Текст книги "The Shifting Price of Prey"

Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод

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Chapter Twenty-One

‘Hey!’ Finn’s moss-green eyes sparked emerald, faint lines creasing their corners as he smiled.

Stunned surprise laced with joy at seeing him again made my heart leap, then my anger and hurt boiled up. I started to demand what the hell he was thinking of turning up expecting a welcome as if we’d last seen each other yesterday—

Suspicion froze me. Finn was supposed to be in the Fair Lands with Nicky, his pregnant daughter, until she had her kid. He wasn’t due back for at least another two months. So he shouldn’t be here. Wouldn’t be here . . . Unless, while my inner radar pinged him as fae, this wasn’t Finn.

I curled my fingers around Ascalon’s ring, and narrowed my gaze. The sharp points of his horns standing a couple of inches above his dark blond hair were the only thing about him that said he was satyr and not human, but then he was wearing Finn’s usual clean-cut handsome Glamour. Or almost. The lines at his eyes were new, his face was thinner, and the angle of his jaw was more defined, making him look early thirties. Though, like any fae, how old he looked was irrelevant, the real Finn (who at a hundred and eight was one of the youngest in the satyr herd) had always looked around my age: twenty-five.

The fae’s smile faded, and something else . . . disappointment, wariness, or maybe a touch of anger . . . took its place. ‘I thought you’d be happy to see me, Gen.’

He sounded like Finn too. ‘How do I know you’re Finn?’

He frowned, then comprehension lit his face and he touched his palm to the Warded dome. It flashed bright vermilion and he hastily snatched his hand back.

Yeah, the Ward packs a punch.But then this guy was fae, he’d know that. So why the hell had he hurt himself like that?

‘Third time’s the charm, Gen,’ he said, holding his hand up; his palm was black where the Ward had seared his skin. ‘Except it wasn’t, was it?’ He gave me a lopsided grin. ‘Ricou said we were lucky not to kill each other. Remember?’

I did. Tavish had sicced me with a Chastity spell that manifested as a black handprint on my stomach. Finn had tried to remove the spell using his fertility magic. We’d been in the back of a luxury limo cocooned in our own little world by Privacy spells, and the knowledge than no one would interrupt us. If we hadn’t both ended up knocked out by the clashing spells the third time he’d tried, things would’ve gone a lot further than they did . . . And yeah, only Finn would know he’d said ‘Third time’s the charm’ right before our ‘lucky’ magical coitus interruptus.

The memory lodged a ball of hurt in my chest. Why the hell did he have to remind me of that particular moment; the last time we’d had fun and been happy together? Damn satyr could’ve picked any number of things.

‘Ricou can be a drama queen at times,’ I said flatly.

Finn’s shot me a searching look but all he said was, ‘So, you’re sure it’s me now?’

I wanted to say no. I wanted to shout at him to go away. But my curiosity spiked . . . or maybe a moment of errant masochism: I also wanted to know why he’d cut me off.

I stepped through the Ward, shivering as the recognition magic pricked goosebumps over my skin. There was one last check– skin to skin. Stealing myself for his touch, I stuck my hand out, ‘Nearly.’

He nodded and clasped my hand in his, taking a deep breath and rolling his shoulders like he was shrugging off a heavy cape. The mouth-watering smell of blackberries swam on the air and his familiar magic bloomed inside me. I gasped as it filled me, then swallowed back a scream as it ripped spiked thorns of desire through my core and almost took me to my knees before Finn gathered me to him.

‘Um. You okay, Gen?’

I leaned against him, not sure my legs would hold me, breathing in his warm berry scent, feeling his heart echoing my own heart’s fast thudding, and concentrated on crushing the need thrumming through my body. Bastard satyr had sicced me with enough of his sex-god energy to power-up a fertility rite. Boy, was I thankful that Mad Max’s Poultice spell had done its job. Damn fertility magic would’ve had me desperate and begging again. Especially as my libido thought Finn was exactly what it needed, and wanted nothing less than to act on the promise of pleasure still jumping along my nerve endings. Only no way was that going to happen, not when he’d cut me off.

