by Marie Hall
She waved her hand as if it was no matter to her one way or another. “Time for truths,” the queen said in a sonorous voice that at once boomed and whispered.
The trees, the very world around them, grew heavy and silent. Almost still. Like the world was frozen, except for them. Mila kept casting glances at the cabin, expecting Frenzy to realize his queen stood mere yards from him.
Shouldn’t he have some sort of internal beacon when it came to his monarch? Not that she needed him to rescue her; as much as The Morrigan unnerved Mila, she didn’t actually feel she was in any sort of danger.
Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she forced herself to think through the panic of having the one immortal she would have rather died a ghastly, brutal death by poisoning than to ever see in person standing before her in all her regal glory.
“What truth?”
Doing that snobbish, prim sniff, The Morrigan turned jeweled eyes on Mila. “The Candyman. The vampires that attacked you. Which would you prefer I touch on first?”
“How in the hell do you know all that?” she snapped, not stopping to censor her thoughts.
Waving her fingers with a bored expression, The Morrigan simply rolled her eyes. “Because, my dear, I set the whole damn thing into motion, of course. How could you have not figured that out by now?”
It took a second for the shock to wear off. Well, more like a minute. Because she was pretty sure she’d just heard the queen of faerie admit to siccing the vampires on her, ruining her life with the HPA, and, if she was to be believed, doing something with the Candyman?
Brain a complete muddle, she shook her head. “I don’t understand—”
“Of that I am perfectly sure.”
It was annoying how beautiful the woman was. How the wind teased through her hair, making it billow behind her like a soft cloud of deepest shadow. How the robe fitted around her amazing body like a glove, showcasing a long, elegant thigh and supple calf. Mila, on the other hand, was very conscious of her disheveled appearance, the scars running along her cheeks, making her look like she wore a permanent and macabre jack-o’-lantern grin.
“I want you, Mila O’Fallen. Is that clear enough for you?”
She shook her head.
“Pay attention,” the queen snapped. “Since your dim-witted brain has a difficult time keeping up, listen and don’t ask questions.”
It took everything she possessed not to snap and at least try to rip the woman’s smug head off her milky white shoulders. Breathing deeply, she indicated that the queen should proceed.
“Seventeen years ago I met your gran—”
Mila’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. Her gran had never spoken to either her or her mum about a meeting with the great fae queen.
The queen smiled. This one was pure joy; it made her eyes sparkle with verve. “She had such power. It simply radiated out of her pores. I knew then I must possess her. Possess all of you. I would have cosseted and pampered you; I simply wished to use your powers, not kill you to own them myself.”
Mila snorted. “Aye. I’m sure, that’s all it was. You’d be the first. You’d have enslaved us.”
“Enslavement,” she scoffed. “I would have treated you as the queens that you were. All would have groveled and bowed down to you. With the exception of myself, of course. But your gran refused to hear me.”
“Bowed and groveled. Forgive me, Queen, but that sounds like a fate worse than death.”
“Funny.” Her smile said she thought it was anything but. “Those are the exact words your gran used. I couldn’t convince her. I tried to go the friendly route, but she refused to hear me.”
A cold shiver washed down Mila’s spine, and her lips tingled and felt numb as she said, “What do you mean, you tried?”
“Well, dear, when she refused to hear me out, I simply had no choice. I always get what I want. And what I want is a seer in my retinue.”
It was hard to swallow—Mila’s throat felt suddenly swollen and her tongue too thick for her mouth. Adrenaline flooded her nerves, made her hands jittery. “You created the shadow because of her?”
“No. Because I wanted a seer. It didn’t matter who, so long as I got one.”
A seer had been born to help humanity, to be the voice of reason and hope within a community. Eons ago, that’s the way it’d been. A seer had been as vaunted and respected as any chieftain in any clan. But greed could make even the kindest corrupt. Eventually the monsters that’d sought out their help had suddenly decided that they no longer wanted to pay tithe for the privilege: instead they wanted to enslave and dominate a seer. A seer became a prized possession and commodity, and many a war had been fought over them.
So much so that the women had decided the only way to stop the bloodshed, to stop the fighting, was to slowly allow their bloodlines to die out. At least three of the five lines were already extinct.
“She would not listen to reason. I simply wished to scare her.” The Morrigan shrugged as if it was just a minor oops.
But it wasn’t. Because if the queen controlled the shadow, then it meant she’d sent that vile creature to kill them.
Mila had been haunted by her family’s death, haunted by their screams as first their buttery, golden souls had slipped from their bodies into the demon before it consumed their eyes. The only reason the shadow hadn’t found Mila was because gran and mum had used themselves as decoys.
They’d been trapped by the beast in a darkened alley. They’d all been running toward the cathedral, hoping perhaps the sacred soil of the church would prevent the nightmare from stepping foot inside.
Then the screams had come and when she’d turned, she realized they’d turned around and surrendered. Gran’s eyes had been huge in her softly lined face. Pleading with her not to come back for them, to keep going, to survive. And she had, at a price.
“You lost control of the beast, didn’t you?” She hurled the accusation like a stone.
