by Hazel Hunter
The mistletoe vines around them began to wither and blacken, and Emeline gasped as the sunlight faded. Ruadri tried to reach for her, and found he couldn’t move. His skinwork took on its battle glow, and the same dark light radiated from his lady’s side and ankle. The deep blue radiance reached their faces, masking them before it funneled into their eyes
“You and your lady must see,” Emeline said, her voice taking on the bell-like resonance of his battle spirit. “Look upon the dead.”
Through the dark light he watched glorious, incandescent shimmers rising from the lifeless bodies of the Wood Dream. Although he should not have been able to see them, he knew them to be the souls of the druids. As with all druids, the death of their bodies would return them to the well of stars to await rebirth.
Yet as the giants stalked after the retreating Romans, the soul-lights stopped rising, as if trapped in the glen by some unseen force. When the totems drew close tendrils of yellow light snaked out from their wooden bodies and wrapped around the tribe’s souls, dragging them to the giants. They sank inside the huge bodies and disappeared.
Ruadri kept fighting the power holding him in its grip, and Emeline turned to face him. In her eyes he saw the moon eclipse the lovely blue of her irises, and then knew this was his battle spirit’s doing. They had been made to come here, but not to save—to watch.
“I dinnae ken how this can be,” he told her. “How can they steal the souls of druids?”
“The Wood Dream enchanted their totems to protect the tribe.” As the moon spoke through her, Emeline trembled and swayed. “The druids didnae understand their nature. To the giants ’tis no difference between flesh and spirit.”
Once they absorbed the last of the trapped souls, the giants went still as the carved statues they had once been. Ruadri saw their forms changing, as if swallowing the tribes’ souls had sparked the transformation. Their faces smoothed, and their limbs and torsos became refined with joints and muscles. Their heads darkened where human hair would have grown. Even their blocky hands and feet became articulated and sprouted fingers and toes. It chilled him when they finished, and yet looked nothing like the slender, ethereal-looking druids that had enchanted them.
The totems had modeled their new forms after the Romans as they developed into famhairean.
The surviving soldiers uttered furious shouts and attacked their colossal twins, hacking at the unmoving totems with their swords. When they managed to fell one, they swarmed over it and used their axes to split its face in half. The injured totem let out a shrill, creaking sound that roused the others from their trance. Moving much faster now, they seized the soldiers and dragged them away from the wounded famhair, and hefted their writhing bodies high above them.
“I beg you, protect my lady,” Ruadri said, knowing what the giants meant to do as they opened their huge mouths. “She cannae withstand what comes.”
“Can you, Warrior?” Emeline asked, and then abruptly crumpled at his feet.
The Romans who realized their fate struggled and shouted, frantically trying to escape the giants’ hands. The bulge-eyed terror on their faces made Ruadri almost feel sorry for them. Romans had always been the most brutal and feared of warriors, but no more. One by one they dropped into the cavernous maws as the famhairean ate them alive.
Ruadri silently offered thanks to the moon for sparing his lady, and when the last soldier had been devoured, the dark light finally dispersed. He dropped to his knees, turning Emeline onto her back. The bed of moss surrounding the altar had cushioned her fall, and the only marks he found on her had been left by her tears.
“Caraidean.”
Ruadri lifted Emeline against his chest as he stood and looked toward the sound of the shout. A young druid in wet, flapping robes chased after a naked druidess rushing toward the giants. The lass halted when she saw the dead littering the glen, and then clutched the sides of her head and tore at her hair as she screamed. The druid caught her hands and pulled her against his chest as he wrapped her in a dark woolen cloak.
Ruadri recognized them at once: Hendry Greum and Murdina Stroud.
Slowly the famhairean came to surround the pair, forming a large circle. Hendry said something in a voice too low for Ruadri to hear over Murdina’s sobs, and the giants shuffled closer. Whatever the druid murmured next to them, it dispelled the savagery distorting their expressions. Their mouths and chests still dripping with Roman blood, the giants knelt down and bowed their massive heads.
