Earth's Hope

by Ann Gimpel

  “I’ll bet.” He ignored the steps at one end of the tub and sat on its edge, lowering himself into steaming, scented water. “Teaching you how to warm water was a good investment.”

  “Thank you.” Golden eyes twinkled at him and he waded through thigh deep water to sit next to her. She made a grab for the china dispenser where he kept liquid soap and pumped some into one hand. “Settle back and let me wash you.”

  “Best offer I’ve had all day, lass.” Fionn settled his back against the tub’s edge. He’d built the tub long before hot tubs came into vogue, but he’d had a similar idea: hot water that covered you to your shoulders.

  He shut his eyes as Aislinn’s strong fingers worked soap into his skin, kneading his tense muscles. When she shifted his body so he lay across her lap and washed his hair, he sighed with pleasure. “Best watch it, leannán. I could get used to this.”

  Claws clicked over marble and Rune nosed the side of Fionn’s head. “Bella’s outside. She says you told her to come up here and then sealed her out with magic.”

  “Crap!” Fionn followed that with a string of Gaelic curses, and pulled the power from his sealing spell. He turned his head and looked at the wolf. “Can ye undo the latch?”

  “Of course.” Rune trotted back into the bedroom, and Fionn girded himself for the flurry of feathers that barreled into the bathroom next.

  “You locked me out,” Bella screeched.

  “Not on purpose.”

  “Then explain yourself.”

  Fionn squelched a desire to throttle his bond animal. He straightened and shook water out of his hair before meeting the raven’s acrimonious glare. “I spelled the door to keep the world at bay for a short time. I apologize. I should have waited until ye were here, except I had no idea if ye’d heed Gwydion’s words and come.”

  Aislinn stood, and water sluiced down her body. She stepped out of the tub and wound a thick blue towel around herself. “That’s one of the problems,” she told Bella, “when we never know what you’re doing. Times are dangerous and we need you to be a little more forthcoming about your plans. We can’t make decisions that include you if you don’t include us in yours.”

  The bird cocked her head to one side. When she answered, her normally strident tone had softened. “Thank you. That was a good explanation.”

  Fionn considered pointing out that he’d said much the same thing—on numerous occasions, but wisely decided to keep his mouth shut. With a final dunk to finish rinsing soap that might still be clinging to his hair, he opened the drain and got out of the tub, funneling magic to dry himself.

  Bella flew out of the bathroom, and Fionn knew he’d find her on her perch near the door that opened into his study. “Friends again?” he called after her retreating form.

  “Friends,” floated back to him.

  He wrapped an arm around Aislinn, damp and fragrant from the bath. “Thank you.”

  She nodded. “That’s why kids have two parents. Sometimes one’s explanations sit better than the other’s.” Tilting her mouth invitingly in his direction, she pressed the length of her towel clad body against his. “Think we have time?”

  “We’ll make time.” His voice roughened as desire shot through him, intense and demanding. Aislinn threaded her arms around him, and he closed his mouth over hers.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Aislinn dug her fingers into the bands of muscle cutting across Fionn’s broad back. They’d made love countless times, but she never lost the sense of wonder that had filled her the first time they’d gotten naked together. Her body readied itself for him almost instantly. Everything tingled, from the top of her head down to her toes. Her nipples hardened, and her nether regions were awash with desire.

  He plumbed her mouth with his tongue, and she nipped and sucked on it, loving the taste of him. His spicy, exotic, decidedly masculine scent rose around them, and she inhaled hungrily. Smelling Fionn was an aphrodisiac all its own. He tightened his hands on her towel-clad butt and tugged hard, wriggling so the thick terrycloth fell to the floor between their feet.

  Without breaking their kiss, he swept her off her feet and carried her into the bedroom. She tore her mouth from his. “Put me down.”

  “Aye, lassie, that was the idea.” He set her gently on the duvet atop the bed. For long moments, he stood, just looking at her. His cock jutted before him, rising proudly from a mat of golden curls.

