by A. C. James
“He can’t talk to you right now. He said Ma isn’t doing well, and he can’t see you,” Maelíosa said.
Tomas’s face darkened. “Aye, let’s step outside and wait, shall we?”
He wrapped one arm around Maelíosa and the other around Niall, guiding them outside into the darkening air. A storm was coming.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” Tomas said slowly. “Just play quietly with each other, and I’ll wait for any word from your father.”
Maelíosa didn’t want to play. Her mother’s screams were terrifying, and all she could think about was her father’s face. He’d always been strong. She’d never seen him look scared until he’d opened the door to the inner chamber.
“She’s awake again,” Cyn said. The panic in her voice was obvious, and Maelíosa struggled to open her eyes. “What should we do?”
“We’re doing all we can,” Sage said. “Craig, can you drop us off near the veil?”
“I’ll get you as close as I can,” Craig said.
He squeezed Maelíosa’s stomach and she cried out with pain. “I’m holding the wound, but she’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Ariel can help as soon as we get back,” Fallon said. “I’m sure everything’s going to be fine.”
The pain in her abdomen was getting sharper. She moaned. There was someone stroking her head. Her limbs were cold—her whole body was chilled—and she couldn’t even move to wrap herself up.
“Blanket,” Maelíosa managed to say. “Please...please cover me...” Her eyes closed again and she was sinking back into the darkness. “Please... So....so cold...”
Her teeth were clattering.
“We’re landing soon. Maelíosa, just hang on. Can you hear my voice? Stay focused, stay with us.”
Maelíosa fought the urge to slip under the cover of blackness once again. There was a dull thud below her as the plane landed. At least she was in so much pain that flying again wasn’t the worst of it. It was almost enough to make her laugh, if she hadn’t been shot in the gut.
Fingers curled around her own, and she realised that Cyn was holding her hand. “We’re almost there. “Ariel will know what to do.”
Maelíosa blinked. The darkness was washing over her in waves, and she was powerless to keep her lids from closing. The world around her faded.
Hours later, Fallon emerged from the hut. His face was bloodless. He looked at his children, then buried his face in his hands.
Tomas went to his side. “Sire, what is the matter? How is Aileen?”
“She’s dead.”
The words hung in the air. Maelíosa stared. No, he couldn’t mean that, surely she’d misheard him. All her emotions rose to her throat, where they burned.
She couldn’t breathe, but she managed to make her mouth move. “Da, no. She can’t be dead! Ariel can fix anything!”
Niall stared at them both, his face a grim mask of shock. Maelíosa reached out for his hand, but he yanked it away. He stared at Fallon in disbelief.
“Tell us, Father,” Niall said, a rising note of hysteria in his voice. “Tell us that Ariel can heal her. She’s going to be fine.”
Fallon’s head hung low. “Not everything can be fixed. She...she is dead.”
She learned that day that sometimes there wasn’t enough magic in the world to make everything all right. Tomas wrapped his arm around Fallon’s sagging shoulders, and her father buried his face in his friend’s neck. A queer feeling came over her. Her legs wobbled and she collapsed to the ground, not even feeling the impact of a rock as she sat down hard. She held onto the grass, needing to feel something real, something solid. It didn’t help. Her whole body was numb, and the ground was moving. Or she was spinning. Maelíosa couldn’t tell which.
“What happened?” Tomas asked.
“The birth was difficult,” Fallon said in a strangled voice. “Ariel said the baby was breech, but she thought she could handle it. She’d lost too much blood. She was cut, birthing the child. Ariel said there was no other way, and she bled out. There was no way to stop it...”
“Make her bring her back.” Niall yelled. “Make her fix my mother!”
Yes, bring her back from the dead. It sounded reasonable and possible to Maelíosa at the time.
“Aye, Ariel can bring her back. Please, Father! Please! She can’t be dead.” Her voice rose to a fever pitch.
Fallon lifted his face and stared at his children as if seeing them for the first time. “That’s a magic you don’t mess with. She’s gone.”
The door to the hut swung open, and Maelíosa somehow expected Aileen, a radiant smile on her beautiful face. Instead, it was Ariel, with a wrinkled, pink newborn cradled in her arms.
