he'd seen the bloody welts across her back and couldn't do a damn thing about them because he was old and weak with the drink and had no place else to live. I'll take some fucking trophies, dammit, she swore to that helpless angry god. I'll jam Sean's head on a stake shoved through his asshole. I'll nail Dougal's skull to his own goddamn gatepost.

  Hack it off like Brian hacked Liam's head free from his shoulders to roll around the alley in the snow. Before it burned.

  Would the bodies burn, here in the Summer Country? She remembered the uncanny fire. That would rob her of her trophy.

  She vomited again, racking dry heaves trying to rid herself of something that was not inside her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  "Shit," Jo repeated. "It's a goddamned dragon."

  She closed her eyes on the blasted impossible forest and coun
ted to ten, and opened them again.

  It was still there.

  "There ain't no such animal," she whispered to herself.

  The beast was all hard and glittery and black, armored with scales as sharp as obsidian flakes. It wasn't a flying dragon, no sign of wings--at least her hallucinations weren't trying to get her to accept something physically impossible. It was just a snake with four stumpy legs about as thick as trees, a tail that went on forever, and a sharp head filled with even sharper teeth.

  She stared at it, willing it to go away--willing the entire world to go away and dump her back in the stinking slush of Naskeag Falls. The world refused, listening to the part of her mind which said that warm was nice, that green was nice, that it was about damned time Maureen's psycho brain came up with something useful. If only her delusions didn't include so many teeth . . .

  The dragon kept coiling and uncoiling like one of those garter snakes Maureen used to catch in the back yard--a garter snake sixty feet long. With teeth to match.

  Maybe it only ate virgins. Different taste or something. Then she didn't have a thing to worry about.

  Her palms were telling her otherwise. She wiped the sweat off of them, smelling her own fear, and then gritted her teeth at the stupidity of moving and attracting attention. The dragon lifted its head slightly, but it wasn't the jerk of a startled animal.

  It knew she was here. It was smelling her, with that long forked tongue as red as a fire truck and damn near half as big. If it wanted to eat her, she'd only be a burp by now. What the hell was it waiting for?

  Hey, Lent just started. Maybe it's an old-line Catholic, gave up red meat for Lent, virgin or otherwise. She knew she teetered on the edge of hysteria and clamped down on the images.

  The dragon coiled and uncoiled like an Escher puzzle, no beginning and no end, wrapped around a huge moss-covered boulder and some ancient trees bearded with lichen. It stared at Jo as if it meant to freeze her with its slit-pupil lizard eyes. She saw a mind lurking behind those eyes. Maybe she should try talking to it.