Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  But then he'd sensed something else, something he'd not expected to find in an all-powerful immortal, not even one temporarily diminished; something he'd recognized, and he'd not been able to resist opening his senses wide and probing more deeply.

  What he'd heard in the ancient one's words— in what he'd said and in those spaces between what he'd said and not said— had stilled him to the core.

  Once Dageus had thought himself a lonely man. Before he'd found his mate, before Chloe had pressed her wee hands to his heart and pledged herself to him with the binding vows.

  But now he knew that what he'd thought of as loneliness he could compound by thousands of years and multiply by infinity and still not manage to quantify that darkness that lay so deceptively still within Adam Black.

  Strange days, he mused, pushing open the door to his chamber, when the Tuatha Dé walked among them in human form.

  Er... sort of.

  For that was another unexpected thing he'd discovered about their otherworldly guest.

  Adam was, as he'd said, no longer exactly Tuatha Dé.

  Nor, however, was he human.

  20

  Gabby didn't leave Adam's bedchamber for three long, blissful days and nights. Three perfect, incredible days and nights. She abandoned herself to them, to him, completely.

  Oh, they didn't make love the entire time, her body— so delicate in comparison to his— couldn't have withstood it.

  But there were many ways to give and take pleasure, and he was a master of them all. They spent hours in the shower, lazily bathing each other, exploring each other's bodies, tasting and teasing. Hours that she feasted on gold-velvet skin, rippling muscles, and silky black hair spilling across her naked body. More hours where she was spread on a rug before the fire while he rubbed her down with scented oils, making playful comparison of her to a mare that had been ridden too hard.

  Sliding up behind her, riding her again. Rubbing her down again. More bathing, more playing in bed.

  The only time he left her was to get food. Days and nights of eating and sleeping and sex. No woman, she decided, had ever lost her virginity more fantastically. There were many long hours where she was precisely as he'd said she would be: too languorously sated even to move. Convinced he couldn't possibly arouse her again; yet aroused in a heartbeat from a mere gold-flecked dark glance from beneath dusky lashes and slanted brows.

  She felt as if she'd slipped into some netherworld of crystals and heather-scented fire and sizzling eroticism. Though she'd not noticed at first, too fixated on the vision of the great, dark, naked man, she'd finally realized that his chamber was called the Crystal Chamber because it housed crystal sculptures of various fanciful beasts. Unicorns and dragons, chimeras and phoenixes, gryphons and centaurs dotted the mantels, side tables, and chests. Dainty prisms hung in windows, more suspended above the health, catching the firelight and turning it to brilliant splashes of color.

  Ornate silver-framed mirrors hung on the walls amid lovely tapestries, and dark, beautifully carved mahogany furniture graced the suite. Plush lambskin rugs were strewn about the floor. The bed was a masterwork of antique craftsmanship, topped with satiny sheets, plump down ticks, and a plush black velvet coverlet. It sported four posters the size of small trees (posters to which he'd tied her hands at one point, kissing and tasting her, driving her wild with need).

  There couldn't have been a more fitting place for her to sleep with her Fae prince than this suite, surrounded by improbable creatures of legend, her improbable legend of a lover gilded by firelight, dappled with rainbow hues, rising above her, dark face taut with lust.

  For those three days, she felt as if they existed in a place out of time, out of space, a fairy bower wherein nothing but the moment mattered, and the moments were so exquisite that, for a time, she forgot everything.

  No questions spilled from lips too enchanted with kissing. No worries tumbled through a mind too intoxicated by lovemaking. No thoughts of tomorrow intruded.

  There was now, she was happy, and that was enough.

  * * *

  On the fourth day he roused her while it was still dark outside, bundled her nude body warmly in a down comforter, and sifted them repeatedly until at last he stopped atop a mountainous outcropping.

  Perching with irreverent grace on the edge of a sheer thousand-foot drop, he cradled her in his arms and they watched the sun come up over the Highlands, their breath frosting the chilly air.

