Gift of the Realm

by Mackenzie Crowne

  She paused, expecting him to scoff in disbelief. He remained silent and watching. She picked up her cooling coffee and stared into the cup.

  “But the dreams changed that summer I came to Dunhaven. Instead of magical adventures, now they suck me in like an unwilling captive.”

  He was watching, still, when her gaze rose to meet his.

  “You’ve read Into the Mists, so you’ll recall the twins in the story. They weren’t just imaginary characters—well, not in the normal sense, anyway. I saw them in my dreams and watched helplessly while a cruel force stalked them, never quite allowing them to find their peace and live joyful lives. And Prince Rory? His search for his lost soul wasn’t a solitary quest. I was there for every disappointment.

  “Dunhaven’s Door has become an obsession. Every night I find myself at the center of the ring, knowing there is something I need to do, and frustrated beyond endurance because I can never discover what that something is. For ten years, the dreams have battered me. The only thing that kept me sane was the knowledge I wasn’t alone.”

  She took a bracing breath. “From the day I arrived in Dunhaven that summer, you’ve joined me in the dreams, Colin.”

  The silence stretched out until she wanted to scream. When he finally spoke, she thought she might.

  “What is it you want me to say, Keely?”

  “Nothing,” she insisted. “Nothing. Unless you can shed some light on all of this, I’d rather you said nothing at all.” Disappointment made her throat tighten. “Though you’ve walked with me in the dreams, you’ve never entered the ring. Last night is the first time you’ve done so. It is the first time I’ve seen the rosebush and the first time I’ve heard the woman. She called out to someone named Owein.”

  His gaze slid from hers to settle briefly on the wet bar in the corner. When he turned back again, his eyes were as cold as blue diamonds, his expression wiped clear of all emotion.

  Her heart sank. He didn’t believe her. No surprise there. She barely believed it herself.

  “I know all of this sounds insane, Colin.” Her voice was rough with the humiliated tears she refused to shed. “Believe me. No one knows that better than I. I’d hoped...” Her eyes slid shut on a sigh, and she shook her head. “I’d hoped you could help me.”

  She forced herself to look at him again, and though the wary discomfort in his eyes was nothing more than she’d expected, regret filled her.

  What had she been thinking, coming here like this? If life taught her anything, it was that the dreams, their mystery, and the confused anxiety they caused, were hers alone to bear. She’d managed them on her own this long. She’d solve them on her own as well.

  “Obviously not,” she said tightly.

  He stood when she did.

  So embarrassed she was afraid she’d break out in hives, and wishing for all she was worth that she hadn’t come, she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said and hurried from the room.

  This was the second time she’d fled from an embarrassing incident with Colin Quinn. It would damn well be the last.

  Chapter Six

  “Saraid lives.”

  Owein pushed away from the bar to slip loose-kneed into the chair Keely had vacated.

  Colin’s gaze swung from the empty doorway to stare down at the stunned relief in Owein’s darkened eyes.

  “You mean to tell me you’ve pressed me all this time to help you break the curse, when you weren’t sure she even lived?”

  Owein’s voice was sharp with censure. “You ask me that, Colin Quinn? Though you refuse to recognize it as the gift it is, you’ve enough of the fairie blood to know people of the realm are one with their true mate, heart and soul. I live, so it follows, Saraid does as well. But Fiona, that fairie witch, shaped a curse that’s held even against a king’s power. How was I to know she hadn’t found a way to destroy the heart and leave the soul?”

  Owein’s logic was sound, so Colin gave no answer. He didn’t consider his fairie blood a gift. From her comments, it was clear Keely had no knowledge of her fairie heritage. Considering the strain on her face when she hurried from the room, he didn’t think she would see her fairie blood as a gift, either.

  It was a shock to learn she recognized him in the dreams, meaning he appeared to her in human form. His memories of the dreams were always from the mind of the beast. And unlike her, his participation in them was never a cause for concern.

