27

  Annoyed

  I woke up famished. My fangs down, my body shaking, sweat coating my feverish skin. I was no longer in the dark green dress with the revealing - and butt-kicking - slit. I was lying on a sumptuous four-poster bed, with gauzy white material as curtains and absolutely nothing covering my naked body.

  My hands fisted as my back arched; hunger pangs making the Dark Shadow growl and pant with desperation.

  “Feed,” a voice I vaguely recognised told me.

  A wrist was placed in front of my lips and the rest, as they say, was history.

  Well, it would have been if not for the fact I almost drained the poor guy dry.

  “That will do, Georgia,” Aliath said.

  I shook my head; my fangs bedded deep into the flesh of the human donor; sweet, succulent blood flooding down my throat and making the Dark Shadow purr with languor.

  “Enough, I said!” Aliath snapped, yanking my jaw open with two well-placed fingers that I promptly tried to snap off with my teeth.

  A swat on the nose was all I received in answer, making me feel decidedly like a misbehaving puppy.

  I glared at the fairy as the human fell back on the bed; face pale and lips blue, a hand held tightly to his wrist where I’d been gnawing.

  I stared at him for several long seconds and then said, “Who is he?”

  “He is human, that is all you need to know.”

  “What’s he doing here?” I gathered we were still in Álfheimr. I didn’t know of any place on Earth that had flimsy canopies above oversized beds that smelled of peaches.

  “It is not important.”

  “It is important,” I snapped, springing up and gripping the human’s shoulder when Aliath tried to help him from the bed.

  Aliath’s eyes blazed that fairy green, no doubt trying to compel me. I felt too guilty right then to not be using every supernatural ability I had to hide behind. I’d almost killed the man. I needed to know he’d be OK when he left here.

  Aliath sighed and released his hold on the human. The guy fell back and promptly fell asleep on the bed. I made sure he was comfortable and then stepped off the bed and looked around for some clothing. Absently scratching at my chest, I found a robe. It was too big and smelled of Aliath, which was all kinds of wrong, but it covered me up adequately.

  I stared at my chest for a second, watching as the skin changed from angry red to pink to a white scar that would eventually fade to nothing. The shape was roughly that of a circle, right above my heart.

  Fucking pointy-eared fairy bastard.

  I looked up at Aliath and said, “Who’s the human and why is here?”

  “Are you sure you wish to ask such a question?”

  “Our debt tally is too high now to be concerned with such things,” I said.

  Aliath inclined his head slowly. “You and I are intricately entwined,” he agreed. “Not much will change our fates now.”

  I shook my head. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I was too jittery to worry about it. My eyes darted to the human who had started to snore softly. He was dressed in clothes a member of the servant class of Fey would wear.

  “He is the result of an Umskipti exchange,” Aliath said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “He was raised in Álfheimr. He is Mœðr.” Aliath sighed when I opened my mouth to ask what that meant. He beat me to it. “Mate. He is capable of fathering Fey children.”

  My legs suddenly felt weak, and I quickly found my way to the nearest sofa. Sinking down, I looked up at my fairy ally - if you could call the relationship I had with Aliath as being cooperative - in horror.

  “It is not a habit of the Dökkálfa to use changelings,” he said defensively.

  “The Ljósálfar did this?”

  “Yes. Alerac is what you would call a double agent. He slips us information from Isoleth’s court, and we are fairly certain he slips her information from ours.”

  I looked at the man in question and felt not an ounce of anger at that. He was a human in a fairy world; outnumbered, outclassed, outdone. He was only doing what he had to do to survive, and I would not judge him for it.

  “Good for him,” I muttered.

  Aliath snorted. “He happened to be delivering a message to us from Ljósálfar when your hunger peaked. It seemed fortuitous.”

  “What was the message?” I didn’t like coincidences. I just escape the Light Court, and he turns up in Dökkálfa? This was not a prearranged exchange of information. I’d bet my fangs on it.

