by Anya Bast
Apparently Elena had been one of them.
Aislinn had noticed Elena had often kept to her apartment lately and hadn’t been participating in the social events that dominated the Rose Tower calendar. She’d seemed grayish in color, had lost weight, and seemed tired most of the time. Elena had said she’d simply had some sort of bug.
Mostly it was souls whom Aislinn hadn’t known in real life who came to her, ones who had no one close to them in life—no family, no friends. They simply wanted someone to see them, talk to them, ease their fear of the unknown. Sometimes they had a message to pass on to those they left behind, messages that she tried to deliver without endangering her secret.
A dark shadow appeared in the corner of the room, diametrically opposite the rising sun from the other direction. Aislinn blinked. More shadows appeared behind the first. There were a total of five indistinguishable forms near her door now.
She sat all the way up with a jerk of surprise.
The Lord of the Wild Hunt and his host? It had to be. They’d come to collect Elena.
Lady.
Never in her entire life had she been with a soul when the Wild Hunt came to collect him or her. She’d wondered about the odds of that, considering how many souls sought her out in the dead of night. Yet it had never happened. Secretly, she’d longed for it. She’d wanted a single glimpse of the group of people in all of Piefferburg who might understand her gift.
Suddenly a horrible thought occurred. She looked down at herself to make sure she wasn’t out of her body and ready to be collected herself. No. She was still corporeal. The prophetic dream that she was going to die soon hadn’t come true . . . yet.
Elena gazed at the hunt, her ageless face unlined and serene. “They’re here for me.”
Aislinn clutched her blankets to her and stared. She’d watched the Wild Hunt take off from the top of the Unseelie Court so many times; it was hard to believe they were standing in her bedroom.
The first tall and broad shadow—the Lord of the Wild Hunt—stepped forward and an unintelligible whisper echoed through the room. All the hair on the back of Aislinn’s neck stood up. The furious host appeared as little more than shadowy smudges.
“I’m coming in a moment,” Elena said in answer to the whisper, then turned her head back to Aislinn. “I felt your ability as soon as I passed,” she said. “I was drawn to it immediately. It was a comfort to know I could come to you. No matter that it’s Unseelie dark, don’t let your skill languish, Aislinn. It’s a gift.”
“I-I won’t.” She wished she didn’t have to.
“Tell your mother she was always a good friend to me and I’ll miss her.”
“I will.” Aislinn paused, steadied her voice, and said, “Good-bye Elena. Good travels.”
But Elena was already crossing the room toward the large shadow’s outstretched hand. Together they left the room, the other shadows forming a procession behind her.
Aislinn leapt from the bed, grabbed her robe, and ran to the window in the living room. A few minutes later and the host lifted off from the roof, clearly laden with many collected souls on the backs of horses. Together the host flew off into the pinkish dawn, then seemed to explode in a glittery sunburst.
Then there were just the shadows, horses and hounds. The souls were gone. The Wild Hunt headed back to the Unseelie Court.
FOUR
ONCE back on the roof of the Black Tower, Gabriel slid off Abastor and stared into the dawn-lightened sky behind the Rose Tower, his jaw clenched.
Aislinn. That had been Aislinn they’d just seen. And she’d clearly been able to see and talk to the soul they’d been there to collect.
“You okay?” asked Aeric beside him.
Gabriel blinked, trying to wrap his mind around the situation. “Yeah.”
“That was pretty amazing, wasn’t it?”
“Wow. Someone in the Rose who can see souls.” Melia slid from her mount with Aelfdane’s help. “She’s got Unseelie blood. That woman shouldn’t even be there. I can’t imagine how alone she must feel, having to conceal a secret that big every day.”
The Shadow King had said Aislinn was a relation; so of course she was displaced Unseelie. That part wasn’t what had shocked him so much. In almost two hundred years of leading the Wild Hunt, Gabriel had never come upon someone who could communicate with souls. Tonight, he had. And that person happened to be Aislinn, the woman he’d only just met, the woman he’d been tasked with luring to the Black of her own free will.
