“I hardly know you,” I answered.

“You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know me, kitten.”

I was confused. “What do you mean?”

He gave a short sharp laugh. “You cause trouble wherever you go. It seems far more prudent to keep you here where I can keep an eye on you.”

“You can’t do that!” I was suddenly alarmed.

“Why not?” He asked smoothly. “You tell me what you really are. I don’t hurt your little country friends. You stay here.”

My eyes widened. “Oh no no no no no, my Lord,” I protested, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t ‘good’ enough to call him that. “I need to go back to the mages.”

He suddenly stilled. “And why is that?”

“My friend, Corrigan. The one I told you they’d done something to? They’ll only release her if I go back to them.”

“Go back to them and do what?”

“Some weird mage training programme. Not that I’m a mage, as I keep telling you,” I said hastily, “but they seem to think that it means I won’t misuse my potential for power, such as it is. All I can really do is the green fire stuff and that clearly runs out of juice before I manage to do much.” I gazed beseechingly up at his tanned face, trying to avoid losing myself in his liquid gold eyes. “I gave them my word. And they won’t help my friend unless I keep my promise.”

He lifted a shoulder in an elegant shrug. “It’s of no matter. I’ll talk to them.”

I exploded in a fury of heat. “Fucking hell, Corrigan! It is of matter. I promised them I’d go back. And I am not going to let my friend down.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is this a special friend?”

“Of course, she’s a fucking special friend, you prat!”

He smiled oddly at that and relaxed. “Well, you have a choice to make then, kitten. Either you save your Cornish friends and stay here, or you save your special friend and go to the mages.” He moved back and grinned wolfishly. “Your choice.”

“What is with you and your megalomania? Why do you need me to stay here? After all, Corrigan, all I seem to do is piss you off. Just do the right thing for once and let the Cornish pack off and let me go.”

“Well, no, I don’t think I’ll do that, kitten. If the Ministry and the Arch-Mage think that you’re so bloody important that they’re going to send you to their academy and train you even though you insist that you are not a witch, then you must be something special.” The green sheen in his eyes became more pronounced. “And that means that I want you too.”

I shook my head in exasperation. I didn’t really understand what was going on at all. I’d assumed that Corrigan would immediately go running off to fulfill the Brethren’s need to keep their existence a secret and punish Cornwall. But he seemed far more interested in me, than in any of them. I thought back over everything that he’d said. I realised that he’d initially seemed puzzled that I thought that he was going to hurt the Cornish pack. Either that meant that they were of so little consequence to him that he really didn’t care what happened to them or he’d never had any intention of meting out the famed Brethren purge. Everything I’d always been told – and certainly everything that the Cornish pack, John included, had always believed was that if the Brethren knew that a human had been let into the shifter secret, then everyone in that pack would be destroyed as a result. But maybe that was wrong. If only my brain and my bloodfire were both a little less cloudy then I might be able to think my way out of this. The toll of the mages’ inquisition and the fight with the shifters was becoming apparent.

I looked at Corrigan who was staring at me with an unfathomable expression on his face. My eyes flicked down towards his wrist. Just visible under the impeccably tailored and brilliantly white linen shirt he was wearing was a gold watch. It was typically expensive looking. No expense spared for the magnificent Lord Alpha, I thought sardonically. I craned my neck ever so slightly. It was just after 6. It had be 6 in the evening because it had been light outside when the tiger brought me in. That meant I’d only been out for an hour at the most. And that meant that I still had just under fifteen hours to make good on my promise to the mages.

“I need a break,” I announced.

Corrigan arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow. Jesus, was everything about this guy perfect?

“In the last twenty-four hours, I have stormed the Ministry, been interrogated, been attacked and been kept against my will. I am tired. I need a break to think over what you have said.” I pasted a fake smile on my face. “Pretty please?”

He hesitated for the briefest moment and then snapped off a short grunt of agreement and turned to the door.

“Uh, Corrigan?”

He twisted his neck back towards me. “What?”

I jerked my head down and back in the vague direction of my bound hands. “Can you…?”

“No. Don’t push your luck, Mackenzie,” he growled. “I’ll send someone to tend to your wounds.”

