by Anya Bast
Gabriel stepped forward. “What is that?”
“You can see that?”
“No, but I sense something.”
Kieran glanced at the light growing behind him. Tell her I want her to go on and have a good life.
“I will.” Aislinn watched the light grow bigger and brighter. Warmth had begun to fill the room. “What is that light, Kieran?”
The slaugh. They’re coming for me.
Panic sliced through her. “No. No!” Aislinn fisted her hands at her sides, lifted her head to the heavens, and yelled, “Danu, hear me! This is wrong! Kieran Aindréas Cairbre Aimhrea has done nothing to deserve this fate! Spare this man from the slaugh, Danu, I beg you!
The light exploded in a bright flash that made both Gabriel and Aislinn close their eyes and turn their heads away.
When they looked back, Kieran was gone.
CHARLOTTE woke slowly, warm and comfortable in Kieran’s bed. Her body, heart, and mind felt sated as a well-fed cat. Smiling, she stretched. Her body had none of the aches and pains of the previous night. It no longer hurt to breathe and the weakness and fatigue were gone. It took her a moment to realize that she felt . . . good. That hadn’t happened since the curse had kicked in.
How odd. She had to tell Kieran. Reaching out, she fanned her arm through the rumpled blankets, looking for warm skin, and came up with nothing. Frowning, she sat up and found the bed empty. Disappointment sat like a little ball of lead in her stomach. Dawn was just pinkening the horizon through the large windows of Kieran’s bedroom. Why hadn’t he stayed with her?
“Kieran?” she called and got no answer. Maybe he was in the kitchen and couldn’t hear her. Coffee would taste really good about now.
She got out of bed and yanked on her clothes against the chill in the apartment, marveling at how good she felt. Yesterday it had hurt to pull a shirt over her head, her muscles protesting the movement. Today she moved freely, without the constant background ache. The pain through her chest was gone, too. It was a welcome change, but a strange one. Uneasiness settled around her like a winter coat. There was something wrong; she could feel it.
The doorbell rang. Charlotte walked into the living room expecting to see Kieran answer it, but the room was empty. “Kieran?” The kitchen, too, seemed quiet and cold.
No response. The doorbell rang again.
She answered it and took a step back, recognizing the old woman she’d seen when she’d fled down the alley to Goblin Town the first day she’d arrived—the old woman who wasn’t really an old woman, at least not all the time.
“I’m looking for Kieran Aimhrea.” The strange lady squinted at her and then smiled somewhat maliciously.
“He’s not here.”
She nodded. “Not here because he’s out or not here because he did it?”
A fist clenched in the pit of her stomach. “Did what?”
“You don’t know?” Her voice had a mean and playful lilt to it, as if the old woman thought Charlotte’s ignorance was amusing and she was just dying to divulge the secret.
“No.” Charlotte spoke carefully, that mantle of uneasiness growing a little heavier. “I don’t know.”
“You are Charlotte Lillian Bennett, the mate of the cursed, are you not?”
She blinked at the odd phrasing. “I am.”
The old woman’s mouth split into a grin and her black eyes glittered. “He’d planned on killing himself to free you.”
“He . . . what?” Cold shock washed through her. True realization took a second to dawn. It made sense. She’d woken alone. She felt so much better—back to normal.
Curse-free.
Charlotte staggered back, a hand to her throat. For a moment she thought she might pass out. Then she lunged forward, pushing past the old woman, and ran down the corridor to the queen’s chambers, the most logical place to find Kieran.
Behind her, the strange lady cackled.
When she reached the ornate double doors of the queen’s chambers Niall was standing outside, talking to the guards. Charlotte pushed past them, trying to get into the room, but Niall grabbed her and pulled her away.
“No.” She shoved at him. “I need to get in there. I need to find Kieran. Let go of me.”
Niall held her tight. “Charlotte, you don’t want to go in there right now.” His voice sounded rough with emotion. Grief. She paused for a moment, the implication settling into her bones. Finally, she moved. “No!” She fought him, shoving him back. “Where’s Kieran?”
