Witch Way Out (Witch Detectives #3) (17 page)

Niall kissed me back thoroughly, but stopped me when my hands went to his shirt buttons. “We should talk first, Elle. Things are getting out of control in the city.”

“Are you going to try to get me to leave?” I asked.

He reached up to caress my face. “Not just you. Siobhan, your werewolf, my staff. Everyone. I’m not asking you to abandon them.”

I caught his hand and kissed the inside of his wrist. “Just to run.”

“Sometimes, running is all there is. Do you think the goblins will take the death of their leader lightly?”

I knew they wouldn’t. I’d seen how they reacted to Ulm’s death. I’d
felt
it. I’d felt the anger there, the grief and the uncertainty, all mixed together into something that could unleash a storm.

“They blame me.”

“In the heat of the moment,” Niall said, his fingers tracing down the exposed skin of my arms. “My worry is about who else they’ll blame. You said you felt magic. You told them that much.”

“You’re saying that they’ll blame the coven?” I froze as I considered the implications of that. “You’re talking about war.”

Niall nodded, and then his fingers did go to my clothing, starting to peel my top from me.

“The goblins have been restless for days. They’ve had a leader who was trying to get them to move forward slowly and carefully. Now, that leader is dead, and they are angry. Angry enough to come up to the surface, maybe.” He kissed his way along my neck, down the line of my collarbone. “Edinburgh isn’t safe, Elle.”

No, it wasn’t. I could see it now, the goblins rising from Underneath, pouring out through entrances at the Vaults, Arthur’s Seat, maybe a thousand other places. A sea of them. No, not a sea. A tidal wave. One that would crash into another wave coming the other way. The coven would meet them with violence and fury. If what Niall had heard were true, then they already had kill teams in the area, not to mention the power of the three coven representatives. I had no doubt that Flora would be a terror in battle, while Elizabeth and Lucille…well, they didn’t get to be among the most important witches of the coven without power.

“We should leave, Elle,” Niall said. His hands swept over my skin, his lips moving over the upper surfaces of my breasts.

“Are you trying to persuade me or distract me?” I asked him, pulling him up so that I could kiss him.

“Either. Both. Whatever will keep you safe. We can take the people who matter to us when we go. Keep them safe elsewhere until we can come back.”

Assuming that we ever could. Just the thought of that was enough to bring a pang of pain to me. I’d lived in Edinburgh my whole life. It was
home
. My place, full of so many things I loved so much.

“I…I can’t do it, Niall. I can’t go. I know it’s stupid. I know I’m being stubborn. I know what’s coming. I know all that, and I still…” I looked into his eyes. “And I need to find out who did this. Please tell me you understand.”

Niall sighed and kissed my face in butterfly touches, his lips brushing my eyelids, my nose and my mouth.

“Of course, I understand. I understood the last time I made this suggestion, but I still had to make it. I know how much this city matters to you. I know why you couldn’t go back to the coven. I also know that this is going to be worse than anything you have faced before, Elle. This much violence…I am afraid. When I was alone, I was not afraid, but now…the thought of losing you terrifies me. Even the thought of some of the others dying…the connections we create make things harder.”

“But also more beautiful,” I said. I pushed him back onto the bed, moving to straddle him as I started to undress him, bit by bit.

“Elle—”

I silenced him with a kiss. “Let me do this, Niall. It looks like you’re the one who needs distracting.”

I pinned his hands to the headboard, wrapping his fingers around it so that he knew to stay like that. I kissed my way down to the hollow of Niall’s throat, nibbling lightly at the skin while my fingers worked at the buttons of his shirt. I pulled it open, and for long seconds, I explored the skin beneath it with my hands and mouth. I kissed my way along the firm muscles of Niall’s abdomen, moving up to lick my way around his nipple. He gasped when I bit lightly.

“Feeling distracted yet?”

I didn’t wait for a reply. Instead, I pulled away his trousers and boxer shorts, freeing him quickly. I wanted him, and so I took him, kneeling so that I could take the length of him into my mouth, bringing him close, so close, to the edge.

I stepped back so abruptly that Niall groaned.

“Oh, no,” I whispered. “We aren’t done yet. Although we will be if you let go of that headboard.”

Niall half-closed his eyes. “A dire threat.”

I smiled. “I thought so.”

I undressed as slowly as I could. It should have felt like an indulgence, taking the time to do this while around us the city might be about to burn, but instead, it felt like an affirmation. A way of reminding myself of exactly what was important enough in my life to be worth staying for. To be worth fighting this battle for.

I undressed with Niall’s eyes following me hungrily, moving slowly until I stood before him naked. I let my hands move over my own skin, teasing him just a little with the sight of it until I thought that Niall might not be able to keep his grip on the headboard after all. Would I be disappointed or secretly pleased if he lost control and ran over here to claim what we both wanted so much?

Somehow, he found the self-control to wait there, looking so utterly beautiful while he did it. My own self-control wasn’t so perfect, not with him there waiting for me. I moved over to him, settling myself down over his hips and guiding him into me. I looked down at Niall, my eyes locked onto his as I moved there above him.

We started slow. I wanted to savor this moment. I wanted to lose myself in this moment. I wanted, just for now, the briefest of pauses before we had to go back into the fray around us. It wasn’t quite the same as the massage Niall had given me in his living room, but there was the same intent. Just to shut out the world for a little while so that it became just us.

