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“Perhaps she was doing Derrick’s bidding. His dislike of his grandfather is well known.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them; “You slimy little maggot.”
Both women turned to me and I might have flushed under their combined surprise but fury was fueling me and it wasn’t done. I wasn’t certain how I hadn’t seen it before, but it was glaring me in the face now. “You knew Malcolm would bring Janice here. You deliberately sent men to surround the woman so that he would know where she was. You wanted both men here so that you could make Derrick your scapegoat.”
At this, Maureen blanched to an alarming, powdery grey and she shook her head in denial. “No, you’re wrong. I never wanted Derrick here.”
Eucilla gave Maureen an unblinking stare that even I wanted to squirm under. “You must have known we were closing in on your operations here and you needed someone to take the fall. Did you always intend for Malcolm to be seen as the mastermind behind the ring, or were hoping to rope Delilah in there somehow?”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“I suppose I should have expected nothing less from the Alpha of clan Leslie.”
Maureen’s jaw flexed and she looked to her bound hands. “I am not the Alpha of clan Leslie.”
“All evidence to the contrary.”
“Because he wants it to look that way!” Maureen growled.
“You mean Montgomery Leslie, your sluaghna husband?” Eucilla asked.
The breath rushed out of Maureen, and she slumped in her chair, her demeanor altering so fast it was dizzying to behold. “So, you know.”
Eucilla leaned forward and propped her elbows on the desk. “Come clean now, Maureen.”
Still offended that Maureen would try pinning Malcolm’s murder on me, I struggled to stay silent and watched. I wasn’t certain how good an actress the woman was, but as she began to speak I could see her shoulders lifting, her face a mix of fear and anguish and hope. It was something I’d seen before, many times over in my study, when the truth had been dammed up inside for so long that it gushed free.
“I figured it out nearly five years after we were wed,” Maureen said.
“That was thirty-two years ago,” Eucilla pointed out.
“You have to understand, he wasn’t always the way he is now. He was charming once. And I loved him. People like us don’t get a great love. We marry for power and territory, but at our handfasting we had a bright spark that lit between us. He was my soul mate.”
“But he changed,” I supplied.
Eucilla glanced at me, but said nothing, waiting for Maureen to reply.
“Yes,” Maureen whispered. She turned to me, her expression entreating. “He wasn’t always bad. For years we were happy. He used to bring me flowers and hide them in all the rooms of the manor, with little notes for me to discover. He treasured me and I treasured him, and when Delilah was born it was our fairytale come true.”
I tried to smile at her, though it felt a little wobbly. The creature I’d met in the aether did not seem the sort that would leave gifts, let alone fall in love. It was hungry and cold. All people grow, but I was having a hard time believing they grew quite that different from who they’d been.
“What happened?” I asked.
Maureen swallowed and looked at her hands again. “I don’t know. He left for a trip one day and when he came back, he was different.”
“Was this before or after you figured out he was a sluaghna?” Eucilla interrupted.
Maureen looked confused and blinked at the dracken twice before answering. “Just before, I think.”
Eucilla nodded once, her jaw flexing. “Ms. Maureen, I do not believe you are a warlock trafficker. What’s more, I fear that you are a widow.”
Maureen turned ashen and seemed to shrink in on herself. “I don’t understand.”
For that matter, neither did I, and I shifted in my seat, waiting for the explanation.
“Sluaghna have been the stuff of legends for centuries now. Their magic is forbidden, and for good reason. They are not shapeshifters in the traditional sense of the word, you see.” Eucilla took a deep breath and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the desk. “In order to sustain their so-called immortality, they inhabit the bodies of other Bright creatures.”
“What?” Maureen’s voice was a mere whisper but it was so full of anguish that I felt it in my gut.
