Master of the Night (17 page)

She met his gaze with her own rainbow stare. “Did you propose?”

He wasn't surprised she knew his plans. Janieda was far more intelligent and perceptive than anyone else realized. She'd told him once she chose to play the fool because it made others underestimate her. She'd have made a good queen if she wasn't so hot tempered and impulsive.

Llyr sighed, knowing he was probably in for a display of those less attractive qualities now. “Yes, I did.”

Janieda studied him with that too-perceptive gaze. He'd long suspected she could read his mind right through his shields. “And she's considering it.” She grunted in disgust, an odd sound in that high, musical voice. “Of course she is.”

Llyr shrugged. “I caught her at a vulnerable moment.”

“I should have let her die,” Janieda growled as she turned to pace. “I knew from the moment I saw her in my vision that she'd destroy you. Then, when she escaped, I thought I had best warn you anyway.” Bitterly she added, “What a fool am I.”

Llyr sighed. “She won't destroy me, Janieda.”

“Doom hangs around her, My Liege.” She turned to him, imploring. “Send her back to the Magekind where she belongs.”

He moved to take her small shoulders in his hands. “You know as well as I do there's no evil in her, Janieda.”

The fairy waved a dismissive hand and pulled from his light grasp. “Perhaps not, but she'll be your destruction anyway. Or at the very least, mine. She'll accept your proposal, and then you'll never touch me again.” Her mouth pulled into a bitter line. “You'll not risk dishonoring your wretched queen.”

“Janieda, you knew I would wed sooner or later.”

“Yes!” She spun toward him, glaring at him. “But all I wanted was another century or so. Can't you give me that much time? She's immortal—she can wait.”

Llyr sighed and raked his hands through his long hair. Janieda's passionate nature was one of the things he loved most about her, but it could also make his life extremely difficult. “One of the primary attractions of my offer is that it would keep the Majae's Council from ordering her death.”

“Oh, let them kill her. It would solve a multitude of problems.”

He shot his lover a chiding look. “Janieda.”

“She's a threat, Llyr!” his lover exploded. “Can't you feel it?” Suddenly she froze. Her face went blank, eyes wide in an expression that made the hair rise on the back of his neck. “I see thee lying in thy castle, thy magic gone, drained away to her. And the great demon laughing at the terror of your people.”

Llyr took a step back, feeling the chill spread over his skin. “No.”

Janieda blinked, life flooding back into her face. She frowned, reading his expression. “I had another vision, didn't I? I don't…I don't remember this one. What did I say?” Sometimes when the future spoke through her most strongly, it left her with no memory of what she'd seen.

In this case, that was a very bad sign.

“Geirolf is going to be a problem.” Llyr straightened his shoulders. He'd diverted Janieda's predictions before, and he'd do it again. He'd built a life from wrestling his fate in the direction he chose, and he wouldn't let her frighten him from his course now. “But I'll deal with it. As to Erin”—he focused on her face, willing her to listen, to yield to his will, to stop fighting him—“I need her as my queen, Janieda. I need her strength and her sense of duty, and I need the children she'll give me. And I mean to have them.”

The fire bled out of Janieda's rainbow eyes, and her wings drooped. “Even if it costs us our love?”

Despite his determination, Llyr felt a shaft of pity. She really did love him with all the considerable passion in her small body. And in his way, he returned it, though he'd never felt the same blazing emotion he'd sensed in her.

He stepped close to her and lifted her chin. “I have my duty, love. No matter how I may feel about it.”

She gave him the small, rebellious pout he'd always found irresistible, even when his better judgment advised otherwise. “I would have made as good a queen as she.”

“No, darling,” Llyr said gently. “You wouldn't have. Your heart has always been stronger than your head. And perhaps that's why I love you.” He leaned down and brushed his lips across hers in a tender kiss.

Something told him it would be the last they'd ever share.

When he drew back, a single tear rolled down her fragile cheek. “The thing I hate about you,” she said in a low, intense voice, “is your refusal to give me the comfort of a lie.”

In a blink she was no bigger than his index finger. With an angry beat of her wings, she soared off.

As she flew past, he thought he heard a tiny sob.

 

Parker crouched in
one of the clumps of thick foliage that surrounded the palace, stewing with frustration. He dared not go a step further for fear of running into the wards he could sense mere feet away.