“Elle, please…”

I didn’t think I’d heard Niall beg before. Certainly not in bed. But I knew what he meant. I could feel the pressure building up in me, too. There was a time for gentleness, and there was a time for more than that. I moved faster, loving the feel of us joined there. Loving every movement we made together, faster and faster, until…

“Oh, God!” I cried out as we came, almost in the same moment. Pleasure burst through me and I collapsed atop Niall, the aftershocks of it running through my body. But if I thought that was it, I was wrong. A second after we climaxed together, I felt the moment when our powers merged, tangled, and
burst
outward.

Emotion flashed through me. Our emotion. The emotions of Siobhan and Nea, down below, both so serious about something. The houses nearby. The streets. The city. For a moment, just a moment, it was as if I saw the whole of Edinburgh spread out below me, and it seemed so bright. So filled with colors. It was as if every street light was on, blazing at once.

Yet, the lights I saw had nothing to do with the city council’s public safety strategy. I knew as I saw them that they were emotions. I could see them, flickering and changing from instant to instant. Half a million people’s worth of emotion, the individual points of light turning into tides and sweeping around me. I could see everything from the outskirts of the city to the docks, the heights of Arthur’s Seat to the depths of Underneath. I could see it all, and in that moment, only one thought came to me.

This is mine. My home. My place.

As abruptly as it had come, the sensation vanished. The image vanished with it. I was beside Niall now, his arms wrapped around me as he looked into my eyes. He smiled as I came back to myself, kissing me gently.

“You never cease to surprise me, Elle. That was…”

“You saw it, too?”

Niall nodded.

“What does it mean?” I asked. It reminded me a little of the first time we’d slept together. I’d felt so much then, so much more than just the two of us. But that had been a part of me coming into my powers. What did this one signify?

Niall shrugged. “I do not know, Elle. I only know that whatever it is, I will be here for you.”

“No more trying to persuade me to run away?” I asked.

Niall laughed at that. “It didn’t work before. After that…I have no chance.”

I smiled. “None whatsoever.”

Because this was where I fit. Where I belonged. Maybe even where I had to be. Of course, having to be there meant that I needed to start thinking about the situation and my many cases again. My many, many cases.

“I’ll say this, Elle,” Niall said, sitting up. “When you decide to distract someone, it certainly works.”

I froze. Something about the words nagged at me. Told me that they were important. I forced myself to concentrate for once. To concentrate the way it seemed I hadn’t been concentrating for days. Wait…could it be that simple?

Had so much of what had been going on in the past few days been simply about distracting me? I’d had the case on the dig site, and about half a dozen others. Far more than I ever should have had in such a short space of time. I’d chased around after them, trying to find evidence, trying just to keep on top of them. With the dig investigation in particular, I’d been pushed to keep concentrating on it. To find an answer. Or maybe just not to look elsewhere.

Where was I not meant to look? Two things sprang to mind instantly. One was at the buildup of tensions between the coven and the goblins. It had been there, rumbling away in the background. I’d been told about it by the goblins, and by the coven. Yet, every time I tried to get too close to it, I’d either been warned off, or something new had come up in one of my cases. Someone didn’t want me involved.

The other thing that came to mind was my mother’s death. I wasn’t sure why it did, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was involved somehow. I’d gone to the archive, and I’d been told to get back on the case. I’d kept going with it, and the coven had come out with a contract to bring me back under their control.

Who was it? Was it all of them? Some of them? None of them? How could the coven kill Ulm without it being obvious? How could a witch find her way Underneath without being spotted?
Without being killed?

There was only one answer to that. They had to have had help. Goblin help. Goblins and witches working together. Why? I found myself thinking of what Ulm had reminded me about. That there were factions. That goblins weren’t anywhere near as stupid as people thought. Which goblins though? I didn’t believe that Ulm would have come to that meeting room for someone he didn’t trust, and Kal would never have worked with a human on something like this, which just left…

“Oh, no,” I said, standing and scrambling for my clothes. “Niall we have to get back down there.”

“Elle, what is it?”

“Nea,” I said. “Nea killed Ulm!”

I had barely finished dressing when Siobhan’s scream came from downstairs.

Siobhan was still screaming while I sprinted downstairs, the sound turning into something animal and inhuman, equal parts fear, pain and anger. I made it downstairs in a matter of seconds, bursting into my living room, my powers flaring within me.

The room was a mess, and not just the normal kind of mess that came from having a goblin teenager living with me. Furniture was overturned, books lay on the floor, and at least one cushion was torn open raggedly. Siobhan was slumped back against the wall, clutching at knife wounds in her shoulder and thigh, her screams turned to a low whimpering now.

I was still staring at her when Nea hit me from the side. I turned inhumanly fast, and that was the only thing that saved my life. Pain burned its way across my upper arm and stomach as the knives she’d been so quick with before sliced into me.

I kicked out, and she cut at my leg, forcing me to pull out of the attack. I lashed out with emotion, and I found shields slamming down in front of me, as tight as any witch’s. I pushed up against them anyway, feeling them creak under the weight of the emotion I threw at them.

“Why, Nea? She’s never done anything to you!”

“But that child of hers could.” Nea stepped forward, crouched and ready to fight. “I like her. I really do, but I can’t let that happen.”

“Just like you couldn’t let Ulm live?”

I expected a reaction, but Nea’s expression was cold, and I had no chance of feeling anything behind the shields she had locked down between us.

“Ulm was necessary,” Nea insisted, and then lunged forward at me again, obviously hoping to catch me off guard. It almost worked, because the goblin was fast. She was far more dangerous than she looked.
Far more.
I barely leaned back in time to dodge the knife that came for my throat, deflecting the second one as it came in low and sidestepping, using the movement to push Nea away.

She twisted like a cat, staying on her feet. Niall started toward her, but I raised a hand.