Puca

by Penny Ash

  He allowed her to pull him into her arms and he held onto her. “I am a killer, Emma, it’s my base nature. It is not safe to have me sleeping in your bed.”

  “It’s all right, we’ll work it out.” She rubbed his back, the touch of her soft hands soothing.

  With the excitement of waking to find he had not shredded Emma in his sleep and the more immediate adventures of dodging the Baker’s daughter Lissie, he put the mystery of the stranger with the camera off for the moment. He resolved to keep an eye out for the man, but he’d not bother Emma with the encounter.

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  * * * * * *

  He had been cornered in the laundry room, the front parlor, the woodshed, and the hallway leading to the attic stairs by the determined girl. He was getting desperate and had taken to entering his attic room in his bird form to avoid the child. He saw the girl coming toward the shed and looked around, panic bubbling up inside. There was nowhere to run or hide. He saw Emma in the garden cutting flowers.

  “Emma, my love, save me,” Kian hurried over to where she stood beside the cutting garden. He looked back over his shoulder and reaching for the basket Emma held, snatched it from her hands. “I’ll just be helping you with these flowers then,” he said, glancing around as if he was being hunted.

  “What? I don’t need any help, Kian. Go help Tilly wash dishes or something.” Emma took her flower basket back.

  “Emma,” Kian said desperately. “She’s after me again, she’s that persistent.”

  Emma smiled and shook her head. “Wuss,” she said and went back to cutting flowers for that night’s dinner table arrangement.

  “Whatever,” the Puca grumbled and shimmered, transforming quickly into his wolfhound form and lying down in the grass beside Emma, resting his head on her feet.

  The Puca growled, and Emma looked back toward the house to see Lissie coming around the corner. The girl was obviously searching for someone other than 141

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  Emma, judging by her look of disappointment when she saw Emma and the wolfhound. The girl, Lissie Baker, tossed her long, bright blonde hair and threw her shoulders back, thrusting her chest forward.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Kian, he promised to take me for a ride on his Harley. Have you seen him?” Lissie asked.

  “No, sorry, I haven’t seen him since dinner last night,” Emma said, keeping her voice bland.

  The Puca made a questioning sound. She had seen him after dinner, considering the bubble bath they had shared, not to mention afterward in her bed.

  Miffed, he stood and stretched, giving Emma a dirty look.

  Lissie gave Emma the once-over when she thought Emma wasn’t looking. Emma tried not to laugh. The Puca licked her foot and whined softly before ambling off to change. “You might check around the shed or the woodpile,” Emma said blandly.

  Lissie gave Emma a disgusted look and sighed.

  “My mom says I have to leave you guys alone. That you sleep with him, he’s your boyfriend.”

  “Does she?” Emma snipped a bright orange poppy, laying it in the basket.

  “I saw you in the hall that night. I think you put some sort of spell on him. Did you? Is that why he sleeps with you?” Lissie demanded.

  “Well, that’s a rather private thing to be discussing,” Emma began.

  “Well, is it?” Lissie insisted.

  “Is it what, Emma, my love?” Kian asked as he 142

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  walked up behind them. As much as he disliked being around the girl, he just could not leave Emma to deal with her alone.

  “Does she sleep with you?” Lissie asked bluntly.

  “Ah. There’s not much sleeping to it, is there, Emma my girl?” He smiled lazily, nuzzling her neck and slipping his arms around Emma from behind, glancing up at Lissie slyly.

  Lissie turned a bright crimson, tears of anger and jealousy sparkling in her eyes. She turned and stomped off toward the house. Emma sighed and leaned back against Kian.

  “What’s wrong, my sweet girl?” The Puca asked, nuzzling her neck.

  “I wish you’d been a little less blunt,” Emma asked.

  “Ah, love, she’s but a child, she’ll get over it. She’ll find another to obsess over,” Kian said. He traced over her ear with the tip of his tongue.

  “Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea what it’s like for your first serious crush to reject you, do you?” Emma said and snuggled into his arms. “They leave in a few days; I think it would be best if you had dinner in the kitchen until then.”

  “Aye, anything your heart desires, my love, I’ve places to disappear to if she comes too close.” he whispered.

  Emma sighed and smiled, patting Kian’s arm.

  “Where do you go when you aren’t with me?”

  “I’ve a home in the woods, not far,” Kian admitted reluctantly.

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  “Take me.”

  “Oh, love, it’s no fit place for you, high in a tree.”

  “You have a tree house in the woods and you haven’t let me see it?” she asked indignantly, turning in his arms to face him.

  “Emma,” he began.

  “Kian, I love tree houses. I want to see your home,”

  Emma said.

  “When the time is right, my sweet, but not today.”

  “Kian…”

  “Shh, no, when the time is right, I’ll take you to my home and love you until the sun rises high in the sky.

  But for now, trust me, I’d not have you in danger.”

  Emma sighed and reached up to brush a stray lock of hair from his smoldering hazel-green eyes. She rose up on her toes and gave him a quick kiss and a wink.

