I tucked all of that away for a moment. “And what sort of spell was on the house?”
This time, she did turn to Dad, but not to answer me. No, her expression told me he’d understand something in her next words. “It’s a sort of cloaking spell, allowing the person who cast it to come and go unnoticed, bypassing any protection spells in place.”
And no doubt the queen had such protections on her residence.
Before I could ask another question, she went on to add, “What makes this one particularly perplexing is that I was unable to follow it to the caster.”
“Can you do that?” Bri asked her.
She started to answer, then hesitated and lifted a hand slightly in a “so-so” gesture, a pained look crossing her pretty face. “Well, not today.” I could see she didn’t exactly appreciate not being able to do something so familiar and within her usual capabilities.
Thinking on it for a moment, I could see from my peripheral that Ro was saying something to Bri. When I didn’t answer something he said directed to me, he gave a wave to get my attention. I looked up and he repeated, “What are you thinking?”
I took a moment to consider my answer. Then looked to Dad again, “How many druids can do such a powerful spell?”
He didn’t hesitate, “Not many. Mostly older ones, more experienced.”
“Good, that narrows down our suspect list,” I told the group and I swear I could see the wheels turning as they all considered that. It wasn’t just a run of the mill killer we were after. It had to be someone experienced enough to work such a complex spell.
“You still have magic,” I pointed out, looking to Jeaon who gave a single nod, her expression blank now.
“Good,” I stated out loud. “You’ll teach me.”
At that, I looked to Gearden and Lugh barely sitting beside Bri. “Let’s get out of here.”
Ro quickly stood to say, “Ah, slight problem.” He glanced at our newly acquired assassin. “There aren’t enough seats in the suburban for all of us.”
She smiled mischievously back at him and Dad interpreted what she said next, “Don’t worry, handsome, I have my own transportation.” At that, she gave him a wink, stood and walked towards the street just a few yards away. The instant she reached the sidewalk, an expensively hot looking sports car pulled up. Without hesitation, she opened the passenger door and climbed in. Not saying a word, from what I could see, as the driver pulled away, maneuvering back into traffic.
“When did she call for a car?” I asked out loud, my back still turned to the rest as I watched the car disappear around a corner at the intersection.
Finally, I turned, seeing that everyone else wore similarly bewildered expressions. “Does she know where we’re going?”
When we all came up empty for answers, I turned expectedly to Dad. Though, his lips were sealed tight. Giving me only a cursory glance, he walked off, presumably back to his own car.
The drive back was quiet, at least for me. I kept my focus on keeping my stomach from emptying itself out the car window. When we finally made it back to Westboro, I asked Dom to hire a moving company that we could trust to take care of packing up the house, having the things moved to Westboro where we could go through it. No reason sending anyone to a house that had a door wide open to killers.
Ro and Marshall were working on soup and sandwiches for lunch in the kitchen while Gearden and Lugh showed me the perimeter of the property. It was smaller than McIntire’s, but still rather large at five square acres. Aside from the main compound of residences, the majority of the land was wooded, with tall oaks and maples creating copious amounts of shade cover for various small animals I could sense throughout: birds of all kinds, rabbit, an owl or two, and I even got the sense there was a fox that visited now and then, risking the scent of wolf for the chance at catching a hare for dinner.
Marshall had mentioned they had a mouse problem getting into the pantry on occasion in the house. I wondered how that was with all the wolves that lived on the property. He got an odd look on his face then, before revealing that Vic had forbade the rest of the pack from hunting on the grounds. They were only allowed to eat the food he provided them, making them even more reliant on their abusive alpha.
“He’s gone,” I reminded him, making a promise to myself at the same time. These people would never want for free will, food or choice. A leader didn’t have the right to take any of those away from their pack members. An alpha was meant to protect, not diminish or belittle.
He nodded, seeing the promise in my eyes, and went back to add something to the large pot of soup.
