by Anya Bast
Her eyes skirted the tall stone wall that ran around Piefferburg, but her human gaze couldn’t see the magickal warding that imprisoned the fae. An almost organic thing, the warding existed in a subconscious, hive portion of the Phaendir’s collective mind—fueled by their breath, thoughts, magick, and, most of all, by their very strong belief system. It wasn’t that wall or those gates that kept the fae separate from the world—it was the druids.
Brother Gideon bowed. “Safe travels. May Labrai always be at your side.”
She bowed in response, a little stiffly. “And also at yours.”
“Call the front gates when you’re ready to leave. Your name will be on the list of approved exiters. They’ll send a car for you if you ask them.”
“Thank you.” She stood staring at him for a long moment. Stalling. The compulsion was pushing her toward the gates and she was resisting, but her ability to do so flagged more with every second.
Brother Gideon fidgeted, motioning at the entrance. “You’re free to enter now.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “So I am.” The magickal pressure forced her to turn and walk through the partially opened gates, leaving her world behind. The gates closed with a metallic clang that made her jerk.
The other side of the gates looked much the same, though the trees and foliage around her seemed to have extra color—like she’d stepped into a painting in which the artist had used slightly unreal hues. She stood on a paved area with a dark brown gravel road that led off into what appeared to be an enchanted forest beginning not far away.
All she could see past the paved area, other than the road stretching away to what had to be Piefferburg City, were trees. Huge, towering, ancient trees. She’d never seen the California redwoods, but this is what she imagined they must look like. She felt dwarfed by them, and they seemed almost sentient. As though they were watching her, judging her, and found her . . . inferior.
“Miss Bennett?”
She turned to meet her first fae and froze, staring. Terror raced through her veins, made her eyes open wide in panic, yet her feet were rooted in place. It was a red cap, of all things. One of the creatures from her nightmares. The images that had haunted her nights as a child flooded in a rush to her mind’s eye. Jaws snapping. Snarling. Blood dripping from sharpened teeth.
She drew a deep, shaking breath to get hold of herself. The nightmares had never been real. It had only been the imaginings of a small child’s mind drawn from her father’s horrid warning-filled stories about the fae.
Just a nightmare. Not real . . .
She drew a second breath, closed her eyes, and collected herself. She felt light-headed.
“Miss Bennett?” the red cap asked again.
Never real. She opened her eyes and her heart skipped a beat.
He was a hulking monster of a humanoid fae with a dark red “cap” of skin on his otherwise bald head. A swirl of black tattoos marked his massive face, swarming down one side of his neck. If she could see inside his mouth, she would find viciously pointed teeth—all the better to tear the flesh from the bones of his enemies.
Red caps needed to kill periodically to survive—luckily periodically was every few hundred years. It was also lucky that they kept their restorative murdering to their own kind in elaborate gladiator-like tournaments that all the fae turned out to see. Faemous was always trying to get permission from the FCC to air the tournaments and, luckiest of all, the FCC always denied them.
But they didn’t just attack indiscriminately, she reminded herself. They weren’t vicious, murdering creatures. They had rules, a system in place to fulfill their needs.
Of course, she could argue logically with herself all day . . . there was still a red cap standing in front of her.
“Please don’t eat me,” she whispered and then snapped her mouth shut. Her fear had just pushed the words she’d been thinking right out there.
The red cap guard leered at her and smiled. Oh, yes, there were the teeth. Wooziness and nausea made her take a step backward. “You’re not to my taste,” he growled.
Another guard motioned with an excessively long arm toward a classy black sedan waiting at the curb. “Your car.”
“Th-thank you.” Honestly, she couldn’t wait to be out of their presence. She walked quickly to the vehicle and opened the back door. Peering within, she hoped for something that wouldn’t make her want to pee her pants.
A man with artfully tousled, thick dark hair and a face fit for a men’s magazine cover grinned charmingly at her from the behind the wheel. He had dimples, a trait that gave him an innocent air that was immediately offset by the mischievous—maybe even dangerous—glint in his eyes. He was devastatingly handsome. He was not, however, the man from her dream.
“I’m Niall Daegan Riordan Quinn. Get in and I’ll take you where you need to be.” His voice reminded her of warm honey.
She paused, leaning into the car with one hand on the handle of her suitcase and the other on the door. “I’m nowhere close to where I need to be.” Her voice shook with badly controlled rage. “Tell your friend to let me go back to my life.”
His eyebrows rose. “You have more guts than your looks imply.”
“Gee, thanks for the compliment.”
He grinned again. This time it was far more irritating than charming. “Get in already, would you? You’ve got no choice but to go to Kieran, and you know it.”
Kieran? “Is that his name?”
“Get in and I’ll tell you more.”
She hesitated a moment longer, then pushed her suitcase onto the backseat and climbed in after it. No way was she sitting in front with this guy.
Once she’d closed the door, he pulled away from the curb. “Normally the goblins drive the cars to and from the gates, but we figured getting into a vehicle with one of them behind the wheel might be a little too much for you.”
She shifted impatiently. “So Kieran is the”—she struggled to find the right word. She never swore, but the urge to do so now was nearly overwhelming—“jerk who did this to me?”
