“What do you mean, gone? Where?” A scorching chasm opened in her heart, threatening to swallow her whole and burn her to a crisp.
“He left quite early this morning for the Seelie Court.” A flicker of something mean lit from deep in her eyes. “Didn’t he say farewell?”
Rori bit down her disappointment and secured a look of passive indifference to her face. “He probably didn’t want to disturb me. I’ll catch up to him soon, I’m sure.” She could scarcely breathe for the pounding of her heart and ringing in her ears. Therron had left her.
Softness replaced the meanness Rori saw, and Midna’s body sunk into the sofa. “Darling, you couldn’t have expected him to stay here while you were busy with your education, now could you?”
Guilt slid through her mortification. She had hoped he’d be the one doing the educating, but that wouldn’t happen now—or ever. Their night together had been a hookup. She just hadn’t realized it. Even now, she was loath to accept the fact. Her gaze went to the faerie, who regarded her with a look of profound sadness drooping his features. She felt a kinship to him in that brief moment. They loved someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t return that love.
Her body vibrated with the realization. She loved Therron. When had that happened? Her emotions flicked through their time together, settling on the kiss he’d given her at her cottage. Surprised by the depth of anguish his absence brought, she fought hard to push her feelings into a dark corner where she could forget they existed.
“I don’t see how it would make any difference,” Rori said at last. “I mean, it’s not like he loves me and being subjected to seeing me with dozens of men wouldn’t be terrible for him, right?”
The fae blinked and looked down, his face turned away.
Midna’s gasp stung Rori’s heart.
“Of course it would torment him. If you think that elf doesn’t love you, you’re not nearly as smart as you’d have us all believe.”
Rori stopped her protest before it reached her lips. Therron had left her for the Seelie Court—for Eirlys. If he loved her, he wouldn’t have done that. Even so, outlandish fluttering tickled her belly and Rori struggled to keep a firm grasp on her indifferent features. It wouldn’t do to let Midna know how much her words had thrilled—and confused—Rori. Maybe Midna was right—she wasn’t smart about the mysteries of the heart. Maybe Therron left because he loved her.
With renewed purpose and a stupid grin on her face, she gripped Midna’s fingertips in her own and kissed them before rising. “Thank you for everything. A final request?” Midna looked at her with a bemused smile. “May I use your Room of Mirrors?”
“Of course, darling.” Midna waved her off. Her hand covered her lips and her eyes clouded as if she saw something Rori and the other fae couldn’t see.
At the doorway, Rori turned back to the queen. “By the way, it wasn’t just Therron I was talking about.”
The Unseelie queen stared at her with tears shimmering in her eyes. Whatever the history between her and the gorgeous fae, they were fools not to see how much they loved each other. The nagging question of why Midna wouldn’t commit to one faerie dragged at Rori’s thoughts as she left the queen’s chambers and hustled to her own rooms. There was a reason, but not a clear one that she could imagine.
She changed into her own clothes, being careful as she slid her jeans over the stitches in her thigh. The wound was healing, but not quick enough for her. Meg had said nothing strenuous for a few weeks and Rori had every intention of heeding the healer’s advice. The last thing she needed was to visit Meg with a busted-open cut. She shivered at the thought of Meg’s shrieks if she turned up wounded so soon after her fight with Acelyne.
Daggers firmly secured to her person, she shrugged into her leather jacket and made her way to Cian’s room. He had plenty of opportunities to take her aside and give her information, but with spies lurking around every corner, she knew her brother well enough to know he wouldn’t say anything aloud that was of vital importance. He’d hide a clue or papers where only she would find them. At the door to Cian’s room, Rori paused. If she were Cian— She stopped that line of thinking and changed it to herself. If she had important information she wanted only Cian to find, where would she hide them?
The answer came to her like a brilliant light popping in her mind.
Sneaky bastard.
He’d already told her where to look—at their mum’s.
