by S A Archer
Lugh screamed.
Malcolm withdrew his hand, shaking his head. “It’s stuck in there too good. It’s filling the holes in his magic, and don’t want to come loose.” The lad glanced up at Donovan and gnawed at his bottom lip some. This mess in the Seelie’s magic wasn’t his doing. Just the power boost of dark magic sent the squirming snaky things into a rampage. Malcolm glanced at Dawn, with her purple sparks of healing magic and icy-blue energy aura. She radiated a light about her like Kaitlin did, much closer to the Seelie light magic of the wood elves and other light fey.
If Trip’s dark magic set him off, maybe some light magic would dilute it.
Gesturing for her to come closer, Malcolm’s gaze flicked over Lugh’s magic. He reached up and ripped the already torn shirt the rest of the way open to reveal the flesh of his chest, getting a string of elvish curses flung at him for it. Malcolm ignored Lugh, instead taking Dawn’s wrist so her palm pressed to Lugh’s dirt and blood-smeared breastbone. “Touch him. Like, a lot. As much as you can.”
Doubt darkened her expression, but she did it. Good thing she couldn’t feel the slithery magic stroking over her, or she’d probably freak. Malcolm covered her hand with his own. As her Touch magic swelled to the surface of her skin, Malcolm thickened the coating of it, like a layer of gelatin, preventing it from dissipating into the flesh. It bulged with the gathering magic, pushing into Lugh, wedging between the snakes to reach the very heart of his magic. The dark star, like a black sun, that burned where his heart was.
Muscles tight with his effort, Malcolm put everything he had into manipulating the magic. Sweat dripped from his bangs and into his eyes. He blinked away the burn, and pushed his focus harder.
Lugh lifted up, his chest pushing out and against Dawn’s hand. The sound he made was strangled and pained, but not like in a bad way.
Dawn whimpered, and Malcolm scooped an arm around her back, keeping her up and close. Her body trembled with the effort, but now that she’d begun the Touch, he could suck more of it out of her. “Don’t stop,” he murmured.
“It…” She shook her head and gave a choked sob.
“I know.” At least he suspected. The effort strained her magic. He pushed it to do things that weren’t natural for her.
The bulging magic rolled slow as molasses into Lugh, into his heart. Then Malcolm released the coating, and let Dawn’s Touch magic flood directly into Lugh’s core. Exactly where he’d stuffed Trip’s magic earlier that day.
Heat burned from Lugh, making his skin glow with a fiery red. Malcolm winced from the gathering heat, but didn’t pull back. With the magic still flowing from Dawn, Malcolm maintained the pathway. The tar of shadow magic dissolved beneath the healing light of Dawn’s Touch. Even the scratches in the Seelie’s flesh closed and smoothed over.
Lugh gasped a deep breath and then shuddered like a fever broke.
And yet…
The snake things didn’t dissolve. They only withdrew back within Lugh’s body.
The raw dark magic gave way to the light, burning away, but the woven enchantments refused to decay. They twisted within Lugh, unaffected.
Malcolm pushed at them with Dawn’s light. But they didn’t even recoil from it, even when Dawn’s knees gave out and Malcolm had to release the magic to catch her before she dropped to the floor.
Donovan was next to them. Might have been with them all along, Malcolm couldn’t be sure. He helped Dawn to her feet, supported her with a strength that seemed effortless. “Did it work?”
“That’s all I can do.” Malcolm glanced up at Lugh. The stains around his eyes were gone. The black over his eyeballs was gone too, revealing irises that were a dark blue and whites that were bloodshot.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The cool fingertips on his chest roused the beast within.
Through the black fog of blinding madness, the world had become a dimly lit, washed-out nightmare into which his rage flooded forth. The need to purge himself of the poisoning darkness spurned his violence, demanding that he fight and tear and rend until he dropped with exhaustion. And he was far from exhausted.
The panther, the internal vision of the beast he’d become, curled back its lips and hissed at the Sidhe children before it. Nothing divided Lugh from this beast, not since drinking the dark enchantment to save himself from the Fade, so when the panther hissed, so too did Lugh. His gums ached for pressure. To feel his teeth biting into flesh. To feel it rip when he jerked his head. His tongue sought the taste and heat of thick, fresh blood. Endlessly he yanked against the bonds that secured him in an intolerable stillness.
The girl refused to meet his bound aggression, closing her eyes even as she rested her hand over his heart. Beside her, the vile boy that spurned him at every turn, covered the girl’s hand with his. With his long sleeves pushed up to the elbow, the leather bands around his wrists showed, embossed with the symbols of the Unseelie and the Elite. Lugh snapped his teeth at him, the urge to kill him overwhelming him like instinct.
An instinct that fractured beneath the cooling Touch of the girl’s magic.
Unlike he’d ever experienced the Touch before, where the magic soaked into his skin, this time it penetrated into his chest in a thick flow.
Blinking, Lugh stilled in stunned awareness of change.
The strength of the rage ceased to struggle against the bonds that trapped him.
