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“CHLOE,” SHE EXCLAIMED when her friend appeared then vanished. “Or was that Chloe?”
Her skin had been aglow, and her eyes sparkled.
“Aye, ‘twas Chloe.” Weapon drawn, Cray kept her close, protecting her as they took in their surroundings. They stood in a Stonehenge she didn’t recognize before everything twisted in fire, and they were standing in the Irish Stonehenge from her dreams.
“What are we doing here?” she whispered, taking in the five standing stones. Again, she wondered why there wasn’t a sixth. Because the middle one was most definitely Julie and Tiernan’s. “And where were we before?”
“’Twas the Machrie Moor Stone Circles,” he rumbled, the unexpected emotion in his voice obvious but fleeting. “Have ye not been there before?”
“No,” she whispered, suddenly sensing she wasn’t being honest about that. Or was she? “I don’t think so.”
“So you dinnae know for certain?” He looked at her curiously, even cautiously, if she were not mistaken. “Even in a dream?”
She peered at him, caught for a second by something just out of reach in his eyes. As though she were about to remember something she had forgotten. But as soon as the sensation came, it fled. Instead, despite their odd situation, and having clearly traveled way back in time, she once again became singularly aware of being in his arms.
Of being so close yet so far apart.
“Because the unholy are at my back,” she whispered, suddenly seeing red, needing him away from her. Now. “You have to let me go.” When he instinctually pulled her tighter against him, she shook her head and pushed him away. “No, let me go, or else!”
Almost the second she said it, his dragon eyes flashed with pain, and just like that, he was gone.
She stumbled back as fire whipped around her only for the stones to vanish then reappear. Not five now but three sets of three. Her vision flared brighter red when she spun and locked eyes with a unicorn. The moment their eyes connected, it felt like a sledgehammer hit her chest, and she stumbled back.
It was warning her.
Threatening her.
Then so very, very sad for her.
She blinked once, twice, horrified by something just beyond her reach before the world shifted around her again, and she found herself back where she started. Only now, she stood alone across from an ethereal woman who stared at her as intently as the unicorn just had.
“Tell him to stay away from you,” the woman whispered, the sound distant but up close all at once. Like an echo reverberating around her. The stranger rested her hand on her womb. She got the impression she tried to convey more than she said as her eyes pleaded with Madison. “Tell him you are dangerous.” She shook her head. “That he will never find us again if he continues down this path.”
A blink later, she was gone, and everything returned to normal. Sort of. She wasn’t standing anymore. Nor was she alone. It took her a moment to realize she was sitting on Cray’s lap beside a fire, and her friends were here.
“Julie! Chloe!” she exclaimed, but nothing came out. She was too parched.
She went to sit up only for the world to tilt. Far gentler than she thought him capable, Cray pulled her back, urging her to stay put until she’d gathered her strength. Tiernan and Aidan were there as well as Ethyn, who didn’t seem all that pleased with her current location.
“What’s going on?” she managed hoarsely.
“Drink, lass.” Surprising her with how decent he was being, Cray urged her to drink from a skin of whisky.
Grateful but wary, she narrowed her eyes at him before she took a sip then looked at the others. “What happened?”
“Fae magic, I’d say,” Julie replied, smiling alongside Chloe as they greeted her. “Seeing Chloe when we arrived sparked something inside you two, and it whisked you out of here for a little while. Cray returned first, then you about an hour later.”
She shook her head, glancing at him, unsure what it was she had witnessed. All she knew for certain was what she saw at the end. The message she had received.
“Maeve,” she whispered, wishing she knew how to block him from sensing her thoughts. From seeing what she had seen.
For having him remember something that was so very painful.
“Och, dinnae trust that, Cousin,” Aidan said softly. His fingers wrapped with Chloe’s. He shook his head. “You know what the Disinherited are capable of.”
She knew by Cray’s guarded, cautious thoughts and unreadable expression that no one knew what she did.
Not a soul knew what he had heard moments before Maeve passed away.
She swallowed hard and blinked back tears, knowing they would anger him. He considered the pain he suffered his and his alone. Not a perfect stranger’s. Yet here she was remembering the grief he had felt. His torture when his newly conceived child’s heart beat for the first time moments before it beat for the last.
Though tempted to tell him how sorry she was, how oddly enough she felt his pain as if it were her own, she refrained. He would not take her consoling him well. Not when so much anger simmered near the surface, and so much rage struggled to break free.
