Into the Fire (The Unseelie Court Book 4) Read online

  I stare at the medical equipment lying well out of reach. Scalpels, scissors, bone saws, scanners. The ominous blinking red light from the camera in the corner.

  Will there be any of me left for him to find?

  Eventually, two guards also wearing cleanroom suits enter the medical torture room and wheel me—gurney and all—to my cell. The guard steps to the door and presses a button on a remote. With a hiss of hydraulics, the metal bands part. The door is sealed behind them before I sit up.

  First thing I do is reach behind my head and unfasten the straps of the gag. I hurl the thing with all my strength against the far wall. It bounces then rolls to the middle of the floor.

  My hands shake as I raise them to my sore lips. Blood crusts one side of my mouth, but at least the wounds have clotted. My wardrobe—or lack thereof—is a bigger problem. I am freezing with nothing more than a scratchy sheet to warm myself. What, do they expect me to make a toga out of the thing?

  “So this is how it’s going to be,” I snarl at the camera. “No clothes, strapped down like a lab rat. I have rights, you know. I want a lawyer.”

  There is no reply, not that I really expected one.

  Wrapping the sheet around my nude form, I move to the bed and sit with my back to the cold concrete wall. Can an immortal die of exposure? I doubt it. Most of the fey have spent their lives going without clothing. It’s still not a comfortable proposition.

  Footsteps sound in the corridor. A slot opens beneath the oval door, a bar of light shining down on the dim gray floor tiles. Through the slot a tray is shoved then the mini hatch clangs closed. The footsteps recede.

  I move forward and study the tray. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes smothered in gravy and anemic-looking green beans. Plastic wrapped disposable flatware, a paper napkin, and an empty metal cup. One would think the FBI would feed their prisoners better than my high school cafeteria.

  “Hey,” I say up to the camera on the wall. “Something to add to your file, I’m a freaking vegetarian.”

  I can’t hear a reply, but, in my mind’s eye, I imagine them scowling at their notes. Some prune-faced man jotting down a note, the serial killing vegetarian.

  The Fates are not without a sense of irony.

  Ignoring the food, I pick up the cup and head to the sink. The water out of the tap smells like chlorine but I drink it down anyway. At least it’s coming from their communal plumbing so I know the water isn’t tainted. After another cupful, I set it on the sink and then slink back to the lumpy mattress and wait.

  My best chance of escape is as soon as possible. If I linger, time will be my worst enemy. My muscles will atrophy and my mind will grow sluggish. Especially if the diet around this place doesn’t improve. They know about my goodnight kiss and though Freda trained me to use various weapons, I don’t have any within reach.

  Surprise is my only advantage.

  In spite of my resolve, my body is exhausted and soon my eyes drift shut.

  “You,” Underhill hisses as she looks down at the flickering image as the glamour melts away. The woman on the ground is all too familiar. One of her jailers.

  She didn’t have Váli at all.

  On the slab, Loki laughs, the sound hysterical. Beside him, his wife shivers.

  The fate, Atropos, looks up at her. “Power-hungry as always, Pharaildis.”

  Underhill’s nostrils flair in outrage. “You are interfering with the natural order.”

  “I am,” the Norn wipes the blood off her chest, showing the flawless skin beneath. No mortal weapon could kill her. “Nic and Aiden have born the weight of everyone else’s misdeeds. Someone needed to interfere on their behalf.”

  “There’s got to be more to it.” Underhill narrows her eyes on the Norn. Why would this ancient creature risk her position for Nicneven and Váli?

  Unless…

  Loki laughs. “The One True Queen is coming.”

  “No,” Underhill whirls and storms from the cavern.

  “My lady? What of the prisoner?” Fenrir asks.

  “We can’t hold her.” Underhill turns back and smirks. “It matters not. By her actions, she has sealed her fate.”

  “Stand up, face the wall, hands behind your back.” I jerk awake as the disembodied voice echoes into my chilly prison.

  Addy. My heart pounds.

  “Move.” The command comes again.