  For as long as he could remember, his Halfling blood had lived in harmony, coursing through the boy by day—later the man—and the wolf by night. While the human slept, the wolf prowled the fields and cliffs of Dunhaven.

  With Keely’s arrival in Ireland all those years ago, his solitary excursions had ceased, but the change had been pleasurable, for the most part, and his impressions, from their nightly walks, benign.

  Until this morning.

  He awakened to a sense of urgency and wasn’t surprised when he found her in his foyer an hour later. She claimed he entered the ring last night, something he’d always instinctively avoided in both wolf and human form. Keely’s first physical awareness of Saraid on the same night couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Though he wished it otherwise, he could no longer avoid playing a role in the breaking of the curse. Not when his mind still reeled from the stark look of despair in Keely’s sorceress eyes. She’d all but apologized for being visited by a force she never asked for and one she didn’t understand.

  Owein insisted Colin claiming her as his destiny was the answer to breaking the curse. Then again, that solution had a guaranteed side-benefit for the fairie king. Combining the blood of two Halflings had always been the other half of Owein’s agenda.

  Colin had no intention of fulfilling that half, but neither was he comfortable sitting back and watching Keely fumble her way in the dark.

  The way he saw it, the intricacies of the curse were the key to breaking it. In his experience, no problem, whether in business or day-to-day life, had only one solution. There was always a back door. All he had to do was find it.

  From the date of Colin’s birth, Owein had been scheming to use him toward his own selfish ends. Two, he decided, could play that game.

  “What is the significance of the rose?” he asked, bluntly.

  Caught in his own musings, Owein answered without the calculation he usually employed whenever Colin inquired after a detail surrounding the curse.

  “’Tis Saraid. My own lovely rose. It’s what I called her.”

  “I believe it’s time you filled me in on all you know of the curse, not just those details you’ve decided will benefit you in the telling.”

  When his gaze flew to Colin’s, the gleam of hope in Owein’s eyes was painful to witness. Colin steeled himself against the surge of sympathy. Owein’s frequent visitations had been a life-long nuisance. He didn’t care to be reminded that the fairie king’s actions were born of desperation.

  “You mean to help, then?” Owein questioned. “You’ll do your duty, accept the girl as your mate, and break the curse?”

  “I’ll break the curse. As to doing my duty, and my choice of mate, those are my concerns.”

  “But the girl—”

  “I mean it, Owein,” Colin interrupted. “I’ll see the curse broken, but it’ll be done my way. As for Keely and me, we’ll do what needs doing without your interference. I want your word there will be no more popping in whenever you like. If the time comes I decide your assistance is needed, I’ll invite you myself. Until then, I won’t be looking over my shoulder to see if we’ve an audience. It’s privacy you’ll be giving us or you’ll find yourself right back where you’ve been for three hundred years—unable to break the curse on your own.”

  Owein looked about to make an argument, but after a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.

  “Well, then. Let’s go.” Colin headed for the door.

  “Where?” Owein demanded, jumping to his feet to follow.

  “To Dunhaven’s D
oor.”

  Chapter Seven

  “If it isn’t Morna’s pride and joy,” Sean Connelly called out the moment Keely stepped inside Connelly’s Pub.

  She grinned, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the gloom of the windowless taproom after the bright sunshine outside. The pub looked exactly as it had the last time she’d been there, when she’d come in with Gran for “the best meal in the county.” Several of the time-scarred, round tables held customers, lifting a pint or savoring the day’s lunch special, while Irish rock played quietly in the background.

  Behind the bar, Sean beamed his crooked grin. The owner of the only pub in town had been one of her favorite citizens that summer she’d spent with Gran. A mountain of a man, Gran had claimed the only thing bigger than Sean’s heart were his size fifteen feet.

  Blond, brawny, and bold, he was a friend to just about everyone in Dunhaven, and had taken pity on an odd, gawky teenager, who’d had her head in the clouds more often than not. She’d loved him from the first time he’d struck up a conversation with her, asking about the notebook of stories she’d carried with her and then showing true interest in her shy answer.

