Midnight Magic

by Ann Gimpel

  Celene, a coal black Selkie he’d done more than swim with, moved close enough her lush pelt stroked his skin. He draped an arm around her, and she nuzzled his neck with her snout.

  “Where have you been?” She spoke deep into his mind. Accommodating vocal chords were part of her human form, not her seal, and he’d never learned the Selkies’ lyrical language.

  “I spent a little time at my home in Scotland, but mostly I’ve ranged far from the Irish Sea.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything.” She nipped playfully at his shoulder with her squared-off teeth.

  “Prying ears are everywhere.” He leaned into her warmth, enjoying a respite from the cold water.

  “We could go where no one would hear.”

  He was tempted, so tempted he toyed with saying yes and taking a break from watching for the dragon he expected. Dragons interpreted time in their own way, and the damned thing might not show up today or tomorrow or even this week. If it showed at all.

  How much could he tell the Selkie?

  An answer crowded on the heels of his question.

  Nothing.

  Angus shuttered his mind, so the creature swimming by his side couldn’t read it. Much as he yearned to talk with someone, anyone, about the impossibilities the gods tasked him with, prudence won out. Not that this assignment was worse than any of the others, but he’d finally figured out they’d never end.

  I could say no. Tell them I’m done.

  He cut off the bitter laugh that wanted out. Whoever had the balls to refuse the Celts risked swift and certain punishment. He could hear Gwydion, master enchanter, or Ceridwen, goddess of the world, laughing their heads off—before they cut out his tongue or killed him on the spot.

  “You don’t have to say a word.” Celene went on, almost as if she’d peeked into his thoughts before he took care to protect them. Selkie laughter buffeted him, spraying him with a warm, rich melody mixed with salty water. “I’m curious, but I miss your body.”

  He missed hers too. She’d been his only break from solitude for more years than he wanted to admit. He cast another glance skyward. Though he tried to be subtle, he heard a smug murmur near his ear and knew he hadn’t fooled the Selkie.

  “You wait for an Ancient One.” The tenor of her mind speech shifted as she shielded it from anyone who might be close. Without stopping for him to corroborate, she forged ahead. “We can take up the banner and watch for you. My kin will let us know.”

  Angus picked his way carefully, as if he walked through a field of unexploded ordnance. “I appreciate the thought, but no one can know of my comings or goings, lass.”

  “We know more than you think.” Celene batted him with a flipper. “In truth, very little escapes us, but here isn’t the place to share what I heard about your latest mission.”

  Concern rippled through him. If the Selkies knew, who else might? Hell, he didn’t know much beyond his assigned meeting place with the dragon, and they’d be heading into danger.

  What else was new? Danger was so second nature, his adrenaline pumps barely flinched at anything these days.

  “Come with me.” Either Celene was oblivious to the turmoil rumbling through him, or she ignored it. She swam from beneath his arm and herded him toward shore. “There’s a secluded glade deep in marsh grass. No one will find us, and my kin will keep watch for the dragon. I already asked.”

  The Selkies would do their best—and maybe today it would be enough—but they were no match for evil that had sunk its roots deep into the fabric of the Old Country and the rest of this world. It was why the gods stooped to using him—half-mortal, half-divine, or whatever the hell he was—to do their dirty work. Arawn, god of the dead, revenge, and terror, caught him skulking in the time-travel tunnels when he wasn’t much more than a boy and trapped him, cutting off any possibility of return. To make certain Angus remained, the god altered his memories, so he had no idea where he came from.

  Now almost twenty-five years later, Arawn and the others still came up with enough for him to do that a life to call his own was out of the question. The carrot they dangled was the truth about his birth, but they never came close to divulging it. The stick was his fear of what they’d do, if he told them he was done.

  Over time, he’d stopped asking about his origins. He cared, but it wasn’t worth the energy to run up against their stony faces and cunningly crafted half-truths that revealed exactly nothing. Despite his reservations about a quick dalliance with Celene—and maybe missing his rendezvous with the dragon—he was sick of his self-imposed isolation.

