by C. I. Black
Lachlin squared his shoulders and glared at him. “Make me.”
The power snapped, crackling through the air, and Gage shoved Lachlin away from the door. “Don’t try me.”
Lachlin lunged. Gage seized Lachlin’s arm again, whirled him around and down, pinning him to the floor with his knee. “I said don’t try me. You need to keep your head.”
“I’ll do what I want.” Lachlin bucked, knocking Gage back, and scrambled to his feet.
Gage snagged the back of Lachlin’s shirt and yanked him off balance and back onto the floor under his knee. “Is the actual spell Bearnas’s?”
“I don’t know.” Lachlin wrenched against Gage’s grip, but couldn’t break free.
“Let’s assume it isn’t. Do you know of another spellweaver with a similar signature?” Gage asked.
“No. But either way, that doesn’t mean Father or Eoin didn’t force Bearnas to be a part of this. It’s her anchor.”
“Regardless, we can’t go storming in until we have solid evidence that your father or Eoin were involved. Your family is too powerful.”
“I can do what I want if I leave the team,” Lachlin growled.
“I can’t protect you if you do that,” Gage growled back.
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
They glared at each other, Gage’s knee on Lachlin’s chest, pinning him.
Fire licked around Morgan’s eyes in response to the tension. “How about we try for proof first. If that doesn’t work, we’ll explore other avenues.”
“We?” Gage asked, his voice dark. “You don’t want to take on one of the Thirteen Houses.”
“Kitten, I didn’t know you cared.”
“Let’s assume the spell isn’t Bearnas’s. You said there were differences.”
“Miniscule ones.”
“Doesn’t matter. If she didn’t cast the spell, she’s not directly responsible for the murder. Let’s assume she didn’t. Is there any way to completely identify who cast the actual spell?” Morgan didn’t want to give Lachlin more hope or anger Gage any more than he already was, but she hated to work on assumptions.
“Yes, but it’s time consuming and exhausting. And I’ll need to get off the floor for that.” Lachlin shot Gage another dark look.
Gage eased back. Lachlin stood and flicked his waist-length hair over his shoulder, as if he hadn’t just lost a fight. With another glare, he stormed from the room.
“How long will that buy us?” Morgan asked.
“He’ll have to go into deep meditation to connect with the spellweaver’s essence that’s left within the spell,” Gage said.
“Is that dangerous?”
Gage frowned. “Are you worried about him?”
“Aren’t you? A minute ago he was about to kill his father and his brother.” Was he jealous?
“Right, yes.” He ran a hand over his dark brush cut. “He’ll be worn out but fine. Rika, please tell me you’ve got something.”
“I am a goddess of all things knowable.” She swiped something from the table to the big screen. “Looks like Eoin and Scarlet had a pretty heated email exchange two days before she was murdered.”
Morgan scanned the conversation. “Eoin lied. He wasn’t the one who ended the relationship.”
“Unless you count cheating on her as a way of ending the relationship.” Rika blinked. Her eyes flashed purple then back to brown.
“He denies it happened,” Gage said.
“I don’t think she believed him.” Rika highlighted the last few lines. “‘I’d rather sleep with a pit beast than spend one more night with you.’ It doesn’t get clearer than that.”
And Eoin hadn’t responded any better, saying no one rejected the heir of the House of Fairy, and that she was a pit beast and belonged in hell. Not a response Morgan would have expected from the slick, over-confident bad boy. “Why didn’t he just charm her?”
“That’s what I’m wondering,” Gage said.
“Could she have broken free of his spell and realized what he was doing?” Morgan asked. “I think I’d have some serious rage issues if I found out my boyfriend had messed with my mind to get me to sleep with him.”
Gage frowned. “A sylph wouldn’t be able to break a Fae’s charm. Particularly not one as powerful as Eoin’s.”
“Not without help,” Rika said.
“So somehow Scarlet breaks Eoin’s charm, realizes what he’s been doing, rejects him, and sends him over the edge. Then he convinces Bearnas to create a phantom sword spell that will kill Scarlet?” Morgan drummed her fingers on the table, shifted in her seat, crossed her legs, uncrossed them, then gave up and stood. “That doesn’t make any sense. There are easier, more expedient, and more private ways to go about murdering someone.”
