Sitting up straighter, I adjusted my collar and shrugged my shoulders. “Then we’ll just have to break in.”
“All the better. There won’t be any mortals to endanger if the army shows up. Leave it to me.” Calienta closed her eyes again. That crease in her brow, the one that I’d loved since the moment we met, returned.
The car windows caught my eye. They were still cloudy; any efforts to see outside of them were futile. In the seat opposite me, Gabe sat quietly, probably still angry with me. Who knew what ideas he’d taken to kicking around in his head?
“We’re here.” Calienta opened her eyes and the fog dissipated slowly. When it cleared, we were still in the taxicab, landing in the middle of the Leeds Castle courtyard.
“Great,” I said. “Now let’s all cross our fingers and hope that no one else is.”
CHAPTER THREE
KELLEN—LUGH
The car came to an abrupt, shuddering halt, driverless in the barren courtyard at Leeds. Placing my hand on the worn door handle, I pushed down, opened the door, and stepped outside. I kept my head low and my eyes open as I looked out over the perimeter.
The castle gave the appearance of being deserted in the early evening, but looks could be deceiving. The dark encroached rapidly on whatever light remained.
The October chill seeped through my clothes. The suit that I’d chosen for my wedding hadn’t been made to withstand being on the run. The silence suffocated me. No sounds pierced the night, not even wildlife. Surely there would have been birds, crickets, something….The quiet gave the already dramatic setting an even more eerie quality.
Moving aside, I offered my hand to Calienta, helping her out of the car. “Are there guards? What about a security system?”
Calienta took two steps ahead of me. “No one can see us. For the time being we are safe, but we can’t stay here.”
“Man, this is just like Mission Impossible!” Gabe hopped out of the car and bounced up and down in place, like a fighter before a match. His face portrayed excitement as he turned to lend a hand to Alistair, helping my grandfather from the vehicle.
Glancing at him, I added, “Except we’re not in bodysuits and suspended by a cable fifty feet in the air.”
“True.” Gabe’s forehead creased in a way that made me think I’d taken all of the fun out of it for him. Then, seeming to remember that he was angry with me, he looked away.
“We should get inside,” Calienta said.
“What about the car?” I asked.
Calienta turned and waved a hand at the car. It vanished before my eyes. Probably returned to Mark’s driveway, wherever that was.
“What’s over here?” Gabe walked toward a nearly darkened area of the courtyard and gestured to a door that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Let’s try and access this part of the building,” Gabe said. “The door probably isn’t very secure. It would make sense…the outside is already fortified heavily. Why bother securing the interior buildings?” Gabe turned to look at us.
We all stared at Gabe. Alistair looked around him, as if checking to see if someone else had spoken. Though he so often sounded like a stoner, Gabe had been hailed as a legal mastermind by his Yale profs. He’d just enrolled at Harvard Law that fall.
I walked forward. “Good idea,” I said, patting him on the back. I reached for the knife that I always carried, planning to pick the lock.
“I’ll get it,” Calienta offered.
Before I could tell her that I had it, the door swung open before us and we began to make our way into the building. Our collective tentative steps led us to a dark room; then Gabe halted and I narrowly avoided running into him.
Surprise stopped me in my tracks, much like it probably had Gabe. Lugh stood at the head of a dining table, a grim smile on his face.
“Why are we stop—” Calienta began as she filed in behind me. “Father!” Calienta ran into the room, pushing past me gently, and threw herself into his arms. Lugh caught her, holding her close.
Giving them a moment, I let my eyes drift over the room. On the table lay a variety of complex place settings, incorporating fine china inlaid with a pattern that I couldn’t make out in the absence of good lighting, as well as several crystal goblets.
Calienta pulled back to look at Lugh. “Father! Is everyone all right?”
Lugh smoothed Calienta’s hair, staring at her like he was trying to memorize her face. “Yes, yes. We are okay. Your Uncle put a stop to the attack. We were able to slow down Cana and her group, but there were too many of them. They broke free and escaped.”
