Next time Cassie opened her eyes, it was still dark. After a moment of heart-pounding terror when she truly didn’t recognize where she was, she felt foolish.
“I’m in my bed,” she muttered. “Jeremy brought me here after I passed out from whatever Mom put in that tea.” Reassured by the silky texture of her sheets, she glanced at the digital display across the room. Six in the morning. No wonder it wasn’t light yet.
She rolled over and closed her eyes seeking more shut-eye time, but an overfull bladder nagged. Finally giving up, she dropped her feet over the side of the bed and made her way into the bathroom, her eyes at half-mast. She sat on the commode in a daze and moved her hand about in the semi-gloom hunting for the toilet paper rack. The bandage around her arm made her clumsy.
A luminous streak followed her fingers.
What the hell was that?
She snapped her eyes fully open and moved her hand again, creating another streak of multihued light.
“Must be the tea,” she mumbled. Fascinated, she splayed her fingers and drew them through the air. Five iridescent trails cut through the darkness, dissipating after a few seconds. She’d seen Eleanora do things like that, but—
Cassie walked back into her bedroom, creating various effects with her fingers in the darkened room. She debated returning to bed, except she wasn’t at all sleepy anymore. The odd thing her hands were doing spooked her. Tugging the chain on an antique lamp, she hunted down the sweats she’d stripped off before Tyler made the fatal mistake of trusting her. After nearly kicking over the bottle of Calvados, she picked it up cautiously, carried it to the bathroom sink, and dumped what was left down the drain. She turned on the taps for good measure and let them run until no trace of the amber liquid remained.
When she stared at her reflection, her mouth held a grim smile with such hard edges, she scarcely recognized herself. As grisly as Tyler’s demise had been, she was ecstatic to be rid of him. She patted the bandage over her arm and wondered just how bad the cut beneath it was.
It’s a damned shame Tyler didn’t suffer more. Yeah-huh. Mom said the same thing last night.
The best part was her mother was back. Cassie wondered where her mother had been and decided she’d have to find out more about how this magic stuff worked. Maybe if she’d been a little sharper, Tyler wouldn’t have been able to trick her in the first place. Humming a tuneless melody, she left the bathroom. Coffee would be just the thing to revive her, plus it would taste wonderful. Intent on heading for the kitchen, she opened the door to the hallway and ran right into an overstuffed chair with Jeremy in it.
He grunted as his chair shifted an inch or two. “A bit early isn’t it?” he inquired, reaching out to snag her wrist.
Her mouth fell open. “Have you been here all night?”
“Yup. For what little was left of it anyway.” He swiveled his neck on his shoulders. “A bit stiff, but none the worse for wear.”
“Why? There are lots of beds in this house.”
“I wanted to be close to you. In case you had nightmares or something. Your mom and I discussed it. She wasn’t in all that great a shape, so I told her to dose herself with the tea she gave you and get some sleep.”
He pulled her onto his lap. Cassie’s entire body left a glowing contrail.
“What’s that?” She pointed with a none-too-steady finger. “I’ve been doing that ever since I got up. Is it something from the shaman tea?”
“Mmph.” He snorted but didn’t say anything further.
Dimly lit sconces lent just enough light for her to see him draw his brows together. “Feel like some coffee?” he asked after a pause that felt a tiny bit too long.
He’s not answering me. Why?
Breath caught in her throat. A hundred unspeakable explanations rushed through her, and she curled into a ball on his lap. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“Not wrong. Just different. It’ll be fine. I promise.” He closed his arms around her and rocked her against him. “There’s something you need to know, and I thought it might go best sitting in a well-lighted space over a cup of something hot.”
Her stomach tied itself into a knot, and she pushed out of his arms. The fucking bandage made everything harder. On her feet, she raced down the hall to a light switch. Once the sconces blazed to full brilliance, she stomped back to him and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “There,” she announced a bit breathlessly. “We have light. Tell me.”
He quirked a brow. She realized she was tapping a foot on the Oriental carpet runner that lined the hall.
“Would you like to sit back down?” He patted his lap.
She thought about it. “No. I want to be able to look at your face.” Retreating into her bedroom, she dragged her desk chair into the hall and sat across from him. Every movement left its own traces of luminosity, visible even with the lights turned up full. The more times her body did that, the more it freaked her out.
“Okay. I’m sitting.” She gestured with one hand, batting at the multicolored streaks. “Christ, Jeremy. What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he repeated. “Actually, it’s something right.” He waved one of his hands languidly through the air with similar results. “I can do the same thing.”
“Yes, Mother can do it too. So what? Both of you can turn it on and off—whatever it is.” Chills tripped down her spine like uninvited guests. “For God's sake, start talking. I don’t need the War and Peace version.”
He looked at her with something akin to sympathy in his eyes, and it only made her feel worse. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on right now,” she sputtered, “I’ll go wake Mother. Someone has to tell me.” Cassie swallowed hard and searched his face.
He closed his eyes and, for a moment, he looked as otherworldly as he had the previous night.
Jeremy dragged a weary hand down the stubble on his cheeks. “You lost a lot of blood last night. Too much, really.” At the expression on her face, he held up a hand. “No, you wanted to know. So don’t interrupt. It wasn’t your father’s fault. Not really. He had his hands full.” Jeremy cocked his head to one side. “It’s hard to explain to mortals what it’s like projecting yourself over distances. It drains you in erratic ways. Anyway, Fran miscalculated, and by the time he got things under control, you were dying. Your mother was far too weak to be of much help. Once I’d dispatched Tyler, I helped bring you back.”
She’d been watching him, and she knew him really well. “There’s something important you’re not telling me.” Cassie wrapped her arms around herself. She felt cold, but it wasn’t the kind of cold where a sweater would fix things.
“We—Fran and I—used my blood to ensure you’d survive.”
Cassie regarded him through slitted eyes. Disbelief skittered through her. “How? There’s scarcely transfusion equipment here.”
“Magic.” A corner of his mouth twitched. “You had that huge gash on your arm. You haven’t seen it yet, but trust me, it’s probably six inches long. I cut into my arm, laid it next to yours, and instructed my blood to migrate.”
“Show me.”
Nodding, he rolled up a sleeve. Sure enough, a two-inch wound emerged. Except it looked well on its way to being healed.
“No way you could’ve done that last night,” she exclaimed. “If I unwrapped my bandage—”
“Cassie,” he broke in, “it’s healing so fast because I have power and can focus it for things like this.” He hesitated. “It appears the combination of Eleanora’s and Fran’s blood, along with my own, means you finally have magic too. That’s what those odd lights mean. It’s psychic energy that you don’t know how to control yet bleeding out of you.”
Her arms were already wrapped close around her body, but she shook uncontrollably. Cassie hugged herself tighter, afraid if she let go she’d break into a million pieces.
Magic? Me? ran through her brain over and over like a perverted mantra.
“I really do wish you’d come here.” Jeremy held out his arms. “It’s a lot to take in all at once, but it’s not like you didn’t grow up with the stuff.”
She looked longingly at his offered embrace and made a decision. “Come on.” She stood and held out a hand. “Let’s lie down. That way I’ll have you and the covers. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get warm again.” She clamped her teeth shut to stop them from chattering.
Without waiting to see if he’d follow her, she bolted for her bed and dove under the duvet, slithering to the spot that was still warm from where she’d slept. Jeremy tugged the bedroom door shut behind them and drew the drapes back before joining her.
“It’s going to be a lovely day,” he murmured, fitting his body against her back. “The first day of a whole new life for you.” He pulled her close, an arm about her waist, before continuing to talk low close to her ear. “Eleanora and I spoke for a while last night. We believe it won’t take more than a year or so for you to learn just how much you can do.”
Cassie turned abruptly so she was facing him. “You knew last night?” she asked, even more shaken. “How?”
“Because, dear one, you were bleeding power all over the place—once your heartbeat stabilized, that is. Fran was absolutely delighted. That aristocratic British patina of his went up like a poof of smoke. I swear he was grinning like a gargoyle just before he vanished.”
Cassie closed her eyes and struggled to make sense of what Jeremy told her. A gazillion questions clamored for recognition, but figuring out where to begin was daunting.
I’m an engineer. This is just another problem to work through.
Bullshit! Electronic Workbench can’t help with this one.
She met his gaze. “What exactly do Mother and you think I’ll be able to do?” She held her breath. Maybe the answer would be simpler than she imagined.
“Hard to say.” He stroked her back gently. “Your power is a combination of many things. Making predictions is a dicey proposition, but it’s possible you’ll be stronger than either her or me.”
“What if I don’t want any of this?” she asked. Cassie worked to keep her voice steady. “It’s not like I ever lusted after magic.”
Now, now, an inner voice chided.
“Ah, well, that’s not totally true,” she admitted, glad the bedroom was still dark enough he couldn’t see her blush. “There were a few years when I would’ve given anything to be like Mother, but I really did come to terms with just being me... Oh, hell.” She gave up trying to explain herself. “I’m blathering.”
“’Fraid there’s not much choice involved.” He pulled her to him again and ran his hands along her hair and her back, creating little patterns that felt soothing. “It really will be okay. I can teach you how to dial down the luminosity in about an hour.”
