Shadowspell (26 page)

I fought back my urge to argue that I wasn’t stupid, seeing as she had me trapped here. If only I’d been willing to tell Ethan about the Erlking’s brooch, I’d be perfectly safe right now, and Ethan wouldn’t have gotten shot.

Trying to look completely casual, I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jeans. The brooch was right there, and it was very likely that if I pricked my finger, neither Aunt Grace nor her henchmen would be able to see me, even though they knew I was here. It was tempting, but I wasn’t sure how Aunt Grace would react if I suddenly disappeared.

Surreptitiously, I glanced down at Ethan. He was leaning against the wall of the tunnel, his eyes closed, his face pale. I didn’t think he was unconscious, but he definitely wasn’t in good shape. If I disappeared, I knew without a doubt Grace would use him as a hostage, and since I couldn’t make the charm stop working until time was up, that meant Ethan would die.

“That boy is your Achilles heel,” Grace said. “I knew if I kept a close watch on him, you’d show up on his doorstep eventually, but I never dreamed you’d be so accommodating as to show up alone.” She cocked her gun and pointed it at Ethan.

I didn’t even think about it; I just stepped between them, blocking Grace’s shot. She smirked.

“You can’t protect him from both myself and Fred at the same time. But I’m not planning to kill him. Not unless you make me, that is. And no, I’m not planning to let my friends kill him, either. I want him alive.”

“Why?” I asked, because I couldn’t imagine what she’d have to gain by letting Ethan go.

Her smile broadened. “I will explain in just a moment.”

Ethan tried to call out a warning, but it was too late. I started to turn around, but before I could dodge or block or even duck, lineman Fred’s fist connected with my chin and sent me flying into the opposite wall. The whole world seemed to tilt sideways, and the walls of the tunnel closed in on me.

*   *   *

I woke up to find my situation had not improved. My head throbbed viciously, and my stomach lurched. I blinked and pushed myself up into a sitting position.

I was still on the floor of the tunnel, approximately where I’d landed when Fred had hit me. He stood towering over me, his arms crossed over his barrel chest. He was so big he practically filled the tunnel, and even if my head hadn’t been swimming, I wouldn’t have been able to dart around him.

I turned to look in the other direction, and my stomach gave another lurch. While I’d been out, Grace and her other friend had dragged Ethan about ten yards down the tunnel. Her friend held Ethan’s sagging body up, with his arms pinned behind his back, while Grace held her gun to his head. She smiled at me again. She was having a grand ol’ time.

“As I said, your Achilles heel.” She licked her lips. “You were willing to risk a great deal when the Erlking took him, now weren’t you?”

I didn’t really think that question required an answer, so I just stared at her. How the hell was I going to get out of this? And get Ethan out of it, too? I hadn’t gone through everything I’d gone through just to let Aunt Grace kill him.

“Do you know how old I am?” she asked, and I was totally startled by the question that seemed to come out of nowhere. I shook my head. I might have mentioned that I didn’t care, either, except I was still kind of dopey after that blow to my head.

“I am almost two thousand,” she said.

My mind couldn’t encompass that. I’d known she was old, but I’d somehow thought her age numbered in centuries, not freakin’ millennia.

“When I was a young woman, all of Faerie was practically under siege.”

“By the Erlking,” I said, because I couldn’t imagine any other reason she’d be telling me this.

“Indeed,” she confirmed with a nod. “He and his Wild Hunt were the creatures of nightmare, even to the Unseelie Court, who are nightmares themselves. No one liked to admit it, but he was a match even for the Queens, and his power kept growing greater and greater. Until one of Mab’s spies discovered his secret power, the power that was helping him grow stronger, and Mab spread the word throughout all of Faerie.”

Her eyes shone in the artificial glow of her light spell, and I could tell she was really, really enjoying herself. Which meant that whatever the point of this story was, I was going to hate it.

“It was around this time that Titania launched her great campaign against the Erlking and learned the hard way that he had grown too powerful for her to defeat. He stole my nephew, forced him to become part of the Wild Hunt. It was a bold and brilliant move, proving to both the Queens that he had the power to take from them even those who were closest to them. However, the Courts now knew his secret power and could guard against him using it. And so the Erlking proposed a truce with the Queens. He would never again kill any member of their Courts without their permission. And they would bind their Courts to secrecy, to hide his secret power from future generations.”