  She chivied him into shallow water. Once she was certain he’d follow, she drew ahead easily. As if the other Selkies understood, the pod dispersed. When he peered through gray-green water for their multi-colored pelts, they weren’t there.

  By the time he clambered onto the rocky shore, Celene had shucked her skin. In human form, she opened her arms to welcome him. Long black hair shrouded her almost to her feet. Violet eyes gleamed in welcome. Her generous breasts peeked through the curtain of hair, their copper-colored nipples already pebbled with wanting him.

  Angus had tucked his clothes beneath a rock before joining the Selkie pod. Because he swam nude, nothing was in the way as he plunged into Celene’s offered embrace. God, how he’d missed the touch of another against him, skin to skin. Celene’s body felt warm against his chilled one. She closed her arms around him and ran her hands down his back, lingering over the curve of his butt.

  He hugged her in return. The scent of her, salt and mint, flooded his mind with images of their lovemaking, and his cock hardened between their bodies. He trailed his fingertips down her smooth skin, marveling at how different she felt from a human woman. Velvety and charged with electricity. Some Selkies walked among humans, even took permanent partners. Angus didn’t understand how they eluded discovery.

  Celene closed her mouth over the junction between his neck and shoulder, licking, sucking, biting. He moved a hand from her back to cup the side of her face and lowered his lips over hers. Desire engulfed him. Hot, urgent, desperate, he sank his tongue into her waiting mouth.

  She grappled with his ass, pulling his body hard against hers as her hips writhed and breath hitched in her throat. Tearing her mouth from his, she gasped. “Too long. It’s been too long.”

  Liquid heat trailed the path of her mouth as she licked her way down his chest, stopping to tease his nipples. He kissed the top of her head and wove his fingers into her long hair. Every nerve came alive with wanting her, but it ran deeper than that. Touch was such a basic need, and he’d denied that essential part of his humanity—along with every other comfort.

  For what?

  No matter how much he gave the Celts, they took every shred—and him—for granted. He wanted to get a job, blend in with humans. Something mundane like driving a cab, or flipping burgers in a grill, but his requests were denied. The Celts provided for him. So long as they housed and fed him, why would he need to clutter his time with anything as humdrum as earning a living? What if they needed him, and he was in the middle of washing dishes in some nameless restaurant? He could almost hear Gwydion’s voice. See the master enchanter with a long-suffering look on his face—

  He wiped his Celtic masters from his mind. This time was for him and Celene. No one else belonged in his head. Just because he’d chosen a semimonastic existence was no reason he couldn’t give her everything she needed. Months had passed since they’d last been together, maybe as much as a year. He moved back enough to fill his hands with her breasts, rubbing her erect nipples before he bent to suck on them, remembering the little biting motions she loved.

  A low, guttural moan escaped her, and she threaded her fingers through his hair. Holding him against her breasts, she began to sing as he loved her. A series of low, sweet notes rose in cadence and intensity as she lost herself in his touch. He’d asked her about the music once, and she told him it was how sea people vocalized their joy. The music filled him with unbeara
ble hunger—poignant, mind-bending need for another person’s touch.

  Although he’d never done it before, he raised his voice and joined her song. The change was instantaneous. In that moment, he sensed her loneliness and isolation, twin to his own and recognized that both of them needed more kisses, more touches—even more than they needed sex.

  “Lay on your belly.” His voice rasped with wanting her. He tore tufts of marsh grass and arranged them to make her a bed on a sandy stretch between rocks.

  She lay down, continuing to sing. Angus sang too, as he straddled her and ran his hands down her back rubbing tension from her muscles. He followed his hands with his mouth and strung kisses across her shoulder blades and down the line of vertebrae from her neck to the curves of her ass. Between their song, the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips, and his cock getting stiffer by the moment, waiting became almost painful, yet he held back, not quite sure why.

