Through Time-Pursuit

by Conn, Claudy

  Trevor shouted irritably, “What the hell?”

  “Remind your big friend here that I am a Fae princess and do not appreciate being whisked off and manhandled,” Royce said, her chin up even as she broke away from Chance and moved towards Trevor.

  “It is what ye were destined for … manhandling.” Chancemont grinned, unabashed. However, he put up a few fingers and waved to stall her response as she spun around and looked daggers at him. He said softly and just to her, “Ye shouldna be tagging along with warriors. Ye will be in the way, and I will no have yer blood on m’hands.”

  “It won’t be on your hands, big man!” she snapped at him. “If I am so stupid as to allow anyone to harm me, it will be on my hands—mine alone. And I am every bit as much a warrior as you!”

  He made an impatient sound and bent to look into her eyes of variegated aqua. “Ye be a slip of a woman, nothing more, when it comes to the Dark Prince. He’ll chop ye up and serve ye fer lunch, he will, and I’ll no have it!” Chance raged at her. “I doona want another Fae underfoot. I already have more Fae at me side than I want.”

  “Hey!” objected Trevor.

  However, no one was listening to him as the two in the heated argument stared one another down.

  “Do you?” Royce asked with her chin high. “But this Fae—” She jabbed herself with her finger. “This Fae knows where Pestale is—do you?”

  She had dropped this bomb into his hands and immediately began trying to formulate a plan. She hadn’t quite told the truth. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Trevor had taken a step forward and that his face was more than grim.

  “Doona lie to me,” seethed Chance.

  “She is telling the truth,” Trevor said to him. “She has special abilities—the sight being one of them.”

  Chance stopped dead and took her hand in a firm grip. “Where then, lass? Speak ye now, and we’ll see about the rest later.”

  “You are wasting time. Either I am a part of this, or I go after Pestale alone,” she answered.

  “We’ll talk about it after I see what ye can produce …” Chance said slowly.

  “Then come on, I’ll take you there,” she said. Oh, she thought with some trepidation. She certainly knew where Pestale had been. She had seen him in her vision in a hotel suite.

  She had been disgusted to see him making love (if that was what you could call his rough sex play) to a pretty human who would be forever changed. She had also witnessed his departure in her vision.

  She knew where he had been and that he had only just left. She had gotten a glimpse of the hotel’s name, Hotel Inverness, over the door when he had looked back. He was in Inverness—in Scotland. She could see his smile just before he shifted away. He was hidden within the folds of black magic—a black magic that was consuming whatever essence he once had.

  He would not be there when she led them to the hotel, but his recent scent might give them a lead. And that might get Chance to change his mind about her. After all, this would bring him closer to Pestale than he had yet been.

  She sighed over her thoughts because she very much needed to prove her worth to her queen and extricate herself from trouble. Once this was over, then she could leave it behind and go and visit her dear humans, her sweet young David and his family. They probably were wondering where she was … .

  Chance had a hold of her hand and brought her back from her meandering thoughts. “Then let’s go, lass—let’s go now.”

  ~ Four ~

  ROYCE HUNG BACK and looked around the luxurious suite, saying under her breath, “Well, he likes his comforts, doesn’t he?”

  Empty champagne bottles were strewn everywhere. Empty boxes of chocolate were near the king sized bed, as were trays of half-eaten food.

  However, what had both Trevor’s and Chance’s attention was the naked woman lying with her legs spread wide and a beckoning smile on her face.

  Royce grimaced at Trevor and slapped his shoulder as she moved to cover the woman, who was still—would forever until she died—be in heat. The woman reached up, pulled on Royce’s arm, and whispered, “Come join me … touch me …”

  Pestale had left her alive, but he had also left her addicted to sex, and her addiction would end up killing her. She wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t take an interest in anything else, and she wouldn’t ever again lead a normal life.

  All she would ever want was to have sex with anyone, at anytime, anywhere. It was a form of madness, and even the Royal Fae could not cure madness.