Rather, his body lifted into the surge of light. He drew it in deep like he inhaled the sweetest springtime breeze. Like he drank from the purest stream, which cooled him and reawakened him from the pit of madness.
This he wanted.
This was natural.
Was right.
This light.
The dimness retreated from his vision, as if someone brought up the lights in the room. Colors returned, no longer the muted greys of his nightmares.
Light magic chased away the shadows, replacing it in the rips and voids of the Fade, keeping him whole and strong.
Though, he knew this respite would not last.
As surely as the Captivated humans who needed replenished by the Touch, this magic within him would eventually Fade, again. Would tear him apart, again. Over and over until he finally succumbed to the horrid decaying death, or until he reconnected with a source of magic that could sustain him.
With the fury and madness burned away, Lugh cast his gaze down at the Sidhe children before him.
They both trembled and perspired with the efforts of their magics. The boy wrapped his arm about the girl, to keep her engaged, but it was Jhaer who supported her beneath her shoulders so she wouldn’t collapse.
Jhaer, who’d reinvented himself into the man he called Donovan, met Lugh’s gaze. His eyes cold and watchful. Never trusting. Not even when they’d fought side by side in the Sidhe-goblin wars, had this Unseelie warrior ever fully dropped his guard.
Nor should Donovan trust him now.
The light cleansed away the sickening shadows the boy Malcolm had driven into him, but the beast remained. UnTouched and unfazed by the fresh infusion of magic. No mere light could drive the panther away. It was no construct of madness and it possessed Lugh utterly.
It licked at the fangs that had appeared in Lugh’s mouth when their internal struggle had ended and the possession had been fully manifested. The evidence of who was in control.
The panther that was Lugh closed his lips over the fangs. Drawing on Lugh’s faculties and Seelie skills, when the beast spoke at last, he arranged his lips as a vampire would, to conceal the evidence of his canines. He cast his glance toward the dragon, the one who ultimately decided Lugh’s freedom from this rack. He needn’t waste his efforts on anyone else just yet. Keeping his voice calm, yet demanding, he said, “Release me.”
The Unseelie drew back from him
, getting the weakened girl away from Lugh as if concerned he might assault her once freed.
A warning rumble rolled up from within the dragon. “Attack anyone and you’ll find yourself right back here.” He reached up to release the shackles about Lugh’s wrists. “If I don’t kill you first.”
With the shackles released, and the burn of silver removed from his flesh, Lugh’s magic flowed to his bidding once more. He considered those before him. Evaluating. Calculating. With a slow seep of Glamour that would subtly change his features over the course of a few minutes, rather than a noticeable abruptness, he shifted his darkened appearance back to the lighter one of Lugh’s natural state.
Not his true state, the beast corrected its thinking, for whom Lugh was now was his true state. This freedom from the expectations of his Court and those that had molded him into a willing slave. This was the version of the truth to which he must hold fast, lest doubt confuse him and spark memories that mustn’t be recalled. The Seelie had fought him too skillfully until the weakness of the Fade had given the beast the advantage.
And the beast was Lugh. A part of him suppressed down so deep Lugh could forget about him. Only a few times had the beast slipped free of its confines, but this time, he refused to give up his control.
It was the most Seelie, romanticized, and sickeningly self-sacrificing part of Lugh that found itself caged deep within now. Denied, but not quite forgotten.
As Lugh stepped down, with as much dignity as if he’d just walked into a room rather than just having been chained to a board, his attention fixed on London. His druidess. His. She worried his symbol on her necklace between her fingers as she watched him. The urge to bite her made his mouth water. Though he would not bite her neck, nor any other vulnerable spot. Better to bite her shoulder or her hip. Some place meaty he could sink his fangs into. She belonged to him like no human had before. He felt it from his fangs all the way down into his loins. He would have her, as he’d had her before. Biting, Touching, shagging. And she wouldn’t resist, having given herself completely to him. In this… In her… he trusted.
Lugh felt the tug of a smirk on his lips, and only partially subdued it, lest his enemies know her value to him. In his mind, she shone as if with a golden light. So much a part of him that he ached with his need to possess her, always. Her importance something he didn’t question, but only knew to the core of his being.
Although surrounded by allies as well as enemies, Lugh knew he couldn’t trust any of them. Most especially after the madness of the morning. The more Seelie side of Lugh could have repaired the political damage, but the beast hadn’t the patience nor the willingness to free more of Lugh’s Champion nature than it already allowed. What skills he possessed in this state would have to suffice. Without a connection to a source of magic, the Fade would shred him once more. He fixed Mckenna with his neutral gaze. “We have unfinished business.”
Mckenna shook his head. “Cai is dead.” He let that sink in, then added, “As is Niamh.”
He didn’t lay the blame on Lugh. And Lugh offered no murmur of sympathy. In the blur of his memory, he didn’t recall how these deaths happened, but wouldn’t admit as much. Although, when Mckenna spoke Niamh’s name, the faint memory of the taste of blood thickened on Lugh’s tongue.
As Seelie as any wood elf could be, Mckenna continued without expression or inflection, but the sheer control of his emotions proved the depth of his conviction. “Adara Grove can offer you no more aid until you have shed this thorn of darkness.”
