The Glass Man (13 page)

Parthalan repeated himself and shifted his feet. “Say it!”

I opened my mouth several times before anything came out. “I am—”

Rourke stumbled through the hole in the wall and fell beside us. For once, I was glad to see him. His words came out through panted breaths. “My King, please forgive me.”

“Now?” Parthalan threw his hands up. “Really? Have I surrounded myself with nothing but brainless twits?”

“Oh!” Rourke grinned, stood and brushed bits of rubble from his black pants. “Has she sworn herself to you so soon? You disappoint me, Lila. Even your own people will treat you as a traitor now.”

“What?” I scrambled to my feet, glared razors at Parthalan. “So just by saying those words, you’d own me?”

He cast a fiery gaze at his peon, who shrunk in on himself. “She would have if you had better fucking timing.”

Rourke stuttered a few times. “It was Garret and his father, Donovan. They cast an illusion over me. A dragon. He burned me.” He held up his arms as if to show us the char marks, but they were as smooth and pale as before.

The shadow around Parthalan pulsed and spread like a puff of smoke around us. A sudden wind carried his hair above his head, and his eyes flickered with blue fire. “I can trust no one but myself, it seems. I will take Lila to my chamber and deal with them myself.”

“You gave your oath to heal this house,” I said.

Rourke turned a shocked expression toward his king.

Parthalan cast a snide glance my way. “You didn’t fulfill your part of the bargain. Let it rot.”

“Lying bastard!”

He shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”

Muttering to himself, Parthalan clamped a shackle over my wrist. I yelped and pulled too late. He heaved me over his shoulder as I unleashed a storm of curses at him. He growled, and his muscles hardened beneath me as he strode through the hole onto the street. I didn’t bother to struggle, weakened once again by the shackles.

I had to get the hell out of Parthalan’s world, but there were a few details I needed to know first—like, why did Garret’s father help me?

16

Parthalan carried me up the steps of the castle and waited in front of the towering arched doors. When they creaked open a moment later, he crossed the threshold and tossed me onto the black marble floor.

Rodan, and the rest of the Sluagh I’d seen on the street outside the house, filed in after us and shut the door with a resounding crash.

Parthalan turned to Rodan, his voice commanding respect. “Put a call out to the rest of the Host. Garret and Donovan are to be brought to me immediately. Do. Not. Fail. Me!”

Rodan dipped his head in a nod. His black hood did nothing to hide the disdain in his eyes. He gave subtle hand signals, and several of his brethren slipped out the door.

I climbed to my feet and stared up at the ceiling far above me. “Something’s moving up there.” When I looked closer, the entire expanse boiled black and silver. I backed toward the door. “No, scratch that. A lot of something’s are moving up there.”
What is that?

“Those are the Bean Sidhe,” Parthalan said. “Some call them banshee, pets of the Sluagh. They keep a vigilant watch over the Court. Best not to upset them.”

There must have been thousands, but the way they writhed around one another made it hard to tell. Women’s faces floated in black rags, but they didn’t have any eyes, only dark holes where they should be and gaping mouths. My eyes grew larger by the second. My bound hands groped for the door handle behind me, but I ended up grabbing fabric instead. I didn’t make a sound when I turned and found Rodan staring down his black beak at me. As I retreated, I thought I caught amusement in his seawater eyes.

My heart tried to climb my throat.

Parthalan eyed me, laughed right from his belly. “Oh, I do love to watch you squirm, my darling.”

“Go to hell,” I whispered under my breath.

“Rodan, take Lila to my chambers and keep a guard on the door.”

The captain gave that subtle nod again, but he kept staring at me. His face wrinkled up around his eyes as though he grinned somewhere in the shadow.
This can’t be happening.
 The creepy undead guy needed only a moment to snap my neck, and without my Light, I had nothing to defend myself. I searched the hall for someone or something that might be useful to me. Nothing but foreign Unseelie scum and more feathered creeps waited. I shot a glance at Parthalan. For once, I considered him the lesser of two evils.