Cassie melted against him. A confusing welter of emotions rocked her. On the one hand, she was exultant she could finally share her mother’s world. On the other, she was scared shitless of the unknown.
“Yes,” he agreed. “There are all those things.”
“You can read my mind?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I suppose you’ve always been able to.”
“Even Tyler, low life that he was, had that ability. Why would you think I didn’t?” Mild reproach ran beneath his words.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Don’t pay any attention to me.”
“Oh, but I want to...pay attention to you that is.” He laughed low against her hair. “You invited me into your bed after all.”
“That was...” She broke off unwilling to admit how much she craved the comfort of his arms.
“Last night you told me you loved me.”
She giggled. “It was the tea talking.”
“Oh really?” He angled his head until he looked right into her eyes. “Because I’ve loved you for years.”
The words rang sweetly in her heart, and she closed her uninjured arm around Jeremy. He moved his hands lower until they settled around her ass.
“That’s better,” he breathed in her ear. “Close. Just as close as we can get. Blood to blood, Cass. We belong to one another now.”
When she raised her face to his, he kissed her long and slow, exploring the interior of her mouth. She wrapped her other arm gingerly around him and held on tight. Her nipples turned into mini points of delight, crushed against his chest. For a second she wondered if they’d leave those cunning lighted trails too.
He kissed her harder, and she kissed him back. Savoring the taste of him, the feel of his lips firm against hers. Emotion poured from him, and she lost herself in the wonder of the man in her arms. Hunger for him raced along her nerve endings, and she writhed against his body, thrilled by the press of his ridged flesh hard against her stomach.
Cassie pulled away from a kiss that was becoming endless. She ran her fingertips over his shoulders and then traced the planes of his face. “We need to—”
“Yes, our clothes have to go. Now.” He smiled tenderly and then sat up and unbuttoned his shirt.
“Here.” Half sitting, she reached over, her fingers deft. “Let me.” As she tugged the chambray fabric off his shoulders and touched his skin, the same numinous glow rose from her fingers and his chest. The effect was tactile as well as visual, and it was the most erotic thing she’d ever felt. Her fingertips were as sensitive as her most private parts. Heat raced to her core, and she reveled in the touch of his skin.
Reaching under her sweatshirt, he cradled a breast and grazed a thumb across her nipple. She yelped with delight and leaned into his hand, hoping for more.
“See,” he crooned as he eased her top off. “This magic stuff’s not all bad. Especially when there are two of us.” Bending his head, he fastened his mouth around her nipple. He sucked on it and teased it with his tongue. Sensation swirled around her like a living thing. Colors in the air intensified everything until she was so close to release she could hardly stand it. Moving a hand between her legs, she only had to flick her clit a couple of times before she tumbled into an orgasm so intense she thought she’d pass out.
He covered her hand with his, insinuating fingers inside her while his hot, insistent mouth remained latched to her breast. When he finally let go of her nipple, she pulled his head back toward it, not wanting him to stop.
“Once more, darling,” he crooned. “That was so easy, I know you can come again. I feel the energy.” He moved down her body, pulling off her sweat bottoms, and slid his tongue into her flowing nether regions. He sucked and teased her engorged flesh, licking, biting, encouraging her arousal to build.
Cassie tangled her hands in his hair. She writhed and bucked beneath him, crying his name. He worked a finger inside her and reached to claim a breast with his free hand. Another wave of passion took her and spun her around. Release flooded her senses way past overload.
She’d never come more than once before, but her body told her there could be more—lots more—with Jeremy.
When she opened her eyes, her breath still coming fast, he was unzipping his jeans and slithering out of them. Fascinated, she couldn’t look away. It might’ve been a trick of the loose-fitting clothes he always wore, but where she’d thought his body would be soft and pudgy, hard lines of muscle came into view. Broad shoulders and a chest dusted with blond curls topped a hard, flat stomach. He had the most beautiful cock she’d ever seen. Thick at the base, tapering to a graceful glans, it was wonderfully, joyfully erect.
Reaching for him, she ran her hands over his chest and shoulders. “You...you’re different than I thought.” She felt foolish. Heat rose to her cheeks, making her even rosier than she already had to be from her orgasms. Was she going to just out and tell him she’d thought him woefully out of shape?
He chuckled and captured one of her hands. Turning it palm up, he kissed it and then licked the spaces between her fingers. Cassie quivered, and heat sparked again between her legs.
“It’s useful,” he murmured, raising his gaze to meet hers, “if others misjudge me for a nerd. When they underestimate me, it often buys me a critical advantage. Like in the catacombs. All those men were so intent on you, they ignored me. Tyler wrote me off as an overweight fag.”
Understanding dawned and she snorted. “It’s a glamour?”
“Uh-huh. More like a reverse one, but the same principles apply.”
“You didn’t look different until you took off your pants.”
“The illusion’s so much a part of me, I suppose I wear it like a second skin. I have to think about it to let it go.”
“Well, I would’ve liked you either way.”
“Are you sure?” His body wavered, and the old, familiar Jeremy was back.
“Yup.” She reached for him.
He laughed. The Greek god body shimmered back into place. “I’d rather save my magic for you.”
She laughed too, and he pulled her against him. The touch of his nakedness against her was so electric, she moaned low in the back of her throat. Sexual hunger more intense than anything she’d ever imagined engulfed her.
“I want this,” she reached hungrily for his cock, “more than I’ve ever wanted anything. The glamour didn’t change that part.”
“You’re observant. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
Obligingly, he moved so she could close her hand around him. Cassie hadn’t ever felt anything quite so wonderful. “All this time,” she marveled as she touched him gently, almost reverently. “I had no idea. Jesus, think of all the wasted opportunities.”
She fell into a rhythm, stroking his shaft, circling the velvety head, and then moving back down. Liquid dribbled onto her thighs, and she wondered how much hotter she could get. Though far from a virgin, she was in uncharted waters.
“If you’d known,” he laughed breathlessly and thrust his hips upward as she milked him with her hand, “you might not have appreciated my stellar mind.”
“You never know,” she murmured. Cassie offered him the softest of smiles. “Tell me what you’d like. Anything, dearest. Just tell me.”
“You on top.”
“Sounds wonderful.” She grinned. Anticipation of how he’d feel inside made her heart beat double-time. “Let me find a condom.”
“Darling.” He laid a hand on either side of her face. “I gave you my blood to save your life. Quite aside from that, I wouldn’t mind at all if we made a child.” He kissed her tenderly. “You told me a long time ago you had an IUD. Maybe, once things feel a bit more normal, you’ll decide you don’t need it anymore.”
She scooted back so she could focus on him. What she saw melted her heart. “Jeremy Winslow, are you asking me to marry you?”
His green eyes danced merrily, “Why, yes, I suppose I am.”
“I accept. Be warned! I’ll hold you to it, even after we’re out of bed.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Never doubted it for a moment. Come here, wench. Where were we?”
“Didn’t you say something about me on top?” Grinning mischievously, she moved so her leg draped over his body. He placed his hands on her hips and helped her straddle him, being careful of her injured arm.
Cassie sank onto his shaft, her body closing around him. Scarcely recognizing the wild sounds filling the room as her own, she took him as deeply as she could, wriggling for good measure when he bottomed out inside her. The sensations were incredible, as if his cock were ablaze with tiny streamers that ticked her insides almost unbearably. She rocked against him, moving up and down. He placed his hands on her hips to set a rhythm. Back bowed with desire that shot liquid fire through her, she rubbed her nipples, tweaking them hard as she got closer and closer to another climax.
His breathing grew ragged. Jeremy moaned and then gasped some words in the Celtic tongue she recognized from her mother’s spells. His cock swelled, getting harder and harder within her. She opened her eyes to a swirling vortex in her familiar room. Everything was awash in iridescent light. She felt him spasm once, and then again. Her own peak rushed in on the heels of his, all heat and fire and stars.
When her body stopped thrumming like a well-tuned harp, she collapsed on top of him, panting. A disembodied part of her brain wondered if there was enough air in the room for her to ever catch her breath again.
“Cassie, mo croi, my heart, my love.” He half sang to her, English mingled with Gaelic. She wondered just what kind of spell he’d cast—and then hoped it would bind them forever. He tangled his fingers in her hair and kissed her face and neck in between words.
Daylight streamed into the room. Something irrevocable shifted. Jeremy hadn’t been kidding when he said this was the first day of a whole new life for her. Feeling silly and giddy and sticky, she finally pushed away from him.
“I’m up for that coffee now.” She couldn’t stop smiling. “After a shower.”
“Whatever milady wants,” he quipped. Jeremy swung his long, well-muscled legs over the side of the bed and stood. “You’ve made me a very happy man. Do I get to wash all of you?”
“You’re leering at me.” She chuckled. “The odd thing is I think I like it. Uh-uh, no mutual washing. I’ll wash me, and you can wash you. I need to keep my bandage dry. Any more sex and I’ll be sore.”
“Well,” he smiled at her, “we can’t have that.”
“Look at us.” She led the way into the bathroom. “We’re grinning like a couple of fools.”
“Maybe it’s because we’re happy.” A serious note entered his voice.
She ducked beneath the curtain of water from the handheld shower. “We deserve to be.” She wetted, soaped, and rinsed as she traded soap, water, and the washcloth back and forth with him.
