Lord of Legends

by Susan Krinard

  All rational justifications. All sensible, perhaps even necessary. Had he been less Arion and more Ash in that moment, he would have rejected them outright.

  But reason had nothing to do with it. Instinct belonged to Arion, and instinct would not be denied. Arion had led him here. Arion hated Cairbre. Arion believed he could overcome his enemy if only he could return to Tir-na-Nog.

  And if he were victorious…

  Then wouldn’t Mariah be safe? Would not all of Tir-na-Nog be free of Cairbre’s schemes?

  He tossed his head. Arion, the king of unicorns, had a chance against the usurper. Ash did not. Yet Ash could use words as Arion never could. Words to convince Mariah what must be done.

  “Ash? Why are we here?”

  He turned to her, breathing quickly with excitement. “Do you remember what I showed you in the hotel?”

  Her body grew still. “Please, Ash. I know you think—”

  “I do not think. I know.”

  She leaned against her horse’s firm shoulder. “We must go on to the station. We haven’t much time.”

  “No.” He felt desperation begin to take hold of him. “Donnington may be defeated, but Cairbre will not stop.”

  She started. “Who is Cairbre?”

  She must have remembered at least part of what had happened at the Gate months ago, but he knew he must turn her away from such memories as long as he could.

  “It would be better to ask who you are, Mariah,” he said. “You are part Fane, and the Fane rule Tir-na-Nog.”

  He saw her puzzlement quickly turn to comprehension. She did remember the visions he had shown her, however much she had rebuffed them.

  “Fane?” she echoed.

  “What humankind have called the Fair Folk. But they are so much more. And you share their blood.”

  Her eyes showed nothing but bafflement. He hurried on. “Somewhere in your ancestry,” he said, “a Fane mated with a human and left the offspring in your world. The mating might have taken place many generations in the past, but your Fane blood gave your mother the power to see Tir-na-Nog.”

  “My mother? She was—”

  “Perhaps she was a little mad because no one else could see what she did. But what she envisioned truly existed. It does exist. Just as I showed you.”

  She took her horse’s reins and brushed her skirts aside as if preparing to mount again. “I will not listen to this, Ash. You are ill. We can find help—”

  “You must listen!” He seized her shoulders and spun her around. “You saw the sprites. You saw Cairbre when he danced with you in the ballroom, invisible to every other human present.”

  “Lord Caber?” she whispered. “He was real?”

  “Yes. You have been drawn into the contentions of the Fane. You will no more be able to reject your heritage than your mother could. But there is more in you than the power to see.” He gave her a little shake. “Within you may lie the ability to open the Gate to Tir-na-Nog.”

  MARIAH LISTENED AS he had demanded, too bewildered to protest again.

  The Gate. This pile of ancient stones, fallen down, moss-covered and crumbling with age. This place that she had just begun to remember.

  A passage to another world.

  Ash had brought her here, not to the train station as they had agreed. He had deceived her, and now he offered an explanation. He claimed he could prove once and for all that her mother had not been insane…and that she herself would not fall into insanity.

  She shook her head sharply. What Ash said could not possibly be true. But what if it was? What if that other world did exist and she need never fear madness again?

  They spoke of “this world,” as if there were some other one. Vivian’s words, describing the overheard conversation between Donnington and Cairbre. A man—a creature—who wanted to take Mariah from her husband.

  “Who is Cairbre?” she repeated.

  Ash dropped his hands from her shoulders and stared at the Gate. Perspiration moistened his forehead. “Cairbre is a lord of the Fane,” he said. “A high and powerful lord who believes he should rule Tir-na-Nog.” He met Mariah’s gaze. “He plans to steal the throne from the Fane’s rightful ruler.”

  Mariah’s brain felt like a block of lead inside her skull. “What has this…this Fane lord to do with me?”

  “He wants you as his mate. He believes that by presenting you to the Fane as his bride, he will gain the support of other lords and more swiftly succeed in his purpose.”

