CHAPTER Ten
I turned and looked at Solus, my eyes wide. He hissed through his teeth. “Has this happened before?”
My mouth dry, I nodded.
“When?
I stared at him.
He reached over and gripped my arm, shaking it. “When, Mack?”
“I think earlier today,” I squeaked. “But nothing happened. I went to the hospital and I was fine.”
His body was very still and his tone was quiet and even. That was good. If Solus wasn’t panicking then I wasn’t going to panic either. It was probably nothing. Surely, that book couldn’t be right all the time? The ogre at my side seemed oblivious to the byplay going on right next to him, but Tarn was leaning forward, eyes fixed on mine, and his hands touching his lips as if he was in prayer.
“Why were you at the hospital?” Solus asked.
I thought of my earlier promise to Mrs. Alcoon. Shit. It hadn’t taken me more than a few hours to break it. I wondered if she had foreseen this all along. I swallowed. “To donate blood.”
Solus widened his eyes fractionally. “This is the second time today you’ve lost blood?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it ‘losing’ blood per se. I know where it is.”
He gripped my arm tighter. “Don’t be flippant.” He switched his gaze to Tarn. “This might be a good time to evacuate the building.”
“What? You don’t really think I’m about to…that doesn’t make sense! I lost blood before when Aubrey attacked me. More than this. I feel fine. Nothing’s going to happen. I just need to stay calm.” As soon as I finished my sentence, a hot trail of fire scorched through my body from one end to the other. Oh, that wasn’t good.
“Your eyes weren’t glowing then, though.”
“Well, f*cking do something and make them stop now!”
Solus, face pale, looked over at Tarn. He’d not moved a muscle. Then he fixed his gaze on the ogre who was pulling away the needle and wiping at my arm in a surprisingly delicate manner. I could tell that his mind was flipping over the options, but there just wasn’t any time. I immediately stood up, rubbing at the spot, and feeling distinctly woozy and nauseous. There were hundreds of people in here. I had to get out right now.
“Where’s the nearest exit?” I shouted at Tarn.
He blinked at me. I reached out and grabbed him by the lapels of his shiny designer suit and snarled, “Where’s the nearest f*cking exit?”
For the first time since we’d entered the balcony area, the UnSeelie Fae appeared shaken. He lifted up a finger and pointed out towards the way we’d entered. “You can go that way. Up to the roof, not down. There’s a staircase to the right…”
I didn’t listen to anything more, and instead bolted in that direction. Losing the second pint of blood had just been too much, however, and I felt shaky and weak. Streaks of red began to zip across my eyes and my body was tingling all over with painful pinpricks of heat. I barely made it to the door, then scrabbled forward with my fingers, smashing the protective glass of the fire alarm and thumping on the button within. All at once, a siren sounded but, with the loud thump of music below, it didn’t seem as if any of the Circle customers had heard. It probably didn’t matter now. It was already too late.
A searing pain shuddered through me and it felt as if I was being ripped asunder. My fingers seemed cramped and, when I looked down, they were already curving into long talons. The shiny jumpsuit was becoming more and more constricting and I was starting to feel like I couldn’t breathe. I gasped and choked for air, then wave after wave of bloodfire rippled through my body like some unstoppable tsunami of flame. Scraps of shiny black from my jumpsuit spat out in all directions. I dimly registered screams from below, and a hundred faces turning up in my direction. My head scraped painfully against something and I tried to duck, but it didn’t seem to help. Then I realised that it was the high ceiling. How f*cking big was I as a dragon? What was clearly my tail spasmed uncontrollably, and lashed out, seemingly of its own volition, smacking against a table and what sounded like a considerable amount of glass. I could feel the essence that was me already slipping away into a chasm far below, and my baser dragon instincts taking over.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This couldn’t happen. Not here. I wasn’t going to let it. I chanted in my head, telling myself in a repetitive mantra to stop. I opened my mouth to scream at everyone to get out, to stop staring and to turn and run. Suddenly I was aware of nothing but heat and flames pulling up through my body from somewhere deep within the pit of my stomach, forcing themselves through my intestines and up past my heart and into my throat. Then, everything went dark.
*
When I came to, I was lying curled up in a foetal position. Someone had draped something over me, but I still felt cold, and there was an acrid taste of burnt cinders in my mouth. Angry voices floated from all around me. It felt oddly like someone had been calling my name, as if to get me to wake up or pay attention, but it must have been my imagination. I pulled myself up into a sitting position, clutching what I realised was actually some kind of velvet throw to my body and, terrified of what I might see, carefully opened my eyes.
The overhead lights were on, making the entire club seem less like an opulent den for Otherworld joy seekers and more like a garishly seedy dive. Solus and Tarn were arguing about something from just a few feet away, and it sounded as if there were some more people down below. A hand reached out to my face, smoothing away my hair, and I blinked my eyes into focus. Tom.
“Hey,” he said, gently. “How are you feeling?”
