Spellbound-Legend

by Claudy Conn

  Maxie nodded and let him go without another word. Julian Talbot had kissed her … touched her, and made her hungry for more of him. She had been on high burn with something more than desire. She had felt something for him she had never felt for any man ever before. However, he did not seem to feel the same way. He was once again calling her Miss Reigate. And something in her heart started to quiver, very near breaking.

  * * *

  The prince was multi-tasking again. He had looked in on Mary Newton and Shamon Moore, and he had yet one more thing to do before he returned to Tir. He didn’t have much time, as he had to attend a meeting of the High Council.

  He was very proud of himself and said under his breath, “I may be a royal prince, but I am also a very good spy.”

  He needed to ferret out the traitor in their midst. He was seriously worried about the problem. Everything Lia had said made him believe that the traitor was an elder on the High Council. That left really only limited possibilities, and none of them seemed acceptable. At any rate, he needed a quick shift to a parallel dimension so he could look in on DuLaine.

  He pulled a face as he watched her stretching like a cat as she left her bed. She repulsed him in spite of her great beauty.

  She could see herself in the tall, wide mirror that made up the wall of her dressing area. She purred with pleasure at her reflection. She was tall, provocatively shaped, and desirable in every way.

  She pinched her nipples. Ordinarily this little sexual feminine action would have sent a hot, titillating shiver through the prince. Watching Lamia do this only filled him with disgust. She was whispering to herself, something about adoring this new, wild, hedonistic century.

  The reason the prince had decided to have a look in on her was because he knew she was in London. He thought it best to see what she was up to; however, at the moment she seemed to merely be getting acquainted with a London that had changed drastically in the last two hundred years. Her town house was gone, but Shamon had leased a penthouse flat for her in a very plush part of town.

  The prince was always surprised to note her fondness for Shamon. Most of this affection was steeped in selfishness. Shamon took care of her needs; however, there was something there—a connection she had with him. She would keep him forever if she could.

  Her penthouse housed a private elevator that would allow her to come and go as she pleased. And right now, it would please her to go out into the night and find a suitable toy. She was hungry again. It was the first clear sensation that demanded immediate attention. Shamon had installed a small refrigerator in her bedroom with a combination lock. Inside were packets of blood.

  Lamia liked this century with its conveniences. She was delighted to have blood handy, but she preferred to hunt for herself … hunt, drink, and kill. She liked to see the desperation in her victim’s eyes—she relished the feeling it gave her when she drained a victim of his last breath.

  Breslyn’s love of humans did not make him a saint. The Fae had fought wars, and he had been a warrior who had done his fair share of killing, but always he had felt regrets—remorse.

  A documentary about vampires was on the TV, and Lamia watched. Her eyebrows furrowed. “Idiots.” These were but romantic tales. Humans stood little chance against a real vampire. They were already dead, therefore difficult to kill, and these movies knew nothing …

  Her body was not dead. Vampire bodies were kept animate only by the blood they used for immediate assimilation. The gland in her throat used the blood to heal, to keep her ageless and strong. Her Druid heritage gave her gifts. Her study of black magic gave her dark powers. Indeed, she was formidable and knew it. Yes, she was alive, and could eat, drink, and be all that she wanted to be—lethal.

  Tonight, she wanted to prowl. She needed the excitement of the hunt. She needed a sweet young female to touch and fondle and then drain. She needed desperately to kill.

  She was thinking of Shamon. She was thinking that Shamon didn’t understand her need to destroy. Poor dear boy—only he wasn’t a boy any longer. He was aged, but still her darling. He had provided her with a ready supply of blood in the foolish belief that this would stop her killing.

  Shamon had always been too softhearted. It was the only fault she had ever found in him. And then she thought of Julian Talbot. She could still see his beloved face, his shoulders, and his wide, strong hands. She shivered to think of him. Shamon had told her that Julian vanished shortly after she did. He had been unable to find out what happened to him. If only she had known then what she knew now. She would have had him by any means. But Shamon told her that he must be dead …

  Yet, lately she had sensed something of him. Her mind probed and searched and then gave up as she thought it was just wishful desires.

