Through Time-Frankie (14 page)

Maneuvering into a sitting position so she could see her surroundings, she realized she was in a dungeon cell. It was very small, and then she realized one more thing.

Stone? No, not stone. She was propped up and sitting on iron and her back leaned into iron, the ceiling was lined with iron and the door—iron. No windows, only a dark dank, iron cell.  

She was immune to the stuff, but her da and Graely were not, and would not be able to find her while she was imprisoned with the stuff. They would not be able to sense her while she was surrounded by the offending ore. Even she, like earlier when she didn’t see the bomb encased with iron, could be fooled. She had seen the iron box and looked past it. Would Jazz think to look past iron? Would she?

Outside her cell, she heard him laugh before she heard him shift away.

She looked around herself again, as though to assure herself it was true. Aye then, she was alone and in an iron clad chamber—even the bed, iron and no mattress. Just as well, she had no intention of taking a nap while she was there.

She returned to her inner mind to escape the constant pain.

What was Pestale planning? He hadn’t known she would fall through the portal. He hadn’t known—so what, no;
who
had he prepared this chamber for?

She started to reach her hands toward her feet where the netting was secured, to keep her from shifting below.

She had to ignore the agony each movement shot through her. She had to find the strength to stretch the netting around her feet and break through.

She may have gotten herself into this mess, but Pestale didn’t realize she was going to damn well get herself out.

In spite of her predicament, in spite of her tearing pain, Frankie, being Frankie, smiled as she thought of sticking her Death Sword through the Dark Prince, Pestale.

A nagging worry flitted through her mind again. Who had the netting been prepared for? He had said he was testing it, but for whom? What was Pestale planning?

Chapter Seventeen

GRAELY STEPPED OUT of his shift into Pestale’s castle in the realm of Conglam and looked down the long wide chamber. It was large and sparsely furnished because Pestale had designed it to mirror the War Room he had enjoyed in the Dark Realm.

As far back as he could remember, Pestale always maintained a war room.

Graely collected his thoughts as he pushed his black hair away from his eyes, and stomped across to the long oak table which was covered with scattered maps of Conglam. Nothing unusual about that, but it was the map of Dublin, with a red circle around Trinity that caught and held his eye.

So, as he feared, even against all his hopes, he found that it was true. Pestale had been behind the attack on the humans. How could he have hoped otherwise?

He didn’t know why his link with Frankie wasn’t working, but he was damned certain he would find her. He didn’t have much time because the wards would send him back to the Human Realm and he never knew when that would happen.

He closed his eyes and when he opened them, a low throttle growl burned in his throat. His relationship to his remaining two brothers was forever a pull he had to fight. He had not been able to hate them, for he had been a part of their lives, had been for eons, when there was little else.

However,
if Pestale had harmed his Frankie
, he shook his head involuntarily because he couldn’t think about that. It made him weak-kneed.

Graely stared at the nearly empty stone walls of the chamber. Few paintings hung, few weapons were on display. No doubt, Crystal did not allow them any. He knew, however, that Pestale had a Death Sword, had managed to spirit it into Conglam. He had never remarked upon it. Pestale was his brother.

So then, his Unseelie monsters were no longer available to him, and thus, having no army, he created another—out of the Blue Demons.

But Graely couldn’t deal with all of that now. He had to find Frankie. Pestale would kill her. He hated her for what she had done six years ago. He had to find her.

Bloody hell
, why couldn’t he pick up her scent, or reach her with his mind link?

He sniffed the air and this told him that even Pestale had not been in this particular chamber for some hours.

If Pestale had already captured her when she came hurtling out of the portal, she hadn’t been in this part of the rambling three story castle.  

He tried again to mind link with her, but if she was in Conglam, he couldn’t tell as for the first time in six years, he felt no connection.

All at once, he thought he would go mad if he didn’t find her. If anything happened to her he knew, he could no longer exist because he wouldn’t want to. A desperate sensation wriggled through his blood and teased his nerve endings. He was momentarily bereft of answers. He only knew he had to find her unharmed.

Frankie had once punched him playfully in the stomach and said, “Graely, ye have gut instincts, everyone does, ye just need to get in tune.” Very well, he told the memory now,
my own sweet girl
, he whispered out loud as he tried to focus on those instincts she said he had.

The effort took him away. He could see her in his mind’s eye, laughing, calling to him, murmuring, asking him to dance with her.

