by Rhavensfyre
“Stop, wait,” she gasped, trying to gather her thoughts about her. Every time she thought she had them, they danced away from her. Like a child trying to catch fireflies with a jar, every time she opened the jar to catch one, another would escape her.
“Am I distracting you?”
“Yes, you know you are.” Biting her lip, Rohanna tried to make sense of the confusing images in her mind, wondering if it was all a dream. “Last night…?”
“Yes and no,” Alex answered Rohanna’s unspoken question, then smiled and kissed her again. She didn’t want to discuss last night. She wanted nothing more than to continue kissing her beloved and pretend that their day did not have to start just yet.
Her desire had been kindled by the touch of their lips, her passion driven by the need to reclaim the woman she almost lost forever. A sudden stab of fear shot through her at the unbidden thought of what she could have lost had things gone differently, making Alex gasp. Her emotions gathered one upon the other, like storm clouds gathering head on into an opposing wind, almost painful in their intensity. Hot tears gathered in the corner of her eyes, blurring her vision. Blindly seeking out her lover’s hands, Alex laced her own strong fingers through Rohanna’s smaller ones. With one sudden powerful movement, Alex straddled Rohanna, capturing Rohanna’s hands high above her head.
Despite being held, unable to escape or move, Alex could sense that Rohanna wasn’t frightened. The wild look in Rohanna’s eyes mirrored her own. They held the same passion and desire roiling through their depths that Alex felt. Rohanna bucked beneath her, fighting against Alex’s hold on her, a mock battle they both enjoyed. A low sound, almost a growl, escaped from her lips, ending in a deep moan of need.
The next kiss was fierce. There was no tentative meeting of lips on lips, no gentle buildup of passion as fires were lit along the lines of their bodies. A collision of desire, demanding and urgent, kindled and consumed what restraint they may have held in reserve. Releasing Rohanna’s hands, Alex ran her nails lightly along Rohanna’s taut abdomen, then teased aroused nipples until they stood proud and hard between her fingertips. When Rohanna moaned and arched into the touch, her breath coming in short, ecstatic gasps, she gave up her cruel teasing and soothed the hot flesh with light flicks of her tongue.
Alex tapped impatient fingers along Rohanna’s thighs, then slipped her fingertips between the hot, slick folds that Rohanna eagerly opened to her exploration. Abandoning Rohanna’s breasts, Alex slid down her body until her tongue found Rohanna’s clit. She bucked beneath Alex, grasping at Alex’s head and urging her on. Wrapping one arm around Rohanna’s thigh, Alex slipped her fingers along one trembling thigh, pausing for just a moment before slipping inside her. Rohanna cried out, her heels digging deep into the mattress to force her hips up off of the bed, thrusting eagerly against the sudden intrusion.
Alex let her ride out her orgasm, nipping gently along her inner thigh until she felt the rhythmic contractions weaken, then gently removed her fingers before shifting position. Her lips weren’t content to nibble and tease, she wanted to taste Rohanna’s passion. Eagerly lapping at the sweet nectar, she gathered it onto her tongue, savoring the taste of pure ambrosia while her lover squirmed beneath her.
“Ah, Alex…please, stop. I can’t take anymore.” Ro begged. Alex grinned and crawled back up the bed to join Rohanna there.
Intense blue eyes gazed into hers.
“You taste like forever.”
Alex drifted back asleep a few minutes later, leaving Rohanna alone with her thoughts. For a while she was content to lay against her lover’s shoulder and listen to the sound of her heartbeat slow down as she fell into a deep sleep. Rohanna slowly ran her fingertips up and down Alex’s forearm, enjoying the feel of firm muscles beneath the smooth skin.
Travelling farther down her arm, Rohanna massaged across the hard gathering of tendons at Alex’s wrist, their strength a testimony of hours pounding metal at the forge. At the edge of sleep herself, Rohanna didn’t realize at first what her brain was trying to tell her—she was stroking Alex’s wrist, her left wrist.