“Fallon, this is your daughter. She needs you. She’ll need you to hold her and care for her,” Ariel said slowly.
Maelíosa stared at the baby. In her heart, she wanted to hate the child who’d killed her mother, but the newborn’s mewling cries and pink skin inspired more than pity; love swelled inside her chest.
“Give her to me,” Maelíosa said before she could even think about the words coming out of her mouth. “I’ll take her.”
Maelíosa woke to find she was being carried over a great green hill. Sage had wrapped her against him, and Cyn was walking beside them, still holding Maelíosa’s hand.
“She’s awake,” Cyn said softly.
“Don’t speak,” Sage said, glancing down into his mate’s face. He cracked a worried smile at her. “Just stay quiet, and save your energy. I was a little worried back there. You were dreaming. Something bad musta been going on in that pretty head of yours.”
Maelíosa stared up at him. I was dreaming about my mother. About death.
“The veil...” Cyn said. She looked down at Maelíosa and smiled. “We’re almost there. You hang on. Felicity and your nieces, everyone’s going to be waiting for you.”
“Babe, I bet they’re gonna throw one helluva party as soon as you’re better,” Sage said with a chuckle.
She could tell he was trying to lighten the atmosphere and hide how he really felt. He hefted Maelíosa up the stone steps leading to the veil.
“We made it!” Maelíosa heard her father’s voice crowing triumphantly. She tried to prop herself up in Sage’s arms, but pain shot through her abdomen as she shifted her weight. There was warm wetness between her body and Sage’s.
“Just a few minutes longer, babe,” Sage said.
Maelíosa couldn’t help it. The familiar scent of the sea and home welcomed the blissful darkness that poured over her. She closed her eyes, and within a few minutes she was out.
Chapter Five
The familiar hut was up ahead, smoke pouring out of the chimney. Sage tightened his grip on Maelíosa—after carrying her for almost a mile, he had to admit that his arms ached. Even with Cyn helping apply pressure to the wound, he supported the bulk of Maelíosa’s weight. She flopped in his grip. Sage shifted her, pulling one hand free to wipe his brow.
Sage groaned. “She passed out again.”
“Aye, she probably needs her rest,” Tomas said.
“She’ll be okay,” Fallon said with authority. “We’re almost to the healer’s hut.”
“Come on, let’s keep going,” Sage said.
Fallon shed his clothes and shifted into his stallion form. He took off at a gallop toward the cottage. Sage struggled to shift his own pace into a higher gear. His muscles were burning by the time he reached the cabin.
Ariel was standing in the doorway, clucking her tongue. “What’ve you gotten yourselves into?”
“She’s been shot,” Sage said.
He and Cyn pushed past Ariel and laid Maelíosa down on the bed in the healer’s inner chamber. The air was steamy and smoky with herbs and oils. Sage coughed, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He assumed Cyn’s position and applied pressure to the gun shot. There was so much blood. Worry flashed through his head.
“Will she be okay?” Cyn asked quietly.
; She’d moved to a bench, looking exhausted. Fallon immediately went to her side, sat down and pulled her hand into his lap.
“It’s a fucking mess,” Sage said, turning toward Ariel. “She was shot in the stomach. And she’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know whether or not the bullet hit any of her internal organs.”
“Has she been asleep the whole time?”
Sage ran a hand through his hair. “No. She was fading in and out of consciousness in the plane. Craig picked us up outside of London and flew us back here.”
Ariel nodded. “Give me a second.”
The older woman ground some herbs together with a mortar and pestle, turning them into a fragrant paste. She walked over to Maelíosa and pulled the woman’s shirt up. Sage cringed at the sight of the wound, but he’d seen bloodier as a SEAL. At least it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. It was a small, almost innocuous mark, and looking at it now, Sage had a hard time believing his mate had lost so much blood.
“Is she going to be okay?” Cyn asked again.
Ariel turned around. “Too early to tell.”
Sage appreciated the woman’s honesty. The mate bond was pulling him toward Maelíosa. He didn’t want to leave her side.