“I’d like you to take me.” I sauntered back to the Unseelie king, swinging my hips with faked enthusiasm. He stood rigidly at first, stared at me with a wrinkled brow. After a few moments hesitation, his shoulders flattened, and he slid his arm around my shoulders.

Parthalan raised a sculpted eyebrow as he led me away from the cavernous hall and down a wide corridor lined with the same black marble as the entrance. Thick vines snaked along the ceiling everywhere—brilliant emerald lines on the dark backdrop. Tiny yellow flowers appeared in clusters.

A peer over my shoulder revealed Rodan pacing us at a distance, eyeing me as if he knew what I planned to do when Parthalan and I were alone. A few of the other Sluagh pranced and fidgeted behind him, and some of the banshees crept along the walls and ceiling. Their shreds of clothing blended into the marble. Except for the ashen skin of their eyeless faces and the gnarled hands that groped blindly along the surface, they were invisible.

I stifled a shudder and turned forward again. If I had to choose between becoming one of the Sluagh or going with Parthalan, I’d choose the latter. I could sway him with a little flirting and touch. I needed to figure out how to use it to my advantage.

We stopped in front of another wooden door. Parthalan turned and grasped my face in his hands. Despite the desperate urge to shake him off, I stood there and forced a smile.

“I can’t tell you how it excites me that you have begun to embrace me.” He kissed me gently, tracing my upper lip with his tongue. I found the contrast between the psychopath and his soft side disturbing. “Welcome to the honeymoon suite.” He swung the door open with a flourish and led me inside. I wiped off his slobber when his back was turned.

When Rodan approached the door, I slammed it shut in his face with my shoulder and whirled around. “I need to talk to you … my King.”
Gag me.

The largest bedroom I’d ever seen stretched out before me. The ceiling loomed high above, similar to the one in the entrance hall, except made from glass. The swirling liquid sky cast a strange shade into the room. The building pulsed with life beneath my bare feet.

“I haven’t much time, but I’ll hear you, my Queen.”
Double gag me.
He lounged on an enormous bed with red satin coverings. Dark wooden beams rose up from the four corners, supporting an open frame at the top. Red gossamer and ivy hung from it in a scalloped design, something I’d expect if someone made a princess porn movie.

“You can’t leave the Sluagh to guard me,” I blurted when he beckoned me to lie beside him.

He sat up, stared at me as if I’d shed my skin. “Why ever not?”

“Rodan gave the order to kill and bury me in their cemetery just before you showed up at the house tonight. The other one, Tobias, egged him on. He said the Sluagh could use me to overthrow the Unseelie and take back their city.”

He shot up from the bed. “You would accuse my faithful guard of treason?” He held his arms ramrod straight at his sides.

“I give you my oath, it’s true.”

Parthalan shook his head, curled up his lip in a snarl and paced. Ten steps to the wall, ten steps back. His hands gestured as if emphasizing whatever thoughts crowded that psycho head of his.

On his fifth pass, I said, “You’ll wear a hole through the floor if you keep that up. I thought you said you were in a hurry.” I needed him out of my face so I could find Donovan.

A faint sound caused me to turn. I caught a glimpse of two women peering around a door opposite the bed before they disappeared again. The space in which they hid appeared to be either a bathroom or a dressing room.

“Whether true or not, I cannot take the chance. Not tonight.” Parthalan stared at the floor and stroked his chin. “But I must tread lightly, or they’ll bring war upon me anyway.” He looked at me, something unfamiliar pooling in his eyes. I’d never seen him afraid before. I turned so he wouldn’t see my smile. “Willa! Althea!”

The two women emerged, the first striding boldly from the other room. Her long sable hair hung down past her waist, swinging as she walked. She wore a red skirt low on her full hips. It flowed out around her like ripples of crimson water. On top, she wore something similar to a bra in matching fabric. The way she looked at Parthalan made me want to vomit. I finally understood how he thought women worshipped him, or at least how she did. The need in her eyes made me avert mine in case the heat might flare out and burn me.