  I hesitate and then do as I’ve been told. My cover has always been a normal teenager. Playing a scared, confused girl instead of an immortal fey should help me gain….

  Well, not their trust, but maybe security will grow a bit lax.

  When I am in place, more footsteps come. There is a hiss, like an airlock being unsealed and then two figures swathed in cleanroom suits appear. The fabric is so white they glow under the harsh fluorescent lighting. The duo step in unison over the threshold and enter my room.

  The larger of the pair holds some sort of weapon on me. Not a gun, but something that looks sort of like a Taser. Message received. I do anything squirrely, I get zapped.

  The other moves forward and snaps a pair of handcuffs on me. Then produces that damned hood and slips it over my face.

  Okay then, time to meet the wizard.

  With the hood and cuffs in place, they wrap some sort of sarong style outfit around my body. The fabric fastens with Velcro and feels like terrycloth. Not that I’m in a position to complain. I am escorted out into the hall, barefoot. It’s just as bright out here and I wonder why whoever it is I’m going to speak with doesn’t just come to my cell.

  Unless this little outing isn’t for a pleasant conversation. The US government wouldn’t have me executed sans trial and sentencing. At least I don’t think they would. I may have failed my tenth-grade civics class due to absence, but I know enough about the judicial system to understand that criminals get a trial. I’m in custody, I should get a trial.

  Still, my insides twist.

  We move past room after room with the same oval doors. If there are other prisoners in this facility, I don’t see or hear them. The corridor joins with another identical one. We turn left, then right. I barely stifle my frustration as we make yet another turn. I have a shit sense of direction, even on my best day.

  Which this isn’t.

  Aiden, I think. Now would be a stellar time for a helping hand.

  But there is no reply. Our bond has gone silent. More than anything else, this has panic rising in my chest.

  Underhill hadn’t caught the real Aiden. Nightweaver would have said.

  Worry about yourself, I think. My welfare used to be all I worried about. But I have changed. Aiden has changed me.

  Finally, we stop in front of a nondescript door that looks no different than any of the others. The guard to my right knocks three times and then stands back.

  The door opens and I come face to face with a gorgeous woman. She doesn’t smile but satisfaction shines from her dark eyes. Her short stature does nothing to revoke her sense of authority. A gun rests at her hip. Is she one of the agents who’d shot me?

  At least she’s not wearing a lab coat.

  “Sit her there.” The woman gestures to a ladder-back chair. It has ankle cuffs and a bolt in the back to run a chain through.

  I am frog-marched to the chair and bound to it. My bare feet freeze on the cement floor and when my ankles are bound, I can’t do anything except wiggle my toes.

  “Leave us,” the female agent says once I am secure.

  There is another of those hissing sounds as the door seals shut behind them.

  She moves forward and unzips my hood. I suck in air in a greedy gulp.

  “Nic Rutherford.” She circles the table to sit opposite me. Her eyes are so brown there is no distinction between iris and pupil. The intriguing color emphasized by a light dusting of eye shadow.

  “And you are?” I put a little quaver in my voice and let my gaze dart around as though in panic. It isn’t hard to fake being terrified.

  “Agent Yasmine Ha
nson.” She reaches for the single manila file folder on the table and flips it open. “I’ve been following you for quite some time. Since almost the beginning of my career.”

  Her tone is conversational but I’m not fooled. The folder contains the picture of a dead man slumped over the backseat of a bus. A man I’d killed a few years ago in Nashville when he’d tried to rape me.

  Schooling my features, I do my best featherhead routine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This has to be some sort of mistake.”

  “Did you know, Ms. Rutherford, that this man, one Harrison Downey, was a convicted sex offender when you killed him?”

  “Killed?” I manage a squeak. “I’ve never killed anyone.”

  She narrows her gaze on me. Then she sits back and folds her arms over her ample chest. “Is that right?”

  I nod, trying to sell the big-eyed innocent caught up in something out of her control, shtick. Lie and deny, bob and weave.

  “What about Paul Anderson? Or Minnesota St. John?”