Niall’s arms dropped helplessly to his sides. “He’s in there, Charlotte.” His voice was disarmingly gentle, too gentle for a man like Niall Quinn.
And, then, she truly knew.
“It’s too late. I got here too late.” The words fell out of her mouth like stones. Her body had gone numb, cold. She staggered to the side and he caught her before she collapsed and righted her on her unsteady legs.
He shook his head. “You never would have been able to stop him anyway. He was hell-bent on saving you from the curse.”
She stared at him, feeling the blood drain from her face. Then she pushed past him and bolted for the door. The guards moved to stop her, but Niall barked at them to let her through. She burst into the room and saw the one thing she’d never wanted to see in her life, Kieran’s lifeless body on the floor.
“Charlotte,” came the queen’s shocked voice.
Charlotte barely heard her, barely saw the king standing near her. She ran to Kieran’s side and took him by the shoulders, shaking him like she could wake him up. She knew he wasn’t alive anymore. She felt it in the pit of her stomach and in the vigor of her curse-free body. It was in the heaviness of him and the cool that seemed to be fast settling into his limbs.
“What did you do, Kieran?” she yelled at him. “How could you?” Tears streamed down her face. “You promised me!”
A strong hand touched her shoulder, trying to pull her away, but she shrugged Gabriel off. She slumped down over Kieran’s chest and came apart completely, feeling grief bubble up out of her like thick, black sludge.
“I didn’t want it to be this way, Kieran,” she whispered. “We were supposed to do this together.” Tears dripped onto Kieran’s shirt, making it damp. “You lied to me.”
The queen knelt beside her, placing a hand on her back. “I’m so sorry, Charlotte. I can’t express how much we’ll all miss him. He told me to tell you he loved you and that everything he did this morning, he did for you. He asked you to forgive him.”
Charlotte straightened, wiping her eyes. “No,” she snarled. “I won’t forgive him. I will never forgive any of you for this.” Rage poured through her at the unfairness. It didn’t make any sense. They’d been in love. Innocently. Purely. Deeply.
And Kieran had died because of it.
After a moment, the queen rose. “She needs a little time. Let’s leave her alone,” she whispered to her husband. They left the room.
Charlotte slumped down at Kieran’s side and sobbed quietly. Grief, thick and dark drudged up from the depths of her, coated her, made everything hazy and gray. What was she supposed to do now? How could she go on without him? She didn’t want to go on without him, even though she knew that was exactly what Kieran had intended. He’d ended his own life prematurely so that she could keep hers.
“Oh, Kieran,” she breathed, closing her eyes. She lay down beside him and put her head near his. “Why couldn’t you just have told me? I could have been here with you. I could’ve said good-bye.”
But, of course, he didn’t answer.
She knew why he hadn’t told her. He’d known she would have fought him, tried to stop him. That assumption would have been right. If she had known he was going to do this, she would have tried everything to prevent it.
Now he was gone.
PRISS, the Piefferburg witch, shuffled into her shop and residence nestled at the base of the Black Tower. Stopping in the doorway and staring up at the massive polished black quartz of the tower, her lip
s split in a smile.
Everyone thought she was a chaos-sower, a lover of strife and conflict. It was not an untrue assessment of her character, yet every once in a while she did someone a good turn. Sometimes even without their knowledge. She liked to stay unpredictable.
Her sleek black cat twined around her ankles. The feline lifted her silky head. “Murreep?”
“I think it will work, Sekhmet.” She shuffled farther into her shop, the scent of dry herbs rising like an old friend’s embrace. “He could not be told beforehand. He could not have known because his decision needed to be completely unselfish, but I think it will work.”
“Murrup,” Sekhmet agreed.
Priss took a jar of dried mandrake from a shelf and shrugged. “And if it doesn’t work, well, at least I freed the woman.”
Sekhmet, apparently now bored with the silly activities of fae and humans, trotted off into the roomy darkness at the back of the building.
