Bloodlust (11 page)

I staggered to my feet, doing everything that I could to avoid the sickening lurch of lightheadedness. The two faeries immediately quieted, and Solus came running over.

“Why?” I croaked. “Why did I shift?”

Solus looked stricken. “I don’t know, dragonlette. Maybe the loss of blood?”

“My eyes were doing the fucking spooky glowing thing before that. Why now? Why today?”

I turned to Tom for help. “You’re a shifter. Help me out here.”

My old friend looked worried. “I don’t know, Red. It happens when it’s a full moon, you know that. We can’t control the urges and so we just spontaneously…” he shrugged, “shift.”

“It’s not a full moon. And that’s never happened to me before anyway.” I smiled sourly, hugging the soft throw tighter to me. “I don’t think us Draco Wyr work like that.”

“It can happen in times of huge stress. You know like when you were at the mages’ academy and that wraith showed up.”

“I’m not stressed.” I ran my tongue over my lips. “Not like I was then anyway.”

“Sometime younger girls can’t control their shifts when they get their periods. Betsy was like that for a while. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

I vaguely remembered waking up in the middle of the night years ago in my old dormitory to the sound of snarls and Julia’s soothing tones. I wasn’t a young girl in the first bout of puberty though, and I didn’t have my fucking period. A flash of heat flared up uncomfortably in my lower stomach, then settled there, like a hot boulder. Bloody hell, I felt awful.

“So, pretty much, you don’t know. Nobody knows. I don’t know. Apparently now, not only is the whole world going to be in absolutely no doubt as to what I really am, but there’s the chance I might just spontaneously combust when I’m strolling down the road. Outfuckingstanding.”

I slammed my palm against the balcony railing, and stared down. There were a couple of ogres hovering around, and a few people mopping up the remnants of splashed drinks and broken glass. A vast scorch mark now travelled from one length of the bar to the other.

Tom touched my shoulder. “The Lord Alpha’s on his way.”

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

I turned to where Tarn was standing, another bout of dizziness attacking my senses. “You got what you wanted,” I snarled at him. “Now give me what I asked.”

“You destroyed my club,” he commented.

“Your fucking club is fine. Tell me where Endor is, Tarn or, so help me God, I’ll fry you on the spot.”

He leaned down, scooping up a delicate champagne glass and taking a small sip. “I don’t know where he is.”

That’s it. I was going to kill him. I took a step forward, then wavered slightly. Solus moved over, putting his arm round my body to steady me.

“Well,” Tarn continued, eyeing me with the nervy enmity of an old street cat, “I don’t know where he is right now. At this particular moment in time. But I do know where he’ll be.”

I watched him, unforgiving, waiting for something else. And because, right at this moment, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to take even a step without collapsing.

“In five days’ time, it’s Lughnasadh. The pagan first harvest of summer. He’s going to use it do a little harvesting of his own. I think he enjoys the symmetry.” Tarn shrugged.

Five days? Alex better damn well have found a way to get hold of some palladium before then.

I kept my eyes trained on the Fae. “Where?”

A shadow crossed his face. “In Scotland. Loch Ness.”

“He’s going after the kelpies,” breathed Solus in dawning comprehension. “And the element of water.”

Tarn nodded.

“And how the fuck do we know that you’re telling the truth? Given that you effectively already lied about knowing his current whereabouts?”

“Sol knows.”

I twisted my neck round to look at Solus, and he gave me a bob of unhappy affirmation.

“Endor was in here a couple of months ago,” Tarn explained. “He looked interesting so I called him up and we got drunk over a bottle of Glen Ord whisky. It’s distilled up in that area. He dropped enough hints to make it clear what he was intending.”

“It could be a trap,” murmured Tom.

“It’s not.” The Fae was adamant.

I knew that Tarn’s nature meant he’d be well versed enough in the lines between truth and lies to be sure of his assertion. I nodded.

He turned to leave, but I called out first. “I might not be able to stand up unassisted right now, but if you do anything with my blood that harms others, I will come after you.” I stared hard at him. “You know the truth of my words.”

He just looked at me, but there was a note of acknowledgement visible in his eyes, then he flicked his wrist, and two hulking bodyguards appeared out of nowhere to flank him. Together, they turned their backs on us and left.