The trail of his spell had led here, only to veer suddenly and wildly away. He strongly suspected it had been diverted by someone's magic. And now Champion and the little bitch were safely ensconced among a collection of magic users of some kind. They had a different feel to them than Erin had—some other species, perhaps, but he wasn't sure what. In any case, Parker knew they'd chew him up and spit him out if he were stupid enough to test those wards.

On the other hand, that was nothing compared to what Geirolf would do when he learned his sacrifices had slipped beyond his reach. Parker swore.

Just then, something glowing zipped past the wards. He ducked instinctively.

The tiny figure stopped in midair and screamed in pure rage. “That bitch! That thrice-cursed bitch is going to ruin it all!” She took a sobbing breath and called, “Ahern! Are you here? Come out!” She darted off.

Parker eyed her glittering path in speculation. “Well now. That's interesting.”

He rose from his nest of bushes and slipped off in pursuit of the tiny glowing figure.

 

Erin lay still
in the cage of Reece's arms, listening to his heart pound in concert with hers. He covered her, a hot, lightly sweating blanket of masculinity. Though he braced his body on his elbows, she was acutely aware of his weight and strength.

She had never had a man take her like this, not even him. When they'd made love before, he'd always played the laughing, tender lover. But tonight he'd been a ruthless seducer determined to stake a claim to her, to possess her. To take her in every sense of the word.

And he'd done it.

He'd branded her senses and her body with himself so thoroughly her body seemed to resonate with his.

And God, it felt so good.

She found herself imagining what it would be like to stay with him just like this. To give herself up to him, to his stunning, dizzying passion. To become part of him forever.

He was right, she realized, with a bitter sense of desolation. She'd never know anything like this with Llyr, no matter how many centuries they lived together. She'd crave Reece for the rest of her life.

Love him for the rest of her life.

And that was why she had no choice. Ironically, the sweet, erotic interlude he'd just given her had driven that home. She'd lost one man. She had no intention of losing another.

“That was incredible,” she said hoarsely, honestly.

She felt Reece smile against the curve of her cheek. “It was my pleasure.” He nuzzled her neck, breathing deeply of her scent. The feeling of his lips against her throat made Erin close her eyes as her body instantly responded to his need.

“But,” Erin said softly, “it didn't change anything.”

Reece stiffened against her. “What?”

“You're right,” she told him. “I love you. I need you. And I'm going to miss you for the rest of my life.”

She was unable to keep her eyes off him as he rose from the bed, naked and glorious. Anger and frustration heated his eyes as he realized what she was driving at. “It's a good thing you can have me, then.”

Erin sighed. “No. I can't.” She rolled off the bed, aware that he was watching her with a hot-eyed concentration. “The king has asked us to join him for the evening meal,” she said. She hesitated, then added steadily, “After that, he's going to expect my answer.”

Reece clenched his fists. “Tell me you're going to say no.”

“I can't.”

“Goddamn it, Erin!”

“Reece, all the reasons I gave you earlier still apply! The fact that I love you, that I need you, doesn't do one damn thing to change the situation we're in.”

“
We
can change the situation we're in! Yeah, if you'd gone insane, I might be in trouble with the Majae's Council now. Even then, I could argue that I'd had no choice except to take a chance. They're not completely rigid, Erin. That's why there's an appeals process.”

“And what if you lose, Reece?”

“I won't!”

“But you could. If I marry Llyr, I won't lose. I'll have the power to protect you and kill Geirolf.”

“At the cost of everything else we have! Since when did you become too big a coward to take a chance?”

“Since I got sick of watching the men I love die.”

“Dammit, Erin, I might as well be dead, because I'll never be able to touch you again.” Angrily he whirled away and stood rigid, his big fists bunched. “This is such bullshit.”

“Losing David ended my career and broke my heart,” she told him softly. “Losing you would rip out a chunk of my soul. And no, I'm not willing to risk that.”

He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes narrow. “Fuck that. You're rationalizing. This isn't a gallant act of self-sacrifice. You're just afraid to let go and open yourself up to me. You don't want to be hurt again. You'd rather live a millennium in a bloodless union with that damn fairy than risk letting yourself love me.”

There was just enough sting in those words to make her wonder if he was right. She pushed the doubt away. “Reece, I want nothing more than to spend the rest of eternity making wild jungle love with you, but that isn't an option. The Council—”

“—is not made up of complete bitches who won't listen to reason. But that's not the issue. Not really. If it was, you'd be willing to take a chance.”