Out of due diligence, she searched his rooms thoroughly. Two tiny scraps of paper were all she found, and she couldn’t be certain they were from Cian or leftover from previous occupants. All the same, she tucked them into the pocket that now held the parcel with Mairead’s curls.
On her way to the Room of Mirrors, she scanned the hallway for the mysterious woman, but saw only courtiers going about their day. She tugged open the door and entered the mirrored room with a plan. She’d hop from doorway to doorway, and another, inching closer to her mum’s without making a direct route to where she was going. If anyone wished to follow her, she wouldn’t make it easy on them.
And, a voice whispered in the back of her mind, perhaps she might run into a certain thief along her journey. At the first mirror, she paused. Before she could change her mind, she spoke the incantation that would take her to the Shoogly Dragon.
23
His magic protected them from anything entering the flat, but as Cian lay on the couch staring at the unmoving ceiling, he worried about what they’d encounter outside. The lycan he’d healed near the Thames was far from home and should never have been in the heart of the city. Yet something had drawn it out. The poor creature was too long removed from his humanoid form to make much sense.
All he’d been able to gather from him was that he’d been lured to the embankment and attacked. Physically as well as magically. Someone had knocked the creature unconscious with a bottle and stolen his magic. Barbarous. Cian had never heard of such a thing. If he was in Faerie, he’d have gone to Eirlys and demanded something be done.
But he was in the human world, where lycans were myths and feared.
He placed a hand over his face to stop from seeing the pleading in the lycan’s glowing golden eyes. The image remained rooted at the forefront of his memory. He’d all but begged Cian to end his life. A sworn assassin, unable to kill a defenseless dog.
“Hey.” The sound of Nikala’s voice startled him and he sat upright, eyes wide, alert to danger. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her warm hand covered his. For a split second, he thought he saw Glamour shimmering beneath her skin.
“What’s happened?” Cian stood to his full height and scanned the flat.
“Nothing. I, erm…” She ran a hand through her hair, clearly agitated. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. Go back to sleep.”
As if he could. She turned to leave and Cian put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m here, Nikala. Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
His breathing hitched as she slid a hand down his arm and slipped it into his hand. He followed her to the bedroom, where she turned to face him.
“Proper, like you said.”
The words pooled in his heart, turning it molten. Slowly, he lowered his head to hers and brushed his lips across her forehead, then down her nose, to her waiting mouth. A small gasp came from her and he felt the trembling of her legs as he pressed his body against her.
One hand cupped her head and the other wrapped around her waist to keep her as close to him as possible. Her heat seared his senses, but he didn’t care. Proper. That’s what he told her, and that’s what she wanted.
Giving himself to her, now, with his magic cocooning the room and his every nerve alight, was dangerous. He’d already let her see more of him than anyone ever had. He’d made himself vulnerable.
Her hands snaked up his chest to his jaw, where she rubbed her palms along the scruff of stubble. Her eyes stayed locked on his. They shone with an inner light that went straight to his core.
She wasn’t human.
She was fae.
Did she know? He doubted it. He’d been right in the pub’s cellar to guess she was warded. His magic cut through some of the barriers placed on her—but not all of them. A nagging pulled his thoughts from her, from her sweet face and those lips. If she was fae, who were her parents? Did they leave Faerie to have her? Or was she born there and moved to the human realm? Was she one of the kidnapped fae who somehow managed to escape? With a growl, he shuttled the bothersome questions aside and returned to the here and now. Answers would come later.
A soft shimmer glowed beneath her skin and he wondered whether she could see it, or whether that was blocked from her as well. There was no telling the amount of magic she possessed, not with the wards on her, but he guessed it was substantial. Whoever had hid her magic didn’t want her or anyone else to know she was fae, of that he was certain.
His lips traveled to her eyelids, where he kissed each one, then grazed over her cheek to nuzzle behind her ear. She whimpered and squirmed, pushing her pelvis into him, but he couldn’t be tempted to rush this. Proper was what he’d promised.