“Where’s Mother?”
“She is well, but she stayed behind to help Dillion. I only came to warn you and check in to see how all of you fared,” Lugh said. He touched a hand to his daughter’s head.
“But Father—”
Lugh released his daughter, focusing on Alistair and Gabe. “Calienta, we owe Alistair and Gabe an explanation. They are Kellen’s family and they have a right to know what he’s gotten himself into.”
Alistair regarded Lugh, his expression giving nothing away. He didn’t object. Gabe remained silent.
Turning, Lugh walked to the window. With a wave of his hand, the window seemed to shimmer—the same type of shimmer that I’d seen in Ireland when Cana put up the barrier. At the time, Cana had intended to keep everyone from leaving. Lugh probably planned now to keep everyone out.
The job done, he gestured to the large dining table that dominated the center of the room. “You’ll want to sit down.” He waved his hand and we jumped as each of the chairs pulled out from the table by themselves.
The group took places near one end, with Lugh standing at the head. I sat in-between Calienta and Gabe; the latter had been considerate enough to leave the space next to my bride unoccupied.
“Forgive me as I think about how to explain this. It’s rare that we reveal our true selves to mortals. My family and I are descendants of the goddess Danu.” Lugh’s voice lowered, adopting a secretive tone.
“The goddess—” Gabe started. He reached up to loosen his tie.
Lugh interrupted in soft tones. “My family and I are gods and goddesses. Immortals. We play a pivotal role in this universe, one of many. We bring light to the Earth.”
Gabe’s jaw dropped open for a moment and then closed abruptly. His features seemed to change, stiffen. Alistair sighed audibly, but his face remained impassive.
Yeah, I knew they were going to freak out when they heard this. Guilt forced me to shift in my seat. I wished they could have heard the story from me first and not from Lugh.
Eventually, Lugh continued. “When I was young, only about six hundred and thirteen years old, I first visited Earth. In my explorations, I found a cave with an immense circular cavern containing drawings depicting a pagan prophecy.”
I remembered the circular room well. Calienta had taken me there to tell me about the prophecy.
“This prophecy named Kellen as the savior of my family. The savior of the Earth as we know it.” Lugh rested a hand on my left shoulder, giving it a squeeze.
That wasn’t the half of it. The prophecy had decreed not only that I would save Earth, but that I, too, would become a god and marry Calienta. Neither of those things had happened, but to say that I experienced a bout of skepticism at first didn’t even begin to cover it. My first impression: a gorgeous, psychotic nutcase had come to murder me.
“Because of Kellen, we are here today. Not only did he destroy the Lord of the Underworld, Arawn, but he also helped my son Cabhan to see the error of his ways. Kellen saved my family, and he fell in love with my daughter.”
Lugh’s words rang true. However, I couldn’t take sole credit for killing Arawn. I’d wielded a sword that couldn’t fail; I hadn’t done much of anything, really.
“Calienta is—immortal as well?” Alistair’s eyes were wide, his voice strained.
“Yes,” Calienta said.
Standing, I moved behind Calienta’s chair, my hands on
her shoulders. “Calienta is a Star Child, and her responsibility has always been to light the stars at night. She’s a goddess, an immortal.” I twisted a lock of Cali’s hair between my fingers.
Her face lifted and her eyes met mine. She probably thought the same thing that I did. If our wedding had taken place, she’d be a mortal by now. It hadn’t. The wedding had been interrupted. We weren’t married. At least not yet.
“And what about you, Kellen?” Alistair asked, swallowing. He seemed hunched down in his seat. Perhaps he didn’t want to know the answer. “Do you have any special ‘powers’?”
“I have no gifts. Just a masochistic sense of honor,” I said.
Gabe snorted. When I looked up, he quickly returned to his earlier scowl.
Turning back to Alistair, I watched as he removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket. “I see,” he said, dabbing it against his forehead. His voice seemed softer, having lost some of the grouchy-grandfather sternness that it had taken on throughout most of our escape. He looked up at Lugh. “Why do they want my grandson?”