  When a Fae who had the sexual power of a Lianhan didn’t turn off the addicting sexual aphrodisiac that bewitched a human, that human became ruined for anything else.

  Royce pulled free, and the woman turned and looked at Chance and Trevor. She licked her lips. “Oooh … two of you—come. Don’t worry, my prince won’t mind—he has left, and I have this suite for another day. He told me to enjoy myself, and—I need you to come closer. Bring the pretty woman, and we’ll all play …” Once again she had uncovered herself and spread her legs.

  Trevor and Chance eyed one another before they turned to Princess Royce, who was now quite certain that if she were human, she would be blushing. She did not meet their direct gaze.

  Trevor laughed out loud as he caught Royce’s expression, but Chance was all grim and grumpy as he said accusingly, “You said Pestale would be here!”

  “He was here—I obviously can’t keep him chained from moment to moment …”

  “Where has he gone?”

  Royce shrugged and sniffed the air around her. “He has disguised his scent. He travels shrouded in black magic. If we can get a feel for the aura he is using, we might be able to track him.”

  “How did ye know he had been here—did ye see it in a vision?” Chance pursued.

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said with a shrug. “I thought about him, and suddenly he was in my sight—here.” She turned away slightly. “I don’t really have control of these visions. They come on their own, although at times, when I concentrate, I can get a flash of something …”

  “Can ye see into the future, lass?” Chance asked with a frown.

  “Not exactly—but when I do, sometimes, only sometimes, I can alter it if something bad is about to happen. Most of the time, I cannot.”

  “Do ye know the difference between the future and the present?” Chance was getting to the point, and in her heart she knew it.

  “What do you mean?” she asked hesitatingly.

  “I mean, did ye know when ye saw him here that it wasn’t in the future?”

  “Yes, I knew, but I hoped that when we got here, we would find something to allow us to follow.”

  “Aye, then,” was all Chance said as he took her measure and looked away. He then added one more question: “How can we use this ‘gift’ of yers, lass, if ye can’t always get a vision when ye want to?”

  “You can use it when I do get a vision. It is one leg up and better than what you’ve got!” she answered, annoyed that he viewed her as an object to an end and yet pleased that she had a quality he found useful.

  Chance frowned and gently set aside the naked woman, who had sidled over to him and was rubbing her body up and down the length of his. She wouldn’t be distracted from her purpose, however, and began trying to undo the zipper of his leather pants.

  Irritated, Royce took the woman’s arm and with some Fae force laid the woman back in her bed. However that did not deter her, either—the woman simply switched targets and reached up to cup Royce’s breasts. Royce slapped the girl’s hands away, exclaiming in shocked accents, “Oh … do … stop …” while scrambling away from the persistent woman’s ravenous grasp.

  Royce looked up and discovered Chance staring at her with a lazy gleam in his eyes. She shook her head. Males—even Fae males—always seemed to find the sight of two females touching one another sexually extremely arousing. What was up with that? she asked herself.

  However, Chance returned to the subject at hand and aske
d her, “Can ye concentrate now—can ye get scent of him off the woman and concentrate on a vision now?”

  “Perhaps …” she answered and then chewed her bottom lip as she began to work her mind to that end.

  “Then do it!” he snapped.

  Royce made a face at him and then watched as he strode over to the pretty, who had begun crawling towards them across the bed, and whispered a spell in ancient Gaelic. He told her to be at ease. It occurred to Royce that he had a deep-seated kindness in him. She sighed because the spell would work for now—but not for long.

  He turned back to her and said, “Well?”

  She said irritably, “I am not a machine. You can’t just press a button and produce a vision, but I am trying.”

  “Try harder!” snapped Chance.

  “Okay, Chance, easy pal,” interjected Trevor. “She got us this far. We didn’t have a clue where to start before.”

  Chance jerked his head with his exasperation. “Ye say she got us this far—how far is that, lad? How much closer are we?”