He could see her with her gold streaked black hair blowing wildly in the wind around her piquant beautiful face as she spread her wings to fly. He felt a swelling inside he could not deny. Where would he take you, love,
where?

At the sound of approaching footsteps across the stone floor, Graely turned, and put on a bored face, “Ah, brother.”

Pestale had entered the large cold chamber and stopped short to mumble, “What an unexpected pleasure.” His eyes narrowed as he surveyed Graely, and a suspicious light glittered in their depths.

Graely turned partially away from his brother. He was struck dumb because Frankie’s scent floated on the air.

He blinked and got himself under control. She was here. She was alive and she was very near. But where?

He took a moment to compose himself as he moved toward the large panoramic window overlooking the manicured lawns and topiary Pestale had installed when he and Hordly had first arrived in Conglam.

It had taken quite a bit of doing, with their limited powers; he had been fond of telling Graely during his visits.

He looked out on the landscaped lawns and lovely setting and said idly, “I would have thought you and Hordly would be satisfied here, with all this beauty…”

“I will not be satisfied until I have what I am owed,” Pestale said angrily.

“And what are you owed?” Graely turned to eye him. He was running out of time. He had to slip away and look for Frankie.

“Everything!” Pestale snapped and came closer.

Her scent! It was all around Pestale. Frankie’s scent was delicious. He wanted to breathe it in, but he couldn’t allow Pestale to see. It wafted on the air, bright and lovely, driving him mad. He had to get to her and soon.

He felt a sudden relief and almost laughed with joy because he was certain she was near. He restrained himself and maintained a cool exterior. What had Pestale done to contain her? Frankie was not one to be held prisoner. If Pestale had used the
Golden Wiele
…then perhaps that would work?

He said as casually as he could muster, “I came to tell you that Dublin was attacked, and that the Seelie believe
you
have something to do with it.” No eye contact, Graely told himself, look disinterested.

Graely walked away from Pestale sure that Pestale could not, would not connect him with Frankie. How could he?

He did what he always did, walked aimlessly around the room, as though life was one big boring day after another. However, he was all too aware that Pestale was watching him curiously.

Pestale chuckled over this, “Do they? They must think me very powerful to reach all the way from Conglam into their puny world. And if I did such a thing—to what end? I haven’t my endless Unseelie army, so what good would it do?”

“As you say, but, it is their fear, and fear makes humans react irrationally. They have no way of reaching Crystal or the Dark King to ask for help as those two have not contacted either Queen Aaibhe or Queen Mab in over a year. The Fae guarding the humans are warded from entering Conglam without the Dark King’s leave.” Graely shrugged, “So they are unable to travel here and see for themselves what you might be up to. It seems they might be momentarily stumped.’

Pestale was pleased, “
Stumped
, are they? I like that.”

“I thought I would visit here as long as the wards allow, in the event that you may need me.”

“Why Graely, I thought you had washed your hands of my machinations. I thought you liked the life of a lonely monk,” Pestale said on a half a tease, and once again with a touch of suspicion.

“I have done so, as you say, and have been living quietly, but I do not want my brothers slaughtered. If I can do something to help you in that regard, I would,” Graely was able to say quite sincerely. He had no wish to see his brothers destroyed; though he would kill them himself if that was what it would take to save his Frankie.

His mind was thinking clearly and his cunning was at full capacity. He had but one goal at that moment. To get to Frankie.

He needed to get away from Pestale and track her scent. Where could she be? And then he almost slapped his forehead as suddenly he knew.

Somehow Pestale had trapped her in the dungeons. How he had done so, Graely could not fathom, for Frankie was cocky for a reason. She was beyond powerful, beyond Fae Magic, beyond anything Pestale had ever tackled, because all her strengths were enhanced by her human ingenuity.

“Ah, he did build that into our psyche, did he not—brotherly…er, what shall I call it? Affection, no, that seems too strong a word,” Pestale said thoughtfully.

“Let us call it brotherly
interest,
” Graely said with a shrug of the shoulders. “We know one another, and have had only each other through eons, since the beginning. We all suffered because of our father. We have a common bond.”

“Precisely, and no doubt that is why he and Crystal try and keep you away from us. Our bond with you was broken six years ago. Your leanings were not ours. As I recall, you were instrumental in helping the child, the Fios Faeling. You would help her still, the child who is now quite a woman, wouldn’t you? No doubt, it is what Crystal witnessed that made her convince the Dark King to let you walk free in the Human Realm. They wanted you to develop
feelings
.”

