by Anya Bast
Rain started. First just a light pitter-pat, then getting harder. She quickened her pace.
Brighter light glimmered from what had to be the mouth of the alley and she double-timed it there, practically running. Another light emerged from an open door ahead of her on the left. A dark shape quickly blocked it.
Her steps faltered as she approached. An old, gnarled woman stood on the crumbling stoop. A cackle like a pile of broken rocks issued from her ancient throat. Charlotte shivered as she hurried past. Glancing over as she walked, she swore the old crone changed into a beautiful young woman, a slightly older pregnant lady, and then back again to the elder, cackling all the while.
God, this place was creepy.
But the scary old lady wasn’t half as bad as what she found when she hit the mouth of the alley.
Charlotte came to a skidding stop. If her heart palpitated any more she was going to have a heart attack. Stark, raving terror cemented her in her shoes.
Tall, spindly gray beings regarded her with large alien eyes from their late afternoon bustle down the sidewalks of what had to be Goblin Town. She knew these creatures were mostly nocturnal, but regardless of the daylight, all the shops were open and the streets were packed with flesh-eating monsters.
And here she was right in the middle of them. Smack-dab in the center of a waking nightmare.
This had to be what Kieran had been talking about when he’d said she wasn’t going to get very far. He couldn’t know about her bad dreams as a child, but most humans had been fed on boogeyman tales about these things from the cradle.
Her immediate impulse was to turn and run, but the alley only led back to the Black Tower and defeat. Her pride wouldn’t allow it.
She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on getting her breathing and heart rate under control. She would not let this visceral reaction from her childhood rule her. She had hard facts about the goblins at her disposal. Niall, as much as she hated to admit it, was right about respecting their culture. Respect their culture and they would leave her alone.
It was beginning to rain pretty hard now. Charlotte’s hair and clothes were fast growing soaked. The goblins seemed not to mind; they strolled the streets as though bright sunshine shone down on them. A goblin female with heavy breasts and a small goblin baby strapped to her midsection by a large swathe of multicolored fabric stopped and looked at her. “Can I help you?”
Charlotte tried to answer and failed. She’d known many of the goblins spoke English . . . she just hadn’t been expecting to converse with any.
“You look lost.” The goblin shifted the weight of her sleeping child a little and pointed down the street. “If you’re trying to go somewhere, there’s a line of cabs down there in front of the Royal Amber Hotel.” She nodded and smiled. “We don’t get many humans here.” Then she continued on her way.
The word cab made it through Charlotte’s shock. A cab. Perfect. That was exactly what she needed. She eyed the distance between herself and the tall white building down the block that the goblin had pointed at. All she had to do was walk down a street filled with things from her nightmares that might decide to eat her. The alternative was Kieran Aindréas Cairbre Aimhrea.
She’d take the monsters.
“WHAT were you saying about how she wouldn’t get very far?”
Kieran tried not to snarl at Niall and failed. He was weakened by fighting the human woman’s formidable will and her proximity had sapped the strength of his ability to compel her. Indeed, Charlotte had fled much farther into the ceantar dubh than he’d expected.
“Goibhniu, looks like she’s gotten herself a cab,” said Aeric O’Malley, coming up on his right side with his wife, Emmaline, beside him. The rain was starting to come down really hard now, plastering their clothing to their bodies. Somewhere in the distance, thunder boomed.
“I can see that far perfectly fine on my own,” Kieran growled.
“Is that her?” asked Emmaline, shouting over the pounding of the rain. “The woman in that really ugly sweater?”
“What gave her away?” he drawled. “The fact she’s the only human around?”
Emmaline shot him an annoyed sidelong look. “Touchy, touchy.”
Once upon a time, he and Emmaline Siobhan Keara Gallagher had not gotten along. In fact, he’d tried his best to kill her once. Back in the day, before Piefferburg and during the fae wars, Emmaline had been an assassin for the Summer Queen and she’d killed his twin brother. Of course, his twin brother had really needed killing, brutal and sadistic fuck that he’d been. Still, when he’d found out she’d been in the Black Tower, he’d gone a little ape-shit and tried to strangle her.
