So they should cherish this time. Spend it doing pleasurable things.
She rolled on her side and eyed him, recalling with vivid clarity how amazing he’d made her feel the night before. What happened afterward had been heartbreaking, but it didn’t erase what she’d felt in his arms before that. The romance and passion he evoked. The way he made her want to remain in his arms until her last breath, feeling the way he could make her feel.
“I love you, Ethyn,” she whispered, saying it without hesitation. Saying it because she’d said it a million times in her mind over their many lives together.
“And I love you.” He pulled her close. “But then you already know that.”
“I do,” she said moments before his lips closed over hers, and they found themselves lost once again.
Only this time, her need for him felt a hundred times stronger.
“Ethyn,” she murmured against his lips, relieved when he didn’t bother with foreplay but chanted away their clothes and came over her. She spread her legs and welcomed him into her body as though it were second nature.
As though they were meant to be one.
Locked together.
This time when they made love, it was fast, frenzied, and all-consuming in a way that brought her to tears. That had her weeping silently as she met his every thrust. As they writhed and moved together with a poignant perfection that had him groaning and her crying out.
She knew as they moved in perfect harmony that they were driving closer and closer to a crescendo neither could avoid. A fiery point of lust, passion, and deep love that was going to open them wide up. Open them up to something they couldn’t see before, couldn’t remember, but soon would.
“Oh, God,” she whimpered, wrapping her legs around him tightly. She dug her nails into his back as his muscles flexed beneath her fingertips. “This is...”
What? Going to blow her apart? Rock her world?
As it happened, it did so much more than that.
It utterly changed her world.
How else could it be when it showed her who had ultimately cursed her?
Chapter Twenty-Four
ETHYN KNEW THE moment he thrust one last time, locked up inside Ciara and released, that nothing would be the same again. Not when finding such satisfaction inside the lass he loved, at last, showed him the horrible truth.
“What...where,” Ciara gasped. She was startled to find herself wrapped up in his arms on the woodland floor of Ireland.
They were transported so effortlessly now it was daunting.
Ethyn chanted them into clothing as they sat up. “It never happened like this to the other couples.” He raked a hand through his hair and waited for Ciara to gather herself. “’Tis far faster with us traveling back to Ireland more.”
“I know.” Ciara worked to steady her breathing. Her cheeks were flushed, and her skin aglow. “Hell, we didn’t get a chance to...” She inhaled and exhaled deeply, blushing as her eyes met his. “Well, we didn’t get a chance to come down, so to speak.”
He took her hand and kissed it, hating how quickly they’d traveled this time. But it was what it was, and they were here for a reason, so he stood and pulled her up. Wrapping an arm around her back to keep her steady, he cupped her cheek and met her eyes.
“We will get through this, lass,” he assured. “You know that, aye? Whatever we discover here, ‘twill be all right? And ‘twill make us stronger.”
“I know,” she murmured, suddenly nervous. Based on her thoughts, suddenly wanting to run in the opposite direction. Yet she stood her ground. “Definitely stronger.”
“Aye.” He searched her eyes, following her inner turmoil as if it were his own. Feeling a great deal of emotion himself if he were to be honest. “Ye are my lass, Ciara. Always. Then, here, now, in the future, past, all of it, ye ken?” He pressed his hand against her heart. “Ye cannae doubt that.” He shook his head. “Not for a moment.”
“I don’t.” She pressed her hand over his. “I’m just...scared all of a sudden.” Her gaze drifted to the forest. “More scared than I’ve ever been actually.” She shook her head. “And that can’t be a good sign because I’ve been scared shitless a lot.”
He glanced in the same direction as her, toward the Stonehenge, sensing something. Sensing more than just something, actually.
It was time.
“We’re finally going to learn the truth, lass.” He met her eyes again. “Are you ready?”
“Have I got any choice?”