But damn, it was hard.
His hands and lips traveled the length of her, skimming over the T-shirt she wore to her bare legs. Cian knelt in front of her, like a devotee worshiping his goddess. The tremble in her legs was slight, but noticeable. She was scared. Frankly, so was he.
His hands caressed her legs from her ankle to her hips, all the while her fingertips raked across his scalp. The soothing sensation of her touch lulled him into a state of bliss and he kissed her thigh, nudging her shirt up as he went.
As he rose, he continued lifting the fabric. Her shaking quickened to near spasms, but he wouldn’t stop. When he brought the shirt up to her face, there was a silent plea in her eyes that nearly broke his heart.
He knew her scars, understood her pain. Like her, he’d been injured, but he’d never had to endure the kind of abuse she must’ve suffered to receive so many disfigurements. With a flourish, the shirt cleared her head and fell to the floor. She stood before him wearing only her panties. Tears shone in her gorgeous blue orbs and he wiped them away with a thumb.
“Don’t hide. Not from me.” His hands smoothed the hairs from her face and stroked down to her neck. His lips followed until he reached the first scars above her left clavicle. There, he paused to place several featherlight kisses on the mangled skin.
Her sharp intake of breath and stiffened body troubled him, but he continued. She would be loved tonight. Proper. Scars and all.
“You’re beautiful, Nikala.”
Her hands were on his shoulders, pushing slightly as if she wanted him away from her, but also not to stop. This was no longer about his needs, but hers. He was driven to show her she had nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of.
“Who did this to you?”
She shook her head, and the pressure on his shoulders increased. “It doesn’t matter. He’s in my past.”
Cian pressed his lips to hers. “I won’t hurt you, Nikala.”
His caresses and kisses continued across her body until each of her blemishes were soothed, every inch of her body memorized. Only then did he lift her from where she stood and place her on the bed, where she gazed at him with a look of awe and terror. Whatever hell she’d been through, she’d survived and for that, she had his deepest respect. The scars she bore were a mixture of fighting and intentional cuts. A few were from burns, not cigarette, but some kind of liquid that spread like a rash. The geography of her disfigurements was like that of a lab experiment gone bad.
And she’d lived through whatever had done this to her.
He stripped off his shirt and boxers, kicking them to the floor before returning to the gorgeous woman lying on his bed, waiting. He snaked his hands up her shins to her thighs and hooked his fingers into the cotton panties she wore. Her hips lifted and he tugged them off without any sort of pretense of patience. The need to fill her, to meld his body to hers and give his strength, his healing, his love to her overwhelmed him to the point where nothing else mattered. No lycans, no fae, not even the threat of scyvers could distract his focus.
Nikala was all he saw. All he felt.
He leaned forward and kissed her softly, delighting in the murmurs and moans that tickled his lips. Her legs wrapped around his as her mouth opened. He entered her far slower than he’d like, almost losing control at the warmth that embraced his cock. This was nothing like earlier, when it had been too fast, too hard to notice subtleties and shifts of movement. A tweak to her hips there, a lift of his bum here, made their connection deeper, richer.
They moved as one in a steady rhythm. The shimmer beneath her skin brightened the closer she came to orgasm. He glanced at his arm and saw his Glamour. Muted, but there. A sense of wonder covered him that this woman should bring out the one thing he swore no one would ever see unless he allowed it.
Perhaps he was allowing it and didn’t realize.
Nikala traced a finger over his chest and arched until her neck stretched tantalizingly beneath his mouth. He sucked on the soft skin, earning a sultry moan from her, and a spasm went straight to his cock. Another minute and he’d be undone.
Her thrusts quickened, and her legs tightened around his back. That was all he needed.
They panted and cried out as they came together, a mass of writhing and sweat and Glamour mixing with his protective magic.
The air shifted and thickened with their orgasms. As if some unseen force added to his protective barrier. Almost imperceptible, but Cian noticed and by the wide-eyed stare Nikala gave him, she noticed it as well. A wildness entered her eyes, followed by a cheeky grin.
