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I waved away his words, no longer caring if I hurt his feelings. He could have stopped them, somehow saved Heather if he'd really wanted to. I truly believed it, despite what Lainule had said.
"Sorry doesn't mend fences or bring people back from the living dead. No, your people have turned her, and there's no chance to save her. She's gone to us--her life and everything she stood for wiped out in the blink of an eye. We've lost her and the best we can hope for is a bloody staking and putting her soul to rest. But maybe I'll luck out. Maybe my contract isn't all in vain. Peyton is still out there and we're going to rescue her, come hell or high water."
"So, you really are working for the Crimson Court?"
As he stared at me incredulously, I snorted. "Did you not hear what I said? And so what? You are aligned with the Indigo Court. Thrust and parry, my love. Thrust and parry. We're both pledged into the arms of hell, now."
He gave me a sideways glance. "Who was it? Who drank from you?"
I realized that--Fae or not--he was playing the testosterone card. I'd had enough of tiptoeing around.
"Fine. You want to know? I'll tell you. Lannan Altos, a professor at the conservatory. And yeah, he drank my blood, he made me beg him, and he made me come so hard I about lost consciousness when his fangs hit my neck. He thoroughly enjoyed himself and even though I tried to block him out, I came over and over again.">I sat very still, trying not to anger him again. He looked about two steps away from backhanding me across the room. But he let me go then, and flipped open a cell phone.
"She's ready to go home. Wait for her out front. Don't come in."
I stared at him as he snapped the phone shut. "Leo will be waiting for you in the limo. I advise you don't tarry long. The night is dangerous, and there are monsters abroad far more fearsome than I."
Shaking, I stood and polished off the cookies and swigged down the milk, then gathered my purse and headed out the door without another word. As I slowly descended the stairs of Vecktor Hall, I heard a rustling in the bushes nearby and something whispered my name on the wind.
Cicely . . . Cicely, I need to talk to you.
It wasn't Ulean--she'd chosen to stay home since vampires didn't care for Elementals much.
Who are you? What do you want?
You must come speak to me. I'm staying by Dovetail Lake. Please, come tonight. The voice was female but I felt no hostility, no deceit, in it.
I don't know--it's been a rough night . . .
Please, stop on the way home. I must speak to you about Grieve.
Grieve? What about Grieve?
But the voice drifted away, with simply a Meet me by the boat moorings. I'll be waiting for you.
I headed for the limo, pulling out my cell phone. Rhiannon answered. "Don't ask me how things went, please. Not now. I need you to do something for me. I want you to go stand in my room and say out loud, 'Ulean, Cicely needs you to meet her at Dovetail Lake right away.' Will you do that?"
"Of course, but what's going on?"
"I don't know, but somebody wants to meet me there and I swear, I've heard the voice before--it came in on the slipstream, and it seems like . . . something I heard when I was very young."
"Should I come, too?"
"No," I said, thinking it over. "You and Kaylin stay and keep a watch on the house. I won't be long, and Leo will be with me." As I hung up and crawled in the limo, it occurred to me that life had gotten terribly complicated, terribly fast. My old life had seemed a nightmare, but I wasn't sure this new one was any better. Except that I have Grieve and my cousin, my mind peeped up.
I smiled. True, I whispered back to myself. I have Grieve and my cousin, and both are worth fighting for.
Leo didn't have anything to do after driving me home, so after an argument about it, he acceded to my demand to stop at the lake. I slipped out of the limo, warning him to stay inside. "You have to be able to get away in case it's a trap. If worse comes to worst, I can try to turn into an owl again and escape."
"I don't like it," he argued, but in the end, I won and he stayed. I played the I just got bitten by a vampire so do what I want card on him.
Dovetail Lake was a small lake or a large pond, depending on how you looked at it, an ellipse of dark water hidden away down a lonely road. Surrounded by a thicket of alder and fir, of cedar and weeping willow, the lake was a local hangout for weekend warriors looking for a quiet fishing spot. It wasn't suitable for swimming--the lake was deeper than it was wide, and gave way suddenly once you got past the edge. The last time I'd been back home, two local boys had drowned trying to snorkel in it.
I quietly edged down to the boat mooring and waited by a stand of frozen rushes and cattails that were ragged and weather-beaten. The water was restless and dark, frothing around the pilings as the wind ruffled its surface. I leaned against one of the railings--cautiously, they didn't look all that sturdy--and thought I heard something in the bushes around the side of the lake.
As I turned, a shape appeared from behind one of the scrub alders crowding next to the shore. She was shining, gloriously beautiful and wreathed in silver fire. I caught my breath and slowly stepped off the dock, back onto the icy ground, and made my way over to her.
"Lainule." I stared at the Fae Queen who stood before me, cloaked in the ragged robes of summer. The look on her face sang of sadness and loss, of pain and the weariness war can bring. A stirring inside rang a bell of recognition, and I knelt before her, realizing that if I was Cambyra Fae, then I was of her people, too. I looked up at her gentle touch on my head.
