by Marie Hall
Hissing, The Morrigan stood. “You’re no fool, Frenzy. Never have been. We want the girl.”
Suddenly the floor beneath them grumbled, rolling like a shifty tide. There was a bright snap of intense white light, and when it cleared, Lise stood a little to the left of him. Again she’d come in her crone guise, skin sagging and liver-spotted, hair a snowy white and gathered high up on her head. But there was a regality about her that even the great Morrigan could not compete with.
“She is not yours to take, queen of the fae.” The sound of her voice was like cracking thunder.
The queen shuddered, then righted her chin and gazed down haughtily. “Why put something so precious in the hands of death? Give her over to me. I shall protect her, guard her. Keep her safe.”
Lise laughed, the sound harsh and grating. “Ha! Do you truly think I’d ever fall for your lies?”
Nostrils flaring, it was the only outward sign that the queen was angered by the Ancient One. Her smile was bright and benevolent and so fake Frenzy almost choked on his tongue.
The band of a hurricane had nothing on the queen’s fury. It brushed against him like cold, terrible barbs, made him cringe with the need to take a step back. Dagda remained immobile, neither coming to his queen’s defense nor speaking up on the side of Lise.
All knew of the deal the consort had struck with Cian many months ago. Often the queen and her consort did battle on opposite sides. It was no secret of the queen’s hatred of Lise, or that Dagda had actively thwarted The Morrigan’s plans for the first grim reaper in fae recorded history to abandon his post so that he could take up with his witchy lover.
“If you’ve given her over to Frenzy’s hands, then she must have been captured and killed. Correct?” The Morrigan’s lips twitched.
“That is none of your concern.” Lise’s voice dripped honey, but beneath that honey was steel. The Ancient One would not cower, not even to the queen of air and darkness.
Licking her lips, the queen sat once more, crossing her legs and shrugging. “True enough, old one. No difference to me whatsoever.”
As she narrowed her eyes, the air in the room suddenly felt thicker, cloyingly so. Like trying to take in oxygen through water, making it hard to breathe.
“You do not go after the girl. Or I shall come after you.”
Snorting, The Morrigan turned her eyes up to the ceiling. “If she steps foot in faerie, she is mine. ’Tis the only sure way to keep her safeguarded.”
The Morrigan rarely let her brogue show, not because, like Mila, she felt she had anything to hide, but more because she found the burr repugnant and not befitting a queen of her stature. That she was doing so told Frenzy she wanted Mila badly. Very badly indeed.
“You told me to guard her?” Frenzy turned toward Lise, who nodded and smiled.
“Aye, I did. You must keep her safe.”
“From what? The shadow?”
A dreamy sort of expression crossed the Ancient One’s face. “From herself. She is her own worst enemy.”
“And yet you trust a grim reaper with the task?” The Morrigan’s laughter shivered through the air like the ringing of demonic bells. “Ironic.”
Nose crinkling, Lise deigned not to answer the obvious goading by the queen.
“What can you tell me of the shadow? Of her enemies?” he asked softly.
The room became suddenly, unnaturally quiet. As if both consort and queen waited on bated breath to hear Lise’s response.
Her mouth twisted. “I told you not to come here. Did I not, death?”
His jaw flexed. Why was she saying this? He had a responsibility to his queen, to her consort. He wasn’t Cian and would never be. He had no intention of flying solo and pissing off his entire race just to win the hand of one previously mortal woman. He’d done that before, and it’d nearly cost him everything. He’d learned one simple truth from that time. It hadn’t been worth it then, and it wasn’t worth it now.
“Because she is my queen. It is my duty.” He bit out the words, holding his head high. Daring her to deny it.
The Morrigan’s lips twitched with obvious satisfaction.
“Be careful to whom you show such blind fealty.” Lise’s words were sharp and quick.
The queen exhaled an angry breath. “He does still belong to me. I don’t care what you did with Cian. Frenzy is loyal and always shall be. Are you not, my dear reaper?”