But then Emmaline had risked her life for the second piece of the bosca fadbh and he’d forgiven her. These days they were even friends.
They watched while the cab with the human in question drove away. He never would have believed Charlotte would have balls enough to get all the way to the Royal Amber Hotel, not to mention get into a cab driven by a goblin. Apparently the threat of his presence had been enough to force her to it. He supposed he should be proud.
Niall cleared his throat. “Kieran, I hate to point out the obvious, but she’s getting away.”
“I’m aware.” Kieran stepped onto the street and made his way toward the hotel. Getting a cab to follow her was faster than going all the way back to the Black Tower to collect his motorcycle. “Don’t worry, I still have a little compulsion left in this bond. Anyway, we all know where she’s headed, right?”
THE cab was driven by a goblin.
It had almost been the last straw. The only thing that had kept her from running away as soon as she’d opened the back door of the vehicle and been confronted by the driver’s goblin face was the fact she’d have to run the monster gauntlet again to make it back to the Black Tower. So, figuring she’d made this far, she’d sucked it up and got inside.
“The front gates, please.” Her voice was shaking. Brilliant.
He looked back at her for a long moment, his alien eyelids blinking slowly. The windshield wipers thwick thwacked against the rain.
She ground her teeth together, fear rising like bile to the back of her throat. Did he not speak English, perhaps? She didn’t know any of their language. Whatever was going on, she just hoped his plans didn’t include her liver and a nice Chianti.
He looked at her a moment longer and then faced the front and began to drive. She sank down against the seat with a slow breath of relief, closing her eyes for a moment. If she could just get to the gates, she’d be okay.
Turn around.
Her whole body stiffened.
“You get the hell out of my head!” she yelled.
The goblin regarded her silently in the rearview mirror.
“Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”
Turn around, Charlotte, or it’s going to get ugly. The burst of compulsion that accompanied that sentence nearly made her spine bow with the effort not to command the driver to return to the hotel.
She screwed her eyes shut and took a few measured breaths, using every ounce of her willpower not to succumb to him. Her mental reply sounded furious in her own head. I thought you couldn’t compel me anymore.
No one ever said that. It begins to wear off once we come face-to-face, but it’s not completely gone yet. You probably should have waited a little while before you made a break for it. I’m not done ordering you around.
The magickal persuasion did feel less intense than before she’d met him in person, and now it was much less evenly applied. But it was still strong.
“Oh, God!” she cringed and put a hand to her head as another wave hit. It seemed to be getting more powerful the farther she got away from him.
More deep breathing. More control. She could do this.
She glanced out the window. They’d left the city and were traveling through the Boundary Lands. Trees whipped past her window. The rain had stopped. Thank heaven for little miracles. It wouldn’t be
long before they’d be where she wanted to go. Kieran couldn’t stop her now. She was strong enough to get away from him.
Seems like I can resist you, Kieran, she finally replied. I’m still headed to the gates.
You won’t make it.
“Ma’am,” said the driver. “We’re being followed by another cab and they appear to want us to pull over.”
She blinked, momentarily stunned by the goblin’s very educated-sounding voice. Not to mention the politeness. Then she twisted to look at the headlights blinking madly behind them. She should have known Kieran wouldn’t just let her go.
“Don’t pull over,” she ordered the goblin.
Pull over now. The sudden, strong burst of compulsion made her cry out.
“Pull over!” she yelled, putting a hand to her temple.
The goblin’s gray, wrinkled face managed to look confused. “Which is it, ma’am?”
“Pull over,” she wheezed, buckling over onto the seat. She knew that to comply was the only way to make it stop.
The cab pulled over to the side of the road, and the coercion eased. She dropped limply the rest of the way to the seat, rested her cheek against the cool plastic, and breathed heavily. She heard the sound of a vehicle pulling up behind them and doors slamming. The goblin cab driver got out of the car and spoke in a strange language, all clipped vowels and guttural words, with a man whose voice she didn’t recognize. What was the name of the goblin language? She searched her memory. Alahambri. That was it.
