The Queen of Swords: A Paranormal Tale of Undying Love (19 page)

And speaking of twin flames
, the pulsing in her solar plexus had eased. Wherever he was, whatever Branwen might be doing to him, he seemed free of distress. For now, anyway. That was a good thing because she needed to focus all her energy on figuring out how to play Lord Fitzgerald.

“I loved him,
you know.” The Irishman’s confession recalled her attention. “I didn’t turn him as a way to escape Lord Morfryn. I rather hoped he’d give up his narrow-minded attraction to the female form. And that I could persuade him to return to the Unseelie Court with me. But, either way, I had to stop him from marrying, which I did. I even managed to persuade the girl’s ignorant father to lock her away in a convent. But he found her. And learned she carried his child.” He heaved a sigh. “What was I to do?”

Tears pricked
her eyes and tightened her throat. “So you killed her along with his innocent unborn son?”

“I gave her the chance to save herself
and the child she carried. By extending the same offer I’m making to you. Deliver him to me, heart and soul, and I will let you live.”

The compulsion to look at him
overpowered. Her eyes flicked toward the wizard, but only for the briefest instant. She saw him turn toward her out of the edge of her eye.

“
So, which will you sacrifice, witch? His immortal soul or your mortal life?”

As
she searched for something to say, an idea came to her. What if she agreed? But only as a ruse to buy herself time.

“I’ll help
you, but can’t cast the spell until the new moon,” she lied. “Can you wait that long?”

He shrugged.
“I’ve waited two hundred years. What’s another fortnight?” His tone sharpened as he added, “But I warn you, witch, no tricks.”

“I wouldn’t dream of double dealing
you, Lord Fitzgerald,” she said with all the sincerity she could conjure. She’d realized something while he spoke, something Graham didn’t know. While on furlough from the faery realm, the dark wizard could not do magic. So, he’d have only his preternatural powers to defend himself.

Lord
Fitzgerald, appearing to have bought her connivance, vanished in a puff of vapor, promising to return on the eve of the new moon. Head still reeling from all she’d learned, she climbed off the bed and crossed to her altar. Time to save her man from that ball-busting faery bitch. And, after that, they could both go to Scotland and work out a plan to take down Lord Fitzgerald.

But f
irst, she needed a long, hot bath to calm and refocus her mind.

* * *

Kicking back in the fragrant warmth of the big claw-foot bathtub, she closed her eyes and began the process of clearing her mind for magic. It took longer than usual, given all that weighed on her. Maud Edenfield’s disclosures. The meeting with Gerard Fitzgerald. Rescuing Graham from Branwen. What would he say when she broke the news about Fitzgerald? Once free of his curse, there would be nothing to stop them from finally being together, getting married, having children, growing old together. Everything he’d ever wanted. And now, she wanted those things too.

But only with him.

Her other half.

The peg that fit the hole in her heart.

Sinking into the water, she reveled in the enveloping warmth. While filling the tub, she’d opened the window to release the steam and let in some fresh air. The cool night breeze felt good, but did nothing to quiet her mind. Chattering thoughts and nagging worries still muted her inner voice. Silencing the mind took regular practice and tremendous focus. Knowledge, courage, will, and silence. Those, the four powers of the magus, were the powers she called upon now.

Just as she began to quiet her mind, she heard something.
A flapping sound. Heart sparking with alarm, eyes popping open, she turned toward the open window. There on the sill stood a big, black raven, its emerald eyes simmering with contempt.

Oh, shit.

“What do you want?” she demanded, trying to be brave despite her vulnerable condition. She was alone in a bathtub stark naked with no way to defend herself. “Where’s Graham?”

“On his way to Scotland, thanks to
you,” the bird squawked.

“
You’re lying. Where is he really? What have you done to him?”

The bird hopped down, landed on the floor, and, in a pillar of vapor, became Branwen
. She crept toward the bathtub, arms outstretched, fingers curled like claws. “You filthy little blood-bag. You’ve bewitched him, haven’t you?”

“No
!”

Desperate to cover herself,
she cast around for a nearby towel, but found nothing within reach. Branwen flew to the edge of the tub, grabbed her head, and shoved her under. She held her breath and shut her eyes, struggling to keep her wits. Branwen was supernatural and even stronger than Graham. Fighting her was futile.

The urge to inhale
grew more and more demanding. It felt as though an elephant was sitting on her chest. Soon, her reflexes would force her to inhale. Then, she would drown and she and Graham would have to wait another hundred years to try again.

