Midnight Enchantment

by Anya Bast

  Reality jerked her back from the danger she was flirting with. She couldn’t play around like this, no matter how tempting and intriguing this man was.

  She smiled sweetly. “Good-bye, Niall.”

  “No. Eliz—”

  But she was already dissolving into the world of liquid, giving herself over to the rain, the rivers, and the streams, becoming one with all the moisture in the earth…surrendering.

  NIALL hunched over a dusty tome in one of the small, dank rooms of the Black Tower, swearing at the top of his lungs. “Asrai, asrai. Fucking asrai,” he chanted, paging through the fading book. “Why is there nothing in here about the asrai?”

  You really know nothing about me, do you, Niall?

  That sentence still rang through his mind. No, he didn’t. He was working on precious little information about her, in fact, and it drove him crazy he couldn’t find more.

  The door whined open, and Bella Quinn, his sister-in-law, entered with a new stack of books. “How’s it going?”

  He snarled inarticulately at her.

  “That good, huh? Maybe I better call in some help to do research.” She surveyed the piles of books he still had to go through.

  “I’d rather be out hunting her than stuck in here reading.” He turned a page and ran his finger down it. Yet he needed inspiration to strike—something to give him an idea of how to catch her.

  She nodded. “The queen will order hundreds of people to do research if it will help you. You know she will if you ask.”

  Niall was aware of that, but he didn’t trust anyone but himself to do this job. Call him a control freak, but he might come across a tidbit about the asrai that sparked an idea in his mind, while another would just pass over it.

  He leaned back in his chair and looked up at her. She had dust caught in her dark hair. “I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve. I just want to make sure they’ll fucking work this time.”

  “Do you know what her motivation is yet? If you can find that out, maybe you can use it against her.”

  He scowled. “No, and it’s pissing me off. The way she talks, it’s almost like she thinks the walls falling would hurt those she loves. She sounds like she might be protecting someone.”

  “Protecting someone from the walls falling? That doesn’t make sense. No fae is safe with those walls up.”

  Niall considered her words for a moment before standing. “Look into it. See if there are any fae who will be directly harmed by the walls coming down. Maybe my key to cracking Elizabeth lies there. In the meantime, I’ve got one radical move to make. I hope it works.”

  “Me, too.”

  He surveyed the mess of books, scowling. It was anyone’s guess since the damn books weren’t cooperating enough to tell him what his chances were. “Go ahead and get some people to research for me. It’s clear I can’t do this on my own.”

  “I will,” answered Bella, looking up from a tome. “You finally met your match, huh?”

  He grunted at her. “If you find anything interesting, I’ll be in the Boundary Lands. I can’t tell you how fucking sick I am of trees.” He moved toward the door.

  “Niall?”

  He turned back around.

  “What’s she like?”

  He shrugged. “Clever. Witty. Too fucking pretty by half. I think you’d like her.”

  “It sounds like you like her.”

  He glowered at her. “How could I like anyone who’s keeping the final two pieces of the bosca fadbh from us?”

  NIALL slammed his map down on the hood of his SUV and surveyed it. He’d been tracking Elizabeth’s moves for the last three nights. She probably knew he’d been following her, but he hadn’t engaged her at all. Hadn’t so much as uttered a word since the night he’d had her in his rope. Instead he’d been charting her movements. Where she spent her time and for how long.

  Mostly her travels involved checking on the gardens she kept throughout the woods. She harvested the food and delivered it to homes throughout the Boundary Lands, mostly to the elderly or the bed-ridden.

  How fucking sweet. And out of character for a rat bastard of a fae who would steal and keep hidden the last pieces of the bosca fadbh. It didn’t make sense.

  Nothing about this woman made sense.

  Other than growing and collecting fruit and vegetables and delivering them to the needy, Elizabeth took the occasional foray to a spring or a river to bathe. He’d tried to be a gentleman and not peek. Really, he’d tried.

  Mostly, he’d failed.

