Cruel Enchantment (9 page)

He blinked at her. “Now,
that
I almost believed. Good acting.” He turned and walked out of the forge, returning to dump a blanket and pillow onto the floor near her. Wow, a pillow and blanket. She was making progress. Maybe he felt guilty about nearly strangling her to death.

After he left, she snuggled into the blanket and put her head on the pillow, trying to find a comfortable place on the floor and failing. Cold concrete wasn’t anything like comfy and her throat hurt like hell. Plus, there was nothing like almost being murdered in your sleep to keep a girl awake. Time to give up on sleep. Shivering, she sat up and hugged herself, leaning up against the wall behind her.

On the upside, she was further along with Aeric than she’d thought she’d get so soon—and she wasn’t sure how she’d gotten there. No matter. She had a sliver of hope that she might live to finish her mission and that was all that mattered. It was more than she could wish for, considering.

She stared into the blackness of the forge and remembered things she wanted to forget. The night she’d killed Aileen, she’d gone to the upper echelons of the Seelie Court to execute one of the worst known torturers of Unseelie, Driscoll Manus O’Shaughnessy, on the Summer Queen’s command.

O’Shaughnessy had gone outside the bounds of all fae law, capturing non-human-looking Unseelie fae—goblins, alps, and joint-eaters, among others—in the wars. He’d bring them back to his house, where he had a room set up for such things, and would slowly torture them to the point of death, never allowing them to tip over the edge.

By not killing them he’d avoided the wrath of the Wild Hunt and proven beyond doubt the old adage—there are worse things than death. He would tear off their fingernails, drive nails through their hands and feet, cut off their eyelids, among other fun party tricks, and then abandon them within the bounds of Unseelie land to be found and nursed back to health . . . mostly.

No one really knew why he did it. Maybe he hated the Unseelie so much he felt driven to such unspeakable acts. Maybe he thought he was serving the Summer Queen in some twisted way. Or maybe, as Emmaline believed, he was just a sick fuck who got off on torture. It didn’t really matter to the Summer Queen why he was doing it. She only cared that his behavior created tension between the Summer and Shadow Royals at a time when a shaky peace was beginning to come about.

When it became known to the Summer Queen that O’Shaughnessy was the disturbed bastard doing these things, the queen ordered him killed right away. By the time Emmaline had been charged with his assassination, news of his identity had begun to spread through both courts. Since there would be plenty of others ready to kill him, Emmaline was ordered to get to him first, as a show of faith to the Shadow King. It was one death that Emmaline had never been conflicted over doling out.

Emmaline had donned the guise of his hobgoblin servant and let herself into O’Shaughnessy’s home in the dead of night, her crossbow and quiver concealed on her body. She’d done her research on the Seelie noble and knew the older man had no wife, no girlfriend, no children. All he had in his enormous home were scads of house hobgoblins, all safely tucked into bed for the night.

She padded silently on plush carpets fit for the Summer Queen, traveling down a corridor toward his bedroom, past the door that she knew led to the room where he did the torturing. Even the air outside of it smelled of foulness—unwashed bodies, sickness, misery, and the very edge of death.

O’Shaughnessy’s bedroom was dark, except for the slight light of the moon outside his window. He was in bed, just as she’d presumed. Stepping into the room, she changed to her regular form—not her true form, but the red-haired one she used the most—sought her bow, and nocked a quarrel. Drawing the string back to her ear, she sighted a spot on his back. She was no torturer. She made her kills fast and as terror free as possible—even for scum like Driscoll Manus O’Shaughnessy. Killing a mark while he slept was best for everyone involved. If she got the shot right, the mark never knew what hit him.

She fired.

The body in the bed arched backward and screamed. The scream was feminine, the curve of the body slender and slight.
Wrong
. Cold panic poured into her as she realized what she’d done. It wasn’t O’Shaughnessy in that bed; it was a woman.

Her crossbow clattered to the floor and Emmaline rushed to the bedside to take her victim into her arms. The poison was working fast, but the woman was still alive. Her face had a stark look of terror on it.

