by S A Archer
She turned the page, becoming more engrossed in the hand scribed text. There was so much more to being a druidess than she’d guessed. So much more than Lugh even hinted at. Her fingers toyed with Lugh’s symbol that she wore like a charm on a necklace. He’d told her a few things that the charm could do, but she’d not had cause to test it. But as Lugh’s druidess, there was so much more magic available to her than just this charm that linked her to him. Magic that could make defending him, and herself, so much easier.
“Stop, Rhiannon,” Lugh growled irritably at his companion, and then jerked back the curtain around the bed.
London kicked off the blanket even as he climbed naked out of the bed. Of course, she’d seen him nude before. They’d shagged more than once, if that dark purging of his need for blood and sex while he flooded her with his beastly dark magic could be called shagging. More like erotic agony. But even still, her gaze followed the beauty of his tall and toned body even as she jammed her feet into her shoes and tucked the journal back inside the jacket she wore.
“Where is Manannan?” he growled, as if she might know. He stormed toward the door, caring nothing for his naked state.
London snatched up the black jeans he’d discarded onto the floor the night before. “Lugh!”
He cut his dark blue eyes her way just in time to snatch the jeans she tossed at him.
London was on her feet and just caught up to him by the time he’d jerked them on. She pushed open the door, taking the lead, even though he wouldn’t have allowed her to if she’d not beaten him to it. But he wasn’t taking one wit of precaution, and they were not in friendly territory. The Isle of Man crawled with wizards and Changelings. And even these Sidhe, this Rhiannon and Manannan, gave her the creeps.
As she’d suspected, more than one Changeling loitered in the hallway, standing guard no doubt.
Speed walking to keep up with Lugh, London glanced into the face of everyone they passed in the halls of the mansion, fixing them into her memory. Not all of them seemed to be Changelings, but then again, with the shape-shifting fey, could one ever be certain? Only Deacon, who’d been right outside the door to Lugh’s chamber, kept paced with them. The others just followed with their eyes until they passed them, and then fell into a loose formation behind.
“Just bloody great,” London grumbled.
Lugh’s strides grew longer with the fury of his beast taking him over. He flung open the double doors to a massive room that could have been a ballroom, or some king’s courtroom. It was lavishly decorated as such, with elaborate marble designs on the floor in some Celtic knotwork pattern more exotic and extensive than any she’d ever seen before. Massive chandeliers as wide as a dining room table hung from the ceiling fifteen feet over her head. Most of the room was empty, with a dais to one side and a massive balcony opposite them that opened to the night outside.
The Sidhe that Lugh sought was there, and turned at the sound of the doors banging open. He didn’t seem the least bothered by Lugh’s snarled accusations.
London caught the flick of Manannan’s eyes toward Deacon, and she read his meaning. London reached for her gun.
Not quite as fast as Deacon was with the knife. He was in front of her, knife tip dimpling the soft flesh under her jaw. His vicious grin dared her to challenge him.
But no one was getting between London and her patron. If Manannan wanted her detained, then something bad was about to go down. Even as she sucked in a breath to shout a warning, Deacon’s hand clamped over her mouth. Three more Changelings grabbed her from behind and the lot of them dragged her backward.
London struggled. Fought to get at her gun.
Deacon’s hand grabbing her bum, and then slid up until he jerked her gun from its holster at her low back. Leaning close to her ear, he hissed, “Settle down, luv. This won’t take long.”
London’s eyes widened as she witnessed what happened next. Her screams muted against the hand over her mouth. All her vain struggles failed to free her… or protect Lugh.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Waking with a stretch, Donovan reached out, seeking the smoothness of Kaitlin’s skin. Her scent lingered. The gravity of her presence pressed solidly into the mattress beside him. But as Donovan’s hand sought her lithe figure, he grasped only the satin of his black sheets. He reached farther across his king-sized bed, anticipating the touch of flesh and finding none. Finally, his eyes slit open to confirm what his partially awake mind began to comprehend.
He was alone in his bed. And had been all night.
Though he felt the presence of the young woman, curled in slumber, she was not beside him. Just one of the lingering effects of the linkage that the bloodhound had forged between Donovan and Kaitlin.
Groaning, Donovan rolled to his back. Tapping the golf ball sized enchantment on the bedside table illuminated all of the fairy lights throughout his flat with a soft glow. Had he tapped it twice in quick succession they would have burned brighter, but he wasn’t ready for that much reality just yet.
Not that reality showed him any mercy. Kaitlin lived because of their connection. Because through him the magic of the ley lines flowed into her, sustaining her magic and her life. The bloodhound had only followed his instincts when saving the young woman, with no thought to the consequences, leaving Donovan to feel this woman at all times.
How had Danu managed the connection to all of the fey in the whole of the Mounds for ages?