“Unless Bearnas really did make the spell to protect Eoin.” Rika swiped up the text messages from Scarlet’s phone.
There, at the bottom, from Bearnas’s phone, was a text to meet in the alley so Eoin wouldn’t know they were talking. But about what? Morgan couldn’t tell. Only that Bearnas knew her brother was horrible and she wanted to make amends on behalf of the family.
“Bearnas is smarter than this,” Gage said. “It’s too obvious.”
“Unless she really was forced into it.” Morgan paced to the back of the room. “But why would her family want her to take this kind of fall?”
“That’s the question.” Rika tapped the touch keyboard on the table. “The DNA just came in on the skin found under Scarlet’s nails.”
“Is it Eoin?” Morgan asked.
“No. It’s female and Fae. No match to anyone in the system, but no one from the House of Fairy is in the system.”
Morgan paced up to Rika. “This isn’t looking good for Bearnas.”
“No, it’s not,” Rika said.
“Still not looking good for Eoin, either.” Clayton tapped and swiped at the table until only three photos—now a reasonable size—remained on the big screen. They were all of Eoin and Scarlet in the middle of a heated discussion. “His alibi checks out. He was at the Ball last night. But so was Scarlet.”
Rika shifted on her stool. “I’ll keep looking. Maybe I’ll find a motive.”
“Good.” Gage checked his sidearm—something Morgan still hadn’t gotten back from him. “I think we need to talk with Bearnas again.”
CHAPTER 7
Morgan and Gage strode into the jewelry store. A different, non-Kin clerk was on duty instead of Trina. She smiled as they approached.
“We’re looking for Bearnas Kincade,” Gage said, flashing his FBI badge.
The clerk’s smile vanished and she pointed to the employee door behind the counter. “In her studio.”
“Thank you.” Gage headed into the back hall and Morgan followed. The more she thought about the murder, the less everything made sense. If Eoin and Bearnas were even half as smart as Lachlin, they’d know the spell and box would lead right back to Bearnas.
But then, maybe Eoin—at the very least—wasn’t as smart as everyone said. He’d lied about when he’d last seen Scarlet and he’d lied about how their relationship had ended. And maybe he’d just tricked his sister into making the box and killing Scarlet for him, knowing full well the evidence would point to her.
Gage knocked on the door to Bearnas’s studio and entered. Empty.
“Do you think she knew we were coming?” Morgan asked. And did that make Bearnas look more or less guilty?
“The clerk could have called a quick warning while we were in the hall. But I didn’t hear a phone ring so I doubt it.”
“Which means she just isn’t here.”
“I’ll go back and talk to the clerk about where she might be. You wait here in case she returns.” Gage strode out the door.
Morgan propped her sunglasses on top of her head and scanned the room. Maybe there was something here that explained everything.
The spellboxes from earlier, the fire response one and the video ones, still sat on t
he shelf beside her, and light still shone through the frosted glass window at the back in perpetual daylight, belying the fact it was early evening and the sun was setting. Nothing had changed. Well, maybe the papers and bits of metal cluttering Bearnas’s worktable had increased.
A hint of light sparkled from the worktable, bright, shimmering, like diamonds in sunlight. Just like the phantom sword and the spellboxes on the shelf beside Morgan. That hadn’t been there the last time she’d been in the studio.
She crossed the room to the worktable. Bearnas’s tools were pushed to the side and papers, legal size, were spread across its surface. Pages and pages of thick, dense text. ‘Sign here’ tabs marked the edges of half a dozen of them. Bearnas was entering into some kind of legal agreement.
Morgan picked up the first page. It shimmered with light and she dropped it. Not just a legal agreement but a magical one of some kind. The document was from a prestigious law firm—likely the Kincade family’s lawyers—transferring the title of heir and the responsibilities and holdings therein to Bearnas Kincade. Eoin was getting demoted in Daddy’s will.
