“So could I,” he murmured as he trailed kisses down her throat, nibbled the slender sweep of her collarbone, the soft flesh of her breasts.
She shivered, arching up to meet him. “I hate you so much.” She writhed beneath him as he drew out the seduction. Took his time. Each caress, each suggestive brush of his lips and hands meant to torture. “Oh God, Conor. I hate you,” she moaned as he took a nipple into his mouth. Tongued it until it went pebble-hard.
He broke off. “I know you do,” he said, his control dangerously close to slipping with every sinuous rock of her body. “I hate you too.”
Ellery grit her teeth against the exquisite mastery of Conor’s touch. Even so, a throaty purr escaped her lips. Made her cringe with humiliation. How could she be so easy? How could he make her so both so mad and so hot that she wanted to scream? She fought to free her hands, but his grip was too strong. He clamped down on her wrists until she gave up in frustration. Taking her in his mouth, he sent her senses spinning, sweet jolts shooting straight to her center with every lave of his tongue.
He raised his head, his breathing raspy, his voice reckless. “If I let go, you’ll not harm me.” A statement, but one of trust—not control.
She shook her head, too impassioned to speak. He released her, but only to unfasten his breeches. Now was her chance. She could make him pay for his arrogance. Make him suffer for the pride that wouldn’t let her in even when all she wanted was to help.
Instead, she fumbled with the buttons, pushing his breeches down over his hips. Anything to have him back. On top of her. In her. Their joining a bulwark against the crouching fear that threatened.
She clung to him as he plunged deep, sent the black emptiness howling inside her to another place. His arms braced on either side of her head, he thrust again. Hard. Fast. As if he could outrun his own uncertainties by taking and possessing her with a raw, animal hunger. Arousal surged along her every limb, sparked down every nerve until she burned with it, until she lay poised at the edge of oblivion with nowhere to go but down.
She grabbed his shoulders and with a shift of her weight, flipped him onto his back. Let her gaze steal over his impossibly perfect body.
He reached up, caressed her cheek. A look of such infinite tenderness and regret on his face, she wanted to weep. Instead, she leaned over him. Kissed his forehead. The end of his nose. His lips. With delicious turnabout, she took his nipple into her mouth. He gasped, almost coming off the bed, his whole body radiating excitement.
Her hands and then her mouth skimmed his shoulders. His chest. His washboard abdomen. Following the arcing path of his tattoos, she tasted the salty-sweet musk of his body. Filled her nostrils with the scents of sweat and sex and skin that kept her wet and throbbing with need.
His cock stood erect, heavy and gleaming and moist with her essence. She stroked the length of it. Glided her fingers across the tip. Loving the tremors that passed through Conor at her touch.
Glorying in this strange new strength she’d discovered, she bent to take him in her mouth. Reveling in the slick softness of his member on her lips, she slid her tongue over it. Felt him jump under the tantalizing assault.
Cursing, Conor caught her arms in a steel grip. Dragged her up and off of him. “Not that way,” he ground out between clenched teeth, “I want to be inside you.”
She smiled as she straddled him. Lowered herself onto him with a long, shuddering moan. His hands encircled her hips as she rocked forward, slowing them down. Drawing them into a long, wicked dance. Raising herself up, she took him again into her. Slowly. Inch by inch. Watching his face. Watching his hunter’s eyes glaze with a hunger only she could satisfy. This was power. Wanton, erotic, sinful—and oh so glorious.
For a split second, her mother’s life gleamed clear in front of her. The squalor and the insecurity she had suffered for these moments of perfect strength. In the end, they had killed her.
Conor gasped, his muscles taut, his chest glowing pale as marble in the light from the banked fire. Ellery leaned forward, twining her fingers around his neck even as she exploded, the pleasure washing over her body in a wave of lush heat. She held on to Conor as each successive wave pulled her back into herself. Back into reality.
She lay her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, tasting the damp of his skin.
A perfect moment.
She shivered. It would kill her, too.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Asher scanned the skies. Whispered dark words into the wind. And nature bent to his command. The sun, orange as flame, sank into a white-capped sea. Clouds stretched black fingers over the stars. Obliterated the moon. Tonight was his. And all the mornings after. Only Bligh kept him from the reliquary and his brothers. And the amhas-draoi would die before the sun rose again.