A blur of shadow passed in front of his face and then the queen was there, standing before him. Gazing down at him with her star-filled, jewel-like eyes. Her scent of clover and spring filled his head, his heart.
“Aye, my queen.”
Snorting, Lise crossed her arms. “Pathetic. Me? I think not, Queenie. Do ye always enthrall those who surround you? I wonder what you’d do if any one of them ever saw you for what you really were? Oh, wait.” She smiled sweetly. “One did, did he not? And as I recall you very nearly had him eviscerated.”
“Be gone from my presence, hag.” Flicking long, daggerlike claws in the Ancient One’s direction, The Morrigan excused her.
“I think I made my position quite clear with you before, Queen,” Lise bit out. “You are not to trifle with what is mine. And death, in all its incarnations, belongs to me.”
Haughty disdain flashed across the queen’s face.
But Lise obviously chose to ignore it. Turning toward Frenzy, she lifted her brows and, scanning the memory of the conversation, he tried to answer the last question she’d asked. “You did tell me not to come. I told you I must.”
A happy sound came from their left.
“I cannot think with her in the room.” Holding her palm out in the direction of the thrones, Lise froze time. Just as she had the first time they’d met.
Frenzy chuckled, eyeing the frozen form of his queen. “She will not be happy with you.”
“I am not happy with you.” Her words were loud and shrill. “There are reasons why I told you to stay away from the queen. Reasons that involve that woman. You must guard her at all cost.”
“But you told me nothing—”
“I told you enough!” The great room boomed with the rumble of thunder. “You are an immortal. An old one. Could you not figure it out?”
“What?” he snarled, beginning to become vexed by her attitude.
“The queen and consort both want her. All of faerie will want her. The only one immune to the compulsion to obtain her is death. In the wrong hands, she is a weapon of mass destruction. To know the future. To see it, to wield it like a blade.” She curled her fingers inward. “’Tis a power many would kill to possess.”
Scratching the corner of his jaw, he eyed the queen. “But surely—”
“I know what you’re going to say.” Lise held up a hand to stay his words. “Neither queen nor consort are omniscient. They are old and very wise, but they cannot read the futures. They cannot know each conceivable outcome to every situation. Mila must be protected, for the good of all.”
“So you pawn her off on me?”
Her smile was knowing. “Do you want me to take her to another? To Astrid, or Genesis, perhaps?”
Thinking of the flaxen-haired fae with eyes of pure gold made his gut hot and tight. There was no love lost between Frenzy and Genesis; the two of them were now nearly mortal enemies.
“You would give her to him? To that psychotic—”
Her lips twitched. “Of course not, that’s why I sent you to her first. But if you choose not to accept the task, then I will have to find her another guardian. She must have a protector.” Tilting her head forward, she lifted a brow.
Laughing, though the sound was wholly without humor, he shook his head. “Cian would have been perfect for this job.”
Lise’s thin, pink lips stretched. “Aye. That he would have. Though I think he’s too attached to his mate to do this task properly.”
Scrubbing a hand across his hair, Frenzy realized there was only one possible outcome for him to make. He could toss her off to Gene
sis, or maybe even Astrid, but not in good conscience. Genesis was a well-known misogynist and would just as likely rape her as he would kill her once she bored him. Astrid was only interested in coin, and the fact that Mila was a woman wouldn’t sit well with the raven-haired beauty, one of a rare few female grim reapers.
There were other reapers, of course, but Lise was obviously making the point none so well suited as him. Which smacked of irony if he was the best choice.
“You like her. I can tell.” She said it softly, and because she didn’t seem to be mocking him, he didn’t bother to deny it.
“I’ve not been forced to interact with a human for centuries. I’ve no idea how to do this.”
“Then it’s fortunate for you that she’s no longer mortal. She’s a shampire.”
He snorted.
“Show her how to survive in our turbulent world, make her understand the severity of her plight.”