The odds had to be infinitesimal, which meant it hadn’t happened by chance. Gabriel didn’t believe in coincidence, but he couldn’t discern the reason for this.
One thing was for certain: Aislinn didn’t belong in the Rose Tower. Even aside from the Shadow King’s demand she defect from the Rose and come to the Black, her people were the Unseelie, not those fancy imbeciles across the square.
No matter how this had happened tonight, whether it had been a result of pure chance or the work of a higher power, he’d been given a gift.
Since his charm as an incubus didn’t seem to be working, he could use this new information to tempt Aislinn to the Black.
WAS it possible she was a necromancer?
Gabriel slouched in one of Aislinn’s armchairs and watched her from across the room. It didn’t seem likely. Hells, it seemed impossible. Yet the skill to communicate with souls usually went hand in hand with the power to call and control them. And there were necromancers in the Shadow King’s lineage, though the king had called Aislinn a “distant” relation and the necromancers of his line were direct—the power running through the maternal side of his family. Perhaps Aislinn wasn’t as “distant” as the king had claimed.
But why would he lie?
Necromancers were powerful, dangerous Unseelie. As Lord of the Wild Hunt, Gabriel had the ability to call the sluagh—the horde of unforgiven dead from the Netherworld—but he lacked the ability to direct and control them. A necromancer couldn’t call the sluagh, but she could control them. It was sort of a cosmic safeguard since the sluagh were capable of such utter destruction.
A necromancer played yin to the Lord of the Wild Hunt’s yang.
Even without the sluagh, a necromancer could wreak complete chaos, with the ability to call any soul she wished from the Netherworld, command the soul to take corporeal form, and then use it as a weapon if enough emotion could be engendered in that soul.
Gabriel frowned and rubbed his chin, deep in thought. In the kitchen, where Aislinn puttered, doing what Danu only knew what, she hummed to herself—a light, pretty little ditty. He tried to imagine her commanding an army of the unforgiven dead.
Nah, Aislinn wasn’t a necromancer.
His lower lip twitched in a brief smile. She may not be a lightweight shallow ball of fluff like the rest of the women in this court, but she was no magickal heavyweight, either. No. No way could she wield power over the dead.
She must be what the Shadow King said she was—a distant relation. Perhaps she had a breath of the talent inherent in his direct line, but only a breath. Just enough to let her communicate with souls.
A cupboard door in the kitchen slammed. She was stalling. For the first time in his life a woman was actually stalling to put off attending a social function with him.
She entered the living room, the skirt of her long gold gown swinging with her movement. Her long silver blond hair was swept up in a chignon at the very attractive nape of her neck, a sensitive part of the body for most women. He wondered what kinds of sounds she’d make if he gently nipped her there. She wore a minimal amount of makeup, just enough to accentuate her liquid silver-gray eyes and her rosebud of a mouth. Her lower lip was much fuller than the upper, made a man want to suck on it. She wore little jewelry, too. Just two diamond earrings and a matching gem in the hollow of her throat.
“I’m ready,” she announced, slipping on the two elbow-length white gloves that were sitting on the counter. Gabriel detected a note of resignation i
n her voice.
“Really? Are you sure you don’t want to organize the cabinets? Alphabetize your soup cans, perhaps? Maybe go through your refrigerator and throw out all the past-date food? It’s okay, I can wait.”
“Very funny.”
Still slumped in the chair, he spread his hands. “I promise I won’t bite you, Aislinn. You don’t have to keep stalling.”
She raised a brow and cocked a hip. “Don’t flatter yourself. Listen, Gabriel, I’m not afraid of much, especially not you. I’m just not looking forward to this party, but not because I’m going with you. If the queen hadn’t entrusted me with the job of introducing you around, I wouldn’t be going at all.”
“What would you be doing?”
