Harlequin Nocturne May 2016 Box Set (35 page)

They were seated in Tanzi's bedroom. The journey back from the lake had been a miserable one. Rounding up the dryads and persuading them to get back into the truck had been a difficult task. Sam had sustained a nasty injury, having hit his head on a rock when he fell, and Iago was still disoriented. Lorcan, Tanzi and Aydan were damp and miserable after traveling in wet clothing, and Lisbet's foul mood showed no sign of abating. All in all, it was a sorry group that Pedro had admitted to the safe house earlier that evening.

Wrapped in a blanket and sipping hot chocolate, Tanzi was still finding it difficult to get warm. Underneath the blanket she wore a thick fisherman's sweater over her underwear and a pair of Lorcan's socks. It was as if the lake water had invaded her veins. They had brought an old electric heater up from the cellar. Tanzi was seated in the chair with Lorcan a foot away on the bed and the heater whirred noisily, blowing hot air between them.

“Do you have other powers as well as necromancing?” It was something she had wondered about ever since overhearing Lorcan's conversation with the imps. Now it was even more relevant given that the devastating wound inflicted on him by the zombie sword just hours earlier had faded to little more than a deep scratch.

Lorcan had dismissed her questions about his injury with a shrug. “I've always been quick to heal.”

Now he regarded her thoughtfully before answering. “I've a trick or two up my sleeve.” He didn't elaborate and she sensed a distance that she'd felt before. Sometimes, behind the easy facade, there was a vulnerability about Lorcan—a torment deep within him—that placed him beyond her reach. She wondered why others appeared not to see it. He continued with his list of necromancers. “Niniane, the sorceress who was known as the Lady of the Lake, dabbled a bit in the old dark arts, but she died in the battle for Otherworld, so that's her out of the picture. Moving down the line, there is an elderly Russian necromancer called Novak, but he is a known recluse. I can't see him coming out of hiding to get involved in something like this. Then there are the twins, Darius and Nightshade, but the last I heard of them they had a very lucrative contract with the Ghost Lord sorting out some rebellious poltergeists. And that's it as far as the big hitters go. There are a few minor players on the scene, but none of them have the strength to do something on this scale.”

“You are sure there was a necromancer controlling those zombies?”

“Absolutely. I could feel it. There was another force acting against mine. Whoever raised them was close by. I'd say they were in the house with us. And he or she was bloody good because those zombies were being controlled without words. The necromancer who raised them was commanding them with the power of his or her thoughts. Given that zombies don't have brains, that's some feat. I've heard of it but I've never seen it done until today.”

Tanzi hesitated, reluctant to make a suggestion that involved a friend of his. Yet it seemed the most obvious solution. “Could it have been Jethro? He is a mercenary, for sale to the highest bidder, and he's worked for my father before.”

Lorcan gave it some consideration. “Jethro is certainly powerful enough. But, after Moncoya locked him up for not being able to defeat Stella on the eve of the battle, I don't think Jethro is your father's biggest fan. Maybe I'm being overly sentimental, but I also like to think we've been through too much together for him to set a trap like that for me, no matter how high the price.” He drained the last of his hot chocolate. “And he's got other things on his mind just now.”

“So who could it be?”

He shrugged. “My best guess is that there's a new kid in town. We don't always discover we are necromancers until we are older. Look at Stella. She had all that incredible energy inside her, yet she was twenty-five before she even began to acknowledge it. Whoever did this, he or she was pretty powerful to have kept control over that many zombies at once. Sooner or later, they will surface again. Until they do, we have a bigger problem.”

“Finding out who the traitor is.” Tanzi said it for him. She bit her lip. “Lisbet thinks it's me. I can see it in her eyes whenever she looks my way.”

He leaned forward and took the cup from her, placing it on the floor. Clasping her hands, he held them between his. “I know it's not you.”

“How can you know that?” She could hear the husky edge of emotion in her own voice. “Given what you know of me, surely I must be your first suspect?”

“You asked me just now if I have other powers. It's not a power as such, but I have a strong intuition, a foresight, about people. It is something that was passed down to me by my mother.”

Tanzi raised her eyes to the endless blue of his. “What does your intuition tell you about me?”

“It tells me that you are honest and good.”

Her breath hitched on a gasp. Until now, in the moment of hearing those words aloud, she had no idea how much they would mean to her. She had always believed the world saw her through the warped looking glass Moncoya held up as the means by which he wanted her to be seen. To know that someone—particularly Lorcan—believed in her sent a rush of pure elation flooding through her. Unsure of her intention, she leaned closer, closing the gap between them to a mere inch.