  He was a man, after all, right? A very healthy man with certain…needs…that weren’t getting met while he was out here communing with the Danu-forsaken trees every night.

  Anyway, he was pretty sure she’d known he was there. She’d just been teasing him. And tease him, she had. The woman was lovely—pale skin that glowed in the moonlight, breasts that weren’t huge but weren’t tiny either, just big enough to cup in his hands. Her ass. He groaned, remembering. Perfect. Beautiful. His fingers itched to stroke it.

  For the five millionth time he cursed the Summer Queen for picking a woman as gorgeous as Elizabeth Cely Saintjohn to do her dirty work.

  Stabbing his finger down onto the map, he looked up into the sky. Twilight was falling fast. It was time to put the final touches on his plan. For the last three nights he’d been following Elizabeth, he’d had Aeric O’Malley and a crew of fae workers out in the woods constructing an elaborate trap.

  In order to keep Elizabeth from noticing the activity, he’d cast a concealing spell over the area and had them work during the day, the time when an asrai was fast asleep.

  Tonight was the night he’d catch her. He could feel it. No way could even an asrai slip this snare. Tonight he was going to play cowboy and herd this wild horse into a corral.

  She’d be his by midnight.

  This garden was the one where Elizabeth spent most of her time, so he could count on her showing up tonight. Once he did, his plan would be put into action. With the weight and resources of the entire Black Tower behind him, there was no way he wouldn’t eventually prevail against one little wildling fae, no matter how tricky her methods of evasion.

  In the distance he heard the engine of an ATV cut off. Soon a presence behind him made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and the sweet scent of Elizabeth wafted on the cool evening breeze to tease his nose. She was here. Excellent.

  He wished he could’ve kept Aeric here to help him catch her, but Niall had worried that the presence of anyone other than him would make her dissolve before he could snare her. He was her enemy, but she was growing more and more accustomed to his presence. Hell, he knew she was laughing at him and all his failed attempts to trap her.

  Tonight he would be the one laughing.

  He circled the garden and caught sight of her kneeling in the center of a pea patch, the moonlight washing out the vibrant red of her hair. There were faint gold tones in that fall of beauty; he’d noticed last time he’d seen her up close.

  “Hello, Niall,” she said without looking up from her plantings. “You’re not fooling anyone, you know. To my ears you make about as much noise as an elephant.”

  “Glad to know my presence doesn’t alarm you.”

  “Annoy would be a better word to use. You’ve been following me around relentlessly. Tracking my movements, are you? I never in all my days thought I’d have a stalker.”

  He lowered his voice a degree. “I never in all my days believed a fellow fae would deny her people freedom.”

  Her shoulders seemed to stiffen. “I guess we’re both full of surprises, then, aren’t we?”

  “Let’s stop this silly dance, Elizabeth. Just talk to me. Tell me why you’re doing this.”

  She shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “No.” She stood. Her gaze met his across the garden. “You’ll never get those pieces from me while I’m alive, Niall. You seem like a nice guy even though you’re Unseelie
. Are you prepared to kill me to get them?”

  He steadied his gaze. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, but, yes. The stakes are too high. I’ll kill you if I have to.” He paused. “I’ve been thinking that’s probably going to be the ending to this story.”

  She glanced away from him, up at the waning moon. “Too bad you don’t know where they are, right? Then you could just murder me now and go get them.”

  He didn’t blink. “Yes, a pity.”

  They stood staring at each other for a long moment. The element of teasing that had been present in their former encounters seemed to be gone tonight. Niall worried that he’d pushed her too far. Maybe tonight, instead of leading him on a chase to arrogantly prove she could, she’d just dissolve and be gone.

  Suddenly, she dropped her basket and bolted like a jackrabbit into the foliage.

  Thank the goddess for her ego. Tonight it might mean the end for her.

