Edness Callamore quickly said, “My dear, you can let me handle this. There must be a full bond between the two of you.”
I know I was blushing, and my heart was racing, Declan would be able to feel my nervousness, and that made me more nervous. I turned to Declan.
“We can take this at your own pace,” he said.
I swallowed. “I need some air.” I walked out as quickly as I could. I made sure I gently waved Declan off so that he would not follow me.
I walked slowly out the doors into the sunlight taking in a deep breath. I felt myself pulled away from the Callamore mansion. I kicked off my shoes and started to run. As soon as my feet hit the cold wet ground outside, I felt like I could take a freeing breath and the walls weren’t closing in on me anymore. What was I doing? I was proud of my decision last night, but then today came and I felt like it was possibly the wrong one for me. I was emotionally exhausted. I knew that this all was coming. It was just too fast.
I heard footsteps coming up behind me. I didn’t turn, I waited, and they got closer. My nerves were on edge. The leaves crunching became louder. I felt the fire come to my hands. I stood and put my right hand out to stop whoever it was coming after me.
“Woah, wait! Shay, it’s me.” Duncan put his arms up to protect himself.
I backed up, horrified that I could have hurt him.
“Where did that come from?” Duncan asked.
I couldn’t even figure out where it was coming from. “I’m not sure,” I said really not knowing why or how it was happening.
“Is that what happened that night you went after Declan in the woods?” he asked, probably out of fright and curiosity.
“I don’t really know what happens. I feel this overwhelming terror, and then it just happens.”
He stood there just in shock staring at my hands.
“What? Say something. Please.” I just didn’t know what he would say. I didn’t even know why I was so worried about what he would say when he did speak to me.
He looked down and started to walk toward me. “I am glad you’re alone. I wanted to talk to you without Declan.”
I was so nervous with him walking closer and closer. “Is there something between us?” he said, moving closer.
“No, Duncan, there isn’t. I really thought that there was and I’m so sorry for the confusion. It’s just not there. I’m so sorry about Hellena. She was meant to be your mate, not me. Don’t you feel it?”
He took a step closer. “I feel something here.” He was standing inches away from me, breathing deeply, and then he leaned into me. I backed away from him before his lips could touch mine.
“Duncan, I’m sorry. It’s just not supposed to be you.” I shook my head from side to side while I spoke.
He backed away, turning to run off. Seconds passed and I couldn’t move. I felt powerless. Everything was happening so fast. I needed my brother. He was the only one I could trust to help me. I started to walk toward the road. I could hear my own footsteps as I walked through the trees. I saw the road in the distance. I walked through the edge of the forest, seeing the sun moving higher over the trees. It was so bright and warm. I stood for a moment taking in the sunlight’s warmth.
***
I heard a car coming. I tried to see the car coming through all the sunspots in my eyes. A black Chevy SUV with a blackened emblem had started to slow. The tinted window rolled down about four inches after it came to a complete stop.
“Get in,” a woman said.
I felt my heart pound, I was so scared. I turned to take a look at the woods. I saw a blue and silver wolf barreling through the trees.
“If you stay, he will be killed for your insubordination,” said the woman. Even with the threat, something was urging me to get into the SUV. I knew I had heard the voice before. The door opened. I decided to go; I couldn’t let anything happen to Declan. My heart beat anxiously. I turned and got into the SUV, and we started driving.
I looked out the back window and saw a wolf standing by the side of the road, watching us drive away. I sat with my hands in my lap. The woman never turned around. “Where are we going?” I was so worried that I had made the wrong decision. Neither the woman nor the man driving the SUV answered me. The SUV was silent.
I felt like I knew her somehow, but I had never met her before. She had loose locks of pure raven-colored hair that flowed wild, and her skin was almost porcelain but for the few red-hued freckles that were sparsely placed on her shoulders and forearms. She was really quite a sight of beauty.
Finally, the silence broke as she turned to speak. I could see the red-hued freckles on her cheeks and that her eyes were a green that could in fact electrify fear into a human.
“Don’t worry about him. He will be better off without you,” she said in the familiar voice.
I was offended when she spoke. “I thought that we were stronger with our mate?”
She watched me as we drove. “Mate. That’s funny. Female mac tires do not need to take a mate.”
I was confused. “And who are you?”
She turned toward me. “My name is Morgan Ruaric.” I realized in that second Morgan was not exactly her real name. She seemed to sense this and added, “I am also known as the Morrígan.”
“What do you mean, female mac tires don’t have a mate?” I questioned.
She didn’t turn around. “Females are so much better than males. We don’t have to choose a mate. We can have as many mates as we want.” She reached to caress the ear of the man that was sitting in the driver’s seat. She smiled and said, “It is time for you to find out who you really are. When we are done, you are free to return to your brooding mate. If that’s what you want.”
I turned knowing that he wouldn’t be back there. We had already driven too far. But I turned to see the life that I came to accept. “And you won’t hurt him?”
She didn’t turn to me. “As long as you listen to everything I have to tell you.”
