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“TEAGAN,” AIDAN CALLED after her.
She could hear him coming up behind her as she stumbled across the field. She’d already tripped once. He caught her elbow as she reached the road and swung her around to look at him. Her skirt flounced lightly in the cool breeze. In the light of the full moon, his hair shimmered, casting off blue hues. As Teagan strained to see his face, she noticed a soft glow seemed to encase his face, his shoulders, and his strong hands. Teagan shook her head sure that she was imaging things. People do not glow, she told herself. As she squinted in the almost nonexistent light, she could barely make out the outline of Aidan’s eyes on his handsome face. She could feel that he was worried about her. She’d never been this close to him. Her heart beat fast, and she closed her eyes, picturing his. Thinking about the unusual gold and silver flecks that danced in his mesmerizing amber gaze made her lightheaded, and she swallowed hard. She opened her eyes slowly as he whispered to her.
“Teagan, it could be me.”
She could feel his eyes on her face, and she flinched at his words.
“I can’t, Aidan. I can’t do this right now.” Her voice was unsteady, and she swallowed hard again.
“I can’t lose him and you in the same day,” Teagan whispered so faintly she believed she’d only thought the words in her mind and hadn’t really spoken them.
She tried to back up a step, but his hand was still holding her arm. Where it touched her, tingles of warmth began and fanned out, spreading up her arm. Teagan squeezed her eyes shut and clinched her fists at her sides. How has my life gotten so confusing? She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d started to care for Aidan in the few short days she’d known him. She hadn’t realized how much she cared about him until she was faced with the possibility of his rejection, too.
The seconds ticked by as Teagan stood there in the moonlight with her eyes closed, deliberating internally with herself. Her nails dug into her palms, and a muscle ticked in her jaw. She was mad at herself for getting into this situation. Everything that had happened to her in the last couple of weeks, she felt, was completely and irrevocably her fault. She should have never gone in search of her friend Cali, who by the way was still MIA without even a clue of her whereabouts.
As she stood there struggling internally, she felt the gentlest whisper of a kiss touch her lips. So soft, like a feather had fluttered over her, and as suddenly as it had come, the kiss was gone. Of its own accord, her tongue darted out, wetting her lips where Aidan’s had just been. Her eyes came open just in time to see Aidan accept the action as approval, and his head bent back towards her own. Her eyes widened in surprise and closed again in the instant before their lips met for a second time.
A lightning-quick shock of electricity sent chills along Teagan’s spine as Aidan’s lips moved on hers. He deepened the kiss, and she moaned with desire. Relaxing, her fists unclenched, and her arms gradually crept up to rest on his shoulders. His large, work-roughened hands grasped firmly at her sides as if holding her prisoner. She wasn’t going anywhere. Her body tingled, and where his fingers touched her, they seared her with unimaginable warmth. Her mind reeled as she leaned in, trying to get closer to him. In all her life, Teagan had never been kissed like this.
Without warning, he jerked away, and Teagan almost stumbled from his hasty retreat. Still dazed, she watched as he ran his fingers through his hair in a frustrated jerky movement.
“We should get back,” Aidan said shakily as he turned away from her and started walking in the direction of town.
“Yeah,” Teagan said breathlessly, agreeing with him, and she dragged along behind him still breathless from the kiss they’d shared.
***
SHE WASN’T SURE, BUT she found herself moving, this time closer to the young man. At some point, he had uncrossed his arms and now they hung limply at his sides. She didn’t know why, but suddenly, she felt the need to comfort him. She slipped up beside him. He didn’t shoo her away. A good sign. Timidly, she placed her tiny hand into his much larger one in awe of the difference in size.
She felt more than heard his sigh. She looked down at their joined hands unsure if the quick shock of pressure she’d felt was just her imagination or him acknowledging her. And, just like that, he let her go. A jolt of heat moved through her, and she looked up at him in question. He was staring down at her one moment, a look of regret in his eyes, as he whispered the words “I’m sorry,” and the next second he was gone. Vanished.
***
“AND HE COULD BE DEAD, Aidan. Dreams aren’t always truth.” Colin said flatly.
“Yes, but if it is true and he’s been dream walking Teagan...” Aidan didn’t finish his sentence.
“Bad news huh?” Teagan inquired of no one in particular.
“The worst,” Katie answered Teagan, nodding her head gravely.
Colin cleared his throat and spoke to Aidan, “I came over to tell you I am leaving. I’m going to go to Tir na nOg to ask for an audience with the queen. I’ll try to find out what she knows about this threat to Teagan. I’ll be keeping my ears and eyes open at court for the traitor.”
“That’s a good idea but be careful my friend. When are you planning on leaving?” Aidan asked Colin.
“Right now, I think the sooner I leave the better,” Colin and Aidan grasped arms in farewell.
Then Colin turned.
“Teagan,” he said simply with a nod, and he walked out.
After a brief glance in Aidan’s direction, Teagan rushed after Colin. She caught him on the steps outside.
“Colin, wait.” Teagan said as the door slammed shut behind her. He stopped.