  Aliath smiled that half-indulgent/half-proud smile of his; as if I’d done well and he’d humour me because it pleased him to do so. I was not a performing dog!

  “Odin is awake,” he said.

  Odin. The Odin of Fólkvangr?

  “Who is this Odin?” I asked.

  Aliath walked across the room and stared out into the night, his hands loosely joined at his back, his regal-looking clothes catching the glint of the moon, sending flashes of silver about the room. I looked away before the need to touch the silver thread became too urgent.

  “He is Isoleth’s husband,” he said.

  I arched a brow at his back. “And he’s been sleeping? Like hibernating or something?”

  Aliath spun back around and scowled at me. Even with frown lines, the damn fairy looked gorgeous.

  “We do not hibernate like bears,” he snapped.

  “OK,” I said without inflection. “Then why did the message say he was awake?”

  “He has been…sleeping. For quite some time.”

  “Like a bear would in winter when it hibernates. Got it.”

  Aliath closed his eyes, looking pained. I smiled. Shame he didn’t catch it.

  “He has been banished to Fólkvangr for centuries,” he said, eyes still closed. “He took his daughters with him.”

  “The Valkyrjur.”

  Aliath’s eyes opened, and he studied me. I’d done something entertaining again.

  “Yes,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “Isoleth allowed him this one concession if he allowed her the use of their talents.”

  “Their warrior talents or their battlefield death selection talents?”

  “Both. They work for their Queen in fear of what she could do to their King.”

  “She’s blackmailing them,” I said, stunned. That’s why they acted so meek and mild around her. “What could Isoleth do to Odin?”

  “Many, many things that are not to be voiced if one does not wish her to hear them.”

  I snorted. “She’s a bitch, that’s for sure.”

  “My aunt has been called quite a few names over millennia, Georgia, not least of which is Monster.”

  “Your aunt.” I’d forgotten that Isoleth was Sofiq’s sister, and Sofiq was Aliath’s aunt. “Where’re your parents?”

  His face shut down completely. “Another thing you should not speak of.”

  He turned away with a swish of silvered fabric. I blinked.

  Then licked my lips and looked away. It was harder than it should have been.

  “Why am I still here, Aliath?”

  “You needed to recover.” He still didn’t look back at me.

  “I’ve recovered now,” I pointed out.

  “Your Light has not yet returned.”

  “It will. And I’ve fed. My Sanguis Vitam is replenished. You’re stalling.”

  He slowly turned and looked directly at me. I kind of wished he hadn’t. He wasn’t dimming his fairy persona at all. I wondered if he knew that or if, in fact, he was doing it intentionally. Part of me thought I intimidated Aliath for some reason. And part of me thought I was mad to think a fairy would be intimidated by me.

  “I owe you an apology,” the fairy in question said.

  My eyes widened, but I didn’t say anything.

  “Isoleth took her revenge out on you. I have embroiled you in a mess of my making.”

  “Her spies,” I said.

  “Yes. I had not realised she would be aware of your involvement, but we have not seen a Hundr for many centuries. It was naive of me to think your presence would not be noted.”

  I waited, but he didn’t add anything else. Like “I’m sorry.” That little speech was clearly as close to an apology as I was going to get, and I didn’t have it in me right then to press for more, even if pressing for more would have been amusing.

  Aliath was so easy to rile up.

  “OK,” I said. “But you got me out.”

  “We are even,” he offered with a dip of his head.

  I wouldn’t have said that we were even exactly, but I just wanted to get back to Earth.

  “Can I go now?”

  Aliath looked away as if he were uncomfortable staring at me. I checked myself. No, no silver threads shining. And my Light was well contained. What little I had of it as it replenished that is. And while I was here in the Dark Court, it wouldn’t replenish fully.

  I needed to get back to Earth. Back to Samson. Who, on second thought, wouldn’t have much Light to give me either.

