Dark Enchantment

by Anya Bast

  Leaning forward, she closed his eyes. Then she rose, retrieved her purse, and left the house.

  KIERAN watched Risa squirm in her chair, eyes closed, as though enduring a bad nightmare. Blood tracked down her temple and arm from where the people getting information from her had tried to . . . persuade her. Nothing so far had worked and the queen was struggling to give the order to go further. Aislinn would need to give it soon or risk looking weak. That was a dangerous thing for an Unseelie queen.

  What Risa was doing now—thrashing in the chair where they’d tied her, her head whipping back and forth and her spine arching—had nothing to do with the persuasion. This was new. Risa was being tortured by something that had nothing to do with the knives and syringes surrounding her. It looked as though she was dreaming, or experiencing something happening purely within her mind.

  Kieran frowned, memories teasing him. It looked damn familiar to him, this waking torture she was going through. He leaned in, studying her. It had been a long time, but his memories never died.

  “What the hell is happening to her?” asked Niall, entering the room and going straight toward her.

  Kieran held up a hand to stop him. “No, let her be. I think I know what this is.”

  Risa’s head snapped back and she let out a shriek of anguish and then broke down sobbing and muttering “No, no,” over and over. Finally she slumped in her chair and went still and silent except for her crying.

  “So what is it?”

  Kieran considered the sobbing woman a moment longer, then approached her. “Risa?”

  She looked ready to pass out.

  He shook her shoulders. “Risa!”

  Her head lolled back and forth for a moment, then her tear-wet eyes found his. “Don’t call me that. My name isn’t Risa.”

  “What is it?”

  Her eyes squeezed shut and a wracking sob shook her slim body. “My sister is dead.”

  Kieran took a step backward. So it was what he’d thought. “You just experienced her death.”

  Her gaze caught his and rage flared in her eyes. “My sister Máire is dead.”

  Máire. He put that information together with the suspicion that he recognized what she’d just undergone. “Your name is really Maeve, isn’t it? You’re the youngest of the Three Sisters.”

  “You know what it’s like, to experience your sibling die.” Her eyes went unfocused. “I’ve had to do it twice now.”

  Twice now? So the two sisters who had been missed by the Great Sweep were dead now and the one who’d been captured by the Phaendir was sitting here in front of him. Mystery solved.

  Maeve gobbed spit at him, which he only barely missed being spattered with. “And it was your girlfriend who killed her.”

  Shock rippled through him. “What? What did you say?”

  Maeve just smiled, her eyes glittering with mingled tears and malice.

  He leaned forward, hands tight on her forearms, and got into her face. She winced and gasped at the pressure he applied to her arms, her face going pale. “Tell me.”

  “My sisters are dead. I’ll tell you everything. There’s no one left for me to protect.”

  “Good. Start with Charlotte.”

  Maeve slowly licked some blood from her lip and looked like she enjoyed it. “Untie me first.”

  “You’re not in a position to bargain, Maeve. No way.”

  Her face crumpled in a new wave of grief. She squeezed her eyes shut and a tear slid down her cheek. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Good. Go on.”

  A muscle worked in Kieran’s jaw as he waited for her to speak. “Máire must have seen me try to kill Charlotte through our link. Only the most emotionally charged experiences make their way through, but you know that, right, Kieran? Through our connection, Máire must have figured Charlotte might be the human to pull the piece, so she sought out her father and gleaned all the memories of his daughter she could, but Charlotte showed up unexpectedly. I didn’t see anything through Máire’s eyes until Máire attacked Charlotte.” Her face twisted in rage and her voice came out a snarl. “Charlotte killed her! And now Máire is a ghost walking the human world, just like Meghann. It’s worse than the slaugh.”

  He rubbed his hand over his face, absorbing this information. How had Charlotte managed to kill Máire?

  Kieran leaned toward her, fists clenched. “You and your people tried twice to kidnap Charlotte instead of killing her outright. You waited until you had the location of the third piece of the bosca fabdh before you tried to stab her. Why?”

  “My people here in Piefferburg all have loved ones on the outside whom we want to protect from the Wild Hunt. We wanted the location of the third piece as much as you did—to keep you from ever finding it.” Her lips curled in a feral smile. Even the tears tracking her cheeks couldn’t make her look harmless. “I didn’t know until I experienced Máire’s death throes that the fae on the outside already know the location. They know it and they’re protecting it. If your precious Charlotte tries to pull that piece, she’s going to die.”

  Kieran backed away from her, his veins gelling with frost.

  “What the hell do you know that I don’t?” Niall’s face looked brutal in the small amount of light.

  Kieran grabbed his arm and led him out of the room and into the corridor beyond, closing the door behind them. In the small chamber where they were keeping Maeve, her anguished, crazed scream reached them.

  Kieran rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying to gather his thoughts enough to brief him. “Risa is actually Maeve, one of the Three Sisters. You and I both know how rare fae siblings are and the kind of bond they might share.”

  “You know better than me.”

  “I do. And that’s how I recognized that Maeve was in the throes of a shared experience with her sister, Máire, who lives—lived—beyond the walls of Piefferburg.”