“I dinnae think so.” He brushed his lips across hers and met her eyes again. “But remember, you arenae alone. I’m right here with you.” He perked a brow and worked at a smile, determined to put her at ease any way he could. “We travel as a pack, aye?”
She managed a small smile in return. “I suppose we do.”
That in mind, they headed for the Stonehenge only to discover they had returned to the very moment they’d left before. Ethyn’s former self just turned and saw what his druidess was looking at.
Marek’s Fianna warrior was shrouded in fog and darkness despite the setting sun.
“I told ye to trust me, brother,” Marek ground out, his voice different, gravelly, identical to that of the evil Brotherhood. “Yet, I sense ye just decided not to.”
When the druidess glanced around as if looking for someone, Ciara spoke into Ethyn’s mind. “She’s, or should I say ‘I'm’ looking for the demigod. Hoping she’ll come help.” She shook her head. “Because the darkness is manipulating things somehow and rendering my powers useless.”
“Och,” he muttered. It leant credence to just how powerful this evil was that it could do such to a Woodland Druidess. “I dinnae see any demigod coming to your rescue.”
“’Tis too late for trust,” his former self said to Marek’s Fianna. He drew his sword and faced off with his opponent, ready to fight. “If ye were going to stop this, it should have happened by now.”
“’Tis not easy...I just need more time...” Marek shook his head, as though shaking off thoughts he couldn’t control. By the way he ground his jaw in determination, he was fighting them. Internally battling whatever controlled him. “And now ‘tis too late anyway. They seek her out. I seek her out.”
“Nay.” Ethyn’s Fianna warrior took up a defensive position in front of his druidess. “She will not be sacrificed.” He shook his head. “She will not be used like that.”
“Aye, she will,” Marek ground out, drawing his sword. “She must.”
As their swords clashed and magical green light mixed with darkness, dozens of their fellow brothers melted out of the woodland and formed a circle around the Stonehenge. Around their brothers fighting within.
At first, Ethyn wondered why they didn’t help him against such darkness, but soon realized they couldn’t. Somehow, the curse was already taking root. A curse born of two great Fianna warriors coming together in the midst of magic combined with the cloying influence of Donn Fírinne, the Celtic god of death.
“This is why my subconscious was manipulated within the curse,” Ciara said, astonished as she figured it out. “Because of Donn Fírinne’s influence over Marek as he fought you. As yours and Marek’s combined Fianna magic sparked.” She shook her head. “It was never Alyssa but Marek, albeit, an evil version of him.”
The men fought viciously, ducking, swirling, driving each other every which way with the power of their swords. Ethyn’s Fianna fought with the need to protect what mattered most to him. In turn, Marek fought with the driving need to take what didn’t belong to him.
Yet in the midst of it, Ethyn sensed something familiar in Marek’s Fianna. He fought with a need to both protect and damn. While he understood the damning part, what was he trying to protect? Was it the mysterious ‘her’ he spoke of before? A possible Broun? Because there was deep angst in the way he battled. A message he tried to convey buried deep in the Fianna magic sparking around him.
“It’s in his tats,” Ciara said, amazed. “In the wo
rds being highlighted.”
“Aye.” Ethyn narrowed his eyes at almost the same moment as his former self, who just realized the same thing. “’Tis a message from one brother to another. He’s trying to remind me of something.” He narrowed his eyes even further as he sensed more. “The only way out of this.”
“Because they’re coming,” Ciara murmured. “The Brotherhood doesn’t know if Marek can be trusted, and they’re coming.”
“That’s why all the warriors are here,” Ethyn said. “To protect them as long as they can.”
“Oh, my God!” Ciara moved closer to Ethyn when the woodland began to darken. “They’re almost here...” She shivered as the air chilled and thinned. “It feels just like it did when Phelan was possessed.”
