Blood Sacrifice (32 page)

“We accept your gift,” Adam intoned. Me? I was still beyond the capability of coherent speech.

Branwen stood, tucking her hands together in front of her. “I must offer my humblest apologies to my daughter, and to her husband.”

“Go on,” I said.

“I believed that your cousin wanted to right things,” she explained. “To unite Faery and to claim our rightful place in the world. We’ve been fading, Keira. Fading quickly.” She looked directly at me. “I’m sure my queen neglected to tell you that when you visited.”

“You were there?”

“I was. Did you not wonder why so many closed doors in a place that once rang with the laughter of tens of thousands?”

Truth? Not really. I’d blocked so much out of my head from those times, I only remembered my misery and my dank hidey-holes. The glitter and glare of the Faery throng was no more a part of my life than was shopping at the Galleria with the
Real Housewives
of wherever. I shook my head in answer to her question.

“There are too few of us left. We close doors to hide just how few.” She walked over to the table and laid her hand on the parchment. “When Gideon gave me this to give to you, I took him at his word. I was wrong.” She looked at me. “I came back up after I’d spoken with my queen, with Minerva, and with the high king of the Unseelie Court. They continue to discuss long-term strategy. They do not see what is in front of their eyes. Your land, it is no longer barriered, nor boundaried by spell. Gideon removed the boundaries as part of the Challenge, yet did not perform the required ritual to bind the land to whomever wins the claim.”

“What does that mean?”

“That the magick no longer is constrained to Challenge outcome,” Adam said. “We weren’t going down the wrong path after all. What we’ve done should have bound the land to us.” He slammed a hand against the hard wood of a chair. “That’s why nothing was working.”

Branwen nodded. “Gideon has put a Geas on the land.”

“How could he do that?” I protested. “Geas is placed on a person, not a place.”

“It is a curse, nonetheless,” Branwen continued. “The land is encumbered.”

I was sure she didn’t mean that in the modern day real estate sense, yet, oddly, the current legal definition probably evolved from this more traditional magickal one. Instead of having property title tied down by legal issues, this land had spells achieving the same effect. Too bloody good, Gideon. Too bloody good. I had to applaud his efforts, even though I hated what he’d done.

“You are too easily led by others, Branwen,” Adam remarked. “First, you allow your initial championship of your own daughter, in whom you sense magick, to be overruled by those with silkier tongues. Now, when given a chance to reconnect with her, you support someone who dips into the Darkness to achieve his questionable goals.”

“I only ever wished for peace and comfort,” she protested. “Since childhood, I was but a pawn in my queen’s long game. I was given to Huw Kelly to produce a child. I did so. I could not fight for her. It was a losing battle. Instead, I let her father raise her.”

“You’re her mother.”

“I am a horrible mother. I never wanted a child. I was forced.”

I gasped, and turned to look at my father, who started at her words. He began to speak, but my mother continued.

“He did not force me to lie with him, Keira,” Branwen interjected before Dad could say anything. “My
queen coerced me to become pregnant, to remain with Huw until you were born. I wished none of these machinations.”

Machinations. Machiavellian ones. Gigi. “It all falls back to Gigi and her cronies, doesn’t it?” I said. “Playing games with my generation, hoping for what? Power? As if they didn’t have enough already.” The words were bitter in my mouth.

“Minerva needs to be here to help,” Adam said. “If Gideon is calling up the Darkness, wanting the barriers to fall between Faery and Above, he’s totally out of control. He’ll do nothing more than unleash Chaos.”

“Chaos and all her sisters,” Tucker muttered. “Has the Darkness spread Below?”

Branwen nodded. “It has begun,” she said. “Slowly, inexorably, it has infested us. We fade now even more rapidly.”

“I’m reluctant to go back to the cave door,” I said. “That cemetery is riddled with Dark. It was dormant when we were there earlier, but there’s no guarantee that it stayed that way. Especially with everything Carlton’s told me. It sounds like something’s been let loose, or is at least seeping out. We need to drag Gigi out of there whether she wants to come or not. She can help, then go back to have her summit with Angharad when we’ve put this matter to rest. For that matter, the other two might as well be a part of this—Angharad and Drystan, I mean.”