Hissing, exposing sharp fangs, The Morrigan shoved her face into Mila’s. “I lose control of nothing!”
However, the way she said it, Mila didn’t really believe it. She shook her head. “You did, Queen. You’ve lost control.”
The queen vibrated, the stench of her anger a palpable offense to Mila’s nostrils. Then she was calm and closing her eyes, she shook her head. “I did not lose control. But if the beast sees me coming, she’ll know what I’m doing. So it cannot be me.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I still wish to retain a seer and because, whether you believe me or not, I developed a strange sort of respect for your idiotic gran.”
Gnashing her teeth seemed the wisest course of action. Because what she really wanted to do right now was wipe that haughty visage off the queen’s face and tell her to go straight to hell. The only thing stopping her was the thought that if gran were still alive, she would have beaten Mila to within an inch of her life for even thinking it.
“What about the Candyman? HPA?”
She sighed. “I used them to draw you out.”
Rubbing the bridge of her nose, because none of this was adding up, Mila tried to think through this. “But you said you know everything. You should have known where I was?”
It was now the queen’s turn to look like she’d been asked to swallow a lemon. Reluctant words came out of her. “I cannot track a seer the way I do others. The patterns of your brain move too randomly and fluidly for me to pinpoint you down to a specific spot.”
“Then how did you know I was in San Francisco?”
Staring at her nails, she said, “I can get a feel for a certain location. But you were so clever, so quiet, that it took me forever to figure out where you worked. Once I did, I knew I’d have to create a case in which HPA would be required to use your services more frequently than normal.”
“Who is the Candyman?”
“Just some pervert I extracted from the loony bin.”
This still wasn’t adding up. “How doe
s the shadow fit into all this?” Mila knew from working the case that the Candyman and the shadow were working together, but she could never figure out why.
“The shadow is a clever little wench,” the queen hissed. “If she’d seen me at all she would have known what my ultimate endgame really was.”
“To find me for yourself.”
“Aye,” she said without an ounce of remorse. Not that Mila had expected her to show any—the queen wasn’t exactly known for her graciousness.
“So you did what? Fed intel to the Candyman?”
“You make it sound as if that was a bad thing.” She lifted a brow. “I needed to find you.”
How in the name of all that was holy could The Morrigan not recognize that what she’d done had been an abominable thing? “Do you realize how many lives you ruined? How many women died for the perversions of that twisted freak?”
Tucking her hands behind her back before she throttled a queen, Mila mentally counted to ten. The Morrigan looked perplexed by her outburst, which only pissed her off more.
“They would have died anyway. They were mortals,” she finally said, as if it made all the sense in the world and Mila was too dense to figure it out herself.
“Oh my god!” She slapped her forehead. “Do you honestly think you’re endearing yourself to me with this load of shite? You let loose not only one, but two monsters. If you can’t see that as heinous, then—”
The queen laughed, but it wasn’t pleasant. It was an angry, scornful sound. “I’m not here to make friends with you, neophyte. Do you honestly think I care at all what you think of me?” she scoffed, tossing her hair over her shoulders. “I’m here because that damn meddlesome Lise ruined my plans and now I must rectify it.”
Gods, the woman was amazing. How could she sit here and laugh and act as if Mila were the one in the wrong? Had she lost all her humanity, all her…and then it dawned on Mila: the queen had never possessed any.
She was a faerie. An immortal, one used to viewing humanity as little more than a nuisance. The same way Frenzy had viewed her when they’d first met. Just when she’d begun to find the positives in this life, she was once again faced with the brutal, stark ugliness of it as well. Would this be her someday? Did Frenzy even care for her? If this was how he really thought, then just what had they been doing all day yesterday? Was it all just a game to him?
That the queen was able to toss away a few lives for the sake of her endgame because humans meant nothing? It made her sick.
“I will not help you.”
“Oh, but you will.” She nodded and the air rushed with the shiver of a thousand sparks. It rippled along her flesh like a low, burning fire. “I’m not asking, I’m telling you.”
“How did you find me?”
“What?” The queen’s brows gathered, as if she was confused by Mila’s sudden change of subject.
“You said you couldn’t find me; how did you this time?”
“Frenzy belongs to me, darling. How else do you think I found you? Any time a reaper’s hand turns to bone I can find them. It happened to him last night, did it not?” Her look was so knowing and damn smug it made Mila want to vomit.
“But Lise—”
The Morrigan’s face contorted into a frightening mask. “Lise, that bitch,” she spat. “The woman oversteps her bounds. Death is mine and always shall be. You have one way out of this mess, Mila. I will give you the same choice I gave your gran.”
“Work for you or have my soul ripped out of me? That it?” she snapped, at her wits’ end with the haughty beauty.
“In a word, yes.”
Mila opened her mouth, ready to rip the queen a bloody new one, when she held up a finger.
“And before you tell me to go to hell, remember that I can make Frenzy’s life a torment.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to deny that there was anything between her and Frenzy, that The Morrigan had anything on her. But after what they’d shared last night, the truths that’d passed between them, it would be a horrible lie.
