“The D’Anu don’t believe in killing.” Her face twisted with obvious anger. “But right now I can’t help but think the Fomorii deserved it.”
She leaned forward and placed her hand on one of his knees, her expression intent, serious. “What about my sister? My mother and father?”
He paused, finding it difficult to tell her the truth.
Copper’s whole body began to shake as she waited for Tiernan’s answer. He was taking too long to respond and fear clawed her throat. “Tell me!”
He took both her hands in his and held them tight, and her fear rose. “Silver and Victor are fine.”
“My mother?” Copper felt as if her head were going to explode. “Tell me she’s okay. Please.”
He cleared his throat. He could not evade such a direct question, and he knew it. “She was mortally wounded.”
“Mortally wounded?” Copper’s voice came out hoarse, disbelieving. She snatched her hands from his and clapped one over her mouth, holding back a scream. She hadn’t heard right. Moondust wasn’t dead. She wasn’t.
“No.” She dropped her hand and shook her head. “She can’t be.”
“You have my greatest sympathy,” he said in a low voice. “I am sorry.”
Copper scrambled out of the shelter, into the pounding rain, and screamed. When she reached the apple tree, she clenched her hands. She hit it with one fist, then the other, and then again and again as she continued to scream.
Tears poured down her face, washing away with the rain. Heat then chill, heat then chill.
She was beating her fists so hard blood began to stain the trunk of the tree.
The next thing she knew, her arms were pinned to her sides by a strong embrace, and she fought to get away. She screamed and screamed, her cries never ending as she kicked back with her bare feet at the same time she continued her struggles.
“My mother isn’t dead!” She fought him harder. “My mother isn’t dead!”
The man holding her said nothing, but didn’t let her go.
She fought and fought him.
Finally, after what seemed forever and no time at all, when she had no more strength left, she sagged in his embrace. Her legs refused to support her anymore.
Tiernan turned her around and scooped her up into his arms. He cradled her, whispering soft words in Gaelic, a language she’d heard but didn’t understand. The words soothed her, yet they didn’t. Nothing would calm the pain eating away at her heart. Nothing she did, nothing he did, could bring back her mother.
Rain continued to pound down upon them. Copper’s hair was drenched and tumbled across her eyes. Her face, arms, and legs were wet, but the vine and leaf dress remained dry, as the Faerie magic shielded it. Tiernan continued to speak in the strange tongue as he gently stroked hair away from her face.
She found herself gripping his wet leather shirt, burying her face against him, and crying so hard she thought she’d never stop.
Tiernan’s heart ached for Copper, and it was almost as if her pain were his. He felt every scream, every sob, to his very bones.
Eventually Copper collapsed from exhaustion in Tiernan’s arms. Her grip on his shirt lessened and cries no longer spilled from her lips. Her body sagged and her eyelids fluttered and closed, but her body continued to shake.
He carried her through the endless rain to the small rock shelter. Her skin was cold against his chest, and he knew he needed to give her what warmth he could. He settled her on her side in the shelter so that her back was facing him, and he crawled in after her. He took his coat and covered her with it. He wrapped his arm around her waist as he molded his body to her length, tucking her head under his chin and holding his arm tight around her belly.
He held her, wishing there were some way to take away her pain.
When Copper woke, her eyelids felt heavy and swollen. Her head ached and pounded as if her heart beat inside it. Pain shot through her fists as she moved her arms, and her whole body felt as if she had been running and running for days.
For a moment she felt disoriented, as if she’d had a bad dream that she couldn’t quite remember.
Then everything came rushing back to her.
Her mother was dead. Dead.
Pressure built behind her eyes, but no tears would come, as if she were beyond crying. Her pain was so intense that she was aware of nothing else. Numbness and disbelief at losing her mother made her heart ache in her chest as if it were actually breaking. It took her breath away and it felt as though she couldn’t inhale. She was so swamped with an emptiness, a hollowness she knew would never go away.
