“Lugh?” The king’s voice reached no other ear, he breathed the whisper so respectfully.
“A moment of meditation to gather myself,” Lugh replied, unable to stand and yet unwilling to crumble before these elves. Pride gave him the only strength he yet possessed. He’d thought to be so careful, but in the magicraft he’d lost his awareness and taxed himself beyond his reserves.
Mckenna accepted Lugh’s unspoken request, saying instead, “Perhaps you would like a moment of privacy, Lord Lugh, to contemplate this day and the statuary of your kin? I know your Tailtiu was among our revered Veil weavers.” After a sliver of hesitation, he added, “I shall return to share your meditation after a span.”
Still humbled and awed by the magic they’d partaken in, the lads didn’t resist Cai herding them from the chamber. “Let us tell those that await our joyous news.” Mckenna followed them out and closed the door behind him, leaving Lugh kneeling alone in the chamber.
Only when truly alone did Lugh release his strangle hold upon the trembling that spread like a fire across his body. Through a mighty effort of control, he avoided the need to retch. He rolled onto the floor, aching everywhere, as if he’d worked every single muscle of his body past the point of exhaustion. The Fade lanced across the whole of his body, which starved for the magic that would replenish him. Like wasted crops that withered or the cracking soil torn asunder by drought, each fiber of his body wrestled to claim the final shreds of magic, tearing him apart from the inside. A groan of pain he’d not even known he’d loosed escaped him.
And then an outcry of rage and defeat tore from his throat.
For in the death that was to come for him, all hope for the fey was lost.
Chapter Seven
“Nothing hurts like the Fade.”
Lugh rolled to his side, startled by the voice in a chamber he’d trusted as empty. Through determination alone he pushed himself up, absorbing the pain in a wave that sent his muscles trembling against the force of his will. His voice conveyed the power his body failed to provide. “Who speaks?”
A figure, tall and dark in the hooded cloak that shadowed his face, sidestepped from behind the statue of Taranis. Not even his hands were visible, hidden by the voluminous sleeves. “There is relief, if you’ll have it. Trust me. I know your pain.”
Lugh eased up to his feet, barely maintaining control against the dizziness that tilted the room. He faced the cloaked figure with all the severity he could muster. “What relief? If I am to trust you, then show your face.”
The figure lifted his head. The waning light of the western sun reached inside the hood.
Gareth.
He raised his hand, the sleeve dropping back to reveal a small bottle balanced between thumb and forefinger. The light glinted off the faceting of the crystal as he offered it to Lugh. “Drink that.”
Subduing a frown of mistrust from hardening his features, Lugh twisted off the cap and flicked a droplet onto his hand. The cooling magic of the potion soaked into his skin, lessening the pain of the Fade and replacing it with a humming sensation. Lugh capped the bottle. “You are of the light, wood elf. As am I. Dabbling with dark magic is dangerous at the best of times. You should abstain, even now.”
“How did I know you were going to say that?” A tall fey in the guise of a dark elf, but in the modern human clothing of denim and cotton, strolled from behind the statue of Druantia. He leaned with irreverent grace against the statue. In the wickedness of the grin, unnaturally wide, Lugh knew this fey was no elf, dark or otherwise. He was a Changeling.
Gareth took this moment of distraction and lunged, jabbing something between Lugh’s ribs.
Lugh shoved the wood elf away. Even still, a spreading chill lanced through him. Lugh grabbed the thing stuck into him and jerked it out.
A hypodermic needle.
The plunger fully depressed.
The empty needle rolled from his hand and dropped onto the floor.
Lugh stumbled. “What have you done?”
“You were starved for magic. I’ve given it to you.” False friendliness dripped from Gareth’s words.
“Not dark magic.” The cold rush disorienting him, Lugh dropped to a knee. He clutched at his side as if he might forestall the cold leaching through his body. “I am Light. I can’t…” The dark magic spread through the agony of the Fade, transforming it. “I can’t have this. Not darkness.”