  I shake my head even though my gut is churning. Those names are all on the IDs in my diary.

  Agent Hanson raises one dark eyebrow. “I see. This is all a big mistake is it?”

  I don’t like her tone. This woman has studied me, knows how I will play, but there’s no way out but through. “Yes, that is…I slipped out of the house to meet up with my boyfriend and then the next thing I know I’m being shot.”

  “Your boyfriend. That would be Aiden Jager?”

  Cold dread seeps into me. How does she know Aiden’s name? As the son of a god, he has the ability to blend in with the mortal world seamlessly. There would have been no paper trail, no way for her to find out about him.

  The diary was one thing, but in order for Agent Hanson to know Aiden’s name, she had to have an immortal informant. Who? Someone who also knew to warn them about my goodnight kiss. Not Chloe or Addy. My aunts would never betray me.

  “That’s right.” Aiden’s across the Veil. Safe from their reach. There’s no reason to deny our relationship.

  “And is Mr. Jager also the father of your baby?”

  “Baby?” I blink. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She pulls a paper from the file and spins it around so I can see it. “We did a blood test on you when we patched up your wounds. See here?”

  She points down at the block red print. Six weeks pregnant.

  The world tunnels. No. No. I can’t be pregnant. Cannot. We hadn’t even had sex. It had been close but…

  Is it possible?

  Those midnight eyes survey my every twitch. “Congratulations, Ms. Rutherford. You’re going to be a mother.”

  Mind Games

  “There must be some kind of mistake,” I shake my head, unable to believe what the paper is telling me. “I’m only sixteen.”

  Agent Hanson frowns. “It says here you were born in 2001. That means you’re eighteen.”

  “Right.” Swift, Nic. I’ve forgotten that I’d missed eighteen months in the mortal world while I’d been screwing around beyond the Veil. I still feel sixteen.

  Hanson’s dark eyes narrow. “This…changes things.”

  “What do you mean?” No vivisection?

  “I was under the impression that you were a serial killer. And yet you’re sitting there looking like nothing more than a teenage girl.”

  “I am a teenage girl.” And so much more.

  But the other woman shakes her head. “You’re not. I have the photos taken by one Gretchen Hamill and the diary with your fingerprints all over the licenses belonging to the victims. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t kill those people.”

  I meet her gaze. “I didn’t kill those people.”

  She blinks as though I’ve surprised her. As though she hadn’t expected me to be able to lie. I hold my breath for a beat and wait.

  “So, who killed them?”

  It’s difficult to shrug with my hands secured behind my back, but somehow I manage. “How would I know?”

  “And how did your fingerprints come to be all over this?” She reaches into her bag and withdraws my fuzzy heart-shaped diary.

  “Brought it to school and I lost it.”

  She shakes her head. “Your prints are on the licenses, not just the book.”

  I inhale and then do the one thing I swore I’d never do. I throw someone else under the bus. “It belongs to Gretchen Hamill.”

  Agent Hanson leans back in her chair. “You’re telling me that Gretchen Hamill is responsible for killing all these people? She’s the one who sent us this package.”

  “Look, all I know is that I saw Gretchen with the diary after I lost it. It was in her bag. So, I snatched it out and flipped through it. I thought she was making fake ID’s or something and thought I could get her to set me up with one. I didn’t know she was killing people!” My shriek by the end has a hysterical ring.

  Sorry, Gretchen. You’re not going to be able to come back here.

  Agent Hanson studies me for a moment. “I don’t believe you. There’s too much oddness about you.”

  “I want to talk to my aunt.” Though Addy is MIA, Chloe is still around.

  “We can’t find her. Besides, you’re legally an adult.”

  “A lawyer then.” I square my shoulders, as though I’m the girl who is going to assert her rights, instead of the tricksy fey who is only buying time.

  “Ms. Rutherford, I don’t believe you fully comprehend your situation.” Agent Hanson waves a hand around the room. “This is a secure facility meant to hold creatures like you.”