He shook water out of his blond hair, stepped out of the tub, and reached for a towel. “Yes.” He still sounded somber. “That we do. This has been one of the longest years of my life. I was gearing up to, ah, declare myself about the time Tyler inveigled his way into your life—”
“Why’d it take you so long to make up your mind?” she interrupted, curious, as she finished rinsing shampoo out of her hair and turned off the water.
“I had to get permission from the Druid Council.” He looked uncomfortable. “They don’t often allow us to bond with mortals.” Shrugging, he added, “You’re not even supposed to know the Council exists, but under the current circumstances—”
She thought about her mother’s long period of celibacy once Fran left and finally understood. Not everything, but more than she had. “So their rules apply to all Celtic magic wielders?” At his nod, she asked, “Will I be part of the Council?”
He nodded. “Not on the Council per se, but you’ll be expected to attend general meetings. I’m certain your mother will want to introduce you.
“The other thing I suppose I ought to tell you is I only got permission to wed you day before yesterday. Even though I was planning to court you a year ago, I would’ve been breaking Druid law.” He favored her with a rakish grin. “Just so you know what you’re getting into here.”
“I’ll risk it.” She grinned back. “Always did like my men with a dash of sedition.”
“I didn’t figure your infatuation with Tyler would last.” Jeremy handed her a towel. “Then your mother collapsed and embroiled us in fae-spawned enchantment.”
“Why didn’t you say something about Tyler sooner?” she asked, moving back into her room to root around in her closet for something semi-clean.
“What was I going to say?” He spread his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. “‘Hey, Cass. Your boyfriend’s a fraud.’ At the front end of things, you wouldn’t have believed me.” He scooped up his shirt and pants from the floor and proceeded to get back into them. “I did say something when things got so bad I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“What about me thinking he was a demon? Was he?”
“Some of the fae did join forces with them. If the energy in this house was any indicator, Tyler was probably involved.” Jeremy exhaled sharply. “It’s a long story, and not a very pretty one. Let’s not sully today with darkness.”
In her secret heart, she agreed. They’d dealt with enough evil. Now was a time to heal. She unwrapped the towel from around her hair and tossed it over a chair. Then she wriggled into some jeans and a flowered sweat top and held out her arms. “None of that matters. We can’t do any of it over. All we can do is move on from now. I have Mom back. And we have each other.”
“Yes.” He moved into the circle of her arms and returned her embrace. “We do, and we always will.”
“Blood to blood,” she murmured against his shoulder.
“Uh-huh.” He kissed her lazily, taking his time. When her hips moved against his of their own volition, she pulled away.
“Coffee,” she said firmly and tugged her long, wet hair into a scrunchie. “And breakfast. Would you rather cook or go out?”
“Let’s see what Eleanora wants,” he suggested as he pushed open the door into the hall.
Cassie crowded close on his heels.
Coincidentally, or perhaps not—after all, Eleanora was psychic—the door to her Mother’s room cracked open, and she strode through it. A colorful scarf spanned her waist, breaking up the black of her clothing. Her dark hair gleamed in sunlight pouring into the upstairs hall.
“Good morning, children.” Eleanora walked toward them, Murietta perched on her shoulder and Hector bringing up the rear. “I couldn’t help but hear you talking about breakfast. Going out would be simply lovely. I’ve been trapped in this house for close to a year.”
“There’s that little omelet place you used to like,” Cassie suggested.
“Perfect, darling.” Eleanora headed for the stairs. “Grab your coats and I’ll meet you in the garage.” She turned and looked meaningfully over her shoulder at Jeremy. “We can plot our strategy over that amazing Yogi tea they make.”
“I suppose I’m the object of that strategy.” Cassie took Jeremy’s hand, and they followed Eleanora down the stairs. “After all, I’ll need lots of magic lessons. Then there’s the whole Druid society thing. If that wasn’t enough, Father should be here shortly to add his two cents’ worth to the mix.”
Jeremy quirked an eyebrow and laughed. “See,” he managed when he could talk again. “Psychic already and we haven’t even begun to train you yet. Be sure to keep hold of my hand while we’re at the restaurant. I’ll redirect all that energy, so it doesn’t leak out.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Good thing you thought about it, because I sure didn’t. Right after breakfast I'll need a crash course in how to control it myself.”
“Done.” He stopped in front of the library, bent his head, and kissed the tip of her nose.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and angled her head until he closed his mouth over hers. He teased, nipped, and licked. She clung to him, kissing him with an intensity that stole her breath—and her intentions not to make love again quite so soon.
He caressed her shoulders and back before drawing her body tight against his growing erection.
The insistent blat of a car horn filled the air, and she drew away, laughing. “Guess Mom’s anxious to get out of here.”
He brushed his thumb over her lower lip and kissed her lightly. “Probably shouldn’t keep her waiting.”
Cassie laughed. “Yeah, she might turn us into toads.”
“Or parrots.”
“Awk, magic man. Awk. Parrots good.”
Cassie ran lightly to Murietta’s perch. “Not just good.” She stroked the bird’s feathered head. “They’re the best.”
Blat. Blat. Blat.
“Gotta run,” she told Murietta and joined Jeremy in the hall.
“I don’t recall Eleanora having so little patience.” Jeremy grinned.
Cassie shrugged and led the way through the kitchen and into the garage. “We’ve got to cut her some slack, she’s had a hell of a year. Plus, if she didn’t fuss a bit, you and I would’ve ended up back in bed. And she knew it.”
“It’s going to be interesting having a psychic mother-in-law.”
“Having second thoughts?” Cassie tossed a glance over her shoulder.
“Never.”
“Good!” She trotted to the Aston Martin and got into the passenger seat. “I’d hate to sic Mother on you.”
“What exactly would I do to him?” Eleanora raised one black brow.
“Make him—”
Jeremy leaned his head in the open window and silenced her with a kiss.
“For the love of the goddess, get in the fucking car,” Eleanora sputtered. “You two have your entire lives to bed one another.”
Cassie couldn’t stop smiling as the car pulled out of the driveway. “You betcha,” she told her mother. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Music to my ears,” Jeremy chimed from the back seat. “Eleanora, let’s plan a Druid wedding.”
“Oh my goodness, yes,” she replied. “A huge one. All your people, and all mine...”
Cassie shut her eyes and listened to them chat about the future. The nightmare was truly over. Now was a time to heal.
The End
About the Author:
Ann Gimpel is a national bestselling author. A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has appeared in a number of webzines and anthologies. Her longer books run the gamut from urban fantasy to paranormal romance. Once upon a time, she nurtured clients, now she nurtures dark, gritty fantasy stories that push hard against reality. When she’s not writing, she’s in the backcountry getting down and dirty with her camera. She’s published over 30 books to date, with several more planned for 2015 and beyond. A husband, grown children, grandchildren and wolf hybrids round out her family.
Keep up with her at www.anngimpel.com or http://anngimpel.blogspot.com
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If you liked this paranormal romance novella, you might enjoy some of my longer works. Dragons loom large in two of my series. A couple of samples follow, one from the Earth Reclaimed books and the next from the Dragon Lore series.
Earth’s Requiem, Earth Reclaimed, Book One
Book Description:
Resilient, kickass, and determined, Aislinn's walled herself off from anything that might make her feel again. Until a wolf picks her for a bondmate, and a Celtic god rises out of legend to claim her for his own.
Aislinn Lenear lost her anthropologist father high in the Bolivian Andes. Her mother, crazy with grief that muted her magic, was marched into a radioactive vortex by dark creatures. Three years later, stripped of every illusion that ever comforted her, twenty-two year old Aislinn is one resilient, kickass woman with a take no prisoners attitude. In a world turned upside down, where virtually nothing familiar is left, she’s conscripted to fight the dark gods responsible for her father’s death. Battling evil on her own terms, Aislinn walls herself off from anything that might make her feel again in this compelling dystopian urban fantasy.
Fionn MacCumhaill, Celtic god of wisdom, protection, and divination has been laying low since the dark gods stormed Earth. He and his fellow Celts decided to wait them out. Three years is nothing compared to their long lives. On a clear winter day, Aislinn walks into his life and suddenly all bets are off. Awed by her courage, he stakes his claim to her and to an Earth he's willing to fight for.
Aislinn’s not so easily convinced. Fionn’s one gorgeous man, but she has a world to save. Emotional entanglements will only get in her way. Letting a wolf into her life was hard. Letting love in may well prove impossible.
Books in the Earth Reclaimed Series:
Earth’s Requiem
Earth’s Blood
Earth’s Hope
First Prologue
Salt Lake City, Utah
Aislinn tried to stop it, but the vision that had dogged her for over a year played in her head. She squeezed her eyes shut tight. Mental images crowded behind her closed lids, as vivid as if they’d happened yesterday. She raked her hands through her hair and pulled hard, but the movie chronicling the beginning of her own personal hell didn’t even slow down. She whimpered as the humid darkness of a South American night closed about her...