Tears swam into my eyes. “How many people?”
He looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“How many people did I just kill, Tom?”
He smiled at me. “None.”
“How many people are hurt?”
“None.” His thumb carefully stroked over the bruise on my cheek. “Well,” he amended, “I think the barman might be eyebrow-less for a few weeks, but other than that, everyone’s fine.” He gazed at me in all seriousness. “You brought it back, Red. You shifted and apparently breathed fire down at the bar, but you brought it back. You were in control.”
Control? That’s what he called control? I transformed myself into a dragon in a humiliatingly public manner. I couldn’t have chosen a worst spot to lose all of my senses than if I’d stood in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. Despite my overwhelming relief that I had managed to avoid hurting anyone, all I could think about was how in the f*ck it had happened in the first place.
I staggered to my feet, doing everything that I could to avoid the sickening lurch of lightheadedness. The two faeries immediately quieted, and Solus came running over.
“Why?” I croaked. “Why did I shift?”
Solus looked stricken. “I don’t know, dragonlette. Maybe the loss of blood?”
“My eyes were doing the f*cking spooky glowing thing before that. Why now? Why today?”
I turned to Tom for help. “You’re a shifter. Help me out here.”
My old friend looked worried. “I don’t know, Red. It happens when it’s a full moon, you know that. We can’t control the urges and so we just spontaneously…” he shrugged, “shift.”
“It’s not a full moon. And that’s never happened to me before anyway.” I smiled sourly, hugging the soft throw tighter to me. “I don’t think us Draco Wyr work like that.”
“It can happen in times of huge stress. You know like when you were at the mages’ academy and that wraith showed up.”
“I’m not stressed.” I ran my tongue over my lips. “Not like I was then anyway.”
“Sometime younger girls can’t control their shifts when they get their periods. Betsy was like that for a while. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
I vaguely remembered waking up in the middle of the night years ago in my old dormitory to the sound of snarls and Julia’s soothing tones. I wasn’t a young girl in the first bout of puberty though, and I didn’t have my f*cking period. A flash of heat flared up uncomfortably in my lower stomach, then settled there, like a hot boulder. Bloody hell, I felt awful.
“So, pretty much, you don’t know. Nobody knows. I don’t know. Apparently now, not only is the whole world going to be in absolutely no doubt as to what I really am, but there’s the chance I might just spontaneously combust when I’m strolling down the road. Outf*ckingstanding.”
I slammed my palm against the balcony railing, and stared down. There were a couple of ogres hovering around, and a few people mopping up the remnants of splashed drinks and broken glass. A vast scorch mark now travelled from one length of the bar to the other.
Tom touched my shoulder. “The Lord Alpha’s on his way.”
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
I turned to where Tarn was standing, another bout of dizziness attacking my senses. “You got what you wanted,” I snarled at him. “Now give me what I asked.”
“You destroyed my club,” he commented.
“Your f*cking club is fine. Tell me where Endor is, Tarn or, so help me God, I’ll fry you on the spot.”
He leaned down, scooping up a delicate champagne glass and taking a small sip. “I don’t know where he is.”
That’s it. I was going to kill him. I took a step forward, then wavered slightly. Solus moved over, putting his arm round my body to steady me.
“Well,” Tarn continued, eyeing me with the nervy enmity of an old street cat, “I don’t know where he is right now. At this particular moment in time. But I do know where he’ll be.”
I watched him, unforgiving, waiting for something else. And because, right at this moment, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to take even a step without collapsing.
“In five days’ time, it’s Lughnasadh. The pagan first harvest of summer. He’s going to use it do a little harvesting of his own. I think he enjoys the symmetry.” Tarn shrugged.
Five days? Alex better damn well have found a way to get hold of some palladium before then.
I kept my eyes trained on the Fae. “Where?”
A shadow crossed his face. “In Scotland. Loch Ness.”
“He’s going after the kelpies,” breathed Solus in dawning comprehension. “And the element of water.”
Tarn nodded.
“And how the f*ck do we know that you’re telling the truth? Given that you effectively already lied about knowing his current whereabouts?”
“Sol knows.”
I twisted my neck round to look at Solus, and he gave me a bob of unhappy affirmation.
“Endor was in here a couple of months ago,” Tarn explained. “He looked interesting so I called him up and we got drunk over a bottle of Glen Ord whisky. It’s distilled up in that area. He dropped enough hints to make it clear what he was intending.”
“It could be a trap,” murmured Tom.
“It’s not.” The Fae was adamant.
I knew that Tarn’s nature meant he’d be well versed enough in the lines between truth and lies to be sure of his assertion. I nodded.
He turned to leave, but I called out first. “I might not be able to stand up unassisted right now, but if you do anything with my blood that harms others, I will come after you.” I stared hard at him. “You know the truth of my words.”
He just looked at me, but there was a note of acknowledgement visible in his eyes, then he flicked his wrist, and two hulking bodyguards appeared out of nowhere to flank him. Together, they turned their backs on us and left.