Once I was sure that he’d gone, I spoke quietly to Solus. “I’d like to go home, now.”

“Of course, dragonlette. We need to go to the entrance first though. I can’t transport you from within here because Tarn has some kind of portal shield in place. It stops any riffraff from materialising in whenever they like.”

“I’ll carry you,” Tom interjected.

“No. I can walk.” I was damned if I was going to be treated like some kind of invalid.

Very, very carefully, with Tom and Solus on either side of me, I began to hobble forward. The heated lump inside my stomach didn’t appear to be abating, and neither was the dizziness. I gritted my teeth though, and tightly curled my nails into my palms. Bit by bit, we slowly edged our way forward until we were in front of the lift. I’d been mocking Tarn earlier for not having stairs, but now I was beyond grateful that he was a lazy wanker. The velvet throw was starting to fall down my shoulders, but I managed to hike it up around me. With any luck we’d be able to get out of this place before Corrigan showed up.

Unfortunately for me, when the lift doors opened smoothly back onto the ground floor, and the three of us stepped carefully out, the familiar figure of the Brethren Lord was already there, eyes examining the scar I’d left burned into the bar. He turned and watched our progress towards him, not offering any help. Thank fuck. He looked somewhat ruffled, as if he’d gotten dressed in a hurry. I tried very hard not to dwell on what he might have been doing when he’d received the midnight call about my latest shenanigans.

When we reached him, he ignored me and looked at Tom, who gave him a little dip of a bow. Fucking Brethren caste system.

“What happened?”

Tom began to outline what he’d learned upon his arrival. I’d have kept going, out towards the exit, but unfortunately I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it without both Tom and Solus’ shoulders to lean on. And there was no way I was going to let myself collapse. Not at this particular moment.

When Tom had finished, Corrigan turned towards me. “Did he leave anything out?”

I shook my head, pulling the throw further up around me as if for protection. A muscle jerked in the Lord Alpha’s cheek.

“It looks like you’ve missed all the action,” commented Solus merrily. “That’s okay though. Us faeries and dragons can take care of everything.”

“The council should have been informed before you came here,” Corrigan growled.

“How do you know they weren’t?” I shot back.

His green eyes flashed. “Because I’m taking Staines’ place as the highest ranking shifter representative. If you’d told anyone, I would have known.”

I raised my eyebrows, unable to help myself. “Oh yeah? Just like you’d have known if any of your little minions were off torturing any innocent victims?”

Tom sucked in his breath at my words.

Corrigan snarled at me. “Watch your place.”

Oh, he so didn’t say that, did he? “Actually, my Lord, now that you’ve rejoined the council – of which I believe I am the head – you’re the one who’ll have to watch your place.” I smirked. “It’s my orders you’ll be following. Not the other way around.” As soon as I’d said that, I regretted it. Shit. I didn’t want to antagonise the Lord Alpha. I wanted him to like me. More than like me.

His face twisted and he began to speak again but, before any words could form, his attention was caught by a flickering screen from above our heads. His skin paled dramatically. Frowning, I half turned to see what he was looking at. My stomach dropped when I did. A video loop of Solus and me dancing was playing. Our bodies were pressed together and my eyes were half-closed as if in ecstasy, with my hands round his back, and what appeared to be his lips on my skin.

“We’re thinking of trying out for
Strictly Come Dancing
,” said Solus. “I’m not sure they’ll be able to show us before the watershed though. There’s just no stopping a passion as deep as ours, is there, dragonlette?”

Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any worse.

Corrigan pulled his eyes away from the screen, ignoring the Fae. “If you’re really going to lead the council, then you’re going to have to start acting a damn sight more responsibly. Especially now that the entire Otherworld clearly knows that you’re a Draco Wyr. So much for all that effort you put into keeping it a secret. I guess you just wanted to make sure that everyone was fully aware of your power. Well, congratulations. Because now you can bet that it’s all over the Othernet and that Endor knows too. Thanks to your stupidity, we’ve lost just about the only element of surprise and real advantage that we had.”

I probably deserved that. It didn’t stop me from rising to the challenge, however. I was pissed off he thought this was what I’d wanted. “Oh yeah? I think that thanks to your presence on the fucking gossip pages, he was probably pretty much already aware of that. So don’t coming knocking on my door to lay the blame.”

