Liam had already unbuckled his breastplate before it dawned on him that it might be better not to do so. He couldn’t predict this wife of his, and he’d learned to his chagrin the night before that she wouldn’t hesitate to fight back if riled.
Again the thought made his cock stir, which made him frown all the more fiercely. Sure, he couldn’t be after lusting for a sharp-tongued woman. Lugh knew he’d never done so before. He’d never allowed that kind of behavior in his consorts.
Even so, he’d come back to make some kind of amends, if he could, for his behavior. He bent to pull the leather off over his head, all the while trying to gauge the mood of his wife. She was sitting in one of the two straight-back chairs he’d crafted when he’d reached his majority, and somehow she made it look like a throne.
He would have to do something about that, too. He had to impress on her what her place was in this house, and it wasn’t to take over what was his and make it hers. He needed to remember that. But first he needed to control his unruly manhood and its tendency to interfere with his purpose, as it had the night before.
Ah, the night before. He couldn’t help dallying with the memory of it: the weight of her perfect, full breasts in his hands, the feel of her sleek waist and legs, the sight of her hot, impatient eyes and hands. Her hands, which had traveled over every inch of him as if memorizing him. Faith, he didn’t know the paths of the Reeks so well, and he’d walked them for decades.
“And sure, won’t we be after revisiting such a delightful pastime later,” Orla said, because, of course, she could see perfectly well what he could. “But for now, we need to talk.”
Liam was relieved that he wasn’t one to blush or she would have caught him at it. Battling well-deserved frustration, he set his armor down and settled into the other chair across from hers at the front window.
“Well, then,” he said, rubbing a bit at his now bare wrist. “Have at it, woman. You’ve already managed to interrupt the brunt of my mission by bringing me home before I could successfully scan the borders. What more can you do to disrupt my life?”
“Bringing you home?” she echoed. “I called no husband to me.”
“The other wives did. Sure, couldn’t I hear their distress all the way to the wasteland? How is it that in a matter of less than two moonrises you’ve managed to sow discord in this perfect village?”
He could tell by the renewed fire in her eyes that she had something to say to that. He never gave her the chance. “Sure, isn’t every woman here outraged at your behavior at the banquet last night, striding through the hall like a warrior and making their husbands look ridiculous?”
“Oh, I think their husbands managed that quite well enough all on their own, don’t you?” she asked, her voice suspiciously silky. “As for the women, faith, I think they were intrigued, not outraged. At least I hope they were, for sure, they need to be.”
“What would you know about it?” he demanded. “You have no concept of what life is like on the borders, what we need from the men and expect from the women of the Dubhlainn Sidhe. And yet you presume to judge?”
For a moment she just looked at him, obviously chewing her words over. Then she got to her feet and crossed to the door.
“Grand,” she said. “Show me.” And without another word, she pulled the front door open and walked out.
For a moment all Liam could do was gape. Mallacht, he cursed silently. What next?
What next was her leaning her head back into the doorway so her hair swung behind her like a sable curtain. “Well, then, husband? Are we to go about your business, so I understand?”
He felt as if somebody had just pushed his head under water. “I thought you were after wondering about my daughter.”
She lifted a wry eyebrow. “And who’s to say we can’t talk about her as we walk? You’re the one said I needed to know the borders. Well, here I am, all right, and ready to learn.”
Liam battled a surprisingly strong urge to throttle her. Right after he took her to the floor and impaled her with himself so that her eyes widened as they had the night before, hunger and surprise and just a little fear darkening them as she’d realized the force of his hunger.
He closed his eyes against the image and counseled himself to be patient. And faith, if she didn’t wait there without moving, the picture of forbearance.
“Soon you’ll go too far, woman,” he growled, and climbed to his feet.
For just a moment, too quick to be sure, when he opened his eyes, he thought he saw it on her again. Fear. Uncertainty. Vulnerability. It stopped him, just for that long. He had to be mad. This wife of his was about as vulnerable as a wolverine, and he’d best not forget it.
“The borders,” he said, stalking past her with every ounce of military presence he could muster, “lie out in the wastelands of the Reeks. You see them rising behind the village like sentinels.”
“Or prison walls,” she muttered, following along.