Rolling his eyes, Frenzy could already picture this and didn’t like what he was seeing. Lise wasn’t saying it, but he knew she was suggesting he become a glorified babysitter. The thought irked. He was death, master of life. Being with Mila served no purpose.
She sighed. “I hear the thoughts in your head. Deny it to yourself all you want, Frenzy, but we both know you were considering hanging up your sickle after harvesting her soul. You no longer wished to be a reaper. I’m offering you a chance out.”
Shaking his head, he said, “The queen would have—”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed, “you think the queen would have rolled out the red carpet to you? Let you become her manservant?” Her blue eyes lit with raw anger. “No. We both know that’s not what would have happened. She would have locked you away until you faded into the ether. You know it.”
He wanted to deny it. Deny her. Tell her she didn’t have a clue of what she said. But he couldn’t, because the fact was, The Morrigan would have done that and more. She would have butchered him the way she had Cian. That’s what he’d been prepared for. He’d known telling the queen he no longer wished to serve in death’s capacity would have ended badly for him.
But to have to guard and protect a woman for eternity. Goddess, the thought was as a stench in his nostrils. A loner by nature, he’d never wanted a mate. There’d been a time, centuries ago, where he’d envisioned the impossible. But with Adrianna’s death had gone the last shreds of his humanity. That was if a fae could even be accused of being humane.
Still, he could not deny Mila intrigued him and even occasionally made him laugh—a feat unto itself.
“Fine.” He shuddered. “I’ll do it. I’ll guard her. But you have to tell me more about this shadow.”
“As I told you before, Frenzy, I cannot tell you too much.”
“Why?” he snapped.
“Because the telling can alter so many things. As Mila will tell you, no future is set in stone. There are so many different strings on the loom, so many possibilities. To tell you too much alters every possible outcome I’ve already seen.”
Talking to Lise made him realize something. The Ancient One was also a seer. Which meant she knew of every possible outcome. But that wasn’t what he wondered about.
“Did Mila know I was coming?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know how this will end?”
“No.” She laughed. “I’ve purposefully kept her in the dark about most of it.”
Rubbing a hand across his whiskered jaw, he asked, “But if she’s a seer, how can you change what she sees?”
Hearing this gave him a whole new level of healthy respect for the frail-looking woman standing before him.
“I may look like this. But I am so much more than I seem, death. Never forget it. And I’m not giving away trade secrets.”
Pulse pounding, Frenzy wondered for a brief, crazy moment if Lise wasn’t the only one of her kind. An ancient legend sprang to mind, one spoken of in many languages in many parts of the world. Of a group of immortals known as the fates, but the story at its core was of a group of women who encompassed the whole of the world—not just Earth, but infinity—within the palms of their hands.
How with one snip of a scissor they could snap the string off the loom of time and place. Of course, he’d always thought of it as myth.
Because in a world full of others, to think that the gods and goddesses might not only exist, but take an active role in one’s life, was an unwelcomed thought.
“So even she knows nothing of her future?”
“No.”
“Then how do we know we’re getting it right?”
Her smile was serene. “You just will. Now.” She looked over her shoulder. “If I’ve answered your questions sufficiently, it is time to get back to her.”
“Why can’t she simply die? Then we wouldn’t have to worry about others trying to find her and enslave her.”
“Because every life is precious, even a mere mortal’s. Oh, and Frenzy…”
“Yes?”
“Do not come to The Morrigan again until it is time.” She smiled sweetly.
When the last word was spoken, the translucent bubble they’d been encapsulated in ruptured. But instead of him turning toward a stunned Morrigan and Dagda, he found he’d been transported back to George’s cave.
The sight that greeted him should have been one he’d expected, but he hadn’t.
Chapter 7
Mila had her fingers curved downward in front of George’s large, terrified face. “Give me a knife or I swear, I’ll slice you into a million ribbons of flesh. I don’t want to do this, George; I like you. But it’s my choice whether I live or die, so give it to me.”
