by Claudy Conn
They didn’t talk much after that as they quietly sipped their wine. Max put down her empty glass and with a quick nod and a glance at Uncle Kennet still dead to the world, she asked, “Should I wake him now?”
“You go on up. You look exhausted. I will see to Uncle Kennet.”
“Thank you,” Maxie said as she left the room, grateful she was headed finally for her bed. Almost there … the bedpost was nearly in her reach …
Wham!
Her head exploded and shattered. At least that was what it felt like as she put up her hands to hold it together. Pain started to rip through the back of her eyes. She put a stop to it. No pain! At least she had learned how to do that. She was, however, plastered to the pretty flower-patterned rug next to her bed. She was diving into another world—whose world she couldn’t guess, but she knew it definitely wasn’t hers.
* * *
A scene opened up before her eyes. It was as though she were no longer in her room, but walking somewhere. On no—she was back on the dirt road Lamia had walked along in her last vision. She was back in the past … where Lamia had made her first kill of this century. Why?
Take it easy, she whispered to herself as she floated and waited. Be calm. What, she wondered, was she looking at? There was someone—no … something—hovering in the atmosphere. It had a form, but that form was diluted with the shadows of black magic.
This thing was watching Lamia.
She could see it moving. It seemed solid and yet ethereal. Evil misted over the scene, and Maxie sensed it. Not quite evil, and yet it was filled with hatred. The vibes of bitter loathing were in the air she was breathing. It was in the sound she heard this creature making in its throat …
A cloud of darkness loomed and pulsated. Maxie tried to make out the creature’s shape but couldn’t quite see it through the fog that shielded it. She had the impression of size—large—and she had the impression of … power.
All at once and without being able to actually see it, Maxie sensed the creature was male. It was a male thing moving and watching Lamia as she pulled herself together and left her victim in his car. The fog moved with him as he watched her hurry off towards the DuLaine estate.
A New Forest wild pony whinnied and spooked into a wild gallop as Lamia came charging out of the woods into the clearing as she headed home. She laughed out loud and raised two fists heavenward to scream, “I’m back … do you hear me there in your Druid Mist? I am … unstoppable now!”
Maxie shivered. To hear and know the truth of Lamia’s words sickened her, but there was something else that had her on the razor’s edge. It was the thing in the darkness. It bristled with strong emotions, and Maxie could sense something familiar about this living entity. This thing’s hatred exuded all around him and filled the dark cloud that shielded him. And then Maxie knew what this thing hated above all others were humans.
Lamia was out of sight when this thing suddenly raged out loud, “Pernicious humans—gluttonous mobs, nothing more. You have taken the Earth … this beautiful Earth and desecrated it. You have killed sacred animals for nothing more than sport and trophies. Selfish beings—you think you are so superior that you do not believe another race walks beside you, between you, in your face, and so very much above you! My race could destroy you if we so choose … and I do … I mean to lead my race and do just that!”
And then Maxie knew. The dark fog hid a Fae … he was a Seelie Fae. She listened to him revere his Danu in whispered words of praise, and she began to shake with a sudden new fear. They were in trouble. This Fae threatened them all. He thought himself a god. He was ranting, and there was no doubt in Maxie’s mind that this Fae was totally mad. She felt his madness as it seeped through his pores. She felt his clarity of thought, however, at odds with that madness, and wondered if the prince and Queen Aaibhe knew who he was.
His thoughts were many and convoluted. His feelings were those of disgust.
Nothing had turned out the way it should have because of that bloody treaty. Now, now his queen involved herself with these petty beings. It was a grave blunder she would live to regret it. She was breaking her own edict.
Maxie felt his disappointment in his queen tearing at his sense of pride. He believed that the queen of the Seelie Fae—his queen—had betrayed them. Hers was the fault, a fault that he would eventually point out to the High Council.