“Bloody hell.” Ethyn wrapped an arm around her shoulders in protection, instinctively keeping his Viking sword sheathed for fear it might somehow attract the darkness. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
It turned out, they were right. Though the woodland filled with darkness, it couldn’t get past the ring of Fianna warriors with their light. It couldn’t infiltrate the Stonehenge and take what it sought. Which, at this point, was likely the death of them all.
This was why Marek had sensed both darkness and light here.
Green and black continued sparking off both Marek’s and Ethyn’s blades as their fighting intensified. As it did, the words became brighter. The message clearer to those who understood the Fianna’s dialect. Their ancient woodland language.
Which, it just so happened, was not only the Fianna’s languge but also that of the Woodland Druidess.
“She understands.” Ciara’s voice was whisper soft in his mind. “And so does he.”
“Nay,” Ethyn’s Fianna roared moments later. “I will not!”
“Bloody hell,” Ethyn said, stunned, suddenly understanding the words. The message.
“Only he of the forest can make a creature his,” he murmured aloud without thinking. “Only he can create the purgatory.”
As if his very words triggered it, his former self looked directly at him and Ciara, crossing space and time. Two places at once. In that moment, though anguished, he saw the light at the end of his tunnel. The ultimate fate of his Woodland Druidess.
Moreover, he understood what he had to do.
What he must do.
“Och,” he whispered. “’Tis me...‘Twas always me.”
He trailed off as the Woodland Druidess, understanding what her fate must be, stood in front of the standing stone closest to her.
Their stone.
Though Ethyn’s Fianna resumed fighting, his fury more fierce than before, Ethyn knew he had received the message.
More than that, he’d seen its confirmation in Ethyn and Ciara.
“He has to do it,” Ciara said into his mind. “He has no choice.”
“A choice taken out of their hands,” he murmured, repeating the prophetic words she had said along their journey. “But still in their hands.”
“Our hands,” she echoed. “It was always our choice...our curse.”
Ethyn held Ciara tighter, feeling what he once felt. Knowing the horrible thing his former self had to do to the woman he loved if he hoped to save her.
“You must, my love,” the druidess said softly but firmly to Ethyn's Fianna. “You must do this thing if we hope to stay together.”
“’Twill not be together,” he ground out, anguished. He continued crossing blades with Marek. “’Twill forever be apart, yer life sacrificed to...”
When he broke off, she stood tall with her shoulders back. “’Tis our only course of action.” She shook her head. “I am not afraid.”
“She’s absolutely terrified.” Ciara wiped away a tear. “Not just because of what’s about to happen, but because there’s no guarantee she’ll find her way back to you...that I’ll find my way back.”
“There has to be another way,” his former self said.
Yet there wasn’t, and he knew it.
Ethyn felt his resolve. He also felt Marek’s anguish buried deep down inside. What he was ultimately doing.
“Marek’s Fianna favors me with this battle,” he said, shocked. “He favors me by fighting until I do what needs to be done. Fighting me when he should’ve cut me down by now and handed the druidess over to the darkness. For he has the power to do it. He is, without a doubt, the strongest warrior of us all.” He shook his head, sensing more. “He sacrifices a great deal by doing this. Not just his connection to his Fianna brothers and the inevitable wrath of the Brotherhood but something more. Something truly precious to him.”
“What?”
“I dinnae know.” He shook his head. “’Tis buried too deep.”
“It has to be the mysterious woman he wanted the druidess to protect,” she replied, clearly sad for him. “His Broun.”
“’Tis verra likely,” he agreed.
“Your Fianna’s getting ready to do it.” Ciara trembled in his arms. “I can feel it.”
“Aye.” He held her tighter as the horrible emotions he felt in his former life coursed through him. “He’s in unthinkable pain.”
She nodded and swallowed hard as Ethyn’s Fianna finally executed what they knew was coming. He spun away from Marek, strode toward his druidess, and began chanting, with his heart in his eyes and grief in his soul.
For the particular chants he recited were very rarely if ever used.
Why would they be when Fianna never did what he was about to do?
It was too cruel.