Anger rose up so deep inside it felt like evil tingling through her limbs. At that moment she hated the Ancestors, the gods and goddesses, and everyone else in all the worlds. She felt forsaken, alone, cheated.
Something stirred behind her and she stiffened. She felt a firm body melded against hers, and something unfamiliar draped over her. When she glanced down she saw a man’s arm wrapped around her belly.
Tiernan. The man she had somehow summoned. The D’Danann who had given her the news of her mother’s death. A part of her felt relief that her sister and father had lived, but the pain of Moondust being taken from her was so great she could barely think of anything else.
She turned over, her muscles protesting with her movements. When she faced the man, she found his eyes open, his expression one of concern.
Tears she didn’t think existed washed down her cheeks and she buried her face against his chest again and cried.
When her tears would no longer come, she let out a long shuddering sigh. She felt warm, cared for in his strong arms, even though she didn’t know him. His scent of leather, male, and rain somehow comforted her, too.
She drew back a little in the cramped quarters and wiped the back of one of her hands across her eyes. “Thank you.”
“There is nothing to thank me for,” he said in that deep Irish brogue. “If I had acted sooner . . . perhaps she would have lived.”
Copper stilled, and her throat nearly closed off. She forced herself to swallow. “I would like to get up, please.”
Tiernan rolled away from her and into the early morning sunlight. He crouched and extended his hand to help her out of the shelter.
Copper allowed him to assist her in getting to her feet, but then she mumbled, “I need a few moments alone.” After she shrugged off the coat and tossed it into the shelter she walked around the long outcropping of rock and went to the location she used to relieve herself. She always buried her remains. The Fae cared for the place with magic and it never smelled or looked bad. It simply appeared to be a clean patch of earth.
When she returned, she avoided Tiernan’s gaze and cleansed her hands in the portion of the stream that flowed into the lower basin. Water dribbled over that basin and vanished into the ground, between rocks and the earth. The water felt cold and bracing, and seemed to reduce the pain in her hands from slamming her fists against the tree. Her knuckles were swollen and raw and it was hard for her to even open her hands.
She splashed a large handful of water on her face. The swelling of her eyelids and the ache in her head seemed to lessen as she splashed handful after handful of water onto her face.
When she thought she could look at him without bursting into tears again, Copper turned to Tiernan. He had simply stood and watched her, waiting for her to finish.
She almost threw herself back into his arms, needing to feel that human closeness to comfort her. Even though he wasn’t human. Even though she really didn’t know this man—this D’Danann.
Instead she shook the water from her hands and looked toward the apple tree. Her voice sounded rusty and unused as she spoke. “That’s your breakfast unless the Faeries are in a particularly good mood.”
He didn’t say anything, just looked to one of the flatter rocks on the outcropping. She glanced at it and saw more food than the Fae had ever left her before, and she almost burst into tears again. They must have felt her pai
n, must have offered the food as a way of expressing their sorrow for her.
All were foods now familiar to her, but the Fae had never given her so much at one time: a pile of pine nuts; seed cakes; apple chews; bread made from roots that tasted like pumpkin, along with a flower petal butter to spread on it; and wild berry tarts with the shell made of grass blended with seeds and nectar. It didn’t sound very appetizing, but the Fae had a way of making it taste delicious.
Some kind of creamy Fae salve that smelled of marigolds was on a large leaf from the apple tree, and she knew it was meant to apply to the wounds on her fists. The first thing she did was spread it across her knuckles. At once the swelling lessened and the pain and cuts vanished so that her knuckles looked normal again. As she was a witch, her wounds generally healed faster than normal, but this salve was amazing.
Copper took Tiernan’s hand, where he had scraped his knuckles last night, and applied the salve to his almost healed scrapes, then let his hand go.