Even as Donovan showered, his thoughts tugged back to Kaitlin. The dream of her with him. Awareness of her always lingered, like a delicate hand Touching his chest. Without effort, whenever his thoughts turned to her, he knew exactly where she was and what she was doing. With his thoughts upon her now, he felt when she stirred, awaking to the day wrapped in Kieran’s arms. No doubt their vigorous nighttime exertions intruded unwelcomed into his slumber, contributing to this hangover. Compartmentalizing the awareness to grant her some semblance of privacy, allowed him to relegate the sensations to the back of his mind. It didn’t silence the influx of magic energy, only dampened it to a tolerable background melody.
If everything worked as planned, once the fey realm was created Kaitlin would no longer depend upon Donovan to live. Then he would see about severing this connection.
But until then, he’d set himself to ignoring the link to the girl. After all, like all of the fey of the Mounds, Donovan had been connected to the realm’s magic through Danu. And though he was continuously bound to her, he’d been so accustomed to that lingering hint of a Touch that, for the most part, he’d come not to notice it.
Until she’d been murdered. Then the loss of her had torn away a piece of him that would forever leave a void.
His damp hair dribbled rivulets down the muscles of his bare back as he walked barefoot into the kitchen of his underground flat. He’d not picked out the stone-washed jeans that he wore, but the Brownie that stocked his closet apparently has a sense of humor. Not that Donovan would complain, the soft wear to the denim made them move comfortably with him. Donovan poured himself a large glass of chilled tea with enough caffeine to jolt awake even a dragon. The chiming of a text message on his cell phone echoed of the reality that would not wait for him to eat breakfast. Only a few people would risk disturbing him this early. As Donovan downed the first bracing gulps of his tea, he thumbed the phone’s screen until it confessed the name of the culprit.
Malcolm. The bloodhound probably hadn’t bothered to sleep all night, once he’d gotten his hands on those artifacts.
Carrying his glass with him, Donovan teleported directly into the war room. What he experienced when he lifted his gaze caused him to pause. And then blink several times, as if the sleep hadn’t completely cleared from his vision.
Yesterday, Malcolm’s ‘artifact puzzle’ spanned an area of perhaps only ten feet wide and nearl
y six feet tall. Then, the artifacts floating in the invisible enchantment had merely gleamed, catching glints from the overhead lighting as they twirled. The collection as a whole rotated slowing through a circular path about its center like some gravity or magnetism captured them into a slowly spiraling path. Breathtakingly unique. A silent mystery that frequently captivated the bloodhound into mesmerized contemplation, as he alone could sense the weave of magic.
Now, Donovan scarcely breathed, as if the very stir of his breath might disturb the golden mist hovering in a rough globe of magic that consumed the majority of the large oval room. Leaving a buffer of about two feet around the periphery, the glowing vapor of enchantment now spread forty feet across and brushed against the fifteen-foot ceiling. Slowly, it continued to rotate like a nebula with the artifacts traveling within like trapped stars, flickering with an innate light. That he could see it at all meant that the magic was growing closer to manifesting. Becoming something more than incorporeal. Becoming real.
Opening his mouth to speak, Donovan inhaled a whispered taste of the power. The flavor was nothing he could identify, although he felt he recognized it immediately. Like a memory that stirred from the soul, and nothing he’d known in life. A forgotten past so distant that it predated even his own birth thousands of years ago.
Beside him, the Scribe sat perched on a stool. Hands under his bum. Feet on the top rung so his knees were bent up close to his chest. He, too, stared at the magic. Without thought, Donovan handed off his glass to the small fey, who chirped a soft thanks and proceeded to drink from it. Donovan only barely noticed, and didn’t care a whit.
Instead, he whispered to Malcolm, who twirled a riding crop in his hand idly. “The magic is visible?”
“That’s what Willem said.” Malcolm chewed on the inside of his cheek. “But look,” he inclined his head. “I’ve run out of room.”
And he certainly had. Even though the highest artifacts floated near the ceiling, Malcolm still had a crate of items at his feet waiting to be woven into the mix.
A tendril of mist drifted from the whole as it rotated, like the graceful arm of a dancer, reaching.
Not to Malcolm, to whom the magic sung. But to Donovan.
Without thought… without hesitation… Donovan reached back.
Peripherally, Donovan knew Malcolm watched, saying nothing and witnessing everything.
Ever so slowly, the tendril of mist passed through Donovan’s outstretched hand. For an eternity of seconds, the world beyond vanished. His eyes saw not the golden mist before him, but an expanding grid of layer upon layer of enchantment. Twisting and expanding, and birthing another wave of magic from within. Over and over. Expanding and washing over him.
Donovan inhaled the power pressing into him. It flooded his mouth like water and spread through his body like the Touch, sparing nothing. Changing everything.
Thousands of fey voices, in dozens of languages, whispered through his mind.
Convulsing, Donovan’s understanding shattered. Nothing but fragments of flawed glass that scattered into nothingness.
Within him, spawned new life. New vision. New comprehension. The purity of magic from the very first realm of fey, unpolluted and unaltered, shimmered within him. Filling his mind and renewing his soul.
His eyes flew open as he gasped his first breath.
