by Anya Bast
“What’s to stop me from keeping either of you from ever leaving this room?” the queen continued to Gabriel. “Alive, anyway.”
Gabriel’s voice boomed low and clear through the chamber. “Harm Aislinn or me and you will have a war on your hands. The Shadow King has claimed us both.”
Aislinn jerked and looked over at Gabriel in alarm. This was news to her. He’d hinted at the possibility that the Shadow King would likely welcome her to the Black Tower, but he’d never come out and said that the Shadow King had claimed her. He’d never even told her he’d spoken to the Shadow King on her behalf.
Had he told the Shadow King about her Unseelie blood? About her ability? Was that why he’d left the night before? Was that why he hadn’t wanted to make love to her? Could it be somehow related?
Or perhaps he thought the Summer Queen truly did mean to harm her and he was bluffing to get her out of the situation. Either way, the result was the same: she would have to leave the Rose Tower. She’d mulled the possibility, but she didn’t want her decision to be forced. Not like this.
Gods.
For a moment all thought left her mind. It was only a sheet of white, blank—tabula rasa. She blinked stupidly, wondering how large a shift her life had just taken and whether it was a change for the better . . . or the worse. What would soon be written on that blankness?
Gabriel spoke again. “We belong—both of us—to the Shadow King. Harm us at your peril.”
The queen stared hard at them both, her eyes narrowed and her fingers bone white. The guards had stopped moving once Aislinn had yelled no and the queen had entertained her, but their hands still rested on the handles of their swords. The cold jelly in Aislinn’s stomach jiggled and made her nauseous.
“The Shadow King cannot have Aislinn Christiana Guinevere Finvarra. She’s mine,” the queen yelled, losing her frosty composure completely.
Aislinn jerked in surprise at the claim. A moment ago the queen had said she didn’t care if she left the Rose and had threatened to kill her. Ah. Logic cut through her panicked confusion. The queen was only claiming her to thwart the Shadow King. Aislinn was only a pawn in their eternal struggle.
The queen pointed her finger at Gabriel. “You! Begone from the Rose Tower before I decide I don’t care about a war. Guards, escort them out. Make sure Aislinn Christiana Guinevere Finvarra returns to her quarters and the Unseelie incubus exits the tower.”
Five gold and rose-bedecked guards escorted them out of the throne room, armor clanking.
The corridor was thronged with onlookers as well as a Faemous film crew, but Aislinn paid them no attention. She gripped Gabriel’s hand as the guards bustled them down the hallway amid a shush of wagging tongues and curious looks.
“Does the Shadow King really know about me?” she asked.
He glanced back at the guards and spoke in a hushed voice. “Come to the Black Tower. Not now, but later, when you can. Come to me there.”
She swallowed hard and looked around at the building she’d known her whole life, the people she’d grown up with, the scents, the textures, the sounds. “That’s a big decision to make.”
“It’s the right decision to make.”
“Gabriel, I don’t know. I can’t just leave like this.”
“Yes, you can. Don’t be afraid.” He pulled her forward by her upper arms and kissed her. Then he buried his nose in her hair and inhaled, as if he were trying to fill himself up with the scent of her and take it with him. “You know where I am, Aislinn. You won’t be alone.”
He dipped his head and gave her one last lingering kiss. Then he turned and walked down the corridor with the guards behind him . . . out of her life forever. Sorrow swelled within her as she watched him disappear from her sight.
All around her the Seelie who’d followed them down the corridor murmured. The commentator from Faemous pushed a mike into her face and asked a question she couldn’t really hear through the roaring in her ears. She just pushed forward, away from all of them, and went up to her room as fast as she could, tears blurring her vision.
Her chest was empty and cold. She’d lost something important, something unique and special that she would never get back and would always remember. Maybe it was the possibility of pursuing her magick.
Or maybe it was Gabriel.
