He shrugged. “Well, we have been on a date already, kitten. You know it’s only a matter of time.” His chipped emerald eyes gleamed at me with promise lurking in their depths.
My mouth went dry. “Piss off. I told you that I don’t need you and that I want to do this alone.”
“At least for now.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what you said,” Corrigan replied tolerantly. “You need to do this alone, whatever ‘this’ is, at least for now.”
He was throwing back the words that I’d said to him at the mages’ academy after Thomas had been killed by the wraith. And after I’d shifted into the dragon that I now kept having nightmares about. I stared at him, nonplussed.
“I am a patient man, kitten,” Corrigan continued. “I can wait until you’ve come to terms with what you are.”
I rubbed my eyes tiredly. It was too fucking late – or too fucking early depending on which way you wanted to look at it – to be dealing with this now. “I am at terms with what I am.”
“Sure you are. That’s why you’re having nightmares.” Corrigan’s gaze fell onto my now destroyed door. “Come back to the keep with me. You can’t stay here now that anyone can waltz in without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“Yeah? And whose fucking fault is that?”
Corrigan opened his mouth to speak but he was interrupted by yet another voice. “The keep is a long way off. Don’t worry, I will keep watch and make sure that you’re not interrupted again.”
I looked over, surprised, and realised that leaning against the shadows was a Fae. Corrigan growled.
“Who the hell are you?” I snapped.
The Fae stepped out into the dim light of the corridor. “You can call me Beltran, although really my name is unimportant. Her Majesty has asked me to ensure that you are undisturbed.” His violet eyes flicked to Corrigan. “You are disturbing her.”
My mouth dropped open. Un-freaking-believable. All I needed now was for a bloody mage to show up and start waving around sparks of magic in my so-called defense and my night would be complete.
“There’s a witch waiting outside. I can always exhort her to cast a ward so that nothing may pass over the threshold,” Beltran continued without a trace of apparent emotion in his voice.
I rolled my eyes. Everything was now becoming suddenly clear. This had nothing to do with Corrigan fancying a little midnight flirt or wanting to make sure I was alright after my nightmare. This was about some kind of stupid power play between the faeries, the mages and the shifters, with me as the unwilling prize. Well, they could all just fuck off. Despite my tiredness, flames of exasperated heat were uncoiling themselves within the pit of my stomach.
Corrigan took a step towards the Fae. “Miss Mackenzie does not require your assistance. Do you even know who I am?”
Oh, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t really just say that, did he?
Beltran took a step towards Corrigan and sneered. “Am I supposed to be scared of a little pussy cat?”
Every sinew of the Lord Alpha’s muscular frame stiffened and dark patches of fur began to spring out on his uncovered arms. This had the potential to end very, very badly.
“Okay, boys,” I said, stepping between the two of them. “It’s the middle of the night. You’ve already woken up my neighbours once. Let’s call it quits so that I can go back to bed.”
The pair of them continued to eyeball each other over my head. I raised my voice. “I mean it. You two need to fuck off now because I’m getting annoyed. And you won’t like me when I’m angry.”
Corrigan muttered something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch. I ignored him pointedly. “Leave. Now.”
The Fae moved his gaze from Corrigan down to me. Something flickered in his eyes and he bowed. “As you wish.” He moved back, melting away into the darkness.
I turned round to face Corrigan. “You too.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I made a face at him. “It’s a dangerous day when I’m the calm one, Corrigan. I want to get some uninterrupted sleep and that Fae will be back in a heartbeat if you don’t leave too.” I looked over at the splintered door frame. “And I think I can take care of myself, don’t you?”
“Of that I have no doubt, kitten.”
“Then please go,” I said quietly.
He sighed, then reached out and brushed away some hair from my face. I tried hard not to flinch at his warm touch. “As you wish. But,” his eyes grew hard for a moment, “call me if you need anything.”
“Of course.” Not a chance, buster.
He stood there for a heartbeat longer, unfathomless emotion in his eyes, before blinking languidly and smoothly stepping past me into the night.
Sweet dreams.
As if. I squeezed myself into my flat, trying to avoid knocking the door that was now hanging off its hinges, then grabbed a wooden chair and propped it carefully against the knob to hold it shut. Cursing the Otherworld in general, I stomped back off to bed.
