Midnight Enchantment (32 page)

“Elizabeth.” He caught her hand before she could turn away. “Don’t go. Stay with me, at least until this is over.”

She looked up and met his eyes. “This
is
over, Niall. Completely and totally.” She pulled her hand away from his and walked out of the crowd, into the road to go around the crowd.

“Elizabeth!” Niall called from behind her.

She kept walking, never turned around—even though her heart was breaking.

“You’re making a mistake,” her mother grumbled coming up beside her. “Niall is a good man and he loves you.”

“And I love him back, Mom.” Her voice was choked with tears. She cleared her throat, banishing them.

“I don’t understand the problem.”

“Too much lies between us. Too many bad decisions. Too many regrets.” She glanced at her mother, grief swamping her for a moment. “Too many bad memories.” Or there would be, anyway, very soon.

“I love you, but I won’t be your excuse, Elizabeth.”

She only shook her head in response and kept walking. It wasn’t an excuse, but she couldn’t explain that to her mother. “We’ll go back to the Boundary Lands, find a pocket of sprae. Maybe if you stay there, they won’t leave if the walls—Mom?”

Her mother was not beside her. She stopped and turned, scanning the throng but finding no trace of Thea. “Mom?”

Nothing.
She’d disappeared.

“Damn it,” she muttered, heading into the crowd to look for her, panic tightening her throat. She didn’t want her mother to die alone.

Just then another blast of magick, this one stronger than the others, shook the street like a mini earthquake.

“Watch out!” someone yelled, pointing at the top of the tower. The crowd took a collective breath and the noise level grew.

Elizabeth turned, looking up to see a huge chunk of the tower plummeting to the street. Directly under it wandered a young woman looking like she was lost. Elizabeth acted without thinking, realizing that she was closest to the woman since she was in the street.

Bolting to her, she pushed the woman out of the way. Elizabeth tripped, sprawled on her back, looked upward.

The huge chunk of black quartz hurtled straight toward her.

GIDEON’S teeth ground together, but he refused to look at the sluagh that roamed around him. The sounds of their claws on the marble were like splinters of ice through his brain. He kept his gaze focused on Gabriel’s face. Beside him, the Summer and Shadow Queens were locked in a similar prison of attention.

“Look at these monsters you can call,” he yelled over the sound of the goblins and sluagh around them. “How is it you think you deserve to walk among humans?”

“You don’t fool anyone here, Gideon,” Gabriel countered. “You don’t care a whit about humanity. Don’t pretend to be their guardians.”

“I wouldn’t be standing here, with Labrai guiding my every move, if I wasn’t.”

Aislinn snorted. “If Labrai is guiding you, why didn’t you stop the last two pieces from getting into Piefferburg? How was it, if the almighty Labrai directs your hand, Ronan Quinn was able to create an illusion that duped you all and enabled him to carry in the first piece? The piece he stole for
you
in the first place. How is that, Gideon?”

“Oh, that’s right.” Gabriel barked out a laugh. “That had to be embarrassing.”

Gideon’s jaw locked. Those failures were bitter truths that poisoned his reality.

“In fact,” continued Aislinn, “I would make a guess that the Lady Danu had a hand in allowing those pieces to come to us. Everything happened so perfectly.” She paused and gave him a sweet smile. “As though it was all meant to be.”

Gideon gave her his best poisonous smile. “If the goddess Danu is guiding these events, how is it you were trapped in Piefferburg in the first place?”

Aislinn locked gazes with Caoilainn. “That’s an excellent question.”

“If you’re accusing me of something, just come out with it,” answered Caoilainn.

Aislinn raised her silver blond brows. “You’re helping the Phaendir to keep the walls up right now, Caoilainn. There’s no reason not to suspect you didn’t help erect them in the first place.”

“Watt Syndrome could never have been created without specific knowledge of fae genetics,” Gabriel added. “We’ve long suspected a traitor in our midst. Viewing your recent actions, seems likely it was you.”

The room immediately plunged into a subzero temperature range. Gideon watched frost coat Gabriel’s golden skin, leaching away the healthy color. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed several of the sluagh slip and go sprawling on the suddenly slick floor.

“How dare you,” shrieked Caoilainn. “I would
never
.”

Gideon’s lips curled in a smile and he bit back the
liar
dancing on his tongue. He’d entertained the idea of throwing Caoilainn under the bus if he’d deemed it would help him. Looked like that option was off the table. Her actions spoke louder than his accusations.

“Cut the temper tantrum,” Aislinn growled. Her lips were blue and frost coated her hair, starting at the crown and snaking its way down.

“I think the lady doth protest too much,” Gabriel added.

“Cut the temper tantrum? You just accused me of damning my race!”

“If the shoe fits.”

“You incredible bitch!” She reached her right hand out to one side and a chunk of the foyer wall exploded in a shower of black quartz. The tower rocked ominously, and a deafening crack snaked its way up the wall, past the ceiling.

“Ladies, I’m growing bored.” Gideon leveled his hand at Aislinn and Gabriel. “Tell us where the Book of Bindings is or I’ll kill you both right now.”

Aislinn and Gabriel exchanged
a look
. Gideon couldn’t interpret it, but it should have been a look of apprehension. They had little power to wield over him. Gabriel was an incubus, so unless he was planning to seduce them to death, his power was useless. Aislinn’s main magick was that of necromancer, also a relatively useless skill in battle.

“Yeah,” said Gabriel lazily. “We’re not doing that.”

