Through Time-Pursuit (6 page)

Once again she thought that evil should sound and look like a living horror so that one could immediately recognize it and arm oneself against it. Evil should have fangs dripping with blood and a cold, shark-like killer look.

One should know beyond a shadow of a doubt when facing evil that one’s life—even a mighty Royal princess’s life—could end by that evil’s hand … or thought.

“You will want me in the end—need me, as I want and need you …” he whispered into her ear, his voice a gentle caress.

His aura had a very definite seductive and sensual quality that was unquestionably appealing. She looked up into those glittering black eyes and reminded herself just what he was, just what he had already done to so many humans and Fae alike. She had to get away from him, for suddenly she felt as though she were about to be ill with disgust at herself for almost doubting his wickedness. She bolstered herself with another plan.

It wouldn’t be easy to employ a tactic while still floating in a space of indefinable mist and fog. But she had to. He was absolutely beautiful, and his smile enveloped her as he held her in his arms and whispered words of devotion. He sounded so sincere that she had give herself a shake and remind herself just who she was dealing with.

She put a hand to his chest and asked, “Where are we now, Prince? How—no, why are we … er … floating about instead of standing on solid ground?”

When he answered by kissing her neck, she struggled to pull away. He laughed and said, “You flirt, but you don’t follow through.”

“And how could I want to? You take me by surprise and hold me in this … just what is this … and …”

“And I mean to make you mine, if not now—
soon
,” he said simply.

“Could we stand on solid ground while you make the attempt?” She pulled a face at him, and he laughed out loud.

“Oh, but you amuse me as well as work my lust,” he said on a low note.

She eyed him and mentally slapped herself. This seducer was handsome and sounded so gentle, but she knew different. She knew what he was, she reminded herself, and yet … she felt a moment’s empathy for him. After all, he laughed, he teased, he … and here was the crux of it, her mind cogitated worriedly; her compassion and willingness to always see the good in someone, anyone could get her into deep shit.

“Well … ? Will you set me down?” she urged.

“I cannot. We are in a dimension I call the ‘in-between, where time stands still.”

“How … ?” she started to ask, shocked to her core. Time travel was something only the queen could accomplish, and even the queen had been unable to accomplish it in recent years.

“Ah, I may be Unseelie, but I was created by the Seelie Dark King. My powers are quite unlimited when combined with the Dark Magic I have perfected over the centuries.” He stroked her face. “One day I will rule the earth with my Queen Morrigu and my brothers. You will sit beside me, as I have chosen you, but for now, I need a place from which to work my …
plans,
and this simple but perfect dimension suits me.”

“But—”

“Be quiet, Seelie Princess,” he admonished and clucked his tongue. “You must know that I don’t wish to wage a bloody war on humans. I will enslave them, yes, but with mental persuasion. They will be easily controlled when the time comes. It is the Seelie Fae that must be conquered—and I shall start with you.” Suddenly his tone, which had become grim and displayed some of his ruthlessness, softened once more. “Indeed, beautiful Princess …
I shall start with you …
”

She struggled as he bent once more and left a blazing trail of kisses across her neck, to her ear, and back to the hollow of her neck. Then he startled her further by pulling at her tank top.

She pushed at him. “Hold it, Pestale—or do you mean to take me against my will?” They were her words, but she acknowledged to herself that his kisses, his touch, and his aura had an effect on her. Curiosity flooded her veins, he damn well knew it, and she was shocked by it—by her reaction to him.

He chuckled and touched her chin. “You are but a child, untried … I shall enjoy introducing you to pleasure.”

“You think you can conquer the Seelie Fae?” she said, changing the subject. “But you have set yourself an impossible feat.” She watched him for a reaction to her words. Had she drawn on his temper—would he lose control?

“Have I? And yet, here
you are
, in my arms …” he said, and his lips brushed against hers. She had to get away from him immediately.

“Do you think I can’t leave whenever I want if I put my mind to it?” she answered him sharply, trying to draw on his fire.

“Can you?” He smiled, but she felt something beneath that smile, something dark and ever ready to explode.

“Yes, but …” she answered flirtatiously, “your question should have been …
do I want to leave you?
”

He smirked, but his dark eyes lit up. “Do you take me for a fool, little Seelie? Do you think I don’t know what you are doing? And did you think I don’t realize it will take time to make you truly mine?” He shook his head. “But I will play your game, so tell me, my rare one,
do you wish to leave
me?
”

“Yes,” she said and immediately found the magic to break free and shift. She had had this power all along, and now he would know and not be fooled the next time. Her shifting brought her back to the Lower Lake, and even as she felt the earth beneath her sneakered feet, she heard his angelic-sounding laughter fading into the atmosphere.

