Enchant (Rae Wilder #3)

Chapter Six

NOTE FROM PENELOPE: I promised the first six chapters didn't I! 

Demon Dark reached the Nook Top 100 (#64) and was #1 in the iBooks Sci-Fi & Fantasy category in the UK, CA & AU in November 2011 (I blogged all about it, lol). So I was majorly pleased!

Check out my new story Smolder, released in December 2011. I'm posting some here on WattPad. It will be available in all major eStores (Kindle, Nook, iBooks, etc) soon ;)

Px

***

The leaders of demonkind growled. Fairies hissed. Those present at the Meet murmured uneasily at the display of brute force, and were wise enough not to intervene.

Wasp was dangerous.

Daphne stood ready at Lochlann’s curved back. Blood dripping from her pale lips, she hissed at the fairy, braids jiggling around her small shoulders as she trembled under the onslaught of her anger.

I moved to stand by her side, as did Breandan, keeping an eye on Wasp who laid deceptively still. Her eyes sparked with fury, and tracked Daphne’s agitated movement like a predator does her prey.

Lochlann’s mauled arm healed – ripped seams of skin blended effortlessly. The evidence of Daphne’s vicious bite was the drying splash of blood on his skin. He wore her fang marks but barely glanced at the scars. As unconcerned as he tried to appear, he shifted off-kilter a fraction, winded. I wouldn’t have noticed had Breandan not tensed and focused his attention solely on his brother. Blinking rapidly, shaking off whatever had made him pause, Lochlann raised Wasp’s upper body one handed then slammed her back down, cracking the hard-packed earth.

Her eyelids fluttered. The lethal gaze she so often wielded was unfocused and confused.

Lochlann shook her back to her senses. “Look at me,” he demanded gruffly.

She did, and I watched them battle through sight alone.

Lochlann won.

“So you protect her kind now?” Wasp spat and half-heartedly pushed him, more to show her resistance than breaking free of his punishing hold.

Lochlann lowered his face until it was a hairsbreadth away from hers. His hair fell like a veil about his angular face. “You do not know it was she who ended him,” he explained with quiet rage. “Fairy law demands we raise no weapon at the Meet and you have broken this most sacred of covenants. You go too far.”

“Then why did the Priestess look to her when I asked her to name the one I plan to tear apart with my bare hands?” She struggled, her own words riling her up again.

I swallowed hard, and rather than be spoken about as if I wasn’t there, said, “I was thinking about Daphne, not laying blame.”

Said vampire laid a hand on my arm, and I fought hard not to flinch. The tension was wearing on me. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured before raising her voice so all could hear. “I captured Devlin, and I would have given him a warrior’s death, but I was ordered to take him alive. I did not kill him. When I was able I gave his body a proper burial, by fire.”

Lochlann turned his head as if to look over his shoulder at her but stopped himself. “You subdued him? Alone?”

Daphne slanted a look down at him – let her scrutiny linger longer than I thought normal. She looked almost … hungry. “Yeah.”

Devlin had been powerful, and excepting one, the beings that had stood a chance at destroying him in a fair fight were present at this Wyld Meet. From his pensive expression, Lochlann realised the vampire – diminutive in size – was a power he should reckon with.