The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance

by Trisha Telep

  The words stung, and she looked away. At least they were the truth. She would rather have that than the pretty lies he’d told her when he was human. He had turned the head of a goddess with his beautiful body and his honeyed words. He had made her love him and she would never forgive herself for that weakness. Well, she certainly wouldn’t allow him see that weakness now.

  She let all emotion drain from her face before she once again raised her eyes to his. Even her skin seemed to pale further, until she was every inch the cold, heartless goddess of legend. And he flinched. A look something akin to guilt crossed his face before he pulled his gaze from hers.

  Satisfied, she took a step away from him. “I believe I will retire to my chambers,” she informed him coldly.

  He released her wrist and gave her a low, mocking bow. “It is your castle,” he conceded.

  Morrígan arched one black brow at him. “Yes, it is.”

  Three

  From her window in the north tower Morrígan watched Cullen pace. She imagined she could hear him cursing her name. Turning away, she walked to her bed, the bed she and Cullen had lain in countless times over the centuries. She ran her fingers across the lush fur blankets and the sheets made of Faerie silk. Perhaps he would come to her tonight, despite his anger. Whatever his feelings might be, Morrígan knew he craved her body and her blood. And she had long ago convinced herself that that was enough.

  By Danu, she thought, how did something that had started out so well go so horribly wrong?

  Morrígan knew that most of the blame rested on her. She was wilful and arrogant and jealous – aye, all that and more. But she was also able to see the past in a way he could not. A thousand years was a trifling thing to her, but Cullen was young yet. The years passed more slowly for him. He had had centuries to proudly recall his accomplishments and forget his failures, to dwell on his virtues and bury his faults. She could hardly blame him for that – it was what humans did – but she remembered his mortal life very clearly, as if it had happened a month ago instead of a millennium. Perhaps she had tricked him but, truthfully, all she had done was set the bait. Cullen had sprung the trap himself.

  But she did not expect him to remember it that way, for was it not easier to cast her as the villain than to be forced to admit to himself that greed and pride had been the downfall of the great Cúchulainn?

  Four

  The castle of King Conchobar of Ulster

  In the twilight of the Old Religion

  It was dark and the castle was quiet, or at least as quiet as castles ever were. Morrígan strode through the halls of Conchobar’s stronghold with little regard to stealth. She was the Great Phantom Queen, the shadows themselves bent to her will, and she would not be seen by human eyes unless she wished it so.

  When she found his door, she paused. He was the key to all her future plans and she must get this right. She had been waiting so long for him. Smoothing the crimson fabric of her cloak, she scoffed at her nerves. Anxiety was such a human emotion. If she couldn’t accomplish this simple task then she deserved to be devoured by the Demon Horde. Human males were so malleable, after all. One could lead them anywhere by their phallus or their sword arm. And Morrígan intended to use whatever means necessary to get what she wanted. Silently, she pushed open the door and slipped inside.

  He was sitting with his back to her, waist deep in a hip bath in front of the fire. That surprised her, for humans (and men in particular) seemed to have little concern for cleanliness. She had not made a sound, but he sensed her. In one fluid movement he grabbed the sword from the table next to him and stood, spinning around to face her. The look of surprise on his face almost matched her own.

  By the Goddess, he was lovely. He was young, no longer a boy but barely a man. The muscles of his body were lean and firm. She preferred a heavier build on a man, but that would come with age. Already his face was perfection – cheekbones that could rival her own; a strong, square jaw; and lips that any woman would long to kiss. His hair, which fell just past his shoulders, fascinated her. Black at the roots, it then changed to brown and again to a coppery blond. It was his eyes that held her though. They were the dark green of a Faerie forest with flecks of golden sunlight. The emotions behind them ranged from shock to suspicion as they frankly assessed her.

  “Lay down your sword, Cullen. I mean you no harm.”

  His body relaxed (well, parts of it anyway) and he lowered the blade. “You have the wrong room, my lady. There is no one here by that name.”

