Cruel Enchantment (5 page)

Not that he was happy tonight.

He picked up the bottle, rose to his feet, and hurled it against the wall. It smashed into a thousand glittering pieces and leaked amber down to the floor. Satisfied, he grunted and slumped into his chair, throwing his hair back with an angry snap of his head.

Fuck him six ways, he had his greatest enemy locked in his forge.
Goibhniu
, he still couldn’t believe it. How stupid could she be to enter Piefferburg? She knew godsdamn well that the fae had a long memory. Apparently she’d been hoping her glamour would protect her against him. And normally it would have. She’d probably never expected the magickal net he’d put in place for her.

Thank Danu and all the gods for Ronan Quinn.

Yet, despite the fact that he’d had graphic fantasies about what to do with her if he ever laid hands on her, he was finding himself flummoxed when faced with her in the flesh. He’d always imagined throttling her on the spot, but he hadn’t been able to do it back in the Boundary Lands. She’d looked so fucking innocent standing there in the woods, so
surprised
. He’d ambushed her good, though she’d fought him like the demon she was.

The exact reason why he hadn’t crushed her throat right there on the road to Piefferburg City remained elusive. It appeared her death would have to wait until he was ready.

So, for now, he would simply savor his victory . . . and get stumbling drunk.

Aileen
. Never had her memory been so sharp as it was tonight. He could still scent the light gardenia of the perfume she’d swipe on her wrists and under her earlobes. His fingers curling in his lap, he could recall the smooth skin of her abdomen and her inner thigh. Her laugh still rang clear in his mind when he called it up, and the way she’d whisper his name in the middle of the night, so full of need, made his cock hard even now.

In the years since her death, he’d been in more than one serious relationship but none of those women had diminished her memory. He’d known Aileen since they’d been in the cradle. Both of them had belonged to the Unseelie Court from birth and had grown up in Ireland, under the Shadow King’s rule. Their parents had been friends and he and Aileen had played together as babies, learned to walk together through his parents’ garden, and run away from each other’s cooties before adolescence had hit.

Back then they’d lived in a small village in Northern Ireland, side by side with humans who didn’t know their true nature. Most of the fae had lived in cottages in the woods in that area, while the humans resided in the village itself.

In childhood Aileen had used her looks to get away with all kinds of shit another little girl never would have been able to pull off. He especially remembered the bout of bad behavior she’d displayed when she was about eight. He’d caught her catching and tormenting animals in the woods, projecting her inner pain onto poor defenseless rabbits and birds. The things she’d done to them had been gruesome, but he’d understood that it had been her way—no matter how misguided—of dealing with her traumatic home life.

It was an act that had complemented her magick. She could cause a living thing to bleed internally until it died. That was what made her Unseelie, but it was only part of what she’d done to the animals. Letting them bleed internally hadn’t been enough for her. Thinking about it still gave Aeric a stomachache.

He’d helped her through that dark period of her life, helped her through the pain of having an insensitive drunk for a father and a cold, unloving bitch for a mother. It was a time he didn’t like to think about, something he’d kept secret from everyone to protect Aileen. Usually he pushed it far from his mind because it tarnished his memory of her, but tonight his emotions were so high they forced him to recall everything.

They’d always shared a special bond, knowing absolutely everything about each other. That bond had deepened when they’d turned sixteen and noticed each other as more than friends. They’d fallen in love—an unbreakable, magickal kind that was rare even to the fae folk. They knew every aspect of each other and shared a unique psychic bond. Essentially, they were soul mates, two halves of one whole.

He would have given his life for hers, if he’d been able.

If Aileen were alive today, they would be married— soul-bonded, no less—and have a passel of kids, Danu willing. He pressed the flat of his hand to the center of his chest. It physically hurt to think about his loss.

A knock sounded on his door. He shot up from his place, stalked over, and answered it with a snarl, pissed off at being disturbed.

Kieran snarled back. “What’s your problem?”

Aeric stepped aside and let the big man through the doorway. Kieran wasn’t a blacksmith, but still he had the build of one. “Sorry, man, I’m not in the best of moods.”