I’d have to ask Bobby to make a spreadsheet to show what others were bringing in from working outside the pack and what income we had. I wanted to start giving everyone who needed it, an allowance. No longer relying on petitions for money and items that should have already been provided for them. Maybe I’d ask Liam for guidance on that later, I thought.
“This is probably your weakest point of the property,” Gearden pointed out, pulling me back to the woods we were standing in. We stood near the edge of a creek that looked surprisingly clean, free of garbage and debris. I honestly would have expected anything nature-like would look similar to what the compound looked like after a night of partying. Last time such a night happened, there was no lack of cans and solo cups spread out on the ground.
“Why here?” I asked out loud, appreciating the sense of tranquility the water gave me just then, all the while trying to process his words.
He gestured to the other side of the water, a ten-foot jump, where a thick line of trees stood blocking out anything behind it. “About a quarter mile beyond those trees is a hiking trail with public access. According to the property lines and agreements with the state, you’re prohibited from erecting a fence on the other side of the creek and—”
“And…we’ll be cutting ourselves off from the creek if we put it up on this side,” I finished for him.
From the scowl on both his and Lugh’s face, I could see they didn’t appreciate the situation as much as I did. That did cause a bit of a rub in the protection department.
“What do you suggest?” I signed to Lugh, all but smelling the gears turning in his brilliant mind.
If he was surprised at my including him, he didn’t let it show before he answered, signing, “Post a guard here, two men so they can switch off and watch each other’s backs. We don’t have a clue who the threat is or what exactly they’re after, I wouldn’t take any risks.”
“Better safe than sorry,” I added, nodding a little, taking it all in.
“Fine,” I sighed. Turning to Gearden, I told him, “We’ll get Bobby to assign the guards here.”
Lugh took a step forward, stopping me from moving on. “You should consider giving one of the positions to Marshall,” he suggested.
I frowned, not following.
“He hasn’t had much of a job, it seems, since he joined the pack. He’ll more than likely appreciate having a part in the pack. A real one,” he explained.
As I considered it, movement caught my eye, a bird, or what I thought was a bird, zooming overhead, flying over and around the water’s curve as it banked around a mound of rocks and bushes that somehow found a way to sprout from the crevices. Something felt familiar though, those bushes. The trees there, at the edge of my vision, the farthest I could see before the water disappeared from view.
Vaguely, I felt Lugh’s hand brush my arm to draw my attention, but I was glued, stuck on the feeling that I’d seen it before. Something echoed in my mind, a phantom of the sound of water, the memory of it trickling over tiny falls and rushing around curves. Drawn to it, I began to walk, pulled father and deeper into the trees beyond the trail we walked. Lush grass and clover tickled my ankles as I kept walking. I felt Gearden brush my mind with his, a warm feeling of love as well as concern. I pushed back, sending him assurance. I wasn’t hurt, or afraid, but I couldn’t step away from whatever drew me. Carefully, I skirted the rocks,
the branches on said bushes pulling at my hair, loosening it from the French braid Bri had done for me earlier that morning. The second I cleared them, I found it.
Danu’s Brook. The brook I’d always found myself standing at whenever she called me into one of her visions. I’d always thought it was a different plane, a different world entirely. Maybe it still was and she’d copied it. No matter how, it was this spot, this very place where I’d met the goddess herself for the first time. Where she’d shown me the truth of my powers, my destiny. I felt it too, her presence, all over. What the hell made this so special to her that she’d show it to me before then? I could barely breathe as the sounds from memory, from my past visits, came rushing to the front, making me feel like I was hearing it in real time.
It wasn’t until I’d fallen to my knees that I realized my legs had gone weak.
“You made it,” Danu’s voice said, sounding in my ears. Looking up, I realized it wasn’t just a memory I was hearing, it was all in real time. The brook, the trees rustling as a couple of birds argued about something in the distance.