Peeking out from the bottom of the pile was a hint of yellowish-brown paper that didn’t fit with the rest of the pages. Morgan slid it out. The paper was thick, soft, as if it was more fabric than paper.
It was a letter with a fancy shimmering seal stamped on the top, saying Bearnas had proven to be a stronger spellweaver than any in the Kincade family, as well as possessing the sibyl’s gift, and even though she was half human, they approved her nomination to heir of the House of Fairy.
There was no way Bearnas’s father would force her to protect Eoin if he wasn’t the family heir anymore, but this did give a lot of weight to someone trying to frame her and get her out of the way.
The door to the workshop clicked open.
“Look at this, Gage?” She glanced up.
Trina stood in the doorway. “I have. You can’t rummage through someone’s personal papers without a warrant.”
“I can if it’s in plain sight.” But that was sketchy, given the letter she currently held had been at the bottom of the pile.
“No, you can’t. Not in the House of Fairy,” Trina said, her voice dark.
“A woman was murdered.” And the paper in Morgan’s hand suggested Bearnas might not be responsible.
Trina flicked her hand and sighed. Light flashed from charms on a bracelet around her wrist. “She was just a sylph. She didn’t deserve him.”
“What are you talking about?” Fire licked around Morgan’s eyes and she slid her sunglasses down. Her instincts screamed something wasn’t right. Trina wasn’t right.
“The heir of the House of Fairy deserves so much more than a whore.”
“Except Eoin isn’t the heir anymore.” Morgan fought the urge to reach for her gun. It wasn’t on her hip. Gage still had it. Where the hell was he?
“Eoin will be heir, once Alexander arrests Bearnas for murder. Everything is happening the way it’s supposed to.”
“And how is it supposed to happen?” Morgan shifted, inching away from the table, her gaze locked on the bracelet. From the dancing light, it had to be magic, which meant Trina was armed and Morgan wasn’t. The fire billowed around Morgan’s eyes and she blinked it back. Come on, Gage. Any time now.
“Eoin needed to realize the sylph wasn’t right for him.” Trina blew out a sigh. “That was one of the hardest parts, making a spell to break Eoin’s charm so the bitch would leave him.”
“And then?” Morgan inched closer.
“I took one of Bearnas’s spellboxes from the safe and adjusted the spell.” Trina’s eyes narrowed. “You’re supposed to be impressed with that. Do you know the skill it takes to manipulate that kind of raw magic? Not even the dumb half-breed can do that.”
“I’m new to this whole magic thing.”
“Well, it’s fucking impressive!”
Morgan inched another step closer. Get the bracelet. Disarm the crazy Fae.
“But you messed it all up.” Trina glared at Morgan.
She froze, praying Trina was too obsessed with her plans to notice Morgan had gotten closer.
“I stole Bearnas’s phone and texted the whore,” Trina said. “It was perfect. All you were supposed to do was arrest the half-breed and then Eoin would pick the right Fae to be his wife.”
“I’m sure he will.” Although Morgan doubted Eoin was into crazy.
Red raced across Trina’s face and up her pointed ears. “And that right Fae isn’t you.”
“I’m sure it isn’t.” Just a few more steps.
“You’re not even Fae.”
“No, I’m not.” The fire seeped across Morgan’s cheeks.
“Then why do you look at him like that?” Trina clenched her hands, her body trembling.
“Like what?”
“I’ve seen it. At the coffee shop. That look. The same look the whore had.” Trina’s trembling grew and the veins on her neck stood out. “You want him. Everyone wants him. He’s the heir to the House of Fairy.”
“I don’t want him.”
“Yes, you do.” Trina ripped a charm from her bracelet. It glittered like diamonds in sunlight and she shouted a word Morgan didn’t understand. Magic. “You can’t have him.”
Morgan leapt forward to grab the charm. It hit the ground at her feet and she slammed into something hard and invisible that hadn’t been there moments before. Light rippled in front and above her.
She twisted. The light was to the sides and behind her as well. Heat beat across her face. “Trina, I don’t want him. Let me go.”