“It's not just the Council. Geirolf? Remember him? Demonic alien who wants to sacrifice us? Does any of this ring a bell?”

“Oh, it rings a bell, all right. But it's beside the point.” Slowly he pivoted and began to stalk her. She resisted the impulse to back away. Barely. “The point is, I'm not just Reece Champion, I'm the American Champion. I'm always getting sent out on somebody's dirty little mission—the High Council's or the U.S. government's. Either way, people try to kill me on a regular basis.”

She glared at him. “I wonder why?”

Glaring back, he growled, “You don't want to take the chance that I'm going to die out from under you like David did. But if you marry the Sidhe, you don't have to worry. You know you're not going to fall in love with him, so if he buys the fairy farm, what difference does it make?”

Erin clenched her fists. “Think what you like. I know what I've got to do. And I'm going to do it.”

The fairy was
talking to a unicorn.

Amused despite the effort of maintaining a shield spell to hide himself, Parker lay still on his belly. The whole situation reminded him of boyhood hunting trips in the Georgia mountains years ago, when his father had taken him bow hunting for deer. He'd learned to move silently and stay downwind of his prey on pain of his father's fist and his own hunger. Venison had been a welcome relief from the endless hamburger and macaroni that was all the family could afford. He'd taken his first buck at the age of ten.

Odd, he thought, how the thrill of killing never dimmed. Particularly now that he was hunting men.

Or a reasonable substitute, anyway.

“What am I going to do, Ahern?” the fairy moaned. She'd grown to full size, and now she was draped across the uni-corn's bare back. The thin, filmy gown she wore draped deliciously over her ass, baring legs that were surprisingly long, though he doubted she'd have made five feet in heels. “He's going to marry that little bitch, and there's nothing I can do about it.”

There was a lot of power in those two. Parker could almost feel it, despite the shield that kept them from sensing him. If he could kill them…

“'Tis just as well,” the unicorn said, in a deep, sonorous voice, like James Earl Jones playing Mr. Ed. “Thou hast no business coming between thy Liege and his duty. And taking a Maja to wife would smooth his path to an alliance with Avalon. An alliance he doth need.”

Parker snapped to full alert, silently cursing the time it had taken to work his way close without being overheard. It sounded as though they were talking about Grayson.

But that was impossible. She'd barely been at the palace a day. How could she have wormed a proposal out of some fairy king that damn fast?

The fairy lifted her glowing pink head. “But she's tied up with Geirolf, Ahern! There's doom hanging over her. I can feel it!”

“Doom for thy Liege—or thy hopes?” the unicorn asked. “They are not the same, much as thee may wish t'were different.”

Hell, they were talking about Erin! Parker ground his teeth against a vicious curse. This was all they needed. If that little bitch got herself a powerful fairy ally, there was no way Lord Geirolf could touch her. And to make matters worse, she and Reece had probably already alerted the Magekind, which meant the whole plan had just slid right down the tubes.

Fear slid over him as he imagined his master's reaction to that bit of news. Would it be possible to slip away before Geirolf found out?

“But Llyr loves me, Ahern!” the fairy said, interrupting Parker's frantic thoughts as she sat up on the unicorn's back. “And he doesn't care at all for that bloodless little human.”

The unicorn heaved a deep sigh. “Thou wert always the most stubborn of my pupils. Have I not told thee that a king must follow his duty and not his heart?”

Hmmm. It sounded as though this Llyr had a thing for the little fairy. Now, that was an interesting piece of news.

Interesting enough, in fact, to save his ass.

Thoughtfully Parker reached for the gun that hung in his shoulder holster. With the absent skill of long practice, he pulled back the slide and extracted the bullet from the automatic's chamber.

He thought he might have just enough magic left for one last spell.

 

Erin was going
to accept Llyr's proposal.

Reece felt oddly numb as he watched the king lift her knuckles to his mouth and press a kiss there. He hoped a little viciously Llyr could smell his scent on her skin.

How could she do this to him? She'd responded to him as sweetly as any woman ever had. Yet ten minutes later she'd risen from the bed where he'd had the best sex of his life and cut his heart out without batting an eye.

Well. It seemed she'd become a Maja in every sense—all power-hungry ambition, just like all the other witches, with a heart locked behind a wall of ice.

