The Bitter Seed of Magic

Malik crouched in front of me, his elegant fingers clasped together. ‘And you have not been able to speak about this to anyone but me?’

‘Not so far.’

‘Which would suggest that those you have not been able to talk to are connected to these deaths in some way?’

He’d reached the same conclusion I had about the Goddess’ horned god photofit.

‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘Finn’s got nothing to do with this.’

‘Genevieve.’ Malik tipped my chin up, his expression gentle. ‘We all have the capacity to justify unimaginable actions when desperation and a belief in a greater good persuades us that they are the lesser evil.’

I ducked my head and contemplated his bare feet; they were long and elegant too. ‘Unimaginable actions’ added up to when he’d attacked and left me for dead when I was fourteen. And then there was the other time— or times? Did the last one count, seeing as I was already dead?—that he’d killed me. He’d had good reasons, and I’d forgiven him. Hell, I’d asked him to kill me that last time, though to judge by the sorrow haunting his words, he hadn’t forgiven himself.

I reached out, touched his clasped hands briefly. ‘This isn’t you we’re talking about,’ I said quietly.

Regret flickered in his eyes. ‘The satyr is no different to any other, Genevieve. And he has shown he has both the will and capability to kill.’

‘Finn hasn’t killed anyone …’ but even as I said it I remembered he had once set a trap to kill Malik, and he’d staked a vamp on his horns (the vamp had later vanished, so I didn’t think Finn had actually killed him). Both incidents had been to defend me. ‘Finn wouldn’t kill an innocent, whatever the end result.’

‘But you admit the satyr could kill if he thought the death deserved,’ Malik said.

There was no hint of accusation in his mild tone, but I didn’t like where he was going. I narrowed my eyes. ‘Why are you so hot to blame Finn?’

‘I am trying to divine the goddess’ intentions, this is all. Do you believe She means that you should bear a child to break the curse?’

‘Fine, side-step the issue then,’ I muttered, not caring if I sounded like a sulky child. Whatever I’d expected him to do after I’d told him about my heavenly trip, this wasn’t it.

‘Genevieve, it is not I who is side-stepping the issue.’

No, it was me. Not that I knew what I’d expected him to do or say differently. I picked at a snag in the blue carpet as I tried to work out what I wanted.

‘Genevieve?’

‘Yes!’ I ground out, yanking out the thread. ‘I think that’s what She means.’

‘And what would happen if you told the fae about your goddess’ command?’

I threw my hands up. ‘They’d do what they’ve been doing all along, of course: try and convince me to have a child.’

He cast a quick look past my shoulder, making my back crawl, then focused back on me. ‘Until now you have refused to bear a child because the outcome—breaking the curse—was not a certainty,’ he said. ‘But if the goddess has provided that certainty, then there is no reason for you to refuse any longer.’

I scowled. ‘Got it in one.’

‘So why do you not have a child as the fae wish, then this will all be over?’ he asked in a perfectly rational and totally aggravating tone.

I jerked my head up. ‘And what if I’ve misread the goddess’ commands because I’m so fixated on what the fae want?’ Yep, there it was: I wanted him to come up with a different explanation for what She’d told me, one that didn’t involve me getting pregnant. ‘Or what if the reason I can’t tell anyone else is because they’d all jump right into the curse-breaking side of things and no one would look for whoever is murdering the faelings?’ There, side-step that! ‘And even if I did have a kid and break the curse, who’s to say the killer wouldn’t kill again?’

‘The police are already looking for this killer, and they will continue to do so, regardless of the curse.’ He studied me, his expression thoughtful. ‘Genevieve, do you not want a child?’

Fuck, no! ‘I’m only just twenty-five, Malik—I’m too young to be tied up with a kid.’

‘Yes, you are young, but the child would be an adult in a few years, and you will still be young. You are sidhe, a near-immortal; you will be young for centuries yet. It is but a small portion of your life to devote to a child, if the end result is one you desire?’

I jumped up, frustration, fury and fear raging through me. ‘Listen!’ I jabbed a finger at him. ‘One: if I were ever to have a child, then there’s no way I’d let it fend for itself, just because it was a so-called adult. The child would be my kid for life.’ I jabbed at him again, my voice rising. ‘Two: do you really think I haven’t thought all this out for myself? And three: what the hell do you think you’re doing? This has nothing to do with you—you’re not fae. And if Tavish has put you up to persuade me, then you can tell him from me: it won’t fucking work. I do not want a kid, and unless I get something more significant than some iffy photofit and some cryptic clues, then I’m not going to, not now, and not ever. I will find another way to break the curse, even if it kills me.’

He rose in one graceful, effortless movement, concern and bewilderment on his face. ‘I understood that this situation was not one you wanted, Genevieve, or were comfortable with, but I did not realise that having a child engendered such fear in you.’ He reached out, but I twisted away before he could touch me. ‘Why is that?’

‘You’re asking me?’ I clenched my fists, trying to keep from shouting at him. ‘When you know what happened between my mother and father? What he did to her? Talk about a bad start in life!’ I snorted. ‘And it didn’t get any better, did it? Hell, my own father married me off to a psychotic, sadistic sucker, then I spent the next ten years being a pawn in some shitty Prohibition game cooked up between the lot of you, a game I didn’t even know I was playing. Oh, and let’s not forget, I’ve died three— No, wait, that might even be four times now. Four times, Malik! I might be sidhe and nearly immortal, but that’s pushing it for anyone. Next time my death might stick, my body might actually fade, and there will be nothing for me to come back to. No way am I bringing a kid into a world like this, not with all the bad luck and tainted blood in my heritage, even if there wasn’t the damn fertility curse to deal with.’

He frowned, perplexed. ‘I never met your mother, but from what I heard, your father was besotted with her, and Nataliya with him. I do not know that he ever did anything untoward to her—’

‘C’mon, Malik—that story about my father finding her at a fertility rite and the pair of them falling head-over- heels and then her tragically dying in childbirth? It’s just that: a story. One I stopped believing in a long time ago.’

Like I stopped believing in a whole lot of other things, like my father had my best interests at heart, and vamps were just people with pointy teeth, all thanks to the psychotic vamp my father betrothed me to: a.k.a. the Autarch, Britain’s Top Dog vamp—and Malik’s erstwhile master. I ignored the terrified, sick feeling in my stomach that always accompanied thoughts about my betrothed and glared at Malik.

‘It just doesn’t stack up.’ I smacked one of the steel beams. ‘I mean, how the hell did a vamp gatecrash a sidhe fertility rite in the first place, let alone survive long enough to get one pregnant? And then he actually kidnaps her when he escapes? Oh, and not to mention managing to keep her hidden from her queen and court long enough for a child to be born?’

‘Ah.’ He brushed his hair back where it had fallen forward. ‘I understand now. You think your father forced your mother in some way—’

‘I know he did!’ I yelled. ‘No sidhe would willingly have a child with a vamp—it just doesn’t happen!’

He stilled. Hot flames flared in his pupils, then snuffed out. The temperature on the walkway dropped about twenty degrees and I shivered in the sudden icy air as my horrified mind caught up with the stupid, thoughtless words my mouth had uttered.

‘And you know this how?’ he asked, his voice as chilly as the air.

I grimaced, my anger fleeing in the face of an insulted vamp—a powerful, dangerous, insulted vamp … a vamp I cared something for, and truly hadn’t meant to hurt. Way to go, Gen! ‘Look, Malik, I’m sorry, that didn’t come out—’