Bedeviled (14 page)

“I’m hanging,” he said, “as long as you need.”

Maggie nodded and continued before she could pull back. “I heard a voice with music in it.” She looked up, waiting for him to laugh at her, but his features were still, his gaze fixed on hers. “This voice, it told me to kick again, to push myself out of the dark. It was so strong, it was inside my head and outside, too, rippling in the water around me. And I did it. I don’t know how, but tired as I was, I kicked as hard as I could, and the surface was there, and as soon as I made it there were hands waiting for me. Hands that pulled me up and out of the water to the rocks under the lighthouse.”

She scrubbed her own hands up and down her arms, as if searching to find that solid, warm grip again. “I don’t remember much after that, but—”

“But what?”

“Eyes,” she said quietly. “There were pale green eyes watching me, making sure I was all right. I never told anyone that part.” She stopped talking, stared at Culhane, and as the truth clicked in her mind, slid into her system with a surety she’d never known before, her suddenly crazy-ass world began making sense.

“It was you,” she said, and her voice was filled with more than surprise, more than wonder. “You were there. It was you who told me to swim. You who pulled me out of the water. You who saved me.”

“You saved yourself,” he said, cupping her face between his palms so that heat filled her, seeping into all the cold, lonely places she hid even from herself. “There are laws. I couldn’t go into the water to pull you out. You had to make the decision to survive for yourself. But once you’d decided to fight, I was able to help you to safety.”

“It was real,” she murmured. “It wasn’t a dream.”

“Not a dream, no. I told you: Your destiny is set, Maggie Donovan. And I’m here, always, to see that you’re safe. That you fulfill that which I’ve waited centuries for.”

His eyes shone with the glow of candle flames, and the quiet of the room, the rush of the wind lay between them. His thumbs on her cheekbones sparked fires beneath her skin, and still Maggie was lost. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“And maybe that’s best.” He let her go and took a step back. “You’ve a temper on you I’ve seen too often already.”

“Temper?” She, too, stepped away, as if needing the comfort of more than an emotional distance. The fact that she’d just discovered that her mystery savior was a man who could turn her inside out with a single look was a hard thing to swallow. So instead she reacted to his last statement.

“Who wouldn’t have a temper? I see my ex get eaten. I start glowing. I’ve got a pixie sleeping in my tree and a pushy Faery always telling me what to do.”

“For your own good.”

“Oh, well, that makes it all right.” Needing something to hold, she reached to the side, grabbed a paintbrush and tightened her fist around it. “Who are you to know what’s good for me?”

“After remembering what happened when you were a child, you can ask me that?”

Fine. She sounded like an ungrateful bitch. But damn it, how was she supposed to feel? Sure, she was glad he’d saved her ass when she was a kid. But now that she was grown, did that give him the right to endanger her?

“Culhane, I don’t know how to fight. How’m I supposed to defeat a queen?”

“You’ll learn,” he said, moving up behind her until the heat of his body washed over her like a sigh.

“What if I can’t?”

“You will.”

“Why is this so important to you?”

“Do you know what it is to be no more than a servant?” he demanded, turning her in his arms so that he could look down into her eyes. “The males of my race have been treated as less than that for millennia. The warriors are different. We’re needed. To fight. To kill. But Fae women don’t share power, Maggie. They cling to it like a lover and will do anything to protect it. Mab is the worst of them all.”

“But why me?”

“Your strength will defeat her, Maggie.”

“Right. I’m a tough one.”

“This isn’t about your fists or your skills. This is about inner strength. You have it within you to best Mab. Otherwise none of this would be happening.”

“God.”

“This was written. You can’t alter it. Neither can I. The difference is, I wouldn’t even if I could.”

“I don’t like this.” She pulled out of his arms, needing the space between them as she walked to the window and stared out at the wind-whipped night. “Any of it. I want my life back.”

“You haven’t lost your life,” he argued. “Not then. Not now.”

“Haven’t I?” She whirled around to face him, only to find him already gone.

Maggie could still smell him in the room, though, that clean, tempting, foresty scent that seemed to cling to his hair, his clothes, his skin. She could feel his hands on her face and see his eyes as they stared watchfully down into hers.