His queen? She didn’t deserve to be his queen. She didn’t deserve to preside over the Tuatha Dé. He was older than she was, and although his was not a royal house, his was a revered name amongst his kind. He was a Seelie knight of war, and he ranked high amongst the Tuatha Dé Danaan.
He believed he had escaped the madness that so often came to those who survived as long as he had. Maxie’s eyebrows went up, and she said under her breath, “Yeah, right …”
He had refused to drink from the Cauldron, for there were many things he did not wish to forget, and drinking from the Cauldron would make him forget everything. Instead he had conditioned himself, and he believed his mind was still intact after nearly seventy-five thousand years.
Maxie still couldn’t see him. The darkness that shrouded him shifted and moved around the horrific scene Lamia had left behind. There was blood splatter, but this evil-minded Fae moved his hand and the blood was gone. Maxie wondered what he was he doing and why.
Maxie got an impression of him as his body swayed in the shades of darkness. She couldn’t see features or hair color, but she caught a movement and realized he had long, dark hair and he wore it loose.
He was moving around the dead man’s vehicle, and Maxie could hear his thoughts. He was thinking about his sexual exploits and prowess amongst the female Fae he had chosen as lovers over the centuries. He was proud of himself. He knew that those exploits were whispered about amongst his kind as legendary. He reviewed his life with great satisfaction. He felt he was worthy of the goal he had set himself.
All his determination centered on Queen Aaibhe. He wanted her overthrown and displaced. He wanted her long reign at an end. Everything was about what he wanted, which was to wield the Power, control the Tuatha Dé, and to enslave what humans he did not destroy. To that end he had positioned himself.
Ugh! Maxie felt like she was falling through space. She closed her eyes and hugged herself. Then just as suddenly there was stillness. There was quiet, and Maxie opened her eyes to find herself on the floor of her bedroom. She dragged herself up, threw off her clothes, and dove under her covers.
“Enough … oh please enough …” she whispered as she closed her eyes again. Her vision was over, and thus, what she didn’t get to see was the identity of this Fae as he walked amongst his own on the Isle of Tir. What she didn’t get to hear was him speaking through an orb to the Dark King’s consort Queen Morrigu, who was a prisoner in the Dark Realm. The Dark Realm and Queen Morrigu’s black magic were essential to his plan.
When their conversation was over and the forbidden orb was hidden away, he looked at himself in his ancient mirror and smiled. None suspected him—how could they? The queen herself trusted him.
Lamia was safe now to carry on and create the diversion he needed while he tore at the fabric of the Unseelie prison walls.
* * *
The door to Lamia’s dark library opened, and Shamon stepped inside. Lamia saw him with a burst of joy and opened her arms wide. As he approached she could see the changes age had wrought upon the boy she remembered. Even so, the sight of him made her feel exhilarated and refreshed.
He was no longer the boy, the dear boy she had cared for, but he was still very much her own, “Shamon,” Lamia whispered her welcome.
He rushed to her, took her in his arms, and held her for a long moment. Here was his beloved. He kissed her eyes, her ears, and her neck and then took her mouth to taste her once again. There was no awkwardness of time. Nothing had changed. She was his lady and his mistress. She was his heart.
Lamia enjoyed his obvious adoration. He was her Shamon. She held him i
n great affection. She needed him. The fresh blood she had recently consumed had revitalized her, and her lust was clicking away inside, burning within. She needed his immediate attention. She started touching him wildly as her affection turned into a frenzy of desire. “Shamon, here … touch me here …” She put his hands to her breasts as she pulled away his clothing.
As Shamon touched her, he forgot all else, and for the moment Shamon was lost in his love for her, all other considerations set aside. For Shamon no time had elapsed between them. He was with her once again, and he was hers. Well, nearly hers. A fragment of his heart would forever be hidden from her—it belonged to Nell. There was a compartment of his mind that was shielded from her probe. There was a shame as well, for he was betraying her for the Druid realm and the Fae. He felt himself the worst of all human beings.
