Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

‘You are correct,’ he said.

Indignant anger rose. He hadn’t believed me. ‘Sidhe,’ I spat, ‘can’t fucking lie.’

His mouth thinned. ‘He has wanted you for a long time. He has even marked you.’ He poked a bruise on my left breast and I forced myself not to squirm. ‘But he has still not made you his, even though the spell should have done away with his resistance by now. It is a puzzle.’

It wasn’t the only one. For some weird reason, it sounded like he wanted Malik and me to have sex. Had encouraged it, even. The utter improbability of the Autarch ‘matchmaking’, allied to my earlier indignation, shattered something in my head. ‘What spell?’

He touched his forehead. ‘The one lodged within the delta brand.’

The sadistic Jellyfish spell I’d removed. Bastien’s gaze narrowed as he saw recognition on my face. ‘Well, well, my princess, it seems I underestimated you . . .’ He licked his lips, his gaze skating hungrily down my body.

Think! There had to be a way out of this.

‘You are not afraid of me,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Why not?’

I stared at him. He really was insane as well as psychotic if he didn’t think I was scared.

He tapped my forehead. ‘You are afraid here, but not here.’ He tapped over my heart. ‘You were before, but now you are not. Why not?’

I blinked. He was right. In the last few seconds I’d lost my mind-numbing terror of him. Not that I didn’t think he’d hurt me, but he wasn’t the big, bad, bogey-vamp of my fourteen-year-old nightmares any more. He was just another sucker, after all— And suckers could get into your mind. Make you think and feel and see anything they wanted with a combination of mesma, vamp mind-mojo and illusion. And I was the stupid idiot who’d forgotten it.

Bastien squeezed my throat. ‘There are not many who do not fear me, my sidhe princess. I find it interesting .’

May you live in interesting times.

The ambiguous Chinese saying flashed in my head, and I decided it was time this got interesting for him.

‘You’re not real,’ I whispered. ‘You have no substance. You are nothing but your thoughts in the Dreamscape.’ That was why the sword, Ascalon, hadn’t cut him. I’d have realised it earlier if not for my stupid childish panic. His other injuries had just been him playing with me. Using them to convince me that if I could hurt him, then he could hurt me. I stepped back.

His fingers didn’t unclench, but they didn’t rip my throat out either.

‘You’re not here,’ I said with more emphasis, lifting my arms as the pain and illusion they were broken vanished. ‘You. Are. Not. Real.’

‘I am real, sidhe.’ He waved his hand and the beautiful woman, the girl, the baby and the young Bastien, with Malik standing next to them, reappeared behind him. The five were in the sun-bright courtyard with its gleaming mosaic walls the same as when I’d first seen them in Malik’s memory, but the picture overlaid my bedroom like a holograph or a vamp-conjured illusion. ‘Just as they were real once. My loyal commander couldn’t save them— Save us,’ he amended, with an oddly conflicted expression, ‘when the Emperor came before.’

‘You. Are. Not. Here,’ I said, and taking a deep breath, I walked straight through him and out of my bedroom door.

‘Now the Emperor comes again, my sidhe princess.’

I woke up in the back of the police car.

‘And only you can save . . .’ His voice faded like morning mist banished by the sun.

The car was parked in a layby in front of a row of local community shops; a launderette, a newsagent, an off-licence, a boarded-up video rental place, a Subway and a butcher’s. And I was alone. A scrawled note on my lap, addressed to Sleeping Beauty, said Mary and Dessa were checking out a possible hit on their scrying and would be back soon. Something I was grateful for, as my reaction to tangling with Bastien suddenly made itself felt.

I just had time to stick my head out of the open car window (having discovered I was locked in) before my stomach revolted. Vomiting into the gutter, I tried not to think about exactly how and where Bastien had touched me. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t shown up physically, that our meeting had been in the Dreamscape; it still felt like he’d violated me. I heaved again, catching sight of the feet of passers-by in my peripheral vision. No one stopped; the one advantage to puking your guts out from the inside of a marked police car. Even if the police were nowhere in sight.

My heaves finally subsided and I grabbed a bottle of water from my bag, rinsed away the sour taste of regurgitated orange juice (thankful I’d had nothing more than that and vodka for hours), then used the rest to sluice my mess down the nearby drain, wishing I could flush psycho Bastien away as easily. I shoved the empty bottle back in my bag. Next time I ran into the sadistic bastard in real life, I was going to kill him.

Though I might ask him a few questions first. Like why he was so hot for me and Malik to get together? Whatever the reason, there was no way it was for my, or Malik’s, benefit. Bastien was the spoilt, spiteful, dog-in-the-manger type; the type that would break their unwanted toys rather than sharing . . . as he’d done to child-Fur Jacket Girl’s doll in Malik’s dream/memory.

Part of me didn’t want to think too closely about that dream/memory. Didn’t want to speculate who the woman was. Or what part she and her three children, especially Bastien, had played in Malik’s past life. But another part couldn’t not think about it. I dug my phone out along with a fresh bottle of water (a replacement, thanks to the same spell that was on our fridge), and drank it, my heart fluttering like an anxious bird’s, as I did some Googling.

Malik’s memory had taken me to a harem. Though the place had seemed so much less decadent than I’d always imagined harems to be – not that I’d thought about them much – the silent, ebony-skinned eunuchs standing guard over unseen chattering women, along with what Malik had told me about being friends with Suleiman, an Ottoman sultan, meant the place couldn’t be anything else but a harem.

Various sites told me that Muslim households had a harem – secluded, protected living quarters for the wives, concubines, children, female relatives and (in the past) slaves – whether it be one room or many, like those in the famous Topkapi Palace, Istanbul. Malik’s memory had showed him right at home in the harem, but the only males allowed were eunuchs or relations. Malik was so not the former, which meant he had to be the latter.

Brother, uncle, cousin, nephew, son . . . husband .

The woman, Shpresa, had been in her mid-twenties. As had Malik. Bastien had called her his father’s Ikbal — favourite concubine. Said that his commander – Malik – had tried to save the woman and her kids . . . save us . . . from the Emperor.

Did that mean the woman was Malik’s wife? That they were Malik’s kids? Only if it did, then Bastien, my psychotic, murdering betrothed, was Malik’s—

Son?

Denial and horror hit me like a sucker punch to the gut. My stomach heaved again, and I only just managed to keep the water down. I slumped down in the back seat, wishing I could crawl home, take a blisteringly hot shower and huddle in bed with a bottle of vodka or ten for a week.

Only that wasn’t an option.

Ten minutes later, Mary returned, jumped into the car and slammed her door with a frustrated bang, which made my head ring and told me clearer than words that the scrying hadn’t panned out. I swiped a furtive hand over my damp face – not from tears, well, not just from tears, but from retching half-a-dozen times more; my Hot. D postponed hangover had decided to make its appearance (figured, I wouldn’t get the whole twelve hours out of the damn spell), complete with a headache that felt like imps were munching on my brain.