“I don’t need anyone to look after me,” I started to call after him, but he was out the door too quickly and my complaint was swallowed up into the small room. I gave myself a brief nod, however. I had a bit of breathing space and a bit of time.

Chapter Twenty-Two

After Corrigan’s departure, the silence in the room was almost deafening. My wrists chafed under the bindings and I cursed him out loud for not loosening them even slightly. What exactly did he think I was going to do? I was surrounded by hundreds of shifters; I was hardly a danger.

Sighing loudly, I leaned against the wall and let my legs relax till I slid down and hit the floor. It seemed to be my lot to keep being trapped in little rooms. I supposed that at least this one didn’t have a magical cage stuck inside it. Without any idea about when Corrigan would return, and aware that my time was limited anyway because I had to get back to the mages, I closed my eyes. I was in desperate need of some rest, even if just for an hour, if I was going to have any chance of doing verbal battle with the Lord Alpha. Almost immediately I felt myself drifting off into sleep.

Usually, when I’m tired enough to fall asleep within heartbeats, I don’t dream. Something about the setting perhaps and the stress of the last twenty-four hours changed all that. I dreamt that I was standing in a ring of fire. Mrs Alcoon was with me, holding a cup of herbal tea and flicking hot droplets of it at me with her finger.

“You let me down!” she screeched. “I gave you a job! I took you in! Now look at me!”

I tried to speak but no words came out. From the other side of the fire circle, Alex and Arch-Mage grinned at me. “You can’t trust a dragon, Your Magnificent Sublime Most Fantastical Highness,” said Alex.

“You’re right, Mage Florides,” commented the Arch-Mage. “We have no choice but to exterminate the old lady.”

He flicked a finger and I stared in horror as Mrs Alcoon let out a blood-curdling scream and vanished in a puff of blue smoke. The cup of tea that she had been holding smashed on the floor but, instead of the remnants of tea spilling from it, thick oozing blood trickled towards me.

“It’s no good, my Lord,” stated Anton solemnly. “We knew she wasn’t a shifter. You’ll have to kill us all.”

From the other side of the circle, Corrigan looked at me and winked, blowing me a kiss from his chiseled lips, then with one swipe of a massive furry black paw, cuffed Anton so hard on the side of his head that it came clean off his shoulders and rolled to the edge of the flames.

The bodyless Anton continued talking. “It’s all your fault, Mackenzie Smith. All your fault. All your fault.”

The repetitive phrase banged inside my skull. I felt heat inside me, and smelled burning. Looking down, I realised that where the blood from the teacup had touched me I was burning, my clothes and skin blackening into charcoal. I tried to run away but the flames were pinning me on all sides and smoke was rising and getting into my eyes and my throat.

I could hear Julia’s voice although by this point I could no longer see her. “It’s all your fault, Mack.”

John joined me in the circle and looked at me sadly, shaking his head. “I had such high hopes for you. You’ve just let me down.”

I started to scream; heat and terror and anguish all mixing up inside me. I couldn’t breathe, it was all too much, I couldn’t do anything…

“Red? Wake up!” A hand was shaking my shoulder.

I blinked myself out of the dream and managed to sit up. “Tom?”

“You were having a nightmare. Jesus, Red what the hell have you been doing?”

Although it had only been a scant day or two since I’d seen him at the restaurant, I was so happy to see a friendly face that I almost cried. I tried to fling my arms around him, forgetting that they were still tied behind my back, and just succeeded in sprawling myself across the floor by his feet. Tom bent down and gently brought me back up to a sitting position.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

He leaned over and brushed a loose strand of hair away from my face, then tucked it behind my ear. It was a particularly brotherly gesture, which surprised me.

“No problem. What happened to the fairy?”

I’d forgotten about Solus in the midst of the barrage from Corrigan. “I have no idea,” I growled. “But he’d better have a good explanation when he finally decides to show up.” I stared at Tom, suddenly worried. “Did Corrigan say anything to you about what he was going to do? You know, now he knows that I’m not a shifter?”

“Well, he’s got you tied up here for one, Red.”

I shook my head in irritation. “No, I mean to you. And Betsy. And everyone else.”

Tom looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think he’s going to do anything. That stuff about no humans ever supposed to know about us, well…,” His voice drifted off.

“Tom?” I prompted.