“By the goddess,” came a new voice. Surprised, I turned to find Lugh behind me, on his knees as well. Looking up, I saw Gearden looking a little dumbfounded.
Smiling at his surprised look, I knew that it was the first time Lugh was meeting Danu, while Gearden had already met her once, after we broke the contract that imprisoned the faeries beneath the surface.
“Lugh, this is my mother, Danu,” I told him, taking his hand in mine to give it a little squeeze.
Danu smiled down at him, giving him a little nod, greeting him, “Hello, Lugh, Seelie King.”
He bowed his head to her, pausing a bit with his eyes downcast before finally lifting them to look at me, bewildered, giving my hand a tight squeeze. “Mother?”
Slyly, I gave a shrug. “It’s new to me, too.”
“I’m happy you two found each other. I was worried,” Danu told us before giving Gearden a sympathetic glance.
“You knew?” I asked incredulously. It didn’t so much surprise me as it irritated me that she’d keep something like that from me. Then, at the bored expression she gave me, I knew why she didn’t say anything. Ugh. Between her and Dad, I was going to drown in lies and conspiracies.
“We don’t have long, I’m afraid,” she told me sadly, reaching out to brush loose tendrils of hair from my face, her fingers softly caressing my cheek as she did. “There’s still someone keeping me from you. Every time I try, it’s been hard to get through and hold on to it.”
“You mean something’s keeping you from her?” Lugh inquired, a line creasing between his thick brows. Despite the concerning topic at hand, I tried to file away the sound of his voice in this moment. Aside from the rare psychic communication, I’d never heard his voice out loud before. It wasn’t as deep as Gearden’s but it came with an accent. One that tripped me up sometimes when he spoke, putting a Celtic twist on some of the harder words, but gorgeous. It sent a thrill through me to hear it again. My heart fluttered, but I shook myself to come back to what Danu was saying.
“More like someone.”
I frowned before putting some pieces together. “The same person who spelled the queen’s townhouse?” No one had an answer for me, but it looked like they were all thinking the same.
“Keep each other safe. Trust no one but your small group of allies, understand me?” She looked to each of us in turn, waiting for an affirmative nod before moving on to the next. “I don’t know who’s doing it. They’re hiding their magic, which means they’re powerful. Amergin powerful,” she tacked on, gazing at me for emphasis.
I came up empty when I tried to figure out what they were after. “What do they want?”
She shook her head, quiet.
“Protect her,” she told Gearden and Lugh, moving to stand beside me, her flowing white skirts whispering over my legs. Then, like a priest would bless a child of god, she pressed a hand to the tops of their heads, one still on his knees, the other standing with head bowed respectively. “Bless you, men of my daughter.” The tears pricking at my eyes didn’t surprise me so much as the fear I felt coming from her. She couldn’t hide that from me, which made me worry even more. I moved to stand to hug her goodbye, but the second I got to my feet, she’d faded away. She was gone.
Crestfallen, I turned into the men of my heart, letting them take my worry and my tears. It was all so much. I tried to act ready, able to lead and unfazed for the others but that was all so much sometimes. I missed Danu. We’d barely learned of one another before Gearden and I left for Seelie Hill, and now someone was keeping us separated.
The instant Lugh touched my shoulder, I turned into his chest, allowing the sorrow to flow out of me. Against my back I felt Gearden press in, surrounding me in the comfort of the men I’d come to love and who loved me in return. It was strange, our relationship, and didn’t make sense to the average person. Even my own mind still got hung up on it sometimes, but it worked. We worked.
Chapter Fourteen
Lugh
Damn it all to the fires.
Danu’s daughter. She was the Goddess’ daughter. A bloody deity!