Her mother screamed in Gaelic, “Deifir, Deifir,” and then shoved Aislinn again. She tried to hurry like her mother wanted, but it was all too much to take in. Stumbling down the steep Bolivian mountainside in the dark, she ignored tears and snot streaking her face. Her legs shook. Nausea clenched her gut. Her mother was crying too, in between cursing the gods and herself. Aislinn knew enough Gaelic to understand her mother had tried to talk her father out of going to the ancient Inca prayer site, but Jacob hadn’t listened.
A vision of her father’s twisted body lying dead a thousand feet above them tore at Aislinn. Just a few hours ago, her life had been normal. Now her mother had turned into a grief-crazed harridan. Her beloved father, a gentle giant of a man, was dead. Killed by those horrors that had crawled out of the ground. Perfect, golden-skinned men with long, silky hair and luminous eyes, apparently summoned through the ancient rite linked to the shrine. Thinking about it was like trying to shove her hand into a flame, her pain too unbearable to examine closely.
Aislinn was afraid to turn around. Tara had already slapped her once. Another spate of Gaelic galvanized her tired legs into motion. Her mother was clearly terrified the monsters would come after them, but Aislinn didn’t think they’d bother. At least a hundred adoring half-naked worshipers remained at the shrine high on the mountain. Once Tara had herded her into the shadows, her last glimpse of the crowd revealed one of the lethal exotic creatures turning a woman so he could penetrate her. Even in Aislinn’s near-paralyzed state, the sexual heat was so compelling, it took all her self-discipline not to race to his side and insist he take her instead. After all, she was younger, prettier. It didn’t matter at all that he’d just killed her father.
...Aislinn shook her head so hard, it felt like her brains rattled from side to side in her skull. Despite the time that had passed since her father’s murder, she still fell into these damned trance states, where the horror happened all over again. Tears leaked from her eyes. She slammed a fist down on a corner of her desk, glorying in the diversion pain created. Crying was pointless. It wouldn’t change anything. Self-pity was an indulgence she couldn’t afford.
Pull it together. The weak die.
Even though she wasn’t sure why life felt so precious—after all, she’d lost nearly everything—Aislinn wanted to live. Would do anything to hang onto the vital thread that maintained her on Earth.
A bitter laugh bubbled up. What a transition: from Aislinn Lenear, college student, to Aislinn Lenear, fledgling magic wielder. A second race of alien beings, Lemurians, had stormed Earth on the heels of that hideous night in Bolivia, selecting certain humans because they had magical ability and sending everyone else to their deaths.
It was a process. It took time to kill people, but huge sections of Salt Lake City sat empty. Skyscraper towers downtown and rows of vacant buildings mocked a life that was no more. In her travels to nearby places before the gasoline ran out, Aislinn had found them about the same as Salt Lake.
Jacob’s death had been a harbinger of impending chaos—the barest beginning. The world she’d known had imploded shockingly fast. It killed Aislinn to admit it—she kept hoping for a miracle to intercede—but her mother was certifiable. Tara may as well have died right along with her husband. She hadn’t left the house once since they’d returned a year before. Her long, red hair was filthy and matted. She barely ate. When she wasn’t curled into a fetal position, she drew odd runes on the kitchen floor and muttered in Gaelic about Celtic gods and dragons. It was only a matter of time before the Lemurians culled her. Tara had magic, but she was worthless in her current state.
The sound of the kitchen door rattling against its stops startled Aislinn. On her feet in a flash, she took the stairs two at a time and burst into the kitchen. A Lemurian had one of its preternaturally long-fingered hands curved around Tara’s emaciated arm. He crooned to her in his language—an incomprehensible mix of clicks and clacks. Tara’s wild, golden eyes glazed over. She stopped trying to pull away and got to her feet, leaning against the seven-foot tall creature with long, shiny blond hair, as if she couldn’t stand on her own.
“No!” Aislinn hurled herself at the Lemurian. “Leave her alone.”
“Stop!” His odd alien gaze met hers. “It is time,” the Lemurian said in flawless English, “for both you and her. You must join the fighting and learn about your magic. Your mother is of no use to anyone.”
“But she has magic.” Aislinn hated the pleading in her voice. Hated it.
Be strong. I can’t show him how scared I am.
Something flickered behind the Lemurian’s expression. It might have been disgust—or pity. He turned away and led Tara Lenear out of the house.
Aislinn growled low in her throat and launched herself at the Lemurian’s back. Gathering her clumsy magic into a primitive arc, she focused it on her enemy. Her tongue stuttered over an incantation. Before she could finish it, something smacked her in the chest so hard she flew through the air, hit the kitchen wall, and then slumped to the floor. Wind knocked out of her, spots dancing before her eyes, she struggled to her feet. By the time she stumbled to the kitchen door, both the Lemurian and her mother had vanished.
An unholy shriek split the air, followed by another. Aislinn clapped a hand over her mouth to seal the sound inside and clutched the doorsill. Pain clawed at her belly. Her vision became a red haze. The fucking Lemurian had taken her mother. The last human connection she had. And they expected her to fight for them? Ha! It would be a cold day in Hell. She let go of the doorframe and balled her hands into fists so hard her nails drew blood.
Standing still was killing her, so she walked into blindingly bright sunlight. She didn’t care what happened next. It didn’t matter anymore. A muted explosion rocked the ground. She staggered. When she turned, she wasn’t surprised to see her house crack in multiple places and settle. Not totally destroyed, but close enough.
Guess they want to make sure I don’t have anywhere to go back to.
Her heart shattered into jagged pieces that poked her from the inside. She bit her lip so hard it ached. When that didn’t make a dent in her anguish, she pinched herself, dug her nails into her flesh until she bled from dozens of places. Fingers slick with her own blood, she forced herself into a ragged jog. Maybe if she put some distance between herself and the wreckage of her life, the pain sluicing through her would abate.
As she ran, a phrase filled her mind. The same sentence, over and over in time to her heartbeat. I will never care for anyone ever again. I will never care for anyone ever again. After a time, the words etched into her soul.
Second Prologue
Ely, Nevada
Two Years Later
Rune paced from the kitchen to the living room and back again, hackles at half mast and tail twitching behind him. Marta, his bondmate and the woman who’d rescued him from a trap when he was just a wolf pup, was resting. At least he hoped she was. Something between a whine and a growl slipped past his clenched jaws.
Damn her, anyway.
Didn’t she understand she’d been targeted by the dark gods? Ever since she took to spying on the Lemurians in Taltos, their underground city, things turned to rat shit. Something hideous happened on her last trip. He wasn’t certain quite what because he wasn’t with her, and she refused to tell him. Many moonrises had passed, and she was only just now beginning to talk and think normally.
Rune paused to stare out a large window. The front yard was absolutely silent. So was the road fronting Marta’s house, but then it would be since most of the humans were dead, and gasoline to make their cars run had long since run out.
He shook his fur out and came to a decision. Should he tell Marta now or wait until she woke?
She solved the problem for him. The sound of her footsteps made him spin to face the door into the living room. She was dressed to go out and had shoes on. Not a good sign.
“There you are.” She favored him with a maternal smile, the one that made him want to bite her. She may have rescued him when he was too young to care for himself, but that was long ago.
“Here I am,” he agreed and trained his amber eyes on the woman who meant everything to him.
“I’m leaving for a while—”
Rune’s decision roared out of him. “Not without me, you’re not. Never again. Look what happened last time.”
“Be reasonable.” She smiled again, and Rune felt magic prowl beneath her words.
He slapped up power of his own. “Reasonable has nothing to do with it. Last time they nearly killed you. I wasn’t certain until yesterday you’d get enough of your memories back to be yourself.”
“Neither was I.” Her smile developed grim edges. She sank to the thick Oriental carpet and held out her arms.
Rune stayed where he was. “All the more reason to take me with you. You can merge your senses with mine. Together we’re stronger. It’s why we chose the Hunter bond.”
“Aw, Rune.” Sadness etched lines around her eyes and into her forehead. “You don’t understand. None of us will get out of this alive, but we have to fight until we can’t fight anymore. If we don’t, it’s like turning Earth over to those bastards, and I won’t do that.” She slapped the floor with the flat of her hand. “I won’t.”
“Neither will I.” He gazed cooly at her. “Where are we going?”
“I can’t take you with me. It’s too dangerous.”
“If you don’t take me, you’re not going, either.” The wolf stood his ground, but it was shaky. She could order him, and he’d have to obey. It was how the Hunter bond worked.
Marta looked away, studying her hands. Her long coppery hair was in its usual tight braid, and she was dressed in loose-fitting black trousers and a black jacket, with stout lace-up boots. She was tall, almost as tall as the Lemurians, and she sat with her legs splayed in front of her.
Rune kept his gaze glued to her, willing her to capitulate. He was fully prepared to take her on in combat to keep her in the house, if she refused his company. “I’m not being stubborn,” he said. “I need to be with you for me, not just for you. How do you think I’ll feel if you don’t return? How can I live with myself if you die in a place where I wasn’t there to help you?”
“I could die anyway.” She did look at him then, her clear green eyes filled with something he didn’t have a name for.
“So could I, but if we’re together at least we’ll know we did everything we could for each other.”
Marta nodded once. “All right. I don’t have enough energy to argue with you. We’re going to one of the mining camps to the west of us. Some humans are still alive, and they need my medical skill.”
“How do you know anyone’s alive?” he countered.
