Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (33 page)

My next stop was the dorm.
 
I’d have to bandage up my arm to stop it
from bleeding any further.
 
Some
otherworld creatures, shifters included, could smell blood at fifty paces.
 
There was no point in giving myself away
too easily.
 
And I was pretty sure
that I still had some of Julia’s yarrow ointment to slather on too.

I headed back down the narrow stairs and
almost banged straight into Staines as I rounded the corridor.
 
Shit.
 
He scowled at me and then wrinkled his
nose.
 
Damnit, when was the last
time I’d put on the scented lotion?
 
I couldn’t remember, but it had definitely been more than eight hours
ago.
 
His eyes narrowed suspiciously
at me, so I headed him off at the cross.

“I stink of human after being in that
town.
 
And blood too.
 
Makes me feel unclean.
 
The trouble is that we only have a
limited supply of hot water and I have a horrible feeling that the girls will
have already used it all up.”
 
I was
vaguely aware that I was babbling.
 
“I don’t suppose you have that problem in London though, do you?”

He looked at me like I was slightly
demented in the head.
 
Which was
fine.
 
Then he strode off without
saying a word and I made a face at his back.
 
Manners cost nothing.
 
Another one of Julia’s
favourite sayings.
 
I winced
at the thought of her and quickly picked up my pace.

Fortunately
no-one
was in the dorm.
 
I was hoping to
avoid any of the pack, because I didn’t want to blurt out my plan to them, in
case they tried to stop me or, worse, tried to join me.
 
This was a
one way
mission and I was going solo.
 
I
changed my clothes, slapped on some lotion and then carefully cleaned and bound
the bite marks on my arm.
 
Tom’s
reaction times must be improving to have latched on so quickly, I thought
idly.
 
He’d make a strong pack warrior
one day, assuming of course that the Brethren didn’t vanish him away
first.
 
I supposed I’d never know now
which way he’d decide to jump.

Once I was safely dehumanized, I went out
in search of Alex.
 
I didn’t know
which room Julia would have put him into, especially with the Brethren already
occupying all the guest rooms on the floor above.
 
However there were a few spare rooms on
my dorm’s floor, such as the one that Tom and I ‘shared’, so I wandered along in
the dim corridor light, swinging open a few doors as I went.
 
All the rooms were bare and unslept in
apart from one on the far side, facing north.
 
As the door squeaked open and I peered
around, I noticed there were a few bags dumped on the floor by the window and
some odd chalk marks on the floor.
 
Probably some kind of paranoid mage runes, the equivalent of a
teenager’s Stay The Hell Out sign.
 
I reached into my bag and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pencil and
scribbled him a note, sticking it to the inside of the door, and telling him to
come and find me, either in the office or outside the keep, as a matter of
urgency.
 
Hopefully he’d come back
soon and read it.
 
In the meantime,
I’d have to keep my fingers crossed that the silver dirk would be able to break
through John’s magic.

Vaguely remembering an old war film I’d
watched years ago, where the British spy in enemy territory had commented that
you had to look as if you belonged and knew where you were going and what you
were doing to evade capture, I strode out of the dorm and down into the office,
trying to make it appear as if I definitely wasn’t skulking and was still
working on Corrigan’s ‘repair the keep’ orders.
 
I needn’t have worried.
 
I passed a few pack members, and a few
Brethren too, but they were all lost in their own thoughts and own grief and
paid me little attention.
 
Ally gave
me a ghost of a smile as I tripped again on the hole in the carpet going down
the stairs, but didn’t say anything.
 
It had seemed that everyone had forced themselves to bounce back quickly
after John, but with the threat of more imminent attacks, and the shocking
events of just a couple of hours ago, it felt as if the will and the spirit of
the keep had been stripped away.
 
The feeling was almost as depressing as thinking of Julia upstairs
fighting for her life.
 
And it also
gave me reason enough to keep going with my plan.

I had a couple of ready made excuses
prepared in my head, in case anyone, especially Corrigan, was inside the
office, but I was in luck and it was empty.
 
Someone had already started to tidy up
some of the devastation that the invaders had caused, but whoever it was had
left a few tidy piles of papers and then disappeared.
 
It suited me perfectly.
 
I carefully twisted the knob on the door
to John’s study and stepped inside, flicking on the light switch.

It was exactly the same as it had been
when I’d last been in, breaking into his computer.
 
I ignored the machine this time around,
however and bent down to the bottom drawer of the old desk.
 
There was a tiny brass keyhole fashioned
into the wood, where I guessed the source of the magic ward would be.
 
I could feel it pulsating even from
where I was, broadcasting to keep out and stay away.
 
Sorry, not this time.
 
I pushed my index finger towards it,
experimentally, and felt the cold burn of the barrier.
 
I drew back quickly and tried the sides,
knocking the lower edges of the wood that encased all the drawers.
 
The buzz of the ward was there too,
although a bit fainter.
 
I tried
reaching underneath, to the bottom of the drawer, but jolted back with a hiss
as again I met painful resistance.
 
Then I pulled out the drawer above, completely taking it out of its
place and peering down.
 
It was a
pitch black well of nothingness.

Despite the situation, I was rather
impressed at John’s attention to detail.
 
I wondered if he’d conjured it up himself, dabbling a little in the
black arts as a hobby as he’d occasionally been wont to do, or if he’d hired a
mage like Alex to do it for him.
 