  Enough! The prince had heard enough. She was a despicable creature that needed destroying. Would that his queen would allow him to finish her—that would be a kill without regrets.

  The prince was running out of time. He had to be at MacTalbot’s at midnight for the installation of the protection wards. He had to be at the Council Meeting. He had also promised Ete a few moments … he had to go!

  Fae do not run out of time. Time is theirs—until they mingle with humans. Then all bets are off!

  * * *

  Maxie woke with a start. She rubbed her eyes and looked around with disbelief. She hadn’t meant to sleep. She had been starving, and now, she had missed tea and dinner!

  She blinked and turned on her nightstand lamp. Glancing towards the window her eyes opened wide; it was dark, really dark, which was unusual in the Highlands where at this time of year it stayed light out till very late.

  She couldn’t quite see the clock across the room, but it had to be close to the ‘witching hour’. They would be coming for her soon. She was right: poof, and the prince was there.

  He took up a position beside her on the bed. His hand stroked her face; his finger caressed her lips. “I had had the devil of a time getting here, Lia, and I have missed you.”

  Maxie smiled at him and wondered if she could manage to want him instead of Julian of Talbot, who was killing her. Choose, girl, choose and then … sure … then what? If I chose the prince, it’s off to Faeryland where I will eventually (maybe in a couple of hundred years) grow old and he won’t. Not such a bad proposition. We could poof here and there whenever I want and have a whole lot of fun. In her heart she knew who the one for her really was. She knew because her heart had grown fingers and was desperately pointing. She also knew that choosing Julian of Talbot was the way to pain.

  If she caved in and chose him, Julian wouldn’t choose her back.

  Julian was in love with a memory. It just wouldn’t work. That was a fact, and that fact twisted her heart and wrung it out. Maxie’s hopes were always there under the surface and very difficult to extinguish. What she did at that moment was to put it all aside. Here was the prince looking longingly at her. She smiled at him and said, “You haven’t been gone long enough to miss me, Breslyn.”

  He raised an eyebrow but decided not to accept the challenge. “I have been charging about trying to put things in order. Did you rest well, Lia?”

  “Yes … I did … what time is it?”

  “What is this need that humans have to always know the time?” Affection lit in his eyes.

  Maxie was enchanted by his smile. Julian Talbot had been chosen by her heart, but the Fae prince could almost make her forget—and almost only counted in horseshoes. She reminded herself that the prince couldn’t help but emanate magic.

  “Well, we are waiting for midnight, so I guess you Fae need to know the hour now and then too?” she countered with a saucy look.

  He laughed. “Ah, but we Fae know when it is midnight or noon … and all other time has little meaning.”

  “Well, for goodness sake, I wonder why? Duh? Maybe it is because you live forever?”

  He laughed again and bent to kiss her pretty lips. Okay, Maxie felt a warning going off in her head, shouting,
He is a Fae … he isn’t the one you really want … stop.

  Stopping—so not going to happen, she answered herself. She let him kiss her, but it was really just a soft brushing of her lips. She felt like she was getting teased lately.

  He didn’t get a chance to try for more, as the door opened and Julian Talbot filled the doorway. Startled, she stared at his bristling large self. Nobody knocks around here!

  “Are you ready, Prince?” His voice was clipped.

  Max could hear stalactite-stabbing anger dripping off his words. If Julian meant to discombobulate the prince with his present mood, he was out of luck. The prince dropped another light kiss on her lips and turned to smile in his superior style and in a way that said he was winning this little woman. “Always,” the prince answered.

  Julian rolled his eyes before he sent Maxie a hard, cold look that spelled out what he thought of her behavior. A kissing floozy … and Maxie admitted to herself that perhaps he was not far off.

  She almost jumped off the bed, when she suddenly realized—she had taken a shower earlier and just plopped into bed—she was naked. She held the covers up to her neck and stared at the two interested hunks staring right back at her. “Go on, give a girl a moment.”