Liam swung on her. “Those prison walls keep more than just the Dubhlainn Sidhe safe. They also keep the Tuatha from knowing the perils of the other worlds, and the mortals even more.”
“What other worlds?” she asked, looking around.
“Sure, you’ve been through the gates at Carrowmore,” he said. “The twelve gates into the other worlds?”
“Well, yes, of course. But those gates lie in the land of the Tuatha, not the Dubhlainn Sidhe.”
“Those are only the front doors, Orla.”
That stopped her, sure. She stared at him as if he’d run mad. “But some of those worlds—”
“Are too terrifying to contemplate. Don’t you think we know? After all, isn’t it the Dubhlainn Sidhe, the Fairy of the Dark Sword, who have been given the task of keeping our world safe from them? Haven’t I mourned more than one warrior of my clan who perished in that defense or, worse, lost his soul?”
“But the world knows nothing of this,” she protested. “Sure, it’s nowhere even in the mortal tales.”
“Because mortals have not the defenses to protect against even the least terrible of the other worlds. Why do you think the Dubhlainn Sidhe learned the art of dream-invasion? Why do you think we sow nightmares that would shake a sane soul? It is our most effective way of keeping mortals in their own plane, never to wander too far and stumble over a door that must never be opened. The dreams—the terrible dreams you sought me out to provide for you—are the best protection the mortal world has.”
She looked truly shaken. Oddly, he wasn’t sure that made him feel better. Ah, well, how long would she survive without knowing the worst of his land?
Before he could think better of it, he took her hand and drew her along. They didn’t walk down the meandering lanes of their little village, though, toward where the women were gathered at the old well exchanging the information of the day while they pursued their stone gifts. Instead, he turned her onto a narrow track that led through the birch and willow trees that lined the tumbling stream.
Here the world was soft and gentle. Here it seemed ludicrous to think that only a moment of inattention could bring nightmares down on this little glen that would shatter the strongest of hearts.
“That’s the real reason you stole the Coilin Stone,” Orla said suddenly.
Liam didn’t bother to look away from where a doe dipped her delicate head to the stream to drink.
“This place is called Gleann Fia,” he said. “Glen of the Fawn. Appropriate, isn’t it? Walking in these shadows, it’s hard to think that any bad thing could happen.”
“Wolves can come and take down that doe as she drinks,” Orla said. “A bear could come eat the wolf. And a mortal with one of their fierce weapons could destroy them all. Don’t think I don’t comprehend risk, Liam.”
He kept walking, their footfalls hushed in the grass. “Yes,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons I took the Coilin Stone. I thought that the added power might help bolster the borders.”
“Has it?”
He looked over at her. Damn the woman for being so perceptive. “Not appreciably. But it’s only been here for a bit now, and during much of that time we’ve been meeting with the Tuatha de Dannan on the field of battle.”
“Why?” she asked. “You already have the stone.”
“Because we thought you really did have the Dearann Stone, as well.”
She shook her head. “You lot need better bards. Ours could tell you plain well that one of the Dubhlainn Sidhe carried the stone over to the land of mortals in the days before my life began and lost it there. Your women think it was to protect it during a war. Well, and isn’t my sister Sorcha off now, trying to recover it even as we speak?”
He shook his head. “You must have stolen it. Sure, we’ve tried for long seasons to find it without luck.”
She flashed him a grin. “Ah, well, but you’re men, aren’t you? Haven’t we all seen that men have trouble finding the mead on the banqueting table unless a woman points it out?”
They’d begun to climb now, the way a bit rockier as they neared the high gray shoulders of the mountains that defined the land of the Dubhlainn Sidhe, an empty, endless horizon of ragged old men who stood guard over the gentle green land. Liam moved to help Orla over the roughening terrain. He needn’t have bothered. As lithe as the doe they’d seen, she hopped effortlessly over the rocks and hollows of the path.
“Have you actually had incursions?” she asked.
Liam almost smiled. Leave it to the girl to stay on the point. “Regularly,” he said. “We barely fought off an attack from the Seventh Realm only a short while before you contacted me.”
“The Seventh Realm.” Her eyes were wide and stark.