We drove forever. It even started to get dark outside. We pulled into a dark entrance covered in overgrown weeds and dark green ivy cascading over a stone wall and a high rot iron gated drive. Thick dark bushes lined the drive on both sides. We drove still more, finally coming up to a dark stone house. We pulled up to the front door and the driver got out and walked around opening up the door for this Morgan Ruaric. She got out as he held his hand for hers. She turned to caress his chest in a sexual manner. I started to see something that I wanted to ignore, and I turned away.
I opened the door and stepped out and walked closely behind the Morrígan through the double door entry.
There were more men everywhere. They flocked to her like a moth to a flame. I had a strange feeling that it would end badly for all of them. Apparently they did not know that this would be coming. I walked through the hall behind her. She started to strip down as she was walking through the house. The men walking behind us picked up everything that she was dropping like it was gold. She soon was stripped down to matching black lacy bra and panties, standing in high heels. “God, that’s much better.” She turned around. “Clothes are so constricting. Just like men. It’s always good to have them covering you when you need them, but sometimes you need to strip off the excess.” She smiled seductively at me. “Don’t be scared. I will not hurt you. You must know that. You are here, my little butterfly, to learn.”
I swallowed. “Learn what exactly?”
“The real you. The you that you can become.” She walked over to one of the men and wrapped her arms around his head, stroking him in a taunting way. She turned to me. “You can have a little anytime you want.”
I turned my head away.
“Fine.” She walked toward me. “If that isn’t what interests you, then maybe talking about your future will do it for you?” She walked past me pouring a glass of red wine and then grabbed a sheer black robe off the chair and put it on. She sat down on the ivory couch, crossing her leg over the other. I watched her as she dangled her stiletto o
ff her toes.
“Haven’t you ever wondered what you are supposed to be doing?” she said biting the chocolate candy she put in her mouth.
I just looked at her. “Are you kidding me? Really? All you can do is make sexual advances toward anything with a pulse. And you want me to learn something from you? I’d rather not.” I turned away from her and walked toward the front door.
I could hear her stand behind me. “No, no, sweetheart. I am only showing you all the possibilities that you are missing out on.”
I turned back to her. “I haven’t seen anything I would want to learn from you.”
She took a step away toward the window. “Fine. But your little mate will learn the hard way what happens when you mess with the big dog.” She motioned to one of her bodyguard play toys. He then nodded in return.
“No!” I cried out in fear of him being hurt in any manner.
She pointed to the chair and aggressively said, “Sit.” I could see a crimson fire in her eyes and I could feel the blood pumping through her veins. I had a connection to her. I walked over to the chair and sat immediately. She nodded for the bodyguard to stop. “Good, let’s have ourselves a little girl talk.”
➢11 Beginning of the End
I gazed out the window of her house as the sun started to set. I felt like I was in a trance. My eyes blurred as a fog rolled in. I could sense Declan as if he were with me, and we were on opposite sides of the river on the Callamores’ property. He stood there and looked up at the moon. Breathing deeply, he spoke with the warmth of his breath in the cold night’s air as I closed my eyes and spoke with him: “Come back to me.”
***
My eyes shot open. I felt like I was having a heart attack, and I couldn’t stop it. I had goose bumps down my arms and was choking on the air I was trying to breathe. I felt his heartache, the pain that he felt for me not knowing where I was. I kept gasping for air.
“Your connection to this boy is very strong,” said the Morrígan. “I almost wonder what will happen after you are fully bonded.”
I continued to cough. I just couldn’t catch my breath.
“This will pass. Just breathe deep and slow.”
She got up and walked over to the counter where one of her man-slaves poured her another drink. “See. This is going to be so easy for you. Now let’s get back to our story.”
I started to calm my breathing, but it was still difficult trying to breathe. The more I tried to get back to him the more it wouldn’t work. How was I able to connect to him that time?
She poured the entire drink down her throat. “Sweetie, you should know by now there are not only other species than just your mac tires, there are sorcerers, ogres, leprechauns, banshees, and other creatures that have been hunted to almost extinction.”
I sat and stared at her. “Explain yourself,” I demanded, knowing there could be something horrible she would tell me.
“Cas Corach—he was the first. He discovered what I was—that my genetics had been corrupted and that I could do these amazing things. He conspired with another man practicing sorcery named Aodhan O’Dorcha. He brought darkness to my reign as healer. No one was able to fight back and almost no one survived. My daughters were slaughtered by Cas Corach because of the help and guidance of Aodhan O’Dorcha. The only reason such a hunter has to live is to hunt us. Aodhan O’Dorcha cursed my descendants to live life as animals for betraying him. However, he is cursed as well to spend his immortal life killing my mac tires.”
I knew that my jaw had just dropped and that I had no idea what she was really talking about. None of it sounded familiar from the books that I had read.
“Shay, the reason I brought you here is so you understand that you are my descendant and that a female is strong—stronger than Aodhan O’Dorcha would ever want us to be. Over the years we have evolved and found more purpose. Now Aodhan O’Dorcha and Cas Corach are working together again, and they are ruthless. I want you to be prepared. He will come after you without hesitation, and your genetics are needed to continue our future.”