  She arched her back and raised her hands above her head to grip the edges of the headboard. “Like what you see?”

  “So much, ye’ve damn near hypnotized me.”

  Rune rose and walked across the room, disappearing into the study.

  Tilting her pelvis invitingly, she murmured, “Everyone’s giving us privacy. Who knows how long it will last?”

  He laughed and the sound warmed her heart. “Subtle as a sledgehammer. There’s my girl.” He knelt between her legs and bent to kiss her breasts. When he took her nipples into his mouth, electric shocks blazed from them right to her core, and she moaned and writhed beneath his touch. Fionn kissed his way down her belly. By the time he settled his mouth over her sensitive center, the orgasm that had been building exploded, leaving her weak, wrung out, and aching for more of the same.

  He licked and sucked, teased her delicate nub until she sent magic to muffle her shrieks. Finally, when the hollow place inside her was so desperate for his cock she couldn’t stand it anymore, she slithered out from under him, flipped over, and got to her kees, hanging onto the headboard for support.

  Fionn growled, the sound thick with need and planted his cock at the entrance to her body. She was so slick and wet from coming, he slid deep. She pushed her hips back and he bit her shoulder, and then wrapped an arm around her hips and rubbed her clit with knowing, calloused fingertips. She rocked, caught between his cock and fingers, but couldn’t get him to give her what she needed.

  “Move, goddammit.” She butted her ass into his pelvis.

  “How would ye like it, leannán?” he asked in a hoarse, panting whisper.

  “Hard. Fast. Damn it, Fionn. Foreplay’s over. I need the real deal.”

  He chuckled, breath warm against her neck. “I doona think I’ve ever been called that afore.”

  He rubbed her pussy harder and finally, finally began to thrust inside her. His cock was long, hard, and thick. It reached places no one else had even come close to. Another climax ripped through her, followed almost immediately by an even stronger one. Filled by uncontrollable lust, she summoned magic, formed it into tendrils and sent them to tickle his anus and his balls. A tortured sound burst from him and his cock grew even harder inside her. She made the tendrils move faster, sent them vibrating inside his delicate anal passage.

  Another peak burned deep in her belly. The spasms of his climax would bring her over the edge one more time. Gasping, panting, slick with sweat, she felt him release inside her, felt herself join him, and leaned her back against his front as the world slowly came back into focus.

  “Should have done the bath after,” she said, once she could talk again.

  “We could draw another.”

  He pulled himself out of her body, and she collapsed on the bed, still sorting out where she ended and he began.

  “Nah. Probably need sleep.”

  He lay behind her, cradling her against him. “Ye cheated, using magic to make me come.”

  Aislinn giggled. “Guilty as charged.” The grandfather clock in the corner struck one. “Boy, those last two hours flew by.”

  “Aye, my sweet, the next ones will too. I’ll wake you fifteen minutes afore we report for watch duty.”

  She felt herself slipping toward sleep. “What happens if the Old Ones keep us too busy to launch our plan to go to the borderworlds?”

  “We’ll just have to kill all of them.”

  There was something so feral and bloodthirsty in Fionn’s voice it sent sleep skittering to the four winds, and she turned on her other side facing him. “You really mean tha
t, don’t you?”

  “’Tisn’t a thing to joke about.”

  The skin around his eyes looked pinched in the faint light from his mage light that was suspended off to one side. Aislinn stared. With his face illuminated like that, no one would ever make the mistake of labeling him human. All the parts were there, but they were too perfect. His eyes gleamed with ancient knowing. Even the golden flecks in the irises seemed to vibrate, underscoring his otherness.

  “What is it, lass? Ye’re looking at me as if I grew a second head.”

  She bit down on her lower lip. “Nothing. Sometimes I’m more aware of you being a Celtic god. That’s all.”

  “Having second thoughts?” He cupped her chin and forced her to look at him.

  Well am I?

  “No, not really. But I shouldn’t make the mistake of ascribing too much humanness to you. You don’t think like we do.”