  They looked at each other, and then by the prince’s wicked grin and Julian’s clenched jaw, Maxie knew they understood.

  * * *

  She threw her clothes on, took a brush to her hair, and decided she would need her heavy navy cardigan as well before she made her way outside. It was cold, and Max hugged the cardigan around her body as she made a mental note to run into town and get a new warm jacket the following day.

  The wind was harsh and whipped at her face. “Brrh, it’s really cold,” Maxie said to no one in particular. She looked around and saw his lordship let me kiss you let me not standing at the back wall of the castle. She went towards him, wondering how he could stand there with his suede jacket wide open over his naked torso and not freeze.

  Then she saw the markings of fresh tattoos on his rock-hard belly. They were an intricate pattern, and they were fresh. There was blood still oozing from the needle marks. She wondered if the prince had helped him tattoo his rippled abs.

  He was chanting in Gaelic, and the words stimulated Maxie’s brain, awakening an arcane being inside her. She felt an ancient energy emanating from him into the ground, and back to him yet, side-kicking in her direction. He was chanting, enacting the special wards. Protection wards were in truth black magic, yes, but one of the least troublesome forms. She felt her toes curl from the new energy in the ground.

  Nearly all black magic had dangerous consequences if not used correctly. However, Julian and Breslyn were targeting the land, the buildings, and the perimeters of all that was MacTalbot. Its dark power would bounce off itself and then anything Julian had named. When Dark Magic bounced, it tended to latch onto the user—hence the tattoos that deflected. These wards would be permanent unless lifted by Julian himself. Their construction was intricate and needed guidance. Their construction was something that came from an ancient land and was potent with the Danu science humans called magic. The tattoos of runes and Celtic knots protected Julian from having to pay a non-refundable price.

  As Maxie walked beside Julian, listening, understanding every word, every single lilt in the archaic chant, it hit her again. The same questions kept looming over—shaking her to her core. What the hell had happened to her life? Who was she? What had she become? What was she still evolving into? Here she was in the middle of what looked like a voodoo flick. Shit! Shit and shit—way over her knees in shit!

  She thought this stuff was wacky scary and way out of her league. But yet she understood his chanting. She knew exactly what he was saying, and why. She had never studied this deeply arcane mana, and just like that she understood the how and the why? Translation? She was a part of this flick, and therefore right smack dab in the middle of its dark machinations.

  The Druid place in her head was itching. She stopped watching Julian for a moment and tried to hone in. What did it want? She was talking to it like it was a separate person. Nuts, she thought, maybe I am going nuts? Her Druid place was full with a hard, meaningful color. Amber lights flickering—amber, yes, amber lights—and she wondered why the color amber was making her shake with dread.

  Lamia DuLaine. Her eyes were amber. Lamia was up to something. But what? If Maxie probed, Lamia might sense her magic and return on it. Maxie’s power came from the Seelie Light Fae and was not based on the savagery of Dark Magic. Druid magic was refined. Could she use it to check on Lamia without giving herself away? Her probe was powerful, but the waves she sent out were gentle and reached with tentative tendrils. Would Lamia know?

  Lamia was in her apartment. There was a voice—a familiar voice … it was the Traitor Seelie Fae, and Maxie was certain, it was the Fae that shot her. He was telling Lamia something—

  “Stop it! Are you mad?” Julian had her arm in his tight grasp, and he was pulling her out of the vision. The force he used rattled her into startled silence.

  “You are hurting me.” She scowled at him. Maxie pulled away as best she could. “Besides, I felt something … wrong, and out of sync. I thought I better scout around and see what DuLaine was doing. I can probe out—she cannot probe in …”—Maxie wiggled her eyebrows for emphasis—“wards!”

  “We are not taking chances with the DuLaine, and besides the wards are not all in place yet. Stay put, Miss Reigate, and stay away from DuLaine’s mind—past and present.” He stomped off and returned to his soft chanting as he finished his perimeter.