“Damn Faery.” She scraped her hands up and down her arms, glanced at the painting sitting on the easel and felt again the cold grip of the ocean when it had tried to end her life.

He’d saved her then.

But if he had to choose between her and Otherworld, would he save her now?

Chapter Seven

T
he very next night Maggie had to admit that Quinn Terhune made quite the impression.

Hell, even Eileen liked him.

“Can I get you another glass of wine?” he asked, giving Maggie a bright, charming smile.

She wanted to like him, but after everything that had been going on in the last several days, her Spidey sense was tingling too loudly for her to blindly trust in anything. Maggie had to admit, though, that he was easy on the eyes.

He looked like a Viking—or what she imagined Vikings had looked like once upon a time—tall and broad chested, with a square, hard jaw, piercing blue eyes and long blond hair he kept pulled into a pony-tail at the base of his neck. The black jeans and gray knit sweater he wore didn’t distract from the image at all.

“Maggie?” Nora snapped her fingers in front of Maggie’s nose. “Hello? Wine? Hmm. Maybe you’ve had enough.”

“Not nearly,” she managed to say as she pushed her sister’s hand away. Then she nodded at the Viking. “Yes, I would like more, thanks.”

He gave her a small, knowing smile that made Maggie wonder if he was a mind reader. Hell, stranger things had been happening, she thought. Why not?

Nora’d arranged this dinner for Maggie and Quinn to meet. It hadn’t gone too badly, actually. The gorgeous giant seemed determined to win Maggie’s approval. Which, of course, only made her more suspicious.

The small dining room in the guesthouse behind Maggie’s place was lit by the flickering light of a dozen candles. There was a short, squat clay bowl in the center of the table bursting with fall-colored chrysanthemums, and their spicy scent blended with the smell of the lemon polish Nora had used on the table Grandpa had built.

“Isn’t he amazing?” Nora’s gaze followed the tall man as he left for the kitchen of Nora’s house, already clearly at home. He’d been there only since late last night, but appeared to be settling in for a long stay.

There went that little tingle of warning again.

Slanting a glance at Eileen, Nora then leaned in closer to Maggie and said, “He’s not a demon, either.”

“Uh-huh.” Mental eye roll. “And how do you know that?”

“I asked him.”

“What?”

“Maggie, please.” Nora waved one hand in dismissal of her sister’s outrage. “I couldn’t lie to him, and I couldn’t very well let him stay in the house with Eileen and me if I didn’t know about the demon thing, now, could I? Besides, honesty is too important in a relationship.”

“I can’t believe—”

“Twenty-two percent of all relationships are based on lies.”

“Where do you get that stuff?” Maggie asked.

“Quinn is
completely
accepting of other planes of existence and the possibilities of pixies and faeries,” Nora told her, smiling and sighing in pleasure at the same time. “He’s so open. So ready to explore possibilities.” She sighed again. Maybe she was deflating. “A totally supportive guy. I never would have believed that someone like him existed, Maggie. He’s like the perfect man.”

“Are you serious?” Maggie shot her niece a look and thought that Eileen was way too busy pretending oblivion. But Maggie couldn’t stop herself from whispering frantically to her sister anyway, “I can’t believe you. Quinn’s been here less than twenty-four hours, and already you’ve dragged him into our little world of horrors without hesitation?”

“Maggie, I love you.” Nora patted her hand, then smoothed her own hair, readying herself for the Viking’s return, no doubt. “But you don’t understand the deep bonds of affection that spring up between people who are
meant
to be together. I couldn’t shut Quinn out. Didn’t want to, either. And he’s willing to help.” She sighed. “It’s just so sweet.”

“Sweet.”

“He’s totally committed to helping us, Maggie.” Nora’s mouth firmed. “I’d think you’d be grateful.”

“Grateful?” God, she was sounding like a parrot. Or a broken tape recorder. “Nora, we talked about this, remember?” she prompted in a furious whisper. “We were going to look into this together?”

“We still are,” Nora told her. “And Quinn will help.”

“I don’t think Quinn’s going to help us check
him
out.”

“We won’t have to. He couldn’t lie to me, Maggie. I would know. I would sense it. When you and I talked the other night I was uneasy because I missed him. Now that he’s here . . .”

