by Dani Harper
The bed was enormous, too. And soft. Whatever it was padded with, it was even and smooth. There was no tossing and turning to find a comfortable spot in which to lie or to avoid a lump. Although if the luxurious bed had been made of wooden planks covered with straw, it would have made little difference to him, not when he could make love with Brooke every night. It truly seemed that his heart had found its home, as the bond between them grew. They both laughed that their only difficulty lay in being quiet enough so that their friends could not hear their nightly activities.
No, the only things that kept Aidan from sleeping like a lord were his own dreams. Dreams of Celynnen finding a chink in the magical protections that surrounded both this house and Brooke’s building. Dreams of the fae princess harming his friends and his lover, perhaps callously murdering them with a word, as she had done with Annwyl, or torturing them horribly while he watched. Dreams of facing the coldhearted tywysoges, and of failing in his attempt to avenge Annwyl by slaying Celynnen.
Most of all, he dreamed that he would fail to protect Brooke and his friends.
Aidan had planned his vengeance carefully, but he had yet to create his weapons. Until he stood over a forge again, they were still just designs in his mind. And he had no hope of leading the ruthless fae away from those he loved and cared for—he had to admit that the stand-together-and-fight approach that Olivia had advocated was the only possible option. But if Celynnen were to find him here, what would they do? Would the defenses hold?
He borrowed an unused hunting knife from George (apparently a gift from a relative who didn’t know the young man very well). Made of steel, a stronger, purer form of iron that was new and fascinating to Aidan, he fastened its sheath to his belt and carried the knife with him constantly. It took a while to persuade Brooke to spell it for him, however. She believed in doing no harm, yet she finally conceded that, in dire circumstances, it was best if the knife were charmed to find its mark. He had her charm a bag of iron nails as well and then loaded his pockets with them. Although he quickly discovered they made sitting very uncomfortable if he wasn’t careful, he felt better having as much iron on his person as possible. The weapons were not formidable, by any means, but he would not be caught defenseless either.
Meanwhile, he was glad to have work to do, to keep body and mind busy, else the waiting would have driven him wild. While the house was grand, the half-acre backyard was not—and once he’d seen that, he could understand Olivia’s utter frustration with it. Though George kept what little grass there was cut regularly (Aidan would have preferred to keep sheep or goats), the rest was a sprawling, overgrown forest. Rock retaining walls had fallen apart over time, stone pathways were heaved up and lost to encroaching trees and shrubs, and if there had once been an orderly garden, there was only an impenetrable riot of half-wild flowers now.
Armed with garden tools, many of which were surprisingly similar in shape and style to what he’d grown up with, Aidan spent his day taming the enormous yard. He enjoyed the work, although he still missed his forge. His right hand itched to hold his smith’s hammer again; his left hand craved the clutch of his long-handled tongs. The heat of the fire, the bell-like clanging as he struck the metal—he missed it all.
Yet even as a smith, he’d cultivated a plot of carrots, cabbage, onions, and peas in the field behind the forge. In his time, everyone planted what little they could in order to have enough food for winter and to vary an otherwise plain diet. Pleasure gardens had been a luxury for the wealthy—and something they hired workers for. Annwyl’s father had a flower garden in his courtyard that boasted many roses, a gift he had created for his wife. Here, however, it seemed that almost every home now had such things.
As Aidan labored outside, Brooke worked on her business in Olivia’s spell room off the kitchen, catching up on all the charms she had orders for. Olivia herself was seldom at home during the day. She instructed Aidan to help himself to whatever was in the fridge for his lunch, though. He chose simple things, familiar things: meats and cheeses, bread and butter. But it was a source of unending novelty to him to eat such foods icy cold. He was certain that his mam would have disapproved on the basis that it would upset his bodily humors, although no such thing occurred.
At night, he’d meet again with Brooke and Olivia over a late supper to discuss the day’s progress. Olivia often talked them into visiting with her until George finally came home. If he came home at all.
“He spends all his time with this Felicia,” said his mother. “Perhaps he is finally settling down. It’s about time.”
“You’ll know if he actually brings her home to meet you,” laughed Brooke.
“I would faint from amazement, m’ija—he’s never done that. Not once have I met one of my son’s many girlfriends, unless I bumped into him at a mall or a restaurant with one or two on his arm.”
“Two?”
“M’ija, as a mother I have learned not to ask questions I do not want the answers to.”
Their nightly entertainment—a thing called TV—was a complete puzzle to Aidan at first. He’d seen the invention of course, as a grim, but had never stopped to watch what passed across the smooth black surface. Gradually, he began to understand. Human beings had not changed so much over the centuries—TV was simply the modern equivalent of sitting around the fire and telling stories.
He liked the feeling of home and family he felt here. The company was good. He held Olivia in great affection, and George, while not home very much, was still slowly becoming a friend. Even the cats, Bouncer, Jade, and Rory, had attached themselves to Aidan. They played in the garden around him as he worked (and often as not, getting in the way). At night, at least two sat in his lap, and often Rory would climb on his shoulder and purr into his ear.
