Shadowborn (31 page)

Another chair grew out of the floor behind mine, where my father sat. I returned to my seat and waited, every second dragging like a decade.

A hush swept over the writhing mass of fae. All focus turned to the king’s dais at the bottom. Liam appeared out of nowhere—as if he’d been in The Place Between. My hands itched to reach out to him as he surveyed the room. A distant hope had me wishing he searched for me, but his gaze dropped long before he reached my dais.

“This is a historic event,” Liam began in his deep tone that vibrated along my spine and into deeper places. “I welcome Lila Gray, Queen of the Seelie Court, ally and … dear friend.” He cleared his throat and straightened, standing taller, more regal. His gaze made a slow ascent to me, his face unreadable from that distance. “I welcome all of you from Dun Bray and hope you find our city as grand and beautiful as I do.”

His hands dug into the pockets of his suit pants, displacing his jacket. I wondered if his shook as badly as mine did. For a long time, he stared at me.

“What is he waiting for?” Nix growled, his lip curled. “Does he enjoy torturing you? We should never have come here. Never. I can’t stand being in the devil’s playroom.”

Devil’s playroom?
I peered at my captain and found him grinding his teeth. The tendons in his neck pulled taut. White knuckles topped his tight fists.

“What’s wrong with you?” Instinct told me his agitation had little to do with what was about to happen. “Did something happen to you here?”

His eyes closed, and a shudder shook him. “Don’t ask me, Li. Not now.” He stood, and a moment later, my father came forward and took Nix’s seat. My guard took the one behind me, head tipped forward to rest in his hands.

My father claimed my hand. We both turned our attention back to Liam who had been joined by a raven-haired woman. Skin like an ivory sculpture, striking, ice eyes froze me in place. I drew in a shuttering breath, and my father shifted to the edge of his seat, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. Why did she have to be so beautiful? Lean, yet still voluptuous, shining hair laying straight down the back of her scarlet robe. Red glossed lips pressed against Liam’s cheek as she pushed the jacket from his shoulders and down his muscular arms.

Brígh held her stomach and turned into me, resting her head against my shoulder. Tiny vibrations let me know she continued to curse.

Cheers rose up to a deafening roar from the Unseelie while my people remained mute, glancing up at me as if uncertain what to do. They liked to touch, but I hadn’t seen a lot of public displays of sexuality. Did they tone it down for my sake, or were they private lovers by nature?

Although grief stung my eyes, I held my face in what I hoped to be an emotionless mask.

The woman ripped Liam’s shirt open to expose the swell of his chest and raked her red nails along his skin, her growl rising above the noise.

Liam hissed and grabbed her wrists, but turned away before I could tell whether or not he’d enjoyed what she’d done. My energy boiled deep in my well, both my darkness and Light. The urge to send my Will through the floor and blow her into a bloody firework of red goo and shards of bone sent a ripple of glee through me.

“Hold on.” My father’s hand on my shoulder pushed me back in my chair. I hadn’t realized I’d moved forward. “You mustn’t do what that look in your eye tells me you’re thinking. No matter how cruel and unforgivable I think this is, we must all set an example.” His free hand scrubbed over his goatee. Anger that flashed for a moment behind his stare faded. “For our future, Lila. You can do this.”

In the few moments my focus had shifted to my father, the hag on the stage below had finished shredding Liam’s shirt and shed her own robe, leaving her perfect body on display for all to see. She stalked around him like a cat in heat.

Liam’s arms flexed and relaxed, and his gaze never rose from the floor.

I closed my eyes, the image of his discomfort burned into the back of my retinas. Why didn’t he finish it? Or better yet, walk away? He had to know what he was doing wasn’t right. I knew it before I arrived, before I’d seen the nasty piece of work that continued to twirl and attempt to entice with her little whore dance.

Humming filled the room, and everything else went silent.

“No,” my father uttered from beside me.

“What?” I grabbed his face and turned it toward me, but he shifted away. “Tell me!”

“The ancestors …” He pointed at the ceiling. When I followed his gaze, I found the same purple mist descending from the glass that had bonded me to Parthalan. Not a Goddess-given bond, but still a binding one.