The other woman, shorter and more voluptuous, peered around the door. After a thorough, wary look, she crept into the room. Her sandy blonde hair lay in two braids over her shoulders. Both women had enormous brown eyes, but she had lashes that would make most women jealous—thick, curled and dark. She wore a similar outfit to the other, except she overflowed her bra and brilliant blue replaced the red. Just as the heat in the other one’s eyes made me turn away, the fear in her drew me in, made me want to pick her up and hide her from the monster in the room.

Red Skirt plastered herself against Parthalan. “What’s yer pleasure, my King?” she asked with a thick Irish lilt as she slid her hand down the front of his pants.

He jerked her arm away and pushed her back. “Not now, Althea. Bathe and dress Lila for the bonding ceremony. You know what I like. You have an hour.”

With a grin, he moved toward me, but Althea grasped his arm. Her face twisted with rage. “Her? Yeh’d take the Seelie over yer loyal pet?”

Parthalan rolled his eyes, turned to Althea. He launched a mocking laugh into the woman’s face. “How could you ask that? How could I not desire Seelie flesh and power over that of a mere selkie?”

“A mere—how dare yeh!” Her brown eyes darkened to black. “Yeh’ve treated me as yer queen, taken me to yer bed. I give yeh all a king could want. Now this one comes, and I’m nothin’ to yeh?” She flicked a long finger in my direction.

A small shift in stance turned Parthalan into something worse, something more imposing if that was possible. “For your insolence, I shall destroy your skin. The sea will be lost to you forever.”

Althea gasped and fell to her knees, pressed her face against his legs and pawed at him. “Forgive me, my King. I only want yer happiness, to please yeh. The Seelie doesn’t want yeh the way I do. I meant no—”

With an annoyed shake of his head, he turned and disappeared behind me, fumbling with my shackles until they fell to the floor. The weakness they caused in my arms began to ease.

He gathered my hair into his hands and pushed it to one side, kissed the side of my throat. A mutinous shiver raced down my skin. “To control the weak is enough for the lesser fae, but to control the strong, to control the one who won’t be controlled—now that is a thrill worthy of a king.” He breathed across my ear, bit along my jaw. I held my body rigid and resisted the urge to scrub my skin. “I’ll be waiting.”

The door opened and slammed shut behind me. My lungs expelled the pent-up air.

When I focused on the woman who knelt across the room, her eyes were impossibly wide as if someone had struck her between them with a hammer. Tears welled above her lower lashes as she wailed at the ceiling.

“How could he?” She screeched. “I’ll kill him, I will. I’ll scratch his fuck’n eyes out.”

“I told yeh this’d happ’n.” The one wearing blue—Willa he’d said—spoke with a soft angelic voice. She shot a wary glance at the door before draping herself around the sobbing woman.

“What did he mean about the skin?” I moved closer.

Willa placed a finger over her lips to shush me and continued to whisper, eyes darting to the door once in a while. “We be selkies. Water elementals we’re called by the Sidhe of our home. Without our seal skins, we’d be trapped on dry land, left to die parched in sight of the Goddess’s great sea.”

“So, you turn into seals, like real seals with these … skins?” I’d never read that legend before.

Willa nodded as she passed a soothing hand over Althea’s hair. “The king took ’em so we’d have ta stay. Said if we show our worth, he’d be lettin’ us go.”

“He lies, Willa. No matter what he says, if he owns a piece of you, you’ll never see it again. How long have you been here?”

Her kind expression turned to sadness. I wanted to take that look out of her eyes. “As prisoners, only since he offed the queen. ’Bout six months.”

I nodded, knowing I’d added one more item to my to-do list. “I’ll help you if I can, but I need you to help me first.”

Althea sprung from the floor as if something had launched her. “Ah, go ahn! Why would the Seelie be helpin’ the likes o’ us?” Her expression couldn’t make up its mind between hope and disdain for me. “The fae do naught but spit on the selkie and use us as whores.”

I jabbed a finger in her direction. “I don’t even know what it means to be Seelie, so you’ll have to forgive my ignorance if there’s some sort of history between you and them. And I’ll help you because nobody should be treated as slaves, especially not by Parthalan. Now enough about that; we’re short on time. While you get me ready for this thing, I need you to tell me everything you know about Donovan, Garret’s father, and get a message to him if you can.”

