Catch & Hold-Legend (Legend series) (6 page)

And once again, as before, Crystal vanished, but this time I wasn’t left to my own devices—oh no, never that easy. This time I felt as though tentacles of velvet had picked me up and wrapped me in a cocoon. A dark, wet mist swirled all around me, and I felt not the slightest bit of fear, although I was pretty sure I didn’t like it one bit. I will never like being tossed about at someone else’s will.

It seemed an age as I traveled in the mist through space, and I knew I was traveling. How I knew this is a mystery to me; I just did. There was no sensation of movement of any kind, yet I knew. I didn’t expect to be spat out at my destination, but that was precisely what happened, and I landed with a thump in another territory of the Dark Realm, velvet tentacles no longer gentle as they vanished.

How did I know I was still in the Dark Realm? Easy—Dark Unseelie creepy crawlies were all around me. I mean, everywhere. In and out of wooden shacks that looked like they belonged in the old west, side by side with structures made of limestone. I wondered where they got the materials. Had the Dark King built these structures when he built his retreat? What power for a single Royal!
 
None of the buildings looked inviting.

The street was made of cobbled stones, and hordes of uglies were hurrying about as though they were off to work …

It was disorienting, but I had to think quickly as the mist surrounding and obscuring my presence was dissipating in slow degrees.

When I was with Aaibhe, Queen of the Seelie Fae, she had showed me how to shapeshift. All Fae can shapeshift to some degree, but a Royal can become an inanimate object. I chose to blend in with the wall at my back and in essence became part of that stone wall.

Whew—I did it, but let me tell you, it felt as though I had been wrapped in sandpaper, plus I couldn’t move, and for me, that is torture. However, I wasn’t about to complain; things could have been worse—not much, but some. If I’d had my druthers, a stone wall was not what I would have chosen to be.

I had to wonder why the Dark King or Crystal had decided that this was where I needed to be dumped. Were they testing me?

I was able to move slightly, undetected, when I took on an inanimate shape. Slow motion was the ticket. So I got into position so that I could view what was happening inside the building and discovered that it was oddly enough an Unseelie ‘nightclub’.

What I saw astonished me—I mean smacked me alongside my head and told me I must be nuts if I thought I saw what I thought I saw.
Unseelies dancing
!

Ugly
—in the sense that it was almost impossible to watch without getting sick. Limbs all over the place, insect bodies nearly dividing in two as they bounced … ugh.

I suppose this was the Dark Fae’s version of a cool and lively bar. The music, however, wasn’t half bad. Fae, it seems, even Dark Fae, have music in their blood!

Somehow, they had discovered how to make alcohol, and I watched as it flowed freely. Different castes co-mingled, and I caught some of the words. They spoke in Ancient Danu, and I should have understood everything, but the dialect was way off …

I watched them bump and grind and noted the differences between the males and the females, and let me tell you, it was gross. They wore odd-looking clothing, like sacks over their lower bodies, and some of them … eek … were kissing each other in places where I couldn’t detect lips!

And then I heard two male and very large spidery things speaking just two feet in front of me. I caught the word portal and went into my Daoine mind to translate. They were talking about a portal being erected either in or near Dublin, and my heart stopped. I needed to hear every word.

However, another grotesque member of their little group sidled over and told them to ‘shut up’ as the walls could have ears.

That made me worry—could he know I was here, or was he speaking about some other faction? He couldn’t possibly know I was part of the wall—could he? Nah. Still, it made me nervous. I zeroed in on the dialect and found as I listened that I was beginning to pick up more and more of the words. And then the newcomer indicated with the thing he used as a chin for his partners to gaze across the room.

There stood one of the Royal Dark Fae princes, and he was the best looking of the four. Earlier I hadn’t the time to study each one, but as I did now I had to admit that he was drop-dead gorgeous. I realized that this one had more than looks going on; he had the visage of a Royal who was used to taking the lead.

He worried me—everything about him worried me.

I closed my eyes as the Dark Prince weaved his way through the heavy throng of disgusting creatures until he stood less than six inches away from me. He said, in a hard voice that was strangely at variance with his beautiful accent and the enticing tenor of the sound, “Damnation to bloody hell!”

I guessed he was angry about something, and I waited for more. It came.

“I could hear you three all the way across the room,” he spat at them. “There are castes here that must not know about the intricacies of Seelie Gaiscioch’s plans. I don’t want them lining up with him just now.”

“Yes, yes, my Prince,” said one of the beasts.

Ah, so he didn’t trust his own, I thought as I continued to hold my breath. Why? Who were these uglies gonna tell anything to? And then, as though he read my mind, he said, “Too many of the lower castes are finding ways to escape each day, and if they fall victim to one of the Seelie Fae looking for them they would very quickly give us away to save themselves.”

The group with him nodded in varying degrees of agreement, and one of them said his name. “Yes, Prince Pestale … you are right.”

“Of course I am right …” His voice trailed off as he turned and stared directly at the wall, which of course wasn’t a wall at all, because it was a Daoine princess …
I.
And what did I do? I felt my heart sink as I wondered what I should do next.

Shift
, Rolo whispered in my head.

I wasn’t ready to leave, not if I could find out more about their plans. Did he have the power to see through my shapeshifting disguise?

I definitely saw something click in his black, glittering eyes … something before he shaded them with his thick, beautiful black lashes, but I also saw that his frown was one of dismissal. He hadn’t really seen me, although he had felt something ‘off’, and I supposed it might just be a matter of time before he detected my disguise—after all, he was a Royal.

* * *

“Gaiscioch … I need you … don’t you know how much I need you?” Morrigu clutched at me, and I wanted to drive my death sword through her brain and stop her lips from speaking.