Ariel patted Maelíosa’s abdomen with skilled, wizened hands. “I can’t feel the bullet.”
Sage glanced down at his mate’s prone figure. “It’s in there somewhere. I didn’t see an exit wound.”
“Aye,” Ariel said. “You go wait over there. I won’t have you in the way just yet.”
“Hurry,” Sage pleaded.
He paced back and forth while Ariel rubbed the herbal mixture over the small circular wound on Maelíosa’s stomach. Maelíosa groaned, but her eyes didn’t open. Sage watched in horror as the wound began bleeding anew.
“That’s good, that’s good,” Ariel cooed under her breath.
Sage didn’t see what was so good about his mate bleeding. The healer lifted a bowl to Maelíosa’s side and caught the blood pouring out. Sage gasped when Ariel set the bowl to the side—the blood was almost black, and smelled foul.
Maelíosa’s face already had a little color by the time the wound stopped bleeding. She groaned again and shifted in her sleep. Ariel waved a hand over her body, then lifted both hands in the air, chanting. Sage watched, fascinated, as the skin on Maelíosa’s abdomen rippled and moved under Ariel’s hands. The bullet soared into the air and landed neatly in the blood-filled bowl with a small plinking noise. Sage raced over to the bowl and yanked the slug out. It looked complete; a reassuring sign that it hadn’t shattered anywhere inside of her body.
“Was this in an organ?” Sage held the bullet up and turned toward Ariel. “Where was it?”
Ariel shook her head, her eyes sparkling. “It just missed her liver. Your mate is going to be just fine, lad.”
Sage could have collapsed in relief. Ariel began moving her hands over Maelíosa’s body once more. The same yellow beam of light that had healed his cancer swirled over her body in great, golden spirals before disappearing into her abdomen. Her eyelids fluttered and opened. Sage rushed to his mate and picked up her cold, clammy hand. She blinked a few times, then focused on his face.
“Sage?” Maelíosa’s voice was a dry croak.
Sage had never been happier to hear her speak.
“Sage, what happened?”
He couldn’t help it—a grin crept across his face and stayed there, stretching his cheeks almost painfully. “Ariel fixed you up, baby. She knew exactly what to do.”
“Aye, she would,” Maelíosa said softly. “What about Cyn?”
Sage frowned. “What about her? She’s right here, and you saved her by taking that bullet.”
Maelíosa’s face darkened. “She was bleeding. She thought she was having a miscarriage, back in that basement.”
Fallon growled. He turned toward his wife. “Is this true?”
Cyn nodded, her face white with fear. “I...didn’t want to say anything at first because of Maelíosa. She needed Ariel more than me. I had stomach cramps and I was bleeding, but I don’t know whether or not I lost the wee one.”
Ariel walked over to Cyn and wrapped an arm around her. Tears were shimmering in Cyn’s eyes. “Come here. Let’s take a look.”
Sage eased Maelíosa down from the table as Cyn hefted herself up. Ariel prodded at her belly.
“How many weeks along are you, child?” Ariel asked, rubbing her hands over Cyn’s stomach.
Sage had an odd feeling of foreboding. The mate bond tugged at him, and he turned toward Maelíosa. Her face was drawn and tight.
“What’s going on?” Sage whispered.
Maelíosa shook her head. “I can’t talk about it right now,” she whispered. “I just want to make sure that she’s alright.” She held a finger to her lips and gestured for him to be quiet.
Ariel clucked her tongue. Cyn winced in obvious pain from her touch, but didn’t shrink away.
“About twelve weeks,” Cyn said softly. “Maybe twelve and a half.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Cyn buried her face in her hands.
“There, there,” Ariel said.
“Tell me, did I lose the baby?” Her voice was edged with desperation and sadness.
Maelíosa winced, and Sage squeezed his mate’s hand.
“Hold on, child,” Ariel said smoothly. “Lie down for me.”
Ariel examined Cyn in an increasingly tense room. Sage watched curiously as Ariel pulled a device down from the wall that sort of looked like a stethoscope, but with a larger cup at the end. She pushed Cyn’s legs apart and held the device there, listening.