17

“You have got to be kidding me.” I stood in front of a full-length mirror in Parthalan’s dressing room. “I look like Barbie does S&M.”

Black thigh-high hose hugged my legs. Over top of the fishnet, I wore shiny black vinyl boots with silver heels. They made my legs look a mile long. Black garters held up the hose, and a tiny red thong covered my girly bits, leaving my butt to hang out in the breeze. A red lace-up corset squeezed my waist so small I could hardly breathe and squished my breasts up until they flowed over.

“D’yeh think it’s too much?” Willa continued to primp my hair. Half lay in a lattice-work of braids and the rest hung down my back in bouncing golden curls.

Althea paused from her chore of returning the rest of the fetish-wear to the endless racks of clothing along the far wall. She put her hands on her hips. “We’ve covered her ’bout as much as he’d allow. Knowin’ him, he’d have her goin’ in naught but the red knickers.”

“I guess I should be thanking you, then,” I said. I’d never seen such a large room devoted to dressing. Parthalan’s clothes hung in a mammoth closet through a door next to the vanity table. Mounds of makeup and hair accessories covered the marble surface of the vanity, and some had fallen down to the floor, spraying pink powder halfway across the shining blue tile. All of the clothes he’d made for me were more suited to a brothel catering to the Goth crowd.

A snicker to my left drew my gaze away from the mirror.

“Oh, hell.” I rolled my eyes and looked for something to cover myself with but found nothing but my own hands. “What do you want? Did you come to gloat, you lousy slime?”

Rourke watched me from the doorway. I noticed something different in his eyes, something softer. Was it pride?
No.
He snickered, a different sound than his normal barking chuckle. “Do you always talk to Rourke like that?”

The two selkies sniggered behind me.

I narrowed my eyes and stepped closer to him. The clothes were different: black pants, a black button-down shirt and an ornate red cloak with golden embroidery slung over his shoulders. His hair had been neatly arranged and secured with a red ribbon tied into a bow.

“Why are you talking about yourself in third person?” I searched for what I’d missed and what the girls found so funny, but I saw nothing obvious.

The ribbon disappeared, and his locks retreated toward his head into a shorter style with lighter brown curls. His eyes changed only a little—swirls of yellow appeared instead of the silver. A goatee sprouted on his chin, his shoulders broadened, and he grew taller by a foot.

I picked my chin off the floor. “You’re Donovan, the one from the tower. How did you do that?”

“It’s my
cumhacht
.” His amused face relaxed. “I can create illusions that go beyond normal fae glamour.”

“Nifty. But … where’s the real Rourke?”

He flashed a satisfied smile. “I made him think I was you and lured him down to the cell block for a little slap and tickle. He’s probably still shackled to the wall, waiting for you to put on something more … enticing.” He looked me over, rolled his eyes and shook his head.

I snorted. “You what? Why would he be so stupid? He had to know Parthalan would have killed him if we’d done anything like that together.”

“Have yeh met our Rourke?” Althea asked. “Promise him a bit o’ pain and he’ll follow yeh ’round like a kitten after a lick o’ cream. He likes gettin’ as much as dolin’ out.”

We all groaned and nodded.

“Why are you so familiar to me, Donovan?” I moved closer to him. “And why did you help me back there on the stairs?”

“Told yeh,” Althea said. “She don’t waste any time, this one.”

“I see that.” He grinned, sending warmth through my body. The warmth of home.

I turned to Althea. “How did you find him?”

“Yeh lucked out. He found me whilst I was wanderin’ about lookin’ for ’im whilst Willa was doin’ yeh up.” She winked at him and wandered away.

I put my attention back on Donovan. “Who are you really?”

He looked away for a moment. “I thought I’d never meet you. I thought … we all thought you’d perished when Parthalan kept turning up empty-handed.”

“We’ll just …” Willa grabbed Althea, and they went out the door.

He offered me his hand, and I took it with an instant sense of trust. That was new.

“Parthalan could have taken me dozens of times, but he just played with me and left.”