They devour the Romans alive, and from this day forth shall harm every druid or mortal to cross their path, Ruadri thought. Yet they pay homage to these two.
Unable to fathom why, he turned his back on the scene and carried Emeline away from the glen.
Chapter Nineteen
EMELINE WALKED THROUGH the blackest night, her bare feet stirring up ash-colored dust. The cratered wasteland around here seemed very familiar, and yet completely alien. It looked like a cold place, but her skin was hot, as if she’d been badly sunburned. Curving out around her, the sky held millions of glittering stars, but no moon. She vaguely remembered being in a different place and watching terrible things. Things that had tried to…but she didn’t want to think about that. That was finished, all finished.
Like her. She was absolutely done with everything but walking.
“Em, where have you been?” Meribeth Campbell said as she appeared in her path. Resplendent in her sequined ivory wedding gown, she used a thin hand to brush her long, lace-edged veil back from her perfectly made-up face. “And what are you wearing?”
Emeline glanced down to see she wore nothing but an amber and black tartan wrapped like a sarong. As cold as the wasteland was, she should have dressed warmer. Then again, she was so heated now she didn’t need it.
“Well?” Meri demanded.
“I’ve been away.” A memory of a huge man with intense gray eyes flashed through Emeline’s mind, and she walked past the other woman. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know. I was just retaking pictures. Of course, the photographer botched half of them, the bloody fool.” Meri fell into step beside her, lifting eight yards of satin skirt to reveal satin slippers edged with pearls. “You missed my wedding, you know. Lauren had to take your place at the last minute.”
Emeline chuckled and shook her head. “I’ll bet you didn’t have to whidder her to it.”
“I wish I hadn’t. She got drunk at the reception and grabbed my husband’s crotch. Can you believe she demanded he show her the size of his banger? He’s still a little sore.” Meri wrinkled her nose. “Anyway, I’m never speaking to her again.”
“I’m sorry.” Though Emeline wasn’t, it seemed the thing to say.
Her friend waved her hand. “Not that Jared shouldn’t suffer a little. He booked us in the cheapest resort he could find. Stained sheets, a green pool, and no room service. On my honeymoon! Then I let him talk me into going for a dip in the ocean.”
As her best friend described what a swarm of sea lice had done to her, Emeline absently stroked the soft wool of the tartan. It made her feel better to touch it. But who had given it to her? Not Meri, who was allergic to wool.
“…so, I told Jared, no monkey business until the rash healed, because I had it everywhere. What does he do? Went off on me, right there in the hotel’s lousy restaurant. I’ve never been more mortified.” Her friend glared at her. “Why don’t you say something? Em, are you even listening to me?”
Emeline nodded. “Your new husband is a cheapskate and has bruises on his boabie. Lauren is still Lauren. You had a miserable honeymoon with painful dermatitis and no sex. It’s exactly as it should have been.”
“What are you blethering?” Meribeth tugged her to a stop. “This was supposed to be the happiest time of my life.”
“Was it?” Perhaps it was time for her former best friend to face the consequences of her actions. “To find real happiness you have to love someone. You have to give instead of take. You have to think abo
ut them as much or more than yourself.”
“I do,” her friend screeched.
“You married Jared because he was a rich doctor. Now you know why he has so much money: he doesn’t like to spend it. We all know Lauren drinks too much around you, because later she can blame the whiskey for what she says and does.” Emeline saw Meri’s gaping expression and sighed. “You should divorce Jared and make up with Lauren. She’s in love with you, and you’ll probably be happier with her.”
Her best friend gave her a measuring look and sniffed. “I liked you better when you were fat. You were much sweeter.”
Emeline didn’t feel alarmed as Meribeth began to fade away. “You never liked me.”
Once again alone in the wasteland, Emeline buried her face in the tartan, and breathed in the scent of the gray-eyed man. He hadn’t said he loved her, but she knew he wanted her, and cared about her. She wanted to be with him, but he wasn’t here. He’d stayed behind in that place where the horrible things had happened.