This was way more than my dad had ever told me about the Erlking’s bargain with the Queens. He’d given me the impression that the geis wouldn’t allow him to speak about it at all, but apparently that wasn’t the case, at least not for Aunt Grace.

“Shall I tell you the Erlking’s secret?” Grace asked, chortling.

I blinked at her. My heart was beating like a frightened rabbit’s, and my mouth was completely dry. Anything that made her that happy was not a good thing for me. Not at all.

“You can’t,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper as dread tried to steal my breath. “The geis…”

She laughed, the sound echoing hollowly against the stone. “Oh, but I can, my dear. You see, the geis only applies to those who are affiliated with the Courts. Those of us who were born in Faerie were dedicated to our Courts while still infants, and unless we perform a ritual to formally sever our ties, we are still subject to them. Avalon may have treaties with Faerie, but if the Queens wanted to call their subjects back, most of the Fae would obey their call.

“But thanks to you, my own beloved Queen ordered my execution and sent the Wild Hunt after me.” Her face twisted in a snarl, and the hate in her eyes was so intense I felt it almost like a physical blow. “With my life forfeit anyway, it meant nothing to me to sever my ties to the Seelie Court. And when I severed the ties, the geis lost its power to silence me.”

My mind reeled as I tried to take this all in. Things were starting to click into place in the back of my head. I could feel it happening, but I couldn’t seem to wrap my brain around it, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to.

“Let me take a wild guess as to what you promised the Erlking in return for your boyfriend’s freedom,” she continued, her eyes aglow. “Did you by any chance pledge to give him your virginity?”

I really, really wanted to deny it, but I was too shocked to say anything. Even as hurt as Ethan was, he managed to raise his head and look at me with widened eyes. I hated my own cowardice as I dropped my gaze.

“Of course you did, because there is nothing he could want from you more than that. Because, you see, therein lies his secret power. When a virgin gives herself to him of her own free will, he can take from her everything she has, everything she is. All her power becomes his, all her life force becomes his, and when it is over she is nothing but an empty shell that once was a person but will never be again.”

chapter twenty-four

Everything that had happened since the Erlking came to Avalon now suddenly made a sickening kind of sense. I had assumed that what the Erlking wanted was for me to ride out into the mortal world with his Hunt so he could get his jollies killing mortals. But I realized now he’d been playing me from the very beginning. He guessed correctly that I wouldn’t be willing to take him into the mortal world, so he made a big production about how he wanted it, and wanted it bad. Made me think that my riding with the Hunt was his ultimate goal, the Big Bad. When all along, he’d wanted more. Much more.

“So what you’re telling me is that if I, er, fulfilled my bargain with the Erlking, he’d become a Faeriewalker himself?” I asked, just to make sure I fully understood what Grace was telling me. I knew there was at least a slim possibility she was lying to me, but her words had the devastating ring of truth.

“Exactly,” Grace said, sounding incredibly self-satisfied. “And so would begin a reign of terror the likes of which the mortal world has never seen. Mab and Titania were similarly able to guess the Erlking’s intent, of course. He’d have a dramatic effect on the mortal world, but the Queens must be horrified at the idea of him absorbing a Faeriewalker’s ability to bring dangerous technology into Faerie. They’ll be even more eager to kill you now.” She made a mock pouty face. “Too bad they won’t get the chance.”

Yeah, that was a real shame. But I still wasn’t dead, and every word Grace spoke made me more and more certain that wasn’t a good thing. She touched her tongue to her upper lip, like she was literally savoring the taste of victory.

“I could kill you now, of course,” she said casually, moving the gun away from Ethan’s head and pointing it at me. I had the vague thought that I should take advantage of the fact that Ethan was no longer an inch from death, but I couldn’t imagine how. “But where would be the fun in that?” Grace continued, and Fred the Mountain Man laughed.