“Tanzi...” It sounded as if it was meant to be a protest. Even a warning. Then one of his hands cupped her cheek, and that simple gesture rocketed through them both. There was no turning back from that moment, no pretense and no finesse... Their lips ground together urgently. Lorcan's hand, sliding up through her hair to the back of her head, held Tanzi to him, and she closed her eyes, giving herself up to the commands of his mouth on hers. Her whole body was alive and aching with instant pleasure. Twisting her head, she fitted herself to him, and Lorcan growled in satisfaction. He was tasting her, exploring her, his lips moving possessively over hers, then, as Tanzi's mouth slowly opened, his tongue claimed her. That first entry of his body into hers was so stingingly perfect that Tanzi welcomed him with a soft moan.

One of Lorcan's hands moved below the blanket and under her sweater, sliding over her back, tracing her spine, and running all the way down to find the cleft of her buttocks. With that touch, the kiss changed again, becoming laden with new purpose. Hot and heavy. Panting slightly, Lorcan pulled away.

“I was going to say this was a bad idea...but suddenly it seems like the best idea I've ever had. If you're sure?”

Tanzi nodded. Her own breath was suspended somewhere between her lungs and her throat. “I'm sure.”

He drew her to her feet, holding her between his knees as he gazed up at her. Before either of them could do anything, there was an insistent pounding on the door. Lisbet's voice was insistent. “Lorcan? We know you're in there.”

“Ah, will you listen to that? Does that sound like a woman who'll go away if we keep quiet?” Tanzi gave a shaky laugh and shook her head. Pausing to lift her sweater and press a regretful kiss just below her navel, Lorcan rose to his feet. “My head tells me to leave this, but other, more insistent parts of me say we've unfinished business here,
Searc
.”

The piercing blue of his eyes burned a pathway directly into her chest as he rose and, with a rueful smile, went to open the door.

CHAPTER 8

“W
e need to speak to you.” Lisbet, accompanied by a slightly embarrassed-looking Aydan, had her hands on her hips as Lorcan opened the bedroom door. She peered round him and, taking in the fact that Tanzi was in the room, stepped back again. “In private.”

“No.”

Lisbet's existing frown deepened farther. “What do you mean ‘no'?”

“What I said.” Lorcan held the door wide-open in invitation. “If you want to speak to me you can come in and do it here.”

With a huffing sound, Lisbet pushed past him and into the room. There was a suspicion of reluctance about Aydan's manner as he followed. “We know who she is. I knew it as soon as that sidhe bent his knee to her,” Lisbet announced without preamble, pointing at Tanzi.

“
She
is the person who saved all our lives today.” Lorcan went to sit on the bed. He drew Tanzi down next to him, announcing his allegiance. He felt the rigidity in her slender frame and wished he could do something to reassure her.

Lisbet snorted. Her coal-dark eyes dropped to where Lorcan had lifted Tanzi's hand to rest on his denim-clad thigh. “Will you be so quick to fondle her when you know she's none other than the Crown Princess of the Faeries? Daughter of the war criminal Moncoya? Hell, if it comes to that, she's committed enough crimes of her own on his behalf.”

“You are forgetting one simple rule by which we work here. We don't judge those who come to us.”

Lisbet's eyes narrowed. “Can it be that you have known all along who she is?”

“I have.”

“My God, Lorcan. I never thought you, of all people, would make a fool of yourself over a pretty face.”

Aydan spoke up, his quiet voice somehow more powerful in the small room than Lisbet's shrill volume. “Maybe we should listen to what Lorcan has to say.”

Shrugging dramatically, Lisbet threw herself down into the chair Tanzi had vacated. Her expression was not indicative of open-mindedness.

“Tanzi has come here for the same reason anyone comes to us. She is escaping persecution. Her background is irrelevant.”

“If that's true, why have you taken such pains to keep her identity secret?” There was a flash of triumph in Lisbet's eyes.

“Because I knew how you would react and because, more than anything, we can't risk Moncoya finding out where she is.” Lorcan kept his voice calm despite the fact that Lisbet was starting to annoy him. Diplomacy wasn't his strongest point, and he was experiencing an increasing desire to tell her to get the fuck out of his face. The problem was, he didn't know quite how much damage Lisbet could do to Tanzi if she remained this wound up. So he needed to try to dredge up some tact so that he could calm her down. He was shocked at the bitterness he could see twisting Lisbet's face and couldn't for the life of him guess at its cause. Okay, so she hated Moncoya. They all did. But she'd seen what Tanzi did today. There was no way that was the behavior of someone who wasn't committed to the resistance cause. So where was all this venom coming from?