  He ripped through the bushes in pursuit, branches scraping at his face and pulling at his clothes. The woman was like a deer, able to leap fallen tree trunks and bushes like no one he’d ever seen. It was a damn good thing he was in shape, but even in shape it was a real chore to keep behind her. Tonight it was even more important to keep her on the run since he needed to subtly guide her to where he wanted her to go.

  She veered to the left and he went wider, gently nudging her toward the right. Tonight there was no banter, no stopping to chat from a distance. Tonight he was the hunter and she was the hunted—even if she didn’t truly understand that.

  Little by little he herded her toward a clearing about fifty feet from her garden. His chest burned from exertion, his face felt on fire from being whacked with branches, and his clothes were torn and dirty.

  Just a little more to the right and he’d have her.

  ELIZABETH laughed softly as she vaulted a clump of blackberry bushes, enjoying the stretch of her muscles and the faint burn of her lungs. Niall was really serious tonight. It was a good opportunity to show him that he would never be able to catch her. Maybe she could get him to finally back off and give up. Leave her alone.

  Honestly, she’d kind of miss him, though.

  And, anyway, he wouldn’t be the last the Black Tower sent. The Shadow Queen would never give up on retrieving the pieces. She could expect others to come after her, maybe Unseelie that weren’t as pleasant as Niall Quinn.

  Elizabeth fully anticipated a short life.

  She dashed into the middle of a clearing. A stream ran on the other side. That was where she’d make her exit. She didn’t have to dissolve directly into water, but it did seem to make the transference experience go a little smoother.

  Leaping over a boulder, she almost flew into the tree line on the opposite side, the run through the woods absolutely no trouble for her at all.

  And ran straight into what felt like an invisible brick wall.

  FOUR

  SHE impacted and bounced backward, sliding along what seemed like a smooth, hard floor. But that was impossible! Pain exploded through her, robbing her of any opportunity to examine the strangeness of what had just occurred. Instead she sucked in a pained breath, holding her stomach, and rolled to her side, trying to drag air into her lungs.

  From some distant place in her stunned mind, she noticed that every noise she made sounded loud and off…echoing…like she was in a big metal box, not out in the woods.

  Somewhere a door slammed shut. All light extinguished.

  “Wha—?” She fought through her disorientation, tasting blood on her tongue from where she’d split her lip. “What’s happening?”

  Above her came the sound of sliding metal and a crack of moonlight. “I win,” came Niall’s voice. He sounded exerted and out of breath. “Your ass is mine now, Elizabeth.”

  “Where am I?” she managed to ask, rolling onto her hands and knees and spitting blood onto the strange, smooth floor. It was a big box made of metal, she noted now. Charmed iron, to be exact. Now that she’d noticed, she could feel it sapping her magick.

  Oh. Sweet Lady Danu, no.

  She looked around, realization slamming into her. She was in a long, wide charmed iron box camouflaged to look like forest. Even though she was fully dressed, she had no defenses against this much charmed iron.

  “You’re trapped.” Niall sounded smug.

  He must have had this built during the day, when she’d been sleeping. That whole chase, he’d just been herding her right where he’d wanted her to go.

  Trapped.

  Panic clawed at her throat, made a tight fist in her stomach.

  She dissolved immediately, shifting to her other self, her body sliding into its watery state.

  Slippery. Hard. No earth. No freedom. No surrender. Suffocating. Dying…

  She re-formed, her breath coming in short, little pants. Her lungs burned, her body ached. She rolled onto her side and realized she was naked, her clothes crushed beneath her from her shift. The charmed iron touched the bare parts of her body, sapping her energy and her life force even faster and harder.

  “This is going to kill me,” she croaked. “Let me go.”

  Niall said nothing for a long moment. “Tell me where the pieces are.”

  “No! I can’t.”

  The small metal door slammed shut.

  She slumped to the floor and concentrated on breathing. It wouldn’t take her long to die in here, with this much of her skin exposed to the iron. Her mother would grieve if she died, but at least her mother would be safe. If she died now, they’d never find the pieces. Never break the walls.