Chapter Two
It was late when I finally awoke again. Sunlight was streaming in annoyingly through a gap in the curtains and hitting the side of my face. I groaned slightly to myself, wondering whether the events of the night before had just been a product of my imagination. However, when I finally managed to get myself out of bed and check, it became apparent that unfortunately they’d been real. I stared mournfully at my broken door for a moment, hoping that my new landlord wasn’t planning to make any surprise visits to check on his new tenant before I managed to get it fixed.
Possession-less as I virtually was, the flat itself was rather bare. It came supplied with a few basics: a sofa, a bed, a kitchen table and chairs – one of which was currently keeping the front door closed – and very little else. I’d not even had time to stock the cupboards yet, and the absence of coffee was grating on me. I made a mental note to make sure that I managed to leave work in time this evening to buy a proper coffee machine and some of South America’s finest, then shrugged on my usual uniform of jeans and a dark t-shirt and picked up my backpack on my way out. At least there was nothing worth stealing inside the flat, I figured ruefully, as I left the door hanging precariously against the frame. Corrigan still had a hell of a lot to answer for though.
The bookshop was a short ten minute walk away, and I knew from my previous strolls back and forth that there was a small coffee shop along the way. I checked my watch and decided that there was time to pick up a triple espresso. Opening day wasn’t until next week and, while there was a hell of a lot to still get ready before then, at least being a bit late wouldn’t cause too many problems. When I emerged from the shop, one coffee and one foul-smelling herbal tea clutched in my hands, there were prickles against the back of my neck and, without turning round to check, I knew that I was being watched. It was hardly rocket science to work out where I was going though, so I did my best to ignore them and continued forward. If those idiots had nothing better to do than follow me round all day, then that was up to them.
The new, improved, and somewhat displaced, Clava Books was situated along a busy London thoroughfare. I’d suggested to Mrs. Alcoon that we should change the name – after all its namesake, the Clava Cairns, was on the other side of the country – but she’d insisted on keeping it the same. After ensuring that she could never return to Inverness by burning down the original and making everyone think that she’d died inside it, I could hardly argue. We’d been fortunate enough to be able to take over the lease of the new building thanks to some generous compensation from the mages. I had the distinct feeling that it was my good books they were trying to stay in, rather than Mrs. Alcoon’s, but she deserved something after her livelihood and home had been ripped out from under her so I’d kept quiet and let her take the money. She was living in the small flat above the shop and, even though we hadn’t officially opened yet and therefore had no profits to speak of, there was enough left over to pay me a wage to cover my own expenses.
The bell tinkled as I pushed open the door, announcing my arrival. Mrs. Alcoon’s lilting Scottish voice drifted over a greeting to me from behind a towering pile of boxes. “Mackenzie, dear, are you quite alright?”
“Sure, Mrs. Alcoon, I’m fine.”
Her head popped up, and her eyes regarded me seriously. “You should see a doctor, you know, dear. That might help you to sleep better.”
Mrs. Alcoon wasn’t exactly a mage, but she did possess some weak Divination powers that allowed her moments of prescience and insight. Clearly this was one of those moments.
“Honestly, I’m fine,” I repeated, reassuring her. I lifted up the tea. “Here, I brought you a drink.”
She beamed at me, and stood up so I could pass it over to her. “Oh, you are wonderful. You should really have gotten another cup though as I think we’re going to have a helper with us today.”
I frowned at her, puzzled.
“The March-Mage called. He’s sending over his best librarian to give us a hand with getting ready.”
I grinned. “You mean the Arch-Mage?”
She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Oh, yes, Arch-Mage, sorry. A lot of this Otherworld stuff is very new to me, you know, dear. It’s difficult to get all the names right.”
Technically speaking, no humans (even those with minor powers) were allowed to know about the Otherworld, and its denizens did a good job of keeping it secret. However, considering that there had been no sensible explanation other than the truth as to why Mrs. Alcoon had lost months of her life in a coma, coupled with the fact that her slight Divination skills had already picked up on my Draco Wyr heritage beforehand, pretending otherwise had seemed pointless. Thankfully, the mages had seemed to agree and I’d had no disagreement about revealing the whole truth to her from any other quarter either. To be fair to the older lady, she’d dealt with all of the revelations remarkably well. She had known about the existence of the Ministry for years before I’d met her though. I gave her a suspicious look and wondered whether her ‘mistake’ had been deliberate. She blinked back at me innocently. Hmmm.