“You have to go back, too, honey.”
Emeline watched as Althea Jarden climbed out of a crater, her green silk medieval gown covered in dust. Her lovely copper-red hair had turned silver-white, as had her eyes, skin and everything but the dress.
“Althea. You look like a goddess.”
“I should. I am a goddess,” her friend said as she shook out her skirt, sending a billowing cloud around them.
Emeline squinted at her. “You’re the moon.”
“Yep. At first, I thought sending along that nurse friend of yours would help. What a selfish little twit she is.” Althea smiled. “Anyway, I’ve manifested as your American friend because you actually do like her, and she needs you. They all do.”
Emeline laughed. “Your head’s mince. I can’t do anything but know what they’re feeling. No one needs me sucking up their emotions like some leech.”
“The shaman does.” The goddess slapped at her sleeves before she gestured to the right. “You’ve left him all alone down there.”
Turning her head, Emeline saw the beautiful blue and green sphere of the Earth floating against the black. “I can’t be on the moon. There’s no air, and it’s too cold.” She met Althea’s gaze. “This is a trick.”
“No, this is your mind,” her friend corrected. “During the massacre you decided it was all too much for you. You’ve retreated so far into yourself that you might as well be on the moon. But you can’t stay here, Emmie. You and Ruadri have more work to do.”
Emeline stared at the Earth. For all the hell she’d been through, her lover had suffered just as much. More, considering the years he’d spent being battered by his father.
“Is he all right?”
“Not really. He’s been trying everything he can to keep you alive, but, well, he’s there, and you’re here not wanting to go back. Frantic doesn’t even begin to cover it.” Althea came and gave her a somewhat dusty hug. “Ruadri needs to complete his task, Emmie, and he can’t do that if you’re gone. You have to do it together.”
Emeline drew back. “He’s been looking after me since I came to Dun Mor. He healed the affliction. He’s protected me. He even tried to stop the famhairean from being created. I’m safe. What more do you want?”
“He wasn’t supposed to save the Wood Dream, and that’s all I can tell you. Sorry to play the goddess card, but it’s all about the free will with you guys.” Althea patted her cheek like a fond aunt. “It’ll come to you. Just talk to him, which you also can’t do from here.”
“Wait.” As the goddess began walking away, Emeline reached out, and saw her hand pass through Althea’s back. “Please, I have to know more.”
You love him, daughter of Seonag. ’Tis all he needs. Remember love.
The sky melted over Emeline, swaddling her in twinkling black velvet. Something tried to take Ruadri’s tartan from her, and she pulled it back.
“Emeline?”
She opened her eyes and saw the shaman hovering over her. He looked so grim she tried to give him a reassuring smile. The taste of bitter herbs in her mouth instead made her grimace.
“Drink.” He put his arm around her shoulders and held a cup to her lips. As she sipped some very cold water, he said, “I dosed you with a fever potion.”
“It’s terrible.” As she drank more to wash away the taste, Emeline glanced up at the underside of a thatched roof, and the chinked stone walls supporting it. She smelled woodsmoke, and saw a fire burning in a small stone hearth. “Where are we?”
“A shepherd’s shelter in the highlands.” He helped her sit up and brushed the damp hair away from her face. “’Tis night.”
Naked except for the tartan she still clutched, she sat atop a pile of sodden fleeces. A pot half-filled with water sat beside him, into which he dropped a dripping rag. He’d been bathing her to cool down her body, she guessed, and wondered just how high her fever had spiked. She pressed the back of her hand to her brow, which was only a little warm.
“You fainted in the altar grove,” Ruadri said. “After that the famhairean…defeated the Romans. Hendry and Murdina came and took control of them. ’Tis done now.”
Whatever he wasn’t telling her must have been horrible enough to drive her into catatonia.
“The Wood Dream enchanted the totems to come to life if they were attacked,” she said. When he nodded she felt sick. “Ru, why would such gentle people create such monsters?”