“What if Daddy knows exactly where his darling daughter is? He's probably using her to yank all our chains. You said yourself we have a traitor in our midst.”

“You think I controlled those zombies at the same time I was fighting them?” Tanzi spoke up for the first time. “Thanks for the compliment, but I'm not that talented.”

“We don't know what you are. That's the problem.” Lisbet's expression hardened further. “This is a honey trap for Lorcan, isn't it? That's Moncoya's strategy. Get him to fall for you and rip the whole resistance movement apart from within.”

Tanzi rose to her feet. Even wrapped in an old blanket, with Lorcan's socks peeping out beneath, she managed to look regal. “I should go.”

“This is your room.” Lorcan rose to stand beside her. “You don't need to go anywhere.”

“No, I mean go away. Leave.”

“Best idea I've heard,” Lisbet chimed in.

“You can shut up.” Lorcan decided he'd had enough of diplomacy. Lisbet opened her mouth to speak again, took note of his expression and thought better of it. “And you are not going anywhere,
Searc
. It's not safe for you to leave here. Anyway—” he glanced around to make sure everyone was listening “—if Tanzi goes, I go with her.”

With an outraged huffing noise, Lisbet bounced up from her seat and flung out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

“What the hell is wrong with her?” Lorcan stared at the door in bewilderment. “This can't all be about Tanzi. We've had high-ranking sidhes change allegiance before.”

He was conscious of Tanzi scanning his face. “You really don't know, do you?”

“Know what?” She shook her head, and he turned to Aydan. “Has anyone checked on Iago since we got back?”

“He said he wanted to sleep.”

“That was a few hours ago. I'll go down to his room and make sure he's okay.”

“I'll come with you,” Aydan offered.

“I'm going to see if Maria needs help in the kitchen.” To the surprise of everyone in the house, Tanzi had become something of a favorite with the irascible housekeeper. It was an unlikely friendship, but one which worked.

Iago's bedroom was two floors down and, when they reached it, Lorcan knocked on the scarred wooden panels of the door. There was no response. He tried again, louder and longer this time.

“I think we're justified in going in, given how unwell he was at the zombie house.” He turned the handle and was relieved to find the door unlocked.

The first thing that struck him as he stepped inside was the smell. It reminded him of his childhood, and at first he couldn't place why. Then he remembered. He used to sit outside the smithy and watch the blacksmith at work as he shoed the horses. It was a metallic smell, like heated iron. Except this was subtly different, earthier and rawer. The next thing his heightened senses perceived was that the room was empty.

Aydan flicked the light switch on and muttered an exclamation. The whole of one wall was filled with a giant pentagram—a five-pointed star within a circle—drawn in crude black brushstrokes. On the floor next to the bed lay a headless chicken and nearby, a copper bowl was filled with bright red, viscous liquid. That explained the smell. Fresh blood always had that metallic tang. Half-burned candles of black tallow had been placed on each side of the pentagram.

“I guess we know who was controlling the zombies.” Aydan's voice was shaky. “Aren't these signs of necromancy?”

“Ancient ones. Most of us have evolved beyond these.” Lorcan looked around the room. Tacked onto another wall were grainy photographs of each of the resistance members, with a particular focus on Tanzi. There were also pictures of Lorcan, Cal, Stella and Jethro. “We also know who our traitor is.”

* * *

Lorcan took Tanzi back to the bustling university square and sat on the same steps where they had eaten pizza when she had first arrived in Barcelona. It had been only a few weeks, but it seemed so much longer. He judged they had enough time to risk being out in the open, away from the claustrophobia of the house and Lisbet's disapproving glances. There would be time enough for running and backward glances very soon.

Lorcan studied her face as they talked. She still took his breath away every time he looked at her, but he knew now it had nothing to do with faerie glamor or enchantment. It was intrinsic to her. She enraptured him with who she was, not with any external spell. And that meant he was in bigger trouble than he'd originally thought.

“How much danger am I in?”

There was no point sugarcoating it. “It's not looking good,” Lorcan admitted. “I don't know where Moncoya found him, or how Cal and I have never come across him before now, but Iago must be enormously powerful to have pulled off that stunt today.”

“So it was all an act? He wasn't really unconscious at all?”

“No. He needed to be close enough to the zombies to control them, but he could do it through the power of thought. As I said, I've never seen it done before. Impressive stuff.” He wondered how many other new tricks Iago had tucked away and hoped he never needed to find out.

“And afterward? When he was still semiconscious and groggy? Was that also an act?”

“Who knows? Maybe he was still playing a part or possibly the mental exertion required to control that many zombies for so long really did sap his strength. We may never see Iago again, so we might never find out, but we know he's gone back to your father with some key information about all of us and—most important of all—about where he can find you.”

