Destined

by Dawn Madigan

  So, ruddy-cheeked Fiona was as Kanjali as the rest of them.

  “Why are they so worked up over a cake?” Dara turned astounded eyes to Rowan.

  “’Tis not a simple cake—’tis called boinneóg, and made of oatmeal,” Rowan raised his voice over the ruckus. “The cake is passed around in a bag, to men and women brave enough to draw out slices. The unfortunate bastard who draws the slice charred at the bottom is pronounced the Beltaine Fool.”

  Dara giggled. “What happens to the Fool?” she asked, curious.

  “He has to leap through the fire three times, if he’s lucky,” he told her.

  “That’s if he’s lucky? And what happens if he’s unlucky?”

  “Then he gets pelted with eggshells, as well.”

  “No!” she gasped with laughter.

  “Oh, aye. And usually there are some nice lads grabbing him, pretending to throw him into the fire,” Rowan grinned. “Then all through the rest of the celebration everyone speaks of him as if he’s dead.”

  “Now, that’s just cruel,” Dara protested, though her eyes were squinted with laughter.

  “Living thousands of years among the Celts, you pick up odd habits.” Rowan shrugged.

  Then they both quieted, suddenly aware that Niamh was again addressing the crowd.

  “This Beltaine eve we have no time for cakes,” the Speakers’ leader stated. “By now, you must all feel the pull of the full moon. At midnight its Power will be at its peak. None of you will then be able to resist transformation. But I want all of you to be able to keep as much control as possible. There is no reason for anyone to go full mac’tir, not when the weak have left, and the Speakers are walking amongst you.”

  A hum of agreement drifted from the assembly. Dara found herself clutching the small leather sack dangling from her neck, silently thanking Brighid for forcing her to accept her precious raven charm.

  It will help you draw on my Power, the banshee had told her as she’d tied the leather thong around Dara’s nape.

  “There will be no dancing around the Beltaine fire tonight,” Niamh spoke. “There will be no passing of cakes. But tomorrow at sunrise we will erect the Maypole, and by Danu, we’ll have our Maypole dancing!”

  Again there were shouts and waving, but the audience seemed dispirited. Full moon or not, Beltaine with no fire-dancing?

  The general mood cheered considerably as Niamh turned away from the whispering throng and approached Dara and Rowan. The two of them stood pressed together with their backs facing the Stone, watching Niamh with the fire’s glow in their eyes. Halting a short distance from them, Niamh stabbed her staff into the ground with a sudden thrust. The wooden pole remained erect, its upmost end still quivering.

  Dara flinched unwillingly at the abrupt violent gesture. Rowan hadn’t stirred. Niamh turned to Dara, her soft tone contrasting with her harsh action.

  “Dara, the daughter of Cuinn O’Shea. Give me thy left hand.”

  Dara hesitated, then extended her left hand, and Niamh accepted it with a gentle, firm grip. Next she turned her eyes to Rowan.

  “Rowan, the son of Breandan Mackey. Give me thy left hand.”

  He extended a steady hand, and she took it.

  “Dara, will thou take Rowan as your lifemate for as long as thou shalt live?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Rowan, will thou take Dara as your lifemate for as long as thou shalt live?”

  “Aye,” he said.

  “I bind you both together, body and soul, and your bond shall be forged by joining against Lia Fáil. As ye join your hands, so your lives are joined. The earth and sky, the moon and stars, the fire and air shall be witnesses to this joining. The four winds shall carry the word. Now clasp your left hands together.”

  Hot silence breathed from the crowd as Niamh joined both Rowan’s and Dara’s hands beneath hers. She untangled from her left wrist a three-strand braid of red, black and green. Carefully she wound the cord three times about Rowan’s wrist, three times about both clasped hands, and three times about Dara’s wrist, and tied the loose ends together with three knots.

  “Ye shall now forge this bond as avowed by the ancient Law set by the Mother Goddess,” she declared. Employing the same methodic care, Niamh unwound the cord from their wrists and pulled back.

  Rowan gently turned Dara in his arms to fully face him.

  “Rowan.” Dara gazed up into his eyes as he took her face in his hands.

  “Aye, sweetheart?”

  “Rowan, what…what am I supposed to do now?”