  Royce sighed and thought that he was right. She eyed him as she put some effort into it and said, “If you could be quiet …”

  She walked off to the other side of the room and closed her eyes. Pestale’s scent even disguised in Dark Magic was particular to him. They wouldn’t be able to track it, for it didn’t lead anywhere but stayed stagnant all around them, but she might be able to force a vision from it. It was strong and filled the entire room. He smelled like heather and something else, something mysteriously intoxicating …

  Suddenly, something unexpected happened. Something more than a vision. She was with him—no, she was inside him, looking through his eyes …

  She gasped, stepped back, and lost it. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. It was, she knew at once, the black magic that surrounded him and pulled her within.

  Chance was with her at once. He held her and steadied her. “Ho there, lass, what is it? What happened?”

  “Nothing …” she answered—this was not something she was ready to share.

  Doubt was clearly in both men’s eyes as they regarded her. A twinge of guilt trickled through her because she was hiding something. The fact that she was tuned into something she could not name was too disturbing to tell them. She almost felt ashamed. Then all at once Pestale’s scent wafted through her senses and formed a picture in her mind of him …

  And that vision was crystal clear and beautiful with undulating mountains rolling towards a wide, dark lake. “Ireland—he has gone to Ireland,” she said.

  “What makes ye think so?” Chance shot back.

  “Ireland is delicious and has its own flavor … and scent. I can smell Ireland, and I can see the lake …”

  “Ireland—lake. What lake?” asked Trevor.

  “I am not sure.” She looked at Trevor and avoided Chance’s eyes. He was studying her, and it made her feel uneasy. He seemed to sense that she was holding back. “Let’s look at this from Pestale’s point of view. What do we know about him?”

  “You mean other than the fact that he is an abomination—a murderer?” Trevor spat out irritably.

  “That is part of our problem. We don’t know anything about him, and it would help us locate him if we did,” Royce answered thoughtfully before glancing at Chancemont. After some hesitation, she continued, “Right—we know that he was filled with anger and the need for revenge when he killed …” She gave Chancemont a solemn eye-to-eye look. “When he … took your sister’s life. She had killed his youngest brother to save Trevor’s life. That tells us he is capable of emotion—he, like you, wanted revenge.”

  “He is nothing like me.” Chance’s voice was a shout that roared through the air. “Lana went after and killed his brother because he was about to kill the man she loved. She was a baby—she didn’t stand a chance against Pestale.” He shook his head, and it was an anguished movement. “Aye, I want m’revenge, but he is well able to stand his own ground and take me on. She was no match for him.” Chance looked away from Royce and went quiet.

  She wanted to reach out and touch him and did in fact take a step towards him. He turned and eyed her from brows drawn together, and she touched his hand. “Yes, you are right, but let’s focus on him—get a feel of where he might go. The Dark Fae are usually devoid of emotion, empathy, but this Dark Prince seemed to have cared about his youngest brother—about the loss of his brother, and it certainly moved him to action.”

  Royce took to pacing as she spoke and turned to frown up at Chance. “It is very possible that he still has feelings for his remaining brothers and Queen Morrigu. After all, they are all this Dark Prince has ever had, all he’s known. If he has even the slightest feelings for them, he would want them with him. He would work as hard to be reunited with them as he would to stay out of our reach while he formulates his plans—whatever those plans are. Perhaps his goals are different than the goals Gaiscioch had outlined. But whatever the goals, he will need a portal to help his brothers escape the Dark Realm.”

  “You are suggesting that that he has genuine feelings,” Trevor growled. “I don’t believe that. He is a Dark Fae … no empathy, no emotions—”

  “I disagree,” said Chance quietly. “I think m’wee princess has a point. Pestale was different than his brothers. He led them, but he did care when m’Lana killed his brother. We saw it—he was enraged. We would do well to remember that, because we might yet be able to use it against him in the future. If he can feel rage, he can feel other emotions.”

  “Point taken,” said Trevor. “So the question remains, why Ireland, because the why of it may give us the where exactly.”