He summoned the glamorie one last time. Donned the ridiculous raiment of man. Slid a finger down the long, barbed sword, licking the blood that welled from the cut. He was ready.
“You may join me after sundown,” he said to the Keun Marow waiting on him, the most recent leader of his army.
“By then, the need for subterfuge will be at an end.”
The creature’s eyes narrowed to slits as it shouldered its own crude weapon. “We will wait until we know the way is clear. He’s bested you more than once.”
Asher’s frayed patience snapped. He rounded on the fey hunter, murder in his voice. “You speak to me as if we were equals. Partners. You forget your place. Yours is not to question, but to do as you’re told.”
The Keun Marow cringed, its nostrils flared in panic, its gray skin blanched white.
Much better. There would be no wavering now. Dissent would not be allowed.
But the creature’s stupidity was unequaled. It shuffled forward, hunched in surrender, squinting up at him out of one bold eye. “He might still use the girl.”
Asher smiled as he motioned to Bligh’s kinsman, standing sullenly in the corner. “I don’t think so. Do you, Simon? Go ahead. Tell them what you told me earlier today.”
The man took a few grudging steps into the room, his arms folded across his chest.
His grim countenance and sour disposition grew worse by the day. It was good that Asher no longer needed him. He’d not regret killing him when the time came. When the purging of Other began.
“Speak of what you’ve learned,” Asher barked. The man straightened, defiance further marring his unpleasant features.
Oh, yes. His days left were few. “Conor married the woman yesterday.”
Asher laughed. “Took her to wife. Can you fathom it? He’ll not wed her one day and sacrifice her the next. Not even Bligh’s as treacherous as that.”
Simon scowled. “I tell you there’s got to be a mistake. Conor’s hard as stone. Not even Ysbel kept him from his mission. He let her die as easily as snapping his fingers.”
Asher crossed the room. “But she was a sister, after all. Not his slag.” He licked his lips as he gripped Simon’s shoulder. “Too bad I had to kill her. She was delicious in bed once tamed to the whip.”
The man’s body grew tense as a drawn bow. A muscle jumped in his clenched jaw. But he remained silent.
Asher smirked. It was just too easy. So much guilt. So much hate. It ate the man like a cancer from within. Asher felt it and fed on it. Death when it came might almost be thought a release.
“As I said, victory is assured. Meet me at Ilcum Bledh by midnight. All of you.”
The creature nodded, but Asher felt its continued skepticism. He would deal with it tomorrow. Place a new leader in charge. One of these ragged monsters was as good as another. Still, perhaps if he offered it an incentive. “Don’t forget. I’ll have a feast ready and waiting.” He gave Simon a shuttered glance. Hardly any mage energy that hadn’t been begged, borrowed or stolen from others, but now was as good as later. The Keun Marow weren’t picky. Two would serve as well as one. “Simon, you come with me. I want you to watch Bligh’s destruction. A new age built upon his
bleached bones.”
He nodded tightly. “Very well.”
Asher leaned in close, tilted the man’s head back with one crooked finger. Looked him in the eye. “Perhaps I’ll let you deal the death blow. Would you like that?”
Simon’s answering stare was long and cool. “Yes,” he said finally. “I’d like that very much.”
Afternoon was fading into evening as Ellery strode across the field toward the barrows, anger and love, disappointment and resignation all simmering just below the surface of her skin. Tightening her chest. Pricking her eyes.
He’d never even said good-bye.
As if he’d said it all last night. Or as if last night hadn’t mattered.
Well, damn it, it had meant something to her. It had cemented her decision. She would go to Ilcum Bledh. She would fulfill the molleth. For Conor. For all the Blighs. In return for a happiness she never expected and would have denied existed until now. Because as she’d come to find, even this brief taste of love had been better than an eternity without.
She hadn’t been the only one to notice Conor’s sudden absence. She’d stumbled upon a confrontation between Mikhal and Morgan.
“You’ll stay here, and that’s an order.”
“I won’t let Con face Asher alone.” Ruan and Jamys stood at either side of their sister as if guarding against her escape.
Sorrow passed across Mikhal’s face like a shadow. “Alone is best, Morgan. Conor wants none to witness what he must do. Call it a final wish.”