And as for Brooke—she hadn’t needed one bit of magic to transform his heart. The wrath and rage within him had eased. He was still righteously angry at the horrors that Celynnen had wrought, and he would kill her without a second thought—but the volatile fury had yielded to control. Most of all, the gnawing emptiness that had marked his time as a grim was abundantly filled in by Brooke’s loving nature. With her, he felt whole again.
Still, all the loving tenderness in the world could not bring him a peaceful sleep. He was wakeful, refining the designs of his weapons in his mind, planning how best he might confront his enemy. Considering all the things that might go wrong, and the terrible price that not only he but also those who stood with him would pay. And when weariness finally overcame him, he was tormented by nightmares. Over a week went by like that, until Olivia put her hand on his at breakfast one morning.
“You look exhausted, Aidan,” she said. “You’re working miracles in that yard, but are you working too hard?”
He was about to protest that he was fine, but there was no deflecting those knowing eyes of hers. Like Brooke, he suspected she would see the truth—or a lie—immediately. “The task is satisfying to me; it’s not as difficult as smithing so I am far from overworked. No, it is my mind that is weary. There is much that weighs upon it, and many questions without answers.”
“Perhaps I can help you with that, m’ijo. Come with me.”
She led him through the small door off the pantry. It appeared as simply another closet, but instead, it led to a sizable room with a high ceiling. One wall was completely covered with shelves, all groaning with many books and objects like the ones in Brooke’s shop, but Aidan’s attention was riveted on an enormous shallow bowl on a tall oak table in the exact center of the room. The bowl was old and rather plain, but his practiced eye told him it was pure silver and not plated. Olivia produced a matching silver pitcher and filled the bowl with a scant inch of water. Carefully, she set the pitcher on the floor and then took both of Aidan’s hands.
“Do you trust me?”
He nodded. “I have the curitas to prove it.”
“Good. Look into the water, and when I tell you to, put your hand in it and grasp whatever you see.”
“But it’s empty…”
Olivia shook her head. “It only looks that way. As I told Brooke, I have few skills with magic, but the ones I have are very strong. I can read the cards. And I can scry.”
“What does that mean?”
“To scry is to view the future or the past, sometimes even the present. Most of all, it used to see truth. Look into the water, Aidan ap Llanfor.”
He bent his head and did as she instructed, staring into the water, looking through the water and noticing only some minute scratches in the silver on the bottom of the bowl. Olivia recited something in Spanish, a solemn poem, an incantation. Her voice was so soft that he couldn’t catch all of the words, so simply did his best to focus on the task he’d been given: he looked into the water. He saw nothing there but found himself wondering at the broad span of silver that held the water: it was so light and thin. It had to be cast, something that wasn’t done until after his time. He could not imagine shaping such a large sheet on his anvil. No matter how careful he was, surely it would tear beneath the hammer long before it became so—
“¡Mira el agua!” Look in the water!
He looked but the bowl was gone. Instead, he was staring into the water barrel from his forge. The water was steaming and his long-handled tongs were sticking out of it. He didn’t think; he didn’t need to think. He quickly grasped the tongs, and as he did so, an image appeared in the water.
A man in black leathers on a dark horse rode before a storm. His hair was wild to the wind and he held a whip of lightning that sizzled and cracked. A horde followed him, the Wild Hunt in all its power. But the rider wasn’t Lurien. This man was fair and bore features very like his own…
Aidan shoved himself away from the barrel.
“Well done,” said Olivia, and he was suddenly back in the room with her. His hand was empty, and his arm was wet to the elbow, shirt and all. The tongs, the barrel, all were gone, however. Only the bowl of water remained with its scant inch of water still in it. And the older woman who was looking at him approvingly.
“What was it?” he asked. “What did I just do?”
“You drew your future from the water. Oh, not all of it,” she assured him. “No one can do that. You saw a part of your future, a symbol of something that will create balance for you.”
“Did you see it too? What did it mean?”
She shook her head. “I did not see what you did. It’s the feel of the magic that allows me to judge that this reading belonged to the future. I don’t know what it means for you. But you definitely have magic in you, to be able to draw it to you so strongly.”
Aidan felt different—like himself, but somehow more. A strange feeling, not necessarily comfortable, rather like a bucket overfilled. “I did not know I had any magic of my own until I met Brooke. At first I thought it was only the remains from my time in the faery realm, but it seems that is not the case.” He forced himself to smile. What had appeared to him in the water was not Olivia’s fault—she’d only been trying to help. “I wonder if Gofannon had something to do with it. He is the god of both metal and magic, and I was pledged to him at an early age.”
“Perhaps so. I just hope this has given you another tool to aid you in your struggle with the faery princess, and perhaps as you wrestle with yourself as well.”
Aidan thanked her and left. Olivia couldn’t know that what he had just seen only troubled him further and had given him many more questions than he had before. He well remembered his conversation with Lurien outside the home of Maeve Lowri Jones, when the Lord of the Wild Hunt had proposed that Aidan take his place for a time. How could such a thing have anything to do with restoring balance?
George was on top of the effin’ world. He had three uninterrupted days in Seattle with his new woman to look forward to. More important, three nights. Maybe even four if he could talk Felicia into it.
The drive to Morgan’s place in Spokane Valley was a nice bonus, though. He’d get to see his old schoolmate and her new man for an hour, show off Felicia to one and all, and then drive off to the big city for some serious fun. In, out, and gone.
But what was even better, he didn’t need to feel guilty that Brooke was alone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it wasn’t usual for men and women to truly be just pals, but she was his best friend in the entire world, and it bothered him that she’d had no one in her life for a while now. She was always so caring and kind to people, and she deserved the best, she really did. Mind you, a thousand-year-old death-dog-turned-human wasn’t quite the companion he’d have chosen for her, but Aidan was clearly one of those straight-arrow types, all about honor and vows and hard work. And it sure didn’t hurt that he was good looking, artistically speaking. George could picture the dude as a barbarian hero in one of his comic books, and he had already considered getting him to pose for some sketches. After all, even Devina of Hades could use a man in her life occasionally.
Sure, Brooke had had previous boyfriends. All three of them (he didn’t count the one she’d gone to the senior prom with, since they’d broken up a week later). Each had lasted a couple of years—the last one, almost four. But then, she was more the serious relationship type, not like him at all. George was perfectly happy with the casual dating scene and even he didn’t know how many girls he’d gone out with since high school. Keeping it light had always worked for him, so why change? He worked intensely on his art, he worked hard in the ring, and he made a good living from both. The rest was all fun.
But his mother had been on his case lately about settling down. When he’d finally shown his face at home this morning, she surprised him by not taking him to task about being out all night. Instead, she suggested he bring Felicia by the house to meet her, maybe invite her over to dinner. What was up with that? He laughed aloud as he polished the headlights on Carmelita. Mom, you should know better by now. I only love you and my truck.
But who knew? Perhaps he’d have some feelings for Felicia by the end of the weekend. Because unlike any of his other girlfriends, when he was with her, he didn’t think of much else. Not even his next art project or his upcoming match in the octagon. There was Felicia, and pretty much only Felicia. Wasn’t that what love was supposed to be like? George wasn’t sure it was possible to feel the sting of Cupid’s effin’ arrow in a single day, but he was dead certain he’d never had a relationship quite like this one.
And he’d never, ever, had sex like this in his life. Dios, he’d never imagined sex like this, and he thought his imagination was pretty damn good. He hadn’t slept a minute all night. The woman was a total goddess in more than just looks.
He sighed as he felt the tingle in his groin anew. Damn. Looking for distraction as well as what he liked to call vehicular perfection, George knelt on the pavement and scrubbed dirt off the rim of a tire. It wouldn’t last, of course—his dear Carmelita was going to get even dirtier driving on a country road to Morgan’s place, but it would be worth it. Not just for him, but hopefully for his best friend.
George had proposed introducing Aidan to Morgan’s husband, Rhys. And Brooke had heartily agreed. Since both men were Welsh, it was a no-brainer that they’d have plenty in common—even if Aidan was accustomed to a much older Wales. And Rhys had a forge set up and Aidan was a blacksmith, so hey, perfect fit, right? Brooke’s goal was to help Aidan, but what George really wanted was to help Brooke. Hopefully a little time alone together during the drive up and back (not to mention being exposed to all those super sweet love vibes that a newly married couple like Rhys and Morgan would naturally exude) would strengthen what had already developed between Brooke and Aidan.
Because even though he’d been majorly preoccupied with Felicia, George couldn’t forget seeing Brooke and Aidan lip-locked in the middle of what looked like effin’ Armageddon. The scene seemed to be permanently inked onto his brain, and he found himself sketching it again and again with various couples from his comic books—and Dios help him if Brooke ever recognized the image in a future Devina of Hades. The i
mage wasn’t compelling or unforgettable because Aidan was pretty much butt naked and Brooke nearly so. It was something about that totally amazing kiss…Like some wild affirmation, maybe even a homecoming, at-last-I’ve-found-you kind of thing. Hell, it was like the goddamn movies. Which made some sense from Aidan’s point of view, since he had thought Brooke was his long-lost woman at the time. But Brooke had poured herself into that kiss too. She didn’t know Aidan—nobody knew the guy at that point—but she sure as hell had recognized something.
Meanwhile, it had been pretty cool to have Brooke and Aidan staying at his mom’s house. She was obviously enjoying their company. Maybe it reminded her of when all of her kids were at home. And it certainly took the pressure off him—he worried about her being alone, and that’s why he volunteered to live there, and yet he wasn’t a stay-at-home kind of guy.
All that crap about fairies had been a surprise though. George had come home one night to find a thick layer of salt and marigold petals on his bedroom windowsill. At first he’d wondered if his mother had discovered the damned house was haunted after all. He’d warned her about that when he begged her not to buy the big old thing (although his main concern had actually been the heating bills, not ghosts). But nope, his mom had cited fairy problems of all things, and Brooke and Aidan had moved in the same day. The women had busied themselves with spells and charms to protect the house ever since. Aidan, thankfully, had spent his time doing something much more useful—taming that jungle of a yard. George had been afraid that daunting chore would fall to him.
Fairy problems, Dios. He shook his head. Tough to imagine a cute little fairy being dangerous.