Gideon didn’t even blink…he just fired.

ELIZABETH rolled to the side a moment before the chunk of quartz hit the cobblestones. She curled in on herself, protecting her head and face from the explosion of rock. A piece of the shrapnel hit her leg. Blinding pain burst through her and blood ran hot. Elizabeth doubled over as she lay on her side, gripping her leg and crying out in agony.

Niall raced over to her with Kieran at his side. Niall knelt near her, while Kieran led the confused, dreamy-eyed fae woman away.

Niall helped her to sit up and rolled the bottom of her pant leg up to check the damage. He rocked back on his heels and pushed a hand through his hair. “We need to get this wound cleaned up
now
.”

“Is it bad?” she asked, peering down. All she could see was blood. It hurt like hell. The pain throbbed in hot waves up her leg. She sank her teeth into her lower lip to keep from groaning and crying out.

“I can’t tell, but I don’t think it broke a bone. Seems like just a really bad, deep cut. You’ll need stitches.” He looked into her face. “Looks like you’re not running away from me anytime soon, beautiful.”

She looked away from him, really hating the little spark
inside her that thrilled at the prospect of being forced to remain with him…at least for a little while. “Yay,” she replied, her voice flat.

“
Aw
, now no sarcasm needed.” He glanced around. “Where’s your mother?”

She shrugged. “Apparently trying to teach me a lesson. She disappeared.”

He nodded. “Come on, let’s get away from the tower.” He helped her up, and she limped toward the sidewalk.

Everyone they passed thanked and congratulated her for saving the woman. The woman in question had wandered down the road, staring up into the velvety winter night sky, seemingly oblivious that someone had just risked their life for her. The lady hadn’t even known she’d been in danger.

Kieran approached them, hooking his thumb after the woman. “Feeorshee.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh.” It made sense now. The feeorshee had one foot out of this world and into the next. They lived in a reality that was half a dream.

“Listen,” said Kieran. “I’m sorry I reacted that way to you earlier. What you just did was incredible.”

“Don’t be too impressed.” She grimaced. “I really didn’t even think about it, Kieran. I just acted.”

He grinned. “That’s good. If you’d thought about it, you’d never have done it.”

That was true enough.

“After you left, Niall told me about your motivation for hiding the pieces. I didn’t know any of that.” He paused, studying her. “Very compelling.”

Elizabeth swallowed. “Look. I’m not asking for forgiv—”

“Come with us,” he cut her off before she could get defensive out of guilt.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”

“Are you always this suspicious? I’m offering to trust you.” He glanced down at her leg. “And we can get you cleaned up and bandaged. You won’t get far with an injury like that.”

She snapped her mouth shut before she said something she would regret and gave a curt nod.

Niall scooped her into his arms, and she immediately began to struggle. “Put me down. I’m not some damsel in distress.
I can walk…or limp, at least.” She could dissolve and heal the wound, but she didn’t want to do that here and end up buck naked. She’d rather endure the pain.

Another blast of magick shook the tower and the street along with it. The crowd began to scream and scrabble, running away as more pieces of black quartz began to fall like some demented, dangerous rain, crashing on the street.

Niall began to move through the throng, away from the structure. She grabbed his neck and hung on tight. “You were saying?” he asked with a sly grin.

“Be quiet,” she muttered, angry that, at least for the moment, she needed him. She was acutely aware of how much that pleased him.

Niall and Kieran made their way through the fleeing people to a SUV a couple blocks away. Kieran opened the back door, and Niall slid her onto the seat. Wincing, she changed her position to one that didn’t hurt so much. Kieran started the vehicle and they took off down the street.

She stared out the window, looking at the chaos erupting. The sluagh and the goblins had spilled from the tower and roamed the streets around the structure, frothing at the mouth at their inability to carry out their queen’s orders. The residents of the city were now fleeing Piefferburg Square, apparently in response to some event that she was unable to see now. Something big was happening, that was for sure.

The light-headedness that she’d been keeping at bay only through a sheer force of will reared its head. Her eyes drooped and her head lolled as she fought it. Looking down, she saw she was bleeding all over Kieran’s car.

So much blood.

In the distance, gunfire rang out, making her jerk erect for a moment before her vision began to fade to black. Struggling to stay conscious, she glimpsed a group of human soldiers running across the street in front of them, chasing the sluagh.

Well,
that
was exceedingly dumb.

Kieran swerved to avoid a skirmish and gunned the engine to go around another confrontation. Everything was falling apart. War was beginning. Elizabeth felt badly for the humans. They’d obviously received the order to engage, but they were going to get the worse end of this.

Niall glanced back at her, as if reading her mind. Did he know her that well? “Don’t look so worried. The Shadow Queen gave orders to the goblins and sluagh that the soldiers are not to be harmed. They’ll be detained, incapacitated, but not killed.” He paused. “We’re about to reenter the human world; we won’t start out by slaughtering them.”

Elizabeth nodded, unable to speak. She was only barely holding on to consciousness.

“The queen doesn’t want any more bad publicity with the humans than we already have,” Niall finished. When she didn’t respond, he looked back at her. “Are you all—Kieran,
stop the car!
”

“I can’t!” Kieran was negotiating the disordered streets like a pro. “We need to get the hell out of downtown. Everything is turning into chaos.”

Niall scrambled into the backseat beside her, cupping her face between his hands. “You’re pale and look ready to…Elizabeth?
Elizabeth?
”

Her eyes rolled shut and everything went dark.