  His face settled into stubborn planes she recognized, and she regretted her words.

  “In the first place,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm, “ye’re scarcely human yourself. Never mind, ye thought yourself so for most of your short life. In the second place—”

  She laid a hand over his mouth. “Stop. I don’t want to argue. I’m tired, and I misspoke. Of course I understand we need to wipe out all the Old Ones, and the dark gods too. It’s not that I can’t kill. I have. It’s that I never quite warmed to the idea.”

  “Which is another good reason ye should remain here. Ye’ve been to Perrikus’s borderworld. ’Tis fraught with danger, and ’twill be worse this time around because the dark ones know the odds have steepened—and not in their favor.”

  “While I waited to see if you and Arawn would return from there, I swore we’d never be separated again. I hated Bran and Gwydion for being the ones who’d returned first, and that was stupid. I should’ve bowed down and thanked every god and goddess in the pantheon that any of you were still alive.”

  Fionn drew her against his body and stroked her hair, crooning in Gaelic, until she murmured, “English, please.”

  “These are difficult times, mo croi. We have to get through each day as it happens. If the goddess smiles on us, ’twill come a time when things are easier.”

  And if she doesn’t? But Aislinn kept that question to herself.

  * * * *

  Dewi overflew the manor house and grounds, grateful for something to do to take her mind off her brood. It had damn near killed her to leave them on the borderworld. Not because she didn’t think Royce and Vaughna would make good nannies, but because she felt she’d failed her offspring. It defied credibility that one of her blood would be so easily manipulated. And by a Lemurian no less. Stupid bastards with their hive mind mentality. For fuck’s sake, it took at least three of them to make even the simplest decision.

  Leave it. Just leave it. No matter how many ways I turn this thing around, I still won’t like how it looks or smells.

  She returned her attention to shadowed nooks and crannies, hunting for anything out of the ordinary. Humans and Arawn were patrolling on foot in a pattern that circled the manor every quarter hour. Since they staggered their line, nothing should be able to sneak through, but it wasn’t wise to underestimate their enemy. She’d done so in the past with disastrous results. Fanning magic in a circle, she moved it from her level a hundred feet off the ground downward.

  Wait.

  Something didn’t feel quite right, but it was subtle, so subtle Dewi ran her scan one more time, zeroing in on where she may have felt a tinge of wrongness. This time her magic pinged back clean, but she didn’t totally trust it.

  I’m jumpy as a March hare. The first time I was distracted, not paying close enough attention. No point in getting everyone riled up for nothing.

  She flew two more complete circuits, but couldn’t let it go. “Nidhogg.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Meet me up here.”

  He didn’t ask for particulars, especially after Bella had identified their enemy so close. Soon his black form winged its way to her. “I know,” his dear voice rumbled against her ears. “You got lonely.”

  She blew smoke, followed by fire. “If you want lonely, try believing you’re the last of your kind for hundreds of years.”

  “I scarcely see that it’s worse than having Perrikus holding me on the edge of life to siphon my power.”

  “Ouch. I didn’t invite you up here to trade pity parties.” She switched to telepathic speech. “Fly the circuit with me and scan with your magic. I thought I found something, but when I checked a second time, it wasn’t there.”

  “Why alert me and not the rest of your patrol?”

  “Because I didn’t want to look like an overreactive jackrabbit.”

  Nidhogg chuckled, but she felt his power sweep the area. Once. Twice. He kept coming back to the same spot that had bothered her.

  Breath whistled through her open jaws. “I didn’t tell you where I felt the aberration, yet you found it anyway.”

  “There’s something there. We must land and alert the others.”

  Dewi and Nidhogg stopped near the moat and gathered the rest of the watch as they crossed that waypoint. Arawn moved between the dragons.

  “What is it?” he asked in shielded mind speech.

  “Is everyone here?” Dewi counted ten humans—two of them with bond animals: a hawk and a mountain cat. At nods, she drew strong wards around them, pleased when Nidhogg reinforced them.

