Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale (27 page)

“Stay there.”

He wasn’t stupid enough to turn his back on her—sadly enough—but he had clearly tuned her out before she even hit the ground.
Corinne propped herself up against the tree and eyed him warily.
His glow-rock had turned a bright blue-green color, the same shade as in all the ads for the Caribbean.
That seemed to be the cue he was looking for, because he pocketed it and began to examine the rock formations and almost-caves that covered the rocky hilltop.

He was muttering something under his breath, and she really hoped it wasn’t the spell that would open the door.
“Now would be a really good time for the cavalry,” she mumbled.

“Shut up!”
he snarled.
“Keep quiet, or I’ll knock you out again.”

She didn’t doubt it, and since she really needed to be conscious in case the cavalry didn’t arrive, she fell silent and watched him search.
She thought about trying to distract him by talking or running, but refrained.
Better to gather her energy and wait for an opportunity to tackle him to keep him from magicking the door open.

She watched as Fergus began to run his hands along a crevice in the rock and stiffened when he crowed in triumph.

“Finally!”
He stepped back and turned his head to send Corinne a particularly nasty smile.
“Just a few more minutes, and then I can take care of you as well.”

He faced the rock, spread his arms, and began to chant in the same language she’d heard Luc swear in after she’d pissed him off particularly badly.
She swore herself.
This was it.
There was no sign of Luc or the others, yet, and their time had just run out.
Even as she struggled to her feet, she saw something begin to happen.

The crevice Fergus had explored began to glow, the same sort of turquoise color as the rock the Fae had used to lead them there.
It began as a fine line of light and slowly expanded until it was as tall as the Fae and nearly an inch wide.
Corinne knew that in a moment it would be big enough for someone or something to pass through.

When that happened, it would be too late for Luc and the others to rescue her.
It would be too late for everyone.

“Oh, well,” she muttered under her breath, gathering herself for a leap.
“If you want something done right…”

She pushed off, but she never landed.
At least, not on Fergus.

She heard a growl and almost simultaneously saw a blurry figure launch itself from the trees.
She grunted as it hurtled past her, shouldering her roughly to the side before it continued forward and slammed full-length into Fergus.
Both figures toppled to the earth and rolled around.
For several seconds they struggled, the air thick with rage and curses, before a hoarse shout dragged their attention to the woods.

Luc and Dmitri emerged, running full-tilt toward Fergus, with Reggie and Missy hurrying along behind, held in check only by one of Rafe’s hands on each of their shoulders.
In one fist, Luc carried an enormous sword that gleamed dully in the dim light that bled into the park from the city below.
The other was clenched and looked positively eager to pound something.

Corinne’s eyes flew over her heartmate, but she couldn’t even see an injury.
Even though Fergus’s knife had been covered in blood, he must not have done any permanent damage.
Relief threatened to bring her to her knees.
Except she was already there, where she’d landed after the impact of her savior’s weight against her shoulder had sent her sprawling.
She hadn’t landed very far from the pair, though.
In fact, she barely realized just how close she was in time to scramble out of the way before the combatants rolled right into her.

The figure wrestling with Fergus spun away, and now Corinne could see that the one who had originally attacked Fergus had dark fur tipped with silver along the spine, and was definitely not human.
It was a wolf.

Graham.

The werewolf pulled away from Fergus to let Luc get a chance at him.
Even Dmitri seemed to know to hang back; this battle belonged to the Fae warrior and not to his friends, no matter how well meaning.
Instead, Graham placed himself between Fergus and Corinne and growled at her when she tried to go to Luc.

“Fergus.”
Luc’s voice was a low, feral snarl that sounded almost like it was coming from Graham’s throat.
He halted a few feet from the other Fae and watched as the traitor climbed slowly to his feet.
“You should have forgotten about the door and kept running, because the moment you touched my heartmate, you sealed your own fate.”

“So dramatic,” Fergus sneered, “but tell me, Captain, how are you feeling?
I hope you didn’t mind the inconvenience of my knife sliding between your ribs, because I have the urge to repeat the experience.”

“Too bad you won’t get to fulfill it.
I’ll give you a choice, Fergus of Eithdne.
You can surrender to me and consent to be taken in irons back to our Queen, or you can die, here and now, for crimes against Queen Mab and all of Faerie.
You choose.”

Corinne stood so close, she could hear the sound of Fergus’s sword hissing as he pulled it from its  scabbard.
Even if she had been farther away, though, she doubted she would have been able to avoid what happened next.

