Page 61 of Alec

Alec knew climbing up to the hayloft was a mistake, but he couldn’t resist. The air there seemed perfumed with white lilies and forest mosses, a lingering perfume he and Olivia had created with their bodies. Never in his long life had a female ever given so much of herself to him. With her generosity and passionate responses, she had loved him in truth even more than the little wren of his dreams. He would always be grateful to her for that. She would also come to find him again, and soon, so he needed to think on what he would say to her.

“I hope you’re not planning to sleep up here again tonight,” a low voice said behind him. “Now that the MacBren left, the stable guys will be coming back to work. They’ll notice. What made time speed up like that, anyway?”

Instead of facing Olivia, Alec went over to the window to gaze out at the stronghold. “I cannae tell you. As for tonight, I shall occupy my quarters in the garrison.”

A brief silence followed his last word, and the scent of white lilies grew stronger. Now he could sense the warmth of her on his back, as if she were close enough to touch.

“You’re not inviting me to share them, I guess.” She waited for him to reply, and when he didn’t she said in a voice that tore at him, “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” He couldn’t let her blame herself for his decision. “’Tis me. I’m no’ suitable for you, my lady. You shall find a lover better suited to you among our vassals.”

“What if I only want you?” Olivia countered.

Alec fought to keep from turning and jerking her into his arms. “You cannae have me, Mistress Gibson.”

Bodach managed to stay in the spell trap and search long enough to see his matriarch’s fine worked destroyed, and the clan freed, before time unexpectedly accelerated and he was flung out of the trap at dawn. After landing painfully, he ripped off his protective shrouds and resumed his guise as Renard Beaumont, stalking down to view the spell trap through his window scroll.

“They were all supposed to be frozen.” He then looked at the interior of the stables in time to watch Alec reject Olivia. “At least you’re not getting any relief, either, Pretty Boy.”

Once the war master and his ex-lover left the stables, Bodach sent a tendril of power through to wake his bats, and bestow on them a particular boon. He’d have them attack the clan immediately so he could go back in and resume his hunt for his treasure. Yet before he could command them to do exactly that the rafter to which they clung came crashing down, nearly crushing them both. They flew down and out through the main doors, and when he switched the scroll’s view to the exterior he saw them flying toward the forest illusion around Dun Talamh.

“What are you doing, you idiot winged rats?” he griped, watching them vanish into the illusion.

Because his power was depleted, and he had to brood on what exactly was happening to his spell trap, Bodach spent the rest of the morning in his seaside lair. He then returned to the castle to wait for Clagden to come creeping back. When he did Bodach came out of one of the passages carrying a large duffel under his arm. He knew the changeling would detect the aura of dark power coming from the bag and smell the mortal blood that stained it—all enchanted, of course, but Clagden would never guess that it was all an illusion.

“I need to bury this, so take me to the prison where you fed on the mortals.” He walked past him out to his squad car, and smirked when Clagden followed him.

“Who did you kill?” the changeling asked after getting on the road.

He didn’t have to fake his boredom. “A real estate agent who kept pestering me to sell the castle to a developer. Apparently they wish to make McKeran’s into a medieval restaurant, complete with a joust reenactment in the dining room. I’ve been getting rid of the pieces one by one, but with you and Riley stirring up trouble I had to store the head.”

“Sorry for the inconvenience, Master.” Clagden chuckled. “Mortals come up with the craziest notions on how to make money.”

The drive from the castle to the shuttered prison took only thirty minutes. The changeling stopped and got out to unlock the rusted gates before driving past the buildings to a weed-choked field beside them. Here the smell of rot rose from the ground as if a thousand mortals had only just been buried, which amused Bodach, who could detect the rudimentary spell that created the obnoxious odor.

“The stench is a nice touch,” he said.

“It keeps out the reform activists, as well as mortals who post true crime and paranormal videos,” Clagden told him. “Old prisons attract them like raw bacon does rats.”

When the cop parked and came around to open his door for him Bodach smiled at him as if he didn’t have a single suspicion.

“Do you genuinely consider me your master?” he asked as he walked with him through the weeds.

“I gave you my word that I would serve you,” Clagden reminded him.

Of course Bodach knew that the careful words he’d used constituted the truth; the changeling had made that promise. Just as any other being with Fae blood, he could not lie.

“Do you recall how many mortals you buried here?” he asked.

“Over the decades, thousands. Before I became a police officer I killed and took the place of a prison hospital orderly.” Clagden stopped, bent over and yanked away weeds until he uncovered a granite grave marker. “Now this one here was a very evil mortal. He tortured and murdered twenty lovers before they finally caught up with him. He had such vivid memories of each one that I fed off him for a long time. Quite tasty.”

Bodach regarded the stone slab, which bore a five-digit number and a date in the forties. “No names?”

“No one ever comes to visit these monsters,” the cop assured him. “A pity, for they proved almost as delightfully inventive in their treatment of their victims as dark Fae. I often wished I could release them to continue their crimes instead of killing them.”

Bodach knelt down and placed his hand on the marker, which was as cold as ice. “Did you ever consider the same about me?”

Clagden cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon, Master?”

“Well, it’s obvious that you intend to murder me, and change your guise so you can assume my identity. That was the real reason you agreed to bring me out here to your little personal cemetery.” He stood and turned to see the cop holding a gun pointed at him. “You must have been delighted when I asked you to help me bury the real estate agent. No one would ever find my remains, either.”

The gun in the changeling’s hand shook for a moment before he tightened his grip. “I need your life. I’m tired of playing cop. I also showed your castle to my female, and she wishes to live there with me instead of going to Ireland.”

“Oh, my dear wretch. I suppose I must bargain for my life. Here.” He held out a red crystal. “This is the seat and the foundation of my power. If you wish to become me, you must first make yourself its master—and since I cannot lie to you, you may depend on my every word as the truth.”

Clagden grabbed the crystal. “Now I don’t need you anymore, do I?”

“Not at all, you ignorant ass.” Bodach glanced down at the weapon in his other hand, and smirked as his fingers turned black and shrank to withered sticks. “In another moment you won’t need anyone ever again.”

That made the changeling scream, but by then the hungry crystal had taken hold of his body, and swiftly sucked the life out of it. When the cop fell to the ground he crumbled into a mound of black ash and bleached bone, which began to blow away with the wind. Bodach retrieved the gun, and dug through the ash until he found his crystal, which had tripled in size.

“Wasn’t that a lovely meal? And everything I said was the truth, which made it even better.” He admired the lovely scarlet glow of Clagden’s life force before he popped it into his mouth. “Hmm, quite delicious. Let’s go pay a visit to dear Jean now, shall we?”