Corrigan took an angry step towards me. I did the same, then abruptly remembered that standing was a bit of an issue, and my knees gave way. All three of them jumped forward to grab me, but Corrigan was first to catch me. Despite his vaguely unkempt appearance, he still smelled as good as ever. I jerked away, cheeks burning.

“We need to go,” I mumbled, avoiding meeting Corrigan in the eyes. “There’ll be another council meeting tomorrow. I’ll call everyone in the morning.” Asserting my authority one final time, I added, “And tell Staines I still want to see him.”

With that, I moved to my left, Tom and Solus carefully supporting me from either side. I didn’t look back. I didn’t dare.

Chapter Eleven

I woke up late the next morning, my head pounding incessantly. The heavy hot feeling in my stomach hadn’t gone away and I generally felt as if I’d been driven over several times by a ten ton truck. It was an unusual sensation. I was no stranger to getting hurt or passing out, but I normally started to recover fairly quickly. Even the very first time after I’d inadvertently transformed myself into a dragon hadn’t been quite so physically bad as this. The stress of the last week was clearly getting to me.

Dragging my protesting limbs out of bed, I lurched over to the small bathroom and splashed my face with cold water. Then I leaned against the sink and stared at my reflection in the mirror. I poked at the bruise across my cheekbone. At least it didn’t hurt quite as much as it had the day before, although I reckoned it looked considerably worse. The purple was darkening and the shape now looked oddly similar to the outline of Africa, just a rather skewed version. My mouth felt dry and furry and, even though I’d brushed my teeth for at least ten minutes before I’d gone to sleep, I could still taste ash. I sighed deeply, then pulled myself together. A cup of the strongest coffee that I could muster, and I reckoned I’d start to feel more human. So to speak.

I pulled on an old t-shirt, and headed to the kitchen, then almost gave myself a heart attack when I realised someone was already there.

“Fucking hell, Tom!”

He gave me a wave and handed over an already steaming mug of dark, delicious caffeine.

“I could have freaking killed you! What are doing here?”

He grinned amiably. “You passed out pretty quickly before the faerie and I could leave last night. He was going to stay to check on you and make sure you were alright, but I managed to convince him that it’d probably be better if I did that.”

I took a sip, closing my eyes momentarily in pleasure. “Why?”

Tom looked at me as if I was stupid. “The Lord Alpha wouldn’t be best pleased if he found out that you spent the night with the Fae.”

“Somehow I’m not convinced he’d care. Not any longer.”

He shook his head, tutting. “The pair of you are as bad as each other.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“Never mind.”

I eyed him suspiciously. Once upon a time I could have cajoled Tom into doing or saying pretty much anything. He’d been a member of the Brethren for almost a year now though, and the effects were starting to show. Not only did he have the obvious physical changes of more lean muscle and strength, but there was also an edge of steel to him personally that had been absent back in Cornwall. Part of me felt sad for the slight naivety and puppy dog enthusiasm that he’d once sported and that had now disappeared, and part of me admired what he was becoming. It made me wonder just what he’d been doing for the Brethren all this time.

“Why did you do it, Red?”

I knew what he was referring to. “Nobody else was going to be able to keep an inter-species council intact. I had to.”

“I don’t mean the council. I mean dumping him like that.”

“The Arch-Mage and the Summer Queen told me…”

“Screw them!” shouted Tom. “Since when have you ever done what someone else has told you to? You let them walk all over you. That’s not you. That’s not the person I grew up with.”

“They were right, Tom. If I stayed with Corrigan, then the Fae and the mages would never trust me because the balance I provide would be shifted in the Brethren’s direction. And if the Fae and the mages don’t trust me then it all falls apart, don’t you see? Endor will win. We need to work together!”

“I still don’t see how being with the Lord Alpha stops them from doing that.”

“You need to see what I see,” I pleaded with Tom. “I’ve had the lot of you tailing me since I got to London so I have first hand experience of exactly how terribly all the different species get on. To be frank, I’m amazed that none of you have killed each other yet. And I’m not trying to be bigheaded here, you great oaf. Even with those token Otherworld meetings that the bigwigs head off to every so often, the only time I’ve seen any real cooperation has been when I’ve been taking the lead. Not because I’m so fucking amazing or anything, but because I’m not a shifter or a mage or a faerie.”