“It’s great to finally have you guys here.” Chloe grinned, eyeing Madison with speculative curiosity she knew had more to do with her being a dragon than anything else. Not just that, but she sensed they all wondered about her and Cray. “We know what happened up until Cray lost you, Madison.” She cocked her head. “What happened after that? Where’d you go?”
She told them all but the part where Maeve touched her womb.
“Something truly horrible happened at the Irish Stonehenge,” she said in conclusion, swallowing hard, overwhelmed by how it had made her feel. “And I’m not so sure I was on the right side of it.”
“Because of the unholy at your back,” came Grant’s voice moments before he appeared. He was older now, his eyes wise as they stayed with hers. “So you think you were in league with this dark brotherhood in another life, mayhap?”
Another life? But then, how else could it be?
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, remembering the angst she had felt when she pushed Cray away. How desperate she was that he not touch her. That he not be what? Hurt? Yes. But more too. “Discovered,” she said aloud. Her eyes met his. “I didn’t want someone to know about you, I don’t think.”
“And you saw the unicorn,” Julie murmured. “A creature that had been sacrificed at that very Stonehenge.”
“I did.” She hated the guilt she’d felt. As though she had done something awful and the unicorn knew it. “But I don’t think that’s the biggest thing we should be concerned about right now.”
“Nay,” Grant agreed. His ethereal form wavered in the wind before stabilizing. “For your biggest concern has always been the count, aye, lass?”
“’Tis important that,” came a disembodied voice before another ghostly man appeared and introduced himself as Tiernan’s father, Adlin. Strangely enough, he still lived, and she witnessed what they called an astral projection. “You think mayhap ‘twas someone rather than something, aye, Madison?”
“I do.” She nodded before she shook her head, absently tapping Cray’s chest as she counted everything off in her mind, continually coming back to the Irish Stonehenge. The one that existed prior to the one Adlin was conceived at in his prior life. “I keep thinking there should be a sixth stone, but no.” She shook her head again and narrowed her eyes. “Because that would require a sixth couple...a sixth person.”
If she didn’t have everyone’s attention before, she sure as heck did now.
“So you dinnae think there’s a sixth couple?” Cray’s hold on her instinctively tightened, as if he braced to defend her against some unknown thing. “How is that possible when there are six rings in total? Five provided by Adlin and Grant themselves?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at the ethereal wizards and shook her head. “All I know is something’s not right. The stone’s not at the Irish Stonehenge, and I don’t think the other stone is supposed to be there either.”
Adlin’s eyes widened in alarm as he took her meaning.
One of the stones in the Claddagh rings wasn’t supposed to be there.
Which meant one of the rings wasn’t either.
“’Tis impossible.” He shook his head. “The gods themselves helped create those rings.”
“Aye,” Grant murmured. “Up until now, we thought ‘twas just the Celtic gods, but now we know Julie’s Guardian Witch ancestors might have been involved too.” His grim gaze went to Adlin. “So what’s to say, something else might not have been at work too?” He shook his head. “’Twould not be the first time meddling happened upon the creation of the Claddagh’s.”
“Aye, but...” Adlin’s eyes narrowed as he considered it. “You mean to say a Claddagh was created for an imposter?”
Grant shrugged, equally disgruntled before he suddenly vanished in a gust of wind. Adlin sighed and shook his head before he was whisked away too.
“What was that all about?” She frowned. “Where did they go?”
“Adlin astral-projects best with Grant’s assistance,” Ethyn provided. “So if Grant vanishes, Adlin loses his connection, so to speak.”
“Wow,” she whispered, not nearly as shocked by all this as she should be. But then she imagined she could thank what she felt surfacing within her. Something she still couldn’t believe was real while at the same time felt so incredibly familiar. As though perhaps she had spent a great deal of time with her inner dragon while dreaming. There was no other way to describe it.
“So, let me see if I understand this correctly,” Julie said, troubled. “Does this mean one of the imposters is...one of our friends?”
“What else can it mean?” She found it unbelievable herself as she thought back to her conversations with everyone. “It just doesn’t seem feasible.”
“It doesn’t,” Julie agreed softly before she went just as quiet as everyone else.
But then Phelan had just stalked out of the woods.
If that weren't enough, she stared at Ethyn with her teeth bared, and her hackles raised, by all appearances ready to attack.