“I’d stay at home, make a nice dinner, have a bath, and go to bed early.” She paused. “That might sound boring to you, but to me it’s the perfect evening. I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m really tired. Plus, I woke this morning to find a dear friend of my family had died from Watt syndrome during the night. I’m not feeling festive.”
Yes, he knew all too well she’d woken up pretty early. Knew all about the friend of the family’s death, too.
“Okay, I’ll be honest, Aislinn, I’d rather have a quiet night, too.” Gabriel’s job was Aislinn, not being introduced around at court. “How about we skip the ball and make dinner here. I’m a pretty good cook. You can go take a bath and I’ll prepare a meal. I won’t stay late and you can go to bed early. That way we can get to know each other a little better and I can change this horrible opinion you have of me. What do you say?”
She hesitated, blinked a couple of times, and looked ready to bolt. “I don’t have a horrible opinion of you. It’s just—”
He held up his hands. “Your honor is totally safe with me, Aislinn. Lock the bathroom door if you want. I just want to be friends.”
Lie. He wanted to sleep with her. Seduce her and betray her. Lure her into his bed and then to the Unseelie Court. He wanted to hand her over to the Shadow King, whose purposes were murky.
His conscience flickered.
But this was his job. And he’d known the Shadow King for many years. No matter what the stories were, he was not a bad man. He was not an unjust ruler. Gabriel didn’t know what his king wanted with her, but he felt in his heart it wasn’t to harm her. After all, she was a relative.
The plan was for Gabriel to get under her skin, make her care about him . . . addict her to him sexually, if he could. Then, at the end of his stay here, he would decide the Rose Tower wasn’t for him and return to the Unseelie Court, throwing himself on the mercy of the Shadow King. He planned to convince Aislinn to come with him—tell her that he couldn’t live without her and that the Shadow King would let him live if he saw he’d finally fallen in love.
And now he had the added leverage of knowing the monumental secret she was keeping.
Gods, he was a cold fucking bastard. Sometimes he even surprised himself.
Maybe it was better if they went to the party and surrounded themselves with other people. Maybe it was better if they didn’t get to know each other, better that this stopped now. He could go back to the Unseelie Court and tell the Shadow King—
“All right.” Aislinn stripped her gloves off and kicked away her stilettos. “Sounds good to me, but I don’t know what you’ll find to make for dinner. I don’t have much food in the house. I live mostly on oatmeal and yogurt.”
Gabriel’s stomach sank. Suddenly he wasn’t sure this was such a good idea. But he was in it up to his eyebrows now. “I’ll find something.”
She gave him a shaky smile, hesitated and looked as if she might say something. Instead, she walked into her bedroom.
He stared at the closed door for a long moment, still slumped in his chair. The decision had been made and he needed to get back on task. He couldn’t ask for a better situation than this.
All he needed was his head in the game. He loosened his tie and got up to build a fire in the fireplace. Feeding it with small bits of kindling, he coaxed it into a blaze—just the method he planned to use with Aislinn. That done, he ventured into the kitchen.
She’d been right when she’d said there wasn’t much food in the house. He managed to find some linguine in the cabinet, and some cauliflower that was nearly bad, olives, raisins, a little garlic and onion, nuts, and a small can of tomato paste from the rest of the kitchen. Anyone else looking at that collection wouldn’t believe they could create something delicious with it, but Gabriel knew he could. He’d watched his mother get by on almost nothing when he was a child, watched her creativity with limited resources, and had never forgotten the lesson. She’d always been able to create something wonderful from scraps.
With the odd assortment of ingredients he cooked up a sweet and salty pasta dish along with a salad. Finding a bottle of red wine, he popped it open and poured a couple of glasses. By the time she was out of her bath, he had the table set and dinner ready.
Seduction, phase one, in place.
“Wow.”