Kieran entered, clearly riled by the welcome he’d received. Scowling, he glanced around Aeric’s apartment, seeing the disarray. His eyes lighted on the smashed whiskey bottle. “Your place looks like shit.”

“Thanks for your honesty.”

“Anytime.”

Aeric couldn’t really say it didn’t. His apartment was one of the nicer ones in the keep, since he’d always been one of the Shadow King’s favorites. His ability to twist charmed iron was the reason why. The place was twice the size of the quarters other Unseelie nobles kept in the Black Tower, airy and open with a high ceiling shot through with heavy wooden beams. The kitchen area stood kitty-corner to the living room. His bed was in the opposite corner, separated by a polished black wood partition. Right now the place was a mess—clothes scattered everywhere, empty takeout boxes on the coffee table, dishes stacked up near the sink. He needed to hire a maid.

Kieran’s gaze lingered on the broken whiskey bottle on the floor. His scowl deepened. “Are you all right?”

Aeric smiled and swung an arm wide. “Great, my friend. Never better. Just celebrating.”

“Celebrating what?”

There was no way he could tell Kieran about Emmaline. Emmaline had killed Kieran’s twin brother during her days as the Summer Queen’s assassin. In Aeric’s opinion Diarmad Ailbhe Eòin Aimhrea had more than deserved it. Kieran knew it, too. All the same, Kieran would want revenge on her—and revenge was
Aeric’s
to take and no one else’s.

He lurched to the side and sank into a chair, waving his half-full whiskey glass at him. “I’m celebrating the end of an era and the glimmer of dawn on the horizon. Closure, that’s what I’m celebrating. Want a drink?” He tipped his glass to Kieran and then drained it.

Kieran eyed him like Aeric had grown another head and then answered, “Not right now. Gabriel’s wondering where you are. Asked me to come find you.”

Fuck
. The Wild Hunt. He’d totally forgotten.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He glanced at the floor-to-ceiling fae-woven tapestry depicting the fae wars of the sixteen hundreds that hid the door to his forge. “Just have to take care of something before I leave.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re acting weird.”

He stood, sliding his empty glass onto the cluttered coffee table. “Are you worried about me, Kieran?” The man had enough worries of his own, what with carrying the mother of all evil curses. It was really sad when someone like Kieran Aindréas Cairbre Aimhrea was concerned for him.

Kieran grunted and turned away. “I’m just delivering a message, but you know where I am if you ever want a drinking partner, okay?”

“Thanks, man. Tell Gabriel I’ll be up in a few.”

Once upon a time the membership of the Wild Hunt had been a closely guarded and well-kept mystical secret. They rode every midnight on the backs of stallions that came from the Netherworld and with mystical hounds baying at their sides. The dogs led the way to the souls of the fae who had departed during the night. The Wild Hunt’s job was to collect them—a task passed on to them from some higher power they didn’t know or understand. The Morrigan, most thought. But last year when the Shadow King had discovered he had a daughter—and subsequently tried to shred her soul in an effort to keep her from attaining the Shadow Throne—all that had been exposed.

Gabriel, the Lord of the Wild Hunt, had been in love with Aislinn Christiana Guinevere Finvarra, the Shadow King’s biological daughter, and had moved heaven and earth to save her from the king’s wrath. As a last resort to save her life, Gabriel had called on the power of the Wild Hunt. Aeric and the rest of the host had been at Gabriel’s side to help. In the process, the host had been revealed. Now all the fae knew who the reapers were.

He showed Kieran out and slammed the door behind him. Leaning one palm up against the dark wood, he bowed his head and closed his eyes against an encroaching headache. Pushing a hand through his hair, he grimaced. All he wanted right now was to crawl into bed, but he had a duty to the hunt. He took his responsibility to the parted souls of Piefferburg seriously.

Only one little loose end to tie up before he left.

Spinning away from the door, he gathered his courage and headed to the tapestry. Flipping the edge to the side, he opened the door to his forge.

He stepped inside the dark room. Immediately he grabbed the upper part of the handle of the weapon whizzing toward his head. Pivoting, he wrenched it from her fingers and slammed Emmaline’s slender body against the wall behind him, pulling back a little so he didn’t kill her with his weight.