“You’d Summon the three highest?” Adam asked with an amused drawl.

“In a New York minute,” I stated. “Their crap got us into this, they can bloody well come help out and put the Dark back where it belongs.”

“We could walk Between,” Branwen suggested. “It’s not as easy as using an established portal, but can be done.”

I turned to Adam. “We’re going to need more than just Branwen’s magick to pull us all through,” I said. “You used it before, when the Millers took Niko. Think you can do it again?”

Adam looked surprised. “I don’t know,” he said. “Niko was in danger. I believe the only way I was able to do it before was because of our blood tie. My anger overrode my sense and I just—” He shrugged. “I didn’t stop to think about it. I simply did it.”

“You maneuvered Between?” Branwen asked. “That’s a pure Faery ability. It should be lost to you, Aeddan.”

“Needs must, I suppose.”

“It should be physically impossible,” she insisted. “So should I,” I said, my words bitter. “There is never supposed to be more than one heir. That has been the case for the entire history of our clan. Why can’t Adam be able to use some ability in crisis mode? It’s been known to happen in humans, a rush of adrenaline—”

“But this is fey ability,” Branwen protested. “He died, faded, then woke as vampire.”

I turned this suggestion around in my brain. If she was right, if Adam’s Sidhe abilities should not exist, then there is no way he could have done what he did. No way he could’ve taken me and Tucker with him through the Between to Niko’s side. How had it happened?

“Many things have happened that shouldn’t have,” Niko said. “Perhaps Adam’s blood exchange with Keira awakened some of the dormant Sidhe within him. Necessity pulled the power to him.”

“So not dead, only sleeping?” I asked, letting the sarcasm through. “He’s not a Monty Python parrot.”

“No, but he is a Sidhe prince,” Branwen argued. “He is Drystan’s heir to the throne of the Unseelie Court. I believe yon vampire is correct. Aeddan, have you tried a Summoning?” She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Not to the lesser fey, but to true Sidhe.”

“I have not,” Adam said, a thoughtful look on his face. “I’d meant to…”

Branwen nodded. “Do it. It is one of the most basic of our skills—”

“Yet requires a great deal of power,” I finished her thought. “Adam, we have nothing to lose at this point. Try it.”

Adam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I will try it. But not here. Keira, with me?”

I jumped off the table and followed him.

Within minutes, we were in the privacy of our bedroom. “Are we doing what I think we’re doing?”

“Exactly.”

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

—Pablo Neruda, “Sonnet XVII”

H
e tore off his clothing. I did the same.

I groaned as he slid atop me, my skin already slick with sweat from our short time outside in the heat. His own skin seemed to burn as it touched mine. I licked at his collarbone, then bit down, teeth scraping skin, breaking it, bringing blood. He gasped, and rolled us over, his hands grasping my arms. I straddled his groin, my knees gripping his sides as we bit, licked, kissed. This was no leisurely lovemaking, but a joining to raise power, to Call and Summon. Could we do it? I forced aside my doubts and let myself sink into the sensations, pushing worry and thought and plans away, focusing only on this. This before me now.

Power surged between us as once again, I plundered his mouth, taking, wanting, needing, connecting. Adam’s palms slid down my back, cupped my ass as he lifted me, then speared me on his cock. I threw my head back, letting the feelings wash over me. I reached
a hand back between us to caress his sac, my other hand reaching forward to slide across his chest. His own hands came up, his thumbs brushing my nipples ever so lightly. I growled and he returned it, sounds of our union, of the power within us meshing, combining. The hunger rose inside me, meeting his. It crashed, burned, merged. Pulsed with light and darkness, joining us. Blood called to blood. Dark, powerful, needful. Adam raised his torso, one arm around me to press me to him as I rocked atop him. I turned my head to the side, baring my neck. With another growl of want, he sank his fangs deep, brought the blood pounding to the surface. Take. Want. Have. I rode the waves of pleasure and power, the energy surging between us, binding us, sealing together.

With a cry, I came again, as Adam did, his body shuddering. He threw his head back and together, we threw the Call out into the air. I collapsed against him and we both fell to the bed, sated, sore, and depleted as the magick flew out from our bodies, resonating in the air.

A few moments later, I started to giggle, tried to suppress it, and failed. It became full-out laughter.