The Fae had put up the shield in his mind so the secrets he carried would not be exposed to her. There were so many secrets. There was his darling wife Nell from another century, now long gone, and there was Julian and this young woman who carried the other’s name—Maxine. Those thoughts were shielded from DuLaine. There was his part in all of the scheming. He was, he told himself, a lowly being without character.
Even through his desire for her, Lamia sensed something was wrong. “What is it?” She touched his face, even as his hands worked her body. “What is wrong, my Shamon?”
“Naught. There is only joy,” Shamon whispered into her ear.
She couldn’t see the lie, and she kissed his lips once more as she drew him to the sofa,
And there she took his cock in her hand, posing it as she got into position to straddle him. She was demanding now. “Tell me, Shamon … tell me …”
“I want you, Lamia … now as I have always wanted you.”
She rode him with a savage desire, and when they finally climaxed together, she scarcely gave him a moment before she was working him again. She needed more, so much more, and Shamon gave it to her.
Later, she took him upstairs to her bed, and he held her tightly. His thoughts bumped and warred with one another. He knew eventually she would ask him about Julian, and he dreaded that moment. He knew what he was expected to say. He knew what he was expected to do. Could he? Would she hear the lie? There was the shield, yes, but she had great power—how could he be certain the shield would work? He couldn’t bear for her to discover his betrayal.
Her curiosity for details would soon surface, and she would want to know about Julian of Talbot. She would want to know how long it had taken for him to die. He knew she assumed Julian was dead. Sooner or later she would ask, and sooner or later, some half-truths would have to be told.
She kissed him again and whispered, “I am your whole world again, am I not, Shamon?”
“You have always been my whole world …” And there the lie pulsed as he thought of Nell.
* * *
When Maxie strode the edge, when she could no longer think clearly and didn’t want to listen or explain or speak, she more often than not grabbed her music and rocked.
Maxie’s love of music always saved her in times of stress. All kinds of music—oldies, pop, rock, country … if it had the kind of beat that made her want to get up and move, if it tugged at her heart or made her want to sing right out loud … then it was for her.
She had discovered the day before that the first floor of the castle housed a room that must have once been used as a study but had been converted into the ‘entertainment chamber.’ She had smiled to herself as she realized Breslyn must have done the conversion and whispered, “Thank you, Princey boy, this is great.”
The room housed a billiard table off to the far side, and on the other end was a stereo system you could crank up and then get lost in the sound …
A big screen dominated another wall, which faced a comfortable assortment of love seats and recliners. Maxie loved this room. She grabbed one of her favorite CDs. “Sticking this baby in …” she said out loud as she inserted it and immediately pumped up the volume.
Music flooded the room and took over her brain and her body. She moved round the room, stuck in a little aerobics for good measure, and not a thought dared enter her brain. Her entire body was smiling.
Maxie couldn’t sing. She did sing, but she was certain no one would want to her do so. She smiled to see Uncle Kennet poke his head in first, grin, and start moving his arms around. His legs joined in, his hips started rotating, and they were both laughing and bopping around the room.
Uncle Kennet, like Maxie’s parents had been, was addicted to rocking ’n’ rolling’. Just then Toby Keith was pelting out “God Love Her”, and Max was singing out the words and playing the part.
Oh yes, she could see herself on the back of that motorcycle holding on with both arms wrapped around his tight, hard belly. Whose hard tight belly? It didn’t matter at the moment—it was hard, and she was holding!
She was laughing right out loud while she watched Uncle Kennet getting down and screeching along with Toby. She reached out and grabbed his hand, and they danced. “Uncle Kennet—you rock!” she told him with great affection, but there was no denying that his moves were from outer space.
She was singing, bumping, grinding, totally letting go, and feeling the heat. Off went her cardigan. It freed her bare arms, which were raised over her head as she wiggled and bopped. She was moving to the beat and without a notion of how it might look.