  It began with the merest kiss of gold on the far misty horizon, slowly burned off the fog, turned to a rosy-orange fireball, then bathed the hills and valleys in gold.

  And as they sat on top of the world while the day was being born he told her of his plan: the why of the rituals the MacKeltars performed on the feast days and what would happen if they didn't perform them; that they'd agreed to hold off on Lughnassadh, a few days hence, in order to bring Aoibheal to MacKeltar land; that when she came. Adam would apprise her of Darroc's treachery and secure Gabrielle's safety as he'd promised.

  He said nothing about what might happen between them then. No words of any future beyond that time.

  And she didn't ask, because she was a big, fat coward. Falling for a fairy prince in human form was one thing.

  But an immortal being? With all kinds of powers? Adam was overwhelming in human form. She couldn't imagine him in his natural state.

  She wasn't sure she wanted to see him in it. She wanted things to go on like this forever. She didn't want any changes. Things were perfect as they were.

  Adam with unlimited power could be terrifying.

  Anyone with unlimited power could be terrifying. She could be terrifying with it.

  So she refused to follow that line of thought any further. There was no point in speculation, it would only drive her crazy. So many things could happen, so many things could go wrong. She would deal with what came to be when it came to be. For all she knew, maybe Adam couldn't really protect her, and the queen would kill her or turn her over to the Hunters, and it would all become a moot point anyway.

  There was a sobering thought.

  And all the more reason to savor the now.

  Which she did for the rest of the day, rolling across the bed with him, laughing and teasing and mating wildly.

  Until dusk.

  When the gloaming came, he bundled her up again, sifted them back to that high place, and they watched while the sky went violet, then black, and the moon rose and the stars came peeping out.

  "I've seen thousands of these Highland dusks and dawns," he told her. "And I never get my fill"

  She tipped her head back, staring up at the black velvet sky pierced by glittering stars.

  And she stalled thinking about thousands of dusks and dawns, about immortality and living forever, and before she could stop herself she blurted, "Why didn't Morganna take the elixir of life?"

  His body stiffened instantly. He turned her roughly in his arms and stared into her eyes a long moment.

  Then he kissed her and kissed her until she was breathless and no longer thinking about Morganna and immortality.

  Though it would come back, that question, to gnaw at her.

  * * *

  "'The two of you are cheating!" Dageus scowled at Chloe and Gabby.

  "We are not," Chloe protested indignantly.

  "You are too," Adam said. "I saw Gabby tilt her hand so you could see it. It's the only reason you keep beating us."

  Gabby arched a playful brow. "Sounds to me like somebody who's used to being immortal and all-powerful just can't handle losing at a mortal card game."

  Adam shook his head, smiling faintly. She was irrepressible. And she was cheating. Had been for the past two hours, but he'd been letting it slide until Dageus had pointed it out. He'd found it rather amusing that the Highlander wasn't catching on, too distracted by the steamy looks Chloe kept shooting him, or the way his petite wife would wet her lips and smile to jar his concentration.

  He hadn't needed an
y such looks from Gabby. Her mere existence jarred his concentration. He'd thought the past week might have burned off some of his edgy, relentless desire for her, but it had in no way diminished it. Perversely, the more he bedded her, it seemed, the more he needed to bed her again.

  He would have kept her all to himself, until the very dawn of Lughnassadh, had Gwen and Chloe not come pounding on the Crystal Chamber door a few days ago, informing them enough was enough and they really should socialize with their hosts, at least during part of their days. Surely that wasn't too much to ask?

  A blushing Gabrielle had insisted they venture forth. Had given him a quick lesson in human manners, a lesson he'd not liked one bit. He loathed the idea of sharing her with anyone, for any amount of time.