“Because he wanted you for himself. I get that now. If he’d turned you over to the queen, he wouldn’t have been able to kill her so easily. I swear none of us saw it coming. I looked for you so many times, but … Parthalan is a better tracker than I am. I’m so sorry.”

He put his other hand over top of mine. His sad eyes travelled the length of my arm until they landed on my face. I squeaked when he jerked me forward and wrapped his arms around me. His breath rasped as he worked to keep it even. “You look so much like your mother.”

I froze. It took a few tries to find any air to speak with. “You’re my father.”

He pushed me out to arms length, kept his hands on my cheeks. He nodded. A single tear trailed down his dark ivory skin. I caught it on the tip of my finger. Part of me had written him off as a figment of my mother’s imagination, a dream that never truly existed. It was the other part of me who recognized him from the place in my soul where he’d always been with me.

“Then that means—”

“Garret is your brother.”

I backed away, my sight turning inward. “I just need a minute.” I paced, my pulse flying into a tizzy while I thought it through. For years I’d wondered what he looked like, what kind of a person he’d have to be to win my mother’s heart. I’d been near him for a few minutes, and I already knew why she’d loved him. He radiated kindness and affection, a comforting presence in a cold world. One part of it didn’t make any sense. “If Garret is my brother … he must have a different mother.”

“I loved your mother with every part of myself. We were secretly mated before the Goddess after the fae war.” He pinched the top of his nose as if reliving a painful memory. “We don’t procreate easily—only a few couples succeed in producing children. Arianne and I … when we were blessed with Milo, we vowed to bring as many as we could into the world.”

“But … how old is Garret?”

“Fifteen.”

The cogs in my brain screeched to a halt. “I would have been five years old. I’d have known if my mother was pregnant.”

“She used the same glamour she used to change your appearance and to make you believe your skin and eyes looked human.”

“But …” I shook my head. “Why hide that pregnancy and not my sisters’?”

Donovan pulled a chair from the vanity table and motioned for me to sit down. After staring at him and finding no signs of deception, I sat. He knelt before me.

“Arianne knew and loved all of you from the time of conception. She knew Garret would have Unseelie eyes, like me, and he’d be better off growing up among our people. It’s hard for a fae to live happily outside the faerie mounds.”

My mother seemed happy enough. Didn’t she?

I tried to be patient while I waited for the rest. When it didn’t come, I frowned at him. “That doesn’t explain why she would hide him from me, and change my appearance, and didn’t tell me she was a queen, and that we were all fae and probably all had some sort of power. Was she ashamed of me?”

Donovan took my hands and cradled them on my lap. He set his forehead down on them for a moment before staring up at me again. “Her mother, Abigail, the one you call Nan, delivered the prophecy.” His voice deepened and quieted as if he spoke forbidden words. “A golden-haired child will be born to the Seelie with the power to unite them again.”

“And why did mother think it was me?”

He smiled. “Your mother never ‘thought’ anything, my sweet child. She knew you would be the one, could feel your power coursing through her body as she carried you. She fled from Dun Bray to keep you safe. The Seelie had grown weak and vain, so caught up in modern gadgets and appearances that they had forgotten their duty to this earth. Your mother wanted you to meet the Goddess with your own eyes, to commune with her creatures and her people and make your own judgments untainted by the fae of either Court. She knew Greisha, the Unseelie queen, would hear of the prophecy and send for you. Arianne didn’t expect your powers to manifest so soon or Parthalan to find you so quickly after.” He looked down. I wondered what he didn’t want me to see in his face. “She never dreamed Parthalan would set events in motion to destroy the humans. If she had, I think she would have prepared you better.”

“She could have at least told me what I was.” I swallowed the anger down. Numbness swept through my core. “Liam told me nobody wants him because he’s a half breed. So that’s what I am too, right?”

“It doesn’t matter. Nobody will ever know unless you tell them.” He looked at me with fatherly adoration and tucked a stray hair behind my ear. “You and I are the only living fae that know the truth.”

I pulled my hands back and turned away. “Maybe that’s why none of the Seelie Sidhe came to find me. They must know, too.”