Lugh sighed. “I’m not sure. Several months ago in your world, I was…taken. Kellen and Calienta saved me, but they did a lot of damage to the world of Faerie in the process. However, the group that you met today did not seem to be after Calienta, so I have not determined why they want Kellen.”
“Could it be my pendant? They said I had something…” Reaching a hand into my shirt, I pulled out the pendant that my mother had left me, staring at it for a moment. I’d used it to open the Ellipse, the back door to the heavens, and save Lugh and Brigid. Recently I’d transferred it to a leather chain and it suited me. My eyes shifted back to Lugh.
Lugh dismissed my suggestion. “It’s an interesting thought, but I don’t think it’s worth their time and trouble. We sealed the portal to the heavens permanently after you killed Arawn. Your pendant is more like a family heirloom now. Keep it, though. It holds meaning for you.”
Nodding, I tucked it back inside my shirt. Looking down at Calienta, I caught her watching me. I reached down and squeezed her hand.
“Dillion’s going to see what he can find out. He is one of them, though his defense of each of us at the wedding party could make that difficult. He’ll also look in on you, since your mother and I are probably being watched,” Lugh said, looking at Calienta.
Alistair, now equipped with at least some information, had snapped into barrister-like planning mode. “How is it that they know where we are? They attacked the car in London. We have to keep Kellen away from them.”
Lugh glanced at Calienta. The answer came to me before he spoke. “They can always find you if they want to, but Calienta is making it easier for them. On Earth, immortals stand out like a beacon, right?” I looked to Lugh, who nodded. “They have this inner light inside of them that is so much brighter than everyone else’s,” I added.
“That means—” Alistair began.
“That they will be able to follow you as long as Calienta’s with you. That’s how I found you all today. I could have used other means, but this was the simplest,” Lugh said.
“Just a slight correction…”
“What is it, Kellen?” Lugh asked.
“Well, they’ll be able to follow us as long she’s immortal,” I said. Calienta looked down, her hand slipping from mine.
Lugh met my gaze. “I see where you’re going with this, Kellen.”
A smile framed my face. “So we finish the wedding, and then you can turn her into a mortal. Let’s get everybody back and then we can pick up where we left off.”
Lugh shook his head. “Kellen, I can turn Calienta into a mortal today, but there can’t be a wedding. Not yet, anyway. It’s too dangerous to go back to your Gran’s.”
Gabe spoke up. “You could always try Vegas.” Though he wasn’t looking at me, he smiled as he made the suggestion.
Lugh grinned at Gabe and they exchanged fist pumps. “Too obvious, but an excellent alternative, Gabe.”
“I want to do this. You need to make me a mortal, Father,” Calienta said. “Then we have to go into hiding. I just don’t know where.”
Alistair inclined his head to Calienta. “No, you need to go somewhere that has no ties to Kellen, or to you, my dear. It’s got to be somewhere that has no connection to either of you.”
Gabe instantly donned a more stoic persona and proclaimed: “I know where we can go. It’s the safest place I know.”
Lugh spoke like a true commander. “Then let’s not speak of it. Gabe, you will be in charge of the plans. Tell no one your destination.”
A serious look appeared on Gabe’s face, as though he’d put on a mask. “Understood.”
Gabe looked at me and I nodded, giving my consent. Holding Calienta’s hand tightly, I tried to think more about Gabe’s sense of determination. Though I didn’t know how Gabe would get us out of our situation, I had no doubt that he wouldn’t have volunteered for the job if he didn’t have a plan.
But the thought that kept springing up in the back of my mind circled around the fact that we’d chosen to entrust our lives to the guy who’d once put a gallon of milk in the clothes dryer by accident.
CHAPTER FOUR
CALIENTA—IMMORTAL NO MORE
Father turned to me. My hair slipped off my shoulder as he gave it a squeeze.
“Are you sure you want to go with him?” Father jerked his head in Kellen’s direction.
Ridiculous. Were mortal fathers this dreadful?
