Beguiled (27 page)

She still didn’t know much about Jasic. For all she knew, he could be a Mafia Faery or something, with connections to the very beings who really wanted her dead. So she forced an innocent expression on her features, deliberately loosened her grip on the mug and told herself to take a sip of coffee. The hot, black brew slid down her throat and sent a welcome warmth rushing through her body.

“You call all of this a blessing?” she asked. “Having my life turned upside down? Worried about enemies coming after my family? Fighting for my life every other minute?”

Despite her own instincts clamoring at her to watch her step, Maggie’s indignation was rising at a fever pitch.

He waved one elegant hand as if dismissing her complaints. “Minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“Why would I?”

“How can you not?” He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs as he met Maggie’s gaze and held it. “This hovel you call home is no longer where you belong. Your place is in the crystal palace in Otherworld.” Briefly, his eyes went soft and shiny. “You will be Queen—no longer bound to this world and the limitations of your species.”

She was pretty sure she’d just been insulted.

“And more importantly,” he continued, leaning back now into the couch cushions, taking another sip of his wine, “you will be in a position to grant me my heart’s desires.”

Here we go, Maggie thought. Finally down to what he really wanted. She should have guessed long before this that good ol’ grandFae had had darn good reasons for reconnecting with a human twig on his family tree.

“What is it that you want, Jasic?”

His gaze speared into hers. Hard, unrelenting. Unyielding. Those brilliant blue eyes glittered like broken glass. “Status,” he said flatly. “Status among the Fae. I want what’s rightfully mine.”

“Of course you do,” she murmured, encouraging him now to spill it all. She wanted to know exactly where she stood with this guy.

He stood abruptly, pushing himself to his feet, setting the wineglass on the table and moving toward the Christmas tree. Reflections of the colored lights seemed to sparkle on him, giving him the look of a man standing in the shadows of a stained-glass window.

When he turned his head to look at her, his features were once more affable, his eyes benign.

But Maggie wasn’t fooled.

“Did you know,” he said, “that as a young Fae, I once trained with the warriors?”

“No.” And frankly, she couldn’t see it. He was pretty, but he was soft. Not like Culhane and the others with their natural strength.

“It didn’t last, of course,” he mused, more to himself than to her. “Warriors are mostly born into the clan, but there are a few who earn their way in. In the end, I decided not to continue with that plan.”

“What stopped you?”

“The training was brutal.” He shrugged. “Not to my taste.”

Translation
, she told herself, it was too hard. He’d been expected to work for something and that hadn’t sat well with Jasic. Maggie was getting a true picture here. A selfish male, her grandFae wanted the good things in life and he didn’t want to work for them. He wanted to be special. To be admired, but didn’t have a clue how to go about earning that admiration.

He spoke again and Maggie stopped her wayward thoughts and paid attention.

“You do know that of the males in Otherworld, only the Warrior clan has any true position?”

“Yes.” Hadn’t Culhane explained all of that to her when he’d first come to her? Hadn’t he said that his plan was for her to make things equal in Otherworld? So that the male Fae could expect the same kinds of rights and privileges that the females enjoyed?

“Then you will understand that after centuries of living as less than what I should have been, I find my patience is at an end.” Once again, his eyes hardened. “I want my due, Maggie. Is that really so much to ask from my Queen? My blood?”

Hours later, she was sitting alone in her bedroom, curled up on the window seat, staring through the glass at the sleeping world beyond. Up and down her narrow street, colorful, twinkling lights shattered the night.

Fog was creeping into the city, sliding off the ocean like thick ribbons of gray silk coming off a spool to wind itself around buildings and trees. The holiday lights shone as tiny beacons in the darkness and not for the first time, Culhane thought how Otherworld might shine in the reflected glory of those small, brightly colored lights.

But his gaze fixed on the woman who had, over time, become the very center of his thoughts. She had been destined and he’d watched and waited for her. She was Queen and held the future of Otherworld in her small, talented hands. She was his sovereign, deserving of his protection and service. But she was more.

She was the heart of him. Maggie had slipped inside him, taken him over, meat and bone. She filled him in places he hadn’t known were empty before meeting her. And he must bring her news that would only cause her more worry. Make her look at him and wonder.

“Maggie.” Her name sighed from his lips.

She didn’t even turn her head, but she smiled, a slight curve of her mouth that pulled at him. “I knew you were here,” she said. “What does that say about me? I wonder. Am I getting attuned to you? Or to the Fae magic?”

“A little of both, I think.”

“Where’ve you been, Culhane?” She lifted one hand and idly traced a single fingertip down the length of the glass.

He moved closer, his steps silent as he walked across the rug-covered wood floor. One day, he would come to her and there would be nothing between them but fire and heat. But that was not this day. “There was trouble.”

“Of course there was,” she said. Finally then, she turned her face up to his and Culhane’s heart clenched in his chest. As her Fae blood blossomed inside her, overtaking her humanity, she became even more beautiful. Her skin was pale, with just a few freckles sprinkled like gold dust on cream. Her eyes were dark and, as he’d suspected, worried, and her shoulder-length dark red hair was pulled back from her face. She wore a long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans and her bare toes were painted a lusty red.