I shot up, my hand on my throat, still unable to intake air. If Liam let the bond happen, everything I’d ever dreamed of would end. Every semblance of ‘
We’
would end. “Donovan.” I breathed the word, almost choking on it.

He closed his eyes, and a moment later, my father shifted to my seat, wearing an illusion that appeared to be me. He smiled down at the king and his whore below. “Go now,” he said. “I will hold it until the end and lead your people back to your portal. I’m so sorry, Lila. I love you.”

Unable to speak, I nodded my thanks to him.

“Are you in control of
his
power?”

It wasn’t Parthalan’s. It was mine. Part of me had begun to believe what the elves had told me. It expanded and heated in my core like lava, and I welcomed it. “Yeah, I’m in control.” I loosened my grip on it, allowing sweet ripples of energy into my bloodstream.

Donovan’s expression of furrowed brow and hard-pressed lips—rather unnerving while he wore my illusion—let me know I hadn’t fooled the old fae. “For all that’s good, give me your word you won’t do anything rash.”

Rash sounded like a grand idea. Blow off a little steam. Take out Alastair while I was at it. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.” When he tried to rise, my hand on his shoulder kept him seated.

Nix continued to glare at the floor, but Brígh’s gaze followed me through whatever cloak of illusion Donovan had cast over me. If she’d seen the events happen already, she’d already know I was about to leave.

“Not yet, Lila,” she pleaded. “Wait a little longer. Please.” The defeat reflected in her features gave her away, that even though she felt she had to try, ultimately I’d go anyway.

At Liam’s cry from below—one that hit me like a slap—I bolted to the aisle. The sound of my rapid footfalls disappeared into the continued catcalls and roars.

How could he bond with her if he loved me?

Across the grand hall, I sprinted, flung open the door and stumbled down the first few steps before recovering my footing. Tears unleashed over the crest of my lashes, blurring the world as I descended to the black street. I kicked off the ridiculous shoes, hiked up my skirt and ran as fast as my body would allow given my lack of sleep and twisting mind. No matter how fast I went, it wouldn’t take away the image of Liam and that woman, nor the ancestors descending to bond the two of them for the rest of their immortal lives. Once done, it couldn’t be undone unless one of them had a
cumhacht
like mine to force their Will and end it. Not likely.

The shifters along the street brightened their window eyes and moaned as I sped past them. Once I reached the shifter that housed the portals, I wrenched the door open, slammed it behind me and collapsed against it. The walls swallowed my pathetic wailing and shivered as if to comfort me. It didn’t work.

When the grief passed, and numbness settled in where agony had been, I had nothing left to hold my energy at bay. Rage swelled in my soul. It consumed me, flared out like blue lightning from my fingertips and toes. Who cared if Alastair ripped me from my body? Gallagher could take over as King of the Seelie. Brígh and Nix would get over it. Liam probably wouldn’t even remember that he loved me, if he even did to begin with.

Squinting past the red haze clouding my vision, I launched myself into the portal and burst into the damp cavern at Seven Gates. Deranged laughter bubbled up my throat as I ran into the starless night.

“Where are you, Alastair? You little shit stain!” My voice bellowed, bouncing off the granite wall and cracking open the frigid night. “Come and get me now, you prick!” More of my snickers came in sporadic, hiccupping waves.

When nothing happened, I screamed out my frustration, throwing fists at nothing in particular. My breath heaved out in pale clouds. Prickles danced along my spine as I waited and wondered if having my soul ripped out would hurt any less than losing Liam to a lousy slut.

“What are you doing?” Nix’s Light turned night into day as I turned to find him striding away from the cavern entrance. He grabbed me by the upper arms and wrenched me tight against his body. “I will not let you do this. He’s not worth it.”

“I can’t. Stand. This.” Raspy inhales came between the words.

Fingers finding my face, he brushed his lips below my eye. “Let me love you, Li. I can make you forget him. I know I can.”

He could make me forget, but I was unsure if I wanted to. The need for a moment of peace, a moment to be sure of myself, that I was desired above all others, drove my arms around his neck and my head to his shoulder. Shaking, I held on while he buried his face in my hair and stroked my entire body with his power.