She hadn’t seen a rift in time; she hadn’t heard Frenzy’s return. But from one moment to the next she was standing in front of a cowering George, ready to do something so heinous she could hardly believe she could be so bloodthirsty, and the next she was being grabbed and shoved roughly in front of broad shoulders.
Mercurial eyes peered down at her, and in the stillness of the moment she was so very aware of Frenzy. Of his scent, like fresh rain and spring, the way his lips were a little fuller on the bottom. And he seemed just as aware of her as she was of him.
Taking a step farther into her space, he took up all her oxygen, and she could step back, she could stop this, whatever this was, if she really wanted to, so why wasn’t she? She swallowed hard.
“I did not leave you here to terrify my friend. You’re not killing yourself and if I have to knock that nonsense out of your head to make you believe it, trust me, I will. I’ve done far worse in my goddessforsaken life.”
The way he growled, the possessive tone in his voice…It was crazy, but her body responded and she hated that.
Hated that he made a heart that should no longer be beating thump like a fist in her rib cage. Hated that her skin tingled where he’d last touched her, and that his spicy male scent made her insides run hot and cold.
“George, I apologize.” He raked his eyes at his friend. “I’ll return again.”
And so saying, he banded an arm around her waist, yanked her tight to his side, and then tore open a rift in the veil of time—stepping through and dragging her along with him.
“Where are you taking me?” she hissed, trying to crawl up his body as the dizzying vertigo of nothing but a sea of stars spiraled and swirled around them.
His eyes were full of fury and fire; his hair almost seemed to glow, reminding her of the light from a lit cigarette in the dark.
Her head spun and her stomach heaved, cramping and clenching tight as the spinning spiral of the shifting tunnel continued ceaselessly.
Then something hard smacked her on the ass. “Ow!” she snapped, glaring daggers at him. “You hit me?”
He shoved his face into hers, and his warm breath sliding along her bottom lip tasted of fire and cinnamon. “Threaten one of my few friends again and I swear I’ll do it harder. You deserve more than just a swat.”
Rubbing her tingling b
ackside, she growled. “That wasn’t a love tap, arsehole. I can still feel it throbbing.”
“Good.” His smile was all teeth, and again her traitorous body responded. Skin going tight with gooseflesh. “Maybe next time you’ll think before you do something so stupid.”
“Where are you taking me?” she huffed, wondering when this ride from hell would end, determined to ignore the fact that he’d basically called her an idiot.
“Away. From everybody. Apparently you’re the supernatural’s most wanted.”
“Duh.” She rolled her eyes. “I tried to tell you that. And I wasn’t going to hurt George. Not really. He was nice. For a shifter. But I need to die and since you two pansy arses are too soft to do it, I figured the onus fell on me.”
“Okay, one”—he held up a finger—“I’m not a pansy ass. Don’t believe me, ask the vampires I neutered saving your mouthwatering derrière.”
Huh? Was he being serious? Or just sarcastic? Did he find her attractive? And not that it should matter, because it absolutely did not, but it did make her stomach quiver and her thighs clench.
“And two,” he continued on, completely unaware of what his slip of the tongue had done to her equilibrium, “stop trying to kill yourself. It’s solving nothing other than pissing me off.”
“Oh, excuse me.” She patted her chest. “How horrible that I’m pissing you off. Not like you just died, or became not one, but two”—she held up her fingers—“others, both in the same night. I’m sorry, what was I thinking?” Her laughter dripped irony.
Upper lip curling, he lifted her in his arms until they were nose to nose. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
And then he unceremoniously dumped her.
Startled, she yelped and couldn’t understand why she was now staring at him eye to eye, except he was upside down. And that’s when it dawned on her: he wasn’t the one upside down, she was.
She was clutching onto the roof like a terrified cat.
Turning on his heel, he waved her away and then began to strip off his coat. It only took a second to realize that at some point during the fight he’d exited the spiraling vortex of doom and that now they were in a house or apartment of some sort.