  The rhythm and cadence of her song shifted as he alternated his mouth and hands across the sculpted planes of her back. The intense pressure in his balls receded almost as if he’d reached a peak, though he hadn’t come. Maybe she sensed his need for warmth, contact, much as he’d sensed hers.

  “Move off me so I can look at you.” Celene flipped over to face him, kneeling above her. Rose and gold splotched her pale skin, and a broad smile split her exotic, high-cheek-boned face. “Today was different. You sang with me. You’ve never done that before.”

  He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “It felt right. Even though I wasn’t inside you, what happened between us felt right.”

  She cocked her head to one side and trained her gaze on him. “Are you sure you don’t have sea blood?”

  A flicker of annoyance at the Celts’ staunch refusal to disclose anything about his birth narrowed his eyes. “I have no idea what I am.” He ticked what he did know off on his fingers. “I’m not immortal, but I’ll live well beyond human lifespans. My magic is closer to seer and witch than anything else, yet I’m neither of those. The covens acknowledge me as one of theirs, but only because the local witches are too kind to tell me to go away. The time-travel portals accept me.” He shrugged again. “I don’t suppose knowing more would make a hell of a lot of difference.”

  “You’re not from Scotland, even though you live there.” She stated it baldly, as fact.

  He frowned. “Why would you say that?”

  “Your speech. There’s something about the lilt of Scotland that’s impossible to rid yourself of. You don’t sound Irish or British, either, at least not from the time we live in.” Her nostrils flared. “Maybe that’s it.”

  “Maybe what’s it?”

  “You could be from the past, and not just a few years back, perhaps hundreds—or even more. I’m not old enough to recall what human speech sounded like then, but some Selkies are.”

  “Fine.” Frustration tightened his chest, like it always did when the mystery of his origins became a point of discussion. “My first memories are when the god of the dead dragged me out of a time-travel portal when I was fifteen.”

  “I’m sorry.” She draped a hand over his hip, cradling it. “I’ve upset you.”

  He started to protest, but she silenced him with a look. “Don’t insult me with a lie, Angus, but you don’t have to talk about it, either. Such a pretty man.” She stroked hair back from his face. “With your deep brown hair and amber eyes. Did you know they shade to dark gold when you’re angry?”

  She was trying to divert him with flattery, but he wasn’t buying it. “You have no idea what it’s like not knowing—” He shook his head, and the rest of his words died unspoken. It didn’t matter what she knew or didn’t know about him. She’d never be more than an occasional lover, and both of them knew it.

  “It could be more,” she said softly, obviously having been in his mind.

  Angus took her hands in his and gazed at her. “You get more of me than anyone, and you see how pathetically little that is. There’s nothing more to give.”

  “There could be,” she persisted. “You could refuse next time they send you on—”

  He bent toward her and laid a hand over her mouth. “I’m not free. Not now. Not ever.”

  “I don’t understand.” She pushed his hand away and closed very white teeth over her full lower lip.

  He smiled crookedly. “Not sure I do, either. Every man has a life’s work. No matter how I feel about it, this appears to be mine.”

  Even though it wasn’t wise, he started to ask what she knew about his current assignment, but a flash of unusual energy drew his gaze skyward. He leapt to his feet. A copper-colored dragon circled to land not far from him. Maybe the Ancient One had seen him with Celene and decided to be considerate.

  Not very fucking likely. Dragons were a force unto themselves.

  “I have to go,” he said. “Let me walk you to your skin, so I know you’re safely on your way home.”

  A sad expression crossed her face, creasing the skin around her eyes into a network of fine lines. “It’s right here.” She scrambled to her feet and gripped both his upper arms, forcing him to look at her. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Being you.” She brushed her lips over his and moved to a marsh grass thicket. In moments, she’d dragged her pelt over her human body. Transformed into a seal, she waded into the surf.

  Before it engulfed her, she turned to gaze at him. “Be careful, and think on what I said.”