  Maxie nibbled at her bottom lip and mimicked him for a moment until she felt better. There was nothing for her to do but wait for him to complete this last corner of the castle. So she waited. How had he known that she was probing?

  Julian suddenly stopped and turned towards her. “Miss Reigate. I can see that you fully understand what we are doing. I would have explained, but you seem to have an ancient knowledge stored in your Druid senses.” His tone was curt and cold. “If you like, you can make the perimeter with me.”

  “No thanks.” She was annoyed with him and decided to reward his coldness with some of her own. “Where is the prince?”

  His face got tight. “Ah, of course, you expected your lover to be here waiting for you. He is warding the perimeter of all MacTalbot lands. He should be here shortly.”

  “He is not my lover!” Even to her ears she sounded childish.

  Julian spanned the distance between them while she stood frozen with her mouth gaping. All at once he had her shoulders in his strong hands. “Is he not? He takes the liberties of one!”

  “So do you, but you aren’t either,” she snapped back at him.

  That stopped him, and he drew himself up to his full height. He chose to ignore their verbal exchange and continued with a lecture instead. “You should not allow yourself to fall for a prince of the Fae. They are known to become easily bored.”

  “You speak of them in general, as though they are all the same, but they aren’t, are they? I mean some of them are interested in humans, some are not, some are traitors and some are not. Some may get bored easily, and some may not.” She turned her back on him.

  He turned her to face him. “He is not for you!”

  “Oh, and you are?”

  “I wasn’t offering myself into this mix!”

  “Good thing, fella, because I wasn’t looking your way,” she blustered, but felt stung all the same.

  The prince arrived out of nowhere, but evidently not in time to hear their little exchange. He took no note of the tension between them, as in truth at that moment he had other matters on his mind. Maxie wondered briefly if with all his romance he could ever really love her. Probably not the everlasting, true-blue sort of human love women were forever searching to find. Was he infatuated? Yes, perhaps. Could she be wrong? Sure—she’d never dealt with a Fae prince before.

  Breslyn took Maxie in his strong arms jus
t at that moment. He behaved as though Julian wasn’t even there, whispering, “My Lia … you are shivering with cold.”

  It was physically and emotionally comforting. He wasn’t bored enough to ignore her needs. Male Tuatha Dé were, no doubt, much like male humans. There were good mates, mediocre mates, and lousy mates. This guy came a few notches above great!

  She shamed herself by sticking her tongue out at Julian. Idiotic thing to do, but it happened before she knew what she was doing. He pretended not to see, but she noticed a sparkle of something in his eyes. Was it amusement?

  The prince looked at Julian. “Have you done the four corners of the castle?”

  “I have.” Julian started for the back door, and when no one followed he turned. “Are you two coming—you did notice that she is cold?”

  “Yes, Lia must go in at once—I however, cannot,” the prince answered hastily and then turned to look at her. “Lia, I will be back by your morning. I didn’t find the queen when I returned to Tir earlier, and I must try to see her at once and apprise her of the situation.”

  “Of course, Bres … go on, we will be fine. See you in the morning.”

  He bent to kiss her, and she knew this time it wasn’t going to be the soft, quick, gentle kind. He meant business, and she felt it rush through his body and convey itself to hers. She thought she should allow him that kiss if only to stick it up Lord Bossy’s ass, but she put her hand on his chest and whispered, “Time for you to go …”

  “Ah, my Lia does not wish an audience. Very well, I understand, but when I return, Lia … you will make it up to me.” It was so seductively said that she couldn’t object.

  Poof, her prince was gone, and Julian Talbot was already in the house. She had a moment when she thought she should go walk it off just so she wouldn’t have to follow Julian directly inside. A stiff wind made her think better of that idea.

  It didn’t matter. When she walked into the kitchen, he was already gone. She grabbed some food, heated it in the microwave, downed it in no time flat, and sat back with a sigh. Time for bed … alone again.