She gripped his face between her hands and brought his lips to hers. The warmth of her kiss burned through his limbs.
They lay together, fingers trailing across skin, occasionally brushing lips, but not speaking. Cian’s thoughts spun with shoulds and woulds and couldn’ts. His queen would tell him to interrogate Nikala, then dispose of her if necessary. But his heart was a traitor.
He fell asleep with absolute clarity he’d defy everyone for this woman. They were connected by a tether he’d never known existed—not just from their lovemaking and shared experiences, but by something deeper he couldn’t yet articulate. What he knew, though, was that he would die protecting that bond.
He woke the next morning to an empty bed. His breath stilled with the horrible thought that she’d left him again. He envisioned her on the streets, being hunted by scyvers, and his heart beat hard against his chest. Then he heard a noise come from the lounge and relaxed, but not enough to quiet his spinning thoughts.
A ray of light shone through his drapes as he grabbed a fresh pair of boxers from his drawer and dragged on a clean T-shirt. The floor was empty of Nikala’s clothing, which was a shame. He’d quite like to see her naked in his kitchen.
He’d like even more to hear what she’d call him if he told her as much.
She sat at the table he’d never used for meals with a bowl in front of her, a cup of tea to her right. Beside the tea was something that made his blood chill.
The box of sugary cereal he’d hidden in his pantry.
And there, to the left of her bowl, was the amulet. Next to it was the memory stick he’d stolen from Malcolm’s office.
“Good morning,” she said with a cheery smile. “Breakfast?” She indicated the cereal and he blanched.
“Do I have any coffee?” He shuffled to the kitchen, his mind scrambling to sort out how to get the amulet and memory stick from her.
“In the fridge. You’re low on milk, though.”
This alternate reality he woke up to was messing with him. Since when did he start putting coffee in the fridge? It hadn’t been that long since he’d been in London—a few months, maybe? His thoughts were muddied, as if his brain trekked through sludge.
“What’s happening here?” He took a pod from the refrigerator door and placed it in th
e coffeemaker.
Nikala rose and completed the process of making coffee for him. “You tell me.” She cocked her head and planted a fist on her hip. “Why was my pendant in your cereal?”
“Where did you get the pendant in the first place?”
Her stance shifted. Still defiant, her eyes softened. “That doesn’t matter. Why were you hiding it?”
Cian grabbed a bowl and poured himself cereal. He dragged his hands over his face and glanced at the clock. Nine fifteen. He’d slept less than seven hours in the past two days.
“What do you know about that pendant?” He indicated the amulet without making a move to touch it.
Nikala sat opposite and held the pretty glass ornament. “Nothing. It’s pretty. I liked it, so I picked it up.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Cian sniffed the milk before pouring some into his bowl. It was still fresh. “Well, when you decide to be honest with me, then I’ll tell you why it was hidden.”
They ate in silence, each eyeing the other like fighters at a prize match waiting for the starting bell. A few minutes later, Cian rose and poured himself a cup of coffee. He held the pot out to her, but she shook her head.
Once the bitter liquid touched his tongue, his thoughts started to clear. Relief washed over him like a cool blanket. At least she hadn’t poisoned him. He hoped.
The second hand of the clock ticked as they toyed with their spoons, their cups, their hesitation. Finally, Nikala took a deep breath and stretched her arms wide. The amulet’s chain dangled from her fingertips.
“I stole it from Malcolm.” The words came out in a rush, barely audible.
“Where did he get it?”
“I don’t know.” She glared at him. “I swear.”
“Do you have any idea what’s inside of it?” Cian watched her features as she shook her head slowly.
“I really don’t. At first I just thought they were trinkets, but after Malcolm freaked that one was missing, I figured maybe some kind of biochemical weapon, or poison. With him, it could be anything.”
Fatal Assassin (Fatal Fae Book 2) Page 21