I stood. “Wait, hold on. You just want me to reproduce?”
She sat calmly. “No. I want you to live. Have the life that my daughters wanted. The catch is that you are the only one that has the power to defeat Aodhan O’Dorcha.”
I sat. “Why me?”
She motioned for another drink. “Because he’s an immortal and can only be killed by his bloodline. Your bloodline. There is a ritual that has to be performed on the night of the winter solstice and it will take your blood and the blood from my other daughters’ bloodlines to kill him. If we make Aodhan O’Dorcha human, strip him of his powers, the hunters will have no choice but to retreat. They will have no power to harm us. Do you want our species to become extinct?”
I now knew that one of the Morrígan’s children was also a child of this Aodhan O’Dorcha and that I was a descendant of this great bloodline. It took me a few moments to really think of exactly what I had intended to say. She, of course, kept drinking her little drinks that were being served to her one after another.
“How much blood do you want?” I knew my question would not get the real truth and that there was probably much more to this story than what she was telling me, but I needed to see her reaction.
“It will take a lot, but in the end it will tie Aodhan O’Dorcha to the earth, and it will bring to him what he deserves. No one has the right to destroy someone else’s life.” She spoke with such passion. It was hard to tell if this was just something to get back at this Aodhan O’Dorcha or for the good of all mac tires.
“I need to know more about this. That’s all I can promise right now. And that I would like to go home. If this can’t be arranged right now I will not take you at your word and I will know that you are not telling me the truth.”
She sat, not saying a word, and then she made a quick motion to her man-slaves, and they grabbed my arms.
I turned to them and with just the thought of spending one more minute with the Morrígan, I heated up and transferred all my rage into my skin. They stepped back when I tried to swing at them, fire burning off of my arms from every angle. “It’s time for me to leave,” I said in a very monotone, demanding voice, and I headed for the door.
“Wait. Just one more thing,” she said.
I turned around.
“It would be very sad for your parents to suffer because of your questionable decisions.” She motioned again, the television turned on, and I saw that my parents were in a stone cell of some sort. I quickly calmed down, now seeing that she would do anything to keep me there and that I now was being held prisoner again.
“Fine.” I put my head down, not able to even look at the screen anymore. “Don’t hurt them. I will do whatever it is that you need me to do.”
She smiled. “Good. I thought you would see it my way.”
She motioned to the men standing behind me. I turned and followed them out of the room. We walked back through the front door and out to a barn. There were horse stalls that had been constructed into prison cells. I walked through the door that they had shown me to.
I sat listening to the storm as the raindrops fell violently on the top of the barn. There was no way out. I searched back and forth, pushing on the sides of the stall. Every inch was reinforced and it wasn’t going to give any time soon. I started to transition with the panic I was feeling. My thoughts raced back to Declan and the feeling of hopelessness and I was just ready to give up. If she had to lock my parents away so that I would stay here it must be very difficult what was going to have to be done. It was not the worst way to die—protecting the ones that I love. I just wanted to make sure that she would keep her own agreement and no harm would come to them, any of them.
I just couldn’t help but think that there was something I was missing. I paced more, and I heard the Morrígan as she walked through the barn.
“Well, you are definitely related to me. Your mac tire form is so beautiful.” She leaned into the ba
rs of the cell like she wanted to touch my fur.
I just stood, waiting for her to do something that would give me any opportunity to run.
She continued lowering herself down to the barn floor to place herself at my eye level. “Now then, you will just have to be patient as we let my plan unfold.”
I turned away from her, walking over to the other side of the cell.
“That’s not very polite. Maybe your precious Declan needs to be taught a lesson on your behalf.”
I turned to snap at her as my vision turned red, but she had left. Nobody was there, the lightning flashes were lighting up the barn from the outside. Rain from the storm was coming in from all angles and was flooding the barn.
Standing erect, I was shivering, holding onto my cold wet naked body. “Someone? Anyone? I’m freezing in here!”
One of the guards right outside the barn came in. “You’ll freeze.” He turned to walk out.
“I’m sure the Morrígan would be interested to know that the person to save our species was going to die of hypothermia.”
He immediately stopped and turned, grabbing a horse blanket and throwing it in between the bars at me. I curled up in the corner with the smelly blanket to fall asleep.
“Where are you, Declan?” I said in a whisper as I closed my eyes.
I was running in the woods just like my first nightmare. Someone was chasing after me, and I couldn’t stop them. I kept running, and before I knew it, branches hit my upper right arm with a sharp pinch. One punctured my skin and blood ran from it down to my fingertips. I tripped over a tree root and went falling into a rock.
I awoke to someone taking blood out of my arm. I could barely recognize who or what they were doing. I only saw figures in front of me as they moved with purpose. My vision started to sharpen, and I saw the Morrígan in the background of this event and she was writing on something.
She stepped forward. “Now your Declan will do what he needs to do.” She placed the vial of my blood into a box and gave it to one of her man slaves. “I want this delivered personally. See that you make sure Declan opens it himself.”
Crimson Secrets Page 13