But it had been a bad idea to hold back. Moving faster than he’d anticipated, she twisted to the side, freeing herself, then caught his leg with hers and swept his foot out from under him. Stumbling, he caught himself just in time. A heartbeat before it was too late he saw the leg swipe had only been a distraction and whirled to catch the handle of the ax she was swinging toward him. She grunted in frustration as he stopped it cold, only inches from his thigh.

Goibhniu, that had been close. She’d had a weapon in each hand.

“No,” he growled into her face. “Bad girl.”

He yanked the charmed iron ax from her and threw it, making it clatter and scrape against the floor as it hit the opposite wall. He pushed away with her upper arm firmly in his grip and led her to the back of the forge like a recalcitrant child.

“Let me go!” she raged, trying to yank her arm away from him.

It was a nice show of spirit, but he was twice her weight and her magick was of the nice, light, Seelie variety—she couldn’t kill with it directly. Not that it stopped this woman from killing. For a pure-blooded Seelie Court noblewoman, she was as deadly as they came.

He bared his teeth inches from her face. “Never.”

He roughly whipped her around to face him and grabbed a pair of charmed iron cuffs from a nearby worktable.

Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare.” Her voice echoed in the huge, dark room.

He let out a mirthless laugh and slapped them around her wrists. “You can’t even imagine what I would dare. These are to keep you out of trouble and stop you from trying to chop me into little pieces with my own weapons. That was beyond cheeky, woman.”

“You don’t have to use charmed iron.” She gasped as the magick touched her skin and began to do its work. “My skill with glamour isn’t any threat to you. This is just plain cruel.”

“Get used to cruel.” He tipped her chin up, a cold smile playing on his lips. “That’s all I have in my heart for you.”

Her eyes clouded and she sagged forward, catching herself before she crumpled to the ground. Charmed iron lying against fae skin was very unpleasant. It stripped away all magick, rendering the prisoner naked and vulnerable. It also made the wearer sick if left on the flesh for a long period of time. Eventually that exposure killed the fae. During the wars some had inflicted horrible torture on their enemies by injecting charmed iron under the skin. It was not a good way to die.

“I have a specific reason for using charmed iron on you. I want to see your true face,” he growled.

She blanched. For the first time since he’d seen her walking toward him in the Boundary Lands she actually looked frightened. Her guise began to fall away, the charmed iron stripping her ability to mask her appearance.

Her shoulder-length red hair darkened to a deep, rich brown that was nearly black. It became thicker and longer, flowing over her shoulders and curling gently down her back. Her heart-shaped face elongated, the chin and nose becoming sharper and the forehead higher. Her mouth became fuller and a slight cleft formed in her chin. Her green eyes deepened to a dark brown flecked with amber and changed contour, transforming from round and guileless to mysterious and almond shaped.

She remained slender and tall, fragile looking enough to snap between his hands, though that was an illusion. Her eyes never lost that disturbing inner innocence, either. Those were two things he’d been counting on changing. Gods damn her! He wanted the outside of her to match the inside—hard, twisted, brutal, and merciless. Instead she was . . . pretty.

As she slumped defeated against the wall behind her, dissatisfaction clawed in his gut.

Pulling her cuffed hands protectively against her stomach, she gazed up at him through the long, dark curtain of her hair. “Happy now?”

No, he wasn’t happy. She wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. Too attractive by half. Too innocent and vulnerable looking. He’d been expecting a bruiser—someone heavy and hard. Someone who appeared capable of killing a blameless woman in cold blood just because she was jealous.

He scowled at her. “No, so I guess I’ll just have to find other ways to make you miserable that might content me.”

Puffing out a breath of air that stirred her hair, she looked down at her feet. “You’re the one person in the whole world best able to make me miserable, Blacksmith. Hit me with your best shot.”

“I plan to.” He stepped back, not finding the pleasure in the exchange that he wanted. His hands itched for the now broken bottle of whiskey. This woman hadn’t been in his forge for twenty-four hours yet and her presence was already driving him to drink.