Finally I fought myself back under control, and pushed away from him. ‘What the fuck was that for?’

‘Well, I wanted you to be sure it was me,’ he said sounding contrite, but a flicker of satisfaction crossed his face. ‘Sorry.’

Rage sparked. ‘No. You’re not.’

‘Hey, I am sorry, truly, Gen. I’ve . . .’ He lifted a hesitant hand as if to touch me, then let it fall. ‘Okay, yeah, maybe I took advantage. A bit. But I didn’t mean to hit you quite so hard. The magic’s been playing havoc with me recently, and I’ve . . . missed you. Forgive me?’

I’d missed him too.The feeling slammed into me, twisting through my anger. And I knew better than most how the magic could play tricks on you.

Finn’s mouth turned down. ‘Things haven’t been easy with Nicky, either. Not that that’s an excuse, but it hasn’t helped.’

Yep, I could imagine that coping with a pregnant teenage daughter wasn’t easy, especially one whose pregnancy had been forced on her by a deranged baby-making wizard. Not to mention Nicky ending up in the mad wizard’s clutches was down to her own mother, Finn’s ex and my Witch-bitch nemesis DI Helen Crane. Helen’s betrayal of him and their daughter was something else he’d had to deal with. The Witch-bitch was an evil piece of work if ever there was one.

I shoved my hands in my robe pockets, warring between wanting to hug him for the nasty stuff he’d ended up dealing with, and pounding on him for siccing his magic on me. For bringing back memories I’d buried. For cutting me off. But concern for Nicky, and for him, made me ask ‘How is Nicky?’

‘She’s fine.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘Well, not fine, but okay,’ he added, then the wariness darkened his green eyes again. ‘We need to talk, Gen.’

Yeah, we did. I clenched my hands in my pockets. ‘You’d better start then,’ I said, trying to keep my anger out of my voice.

Finn flinched, so obviously I wasn’t successful. He waved at my bedroom window. ‘Can we go inside, Gen?’

No.But the excited rustling coming from the silver birches silenced my kneejerk denial; we’d given the trees enough gossip already. And I did want to hear whatever he had to tell me.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But I have to go first then pull you through the Ward.’ Only we have to touch again. I’m not sure I’m ready. Or if I want to.

He nodded as if he’d heard my reluctant words or more likely noticed my hands were still shoved in my robe, then he cast an assessing eye over the dome. ‘Looks complicated.’

‘It is.’ I grimaced. ‘And sensitive.’

‘Sensitive?’

‘Yeah, it’s set to activate if it senses we’re under threat,’ I said, then as talking was easing the anger tensing my muscles I added grudgingly, ‘Turns out it can’t tell the difference between fear and excitement. The Ward went into lock-down after I signed up Harrods.’

Impressed delight lit his face. ‘You got the contract with Harrods?’

‘Yep.’

He grinned, leaned in as if he were going to kiss me then, as I shifted back, clasped my shoulders instead, giving them a congratulatory pat. ‘Way to go, Gen!’

‘Thanks.’ I’d worked hard to finalise that deal, and I was proud of it. Now I’d given the police the heads up about the source of the Harrods’ mutating Magic Mirror spell, it was going to be a nice little earner. I nodded at the dome. ‘It took us two days to get the Ward back on track.’

‘Us?’

‘Me, Sylvia and Ricou.’

‘Ah,’ he said, a muscle spasming in his jaw. ‘I’d heard you were living together. How’s that working out?’

An odd note in his voice made me frown. ‘Better than I thought it would. Why?’

He cast another look at my bedroom window. ‘Can we talk about it inside? Or is that a problem?’

‘Why should it be a problem?’

‘Not here, Gen,’ he insisted.

He sounded . . . jealous? Of Sylvia and Ricou? That was . . . weird. And way out of line. He was the one who’d stopped writing not me. I blew out a furious breath to calm myself then stepped back into the magical dome. The Ward slapped shut behind me. I turned, took a moment to focus, and shoved my left arm through the Ward’s plastic-feeling side. ‘You need to hold my hand with your left, and remember: stay calm.’

