Burning Desire (8 page)

She cringed when he said the name. “Balladyn has a vicious reputation even among the Dark. She is lost to you.”

“I doona believe that. I’m going to find her and return her to the Light. Help me.”

Shara stood and lifted her chin. “Just kill me now, because if I help you, that’s exactly what my family will do if Balladyn doesn’t get me first.”

Kiril walked to her and traced a finger along her jaw. “We can protect you.”

Her smile was full of sorrow. “Like the Kings protected Denae and Sammi? Yes, I know of the humans caught by my people. I can’t, and I won’t help.”

“Then why no’ walk out there now and let them come for me?”

“I’ll answer that if you can answer why you brought me here tonight.”

Kiril backed away. He’d had the best night of his extremely long life, and it was going to end on a sour note. “We’re at a stalemate.”

“That means it’s time for you to return me to Cork.”

“To your family.” He touched her left side so quickly she didn’t have time to step away or hide her wince. “Is that who hit you?”

Shara turned and walked to the front door. “I’ll walk back.”

Kiril bit back a curse and grabbed his keys as he followed her out. It was going to take a lot more than good sex to flip Shara to his side, but he wasn’t going to give up.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Rhi wondered how long she’d been Balladyn’s prisoner. The Fae she had thought of as friend, mentor, and brother.

The darkness was sucking the life from her breath by breath. She longed to see the sun, to feel its rays upon her skin. Every time she woke after Balladyn tortured her, it became more and more difficult to remember what the warmth of the sun felt like. What would go next? Remembering what it looked like?

Would she forget her family? Her friends? The Dragon King who had stolen her heart, only to shatter it?

She tried to hold back the tears that filled her eyes as she thought of her lover, but one still escaped and fell onto her cheek.

When they had been together it had been wonderful and perfect. It had come out of the blue, blindsiding her when he had ended things. Her world had been crushed, her heart destroyed. It didn’t matter what she said or did, he wouldn’t take her back. Remaining on the same realm had been too much. Rhi walked into a Fae doorway, intending never to return.

Because of her preoccupation, she didn’t realize where she was until the Dark attacked. She managed to get away, but not before being wounded. She wandered endlessly, dying slowly as she searched for a way out.

And then her body had quit on her.

The next thing she knew, she was back with the Light, her wound all but healed with Balladyn beside her. No matter who she asked how she got home, no one would tell her. Then it no longer mattered.

She let herself mourn the loss of her lover as Balladyn guarded her door. He looked in on her often, always there to hold her while she cried. Until all her tears were dried.

Or so she thought. How was it dozens of centuries later that she could still cry over a King who had turned his back on her?

She tried to move her hand to push away a strand of hair stuck to her chin, but she couldn’t even lift a finger. Rhi turned her head and used her shoulder to stop the hair from tickling her.

If she remained in Balladyn’s fortress much longer, she would lose the glow within her. The fact he didn’t bring even a candle or light the room with his magic told her he knew that as well. He wanted her to suffer.

All because he blamed her for Taraeth taking him and turning him Dark. The Balladyn she knew before wouldn’t blame her.

When she eventually turned Dark, would she do the same? It was a fact that no Light Fae ever ventured into the Dark’s realm. Who else would come? The Dragon Kings?

Rhi almost laughed at the thought. Constantine, the prick, would prevent anyone from even thinking about it. Never mind that she had risked her life by helping to rescue Denae and Kellan, and had been helping the Kings when Balladyn took her.

As for her lover … that was just wishful thinking. Whatever paradise they had found had only been on her end. He hadn’t loved her as she’d thought, hadn’t opened his heart to her as she had done.

She had been duped, suckered.

The laughable part is that she had begun to help the Kings again. Now, when she needed them the most, they were nowhere to be found. She should’ve known that’s what would happen. Once more, she had been tricked by them.

Would it be the Dragon Kings that she focused her hatred on? Would she go after them when she turned Dark? Would she even remember the Fae she had been when the evil took her?

