Chapter 3
She could sense the worry in Adam and she felt extremely guilty, but only because he was agitated and concerned. She couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Prince Ivar. He had enough wives to contend with. And she wasn’t scared of King Tiene or his laws. Too many rules were sucking the magic out of the realms. Out of the natural world.
Aoife always thought it was a shit rule that Fae people could be polygamists or polyamorous or whatever the heck it referred to, but they had restricted the Sasquatch so much. King Tiene seemed to have it out for the big hairy fellas and she never understood why. It wasn’t fair. Adam obviously had a lot on his shoulders, taking care of younger brothers.
Especially if Prince Ivar or his father got it into their head to snatch some more Sasquatch males for their mind-controlled brute force. King Tiene had convinced the realms to stop the Sasquatch from breeding with human females; maybe they could convince the realms to look the other way when it came to grabbing young Sasquatch males for an army.
He wants me as an assassin. He wants me in his so-called army.
A shiver travelled down her spine as she thought about that.
What was Ivar building an army for?
“I have to get to my brothers,” Adam finally announced. “They’ve gone to Thunder Bay.”
“I’ll get you to Thunder Bay. All you have to do is envision it,” Aoife stated, pulling on what remained of her black dress and then pulling on her cloak.
That’s where she was originally headed.
Yet, she didn”t want to leave the cozy confines of Adam’s cabin built under the rock ledge.
She was safe here with him.
”No. You need to stay here,” Adam replied.
“It’s okay. I want to help. If I’m with you, I’ll be safe.”
“I can run to Thunder Bay in a couple of hours, but I can’t do that carrying you. You have to stay behind.”
Aoife cocked an eyebrow. “And I can transport us there in a matter of seconds. Envision where they’d be and I’ll get you there.”
“It’s not safe for you to be out and about. Not with Prince Ivar’s men looking for you.”
Aoife snorted. “They’re probably still out in the woods, with members of the Order, completely lost and turned around. Come on, let’s go get your brothers.”
Adam sighed, his shoulders slumping as he nodded. “Okay.”
Aoife tightened her cloak around her dress and Adam scooped her up in his big arms. “Close your eyes and envision it. Think about where they may be.”
Adam emptied his mind and Aoife was able to see the tavern, down by the docks, one that had a portal access quite close. A place where the magical kind could move unseen by the human world, even though mortals still frequented the place.
To a regular person, it would be known as a dive, but to her kind, those who were made up of myths and legends, it was a safe establishment. She focused on that place, clinging tight to Adam as she used her magic to transport them through the ripples of realms, until they were fully formed out in front.
It was night now and the cold drizzle was a bit refreshing, as Adam’s cabin was warm and she had spent the last couple of hours working up a sweat. She was used to the mist and the moors. The rain was a welcome feeling. She spent a lot of time there when her mother dragged her to Ireland and the ancestral home. Back to where her family’s first coven came from. Where Death and witch first mixed, making her great-great grandmother, the first harbinger of the family.
She loved the moors, but hated the cursed place where her family gathered. No one was sincere in her family. It was all about control.
Power.
Dark magic.
Even then.
There was a blast of a horn and she could see a great big laker slowly slipping out, into the dark waters of Lake Superior. There was another ripple and a large tentacle crested the water, before slowly sinking back underneath. Their whole realm hiding in plain sight.
“We should move quickly and then get back to my place,” Adam stated.
“The portals will be watched for me, but I can get us back to the cabin. Or I’ll meet you back there if you want to travel with your brothers and make sure they’re safe.”
“That sounds like a good plan.” Adam opened the swinging door to the tavern and she ducked under his big arm as they made their way in. There was a loud music and the place was made of birch and pine. There was sawdust on the floor, but she could see glimmers of the more refined areas where the higher-class Fae hung out, separate from the humans.
Pockets of magic rooms which were naked to the mortal eye.
There were a few humans milling about, but not many, and those who were there paid them no heed as they slumped over the bar with their pints of beer. Adam’s keen eyes were scouring over the bar area.
“Do you see them?” she asked.
“There, in the glimmer area,” Adam murmured. “ There are four of them in there. They must’ve been invited in, because we’re not usually allowed in there.”
“I am.” She grabbed his hand and tugged him to the veil of the restricted area. Holding on to him, they melted through the shimmering wall of magic and instantly, her dress was repaired and sparkled like new. Her dirty cloak was clean and when she saw Adam, his flannel was replaced with a dress shirt and trousers that didn’t suit him at all.
She much preferred him in the plaid.
The restricted area, or glimmer room, was so much different than the birch-and-pine tavern they had entered. It was luxurious, but if you were high up in the magical world and of Fae blood, then you demanded luxury. Even a ridiculous dress code.
Personally, it was a bit spoiled and annoying.
Dagda. I hate this part of the realm.
