Bedeviled

by Maureen Child

  Now he smiled. That sharp tongue of hers was never far away. “I meant only that they won’t notice your absence. Time moves differently here. You’ll be home before they know you’ve gone.”

  “Right.” She nodded. “Eileen told me that, too.” She glanced at one of the closest trees, this one laden with golden fruits that begged to be plucked and eaten. She slid a glance at Culhane, and he could almost see the fast-moving thoughts whirling through her mind. “Eileen also mentioned something about how you can’t eat or drink anything in Otherworld or you’re trapped here for a hundred years.”

  Laughing outright, Culhane reached up, tore a fruit from a low-hanging branch and offered it to her, still smiling. “That’s as much a lie as pixies being tiny, pretty creatures. Your people know nothing of us. We left your world so long ago that the legends that have survived have been so changed, so twisted, they hardly hold more than a glimmer of truth.”

  “Well, sure, you’d say that. I eat an apple and boom—your prisoner.”

  He bit into the fruit himself and chewed while she watched, still unconvinced. After he swallowed, he sighed. “You can starve yourself if you’ve a mind to, Maggie. You’ll decide that for yourself. But the simple truth is, whether you eat or drink means nothing here. We trap who we wish—for our own reasons. Food has nothing to do with it.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “Woman, do you really believe I need a piece of fruit to trap you? I don’t. You’re here now. And here you’ll stay until I say you leave.”

  Chapter Nine

  Maggie stayed at Culhane’s side, because seriously, what choice did she have? Not a good thing when the only soul you know in a place is the man who’s just told you he’s as good as kidnapped you.

  Unless she could find a way out on her own, she was pretty much stuck with Culhane.

  “Don’t stare,” he muttered, draping one arm around her shoulder and drawing her into the shadows of yet another ancient, spreading tree.

  “How can I not?” she whispered just as fiercely. “It’s not every day I see women flying, for God’s sake.”

  Or, she thought, herds of pixie children shrieking and darting through the branches of the trees. Or Fae men shimmering in and out of existence at the blink of an eye. How the hell did they keep track of everybody when they were forever disappearing or launching into the sky? Childcare here had to be a bitch.

  Everywhere she looked, there was something new to be dazzled or astounded by. Hard to believe that a completely separate and wildly different world existed right alongside her own. It made Maggie wish she’d read more science fiction.

  The trees, Fae versions of condo living, were everywhere. Shining silver roads twisted and roped their way up hills so green and lush it almost hurt to look at them. And at the very crest of the biggest hill was a crystal palace that glistened like polished diamonds in the midday sun.

  Make that suns.

  Plural.

  Two suns for Otherworld.

  Even the air was different. Cleaner, with a thick, foresty scent. The sky looked different, too. It seemed bigger somehow, and it was a shade of blue Maggie didn’t think she’d ever be able to duplicate with paints.

  The people—the Fae, she reminded herself—didn’t seem all that different from those she knew. Well, except for the whole flying-and-disappearing-into-a-ripple-of-air thing. They laughed, they shopped, they scolded their children.

  Which just went to show, she guessed, that people were pretty much the same wherever you happened to find them. Even if they weren’t people so much as . . . Faeries.

  The problem here was, Maggie told herself, that knowing the Fae were so much like her own family and neighbors made it that much more difficult to turn her back on all of this. How could she tell Culhane to go find himself another chosen one after seeing his world? Now she knew it was real. That it was just as important to the Fae as her own world was to her.

  How was she supposed to pretend to not care?

  Her stomach churned, and Maggie knew it wasn’t the piece of fruit she’d eaten despite Eileen’s warnings because, let’s face it, she never turned down food, threat or no threat. No, it was sheer terror turning her stomach into a pit of frothing nausea. Dread.

  Not to mention a lot of self-doubt.

  She was supposed to save not only Otherworld but her own world? How in the hell was that possible?

  “You’re talking to yourself.”

  “What?” Maggie frowned at him. “No, I’m not. I’m thinking.”

  “Out loud. Others are noticing.”

  “Oh, well,” she said, drawing those two words out long enough to be their own sentence. “Can’t have that. Pixies in trees and Faeries flying are okay, but hey, let’s not talk. Wouldn’t want to look weird or anything.”

  Beside her Culhane hissed out a breath, and somehow that made Maggie feel better. Hell, if she was going to be in a death-spiral tizzy, then he could be, too. Why should he have it easy?

  He grabbed her arm, dragged her off the silver brick road—the Wizard of Oz should have had silver; very pretty—and into a narrow space between two of the elm tree condos.

  Backing her up against the closest tree, he loomed over her, and Maggie didn’t know whether to be pissed or to give in to the lust scratching at her throat. Apparently it didn’t matter that he made her mad. She still wanted him. But for now she settled for being pissed.