“I think the baby’s fine,” Ariel said after a moment. “You were probably bleeding from a fall. Did you fall down, dear?”
Cyn sniffled and nodded. “Those arseholes pushed me into the van. And then I fell once in the basement.”
Ariel nodded. “Are you still bleeding?”
Cyn shook her head. “No.”
The healer looked satisfied as she patted Cyn on the belly. “No harm done.”
“I was so afraid I’d lost the baby,” Cyn said.
Sage pressed his lips to the top of Maelíosa’s head, but she turned her face up for a kiss. A flame passed between them as their lips touched. He wrapped his arms around his mate, cherishing the feel of her safe in his arms, right where she belonged. He couldn’t have lost her; they’d only just found one another. Sage was so grateful everything had turned out all right... Not all missions did. Suddenly, the door to the hut burst open. Felicity and Mara spilled inside, along with Niall, Tomas, and Kieran.
“Cyn! Maelíosa!” Felicity cried. “You’ve given us such a bloody fright!”
“I had a bloody fright,” Cyn grumbled. “But Ariel says I’m fine.”
Felicity hugged Cyn, who looked from her best friend to Fallon. “And I didn’t lose the baby!”
Fallon was grinning—a smile so wide that it threatened to cut his face in two. His father-in-law looked every inch a ruler, albeit a very tired, worn-out one.
“You’re the real hero, Maelíosa,” Cyn said.
“No, I—”
Cyn hopped off the table and walked toward Maelíosa and Sage, cutting his wife off. She turned toward the crowd huddled inside the tiny hut. “If it hadn’t been for Maelíosa jumping in front of me, I would have been the one shot.”
Felicity gasped.
Cyn’s lip trembled as she continued. “And I would definitely have lost the baby then.”
Fallon had admiration in his eyes, but Sage could tell his wife wasn’t crazy about all this damn attention.
“I can’t believe you saved my life. Thank you so much.” Cyn was crying, and Maelíosa began to tear up right along with her. “We wouldn’t be here without you.”
Sage knew his mate well enough to know that she wasn’t the most emotional woman in the world, but this day was enough to make even the most stoic person break down and cry. Maelíosa stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Cy
n, hugging her close.
“I love you,” Maelíosa said. She pulled away and wrinkled her nose. “Even if we didn’t always get along.”
Cyn smirked. “You thought I was a bloody bitch.”
Everyone laughed. Sage didn’t quite get it, but he’d ask his wife about it later.
Maelíosa snorted. “That’s being a little unfair. I just wanted the best for my da. You can’t blame me for that.”
Cyn shrugged. “I suppose I can’t.”
Maelíosa turned to Fallon with a smug look. “And Da, are you ready to be a father again? You’re getting a little old to be chasing around a babby.”
“That’s what my young mate is for,” Fallon said.
Everyone burst out laughing.
Felicity stepped close to Maelíosa and Cyn. “You both need rest.”
“Aye,” Fallon said agreeably. “That they do...”
Kieran stepped forward from the crowd. “I’m glad you’re alright,” he said to Maelíosa.
Sage frowned. He couldn’t help but notice the younger man was a bit reticent. What was his deal? Before Sage could pull Kieran aside and ask him, Tomas and Mara stepped forward and joined the group.
Tomas wrapped an arm around his mate and pulled Mara close. “I’m so glad you’ve pulled through. We were all quite worried. I felt guilty about not being there. Someone wouldn’t let me go,” Mara said.
“You’re fine,” Maelíosa said. Cyn chuckled.
Sage remembered Tomas mentioning his mate had been sick for a few weeks.
“Tomas, thank you,” Cyn said softly. “Well chuffed and happy to be here, thankfully.”
“D’you think any of those arseholes survived?” Tomas asked, turning to Sage.
Sage shrugged, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “We hit those fuckers pretty damn good with that blast. I’d be fuckin’ shocked if any of them made it through. But if they do they’re gonna rue the day they fucked with my mate.”
Maelíosa laughed. She stood proudly next to him. Looking at her, Sage was hit with a burst of love. He couldn’t believe that she was his forever—his mate, and his woman to love. She was everything.