Teagan noticed that, even standing on the top step, she wasn’t as tall as him. His blonde hair fluttered in the wind and curled around the nape of his neck. She loved that.
“Colin I...”
Teagan didn’t know what to say but she felt like she should say something. She licked her lips unconsciously.
For just a moment, Colin looked deeply into her eyes. Teagan felt as if he was looking for an answer to some unasked question, and then, just as unexpectedly, he pulled her roughly into his arms. Before Teagan knew what was happening, his lips met hers in a savage claiming. She stood there in stunned silence. The kiss was rough and a little painful, but Teagan didn’t pull back. Instead, she stood there willing herself to feel something, anything, for him. Before she could, however, Colin pulled back and ended the kiss. Teagan was speechless. She had no idea how to respond. Fortunately, he solved the problem for her.
“I’ll be gone for a while. In the fae realm time is different. It ebbs and flows but isn’t very consistent. The fae tend to bend it to their will. It’s one of their finer qualities, by far.” He gave a sarcastic laugh and the hollowness of it nearly broke Teagan’s heart.
***
AS TEAGAN RAN ACROSS the field, memories swirled around inside her mind. A vision; a petit woman, with waist length copper hair which gleamed in the sunlight, stood up from the form she had been kneeling in front of and turned towards Teagan. A carbon copy of herself, and yet, instinctively Teagan knew it was Aoife. Her aunt moved, causing Teagan to look out across a sea of bloody bodies. She gasped in horror at the devastation. Teagan could see what Aoife saw. The metallic smell was so strong in the air she could taste it. Thousands of souls cried out to her in pain, each moan an agonizing onslaught of suffering. Such raw emotion, such despair, she would never be able to help them all.
As Teagan reached the fallen girl, she knelt in front of her, and put her hands-on the girl’s head. Teagan closed her eyes and reached inside herself for more of Aoife’s memories. Her power. Anything. Aoife’s knowledge came to Teagan in a blinding rush and she drew on it. Forcing the light inside her out through her fingertips. At first, she struggled to push it into the hurt girl in front of her. She drew in a deep breath and willed the light into the girl. Suddenly, Teagan’s hands warmed, and she opened her eyes excitedly, just in time to see the frigid response of the girl in front of her.
“Get your hands off me, you witch,” the girl said hatefully.
***
“WHAT IS THIS? WHAT are you doing to me?” Colin’s voice was as close to a yell as she’d ever heard it.
He stood on the very top of the stone steps, a massive medieval-looking, wooden door with a huge gargoyle knocker on it behind him. She tried to get her bearings, tried to understand why her head was swimming and she felt as if she was going to throw up all over Colin’s expensive-looking shoes. It’d serve him right if she did. Somehow, she had the distinct feeling that this was his doing even though he so blatantly blamed it on her.
“What do you mean what’d I do? I didn’t do anything, you Neanderthal.”
“Teagan, I mean it. What did you do to me? It’s like you altered my shift.” He gaze focused on her face, and he steadied her with one arm. “Were those memories?”
“More like fragments of what could be, what will be, and what was.”
He released her arm at the news, and she swayed the nausea returning full force.
“Relax, not everything comes to pass.”
“How did you do that?”
She looked at him closely. Was he ready to hear her truth or did he just think he was like most people. So far, Aoife and Cali were the only ones who’d ever been ready. One of them didn’t count, and the other one had betrayed her, so...
He nodded, encouraging her. “I want to know.”
Teagan gazed off into the darkness, her eyes always on the shadows of late. “The lost Fae princess, Aoife, is my aunt. There was a fight. She was dying, my mom was dying, bam! I got chosen as a host.”
He reached for her arm, turning her to look at him. “Aoife, the queen’s daughter is...” he gulped.
“Inside me, yes.” And, here it came, the part were people laughed, ran, or locked her up, all of them thinking she needed to be heavily medicated.
“And you’ve had to bear this burden along all these years?”
She did look at him then, and the softness on his face was almost her undoing. She squared her shoulder; she would not cry in front of this man twice in one day when she hadn’t cried in almost ten years.
“What to lock me up like the others?” She sassed.
“Lock you up? I’m not following.”
“Yeah, as in the nut house, the looney bin, the crazy place? Nothing?”
“This isn’t a joke, Teagan.” The look he gave her was one of confusion, like he couldn’t understand her need to make a jest of things.
“I know, Colin. It’s been my life.” She didn’t want his sympathy. Didn’t need it. She was tough. She was true grit, like John Wayne. Teagan lifted her chin in defiance.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the door opened behind him and he nearly fell inside the building. The pretty-boy from the plane stood behind him, towering over Colin’s already impressive height. His thick black hair framed his face and caused his brilliant eyes to sparkle. Teagan could feel the heat rising up her neck and into her cheeks.
“What’d I miss?” Aidan asked.
Colin glared at his brother-in-arms and then at her, before taking her arm in hand, much more gently this time she noted. “Nothing,” he said to Aidan as they entered the large space. Then to her, “We’ll finish this conversation later.”