  “Hi, ladies, how are you this morning?”

  “Oh, we’re doing just fine,” Miss Crow said, smiling brightly at them.

  “Yes, indeed, don’t let us interrupt. We’re just looking for flowers to press,” Mrs. Overstreet said.

  “Oh, my, yes, you just enjoy your day with your Fairy Prince, dear,” Miss Crow said.

  “Thank you, ladies, feel free to take the flowers you like, this is a cutting garden,” Emma said, barely keeping her chuckle inside. Kian growled low and deep in his throat.

  Kian glared at the two little old ladies, a strong urge to change to his wolfhound form and bark at them sweeping over him. He growled at being called a Fairy Prince. A sudden sharp pinch to his backside 144

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  made him jump. He looked at Emma, surprised and shocked.

  “Be sweet,” Emma admonished him as she waved at the ladies. She turned and smiled at him. “Come on, Fairy Prince. Let’s go for a walk in the woods.”

  She walked away, her hips swaying seductively.

  Kian’s eyebrows shot up and he hurried to catch up with Emma. He slipped his arm around her waist and they walked into the woods in silence.

  The quiet of the forest was broken only by the singing of the birds and the soft sighing of the breeze in the trees. When they had lost sight of the house and could no longer hear the kids playing or the Fairy Ladies chatting, Emma pulled Kian off the path.

  “Emma, love, what are you playing at?” he asked as he followed, mystified and bemused.

  Emma stopped and pulled him into a deep kiss, threading her fingers through his hair and twining her tongue with his. He responded quickly, wrapping his arms around her and returning her kiss with all the passion he was feeling.

  He moved them toward a nearby tree and hurriedly shifted clothing, never breaking the kiss they’d begun. She moaned his name when he took her answering his urgency with her own demanding passion. The sweat trickled down his back, stinging the scratches she gave him. He gasped her name, her mouth at the hollow of his throat. Throwing his head back, he bared himself to her, surrendering to her, allowing her to mark him as hers. Their release crashed over them in a flurry of half-whispered cries 145

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  and soft words of love, leaving the
m spent and breathless in the dappled green light of the forest.

  Kian held Emma close, glancing at the tree they had spent their passion on. He gasped softly, looking up into the ancient oak he had chosen for his home so many years ago. Closing his eyes, he hugged Emma closer and whispered to her in his native language.

  Opening his eyes, he smiled up at the branches that held his tree house. Another sign just as his father had told him long ago, his true love would lead him home.

  “We should be making our way back, love; it’s nearing dinner time, so it is. We’ll be after being missed,” he said softly.

  Emma sighed and nodded. “Yes.”

  As they neared the house, Kian heard the soft clicking of a camera shutter. Resolving to investigate more thoroughly, he delivered Emma to the door and made his way over to the shed. The Harley had been uncovered. He grimaced slightly and thought unpleasant thoughts about forward little girls as he wheeled the motorcycle outside.

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  Chapter Fourteen

  mma watched from the library window as Kian rode Eoff. She smiled and went to her desk to do a little work. Starting up her email program, her smile faded as she watched one particular sender pop up. She sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes. She had so hoped that Brian would not be able to cause any more trouble for her. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she opened the email.

  She read the message and felt like breaking something, preferably Brian’s head. Unable to quite believe what she was seeing, she picked up the phone and called the airlines, booking a flight back to Dallas.

  Then she called the only person she could think of who might be able to help, her best friend Molly Alexander. The short, feisty Greek-American woman had the most devious mind Emma had ever encountered.

  The phone rang, and Emma waited for her friend to answer. The click of the phone let her know the answering machine had picked up. “Obviously this is a machine. At the beep, leave a message and I’ll call you back... Or not,” Molly’s voice said.

  The phone beeped. “Molly, pick up the phone if you’re there,” Emma said. She smiled when the phone beeped again and she heard the clatter of the 147

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  receiver being picked up.

  “Emma, how are you?” Molly asked in a cheerfully breathless voice.

  “I’m all right,” Emma began, then stopped with a sigh. “No I’m not, everything is falling apart,” she amended.

  “What’s wrong? What did that jerk Brian do now?”

  Molly asked, her voice angry.

  “Molly, he donated the painting I did of my Great-Aunt Chloe to charity.” Emma blinked back angry tears.

  “Oh, no. What can I do to help?”

  “Come by the house tomorrow afternoon, I’m flying out in the morning,” Emma said.

  She talked to her best friend for a few more minutes, then hung up. Sighing heavily, she got up to go find Kian and tell him she had to leave. Somehow she knew he would not take it well.

  * * * * * *

  Kian was sitting at the kitchen table with a large piece of apple pie on a plate before him. She sat down and watched him eat for a few minutes. He enjoyed food more than anyone else she knew.

  “Kian,” she said when he sat back to allow Tilly to take the plate. “Tilly, Pin, this concerns you too.”

  “What is it?” Kian asked, fear tingeing his voice and his eyes narrowing in concern.