A snarl twisted Gareth’s handsome face. “You wanted to merge the Light Court with the Dark Court? You think light magic and dark magic can commingle and not destroy each other?” He crouched before Lugh, just out of arm’s reach as he gloated.
Lugh stared into the elf’s cold eyes. The bitterness there. The hatred. But there was more. Pupils dilated so wide that his irises appeared black. The same dark madness with which he’d poisoned Lugh infused the wood elf.
“You destroyed the Mounds, Seelie. You destroyed my family. You destroyed my life.” With an evil smile, Gareth whispered, “Now, I’ve destroyed you.”
“Be gone from me viper.” Lugh snarled, lips curled back in a threat.
The Changeling in the guise of a dark elf placed a hand on Gareth’s shoulder. “You’ve had your revenge.” With a sideways flick of his head he dismissed him.
Gareth cast one last look at Lugh. No doubt memorizing this moment so he might relive his triumph. Then he teleported away. Something no Fading fey should have been able to achieve. Gareth hadn’t simply forestalled the Fade with this dark magic, but had given himself fully over to it. So possessed of the foreign enchantment, he was no longer the man he once had been, but a wretched, consumed creature.
Frozen tendrils of the enchantment vined through Lugh, spreading with the persistence of ivy. It twisted within him, reaching ever deeper. Lugh eased himself onto the edge of the fountain. He drew up a cupped handful of the fresh water to drink, and then splashed his face with it. Nothing cleared his head. The magic vibrated down his arms and legs. It coiled into his mind like a shadow. Lugh covered his face with his hands, struggling to preserve his integrity, yet feeling it start to slip from his grasp.
“He thought dark magic would kill you, Sun Sidhe. You and I both know better, don’t we?” The Changeling circled around, easing up beside him. “The eclipse doesn’t destroy you. It frees you.”
Lugh checked his side. The bruising of the dark magic lessened as it spread into his body. Under no circumstances could he allow himself to give in to the temptation of dark magic. Not he, who was the epitome of the light. Once before, he’d been poisoned with dark magic, and the eclipse of the sun was a period that no one who witnessed could scrub from their nightmares.
Lugh trembled, struggling to resist the shadow that spread through him. As the magic reached his fingers, Lugh flexed his hand. Now that the dark magic filled his void, the pain dissipated. “I don’t want this.”
“Oh, but you really do.” The Changeling purred, as friendly and tempting as a demon. “There is no reason to suffer. Surely no sense in it.”
And suffer he had. Day by day the Fade stripped more of his life away, leaving agony in its wake. If not for the Fade, repairing the Veil would have been no drain upon him.
Lugh flinched away from the Changeling. “You’ve already poisoned me. Why are you wasting your breath?”
“I’ve not poisoned you, Lugh.” The Changeling laughed, as if they were the oldest of mates. “I’ve just given you a taste of what I have to offer.” He pointed to the bottle still in Lugh’s hand. “That magic will keep you alive. When you need more, and you will sooner or later, you can find me on the Isle of Mann. Everyone knows me. Just ask around for Deacon.”
The Changeling gave him a two-finger salute and smirked as he vanished.
The spread of the darkness calmed, and it had not torn his mind asunder, just laced his thoughts with a hint of shadow. This tiny bit of dark magic had been just enough to ease the Fade. Just enough to keep him going. Lugh knew well the art of compromise. He’d no choi
ce in this, so need carry no guilt for it. If he could turn this to his advantage, was that not the Seelie way? Besides, he had no way to purge himself of this unwanted darkness.
Some part of his mind wrestled against that logic, whispering that there was a way to rid himself of the darkness, but Lugh stifled it. There was no way to purge himself that would not leave him as he’d been; suffering and weak.
Perhaps if he allowed this much dark magic to replenish him, and no more, he could finish his work and restore the realm of the fey. Then no one need suffer the Fade any longer.
Even knowing he should cast it aside, Lugh slipped the bottle into his pocket.