  He didn’t answer, just watched her head bob in the waves before turning toward his clothing. It wasn’t far from the place Celene had led them. His body felt vibrant, alive, and he still tingled from her touch. He longed for a woman of his own, children, a home, before he stuffed the impossible so deep under wraps he couldn’t mourn the loss.

  Angus moved the large rock he’d placed over his clothes to protect them from the wind. He pulled a ragged dark blue fisherman’s knit sweater over his head and stepped into thick, black woolen trousers. Settling on a log, he pulled on socks and laced up stout leather boots. Though the breeze was raw, he’d worn neither hat nor gloves.

  Ready as he figured he’d ever be, he covered the fifty yards to where the dragon had settled up the beach. He didn’t recognize this one, but he’d only met a bare handful of the hundreds living in Fire Mountain and on other worlds as well. When he drew near, he stopped and bowed his head respectfully, waiting for the dragon to speak first.

  “I don’t like this any better than you do,” the dragon muttered. “Come close enough I don’t have to broadcast our business to the world.”

  Angus walked closer. He could’ve suggested the dragon use telepathy since all the Ancient Ones were conversant in the technique, but he kept his mouth shut. The dragon was smaller than many he’d seen. Copper scales shaded to burnished gold on its chest, and dark eyes with golden centers whirled so fast they held a hypnotic quality. Lethal, six-inch-long red claws tipped its stubby forelegs. The dragon stood upright on hind legs tipped with the same sharp claws and kept its gaze averted, not saying anything.

  What the hell? Every other dragon he’d met was proud, imperious, and quick to remind Angus of his inferiority. This one seemed young, but was it? After another long few minutes, Angus tossed respect—and caution—to the winds.

  “What’s your name? And what are we supposed to be doing? All Ceridwen told me was to meet you here.”

  The dragon opened its mouth, and a gout of flame landed scant inches from Angus’s boots.

  He frowned and drew his brows together. “If we’re going to work together, I need to know what to call you.” He sent a speculative gaze across the air between them. “If you annihilate me, they’ll just assign you a new partner, and I’m a hell of a lot easier to get along with than any of the Celts.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” the dragon rumbled and belched smoke.

  Frustration in its voice struck a note in Angus’s soul, and he gestured with both hands. “You may as well tel
l me who you are and what we’re supposed to do together.” He infused his words with subtle persuasion. If the dragon didn’t care for the Celts, either, they’d likely get along well enough.

  “Why? What I should do is leave.” The dragon sounded sulky—and scared.

  “If you could, you’d already be gone.” Angus was as certain of that as he was of anything. The dragon needed him for something, and whatever it was, the Ancient One wasn’t particularly proud of it. “What happened? Am I some sort of punishment for you?” Tension settled like a steel bar across his shoulders, and he curled his hands into fists before he realized what he’d done.

  “Oh I’d be gone, would I?”

  The dragon ignored Angus’s questions, and it mimicked his tone with eerie precision. It furled its wings and flapped them a time or two. Dirt swirled; small pebbles slapped Angus in the face. The creature belched steam and looked so distraught, he felt sorry for it.

  “My life’s not exactly a picnic, either,” he ventured, on a hunt for common ground. “I’m a permanent mercenary, with no time off and no possibility of parole.”

  That got the dragon’s attention, and it focused its whirling gaze on him. The golden centers of its eyes deepened with fiery motes that looked like little shooting stars. “Why would you want a respite from being a warrior?”

  Good question.

  “Because I’m tired. I’d like what most men have.”

  “What’s that?” The dragon raised its brows, and its scales clanked against each other in a dissonant tinkling.

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The sooner you spit out whatever you need to say, the easier it’ll be. The worst part about holding something you’re ashamed of inside is it eats at you until you’re nothing but a hollow shell.”

  Wings flapped, and those intense, whirling eyes shifted to the rocky beach. “I’m not ashamed of anything. I’ve been banished. Ceridwen said if I worked with you—and we were successful—I might be able to return.”