  “Knock it off, okay?” She shoved at his chest with all the success she would have had pushing a train off its tracks. “I’ve had a rough couple of weeks, and you’re not making it any easier.”

  “It isn’t easy. That’s the point,” he said, practically biting off every word. “You can’t draw attention to yourself while you’re here. If Mab discovers you’re in Otherworld, she’ll kill you before you have a chance to fight her for the throne.”

  “Then why the hell am I here?” Maggie threw a couple of frantic glances around her, then remembered to look up, too. Flying Faeries, pixie children scampering through trees . . . God, there was no way to be sure they weren’t being overheard. Watched.

  Finally she turned her gaze back to Culhane, and when she spoke again, she kept it quiet. “If it’ll be so easy for her to kill me now, what’ll make it different later?”

  “You’ll have more access to your powers. They grow daily.”

  “So you keep saying. But big deal. Who cares if they’re growing? If I don’t know how to use ’em, what good are they?”

  “You will. You’re learning.”

  “Sure, how to breathe on demons.” She pushed at him again, but it was useless. “I’m guessing that’s not going to work on Mab.”

  “No,” he admitted, and looked over his shoulder at the crowds of Fae moving through Otherworld. “But you’ll have more. Know more.” He looked back at her. “Besides, strength alone isn’t the only way to win a battle.”

  “Strange talk from a warrior.”

  “Warriors more than anyone know that sometimes luck plays the most important part in battle readiness.”

  Maggie slumped against the tree and didn’t even notice how the rough bark scratched her skin through her sweater. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, Culhane, but lately my luck sucks.”

  “She’s not what I expected.”

  Culhane shot McCulloch a hard look. “What does that mean?”

  The other warrior’s eyes lit with humor, but he was smart enough not to smile. “Only that I thought the chosen one would be big. Strong. Have a face like an ax blade and a body the size of mine.”

  Culhane didn’t know whether to defend Maggie or apologize. He looked out into the main room of his house and watched as she wandered in a slow circle, taking in everything. He hadn’t meant to bring her here. Never considered bringing her to his home. Yet here, at least, no one would see her. At least, no one who would tell Mab.

  Here in Culhane’s rooms at the Warrior’s Conclave, Maggie was surrounded by warriors who wo
uld defend her presence in the hopes that she might actually lead the revolution they all wanted.

  “If you like,” McCulloch offered, “while you tend to your duties, I’ll see that Maggie is kept . . . entertained.”

  Culhane shot his friend a look hard enough to drill holes in his body. “She stays here. Alone, if I’m not with her.”

  “Is that wise?” the other warrior asked. “Isn’t it better for her to meet the rest of us?”

  “She did meet you all last night.” He’d watched her as she laughed and talked with his fellow warriors, and he’d quietly steamed that she never laughed like that with him. She didn’t look at the others with the same gleam of suspicion in her eyes. She hadn’t treated any of the others as she did him—as if he were the enemy.

  McCulloch frowned. “Did she say anything about that?”

  She always had something to say, Culhane told himself. And after meeting a roomful of Fenian warriors, Maggie hadn’t disappointed him.

  “Your friends are gorgeous,” she’d said, astonished as the last of the warriors left them in peace. “I mean, seriously good-looking. Aren’t there any ugly Faeries?”

  “No, we leave ugliness for the pixies.”

  “Good plan.” Then she’d looked up at him and smiled at his glowering frown. “Hey, you’re not worried, are you? Well, don’t be. You’re way better-looking than your friends. Plus, there’s the whole sexy frowning thing you do.”

  Culhane shook his head at the memory and didn’t want to admit even to himself that he’d enjoyed her words more than he should have. It had taken the sting out of the fact that she’d seemed to enjoy herself so with the warriors. Though it wasn’t important what she thought of him, he thought. The only important matter now was Maggie’s training—and the battle with Mab.

  “Even though her ears aren’t wholly pointed, she’s a fine-looking part-Fae,” McCulloch mused again.

  Gritting his teeth, Culhane pointed out, “What she looks like has nothing to do with the prophecy.”

  “True enough,” his friend agreed with a slow smile, “but for myself, better to have a chosen one who’s pleasing to look at. After all, if things go as you planned, she’ll be our next queen.”

  “She will,” Culhane said, and even to his own ears it sounded like a vow. One he had every intention of seeing come to fruition. “Once she’s on the throne we’ll finally have a voice in ruling Otherworld.”

  “Through you as her consort, of course.”

  “Of course.” That had always been the idea. Rule from behind the scenes. Bend Maggie to his will and see to it that the changes necessary to his world were made. Although now he was beginning to see that “bending” Maggie wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought when they first went into this. Still, she would listen to him. He was almost sure of it.

  It was a good plan.

  “Thousands of years we’ve taken to get to this point,” McCulloch said, turning his head to look at the woman eating her way through a bowl of fruit. He shook his head. “Now it’s all come down to a mortal woman who talks too much and is always hungry.”