He
didn’t like strangers, no matter who they were, but this was a complex ward
that demanded a pretty high level of appreciation.
 
I just hoped that it wasn’t impervious
to silver.
 
The little dirk was
secreted away in my bag, so I pulled it off my shoulders and unzipped it, hand
curling round the hilt.
 
I tugged on
it to take it out, but it seemed to be caught on something, one of the seams of
fabric perhaps.
 
I tugged harder and
was about to yank it free when a shadow suddenly fell across the desk and I
heard Corrigan’s furious voice.

“Just what the fuck are you doing now?”

Chapter
Twenty Two

I sent an internal prayer of gratitude to
myself that I’d not yet pulled the dirk free.
 
Holding silver would be something that
even the ridiculous lies I’d so far managed to fashion for His Great Lord
Shiftiness couldn’t cover.
 
I
straightened and blinked at him, a picture of innocence.
 
If all else fails,
then
try the truth
,
I mentally shrugged
.

“What does it look like I’m doing, my
lord?
 
I am trying to find a way to
open this drawer.”

I couldn’t fathom what the expression on
his face was saying.
 
His green gold
eyes bored into my soul and I felt a small shiver run through me.
 
“And why exactly would you be doing
that?”

“Well, it’s obvious isn’t?” I answered
brusquely.
 
“The fact that we keep
being targeted for attack must mean that we have something that the blue woman
wants.”
 
I certainly wasn’t prepared
to give up Iabartu’s name to him just yet.
 
“This is the only place that I can think of that is locked and where there
might be something that John would have hidden away.
 
If we can find it, then we might have a
better chance of understanding what is happening and stopping it.
”

“An interesting conclusion, kitten,” he
murmured.
 
Oh, great.
 
We were back to endearments again.
 
I just barely managed to keep from
rolling my eyes before he continued.
 
“And why,” he said silkily, “didn’t you think to mention this drawer to
me before?”

“First of all,” I ticked off my fingers,
“I couldn’t find you.
 
And I was
pretty sure that you’d have your hands full dealing with the death rites.
 
Second of all, if I’m wrong and there’s
nothing in here apart from a couple of shifter girlie mags, then I’d look
pretty stupid.
 
Third of all, you’ve
already made it pretty clear that you don’t trust me.
 
For all I know, you’d try to suggest
that I planted whatever was in there myself.”

“I see,” he drawled slowly.
 
“I must beg to differ on one point,
however.”

I waited.
 
Amusement glinted in his eyes but I was
damned if I was going to ask him what that point was.
 
He still didn’t elaborate further.
 
Oh for fuck’s sake, fine then.
 
“And what would that be?” I finally
asked.

He smiled.
 
Was that a flicker of triumph?
 
Bastard.
 
“I think you’ll find, kitten, that I do
trust you.
 
And despite the fact
that you’re the most annoying, unpredictable and difficult to control shifter
I’ve ever come across, you do appear to have useful skills.
 
I’m not sure I trust you enough to stay
here in the countryside on your own before you manage to cause complete
devastation.
 
But I think that
you’ve proven yourself enough for me to tell you that my offer to join me in
London still stands.”

Join
me.
 
Not the Brethren.
 
Oh God.
 
Was that a deliberate choice of words on
his part or did he just the Brethren as an extension of himself anyway?
 
I swallowed and looked up at him.
 
“Even though I might have deliberately
engineered falling into a faerie ring so that I could be absent when the keep
was attacked?”

“Mmmmm,” he answered non-committedly,
“you’re going to have to tell me one day how you really did escape from that.”

I didn’t even know myself how I’d managed
to get free, so I didn’t think I’d ever be able to tell him.
 
“I honestly have no idea, my lord,” I
answered truthfully.
 
“Perhaps it
was just an old ring and didn’t have much power left.”

“Yes, perhaps, kitten, perhaps.”
 
He stretched out his arms and linked his
hands behind his head.
 
I was
suddenly very aware of the stretch of the dark fabric of his t-shirt against
his tanned muscular biceps.

Irritation exploded out of me.
 
“Will you stop fucking calling me that?”

“What?” he taunted, softly, eyes glinting.

“I am not a cat,” I said through gritted
teeth.
 
“I am a hamster.
 
And my name is Mack, not kitten.”

“Well then, maybe I should just call you
Hammy, instead,” he purred.

My stomach squirmed into knots.
 
He was flirting with me.
 
After everything that had happened, and
all he’d already said and threatened me with, he was flirting.
 
Why me?
 
This could not happen.
 
I’d rather face an army of ispolin than
this.

“Well then, maybe I’ll call you Pants,” I
snapped at him.

He laughed, and opened his mouth to say
something else.
 
Oh no, it was high
time to put an end to this.
 
“My
lord, perhaps you could help to open the drawer.”
 
And get your fingers frozen off instead
of mine, I thought silently.

He cocked his head at me, with another
glance that I couldn’t quite interpret, before replying with a cocky
business-like air, “As my lady wishes.”

I resisted the urge to slap him around the
head and stepped out from the desk.
 
He brushed past me, and I had to try very hard not to flinch at the warm
hard heat of his body against mine.
  
I quickly moved away to nearer the door so I had a quick exit if I
needed it.
 
Humour flashed across
his face again, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
 
Fuck.
 
Off.
 
If he knew who I really was then he’d
snap my neck like a twig and forget all about me in an instant.
 
I just had to keep remembering that.