“If you want your freedom from that devil, then take this.” The queen shoved a black box that’d materialized from thin air into Mila’s chest.
Grabbing it, she looked down at the heavily lacquered box. It was cool to the touch and gleamed with a strange luminescence when sunlight hit it a certain way.
“And what am I to do with this?” She held up the palm-sized box. “Toss it at its head?”
Covering the box with her hand, the queen glared at Mila. “It is simple. Get close enough with the lid open, the rest will take care of itself. There is more power inside that box than in an ounce of plutonium. Don’t make me regret helping you. Wait for the shadow; I will send her soon.”
And with that, the queen of air and darkness was gone.
Chapter 12
Frenzy stared at the box sitting on the kitchen table. “The queen was here? She gave you this?”
His mouth tasted of sawdust. Death had no need of sleep. And yet, he could remember nothing in the hours that Mila said she’d been outside speaking with his queen.
He felt her eyes on him, burning like questioning embers. Frenzy looked up. “What did she want?”
Yanking the pale pink shirt he’d bought her yesterday over her head, she brushed back her hair with her fingers as best she could before shrugging. “As best as I can tell, she wants me to somehow stop the shadow with that.” She pointed at the innocuous-looking piece of wood.
But he knew better than most that power wasn’t measured by the beauty or worth of an object; the most powerful usually rested within an object easily overlooked. Picking up the miniature jewelry box, he cracked open the lid. The inside was covered in dark velvet. On the surface there was nothing extraordinary, but there was a definite tingle of power emanating from within the object. It hummed along his skin like electrical static.
“What is it?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“If I had to guess, this is a containment device.”
Nibbling on her thumbnail, she eyed it speculatively.
Setting the box down precisely where it’d been, he gripped onto the kitchen chair. “The queen does nothing without an interest being met. What did you offer her?”
It didn’t seem in keeping with what he knew of Mila to think she’d ever knowingly work alongside the queen. It made him sick to his stomach that he’d been unaware of her presence. Yes, they’d been considering heading into faerie today, but that was with him to guard her. To keep her presence hidden from the masses, to protect her. She’d been alone with the queen of darkness. The thought of it made his blood run cold.
Rubbing the back of her mouth with her hand, she shook her head. She looked tired. Not so much in her actual appearance, but the vitality of her flesh now looked muted, the whites of her eyes were bloodshot, and she kept pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I didn’t offer her anything. But she definitely wants something.”
She didn’t even have to say it—Frenzy already knew what the queen wanted. The same thing she’d always wanted.
Power.
And this seer was that.
Tunneling blunt fingers through his bed head, he growled, “Did she say anything else?”
She nodded. “Aye. She said she’ll be sending the shadow our way.”
Pushing away from the chair so hard he caused it to rock back and forth on its legs, he strode to the bed and began hastily dressing. “We’re leaving.”
She looked around. “Where?”
“We’re going to the X.”
Her eyes widened. “To Lise’s club? That’s in the heart of San Francisco. Now that my cover’s been blown—”
“Your image isn’t plastered all over the city. If we go in under the cover of darkness you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. And I’ll be there.” Walking up to her, he grazed her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I’ll keep you safe. I vow it.”
Clutching onto his wrist with both of her hands, she t
ook a deep breath.
“It’s the only way. We cannot stay here until The Morrigan sets the shadow on us. The queen does nothing out of the kindness of her heart. We have to discover her true motivation. Only then can we formulate any kind of plan.”
Nibbling on her bottom lip, she made his heart clench in his chest because she looked so innocent, almost fragile. Bringing out a masculine need to guard and protect, he clipped his head. “We’ll be fine,” he said with determination, but he wasn’t sure whether he was saying it more for her benefit or his own.
“I trust you, death,” she finally said. “Do I have time to at least brush my teeth?”
Brushing his lips gently over hers, he nodded. “Go ahead. It’ll take me a quick second to pack up our stuff and ward the cabin again.”
In no time he had what few clothes and personal items they’d collected gathered up and was walking outside to reactivate the wards built into the frame of the house.
He pressed his palm against the heated section of wood, his touch activating the magic, his power radiating like a spider’s web from the center of the ward, branching outward and encasing the cabin. Quickly he moved around the last three sections, ensuring that the individual threads twined, forming a net over the entire structure.
Done with his task, he leaned against the wall, staring out at the woods. They’d been on the run from the moment he’d met her. It seemed like a lifetime ago. They hadn’t known many seconds of peace, except here. Deep in the redwood forest, where their only neighbors were squirrels and the occasional black bear.
His mouth turned down into a frown. This had been her whole life, running from one safe spot to the next until her cover was blown and she was forced to start fresh all over again.
She’d blossomed out here, laughed, and touched something cold and hollow in his heart. Made him feel again. He wanted better for her than this, wanted to make things right.
It was too early in the day to head to Lise’s yet, but they couldn’t stay here either. Not with The Morrigan planning on sending the shadow here.
“You ready?” she asked in the throaty, sultry morning voice he was coming to crave hearing.