Once I was sure that he’d gone, I spoke quietly to Solus. “I’d like to go home, now.”
“Of course, dragonlette. We need to go to the entrance first though. I can’t transport you from within here because Tarn has some kind of portal shield in place. It stops any riffraff from materialising in whenever they like.”
“I’ll carry you,” Tom interjected.
“No. I can walk.” I was damned if I was going to be treated like some kind of invalid.
Very, very carefully, with Tom and Solus on either side of me, I began to hobble forward. The heated lump inside my stomach didn’t appear to be abating, and neither was the dizziness. I gritted my teeth though, and tightly curled my nails into my palms. Bit by bit, we slowly edged our way forward until we were in front of the lift. I’d been mocking Tarn earlier for not having stairs, but now I was beyond grateful that he was a lazy wanker. The velvet throw was starting to fall down my shoulders, but I managed to hike it up around me. With any luck we’d be able to get out of this place before Corrigan showed up.
Unfortunately for me, when the lift doors opened smoothly back onto the ground floor, and the three of us stepped carefully out, the familiar figure of the Brethren Lord was already there, eyes examining the scar I’d left burned into the bar. He turned and watched our progress towards him, not offering any help. Thank f*ck. He looked somewhat ruffled, as if he’d gotten dressed in a hurry. I tried very hard not to dwell on what he might have been doing when he’d received the midnight call about my latest shenanigans.
When we reached him, he ignored me and looked at Tom, who gave him a little dip of a bow. F*cking Brethren caste system.
“What happened?”
Tom began to outline what he’d learned upon his arrival. I’d have kept going, out towards the exit, but unfortunately I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it without both Tom and Solus’ shoulders to lean on. And there was no way I was going to let myself collapse. Not at this particular moment.
When Tom had finished, Corrigan turned towards me. “Did he leave anything out?”
I shook my head, pulling the throw further up around me as if for protection. A muscle jerked in the Lord Alpha’s cheek.
“It looks like you’ve missed all the action,” commented Solus merrily. “That’s okay though. Us faeries and dragons can take care of everything.”
“The council should have been informed before you came here,” Corrigan growled.
“How do you know they weren’t?” I shot back.
His green eyes flashed. “Because I’m taking Staines’ place as the highest ranking shifter representative. If you’d told anyone, I would have known.”
I raised my eyebrows, unable to help myself. “Oh yeah? Just like you’d have known if any of your little minions were off torturing any innocent victims?”
Tom sucked in his breath at my words.
Corrigan snarled at me. “Watch your place.”
Oh, he so didn’t say that, did he? “Actually, my Lord, now that you’ve rejoined the council – of which I believe I am the head – you’re the one who’ll have to watch your place.” I smirked. “It’s my orders you’ll be following. Not the other way around.” As soon as I’d said that, I regretted it. Shit. I didn’t want to antagonise the Lord Alpha. I wanted him to like me. More than like me.
His face twisted and he began to speak again but, before any words could form, his attention was caught by a flickering screen from above our heads. His skin paled dramatically. Frowning, I half turned to see what he was looking at. My stomach dropped when I did. A video loop of Solus and me dancing was playing. Our bodies were pressed together and my eyes were half-closed as if in ecstasy, with my hands round his back, and what appeared to be his lips on my skin.
“We’re thinking of trying out for Strictly Come Dancing,” said Solus. “I’m not sure they’ll be able to show us before the watershed though. There’s just no stopping a passion as deep as ours, is there, dragonlette?”
Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any worse.
Corrigan pulled his eyes away from the screen, ignoring the Fae. “If you’re really going to lead the council, then you’re going to have to start acting a damn sight more responsibly. Especially now that the entire Otherworld clearly knows that you’re a Draco Wyr. So much for all that effort you put into keeping it a secret. I guess you just wanted to make sure that everyone was fully aware of your power. Well, congratulations. Because now you can bet that it’s all over the Othernet and that Endor knows too. Thanks to your stupidity, we’ve lost just about the only element of surprise and real advantage that we had.”
I probably deserved that. It didn’t stop me from rising to the challenge, however. I was pissed off he thought this was what I’d wanted. “Oh yeah? I think that thanks to your presence on the f*cking gossip pages, he was probably pretty much already aware of that. So don’t coming knocking on my door to lay the blame.”
Corrigan took an angry step towards me. I did the same, then abruptly remembered that standing was a bit of an issue, and my knees gave way. All three of them jumped forward to grab me, but Corrigan was first to catch me. Despite his vaguely unkempt appearance, he still smelled as good as ever. I jerked away, cheeks burning.
“We need to go,” I mumbled, avoiding meeting Corrigan in the eyes. “There’ll be another council meeting tomorrow. I’ll call everyone in the morning.” Asserting my authority one final time, I added, “And tell Staines I still want to see him.”
With that, I moved to my left, Tom and Solus carefully supporting me from either side. I didn’t look back. I didn’t dare.