Her home was much larger than the outside would lead one to presume, existing in a double pocket of reality—both in the ceantar dubh and in the Boundary Lands. If she looked out the window and shifted her vision just a little, she would be able to see trees and the vibrant, shining sprae.
But today she had no wish for greenery, preferring the cold, black vista of the tower as she imagined what would soon might be occurring in its highest reaches. . . .
TWENTY-NINE
CHARLOTTE stirred, realizing she’d cried herself into a fitful, grief-laden sleep. Her head pounded and her throat ached from her misery. She wasn’t sure how long she’d lain draped over Kieran’s body.
The last thing she remembered was praying to God and to the fae’s main deity, Danu. Since she had mixed blood, she figured she needed to cover all her bases. Then she guessed her mind had simply shut down and dragged her under. Sleep was a blessing, really, a respite from the sudden nightmare her waking reality had become.
A small noise drew her attention. For a second her heart stuttered, thinking it came from Kieran. In the moment she realized it couldn’t have possibly come from him, her heart shattered into a million pieces all over again. She doubted she would ever be able to put it back together.
Then Kieran moved.
Charlotte shot up and looked at him. His eyelids fluttered, and her heart pounded. Was she still asleep? Dreaming? That had to be it. But, no, if this was a dream it was the realest one in the history of the world.
Kieran groaned.
“Kieran?” she whispered.
Nothing.
Oh, God, she’d gone insane. That’s what it was. She’d wanted Kieran’s death to be some mistake. She’d prayed until her voice had gone hoarse that he be given back to her, or, at the very least, he be spared the slaugh. He didn’t deserve that fate. He was a good man. Now she was imagining that her first wish had been granted.
She shook her head, slowly backing away from him. This was not healthy. Kieran’s body was not Kieran. Kieran’s soul had left the building. Still, it was very, very hard to remember it was just a shell. She had to leave it. Somehow, someway, she was going to have to find the strength to leave his side. . . .
His hand reached out and caught her wrist.
She screamed.
Gabriel and Aislinn burst into the room just as Kieran’s eyes came open. He groaned.
“Danu,” Aislinn breathed, her hand going to her mouth.
If Aislinn could see this, too, that meant Charlotte wasn’t imagining it. Her mind hadn’t cracked. That meant—
“Kieran?” Her breath came out a whisper, half unbelieving that he might be alive, half filled with hope.
“Charlotte?” His voice sounded faint. His gaze found hers, unfocused at first, then it sharpened. “Charlotte.” Now his voice was a little stronger.
She collapsed over him, kissing him. His skin felt warm, flush with life, under her fingers and lips. She stroked his skin, absorbing the wonderfulness of it. Her mind stuttered and restarted fifty times in the span of a few seconds trying to figure out how this could be. Finally she stopped trying and just enjoyed the feeling of Kieran alive.
Slowly, he sat up and enveloped her in an embrace that seemed warmer and more secure than any she’d ever experienced before. Nestling her head in the curve of his neck, she inhaled the scent of him and smiled happily. They clung to each other like they would never let each other go again.
“How?” she whispered against his skin. “What happened?”
He held her tight while he spoke, his voice gravelly. “I died and was taken to the Netherworld.” He paused. “I don’t remember much. I remember waiting to be included into the slaugh. I remember white light. I remember . . . a woman’s voice.” His voice broke. “The sweetest voice I have ever heard. It was like a champagne glass filled with sunshine and gold. The voice told me that because I had sacrificed my life for love, the curse was broken, and that it wasn’t time for me to go to the Netherworld yet.” He paused again. “There was more but I don’t remember it clearly. The next thing I knew I was falling into blackness and my body hurt.”
She pulled away from him. “Do you still hurt?”
“Not like I did before. This is different.” He cupped her face in his hands. “The curse?” His pupils narrowed. “How do you feel?”
“I feel fine. Wonderful.” She laughed. “Perfect.”