The tendril passed out of his hand and drifted back into the matrix of the golden mist.
Trembling, Donovan watched it go. As he drew back his hand, he murmured, “I know what to do.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lugh slammed open the double doors, flinging them back with force enough to smash the guards at either side into the walls. Before him, the great hall gleamed in the light of the crystal chandelier. A vast and elaborate monument to Manannan’s ego, void of supplicants save for a handful of black-hearted Changelings. The former Seelie king alone stood in the center of the vacant hall, a map unrolled between his hands and dressed in a kingly-tailored suede jacket and silk trousers as if the Mounds over which he’d ruled hadn’t Collapsed to the ruin of thousands of fey.
“What have you done to Rhia?” The beast within Lugh snarled, revealing fangs as thick and deadly as any werewolf’s. Like a black panther, the beast surged with anger. Fingers curling like claws, he stalked toward Manannan. Fury that craved blood rippled through him. “She is mine!”
With an unconcerned sideways glance and a smirk tugging at his handsome face, Manannan chuckled, “This is why she couldn’t return to the Mounds. You would have sensed the change immediately.” His blue eyes practically sparkled with mischief, mocking Lugh’s rage.
Lugh charged him. He would rip out those eyes! Tear open flesh! Feast on Sidhe blood until the floor glistened with the spill of it. He lunged, leaping into the air to come down with blows that would crush the knave.
With a dismissive raise of his hand, Manannan turned toward Lugh.
The very magic within Lugh halted, arresting his momentum, freezing him in midair.
“You think to attack me? I, who am the god of magic?” Cold power burned in Manannan. As his fist closed, the very fibers of Lugh’s being crushed within him in unforgiving bands. “I command even the very magic lacing through your body! I could strip you of every delicate thread, if I fancied.” He yanked his fist closer to himself.
And the power within Lugh jerked, snatching him from the air and slamming him down onto his knees.
The beast struggled in vain against the force that dragged Lugh forward. He glided without friction on the polished floor, until he knelt before Manannan.
Crouching down, the former Seelie king snatched Lugh’s jaw and forced him to raise his face. With the ice of heartless domination, the Sidhe cast aside any Seelie disguise to reveal a glimpse of his true self. “There is no use in fighting, Champion.” His cruel grip released, sliding away in a caress. A mask of tenderness softened Manannan’s features like Glamour. The edge of his voice drifted into the whisper of kindness. “If Danu herself could not resist me, what hope have you?”
Lugh’s brows furrowed, unable to make any other movement, or even to speak his shock. What had Manannan done to the All-Mother?
The beast twisted against the power holding him fast even as Manannan brushed back Lugh’s bangs. His fingertip drew runes upon Lugh’s forehead, leaving icy trails. Tingling enchantment seeped into him, spreading like frost. Exhaling, Lugh’s eyes rolled back. He slumped as every muscle in his body relaxed at once as if he’d been drugged with Death Blossom.
The grip of Manannan’s power released him, giving Lugh over to the gravity that dropped him to his back.
Manannan knelt over him,weaving enchantments as if finger painting upon Lugh’s flesh.Cool magicraft spread through him in feathered patterns of frost, leaving numbing tingles in its wake.
“Your beast is amusing, but does not serve my purposes.” Manannan marked Lugh’s throat, and his choking protests died. He traced over Lugh’s heart and his will forgot its resistance. With the lacing of enchantment over his solar plexis, Lugh inhaled power that filled him like winter’s cutting breath. Then Manannan stroked the space inches below Lugh’s navel, and a rush of pleasure washed through him until the intoxicating magic saturated every fiber of Lugh’s body.
Like a nightmare vanishing, the beast within him dissipated, back into its cage of forgotten memory. Nothing but scattered mist and retreating shadows. Lugh’s tongue glided over his teeth, smooth and even. The fangs gone as if they’d never been. Lugh’s head lulled to the side.
Manannan’s frozen fingers wove within Lugh’s very soul, and he fought it not.
The world spun slowly, as if he were bodiless and unbound. Lugh’s control over himself unraveled with the glorious purity of surrender.
The threads of frost pried deeper, like icy roots
nudging into every crevice of his soul. Wrapping and weaving through his being. Filling all the voids. Repositioning his will. Altering his understanding.
How long it lasted, Lugh did not know. He might have even dozed, for he felt like he roused from some slumber when he opened his eyes.
Smiling down at him, Manannan offered a hand. “Champion.”
Lugh slipped his hand into his king’s. With conviction sharp and vivid as a crystal, he replied, “I am yours.”
“Of course you are.”
Lugh rose to his feet, refreshed and clear as he awoke to a new understanding. Everything made perfect sense now. And, of course, Manannan was right. Always had been. Why had he doubted that before? It was a relief to see the truth of it now.
When his king gave a nod to someone behind Lugh, he turned to see his druidess released from Deacon’s clutches. She rushed forward, flushed with anger. Lugh caught her into his arms, but she shoved out of his embrace, demanding, “What just happened?”