Rhi hurried to dash away any trace of tears when she heard the sound of Balladyn’s boots hitting the stone as he approached. The last bout of torture had felt as if it lasted an eternity. She had been hanging onto the last of her hope when it finally ended. How many more sessions of torture could she endure?

The door of her prison opened and Balladyn walked in. He didn’t bother to close it behind him. She couldn’t raise her arms, much less stand, so escaping was out of the question. Thanks to the Chains of Mordare holding her, any time she tried to use her magic, an electrical shock went through her that felt as if she were being split in half.

“I didn’t think you could look any worse,” Balladyn said as he squatted beside her. His Irish accent was thick, making her long to hear a Scot’s brogue.

“Kiss my grits,” she said with as bright of a smile as she could dredge up.

“Still doling out the insults, I see.”

She forced a laugh that sounded crackly to her ears. “Me? Go eat yourself, douche canoe.”

Balladyn’s cold smile was his response.

Rhi inwardly shrank away, because she’d pushed him too far. Perhaps he would unintentionally kill her and end the hell she was living in.

Balladyn’s red eyes held hers as he stood and took a few steps back before he spread his legs and held out his hands, palms facing each other level with his chest. Rhi whimpered when the black cloud billowed from his hands, but it was drowned out by the deafening sound of evil yawning toward her.

She thought about the first time she had seen her lover, her magnificent Dragon King. The thought was barely in her mind before she was thrown across the room, her body slamming against the stone.

A scream tore from Rhi as bones shattered.

*   *   *

Shara entered her family’s home, her heart still pounding with excitement over her time with Kiril. After Kiril dropped her off in Cork, she was surrounded by Dark who had escorted her home.

She walked to the kitchen and looked around. They, like so many other Dark, had taken residence in a human home. Shara didn’t even want to know what her family had done to the original occupants.

The manor was large, the design ancient, and yet her family kept it updated with modern conveniences. Three hundred years ago, her mother had decided to give the manor a facelift and had the entire outside redesigned to look more modern.

The Fae—both Light and Dark—once fought to claim Earth as theirs, but the Dragon Kings hadn’t stepped aside. The Fae had relented to a truce when the Kings began to pull ahead. The truce stated that no Fae could venture into Scotland or remain on the realm for long periods of time, but there was something about humans that drew them. None could stay away for long. And somehow, someway the Fae began to integrate with the humans in Ireland. They kept themselves separate, but always near the humans.

As Shara looked around the house, it gave the appearance of humanity, but there wasn’t a scrap of good within the walls. Evil lived, breathed, and bred there.

She lived there.

How was it that she didn’t feel evil after spending time with Kiril? She was born into a Dark family, had done evil herself as was evidenced by her eyes and the silver in her hair. As she looked around, she felt like a foreigner in her own home.

“You’re back early,” Farrell said as he sauntered into the kitchen, his eyes raking over her. “Your hair is messed up. Did you get him in bed?”

She wasn’t sure why she made the decision to lie, only that she did the instant the words came out of her mouth. “Kiril has a convertible, if you’ll remember. Of course my hair is going to be messed up.”

“You were at his house. Didn’t you use your wiles?” he asked in a mocking tone.

“I did. He kissed me.”

“Kissed you?” Farrell twisted his lips in a smirk. “Is that all you managed with your
seduction
?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to go screw himself. Instead, she smiled sweetly. “I suppose you’re used to the whore’s seduction, brother dear. Would you even know what it was if a lady seduced you?”

“You’re no lady.”

Her smile grew. “Oh wait. You don’t know because you don’t know how to get a woman without using your name or the family money.”

“You little bitch,” Farrell growled and came at her.

He wrapped his hand around her neck, much as Kiril had done earlier in the night. The difference was, Kiril had held her firmly without hurting her, but Farrell was squeezing painfully. Shara stared into his eyes, daring him to do what he had wanted for decades.

“Farrell,” their mother said from the doorway. “Release her.”