GABRIEL walked through Piefferburg Square in full daylight and without subterfuge for the first time in a week. He’d failed to bring Aislinn to the Unseelie Court and now faced the ire of the Shadow King.
But that was not what made ice form in the center of his chest. It was the loss of her. He would miss the scent of her, her presence, the sound of her voice and the feel of her skin.
He’d seen it in her eyes—she wasn’t coming over to the Black. The Shadow King would be angry that he hadn’t used his sexual magick to enchant her and possess her. He could have done that once she’d warmed to him. Last night had presented the perfect opportunity. He could have woven a dark spell of lust around her so strong that she would’ve followed him anywhere. The thought had occurred to him, but he hadn’t been able to follow through.
Since he’d met Aislinn, he’d developed an annoyingly potent conscience.
He cared about her; therefore he hadn’t been able to take her choices from her. He hadn’t been able to manipulate her to his will, even though not doing so meant he risked his life.
Ultimately, it was better this way.
He would suffer the wrath of the Unseelie Royal, but he’d done right by Aislinn. That was the important thing. The only pity of the situation was that Aislinn hadn’t done right by herself by choosing not to take a chance.
A cold wind blew his coat open and chilled him to the bone. He closed it, turning his collar up, and headed past the statue of Jules Piefferburg, which today was smeared with rotting fruit. One last glance up at the Rose Tower showed Aislinn silhouetted in her window, watching him. Alone. She was destined to remain that way.
He ripped his gaze away and stared straight ahead at the Black Tower, shaking her off him and gathering his armor back around himself. Some kind of spell had affected him at the Rose Tower, made him weak and vulnerable. He couldn’t bring that back with him to the Unseelie; they would scent it in a minute and exploit it.
For a while Aislinn had transformed him into the man he might have been if his mother hadn’t died when he was a boy, if he hadn’t been left alone on the streets of the newly created Piefferburg, if his father hadn’t been the man he’d been.
If.
But now that Aislinn was gone from his life all that history crashed back on him like a wave against rocks. He allowed it. He needed it. He needed the strength his experiences had given him, the mercilessness he’d been forced to acquire. He would need all that when he went to tell the Shadow King that he’d failed.
Bella tried to catch him as soon as he breezed into the Black Tower, but he waved her off. Niall Quinn, Ronan’s brother, watched him from a corner of the foyer, an almost knowing smirk on his face. Aeric took one look at the glower on Gabriel’s face and backed off immediately.
Hinkley hurried up to him. “The Shadow King demands your presence at once.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Gabriel drawled.
“He’s in a foul mood.”
Gabriel turned the corridor leading to the Shadow King’s chamber with Hinkley nipping at his heels. “That makes two of us.”
The Shadow King was in a bad mood. That didn’t bode well for Gabriel.
The royal sat in his office, behind a huge oak desk with legs carved in the image of satyrs. The Shadow King didn’t sit on a throne surrounded by hundreds of gold and rose-bedecked guards as the Summer Queen did, but he was no less imposing from sheer reputation.
The Summer Queen wasn’t the only royal known to cry off with his head upon occasion.
Barthe lurked in one corner, near the Shadow King’s propped-up fighting staff. Two goblins stood in the other corner, far more deadly than a pretty Seelie Tuatha Dé wit
h a sword. The Seelie Tuatha Dé guard would decapitate him, but a goblin would digest him. Neither death sounded good at the moment and he had a feeling he’d be threatened by both today.
“Where is she?” the Shadow King growled, coming to his feet behind his desk. His multicolored hair was tied at his nape today, the red tips touching the middle of his back. The bones of his face were thrown into sharp relief, giving him a brutal cast. The tattoo of the medallion embedded in his skin was visible at the open collar of his shirt.
“I have failed to lure Aislinn Christiana Guinevere Finvarra to the Black, my lord.” There would be no sitting down and propping his feet up on the desk today. He needed to pay the king his respect since he was coming to him with a disappointment.