He looked up at the sound of her voice and his breath caught. She stood at the entrance of her formal dining room and surveyed the two places he’d set at the end of her polished mahogany table, using the fine china and crystal he’d found in her breakfront. Her gown was gone, replaced by a soft-looking pair of jersey pants and a dark sweater. Her feet were bare and her toenails painted in seashell pink, just like her fingernails. Her face was clean of makeup and her hair was freed from its chignon, falling freshly washed and still damp past her shoulders. She seemed completely at ease dressed this way and a bit younger.
Without the armor she wore around the court, she was even more gorgeous.
He cleared his throat and looked away, clamping down on his impulse to go to her. He knew that if he pulled her against him, kissed her, and stroked her soft skin, she would eventually relent. She might fight him at first, but he knew with the dark and erotic certainty of the incubus blood in his veins that he could push her past that stage, make her give in to him. It would be so sweet. He could draw her back to her bedroom, spread her out on her mattress, and strip those clothes off her. He could draw his lips and hands over her body, kissing, sucking, and petting her until she was incoherent with want—until the only sounds she could make were moans and entreaties for more.
His body clenched at the fantasy unfurling in his mind.
“It smells great and I’m famished.”
Gabriel had to force his vocal cords into action. “Bath all right?” He wasn’t going to think about her bare body slick with water and droplets of moisture. He was already having trouble controlling his erection—a thing that rarely happened.
“Wonderful.” She settled herself at her plate and he served her some of the pasta from a pretty blue and yellow ceramic bowl. Aislinn was one of the highest born of the Seelie fae and she had the best of everything. When he took her to the Unseelie Court with him, she’d be giving all that up, though considering her blood ties and previous social rank, Gabriel was sure that the Shadow King would clothe and house her appropriately.
Probably. His conscience flickered again.
He sat down beside her and served himself as she tasted his meal. She closed her eyes and sighed. “This is great, Gabriel. I can’t believe you just whipped this up in the twenty minutes I took to take a bath.”
“At three hundred and sixty-five years old, I’ve had lots of practice.”
“The Summer Queen mentioned you were a child during the Great Sweep and that you were only seven when the humans and the Phaendir created Piefferburg.” She took a sip of wine. “She even said that you suffered from Watt syndrome as a boy and still had it when you were first imprisoned here.”
“Yes. My mother had it, too. I was very sick and almost died, but managed to fight through. Now I’m immune. Unfortunately my mother wasn’t. She died from it during the first year of Piefferburg’s creation.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks, but i
t was a long time ago.”
“Still, it’s never easy to lose a parent. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was.”
“True.”
“What was Piefferburg like back then?”
Gabriel took a steadying sip of wine as memory he ordinarily tried to avoid swelled. He remembered hastily constructed wooden shanties that leaked when it rained. Remembered how cold it was at night and how dangerously freezing the winters were. Remembered moldy potatoes and dirty, parasite-ridden water. Remembered his mother lying on a narrow mattress with no one to take care of her but a scrawny seven-year-old boy who was also wasting away from the disease. He remembered his mother dying alone one afternoon while he’d gone out to scavenge for food. When he’d returned empty-handed, her eyes had been open, dull, and sunken into a gray face.
He remembered the years after his mother died, when he’d been left alone with all the other captured fae who were struggling to find a foothold in their new reality. In those early years, after his mother died, he’d been forced to do so many unsavory things to survive. Things in back alleys for fae with bad breath, greasy hair, and grasping hands. He’d been forced to use his magick in ways he didn’t want to think of now, yet the memories dwelt like tiny demons in the corners of his mind, taking small, bloody bites.
He took another long drink of his wine. “It was a living hell for some of us.”
“For all those who weren’t Seelie, you mean?”
He nodded and said nothing more. Bitterness still crept up into the back of his throat remembering the years of the Great Sweep. How the Phaendir had hunted them down, rounded them up, and forcibly transported them from all over the world to Piefferburg. It had been so easy with the sickness on them all and because the fae races had been fragmented as a result of the wars.