He moved so fast, she almost didn’t see him strike, feinting toward Luc and then spinning around Graham’s unsuspecting form to grab Corinne by the hair.
He pulled her across the ground until she knelt in front of him.
His hand gripped her hair tightly, bracing her against his thigh while he held his sword in his other hand.

“I think you should choose.”
Fergus raised his blade and pointed the tip at her throat.
“Either you finish opening that door and let me pass through, or I slit your heartmate’s throat and see if she bleeds any faster than you do.”

Luc gave a roar of rage and threw himself forward, only to catch himself in mid-stride as Fergus’s sword nicked Corinne’s skin, sending a tiny trickle of blood to slide down her throat.

“Be very careful, my friend,” Fergus sneered.
“I’m not feeling charitable toward the human to begin with, so it would be no hardship for me to watch her die.
In fact, I might just enjoy it.”

Luc growled impotently, but he stilled and met Fergus’s gaze with rage burning in his own.

“Very good.
Now open the door.”

Corinne met Luc’s gaze and saw the frustration there.
His concern touched her, but it also pissed her off, because she knew right then that he was going to give in to Fergus’s demands and open the Faerie door himself.
To save her.

She wanted to scream in frustration.
Among Graham, Dmitri, and Luc, they had enough power to mash Fergus into tiny bits, but because he had a sword to her throat, all three stood there paralyzed.
Even Reggie and Missy looked too intimidated to move.
Damn it, they had to get over this little phobia of seeing her die.

“Don’t do it, Luc,” she said, her voice trembling.
Not with fear but with anger.

Her heartmate spoke in an unsteady voice himself.
“I can’t let him hurt you.”

“This is touching,” Fergus interrupted.
“Repulsive, but touching.
However, it’s also quite futile.
I don’t know how I can simplify this for you any more.
Either open the door, or the human dies.
Choose.”

Luc swore and turned toward the glowing sliver of doorway.
Corinne screamed.

“Don’t you dare!”
She didn’t care about the fist in her hair or the blade at her throat or anything else.
What mattered was that Luc couldn’t throw away everything he stood for because some lunatic with a superiority complex was holding a knife on her.

“Shut up!”
Fergus shouted, loosening his grip in her hair so he could cuff her against the side of the head.

Idiot.
That was all she needed.

She threw herself backward, screaming as she felt a large clump of her hair stay behind in Fergus’s hand.
The force of her movement sent her slamming into the ground harder than when she’d been dropped earlier, knocking some of the wind out of her.
Her head landed a glancing blow against a rock, making her vision fuzz and blur.

She couldn’t see what happened next, but she sure as hell heard it.
Roaring echoed in her ears, and she couldn’t tell if it came from Luc or Fergus, or the Others, or even all of them at once.

She knew the cheering she heard definitely came from Reggie and Missy.

She heard the sounds of a brawl, but her eyes had closed against the blinding pain in her head, and she couldn’t pry them open.
Nausea roiled in her stomach and she curled instinctively into a fetal position, gagging helplessly.
She couldn’t work up the strength to protest when she felt two pairs of small hands hook under her arms and drag her out of the way of the struggle.

They needn’t have bothered.
With odds of four against one, Fergus didn’t last long.
Before they had even stopped moving, silence descended on the hilltop.

Well, silence punctuated by the sickening sound of a fist thumping violently against flesh and bone.

“Luc.
Luc, stop!”
she heard.
“He’s unconscious.
Stop before you kill him.”

Rafe.
The voice of reason.

“Why should I?
He touched my mate.”

“But she’s safe now.
And do you want to have to explain his death to the Queen?”

A brief silence.
Corinne struggled to breathe through her mouth and ride out the pain.
At least the nausea seemed to be fading.

“Trust me,” she gritted out, “we’ll have plenty to tell Mab without adding that to the list.”

The effort of the short speech exhausted her.
She felt as if she’d been trampled by a herd of elephants.
And she suspected they’d been wearing high heels.

She heard a vague grumbling, then more silence until she was lifted and settled in a hard lap, cuddled close in muscular arms.

“I’m so sorry, baby.”
She felt his lips moving against her forehead as he pressed his cheek to her hair.
“I love you so much.
I’m so sorry he touched you.
I should have been quicker.”

“Fine.”
Her voice cracked and squeaked this time, but she figured she’d managed enough to get her point across.
She was fine.
Or she would be.
Eventually.