She shrugged. “Call it a hunch. I dream things sometimes, and this came to me not long ago. We’ll do a travel jump. It’s not far. If the place is deserted, I’ll bring us right back.” The same, sad smile returned. “With luck, we’ll be home in time for supper.”
“Ready when you are.”
She got to her feet. “Are you going to come closer than that? I already said I’d take you, Rune. Bondmates don’t lie to each other.”
Shame filled him because she’d nailed his reticence. He didn’t trust that she wouldn’t trick him. He made his way to her side and felt her magic as she opened a portal for them to travel to the place she’d seen in her dream.
They rolled out into high, arid desert, and the remains of a mining camp sprawled about them, buildings falling into disrepair. Bullet holes riddled tin roofs and corrugated siding. Rune sent his senses spinning outward.
Nothing lived anywhere near here.
“Curious,” Marta murmured. “I was so sure.”
Rune’s hackles hit full alert, standing on end the length of his back. “We must leave,” he snarled. “It has to be a trap.”
Before Marta could reply, another gateway opened a little way away. Bal’ta poured out. Marta flung magic at the disgusting creatures, minions of the dark, but she barely made a dent. They stood between five and six feet tall, with barrel chests, and their bodies were coated in greasy-looking brown hair. Thicker hair hung from their scalps and grew in clumps from armpits and groins. Ropy muscles bulged under their hairy skin. Orange eyes gleamed, and their foreheads sloped backward.
Rune had faced them before. At least they didn’t have magic of their own beyond a shared intelligence. The flood had slowed, and he gathered himself for action. He and Marta could take them. They’d faced worse odds. Apparently she agreed, and he felt her merge her consciousness with his.
“I’ll take this side,” Rune growled and thrust himself into the thick of things, avoiding the cudgels and maces they used in battle. Rune knew to stay out of the line of Marta’s magic. He sliced into one neck after another until he was coated in blood. The air was thick with the coppery stench of it. For some reason, Bal’ta avoided him. Something about his animal energy burned them, and he took full advantage of their hesitation.
He glanced at Marta from time to time, grateful beyond thought she was still on her feet. In addition to magic, she held a knife in one hand. A knife dripping blood. Dead bodies piled around both of them.
Rune danced to one side to avoid a cudgel aimed for him skull. He sent out a call for forest wolves, but none came to their aid. Maybe there weren’t any living here—or maybe they didn’t see the point in taking a stand in someone else’s battle.
No matter. He and Marta were winning. Only a few Bal’ta remained. He’d begun to work his way back to his bondmate, when another gateway opened, this one black and edged with flames. A man sashayed through. Rune stopped cold, staring in disbelief. The remaining Bal’ta faded away from that gaping maw; in moments they’d summoned another portal and left.
Rune focused on the newcomer. It had to be one of the dark gods. No one else held that level of deadly beauty. Long dark hair streamed behind him, and he trained his shrewd dark eyes on Marta. She squared her shoulders and stared back.
“Kill him,” Rune urged.
“I can’t,” she ground out. “Much as I’d love to.”
The dark god tossed his shapely head back and laughed; the sound was disturbing, discordant. “Your bondmate is wise,” he told the wolf. “She’s clever not to get too close.”
“Which one is he?” Rune demanded.
“You may as well ask me, since I’m right here.” Dark eyes crinkled in chilly humor, and he mock bowed. “My name is Tokhots. I’m also known as the trickster.” Dark robes fluttered around him, sashed in gray.
While Tokhots had been talking, Marta sidled farther from Rune and severed her connection with him. Worried, he tried to determine just what she was up to. If she planned an attack, he didn’t want to be in the way and ruin things. Nor did he plan to leave her to the mercy of the dark god. Maybe if he kept Tokhots chatting...
“What do you mean by trickster? It’s not a term I’m familiar with.”
Tokhots did a funny little side step. “I play tricks. I’m funny. I’m a hell of a nice guy. If you got to know me, you’d—”
A ball of fire immolated one side of his robes. Tokhots’ pleasant expression shattered, and he batted at the flames—and at jolts of power Marta hurled his way. Rune wanted to launch himself at the dark god, but Marta’s power kept him rooted in place.
Finally giving up on extinguishing the flames, Tokhots shucked his robe, revealing golden-hued skin beneath. “Bitch!” he spat and raced to Marta so fast he beat Rune, who was also headed that way at breakneck speed.
“Don’t bite him,” Marta shrieked. “His blood is deadly poison.”
Rune aborted a leap in midair and crashed to the rocky ground. He’d been about to close his jaws around Tokhots’ neck.
The dark god held a writhing Marta in his grip. “You can’t hurt me either,” he taunted. “One drop of my blood and you’ll be deader than the shades that roam the countryside.”
“What do you want with me?” Marta gave a mighty heave.
Rune thought she might free herself, but Tokhots tightened his hold. “You’ve become an inconvenience. I sent the Bal’ta as a diversion until I could get here.”
“What happens next?” Marta’s voice was steady, but Rune sensed her fear, and it filled him with fury. He worked his way closer to the pair, not moving very fast.
“That’s for me to know.” Tokhots laughed again.
Caution departed. Rune judged the distance and leapt. So what if he died? At least Marta would go free. The air around him thickened, holding him suspended above the ground. Darkness dropped over him like a curtain until he couldn’t see. He thrashed against the magic holding him and plummeted to earth, landing hard on jagged rocks. Ignoring pain, he vaulted toward where Marta had been, still running blind in unnatural darkness.
She wasn’t there. Neither was the dark god.
He still couldn’t see, but he could smell and hear. He employed both senses, ears pricked forward and nose snuffling so hard it began to bleed.
Nothing.
Marta’s scent was strongest right where he stood.
Rune threw his head back and howled his desolation to the skies. He’d failed. The dark god had his bondmate, and he had no way to go after them.
By the time the darkness receded, his throat was raw with grief. He called for other animals, birds, even insects, to tell him what they’d seen. If they knew anything, but no one answered.
Despondent, guilt-stricken, Rune put one paw ahead of another. No point in staying with the dead Bal’ta. Tokhots would never bring Marta back here.
The dark god had taken his bondmate on a oneway trip. Rune knew, as clearly as he knew anything, she’d never run by his side again. She was still alive, but her life force ebbed through their Hunter bond.
Soon she’d be no more, and it was his fault. If he’d been quicker, hadn’t hesitated...
He shook his head hard and broke into a run.
Chapter One
Aislinn pulled her cap down more firmly on her head. Snow stung where it got into her eyes and froze the exposed parts of her face. Thin, cold air seared her lungs when she made the mistake of breathing too deeply. She’d taken refuge in a spindly stand of leafless aspens, but they didn’t cut the wind at all. “Where’s Travis?” she fumed, scanning the unending white of a high altitude plain that used to be part of Colorado. Or maybe this place had been in eastern Utah. It didn’t really matter anymore.
Something unnatural flickered at the corner of her eye and she tensed. Standing still bought trouble with a capitol T. She swiveled her head to maximize her peripheral vision. Damn! No, double damn. Half-frozen muscles in her face ached when she tightened her jaw.
Bal’ta—a bunch of them—fanned out a couple hundred yards behind her, closing the distance eerily fast. One of many atrocities serving the dark gods that had crawled out of the ground that night in Bolivia, they appeared as shadowy spots against the fading day. Places where edges shimmered and merged into a menacing blackness. If she looked too hard at the center of those dark places, they drew her like a lodestone. Aislinn tore her gaze away.
Not that Bal’ta—bad as they were—were responsible for the wholesale destruction of modern life. No, their masters—the ones who’d brought dark magic to Earth in the first place—held that dubious honor. Aislinn shook her head sharply, trying to decide what to do. She was supposed to meet Travis here. Those were her orders. He had something to give her. Typical of the way the Lemurians ran things, no one knew very much about anything. It was safer that way if you got captured.
She hadn’t meant to cave and work for them, but in the end, she’d had little choice. It was sign on with the Lemurians—Old Ones—to cultivate her magic and fight the dark, or be marched into the same radioactive vortex that had killed her mother.
Her original plan had been to wait for Travis until an hour past full dark, but the Bal’ta changed all that. Waiting even one more minute was a gamble she wasn’t willing to risk. Aislinn took a deep breath. Chanting softly in Gaelic, her mother’s language, she called up the light spell that would wrap her in brilliance and allow her to escape—maybe. It was the best strategy she could deploy on short notice. Light was anathema to Bal’ta and their ilk. So many of the loathsome creatures were hot on her heels, she didn’t have any other choice.
She squared her shoulders. All spells drained her. This was one of the worst—a purely Lemurian working translated into Gaelic because human tongues couldn’t handle the Old Ones’ language. She pulled her attention from her spell for the time it took to glance about, and her heart sped up. Even the few seconds it took to determine flight was essential had attracted at least ten more of the bastards. They surrounded her. Well, almost.
She shouted the word to kindle her spell. Even in Gaelic, with its preponderance of harsh consonants, the magic felt awkward on her tongue. Heart thudding double time against her ribs, she hoped she’d gotten the inflection right. Moments passed. Nothing happened. Aislinn tried again. Still nothing. Desperate, she readied her magic for a fight she was certain she’d lose and summoned the light spell one last time. Flickers formed. Stuttering into brilliance, they pushed against the Bal’tas’ darkness.