“Your body is processing the poison, Kieran,” said Gabriel in an awed voice. “That’s the pain you feel. Somehow you’re surviving it. Something has given you the ability.”
“Not something, someone. The goddess Danu,” came Aislinn’s wonder-filled voice. “She sent you back.”
Charlotte agreed. Danu was real and she had lifted the curse on him because he had sacrificed his life to save the one he loved.
She took him by the shoulders, starting to cry again. “Don’t you ever do something like that again, Kieran Aindréas Cairbre Aimhrea. Do you hear me? Never. Whatever life throws at us, we go through it together. All right?”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “From now on.” He took her hand pressed it to his heart. “Forever.”
“I don’t want to live without you,” she whispered.
He pulled her against him and they clung to each other for a long time. When they finally looked at something other than each other, they saw that Gabriel and Aislinn had discreetly left the room.
GIDEON climbed out of the taxi in front of Phaendir Headquarters, grimacing and grunting. The painkillers they’d given him at the hospital had long since worn off during the trip back to the States. Since he’d left without telling the doctor, all he had now were over-the-counter drugs, and they weren’t cutting it. It was a good thing he’d trained himself to endure pain over the years to the point of finding it pleasurable. He only wished he could enjoy it.
At the end of the gravel road, he could see that the gates leading into Piefferburg were swarming with news crews. Damn it, someone had leaked the info about the third piece. The media was worse than the vultures circling the sky around the nearby church.
One of the reporters spotted him and headed toward him at a fast clip, followed by the rest of them. Good thing that road was a long one. Gideon threw his money at the driver and dragged himself toward the front doors of headquarters as fast as his injuries would allow. As he approached the entrance at a limping pace, the reporters a galloping herd behind him, he motioned impatiently to the guards to let him in.
“Keep them out,” he grunted as he passed, sweat breaking out across his forehead. The clamor of the reporters reached his ears as the doors shut in their faces. Gideon didn’t look back. He headed straight to his office.
Brother Merion had received word the archdirector had arrived and was already sitting in Gideon’s office, head bowed, hands folded in his lap. He expected punishment, as well he should.
Gideon entered slowly, staring at the back of Merion’s head. Rage burned in his veins as he thought about sedation, hot knives, and smooth skin. Unfortunately punishment of
that sort wasn’t politically correct, not these days. Too bad.
Instead he stalked into his office and stood behind his desk. Every minute of silence probably made Merion more nervous, though he didn’t show it. Gideon stared down at him for a long moment and then sank into his chair with a grimace of pain.
He organized a few papers on his desk before speaking. “You are hereby relocated to the Phaendir station in Ulan Bator, Mongolia.” Merion’s head snapped up. Gideon continued without looking at him. “Enjoy your new home.”
“But—”
Gideon held up his hand. “You leave on the first flight that can get you there. Go pack. You don’t have much time.” He picked up the phone. “I’m making travel arrangements now.”
Brother Merion paused for a moment, sputtering. Then he slowly rose and shuffled, beaten, out of the room.
Gideon punched the number of the person in charge of making travel arrangements while glaring at Merion’s back as he left the room. The man was weak. Too weak to be a Phaendir. If he could cull him from the herd without risking prison, he would. Mongolia was the second best option. Merion was lucky to be getting out of here with his life. Well, such that it would be. He hoped Brother Merion liked yaks.
Once travel arrangements were made, he picked up the phone again. He had a total of seventy-five messages, probably reporters. Sighing, he dialed another number. Congressman Reynolds.
It was time for the U.S government to act to protect themselves. If they didn’t, if the government showed its tendency to bog down in bickering, posturing, and back-and-forth endless reams of paper . . . Gideon looked out the window at the main gates and the human reporters roving like ants around it. Well, then, the Phaendir would act. And act quickly.
Congressman Reynolds needed to say the right words. He needed to give Gideon access to the president and the president needed to act to give him the ability to be ruthless. Gideon hoped to procure that license, but it didn’t matter one way or other.