  Sean had been the one who called to offer the town’s condolences upon Morna’s death. To her surprise, he’d then put Nora Murphy on the line to offer her regrets. Keely had fumbled for words, mortified at what the Irishwoman must think of her after what she’d witnessed the night in the gazebo.

  “None of that, young lady,” Nora had said kindly. “If not for that night, I wouldn’t have turned my eye on Sean, and we wouldn’t be planning our wedding for next week. I wanted to thank you, personally.”

  Keely hadn’t known what to say to that, and had laughed, hearing Sean’s muffled demand, “What night?”

  “Never you mind,” Nora had told him. “It’s a woman thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

  In the decade since, Nora and Sean had kept her abreast of the goings on in Dunhaven with frequent phone calls. She counted the big publican and his sultry, redheaded wife among her few friends.

  Keely crossed the worn wooden floor to take an open stool at the bar and received a wink from Sean as he worked the tap, building a Guinness for the old-timer three stools away. He set the glass in front of the man, moved down to reach across the bar, and gave Keely’s hands a squeeze.

  “If I’d known you’d be turning yourself into such a beauty, Keely O’Brian, I’d have done a better job of fighting off the likes of Nora Murphy and waited for you.”

  A devilish gleam lit his laughing, green eyes as the door to the kitchen swung open, and Nora herself stepped out. Hefting a tray full of steaming bowls, her eyes widened in surprised welcome, and she changed direction to head Keely’s way.

  “I like that, you big clod,” she tossed Sean’s way. “If memory serves, it wasn’t me doing the chasing.”

  Sean let go of Keely’s hands and straightened. He winked at his wife.

  Nora smiled, pausing beside the stool to lean close and buss Keely’s cheek with her own. “Pay the man no mind, Keely. He fancies himself a silver tongue, he does. It’s about time you came back to stay, and welcome to you.”

  Keely smiled in return. “It’s good to see you again, Nora. You haven’t changed a bit.”

  Nora shrugged. “I’ve added a few pounds here and there. Three babies, one after the other, will do that for a woman.”

  “You haven’t gained an ounce since the day you first set your sights on me, wife, and well you know it,” Sean said with a lecherous smile for the mother of his children.

  “Mind the tap, husband,” Nora scolded, but her eyes twinkled with warmth. “And leave the flirting to the single lads.” With a wink to Keely she was off to deliver the order she carried to the table full of tourists at the back of the room.

  “What can I get you?” Sean asked, swiping at the surface of the bar with a clean towel.

  “I wouldn’t mind a pint.”

  “There’s a lass.” He went about building her one. The muscles of his forearms were thick and tanned when he set the pint before her and leaned on his elbows to give her a broad smile. “I read your book, Keely girl.”

  “I’d hoped you would. That’s why I sent you a signed copy.” And she’d wanted his approval. She took a sip and asked, “So, what did you think?”

  “I always knew your Irish blood ran true, despite the fact you’d planted yourself among the Yanks. You’ve the gift for storytelling, Keely.”

  She toasted him with her glass. “High praise indeed.” His deep chuckle vibrated through the bar. “I was wondering if you could help me with something, Sean.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “It’s about Dunhaven’s Door.”

  She should have thought of it before. If a subject was worthy of discussion, Sean Connelly, by virtue of his position behind the bar, would know of it. Rattled by Colin’s presence in her dreams, and in her mind, she hadn’t been thinking straight. Thanks to this morning’s embarrassing conversation in his office, she was now.

  “What about it?” Sean asked.

  “Table two needs a round, Sean,” Nora called out, passing by the bar to enter the kitchen. Sean stepped to the tap and took care of the order.

  “Does the name Owein ring any bells in connection to Dunhaven’s Door?” Keely asked when he returned.