  “Something has come up, and I have to go back to Dallas for a while,” she said.

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  “How long will you be gone from us?” Tilly asked, her voice quavery with tears.

  “I’m not sure. A week, maybe less,” Emma answered.

  “Emma you cannot be thinking seriously of traveling alone,” Kian said. His distress darkened his hazel-green eyes.

  “Kian, I have to go,” she said patiently. “It’s already settled, I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.” He said nothing, and she just looked at him. Finally she sighed and stood up from the kitchen table. She walked out into the hall.

  Kian watched her go, his heart sinking. “Then I must go with her,” he said firmly, lowering his gaze to his tightly clenched fists. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing himself to relax.

  “This is something to do with that weasel she was keeping company with. He’s hurt her somehow, hurt her terribly.” Kian looked at Tilly and Pin, his eyes wide. The two Brownies stared back at him with consternation.

  “Oh, Ki-Kian, are y-you s-sure so-son?” Pin asked.

  “We are joined, for all she doesn’t know it yet,” he said, “I cannot let her be going alone, Mother. I’ve a feeling I’ll be needed.” He stood and wandered outside, his heart heavy.

  For nearly five hundred years he had managed to avoid the cities of the humans; now he would be entering one voluntarily. I must be crazy, he thought sourly as he headed for the shed and his motorcycle.

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  He doubted the cities had changed overmuch. A drink would soothe his nerves and dull the terror he felt over the flight to come. In fact, getting blinding drunk is definitely in order, he thought, speeding down the road toward his favorite bar.

  * * * * * *

  Kian was pale and shaking as he boarded the plane.

  The drive to the airport in the care of a rude taxi driver had been a misery, discovering he could not catch the same flight as his precious Emma was hell.

  Not to mention the noise and crowds were not doing his hangover any good at all. Ah, Emma my darlin, I would not be doing this for anyone else, he thought grimly as he followed the stewardess down the aisle to his seat.

  He settled into his seat, fastening the seatbelt carefully avoiding the metal buckle. He glanced out the window next to him, startled to find himself so high off the ground. Swallowing hard, he turned to watch the other passengers milling about and settling into their seats around him.

  The plane began its taxi down the runway, picking up speed for takeoff. Kian gripped the armrests and fought the nausea that threatened to embarrass him, gritting his teeth until his jaws hurt. The bottom dropped out of the world as the plane lifted from the ground, and he swore softly.

  The airplane leveled off and he tried to relax. The tiny girl seated next to him watched him with wide 150

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  blue eyes. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and raised one eyebrow. She grinned at him. He crossed his arms and ankles, closing his eyes and willing the trip to be over. Something landed on his leg with a hard thump and he jumped, opening one eye to see the child’s sneaker-clad feet resting on his thigh.

  “I’m sorry,” the child’s mother said, embarrassed.

  “Ah, ‘tis nothing, let the child sleep. It will make the trip pass faster.” He smiled kindly at the woman before turning to watch the sea of clouds outside the plane.

  * * * * * *

  Kian watched the taxi roar off, then looked at the slip of paper Pin had written Emma’s address on and back up at the number on the house. He took a few minutes to look over the trim white house and smiled.

  He would have known this was Emma’s home even without the address. It looked like her, friendly and welcoming. Reaching down, he picked up his bag and walked to the door with a quick glance at the silver compact car in the driveway.

  At the door, he noticed the small welcome sign held by one of the tiny winged figures that the humans thought was what fairies looked like. He chuckled softly, shaking his head, and reached for the doorbell. The sound of Emma’s honey-sweet voice stopped him, and he tilted his head to one side.

  His eyes narrowed at the male voice he heard 151

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  answering his love. He touched the doorbell button and stopped once more, bowing his head. Maybe he was mistaken and she wasn’t the one, humans were so hard to read, he thought sadly.

  Suddenly the sound of someone being struck sent ice through his ve
ins. He dropped his bag and kicked the door open, striding into the house.

  Emma stood in the middle of the room, facing a rat-faced man with beady black eyes and lank brown hair who looked at Kian in shock. Emma held her strong, fine hand to her reddened cheek, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.

  “And just what is going on here, then?” Kian asked. He pulled Emma’s hand away from her cheek, brushing his fingertips over the redness. When she flinched, he turned to the man. There was a sickly, familiar oiliness about the man, just like the unpleasant aura Finvarra exuded.

  “I’m thinking you had better leave before I forget myself and shred your flesh and break your bones in my teeth,” Kian said, his voice soft and deadly.

  Emma laid her hand on Kian’s shoulder. He covered it with his free hand and continued to glare at Brian. “Yes, please go, Brian,” she said her voice shaking.

  Brian blanched and glared back at Kian and Emma.

  “I’ll be back, Em, this isn’t over yet.” He turned and walked out quickly.

  They listened to the slamming of a car door, followed by a motor being gunned and tires squealing. Emma gently pulled away and walked 152

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  past Kian to shut the door. He watched her, his heart in his throat. Before he realized it, he was standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders.