What kind of woman was she?
In his long life, thousands of mortal years, Culhane had never known any woman to resist him. Fae females were as free with their bodies as the males, and sex was something to be shared and gloried in. There was no wasted time or effort. If they wanted, they took.
Mortal women were different, of course. Entranced by the power surrounding a Fae male, they were attracted almost instantly and just as easily seduced. Culhane had seen other Fae males indulge with mortal females, though he’d never bothered himself. For Culhane, they seemed to be far more trouble than they were worth. As powerful and ancient as he was, human women—Maggie in particular—could reduce him to wanting to tear his own hair out in frustration.
Most mortal women wanted to talk about their feelings . They wanted to be courted, romanced, and at the same time, they wanted to be treated as equals when any fool knew that could never be so.
It was a male’s duty to care for and protect his woman, whether she wanted him to or not.
Human males, though, to ease the pain in their groins, had been reduced to placating their women, to giving in to their silly demands and notions. The males pretended to feel equality when what they were thinking was, Lie back and let me have you. They played word games, hiding their true natures in order to provide their women with the illusions they craved.
By the gods, he would be damned if he would play according to their rules. He was Culhane. Immortal Fae. A Fenian warrior of such repute, the mere mention of his name was enough to send chills down the cowardly spines of his enemies. And he’d curse his own name before he’d surrender his pride for the sake of any woman.
Even Maggie.
“Blasted woman wants me, too. Does she think I don’t feel the strength of her desire pushing at me?” He saw it in the way she walked, how her breath quickened when he was near. He watched her lick her full lower lip and it took all of his legendary strength to keep from licking it for her.
But he had his pride. And when Maggie came to his bed, it would be because she asked for it.
“Though she’d damn well better ask soon.” His patience was wearing thin.
Only that morning, while he watched her as she perched on her silly ladder and reached out to paint her ridiculous pictures on glass, her shirt had pulled up from the waist of her jeans and he’d been mesmerized by the exposed inch or two of her taut, firm belly. He’d noted the way her soft T-shirt had molded to her breasts, how her jeans molded lovingly in all the right places to her long, shapely legs. And his mouth had watered.
The woman was killing him inch by slow inch.
He stalked across the room, stared out the window at the training grounds far below him and idly watched as his warriors staged mock battles with swords and knives. The clang of steel on silver rang out. A sharp wind slid through the open window and lifted his long hair from his shoulders, cooling his skin but doing nothing to cool the fires burning within.
Maggie’s face rose up in his mind and everything in Culhane tightened even further. How was it, he wondered, that a mortal woman could make the mighty Culhane nothing more than a slavering beast?
And now, thanks to Quinn getting her sister with child, Maggie was bent even further on distancing herself from him! By the gods, his cock would rot and fall off if he didn’t use it soon.
“Damn woman will be the end of me.”
“Our Queen remains unmoved by the great Culhane, then?”
He spun into a crouch, his hand slapping at the handle of the silver blade he kept at his waist. But an instant later, Culhane cursed, straightened, and said, “You’ve no call to be here, McCulloch.”
The warrior only smirked at him. He’d noticed to his own irritation that since Maggie had taken the throne, even his own men were want to chuckle at his frustrations. Only the bravest—or the most foolhardy—dared show him their amusement, though.
Keiran McCulloch shook his head and smoothed one hand across the neatly trimmed, dark red goatee he was inordinately proud of. “It’s rumored that our Queen has no need for you, Culhane.”
“She has need,” he muttered darkly, remembering the flash of hunger in her eyes only that morning. A cheering thought, he told himself, wondering if she lay in her empty bed aching for his touch. Perhaps it was time to pay a night visit to induce her into dreams of him.
Then, shaking his head at his own desperation, he walked across the wide room to the crystal bottle of nectar he kept on a shelf. To ease the ache in his body, he poured himself a glass of the Fae liquor, richer and sweeter than any mortal wine. He relished the taste for a moment, then studied the honey-colored liquid in the crystal he held. Without looking behind him, he said, “She’s stubborn, is all.”
“Aye, and getting no less so as time goes on.”
Culhane whipped his head around then to stare at the warrior across from him. “Mind your tongue. Maggie Donovan is your Queen.”
The other warrior inclined his head but didn’t bother to hide his smile.
“And your witch?” Culhane asked slyly, knowing the warrior had been spending far more time at Maggie’s home than necessary. All because of Maggie’s friend Claire, a seer and a witch.
McCulloch snapped him a hard look, then reluctantly smiled. “We both must deal with stubborn mortal females, I suppose.”
“True enough, gods help us both.” Culhane blew out a breath. “Was there a reason you’ve come? Or are you here merely to annoy me like a common pixie?”
McCulloch lifted one dark red eyebrow into a high arch. “Would a common pixie know that the Dullahan are riding again?”
Everything in Culhane went cold and still. His gaze fixed on McCulloch, he watched the other warrior stride toward him, his features hard, implacable. “How do you know this?”
“There’s more. The palace guards are planning an assault on Casia to stop them.”
Casia, the frozen continent where the worst of the rogue Fae were imprisoned. The Dullahan were a vicious, bloodthirsty race, sentenced to Casia eons ago for their crimes against the mortal world. Even Mab had known that there were lines not meant to be crossed.
“You know this for a fact?” If the palace guards went after the Fae on Casia themselves, they would be killed and gods knew how many of the rogues would be set loose. For centuries those jailed on that miserable block of ice had been trying to escape. To once more ride free on the human world, bringing destruction and fury to a race of people who didn’t even know they existed. If the Dullahan somehow managed to find a way into Maggie’s world, the humans there would be helpless against them.
“Aye.” McCulloch plucked a glass off a shelf and filled it with nectar. Downing it in one long gulp, he continued. “One of their number told O’Donnel.”
Culhane’s eyes narrowed. “Why would she do that?”
McCulloch shrugged. “O’Donnel was bedding her at the time.”
Disgusted, Culhane thought briefly that everyone but he was enjoying sex.
Studying the empty glass in his hand, McCulloch said, “After speaking to O’Donnel, I went to Audra, the guard commander. Told her that the Warriors would deal with this threat. She insists that her guard be given the chance to fight. Since Mab’s defeat, the guards have grown restless. The damn females believe themselves to be warriors.”
“They’re not,” Culhane muttered darkly, his mind drawing up an image of the Fae who had been, for centuries, the only security force Mab had allowed at the palace.
The palace guard, all female, had been Mab’s personal protection. After a millennia or two of power, the former queen had become distrustful of all males, even her warriors, so she’d trained females to safeguard both her and the palace. A slap in the face to the Warrior clan, but to Mab’s way of thinking, a way to keep the males in line while stripping them of any ideas of gaining future power.
But with Mab gone, her guards were restive. They wanted more duties than Maggie had given them. Blast the gods, they wanted to fight.
&nbs
p; True, they had stood sentinel over the palace and the Queen for centuries. But they weren’t warriors and had no business in a real battle. They’d never fought an enemy like the Dullahan. For too long, they’d thought themselves impregnable. Undefeatable. This false sense of importance had clearly gone to their heads, since everyone knew that only males were true fighters.
Yet, as that thought raced through his mind, he remembered Maggie defeating a Fae queen, and he knew that she’d been as brave as any Fenian warrior. She’d gone into a battle untested, untried, and had managed to snatch victory from the hands of a queen far more experienced than she. Nodding, he admitted that Maggie, at least, was a formidable female.
But the palace harpies were the least of his troubles at the moment. If the Dullahan were truly readying a strike against the walls of Otherworld in an attempt to breach them, then there was much to do.
“Have you seen evidence yourself?” he asked, his gaze narrowing on the tall warrior opposite him.
“No,” McCulloch admitted with a nod. “I thought first to warn you of Mab’s guards and their plans.”
Culhane set his now-empty glass on the sideboard, folded his arms across his chest and said, “As you should. I’ll deal with them. You take Riley and go to Casia. Find out if the Dullahan are actually planning something or not. We have to know the truth before we act.”
“It’s done.” McCulloch inclined his head again, in acknowledgment of the order, and an instant later, shifted out of Culhane’s apartments.
“Maggie Donovan, the palace guard and the Dullahan,” Culhane muttered. It seemed as though the gods were bent on testing his new Queen. But he wouldn’t face Maggie with this news just yet. First he would gather information to make a plan; then, and only then, would he go to Maggie. And he would make her see that giving him leave to act in her stead was the wisest course to take.
Maggie was late.
She hated being late.
Especially when she was picking up Eileen. Somehow, knowing that five million other kids had all been taken home at the appropriate time and only Eileen was left behind made the guilt worse.
But the stupid window at the stupid art boutique had taken her twice as long as she’d planned. With only one small window fronting the main street, it should have been a half-hour job, tops. But naturally, the new owner had wanted a whole damn Currier and Ives scene painted in, complete with carolers and horse and carriage and, of course, that upped her fee, but had taken twice as long as it otherwise would have. Maggie blew out a frustrated breath, deliberately rolled her shoulders to ease the tension and then turned off the engine of her PT Cruiser.
Opening the door, she stepped out onto the worn blacktop of the school driveway and let her gaze slide over the familiar territory. Castle Bay wasn’t very big, especially considering that the community’s one elementary school, one middle school and one high school were easily able to accommodate Castle Bay’s students as well as those from the surrounding area. And if you’d lived in town all your life, as Maggie had, you knew each school like the back of your hand.
The weathered brick facade had faded over the years until it was now a pale rose color and the outside of the principal’s office window was dotted with flyers announcing everything from “Just Say No” campaigns to the coming Christmas party. Although these days it was called the “Holiday Celebration.” Politically correct could get really sad and ugly sometimes.
“So where are you?” she murmured, looking around and seeing only long, empty outdoor hallways and a custodian pushing a cart loaded with brooms and mops. The rattle of its one bad wheel echoed in the stillness. Eileen should have been waiting right here. In front of the principal’s office. Inside Maggie, guilt blended with a sudden sense of unease. What if some random Fae had shown up? What if an ordinary human bad guy had shown up? “I’m a rotten human being. A lousy aunt—and if anything happens to Eileen, I’m going to have to throw myself under a train.”
But what could happen?
Oh, only a few weeks ago, she would have been telling herself that Eileen was fine. That the chances of her niece being kidnapped or worse were pretty damn slim. Castle Bay was small, insulated, and everyone in town knew everybody else and a kidnapper would have been hard put to get away with snatching a kid without being surrounded by furious citizens.
But that was back when Maggie had been just a little smug about the safety of the town she called home.
These days, though, she knew the truth. That there were more than just human predators wandering around. There were demons and pixies and rogue Fae and God knew what else that could pop in, grab a cutie like Eileen and pop back out again before anyone even realized what was happening.
“Shut up, brain,” she whispered as worry skittered up and down her spine like thousands of stings from tiny needles. “Eileen’s fine. She’s probably just making me pay for making her wait.”
Good. That was good. And very Donovan of her, to exact a little payback. Maggie wouldn’t even be mad. Just grateful. As soon as she found her.
Someone laughed and Maggie’s head whipped around, her gaze darting in the direction of that familiar sound. Eileen strolled out from between two of the buildings, a tall, thin girl with dark red hair and milk white skin who wasn’t alone. A boy walked beside her.
“Oh God. This is all your fault, you know,” Maggie told herself in a muttered whisper. “You were late, so she had time to get friendly with a boy. Nora’s so going to kill you.”
She reached into the car, tapped on her car horn and when Eileen glanced up, Maggie waved. “Let’s go, kiddo!”
Her Donovan blue eyes rolled skyward as an expression of complete humiliation crossed Eileen’s face. Maggie recognized that look. She’d worn it often enough when she was a kid. Was there anything more mortifying than having other people find out you actually had a family?
The blond boy walking with Eileen took one look at Maggie before ducking back between the buildings. Maggie frowned a little at his secretive move. Who was this kid, anyway? Could this be the fabulous Grant Carter Eileen had been mooning over a couple of weeks ago? If it was, she told herself, the kid looked a lot older than thirteen.
“At least fifteen,” Maggie said softly, watching Eileen smile and give the hidden boy a finger wave good-bye.
Then the girl turned and hurried toward Maggie’s car with a mutinous expression on her normally pretty face. When she was close enough, she hissed, “Did you have to embarrass me like that?”
“By saying hello?” Maggie countered.
“I knew you wouldn’t understand.” Eileen opened the car door, climbed inside and dumped her backpack on the floor at her feet.
Maggie got in, too, but not before she looked again at the spot where the boy had vanished. He hadn’t shown himself again, which just made Maggie that much more curious. She fired up the engine, buckled her seat belt and made sure Eileen had done the same before she drove out of the school parking lot.
“Sorry I was late, kiddo.”
“No problem,” Eileen muttered, staring through the windshield, apparently not having forgiven her aunt for existing just yet.
“Your mom’s in Otherworld, but she’ll be back by tonight.”
“Okay.”
“Was that Grant Carter I saw you with?” An age-old technique for interrogating kids. Get them relaxed, then slide in the real questions.
Eileen turned and faced her then. “No, his name’s Devon.”
Devon. Hadn’t heard about him before, Maggie thought and quickly braced herself for coming worry. “Who is he?”
Apparently, the opportunity to talk about the great Devon was too good to miss. Even if it meant speaking to an adult you were trying to ignore.
“He is so cool, Maggie. He’s new in town and he’s totally cute and all of the girls like him, but he likes me and he’s really smart and funny and—”
“New?” Maggie stopped at a red light and slid a glance at her niece. The girl’s eyes were spark
ling and her cheeks were flushed. Oh God, she was in love. “How new?”
“He moved here last week and Amber told me today that he told her that he kinda liked me and then when you were late picking me up, he showed up and kept me company and he was totally nice and he likes the same music as I do and the same TV shows and”—she paused for breath, but first had to give a little sigh of female satisfaction—“he is sooo cute.”
Maggie took from that that Eileen’s best friend, Amber, was the go-between until Maggie herself had given new boy an opening to talk to Eileen himself. Should she be glad the kid had arrived to keep Eileen company? Maybe. And maybe she should just worry about this a while longer.
“Does he go to your school?”
“What? Oh. I don’t think so. I only see him after school sometimes.”
Didn’t go to school there. And he was new in town?
Was he human new? Or demon new? Was he really a teenage boy with rampaging hormones? Or was he some kind of bizarre creature with different plans entirely? God, she didn’t know which of those two bad ideas to hope for. And how would she ever know for sure?
Only one way. She’d have to get this Devon alone at some point and blow Faery dust on him. If he exploded, then she’d know he was a demon and she’d apologize to Eileen later. If he didn’t, then he’d just think Maggie was weird and she’d apologize to Eileen later.
Seriously? When had her life gotten so peculiar?
“I went on the Internet again at the library,” Eileen was saying, and Maggie pushed her own thoughts away to listen up. Apparently, they were finished with Devon for the moment, which was okay by Maggie.
“The librarian is so a control freak.” Reaching down for her backpack, Eileen unzipped it, pulled out a sheaf of folded papers and straightened again. “She like hovers over us when we’re online like we’re going to be attacked by some cyber monster or something, even though they’ve got so many child locks on the computers, we can barely sign on.”
Beguiled Page 4