Then his voice whispered darkly in her ear, “Ah, my Seelie beauty, there are consequences when one is rude to me, and leaving me like that—
very rude
.”

That had the ring of a threat, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it as something else entirely grabbed her attention.

She had shifted to the very area where she had been before he had taken her, but Royce discovered a kicker to the scenario. She should have been in the present—her present, but she wasn’t.

She was in the past.

She looked up the slope to see herself, Trevor, and Chance just before he stalked off.

Oh, so very bad.

But this incident had taught her something: events in the future could be changed, because this time she did not go to the lake alone; instead, she ran away from it, and the other her vanished as she ran towards Trevor and Chance and screamed for their attention.

This time, Pestale had not scooped her up and taken her off for a repeat performance, and yet oddly enough she retained a memory of the entire experience. She blinked as she tried to put logic to it.

Should she tell Chance and Trevor?
Yes, yes
, they needed to know, and she wasn’t sure she could handle all the new information on her own.
Time travel
, no matter how you looked at it, in the Dark Prince’s hands would be the worst kind of nightmare.

“Chance—
stop
!” she called to his retreating figure

He turned to frown a look at her. “What is it, lass?”

“Pestale … Pestale … I was just with Pestale!”

Ho-ho, she thought when he came charging towards her at full attention, and it occurred to her that he was magnificent. No, more than magnificent. He filled up the air all around him and blotted out all else. He pulsated with vibrant life and gave off a current that went inside her and pulled her to him. She had to blink and shake herself free from the sensation.

Trevor was there as well, his voice full with excitement. “What do you mean, you were just with Pestale?”

Royce realized something in that moment—Pestale was more than a force to be reckoned with: he was a threat to life as everyone knew it.

Chance and Trevor’s hatred of the Dark Prince had to be turned into a living, breathing force, controlled and brilliant, if they were going to be as ruthless, as cunningly efficient as he was. They had a determined foe on their hands.

It would take their combined might to destroy him.

~ Five ~

EYES WIDE WITH impatience, it was Chance who put his hands on her shoulders and gave them a little shake. “What the bloody hell are ye saying, lass?”

“I was at the water’s edge when all of a sudden, this thing … a dark mist … or a cloud enveloped me, and then the next thing I knew I was in Pestale’s arms, and he—”

“Damnation, hell and fire!” shouted Chance. “
Did he hurt you? Lass, are you hurt?
”

“No, no, and you forget, I am not a lass—I am a princess of the House of Nimrough,” she answered, her chin well up. Once again he was discounting her worth, and it was getting old. “Besides,” she conceded, “I don’t think he wanted to hurt me, but never mind that. There’s something you need to know—”

“Pestale takes you—you get away, and you tell me there is something I need to know?” Chance looked at her as though she had two heads.

And then Royce felt as though the world around her had frozen into the moment.

Chance and Trevor followed her gaze and went silent as they looked around. It was as though a hand had waved itself over all living things in their vicinity and obliterated their sound and movements.

Royce looked around with an awful feeling. The birds had stopped their chirping. The breeze had turned into stagnant air, but the lake, which had been gently lapping, much like a quiet mill pond, had turned into a raging series of swells any surfboarder would have thrilled to see.

What by Danu is happening?
she asked herself.

She couldn’t speak as she watched something unnatural emerge out of those sudden waves. It swirled tightly—wildly screwing itself into a foam of water and dark mass much like a tornado. It was on a clear path, the tour boat overloaded with passengers its single goal.

Royce knew that the Lakes of Killarney were subject to strange and intensely spontaneous weather changes because of the mountains that surround them, but this, this had nothing to do with the normal weather patterns. This was sorcery at its most potent!

She pointed but felt like an idiot because both Chance and Trevor were already gaping at the horrifying scene.

Without warning, she heard Pestale’s voice in her ear. “
Next time
, Princess, you will think twice before disrespecting
me
.”

This was on her
? Those people in the boat were going to die because she had been rude to the Dark Prince? She couldn’t allow that to happen. She had to do something, but what did one do when faced with evil so powerful it could command the elements? If she had doubted Pestale’s pure wickedness before, she no longer did.