Yesssss. Muting down triumph surging through her—no time for it—she gathered the threads of her working, draped luminescence about herself, and loped toward the west. Bal’ta scattered, closing behind her. She noted with satisfaction that they stayed well away from her light. She’d always assumed it burned them in some way.
Travis was on his own. She couldn’t even warn him that he was walking into a trap. Maybe he already had. Which would explain why he hadn’t shown up. Worry tugged at her. She ignored it. Anything less than absolute concentration, and she’d fall prey to his fate—whatever that had been.
Vile hissing sounded behind her. Long-nailed hands reached for her, followed by shrieks when one of them came into contact with her magic. She snuck a peek over one shoulder to see how close they truly were. One problem with all that light was it illuminated the nasty things. Their backward sloping foreheads leant them a dimwitted look, but they were skilled warriors, worthy adversaries who’d wiped out more than one of her comrades. Their insect-like ability to work as a group using telepathic powers scared her more than anything. Though she threw her Mage senses wide open, she was damned if she could tap into their wavelength to disrupt it.
Chest aching, breath coming in short, raspy pants, she ran like she’d never run before. If she let go of anything—her light shield or her speed—they’d be on her, and it would be all over. Dead just past her twenty-second birthday. That thought pushed her legs to pump faster. She gulped air, willing everything to hold together long enough.
Minutes ticked by. Maybe as much as half an hour passed. She was tiring. It was hard to run and maintain magic. Could she risk teleportation? Sort of a beam me up, Scotty, trick. Nope, she wasn’t close enough to her destination yet. Something cold as an ice cave closed around her upper arm. Her flesh stung before feeling left it. She snapped her head to that side and noted her light cloak had failed in that spot. Frantic to loosen the creature’s grip, she pulled a dirk from her belt and stabbed at the thing holding her. Smoke rose when she dug her iron knife into it.
The stench of burning flesh stung her nostrils, and the disgusting ape-man drew back, hurling imprecations in its guttural language. She snaked her gaze through the gloom of the fading day, as she assessed how many of the enemy chased her. Aislinn swallowed hard around a painfully dry throat. There had to be a hundred. Why were they targeting her? Had they intercepted Travis and his orders? Damn the Lemurians anyway. She’d never wanted to fight for them.
I’ve got to get out of here.
Though it went against the grain—mostly because she was pretty certain it wouldn’t work, and you weren’t supposed to cast magic willy nilly—she pictured her home, mixed magic from earth and fire, and begged the Old Ones to see her delivered safely. Once she set the spell in motion, there’d be no going back. If she didn’t end up where she planned, she’d be taken to task, maybe even stripped of her powers, depending on how pissed off the Lemurians were.
Aislinn didn’t have any illusions left. Her world had crumbled three years ago. She’d wasted months railing against God, or the fates, or whoever was responsible for robbing her of her boyfriend and her parents and her life, goddammit, but nothing brought them back.
Then the Old Ones—Lemurians, she corrected herself—had slapped reason into her, forcing her to see the magic that kept her alive as a resource, not a curse. In the intervening time, she’d not only come to terms with that magic, but it had become a part of her. The only part she truly trusted. Without the magic that enhanced her senses, she’d be dead within hours.
Please... She struggled against clasping her hands together in an almost forgotten gesture of supplication. Juggling an image of her home while maintaining enough light to hold the Bal’ta at bay, she waited. Nothing happened. She was supposed to vanish, her molecules transported by proxy to where she wished to go. This was way more than the normal journey—or jump—spell, though. Because she needed to go much farther.
She poured more energy into the teleportation spell. The light around her flickered. Bal’ta dashed forward, jaws open, saliva dripping. She smelled the rotten crypt smell of them and cringed. If they got hold of her, they’d feed off her until she was nothing but an empty husk. Or worse, if one took a shine to her, she’d be raped in the bargain and forced to carry a mixed breed child. They’d kill her as soon as the thing was weaned. Maybe the brat, too, if its magic wasn’t strong enough.
The most powerful of the enemy were actually blends of light and dark magic. When the abominations, six dark masters, had slithered out of holes between the worlds during a globally synchronized surge linked to the Harmonic Convergence, the first thing they’d done had been to capture human women and perform unspeakable experiments on progeny resulting from purloined eggs and alien sperm.
Aislinn sucked in a shaky breath. She did not want to be captured. Suicide was a far better alternative. She licked at the fake cap in the back of her mouth. It didn’t budge. She shoved a filthy finger behind her front teeth and used an equally disgusting fingernail to pop the cap. She gripped the tiny capsule. Should she swallow it? Could she? Sweat beaded and trickled down her forehead, despite the chill afternoon air.
She’d just dropped the pill onto her tongue, trying to gin up enough saliva to make it go down, when the weightlessness associated with teleportation started in her feet like it always did. Gagging, she spat out the capsule and extended a hand to catch it, but it fell into the dirt. Aislinn knew better than to scrabble for the poison pill. If she survived, she could get another from the Old Ones. They didn’t care how many humans died, despite pretending to befriend those with magic.
Her spell was shaky enough as it was. It needed more energy—lots more. Forgetting about the light spell, Aislinn put everything she had into escape. By the time she knew she was going to make it—apparently the Bal’ta didn’t know they could take advantage of her vulnerability as she shimmered half in and half out of teleport mode—she was almost too tired to care.
She fell through star-spotted darkness for a long time. It could have been several lifetimes. Teleportation jaunts were different than her simple Point A to Point B jumps. When she’d traveled this way before, she’d asked how long it took, but the Old Ones never answered. Everyone she’d ever loved was dead—and the Old Ones lived forever—so she didn’t have a reliable way to measure time. For all she knew, Travis might’ve lived through years of teleportation jumps. No one ever talked about anything personal. It was like an unwritten law. No going back. No one had a past. At least, not one they were willing to talk about.Voices eddied around her, speaking the Lemurian tongue with its clicks and clacks. She tried to talk with them, but they ignored her. On shorter, simpler journeys, her body stayed with her. She’d never known how her body caught up to her when she teletransported and was nothing but spirit. Astral energy suspended between time and space.
A disquieting thump rattled her bones. Bones. I have bones again... That must mean... Barely conscious of the walls of her home rising around her, Aislinn felt the fibers of her grandmother’s Oriental rug against her face. She smelled cinnamon and lilac. Relief surged through her. Against hope and reason, the Old Ones had seen her home. Maybe they cared more than she thought—at least about her. Aislinn tried to pull herself across the carpet to the corner shrine so she could thank them properly, but her head spun. Darkness took her before she could do anything else.
*****
Highland Secrets, A Dragon Lore Prequel
Book Description:
Furious and weary, Angus Shea wants out, but no matter how he feels, he can’t stop the magic powering his visions. The Celts kidnapped him when he wasn’t much more than a boy and forced him to do their bidding. He’s sick of them and their endless assignments, but they wiped his memories, and he has no idea where he came from.
Dragon shifters are disappearing from the Scottish Highlands, and the Celtic Council sends Angus to investigate. He meets up with Arianrhod, legendary virgin huntress from Celtic myth, in Fire Mountain, the dragons’ home world.
Arianrhod prefers to work alone, mostly because she harbors a dirty little secret and guards her privacy for the best of reasons. She’s not exactly a virgin, and she’d be laughed out of the Pantheon if the truth surfaced. Despite the complications of leading a double life, she’s never found a lover who tempted her to walk away from her fellow Celtic gods.
Attraction ignites, hot and so urgent Arianrhod’s carefully balanced life teeters on the brink of discovery. Angus is everything she’s ever wanted, but he’s far too close to her Celtic kin to keep her secret safe. Angus wants her too, but she’s a Celt. He’s hated them forever, and she’s part of everything he’s lain awake nights plotting to escape from.
Can they risk everything?
Will they?
If they do, can they live with the consequences?
Books in the Dragon Lore Series:
Highland Secrets, Prequel
To Love a Highland Dragon, Book One
Dragon Maid, Book Two
Dragon’s Dare, Book Three
Chapter One
Angus Shea stroked beneath icy waters off the northern tip of Ireland, blending his energy with a pod of Selkies. The sea creatures cut through choppy waves in front, behind, and above him. He’d rather dive and play in the deeps with them—and if it were any other day, he would have—but he needed to keep an eye on the skies, so he edged toward the surface, pushing his head free.
Celene, a coal black Selkie he’d done more than swim with, moved close enough her lush pelt stroked his skin. He draped an arm around her, and she nuzzled his neck with her snout.
“Where have you been?” She spoke deep into his mind. Accommodating vocal chords were part of her human form, not her seal, and he’d never learned the Selkies’ lyrical language.
“I spent a little time at my home in Scotland, but mostly I’ve ranged far from the Irish Sea.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything.” She nipped playfully at his shoulder with her squared-off teeth.
“Prying ears are everywhere.” He leaned into her warmth, enjoying a respite from the cold water.
“We could go where no one would hear.”
He was tempted, so tempted he toyed with saying yes and taking a break from watching for the dragon he expected. Dragons interpreted time in their own way, and the damned thing might not show up today or tomorrow or even this week. If it showed at all.