Alex wasn’t wearing her leather bracer. Images tumbled through her head, images that Alex had managed to distract her from with their lovemaking. Rohanna sat up in bed, rudely dislodging her sleeping companion. Alex grumbled and opened one disgruntled eye at her before rolling over on her side. Rohanna grabbed Alex’s wrist and examined it. Except for being a little paler than the flesh around it, her arm was completely bare. There was no tattoo; absolutely nothing marked her skin
Rohanna raised a questioning eyebrow. “Um, Alex?”
Alex just looked at her. She didn’t say a word for a very long time. Rohanna matched her stare for stare.
Alex finally sighed and swung her long legs out of bed and headed for the kitchen.
“I’ll get us some coffee,” she said. Alex stepped gracefully across the wooden floors, her long black hair flowed freely, framing her shoulders and accentuating her muscular buttocks nicely. Her annoyance at the delaying tactic didn’t keep Rohanna from admiring the lithe body.
And I’ve never seen the woman take a brush to that mane of hair. Not once since I met her, how unfair is that? Ro’s own hair suffered from a bad case of bed head that she suddenly felt the need to finger comb, half expecting to find burrs caught up in the tangled mess.
Rohanna gathered a blanket around her before following her lover to the kitchen. The floorboards were cold but the long bench by the picture window was perfect.
She could watch Alex from there and tuck her half-frozen feet beneath her, shamelessly attempting to warm them while Alex walked around appearing perfectly comfortable despite the chill in the air.
“I don’t know how you manage it. Not feeling the cold like that,” Rohanna said, gratefully accepting the steaming hot mug of coffee Alex brought her.
“My blood runs a bit hotter than most,” Alex said, joining Rohanna on the bench. “But that isn’t what you wanted to ask me, is it?”
“No, it isn’t,” Rohanna admitted, lifting up the edge of the blanket so she could join her. Alex wasn’t lying about being warm; she was already getting toasty beneath their shared blanket.
“Mm, you really are better than an electric blanket,” Ro admitted.
“All the better to entice you into bed, my dear,” Alex teased, her lips twitching into a satisfied smile. “But, seriously, if you’re cold, I can start a fire.”
“No, I’m good right here.” Rohanna cuddled in closer, pulling Alex’s arm around her.
They stayed like that for a few minutes, enjoying their coffee and gazing out at a small herd of deer that had snuck into the courtyard behind the house so they could nibble at the lush grass there.
“You know, it’s still there,” Alex said, finally breaking the silence between them. She was still gazing out the window, her eyes level above her cup of coffee as she took another sip.
“What is?” Ro asked. Between the view and the warmth, she had started drifting off.
“The mark, the one you saw last night,” Alex said. Her mild voice was completely at odds with the mischievous smile playing across her lips.
“When I thought you were passed out,” she added, raising her eyebrows at Rohanna’s suddenly innocent expression.
“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time to lay low,” Ro joked, trying to quell the uneasy feeling deep within her stomach. “But seriously, Alex, what happened? Was it real or just a dream?”
“Or both?”
“Alex, seriously, I’m not joking. How much of this, of us, is real and how much has been a dream?” For a late summer morning, it was unusually chilly outside. She reached out and touched the window pane, the fogged glass felt ice cold to her and very real.
“Everything between us is real, Rohanna. Whether it is here or in your dreams,” Alex said, pressing her palm against the glass. The fog raced away from her imprint, leaving only clear glass behind.
“I thought I was going craz
y, imagining all sorts of things that couldn’t possibly be happening. Last night. That was Belinda, wasn’t it? You called her Bellaria.” Rohanna pressed her fingers into her temples, trying to wrap her head around it all.
“Yes.”
“But, I was there, too. Not just you and her. It was real. I felt her knife at my throat, the pain when she struck me and I fell.” Her hand went to her throat. A small bandage was taped to her neck. How had she not noticed it before?
“I taped it up this morning. It’s not deep enough to need stitches, but I’d avoid getting it wet for a while.” Alex looked away before Rohanna saw the guilt in her face.
