That had to be a good sign, didn’t it? He couldn’t mean to slaughter her here in the woods if he cared enough to heal her.
Looking up at his strange, shadowed face, she said, “You were the one. You were stalking me.”
“No,” he said. He set aside the cloth and gathered her into his arms. “I was stalking someone else. I found him in Glasgow and started to follow him. When he came to London, I followed him there too. He kept going to your concerts, and it was unusual. Unlike him. For some reason, you… matter to him. So I took you.”
She tried to follow what he was saying, but while he spoke English clearly enough, he sounded insane. “But why?”
His face twisted, and tears began to spill down his cheeks. He rocked her and sobbed. “Because you’re perfect. You’re so perfect I couldn’t have found a better weapon if I had tried.”
“I’m no weapon,” she whispered, staring. “I’m just a musician.”
“I’ll give you to her, and she will be horrible to you. And that will matter to him. With you, I’ll drive a wedge between them so deep it will tear them apart. And they need to be torn apart. You have no idea the damage they’ve caused or how many people they have killed over the years. You have no idea the kind of damage she did to me. If she isn’t stopped, she’ll target a friend of mine, and I will not let anything happen to my Sophie.”
Killed?
Sidonie was tired and cold, damp, and so scared that tears began to leak out of the corners of her eyes as well. This creature wasn’t human. He wouldn’t think in human terms. Maybe he really was crazy. Did he even recognize he had committed a crime?
Even though it was futile, she twisted her hands, trying to find purchase against the cords that bound her wrists as she forced herself to say in a soft, cajoling tone, “Can you please listen to me? Just listen. Whatever you’re planning, I can see it matters deeply to you, but you don’t have to go through with it. You have time to rethink everything, and—and I’ll help you. I promise. But you have to let me go first. I can only help you if you let me go.”
The creature’s gaze focused on her. There was so much emotion in his strange eyes, so much grief and rage, it held her transfixed. “I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
Renewed panic jolted through her. “There’s no need to talk like that. You haven’t gone too far yet or done anything that isn’t fixable. We can—I can—I have money. Resources. Whoever your enemy is, we can go after her together.”
What the hell was she saying? She had never “gone after” anybody before in her life. Her worst enemies had been rivals at school, and her biggest battles had been won through music competitions and grades.
But she could tell by his stony, unmoved expression that nothing she said was getting through to him.
What else could she promise? The need for revenge was driving him. She ran through all the famous revenge scenarios she could think of, but they were all based on fictional characters. Dropping that idea, she focused on another one.
His friend mattered to him.
“You’re worried about your Sophie,” she said rapidly. “We can get protection for your friend. I have contacts with a good security company.”
His gaze met hers. “Did they protect you from me?”
Her breath caught. Before she could come up with another argument, he wiped his face with the back of one hand and drew out a knife. As her panic escalated, he used the knife to cut a strip of cloth off the bottom of her shirt and forced it between her teeth as a gag. The tears still streamed down his face, but his expression had turned stony with resolve.
“Listen to me,” he said harshly. His strange gaze was lit with a feverish light. “Take my advice for what it’s worth. Don’t tell her about me, or why I took you. If she considers you a threat, she will have you killed—or if she thinks you have any information that might be useful to her, she will do much worse than have you killed. And if you’re smarter than me, if you have it in you to bow to her will and pander to her every whim, it will go easier for you. Because even though I regret the need to do this, you are only one person and your sacrifice will mean so much to so many. I’m afraid you’re going to have a tough time now.”
Chapter Three
Sid had fallen into a nightmare so strange she had no idea how to dig herself out of it. As she stared, the creature eased her away, stood, and his body shimmered and disappeared, to be replaced by a gigantic, thick creature with tiny eyes and skin the color of gray rock.
He had shapeshifted into a… a… troll?
As a human deadhead, she knew almost nothing about magic other than what she read in magazine articles or saw in the news. But from what she had gleaned from idle conversations with others, she was fairly certain of one thing.
It took tremendous Power to shapeshift into a shape that was either bigger or smaller than the original person. The two-natured Wyr accomplished the shift the most easily, as their animal forms were literally second nature to them.
But whatever this creature was, he wasn’t Wyr, and this troll was so much bigger than the creature that had carried her through the forest it meant he had Power, a lot of it.
Realization flared. He had probably been the black horse that had caused the accident and carried her to this unknown place. The kind of deliberation that had gone into her kidnapping was chilling.
She shrank back as the huge troll bent over her, but tied as thoroughly as she was, there was nothing she could do to stop him from picking her up again.
He trudged ahead, following a narrow footpath that wound through the woods, until Sidonie could smell a hint of woodsmoke on the breeze that blew gently through the trees. Soon he stepped into a large clearing that held several buildings—a long, larger building and a few typically English-looking cottages.
Her view was obstructed, and it was making her crazy that there was literally nothing she could do about it, but she could hear a sudden flurry of movement, a sharp exclamation, and as she craned her neck, she saw they had been surrounded by several tall people.
The newcomers weren’t human any more than the creature that had kidnapped her. They were dressed in dun and green uniforms, colors that would disappear easily in a forest, and they had weapons. Some of them carried both guns and swords.
Sid took in the hard, wary expressions on their angular faces along with the signature golden blond hair they all shared, but it was only when one of them turned to shout an order to the others and she caught a peek of one pointed ear that she could place their race. They were Light Fae.
“What are you doing here?” the Light Fae male asked sharply.
The fake troll came to halt. Without warning, he dropped Sidonie. Unable to do anything to break her fall, she groaned as she made bruising impact with the ground.
The troll said in a deep voice that sounded like grinding rocks, “Tribute for the Queen.”
Forcing herself to breathe evenly, Sidonie latched on to the word.
Queen. The Queen must be the female the creature had referred to. She would be Light Fae, like her soldiers. One of the Elder Races.
The Elder Races were magical creatures that lived alongside humans, with demesnes that often overlaid human boundaries. Then there were Other lands that were connected to Earth by a series of crossover passageways. Most modern technologies didn’t work in Other lands, which were intensely magical places, but she had read interesting articles on the inventive ways people had adapted many modern conveniences.
As a nonmagical human, Sidonie knew only the basics of Elder Races politics and terminology, mostly concepts she had gleaned in school. She had once been invited to play a concert for Niniane Lorelle, the Dark Fae Queen in the Other land of Adriyel that had passageways connecting to Chicago.
While that Queen had been willing to pay an exorbitant amount to make up for the time slippage between Adriyel and Earth, Sidonie hadn’t been able to work the trip into her upcoming schedule for the year, so she had reluctantly declined. The charming and persuasive Dark Fae ambassador had wrangled a promise out of her to consider the trip in the future, but they hadn’t yet agreed upon a date.
In Great Britain, there had to be any number of Elder Races, demesnes, and their individual rulers, but Sidonie only knew of one Light Fae Queen—Queen Isabeau of the Light Court.