  The night made her dark eyes even blacker. She spoke in a voice too small. He wanted to wipe the lost expression off her face, to banish the shadows and leave only the flames.

  “Just look at me, Dara.”

  He wrapped his arms tighter about her, enfolding her slender form with hungry, long caresses. His kiss moved from her brow, lower, touching her mouth, and she faintly responded. Her hands weren’t clinging to his body, weren’t stroking him back. She stood still and shuddering in her thin dress, breathing fast like a captured gazelle. He had to make her forget the white-hot tension wafting from the surrounding Kanjali folk.

  “Look at me,” he demanded again with a scorching whisper, and she opened her eyes.

  “Does it truly matter now, sweetheart, what is happening around us?”

  She gave him a stunned look, his words forcing up a recent memory—Rowan making love to her against the damp grass, at the Speakers’ abandoned place of Gathering.

  “Does it?” He wrapped her face again with the heat of his hands.

  “N-no,” she finally managed.

  “Does it matter if anyone else is watching?”

  “No,” she whispered a bit more steadily. “There is only you.”

  Rowan crouched and lifted Dara so that her legs were now hugging him. His hands supported her buttocks, crushing the gauzy cloth of her dress. As her arms locked around his neck he touched his mouth to hers again, pressing harder. Dara’s lips parted. Rowan curled his tongue between her lips to tease and stroke her own tongue, to thrust deeper into the welcoming heat of her mouth. She responded with a sudden move, bracing his head to hers. Her silky tongue finally twined with his. He felt her gasping into his breath, wringing his hair with clenching fingers.

  Rowan gently pulled back, and Dara gazed up at him with dark, hazy eyes. She ran her tongue over her misted lips, in between quick gasps for air. Her face dug into his chest, taking cover from everything around her, like a little girl playing hide-and-seek.

  Slowly, Rowan turned them both away from the crowd, and carried Dara the last few steps to the Stone of Destiny. He knelt with extra care, like he’d done the first time he’d held her in his arms in a land strange to him. He laid his mate against the grass with her back touching the Stone, feeling her brief shudder at its chill.

  The Stone stayed silent, oblivious to both their touches.

  Rowan’s broad back made an almost-perfect shield against the spectators as he crouched between Dara’s legs. He drew her dress higher up her thighs, his touch gentle. Dara held her breath as he moved, her flesh burning beneath his hands. His fingers skirted her moist pubic curls, and she jerked with a shudder. Rowan’s erection was making an obvious bulge beneath his breeches. Dara twisted with unease, trapped between his body and the Stone, trying to shift against him. Her hands desperately clamped over his forearms.

  “Rowan, don’t. Wait…”

  He instantly froze, his hands framing her naked hips, struggling to control his breathing.

  “Rowan, I’m…” Dara took in a deep, shaky breath, her voice imbued with unshed tears. “I don’t think I can do this.” Her hands shot to her face, stifling a half-sob.

  Rowan gazed down at her, wrapped around him half-naked. She was quivering in silence, her hands pressed tightly against her face. By Danu, she was falling apart. He pulled back and hauled her against him, crumpling her dress as he hugged her.

  “Stop, stop, sweetheart,
I’m not good with a crying woman. Stop, céadsearc, we are not going to do this.”

  “But I promised—”

  “Shhh, no more crying, aye?”

  He rose to his feet, cradling Dara in his arms, and turned from the Destiny Stone with dire resolution. The Stone was a mocking, living presence at his back. The moon was almost topping the sky, its Power rapidly peaking. Dara curled tighter into Rowan’s chest. His eyes found Niamh, a white-clad shadow watching silently from a distance. The crowd below began to simmer with a soft hiss, like a dragon with numerous heads. Rowan took a hard swallow, his throat aching with dryness.

  “There will be no mating against Lia Fáil tonight,” he announced, confronting his kinsmen. His golden eyes dared them to say otherwise.

  And then an icy gust burst over the broad plain, flattening the tall grass. A howl echoed across the Hill of Tara, spilling down over the night-black farmlands. The sound was a familiar blend of a man’s cry and a bestial wail, Rowan had heard it before. But back then it had been far away, rolling towards Dara and Brighid and him from distant purple mountains.

  But now…now it was less than a mile away.