“You are wrong, at least about that. I have always had feelings, as you call them,” Graely said. “How did you know the child had become a woman?”

“Stands to reason, doesn’t it?” Pestale evaded. “Six years have gone by.”

Graely wasn’t fooled, “You think Father or Crystal cared about me? How can you think that when they left me stranded in the Human Realm without direction or purpose. I am despised by the Daoine and Seelie Fae. Humans are afraid of me and keep their distance. They should you know, for humans are delicate creatures. One does not wish to involve oneself in their fragile lives. No, you have had Hordly here and Morrigu. I am stuck in the human world where,
I have had no one.”

Pestale laughed and put a hand on his shoulder, “As you say, your life has been difficult. Perhaps, soon all that will change. Come enjoy a glass of wine with me.”

Graely wanted to search the castle for his Frankie. A frantic emotion began to make his body twitch. His time in Conglam was limited. He never knew when the wards would send him hurtling back into the Human Realm.  He took the glass of dark red wine his brother handed him and sipped before asking, “Where is Hordly?”

“He went to visit Morrigu alone,” Pestale pulled a face. “Her human is out farming with the Shapeshifters.” He sighed, “If it weren’t that her human stays out of our way, I think I would enjoy flaying him, but then, no doubt we would have to listen to Morrigu crying for an eternity.” He shrugged. “I keep my distance, but Hordly does not. He forces her to meet with him in secret and do all the things we have always done with Morrigu on the threat that he will kill her human if she does not.” Pestale laughed.

Graely wanted to go for his brother’s throat. Morrigu had been doing well with the human, alone with her human. Why couldn’t Hordly let her be?

It dawned on him that he really did not have a shred of filial loyalty to either of his brothers and in that moment, he realized that he had grown to quite hate what they were.

Where was Frankie, was the question that repeated itself in his mind, over and over. “I think I’ll go pay Morrigu a visit as well.” He looked at Pestale, “Do you want to join us for old time’s sake?”

Pestale frowned, “As it happens, I have…ah, a mate of sorts, and for the time being, she serves me in a way that has me disinterested in all others. Besides that, Morrigu does not wish it, and I do not force myself on her. That is Hordly’s game. But, do go on…enjoy yourself, Graely.”

Graely shifted, but not to find Morrigu. Instead, he shielded himself from detection, and stepped out into Pestale’s dungeon.

Frankie,
his mind called,
I am coming.
Why had his instincts brought him here if she wasn’t here in these awful dungeons? How was Pestale keeping her contained? But, she was here, her lovely scent floated all around him.

And then he heard Frankie’s voice, filled with distress. He heard her grunting and it was the sound of someone in a great deal of pain. She seemed to be struggling with something, and he nearly burst out with a cry of relief, that she was alive.

Alive. His Frankie was alive, that was the only thing that mattered.

He went toward her sound and smiled to hear her curse at the top of her lungs. His Frankie, his little fighter.

“Damn you Pestale, you sadistic bastard. Wait, ye just wait!” Frankie growled and then let out an agonized sound as every move she made sent stabbing pains shooting through her body.

Graely shifted fast and hard and found himself bumped backward twenty feet when his body came in contact with her cell door.

Iron!
She was encased in iron. It was a deadly metal to an Unseelie. He could not see past it, he could not touch it or get through it.

What he saw enraged him past the nausea he was experiencing. His Frankie was being tortured. Every move she made added to her suffering. It was as though he could feel it himself.

“Frankie!” He whispered and the soul they said he didn’t have, ached for her. “Frankie,” he repeated and pounded on the door. This close he could feel the iron as though it was reaching out for him, strangling him…

What he heard, gave him hope, for Frankie cried out to him,
“Graely
, m’own dear, sweet hero. Ye found me. I never doubted that ye would. I knew…Graely, I felt ye inside me, I did, deep inside where it counts.”

He wanted to cry and scream and get to her.

He bent and murmured, “Frankie, your cell is made of iron.” He realized there was a wood shutter and lifted it to look inside. The iron gave him a cold blast of severe discomfort. He felt dazed and sickened by it, but tried to get past it. He had to get past it for her. “What is that net you are in, Frankie—it isn’t the
Gold Wiele?”