Chapter Eight
That evening, Lugh strode through the neon-illuminated streets of Dublin. The black denim the wood elves gifted him fit just the way he liked, lose enough to move as freely as he desired and closely enough to give a pleasant pressure to his hips and legs. The dark, sleeveless cotton shirt kept him cool on the summer evening and didn’t hamper the movement of his arms. The bottle Deacon gave him, tucked into the inside pocket of the jacket fashioned from the same fabric as the jeans, bounced against his side with each stride.
That he felt better than he had since before the Collapse was an illusion and Lugh knew it. Though the infusion of dark magic had relieved the pain of the Fade, it hadn’t cured him. Lugh still had to conserve his magic; nothing changed in that.
What had changed was a desire to bite someone.
A small thing really, but a sign nonetheless of the unnatural darkness that stained him. Lugh was light. The very sun. The purest of the light magics. Dark magic affected him as it did few others, almost to the point of an allergic reaction. If he consumed it in any quantity he was no fit creature for anyone to be around. It aroused a bestial nature difficult to subdue.
But with just a taint… just a smudge… This much he could handle.
Just until he finished his quest to restore the realm of fey.
And then… Then he would purge himself of the darkness and cast it aside.
Mckenna’s people had found three artifacts among their possessions, and given them to Lugh for restoring the Great Veil. These, along with the axe, Lugh saw safely into the keeping of the dragon, Jonathan. Mckenna had volunteered to teleport Lugh to deliver his treasures and then to return him to Dublin. The wood elves’ king hadn’t mentioned anything about the Fade, which Lugh appreciated. Especially now that he no longer showed the advanced signs of the wasting.
Just before he’d taken his leave, Lugh finally had a private word with Kev. The wood elf confided that the human Lugh had taken as a companion was known to have had dealings with Changelings and vampires. Something that mattered less to Lugh now than it would have the day before.
Especially now, when the darkness slithering in his mind preoccupied him with its own obsession. His tongue ran over his teeth. The compulsion to bite twisted over and over, and would continue to torment him until he slaked this need.
This time, the vampires of the Satin Club neither fled from him nor harassed him. They accepted him with the same sideways watchfulness as they would have any other predator. The club was no less crowded this evening than it had been the day before. The vampire mistress who owned the club held court from the corner barstool, but she dismissed her attendants when she spied Lugh approaching.
“Look who’s come to darken my doorstep,” Selena purred. She raised her right arm to display a filigree bracelet of gold. Within her other hand, she showed him the small enchantment he’d given her and how it pointed to the bracelet. “And look what I’ve found.” The vampire slid her arms around his neck, pressing her body, sheathed in a silk dress of a shimmering blue, against his length. “Now you owe me another night.” She could never replace a Sidhe in his arms or in his bed, but tonight, this woman was exactly what he needed. Under no circumstances would he desire to subject a Sidhe to what he meant to share with this woman.
Rather than answer her, Lugh crushed his lips against hers. His tongue invaded her mouth. The vampire yielded to his demands, even when he lifted her from the floor and trapped her between his body and the wall. She tasted not of blood, a sensation for which he’d anticipated, but of champagne.
Lugh wanted blood.
With a handful of her hair tangled about his fingers, he arched her neck. Lugh sank his teeth not into the vulnerable flesh of her throat, but on the length of muscle in that graceful slope of her shoulder. His teeth weren’t meant for a clean puncture like a vampire’s, and his unrestricted bite could rip open a vessel beyond repair, killing her. He knew this from experience. That he cared enough not to tear open her throat proved his mastery over the darkness within.
The sharp taste of blood filled his senses, awakening more dark desires. Her squeal of shock and pleasure ignited his need. Each slithering glide of her body stole his reason. Like a cat that bites its mate, his teeth on her aroused him. Lugh drew back just enough to growl against her ear. “Upstairs.”
She laughed, low and seductive, for no amount of biting would deter a vampire. “It will be a pleasure.”
And he knew that it would indeed.
###
Compelled
Chapter One
“You screwed the pooch on that one, babe.” Joe tilted back his beer bottle like that was the punctuation on the statement.