  She smiled and strolled further into his chamber, taking note of the sparse furnishings – a bed, a table and chair, and little else. She would have thought King Conchobar’s nephew would have more lavish quarters.

  “I have not mistaken my destination,” she replied. “Your parents call you Sétanta. The people call you Cúchulainn. May I not have my own name for you?”

  For a moment he was drawn in by her sweet smile, then his eyes narrowed. “Who are you?” he demanded. “You are not from Ulster.”

  “Are you so certain?” she asked, cocking her head to one side.

  “I think I would remember crossing paths with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You aren’t one of Conchobar’s subjects.”

  “No, I am not,” Morrígan agreed, pleased with his compliment.

  “Are you one of Queen Medb’s spies, then?”

  “I am not your enemy,” she assured him. “In fact, I have every reason to believe that you and I will become firm allies.”

  Impatiently he stepped from the tub and raised his sword. “That is not an answer. I ask you again, lady. Who are you?”

  “I am Morrígan, goddess of war. I hear your prayers before every battle, Cullen, and tonight I am here to answer them.”

  He stared at her for a moment and then threw back his head and laughed. Irritated, Morrígan raised her arm and Cullen’s sword was ripped from his grasp, flying through the air and into her outstretched hand.

  “Any sorceress could do that,” Cullen scoffed.

  Morrígan arched one black brow at him. “Perhaps,” she conceded. “But could anyone other than a goddess do this?”

  She moved, faster than his eyes could track her, and before he could react her body was pressed against his. Her hands were suddenly on either side of his face and Cullen grasped her hips to steady them both. She looked into his eyes.

  “Hold on,” she said, a moment before the room went black and the floor disappeared from under his feet.

  The sensation that followed was not a pleasant one. It felt as though his body was being turned inside out and Cullen gritted his teeth at the pain. Blessedly, it only lasted a moment and then his feet were on solid ground again. Morrígan released him and he fell to his knees, unable to get his bearings and stay upright.

  “What did you do?” he gasped.

  “I have brought you across the Veil,” she said proudly. “Welcome to Faerie, Cullen.”

  Five

  When he opened his eyes Cullen found himself in a world he did not recognize. He knelt before Morrígan in the centre of a small meadow surrounded by lush, green trees. A full moon rode high in the sky, gilding everything with its silver light. Nearby, a doe and her fawn, startled by the intrusion, rushed for the protective cover of the tree line. But none of this convinced him that he truly was in Faerie. What did was the fact that everything, from the stars in the sky to the grass under his feet, sparkled. He had never seen anything like it and he knew he never would again.

  “Goddess,” he whispered reverently, bowing his head in supplication, “I beg your forgiveness.”

  Morrígan placed her hand under his chin and tipped his face up so that she could look into those beautiful green eyes.

  “Cullen, we cannot dally here. Time moves differently in Faerie so we must seal our bargain quickly.”

  “Bargain?” he asked, confused.

  Morrígan cocked her head to one side. “Tell me, what is the one thing that you want most in the world? If you
could shape your future any way it pleased you, what would you wish for?”

  Cullen was silent for a moment, but it was not indecision that made him pause, it was the fear of actually putting into words what his heart most longed for. Finally, he said, “I would be the greatest warrior Eire has ever seen.”

  Morrígan knelt in front of him, cupping his face in her hands. “Men will fear you, women will want you, and no army will be able to stand against you,” she promised fiercely. “In 1,000, nay, 2,000 years bards will still tell tales of the epic battles of the great Cúchulainn. I can give you all that and more, and I require only one thing in return.”

  His eyes lit up at the prospect of attaining such glory. “Anything,” he whispered.

  “When your mortal life has ended and I come to claim you in death, instead of going to the Summerlands you must pledge your afterlife to my service. In return for that you will be young and strong forever, Cullen. And I will make you the king of an army the likes of which no man has ever led. Will you strike this bargain with me?”