How much could he tell the Selkie?
An answer crowded on the heels of his question.
Nothing.
Angus shuttered his mind, so the creature swimming by his side couldn’t read it. Much as he yearned to talk with someone, anyone, about the impossibilities the gods tasked him with, prudence won out. Not that this assignment was worse than any of the others, but he’d finally figured out they’d never end.
I could say no. Tell them I’m done.
He cut off the bitter laugh that wanted out. Whoever had the balls to refuse the Celts risked swift and certain punishment. He could hear Gwydion, master enchanter, or Ceridwen, goddess of the world, laughing their heads off—before they cut out his tongue or killed him on the spot.
“You don’t have to say a word.” Celene went on, almost as if she’d peeked into his thoughts before he took care to protect them. Selkie laughter buffeted him, spraying him with a warm, rich melody mixed with salty water. “I’m curious, but I miss your body.”
He missed hers too. She’d been his only break from solitude for more years than he wanted to admit. He cast another glance skyward. Though he tried to be subtle, he heard a smug murmur near his ear and knew he hadn’t fooled the Selkie.
“You wait for an Ancient One.” The tenor of her mind speech shifted as she shielded it from anyone who might be close. Without stopping for him to corroborate, she forged ahead. “We can take up the banner and watch for you. My kin will let us know.”
Angus picked his way carefully, as if he walked through a field of unexploded ordnance. “I appreciate the thought, but no one can know of my comings or goings, lass.”
“We know more than you think.” Celene batted him with a flipper. “In truth, very little escapes us, but here isn’t the place to share what I heard about your latest mission.”
Concern rippled through him. If the Selkies knew, who else might? Hell, he didn’t know much beyond his assigned meeting place with the dragon, and they’d be heading into danger.
What else was new? Danger was so second nature, his adrenaline pumps barely flinched at anything these days.
“Come with me.” Either Celene was oblivious to the turmoil rumbling through him, or she ignored it. She swam from beneath his arm and herded him toward shore. “There’s a secluded glade deep in marsh grass. No one will find us, and my kin will keep watch for the dragon. I already asked.”
The Selkies would do their best—and maybe today it would be enough—but they were no match for evil that had sunk its roots deep into the fabric of the Old Country and the rest of this world. It was why the gods stooped to using him—half-mortal, half-divine, or whatever the hell he was—to do their dirty work. Arawn, god of the dead, revenge, and terror, caught him skulking in the time-travel tunnels when he wasn’t much more than a boy and trapped him, cutting off any possibility of return. To make certain Angus remained, the god altered his memories, so he had no idea where he came from.
Now almost twenty-five years later, Arawn and the others still came up with enough for him to do that a life to call his own was out of the question. The carrot they dangled was the truth about his birth, but they never came close to divulging it. The stick was his fear of what they’d do, if he told them he was done.
Over time, he’d stopped asking about his origins. He cared, but it wasn’t worth the energy to run up against their stony faces and cunningly crafted half-truths that revealed exactly nothing. Despite his reservations about a quick dalliance with Celene—and maybe missing his rendezvous with the dragon—he was sick of his self-imposed isolation.
She chivied him into shallow water. Once she was certain he’d follow, she drew ahead easily. As if the other Selkies understood, the pod dispersed. When he peered through gray-green water for their multi-colored pelts, they weren’t there.
By the time he clambered onto the rocky shore, Celene had shucked her skin. In human form, she opened her arms to welcome him. Long black hair shrouded her almost to her feet. Violet eyes gleamed in welcome. Her generous breasts peeked through the curtain of hair, their copper-colored nipples already pebbled with wanting him.
Angus had tucked his clothes beneath a rock before joining the Selkie pod. Because he swam nude, nothing was in the way as he plunged into Celene’s offered embrace. God, how he’d missed the touch of another against him, skin to skin. Celene’s body felt warm against his chilled one. She closed her arms around him and ran her hands down his back, lingering over the curve of his butt.
He hugged her in return. The scent of her, salt and mint, flooded his mind with images of their lovemaking, and his cock hardened between their bodies. He trailed his fingertips down her smooth skin, marveling at how different she felt from a human woman. Velvety and charged with electricity. Some Selkies walked among humans, even took permanent partners. Angus didn’t understand how they eluded discovery.
Celene closed her mouth over the junction between his neck and shoulder, licking, sucking, biting. He moved a hand from her back to cup the side of her face and lowered his lips over hers. Desire engulfed him. Hot, urgent, desperate, he sank his tongue into her waiting mouth.
She grappled with his ass, pulling his body hard against hers as her hips writhed and breath hitched in her throat. Tearing her mouth from his, she gasped. “Too long. It’s been too long.”
Liquid heat trailed the path of her mouth as she licked her way down his chest, stopping to tease his nipples. He kissed the top of her head and wove his fingers into her long hair. Every nerve came alive with wanting her, but it ran deeper than that. Touch was such a basic need, and he’d denied that essential part of his humanity—along with every other comfort.
For what?
No matter how much he gave the Celts, they took every shred—and him—for granted. He wanted to get a job, blend in with humans. Something mundane like driving a cab, or flipping burgers in a grill, but his requests were denied. The Celts provided for him. So long as they housed and fed him, why would he need to clutter his time with anything as humdrum as earning a living? What if they needed him, and he was in the middle of washing dishes in some nameless restaurant? He could almost hear Gwydion’s voice. See the master enchanter with a long-suffering look on his face—
He wiped his Celtic masters from his mind. This time was for him and Celene. No one else belonged in his head. Just because he’d chosen a semimonastic existence was no reason he couldn’t give her everything she needed. Months had passed since they’d last been together, maybe as much as a year. He moved back enough to fill his hands with her breasts, rubbing her erect nipples before he bent to suck on them, remembering the little biting motions she loved.
A low, guttural moan escaped her, and she threaded her fingers through his hair. Holding him against her breasts, she began to sing as he loved her. A series of low, sweet notes rose in cadence and intensity as she lost herself in his touch. He’d asked her about the music once, and she told him it was how sea people vocalized their joy. The music filled him with unbearable hunger—poignant, mind-bending need for another person’s touch.
Although he’d never done it before, he raised his voice and joined her song. The change was instantaneous. In that moment, he sensed her loneliness and isolation, twin to his own and recognized that both of them needed more kisses, more touches—even more than they needed sex.
“Lay on your belly.” His voice rasped with wanting her. He tore tufts of marsh grass and arranged them to make her a bed on a sandy stretch between rocks.
She lay down, continuing to sing. Angus sang too, as he straddled her and ran his hands down her back rubbing tension from her muscles. He followed his hands with his mouth and strung kisses across her shoulder blades and down the line of vertebrae from her neck to the curves of her ass. Between their song, the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips, and his cock getting stiffer by the moment, waiting became almost painful, yet he held back, not quite sure why.
The rhythm and cadence of her song shifted as he alternated his mouth and hands across the sculpted planes of her back. The intense pressure in his balls receded almost as if he’d reached a peak, though he hadn’t come. Maybe she sensed his need for warmth, contact, much as he’d sensed hers.
“Move off me so I can look at you.” Celene flipped over to face him, kneeling above her. Rose and gold splotched her pale skin, and a broad smile split her exotic, high-cheek-boned face. “Today was different. You sang with me. You’ve never done that before.”
He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “It felt right. Even though I wasn’t inside you, what happened between us felt right.”
She cocked her head to one side and trained her gaze on him. “Are you sure you don’t have sea blood?”
A flicker of annoyance at the Celts’ staunch refusal to disclose anything about his birth narrowed his eyes. “I have no idea what I am.” He ticked what he did know off on his fingers. “I’m not immortal, but I’ll live well beyond human lifespans. My magic is closer to seer and witch than anything else, yet I’m neither of those. The covens acknowledge me as one of theirs, but only because the local witches are too kind to tell me to go away. The time-travel portals accept me.” He shrugged again. “I don’t suppose knowing more would make a hell of a lot of difference.”
“You’re not from Scotland, even though you live there.” She stated it baldly, as fact.
He frowned. “Why would you say that?”
“Your speech. There’s something about the lilt of Scotland that’s impossible to rid yourself of. You don’t sound Irish or British, either, at least not from the time we live in.” Her nostrils flared. “Maybe that’s it.”
“Maybe what’s it?”
“You could be from the past, and not just a few years back, perhaps hundreds—or even more. I’m not old enough to recall what human speech sounded like then, but some Selkies are.”
“Fine.” Frustration tightened his chest, like it always did when the mystery of his origins became a point of discussion. “My first memories are when the god of the dead dragged me out of a time-travel portal when I was fifteen.”
“I’m sorry.” She draped a hand over his hip, cradling it. “I’ve upset you.”
He started to protest, but she silenced him with a look. “Don’t insult me with a lie, Angus, but you don’t have to talk about it, either. Such a pretty man.” She stroked hair back from his face. “With your deep brown hair and amber eyes. Did you know they shade to dark gold when you’re angry?”
She was trying to divert him with flattery, but he wasn’t buying it. “You have no idea what it’s like not knowing—” He shook his head, and the rest of his words died unspoken. It didn’t matter what she knew or didn’t know about him. She’d never be more than an occasional lover, and both of them knew it.