  “In connection to the Door?” His brows drew together in concentration. “I assume this Owein would be a local lad?”

  Keely shrugged. “Possibly.”

  “Well, then. The only local Owein I’ve heard of is said to have ruled one of two bands of fairies who walked the shores of Dunhaven, back when the Good People did such things.”

  “Ruler of fairies?”

  “King Owein the Fine.” Sean propped his thick hands on his hips. “Like most of the legends you’ll hear, a fair amount of it is pure shite.” He returned her grin. “The trick is to be able to discern the shite from the truth. With Owein, legend claims he lost his heart to a local girl. A human girl. He married the lass, or so it’s said, and carried her off to live amongst his kind beneath the mound in the realm. The two were never seen again.” He eyed her. “You’ve heard the story of their twin babes, I know, since they had a place in your book.”

  Her pint paused half way to her mouth. She set the glass down. “The twins were this Owein’s children? Owein’s and the human girl’s?”

  “Aye, Saraid was her name.” He looked at her with raised brows. “You didn’t know?”

  “I didn’t. What happened to them?”

  “Well now, it was a long time ago. Near to three hundred years. The story goes that Saraid’s parents woke of a morning, nine months to the day of Saraid’s marriage to Owein the Fine, to find twin babes tucked into a golden basket set close to the hearth. The wee bundles had the look of their mother, they did, and so the thrilled grandparents accepted them and raised them as their own. The twins both married, when they were of an age, and went on to have babes of their own, but it’s said they suffered from a melancholy sickness. They passed within a week of each other, long before their babes were grown.”

  “That’s so sad.”

  Sean nodded. “It’s the way of legends to tug at the heart strings.”

  They were both silent a moment, then Keely said, “You said Owein and Saraid went to live beneath the mound. Would that be the mound at the Door?”

  “Could be,” Sean agreed. “It’s long been said that the Door caps a fairie raft. But remember, Keely, there were two fairie bands in Dunhaven. Whether the Door caps the raft of King Owein the Fine, or King Cael the Strong, is anyone’s guess.”

  Chapter Eight

  Colin stopped short just outside the wooden gate, running his tongue around his teeth at the sight that met his eyes. Five feet away, a sweetly rounded, denim covered ass wiggled an unknown invitation as Keely knelt on all fours at the edge of Morna’s tiny garden.

  A wide-brimmed hat sat upon her honey blonde hair, a fat braid running down her back
. When she turned her head and her profile came into view, he smiled at the smudge marring the line of her sharp cheekbone. The simple, white t-shirt bared her lightly tanned arms, and her delicate wrists disappeared into the cotton gloves covering her hands. Donovan lay sprawled on the lawn at her side.

  Colin hesitated, unsure of his welcome. Between his leeriness at tipping his hand, and Owein’s unwanted arrival in his office yesterday morning, he hadn’t handled Keely’s admission with his usual charm. She’d set aside her pride, telling him about the dreams, in order to get some answers, and though she hadn’t seemed angry when she’d fled his office, she hadn’t been happy, either. His silence must have seemed like a rebuff to her.

  The trip with Owein to the Door had been a waste of time. The ring had been just as empty and silent as Keely had proclaimed it. Owein believed the ring required both his and Keely’s presence, before it would reveal its secrets. Colin agreed, and yet found himself reluctant to join her there. He’d join her in the ring if it became necessary, but only as a last resort. Dunhaven’s Door had drawn him and Keely together. He had the uncomfortable feeling that standing in the ring with her would only serve to pull them ever closer to the common destiny Owein foresaw.

  Guilt had him eyeing the claw-like tool she wielded like a knife, stabbing and ripping at stubborn weeds. He didn’t have definitive answers to all of her questions yet, and for his own selfish reasons, he’d be doing his best to withhold the ones he did—at least for now. If she were ever to learn the entire truth, he was going to find himself facing the business end of her temper. He hoped she wasn’t gardening if and when that happened.

  “Keely?” he called.