Adam stroked my hair, most of which had escaped the braid. “You all right?”

“I think you broke me,” I said through the laughter. “I can’t bloody move.”

He chuckled. “If it’s any consolation, neither can I.”

“That was…” I sighed in contentment, the laughter subsiding. “Yeah.”

“Indeed.”

“Um. Adam? Keira?” Liz’s voice floated down the stairwell. “We’ve got company.”

“They sent you?” I chuckled as I imagined my six brothers arguing who’d get to come interrupt us. “They figure we wouldn’t attack you?”

She laughed. “Something like that. You’d best get dressed and come up. Gigi’s here.”

“It worked, huh?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Drystan and Angharad are here along with her. Boy, is that one a bloody piece of work.”

I sank back onto the pillow. All of them. Shitebloodytastic. I burst out into laughter again. We’d managed to Summon the three most powerful leaders of the supernatural community… by fucking.

“There’s a faction of the fey who wish to be a legitimate part of the world of man,” Drystan was explaining when Adam and I entered the dining room. Someone had cleaned the place up, removing all the detritus from hours of meetings, and had pulled together more tables and chairs. At one end of the room, our thrones stood on their dais. Adam raised a brow and looked at Rhys, who was grinning. Great, my brother, the next Martha Stewart.

Drystan nodded at the both of us and continued. “They are full of ennui and wanting more challenges than they get Underhill. These are not high fey. The lower ones, mostly—sprites, dryads, nymphs, satyrs, pucks. They enjoy causing a bit of trouble as sport. Gideon has bestirred the Dark Fae, as well.”

“I’d say this was more than a bit of trouble, wouldn’t you, Father?” Adam and I walked over to the main table and sat in the two chairs Rhys indicated. Not thrones, but he’d pulled Adam’s comfy office chair out and a second one from Niko’s office. The large table was round,
like the one we’d sat at in Faery, but as with that one, this table had a distinct head. Screw Arthur and his knights, round tables didn’t automatically mean equality for all. This show?
We
were running it. They were on our turf now.

Angharad sat in one of the regular dining chairs, looking as if something—or everything—smelled putrid. Her body was stiff, unmoving, her back not even touching the back of the chair. As a contrast, Gigi, still dressed as we’d last seen her, lounged next to her, clearly in her element. One of her Protectors stood behind her, his face relaxed and cheerful. His liege was back and as far as he was concerned, all was right with the world. Her other Protector stood at the main entrance to the room, staring forward in silence, but also radiating glee.

“Welcome,” I said with a happy grin. “I bid you welcome.” I tried to hide my glee at the fact that the Summoning had bloody well worked. Adam’s Sidhe Talent
was
still there. Branwen had been right. The lady in question sat in a chair to the left of her queen. I nodded to her. Later, when this was over, we were going to make amends.

“These fey, Father, are they behind the problems we’ve had?”

“I believe so,” he said. “Gideon doesn’t seem to be the sort to stick his own neck out if he can have someone else do it for him.”

“Hear, hear.” Rhys clapped. I shot him a dirty look and he subsided. He was standing behind us, along with the other four, Ianto, Liz, Tucker, and Niko. Let’s see, five Protectors. Gigi had one of hers. Drystan—none, though it could be said that ours extended to him by courtesy. Angharad. None. I didn’t begrudge Rhys his joy one bit. Finally, we were the ones in charge.

“My grandson is no risk taker,” Gigi agreed.

Drystan nodded. “He’s enlisted several factions of Dark Fae, some others from even your side of the fence, Angharad.” Angharad continued her impression of a statue. “He means to raise a bloody army.”

“Take over the world, yes, we figured that out,” I said. “Thing is, what do we do about it? The land is still tainted with the Darkness he Called, and we have been unable to lay claim even using all the rituals we knew of and some we tried for the hell of it.”

“There are fewer of us daily,” Drystan admitted. “Your mother told me she’d revealed the same about the Seelie Court to you earlier.”

“Yes, go on.”

He made an uncertain motion. “That’s just it. You Summoned us. At this point, you—and Aeddan, I presume—hold the power. We must do your bidding.”

Another whispered “hear, hear” from Rhys made me duck my head to hide my shit-eating grin.