She wasn’t hungry, but she didn’t want to insult any of the Fae, so she moved to their offerings and picked up a wild berry tart. Tiernan came up beside her and took one of the tarts and bit into it while he watched her. She nibbled hers and felt a burst of comfort and warmth, as if the Faeries had put into the food some kind of spell that would soothe the ache inside. Likely they had.
Zephyr buzzed out of the shelter and onto her ear as she ate from each offering. She felt stronger with every bite, more able to face what would come next. The food and the sense of comfort her familiar was channeling through her made Copper feel as if she could better face the truth.
Her mother was gone.
She ground her teeth. Somehow she had to get them out of there and find her mother’s killers. But first she needed more information from Tiernan—yet she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear it.
After they each finished their more than healthy breakfast, she settled on the wet grass at the base of the apple tree and hugged her knees. Zeph was flitting from one brilliant flower bloom to another by the Faerie mound. The air smelled of rain, apples, and early morning sunlight. Through the leaves of the tree she could see the sun beginning its rise in a now cloudless sky.
How could this day be beautiful when her mother was dead?
Copper felt so, so empty inside. Moondust’s passing had created a huge void that would never be filled. She knew her mother would not want her to be sorrowful. Moondust always said to rejoice for those who went on to Summerland.
Copper let out a deep shuddering sigh. Rejoice. Right.
She choked back more tears and waited for Tiernan to join her. He hadn’t said a word since he had told her he felt some responsibility for Moondust’s death.
“Tell me what happened,” she said when Tiernan sat beside her.
He was quiet for a while before he began the story of her parents coming to aid Silver in the fight against the Fomorii. How they were kidnapped, how they refused to turn to black magic to assist Darkwolf in conjuring more Formorii.
He didn’t go into detail when he told her that her mother had been murdered by the Fomorii queen on Samhain, and she was glad for that. She didn’t think she could take what were surely grotesque details of her mother’s death.
He also told her why he felt some responsibility for her mother’s death. Silver, Hawk, Cassia, and Mackenzie had been trapped by the Fomorii during that battle on Samhain. Tiernan and the other D’Danann could do nothing for fear of the four of them being murdered by Darkwolf and the Fomorii. They had to wait until the right opportunity to strike, and that was too late for Moondust.
Copper couldn’t find it in her to blame him for anything. It wasn’t his fault, even if he thought he could have better protected her mother.
When he had finished explaining all that happened, Copper couldn’t speak for a long time. She leaned her head back against the damp trunk of the tree and water leaked from the leaves above to splash on her upturned face. She didn’t mind. It somehow made her feel more connected with the world she now lived in.
Guilt stabbed at her like angry knives. If she hadn’t been banished to this place, she would have been in San Francisco to help Silver fight the Fomorii. Between the two of them they could have saved Moondust.
“If I had just been there,” a voice said, and then she realized it was coming from her. “I could have helped. Could have kept her from being murdered.”
Tiernan placed his hand on her knee and squeezed. She turned her head to look at him and met his blue eyes.
“Do not blame yourself.” His eyes held a world of caring. “You had no choice. You could not go to your family.”
“But if I hadn’t been so stupid.” She banged the back of her head against the tree trunk. “If I hadn’t followed my dream-vision and gone to the beach that night . . . if I hadn’t tried to banish that warlock . . . I would have been there for them.”
Her breath caught and she stared straight ahead, seeing nothing but a memory of Moondust. “At least I could have said goodbye to my mother.”
Eight
It was afternoon and Copper was again leaning in her favorite spot against the apple tree after a lunch of what had been leftovers from the large breakfast the Faeries had provided. She picked at a leaf on her vine dress while she watched Tiernan approach the barrier of their prison. Zephyr was off playing with the Faerie children in the flowers.
The Faerie queen appeared out of nowhere and perched on Copper’s shoulder, and Copper caught the scent of roses. She glanced at Riona and saw that the Faerie had a wicked glint in her lavender eyes.