Ellery grimaced. Not if she could help it, it wouldn’t be. They never noticed her, but still she had backed away without making a sound. At least this way they might not realize her own departure until it was too late.
Bats swung low across the trees, and the air smelled sweet with lilac and the first wild cherries. She wrinkled her nose against the faint tang of woodsmoke. The Bel-fires already? Dusk would mark the beginning of Beltane. Sundown to sundown. Tonight the countryside would celebrate the turning of the season with giant bonfires.
Morgan had talked of the wild revelries in the hills and the deep, creek-fed valleys where drinking and dancing would strengthen into something more with the passing hours as couples honored the new spring in their own way. For most, the day’s origins lay obscured in myth and legend. But for the race of Other, it was a sacred time of great power and deep magic when the walls between fey and Mortal were thinnest.
Conor was counting on it.
As was she. She’d once asked Conor if the fey considered Asher enough of a threat to act. He hadn’t answered her. But Ruan had, even if he hadn’t recognized it. The fey held the reliquary. The fey must understand the danger. Certainly, they would do what needed to be done to end the threat. Use her to repair the seals and send Asher back.
The mounds rose unnaturally in a low, flat field surrounded by thick woods. Like waves, they rippled and curled, their tops awash in the last bright gleam of westering sun. She shivered as heat danced over her skin, across her face. Settled around her shoulders like a comforting arm. Or a coercing one. Suddenly, the heat became a flame that licked at her insides. Buried itself within her like a blade. She clamped her mouth shut on a cry of both pain and fear. She’d come here for one purpose. She wouldn’t back down now.
The sun flashed and was gone, leaving a sky murky and starless. The air thickened. Became heavy. And she knew that somewhere close by, Conor was already at war.
“You.” The voice came from behind her, the word hurled like a curse.
Ellery swung around to face a woman whose perfect features were twisted into a mask of outrage and disbelief. Her hair and skin shimmered like pearl, but her eyes glowed white-hot. Furious. “Where is he? Where is Bligh?”
“He’s not coming.”
The woman eyed her with distaste. “He chooses now of all times to grow a conscience.” She turned to address a tall, elegant man, his beauty hard as crystal. Ellery hadn’t seen him at first, her attention taken completely with the ice goddess.
“I should have known he’d fail us,” the woman spat.
“He’s weak, Aeval,” the man said. He looked down his nose at Ellery. “Too much of the human runs in his veins.”
“Conor thinks he can destroy Asher,” Ellery explained, “not just imprison him. He wants to end the threat forever.”
Aeval stopped her furious pacing to level a scathing look at Ellery. “You’re frightened. I feel your terror.”
Ellery lifted her chin, faced the fey as if she stood at the cannon’s mouth. “Not of you.”
Aeval smiled, the chilly smile of a snake. “No? Do you know who I am? In between his whispered words of passionate nonsense, has Bligh told you anything of us? Of me?”
“No.”
That seemed to make her even more furious, but it was quickly mastered, and her expression was once again regal, solemn as dead kings. “Bligh is no match for Asher,” Aeval said. “He goes to his doom. And all for the tupping of a common strumpet.”
“Not so common,” Ellery shot back, tired of being everyone’s favorite target. “In this, I’m more powerful than you or Conor or any of the fey. I can rid you of Asher. My blood alone can reseal the reliquary.”
Aeval raised her brows, eying Ellery in a new light. “So it can.” She tilted her head, considering. “You have more courage than I’d have thought.”
“I’m doing what I have to.” It grew harder to breathe, the longer she remained. She inhaled, but her lungs felt squashy, useless. Was this Asher’s power growing? Or did all the true fey affect her this way? An idle question in another few moments. “You do have the reliquary, don’t you?”
“For now, we guard it,” the man answered.
“Will you take me to Ilcum Bledh?” Ellery swallowed around the choking dread. “Will you use me to save Conor?”
The man hesitated, but Aeval grabbed her by the arm. “I will. Come.”