She couldn’t help but think of Adam’s comfy cabin in the forest. She liked the ruggedness of it. It reminded her of her mother’s small cottage on the Toronto Island. It was nestled under the trees. She grew up listening to the lake lap against the shore as she slept. Her mother was cold and distant, always watching her and expecting something, but the lake and the trees were comforting. They didn’t judge her, they soothed her. When she was nine, she keened for the first time and made a transformation. That was the end of living in that cottage on the island.
The Tuatha Order came and they had to be moved to an Order safe house, so she could learn, but always, she was watched.
Guarded.
She was locked away from the trees and nature.
Unless accompanied to perform a ritual.
Now, she understood why. She was a commodity.
Breeding stock.
“I see Caleb, Daniel, Ethan and Frank. Just missing Gideon and Benjamin.”
“You have six brothers? Your poor mother,” Aoife teased.
Adam chuckled. “Sasquatch young are born small, like humans. And honestly, my mother and father could not keep their hands off each other. If she hadn’t died, I’m sure there would be more of us.”
There was a hint of sadness in his voice as he said that. Aoife felt bad, because he seemed to actually have a loving connection with his parents and siblings. Aoife was an only child on her mother”s side. She did have some messed-up half-siblings from her father, but they were kept away. She didn’t have the best relationship with her mother. Her mother cared about being the head of the Order. She was well respected for giving birth to a banshee. It gave her the status she craved. Head of the coven.
Aoife defied her mother and the Order as often as she could. It made her secretly pleased to think how pissed her mother would be to find out she was fucking a Sasquatch. Except as she moved through the glimmer room with Adam, it was more than that now.
She was worried she was a burden to him and his siblings, but just like he offered her protect, she would do the same, the best she could.
Adam was busy talking to his brothers and gesturing that they had to leave. They all looked a bit confused, but then one by one they nodded in agreement and they finished up their drinks, leaving behind the disappointed Fae women who had been clinging to them.
A creepy sensation, like she was being watched, crept down her spine. The urge to howl was overcoming her. Death was lurking around. Her eyes narrowed and all the sounds and music of the bar began to go fuzzy as she honed in on the sound of her own breath, her own heart beating a steady rhythm between her ears. Like thunder.
She could see the slithery fingers of black fog creeping across the room, but she wasn’t quite sure where it was leading. She took a step forward, trying to follow it and wondering if it was her dear great-great-great grandfather or one of her half-siblings.
She really didn’t have time for this.
“Aoife?” Adam asked, gently shaking her out of her trance. His hand was on her shoulder, or rather it encompassed her shoulder. His eyebrows on his thick ridge were furrowed and he was concerned.
“I’m okay,” she reassured him. “Lost my train of thought. Have all your brothers gone back through the portal?”
“Except one. I found Gideon in the human bar, but Benjamin is missing,” he stated.
“Benjamin?” a singsong voice trilled.
Aoife turned around to see a vat of water at the edge of the bar. A mermaid was perched on the edge, her coral pink nipples peeking through her long magenta hair. Although, Aoife was not fooled for one minute by the mermaid’s pleasing appearance, she knew what lurked underneath.
It was all glamour to entice human males to their deaths.
A siren.
“Do you know where he is?” Adam asked.
The mermaid leaned closer, so more of her breast jutted out. She was trying to seduce Adam, and Aoife’s blood was boiling.
He’s mine, you bitch.
Only she kept that thought to herself.
At least Adam didn’t seem at all interested in her.
“He’s outside. He went off with a female. A human female.” The mermaid smiled duplicitously. “Such a naughty yeti.”
“For fuck’s sake, Ben.” Adam turned on his heel and stormed out of the glamoured part of the bar. Aoife went to follow when a cold hand reached out and grabbed her arm. Gone was the perfectly manicured hand and pink skin. It was a claw of green and green flesh which clutched at her. She spun around and the mermaid’s turquoise eyes had now turned yellow, her pearly white teeth were like daggers.
“I know who you are and who you’re running fun,” the mermaid hissed.
“Oh, yes?” Aoife crossed her arms.
“Prince Ivar is in town. He’s looking for you.”
“And are you going to tell him you saw me?” Aoife asked.
The mermaid’s eyes narrowed and she smiled in a way that made Aoife’s blood turn cold. “No. Let’s just say you owe me a favor.”
“A favor?” She didn’t like the sound of that.
The mermaid’s tail flicked, slapping the water. “I run this establishment. Both sides of it, and sometimes I need some work done.”
Aoife’s stomach sank. “Is that a fact.”
“Banshees are excellent assassins,” the mermaid purred.
Aoife took a step forward. “I don’t kill unless I have to. So tell Prince Ivar that you saw me. I don’t care.” She turned to follow after Adam.
“He’ll kill them all, you know, or brainwash them into his army. You know that he has one, even if he’s not supposed to. Prince Ivar doesn’t let anything or anyone get away from him. You know that.”
A lump formed in her throat, because the mermaid was right. Prince Ivar would track her down and then would do horrible things to Adam and his brothers. She couldn’t let that happen to them. Not when Adam had taken her in, not when she cared so much about him.
She turned around slowly.
“What do I have to do?” she asked, defeated.