  I frowned at that.

  “There is something else you should know,” Aliath said.

  “Hit me.”

  “You are touched by Odin. I can sense his mark on you.”

  I had nothing to say to that.

  Oh, wait. Yes, I did.

  “I don’t even know the man. Fairy. Whatever.”

  “At some time, you have been in his presence. He cannot mark a person without having touched them.”

  Creepy. I shook my head.

  “I haven’t touched anyone named Odin.”

  “You were in Valhöll?”

  I nodded.

  “Then he touched you. Valhöll is half in Ljósálfar and half in Fólkvangr. At some point, he awoke and left his mark on you.”

  “How?” I demanded.

  “Does it matter? You are now marked by Odin.”

  “And just what does that mean exactly?”

  Aliath shrugged. He didn’t do that often, but I noted resentfully that he was getting better at it.

  “There will be a connection between you that cannot be denied.”

  “Can he control me? Command me?”

  “Perhaps. It is too soon to know what the connection actually is. Did he ask anything of you?”

  “I didn’t even see him, let alone speak to him!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure, damn it!”

  “You faced one of his creatures in the maze.”

  “What?”

  “The Sleipnir.”

  The…That freak of a horse with eight legs?”

  “Yes. It is loyal to Odin. It was a mistake for Isoleth to think the creature had changed allegiance merely because it had not seen nor heard from Odin in centuries.”

  Oh, hell. That disembodied voice in the maze had been Odin. The estranged husband of Isoleth. The Queen Bitch of the Light Fey.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Yes, ‘oh.’ What did he ask of you, Georgia?”

  “I…” I couldn’t think. Had he asked anything of me? “I’m not sure.”

  “Then become sure, because what he asked means everything.”

  Why me? I thought. Why did I draw every single stupid powerful being to me? Gregor had been right. I was worse than Lucinda. I was a freakshow magnet. I pulled in the powerful and then let them walk all over me.

  Damn, it sucked to be me.

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember what we’d talked about while I’d been battling monsters in the maze and Odin of all beings had been talking my ear off. Well, not really, he’d not been too loquacious. But he had said a few things.

  Run. Ankles. Take the head. That sort of thing. Very helpful in the scheme of things, but he hadn’t exactly asked me anything.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think he did ask me something, Aliath. He helped me to beat those things. He offered advice.”

  “Advice in Álfheimr is never given freely.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “He woke for you,” Aliath mused. “He saw something in you that could be of use.”

  “Just like everybody else in my life,” I muttered.

  Aliath ignored my whining. “He has been Isoleth’s prisoner for as long as we have. Like us, he would have sought to escape the shackles she forced him to wear. But the last time he tried was many, many years ago. He has been asleep for a long time. Why now? Why you?”

  Yeah, I wondered that too, but for now, I just wanted to go home.

  “I need to head back,” I said.

  Aliath spun and looked at me. That green pinned me to my chair.

  “This is not over, Georgia,” he said.

  “We can have this conversation the next time you corner me back on Earth.”

  He shook his head. “Your payment for this month has been made. I will not call on your services again for another week at least.”

  “How generous of you.”

  “But Odin may.”

  I stilled. “What do you want me to do about it, Aliath? I have no idea what he wants or how to stop him from using whatever this connection is. And I just want to go home, all right?”

  “Georgia,” Aliath said, approaching me. I almost pushed myself back into the sofa to get away, but my Dark Shadow growled inside my head.

  Thanks, I muttered to her.

  You are welcome, she said haughtily. Not amused by my momentary show of weakness.

  I sat still and watched as Aliath approached. He lowered himself onto the couch beside me. Aliath didn’t usually get this close unless he really had to. It made me nervous.

  “Isoleth will retaliate,” he said with some urgency. “Not just for the spies she holds you accountable for.”

  “I paid for those with blood, sweat and tears,” I snapped.