She had been so sure that Bellaria wouldn’t risk hurting Rohanna. That was a serious misstep on her part, one that almost ended in tragedy. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Everything in my dreams is real, just as real as this place. I exist in both places. Like rooms in a house, it is simply a matter of walking from one place to the other. My only concern had been to eliminate Bellaria. In trying to eliminate a threat to you, I put you in danger. I should have known better, I’m sorry.”
Rohanna shook her head. The more Alex explained the more confusing everything became. “Stop, wait a minute, I’m confused. If you could take Belinda, uh, Bellaria like you said, why did you need me?”
“I couldn’t take her. Not on my own. I lied.”
“Then how?”
With impeccable timing, Rohanna’s cell phone rang, giving Alex the perfect excuse to avoid answering the question.
“I think you should answer your phone first, then we’ll talk some more.” She plucked the cell phone off the kitchen table and handed it to Rohanna. “Meanwhile, I’m going to go get dressed. It’s going to be a busy day.”
Rohanna didn’t get a chance to call Alex on her strange behavior. Her caller ID flashed. It was the farm calling. Not the house itself, but the barn phone, and that was unusual.
She swiped the button and said hello, then listened quietly while the rest of the puzzle fell into place, minus a few pieces.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Returning to the MacLeod farm was hardly anticlimactic. It wasn’t because of the staff or the daily running of the farm—that seemed to keep operating as efficiently as it always had without much interference by them. What made the return to the MacLeod farm beyond disturbing was what they found left behind. On the second day, they found the witches circle, the one that Rohanna had broken free of when she found her way back to Alex.
“Get Maeve, Shyann.”
A few hours later, the three Fae stood at the edge of the clearing. Alex closed her eyes and rifled through her memories. “This isn’t the same circle Bellaria brought me to. It’s…”
“Foul.” Maeve visibly shuddered.
“So what do we do?” Shyann asked.
“Nothing,” Maeve said, turning her back on the clearing and heading back towards the house.
“What do you mean, nothing? We need to show her,” Alex insisted, catching up with Maeve and blocking her path.
“No, we don’t. Not yet, at least. Let her get settled in here first, she needs to know this place is hers. Traumatize her now and she might leave.”
“So? She has that right.” Alex crossed her arms and stared Maeve down. The old woman didn’t budge from her position, and Shyann proved to be no help. She looked at both of them, shoved her hands in her pockets and walked away.
“You would like that, eh? She’d come home to you and all would be well.” Maeve stamped her walking stick into the ground. “This land must stay in MacLeod hands. She can’t leave and that abomination cannot remain on MacLeod lands.”
Shyann started whistling. The irritating noise whined in her ears like an angry hornet, strafing her already abused nerves. The place made her skin crawl.
“Fine, I’ll play it your way, Maeve. But only because it is best for Rohanna, not for you.” Alex threw up her hands and stalked away, but not before taking her ire out on Shyann. “Gentle Epona, Shy! I thought all Fae could at least hold a tune, stop whistling before my ears bleed.”
Several days passed by without another word about speaking to Rohanna. More mundane worries kept Alex occupied, things that needed to be done in order for Rohanna to take over the farm. What could have been a long and expensive process was made ten times easier when she produced her father’s will. With Bellaria incapacitated, the farm went to her immediately. That was the one and only convenient thing about the entire process.
The bloated staff was another matter.
“I don’t need a maid, Alex…or a cook. That was all Bellaria’s doing.”
“That’s completely up to you, Ro. I can’t make that decision for you.”
“I’ll not fire a single one of them, not while they need work,” Rohanna announced to everyone’s relief. “Except for one.”
“That, I will do gladly,” Alex readily agreed. “I know exactly who you are talking about.”
Alex jumped up and was gone in a flash, leaving Rohanna alone with a decade’s worth of legal documents sitting on her desk. She ignored it all. Peter had been a thorn in her side for years. Always up Bellaria’s ass, he was the biggest snitch of them all…all to curry whatever favor he thought it would bring him. He was supposed to be the head groom but instead he acted like he was the barn manager, and he sucked at both jobs.
