Dark Deceiver. Pamela Palmer

The tears ran freely from his eyes, now. “Please, my lady. Please. I mean you no harm.”

      Dear God, what was she supposed to do? He was Esri. Evil.

      He was just a kid.

      With a groan of despair, she knew she couldn’t be the reason he died.

      “If I let you go, you have to go back through that gate. Right now.”

      The boy stilled, his orange eyes widening with hope. “Aye. I shall go back. You’ll not regret it. I’ll make it up to you. I give you my vow.”

      “Right. Just make sure you go back through that gate. If you don’t, my friends will catch you. And then you will die.”

      She rolled off him into the muddy grass, knowing she was going to regret this. Jack and Larsen were going to be furious. The kid leaped to his feet and made a dash for the fountain as Larsen tried to intercept him with her flamethrower. But the kid was fast. Before Larsen could catch him, he dove into the fountain, his cloak billowing out behind him for one brief moment before he disappeared.

      Autumn rose from the soaked grass, her shoulders heavy with guilt.

      “Damn, damn, damn!” Larsen’s epithets rose in volume as she ran toward Autumn. “Did he hurt you?”

      “No.”

      “Do you know what just happened?”

      Autumn cringed. “If you’re asking if he enchanted me, I don’t think so. I’m still wearing my holly.” She held up her arm, displaying the rough band of wood she wore around her wrist. Holly was the only thing they’d found that protected true humans from the Esris’ mind control. “I know I had him. I know I let him go.”

      “Why?”

      All her life Autumn had longed to be smaller. Now she felt about two inches tall. And it hurt. “Larsen, I’m sorry. He looked like a fifteen-year-old kid. And he was crying.” Even to her own ears, her reasons sounded lame.

      Larsen looked around with a deep sigh, her expression one of frustration, her movements agitated. “All right. Well, it’s done.” Larsen dug in her pocket and handed Autumn a set of keys. “Go get in the car and lock the doors. The others may come back and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

      Autumn pressed her lips together, wanting to argue that she could help. But she’d just proved she couldn’t be trusted.

      “Larsen, he said something that might be important. He said they came for the power stones.”

      Larsen’s gaze jerked to hers. “Stones? Are you sure the word was plural?”

      “Positive.” Autumn shoved the keys and her cold fists deep into her pockets. “He said they’d find them all.”

      “We thought there was only one. We have only one.”

      “Yeah. That’s why I thought it might be important.”

      “I really wish you hadn’t let him go, Autumn.”

      Autumn met her friend’s rueful gaze. “Me, too.”

      “There’s Jack! Did you catch him?” she called to her husband, but he just shook his head.

      As Larsen ran to join her husband, Autumn turned to make her way to the car, her heart heavy with the knowledge she’d finally gotten the chance she’d been longing for. A chance to make a difference. To be a hero.

      And she’d blown it. Not only had she failed to be of help, she’d become something far, far worse.

      She’d become a liability the Sitheen could not afford.

      Two weeks later, as the sun set amidst painted clouds, Kaderil strode across the busy street near the D.C. waterfront to the squeal of brakes and the honks of impatient human drivers. He’d learned enough during his short time in the human realm to know he was expected to give way to the vehicles, but he’d spent fifteen centuries making others—powerful immortals—cower before him.

      He refused now to submit to humans, regardless of the armor they wore, though he had to admit to a certain fascination with this armor. Cars, they called them. And trucks, minivans, SUVs, convertibles. The humans had a different name for nearly every one and he knew them all.

      A cold breeze ruffled his hair as he stepped onto the curb and started across the parking lot to the low-slung building of the marina’s offices. The human world was not what he’d expected. The humans were not the unintelligent, animal-like beings of Esrian legend. When they were free from enchantment, they were, in fact, surprisingly quick of mind. Much to his relief, he’d discovered that he possessed some small talents against them, talents he hadn’t expected. Although he could not fully enchant them as other Esri could, he was able to push thoughts into their heads and borrow knowledge from their brains with a single touch.

      Knowledge that had told him he needed documents and a fictitious background that would withstand thorough investigation if he wanted any hope of fooling the Sitheen. A single misstep and he could well find himself burning beneath a death curse.

      He’d bullied Ustanis, the third in their party, into setting up his documents and history since he was fully capable of enchanting the humans, forcing them to do his will, and Kaderil was not. It had taken Ustanis nearly a fortnight to accomplish the task, though Kaderil suspected Zander had played a large part in the delay.

      He’d worried that a month would be too little time to infiltrate the Sitheen and earn their trust. Now he had only two short weeks.

      His stomach burned with tension. The only thing the slave had been able to tell him about the Sitheen was a name, Larsen Vale, and this place, the Top Sail Marina in downtown D.C. They were his only clues. If he failed to find her here, his mission might be lost before he ever started.

      Hoping that wasn’t the case, he strode up the path toward the door that said Office. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, caging the Punisher. It was a struggle to fight the deeply ingrained need to fling bodies and demand fear, but he was learning. Humans were fragile creatures, far too easily alarmed by violence. And he had to pretend to be human.

      Kaderil opened the door and walked into the marina office.

      A solitary, bearded man glanced up from behind the long counter. “Can I help you?”

      Kaderil forced his mouth into a semblance of a smile and thrust out his hand. “It’s great to see you again!” Human males, it seemed, were incapable of ignoring the invitation of an extended hand.

      The bearded one’s mouth smiled in a poor attempt to hide his lack of recognition. The moment their hands clasped, Kaderil pushed thoughts into the human’s head. His name is Kade and I know him. I trust him.

      “Kade!” the bearded man exclaimed, the cloud of confusion lifting from his eyes. “What brings you here?”

      “Which boat is Larsen Vale’s?”

      The man motioned Kaderil to the window and pointed to the boat in the last slip. “That’s hers down there. That’s not Larsen on the boat, though. Looks as if she has company.” A lone person walked across the deck, a tall woman with hair like flame. A woman who was not, apparently, his quarry. But she was on a Sitheen’s boat. As good a place to start as any.

      His pulse leaped with possibility. Even if she wasn’t Larsen Vale, she might know her, or be a Sitheen herself. Already, the day was looking up.

      Kaderil turned and left the marina office. Behind him he heard a distant, “Good to see you again, Kade. Always a pleasure.” Belatedly, he remembered he should have said thank-you or goodbye.

      But his patience for the trivial was thin. He had a draggon stone to track down and Sitheen to destroy. And two short weeks to accomplish both.

      Long enough, perhaps, for he had an advantage they would never suspect. He looked like them. They wouldn’t know he was Esri.

      Until