by Anya Bast
He’d done great. The jeans and sweater fit perfectly. He’d even nailed the undergarments. He’d gone with a sports bra—wise. The boots were a little big, but she’d survive. After she’d dried her hair and put some moisturizing lotion on her face, she almost felt human again.
“Better?” she asked, stepping out of the bathroom.
“I bet you feel better.” He was sitting at the little table, looking tense. She didn’t blame him. “You’re presentable enough for the Phaendir. Where do you intend to put the piece?”
She blinked. She’d forgotten the policy to search everyone’s bodies and belongings. “Right. Good question.” She wasn’t exactly on top of her mental game at the moment.
He frowned at her. “You have very pretty, thick hair.”
She touched the end of a dark, curling tendril. That was an odd change of subject. “Thanks.”
“Ever wear it up?”
“Yes. I always did . . . before.” Her voice went soft. She’d only started wearing it down after Kieran had complimented her on how beautiful it was and told her she shouldn’t hide it.
“The piece isn’t very big. If I helped you, you could probably conceal it in your hair.”
Oh. She nodded. “It’s worth a try.”
After another trip to the store for bobby pins and a few fumbling attempts, they managed to do it. The piece was now secreted on top of her head, in an artful mass of tangled curls that looked a little formal for jeans and a sweater, but would work.
She glanced longingly at the bed.
David guided her toward the door. “You can sleep when you get to the Black Tower.”
She could sleep when she was dead. Oh, no, wait, she couldn’t. She’d be part of the slaugh. Probably not a lot of sleeping involved with that.
She half turned toward him once they got outside. “I wish you could come in with me.”
A wistful expression overcame his face for a moment. “I wish I could, too. However, I’m on the Phaendir’s most wanted list.”
She grinned. “I bet.”
“In fact, I can’t go any farther than Protection City. Even coming here was a huge risk. I called you a cab. It will take you to Phaendir Headquarters. Time is of the essence. We don’t know if Gideon is alive or dead. If he survived, he may have already alerted headquarters not to allow you in. If he’s dead, they may have been notified and will be on guard. That wouldn’t be good either.”
Truth was, this was a huge risk for her, too. She had no idea what to expect when she arrived at Phaendir Headquarters. Of course, the risk was worth it—this was the fae’s last chance at freedom. If someone had told her a month ago she’d be in this position, would care so much about the outcome of the situation, she’d have told them they were smoking something.
David gave her a sheaf of papers in a manila envelope, her excuse for needing to go back into Piefferburg. Apparently he’d worked on it while she’d been sleeping. She’d taken a peek and they looked pretty damn convincing . . . as long as no one really examined them.
The cab pulled up, they said good-bye, and she got in. David stood in front of the door of the room, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, fading into the distance.
Next stop, Phaendir Headquarters.
GIDEON opened his eyes to white. Panicked, he started to sit up, only to be pushed back down.
“You just settle in there, sir. You’ve been stabbed almost clean through. Amazing you’re even drawing breath.”
His gaze fixed on the human nurse scowling down at him. “Where am I? What happened?”
She set her hands on her very wide hips. “Well, now, you’re the one going to have to be telling us what’s going on. You were dumped in front of our hospital sometime during the night.”
“Dumped?” he echoed, slumping against the pillows. Pain stabbed through his side and he cried out.
The nurse adjusted something on the IV drip, muttering to herself about how she never thought she’d be giving comfort to the head of the bloody Phaendir.
“You know who I am.”
She jerked her chin at him. “Had your wallet on you, luckily. Archdirector of the Phaendir, right?”
He nodded.
“You’re not real popular over here, right? We’re wantin’ you to give us back our fae.” She turned away from him, moving angrily. “Sucked the magick out of this land, you did. Expect your doctor shortly. The garda, too, I have no doubt.” With one last hostile glance at him, she left the room.
Gideon searched his memory for clues to what had happened. This wasn’t the first time he’d woken in a hospital room, except the last time he’d been the one to put himself there. He’d poisoned himself in order to set up Brother Maddoc for attempted murder. The last thing he remembered from the previous night was rolling around on the ground near the Stone of Destiny with that damned HFF man, David Sullivan. Then the sharp pain. Hot blood. Realizing it was his own spilling out of him.
So, he’d been stabbed and brought to the hospital by some unknown party. Not David, surely. Not . . . Charlotte Bennett.
Charlotte.
Charlotte Bennett had been there last night. She’d pulled the piece.
He glanced out the window. It was full dark. He had no idea what time it was, or even what day it was. Ireland was five hours ahead of Protection City. It might still be afternoon there.
Charlotte could be back already. With the piece.
Spying his clothing on a nearby chair, he lunged out of bed, only to be stopped short by the IV hooked up to him. He leaned over, his wound screaming with pain. He had to get to his cell phone in the pocket of his slacks. He had to call headquarters and warn them not to let Charlotte Bennett into Piefferburg. He stretched as far as his IV would let him, but his pants were just out of reach. The tips of his fingers barely grazed the fabric.
Making a frustrated, grunting noise, he gripped the end of the IV, intending to rip it out, when the doctor walked in.