He wanted to hit something. Preferably Llyr's perfect fairy nose. Bastard.

As Reece felt his muscles knot with the need to strike out, a ray of self-awareness pierced his jealous anger. Look at him. He'd always felt such contempt for men who couldn't accept a woman's rejection. Yet here he was, acting just as much the asshole as all the other needy bastards he'd ever looked down on. He had to get this under control.

Much as it hurt, Erin had a perfect right to choose whomever she wanted. He'd taken his best shot at changing her mind, but it hadn't worked. Now he was just going to have to suck it up and get on with business.

Reece heard the low murmur of her voice and looked around to see her blond head bend toward the king's. Pain stabbed into his chest. Somehow he managed to bite back the grunt, like a man taking a hard blow to the balls.

He'd lost every woman he'd ever wanted, ever needed, from his wife to Sebille. He'd thought Erin would be different.

It seemed he'd thought wrong.

 

Janieda pressed her
face to Ahern's silken hide and watched a tear roll down her nose to fall to the ground a long way down. The unicorn was old and wise, and he'd been her confidant since her childhood, when he'd taken on the task of tutoring her in the finer points of magic she'd had no patience for. For centuries there'd been no pain she'd felt that his calming presence couldn't soothe.

Until now. Now, when she felt a chilling, unfamiliar presence she'd rarely experienced in her long immortal life.

A presence she suspected was death.

But whose? Hers? The king's? Or merely, as Ahern believed, the death of her childish dreams of having Llyr for her own?

“I can't believe you don't feel it,” she said into his warm mane. Unlike a mortal horse's, it felt like silk beneath her cheek.

Ahern's great barrel chest rose and fell between her legs. “I have never had thy gift of sight.” Then he hesitated.

Something in his silence made her lift her head. “But you feel it anyway. Don't you?”

“There is something,” the unicorn admitted. He gave his horned head a toss. “Mayhap 'tis only that thy unease has spread to my spirit.”

“You know better than—” Janieda broke off, sensing the sudden presence of something evil, like a death stench on the wind. Ahern sidled in fear under her. She jerked herself upright on the unicorn's back, glancing around wildly.

A man rose to his full height from the shelter of a tangle of brush. He grinned at her.

Recognizing his species, Janieda relaxed, though Ahern's haunches bunched under her as he prepared to leap away. “Oh, it's only a human. It doesn't even have any magic.”

“Now, there,” the human said, lifting something and pointing it toward her, “is where you're wrong.”

The thing lurched in his hand before it belched fire and smoke with a dragon's roar. Ahern threw up his head with a sharp whinnying squeal, one of the few times in his long life he'd ever sounded equine.

Then they went down. Sheer instinct had her shrinking to winged form and flying clear. Janieda looked down, frantic, to see the unicorn lying in a tangle of long legs. “Ahern!”

To her horror, she saw a long, glittering rope of energy winding from him toward the human. The creature was stealing Ahern's life force as he died! But she could stop it, she could heal him….

Even as she started to throw a healing spell over him, Janieda saw the human gesture. A wall of light appeared before her eyes. Her spell splashed off it.

Wings beating frantically, she spun to see herself surrounded by a globe of force—swirling Mageverse energies. She flung herself at the curving shell, only to tumble back in agony as it repelled her. “No!” Janieda screamed. “Let me save him!”

The human strolled over to scoop her energy cage up in one hand. “I'm afraid I've got other plans for your magic than wasting it on a four-legged hat rack.” He examined her through the field with such gloating satisfaction she folded her wings and sank into a cringing ball. “Lord Geirolf is going to be real pleased to see you.”

Geirolf? Her eyes widened as the full horror of her situation rolled over her. Gods, had she brought on the very destruction she'd tried to avoid—just as she'd doomed Ahern?

Fear chilling her, she looked down at her old friend's cooling carcass and let the tears flow for him.

And herself.

In her misery, she barely noticed when the human used his stolen magic to transport them. Numbly Janeida watched through the shimmering walls of her cage as the Mageverse melted away, replaced by cold, dark stone. The magic here was so thin, she suspected he'd transported them to mortal Earth.

At first glance she thought he'd taken them to one of the human cathedrals, given the towering granite walls and stained-glass windows. Then she realized there was nothing holy about this place.