Sure, to a man who had been in a coma, it must have looked like real dirty dancing!
Maxie turned and saw him out of the corner of her eye. He was leaning against the door jam. He was dressed in jeans, and she thought he must have just come in from the cold as he was still wearing his suede jacket. His arms were crossed against his wide chest. His muscular legs were crossed at the ankles. His cheeks were flushed from being outside. His blue eyes spelled out hungry—and not for food—and his mouth curved into a sexy smile.
Maxie knew he had been looking at her ass and that he had shifted his gaze to her full breasts. She knew it, and it made her tremble. Her mind shouted at her, Maxie … you are trembling.
The next thing she knew, she was rocking right over to him and taking his hands. He tried not to give them to her, but she wasn’t giving up. Finally, somehow, much to her amazement, he allowed her to pull him into the rhythm. She put her hands on his very fine body and encouraged the right moves. He was a natural. He seemed to feel the beat. The Druid in him felt the beat, and as the story went, Druids were born of artists, musicians, dancers and such. And so they did the dirty dancing thing together.
* * *
Julian Talbot told himself he didn’t want this. Dancing with her did something strange inside him. He felt connected to her in a way he had no right to feel. Again his guilty heart said no. It wasn’t how he meant this day to progress—with her so much a part of it.
He started this morning with a visit to the stables. He supposed he had the prince to thank for maintaining his lands and supplying his stables with some prime horses. The prince certainly knew his horseflesh, but then the Fae had always been partial to horses. It really irked him to have to thank the prince for anything, but hell and fire—there was no help for it.
That was another thing—he knew that any damn fool could see the prince wanted her … and meant to have her. Julian told himself it was none of his damn business. She could be with anyone she chose. None of his business … indeed! He wasn’t sure how he felt about a Fae seducing a human female, especially this human female.
Miss Reigate—as he was trying to think of her—was a woman of this century and must certainly have had some experience with men. After all, she was already twenty-one! The idea, however, of her in another man’s arms made him feel almost sick. She was not his bride, and he was certain she could take care of herself when it came to men, and yet … The prince isn’t a man, is he? Hell, no! He’s a potent Fae with the power of illusion.
Julian considered the problem but was totally at a loss as to what
he could do about it. It wasn’t really his problem. She was an adult. He had seen her uncle Kennet try and warn her off the prince, but that hadn’t worked either. Julian had already developed a fondness for her uncle Kennet. He had upon first meeting him decided that Kennet was a good man, and theirs had become an easy friendship.
It was during one of their many conversations that the subject of horses came up, and Kennet mentioned that Miss Reigate was an accomplished equestrian. It made Julian realize how little he really knew about her. Cahal had never told him very much about the present Miss Reigate. In fact, as he recalled Cahal had steered away from the subject.
At any rate, Julian had been meaning to tell her to feel free to make use of the stables. Perhaps it would keep her occupied and away from the prince. His only concern in that regard was the fact that she should not ride out alone.
His lordship spoke to his stable manager Graves about selecting a mount for Miss Reigate. Graves brought out a pretty dapple-gray and said she was just enough horse for the ‘young lady’ without any tricks in her. “As far as yerself, m’lord … I wouldn’t mount ye with any other than the big bay gelding out there …” He indicated the horse with his chin.
The words came tumbling out of Julian’s mouth before he could stop them, and then he was making excuses to himself for not taking them back. “Good. I tell you what, Graves, would you be so kind as to saddle them up for us and bring them round front?” He slipped him a bill and saw that Graves was surprised by it but well satisfied.
What the bloody hell am I doing? He knew he shouldn’t be alone with her. He didn’t want to get too close to her. He didn’t, but he argued with himself that she needed protection. Right. Protection.
She doesn’t know the area. Honesty faced him and made him admit that he didn’t know the area either. Hell, and the DuLaine was out there. That’s right, out there and on her way bloody way!
