Crowned by Fire

by Nenia Campbell

  “Almost a full day.”

  A full day? Healing never took that long. “What happened?”

  “You passed out from blood loss.” Graymalkin looked at her reproachfully. “You almost died.”

  Catherine stood up, intent on chasing her down to procure further answers, and was overcome by a sudden wave of dizziness.

  “Not too fast,” Graymalkin suggested. “There is a change of clothes in the armoire. You've already found the bathroom. You might want to wash up before dressing.”

  Before dressing for what? “Why didn't I heal?” Catherine started to put her hands on her hips, but folded them over her breasts instead when the sheet began to slip. “Blood loss shouldn't have been an issue. The vampire didn't damage any vital organs.”

  Just your throat. She didn't think he'd actually severed the artery—what if he had?

  “The silver poisoned your body when it came into contact with the open wound,” said Graymalkin, breaking into her thoughts. “It kept you from healing properly. And the wound was very close to your jugular—it had been nicked. Alec nearly killed you.”

  Catherine stared at her for a moment. She knew it had been bad, but not how bad; hearing how close she had come to putting her own mortality to the test was chilling. There were few things shape-shifters couldn't heal from: death was one of them.

  “What tipped the balance?” she said at last.

  “Phineas.”

  “Him?” Catherine didn't even hide her scorn. “He seemed eager enough to get me out of the picture before. Why would he help me now?”

  Graymalkin didn't give an answer. She just said, “He saved your life.”

  “Not without reason, I bet. Did he take my clothes off?”

  Graymalkin twitched her tail and walked away. The cat version of a rebuff. Catherine took that as an unequivocal “yes.” Her anger rose. His familiar might have been bound to the witch by magic, but that didn't mean she had to enable his cruel streak.

  She stormed back into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, trying not to think what the witch might have done to her unconscious body on the pretense of saving her life. She couldn't smell him on her body, so he probably hadn't fucked her, but he could have touched her…. She shuddered.

  Yes, she was glad to be alive—and saving her had been the first thing he'd done to her that hadn't been to his own benefit, and even that was dubious. He had told her himself that he'd wanted a shifter lover. Her face darkened. The little prince wouldn't want his toy of choice broken before he'd even had a chance to play with it. Possession was what it came down to, not affection, if that were the case.

  Self-preservation, that's all this was.

  Catherine ran the bath, until the water filled the large room with clouds of steam. She sank into the tub with a sigh. It was wonderful; the hot heat tingled against her skin in a way that was almost sensual—but that was a dangerous line of thinking, and she blinked away the images that came unbidden to her mind. The prince was a bastard.

  Along the side of the huge tub were whole jars of bath crystals, little soaps, and bottles of shampoo. She didn't touch the crystals, which would be overpowering to her sensitive nose. The shampoo and soap weren't much better, but they proved to be a necessary evil. Her first soak left the water a murky brown.

  Through her wounds had all been healed—with the witch's help, if his familiar was to be believed—there was still blood under her fingernails and the hair on her head had become thickly matted with it. Catherine went through a whole bar of soap before she finally deemed herself clean enough to come out of the tub.

  So much wasted water, Catherine thought ruefully, as the bathtub drained.

  She grabbed a robe hanging off the hook on the back of the bathroom door and belted it before stepping back into the bedroom. Her stomach rumbled again. Graymalkin had mentioned breakfast. It didn't take her long to find the repast Graymalkin had referred to; there was a metal tray on the desk, sweating beads of condensation.

  Carefully, she removed the dome-shaped cover by the handle, revealing a shallow bowl filled with some kind of stew and a generous hunk of artisan bread that looked and smelled freshly-baked. She stared and then the meaty, savory smell of the meal reached her nose and she attacked with the desperation of an animal that hadn't eaten in several days. The stew turned out to be chicken pot pie with dumplings, cooked carrots, and thick chunks of potatoes and chicken. Oh, Goddess, the chicken.