The windows depicted images of sex, torture, and death, while the walls were decorated with profaned Christian symbols cut into the black stone—pentagrams, inverted crosses, the swirling glyphs of magical wards designed to keep anything good away. Every few feet, goat's heads hung on the walls like torches, thick red candles driven onto their horns.

“What?”
The roar of rage brought her jerking around in her cage, her wings beating in agitation. A demonic creature that could only be Geirolf rose from a black marble throne to tower over the cringing Parker. “Llyr means to wed the bitch? And you
allowed
it?” He lifted a clawed fist for a blow Janieda knew would tear off the human's head.

Parker threw up a hand to protect himself. “But you can turn this to your advantage, My Lord! I have a plan!”

The demon stayed his fist. “Speak quickly, then.”

Through a fog of despair, Janeida listened as the human told Geirolf how he proposed to make use of her. Her tears became tearing sobs.

But this time she cried for Llyr, the man she loved. And whose doom she'd sealed.

 

“This…has possibilities.”

Parker relaxed, knowing himself safe as the towering demon form shrank down to that of a man. Thoughtfully Geirolf turned back to his throne and dropped onto it, bracing an elbow on the marble armrest. Looking closer, Parker saw human shapes carved into the stone, writhing in either agony or fornication.

Geirolf must be feeling more confident in his power if he'd taken the time to create this temple to himself, though the Satanist symbols were probably intended strictly to impress the mortals. Parker wondered how many women he'd had to sacrifice to both work the creation spell and shield the results from the Mageverse. He wished he'd been there to watch. He'd always enjoyed a good sacrifice.

And Geirolf had a real flair for the theater of murder.

“Yes, I do think this could work.” His master gestured, and the fairy's cage floated to his hand. Parker watched as Janieda's colorful wings fluttered in agitation. “You do seem to have found a prize. I suppose you've won the right to keep your life after all.”

Parker didn't dare even flick an eyelid in reaction, though he wanted to remind the demon lord that none of it had been his fault. He knew that was completely irrelevant.

It was, however, a good thing he still had plenty of magic left over from killing the unicorn. He had a feeling he might need it, if only to defend himself from his master's uncertain temper.

With a thought, Geirolf sent Janieda's cage spinning in the air as he contemplated it. The little Sidhe hunkered down, spreading her wings for balance as she watched him like a canary eyeing a cat. “Logically, Llyr will have already notified Magekind about my plans, which is a problem. But if your suggestion works and I can get my hands on the vampire and his bitch, I can work the spell and destroy the lot of them anyway.”

“Avalon won't take that lying down,” Parker dared to point out. “They'll try to launch a counterattack before you can finish.”

He shrugged. “I hope they'll hold off a little longer. They're still working on breaking the spell on the Grimoire, which is a good sign. And my forces are almost ready. Once I finish transforming them all, they'll be able to battle the vampires on equal terms.” Geirolf rose to his feet. “Or almost. They won't be a match for both the Majae and the vamps, but all they have to do is delay them long enough for me to complete the spell.”

Parker trailed after him as he moved to fling open a set of double doors and led the way out onto a balcony overlooking a courtyard. Below, men and women waited in ten long, snaking lines to reach one of Geirolf's priests. At the head of each line, an acolyte knelt before the priest and was offered an obsidian cup.

As Parker watched, a woman drank the draft the priest held to her lips. She took one swallow and choked, then fell back in convulsions. Writhing on the ground like an epileptic, she kicked and shrieked as all the color leeched from her skin. Inside her screaming mouth, her canine teeth lengthened to fangs.

At last she rose, her skin as waxy as a corpse. The hungry look she turned on the mortals in line made them flinch before the priest drove her away with a crack of magical energy. She retreated, snapping her fangs at him like a dog.

“I got the idea from Merlin,” Geirolf said idly, “Though I don't believe the original ceremony with the Knights of the Round Table was quite this dramatic.”

Parker looked around to see that his lord held a cup that matched the ones the priests held down below. “Now,” Geirolf said. “It's your turn.” He smiled slowly. “My loyal lieutenant should partake as well, don't you think?”

The agent licked his lips as fear stole through his guts on a wave of ice. For a wild moment, he thought of transporting himself back to Washington and forgetting the whole thing.

Then he took the cup.

 

Erin sat at
Llyr's right hand and took another mechanical bite of whatever exotic dish the Sidhe had laid before her now. They might have saved themselves the effort; she tasted none of it.