“It could be more,” she said softly, obviously having been in his mind.
Angus took her hands in his and gazed at her. “You get more of me than anyone, and you see how pathetically little that is. There’s nothing more to give.”
“There could be,” she persisted. “You could refuse next time they send you on—”
He bent toward her and laid a hand over her mouth. “I’m not free. Not now. Not ever.”
“I don’t understand.” She pushed his hand away and closed very white teeth over her full lower lip.
He smiled crookedly. “Not sure I do, either. Every man has a life’s work. No matter how I feel about it, this appears to be mine.”
Even though it wasn’t wise, he started to ask what she knew about his current assignment, but a flash of unusual energy drew his gaze skyward. He leapt to his feet. A copper-colored dragon circled to land not far from him. Maybe the Ancient One had seen him with Celene and decided to be considerate.
Not very fucking likely. Dragons were a force unto themselves.
“I have to go,” he said. “Let me walk you to your skin, so I know you’re safely on your way home.”
A sad expression crossed her face, creasing the skin around her eyes into a network of fine lines. “It’s right here.” She scrambled to her feet and gripped both his upper arms, forcing him to look at her. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Being you.” She brushed her lips over his and moved to a marsh grass thicket. In moments, she’d dragged her pelt over her human body. Transformed into a seal, she waded into the surf.
Before it engulfed her, she turned to gaze at him. “Be careful, and think on what I said.”
He didn’t answer, just watched her head bob in the waves before turning toward his clothing. It wasn’t far from the place Celene had led them. His body felt vibrant, alive, and he still tingled from her touch. He longed for a woman of his own, children, a home, before he stuffed the impossible so deep under wraps he couldn’t mourn the loss.
Angus moved the large rock he’d placed over his clothes to protect them from the wind. He pulled a ragged dark blue fisherman’s knit sweater over his head and stepped into thick, black woolen trousers. Settling on a log, he pulled on socks and laced up stout leather boots. Though the breeze was raw, he’d worn neither hat nor gloves.
Ready as he figured he’d ever be, he covered the fifty yards to where the dragon had settled up the beach. He didn’t recognize this one, but he’d only met a bare handful of the hundreds living in Fire Mountain and on other worlds as well. When he drew near, he stopped and bowed his head respectfully, waiting for the dragon to speak first.
“I don’t like this any better than you do,” the dragon muttered. “Come close enough I don’t have to broadcast our business to the world.”
Angus walked closer. He could’ve suggested the dragon use telepathy since all the Ancient Ones were conversant in the technique, but he kept his mouth shut. The dragon was smaller than many he’d seen. Copper scales shaded to burnished gold on its chest, and dark eyes with golden centers whirled so fast they held a hypnotic quality. Lethal, six-inch-long red claws tipped its stubby forelegs. The dragon stood upright on hind legs tipped with the same sharp claws and kept its gaze averted, not saying anything.
What the hell? Every other dragon he’d met was proud, imperious, and quick to remind Angus of his inferiority. This one seemed young, but was it? After another long few minutes, Angus tossed respect—and caution—to the winds.
“What’s your name? And what are we supposed to be doing? All Ceridwen told me was to meet you here.”
The dragon opened its mouth, and a gout of flame landed scant inches from Angus’s boots.
He frowned and drew his brows together. “If we’re going to work together, I need to know what to call you.” He sent a speculative gaze across the air between them. “If you annihilate me, they’ll just assign you a new partner, and I’m a hell of a lot easier to get along with than any of the Celts.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” the dragon rumbled and belched smoke.
Frustration in its voice struck a note in Angus’s soul, and he gestured with both hands. “You may as well tell me who you are and what we’re supposed to do together.” He infused his words with subtle persuasion. If the dragon didn’t care for the Celts, either, they’d likely get along well enough.
“Why? What I should do is leave.” The dragon sounded sulky—and scared.
“If you could, you’d already be gone.” Angus was as certain of that as he was of anything. The dragon needed him for something, and whatever it was, the Ancient One wasn’t particularly proud of it. “What happened? Am I some sort of punishment for you?” Tension settled like a steel bar across his shoulders, and he curled his hands into fists before he realized what he’d done.
“Oh I’d be gone, would I?”
The dragon ignored Angus’s questions, and it mimicked his tone with eerie precision. It furled its wings and flapped them a time or two. Dirt swirled; small pebbles slapped Angus in the face. The creature belched steam and looked so distraught, he felt sorry for it.
“My life’s not exactly a picnic, either,” he ventured, on a hunt for common ground. “I’m a permanent mercenary, with no time off and no possibility of parole.”
That got the dragon’s attention, and it focused its whirling gaze on him. The golden centers of its eyes deepened with fiery motes that looked like little shooting stars. “Why would you want a respite from being a warrior?”
Good question.
“Because I’m tired. I’d like what most men have.”
“What’s that?” The dragon raised its brows, and its scales clanked against each other in a dissonant tinkling.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The sooner you spit out whatever you need to say, the easier it’ll be. The worst part about holding something you’re ashamed of inside is it eats at you until you’re nothing but a hollow shell.”
Wings flapped, and those intense, whirling eyes shifted to the rocky beach. “I’m not ashamed of anything. I’ve been banished. Ceridwen said if I worked with you—and we were successful—I might be able to return.”
Angus kept surprise out of his voice. “Banished from Fire Mountain?”
Steam puffed from the dragon’s open mouth. “No. Idiot. I could live with that. They’ve banished me from the Highlands. My home.”
“What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter.” The dragon threw his words back at him. “We have to go to Fire Mountain, where I’m to find one of the First Born. Once we have him—or her—”
“One of the six First Born dragons?” Angus broke in, scarcely believing the dragon’s words. “They’ll never show themselves—unless it’s in their best interest.”
Another wing flap and a defiant head toss. “There are actually ten. One of them was my father.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?” The words slipped out before he could stop them. Dragon males frequently didn’t hang about once mating was over with, but the trembling mass of scales in front of him likely didn’t need to be reminded.
“Never. Mother said he was too immersed in battles on another world to return for our hatching.”
Angus unclenched his fists and hunted for something soothing to say that wasn’t an outright lie. Dragon energy poked past his wards and into his mind. He tried to block it, but couldn’t.
“You believe locating a First Born is hopeless.” The dragon sounded resigned. “I may as well throw myself into a crater at Fire Mountain. I’ll never see the Highlands again—or my mate.” More wing rustling and the dragon rose a few feet off the ground, clearly intent on leaving.
“Hold on.” Angus loped forward until he was right beneath the dragon. “I didn’t say that—or think it, either. I don’t know enough to make any sort of judgment. How about if you start at the beginning? If we’re going to work together, I deserve that much.”
The dragon circled a few times, indecision stamped in its erratic flight pattern.
“I know what it is to be alone.” He kept his voice gentle. “And to not have anyone who cares if I live or die.”
Maybe it wasn’t totally true. Celene might shed a tear or two, but she’d be the only one. He kept his gaze trained on the sky, relieved the dragon wasn’t putting distance between them. Something about the creature’s pain tugged at his heart and made it feel like a kindred spirit.
The copper dragon folded its wings and settled heavily to earth a few feet from where Angus stood. It straightened its shoulders and tipped its chin defiantly.
“My name is Eletea,” the dragon announced, revealing its gender.
“Angus Shea, though you likely know that.”
“Yes, I do. I killed a mage, who fancied herself a dragon shifter.” Eletea’s eyes whirled faster, as if she dared Angus to say something.
He crinkled his forehead as he dredged up what he knew about dragon shifters. “Don’t mages take their chances when they show up seeking a dragon to pair with?”
She nodded once, sharply. “The mage seduced one of us into believing her. I saved him by killing her, but he turned on me. Reported me to the Dragons’ Council, and they roped the Celts into deciding my fate, since the one I killed had Celtic blood.” Eletea’s scales rippled in the dragon equivalent of a shrug. “I don’t understand why they’re bothering. It’s not like I went after one of the gods. They’re immortal. The one all the fuss is over barely qualified as a Celt.”
Angus kept his expression neutral. “Celtic blood aside, I thought mages only bonded with same sex dragons.”
“That was another problem,” Eletea said, sounding vindicated. “No one saw it but me, though.”
Sensing the worst was out on the table, Angus settled on a nearby rock and invited, “Start at the beginning. We have time.”
“No, we don’t,” Eletea protested. “We should’ve been at Fire Mountain yesterday.” She hung her head. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I flew and flew and flew. I almost didn’t land this afternoon.”
Angus did his best to project optimism. “Let’s open a time-travel portal and be on our way to Fire Mountain.” At the dragon’s reluctant nod, he went on. “I understand you have your own ways of returning home, but if you travel with me, you can fill me in as we go.”
What he didn’t say was it probably wouldn’t matter when they arrived at the dragons’ home world. First Borns wouldn’t give them the time of day, whether they showed up early, late, or right on time. He held many concerns, such as what would a First Born do, assuming they could locate one? But he held those cares inside for now.
He could’ve dreamed the future. Instead, he summoned a spell to take them to a time-traveling portal. Once the undulating gray-pink tube admitted them, he gradually paid out questions.
Reticent and quiet at first, Eletea finally began to talk.