With a rush of wind, the world fell away. A brilliant glare dazzled Ellery’s eyes, an iridescent shine of colors that washed over her, through her, merged with her hair, her body, swam with her blood. Aeval’s hand was the only thing she felt, the only sound a chiming of faery bells. Bright and sweet at first, they sharpened, intensified into something louder, more sinister. The harsh, discordant cries of battle. And then the river of light was gone. And she stood on a barren hill with the ancient, weathered stones of Ilcum Bledh before her. And within the doorway of the leaning tomb’s mouth, dwarfed by the giant stones, two dark figures struggled.
She was in time.
Conor reeled back, striking his head on the sharp-edged stone of the quoit, lights exploding in his eyes. He shook it off, dazed, but knowing that even a moment’s lapse would bring Asher down on him.
The demon shifted from foot to foot, still inexplicably wearing the glamorie of a London man about town, though he’d discarded his walking stick for a barbed sword. “It’s over, amhas-draoi. Admit it,” he hissed.
“Not bloody likely.”
Swiping the blood from his eyes, Conor pushed off the standing stone, but he’d taken only a few steps before Asher’s spell engulfed him. Bones grated together then snapped, ten-dons tore. His chest felt crushed within a giant fist. He dropped to his knees, gasping. His body’s healing ability kept the wounds non-fatal for now, but each new break, each ruptured artery weakened him. It was a slow death Asher wanted. Agonizing. Tortured. The air darkened, became like fog. Then smoke. It stung his eyes and burned his throat. Just inhaling and exhaling wearied him.
Asher’s shadow fell over him. “You’re a coward, Bligh. I told your kinsman you’d never go through with the sacrifice. That your honor would keep you from using the girl.”
Conor’s gaze flashed to Simon. His cousin stood just on the far side of the heel stone. For a split second, their eyes locked, but there was no spark of affinity. Nothing in Simon’s expressionless stare to give Conor any hope of help from that quarter. His fingers dug into the soil, slick with his own blood. Blood drippe
d from his mouth, the razored flesh of his arms. It welled within gashes intersecting his mage marks like gruesome tattoos.
“I warned her. Did she tell you?” Asher mocked. Conor’s head snapped up.
“I told her how it would all end, but she wouldn’t believe me.” His lips pulled back from his red gums, revealing jagged, yellow fangs. Bending close, he whispered in Conor’s ear. “She won’t mourn you long, Bligh. She’ll be too busy screaming.”
Conor roared his fury, flinging dirt into Asher’s eyes as he lurched to his knees.
Asher stumbled away, clawing at his face as he tried to clear his vision, but it gave Conor the opening he needed to slide under the demon’s guard, coming up behind him.
He struck with his own power, knowing he had one chance to bring this to a close before his wounds killed him. He’d run out of choices.
Ellery couldn’t take her eyes off the battle. She started forward, but Aeval’s hand on her shoulder held her back.
“You can’t stop it. Not that way.”
Ellery pointed, her breath coming in quick, shocked gasps.
“He’s killing Conor.” Her voice cracked in anguish. The squashy-lung feeling was back, but added to it was a new dizziness. The world tilted and spun, her stomach in her throat.
“It’s almost time.”
The fey from the barrows was back. In his hands, he held the reliquary. Was this the same jeweled box hidden in Molly’s wardrobe? It looked the same, but this one pulsed with a dark energy, throbbed with expectation. She’d almost call it excitement.
“We must hurry. Already the brothers sense Asher’s victory. They try and sway us with their black speech. Bring us under their influence.”
“Look.” This time it was Aeval who pointed up the hill. Ellery followed the track of her gaze. And bit back an oath.
Conor concentrated on the quoit, on the ley lines that spread away from Ilcum Bledh like spokes on a wheel before they joined the great web running beneath the earth. Reaching out, he tapped the energy there, felt the ancient power rush into him, filling him, infusing him with a strength that was his and yet more. He drew on it, honing it to a spear-point. Emotions fell away with the hopelessness and the desperation. All was light spreading in a wide, horizonless plain and a deep pounding rhythm that matched his heart beat for beat. He sensed his ties to the Mortal world loosening as the magic took over. As he became part of the web, a living conduit for another’s power. A voice sounded in his head, high, low, a fusion of Fomorii consciousness, a cacophony of words in a language long dead, but droning like the hum of bees around his skull. He let it speak, let it act through him as it sensed his change and realized the battle had now truly been joined.
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