Then Kieran’s voice filtered to her ears. He sounded exhausted.
She pushed herself up and looked out the window at the group outside the car. Kieran looked even more fatigued than he had before, sagging against the back of the car and with dark circles marking the skin under his eyes. Compelling her must take its toll. Physically, Kieran didn’t look a day over thirty-five, though she knew he was hundreds of years old. Right now he looked like a haggard thirty-five. She couldn’t help the petty satisfaction she felt.
Kieran’s tired eyes found hers through the window and her satisfaction left her in a rush. This man terrified her. More than the goblins. More than anything. She did not want to be tied to him in any way.
Yet running was futile right now, at least until this stupid bond thing ran its course. The most rational thing for her to do, even though she hated it, was to go back with Kieran and bide her time. Surely sooner or later she would have another opportunity to escape.
She opened her door and stepped out on the tree side of the car, as far from Kieran as she could get, pulling her suitcase behind her. An embankment cut sharply down the side of the road, ending in a rainwater-filled ravine. Her hair and clothes were plastered to her and she was freezing. Her foot squished deeply into mud. Oh great. Her suitcase was stuck in the cab, too. Curling her lip and shivering, one foot sunk into the mud, she gave her suitcase a vicious tug.
And tumbled backward.
She yelped, her arms windmilling and her suitcase thunking down beside her and rolling down the incline. It took her a nanosecond to follow it, sliding down the small hill at the side of the road. Icy water closed around her head and body as she fell into the ravine.
Sputtering, swearing, and splashing, she found her footing and pushed to her feet. She stood there dripping while her pursuers watched from the edge of the road. Niall wore a little smile she would have loved to knock off his mouth.
Kieran leaned against the back of the car as though he could barely stand, but was trying to hide it. He shook his head. “See what running gets you?”
She ground her teeth, dripping and shivering. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she realized her vision was fuzzy. “I lost my glasses!” She searched in the murky water, but they were nowhere to be found.
The dark-haired woman with them carefully made her way down the embankment and held out her hand. She wore a bemused, yet sympathetic look on her pretty face. “Hi. I’m Emmaline. Come with me and we’ll get you cleaned up and settled in. We’re not as bad as you think, promise.” She paused and grinned. “Well, maybe Kieran is.”
Charlotte shook her head, taking a step backward. Her suitcase and her glasses were submerged somewhere in the muck and she wasn’t up for fishing around for them. She wasn’t up for sticking around with these people, either, enchanted forest at her back or not. She took another step away from Emmaline.
“Charlotte.” Kieran’s voice came out low and dangerous. A warning. Yet the compulsion had eased. His grip on her had to be slipping. She bet if she kept running, kept pushing against it, it would snap.
She scrambled up the other side of the embankment. Not far away lay a pile of jagged stones and she used a couple of the larger ones to pull herself up onto the other side of the ravine.
“Sorry, guys,” she said, turning and giving them a mock sympathetic shrug and smile. “It’s time for me to go.”
She took a step backward, intending to fade into the forest behind her. Let Kieran try and catch her now. The road led straight to the gates and she knew she wasn’t far away. All she had to do was hide until they left and then follow it.
Emmaline reached out a hand toward her. “Charlotte, look out for that—”
The ugliest being Charlotte had ever seen jumped from the pile of rocks and bared razor-sharp bloodred teeth. Swiping at her with a green gray gnarled hand and baring claws sharper than a cat’s, he gazed up at her from about the height of her knee with a wrinkled face and bulging red eyes. “You’ll not be getting my treasure, missy!”
Charlotte screamed and stepped backward, slipped in the mud, and tumbled—for the second time—down the slope and back into the filthy cold water of the ravine. She came up sputtering and terrified. Her gaze searched the pile of rocks but the creature was gone. “What in bloody hell was that?”