She needed to say something else, though.
She parted her lips and gathered her strength.
“Love, too.”

Not real clear, but he was a bright guy.
Sometimes.
He’d figure it out.

His arms tightened convulsively around her and she knew he had.

She pressed her face against his chest and whimpered one, critically important word.
“Aspirin?”

Then she blacked out, safe in her heartmate’s arms.

She got Tylenol with codeine.

After the doctors checked to make sure she didn’t have a concussion, they prescribed the good stuff and released her to Luc’s tender loving care.
He had to fight Reggie and Missy for the privilege.

“Are you okay?
Does your head hurt?”

Corinne sighed.
“No more than it did the last time you asked.
Five seconds ago.”

She cracked an eye open to see Luc’s beloved face hovering just inches above hers.
Instead of bringing her back to her apartment, he had taken her to Vircolac, to a room Graham provided and stocked more completely than your average private hospital suite.
She thought there might even be a bedpan under the night table.

She would be more comfortable, the Alpha had informed them, with twenty-four-hour room service.

“Isn’t that what Luc is for?”
she had asked.

Her heartmate had been incredibly solicitous, so much so that it was beginning to drive her the littlest bit crazy.
She was all for being adored, but not when the man seemed afraid to handle her like anything other than spun glass.

“Do you want a glass of water?
You can’t have another pill for an hour, but I could do a charm if your head hurts too much to wait.”

“I’m fine.
Stop hovering.”
She glared at him.
With love, of course.
“Either go away or get into bed with me, because I’m about one second away from forgetting about the doctor’s orders and taking my own damned self home.”

He got into bed with her.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding sheepish and adorable.
“You just scared the hell out of me when you passed out.”

“I scared myself a little,” she muttered, snuggling against his chest and feeling his arms close very gently around her.
That made her feel more at home than returning to her apartment possibly could have.
“But I’m fine now.
The doctor even said, no permanent damage.
I’ll be good as new in a couple of weeks.
I just have to take it easy and reduce the number of times I get attacked to less than three in a forty-eight-hour period.”

He didn’t appear to appreciate her attempts at humor.
“I still wish Rafe had let me kill him.”

She grinned.
“But then I’d have gotten jealous that I didn’t get a lick at him.”

The grin faded when she looked up and saw the rawness of the emotions etched on his worried face.

“I’m glad Rafe stopped you,” she told him seriously.
“Mab was upset enough by what he’d done, especially given that their relationship had been so close.
I think she felt a little guilty that her ending things could have spurred him to put her entire realm in jeopardy.
But I think things would have been even worse for her if you had killed him.”

He sighed against her hair.
“She was upset.
She never guessed one of her favorites would betray her.”

“That wasn’t why she was so upset.
Or at least not all of it.”

He looked his question.

“She obviously sees the members of the Guard as her children.
She just saw one of her sons turn against the others.
That would nearly kill most mothers, I think.”

“Okay, you can’t tell me they were lovers one minute and then refer to him as her son the next.”
He gave an exaggerated shudder.
“Even in Faerie some things are still taboo.
Not to mention creepy.”

She smacked him lightly.
“You know what I mean.”

He kissed her forehead.
“Sometimes.”

“Anyway, at least she got Seoc back safely.”

Luc chuckled.
“Yeah, and he’ll be using his innocence to get out of trouble for centuries.”

“Hey, I would, too, if I’d been so falsely accused.”

He laughed.
And snuggled her just the slightest bit closer.
“She demanded to be invited, you know.”

Corinne frowned at him.
“Mab?
What did she want to be invited to?”

He smiled slightly.
“Our wedding.”

She paused meaningfully.
“Are we getting married?”

“Well, since we’ll be living together here in
Ithir
and I plan to stay with you till the end of our days, I thought we could.”

Corinne tried to ignore the fluttering in her stomach and the aching fullness of her heart.
“But you said Fae didn’t get married.”

“You aren’t Fae,” he said simply.

“You know, now might be a good time to keep your promise and explain to me how it is that in fifty years I’m not going to look like your great-aunt Ida.”

“Well that’s easy,” he said with a grin.
“I’m not going to look this way in fifty years.”

She frowned.
“How do you figure that?”

“Aging is only partially genetic for the sidhe.
Most of the eternal-youth thing has to do with living in Faerie.
No one there really ages past adulthood.
As long as I’m living in
Ithir,
I’ll age almost like a human.
And if we want to slow things down once in a while, we can always go to Faerie for a visit.
Mab says we’re welcome in the palace anytime.”

