Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (18 page)

I looked at Corrigan, annoyed.
 
He looked amused.
 
“Playing around with
a
 
human
behind a shifter’s back, eh
kitten?
 
You’re dangerous to know.”

The fire inside me rose.
 
“You idiot
-
 
he’s
the local policeman.
 
I was trying to find out what he knew
about John.”

“And why would he know anything about
John?
 
He’s just a human.”

My reply died in my throat.
 
Just a human.
 
I looked at Corrigan
,
mute
.

He laughed, oblivious. “I’ll have to think
of something that you would want from me so that I can get you to come round to
my place for dinner too.”
 
There was
a suggestive gleam in his eyes.

My mind went suddenly and abruptly - and
completely - blank.
 
I continued to
stare at him.

His tanned hand covered mine.
 
I tried to jerk back but he clamped it
to the table.
 
“You need to come
with me,” Corrigan said, with more than a hint of steel.

“I don’t need to do anything,” I replied,
although this time without any fire.
 
I was still confused by his last words.
 
Between his
proposition
– had it even been a proposition? –
and
his dismissal of anyone human, my emotions were churning.
 
I tugged at my hand and he thankfully
let it go.

“The mage is here,” he stated, calmly.
 
“We need all of the pack back at the
keep.”

“So you came to get me yourself?
 
Couldn’t the Lord of all the Brethren
find someone to run his petty errands for him?”

“Oh, believe me, kitten, I enjoyed doing
this one on my own.”
 
His eyes
continued to gleam and I was suddenly all too aware of his proximity.
 
I scrambled to my feet.

“I thank you for your diligence,” I said
formally.
 
“I’ll see you back at the
keep then.”
 

I walked out of the pub, hoping that he
wasn’t going to follow.
 
No such
luck, however, as before I’d gone barely ten steps he was by my side.
 
If he called me kitten again I was
pretty sure that I’d have hands wrapped around his throat.
 
Just as it seemed that I was getting
somewhere with finding out more about who, or what, had killed John, the last
person in the world I wanted to notice me had decided to make new friends.
 
And I was definitely no-one’s kitten.

“You’re a rather prickly person, aren’t
you, Mack?”

I ignored him and tried to walk
faster.
 
At the very least I could
do my best to get to the keep in double speed so that this couldn’t be
prolonged for any length of time.

“In fact you’re the least pack-like
shifter I’ve come across in some time.
 
You appear to have a stubborn streak of independence that is –
unusual - for our kind.”

I stiffened.
 
Was he going to suddenly dramatically
reveal that he knew I wasn’t a shifter after all?

“The thing is,” he continued, “not only do
you appear to be absolutely terrified every time I come near you, there appear
to be some anomalies in your story.”

Uh-oh.
 
“What do you mean?”
 
I could feel my heart suddenly beating
louder and hoped that he couldn’t hear it.

“You told me, very clearly I might add,
that your nickname is Red because you wear red clothes.”

“Yeah? What of it?”
 
Go for nonchalant, I thought, that’ll
work.

“Your boyfriend, well the pack one at
least, not the human, told me quite categorically that it was because it was a
private joke between the two of you.
 
That when you are, er, how shall I put this delicately? Intimate with
him, you blush a particularly attractive pink colour.”

Forget killing the Brethren alpha, I was
going to kill Tom.

“And then, your charming little friend who
fought first told me that it was because you have a fiery temper.
 
Which doesn’t surprise me in the least,
I have to say.
 
What does surprise
me is that at the very least two members of this pack have lied to me.
 
And I will not condone that sort of
attitude.
 
Now I could compel them
– and you – to tell me the truth, but I’d rather have it voluntarily
from you.”

Now that all else had failed, I figured
the truth was about all I had left.
 
It might work, I supposed.
 
“My hair is red. I dyed it.
 
That’s it.”

“I see,” he said slowly.
 
“And why would you do that?”

I shrugged.
 
“I wanted a change.
 
Girl’s prerogative.”

“That still doesn’t explain why your
friends – and you – lied about it.”

“It’s, uh, a sore point, to be
honest.
 
I’d rather not talk about
it.”

I was tying myself up into circles.
 
I was pretty sure I’d lied more in the
last two days than I had in my entire life up till now.
 
I couldn’t think of any good reason as
to why I’d dye my hair then lie about it.

“You can trust me,” he murmured, voice
silky smooth.

Think, Mack, think.
 
“I’ve, um, always hated the colour.”
Sooo not true.
 
“I was teased about it mercilessly when I was a kid and I’ve been trying
to forget that I’m ginger.
 
My friends
understand that.”

“To the point where they would lie to the
Lord Alpha about it to protect your delicate sensibilities?”

“They’re good friends,” I replied shortly.

“So, let me see if I can get this
straight.
 
You’ve lied about your
hair,
you’ve lied about the wolf to the human, and the human
to the wolf.
 
Can anything that you
say be trusted?”

I walked on stiffly.
 
I was starting to get very scared
indeed.
 
“I’ve been under a lot of
pressure lately.
 
John was…he was…dear
to me.
 