He stared at my hand as if I’d offered him raw meat to eat (something I’d never do, since Finn’s vegetarian) and it clicked he was glaring at Malik’s rose-shaped bruises circling my wrist, though why was beyond me; he knew they were there. I raised my brows and wiggled my fingers impatiently. He grasped them and I went to guide him through, then stopped him with a warning look. ‘Oh, one more thing, the Ward will strip away your Glamour, so you might want to make sure your clothes are real.’

‘I don’t make a habit of walking around undressed, Gen.’ Amusement glinted in his eyes, and for a moment the teasing, light-hearted Finn I loved was back. ‘At least not since that time you calledmy clothes along with a spell.’

‘That was nearly a year ago,’ I huffed, aggrieved. ‘And it was an accident.’ It had been our first Spellcrackers job together. I’d been mortified at my erratic magical ability that I hadn’t taken time to enjoy the naked Finn eye-candy. ‘And it only happened the once.’

‘Twice.’

Oh, yeah. Except the second time I’d given in to temptation and done it deliberately. Not that it got me anywhere; Finn had been even quicker at zapping his Glamour back in place than the first time.

I gave a louder huff, and tugged him towards me.

He stepped into the Ward. It held him, the power in it tasting and testing. The air around him flashed with emerald sparks, and I squinted against the glare as his Glamour peeled away in stages, as if it took time to reveal his true form. His T-shirt disappeared. His shoulders and chest broadened, the muscles hardening and becoming more defined. His jeans morphed into a pair of olive-coloured cargo trousers, loose enough to conceal the tail I’d glimpsed only once and which, like all satyrs, he was shy about. His features sharpened, taking on a feral edge, his hair turning from dark blond to a ruffled sable, his horns lengthening, curving and twisting sinuously a foot above his head. His eyes were the last to change: the softer moss-green of his irises flowing into the whites and shading them pale chartreuse as his pupils elongated and flattened into dark horizontal slits.

For a moment I caught my breath, stunned. I’d seen his true form before, but only when he’d been fighting, hurt or angry enough to lose his hold on his Glamour, and while his human shape was clean-cut handsome, now he was– well, jaw-droppingly gorgeous didn’t begin to cover it.

‘Like what you see, Gen?’ he said, grinning like a fertility fae who thought he was on to a sure thing.

Annoyance smacked into me and I shut my mouth. Damn satyr. He’d somehow fudged the Ward: his whole slow-Glamour-strip deliberate.

Before I could call him on it, a loud splash came from the pond behind me.

I swung round, adrenalin speeding my pulse as I dug a handful of dog biscuits from my robe’s pocket.

The pond’s occupant – a gigantic eel called Bertha – had risen five feet above the water’s surface and was doing her usual swaying snake-charmer’s dance. Briefly I wondered if I could make a run for the bedroom before she saw me, only my luck was out. She drew back in her ready-to-attack stance, her eyes flashing a malevolent acid-yellow, her mouth yawning wide to showcase her pointed teeth. Her extremely sharp and painful pointed teeth. Bertha and the pond might be eight feet away from me, but I had two sets of teeth marks in my right calf and a deep bite in my left buttock to prove thatdistance wasn’t a barrier. Not when Bertha hated me with a single-minded passion that went way past murderous. Which was sort of my fault. I’d stabbed her with a bull’s horn. She hadn’t been herself at the time, and I’d been acting in self-defence. But Bertha wasn’t big on extenuating circumstances. She wanted her pound of flesh– literally.

Going for distraction, I pelted her with half-a-dozen biscuits. Most of them fell uselessly into the pond, but one caught Bertha under her gills. She hissed.

‘Isn’t that Bertha, Ricou’s pet?’ Finn asked in a bemused voice.

‘Yep.’ I threw another biscuit. It bounced away in another lucky hit above her left eye.

‘What’s she doing in your pond?’