  “I will gladly, my goddess,” he answered earnestly.

  Morrígan ran her fingers down the sides of his neck, over his shoulders, and across the firm muscles of his chest. She looked up into his eyes and smiled seductively as she slid the cloak from her body, the red cloth pooling like blood on the grass. He stared down at the pale perfection of her naked body.

  “Then let us seal this covenant, my young warrior. By flesh and blood I will bind us,” she said, her lips a mere breath away from his. “Come, Cullen. Let me give you everything you have ever desired.”

  He pulled her against him, claiming her mouth in a scorching kiss that would change them both, irrevocably and eternally.

  Six

  Morrígan laid her head on Cullen’s chest, surprisingly sated. She rarely took a human to her bed; she found them generally uninspiring, but Cullen was different. What he lacked in experience, he certainly made up for in enthusiasm. Morrígan smiled, thinking of all the wondrous things she would teach him in the coming years.

  “Why me?” he asked softly, pulling her mind back from its wicked imaginings.

  “I have seen you fight,” she replied. “There is no grace in your skill nor beauty in your movements. You simply overpower your opponents – hard and rough and dirty.”

  Cullen stiffened, believing her comment to be a criticism. “What need have I of grace when I have victory?” he asked arrogantly.

  Morrígan laughed and propped her chin on his chest, looking up at him with a smile. “That is exactly why I chose you, Cullen. You intrigue me. Besides,” she said as she raked her fingernails back and forth across his skin, “I like it hard and rough and dirty.”

  In one swift movement he rolled her over, pinning her to the ground beneath him. The look on his face held none of the virtues she had just mentioned though. The expression in his eyes was so tender that she swallowed the naughty comment she was about to make and waited for him to speak.

  “You are so beautiful it almost hurts to look at you,” he said, running his fingers through her raven hair. “I never want to stop touching you. Will we have this . . . forever, Morrígan?”

  A surge of panic went through her at his question. She was not the sort of woman to put any man and the word “forever” together in the same sentence. The closest thing she had to “forever” was her annual mating with Dagda, which ended the winter season and brought spring to her people. And if she had a choice, which she didn’t, she wouldn’t even have that relationship. She did her duty though, always, and she rarely had a choice in any of it. But now, with this man, she did. She had chosen him and suddenly, surprisingly, the thought of forever did not tie her stomach up in knots. Her mind wasn’t racing to find a reason to rebuff his offer. Instead it was racing in an entirely different direction – imagining hours, days, centuries, spent in his arms and his company.

  “Yes,” she replied. “We will have this forever.”

  Seven

  How Morrígan wished those words had been true. They did have several wonderful years together, happy and carefree years, before the taint of anger and betrayal touched them.

  Before each battle Morrígan would come to him. They would spend hours making love, Cullen eager to learn everything she could teach him. Afterwards, while he slept, Morrígan would drag one sharp, black fingernail across her wrist and spill a few drops of her precious blood into his mouth. Her blood made him strong and she made him fearless. He went into each battle, accepted each challenge, with the knowledge that he could not be killed. Because she would not allow it.

  Morrígan fulfilled her end of their bargain with enthusiasm. The name of Cúchulainn became feared and revered throughout the Celtic world. He was a walking legend. He was everything she had promised, and more.

  As for herself, Morrígan found the time she spent with him to be the most pleasurable moments of her entire existence. With him she was not a goddess of war, she was not a harbinger of death, she was simply the woman he loved. And love her he did, with wild abandon. When he slid the clothes from her body, all her cares, all her worries, went with them and for those brief hours time stood still.

  But it wasn’t only their physical relationship that she enjoyed. Often she would take him into Faerie for an hour or two and they would spar in the meadow, the great warrior against the goddess of war. Sometimes she would even let him win. And after they laid down their swords they talked of the great battles of the past, battles that she had seen and that he was eager to learn from. It was his companionship that Morrígan valued above all else. Friends were not a luxury one often found in the pantheon.