If I’ve lied to anyone, it’s
only so I can find out what happened to him.”

“I could compel you to tell me
everything.”

No you couldn’t.
 
“I suppose, you could, yes.
 
That’s much what I’d expect from the
leader of the Brethren, use brute force to get what you want.
 
Are you going to?”

“You don’t seem to have much regard for
us.”
 
He stared ahead.
 
“It doesn’t matter though, I have no
doubt that you’ll tell me the whole truth eventually, one way or another.”
 
There was a faint mocking edge to his
voice.

“You are only here for another twenty four
hours,” I commented, tightly praying that he’d not changed his mind.

He laughed slightly.
 
“Yes, but I somehow think our paths will
cross again.”

I bloody well hoped not.
 

Chapter Ten

By the time we got back to the keep, it
was shrouded in darkness.
 
I could
hear the buzz of voices from inside, however.
 
Corrigan beside me had thankfully lapsed
into silence so I was free to work through my own thoughts.
 
I wondered exactly what the mage was
doing.
 
I didn’t know much about how
magic worked, to be honest.
 
I knew
from my readings on the Othernet that it took years of training to be a mage,
and that they often specialised in different areas, such as divining, alchemy,
telekinesis and
fore-telling
.
 
There was a mage academy located
somewhere in Kent and powers were generally passed down generational
lines.
 
I had a vision in my head of
a bald man with a long black cloak holding a glass ball, but perhaps I’d been
watching too much Japanese anime lately.
 
It briefly occurred to me that it might help the wizard if I mentioned
the shadowy figure in Perkins but there was so little to really elaborate on
that I decided to keep that little nugget to myself.
 
He’d probably just end up getting in my
way if I revealed what I’d already found out from good
old
fashioned
detective work.
 
Of
course that didn’t mean that I didn’t want to know what he himself discovered
whilst he was here.

When we reached the oak entrance door,
Corrigan opened it and gestured at me.
 
I was somewhat surprised that the ostensible leader of the shapeshifters
was portraying himself as a gentleman – and somewhat nervous to have him
at my back – but I entered anyway, with him close behind me.
 
As soon as the door closed, Staines stepped
up and whispered something in his ear and the two of them went off in the
direction of the office.
 
Everyone
else was gathered in the hall.

Mackenzie,
what on earth is going on?
 
Why were
you with Lord Corrigan?

Julia was looking at me with a rather alarmed
expression at my suddenly departed companion.

He
was just being annoying,
I sent back silently.
 
Nothing to worry about.

He might know that I was lying to him
about some things but he definitely didn’t suspect that I was human at least, I
thought, remembering his utter dismissal of Nick.
 
He had me pegged as a grumpy loner who
was living in abject terror of him and the rest of the Brethren.
 
I could live with that.
 
As long as I chose to ignore his
portentous comment about our paths crossing again that was.

I took my place in the crowd with the
other pack members.
 
Everyone seemed
slightly excited and anxious again at the presence of the mage.
 
I could sense a few glances my way and
wished I could silently reassure the others the way that I’d reassured
Julia.
 
There were times that the
limitations of shifters were gallingly unhelpful.
 

Tom moved up from the sidelines to be
beside me.
 
I shot him an evil look
before whispering furiously, “You thought you’d tell Corrigan that I’m called
Red because of the way I blush when we shag?”

At least he had the grace to look slightly
embarrassed.
 
“He put me on the
spot.
 
He wasn’t even supposed to be
doing my interview – it was the blonde chick.
 
But he barged in during it and fired
questions at me.
 
I couldn’t think
straight.
 
Something about the way
his eyes look through you.”
 
He
shivered slightly.

“What else did you tell him?”
 
I put my hands on my hips, still
annoyed.

“He wanted to know why we’d had so few
injuries and deaths.
 
I told him
that we were just lucky.
 
I wasn’t
entirely sure if he believed me.”

“Well, I told him the truth so it’s
probably best if you stop lying to him.”

Betsy’s voice came up from behind me.
 
“You told him you were human?” She said
aghast.

“No, that I dyed my hair, stupid,” I said.
 
“I didn’t have much choice after the
things you two had told him.”

“What were we supposed to say, Red?” Tom
looked askance.
 
“He’s got this
power and he looks at you and you want to tell him everything just to please
him.
 
And god knows we can’t tell
him the real truth.”

“He doesn’t suspect anything like that,” I
tugged on my ponytail.
 
“He just
seems to think that I’m the local lay with a penchant for inveterate
lying.
 
Anyway, from now on my hair
is dyed because I hate my original colour.
 
Oh, and I’m having an affair with Nick behind your back.”

Betsy looked rather pleased at that
one.
 
I was about to say something
that we’d both regret when the office door opened and Staines and Corrigan came
out followed by a ridiculously young looking man with a shock of blond
dreads.
 
No wonder he’d agreed to
come to Cornwall: our mage was a surfer dude.

Corrigan cleared his throat.
 
“This is Alexander Floride, a mage from
the city.
 
We will travel to the
site of John’s death where he’ll scan it for any signs of what might have
occurred.
 
We will find out who
killed one of our own.”