Corinne digested that.
“I suppose that could work.
But are you sure about getting married?”

“I thought it would make you happy.”

It would make her ecstatic, she realized, but she didn’t intend to let him skip all the steps between meeting and marriage.
She wanted all that good stuff, too.

“It will,” she admitted, “but we’re not going to do it yet.”

She felt him stiffen.
“Why not?”

“Because I want to date first.”
She pulled back to smile up at him.
“Look at it this way.
You know I’ll say yes to your proposal eventually, which takes the pressure off, but you still get all the fun of trying to persuade me.”

He laughed softly.
“Ah, I understand.
In that case, rest up, sweetheart.
You’re going to need your strength for my brand of persuasion.”

“I can’t wait.”

They lay together in silence for a few minutes, and Corinne felt the drowsiness caused by the drugs and the events of the past couple of days start to take over.
She could hear his heart beating steadily beneath her ear, and knew there was no place she’d rather be than in his arms.
She couldn’t wait for the future.

She didn’t realize she’d drifted off to sleep, but when she woke again, Luc was gone and the clock told her she had been out for almost three hours.
She rolled over and winced at the pain in her head.

“Here.
Have some medicine.”

She accepted the pill Missy pushed into her hand and swallowed it with a sip of water from the glass that was pressed against her lips.
When she dropped her head back and opened her eyes gingerly, she saw Missy and Reggie sitting on opposite sides of her bed.
“Where’s Luc?”

Missy grinned.
“Graham, Rafe, and Dmitri pried him away from you long enough to feed him.
He was starting to turn a little gray.”

“We think they plan to get him drunk, too.
Just to celebrate.”

Corinne scowled and looked around, her gaze screeching to a stop when she saw Ava watching her from the foot of the bed.
“What?”
she asked.
“No Danice?”

“We couldn’t get ahold of her,” Reggie said.
“She and Mac are away at their mysterious ‘weekend house.’
But I left a message on her machine at home, and with her secretary and her paralegal.
And Daphanie stopped by earlier, but she was on her way out of town with Asher.
She’s exhibiting at some kind of craft show down south this weekend.”

Corinne rolled her eyes, then winced at the pain it caused.
“Did you send out notices or something?
It’s not like I’m on death’s door or anything.”

“Oh, we know,” Ava drawled.
“But we thought the whole gang deserved a chance to grill you on Tall, Dark, and Faerie.”

“Fae,” she corrected.

“Whatever.
So spill it.
Tell us all about him.”

“Buy the movie.”

“I’m not into porn flicks, darling.
I prefer to read the book, but that takes so long, and you can summarize for me.”

There would never be a book.
If she had her way, Corinne’s article on summertime mass hysteria in Manhattan would be the last time she ever mentioned a non-human being in her life.
From now on she’d just focus on loving one.

“Can’t you get a life of your own instead of prying into mine?”
she demanded.

“Why should I?”

Corinne looked helplessly to Reggie and then to Missy for help.
They just grinned at her.

“Don’t look at us,” Reggie said.
“She did this to us, too.”

“It’s like a rite of passage,” Missy added.
“We all have to go through it eventually.”

Corinne scowled.
“That’s ridiculous.
She has no right to pry like this.”

Ava arched a slim, dark brow.
“Why do you think I waited until you were exhausted and vulnerable and too weak to fight back?
Now spill.”

Corinne knew when she’d been beaten, but that didn’t stop her from scowling furiously at the object of her displeasure.

“Fine,” she growled.
“Until Luc escapes and comes to rescue me—which is becoming a distressingly familiar scenario—I’ll satisfy your prurient curiosity.
But just remember this.
One day soon, it’ll be your turn to answer questions about your love life.”

Ava laughed.
“Corinne, darling, the day I fall in love is the day I’ll answer any question any one of you wants to ask me.”

Corinne felt her mouth curve into a wicked grin, and saw the same expression mirrored on Reggie’s and Missy’s faces.
Oh, boy, she could hardly wait.

“Ha!
You said it, and I’ve got witnesses,” she purred.
“I want you to remember that promise, Av, because we are going to take great pleasure in holding you to it.
One of these days you’re going to get yours.
And believe me when I tell you that love has a nasty habit of ignoring what you want, and giving you exactly what you need.”

That’s just what it had done for her.