  Marian concentrated on each breath she took, counting them one by one. “Why should these lords care about me?” she asked. “Do they have no women of their own?”

  “They have females in plenty. But those of pure Fane blood are rarely able to bear offspring.” He lowered his voice, as if the words he spoke were too dangerous for anyone else to hear. “They are a dying race, Mariah. Their only hope lies in stealing human females to bear their children.”

  “But you said I was not fully human.”

  “You are human enough to be of great value to the Fane, but Fane enough to be worthy of Cairbre.”

  A laugh burst from her, choking the words in her throat. “He wants me because I can give him children?”

  “And because winning you will give him status to defeat Oberon.”

  Oberon. Shakespeare’s King of the Fairies. Had the great playwright known he’d written of more than myth?

  “You said that Cairbre is powerful,” she said. “He can make himself invisible—”

  “That is the least of his abilities.”

  “If he wants me so much,” she said, “why did he appear as Lord Caber and then disappear again? Why didn’t he take me then?”

  “Oberon has declared that no Fane can enter this world save as a spirit…a spirit that can work some limited magic on earth but not physically interfere beyond a few simple tricks.” He seemed to gather his thoughts. “Cairbre was bent on finding a woman of mixed blood who would serve his purposes, but he required human assistance. That is why he recruited Donnington.”

  Mariah’s knees began to buckle. Ash caught her and eased her to the ground.

  “Donnington?”

  “He has been working for Cairbre since before you met him.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “Humans with Fane blood have become rare in England. Cairbre must have given Donnington a talisman to help him recognize any female who would fulfill Cairbre’s conditions. Donnington traveled across the ocean in hopes of finding just such a candidate. He discovered you and brought you to England under the guise of marriage, intending to deliver you to Cairbre.”

  Lies and more lies. “But why?” she asked. “How did Donnington come to be working for a man from another world?”

  “Perhaps Cairbre chose the earl because the Gate is so near his estate. Any Fane has much to offer a mortal—gold, jewels, wealth beyond imagining.”

  Greed. Even for a man already wealthy, the temptation of more was great. After all he had done, avarice was the least of Donnington’s sins.

  And yet something must have gone wrong. Donnington had not “delivered” Mariah to Cairbre. He had left Donbridge without explanation. And when he’d returned, he had claimed to want Mariah for himself.

  “Donnington broke their agreement,” she said.

  Ash crouched before her. “I do not know why he changed his mind. But Cairbre has other allies.” He hesitated. “Mariah, he would rather see you driven mad than go to any other man. When he knew that you and I…that we had been together—”

  “What have you to do with Cairbre?” she demanded. “How do you know all these things? Who are you?”

  “I tried to show you, Mariah.”

  “That you come from Tir-na-Nog. That you’re…a unicorn.”

  “You could not accept what I told you, but I tried to protect you from Cairbre as best I could. I believe that he employed Lady Westlake to act as his agent and work mischief against you. Against us.”

  “The rumor
s,” she said. “Lady Strickland. The stories that you and I—”

  “I do not know what Cairbre promised her. She already hated you, Mariah. She had her own reasons for making you suffer.”

  But Mariah was already pursuing another impossible idea. “You have not told me what you have to do with all this…why you tried to protect me, why we almost…” She shivered. “Why did Donnington imprison you?”

  “I was Cairbre’s enemy in Tir-na-Nog. He wished to use me in his scheme to rule. I refused. He did not have sufficient power to do me harm in Oberon’s domain, and yet he could not allow me to remain in Tir-na-Nog while I knew his secret. He had me exiled to earth as a human and instructed Donnington to hold me captive.”

  Mariah hugged herself tightly. “How could he hope to hold you indefinitely without someone finding you?”

  “I do not know, Mariah. The keeper told me nothing.”

  “But if you were Cairbre’s enemy and he couldn’t harm you, why didn’t he simply tell Donnington to kill you?”