  It was the best thing she had ever tasted in her life.

  Catherine swallowed the last chunk of b read, which she had used to mop the bowl clean, and sighed happily. Her stomach ached from wolfing down her food so fast, but she was too content to care. Changing burned up a lot of calories and she had done a lot of it back at the mall—and on a mostly empty stomach, too, which had forced her body to delve into her reserve stores of fat.

  She sipped some half-melted ice water. “Where's the witch?”

  “Phineas is delivering the Grimoire to the Council,” she said, with light emphasis.

  So Alec hadn't gotten the book, after all. It hadn't been delivered to the Slayers. Nice to know all her effort hadn't been for naught.

  “How did I get here?”

  “Phineas carried you.”

  He carried her? A strange frisson shot through her at that. “By himself?”

  Graymalkin rolled her eyes. Catherine supposed that it was a stupid question.

  Catherine shoved the window curtains aside and was greeted by millions of glittering lights. Their brightness swallowed up the stars, giving the clouds a faint, orange cast. The night sky here was similar to the sky from her dream was in name only

  “Where are we?” She knew it had to be a big city, because of the skyscrapers, but she wasn't well-traveled enough to even begin to guess which one.

  “Los Angeles.”

  Ah. “Where in Los Angeles?”

  “A hotel owned by the Council. They own many of the buildings in this district.”

  Did that mean that the witch intended to turn her into the Council, as well?

  Catherine opened the window and yelped when the same purple sparks she had encountered in the door. “What's this?” she said angrily. “Another ward?”

  “Yes,” said Graymalkin.

  “To keep me in?” she asked in a dangerous voice.

  The hall door closed loudly enough to make her jump. “Partly,” said the witch's voice, the snick of the latch indicating that he'd locked the door behind him.

  Not that he needs to.

  Any lingering doubts of his providence were quickly erased. The witch was dressed in a forest green uniform and black slacks with a green stripe running up the inside of the leg. Gold cord trailed down from his shoulder to hang over his chest in a glittering braid.

  On the left breast, beneath the high, stiff collar, was a pentacle embroidered in shimmering thread. Below that were three jeweled pins set in gold—a ruby, a sapphire, and a diamond. For fire, water, and air, she guessed.

  He looked exactly like what he was: regal, ruthless, cold.

  “Has she eaten?” he asked Graymalkin.

  “Yes,” Catherine snapped, “she has.”

  “Nice to see that you can be so flippant.” He let his white gloved hands fall to his sides. “I don't think you realize how close you were to death—or perhaps Graymalkin failed to enlighten you on that point,” he said, glancing at her sharply. “If Alec had taken mere spoonfuls more than he had, you would not be standing here before me.”

  Catherine bit back a retort asking why he cared; she was afraid of the answer. “What was the other reason for the ward?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You said keeping me in was only part of it.”

  His lips twitched a little. “Yes. I also made it to keep others out.”

  The green of his uniform was the precise shade of his eyes.

  And then she realized how close he was standing for her to realize that.

  “If I were goin
g to kill you, shifter mine, I would have done it while you were unconscious.”

  And then she realized how visibly she must be trembling for him to say that.

  “I know why you're afraid,” said the witch. “'As Darkness spreads across the land he wields the oceans in his hand.' The Shadow Thane sounds a bit like a witch, doesn't he?”

  It was as if he'd seen inside of her and glimpsed all her fears. “No,” she whispered.

  “The witch fated to kill you.” He took a step closer and she shuddered away from him, but he gripped her by the forearms to keep her in place. “The one who is destined to end the world in dragon fire. I've seen it, you know. In my dreams.”

  Me, too. She also remembered that dream in the castle, the one where she and the witch had been dressed so strangely: the one where he had transformed into a monster.

