Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Renard Beaumont finished his shopping at the home improvement center, where he bought out their entire stock of shovels, picks and rock bars.
He then bespelled one of the female employees to load his purchases into the back of the truck he’d rented.
Seeing the thin, weak teenage mortal struggle with the heavy tools made him want to shove her into the back of the truck and take her with him.
He might not even bother to bespell her further, simply leaving her obedient to his commands.
His real form, that of a somewhat hideous dark Fae goblin named Bodach, would terrify her even while his spell forced her to serve him.
I haven’t tormented a woman in weeks, he thought, imagining the various ways he could violate her. This one is just a girl, but she might do.
“Is that all, sir?” the red-faced female asked.
He put his hand around her throat, caressing her thin skin rather than cutting off her air. To her he appeared to be a wealthy, handsome mortal male, a guise he often wore among her kind. He needed time to attend to his next task, however, so perhaps he’d send her to humiliate herself.
“Tell me, my dear,” Bodach said, enjoying the way her expression changed from fear to pleasure as he took control of her mind and will. “Who do you lust after at work?”
“My floor manager, Billy.” Her shoulders drooped. “He doesn’t date girls from work.”
He leaned closer. “Go in there and ask Billy if you can speak privately to him. When you’re alone, ask him to have sex with you on the nearest flat surface.” All he had to do now was add a flick of power to the obedience spell, and then–
“Hey.” A young male employee took hold of the girl’s arm and pulled her away while he glared at Bodach. “Get out of here, you sick fuck. Come on, Christy.”
The girl shook herself, gave Bodach a terrified look, and then hurried back into the store with the male.
Bodach could have easily set fire to them both right there in the parking lot, but it wasn’t worth the effort.
It did puzzle him that the girl had been able to shrug off his control so easily.
He might have tried again with another mortal, but he really had no time to meddle with stupid creatures.
Returning to his property to check on Harper Ensley, who by now had probably walked into the spell trap, was first on his list. Giving her permission to film inside the castle had been deliberate on his part; he’d warded all the thresholds to keep her contained once she had gone inside.
She might be too stupid to find the entry, but he had a contingency plan for that.
If he found her still wandering, he’d bespell her and take her as a gift for his giantess friend Mirry, who could keep the mammoth mortal as a pet.
“‘Bigfoot made me a lesbian’ can be the title of your next inane exposé, Ms. Ensley,” he muttered under his breath, but even his own sour joke didn’t improve his mood.
The voluptuous redhead had been surprisingly attractive; for his personal amusement Bodach usually preferred smaller females like the store employee.
Ensley had stupidly threatened him, which still rankled.
He also found her arrogance and self-confidence an instant challenge; he relished a chance to humiliate such mortals.
She also had a strange air about her, as if other people and the rest of the world didn’t register to her.
She hadn’t even blinked when a truck had explosively backfired as it passed the gates.
Haughty bitch needs to be taught a lesson.
Maybe he’d keep the mega influencer at the castle for a time; he wouldn’t mind having her crawl to him under his control and beg him to violate her in a hundred painful ways.
He might even take her with him to Elphyne, where he could arrange to have her service his parents’ army while he observed.
How proud and audacious would she prove after being raped by a thousand tireless goblin cocks?
The contempt he had for her seemed to be growing by the moment, which gave him pause.
That particularly vicious brand of hatred was something he usually reserved for his parents and the other dark Fae who had exiled him to this wretched realm.
I’ve been denied my treasure too long; that’s all it is.
For nearly a thousand years since being cast out of Elphyne, the Fae otherworld, Bodach had been trying to find and capture the spirit of an ancient druidess.
He’d learned from a melia that the mortal had been reincarnating for millennia, and would continue to do so in perpetuity thanks to her singular ability to possess the body of any living thing.
He had learned of her existence back in the twelfth century, and had devoted great effort into hunting her.
Once he found her he had intended to absorb her magic, which would bestow her ability on him.
That would allow him to abandon his own disgusting natural form and inhabit the body of anyone else he wished.
The prospect had excited him so much he’d been riddled with glee.
He intended to possess a Fae currently visiting the mortal realm, and use their body to enter Elphyne undetected.
Once he had returned to his home, he would possess the monarchs of both courts, make it appear that they had both abdicated to a third unifying ruler, which would be the last Fae he possessed.
His plan was perfection, or at least it had been until he’d been obliged back in the twelfth century to get some unwanted competition for the druidess out of his way.
That was when he had created his own nightmare.
Bodach had tracked down the druidess’ current incarnation, that of Torra MacBren, daughter of a powerful Scottish laird.
After arranging to elevate the laird to the rank of mormaer—the Scottish king’s second—he had asked the MacBren for Torra’s hand in marriage.
Wedding the wench would allow him to separate her from her over-protective father and whisk her off on a grand honeymoon, during which time he would murder her and absorb her power.
Only somehow the MacBren had decided to marry Torra off to the laird of the McKeran Clan.
To prevent that, Bodach had used a powerful spell he’d stolen from a melia to lock the McKeran and their vassals in a time trap where they would remain apart from the mortal realm and relive the same year over and over for eternity.
Bodach had not realized that Torra had been caught inside the spell trap when he cast the spell over the McKeran Clan, their vassals, and their stronghold to remain imprisoned in it.
The enchantment had destroyed her mortal body, but somehow her spirit had remained intact, and capable of hiding itself from him.
It had taken him nine and a half centuries just to work out how to enter the spell trap without being thrown out by his own magic.
Lately he had tried everything he could think of to immobilize the clan so he could locate and seize Torra, only to fail miserably countless times.
In a fit of anger he’d burned the viewing scroll he’d used to monitor what was happening inside the spell trap, so he couldn’t even watch his victims anymore.
Fortunately he had discovered the only creatures that could accompany him into the spell trap and keep the McKeran busy.
To conquer Dun Talamh, Bodach had to assemble an army of revenants, which would require him to use more of his power than he’d ever attempted.
Too restless to await the sunset, Bodach left the castle and drove to the cliffs.
Following a path down to the concealed sea cave, he walked through the warded illusion and into his lair.
As the walls came alive with scarlet light, his Italian leather shoes crunched over the bones of the mortals he’d sacrificed to the red crystals he stored here.
Human life energy helped them grow and thrive, and in return the grateful gems provided him with all the power he needed for his spells.
“My beautiful parasites.” He trailed his fingers over the vampiric gems, which fed on the life energy of anything that came near them. Their glitter had dulled, reminding him it had been weeks since he’d brought a human on which they could feast. “Forgive me for neglecting you.”
As they had since the first time Bodach had touched them, the crystals warmed to his touch, and sank power into him as if he were a sponge.
When he plucked one from the wall and chewed it, the shards turned liquid and poured down his throat like the finest of brandies, heating his belly and spreading pleasure through his limbs.
“I will return soon with all the mortals you can swallow,” he promised them as he collected two handfuls and stuffed them in his pockets.
Bodach went to the very back of the cave to stretch out on a large, flat-topped rock positioned under a heavy swath of crystals that had grown over the ceiling of the cave.
As he closed his eyes they began shedding shards of themselves, which drifted down and covered the exposed flesh of his face and hands.
Their heat grew more intense, almost burning him as they turned to scarlet droplets and sank into his skin.
One trickled into his eye, briefly turning his vision red before he absorbed it.
Yet even as he soaked up the crystals and their power, Bodach could not dispel his uneasiness.
Something had damaged the enchantment that maintained the spell trap, causing it to begin cannibalizing itself. Because he’d destroyed the viewing scroll, his only window into the enchanted pocket universe, he couldn’t see how much the destruction had progressed lately.