“Oh, for—”

“I don’t think he’s a demon either,” Eileen said, clearly having listened to every word of their whispered conversation.

“See?” Nora said, beaming at her daughter.

“Why not?” Maggie asked.

“Because,” the girl said primly, looking at her aunt, “every once in a while when you breathe out, Faery dust shows up, and it hasn’t hurt him.”

Maggie jerked back in her seat.
Good God.
She was spewing Faery dust? That had to be worse than garlic breath.

“If he was a demon,” Eileen pointed out, “he’d be dissolving already. Bezel told me all about it.”

Logic.

From a Donovan.

Scary.

“Wow.” Impressed, despite the fact that she now had to think about what she might be breathing on people, Maggie stared at the girl before saying, “you are an amazing human being.”

Delighted, Eileen laughed, and Nora reached across the table to grab her daughter’s hand.

“You’re brilliant, baby. Thank you for proving my point.” Then she sat back, gave Maggie a so-there look and grinned before looking at Eileen again. “You do like him, don’t you, honey?”

“Sure.” Eileen shrugged and pushed a Brussels sprout around on her plate with the tines of her fork. “He’s nice, and he doesn’t do those fake laughs that guys do when they want you to like them.”

“Another good point,” Nora nearly crowed. “If he was a demon trying to infiltrate us, he’d be trying too hard.”

Before Maggie could point out that maybe there were a few clever demons in town, Quinn walked back into the room carrying a bottle of chilled chardonnay and a soda for Eileen. Thoughtful of him.

Maggie had to admit that Quinn did seem great. She really wanted to believe that somehow Nora had stumbled on a guy who would be good for her. Who was everything he pretended to be. So why, then, she wondered as Quinn refilled her glass, did she have these doubts still rattling around inside her?

“Nora tells me you’ve been given Faery power.”

Maggie choked on her swallow of wine and, coughing, struggling for air, stared at the man with tears streaming from her eyes. Okay, Nora had told Quinn about what had been going on, but did she have to tell him about Maggie’s little problem, too?

He gave her an unconcerned smile designed to disarm and simply waited until she had her breath back.

Wheezing a little, Maggie sent a quick glare at her sister—which was totally wasted, since Nora was practically cooing at her Viking lover. “She did?”

“Well, it’s fascinating, isn’t it?” He ran one hand up and down Nora’s arm in a proprietary way. “An ordinary woman plucked from obscurity and set on a path of destiny?”

“Are you a screenwriter or something?” Maggie shifted in her chair and took another swallow of wine.

He smiled again, and she had to admit that he was pretty devastating when he did. Oh, not even close to Culhane, but damn good.

“And now you’ve been chosen to save Otherworld?”

“Sounds like you and Nora have had quite the conversation.”
More wine, Maggie.

He shrugged. “You’re important to her. She’s important to me.”

Narrowing her gaze on the man, she only said, “Nora’s important to
me
, too.”

Something in Maggie’s tone must have alerted her sister, because Nora turned and frowned at her.

“I understand.” Quinn ignored Nora’s sudden tension. Locking his gaze with Maggie’s, he gave her a nod. “I love my family, too, and would do anything to protect them.”

“Well, it’s nice that we understand each other.”

“I believe we do. So,” Quinn asked, kissing the top of Nora’s head while keeping his gaze fixed on Maggie, “are you going to help the Fae?”

Good question.
“I don’t know.”

He might have frowned slightly, but the expression was gone so quickly Maggie couldn’t be sure.

“Of course she is,” Nora said brightly. “Maggie is just that kind of person.”

“You’d have to be careful.” Eileen spoke up, and Maggie gratefully tore her gaze from the Viking to look at her niece.

“Boy howdy,” Maggie said, and since Nora had already filled Quinn in on everything, she didn’t bother to hedge her words. “Battling a queen is high up there on my list of ‘be careful’ things.”

“Not just that.” Eileen dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter and reached for the soda Quinn had brought out for her. She took a long drink, then set the can down, cupping her hands around it. “It’s going to Otherworld, Aunt Maggie.”

“Oh, God. Imagine actually
going
,” Nora said.

“Yeah,” Maggie agreed with far less enthusiasm.