The boat shifted, rocking us gently on our feet, then settled.

. . . I gazed down at his black silk hair, the obsidian gem gracing his earlobe, his lips teasing my breast. Desire flooded my veins, need, sexual and something more, something stronger, fluttered inside me at his nearness; and as his teeth nipped, I threaded my fingers into that black silk, wanting him to pierce my skin, wanting him to have my blood. To have me. I arched into him, physically and mentally, telling him with my thoughts I wanted all the pleasure he could give me, to share that pleasure with him, and telling him that I was his, however he wished. He complied readily, sucking me deeper into the heat of his mouth and biting down, hard. But instead of the delicate sharpness of fangs, clumsy human teeth tore into my flesh. The unexpected pain threw my head back in a scream. I shoved him away from me—

And watched uncomprehendingly as Dessa stumbled back and fell.

She lay there, panting, dark blood staining her lips, her irises solid golden orbs, gazing adoringly up at me.

For a moment I gazed back, confused. Then, as the honey-copper scent of my own blood reached me, my mind cleared and it dawned on me what had happened— what was still happening. The Wishing Web I’d absorbed and spooled was unravelling inside me, its sticky fibres sliding deep as they hooked into my long-held fantasies . . . of Malik . . . of giving him my blood . . . not because I had to, not because the 3V forced me, not for any reason other than I wanted to. . . I shoved the thoughts away, hitching my bra up, heedless of the bloody bite – I’d heal – and buttoning my shirt as I did so. Now wasn’t the time for whatever fantasies the Wishing Web had pulled out of my psyche. Not when I had a more immediate and horrific problem to deal with.

Dessa. I’d trapped her in my Glamour. Never mind that it was illegal and would win me a quick one-way trip to the guillotine. Never mind I could’ve killed her if we’d got as far as orgasm, leaving her daughter without a mother. Bad as both of those things were, I had an uneasy feeling that releasing Dessa wasn’t going to be as simple as I needed it to be. She was a witch. She had to have been Glamoured by a sidhe at least once before (during a fertility rite, otherwise she would never have become pregnant). And we were trapped in a Wishing Web. Despite Dessa’s Jonathan Rhys Meyers fantasy, it looked like, deep down, she wished for something else, but whether it was sex with another female, or with a sidhe, I didn’t know.

Or really, for all I did know, she was gazing happily up at a creepy magically ’shopped merging of Jonathan Rhys Meyers and me. Which was kind of disturbing given the way she was lying half-naked on the sun-drenched grass—

I blinked.

The houseboat was gone. In its place was a manicured lawn, littered with early autumn leaves, half of it covered in bright sunshine, the rest deep in the shadow cast by the grey-stone walls of a half-ruined Norman manor house. To my right was a huge arched stone entrance, the door half ajar. To my left a copse of trees rustled in an almost chilly breeze. In the distance the deep waters of a moat sparkled.

I knew where this was. Knew what had happened here on my fourteenth birthday, on my wedding night. It’s an illusion, the rational part of me cried, ripped from your memories by the Wishing Web.Memories I’d revisited in shocking clarity only an hour or so ago in the Dreamscape with Bastien.

‘My sidhe bride.’ His voice was light, chiding, gentle. A lie. ‘Mildly entertaining as it is to see you toy with the witch, I wish your attention now.’

It’s not Bastien. It’s the cambion.

A sword appeared next to me, its point stuck in the grass, its bejewelled hilt quivering as if it had been thrown there.

‘Unless, of course,’ Bastien’s voice said, ‘you wish me to cause her, or the other witch, some damage, with that pretty sword.’

I glanced at Dessa, still lying oblivious in the sunshine. And across at Mary, still unconscious from the Stun spell. Horror choked my throat. I swallowed it back. He might be the cambion, but it was my memories the Wishing Web was channelling into this fantasy. And both of them were easy pickings. Innocent victims he would gleefully torture while he fucked them. It was what he’d done to Sally, my faeling friend, all those years ago, in the grand hall of this very house.

Sweat broke on my skin. My heart pounded in dread. No way did I want to relive that horror.

Illusion! Nothing more!

But it didn’t matter what I told myself. Between my memories, and the Wishing Web, the illusion was now as dangerous as the reality.

I scooped up Dessa’s shirt, slapped it on her chest, and grabbed her head. Ironically grateful that my Glamour forced her to be my puppet, I told her to put her shirt on, get Mary, and get both of them, and the still stone-like Taegrin, out of the tent, and then to keep everyone else out.

She scrambled to her feet, yanking on her shirt as she rushed to do my bidding.

A sigh behind me. ‘You disappoint me. I was hoping for some entertainment while we continued our conversation, which you so rudely ended earlier.’

I gripped the hilt of the sword, it wasn’t Ascalon but it would do, and turned. Keeping him occupied would give them chance to escape—

My eyes met those of the sucker I’d always wanted dead.

I smiled. As fantasies go, this one was turning out to be a killer.

Chapter Forty-Four

Bastien, my psychotic, memory-hijacking betrothed, and Malik’s – son?– smiled at me. A trickle of fear dripped down my spine. I reminded myself that he was just another sucker, not to mention that thisBastien was nothing more than the product of my imagination and the Wishing Web. Surprisingly, my conjured illusion of him looked different from when he’d ‘appeared’ in my Dreamscape daymare.

Now he was wearing jeans and a Blondie T-shirt, of all things. It made him look more like the tall, gangly fifteen-year-old he’d been when he’d Accepted the Gift. His features and skin tone were a mix-up of Mediterranean and Middle East, and I searched them for any resemblance to Malik, disturbed when I realised they had the same shaped mouth, the same sharp jawline, though Bastien’s brown eyes were round, and heavily lashed, in a way that gave him a limpid, almost girlish look.

In fact, now I wasn’t looking at him through panic-warped eyes I realised that, with his unruly dark hair and good looks, he’d probably be a candidate for a lot of people’s wet dreams. If they didn’t know how sick he was inside.

His looks also reminded me of the crush I’d had on him at fourteen.

Bastien grinned. ‘You always did like watching me, my sidhe princess,’ he said, the illusion evidently picking up on my memories. ‘Peering at me from behind curtains, inside wardrobes, all wide-eyed and innocent, like a timid mouse fascinated by a cat.’ He licked his lips. ‘It made dallying with your faeling friend even more exciting, hearing your heart flutter like a trapped bird’s, hearing your breath hitch at the things we did, all the while knowing that soon I would do the same to you, that I’d be the first to pierce you in every way.’

Of course, once he opened his mouth . . . My hand clenched around the sword’s hilt, grateful Dessa and Mary were gone. ‘Her name was Sally,’ I said flatly, tightening my grip on the sword. ‘You killed her.’

He shrugged. ‘I am rash and impulsive. I often regret the consequences. As I did after I dealt with the faeling: she met her death much too soon. I am sure she could have provided a few more days’ amusement for our wedding celebrations, if I had but curbed my impatience.’

I suppressed a shudder. ‘I’m sure Sally would’ve been thrilled to know that.’