I trudged through the heart of the woods that surrounded the compound under the guise of a “security run of the perimeter,” like I’d told the others back at the house as they prepared dinner, but really I was just trying sort through the mess that was my thoughts. Since meeting Maeleigh’s true mother, I couldn’t escape the idea of how foolish it was to return her to the surface. She would have been safer before. Even then, I still wondered if I could convince her to return to Seelie Hill until we caught the killer running around with whatever plan they had. Though they hadn’t made a stir since Ariela’s death, we all knew that they were far from done with whatever they aimed to accomplish.
Another part of me still floated on a sort of high from Danu’s presence. It had been thousands of years since I'd spoken with her. Our conversing had always been limited to thoughts and feelings.
Before we were imprisoned, it was our priestess, Sidhla, who was blessed with the ability to communicate with the Goddess, know her plans, and speak with the earth as the Goddess wanted us to. She had maintained that position for decades, before dying alongside her mate, the king Nuada, in the battle that had the rest of us forced beneath the surface. We hadn’t had time to honor their passing at the time, and it left a small pang in my chest at the thought. I rubbed at it, finding little relief.
As I pushed through a thick line of low hanging branches, I nearly missed a step at the sight of Jeaon standing the middle of a small clearing, head tilted back towards the sky, hands raised at chest level, palms up. Solemnly, I crossed to stand beside her, mimicking her stance, lifting my hands to match hers: praying to the goddess to envelope the lost souls, in this case, the late queen and Ariela, back home to the Sidhe, the source of magic we all came from, where Danu got all of her magic and abilities to create life. We believed that when we died, our essence returned to the source to be reborn unto our descendants.
Words were silent, but after a few minutes, we finished together. I felt the ache in my chest had eased, leaving just a memory of the pain there.
Still looking up, her eyes now open and gazing at the sky that was starting to grow lighter with the setting sun. “Do you think your queen knows what she’s doing?”
Bristling at the suggestion that the new queen was incompetent, I opened my mouth to defend her, only to be hushed by the hand Jeaon now held out in a stalling motion. “I mean, with taking me onto her court.”
Taken aback, I found myself at a loss for words as I quickly switched gears. Apparently, Jeaon took that as answer in itself. Dropping her hand, she turned away to slowly walk in the direction of the house, because, like it or not, she was still a subject of the Unseelie Queen.
“One thing I’ve learned about your queen in the short time I’ve come to know her, is that she doesn’t do anything she isn’t prepared to take on completely. Sh
e wouldn’t have taken your charge if she didn’t know exactly what you came with,” I answered. She’d stopped but kept her back to me. After a long pause, she finally turned, her eyes meeting mine, allowing me to see the appreciation of my words.
A half smile crossed her lips, a change in her demeanor I’d come to recognize, saying, “Does this mean I have to start singing kumbaya around the campfire?”
I snorted at the suggestion. “Hardly. We don’t sing much around here.”
“Is that because she’s deaf?” she asked without judgement.
Nonchalantly, I stepped ahead of her to lead the way back to the house. “Because Gearden is a terrible singer.”
A snort sounded at my back, I thought.
We entered the house to the sound of chatter and laughter. The house was full of people, even some newer faces from the compound. Maeleigh had wanted to start getting to know her pack members in a more intimate setting, regaining some trust that was broken between alpha and pack during Vic’s time as leader.
Crowded on the old couch, Marshall, Shelly, Bri and Bobby sat laughing about something Ro said, as he sat on the floor leaning against the coffee table across from his beta. Shelly seemed comfortable with Bobby, but platonically. One thing about wolves, I’d recently learned, was they were big on touch, even for those not romantically involved or family. To hold hands and even a brush of lips in a quick affectionate kiss, was simply a way of supporting one another and offering strength in caring.
Something I was still learning to accept whenever Maeleigh touched another male so familiarly. Gearden understood because he’d been raised with such things being customary. I, on the other hand, had a long way to go to be comfortable with my mate touching others.
Shit, I’d said it again. I wondered how long it would take for my heart not to thud in my chest at the mere mention of Maeleigh being my mate?
Truce: Book 1 in the Aftermath Series Page 14