“Whoa, wait a minute,” she said, rushing toward him with her arms out. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Yes, I do,” Gideon gritted out.
“Get back into bed right now.” She was small, but she had presence. She loomed over him, her dark eyes snapping. “Right now.”
He slumped against the side of the bed, his dressing gown flapping open. “I need my cell phone. In the pocket of my pants.”
“Are you insane? Is the call you have to make worth your life?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “It is.”
She sighed and pointed at the bed. “Lay down and I’ll fetch it for you.”
“But—”
“Do it, or I’ll throw your phone in the toilet.”
Rage enveloped him for a moment, but he knew better than to argue. He climbed back into the bed and pulled the covers over himself. His wound shot fresh bolts of pain through him. Light-headedness made him sag backward. The room spun.
The doctor fished out his cell phone and slapped it into his palm. “I don’t want to see you out of that bed again.”
Ignoring her, he flipped it open and speed-dialed headquarters, hoping it wasn’t already too late.
“I just need to deliver these papers to the Business Council.” Charlotte handed over the manila envelope to Brother Merion, apparently Gideon’s second-in-command.
Merion took her envelope and peered down his narrow nose at her. Thick black glasses half hid his husky blue eyes. “You’re not on our list.”
“I wasn’t expecting to have to come back. Believe me”—she turned her head and coughed, hoped like hell she wouldn’t have an attack right now—“I don’t want to be here. I’m feeling under the weather and would much rather be at home on my couch. However, as you know, there’s no mail service between Piefferburg and the rest of the world. I have to take this in by hand. It’s the tail end of the project I did for them.”
“Yes.” He drew out the word so it sounded like yeeeesssss, but she was pretty sure he hadn’t heard a thing she’d ju
st said. He’d pulled the papers from the envelope and was now looking over them.
Charlotte fought the urge to fidget as she sat stiffly in front of his desk. She was just glad no one had taken her into custody yet.
After what seemed like an eternity, he put the papers aside, folded his thin, knobby hands on the desk, and looked up at her. “We can expect you to exit tomorrow morning?”
No. Never, actually. “Perhaps sooner than that, this evening, if I can. I’m sick and want to spend the night in a nice, cozy hotel room in Protection City. Traveling has done me in. As long as the Business Council doesn’t need me for anything else, I’ll drop these papers and be right back out.”
He laughed knowingly, a fake sound that raised all the hair on the back of her neck. “I can understand that. No one wants to spend more time in there than they must.”
“You said it.”
“I’ll accompany you to the gates.”
Great. She rose. “Thank you.”
They left headquarters and started toward the gates, walking down the gravel road that led past the creepy Phaendir graveyard and church that always had black vultures circling in the sky above it. They made small talk along the way, the kind you make with people you don’t know in order to avoid uncomfortable silence. How she loved to talk about the weather when she was days away from dying and had a piece of the bosca fadbh stuck in her hair.
They finally reached the gates. This time, instead of being the last place on Earth she wanted to enter, they were the gateway to love . . . if only for a little while.
“Only one more thing,” said Brother Merion turning toward her.
“The search of my belongings.”
“Yes. My apologies. We can’t be too careful.”
“I totally understand.”
His thin, ghoulish hands on her during the pat down made her vomit a little in her mouth, but he never checked her hair. He didn’t even say a word about the griffin pendant around her neck. After he’d rummaged through her purse and found nothing, he signaled the Phaendir guards and the gates slowly began to swing open.
“Well, thanks for everything.” Charlotte clutched her fake sheaf of papers and shouldered her purse. “See you soon.”
“Be careful in there.”
“Oh, always.” She tossed a careless smile over her shoulder and walked toward the gates. Only fifteen feet and she was in the clear.
Behind her, she heard his cell phone ring. Brother Merion answered it and his voice immediately rose in alarm.
Oh, no. That didn’t sound good. The gates were ten feet away. She quickened her pace. Maybe Merion’s distressed tone of voice didn’t have anything to do with her.
“Wait!” called Merion. “Close the gates! Stop her!”
Or maybe it did.
The gates in front of her creaked to a halt and reversed direction. No way. She bolted. Every step she took seemed to close the tiny space even more. Panic ripped through her, making her heart pound. Two guards stepped in front of her, but she hadn’t come this far to be stopped now. She barreled right into them, thrusting the heel of her hand into one of the men’s noses, and barely slipped through the narrow space of the closing gates to the sound of agonized bellows of pain and Merion shouting obscenities at the Phaendir guards.
She hadn’t been fast enough.
The other guard grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him before she could get all the way to the Piefferburg side. She gave the Phaendir a vicious kick to free herself and he grabbed her ankle instead. With a shriek of surprise, Charlotte went down on her stomach, pain screaming through her body, and the guard pulled her toward him. Her fingers dug into the gravel as she was dragged backward, out of Piefferburg. The red caps grabbed her hands and pulled her in the opposite direction, trying to keep her in. For a moment she felt like taffy. The gates were almost closed by now. She kicked her shoe off and the Phaendir guard’s grip went with it. His hand, with her shoe, disappeared into the rapidly closing space.