  It was perfect, perhaps too perfect to last. Every war has a turning point and Morrígan clearly remembered theirs – that one moment when you realize that nothing will ever be the same again.

  Cullen had just returned from the festival of Imbolc when Morrígan came to him unexpectedly. There was no impending battle, no pressing reason that he needed the strength her blood provided. She simply wanted to see him, wanted to erase from her mind the memory of Dagda’s hands on her as they performed the ritual that would usher in the spring. Unfortunately, she could not as easily erase the evidence of the event from her body.

  Cullen was trailing kisses up the inside of her thigh when he noticed the bruises. He paused and then slowly sat up, reaching one hand out to tentatively touch her skin. He laid his palm on her thigh, his fingertips covering each of the five purple marks.

  “Who has touched you?” he whispered harshly.

  She sat up, noticing for the first time the bruises Dagda’s hands had made upon her thighs. Morrígan was immortal but Dagda was a king among the gods. She could not immediately heal the damage he inflicted, as she could any other wound.

  “Dagda is a beast,” she said, her disgust evident in her voice. “Let’s not think of him, my love. In fact, I was rather hoping you would help me forget.”

  Morrígan reached for him but Cullen pulled away, staring at her in horror. She would remember the expression on his face for all eternity. It was the moment when everything changed.

  “You let him make love to you?” he asked incredulously.

  “Well, I would hardly call it making love,” she replied. “And it isn’t as though I had any say in the matter. It is my duty and it must be done. Surely you know that, Cullen.”

  He shook his head. “I just thought of it as a legend, a story like so many others. I never thought . . .” His words grew softer but his eyes grew harder as he regarded her. “I never thought that you would betray our love.”

  Morrígan leaped from the bed. “I have done nothing of the sort!” she snapped, her temper rising. “I am a goddess, Cullen, and you cannot hold me to the same morals as your simpering human women. The rituals must be performed. Would you rather I hadn’t done it? Would you rather live in eternal winter until every man, woman and child in Eire dies of starvation because the crops cannot grow? That is the price of my fidelity, Cul
len. Would you pay it to serve nothing more than your vanity?”

  He looked away, having no answer to such a question.

  “I thought not,” she said coldly. “I do what I must, Cullen. It does not touch what you and I have. If you throw away what we have because you cannot accept that, then you are a fool.”

  She waited for him to say something, anything, but he did not. Feeling as though he had driven the Sword of Nuada through her heart, she vanished in a blinding flash of light.

  Eight

  After that Cullen began taking human lovers. Morrígan told herself that was how it should be. After all, she would have him for eternity. It would be selfish of her to deny him the experience of a human life and all that it entailed. But no matter how she rationalized it, it still hurt. She still went to him; she had to. He needed her blood to fulfil their bargain and she would not allow all her plans to be ruined because she had been foolish enough to lose her heart to a human.

  Sometimes she came to him at night while he slept, giving him her blood without ever waking him. And sometimes she came to him as she had before, simply because she missed the feel of his hands on her skin. He never again mentioned Dagda and she steadfastly refused to acknowledge the presence of any other woman in his life. They would make love and then spend hours afterwards, talking and laughing. In time it was almost as it had been before. Almost.

  Things had changed between them and Morrígan could not pretend otherwise. It was as though all that resentment and doubt was a black cloud hovering just outside, pushing at the door, looking for any crack it could use to seep back in. And then one night Cullen opened the door and the black cloud rushed in, engulfing them both.

  She was lying in his arms, content and happy, when he suddenly announced, “I’m getting married, Morrígan.”

  She went very still, a coldness washing over her. “Is this your idea of vengeance?” she asked calmly.

  “Of course not,” he replied, genuinely shocked. “Why would you say such a thing?”

  Morrígan sat up and looked down at him. “What else am I to think, Cullen?”