“That’s not true. I’m sure they looked for you as I did.” His eyes found me again, haunted. “Other than our family, nobody has seen one in twenty years.”

Did that mean all of the Seelie were dead? I rubbed my stomach to quell the churning. “Why is it so wrong to carry the blood of both Courts? What’s wrong with me?”

“A stupid, centuries-old conflict, that’s all. And I think you’re forgetting the most crucial fact. A child of mixed blood is more powerful than any who came before. You, Lila. You can unite the Courts again.” He stood and leaned against the vanity, cast an unwavering stare at me. “You can return civility to the humans. It may take centuries, you may have to spill blood to see it done, but if any can do it, it’s you. You’ve made it so far on nothing but your own strength of will and tenacity. I have faith in you.”

“That makes one of us.” I bolted up. “Parthalan is about to bind me to him. I’ve already failed.”
Would Parthalan be able to tell that I’m already mated with Liam?

“Don’t say that! You haven’t. Go to the chamber and wait. You will leave here tonight just as you are, the rightful queen of the Seelie Sidhe.”

My brow furrowed. “What are you planning to do?”

“We haven’t the time. I need to get—”

“No. I need you to do something for me, and I don’t want you anywhere near Parthalan. He knows it was you who distracted Rourke on the steps. He’ll kill you.”

“You don’t get your stubbornness from your mother, young lady.” His smile held sadness. “I’ll do what I must.” He held his hand up when I opened my mouth again. “Now tell me what must be done.”

I tried to glare at him, but I couldn’t. I sighed. “The selkie skins … do you know where Parthalan keeps them?”

“In locked cold storage a few floors down, why?”

“Can you get in there without raising suspicions?”

A curious grin curved his lips. “I can’t, but Rourke can.”

“Then please, get the skins and help the girls get out of this place. I’ll figure something out with Parthalan. I can’t leave here until I know they’ll be safe.”

Pride flooded his eyes again. “Now
that
you get from your mother.” He kissed me on the forehead. “Selflessness.”

“If you say so.” I hesitated, stumbled over the words a few times before I spat them out. “One more thing before you go … the buildings, they …” I grunted in frustration and fidgeted in the corset. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’ve gone mad.”

“They live for the one they recognize as their true monarch, their protector and savoir.”

I waved him off. “That can’t be what it means.”

His eyes darkened. “Does Parthalan know?”

“He destroyed one of them when it ate me earlier, so yeah, I think he knows.”

Donovan nodded and opened the door into Parthalan’s bedroom, his lips pressed together. As he went through, he said, “Don’t be angry with him.” He closed the door behind him.

When his words sank into my rattled brain, I followed after him and yelled, “Be angry with whom?” but he’d already gone through the outer door into the hallway. The sickness in my stomach worsened as I walked into the bedroom and sat down on a chair by the fireplace.

Willa hovered at the end of the frilly princess bed.

“How long before I have to go?” I asked.

She came and knelt beside me, watched me with those large seal eyes. “Fifteen minutes. What’s goin’ ta happ’n now?”

“Donovan will bring your skins here, and then he’ll get you and Althea out.”

Althea stopped straightening the covers on the bed and turned to me, her mouth hanging open in shock. The way she’d been drooling over Parthalan, I wondered if she’d actually leave.

“That’s no’ wha’ I meant,” Willa continued. “What’ll happ’n ta you?”

I laughed, a hysterical burst of sound. “I have no idea what will happen. I think Donovan has something in mind, but …”

“Yeh’re afraid for ’im.”

I couldn’t speak, so I nodded.

She wrapped her hands around mine. “I best ready meself, then.” She squeezed my hand for a moment and smiled as she stood. “The selkie won’ forget what yeh’ve done.”

As she walked away, I ached for her to come back and hold my hand again. A ridiculous sentiment that I shook off.
No time to fall apart now.
I’d found my father at last. I needed to find a way out of the ceremony without him dying to get it done. I’d never escaped Parthalan once he had me in his grasp, but I had to do it that time, even if I had to … kill him. My chest tightened. Killing on purpose would lead down a dark, slippery road I’d sworn never to travel. To save my father, I’d have broken every one of my rules.