She felt a choking sensation in her throat as she tried to answer him, and then whatever magic had brought his words to her was gone.
He was gone.

Do something
, she told herself. This was her fault. Pestale was punishing her by destroying innocent people. He was using his Dark Magic to control a wind force that would overturn the boat. People would be severely injured; many would perish …

She cried out even as she racked her brain for the spell to destroy the force stalking the tour boat. “We must do something!”

Trevor frowned and said, “We may not—interference is forbidden!”

She didn’t have time to argue with him so she punched him hard in his belly, and then her world did a tumble as logic froze with utter horror.

A young girl became separated from her parents by the commotion and rush of people. She dashed madly and haphazardly about as people tried to hold onto anything they could within the large cabin of the tour boat. She looked no more than eight or nine.

The little girl took a fall but clambered onto her knees, but then the boat tipped onto its side. She rolled onto her back and slid along the decking to the open rail. Just in time, she managed to grab onto one of the mainstay poles of the railing; the child held on as best she could as her lower body hung over the side of the boat.

A swell of water seemed to form a hand as it collected onto itself and raised grasping, watery tentacles. The water appeared to have a mind of its own as it reached for the boat
and the little girl.

Royce didn’t think; she didn’t care about rules or the long-ago Treaty with Man. A little girl was in trouble. Without thought to herself or the punishment she most certainly would incur for her ‘interference’, she shifted to the child and removed the Féth Fiada of invisibility so the girl would be able to see her and not be frightened.

“You’re okay—I’ve got you,” Royce said as she held the child cradled in her arms and shifted inside the cabin, where people were screaming and trying to hold onto seats and whatever they could find as the boat tipped dangerously from side to side in the wild and huge waves.

“Mom!” the little girl shouted out, and Royce spied the mother, who was screaming her child’s name in her attempt to locate her.

“Danielle!” the mother cried again. Royce did what she had to do and shifted with the child, put her in her mother’s arms, and shifted away before they could ask any questions or think about what they had just witnessed.

She told herself they wouldn’t think about how—they would only be thankful they had found each other.

Royce returned to stand at the water’s edge and saw Chance, his legs spread apart and his fist in the air. He was commanding wind and water using an old Gaelic spell that Royce should have remembered earlier. She grimaced to herself.
I should have paid more attention to my lessons!

She wondered fleetingly where he had learned it, as it was a Seelie Fae spell, but shrugged it off. The Milesians were a resourceful lot. Chance had been around for the war with the Fae and the subsequent Treaty. There was no saying what he had learned along that journey.

She worked in tune with Chance, using a spell to move the boat forward, shifting style, to gain ground on the vicious whirlwind tornado at its back, but the force of raging wind and water was still gaining speed and power.

Royce turned to Chance and watched him. She was struck by the determination of the man. He did not question, as Trevor did. He didn’t worry about interfering with fate.
He took action
. She looked around for Trevor, but he was nowhere in sight.

Chance LeBlanc was a mystery to her, and at that moment, all she knew was that she believed in his ability to fight Pestale’s Dark Magic. Chance didn’t question the useless, perhaps even outdated, edicts of the Treaty—or the need to allow fate to rule. These were traditions and bygone rules of long ago, thought Royce as she watched him. Chancemont LeBlanc simply did what needed to be done, and she found herself drawn to his inner strength.

Not romantically, she told herself. He was still a ‘heartbreaker’, and he had remained unattached all through the centuries. He had never committed to anyone all these hundreds upon hundreds of years. In comparison, she was the equivalent of a twenty-year-old human and had not even reached her full maturity. And yet, she wished he might show an interest in her—would he … could he?

What she wanted was commitment. Ridiculously, she wondered if he had ever been in love. All silly musings considering the gravity of the situation, and she hurriedly shoved such thoughts away.

Chancemont stood, much like the God of Thunder, his fist raised high as he chanted. It was actually beginning to work. The gale force of the tornado had subsided, and the boat, although still tipping from side to side, was well out of its grip. The swells in the Lower Lake were still unnaturally huge, but even so, they were beginning to diminish.

The people from the boat could not see her or Chance standing at the water’s edge fighting black magic, since they were cloaked in invisibility. No doubt they believed they had somehow survived a freakish storm.

“Chant with me, lass—because the devil hasn’t given up yet. Let’s show the Dark Prince what
we can do
 …” he yelled in Royce’s direction before shouting out the ancient words, “
Fuascailt suaimhneach
.”