  “What the hell?” One of the human men asked.

  “Something isn’t right about a quarter league northwest of the manor gates,” Dewi said. “I thought I felt evil, but wasn’t certain, so I called Nidhogg to give things a second look.”

  “Ye felt it too?” Arawn gazed up at the black dragon, who nodded.

  “It could be as simple as an outpost the Old Ones set up to spy on us and report back to the dark gods,” Nidhogg said.

  “Or it could be the start of another attack,” Arawn grunted, shaking his head.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Corin stepped forward. “We have to address it. I’ll wake the others.”

  “We march as soon as everyone’s up and ready,” Nidhogg said. “It will still be dark, which works in our favor.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s underground,” Dewi cautioned.

  “Let’s do this,” Arawn said. “The four dragons can attack from the air. Blast the holy fuck out of where you feel the evil. The rest of us will provide ground support.” He looked as grim as the dead he commanded. “No prisoners. We kill every single thing that crawls out of the ground. Understood?”

  “Do you suppose this is the same thing Bella stumbled on today?” Dewi asked.

  “It better be,” one of the human women said, “because if it isn’t that means we have two problems.”

  “I’ll get Kra and Berra,” Nidhogg pulled magic from the wards around them.

  “I’ll roust Fionn, Gwydion, and Aislinn,” Arawn said. “Everyone front and center in fifteen minutes or less.”

  Dewi waited, still as stone, in the dim mistiness near the moat. She’d been born for battle, yet she had a hard time finding the heart to move forward. She gave herself a good, hard mental kick. Feeling sorry for herself was an indulgence, one she could ill afford just now. It wasn’t as if her brood was dead, and there were still the eggs percolating in her belly. After years of spinning her scales, they were finally moving into the endgame. She should welcome it, yet all she wanted to do was take Nidhogg and flee to some place where none of this could touch them.

  Understanding smashed home.

  When I had no one to love, and no one who loved me, it didn’t matter. Nothing did. I took outrageous chances because I didn’t care if I lived or died. That’s all changed, but the world hasn’t. There’re still the dark gods to contend with, and those smarmy reptiles I spied on all those years.

  Yes, and that will help because I know how they think even better than the MacLochlainn.

  De
wi straightened. By the goddess, she had a role to play, and a damned important one. If what they faced were Lemurians—and it almost had to be—she was their best tactical leader, the only one who could outthink and outmaneuver the fucking things.

  Kra, Berra, and Nidhogg touched down near her.

  “Did Nidhogg fill you in?” Dewi asked.

  “Aye,” Kra clanked his double rows of teeth together. “It will be good to avenge ourselves for what they did to your brood.”

  “Assuming it is Lemurians,” Nidhogg said.

  “I suppose there might be a dark god in the mix,” Berra said, “or some of those hideous Bal’ta things.”

  Dewi thought about the Bal’ta. Minions of the dark, they stood between five and six feet tall. With their sloping foreheads, matted hair, and ropy muscles, they looked like apes, except for their eyes, which glowed an unholy orange. “Pah. They’re easy enough to kill. Least of our worries, really.”

  Arawn and Gwydion sprinted to them. “Never underestimate any of them,” Gwydion said dourly. “I made that mistake with the human-Lemurian hybrids, and it almost sent me to the Dreaming forever.”

  “Where are Fionn and Aislinn?” Dewi asked.

  “They’ll be along soon,” Arawn said. “I’m furious Bran’s not back yet. He knows better.”

  The air took on a numinous quality by the manor house wall, and Bran stepped out of a glowing portal, followed by Andraste, goddess of victory. Wavy blonde hair fell to her waist and even in the muted light, her green eyes flashed fire. She wore a long buckskin skirt and a top of the same leather that hugged her curves.

  Bran bowed toward Arawn. “Instructive what ye hear when people don’t think ye’re anywhere close.”

  “What took you so long?” Gwydion barked. “I was none too pleased with you myself.”