  “And apparently Charlotte killed Máire.”

  Kieran nodded, feeling his chest tighten in pain suddenly. He fisted his hands and swore. “That means that the free fae out there, that Danu-damned group of free fae who don’t want the walls to fall, could know about Charlotte. They could be hunting her. She’s all alone out there, Niall. You heard Maeve just now, if Charlotte tries to pull the piece, she’s dead.”

  “But she’s not going after the piece. We let her go because we didn’t think she had anything to do with this other than holding the memory of the location.”

  Kieran bowed his head in utter and total defeat. “Look at me, Niall. Take a good, long look.”

  “You look like shi . . . Kieran.”

  Kieran raised his head. “I only hope it’s not affecting Charlotte.”

  “Can it work that way?”

  He pushed a hand through his hair. “I think so. If I fall in love with her and she doesn’t fall in love with me, I’m the only one who takes the hit.”

  “But if that’s the case, she wouldn’t be dying for the love of a fae and she wouldn’t be able to pull the piece.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I’m sorry, Kieran, but that scenario would leave us nowhere.” Niall shrugged at the look on Kieran’s face. “These are serious, brutal times. Sorry, man, but I hope to hell she is in love with you.”

  “I hope Charlotte doesn’t go after that piece.”

  “Damn. You really do love her.”

  “Yeah.” Kieran rubbed a tired hand over his face.

  Niall clapped a hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to the Piefferburg witch to see if we can break this curse.”

  “I’ve been already, too many times over the centuries to count.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re going again.”

  THE police kept Charlotte most of the day, asking her questions and re-asking her questions. She’d called the attorney her father had always used, gone to the police, and told them everything with the attorney advising her. A neighbor verified her story about her arrival time, and the fae woman in the library was hard to overlook. Tha
t’s the thing that really set the police on edge, the fae woman. It was so rare to find a fae who had escaped the Great Sweep.

  It was because of that, Charlotte presumed, their prejudice about the fae, that they let her go with no charges. They’d called her act one of self-defense. They’d said it was clear what had happened. The fae had broken into her father’s house for whatever reason—maybe because he was the head of the HCIF—killed him, and then Charlotte had surprised her and been forced to defend herself.

  Because who wouldn’t defend themselves against a wild animal like a fae woman? It was a good thing that fae was dead, dangerous thing that she was.

  In this case, they’d been right.

  It was evening by the time she left the police station. They told her not to go too far, that they might have more questions for her. Charlotte assumed that translated to something like, don’t leave town, we might charge you with something later. It didn’t make her feel warm and fuzzy. Of course, nothing about today had made her feel very warm and fuzzy.

  Plus, the little tickle she’d had in her throat was developing into a hell of a racking cough. Her chest hurt from it. Since the only sleep she’d had in the last twenty-four hours had been a few fitful, Kieran-free hours she’d snatched last night and she’d had very little food or water, she assumed it had to be a bug.

  God, she really hoped it was just a bug.

  She sat in her car, wondering what the hell she should do. The moon was full tonight, hanging big and golden in the sky right down near the horizon. It looked like an alien thing. Her life felt alien, too. The only thought that gave her any comfort at all right now was Kieran. Talking to him in the dead of night when the stars shone overhead, dancing with him around a bonfire at a goblin celebration, the feel of his body against hers on a soft bed. God, she missed him.

  How ironic.

  She wished he was here with her now and could advise her. She was ill-prepared to deal with this kind of intrigue on her own. Spreadsheets and numbers she could wrestle into submission. But this? Her old job was starting to look appealing, but she knew she couldn’t go back there. She couldn’t go home, either. There had to be more fae loose in the human world than just Máire. Did they know anything of what had transpired in her father’s house today? Did they want to kill her because they thought she was the human who could pull the last piece of the bosca fadbh?

  Was she being hunted?

  And what role did the Phaendir play in all of this? She couldn’t imagine a fae/Phaendir alliance, but what if there was one? Did she need to be wary of the Phaendir as well?

  She pressed the heel of her hand to the socket of her eye for a moment while her heart ached for Kieran. She had nothing here now. Her family was all gone. She had few friends. Her career meant so much less today than it had a few weeks ago. It was like her trip into Piefferburg had completely destroyed her.

  The only question was how would she rebuild herself?

  The tickle in her throat turned violent and she doubled over in her seat, coughing until she was nearly blind with agony. Her lungs felt cut to ribbons on the inside. When the pain eased and she could breathe again, she pulled her hand away and saw blood on her palm. She stared at it for a long moment, feeling strangely calm.

  Of course she wasn’t just coming down with a bug. She loved Kieran, and apparently he loved her back. As unbelievable as that was . . . he loved her back.

  Elation rushed through her, followed by a cold wave of terror.

  The curse was upon them. They were both going to die and be claimed by the slaugh.

  Well, wasn’t that just the cherry on the cake of her day?

  She needed to get back to Kieran. This changed everything. It didn’t matter if she was charged with a crime from today. Nothing mattered now.

  Correction, the only thing that mattered was that she could pull that damn piece. Maybe she could do something good before she kicked the bucket. Feeling a determination she’d never experienced so strongly before, she put the car in drive.