  “Perhaps, but her plan has failed. Your New Zealand government has been ridiculed internationally.” Way to go, Gregor. “The MPs who identified you as a vampire have changed their stories.” Thank you, Samson. “The Taniwha have been decimated when cornered by your Master of the City.” My Master of the City? Did he mean Jett? “The Valkyrjur,” he went on, citing everything that had been wrong in my life recently as if Isoleth had used a shopping list of Things That Would Piss Georgia Off, “have failed her and allowed Odin to wake. She will not use them again. But, Georgia, she will use others. Isoleth is not one to forget a slight, and she believes you have slighted her.”

  “Damn it, Aliath! I hunted those fairies because of you!”

  “You hunted those fairies because of our accord. Has your Master of the City betrayed you? Forced you to join his line?”

  “No, but he wanted to mate me,” I snapped, shoving a finger in his chest to make my point.

  Aliath smiled. “That would have avoided any further chance of betrayal, would it not?”

  “He is not my vampire-mate,” I growled.

  “Ah, so you have finally admitted the Dark one is?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, but I refused to talk to a freaking fairy about Samson’s Darkness.

  “In any case, Georgia, Isoleth will come. And next time, there may not be an Odin who requires a favour. She will be more careful who she picks for the hunt.”

  Great. I was wanted by the Iunctio. I was wanted by the Light Fey. I was wanted by the God of War. And that didn’t even take into consideration that Aliath wanted to use my Hundr talents, and Gregor wanted to use me in any way he could, and Jett just wanted me for something I hadn’t yet managed to work out.

  Great. Just fucking great.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled.

  “Very attractive,” Aliath said dryly. “But it will not save you or yours from Isoleth.”

  “She could go after someone I care about,” I said, suddenly envisaging how many people that now counted.

  I’d lowered my guard. I’d let too many in. I’d weakened myself.

  Yes, said the Dark Shadow softly. But we have a mate.

  That’s all that really mattered to her.

  Not yet we don’t, I said to be petty.

  Then return and submit. Together we will be stronger.

  I didn’t have an answer for her that seemed snarky enough, so I said nothing.

  I looked at the fairy beside me. He’d dimmed his aura or whatever it was they had that made you lose your train of thought. I was aware he’d done it on purpose to lull me into a false sense of security.

  Fuck.

  I shook my head.

  “Would you help me if I asked?”

  “Are you asking, Hundr?”

  So, we were speaking officially, then.

  “Not yet,” I said. “But I might.” I might have to, that is.

  “You will not know until you ask.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. Typical evasive fairy shenanigans.

  “Take me home, Aliath,” I said.

  He stood up, and the smell of ozone hit the air. I couldn’t see the portal, but I knew it was there.

  “I do not trust Odin,” Aliath said, standing before me. “I do not trust many, in fact. But I respect him.”

  “He’s Isoleth’s husband,” I pointed out.

  “Yes. But he is also the only member of the Light Fey to have tried to take Isoleth’s head. To have attempted to right what is so wrong in Ljósálfar.”

  Some marital disharmony there.

  “What are you telling me?” I asked.

  “Only to be wary,” he said. “And use all of your available assets when she attacks.”

  I studied the fairy.

  “I’m not sure if I should thank you or tell you to fuck off,” I finally said. “There isn’t a fairy alive I’d trust at my back, and you know it.”

  He stared at me then with a strange look on his face. I thought perhaps it was regret, but I couldn’t scent any cheesecake.

  Then Aliath, Herra of the Hár Lords, Prince of Dökkálfa, held his arm up and indicated I should walk forward.

  How many times had he saved me now? I think I’d lost count.

  How many times would it take for me to trust him? There’d never be a number high enough.

  I nodded my head in thanks and walked where he indicated, stepping out onto the busy dance floor at Sensations. Christina Aguilera’s The Voice Within met my ears. Something about trusting the voice inside like you would an old friend. The Dark Shadow liked that.