And, of course, Emmaline recognized her.

No one could mistake the fall of white blond hair, wide green eyes, perfect skin and face for anyone but the most beautiful of the Unseelie noblewomen—Aileen Arabella Edmé McIlvernock. She looked like an angel; everyone said so. Now she looked like an almost dead angel.

Aileen gripped her upper arm hard and said, “Tell Driscoll I love him.” And then she died, blood spreading on the bed in a rusty-colored pool. Emmaline had it all over her hands and arms.

Only a moment after Aileen slumped to the mattress, O’Shaughnessy entered the room, talking to Aileen. It made Emmaline’s stomach roil. He stopped after traveling three steps into the room, taking in the scene with his hand still on the tie of his bathrobe as though he was about to remove it. His face went white, his eyes wide, and his mouth opened and closed. Then he dropped to his knees, crying out Aileen’s name in anguish.

Emmaline stared wide-eyed at the scene, unbelieving that such a coldhearted bastard as O’Shaughnessy could be capable of grief.

A moment later he lunged for Emmaline. And Emmaline lunged for her crossbow.

She was faster.

Swiping up her bow and quiver at the same time, she nocked a quarrel and leveled the weapon at him.

He stopped dead in his tracks and held up his hands. “Wait. I know the Summer Queen sent you, but I have money. We can talk about this.”

“Certainly,” she answered with the cold-blooded ease she’d cultivated over the years, “but we can only talk in the language my crossbow speaks.”
Death
.

Her poisoned bolt caught O’Shaughnessy in the throat. He stopped in the middle of the room, gargled blood as he clawed at the blue-and-white-feathered fletching, then collapsed dead to the fancy, slick black stone floor, blood forming a murky puddle around him.

It had taken Emmaline only moments to assess the situation, moments to understand that she’d royally, incredibly, fucked up. A fuckup so large that it would alter her life forever. Aileen had been having an affair with O’Shaughnessy without Aeric’s knowledge, hence her presence in his bed. Even then, Emmaline had worried about how Aeric would take this devastating news.

Because she was a total idiot. Gods, she’d always been an idiot for Aeric.

She considered leaving Aileen in O’Shaughnessy’s bed, allowing those who found them to make the obvious conclusion.

Except, they wouldn’t.

Everyone had known about Emmaline’s crush on the Blacksmith. Anyone who happened upon the scene would think she’d killed Aileen on purpose—that, upon finding Aileen in such a compromising position, there with O’Shaughnessy, Emmaline had taken the opportunity to get her competition out of the way.

Even at her worst, Emmaline would never have done such a thing. Anyway, she’d never thought she’d had a shot with Aeric. Even if Aileen had never been born and he’d been free to be with any woman in the world, she never would have imagined Aeric even looking in her direction.

Since she didn’t see an upside to leaving Aileen there, she’d dressed and moved Aileen’s body in order to save Aeric pain. It had been hard. Aileen was a slight little thing, but she’d been heavier than she appeared. Emmaline was strong, in shape because of her “job” requirements. With effort, she’d been able to move Aileen’s body to the woods before morning. Knowing she’d inconvertibly placed the blame of Aileen’s death on her shoulders by doing this, she’d disappeared into the dawn, left fae life, and never looked back.

She’d run away.

It had turned out to be a blessing in disguise because by running away, she’d been liberated. The yoke of service to the Summer Queen had been broken. Lars became only a monster to haunt her nightmares—instead of her reality. Though life had been hard for many years, she’d soared on high-flying wings for a long time, though the guilt of what she’d done had stayed with her forever. Decades later, being cut off from her people had finally started to weigh on her. Instead of flying, she’d floated, entering relationships with humans only to have them grow old and die. Eventually, she’d lost touch with her faeness almost completely.

Then, centuries later, the HFF had been formed. She was one of the founders, along with two other fae who clung together in the sea of humanity. Lillian and Calum were her two greatest friends.