The Shadow King went silent and the temperature in the room dropped several degrees. There was a reason they called him shadow. That temperature drop was a bad sign of his temper. “How is it that you failed, Gabriel? Help me to understand.”
“She was immune to my charms, my lord.” No sense in telling him that eventually she hadn’t been; he just hadn’t wanted to manipulate her. “I gained secret information about her and attempted to use it to my favor, endeavoring to convince her that her life would improve if her dark magick was developed, but—”
“Dark magick? She knows about her abilities?” He went still and paled.
Gabriel frowned, wondering why that was an issue. “She told me she’s sensitive to departed souls and believes she accidently called one once. She thinks she may be a necromancer, but there’s no basis I can see for it. She has a desire to develop her skills, so I encouraged her to come here so she could. Since my power as an incubus was useless with her, I took that strategy. It failed.”
The king turned his back to him and his body tensed. “I need her here, Gabriel. Her presence is essential to the retention of my throne. This isn’t just some game I’m playing with the Summer Queen. Aislinn is a necromancer. This is life or death for me.”
His voice had taken on a deadly quality that made Gabriel nervous, not for himself . . . but for Aislinn.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean having that woman come here of her own free will is vital to my placement on this throne. Her delivery to me is vital. Even more now that she knows what she is.” The Shadow King turned. “If you can’t bring her to me, I’ll find someone who can.” The words were dark, the tone he said them in even darker. “Of her own free will . . . or not.”
Fear for Aislinn exploded through Gabriel, manifesting in acute anger. Suddenly he was thankful he’d failed in his task. Thankful that Aislinn was safe between rose quartz walls.
The Shadow King continued, “If she won’t come to me willingly, I’ll simply risk war with the Summer Queen and force her. I’ll use the goblin army if I have to.”
Gabriel took a menacing step toward the Shadow King and growled, “What do you want with her?” The two goblins stiffened at his threatening movement toward their king and Barthe snarled. No one talked to the Shadow King like that, not even Gabriel.
The Shadow King studied him with keen eyes. “Have you come to care for her, incubus?” He grunted. “Clearly you’ve become more of an encumbrance to my plans than a help.” He shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Gabriel.”
Gabriel took another step forward, putting his hands on the top of the desk and leaning toward him. “You’re going to hurt her, aren’t you?”
The Shadow King flicked his wrist at Barthe and the goblins. “I can tell you’re going to interfere with my plans.” The lanky gray goblins flanked Gabriel, growling and showing their teeth. Barthe came up behind him. “I thought you of all men wouldn’t become ensnared by her. I thought you would be safe to send.” He shook his head. “Such a pity.”
Gabriel backed away from the goblins, but they had him in their unbreakable grip in a moment, claws digging into his flesh. He fought them, but they clamped down, making pain shoot up his arms. Any harder and they’d snap his bones. It didn’t take much for a goblin to do that. They were tall and thin, but strong as hell.
“Lay a hand on her and I swear to the gods, I’ll—”
“You’ll what, pretty boy?” The Shadow King laughed. “You’ve got no threats to make, incubus. No lethal magick to call that doesn’t involve fucking.”
Wrong. He was Lord of the Wild Hunt. He had more power than any fae in the Unseelie Court, except for a necromancer. He had the power to call the sluagh—the army of unforgiven dead . . . he only lacked the ability to control them. Though Aislinn could. Gods.
It all came together.
Danu, what had he done?
“You killed your mother, didn’t you?” Gabriel yelled. “It wasn’t her consort who murdered her. It was her son! You murdered your own mother in her bed to obtain the Unseelie Throne, then implicated and executed the Lord of the Wild Hunt for it.”
The Shadow King ignored him. “Take him away; put him in charmed iron until this is over. I don’t want to lose you, Gabriel. I just want you out of my way for a while. You’ll come to understand this is all for the best.”
