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Morrigan was bucking within them like a wild horse. Oh, she was not happy. Ever since the binding with the bog witch, she and Badb had always allied against Morrigan. The only way to free Macha was to break this bond holding her eternally within her sister’s power, and she’d only accomplish it by working with Badb.
Morrigan stopped fighting.Macha,she projected to her. Macha, you don’t have to work with Badb. We can be allies. You and me. I… I can let you out more. Give you more freedom.
It was a tempting offer. Especially if she agreed to let Macha outside the stifling confines of this walled city, into nature, where she may spread her power into the surrounding land. The slightest suggestion that she could get more freedom, even on a limited basis, called to her. But she couldn’t trust Morrigan. It was she who had moved against them in the first place, all those years ago, trapping them inside of her. Badb wanted to be free as much as Macha did.
You know she will never let you truly be free, Badb said.
Macha gave a small nod.You are right, sister. You always are.
She shut her eyes and allowed Badb toclaim her.
Badb slid her hand to her thigh in a slow, sensual way, as Macha might do. Her fingers curved around the invisible dagger. It was actually the casing that was enchanted to keep it unseen. Once she pulled it, the dagger would become visible.
One draw of blood from the blade coated in manticore poison to mark the eternal death of the great faerie king.
She drew the knife and rolled into a striking position. On the bed, her legs crouched under her. Arm raised. The look of shock on Dagda’s face would remain frozen there forever.
In a wild rush, Morrigan broke loose. Badb grit her teeth to fight it, but Morrigan slammed into consciousness.
I stared at Dagda, eyes wide, body trembling. “It’s covered in manticore poison. They’re going to kill you.”
Badb raged back into control.
Macha wrestled with Morrigan.
Badb lunged for Dagda, but Morrigan’s brief warning had given him time to react. He caught her wrist as Badb rammed the dagger toward his bare chest. She pinned him against the bed, his head shoved into the headboard. A hiss slipped from her as she pushed downward, the blade less than an inch from its goal.
She pressed harder. So close. With Dagda dead, there would be nobody left to challenge her power once she defeated Morrigan at the bog.
Her teeth grit together. She must kill him now.
He heaved her off of him. Badb hit the ground, her hand slamming into the serving table, knocking the dagger from her grasp. An angry snarl exploded out of her, and she lunged for the glittering blade. A creature of fire and red-hot magma rose in front of her, filling the room, standing near to the ceiling. She jerked backward to counter her momentum, and staggered back from the huge molten arms, its head ablaze and swirling with the reds and oranges of searing magma. Dagda stood behind his faerie guardian, the blazing man-beast, every part of him alert.
The fiery creature picked up the dagger by the blade. The dark metal sizzled and melted, dripping to the floor in great hissing globs.
Her tool for killing Dagda destroyed, Badb felt the triumph of Morrigan, even as her own fury heightened at the lost opportunity.
Badb took another step back before lunging for the armoire along the wall, drawing one of the old swords laying there.
“No guards, Dagda?” she taunted.
“You are defeated, Badb.” Dagda stood, fierce and commanding. The fire beast between them heated the room. “Stand down and let Chels return.”
“Defeated? I think not.” She took a deliberate, calculating step toward Dagda’s faerie guardian, the sword clutched in her fist. “It is dangerous, your majesty, to forget who is the vulnerable one here.”
She stepped right up to the creature of fire and magma. With only a brush, the thin gauzy layers covering the faerie queen’s upper body singed. A tendril of flame caught, burning through the fabric over her breasts and stomach in seconds. Badb tensed, the pain searing, but kept her challenging gaze locked on Dagda.
He rushed forward, gripping her about the waist and throwing her onto the bed. She didn’t fight the burning torment, but let it course through her, an acrid smell rising. Dagda frantically grasped the sheets to stamp out the flames licking against her skin.
And right when the burning of her flesh cooled and Dagda’s breaths evened out, Badb raised the sword in her hand and rammed it into the king’s heart.
He staggered back a step, then another, before collapsing at his faerie guardian’s feet.
Badb wasn’t finished. A blow to the heart wasn’t enough to end a faerie. Dagda would recover unless she removed his heart entirely. She leapt onto him, clamping a hand over his mouth as it opened. “I believe it is too late to be calling the guard, do you not agree?”
She gripped a cloth that had fallen from the serving table in their struggle and stuffed it past his lips, holding it there while she slipped the long gauzy strip from her own outfit around his head, tying it together in front of his mouth to keep him from spitting it out. When she was finished, she ripped the gauze, freeing herself from him.
Macha may find stimulation in seduction and the pleasures of the flesh, but Badb knew no greater intoxication than the thrall of watching a life gradually expire in the throes of the most acute agony. She couldn’t kill the faerie king. With the poisoned dagger melted, that chance was lost. But she could make him fall. As a baby, he’d be much easier to slay.