Danu, she sure missed them right now.

 

 

THE
fact that Gideon’s intuition still tingled annoyingly where Emily Millhouse was concerned was only an excuse for the real reason he was breaking into her apartment. He wanted to see what kind of underwear she wore.

The lock was cheap and gave easily. He let himself into the living room and breathed in the faint, lingering scent of her perfume. By the streetlights outside, he could see that the place was furnished more sparsely than he would have imagined. He would have thought floral patterns for Emily, stuffed animals, handmade quilts, and lots of houseplants. Instead the furniture was neutral in color, fairly unremarkable. There were no houseplants, quilts, or stuffed animals.

He stopped at an end table and picked up the copy of Brother Maddoc’s book lying there—
The Threat of the Fae in Modern Times
; he scoffed and dropped it back down. Gideon had read it, of course. Maddoc pandered to popular opinion, detailing the great danger the fae posed to humanity while also espousing a wishy-washy, compassionate method of dealing with them. Ugh. Gideon would have put the book straight into the trash can, but he didn’t want Emily to know anyone had been in her apartment.

The bookshelves near the television showed a similar taste in reading. Most of the books had been written by the Phaendir or by human scholars of the fae. Scattered among the nonfiction were the classics and a few mystery and romance novels.

The kitchen and bathroom yielded no surprises and nothing suspicious, just as he would have thought. There was only one more room to check; he’d saved the best for last. Moving silently down the short, narrow hallway, he entered her bedroom.

She had a twin-size bed. Good. Not big enough for more than one person. Gideon liked that. Spotting a pretty atomizer on her dresser—an item that looked completely Emily—he picked it up, squirted a little into the air, and inhaled. He closed his eyes, his scar tissue tingling all across his back and down his arms with pleasure. Wallowing in the scent of her, he could imagine himself in that narrow bed with her, her hands stroking down his furrowed back.

Setting the bottle down, he went for the drawers. Opening and closing them, he found sweaters, T-shirts, jeans, and socks. Then, finally, pay dirt. He scooped up a handful of the clothing that Emily had worn so intimately . . . and frowned. Again, this was not what he’d been expecting. He scooped up another handful. Sports bras and cotton briefs. Nothing silky, frilly, lacy. Nothing sexy.

That was odd, since she’d told him once that lingerie was her guilty pleasure. She’d said that buying it was her secret addiction because wearing delicate bras and panties made her feel desirable, even if no man ever saw them. Gideon remembered every single word of that conversation. He’d been expecting to find lots of lovely and expensive things in this drawer. Instead everything was depressingly serviceable and bland. The woman who had chosen these things wanted to feel comfortable, not desirable.

He rifled through the drawer hoping to find something that would tell him that Emily hadn’t been lying to him that day. His hand hit something hard, a jewelry box. Holding it up to the light, he could see that it was very old. Gideon was extremely old; he recognized antiques. This silver-plated box was from the early nineteen hundreds and had been well cared for.

Mystified, he walked into the bathroom with it, closed the door, and turned on the light. The bathroom had no windows, so flipping on the light wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention. The jewelry inside the box was even older. There were pieces that were clearly from the Victorian era, some much older than that. In fact, the contents of the box were essentially a walk through time, each piece representing a different era of history. Most puzzling, there was a pendant, a pearl in a filigree setting of a type that had been popular with fae nobles in the sixteen hundreds, just before the time of the Great Sweep.

The jewelry and the box itself were worth a fortune. What was it doing in her underwear drawer? For that matter, what was she doing with this stuff in the first place and how had she ever found it all? If he didn’t know better, he’d say it was the collection of a long-lived fae woman, mementos collected over her life. But that couldn’t be. Emily detested the fae. There was no possible way she would keep the jewelry box of one. The pieces simply had to be antiques she’d acquired somehow. Could they be family heirlooms of some kind?

Of course, that didn’t explain the pendant.

He held the filigree and pearl pendant up by its newer chain to the light and wondered.