“
Fuascailt suaimhneach
,” she chanted, joining him. He took her hand, and she felt the energy between them as it shot across the lake and blasted what remained of the swirling dark mass into a gentle mist.

However, Chance had been correct—
Pestale had not given up the fight.

Horrified, Royce watched the swirl of wind and rain suddenly develop into a riveting mass of fury. Out of its depths a blistering and horned creature appeared. It clawed and bellowed out furiously and sounded as though it had come from the black pits of hell, and it filled the atmosphere with a bloodthirsty and bloodcurdling roar.

“Chance …?” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper.

He pulled her close and grinned.
“
Demons
—he thinks to use a demons? As though a demon can’t be stopped. Lord love ye, lass, just draw on what ye are!” He laughed as though thoroughly enjoying the challenge. Holding her tightly, he told her gleefully, “
Chant!
”

And so they did, over and over.

The horned creature couldn’t see them in their Féth Fiada—it wasn’t Fae. As always they were when cloaked invisible to all but other Fae. However, the demon Pestale had called forth felt the might of their combined magic, and his claws swiped at air and wind and them.

It drooled, seethed, and raged, but while Chance and Royce held it at bay it couldn’t move forward towards the boat quickly heading for the dock by Ross Castle.

Then, just as instantly as the tornado of wind and water and the monster had arrived, all of it was gone. The storm that had nearly capsized the boat had vanished as though it had never been. Royce was astonished; she had not thought Pestale would give up so easily.

People on the boat were clapping and shouting, “Bravo!” to no one in particular, and Royce supposed that if they had seen the horned demon they simply put it down as a trick of the eye.

Chance looked at her and swooped her up into his arms cradle-like as though she were no more than a babe. “There, little Princess—what do you think now?”

She laughed, for he obviously wanted praise. “Quite well done, big Milesian—quite well done.”

“Well done? Is that all ye have to say? It was damned brilliant!” He chuckled happily. “We were brilliant!” After a few seconds, however, his smile faded. “And now, I want ye to tell me how Pestale got a hold of ye and why ye didn’t kill him when ye had the chance.”

* * *

Chance set her on her feet and eyed her angrily.

Royce’s chin went up defensively, and her hands went to her jean-clad hips. “What makes you think I had a chance to kill him?”

“Ye said he took ye into his arms—so by my way of thinking, unless that was what ye wanted, ye should have run him through right then!” Chance snapped, his eyes glaring at her.

“I was taken by surprise, and when he kissed me—” she started.

“He what?” Chance ran a frantic hand through his yellow locks. “He kissed ye? Ye let him kiss ye?”

“I was taken by surprise … but even so, I don’t think I was in any way too distracted to call for my sword! It just wouldn’t have worked … at that moment … I knew he was prepared for just such an eventuality, and besides, just then, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to capture him or kill him.”

Chance took her shoulders, pulled her up close, and looked hard and long into her eyes. “Are ye saying ye doona want him dead?”

“I wasn’t certain then … now I think, yes, he should die … and then … I am not certain again.”

Chance dropped his hands and stood back from her. “Aye—
then go home
, lass. Ye best go home.”

“I am not going because, so far, I am the only lead you have to Pestale.”

“Then answer me this. If ye know the Dark Prince will harm where he chooses—as he just attempted—what then will ye do?”

“Whatever it takes to stop him—that is a defensive move,
that I can do
—but cold, calculated killing …”

He paced a moment. “Ye be a trial, lass.”

“You may not think so when I tell you that I trust you to use me as bait.” She put up a hand to stall a string of epithets he started to level over her suggestion. “He wants me—for whatever reason, he has decided I should be his mate, and he means to have me. At some point, you could use me to draw him out.”

“
Daft ye be
, like your friend Trevor …” Chance’s accent thickened with his frenzy.

She smiled. “You know, Chance, you have surprised me. I had thought you a loose cannon of a playboy … but there is much more to you. You are what a human friend of mine would call ‘solid’.”

He laughed without mirth. “
Solid
,
am I? Doona be so sure, lass … I might yet disappoint ye, for there is no telling why I do the things I do.”

“How did you know the spell to vanquish that demon? It is an ancient Seelie Fae power.”

“Ah, that is a long story, but know this—there was a time when I had a friend … a Seelie Fae friend. He wasn’t royalty, but he was honorable and good and had the heart so many Seelie Fae lack. He taught me many things before he was lost in the war that pitted us against one another …”