The beast only partially controlled the snarl of his lips. “So you’ve cast your lot with the Unseelie?” He gestured toward Donovan. “An assassin and his cadre of children?”
“There’s only one chance to stop the Fade from consuming you now.” Donovan’s deep voice rolled through the stone chamber like a portent.
Lugh turned to face Donovan. “And here I rather thought you wanted me dead.” He glared as he waited for the hammer to fall, knowing what the Unseelie would say, even before he uttered it.
“The Unseelie shall create a new realm of fey.”
Lugh flung his hand with angry dismissal at Donovan. “You think to do this? You, who shunned the learning of magic weaving?”
Donovan didn’t even flinch. “Try me.”
The boy next to Donovan straightened, his arms crossed boldly over his too-thin frame, and Lugh saw him more clearly now. What he’d done… Things he’d said… A perceiver. What the Unseelie called a bloodhound.
Risky to trust the monumental task of weaving the magic of the artifacts to someone so unskilled.
And yet, even the least trained perceiver understood magic more intimately than the most learned master weaver. Not even Lugh himself, with thousands of years of practice, had figured out the nuances to weave the magic for the new realm.
But with a new realm to power him, nothing could steal this new freedom from his grasp.
Did it matter so much who created the realm, as long as he connected to it? At one time, before the beast fully manifested within him, Lugh had cared. It had mattered. But considering it now, the beast couldn’t fathom why. Nor did he wish to ponder more deeply and risk stirring something of the Seelie caged within him.
“Work together,” growled Jonathan, his black wings lifted, making him just that much larger, that much more threatening. Lugh had known the dangers of bringing the artifacts to the dragon for safekeeping. Now he was in the position to use them to force the negotiation. Without a doubt, if the Sidhe couldn’t come to terms, Jonathan wouldn’t surrender the artifacts to either side, regardless of who originally brought them here.
Perhaps it was the balancing of the infusion of light against the beast’s natural darkness that lent him this moment of control. Lugh calculated his words, not quite as elegantly as if the Seelie part of him were speaking, but enough to cover his ass in the negotiation. “You want the artifacts? You want to fashion the magic needed to restore the realm of fey?” His lips twisted in a dark amusement. “Then we do it together. As allies.”
Lugh nearly laughed when Donovan narrowed his eyes at him. Oh, how the Elite distrusted him. And with such great cause. The very notion of a partnership between them no doubt twisted his guts, and the thought of that amused the beast to no end. Tormenting the Elite, Lugh continued in a sweetly rational tone. “You will not hamper my access to your domain, including to your Glamour Club.”
Donovan practically snarled, “You’ve never been restricted from it.”
Continuing, Lugh persisted as if Donovan hadn’t spoken. “This includes my proxies.” He nodded to where the Scribe and his druidess stood beside each other. “Willem and London.”
Malcolm made a choked squawk of protest, but quieted like a decently trained underling when Donovan raised a silencing hand. “No one will harm them, nor impede their access, as long as you all obey the rules of the club. We won’t tolerate any violence or harassment from any of you.” When the boy squirmed in agitation, Donovan added, “Malcolm has final call on who has access to the magic for the creation.” Now it was Donovan’s turn to quirk a bit of a sneer, like he knew he was about to twist a knife. “He’s already invested too much in weaving the dozen artifacts that we already possess into the initial structure, and we won’t allow anyone to damage that work.”
It was Willem that squawked this time. “What? You’ve gotten it to work?” His already huge eyes widened even more with shock and excitement.
Lugh hadn’t given that much of a reaction, but the revelation stunned him like a punch. It took him more than a few seconds to rein himself in. The very notion that he was closer to reconnecting to a pure source of fey magic thrilled him with renewing hope. Realizing the power that Donovan wielded in this moment, and the power that the Unseelie would possess should he have control of the new realm, disturbed him deeply.
; The beast whispered to itself, teasing up the memories only it possessed, because they had been blocked from Lugh’s consciousness.
It had been Danu, with her power to compel all fey over which she held dominion, who had first imprisoned the sliver of darkness in Lugh. Burying it so deeply into Lugh that he would come to deny it within himself. Her desire to fashion the orphaned boy, who was nearly as pure light as they’d ever seen, into the Sidhe Champion, led her to this violation. To suppress this innate fragment of darkness that had been the only counterbalance to his light. The beast remembered her vividly, before it had even come to know itself. Remembered her compelling him. Burying this darkness so deep no one would suspect it even existed. But in the ages that followed, the beast festered into a creature in its own right. A splinter of a personality that grew into the panther of darkness Lugh refused to even acknowledge until it broke free.
And if Donovan, his enemy, were to have that same power to compel…
This had been why Lugh resisted the very notion of it.
And why the beast couldn’t allow any Sidhe that kind of control again. With the power to shove him back into his cage for another thousand years.
The beast tread carefully, keeping its scheming very tight within itself. “Willem shall supervise all activity regarding the weaving of this magic. And I will be present and participate in the actual creation, when it is time.”