“We can hide him on his own and I could take you home with me. You’d be safe there,” Father said, pleading with me. I had no doubt what emotions ran through him: he’d already lost two children to mortal loves. How could he handle losing a third?
Alistair said, “And why wouldn’t she want to go with him? He’s a brilliant boy after all.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest.
How nice. Kellen hadn’t had that many people stand up for him in his life. It warmed my heart to see Alistair doing so.
However, I didn’t say anything. Those few moments, as I looked into my father’s eyes, were my goodbye to him. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t look at Alistair or Gabriel. Because after this had all ended, I would be a mortal. Regardless of whether or not I’d chosen the fate, things would change between my father and me, and I needed a moment.
The thudding of my heart reverberated in my ears. I could see Kellen shifting in my side vision, perhaps anxious for my answer, nervous about what my decision might be. However, in my mind there was never a decision to be made. From the instant that I first met Kellen, I’d loved him.
Goodbye, Father.
“Very well.” Father pulled me to him for one last hug, perhaps my last as an immortal. I held him close, but when I pulled back, my eyes found Kellen and I couldn’t help but smile.
After Kellen destroyed Arawn, Síl, my family’s creator, had offered Kellen a chance at immortality. However, I’d known from the first moment that we’d met that Kellen wouldn’t want to be a god, or even a High King for that matter.
I’d told Síl that Kellen wanted to stay mortal. Immortals can’t survive on Earth for more than a fortnight without losing their powers and such. If I wanted to be with Kellen, then my immortality would be lost.
Alternatively, mortals couldn’t live in the Green Lands, my home. The decision had been made for me. But there was no challenge deciding to give it all up. I loved Kellen far more than I loved my immortality.
Kellen stepped forward, his palms held out in front of him. “You can’t do this. You just can’t.”
Panic rose within me. “You don’t want me anymore?” My words hardly reached my own ears, fear barely allowing me to utter them.
Father stepped back as Kellen bridged the space between us. His fingers intertwined with mine. “Of course I still want you, but you’re giving up too much. How can I ask you to give up who you are for me?” Kellen said.
Raising his hand, he tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear that had loosened fr
om the intricate hairstyle that my mother had insisted on saddling me with. The braids that ran through my hair seemed as limp, as worn, as I felt.
I frowned. What was this nonsense about? I’d already made the decision. Should we not just get on with it? “You didn’t object to it before when we discussed it.”
“I know, but it didn’t seem real before. It’s real now. I’m afraid of what will happen to you. You’ll be able to get hurt, injured, die—” His voice broke.
My annoyance vanished. “Kellen, you’re not thinking. So can you. Do you think I don’t know that you can get hurt? You need me as a mortal. You’re always falling all over the place, not having anything to eat. You need me,” I said. He’d be lost without me.
“I do need you, but you need to want this for yourself. This choice is about you, not about me. I’ve had enough people control me in my own life to know that I’m not going to do that to you,” Kellen said.
“I know who the choice is about!” I said. I would never make a choice that I myself didn’t want. I’d been taught to believe in myself, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid.
“Hey.” Reaching his hand up, he placed his palm on my cheek, tracing my bottom lip with his thumb. I leaned against his hand, finding relief and comfort in his touch. “If this is what you want, then it will work out. If it’s the right choice for you,” he added.
I nodded. “It is.” He held my gaze for just a moment longer, perhaps trying to drink in the way I looked. I didn’t know how I would change, if mortality would make me look any different. Kellen probably considered the same.
“Okay.” Lowering his hand, he turned to Father. “Do we have to do anything specific for this? Make a circle or something?”
Father stepped forward, placing both hands on the sides of my head. “No. Surprisingly, the most draining ceremony for an immortal is the simplest.”
I’d never been so afraid.
Hesitating, he lowered his hands. “Daughter of my heart, I want you to know that you will always be my daughter and you can always ask for me. Your mother and I will always love you.”
The Fallen Stars (A Star Child Novel) Page 3