‘Stopping any unwanted visitors from using it as a gateway.’

Bertha shook her head, and slithered over the pond’s edge on to the grass.

‘Safer not to have the pond,’ he murmured.

‘Sylvia needs the water,’ I said. ‘Now she’s pregnant she’s drinking around twenty gallons a day and there are way too many additives in tap water.’ A biscuit hit Bertha’s nose: nearly on target. ‘And Bertha adores Sylvia, she’d never hurt her.’ Unlike me.The next biscuit sailed into Bertha’s open maw. She snapped her jaws shut and, radiating bliss, she wriggled back into the water and disappeared, leaving its surface black and ripple-free.

Relieved, I headed for the open window, ducked through the Ward and stuck my left arm out to Finn.

He shot a last puzzled glance at the pond, started to climb in after me, but froze halfway through and said in a soft voice, ‘You should’ve told me if I was interrupting, Gen.’

Crap. I’d forgotten about the rose petals.

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘You’re not interrupting,’ I said flatly once we were both in the bedroom. My bed with its scattering of crimson rose petals was like an accusation between us.

‘Okay, I’m not,’ he agreed, but his expression said he didn’t believe me.

Irritation stabbed me. Finn was definitely giving off the jealous vibe. Question was, why? Our ‘couple’ status wasn’t ever a done deal. And was sonot now. So him putting on the angry, aggrieved boyfriend act was nowhere near cool. Nor did I appreciate his thinking I was jumping into bed with Sylvia and Ricou. Only . . . even without the wrongness of it, the brooding jealous thing wasn’t like him so who had woken up his green-eyed monster by yanking his chain? Because someone had: Finn had been acting like a suspicious jerk since he’d turned up. My bed with its clichéd romantic gesture was just another nail, as far as he was concerned.

I stuffed my annoyance down as I gathered the petals into an old shoebox; I’d take them with me if/when I went to see Malik later. Right now I’d sort out the infuriating satyr in front of me. Cinching my robe tighter, I fixed him with a glower. ‘What did you want to talk about, Finn?’

He jerked his head at the shoebox. ‘What’s with them?’

‘You first.’

He gave the bedroom a critical scan as if he expected to find someone else there, though with Malik’s dark spice scent still hovering like a silent ghost, maybe he had cause. ‘Are we alone?’

My irritation spiked again. ‘Ricou’s out. Sylvia’s in Between, through the wardrobe in there.’ I pointed to the living room. ‘And there’s a dryad standing sentry in the wardrobe’s wood, but otherwise, yes.’

Finn snapped his fingers and at the same time as his T-shirt (disappointingly) reappeared, I felt a Privacy spell settle around us. He cast another look around, his gaze hitching on the shoebox before coming back to me. ‘My brothers have been telling me things. About Sylvia and Ricou living here. With you. That the three of you might be an item.’

Wow! The rumour mill had been working overtime, and now I knew what had stoked Finn’s green-eyed monster. Not to mention that it made a lot of stuff crystal clear. Briefly I wondered what came first, Lady Isabella wanting Spellcrackers and coming up with her Sylvia-seducing-me plan, no doubt with her dryads spreading spurious pre-seduction gossip. Or if Isabella had got the idea from the satyrs, who’d probably put it about that I was up to all sorts of shenanigans with my flatmates as justification for demanding their investment back. Gods save me from London’s fae and their squabbles.

‘Well, it’s true,’ I agreed, anger sharpening my voice. ‘Sylvia and Ricou do live here. And you know why? Its neutral territory. Living here means that neither the naiads nor the dryads feel left out of the pregnancy, and Sylvia and Ricou don’t have to spend all their time smoothing ruffled feathers.’ Not that there were any feathers involved, just scales and twigs, mostly. ‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ I added, even as I wondered if his brothers’ tittle-tattle had anything to do with why Finn had stopped writing. ‘But hey, seeing as your brothers have been in a chatty mood, maybe they told you they want Spellcrackers back, too.’

Confusion crossed his face. ‘What?’

