She laughed throatily and latched on to my left side again, her breath tickling my neck, and I reddened.
“I mean, did you tell him that you’d never take my life?”
“Yessss,” she whispered in my ear, and I had to close my eyes. Two outs, nobody on, bottom of the first. Completely unsexy.
“Why?”
She dug her nails into my pecs and I gasped, remembering when they were talons.
“I wanted him to summon Death,” she said, “so that when you killed him, I would never have to see him again. I knew he would do it when I told him of our agreement, and he did. Thus I am eternally revenged for millennia of petty annoyances. He is now in a hell he never imagined for himself, denied his rest in Tir na nOg. Am I not a fearsome enemy?”
“You frighten me primally.”
The Morrigan sighed and ground her pelvis against my leg. What do you know? She liked to be told she was scary. Kinky.
“Why did he want Fragarach so badly?” I wondered. “I never got to ask him.”
“There is a faction in Faerie-a rather large one-that thinks you should not wield it, since you are neither Fae nor of the Tuatha De Danann. They think Brighid has let too many of the old ways go, and allowing you to keep Fragarach is something they point to as evidence of their claims.”
“So I’m a political football in Tir na nOg.”
“I don’t know what a football is,” she breathed in my ear. “But I know you are aroused.” Her left hand caressed the flat of my stomach and started to trail south to my jeans. “You cannot hide this from me.”
She abruptly whipped her head to the northeast, and fun time was over. “Flidais approaches. We will speak later. You have some power to return to me. Spend the night regenerating your own, and I will return in the morning.” The Morrigan turned back into a crow and flew off to the southwest even as Flidais entered the meadow from the opposite direction.
The goddess of the hunt gave me a cursory wave and ran over to Dr. Snorri Jodursson, who looked like a silver pincushion. Of the three other wolves who had fallen, two were turned back to human form, which meant they were dead. No wonder Hal and the Pack were so eager to catch up with Emily.
‹I don’t know what to think about that red-haired lady,› Oberon said, as I ran to help the other surviving werewolf. He loped easily alongside me, happy to stretch his legs. ‹She seemed so nice at first, but then she made me kill that guy and helped kidnap us-and now she’s trying to heal that poor wolf. Do you think maybe she has a split personality?›
In a sense. She serves two masters.
‹Really? Who?›
Herself and Brighid.
‹So the nice half of her personality must be when she serves Brighid! I liked Brighid. She called me impressive, which showed great judgment, and she also gave me a belly rub. If you see her again, remember she likes milk and honey in her tea.›
I smiled. I missed you, Oberon. Let’s see what we can do for this werewolf.
It was a female I didn’t recognize. She growled and snarled when she first saw us come into view, but she subsided abruptly after she recalled we had been with the Pack. She had been stabbed under the left front leg and had a gash across the tendons of her right. They didn’t look life-threatening, but she couldn’t walk and the wounds wouldn’t heal because of the silver traces in them.
My magic wouldn’t work on her-werewolf immunity-but if I could get her wounds cleaned up she would heal herself. Easier said than done.
“Oberon, do you smell water anywhere nearby?”
He raised his snout to the air and took a few good long snuffles-he sneezed a couple of times-but he sounded sorry when he replied, ‹I can’t smell anything over the blood and demon stench. Why don’t you just bring some up from the earth? I’ve seen you do it before.›
“Aenghus Og killed the land here. It won’t obey me now.”
“Do not trouble yourself, Druid,” Flidais said from twenty yards and closing, running over to help. “I can clean the wounds without water and get her healing started.”
“You can? You’re already finished with Snorri?” I looked over at Snorri, who was still lying on the ground as before but without all the needles in him.
“I am. He is healing now. And soon this one will do the same,” she said, kneeling down on her haunches and placing her tattooed hand on the werewolf’s cut leg. “Her name is Greta.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I told you I would come back to heal the Pack.”
“But you were the one who kidnapped Hal and Oberon and put them in a position to be harmed.”
Flidais hissed with impatience. “I did so only at the instruction of Brighid.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “What?”
“Do not pretend you cannot follow me,” she snapped. “You know us well, and we know you even better. Admit it, Druid: Without your friends being held hostage, there was a significant chance you would have simply fled the confrontation. Brighid did not want that to happen, so I provided Aenghus Og with a lever to make sure you showed up to be attacked. Thus Brighid got what she wanted-the removal of a rival-and Aenghus got what he deserved.”
During this conversation, I missed what exactly Flidais did to remove the silver-I wanted to learn the trick, because it could come in handy later-but when I looked back down, the werewolf’s wounds were already beginning to close, and the last thing I wanted was to be in Flidais’s debt. I supposed I would have to find a lever against her.
I was flabbergasted by the extent to which I had been manipulated by various members of the Tuatha De Danann. I had indeed been a pawn for Brighid, Flidais, and the Morrigan-a pawn who took down two very troublesome gods. Still, there were clear blessings to be thankful for: I was still alive, and my worst enemy was in hell instead of angling to become First among the Fae. I could think of nothing else to say to Flidais that would not get me in trouble, so I took refuge in good manners.
“Thank you for healing the Pack, Flidais.”
“It was my pleasure,” she said, rising. “And now I get an even greater pleasure. Did you see that one of the large demon rams escaped?”
“Yes, I saw that. Big lad, he was.”
“I’m going after him now.” She grinned. “He’s had a decent head start. Rams like him are casters, you know. It’s going to be a fine chase, a finer battle, and he’ll be a choice trophy on the wall of my lodge.”
“Happy hunting.”
“Fare you well, Druid,” she said, and then she sprinted toward Haunted Canyon, using who knew what for energy in this wasted land. The Tuatha De Danann obviously had access to a power source that I did not-but I could see now that they had labored for millennia to preserve the fiction that they were as limited as Druids were. Perhaps it did not matter anymore to keep it a secret: Who was I going to tell?
‹You know what she’s like, Atticus?›
What’s that, buddy?
‹A piece of steak you get caught in your teeth and you can’t get out. I love me some steak, you know, but sometimes it can be supremely annoying and then I don’t want steak again for a while.›
That’s exactly what I feel too, Oberon.
He turned his head toward Snorri and pricked up his ears. ‹Hey, I think your crush from the bar is coming.›
She’s my new apprentice. Well, half of her is, anyway.
‹Wow, really? What’s the other half going to do?›
Not sure about that yet. Let’s go meet her. I waved good-bye to Greta the werewolf, who was out of danger now, and Oberon barked a farewell. We loped over to where Dr. Jodursson was healing-he looked as if he wanted to sleep, but that was doubtless impossible with the pack link overflowing with bloodlust at the moment.
“Thanks for taking one for the team, Snorri,” I said. Oberon chimed in with a sort of rolling bark-roo-woo- wooof.