Opening her eyes,
she looked up through the water, pleading soundlessly for her life. The bath salts stung her eyes and she could taste their soapy perfume, but those were the least of her worries. Vindictive green orbs glared down at her. Her mind grew murky, the urge to breathe overpowering. When she could fight it no longer, she opened her mouth and filled her lungs. Water rushed in, burning like fire. She thrashed like a landed fish until the fight went out of her. She felt peaceful, strangely peaceful, as if drifting in a dark ocean.

From somewhere far off, she heard a voice calling her name. Was it her guardian angel? Had
she come for her? She’d always imagined her guardian angel would be female.

Angel of God, my guardian dear

To whom God's love commits me here.

Ever this day be at my side

To light, to guard, to rule and guide.

Hands plunged into the water
and hauled her out. The air was cold on her skin. She tried to take a breath, but couldn’t. Her lungs felt like they’d been filled with lead. The angel laid her on the floor and rolled her on her side. Water filled her throat and spilled out of her mouth and nose. Her chest convulsed, purging a soap-tainted flood. She retched and choked, gasping for air.

“
Cat, can you hear me? What happened?”

She
couldn’t answer, couldn’t remember. Her thoughts were liquid and slippery, impossible to catch.

“Did
you hit your head?”

Though h
er coughing had subsided, her lungs still hurt like hell. The room was chilly. So chilly, her teeth chattered between coughing fits. The surface beneath her was hard and frigid. She was on her side, curled in the fetal position and shivering. Opening her eyes, she squinted at the face hovering over her. She was indeed an angel. Breathtakingly beautiful with china-blue eyes and long golden hair that shone in the light like a nimbus.

“What the hell happened? Are
you all right?”

It was then
she realized she was soaking wet and naked. She squinted around. The space was white and bright. Was it heaven? Was everybody naked in heaven? Was her angel naked too? Craning her neck, she let her gaze roam over what she could see of the angel’s crouching frame. She had on blue jeans, a T-shirt reading, “Keep Calm and Carry On,” and what looked to be riding boots, which struck her as rather odd footwear for an angel. Shouldn’t she be wearing sandals?

Cat
blinked up at her angel. My, she was lovely. “Why aren’t you naked? And why don’t you have wings? Are you a screw-up like that angel in
It’s a Wonderful Life
?”

The angel’s beautiful
full mouth turned down in a frown. Why? Were angels sensitive? Had she hurt the angel’s feelings? “I’m sorry.” She offered the heavenly messenger a feeble smile, the most she could manage. “I’m sure you’re very good at what you do.”

The angel’s frown
deepened, making her look positively grim. “Can’t you remember anything?”

Searching her mind, she found
only vague impressions. She felt like Alice, caught up in a nonsensical world. Would a white rabbit in a waistcoat with a pocket watch be along any moment?

The pocket
watch reminded her of something, but she couldn’t coax the memory from the quagmire engulfing her brain. She blinked a few times to try to clear her head. Thoughts crystallized little by little. She was in the bathroom at Mayflower Cottage. On the floor under a towel. Avery was beside her, her pretty face pale and drawn with worry. But how did she get here? The last thing she remembered, she was standing at the front of a lecture hall, talking about
Dracula.

She blinked up at her housemate.
“What happened?”

“I d
on’t know.” Avery shook her head. “I just popped in to change my clothes and found you drowning in the tub with the window wide open.”

Chapter 1
5: Nevermore

Following the bathtub incident, Cat spent all of her free time in the university library working on her dissertation. What went down in the bathroom that night never surfaced, nor did any other memories from most of that day. The last thing she recalled was lecturing on
Dracula
.

As far as she knew,
Graham had gone to Scotland to protect her from Fitzgerald. Yes, she was heartbroken about it, but what could she do except keep calm and carry on? In the nights since, she’d dreamed of the yellow-eyed vampire. She’d also dreamed of a raven sitting on her bedroom windowsill repeating “Nevermore” over and over, a mental fusion no doubt of Edgar Allan Poe, who she was teaching this week, and Branwen O’Lyr. Luckily, with him gone, she’d never have to deal with that she-devil again.

The same could not be said of Avery, who
she’d decided to forgive, albeit in a leery, watchful sort of way. It seemed the least she could do. She didn’t want to think what might have happened had her housemate not come home when she did. The thought of it still gave her the chills.

Avery,
of course, had no clue she’d ever been upset with her. When they were home together, which wasn’t often, Avery prattled on about Benedict from inside her bubble of oblivion. Was she hooked? Maybe. She was definitely high on the guy. Cat had considered warning her friend about her toxic relationship, but how to explain it? In every scenario she’d imagined, she came off sounding like a lunatic.