  Dara screamed in panic, her fingers digging into Rowan’s flesh. She fought him as he lowered her to the ground, and he caught her with a steely grasp, forcing her to quiet down. The crowd below erupted with a jumble of baffled shouts, its dense mass swaying and twisting beneath the fire’s glare. Niamh wrenched her staff from the ground and leaped to the edge of the barrow.

  “Quiet!” she ordered the crowd seething beneath her feet. “Keep your silence!”

  The tempestuous Kanjali shifters gradually yielded to their leader’s cool command. They now stood in silence, their burning gazes cast northward. They were staring in the direction of the Mound of Hostages, and further, to the night-dark north.

  Brighid scrambled up the ring-barrow, her gown and cape clutched and raised in her hands, and Teague hurried up after her. The two of them took their places beside Rowan, with Dara still quivering in his hold.

  “They’ve crossed through the Veil,” Brighid said, her voice controlled.

  “You are Dara’s guardian Sidhe,” Niamh stated after sparing her a brief glance.

  Brighid jerked her head in affirmation.

  The air suddenly filled with the clatter of horses galloping. Shadow-riders washed in from the north, showing as slightly blacker masses against the darkness. Moonlight shone harshly on a silver pommel, and Brighid whispered, “Donn.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Shouts sounded from the shifters’ outermost rows, and Rowan couldn’t tell if they meant fury, panic or pain—nonetheless they testified to the first physical clash between the attackers and his gathered kinfolk. A dark-clad rider tore ruthlessly through the crowd on a foaming white horse. Firelight glittered and bounced from his short sword as he wielded it left and right with sharp accuracy, stabbing and slashing his way through.

  “Donn is heading here,” Brighid called over the shouts.

  Rowan had already forced Dara behind him, and was standing as a live shield between her and the mayhem.

  “No,” Dara yelled in protest, her voice desperate. “I want to—”

  Rowan swiveled to her for a half-second. “Go to the Stone, Dara,” he roared. “Go back to the Stone, and do not move from it!”

  His eyes were molten amber. She withdrew from his unfamiliar face until her back pressed against the chilly Stone. She then gave her head a violent shake, steadying her feet against the grass. Reaching a trembling hand beneath her left armpit, she clasped a familiar bone hilt. The drawn dagger drank light from both the fire and the moon, its silver etchings erupting with raw brightness. Dara swayed, sinking back against the Stone. Her right fist tightened on the dagger’s hilt with a painful, sweaty grip.

  Niamh readied her staff, her eyes set on Donn. “Teague! Bearers of the Nine!” She bellowed over the confusion. “Each take command over your own! The Speakers are fighting among you, you will keep control even if you shift fully!”

  “I will make sure of that,” Brighid said and vanished in a swirl of fog. A large raven tore out of the mist into the surrounding dark.

  Teague mumbled a curse, likely at seeing her change for the first time. His eyes were as golden as Rowan’s as he forced his gaze away from her fading form. He leaped into the crowd with a growl, taking charge of his group of shifters.

  Rowan and Niamh had been left standing side by side on the ring’s edge. The Kanjali shifters had separated into nine smaller groups under the Bearers’ command, following their ancient traditional alignment. Their dark shapes twirled and twisted, painted ruby and gold by the blaze. Instead of merely reacting, they were now fighting back. They fought with hands and stones and sticks, since iron had been forbidden on these sacred grounds on the night of Beltaine. Transformation rippled through their lines like an advancing front, setting fire to their eyes and lengthening their clawed fingers. Many of Donn’s riders were pulled down from their horses to be ripped apart by the raging shifters. On any other night the mounted shadow-warriors wouldn’t have been more than wraiths, but Beltaine made the denizens of both Realms substantial to one another. Now and then firelight shone on an oversized raven as it made brief dives over the crowd, expertly evading weapons.

  “Donn is mine,” Niamh shouted, her burning eyes fixed on the approaching rider.

  Her voice was a half-growl. She had slipped out of her white robes and was standing naked, staff readied. Fair fur, as bright as her hair, washed over her skin, painting her flesh gold. She leaped down, aiming her staff for a stab. Donn’s short sword met the oak, failing to cut through it but breaking the blow. Niamh’s weight heaved him out of his saddle, and both of them rolled on the trampled grass. They tore away from each other and leaped to their feet, barehanded. Each coolly studied his opponent as they circled one another with measured steps.