“Spriggan.” Emmaline held out her hand again. “These woods won’t treat you well, Charlotte. I suggest you come with us.”
Charlotte wiped a hand over her face and gazed up at Kieran, who stood looking down at her like some dark god who controlled her fate.
Because, apparently, he did.
SIX
CHARLOTTE sat on his couch with Emmaline nearby. Kieran studied her. She looked different with her hair down and loose, glasses gone, and those awful clothes off her. She wore Emmaline’s slightly too large clothes, a dark green sweater that set off her eyes and a pair of jeans. Charlotte’s hair was still damp from her shower, her fair skin scrubbed free of makeup. She’d crossed her arms over her chest in a protective fashion, her legs crossed as well. One bare foot bobbed in anger.
His jaw still ached from her punch.
He had to admit, part of him admired her. Passive she was not. The woman had a spine of iron and she wasn’t afraid to get in his face and defy him. He’d anticipated that she’d be sniveling and crying by now, but there hadn’t been a teardrop in sight yet.
She was pretty, too, once you got the bad clothes off her and her hair down. She no longer looked like she wanted to blend into the wall behind her. Her expression was still hostile, however. He suspected that would be the case whenever he was near her.
He did tend to have that effect on women, in general, not just with this one. That was fine by him. For the most part, unless they were in his bed for the night, he didn’t want much to do with them anyway.
“You look terrible.” She gave him a head-to-toe perusal and then looked away, her nose up.
He felt terrible, too. He’d never used his magick to forge a bond with anyone before and the compulsion part of it was exhausting to maintain. She’d fought him so hard. He hadn’t expected that, not from a human. And, of course, a dream wraith’s bond magick wasn’t really meant to be used on a woman who’d be so damned difficult.
“I think you gave Kieran a rough time today, Charlotte.” A small smile played around Emmaline’s mouth. Apparently she found this amusing. That rankled him. Still, he was grateful that Emmaline had stepped in and taken the human in hand.
&n
bsp; “Yeah, well, I’m tired.” He glanced toward his bedroom door. He was normally a nocturnal being, but the magick he’d been forced to expend had laid him low. It was only early evening and he was ready to snore. “I need sleep and I’m sure you do, too.”
Charlotte made a frustrated sound. “I need sleep, but I doubt I’ll be able to get any.”
“You’d be surprised how your body takes over when you need to rest.” Emmaline stood. “I’ll go then. If it’s all right with you, Kieran, I’ll be back in the morning to see how Charlotte is doing.”
“You’re leaving?” asked both Kieran and Charlotte in unison.
The fact they’d said the same thing in the same moment made Charlotte flounce back in aggravation on the couch and recross her arms over her chest.
“Do you have to go?” Charlotte looked up at Emmaline hopefully. “I’d rather not be alone with . . . him. Or maybe I could come be your prisoner instead? Somewhere there’s no men at all?”
“Sorry, Charlotte, but where I live there’s definitely a man in residence. Remember the big blond guy from the Boundary Lands? That’s Aeric O’Malley and he’s my husband. As for you staying with anyone other than Kieran, I’m afraid the bond he’s forged with you makes that impossible. At least for now. You’re stuck with him for a while.”
Charlotte looked devastated.
“That means I’m stuck with you, too.” His voice came out a low growl.
Charlotte shot him a dirty look. “Yeah, but this was your choice, buddy. Not mine. I’m the one who gets to play the wounded party in all this. Not you.”
“Look, princess, you have no idea what I’ve sacrificed—”
“Kieran,” snapped Emmaline, “shut up.”
He pushed a hand through his hair and grunted. She was right. He needed to shut his trap.
At least there was one good thing about all this—no way was he going to fall in love with Charlotte and activate the curse hanging over his head. That’s what the bond magick was truly meant for, of course, to draw a mate. That was why he’d never used it before. He was the last man on earth who should attract love. Luckily he’d bonded this bitter, angry woman. There was a greater chance he’d fall in love with Abastor, the head horse of the Wild Hunt.