“Shh,” he cooed. “What you thought you had with Liam wasn’t real, nor was it right. You are Queen of the Seelie Sidhe. Pure. Perfect. He’s nothing but a filthy, evil liar just like his mother before him.” The emphasis he put on Liam’s mother held the tone of a curse. Nix’s fingers fisted into my hair.

I peeled off his grip and backed away, another round of cold sickness sweeping over me. “Pure?”

“The purest of us all.”

My father burst from the cavern, saving me from having to respond to that. His head twisted left and right, in search of me, I presumed. When his gaze fell on me, his chest collapsed with an exhale. “Lila, I must speak—”

“You said you’d lead the Seelie back home,” I snapped. “If Nix is here, your illusion must have broken.”

“You see,” Nix said, jabbing a finger at my father. “Dependable only for deception.”

“Don’t talk like that, not about him.”

Donovan’s eyes beseeched me. “Once Nix began talking to me, he figured it out. Brígh is wearing the illusion so I could—there isn’t time, I must—”

I held my free hand up to silence him. “I don’t want a play-by-play, thanks anyway. Liam made his choice, and he chose—”

“You.” Liam’s voice floated around me like a distant dream.

I turned in search of him. A thread of hope vibrated in my bones, but I shoved it aside, rage once again flaring out in blue bursts from my skin. “What are you doing here? I figured you’d still be on stage fucking her brains out.”

From the darkness, he emerged, still shirtless. Tiny pink lines were all that remained of the bitch’s scratch marks. “I couldn’t.” Fingers curled and relaxed at his sides as if in the grips of pain. “I won’t. You’re my future, Lila. The only one worth existing for. When I saw it slipping away from me
…” He growled and cleared his throat.

My mouth gaped open with no words finding a way past my stupor. “But … I don’t understand. I saw the ancestors coming through the glass. I heard you cry out. I thought—”

“I lost my way for a while, but I see it clearly now. It’s always been you, and always will be, even if you walk away from me now. No more lies. I want the world to know I love Lila Gray, even if it means I forfeit the crown.”

“How dare you show your face after what you put her through tonight!” Nix roared and launched himself at Liam, but stopped short, fingers pressed to his temples. “Give me back my Light, demon.”

Liam held his hands wide. “I don’t want to fight you, Nix. I deserve the consequences of my actions, but from Lila.

“I don’t need my power to fight the likes of a lowly half-breed.”

The two collided with the sound of smashing boulders, the movement all Nix’s with Liam holding his ground.

With my body still frozen in confusion, my mind a battle between hope and reason, I watched the two fae roll across the ground, bellowing curses at one another without intervention. Liam emitted enough energy to cast a globe of Light around them.

Donovan joined me. “Should we intervene or allow them to get it out of their systems?”

Brows scrunched together, I tore my gaze from the men in my life to my father, unable to process his question around my own queue of them. “Is it true?”

He huffed out a white cloud and nodded. “Took him long enough, but yes. The instant you left, he disappeared from sight. I assume he slipped into The Place Between. When he didn’t return, I came to find you.” A shake of his head accompanied a small grin. “Why do you have to be so damned fast?”

Grunts and curses continued to fill the night. Sounds of fists landing blows knocked the wind from me, unleashing my anger again. Sick of the drama, I dropped, shoved my hands against the frosted crust and forced my Will through it. “Be still.”

Although the grunting continued, the more brutal sounds ceased.

My Light flared out as I touched their minds in unison, both tangled knots of emotion. “Shut up, and come here so we can talk like civilized fae.”

Nix rose first, his arms and legs held rigid as if he put every ounce of effort into fighting my control. Liam, having been knocked to the ground, stood and came without a fuss, though he seemed to have trouble raising his gaze up to me.

“Tell me you’re not going to let him fool you with all this bullshit again, Li.” Crimson droplets dripped from Nix’s lip as he glared needles at Liam. “How much cruelty will you take before you finally see what he is?”

“And what do you think I am?” Liam brushed dirt from his pants, casting glances at my father and me.

The hurt in my heart didn’t want him to answer. Nix was right on one count, that I’d taken a lot from Liam and kept coming back for more. Love or not, would I ever be able to trust him? If Nix walked away from me once he discovered Donovan was my father, I’d be alone again. Shame heated my face.
Stop being so fucking selfish.