Read Online Midnight Enchantment by Anya Bast - Free Book Online Page A

hungrily as they so often did.
    Men were men. Place a halfway attractive woman near them and they all acted the same.
    She turned her face away from him. She could tell him that much. The information meant nothing. “We met in the Boundary Lands, at a stream by New Orkney. She had two guards with her and was
not
dressed for traipsing through the underbrush. Why do you want to know?”
    “She’s gone into hiding.” He sat down on a chair nearby.
    “Well, don’t look at me. I don’t know where she went.” She paused, looking down at her ragged fingernails. “But I’m surprised she ran, doesn’t seem her style. I’m surprised she’s not still sitting in the Rose Tower, thumbing her nose at everyone and proving how powerful she is.”
    “Caoilainn is interested in few things as much as her own neck. She knows how to survive. Most of the Seelie Tuatha Dé are upset with her for what she’s done, but she’s declawed them so much over the years that they can’t retaliate with much more than fluffy white magick. They could grow roses at her feet, or produce a nice spring rain, maybe.” He snorted. “That doesn’t go for the Unseelie, who are far more unforgiving and a hundred times more powerful. Caoilainn fled to save herself from the Shadow Queen’s eye. The Shadow Queen doesn’t want to release the sluagh on her ass, but that doesn’t mean she won’t.”
    She raised her gaze to his. “The Summer Queen can’t only fear the Shadow Queen. I know she’s hard to kill, but I imagine losing her head wouldn’t do her much good. I figure that will happen sometime soon. She can’t take on all of Piefferburg and expect to live.”
    He jerked his chin at her. “And what about you? You’re taking on Piefferburg, too. Do
you
expect to live?”
    She snorted. “Of course not. My plan was to run for as long as possible and try my best to survive, but I always figured some Unseelie fae would eventually kill me trying to locate the pieces.”
    “Then why do this?”
    She looked away from him, curling her bare feet under heron the couch. Obviously, she wasn’t going to answer. She changed the subject instead. “My vegetables are rotting in their plots, and the people I feed will starve.”
    “Guess you should have thought about that before helping the Summer Queen.” When she didn’t answer, he stared at her for a long moment. Finally he stood, his hands fisted at his sides. “You mystify me.”
    “I thought I annoyed and enraged you.”
    “Yeah, you do that, too. You’re a woman of many talents. I’m going to get some wood.”
    He left the cottage door open while he was outside. Knowing she had few chances left, she sprang up and ran for it. Some invisible barrier flashed tingling pain through her and tossed her backward. She slid on the floor of the kitchen until coming to a stop near the dining room table. Pushing up on her hands, she glowered at him as he stood in the doorway with an armful of wood.
    He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “You should know better, Elizabeth.” He stepped over her and knelt by the cold hearth, building up a fire for the chilly evening to come.
    “Are you just going to wait until I die of iron poisoning?”
    He struck a match. “I hope not. I hope you’ll come to your senses before then.”
    Disgruntled, she picked herself up off the floor and brushed herself off. “Why do you want out of Piefferburg so much? Do you really think humanity will welcome us with loving arms? Let us live where we want? Go where we want?”
    He turned to her with a hard look in his eyes. “Do you really think I’ll
let
them tell me any of that? I lived in the world before Piefferburg. I know what it is to go where I please and do what I want. Once I’m out of here, no one is going to dictate the terms of my life to me. In the centuries I have been locked in here, they have erected the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty. I want to see them. I want to go back to my homeland, walk on