She flipped over just in time to see Merion peering into the sliver of area still between the gates, his face and eyes livid. The red caps put themselves between her and him, looking one hundred percent their bad reputation. Charlotte could see Merion’s angry glare through the crack right before the red caps slammed it the rest of the way shut with a smile.
She collapsed, the world going darker as the red caps peered curiously into her face. Then everything went black.
TWENTY-SEVEN
GIDEON’S hand clenched on his cell phone. Plastic cracked. He gritted his teeth, the blood rushing to his face, roaring through his ears. Rage poured through him, making his veins bulge and a hard rushing sound surge through his head.
The phone cracked again in his hand and the screen went dark. He threw it across the room where it hit the opposite wall and shattered. If Merion had been anywhere close to him in this moment, he’d be dead.
Vaguely he noticed that his wound throbbed with pain. No matter. He almost ripped the IV from his arm, but good sense reigned at the last moment and he pulled it out carefully instead, but it was an effort. He had no patience right now.
No patience and no mercy.
He needed to get back to Protection City now.
ONE of the hulking red cap guards laid Charlotte onto Kieran’s bed. Kieran leaned over her, touching her forehead and throat with his fingers. She felt warm to his touch, her breathing shallow.
He rounded on the guards. “What the hell happened?”
“We’re not sure. All we know is she was hell-bent on getting into Piefferburg and the Phaendir were hell-bent on trying to prevent it. She barely made it in. Once she was in, she just passed out.”
He glanced at her and pushed a hand through his hair. “Okay. Thanks for your help.”
They nodded and left the room.
He turned back to Charlotte, sinking down on the bed beside her. Cupping her cheek, he moved her face toward him. “Charlotte? Charlotte, baby, wake up.”
She roused a little, her eyelids fluttering open. “Kieran?”
He wrapped his arms around her and held on like he never had to let her go, like in an hour he hadn’t planned to doom himself to an eternity without her. He buried his nose against her skin and inhaled as though he could hold on to her scent forever. Her being here was going to make things much, much harder.
Cradling her face in his hands, he slid his lips over hers slowly, savoring her. She shivered against him and pressed her mouth more firmly to his, asking for more. He was willing to give it.
When he’d kissed her enough to content himself—for the moment—he rested his forehead against hers. “Charlotte, what are you doing back here?”
Gently she pulled away from him and put her hand on top of her hair, pulling bobby pins out and dropping them onto the bed. Little by little her thick, pretty hair fell in curling tendrils around her shoulders.
Then the final piece of the bosca fadbh lay in her palm.
He stared at it, the blood leaving his face and the breath vacating his lungs. “Ní chreidim é.” Finally, he looked up at her. “I don’t believe it.”
“I pulled it out of the Stone of Destiny.”
“How did you do it?” He pressed his hands to hers. Lady, this meant she was suffering from the curse, too. Fuck. That’s probably why she’d passed out and why those dark circles were under her eyes.
“It’s a long story.”
“I know about Máire and your father.”
“How?”
“Long story.”
After they’d caught each other up on what had happened while she’d been gone. He pulled her against him. “I’m not sorry I met you, Charlotte, but I’m fucking sorry you ever met me.”
She looked up him. “I’m not sorry.”
“You’re dying.”
She touched his cheek. “I’m still not sorry. You’re the first man I’ve ever loved. Lots of people go to their graves never knowing what it is to be truly in love. At least I can say I�
��ve experienced it. That’s a precious thing, maybe something worth dying for.”
“I do love you, Charlotte.”
“I love you, too, Kieran.” She paused, drawing a breath. “There’s a bright side.” She looked up at him, smiling, though it didn’t reach her eyes.
“What’s that?”
“At least we’ll join the slaugh together.”
His lips twisted. “I don’t think that’s much of a bright side.”
“No. You’re right, not really.”
He dropped his head to hers, rubbing his lips slowly over hers, savoring the taste of her, before he parted her lips and slipped his tongue in to rub up against hers. She shifted on the bed, making a sound of hunger in the back of her throat. Her hands came up around his shoulders, her fingers curling into the hair at his nape. He clasped her waist and slanted his mouth over hers, kissing her deeper.
Gods, this was cruel.
He broke the kiss and sagged against her, the strength going out of him. It had been hard enough knowing he’d never see her again. Now that she was back, it was going to be hell having to say good-bye. He wanted to stay with her, find out everything there was about her. He wanted to learn all the ways to make her laugh, to make her moan his name in passion. He wanted years with Charlotte, centuries.
They only had hours.
“Are you okay?”
He looked down into her concerned face. “Not really.”
“Yeah, me neither.” She pressed her lips together. “We need to deliver the piece to the queen.”
He kissed her forehead, tightening his arms around her. “Soon. I want a little time with you first, as much as we can get.”
She smiled and snuggled against him. “I never would have thought you and I would end up this way, not after I punched you the first time we met.”
He chuckled, running his hand up and down her arm. “The first time we met you definitely didn’t punch me.”
She looked up at him, blushing. “You mean the dream? That doesn’t count.”
“Princess, I can’t get it out of my head. It counts in my book.”