“Whoa, Nelly. That’s some strong language there, girly.” Sarcasm dripped from every syllable. He chuckled . . . irritatingly. She was really starting to hate this fae.
“Fine. Bastard! Asshole! Dick!” she yelled at him. Her cheeks heated.
“Ah. Now that’s more like what I’d expect from a woman who’s had all her free will taken away.” He gave a genuine laugh this time. “Still, take a tip from me. I wouldn’t be calling Kieran Aindréas Cairbre Aimhrea an asshole or a dick to his face. He’s got somewhat of a bad temper. Calling him a bastard is okay since he is one in the literal sense of the word.” He paused as if thinking. “In the figurative sense, too.”
“Will he hurt me?”
“Kieran’s got a bad temper, but I’ve never known him to harm a woman. Still, he’s holding your leash, so to speak, so it’s probably wiser to keep him happy.”
“What does he want from me?”
“All will be revealed once we reach the Unseelie Court.”
Her spine snapped to attention and she gripped the seat in front of her, leaning toward Niall. “The Unseelie Court?”
He cast a look of disbelief over his shoulder. “Did you think we were going to the Rose, the tower of sunshine, lollipops, and unicorns that poop rainbows? No fae with juice dark enough to bind and compel a human all the way across the country is going to be Seelie, woman.”
THREE
AND, of course, if she’d thought about it, she would have realized that.
She sat back in the seat with a thump. This was getting worse by the second.
Niall glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “It’s not that bad. The Unseelie aren’t all the boogeymen the media has made us out to be.”
She blinked. “An entire Faemous crew was once eaten in the Black Tower.”
“Oh, yeah, that.” Niall shrugged one impressively broad shoulder. “It was the goblins. What are you going to do?”
; She sat for one shocked moment, then attempted to sputter out a response.
He met her eyes in the mirror. “Humans enter Piefferburg at their own risk. That Faemous crew knew goblins work in the Black Tower. They should have been aware of and respected goblin culture. They knew the dangers, but their stupidity and greed made them take chances.” He shrugged again. “And they paid the price. C’est la vie.”
“You’re okay with people just . . . getting eaten?”
“No, I’m not okay with it. It was a damn crying shame.” He distinctly did not sound like it was a damn crying shame at all. “But that’s the nature of goblins. Piss them off and you might get eaten. They stuck their video cameras into goblin faces over and over, even when they were told not to do it. They filmed goblin women and children when they were warned to never, ever do that.” He shrugged again. “Male goblins are very protective of their females and offspring, offspring especially. Threaten their young and you become a meal. As far as I’m concerned, that Faemous crew pretty much invited themselves to be dinner.” He peered at her in the mirror. “Cultural sensitivity, you know? Now why don’t you look outside for a while and enjoy the view. We’ll be in the ceantar láir soon, then the city and there’s not much green there.”
Grinding her teeth, she glanced out the window and did a double take. The Boundary Lands had an ethereal glow caused by tiny sparkling lights in the treetops and the foliage, lighting the forest so she could see the huge tree trunks that seemed to go on forever. They shadowed a carpet of lush green grass that was scattered here and there with clumps of bright flowers or the occasional moss-covered log or gigantic stone. Flowers should not have been growing on the forest floor. Normally there wasn’t enough sunlight there for them. It had be some sort of magick that kept them—
“The birch ladies.”
Apparently she’d been talking out loud. Fabulous. “The birch ladies are responsible for the flowers and grass that shouldn’t be there?”
“Yes. They’re the caretakers of the forest. Their job is also to take care of anyone who loses their way, especially women.”
“What are all those twinkling lights?” She paused, trying to make sense of them. “Are they—”
“Please don’t say Tinkerbell.”
She snapped her mouth shut because that’s exactly what she’d been about to ask. If they were very small faeries like Tinkerbell.
“The lights are sentient and they’re fae, but they’re more like what you might think of as plankton. You can’t really interact with them. They’re called sprae and they provide magickal energy to the living things in the forest.”
“That’s incredible,” she breathed, staring out the window. For a moment, she almost forgot about her plight.
“You’re in Piefferburg. Everything is incredible here.”
The word Piefferburg brought her back to reality. She closed her mouth and sank into the seat, facing forward. After a moment, she asked, “Why didn’t Mr. Aimhrea come to pick me up himself? It seems like the least he could have done.”
Niall raised his eyebrows suggestively in the mirror. “I think after the dream you shared with him you can call him Kieran.”
Her cheeks heated and she looked out the window.
“He didn’t come because the bond he forged with you is weaker according to proximity. The closer you get, the more he loses his hold on your free will. Once you two meet face-to-face it will pretty much disappear.”
Finally, some good news.
“We couldn’t have you kicking a fuss at the gates. We needed to get you to the Black Tower so we could make sure you’re secure when the compulsion part of the bond breaks.”
Or maybe not.
Her breath came fast and shallow. She closed her eyes, fighting to gain control of an impending panic attack. “You intend to keep me prisoner?”
“It’s unfortunate and we’re sorry we need to do it.” His eyes met hers in the mirror. “But it’s the only way.”