  But he was in the other dream. And he hadn't been trying to kill me, then. He was—

  His lips crushed against hers, scorching her with an intensity that was frightening, made more so by the fact that he was fully dressed and she was wearing next to nothing. Gloved fingers ran along the edge of her robe, tracing bare skin as he nudged it apart.

  Catherine clapped a hand over the robe to keep it from falling open. “You can't be the Shadow Thane.” Just speaking the words numbed her lips, as if saying them aloud made the evil real. “You can't.”

  “I can conjure dragons,” the witch said, very softly, and she felt a cold breeze curl around her, like the coils of a serpent.

  “Not real ones.” The dragons from her dreams had sounded just like the middle-range notes of a French horn and they had been huge, the size of whales.

  She shook the haunting sound of the dragons' phantom cry from her head.

  “If you are the Shadow Thane, why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?”

  The witch's expression went blank. “I don't know,” he said shortly.

  He's lying, a voice whispered.

  “The Council wants to meet you,” the witch spoke into the silence. Apparently he had tired of the subject. “There is a formal dress in the armoire that befits the occasion. You will accompany me.”

  The Council—the same group of Others she had spent her whole life trying to avoid. “What did you tell them?”

  “Very little.” His eyes flicked over her, mockingly, like a slap. “That should tell you something.”

  Maybe, Catherine thought, as he left, but what?

  Finn felt the darkness inside him shift as he closed the doors to the hotel room behind him. Shuddering, he deactivated the ward and leaned back against them.

  Last night, he had dreamed. He had seen the way the world ended, in ice, dragon fire, and shadow. The shape-shifter had been with him, too—only, she had been dead.

  Because he had been the one to kill her? He couldn't remember, although he assumed so. The more he thought about the prophecy, the more he was stricken by its potential relevance to him.

  Catherine yanked open the door. She hadn't seen him, and brushed against him as she stepped over the threshold. The black strapless gown fit her too well for his own state of mind. He offered her no compliment, instead of shoving a black jewelry box at her. “Everyone there will be ornamented,” he said. “The less attention you call to yourself, the better.”

  Inside was a gold necklace dripping emeralds. With the black gown, it looked understated, as he had known it would. The green picked up the olive notes in her skin. It was stunning. She was stunning.

  “I don't want these,” she said. “I can't accept them.”

  “I'll have them back at the end of the evening,” he said shortly. “It was a loan, not a gift.”

  And while the flush of embarrassment in her face was gratifying, it didn't quite compensate for his frustration. Because he had intended them as a gift, and the rejection stung. Karen, he knew, would have accepted them without a second thought.

  But Karen hadn't been attracted to him. She might have seen the emeralds as blood money: her due accord for entering in to what she had seen as a loveless marriage of convenience.

  In the limousine, he watched the shifter pour herself a glass of wine he knew she wasn't old enough to drink. She filled it to the brim and drank it all down. He suffered this, but when she started to refill it, he pulled the glass away so firmly that he ended up snapping the fragile glass at the stem.

  “Look what you've done,” she said, setting the wine bottle down. “You broke it.”

  “You shouldn't be drinking.” Finn kicked the broken glass aside with one polished shoe with more force than necessary. “I won't have you embarrassing me.”

  “But fucking me as perfectly acceptable?” she asked him blithely.

  Finn shook her. “Don't say such things,” he said. “You will get us both killed tonight.”

  “You mean, I'll get killed,” she said. “There are different rules for princes.” She flicked the gold braid on his uniform and his skin buzzed where he felt the fabric shift against his chest. “But then, that will save them the trouble of killing me for being a black—”

  He clapped his hand over her mouth, cutting her off. “As for that word,” he said coldly. “Don't even think it because if that word gets out, you will die where you stand.”

  Finn leaned back against the limousine's leather seat. His head ached. He had gotten no sleep at all, and his eyes felt as though they had been rubbed with sand. The shifter had precious little reason to trust him. He could well be the man who ended the world, and ending her would only be a small stepping stone on that path to darkness. But his path had never been one of evil, only righteousness.