Shara didn’t rub her neck as she longed to do when Farrell’s hand finally dropped away. She kept her arms by her sides and watched their mother all but glide into the room. Her completely silver hair was cut in a bob at her chin, not a hair out of place.

Her eyes blazed in red fury as she looked from Farrell to her. “Shara, you know this is your last chance to prove you’re one of us, our blood.”

“I’m making headway, Mother. Kiril knows I’m not a whore, so I can’t just go barreling in there.”

Her mother nodded regally. “Quite right. You’re being smart about this. For once. I’m happy to see that. I’ll be even happier when I see more silver in that hair of yours. If this assignment wasn’t so important I’d have you working for me and gaining silver in your hair by the day.”

Shara looked at her mother calmly. Had she been switched at birth? Why did the idea of hurting someone make her uncomfortable? She was a Blackwood. Evil should be second nature to her. If anyone had a hint what she was thinking they would strike her down where she stood.

Everyone in the house made her feel inferior, as if she hadn’t been born into one of the most powerful Dark families of the Fae. It wasn’t her fault she had been forgotten by them, and now it was all up to her to prove herself. There were times, like now, that she wanted to disappear.

Or better yet, have them disappear.

But that was never going to happen. She either completed her mission adequately or she died. It all came down to having Kiril captured or continuing to live.

It had been an easy choice yesterday, but now things were more … complicated.

Shara started to move past her mother when her hand reached out and her long fingers griped Shara’s arm painfully. “You’re testing my patience with that color you dare to wear.”

Shara glanced down at the dark gold dress. “I needed him to see me even in the shadows. It’s still a dark tone.”

“Black, Shara. Don’t make me remind you again, or it won’t be Farrell who has a hand around your neck.”

Shara bowed stiffly, her anger barely contained, before she pulled her arm free and stiffly walked to her room. Wearing dark colors had always come easy because she liked them. It had nothing to do with viewing pastels as weak colors, they just happened to be colors she didn’t care for. But there were times Shara saw a red dress, a white shirt, or even a bright pink skirt she liked. It felt like blasphemy to even think of those colors.

She kept her pace controlled as she walked into her room. Shara turned to shut the door and glanced into the corridor to find her guard take his place.

Once the door was closed she rested her forehead on it. Even now when she was doing what they wanted, they kept her cousin guarding her. Wasn’t she proving herself by doing what was asked?

How much longer would she be followed? Would it even make a difference if Kiril were captured with her help? She had a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t, not until her hair was more silver than black.

Shara thought back to when she killed the human females after her brothers and cousins had sucked their souls dry. There was no way she could witness that again, or even be party to it. Her family must know that as well. Why else would they keep her under guard?

She had remained under their thumb for centuries, locked in her room isolated from everyone and everything. She refused to allow that to happen again.

“Never,” she whispered and straightened.

There was strength and confidence within her that hadn’t been there before that night. She thought about Kiril, about how his kisses had weakened her knees while his touch had stolen her breath.

He had taken her wildly, passionately.

Completely.

And he might very well have changed her forever.

CHAPTER NINE

Dreagan Industries

Highlands of Scotland

Laith walked into Constantine’s office to find the King of Kings standing at his window staring out at the rolling land that the Dragon Kings had called home for eons.

“So much stayed the same for so long that it’s hard to grasp the changes taking place here,” he said.

Con’s shoulders lifted as he inhaled deeply. “You’ve the right of it.”

“What troubles you?”

“I’ve got an uneasy feeling about Kiril remaining in Ireland.” Con turned around and walked to his desk. He sat in the leather chair and regarded Laith.

Laith leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest. As usual Con was dressed in a suit, though his jacket hung on a hook on the wall. It was an appearance Constantine had taken two hundred years before, and it had stuck.

While the other Kings were content to wear comfortable clothing—no matter what time period they were in—Con was different. Always had been, and always would be.

“You think we need to go after Kiril?” Laith asked.