The ghostlords lived in the Seventh Realm. Blood seekers. It seemed she needn’t have faced them to know their threat, he thought.
She looked over at him.” Why did you agree to my request to torment the mortal?”
He shrugged. “I was in the mood for a bit of chaos,” he said. “I’d lost a friend in the high ridges.”
“I’m that sorry, Liam. I didn’t know.”
She’d surprised him again. “And how could you?” he asked. “Was part of the power of the leannan sidhe that of seer?”
“Faith, no. The queen already has a perfectly good seer at her disposal, and he’ll be around long into the reign of whomever my mother appoints to follow her.”
He considered Orla. “Was the chance to be queen so important to you?”
“That I would invite disgrace and exile for it?” she asked, and took his hand again to climb some boulder steps. “It wasn’t the power,” she said simply. “It was the fear that my mother was deserting her people and leaving them in incapable hands.”
“Your own sister?”
They’d reached a ledge, and she stopped a moment to look out to where the sea waited at the horizon beyond the harsh tumble of mountains. “Ah,” she said. “I do love the high places.”
Liam climbed up to stand beside her. This was his place, where he came to cleanse away the filth he sometimes brought from other realms. It was a place where the god Lugh could see him and bestow blessings for the hard work he did. And now she’d put her imprint on it. It would never be the same.
He was surprised he wasn’t angrier about it.
“My sister Nuala, who was heir to the throne,” Orla said, her head back, her eyes closed, “is the best of our clan. She is gracious and brilliant, and so compassionate the animals come and lay their heads in her lap.”
“But she isn’t a queen.”
“Not the queen the Tuatha need. Especially not if we share the burden of protecting the world from the other realms.”
“You don’t. That is the work of the Dubhlainn Sidhe.”
“I’m not so sure we can divide the load that easily anymore, Liam. I’m not sure we should.”
“It isn’t your choice.”
She sighed, her eyes still closed. “No,” she said, sounding unspeakably bleak. “It isn’t, then, is it?”
And again, in that moment, he grieved for her.
“What will happen now?” he asked.
“To the Tuatha?” She shrugged. “You’ve just said it. It isn’t my business to know anymore. I pray my mother the queen doesn’t leave for the West soon, though. Whoever becomes queen needs the training of it, altogether.”
“She is ready to go?”
“She has been for a bit. She was just waiting to train Nuala.” Her smile was wry. “Or whomever else she chooses now. Sure, I see no one in my clan worthy of it.”
“Did you see yourself worthy?”
“I saw that I had the hunger for it, the love of it, the ruthlessness for it. I saw that what I cared about most was the clan, at least in this.” She shook her head and walked on. “I was wrong about that, too, though, wasn’t I? None of it was enough. I wasn’t enough. A sad indictment on a princess royal, altogether.”
He could think of nothing to say that would salve that wound. So he kept climbing to where the mountains gnawed at the empty sky. The air was thinner, the breeze sharper, the horizon stark and silent. This was the place where peace lived. This was where the lords of the Seventh Realm had tried to tear him apart like a braised rabbit.
He scanned the horizon for his squad of protectors, but saw nothing but a spiraling bird and a long-haired mountain sheep. Today, the mountains appeared friendly.
“Why don’t we sit down somewhere?” he suggested.
Orla made it a point to look around at the inhospitable landscape before lowering herself onto a flat boulder as if it were a presentation throne. “I’m not sure if it’s a compliment and all, Liam the Protector, but these crags become you. I can see, all right, how the Dubhlainn Sidhe belong here as much as the Tuatha belong to the softer hills of the North. For aren’t we the caretakers of the earth?”
Liam chose a nearby boulder and joined her. “And we the defenders.”
She nodded, eyes squinted a bit as she took in the range of mountain peaks before her. “And the intruders appear here first?”
Liam gestured across the echoing spaces. “Anywhere along the line of the Reeks. The edge of our world is porous and ever changing, it seems, and they are adept at finding the gaps.”
“But you go across, as well. I saw the satyrs at dinner.”
He nodded. “The king has been brilliant at forging treaties with those who also need help against the likes of the berzerkers and the scythies.”
Orla sucked in a breath, as well she might.
“I stepped into the world of the scythies only once,” she said. “It was a dare, and a stupid one at that. I’ve never been so frightened.”