  Donn’s lips twisted into a rough smile. “Women seem to turn into wildcats whenever I’m around,” he said.

  “They just grow fangs and claws,” Niamh snarled back. “’Tis not the same.”

  The smile vanished from the rogue prince’s face. “I’m going to kill you,” he said.

  “Can you fight as well as you talk?” Niamh’s transformation deepened. Her words trailed into a menacing growl as she dropped to all fours, fog swirling about her.

  Mist exploded around Donn as he shapechanged into a black leopard and leaped towards the golden mac’tir, aiming for her throat.

  Rowan’s gaze toured the battling throng, his fists clenching and relaxing by his thighs. He couldn’t make out the Speakers among the fighting Kanjali, but he was searching for something else entirely. He closed his eyes, extending his Power, half-blinded by the moon’s bright force. Carefully, he reached out further…

  There.

  Rowan turned a half-circle to the south and opened his eyes, locking gazes with the blank-faced Hound.

  Adam let go of a limp Kanjali female as Rowan watched him from atop the barrow, and her body sank to lie motionless at his feet. He smiled and raised a bloodied, clawed hand to his lips, tasting the female’s blood with a long, wide lick. He then reached behind his back and pulled forward a wooden bow, stringing it with a silver-tipped arrow.

  He wasn’t aiming at Rowan.

  “Dara!” Rowan tore towards Lia Fáil.

  Dara had been standing against the silent Stone, making an unconscious target for the Hound’s arrows. She raised dark, confused eyes to Rowan as he rushed to her. Her dagger glittered in her right hand, and her left was clutching a small leather sack threaded about her neck.

  The Hound let go of the arrow, sending it spiraling into the air in a wide, lethal arc. Haze solidified around him as he began to transform.

  Dara screamed as Rowan crashed into her, throwing them both against the dark grass at the Stone’s foot. She hit the ground with violent force. Her dagger flew out of her hand and lay an arm’s reach away, a band of light against Tar
a’s night-black soil. She yelled again as Rowan heaved her up and turned her in his arms, shouting her name with urgency.

  “Are you hurt?” Rowan’s hands roughly skimmed over her body as she panted and struggled. “Is there blood on you? Answer me, Dara!”

  “No!” she cried in response, panicked and infuriated. “No! Rowan, you’re hurting me! Let me go!”

  “Stay down,” he ordered in a husky voice, loosening his steely grip on her. His hands slid away from her body, and he slowly climbed to a crouch. His head snapped back to the south.

  Dara pushed backwards with her feet. Her fingers felt oddly slippery against the grass, daubed with something sticky and warm. She raised her hands to her face, staring with shock at the dark liquid staining them.

  “Rowan, you’re bleeding,” she whispered, her trembling fingers widely splayed.

  Her eyes shot to his bent form, watching his back heave with a hissing breath. His face was hidden behind a spill of tangled hair. He twisted his left arm with a furious growl and clutched something at his side.

  “Rowan, don’t!”

  He tore the Hound’s arrow from his left flank with a savage howl and let it plunge to the grass, almost collapsing with it. A dark stain was rapidly spreading over the small of his back, flowing down his left thigh. It shimmered bright red in the firelight. Rowan dug his bloody left fist into the ground, steadying his squat. Flimsy threads of mist formed about him, slowly thickening, as he twined his Power with the moon’s cool force.

  “You’re too hurt to change,” she pleaded with him.

  “No choice. The Hound has changed fully,” he answered. His voice rumbled thick and inhuman from within the white fog that surrounded him.

  Dara’s eyes followed his gaze, and saw something huge and dark making its way up the barrow. Its glowing eyes were staring directly at them.

  The Hound.

  Dara whimpered and scrambled to all fours, crawling on scraped hands and knees in a blind search for her dagger. A sob flew from her mouth as her fingers fell upon its hard Damascus steel. The blade’s embossed silver singed her fingertips, but she refrained from jerking her hand away, instead sliding her grip further onto the cool hilt. She snatched her dagger from the grass, gasping with relief. The blade had been muddied by Tara’s soil. Dara didn’t bother to wipe it off, swiveling to look for Rowan.