“’Twas no’ entirely their doing.” Ruadri then told her how the tribe had carved their totems from sacred oak, which they enchanted to guard the settlement. In the glen the giants had encountered the rampant magic of the unfinished solstice ritual, which gave them more power. Absorbing the druids’ souls had somehow changed them from bespelled objects to living beings. “’Twas said the Wood Dream could speak with trees and regarded them as part of the tribe. I reckon Hendry and Murdina used that bond to bring the famhairean under their sway. I failed.”
His conclusions made sense but Emeline had the uneasy feeling they had missed something important. “No, you didn’t. The moon told me that you weren’t supposed to save the tribe.”
Ruadri frowned. “You had a vision of her?”
Emeline told him of her strange encounter with Meribeth and the goddess version of Althea. “In the end she wouldn’t tell me what we’re supposed to do. She wants us to figure it out on our own. What else will happen in this time?”
“Too much to fathom when you should be slumbering.” He kissed the top of her head. “I shall fetch some dry fleeces from the shearing shed.”
Watching him go, Emeline felt the dull brown boulders of his disappointment piling inside her. She hated their failure to save the druids just as much, but she’d never endured the grinding weight of the burdens that Ruadri carried.
Or maybe I have, and I simply didn’t realize it until it was gone.
The shaman had healed more than her affliction by bringing her to this time. He’d wanted her just as she was, with so much hunger and intensity that she might have been the sexiest female of all time. He’d treated her like a rare gift instead of a sorry joke of a virgin. He’d made her his lover, as if no other female had ever mattered to him. He’d freed her from all the self-loathing that she’d felt, and shown her the real woman she could be. He made her feel beautiful. He might not be in love with her, but because of him she knew she’d always feel loved. She also knew that before her no one had ever loved him for the man he was.
Tonight, that changed.
Emeline removed the tartan, shivering a bit as she went to kneel before the little hearth. The light from the flames danced over her pale body as she shook back and smoothed her hair. She expected the gnaw of doubt’s persistent, chomping teeth, and slapped it away. While she might not have but one night of experience, she’d certainly watched enough films to know what being alluring was. Using her power for the first time on herself, she infused all the love she felt for Ruadri into herself, and watched the marks of the moon take
on a rosy golden glow.
Ruadri came in carrying an armful of fleece, some of which he dropped as he caught sight of her.
“Emeline?”
“We’ve had a terrible day,” she told him softly. “We’ve earned a wonderful night.”
Letting her lips curve, she crooked her finger at him.
The rest of the fleeces fell on the others as the shaman approached her. She caught his hands and drew him down to kneel before her, and ran her fingertips down his neck and over his shoulders.
“You said there was so much more to this, and I want to learn,” she murmured as she found the edge of his tunic, and drew it up over his head. Exposing the wall of golden muscle made her lips tingle, and she pressed a line of kisses from his collarbone to his flat nipple. “I loved it when you did this to me.”
He groaned as she sucked on him until he puckered against her tongue. “We shouldnae. Your fever may return.”
“Do I feel as if I’m burning up?” She brought his hand up to her breast and rubbed his palm in a circle over her mound. “That’s because I am, for you.”
Chapter Twenty
SLIPPING HER HANDS behind Ruadri, Emeline tugged on the laces of his trousers until they loosened. Easing him onto his back made her silently give thanks for the arms that lifting so many patients had made strong. Straddling him like a brazen besom proved much easier.
“You’re mine, Shaman.” She smiled down at him. “I’ve the marks to prove it. So when I want you, I should have you.”
“Aye.” Ruadri’s gaze darkened as it shifted over her, and filled her with the hard, gleaming edges of his wanting. “So you mean to do as you wish with me.”
“I do.” Emeline bent down to press her lips to his, kissing him slowly and deeply. “I can’t stop myself. I have to touch you.” She shifted down to his thighs, rubbing her hands all over the tightening bulges and curves of his torso. “The way it feels when your skin slides against mine puts satin to shame. I wish I could wear you instead of clothes.”