Liam couldn’t help offering a smile. “You, frightened, wife? After your exhibit in the hall of the king, sure I find it hard to believe.”
She snorted inelegantly. “Ah, well, there’s nothing so daring about clunking some sense into thick fairy heads. But to withstand the invasion of scythie tongues so they have no chance to clutch on to your brain…” She shook her head again.
“You’ve done so?” he asked, knowing how horrifying it had been when it happened to him, the sticky, barbed tongues wrapping and slithering and invading his mouth. But sure, far better than the sticky barbed threads that wove agony and madness into your brain, so that your thoughts were removed and the horrors of scythie dreams inserted. None survived that. Not intact.
Not intact at all. And didn’t he know it better than most?
“But sure, isn’t there the Fifth Realm of the magic-colored skies, and the Third, where the animals speak?”
He nodded. “To be protected as assiduously as ours. Can you imagine what would happen to those worlds if mortals invaded?”
She shook her head. “Faith, they’d make the whole thing into one of their theme parks. It is why we guard the Carrowmore Gates with our lives and honor.”
“And we the Reeks, as well.”
She shook her head again, and brought her knees up to wrap her arms around them, a little girl sitting in a magic place. Liam almost smiled. Her question, when it came, was nothing childish, though.
“Is it because of the Dearann Stone that we haven’t worked together as a protective force all these long years?” she asked, her gaze still focused over the wasteland.
Liam looked his fill of her as the sun glinted raven-blue in her hair and her skin glowed an otherworldly porcelain. “Ah, well, I think it’s been many things.”
She flashed him a dry smile. “And my mother, the queen, had nothing to do with it, I’m sure, since once the Dearann Stone was gone, she had the lion’s share of power in the realm of faerie.”
He smiled back. “She might have been a wee bit arrogant. But our Cathal can be pigheaded, as well, and has kept refusing help he felt a warrior king shouldn’t be after asking for.”
“If I were queen, he wouldn’t ever have had the chance,” she said under her breath.
“If you were queen, I don’t believe he would,” Liam agreed.
For the first time since they’d met on that fairy plane alongside their honor guards, the two shared a look of perfect accord.
“How can the two of us help, then?” she asked.
He lifted an eyebrow. “The two of us?”
“Well, do you think we should waste a perfectly good chance to teach our two clans cooperation?”
Liam couldn’t help it. He laughed. “Faith, woman. Do you never sit still?”
She gave him an unrepentant grin. “I used to, sure. But I find that without the never-ending effort of seducing mortals, I have vast reserves of energy and nothing to do with them. I think I could fit a wee bit of détente into my schedule.”
“And you think, after all this long while, you and I can heal the rift with honeyed words and…what?”
Her grin was pure deviltry. “A force of women archers.”
He scowled.
“At least allow them the right to defend themselves,” she insisted.
“I have no say in it. Only the king can so decree, and isn’t it himself who forbade any woman from sitting at the high table who hadn’t birthed a male child for the clan?”
“Sure, that can be changed, too. Didn’t I claim a seat there myself?”
“Not because you’re a princess, Orla. It was in honor of my marriage.”
She glared, then she huffed, then she simply dropped her face to her knees. “Ah, Mother, what is it you’ve done to me?”
And oddly enough, Liam wanted to touch her, to soothe the weight from those frail-looking shoulders. “Is it so very bad, then?” he asked.
She didn’t bother to lift her head. “Did you happen to hear the gentle words of welcome the women in that square shared with me, then?”
“Ah, no. No, I didn’t. I came in just as you threatened to raise your own army.”
“Still not a bad idea. But not with that crowd, I’m thinking. Sure, they’d rather I break my vow and slink away in defeat than share any of their skills so I might gain my stones.”
Ah, he hadn’t realized it was that bad. And as proud as his Orla was, it must have cut her deep.
Almost as deep as his behavior at the banquet the night before.
“I’m—”
That fast her head was up and her eyes blazing. “Don’t,” she said, lifting an imperious finger, “apologize. Not till you can mean it for more than the length of a conversation.”
Ah, now, didn’t that make him feel better? He wanted to kick himself. “For that, too. You’re not the only one uprooted and turned about by this, Orla.”