  “He will need a very special portal,” Royce said as she tried to form a picture of the portals the queen had already removed from Ireland. “As I recall, my brother said they had removed a very large sarsen portal from a secret island in the Lower Lake in Killarney.” She turned away from Trevor and Chance and tried concentrating on the three lakes.

  She could picture them in her mind—and all at once, she saw him.

  He stood on a mystically hidden small island in the largest lake—the Lower Lake. He was at the water’s edge of that island, and she could see the ruins of an old abbey behind him. He was reciting something in ancient Danu.

  Instinctively she knew she should withdraw, but she wanted to watch. This was happening in the present, and as she feared, he sensed her—or something—that made him stop his chanting. He looked out onto the lake and then upwards towards the gray and cloud-studded sky.

  She stared into his brilliant black eyes and knew he was looking back into her eyes. They had made a connection. So not good, was her first thought.

  She felt linked to him somehow, as though his eyes held her in place. That wasn’t possible. She was a Seelie Royal and far more powerful than an Unseelie Royal—wasn’t she?

  Chance reached for her elbow and called sharply, “Lass! Coom back to me—lass,” and then more gently, “Steady now …”

  She heard his voice as though it were on an airwave far away, but it enabled her to break the connection with Pestale. She shook off the feeling and frowned. “What?” she said because she was a bit embarrassed.

  “What did ye see, love?” Chance asked gently.

  “The Lakes of Killarney—he is there. He is there right now.”

  “There aren’t any other portals left in Killarney,” Trevor said doubtfully. “Why go there?”

  “Gaiscioch could have had a portal hidden in Dark Magic,” Chance answered him and took Royce’s hand. She was surprised how he always seemed to take hold of her when he was ready to move. The next thing she knew they had shifted to Killarney near the Lower Lake’s shoreline.

  “Don’t like Milesian mode of shifting—it feels sticky,” Royce said to Chance as they stepped onto the grass. “I can shift very well on my own, you know.”

  “There is naught wrong with Milesian shifting,” Chance answered with a laugh, “and I prefer to ha
ve ye near when we travel. Now, never mind that. Tell me where he is, lass.”

  Royce saw past the concealment spell the Dark Prince had enacted to the island that hid its presence from prying eyes in veils of ancient magic.

  Absently noticing a large blue tour boat making its slow way past the island, she sighed wistfully. How nice it would be just to relax on a boat and enjoy the beauty of these natural surroundings instead of having to rout out a devil.

  She turned back to Chance and said quietly, “Do you see that island through the magic?”

  “Aye,” Chance said. “Is he there?”

  “He was … but now … I don’t know.”

  Chance stepped to the water’s edge, heedless of the sightseers, and cupped his mouth to shout, “Pestale! Do ye hear me, devil—do ye? I want ye to prepare yerself to say m’sister’s name, for it will be the last thing ye say before I gouge out yer eyes and yank out ye insides and feed ye to the buzzards!”

  Royce walked up to him and touched his bare arm. Her problem had always been that she empathized with others. She felt for Chance and understood the anguish that governed his need for revenge.

  There was nothing she could do for him, so she didn’t speak. He looked down at her, and their eyes met. A blast of emotion swept through her, and she was stunned by the charge. She looked at him and wondered if he felt it as well—an electric current that went through her insides …? Did he feel it? Did he?

  “We shouldn’t give him warnings like that, Chance.” Trevor interrupted the moment. “He’ll leave the area now before we can get to him.”

  “Doona be daft,” he answered Trev gruffly. “He already knows we be cooming for him. If he hasn’t left the area already, he will long before we can locate him, but we are getting closer, and he knows it. What I’m wondering is how he will manage to move the portal, for that, I’m guessing, is his plan.”

  “I wasn’t being daft,” said Trevor, obviously taking umbrage. “It isn’t daft to work on a strategy,” he said irritably.

  Chancemont’s pointer finger jabbed at Trevor’s head as he smiled at the young prince. “Ye think I doona have a plan? Again, don’t be daft.”