I could see she was in a terrible state, babbling on and on about a Seelie Royal that had appeared out of nowhere to visit with her and then left abruptly. Her madness was getting worse.

I knew of course it had been Danté on the prowl, and I also knew I was going to have to find a way to get Danté out of the Dark Realm before he discovered the portal I had been building so meticulously in the dungeon of the castle. I thought about killing Danté, but I knew a very grand obstacle stood against me. He was, after all, a Royal—and one of the best warriors that had ever protected the Seelie Realm.

What to do? The only way Danté would leave was when he had the little bitch Daoine princess in tow, and I had no idea where she had gotten off to.

I also didn’t want Danté to find my war chamber, where I had an array of maps of Ireland and Scotland neatly laid out and very visible.

“Where did he go?” I shouted at Morrigu, hoping to frighten her into clear-headed speech.

“I don’t know, my darling. He came …” She eyed me mischievously. “I … introduced myself and … well it all happened so fast. I was … er … talking to him when all at once this Daoine appeared, a princess—Gais, she was in a rage. She threw my vase at him and then immediately vanished. It was most upsetting—Gais … I need you.”

“Get some clothes on, Morrigu, and get some control over yourself. You need to regain some of who you were when I first got here. You used to be so much more … lucid.”

“I swear … I am telling you the truth.”

I pulled at my lower lip as I thought the matter out. Danté had more than a passing interest in the Daoine princess. She was more than a mission to him. I came to the conclusion that the two were lovers. That would explain the little bitch’s anger when she found Danté with Morrigu.

I felt an unaccustomed chuckle ripple through me as I was struck by the picture this must have presented to the little bitch. However, my amusement was short-lived as I remembered that they were both loose in what I had come to think of as
my kingdom
. I would have to enlist the help of the four Dark Royals if I was going to ensnare the two. I sighed, not really concerned—after all, where could they hide?

Musing over this to myself, I thought of the proud Danté and his little half-breed. Daoine blood or no, that was what she was …

Right, so there we were, and the cold-blooded, logical Danté had finally met his ‘coup de gras’ with this child—for she was little more than that. How dare she stand up to me? Who by Danu did she think she was to stand up to me?

Well, I meant to use her to throw Danté off his game. Danté was particularly levelheaded and difficult to deter once he had a bone, but here now was yet a better bone to confuse him with. What I needed now was to get my hands on the Daoine, this Radzia of MacDaun, and then watch and be ready when Danté charged to the rescue.

These thoughts turned to another time—a few hundred years ago when I had, just for sport, done the unthinkable against a female human. I had done it just to hurt Prince Breslyn. But I had not anticipated the ferociousness with which the prince would come after me. Breslyn was for a Royal quite emotional, and he had actually gotten me into an awkward position.

I had taken a beating at his hands as he pounded me into the Scottish earth.

Danté had been the one to stop him, but not for my sake. He stopped Breslyn from killing me with the death sword because, at that time I, not being a Royal and not having found one, was unarmed. Danté did not want Breslyn banished and stopped him from killing me after he had beaten me till my face and body throbbed with unspeakable pain.

I shrugged these thoughts off and promised myself revenge against them all. However, now, now I had to think.

How to get the little Daoine into my hands? It was a task that might prove difficult. I looked at Morrigu, who had lapsed into a long dialogue with herself. She was off in another world.

As it happens, I don’t think I am good for her mental state. In fact, I think I am directly responsible for her decline …

She must have sensed my dislike, and it pushed her over the crumbling ledge she had been standing on for so long. The madness that had enveloped her years ago had not been given full reign until I walked into her life and hurt her over and over again. When I entered the picture, she had been serviced by her four Dark Royals and suddenly fancied herself in love with me.

I admit it, I had been cruel, but no matter; I would end her suffering soon …

Oddly enough, although they were nearly devoid of compassion and empathy, I had witnessed the Dark Royals’ affection, if one could call it that, for Morrigu. They never rejected her and seemed to even pander to her needs …

Especially Pestale. He had a decided air of kindness and gentleness towards her. It was odd—I thought when I first met them that they were not capable of such feelings; however, it would seem that the Dark King had tried to imbibe them with the softer emotions. At least when it came to Morrigu, it worked.

I didn’t have the patience for her antics and lived for the day when I might eliminate her. I watched as she donned the blue velvet robe I had thrown at her and thought what a shame it was that she annoyed me so. She was quite stunning.

“I want out of this Realm, Gais. You promised we would walk on Irish soil once more, like we did when we first arrived, free and happy, and rule all the little humans again. We have to attack them now. When do we let the
Green
Babblers
loose through the ravine portal to Inverness? When?”

I smiled at the thought of this. The Green Babblers are a particular caste of Dark Fae—as horrendously ugly as their brethren but perhaps even more dangerous to humans. They make a sound that can puncture a human’s eardrums and leave them in excruciating pain and used as food while they were still alive. I liked the thought of torturing the humans in this fashion. “Soon … another few days, and we will follow them out and watch them terrify, torture, and devour until we call a halt and bring order.”

“Oooh …” Morrigu purred. “It will be so much fun.”

These last few months with her had displayed very clearly what I had not seen when I first arrived in the Dark Realm. She was irrevocably insane. She had moments of lucidity, sometimes even days of clear sightedness where I was able to catch a glimpse of the Seelie Fae she had once been. However, there was no cure for madness. It was what all Fae feared. Fae Royals could heal nearly all things in humans and themselves if some affliction managed to get past their immunity shields, but madness … ah, there was no cure for madness in humans or ourselves. Morrigu would be something I would have to deal with, and soon, for she was a loose cannon that could ruin all my plans. If Danté had not been interrupted, there was no knowing what she would have told him in bed.