  But Gabrielle had been resolute, and so the six of them had spent the past several days hiking the Highlands during the day, dining in the evening, and drinking and playing cards or chess or some such human game into the wee hours. And Adam had done his damnedest to wedge all his desire for her into the time it took the moon to bridge the sky. Christ, he'd begun to hate the dawn.

  Not since his days with Morganna had he lived on such an intimate daily basis with humans, and never had mortals welcomed him so completely as these. (Apart from the maids— those he just couldn't figure out; he'd never seen a bunch of women more obsessed with his groin: For some bizarre reason a curvy redhead kept offering him bananas, and the other night at dinner, a blonde serving maid had stabbed a knife in a plump sausage before plunking it on his plate with a downright baleful glare.)

  But the MacKeltars treated him as if he were one of them. Ribbed and jested with him as they did among themselves. Thrust their wee bairns into his arms and made him hold them. He'd not had a baby in his hands for over a thousand years, had never had one spit up on him. Regurgitated formula was hell on silk and leather, but then he'd caught the look in Gabrielle's eyes and decided tiny Maddy MacKeltar could spit up on him all she wanted.

  They even got testy with him when they felt he wasn't being forthcoming enough about himself. In the past few days he'd talked of things, shared experiences he'd shared with none before. His own kind would have scoffed, and mortals had never truly seen him as one of them, never freed him so completely simply to be, without censure or preconception. Not even Morganna. He'd always been one of the Fae to her, and his son had never welcomed him at Castle Brodie, refusing to acknowledge him as his father.

  But here, in this enchanted time, he was Adam. A man. Nothing more. Nothing less. And it was a completely fascinating thing to be.

  He glanced about the library. Drustan and Gwen were playing progressive chess near the fire, laughing and talking.

  Their tiny, beautiful dark-haired daughters were slumbering nearby, waking occasionally to be fed.

  Gabby and Chloe were laughing, insisting to Dageus that they would never cheat, how could he think such a thing of them?

  The great clock above the mantel chimed the hour eleven times.

  In one hour Lughnassadh would begin. And the walls between realms would start to thin.

  And he would sit here in the castle and wait for the queen.

  By the close of day tomorrow, at the very latest, Aoibheal would be warned. Darroc would be revealed for the traitor he was, the realms would be safe, and Adam might very well be his immortal, all-powerful self again.

  His petite ka-lyrra, however, would continue aging day by day.

  And he would have to stop that.

  He glanced at Gabrielle. She was nibbling her lower lip, shooting Chloe a mischievous look over her hand of cards. Around her there was— as there was around each human in the library— that infernal golden glow. That glow that ever made of him an unstable magnet, drawn in spite of himself, repelled despite his efforts to cozy near. That which lured him, that which he could never touch or understand.

  He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. Tossed back a swallow of scotch, savoring the way it burned his human throat as it never had in his Tuatha Dé form.

  For the first time in his existence he wished for an ability no Tuatha Dé possessed. Though they'd learned to move backward to certain degrees in it, and forward again to their present (though never beyond that; legend held there was only one race that could navigate what was yet to be, but Adam gave little credence to such legends), not even the queen herself could stop time.

  * * *

  "Halt!" hissed Bastion.

  The Hunters stopped instantly. "But we've got his scent. He's in these hills, very near here," one protested.

  Bastion grimaced. "There are wards. The queen protects this land. We dare not cross them."

  "But Adam Black and his human crossed them," the Hunter said impatiently.

  "Should we summon Darroc?" another asked.

  Bastion shook his head. "No. There's nothing Darroc can do so long as Adam hides behind wards. We wait. We watch for the first opportunity. Then we summon Darroc. We'll not lose our chance again. The Elder won't move against the queen until this enemy of his is gone."

  And more than anything, Bastion wanted Darroc to move against the queen, to topple her from her throne. This brief time of roaming the human realm again had awakened all his senses, sloughed away the boredom and ennui of his Unseelie hell. Reminded him of how alive he felt, how good it was to be a Hunter. How many delicious humans there were to prey upon.