‘The herd wants Spellcrackers back,’ I said slowly, like I was talking to an idiot. Which I was. ‘You made them sign it over to me, but now the curse is lifted so is the reason for giving it to me. If they think I’m an “item” with someone else, someone who isn’t a satyr . . . well, no doubt they’re even more determined not to lose out on their original investment.’

He sunk down on to the bed, dropped his head in his hands. ‘Gods, I should’ve realised they’d try something: I know what they’re like.’ He sighed and looked up at me. ‘I should’ve got them to agree to back off before I went. But with Nicky and everything, I just didn’t think. I’ll sort it now. I’m sorry. Gen, this isn’t how I hoped our getting back together would go.’

He was sorry! He’d sort his family! He’d expected something like this! He thought we were getting back together!

I threw my hands up, warring between fury and disbelief. ‘Finn, I wrote to tell you what the herd were up to. When you didn’t write back, I did wonder if the satyr messenger service wasn’t passing my letters on, which I was obviously right to. But hell, didn’t you wonder why I wasn’t writing to you? Didn’t you think about trying some other way to contact me? Or asking me what the hell was going on?’

Bewilderment clouded his moss-green eyes. ‘How could I? We were out of time sync.’

I blinked. ‘Since when?’

‘Since two weeks after we got there. I’ve only just got back.’ I stared at him. The Fair Lands have their own timelines, sometimes in sync with the humans’ world, sometimes not. A day here could be months or even years there, or the other way round, depending on who was controlling the magic. And if Finn had been out of time sync, it could explain his silence.

‘I did write to you, Gen, but I’m guessing you didn’t get my letter.’ He reached out to take my hand. ‘I’m sorry. I can understand your being angry about that, and with the herd being stupid idiots about Spellcrackers.’ He paused. ‘You must have thought my silence was deliberate?’

I looked down at my hand in his. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to leave it there or take it back. Three months of thinking he’d ditched me wasn’t something I could do an emotional one-eighty from in a few seconds. And okay, Finn might not have been totally responsible for his hurtful silence, that was down to his brothers, but he hadn’t seemed too surprised that they’d screwed things up for him. And he’d come over here channelling the green-eyed monster on his brothers’ say so. He seemed to be letting them mess in his life way too often.

‘I did think your silence deliberate,’ I said pointedly, then pulled my hand from his and crossed my arms. ‘It hurt, Finn.’

He flinched, then he straightened his shoulders and said softly, ‘Gods, Gen, I truly am sorry.’

‘So am I,’ I said, keeping my voice neutral.

He nodded, understanding I wasn’t ready to forgive him. The silence between us lengthened, turning awkward, then I sighed and asked, ‘Why go out of time sync?’

‘Some of the other girls were having problems,’ he replied, his relief evident that I’d spoken. ‘The Morrígan said they and their babies wouldn’t survive the births without a big intake of magic.’

The other girls were the rest of the faeling victims of the ToLA case. Though, unlike Nicky, they’d all signed on with the mad wizard doctor as well-paid surrogates. It would’ve been a good gig for them all if they hadn’t started dying. Deaths that Witch-bitch Helen, as the police officer in charge of the investigation, had covered up.

‘So the Morrígan slowed all their pregnancies down,’ Finn carried on. ‘It added another four months on to everyone’s due date, including Nicky’s. Other than moaning she was the size of a house she never complained, despite ending up pregnant for thirteen months.’ A shudder ran through him. ‘Not like some of the others.’

I gaped. ‘Nicky was pregnant for thirteen months!’

‘Yeah. But like I said, she was brilliant.’ Pride shone in his smile. ‘The baby’s a boy, Daniel Christopher.’

‘Wait! She’s had the baby?’

‘Yeah, two weeks ago. She’s talking about keeping him, but’ – he raked a hand through his hair and rubbed his left horn in agitation – ‘well, he’s only two weeks old so it’s still too early to know if he’s hers or not. Or who the father is. She was the last to give birth so that’s why it’s taken us so long to get back into sync with London.’

I sat down on the bed next to him. ‘Wow. That’s unreal.’

He nodded. ‘Yep. It is. Even living through it.’

Briefly I touched his arm. ‘Is Nicky okay?’

‘She and the baby are healthy.’ He grimaced. ‘She’s still got a lot to work through. Psychologically. We all have.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. They weren’t the only ones.

We fell into another awkward silence, then Finn gave the shoebox of petals a sidelong look. ‘Do those mean that something’s going on with someone else?’

My anger blew back up and I almost told him to mind his own business again. But even though the petals might not be the clichéd romantic gesture he suspected, I did have something going on with Malik and, even if it was still early days, I needed to tell Finn that.

But I wasn’t up for another emotional confrontation. Not right this minute.

I snagged a petal from the box. It still felt velvety soft and real. As illusions went, this one was top of the range. If it wasan illusion. I held the petal out to Finn. ‘Does it exist?’

He gave me a searching look, then took the petal and examined it thoroughly before handing it back. ‘Seems real enough. Why?’

‘They weren’t here when I went to sleep. Robur, the dryad sentry, says no one’s breached the Wards, and the only sending spot is inside the fridge. So how did they get here?’

He stared fixedly at the window for a minute then cupped his hands; a small earthenware pot filled with violets appeared in them. ‘The Wards are set to let whoever is inside them callsomething from outside.’

‘They are?’

‘Yep. It’s pretty standard for this type of defensive Ward, in case you get trapped and need to callin food or water. Though usual rules for callingstill apply; you’d have to know exactly where an item is before you could callit here.’ He held the pot of violets up with a smile. ‘These beauties are from my glade. First thing I saw last night, when I got back.’

Hmm. I hadn’t been aware of that particular feature, but it wasn’t really a security hazard; not with the way entry through the Wards was set up. Except– ‘There’s only Robur, Sylvia and me here. Robur’s not the type, Sylvia’s in Betweenand I was asleep.’ Not to mention I can’t callanything other than spells, and only then if I can see them.

‘Then I don’t know how they got here, unless . . .’ he trailed off, pensive.

‘Unless what?’

He stood and put the pot of violets gently on the windowsill. ‘Maybe you calledthe petals without realising it. It’s been known to happen sometimes with toddlers; they’re asleep and next thing a toy will turn up in their cot even though they couldn’t have known where it was. It’s thought either they were dreaming of it or it’s a manifestation of a subconscious want.’ His moss-green eyes darkened. ‘Though I guess that theory hangs on what you were dreaming about?’

My dreams had been of Malik, of gatecrashing his memory, or whatever the blood-spattered snowy plateau scenario was. And yes, the crimson petals on my white sheets had reminded me of that, and of our time in the hotel penthouse, but no way could I tie the two together as any subconscious want, not when the rose petals had felt like a threat. A threat, I decided, I’d be better talking about with Malik than with Finn.

‘Okay, thanks,’ I said, then dived into a subject change. ‘So, when are you going back to the Fair Lands and Nicky?’

He eyed the shoebox with a frown. ‘You don’t want to talk about these and your dreams?’

I don’t want to talk about Malik and his dreamswith you , no.‘Not right now.’

For a moment he looked as if he wanted to argue, then he nodded. ‘I’m going back later today. Look, I know you think I’m an idiot for letting my brothers rile me up about you and Sylvia and Ricou—’

‘If the hat fits.’

‘Guess I deserved that.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘But if I’m honest, in a way I wanted to believe them.’

My jaw dropped. ‘What?’

‘I know, sounds crazy even to me.’ Bafflement briefly crossed his face, and he scratched behind a horn. ‘I mean, I hated the thought you might have found someone else, but at the same time . . . Hell’s thorns, that is crazy,’ he said, almost to himself. He shook his head then turned to stare out the window, tension tightening the broad muscles of his shoulders under the thin T-shirt. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Gen.’ His hand against the window frame curled into a fist. ‘Something I don’t want you to find out from anyone else.’

I stood, dread settling like lead in my gut. ‘Okay, so tell me.’