Barthe bore him back toward the door with the help of the goblins. He fought them as hard as he could, every muscle in his body straining forward, toward the royal. Gabriel wanted to rip his throat out.
“If you hurt, Aislinn,” Gabriel roared, every muscle in his body fighting, “I will find a way to take you down. If you—”
“Oh, Gabriel. Stop. I am going to hurt her.” The Shadow King smiled, showing sharp white teeth. “But only a little.”
Gabriel wrenched free of the goblins’ grip and threw one punch that connected. Rotating, he threw another. Both goblins staggered backward, screeching.
Barthe grabbed Gabriel by the shoulders with a roar of anger and head-butted him. Pain screamed through Gabriel’s head, followed by darkness.
ELEVEN
AISLINN sat in her bed, covers around her ankles and her arms around her knees. The Valentino hung on a hanger near her closet. Rain pattered on her bedroom window, coming down from clouds as dark as her mood. It had been a week and the acute loss she’d felt had not dissipated.
The queen had been extra chilly to her—she could expect that treatment for the next fifty years at a minimum—and all the Seelie had some sort of comment to make, most especially Kendal. All of them thought she and Gabriel had been lovers.
That was fine. She wanted to remember Gabriel that way—as a lover.
All of them thought she’d been used and discarded by the Unseelie incubus, just like Kendal had used her. Two weeks ago she would’ve cared about the gossip, but not now. She had far more weighty issues on her heart.
Despite not sleeping with him, Aislinn had never been with a man who’d affected her so much. She’d never been with a man she’d missed as much after he was gone.
She gazed out the window, fingering Bella’s sapphire pendant. If she wasn’t such a coward, she’d get up and leave right now. Just leave this place and start over somewhere they’d appreciate her, somewhere she could develop her magick and be the person nature had intended—one with dark power. She could be with Bella and Ronan.
She could be with Gabriel.
So what if she’d be leaving everything she’d ever known? Wasn’t it time she stretched her wings, discovered new things? Left fear behind her and forged new paths?
Yes, it was time.
What did she have here anyway? Her mother, who was one of the coldest people she knew; a woman who really only cared about one thing—her daughter’s upward mobility at court. Since that mobility was officially downward these days, her mother probably didn’t care if she was even still alive. There was Carina, but Bella had always been far closer to Aislinn’s heart. She would miss Carina but she shared a shallow friendship with her, based on shopping and gossip.
Hollowness filled her body. Gods, she missed her father so much. Her thoughts strayed to the book in the safe. Her fingers itched to pull it out, utter the words, c
all him.
But it was selfish to want that. She shouldn’t want it. Her father was . . . wherever he was, and she shouldn’t call him back. He was where he was supposed to be, doing whatever it was they did in the Netherworld. It couldn’t be right to call him.
Could it?
The frustrating part was that she simply didn’t know and had no one to ask. No one here to confide in. Here, she could never be the person she was born to be. She would never meet her full potential magickally, never have a greater purpose for her life. She’d never truly fit in.
In the Black, she just might.
Never, ever, would that thought have occurred to her before she’d met Gabriel. He’d completely changed her life.
It didn’t take her long to finally come to the decision she’d been toying with all week. All the same—even knowing somewhere deep within she would finally make the decision to leave—it felt impulsive. Reckless.
The hollow feeling in her stomach turning leaden, she packed a bag. Her money was in a bank in Piefferburg. She would always have that and could buy new clothes and items she needed once she relocated. So she took only the most valuable and sentimental things from her apartment. Jewelry, the gown and lingerie Gabriel had given her, photographs, and the book.
She wrote a note to Carina with the intention of slipping it under her door on the way out. No sense in allowing people to worry about her. Despite the queen’s current displeasure with her, she wouldn’t go to arms against the Black Tower if Aislinn defied her wishes and left the Rose for the Black. The note was just extra insurance—Aislinn needed the queen to know she’d left of her own free will and hadn’t been taken. No one needed a fae war on their hands.