  At her words my blood starts to frost over. “What do you mean, like me?”

  Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Come on now, Nic. You don’t think all the fey activity has gone unnoticed, do you? We know about the Veil and the big tear in it. We know there are creatures that abduct innocent people from their homes, their lives and use them for their own nefarious purposes.”

  I swallow hard. They know about it, about all of it. The Veil, the fey, possibly even Underhill.

  “What will that baby you’re carrying be able to do?” Agent Hanson eyes my still flat midsection. “Wield fire? Water? Fly? Will it have horns?”

  I shake my head. It’s not difficult to fake my overwhelm. Knowing I was being held by mortals who know of the fey is bad enough. But the baby….

  I need to get out of here.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I breathe.

  Hanson is on her feet and thrusting a garbage can in front of my face before the last word escapes. I hurl my guts up, though it is all bile this time. Morning sickness. I have freaking morning sickness.

  No. It’s a trick. Aiden and I hadn’t gone all the way. I am not pregnant. Just freaked out.

  She curses and then moves to pound to the air-locked door. “Take her back to her cell. Send a medic to run some more tests.”

  “What sort of tests?” I gasp.

  “We won’t hurt you or whatever it is you are carrying,” Hanson assures me. “We’re too interested to see the result.”

  I shiver at her matter of fact tone. It’s a lie. No baby, she’s fucking with my head.

  I sit still while the agents unchain me and then shuffle back to my cell. On the third turn, or maybe it’s the fourth, we pass another team perp walking someone else in the opposite direction. It’s a girl, small, with honey brown hair, and blue-gray eyes. Our gazes lock. She looks to be the same age as Jasmine, maybe even younger. Is she fey, too?

  We are past them before I can get a word out. Then I passively stand back while I am deposited in my small, dank room.

  “The medic will be with you shortly,” the guard on the left says.

  “Can’t wait.” I lie back on the cot, pulling my knees up into the fetal position.

  I’m not really pregnant. I can’t be. Agent Hanson is playing some sort of game with me.

  I trundle through my mental archives, trying to remember the first day of my last period. It
’s no use. The time shifts between Underhill and the world around me are too vast. It could have been a few weeks or a few months.

  I’m going to hang on to hoax as long as possible.

  No matter what year it is, I still feel like a sixteen-year-old girl, not an immortal fey. I’ve lived more than most girls my chronological age could ever imagine, seen more, traveled through the fairy realm. I was within a few heartbeats of killing my own mother and claiming a throne.

  Damn it, why didn’t I kill her?

  I wonder again where Aiden is. Before my meeting with Agent Hanson, I’d thought our reunion would be peaceful and sweet. Now, panic fills me as I imagine his reaction.

  Especially if I am knocked up.

  In my past life, I had also carried Aiden’s child. A child he hadn’t really wanted. A child I’d planned to use to take my place on the Shadow Throne so I would be free to ride with the Wild Hunt.

  “How the mighty have fallen,” a sibilant voice hisses from the dark.

  I glance up to see the hideous shade lurking in the corner. “Nightweaver.” I should have known the ghost would still be skulking around. I try to keep my lips from moving too much and displaying my conversation for Agent Hanson and company.

  The dead Valkyrie drifts over to the camera. She tilts her birdlike head to one side and then I see the red light go off.

  “Nahini? Did she get free?” Last I’d seen of my second in command, she had been caged in the great room of the underground palace.

  “No.” Nightweaver shakes her head. “She wants you to know the Fate is still alive.”

  I sag a bit in relief. I don’t believe Underhill had the power to kill Addy. It was the fates who trapped my mother after all. Hearing the confirmation takes a weight off my shoulders.

  “Do you wish to relay any messages back to her?” The Valkyrie asks.

  I think it through a moment. “Tell her to do whatever Underhill asks.”

  Nightweaver studies me in that odd way of hers, head tilted, beady eyes fixed. “You want Nahini to help your enemies?”

  I hold her stare unflinchingly. “If it means she might have the chance to escape, yes.”