“If my father takes me back to Otherworld, he will make sure I never get away again.” Her eyes were so dark they appeared black.

“I think the time has come to tell me why that matters so much.”

She drew a deep breath. “He has arranged a marriage for me.”

Lorcan looked across the square at the crowds of students milling around. Their laughter and chatter jarred with the pain in Tanzi's eyes. “On the battlefield that day, you told me it was the way of your family to arrange a marriage for its princesses. You were resigned to your fate. What's changed?”

Her lips curled in an attempt at a smile. “I didn't know then whom my father had chosen for me.”

“Old and warty?”

“Oh, how I wish that was so.” She closed her eyes briefly. “My father has decided that mine is to be the honor of securing his return to his home and his former position of strength. More than that, through my marriage, I am to ensure he will become the undisputed and all-powerful ruler of Otherworld.”

“And whom will you have to marry in order to achieve that?” Lorcan subjected the leaders of the Otherworld dynasties to a mental review. Some of them might have egos the size of Otherworld itself, but he couldn't think of one of them who would make the sort of claims Tanzi was describing. An insidious worm of discomfort was beginning to writhe in his stomach.

“If my father gets his way, I will become the bride of Satan, Lord of the Underworld.” She said it so matter-of-factly that there was no room for doubt.

Even so, Lorcan recoiled in shock. “No, Tanzi, you must be wrong. Not even Moncoya would stoop to that.”

“The devil wants a son. A child who will grow up and rule the mortal realm. Many centuries ago, in a different pact, Merlin Caledonius was to have been that child. My grandfather, Cal's father, was responsible for the agreement.” Tanzi studied his face. “I see you have heard that story.”

He nodded. “Cal is my friend. He confided in me that his powers were bequeathed to him by Satan and how, after his birth, his mother hid him away so that his father—who was also Moncoya's father, of course—could not find him and hand him over to the devil.”

“That story put the idea for a new pact into my father's head. In return for absolute power over Otherworld, he offers the devil...me.” She made a gesture, indicating her body. “Young, good-looking, capable of bearing him the child he wants.”

“That fucking little...” Lorcan's hands tightened convulsively as though they held Moncoya's throat between them in a death grip. But there was no time for wallowing. “We have to get you away from here. Get you to safety.” Even as he said the words, his mind was working overtime trying to think where to take her. Where in the mortal realm or Otherworld could he keep her safe from her own father's evil ambition?

“There isn't anywhere.” It was as if she read his thoughts. “There is nowhere in either realm where he will not find me.”

“There must be somewhere.”

“I can think of only one place where he will not be able to touch me.”

Lorcan frowned. “Sure, aren't you a step ahead of me? I've still got nothing.”

Her expression was fathomless. “My mother was a Valkyrie, one of Odin's swan maidens.”

Lorcan gazed at her in dawning wonder. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

“It is the only place my father would never dare enter.” There was a touch of regret in her voice.

“So you are seriously proposing to travel to Valhalla, Odin's great palace and hall of the fallen heroes? Fiercely guarded portal to the rainbow bridge that leads to Asgard, home of the gods?” Tanzi nodded and he ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that was midway between frustration and disbelief. “And when you get to Valhalla, what then? You'll join the Valkyrie?”

Her smile was genuine this time. “I have all the necessary qualifications.” She was right about that, too. The Valkyrie were known for three things...their great beauty, their skill in battle and their unwavering bravery.

She was going to give up any other life she had and lock herself away forever inside Odin's great hall. Like a medieval nun entering a convent. But with less prayer and more blood and guts. Lorcan decided to ignore the feeling in his chest. As though something had just snapped. It was irrelevant compared with what Tanzi must be feeling. Was he going to let her do this? Not without a fight. “Setting aside the fact that you can't just walk into Valhalla, do you know how difficult that journey is? You would have to cross some of the most dangerous territories in Otherworld. My God, you'd be eaten alive. Quite literally.”

“Lorcan—” she turned so that she was fully facing him, her knees touching his “—believe me when I say I would prefer that to the alternative.” She took his hand and held it against her cheek. The gesture spread the pain in his chest lower so that his abdomen tightened. “I appreciate what you are trying to do for me, but I have no choice. I have to face whatever dangers the journey brings me. Valhalla is the only place I can go.”

It was the look in her eyes when she said she would rather be eaten alive than marry the devil that finally convinced him. No one should have to make that choice. He turned his head and dropped a light kiss onto her hand. “Well, at least you won't be facing them alone.” Her brow wrinkled and her lips parted, ready to ask a question. “I'm coming with you.”