M
eanwhile, she was on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. In the wee hours, when work and her paper didn’t consume her, she felt a harrowing mixture of anguish and anxiety over Graham, even as the hours until her deadline ticked away like a time bomb.

As much as she hurt right now, she couldn’t allow it to screw up her future.
He was gone. End of story. And no amount of moping or hoping would bring him back. Still, she sometimes felt him near; felt him in need of her. But that was just wishful thinking, right? He was safe in his castle hundreds of miles away. Out of her life forever. And the sooner she accepted cruel reality and moved on, the sooner she’d feel better.

She kept telling herself h
e had every right to end the relationship and she needed to respect that right, however much she disagreed with his decision. Sometimes, though, her resolve wavered. Once or twice, she’d come close to summoning him, reasoning that seeing her again might change his mind. Luckily, she’d always stopped herself before things went too far. Still, she couldn’t help wondering how he was doing all alone up there in Druimdeurfait. Was he hurting too? Did he miss her half as much as she missed him?

Spewing a despondent sigh, she pressed her face against the library table. The cool laminate surface felt soothing against her tear-scorched cheek. As she lay there, she extracted from her heart the promise she would not go to pieces
while, from her mind, she summoned an apropos verse by Emily Dickinson, her favorite poet:

Heart, we will forget him!

You
and I, to-night!

You
may forget the warmth he gave,

I will forget the light.

When
you have done, pray tell me,

That I my thoughts may dim;

Haste! Lest while you’re lagging,

I may remember him!

Heaving a sigh, she
rubbed her eyes. She’d been at it for hours now and was running out of steam. She was nearly finished, thankfully. Just a few more edits to make on the footnotes and bibliography. It still had to pass muster with her committee, of course, but she wasn’t overly worried about that, as she’d conferred with the chairman throughout the process and taken pains to meet all of his demands.

In one way, she felt like a sailor who’d finally sighted land after being at sea for months on end. In another, she was sorry to lose the distraction. It had now been a week since Graham ran off to Scotland. And with Avery never at home anymore, she had only her work to keep her company. And her pain. She felt more alone, more empty, than ever before. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep,
and felt nothing except the echo in her heart. It was as though she’d lost a piece of herself, the piece that saw color, heard music, tasted food, and felt joy.

“Professor
Fingal, a word, if I might.”

Starting
a little, Cat looked up from her laptop to meet piercing blue bespectacled eyes.

“
I thought I might find you here.” The witch smiled and held out a sealed manila envelope. “I found that spell we talked about and copied it out for you.”

Eyeing it curiously,
Cat took it from her. “Spell? What spell?”

“
The one we talked about,” Maud repeated, looking puzzled. “To bind
gancanaghs
. Have you honestly forgotten?”

A
t a complete loss, Cat nodded blankly. They must have talked the day she fell in the bathtub. She vaguely recalled planning to seek out Professor Edenfield, but what about?

“I’m so sorry,”
Cat offered with a penitent smile, “but I hit my head, you see. And I seem to have forgotten most of what happened that day.”

Professor Edenfield
, brow furrowed, looked as if she were trying to work something out. Finally, tapping her chin, she said, “Have you have also forgotten our little tête-à-tête about your friend?”

“What
tête-à-tête?” Cat was half embarrassed and half intrigued. “Please, do refresh my memory.”

Her
heart swelled with hope as the senior witch filled her in on their earlier conversation about how the curse could be broken. As soon as Maud left her, she pulled out her mobile and sent him a text:
I have good news. Please get in touch asap.

In the hours
she waited for him to get in touch, she completed her edits, did a final proofread, and emailed the whole 150-page document in a zipped file to her dissertation adviser at Cambridge.

That
daunting task now behind her, she turned her thoughts fully to Graham. Why hadn’t he called? Was he being stubborn? Or had he not received her message? Either way, what she had to tell him was too important to leave any longer. They could defeat Gerard Fitzgerald. They could break his curse. They could finally be together. She had to tell him. Had to. This instant, dammit.

S
he rang his mobile, but it went straight to voicemail.
Shit, now what?
He’d mentioned at one point he rented out his castle for weddings and other functions, so it must have a website, right? Could she maybe reach him that way?

Calling up
the Google window, she typed in
Tur-nan-Deur
. The castle, she soon found, had a website, a Wikipedia entry, and a YouTube channel.
Holy shit.
Why had she not thought to check it out before? While chiding herself, she skimmed the homepage, which contained several photographs—and yes, it was the same place she’d seen in her vision!—and a greeting from the Laird:

A very warm welcome to
Tur-nan-Deur
, the home of my ancestors for more than five centuries. I am proud of the castle and its splendid gardens and so pleased to be able to extend to you the legendary Highland hospitality on your special day. Please enjoy!