“Peter’s gone,” Alex announced, returning to Rohanna’s study empty handed. “Probably right after he realized Bellaria wasn’t coming back.”
“That’s probably just as well.”
Bellaria’s trip to the Emergency Room and her subsequent hospital stay found nothing wrong with her, other than an acute case of Dementia that didn’t seem to respond to any treatment. The best the doctors could suggest was medicate her so that she wouldn’t harm herself or the nursing staff and suggest a facility that could deal with her violent outbursts. Alex had gone with Rohanna to sign the necessary paperwork. Neither of them worried about the questioning looks from the doctors, nor did they care that the staff seemed to think that a familiar face might be helpful in her treatment. Ro refused to enter her room or promise to visit. Let them think she didn’t care. They knew the truth, and that truth was not something they cared to share. The facility she sent Bellaria to wasn’t a place to heal, it was a prison, pure and simple.
Alex cleared her throat. “Stop dwelling on her, Ro. She can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Rohanna apologized. “I just. I don’t know. I just can’t shake the feeling there’s something else.”
Alex pulled Rohanna out of her chair and kissed her soundly.
“Are you trying to distract me again?”
“Maybe?” Alex grinned. She tapped her fingers on the desk, noting the huge pile of folders neatly divided into four smaller piles. “Do you have anyone in mind to replace Peter?”
“I do,” Rohanna said, shuffling through a stack of papers to find the one she was looking for. “Darla Simpson. I’ve got her application right here. Seems Bellaria thought it was a fitting joke to hire a woman with a degree from the best equestrian school in the country and put her in the barn to muck out horseshit.”
Rohanna narrowed her eyes, remembering that last day in the barn. Despite the risk, Darla had been the only one brave enough to go against Bellaria’s wishes. “I’ll fix that mistake on Monday.”
“That sounds good to me,” Alex agreed. It was time for one last thing. She had been putting it off, but Maeve insisted it had to be done. “If we’re done here, there’s something else I need to show you. But first, I have something for you.”
Alex pulled the Fairie Stone necklace out of her pocket. The silver chain flashed when she uncoupled the clasp and held it in front of her.
“My necklace!” Rohanna gasped. “I thought I’d lost it.”
“You did, but Maeve found it and gave it to me. I repaired the clasp so it won’t fall off again.”
Rohanna pulled her hair out of the way
and turned around so Alex could put it on. Alex checked twice to make sure it was secure before taking advantage and pressing her lips along Ro’s neckline. “There, now it’s safely where it belongs.”
Alex closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I hope you’re happy, Maeve. She opened them to find Rohanna gazing up at her. “Where are we going?”
“Not far, just a short walk.”
At first, Alex led the way, then she stopped where the hidden path lay and waited for Rohanna. She pulled aside a low-lying branch and waited to see what Rohanna would do when they made the clearing.
“I know this place,” Rohanna said, her voice trembling with emotion. “I don’t remember it, but I know it.”
Thirteen pale stones stood in a circle, warped and twisted in a study of pain that made Alex’s stomach turn. Rohanna approached the circle, running her fingertips along the granite like surface, only to turn deathly pale as she sought out Alex’s protective embrace.
“What’s wrong, Ro?” Alex asked.
Rohanna turned her head to stare at the stones. Her fingertips sought out the Faerie stone around her neck, seeking its comforting presence. Alex wasn’t even sure if she realized she did that, but it seemed to reassure her.
“The stones, Alex…I can’t, it’s so horrible.”
Alex reached out and touched the stones. The surface crumbled into a fine powder. She brought her fingers closer to her nose and sniffed. “It’s not stone, it’s salt.”
“No, Alex…not just salt. Bellaria used these witches; she must have burned them out, trying to keep me. That, or I did this.” Rohanna’s words held such horror in them. “Look closer, Alex, they are all turned to stone. The salt is their tears.”
“Ro, you can’t feel guilty for this. They were evil women. What happened to them is not your fault. This is their punishment for aligning themselves with Bellaria in the first place and for trying to hurt you.”