  But, oh, Lady, she didn’t want to die.

  Elizabeth wasn’t sure how long she laid there, her body growing weaker and weaker. Finally the sound of the larger door being opened met her ears and moonlight flooded the box.

  “Stubborn woman,” Niall grumbled as he knelt beside her and touched her upper arm with a gentleness that seemed odd.

  He hated her, right? So why lay his hand on her arm as if he cared about her welfare? Nonetheless, he rubbed his fingers along her skin, and strange comforting warmth flooded her body.

  Pushing his hand away, she reached an arm toward the opening of the box. If she was stronger, she could bolt for it. But all she could do was lie there and allow Niall to pull her hands to the small of her back and snick a pair of cuffs around her wrists.

  He pulled her gently to her feet. “Walk,” he commanded, pushing her toward the opening.

  She stumbled out of the stifling box and drew the clean evening air into her lungs. That, combined with the absence of so much charmed iron against her skin, seemed to clear her mind. The earth taunted her under her bare feet. She wanted so much to dissolve right into it and escape, but now the charmed iron touching the bare skin at her wrists prevented that. “Bastard,” she spat.

  “Now, now.” Niall clucked his tongue. “You had this coming.”

  “You made me run headlong into a wall!”

  “And you got off lucky. All I see is a little boo-boo on your lower lip. Still have all your teeth, don’t you? No broken nose or cheekbones? No concussion? No broken arms or legs?”

  “No. I’m just bruised from head to toe!”

  “Bruised is better than broken. I spelled the wall you ran into to be much softer than it would have been naturally. You didn’t slam into it so much as bounced off of it. I don’t have time to deal with a bunch of injuries.” He flashed a cocky smile at her. “You don’t have to say thank you.”

  “Good. I won’t.”

  “Don’t be a poor sport, now. You’ve been playing with me for the last two weeks. Now you’ve been played. It happens to the best of us.”

  Yes, but his mother’s life wasn’t on the line.

  He led her into the clearing, where she immediately became aware of her state of dress, or lack thereof. “The least you can do is give me some clothes.”

  “I don’t have any on me right now.” He gave her a slow up-and-down. “Anyway, I think I prefer you nak
ed.”

  “Of course you do, you’re a pig.”

  He tsked at her. “You’re the one who tried to dissolve into charmed iron. It’s your fault you’re naked, not mine. Now come on. It’s getting cold out here.”

  He led her through the woods to his SUV. She looked longingly at her garden as they passed it, thinking about all the vegetables that would go to rot and how the people she provided them to would go hungry. She had no illusions she’d be back anytime soon to pick them.

  She had no illusions she’d ever be back to pick them.

  A heavy feeling settled into her chest. If only she’d been more cautious, less cocky. Her capture meant she would be letting people down. Not only her mother, but so many others.

  He opened the passenger side and helped her get in. She was practically sitting on her bound hands. “Can you at least move my wrists to the front instead of the back?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah and have you take the opportunity to escape the moment the charmed iron leaves your skin? Not even. You’ll have to wait until we get where we’re going for that.”

  “What?” she asked sweetly. “You don’t trust me?”

  He pulled a blanket from the backseat and covered her with it. “Trust the fae who betrayed her people? Never.”

  The words pricked, but she tried not to show it. She looked straight ahead as he closed the door and climbed into the driver’s side. He started the vehicle and guided it down the makeshift path through the woods. She saw now that the path was much more worn than it ever had been before, showing clearly that men and vehicles had been using it regularly for some time, building her trap, no doubt. She shivered.

  Why hadn’t she noticed the signs before? Had Niall used some sort of magick to hide the evidence? He was a mage, after all, with powers as unique as hers. She had no idea what his abilities were.

  “What are you going to do with me?” Her voice sounded emotionless, flat.

  “Right now I’m going to take you to a place where you can change into some clothes, have something to eat, and get warm in front of a fire. Then you’re going to tell me where the pieces are.”