  He'd not blow this chance. Nor would he give the Elder a chance to screw things up again with his lust for vengeance. He'd summon Darroc only at the last possible minute, and if Darroc didn't kill him fast enough for his liking, Bastion himself would see to Adam's death.

  21

  Aoibheal paced a tract of silica sand on the Isle of Morar, staring out at a frothing turquoise sea, her iridescent eyes flashing.

  Time, usually of no relevance to her, a thing of which she was, indeed, scarcely aware, had suddenly become a pressing concern.

  A short amount of it ago, she'd sensed an unfamiliar sensation, a growing lack of cohesion in the fabric of the realms she'd created for her race. Because she'd not felt such a thing before, she'd not immediately comprehended what it was.

  The walls between the realms of Tuatha Dé and Man were thinning.

  It took her yet another amount of time to pinpoint the origin of distress in the weft and weave of worlds: The Keltar Druids had not yet performed the ritual of Lughnassadh, the ancient rite that was to be completed at break of the feast day, as it had been for millennia.

  She shook her head, astonished. By Danu, would they test her mercy again?

  She narrowed her eyes, looking not outward but inward, stretching her far-vision across time and place. Seeking which Keltar was failing her now.

  Stunned to find it was the same ones. Again. Stretching farther to know the why of it...

  She snapped ramrod straight, eyes wide with disbelief.

  "Amadan," she hissed. "How dare you?"

  Perhaps even more to the point, how could he?

  She'd stripped him of everything, rendered him powerless— or at least she thought she had— unable to be seen, heard, felt. She'd consigned him to a vile existence, insubstantial as a ghost, and cast him into the human realm. Banished him, cut him off, denied him even the merest glimpse of his own kind.

  She'd chosen the parameters of his punishment carefully, to force him to taste the bitterness of the human condition with none of the attendant sweetness, to cure him of his foolish fascination with mortals once and for all.

  Her repeated indulgence of her favored prince— the only one of her people who ever managed to surprise her, and surprise was nectar of the gods to a sixty-thousand-year-old queen— had cast her in an unfavorable light with both her courtiers and her advisers. Not to mention the eternal cleaning up after him she was obliged to do.

  The High Council had been insisting she take action for centuries and, after his most recent defiance, she'd had no choice but to agree. Adam had argued against her in front of her court and council, a th
ing she could never permit, lest her sovereignty be questioned, lest she be blatantly challenged. Though she was the most powerful of the Seelie, that power was hers only so long as she held the support of the majority of her people. That power could be taken from her.

  She'd been certain fifty or so years of such punishment would be enough to make him grateful to be Tuatha Dé, to bring him to heel, to stop him from meddling with humans.

  She'd not believed it possible for him to find a way to meddle in the form she'd given him.

  Oh, how wrong she'd been. As always, if a loophole existed, her iconoclastic D'Jai prince found it. And in a mere few months' time. There he was, on the Keltar estate, and there was no doubt in her mind that he'd created this problem. Even cursed and powerless, he'd somehow found a way to do something to keep the Keltar from performing the ritual.

  She stretched her senses again, feeling for dimensional faults. The ramifications of the thinning walls would first be felt in Scotland, then would spread quickly to Ireland and England. It had, in fact, already begun. The effects would radiate outward until, by nightfall, hidden Tuatha Dé realms would rise up all over the world in the midst of human ones.

  By nightfall, any Tuatha Dé walking among humans in anything less than full human glamour would be exposed.

  By nightfall, even the silica sands of Morar would gleam palely beneath a human moon.

  Dimensions would bleed into one another, temporal portals would open. The Unseelie would be freed.

  In a nutshell, all hell would break loose.

  * * *

  Adam was sitting with Gabrielle in the great hall, in the waning afternoon light, when he sensed the queen drawing near. About bloody time, he thought. Even he'd begun to get a little edgy waiting, wondering what was taking her so long.