  He had never killed a shape-shifter who didn't deserve it. But she wouldn't see it that way; she would paint him as some sort of eugenicist.

  Finally, he said, “I suppose you'll just have to trust me.”

  Her unwillingness to do that was inscribed all over her face.

  The Council headquarters had been hastily decorated for the impromptu meeting. Ordinarily, Finn would have escorted his female accompaniment on his arm, but since Catherine was a shape-shifter such a gesture would only draw speculation and disapproval. He settled for letting her walk at his side like an equal instead of several paces behind him, as was customary. Even that would scarcely be tolerated.

  There was a lot of security tonight, which meant his father was present, as he had feared. Finn looked for him and found the older witch with little effort. Royce Riordan had always craved respect, and was seated at a makeshift throne in the center of the room. That didn't surprise him. What did was the way he was staring at the shape-shifter with what looked like recognition and something else that bordered on hatred.

  But the expression was gone before Finn had time to properly gauge it and weigh it against his father's aura, reduced to a mild frown of censure.

  Royce was wearing a uniform similar to Finn's, although his was midnight blue instead of viridian. Also, Royce had a fourth stone—tourmaline—where Finn only had three. Formal ceremonies like these only served to reinforce Finn's innate sense of failure, and he often had the sneaking suspicion that his father was glad for the excuse to rub those shortcomings in his face.

  Suppressing his irritation, Finn bowed to his father. Royce beckoned him closer, eyes on Catherine.

  “Is that the one?” he asked, carefully omitting the use of a gender-based pronoun. It was a common dehumanizing tactic employed by older witches.

  Catherine had gravitated towards Raj Briyet and Cheyenne Whitefoot, the two shape-shifter Council delegates. They were referred to, mockingly, as “tokens” by the other Council members and rightly so; although acting members, they had very little say and were often excluded from meetings on more serious matters, albeit not provably.

  “Yes,” Finn said, after a pause. “She is the shape-shifter who assisted me in retrieving the Grimoire.”

  “The 'routine investigation'?” his father asked. “The shifter whose animal was missing from the index?” />
  Finn hesitated. “The very same.”

  “It is still blank,” Royce said. “What is she?”

  Finn paused, struggling to remember what the vampire had said. “I'm not quite sure,” he said mildly. “Some sort of bird.”

  “Good gods,” Royce muttered in an undertone, “you didn't bed her, did you?”

  “What do you take me for?” Finn hissed—through his teeth, so he looked like he was smiling. A number of Others were watching; he wasn't about to cause a scene—yet. He very well might before the eve was up.

  “Not a fool,” said Royce. “However it is reassuring to have one's beliefs confirmed periodically.”

  “Your faith in me is so comforting.”

  Royce was not one to play games. “Why does her aura look like that?”

  Finn closed his eyes. Others were studying her too. This was what he had been afraid of. But refusing to take her to the Council would arouse even more suspicion. It would make it look as if she had something to hide.

  He glanced in the shape-shifter's direction, did a double take. “I hadn't noticed,” he said again, more briefly this time in order to truly illustrate just how inconsequential he found Royce's observation. “I imagine it's from being in close contact with me.”

  He couldn't tell whether his father believed him or not. Probably not. The fact that his father said nothing to the contrary wasn't necessarily a good omen, either.

  “You said her family was forced to relocate?”

  “Yes,” Finn said again.

  “Good,” Royce said decisively. “Then they won't be able to seek revenge when she's dead.”

  The world seemed to halt.

  Finn paused, thinking he couldn't have heard his father correctly. “Excuse me?”

  “I know the type,” he said, watching Catherine with the expression he'd seen upon entering the hall. “She's far too uppity. Tensions with the savages are high. A single spark would incite them to rebellion like the bloodthirsty beasts they are—and that creature over there burns like a spark. I want her extinguished.”

  “I was under the impression that this ceremony was created to acknowledge her—”