  “It is not easy to injure one of my kind.”

  “Then you were never really human at all.”

  “But I am, Mariah.” He touched her face. “I am human enough.”

  Mariah knew he wasn’t telling her the full truth. There were many secrets here, layers upon layers of secrets she might never uncover.

  “What else haven’t you told me, Ash?” she asked. “How much have you withheld from the beginning? Was it all an act?”

  He leaned forward and took her into his arms. “At first, when they brought me here, I was driven mad by my imprisonment and the physical changes I could not understand. Then, as I began to remember, I wished only to destroy my enemies.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “But as I came to know you, Mariah—as you began to save me—it was no longer simply a matter of revenge.”

  “You still wanted to hurt Donnington. You would have tried to kill him at Donbridge.”

  “But I chose you, Mariah.”

  She melted into his chest as if all her bones had lost their ability to support her. He had chosen her. Her.

  She rubbed at her eyes. “I believe you, Ash,” she said, hardly louder than a breath. “I believe everything you’ve told me.”

  His sigh rushed through her hair. “Mariah…”

  “I have only two last questions.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Who is Nola?”

  “I do not know. She is not Fane, but she has great power.”

  “My maid,” Mariah said with a little laugh. “What was her purpose, pretending to be a servant? Do you think she was watching over us?”

  He buried his face in her shoulder. “Perhaps,” he said. “We owe her much.”

  She pulled away to look into his eyes. “And why are we here, Ash? Why did you say that I could open the Gate?”

  “I must go through, Mariah.”

  A renewed sense of dread stopped her heart. “Why?”

  “Because we will never be safe so long as Cairbre is allowed to meddle in human affairs.”

  “You couldn’t defeat him before, Ash. He drove you away from Tir-na-Nog. There must be somewhere we can go to get away from him. Surely he couldn’t find us in America!”

  “The Fane are not confined to England. They have become weaker over the centuries, but where there are Gates, they can pass through to this world and subvert other humans to their will.” He lifted her chin. “Cairbre is not alone in his desire to find a mate who will bear him offspring. Other women may be taken. I can do nothing to save them if I remain here.”

  “And if Cairbre finds a way to kill you?” She took his face between her hands. “I love you. I won’t let you go.”

  He kissed her, and she gave herself up to the kiss with the sheer rapture of total joy, knowing that she belonged to him and he belonged to her. No one could tear them apart again—not society, not Donnington, not the most powerful Fane lord himself.

  Any last scraps of loyalty she had felt toward Donnington were gone.

  She was free to take Ash at last. And to let him take her.

  They lay down together, wordless, on the grass under the trees. She was fully clothed, but in moments Ash was naked, and something about the disparity excited Mariah in a way she had only just begun to understand. This time she would be the one to begin; she would examine and absorb every aspect of his beauty, from the crest of his silver hair to the elegant strength of his feet.

  She kissed the corner of his mouth and let her hand drift down to his chest. She had never found a better word to describe him than magnificent, but now even that description seemed inadequate. She traced her fingers over the hard curve of his pectoral muscles, fascinated by their shape, so very unlike her own. Ash sighed as she rubbed her fingertips over his nipples. They intrigued her, and she spent some time simply touching them. Then she pressed her lips to his left nipple and flicked it with the tip of her tongue.

  The sound that emerged from Ash’s throat was one she had never heard from a man before. He speared his hands into her hair, setting it loose from its pins. Basking in his pleasure, she licked his other nipple. He grasped at her arms, and she knew he wanted to return the favor, but she would not have it. Not yet.

  Far more than merely curious, she rested her cheek on his chest and looked down the length of his body. The organ she had first glimpsed in the folly and touched in her room at Marlborough House was fully erect, a large, firm shaft that stood proudly against his stomach. Any sense of shame was gone; she longed to touch it, stroke its smoothness and hear Ash’s low cry.