The gun moved back to Ethan’s head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fred rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

“Naturally, I don’t know the exact terms of your agreement with the Erlking,” Grace said. “But I can make some educated guesses. He released your boyfriend from the Wild Hunt, so he must have felt he’d completely ensured your cooperation. Which means he has to have put in place a stipulation that there will be unpleasant consequences if you were not to preserve your virginity for him.”

My stomach heaved as it dawned on me just what Grace was leading up to.

“He can’t kill anyone unless given permission by one of the Queens, so he can’t have controlled you with threats of killing your loved ones. I suppose he could have threatened to kill your brother, since he doesn’t belong to the Courts, but you don’t even know Connor, so I hardly think that threat would be potent enough.”

She turned and looked at Ethan. “But this one is a different story. This one still bears the Huntsman’s Mark. And I’ll wager if you were to lose your virginity to someone other than the Erlking, that would void your agreement and lover-boy here would be bound to the Hunt once again.”

I tried to shut off my emotions, my fear and my horror. I didn’t want to give Grace any evidence that she was right, plus I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. I failed miserably. My stomach heaved again, and this time I couldn’t get it under control. I puked up everything I had in my stomach, then followed that up with a few dry heaves.

“Disgusting creature,” Grace said, wrinkling her nose delicately. “Are you sure you want her, Fred?”

Fred laughed, the sound nasty and spiteful. “She’s not really my type, but for what you’re paying, I’m happy to make the supreme sacrifice.” I could hear just how much of a sacrifice he thought it would be.

I spit a few times, trying to get the foul taste out of my mouth, but it didn’t work. I sent Grace my most pathetic, pleading look, even though I knew it didn’t have a chance in hell of working.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said weakly. “It’s me you’re mad at, not Ethan. Just let him go. Please.”

I was giving Grace just what she wanted, and her cheeks flushed with pleasure. I clamped my jaws shut and resisted the urge to beg some more.

Heedless of the gun pointed at his head, Ethan struggled against the other man’s hold. I think at that point he’d have found it a mercy if Grace shot him, which was probably why she didn’t. He was too badly injured to have much hope of escaping, and his face was etched with pain.

Grace frowned at Ethan. “I don’t want you distracting me. I want to savor every moment of this.”

Instead of shooting him, she slammed the butt of the gun against Ethan’s wound. He screamed, then went limp. Grace’s half-Fae friend let Ethan’s body collapse to the floor, then planted a foot in Ethan’s back and pointed his gun at his head.

“I’ll keep him under control,” he told Grace. There was no emotion in his voice, like he didn’t care what was going to happen one way or another.

Grace turned her full attention to me, and if I’d had anything left in my stomach, I’d have hurled again. Fred grabbed me by one arm and yanked me to my feet with so much force I would have fallen down again if he hadn’t kept his hold on me. Then he slammed me into the wall, knocking all the breath out of my lungs. While I was still struggling to breathe, he grabbed my wrists and pulled them up above my head, pinning them to the wall with one big hand, his grip so hard I could feel my bones grinding together. Ethan yelled a protest, but injured and pinned to the floor as he was, he couldn’t help me.

No one could help me. Or Ethan. No one but the bad guys even knew we were here, and we weren’t anywhere near the more populated regions of the tunnel system. Fred was going to rape me, and in doing so bind Ethan to the Hunt once more. And then Grace was going to kill me.

Despite all my lessons with Keane, I knew my self-defense moves weren’t going to be enough against Fred. He was just too much bigger than me. The best I could hope to do was slow him down.

My terror was like a living creature writhing in my chest and belly. Tears streaked my cheeks, but I didn’t care about that, didn’t care about appearances, or how much satisfaction my pain and horror were giving Grace.

I knew now what hatred felt like. It was an ice-cold burning sensation in my gut. It was an enraged scream that clawed its way up my throat. It was a narrowing of my world until there was nothing that existed except me, the hatred, and its object. Fred put his hand on my breast and squeezed brutally hard. I felt it, and the human part of me cringed, but the hatred had taken charge, and Fred was barely worthy of its interest.

I turned my head to stare at Grace. Grace, who blamed me for every mistake she had made. Grace, who wasn’t satisfied to get her revenge by simply killing me, but who had to torture me and condemn Ethan.