“Should I be thankful you didn’t say ‘I told you so?’” London picked up her cell phone from the bar. She’d set it out to show him the text message she’d gotten. We’re coming for you. It still gave her the shivers, like she needed to keep looking over her shoulder. The number hadn’t been one she’d recognized, but she had a good idea who sent it. Kieran had taken her business card. If the message didn’t come from him, then it had to be one of the other Unseelie of the Glamour Club. There were two kinds of people in the world; the kind that dropped the chase when you outran them and the kind that would hunt you to the ends of the earth no matter how long it took. Wouldn’t you know it? The Unseelie were the grudge-holding kind. “It’s not like I got a manual on how to be enchanted when the Sidhe cursed me. I made a mistake.”
“A bunch of mistakes,” Joe corrected her.
“A bunch of mistakes,” she agreed. “But I am trying to change.” She dropped her phone into her jacket pocket. “Probably too late now. I’ve got a big target on my back and no way to redeem myself.”
Joe slid a glance at her, eyes half-closed like he was debating something. The cold blue of his gaze made his attention hit with more impact. For a human, Joe Lansing was one hell of a guy. Tall, casually handsome in those worn jeans and Dallas Cowboys t-shirt, with an edge of toughness that could stare down a werewolf without flinching. The military and law enforcement background showed in his bearing, but he’d been out of them long enough to lose that clean-cut look a lot of guys kept for a while after the service. His sandy-colored hair looked finger-combed and the stubble on his face was at least a day old. It added to his whole ‘don’t mess with me’ vibe. It was a trick that worked for a guy like him. Made him seem impressively badass without even trying. And yet he was just as enchanted as she was. Just another human cursed by the magic of the Sidhe. He said, “Don’t count yourself out just yet.”
“You’re not thinking of introducing me to your boss. He’s Unseelie.”
“Donovan might run the show at the Glamour Club, but he doesn’t speak for all Unseelie.” When Joe smiled, he looked like trouble.
London shook her head, playing with her bottle of Guinness without any real interest in drinking from it. Amazing how living on borrowed time put a damper on the small joys of life. “But you said this Tiernan fellow is mates with Donovan.”
“You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but Tiernan’s a businessman. He wraps himself up in the partying playboy image so people underestimate him, but he’s wicked sharp. Trust me.” Joe pointed at her with the neck of his bottle. “Your problem isn’t that Donovan wants you dead. It’s your reputation. Snatching one of Do
novan’s boys for your personal Touch slave isn’t something anyone’s going to soon forget. It doesn’t matter that you came to your senses and gave him back. It doesn’t matter that you fought your way through a bunch of werewolves to do it. Nobody even cares about that.”
She winced. “Tell me again why I shouldn’t count myself out yet?”
“You’ve got a bad reputation. A well-deserved bad reputation at that. But it happens. What you need to do now is prove yourself.” Those blue eyes twinkled with wickedness.
London laughed, and not the amused kind. It was the I-know-I’m-going-to-regret-this kind. “Why do I have the feeling that you have just the very idea about how I can prove myself to your boss?”
He grinned, and somehow it managed to be both sexy and sly at the same time. “Because you’re perceptive.”
“You want my help for something and that’s why you called me.” London finally put two and two together. That evening she’d driven all the way to this pub in Dundalk to meet him, since it was halfway between Dublin and where he was staying outside of Belfast. Catching up over a couple of pints and bending his sympathetic ear was all she’d expected. After all, Joe was the only other person she knew who’d been cursed. The only person who could really relate to what she was going through. The only person who might clue her in on how to survive as an enchanted human. “It wasn’t just that you’d heard about my death sentence and wanted to give me a friendly pep talk.”
“I never have been much of a pep talk kind of guy.”
“And you reckon Tiernan will take me on if I prove myself?” The possibility seemed valid. Joe hadn’t a pristine reputation, either. They’d met on a nasty job for a Changeling. Turned out that the Sidhe the Changeling claimed to work for was actually his captive. London hadn’t figured it out at the time. From the things he’d said, she was pretty certain that Joe had. So if Tiernan could overlook Joe’s sordid history, maybe he could overlook hers.
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