Lord Graham Logan

She cleared the surprise from her throat. She’d known he was of noble birth, but knowing and seeing it in print were two different things. Lord Graham Logan.
Holy cow
. Would she become a lady if and when they married? The idea of it at once thrilled and overwhelmed.

Shaking
the feelings off, she searched for contact information. Finding a phone number, she hurriedly punched it in. It rang five times before someone answered. Her heart soared when she heard the deep Scottish burr, but plummeted again when the man identified himself as Alasdair MacCabe, the caretaker.

“
Hello,” she began, heart fluttering. “This is Cathleen Fingal, a good friend of, um, Lord Logan’s. I’ve been trying to reach him, you see, but he’s not answering his mobile. I urgently need to speak with him. Would you be good enough to call him to the telephone?”

“
Miss Fingal, did you say?”

“
Yes. That’s right.”

“
I’m sorry to tell you, Miss, but Lord Logan isna here. He was expected a week back, but never arrived. And I’ve been unable to reach him myself...”

Concern stabbed
like a dull blade. She got off the phone quickly, worrying her lip as her mind agitated. If Graham never made it to
Tur-nan-Deur
, where could he be? An idea began to dawn. A terrifying, infuriating idea.

He
’d never left Wicken Hall.

Because
Branwen, damn her perverted black soul, was holding him prisoner somewhere

* * *

When he first smelled the fragrant smoke, he was howling in pain as Branwen ground her stiletto heel into the loose flesh of his scrotum. She’d found a riding crop at the stables and was holding it over his limp cock, ready to snap it once more as she cursed its unresponsive state.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep whiff, praying he hadn’t imagined the scent. N
ay, there it was, thank God. Faint hints of juniper, cinnamon, and caraway. Just like the first time. He sighed with relief, his heart swelling with affection for the clever wee witch.

Too bad it took her so long to figure out he’d never left Wickenham.
Had her blood radar gone haywire? Had she not put her trust in it? Either way, he prayed her spell would work. He’d suffered innumerous indignities in Branwen’s punishing hands.

The smoke swirled around him like curling fingers, beckoning him to follow.
Branwen cracked the whip again, stinging his prick like a hornet.

Flinching, he cried, “Take me
. Take me now!”

His tormentor, believing he
addressed her, got a gleam in her eye and came down astride his thighs. He groaned as she seized his member, now covered in welts, and began pumping ruthlessly as the smoke caressed and tugged.

Bending over him, Branwen took his
still-limp cock into her mouth, but still got no response. Looking past her to his feet, he felt a rush of elation when he saw they were fading. The next moment, the darkness claimed him, the same disembodied darkness as before, and, following a brief voyage through nothingness, dumped him flat on his arse on the floor in Cat’s bedroom.

“Oh my God
.” She raced to his side. “Are you all right?”

“I will be
.” He was still fighting to get his bearings.

“Was it
that bitch Branwen?”

“
Aye,” he said, swallowing.

Her gaze shifted from his face to his penis, the sight of which made her wince.
“Oh my God. What did she do to you?”

Unsure
how to answer without adding to his humiliation, he simply grunted and struggled to get up.

“Let me help
you,” she offered, ducking under his arm and assisting him to his feet. “Can I get you a drink? I don’t have any whisky, but I’ve got a little brandy. Would that be all right?”

“That would be
great.” He still felt unsteady, but without the iron impeding his healing, he’d recover soon enough.

She helped him into the living room, where she parked him on a big, slipcovered sofa before
throwing a knitted afghan over his lap. She then disappeared back down the hallway, returning a few minutes later in a salmon-colored kimono. It pleased him to see she carried a bottle and two glasses. Sitting beside him, she filled the glasses before handing one to him.

“Now
, tell me everything she did to you.”

He took a sip of brandy and licked his lips. “We have bigger problems, eh?
Lord Fitzgerald is near. I can feel him in my blood.”

She took a drink, seemingly unaffected by the threat.
“I learned something.”

Brow knitting, he waited
for her to continue. When she didn’t, his impatience prompted him to ask, “Oh, aye? And what’s that?”

“
There’s a way to break your curse; to make you human again.”

Sputtering in surprise, he
opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again. He took another slug of brandy and another. Could it be true? “Who told you this?”

“Maud Edenfield
.”

“Who?”

“The witch on the faculty who told me about vampires.”

“
Oh.”

“
You have to kill Lord Fitzgerald with a stake made of hawthorn, burn his heart, and drink the ashes in a tea made from the berries of the same tree the stake was made from.”