Trina sneered, her too-large Fae eyes wild. “He’ll stop thinking of you when you’re gone. Bearnas will go to prison for murder and nothing can stop us from ruling the House of Fairy.”
Morgan pressed her hands against the light cage surrounding her. There had to be a way out. “There is no us.” Maybe if she got Trina mad enough, she’d release Morgan to fight. “If Eoin hasn’t noticed you by now, I doubt he ever will.”
Trina giggled and patted her charm bracelet. “I’ve got a way to fix that. Just like I’ve fixed you.”
“Do you really want to risk everything for a man like Eoin?” Where the hell was Gage?
“I know exactly what kind of man Eoin is. The House of Fairy will be mine.”
The cage shimmered and pressed closer, squashing Morgan’s hair to her head.
“And in ten minutes you’ll be a stain on the floor, if you don’t run out of air. Not sure which comes first.” She giggled again. “In a few days he won’t even remember you existed.”
The door opened. Trina leapt aside and Gage and Eoin strode in.
Morgan pounded against the cage, making it flicker. “It’s Trina. She murdered Scarlet.” The light around Morgan trembled and contracted. It pressed against her head and back, forcing her to bend her knees. Oh God, it was shrinking.
Gage jerked toward Trina, drawing his gun as she ripped another charm from her bracelet. She shoved it into Eoin’s pocket and grabbed his arm.
“The gorgon is lying. She was going to attack me. I had to protect myself.” Trina pushed Eoin between her and Gage.
Eoin frowned and pressed his palms to his temples. “What did you do?”
“Nothing. He’s going to hurt me.”
“Release Morgan,” Gage said.
“I’ve got ten minutes.” The light pressed harder against Morgan’s head.
Trina gripped Eoin’s arm more tightly. “Eoin, please.”
Eoin groaned. “No, I—”
“He’s going to shoot,” Trina said. “Protect me.”
The muscle in Gage’s jaw flexed. “Eoin, step away.”
“No,” Eoin hissed, his eyes wild. “I won’t let you hurt her.” He leapt forward.
Gage twisted, wrenching his gun to the side. Eoin punched at Gage’s face and he blocked, grabbing Eoin’s arm and twisting it behind his back.
Eoin squeezed his eyes shut and growled. Gage’s head snapped
back as if a force had slammed into it and he staggered to the side, stunned.
Adrenaline beat through Morgan and the heat of her powers licked at her face.
Eoin kicked the gun from Gage’s hand and shoved him, toppling him over.
Trina hissed more words and cupped her hands before her. Dazzling light danced around her and fire erupted across her palms. She shoved her hands into the books on the shelf beside her and they burst into flames. More light flared around the gold spellbox as the fire prevention spell activated.
Trina shook the fire from her hands and rushed to the door. “Come on, lover.”
Eoin raced after her.
Gage staggered to his feet and lunged for the door, but it jerked shut and the spell in the fire prevention box erupted into brilliant light. He yanked at the door. It didn’t open. With a growl, he shot a burst of magical fire at it. The flames scorched the handle, but the door didn’t open.
Air whooshed through the room, tossing the papers on the worktable and knocking small objects and books from the shelves. It pulled at Gage’s clothes, but didn’t touch Morgan inside the sphere.
“Gage, get out.” Morgan pounded on the cage. Bearnas had said the spellbox sealed the room and sucked out the air within minutes, killing the fire. That would also kill anyone trapped inside.
“Not without you.” He rushed to her side. “What’s the anchor?”
“That charm.” She pointed to the tiny silver rabbit at her feet. The cage trembled again, pressing down on her. Her thighs burned and she dropped to her knees. The light rushed in around her, squeezing tight to her head and shoulders.
“Can you reach it?”
She grabbed for it, but hit the smooth surface of the cage. “No. It’s on the other side.”
“All right, brace yourself.” He pressed his palms against the cage. Light danced and billowed against the contact, like soap on water in sunlight. Power and darkness swarmed around him. The muscles in his jaw tightened and a burst of fire exploded against the cage.
The light billowed and contracted again, crushing against her shoulders.
“It’s still there.”
“I can see that.” He glared at her and power burned across her cheeks in response.