  She wasn’t going to do this alone, however, not while she was dying for the love of a fae. Luckily, thanks to Emmaline, she knew just who to call for help.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  GIDEON stretched, enjoying the delicious pain that came from any movement. It was a guilty pleasure. The whole night had been. He vacillated between wanting to torture Máire slowly until she bled out on the floor of his apartment and wanting to call her again for another lusty round.

  He hated her for making him want it.

  Luckily, he’d probably never see her again. He shoved more clothes into his suitcase and checked his watch. It was almost time to go to the airport. He had a flight to Dublin today. It was time he checked out this piece of the bosca fadbh for himself. He wanted to touch the cursed thing, even if he couldn’t pull it. He wasn’t sending any of his men to guard that piece until he saw the lay of the land, made sure it was true.

  The piece was lodged in a hunk of rock called the Lia Fáil, also known as the Stone of Destiny, near Tara in Ireland, supposedly guarded by a number of these free fae who were so afraid of Piefferburg’s walls coming down. That would mean talking to more fae. Goody. As long as none of them were Máire he might be able to choke down a conversation or two.

  He’d get to Dublin, rent a car, and drive out to the forsaken Irish countryside, the last place in the Labrai-damned universe he wanted to go. A headache stabbed into his eyes and he sat down on his bed.

  He hadn’t been back to Ireland since Piefferburg had been built. These were memories he didn’t want to revisit.

  The doorbell rang. That would be his driver.

  After a moment of staring off into space, hating what he was about to do, he stood, grabbed his suitcase, and left for the airport.

  Labrai give him strength.

  TWENTY-ONE hours later, Charlotte took her first steps onto Irish soil. Before she’d left Portland, she cleared out most of the money in her accounts—an action that would surely make her look guilty of a crime to the police—and driven straight to the airport for the first ticket to Dublin she could buy. She’d figured looking guilty to the police was the least of her troubles at this point.

  During her layover in New York, between coughing fits, she’d bought new clothes, trashed her old ones, and eaten two cheeseburgers, about a pound of french fries, and drank a gallon of cola. The sickness of the curse certainly hadn’t affected her appetite. She’d been starving.

  She stood at the baggage carousel in Dublin, even though she had no checked luggage, and coughed into a Kleenex.

  “Charlotte Bennett?”

  She got herself under control and turned to look at the man who’d come up beside her. He was a good-looking guy with reddish blond hair, brown eyes, bit of stubble on his chin, and a strong build. “David Sullivan?”

  “I am.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “How can I be sure you’re really him?”

  “You can’t. How can I be sure you’re really who you say you are?”

  Charlotte gritted her teeth, on edge. “I guess we’ll both have to be careful of each other.”

  “I guess so. I can also guess from your mistrust that you’ve had a run-in with a fae lately, one who can use glamour.”

  She fell into a coughing fit again. “You would be guessing right,” she rasped when she could speak again.

  He smiled, laugh lines crinkling at the corners of his brown eyes. “How are you doing?”

  “Me? I’ve been better.” She gave a humorless laugh. “Emmaline told me about you when I was in Piefferburg, so you were the first person I could think of who might be able to help me.”

  “And I wouldn’t be here right now if you hadn’t known details about my relationship with her.” He gave her a critical look. “You have dark circles under your eyes and you look feverish. Long flight, or are you ill?”

  “David, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  They found a Starbucks and Charlotte ordered a coffee that she
needed big-time. Then they settled in and she told David everything. She had no choice; she had to trust him. There was no way she could handle this next part on her own.

  David sat back in his chair with a sigh when she was done, and pushed a hand through his spiky hair. He looked like someone had just shown him a flying pig. “It must have been her older sister . . . Meghann? . . . who toyed with me in Israel. She pretended to be this woman I cared about, then she attacked me, drugged me up, and went off to try and murder Emmaline. Emmaline killed her underwater when they fought for the piece.”

  “Red hair? Nasty demeanor? Enhanced strength and the ability to use glamour?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “That was her. I had the pleasure of making the youngest sister’s acquaintance in Piefferburg.” She paused, remembering, and then shuddered. “She’s the only one still alive.”

  David sat forward, rubbing his chin and frowning. “Maeve must have been trying to protect her remaining sister, Máire. She must have known Máire would be reaped by the Wild Hunt if the walls ever broke. So Maeve got the location of the piece from you, but tried to kill you before anyone else learned it.”

  Charlotte nodded. “And since the sisters have that psychic link, Máire saw it when Maeve tried to kill me and tracked my father down in Portland. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is that Máire told me the free fae know where the piece is already, so why go to all the trouble chasing down the buried memory in my head?”

  “Perhaps Maeve wasn’t aware that the free fae know the location.”

  “Maybe.” She rubbed her hand over her face and slouched in her chair. She was so tired.

  David took a sip of his coffee and stared off into the distance with his eyes unfocused. “That group of fae knew where the piece in Israel was, too, they just weren’t able to raise it themselves. They can’t take this one because you’re the only one who can.” He shook his head. “I have no idea how they come by this knowledge.”