The mermaid smiled, just like the cat who got the last of the cream. “That’s much better, little banshee.”
“Ben,”Adam shouted as he moved around the outside of the building. There was a protected and glamoured space behind the bar. It shimmered like a translucent bubble in the clear night sky. He passed through the bubble and there was a private dark garden, with small bonfires popping up.
Not many patrons were outside.
It was pretty secluded. It was meant for clandestine trysts.
Or deals.
Dark deals.
Adam could sense the dark magic permeating this place and he didn’t like it one bit.
Where is my stupid brother?
Then he heard it.
A female moaning.
A very sexualized moan, followed by the slap of flesh on flesh and his brother’s grunts.
Great.
The mermaid had said that he had gone back here with a human female. Even though this was the norm for Sasquatches in the past, this was now outlawed. King Tiene said it was a way to curb detection of the magical realm by humans, but Adam knew it was a way to control Sasquatch breeding.
There weren’t enough females in his species to go around.
Another reason why he swore off finding a mate and having young, because it was painful living a life of solitude, and being afraid that it could all be snatched from him. Of course, since Aoife had stumbled into his woods, that seemed to all go out the window. She was his mate, whether he liked it or not, and he really did like it.
Adam honed in on the sound of his brother fucking the human. He found them behind a hedge maze. The little human was on her side, her leg slung over his brother. All Adam could see was his brother’s hand over the human’s bared breast.
“Benjamin!” Adam shouted.
The human cried out.
Ben pulled out and moved in front of the woman. “For fuck’s sake, Adam. I’m busy.”
“We have to go.” Adam turned his head away, trying to avert his eyes.
“What?” Benjamin asked confused.
“We have to go,” Adam warned, growling low.
He was not going to discuss why they had to leave right now. It was bad enough the human was here, with his brother, who was clearly not human, and that she had probably seen others of the realm.
“Okay,” Benjamin replied mulishly.
Adam turned around fully and heard the human woman whine as Benjamin talked to her in hushed, loving undertones.
Aoife came into the bubble then, and made her way over. “Did you find…oh.”
She had peered around him to see the remnants of his brother’s mating.
“I did, but he’s not supposed to be with her,” Adam responded in a hushed undertone. “She’ll remember. If she’s under a Sasquatch love spell…the pheromone won’t let her forget.”
“I get it. I can handle it.” Aoife made her way over to the human woman who was pulling on her clothes, passing Benjamin as he finished dressing.
“What’s this all about?” Benjamin asked.
“Prince Ivar,” Adam replied stiffly.
Benjamin’s eyes flashed red for a moment. “Understood.”
“Head back through the portal to get close to home. Got it?”
“The others are there?” Ben asked.
Adam nodded. “They’ve gone through already. I have to wait for Aoife.”
Aoife came over with a very dazed human woman. “She doesn’t remember anything. I put a memory block enchantment on her. I’m going to get her a cab right now. The last thing she needs is to get in the hands of one of those krakens or mermaids or something.”
Benjamin watched woefully as Aoife escorted the human woman away. Adam felt momentarily bad for him. He could tell by his brother’s expression, Ben was smitten with her.
It would tear his heart to have Aoife taken away from him.
“You know we can’t,” he said, gently placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“It’s not right. That’s how we breed,” Ben stated. “It’s always how it’s done.”
“I know, but the law is the law and it’s been that way for some time. If Prince Ivar and his soldiers are out there lurking about, the last thing I need to happen is have a raid on us and any of you taken away or killed. I made a promise to Mom and Dad. I’m the eldest, I have to protect you.”
Ben nodded. “Why is he after us?”
“Not us. Aoife,” Adam sighed.
“She’s not human, though. It should be no problem that you two are together.”
“I’ll explain when we get home. We’ll have a meeting. Until then, we have to lie low for a while. Okay?”
Ben nodded. “Fine. I’ll go back home and take care of my blue balls.”
“Sorry.”
Ben waved his hand in defeat and made his way to the portal. The portal would land him close to the woods where their home was, but it would still be a long walk back up to their woods.
Adam went outside of the bubble and Aoife was standing in the shadows, he could see her inky black eyes glinting under the street light.
“You ready?” she asked.
“You got the human off safely?”
She nodded. “Yep. She should have no memory. Uh, Benjamin didn’t come, did he?”
“How the hell would I know that?” Adam asked.
“Well, she’s ovulating, so I thought I would ask.”
Shit.
“I don’t think so. He was grumbling about blue balls.”
Aoife chuckled softly. “Let’s hope it’s not too bad for him. Are you ready to get back home?”
Adam nodded and then scooped her up. For a brief moment, he had the sudden urge to carry her in behind the hedge maze and fuck her. Maybe it was all the pheromones in the air, he didn’t know, but he resisted the primal mating urge. It could wait until he got home. He had a private cabin to do that. First, he had to talk to his brothers about what was going on and why Prince Ivar was after Aoife. Once that was all settled, he’d take her back to his bed and lick her until she came on his lips.
Then he’d fuck the brains out of his little banshee.