She meant everything to him and it annoyed him that she couldn’t see it. That she still held on to her mistrust. Hadn’t he proven himself to her yet? He had defended her even when she suggested turning the female guards into warriors. What must he do to convince her of his worth?

“So what happened?” she asked.

He sat down beside her and she drew her feet back, as if loath to touch him. Deliberately, he reached out, took her hand in his and said, “There was a . . . skirmish. The Bog Sprites performed a raid on the very spot where we would have been hiding Eileen in the next day or so.”

“What?” Her fingers tensed in his grip.

“Somehow, they knew,” he said solemnly, and could read in her eyes that she understood just what this meant. “Someone had to have informed the Bog Sprites of our plan. There is no other possibility.”

She pulled her hand free of his and bounded to her feet. Walking off a few paces, she suddenly turned to face him again. “Was it Mab?”

“No.” He stood up, too, facing her in the pale wash of moonlight that painted her room in hushed tones of silver. “It could not have been Mab. The former queen didn’t even know of the alcove’s existence. No one outside the Warrior clan does,” he explained quietly. “It’s a sacred chamber. Used only for our most hallowed ceremonies. That is why we felt the child would be safe there.”

“But not now,” she whispered.

“No.” Culhane walked to her and even when she backed up, he followed, maintaining a closeness between them that he needed. “The Bog Sprites were defeated and sent back to Ireland, but the alcove is no longer a safe hiding place for Eileen.”

“Fabulous,” Maggie muttered, and scrubbed her hands up and down her arms as if fighting a bone-chilling cold.

Culhane reached for her, pulled her in close and wrapped his arms around her. After one long, indecisive moment, Maggie surrendered to his embrace, circling his waist with her arms, laying her head upon his chest.

“So Otherworld’s out,” she said softly. “We can’t take Eileen there if she won’t be safe.”

Though it infuriated him to admit it, Culhane was forced to agree. “No. Until we find out who turned this information over, we cannot trust Eileen’s safety to any but those in this house.”

“So home sweet home becomes a prison. Great.”

“We can still take her directly to the Conclave,” he offered. “Eileen wouldn’t be
hidden
, but she would be protected.”

Maggie shook her head, then leaned back and looked up at him. “Not yet. Let’s wait on that, okay? I want you and the warriors to look around. See what you can find out about Mab, what she’s doing, whom she’s talking to. Who might have found out about the alcove and spilled the beans.”

“Agreed,” Culhane said.

“And,” she added, “I know you think I’ve forgotten about this, but I want you to start getting used to the idea of the females as warriors.”

His features froze over. “That is not so easily done.”

“I know it won’t be easy, but I still think it’s a good idea.”

“And my plan?” he countered. “To give the males the gift of flight? Are you considering that as well?”

“I am,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “I even have a vague idea of how to work it.”

“That is good news,” he said, smiling now. If the warriors could fly, they would be more than a match for any enemy. And he would eventually be able to convince Maggie that they didn’t really need the female guard. “The males of Otherworld will be pleased. They will all follow you willingly, Maggie.”

“So the males will love me and the women will undoubtedly be pissed when they’re not the only ones flying,” she said quietly. “Well, I always thought that politics probably sucked. Turns out, it does.”

“Change is never easy, Maggie. Still, I think you are going to be a great queen, if my opinion matters to you.”

She looked up at him, blue eyes linking with green. “It does, Culhane. A lot. But . . .”

“But?”

“There’s one more thing I need you to do,” she said quietly. “I want you to look into Jasic.”

“Your grandFae. Has he done something to alarm you?”

“Not really,” she said with a shrug. “It’s just a feeling. I’ve got Bezel watching him, but I’d like you to watch him, too.”

“It will be done.” He cupped her face in the palm of his hand and savored the feel of her skin against his. This is what he hungered for. The touch of her. The scent of her. He was incomplete without her by his side.

“Maggie . . .”

“Don’t,” she said, lifting one hand to place her fingers against his lips. “Don’t say anything, okay? I don’t want to talk. Heck, I don’t even want to think. Not now. Not until morning, at least.”

She lifted her chin to look up at him and her blue eyes were wide, but steady. No tears welled there. No fear shone out at him. This was a woman made to stand beside a warrior. There had never been another like her. And for him, there never would be.

Then she moved against him, wiggling her hips until his cock burned with the need to be buried inside her. He saw in her eyes that she felt his hunger and shared it. That, he told himself, would have to be enough for now.

“No more talk,” he whispered, and lowered his head to take her mouth with his.

“Consider it an early Christmas vacation,” Nora told her daughter over the breakfast table.

“But I don’t want to miss school,” Eileen answered, using the tines of her fork to push the last of her French toast around on her plate.

“You must be the only kid in the country who would say that,” Maggie said.

Morning sunlight filtered in through the yellow and white curtains across the kitchen window. The scent of fresh coffee and maple syrup hung in the air as the three Donovan women sat at the table arguing.

Well, Eileen was arguing. Maggie and Nora were totally on the same page. Maggie had been awake all night—first, because of Culhane and then later, because of what Culhane had had to say. As soon as Nora woke up and headed downstairs, Maggie had followed her and brought her up to speed. Just remembering their conversation made Maggie anxious all over again.