Too inhumane.
“Oh, God.” Though Ciara pressed against him, she never took her eyes off what happened as the sun hit the horizon. Her druidess began shifting. Changing. “There’s so much pain in it...too much.”
Though tempted to close his eyes, to look away, he couldn’t, wouldn’t, as his former self worked his magic. As he turned the woman he loved into a beast, trapping her in a purgatory she may never break free from.
For it turned out, he was one who cursed her to be a wolf.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“HOW DID I ever forget what that felt like?” Ciara said, remembering.
As the druidess’ searing pain finally fled, her entire world changed. Shifted to a perspective so vastly different than what it had been.
“You did it on purpose,” she went on. “You were merciful, giving me all the pain in the first shift, so I didn’t feel it when I shifted in this life.” She looked at Ethyn. “And you did it specifically because you saw us here. You saw across time to what would happen.”
“Aye.” Ethyn continued holding her tightly, just as distressed and heartbroken. Like her, he was awed by the idiosyncrasies of not just time travel but what had happened. “Had I not seen us here, I would have never cursed you. I loved you too much.” He shook his head. “’Twould have been impossible.”
“And that would have meant permanent death for me,” she replied. “Because if the Brotherhood did what they intended, my soul would have been consumed. Ceased to exist.”
They continued watching everything unfold.
Having protected them long enough to see through what the Fiannas knew had to happen, they finally turned to face off with the darkness. It seemed, however, based on it shrinking away moments after Marek vanished, and realizing their druidess virgin was no more, the Brotherhood’s ambitions shifted.
“They’re going after Marek’s Fianna, aren’t they?” she said softly. “Because they know what he did...how he helped?” She pressed her lips together, emotional. “Then they’ll likely go after the woman he had hoped the druidess would protect.”
“’Tis verra likely,” Ethyn said gruffly, saddened not only because of the awful fate that surely awaited Marek and his lass but because of what was happening in the circle.
“Phelan’s lying in the same spot in front of the stone that I return to every time I die,” she murmured, understanding now. “Because, in essence, it’s where my human ceased t
o exist and became a wolf.”
The Fianna warriors remained, silent sentinels as Ethyn’s former self fell to his knees in front of Phelan and hung his head. Everyone waited silently, respectfully, for her to awaken. For her to begin living out her curse. One that would go on for an eternity. Lifetime after lifetime, connected to him in his immortal Fianna state. Forever a wolf that, because she had once been human, would never be accepted by her fellow woodland creatures. She was too different. Not to be trusted no matter who her creator.
“That in itself was heartbreaking enough, but it got worse when I eventually killed her...you.” Ethyn saw everything as clearly as her now. “Or thankfully, because of Iosbail granting you Broun lineage, ultimately better in the end.”
“Because it allowed us a way out,” she whispered. “The words were there in Marek’s tats, weren’t they? What you’d need to do if, when, the Brotherhood sought my wolf out in their fury.”
“Aye,” he replied softly. Phelan stirred and opened her eyes for the first time in her new form. “For after they no doubt sought vengeance on Marek’s Fianna, they came after your wolf determined to end you regardless. To mutilate your soul beyond recognition.”
“Which might’ve been possible,” she said as Ethyn’s Fianna kept his head bowed over his wolf in grief, “had Marek not shown you another way.”
“Sacrifice the creature I created and lose my immortality...” he said, dumbfounded by what had happened. What he’d done. “In turn, I thrust myself into the curse. It was the only way to keep you free of the Brotherhood.”
“To be reborn again and again as your wolf,” she said, picking up where he left off, her heart in her throat as Phelan went to Ethyn’s Fianna and nuzzled against him. Forgiving and loving him all at once. “Iosbail must have seen the curse for what it was and helped us the only way she could. The only way that could possibly, by some stroke of luck, bring us back together.”
“And it did,” he murmured as the memory faded away, and they returned to their tent in Scotland.
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