  “She’s not wholly mortal anymore.” Culhane watched her pick up a pale blue pear and take a bite. “She’s Fae. Or soon will be.”

  “Will it be enough?”

  A question Culhane didn’t want to entertain.

  Maggie’s stay in Otherworld had so far been pretty boring. Okay, the scenery was nice. And she wasn’t talking about the view out the window. Culhane’s fellow warriors looked like they could be headliners at Chippendale’s or something. Maybe a classier place than that. These guys were impossible-to-describe gorgeous. There wasn’t a single ugly Fae warrior in the tree.

  Yes, tree.

  She was living in a gigantic tree with windows overlooking a fast-moving river and a thick, dark green forest beyond. Probably a pixie housing project. Culhane’s rooms were big; round, of course; and furnished with all the comfort of a prison cell.

  There didn’t seem to be a soft surface anywhere. But then, she thought, big, tough warriors probably weren’t interested in comfy. But she was. Even the chairs were plain wood, and her butt would have given a lot for a pillow.

  Pushing up and out of the chair she’d been planted in most of the day, Maggie walked to where Culhane sat at a table, studying maps.

  “Can’t we go outside?”

  “Too dangerous.”

  “I’m bored.”

  “Practice your training.”

  “Uh-huh.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “That’ll happen.”

  When he scowled at her briefly, she pointed out, “We’re in a tree, Culhane. How’m I supposed to practice flips and falls inside a tree, for God’s sake? Besides, I don’t have anyone to practice on, remember? To practice fighting you really sort of need an opponent. I want to go home. I miss Nora. And Eileen and Sheba. Hell, I even miss Bezel.”

  “You’ve only been here two days.”

  “Feels like longer.” She turned away, walked back to the window and looked out at the river again. She’d spent a lot of her time the last couple of days doing that. Captivated by the rush and flow of the river, she wondered where it led—and how she could get there.

  “Why bring me to Otherworld if all you’re going to do is lock me up in your house?”

  He leaned one arm on the table. “You needed to meet the warriors who will fight for you once you’re queen. You needed to see the world that hangs in the balance. You needed to know that this is not a game. Not a choice.”

  All right, she’d give him that. Up until he’d swept her into Otherworld, Maggie had managed to convince herself that there was still a way out for her. That the world of the Fae had nothing to do with her life. That she could walk away whenever she wanted and reclaim the life she’d once thought so routine.

  But the truth was, there was no backing out.

  Otherworld was real. And beautiful. Filled with beings going about their ruts. How was she supposed to ignore them now that she knew they existed? But damn, she couldn’t just sit in a tree for much longer without going ape shit.

  Whirling around, she planted both hands on her hips. “Come on. Let’s do something.”

  “You are worse than a pixie.”

  She grinned. “Good. Insults. At least it’s conversation.”

  He sighed, leaned back in his chair and kicked his long legs out in front of him. “I’ve never known anyone who talks as much as you do.”

  She ignored that. After all, he was right. She did talk a lot. “So, tell me about this place.”

  “It’s Otherworld. I have told you.”

  “No,” she said slowly and patiently, “this particular place. All of these warriors. Is this a guys-only tree?”

  “We live in one place, yes. We train together—”

  “Training again.”

  He ignored her. “We work together.”

  “But no girls allowed?”

  “There are no female warriors,” he acknowledged.

  “Why not?” She wandered the circumference of his tree room again. “Seems to me that a flying warrior would be a good thing in battle.”

  “Female Fae don’t fight.” By the look in his eyes, he was astonished she’d even considered it.

  “Have you ever asked them?”

  His frown deepened. She wouldn’t have thought that possible.

  “No, we haven’t.”

  “Never know till you ask.” She stopped, looked at a lethal-looking sword hanging on the wall, then moved on. “So how long have you lived here?”

  “Since I became a warrior.”

  “So. Long time?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long?” Maggie tilted her head and looked at him. Culhane might appear to be about thirty-five, but she knew damn well he was older. He was always talking about centuries. She’d just never thought about how much older he really was.

  “Millennia.”

  Staggered, Maggie stared at him. “I suck at math, bu
t even I know that’s at least a thousand years.”

  “More.”

  “My God, Culhane . . .” Maggie shook her head, took a step toward him, then stopped again. “More? You’re really old. Seriously old.”

  A sneering smile touched his mouth, then was gone again in an instant. “Yes and you, in comparison, are hardly more than an infant.”

  “Yeah?” Maggie walked closer, her gaze on his. When she reached the table she planted both hands on the cool wood surface and leaned in toward him. Just as she’d expected, his gaze dropped to her breasts. “Well, I’ve seen the way you look at me, old man, so I’m guessing you’re what we call a cradle robber.”