Riona twisted a lock of her black hair with one finger and her pale purple wings opened and closed, sprinkling iridescent dust on Copper’s shoulder. “This should be fun,” Riona said in a small but sensual voice.
Copper’s lips quirked as she turned to look at Tiernan. The Fae certainly had their fun laughing at Copper every time she had tried to get through the barrier.
She glanced around the meadow and spotted the Undine poking her head above the water basin, Brownies lying in wait—no doubt to bite Tiernan’s ankles if he got too close—and Pixies flitting about like gigantic butterflies, just waiting to perform some kind of mischief. The Pixies were no larger than a human hand, but their bodies were as round as Copper’s upper arm. They had tiny green eyes, green and yellow butterfly wings, pale green skin, and malicious grins.
Of course there was no sign of the Drow because they could not tolerate sunlight.
Riona leaned forward, her elbow on her knee and her chin in her tiny hand as she watched the D’Danann warrior. Tiernan approached the invisible wall and stood there for a moment, studying its shimmer. His shoulder-length blond hair lifted from his shoulders in a light breeze, and he had an intense look on his features, as if he could will the barrier to vanish.
He brought his hand up and placed it against the wall.
The moment he touched it, a jolt shook his body. His hair frizzed and stood on end. He shouted a curse, snatched his hand away, and stumbled back a few steps.
Riona burst out in a fit of Faerie giggles and Copper snorted, trying not to laugh. But when Tiernan wheeled around, his hair looking like a long blond Afro, she couldn’t hold back her own giggles. He had such an angry expression on his face. And his hair! Goddess, how could she not laugh?
All around them tiny gales of laughter sang from the treetop, rocks, grass, and the bushes.
“What?” he shouted, tossing a look from Copper to the Faerie queen, who was nearly doubled over.
Copper bit her lip, trying to hold back one last giggle of her own. “Your, um, hair.”
Tiernan raked his fingers through his hair and his expression grew even more furious when he touched it. He used both hands, trying to get his hair to stay down, only to have it pop up again.
As soon as he marched back to the barrier, two Pixies flitted above his head and started weaving lattices, like connected rope ladders, in his hair, and tied little flowers on the many
peaks as they stuck straight up with the rest of his hair.
Riona managed to flit away before Copper rolled over from laughing so hard. Her stomach hurt and moisture dampened her eyes. It felt good to laugh after all the sadness she’d experienced since yesterday.
When she could keep a straight face, Copper righted herself. “The Faeries gave me some dandelion shampoo that you’ll have to use to get it to go back to normal.” He glanced over his shoulder, narrowed his gaze, and she tried to look serious. “You might as well do all the checking you’re going to do with your hair the way it is, ’cause touching the barrier is going to do that every time.”
Tiernan gave a curse that came out as a low growl. She knew that like her, he was feeling an urgent need to get back to her city—there was so much on the line.
Goddess. Balor, set free?
Tiernan glared around the meadow as if daring any other being to laugh and growled again when little sniggers came from various parts of the meadow. When he stalked off toward another side of the invisible wall, he stooped down to draw his sword from where he had left his belt draped over a rock. Copper called after him. “You should probably leave your weapons. Metal of any kind only makes it worse.” He grumbled and set the sword belt back down. At least in that he was listening.
She had firsthand experience. When she’d touched the end of her wand to the wall, trying to spell it away, she’d been thrown back at least ten feet from the shock of it.
A shout and a curse cut her attention back to Tiernan, who stood beside another portion of the barrier, his hair frizzier than ever with lots of flowers poking out of the mass. Muscles worked in his jaw and there was absolute fury combined with determination on his expression.
He held his hand out and began to run his fingers along the invisible wall, his arm jerking with the force of the electrical shock he was experiencing. But he didn’t stop. He kept on going, stomping through grass and bushes along the way until he had circled the entire meadow and come back to where he had started. By the time he got back, two Brownies clung to each boot and had shimmied up high enough to bite his knees through his leather pants.
Seduced by Magic Page 9