“Oh, God.”
“We’re not going to hurt you.” His voice was softer, filled with something that sounded like genuine empathy. “Really, we’re not. Stop worrying about that.”
She panted a few times, got herself under control, and glanced out the window. They were entering what had to be the outskirts of Piefferburg City. Was this fae suburbia? What had Niall called it . . . ceantar láir?
Like human suburbs, the lawns were all carefully manicured with neat little fences and a car in every driveway. However, instead of every house being more or less the same, each one was drastically different. A very small house might sit next to an enormous one, for example. And all of them were just odd. Some looked like the houses she’d always known, but others were underground or were shaped like a deranged octopus or completely made of glass or had no windows at all.
She guessed it must be because all the races of the trooping fae lived side by side here. Each type of fae had different living requirements.
It wasn’t long before the suburbs began to give way to more commercial areas. Soon it became clear they were in the city, though it had far more the feel of a European city than an American one. She’d been to Brussels before and that’s what it reminded of her of—narrow back streets and old, uneven cobblestone that made the car shake when you drove over it.
Here most of the houses were tall and slim, clearly ancient and probably had winding, twisting staircases within. The city had retained its sixteenth-century roots, though a more modern city had been built around and on top of it. It created a mix of old and new that gave the city a unique feel—as unique as its inhabitants.
Niall guided the car through a series of narrow, curving roads, deeper and deeper into the heart of the city. With interest, she examined the fae they passed on the streets. To think they had once lived in secret alongside humans. Some of them were hideous; how had they managed to remain incognito? Of course, by the fifteen hundreds, they hadn’t been. That’s when they’d been outed as a result of their internal strife and Watt Syndrome. Then, when the fae had been at their weakest, the humans and Phaendir had allied to capture and imprison them.
The neighborhood seemed to take an upscale turn and she assumed they must be near the Black Tower. The driver pulled up in front of a tall, multiturreted shiny black quartz building and her question was answered.
“I don’t want to get out.” She imagined her back was glued to the seat.
“Ah, well, you know he’ll make you.”
“I hate him.”
“To know Kieran is to hate him. He’s not exactly all sunshine and puppies.” He opened his door, got out, and threw his keys to a tall, spindly gray thing . . . that had to be a goblin. Her heart rate sped. All she needed to see today was a joint-eater and she’d hit her nightmare trifecta.
Niall opened her door and leaned in. “Come on, princess.”
“I’m not getting out while he’s there.” She stared at the goblin.
“He’s not going to hurt you. He just wants to take your bag.” He sighed and rolled his eyes when she didn’t move. “I won’t let anyone eat you, I promise.” He waved the goblin away.
Still, she couldn’t make herself move. Fear had driven an icy spike down her spine.
Kieran cut into her mind. The goblin means you no harm and neither do we. Come to me, Charlotte. This time, along with the magickal persuasion that coaxed her to leave the car came a wave of calmness.
She closed her eyes for a moment, absorbing every ounce of that manufactured calm, took a deep breath, and climbed out of the vehicle. She eyed the retreating goblin so hard she almost tripped on the curb. “I’ll take my own bag.”
“I’ll take your bag.” Niall grinned his annoyingly charming grin at her, took her suitcase, and walked through the wide black quartz double doors of the tower. “Follow me.”
Holding her arms over her chest, she followed Niall through a large foyer that seemed oddly empty of people . . . beings, as the case may be, and then took an elevator up s
everal floors. It let out into a corridor with—surprise—black quartz walls and a black marble floor shot through with veins of silver. Accent tables set with pretty vases of flowers decorated the wide hallway, along with artwork and recessed lighting. Evil posh.
They stopped outside a heavy wooden door that was carved with symbols she didn’t recognize. Whatever they were, they made her skin want to run away without her.
Niall slanted a grin at her. “Ready to meet your master?”
She snarled inarticulately at him.
Niall ignored her and opened the door.
The most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life rose from a black leather couch and walked toward her. His thick, longish tousled dark hair shadowed moody dark eyes. His face was handsome, but not in a GQ kind of way. His features were a little rougher, a little less refined. He looked like he hadn’t had much sleep in the last twenty-four hours or so, and a brutal, wild light lit his eyes. That light warned her to be careful of him. His chest was well defined under a navy blue sweater, the hint of the black tribal tattoo that covered his side and snaked up one muscular upper arm and broad shoulder peeking at the collar. His narrow hips were snuggled into a pair of well-worn jeans.
She knew that well-defined chest, that tattoo, those narrow hips, intimately. This was the man from her dream.
Face grim, he came to stand in front of her. “I’m Kieran Aindréas Cairbre Aimhrea.”
At first look, the compulsion that had held her prisoner eased to the point of almost nonexistence.
Charlotte drew her fist back and let fly, popping him right in the mouth.
FOUR
PAIN exploded in Kieran’s jaw and mouth. His head whipped to the side. He put a hand to his lip and drew it back to see blood on his fingertips. Immediately the coppery, salty flavor of it hit his tongue. She’d split his lip. He looked at her through the fall of hair across his forehead. He guessed he must’ve looked pissed, since she took a step backward while holding her hand like it hurt.