“I seem to be the only one treating it with grace, though, don’t I?”
By Lugh’s left hand, how could she set off his temper so fast, when all he wanted was to comfort her?
“Define,” he grated out, “grace.” Thinking, instead, of how she’d stood toe-to-toe with him, screaming like a fishwife.
Sure, she lifted her head at that one. “Well, now, I’d have to say that grace is not calling your king a backward, bigoted blowhard for all that nonsense he spouted about how I’d finally be worthy of something after shooting a boy—and only a boy, for faith, what are women for anyway?—from my loins. That, fairy, is grace. For wasn’t I eyeing the very sharp lance of the closest elven guard to show the king exactly where his heart would have been if he’d had one? And I never—” she jabbed him in the chest for emphasis “—never grabbed it.”
Gods, he wanted to laugh. He wanted to pummel her. How could it be both? How could he survive this?
“Well, glad I am you’ve found the high ledges of the Reeks,” he finally managed. “Sure, outrage like that would never be safe any closer to the village.”
“And you,” she reminded him with another poke, “were going to tell me of this daughter you have.”
“After I tell you this. I’ll not have my wife shamed before the women. I’ll be speaking to Bevin, Siomha and Binne by sunset tomorrow, and you’ll find your skills with them.”
“And who are they?”
“Those women you were tormenting today, wife. The leading women of the clan. It is they, along with Owain’s wife, Aifric, who make the women’s decisions.”
She went wide-eyed on him. “Those really aren’t their names, now, are they?”
“And why shouldn’t they be?”
She snorted and shook her head. “Goddess, with names like that, it’s no wonder no one stands up to the stupidity of the men around here. Quiet, sweet and pleasant? These are the names of the women of power? Faith, the first thing I’d do if I had any say is rename them Bride, Brina and Macha. Strength, protector and battle. That is what I’d call your women, and maybe then they’d learn to stand alongside their men when the world is threatened. Maybe then they’d demand the men afford them a bit of respect for the terrible task of raising their children, boys and girls.” She wound down, then, her shoulders slumping as she came flush up against the reality of Liam’s world. “That’s what I’d do.”
And Liam was stunned to realize that he believed her. Worse, he was sad that she would never get to realize that dream, for she was a bright-plumed bird caught in a dull brown cage. And there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
“You might want to rename my girl child, as well,” he said.
Her head snapped up. “Haven’t you heard me at all, then? You speak of your child as if she’s livestock. Is that all she is to you?”
“Nay.” At least in this he could be honest. His daughter was the constant reminder of his sins. She was his penance and redemption. And he couldn’t bear to look at her most days. “What would you have me call her?”
“By her name, I’d think.”
He found a small grin. “She doesn’t like her name.”
Orla tilted her head. “Well, if it’s anything like the other names in this village, I may already respect the girl.”
“It’s Binne, as well.”
She actually rolled her eyes. “Well, the girl has sense, sure. She shouldn’t have to bear such a burden.”
“Her mother chose her name.”
“Her new mother will give her a second name, then.”
“And what will that be?”
“Isn’t that for us to find out when we meet?”
He was getting uncomfortable again. “It was never my plan you should,” he said. “She is content with her mother’s clan.”
“So content she wants another name? She’ll come to us. She should at least meet her second mother, no matter if she stays with the first.”
Liam opened his mouth to protest. Maybe even to explain. But for the second time in two suns, he was saved from having to anger his wife.
“Berzerkers!”
It was Faolán, and suddenly Liam could see him racing over the hills, the other three men of their unit close behind.
“How many?” Liam demanded, jumping to his feet.
“Enough for the troop! We have a bit of time and all. You want to raise them?”
“You’re secure in defense?”
“Aye.”
“I’ll stay,” Orla offered as if they were discussing dinner preparations.
“You’ll not,” Liam said. “My men can’t fight with a woman in their midst.” He caught her hand as she was about to take exception. “Even a woman versed in the arts of war. Help me warn the village and gather the men.”
She couldn’t argue, of course. Taking one last look to where Faolán and the men were choosing their defensive positions, she whipped around and leapt off her ledge. All Liam could do was run down the mountain after her.