  But she denied herself—and him. She pressed her face into the hollow beneath his ribs, taking in the scent of him, feeling the texture of the pale hair that ran from just below his clavicle to this curve of bone and muscle. She stroked his arms, his shoulders, the flat stomach ridged like a washboard.

  Again he tried to stop her. Again she forbade him. She massaged him with her palm, circling lower as she gazed into his eyes. His pupils were dilated, black on black. She traced the V that ran from his hips to his groin. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, his excitement flowing into her so that she could no longer tell his from her own.

  Without looking down, she slid her fingertips lower and lower, until she found the silky head of his shaft. Fascinated, she explored it with her hand. Ash closed his eyes, his back arching. She knew without asking that this gave him the most pleasure of all, her hand on him, touching this place forbidden to any but a lover. It was more than merely hard; its circumference was so large that she wasn’t sure at first that her hand would fit around it.

  Soon it will be inside me. But she didn’t dare think that far ahead. She cupped her fingers over it and slid them down, then up again, listening to the music of Ash’s harsh breathing

  Once she had thought herself no better than a whore. Now she knew it must be true, but she didn’t care. She kissed his stomach. He flinched, and she extended her tongue and touched the tip of his shaft. He drew a great shuddering breath.

  “Mariah,” he groaned.

  It might have been a plea. A plea for mercy. A plea for her to continue. She chose the latter course. Her tongue worked lower, tasting him, curling around him until her lips were sliding over the fullness of him, catching the silky cap between her teeth.

  He moved, pushing himself into her mouth. She suckled him as he had suckled her nipples, as he had kissed and licked the hot, hungry cleft between her thighs.

  That part of her was beginning to ache more than ever before. One of a woman’s deepest instincts was claiming her now, the instinct to mate, to take a man inside her body.

  She felt his cool strong fingers grip her shoulders, pulling her back. She rolled to Ash’s side, her mouth filled with the taste of him. The top button of her riding jacket popped free before she realized what Ash was doing.

  His lips pressed into the hollow of her neck, exposed by the opening at the top of her jacket. The second button followed, along with another kiss.
Then he freed the upper buttons of her shirtwaist, baring her skin.

  She wore no corset. There had been no time to put one on before they’d fled Donbridge, and only the tight jacket of her habit held her breasts in place. When he unbuttoned the jacket to the bottom, they lay exposed save for her shirtwaist and the chemise beneath it.

  Her breath came faster as he continued to undo the buttons of the shirtwaist. She pushed it aside and waited eagerly for him to do what he had done before.

  He did not disappoint her. But he didn’t begin by suckling her nipples through her chemise. He simply tore it open, as if he couldn’t wait to feel his tongue against her naked flesh. And he did not begin gently. He drew her breast into his mouth, as much as he could hold, and rolled his tongue over and around, mouthing, devouring. First one breast and then the other, until her drawers were nearly soaked with her woman’s juices.

  Instinctively she snatched at her skirts, pulling them above her ankles and her knees. She undid the ties of her drawers, letting the center fall open. She felt for the swollen, hot flesh and rubbed herself where Ash had kissed her before, heat rushing up into her stomach with each stroke of her finger.

  Within moments Ash’s fingers replaced hers. He continued to suckle her breasts while he made magic with his hands, exploring the valley between her lower lips, sliding until one wide finger found her throbbing center and thrust inside.

  She cried aloud. She had known such penetration was supposed to hurt, but she felt only the wild abandon of incredulous pleasure. He moved his finger in and out of her, then added a second finger. She spread her legs wide, her core still too empty, too incomplete.

  Who removed her skirt and petticoat she could never remember. All at once she was wearing only her torn chemise and open drawers, and Ash was over her, braced on his powerful forearms, the head of his shaft lying along the inside of her thigh.

  “Mariah?”

  The question was both tender and rough, demanding and pleading. She grasped his shoulders. The torment was unbearable.