Legend 4 - Free Falling (12 page)

This was all about the mission, nothing else. I set her aside—I didn’t want to be so close to her. I had to move away because the raging hard-on I was suffering had nothing to do with my mission. I turned away and said aloofly, “Meet me in the training room. I shall be there presently. Be dressed for battle.” I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t let her see the effect she had on me. I had to get away.

* * *

As Danté asked, I dressed for battle all right. I was in stretch jeans, sneakers, and a tank top. I looked at myself in the wide mirror that took up part of one wall in the training room. Looked more sexy than battle-ready. What—was I supposed to don army fatigues? I had some cool rock ’n’ roll blasting while I waited and practiced some of the karate moves my dad had taught me. “
Te
”, as he called it, was all in the hands … hands that would never challenge mine again in this room …

All at once, it came upon me like bile in my throat. Hatred spewed into my brain. Loss, total and final, took over my heart. The Bible gives us a quote, ‘Vengeance is mine—and I will repay!’

The door opened and Danté entered, naked to the low waist of his dark leather pants and looking like a warrior ready to do battle. I eyed him and knew a sure, heated desire. For a moment I thought of lying him down … and climbing right on …

However, he immediately changed the mood as he came at me like a train out of control, and I shifted and was no longer there. Idiot me wanted to stick out my tongue.

When I reappeared across the room, he stood and grinned widely. “Good … very good …” He was in my face as I took a moment and luxuriated over his compliment. He had me trapped in his arms, and he whispered, “Now what,
enfant?
Wither thou shift … so do I.”

I shifted us to another dimension, but that was a mistake, as the dimension was full of stampeding dinosaurs.
He
shifted us out and back into the training room. “Come on then, little Z … you can do better.”

I stomped on his foot; startled, he released me, and I shifted to the other side of the room. Anticipating his shift, I shifted again, and again, and finally he put up an arm and bent over to laugh right out loud and exclaim, “Enough … well done, very well done.”

I was so happy I put away the distance between us, ran to him, threw my arms around his middle, and hugged. “Thank you. I have been waiting for you to notice that I am better than you realize.”

“Ho ho … I did not say that.”

I heard the tease in his voice as he disengaged my arms and set me aside. He was always setting me aside. It was most annoying, so I decided to annoy him and said, “If we get done early enough, perhaps I should call the young squire and give him the … tour he seems to want so much?”

He frowned darkly and grumbled, “You won’t be done in time, and besides … I haven’t decided whether or not you will be allowed his company ever.”

Didn’t really want Aaron’s company—had no real intention of calling him that afternoon, but that was a razor slicing open my contrariness. “Oh, and you think you can tell me who I can and cannot see?”

“I do.”

“Well, you can’t.”

“I am afraid you have no choice. I can make this difficult for you, little Z.”

“How?”

“You don’t want to find out, and please do not force me to do something unpleasant.”

“Arrogant, obnoxious Prince of Lugh! I will have you know—I am a Daoine princess and will not be threatened.”

He grinned. “Then take it as only a promise—not a threat.” He smirked and added, “Now call for your sword …”

“No.” Very childish I knew, but that’s what I was at that moment. He gave my rump a light slap.

“Call for it.”

I liked his hand on my rump. I felt my eyelashes brush my cheek, and when I brought my eyes up to him I said it again, but this time, I flirted with the word. “No.”

The next thing I knew I was in his arms, he was bending towards me, his mouth was at my ears, and he whispered, “Perhaps my princess prefers a different sort of play this morning?”

Trapped—he had trapped me, and suddenly I knew … it was what I wanted. I wanted him to take me, rough, wild … on the floor … but all at once he released me and stepped away. “Call for your sword,” he said softly.

I gritted my teeth and did just that, and it was in my hand. My sword could wound a Fae, and sooner or later that wound would prove fatal. It could also instantly kill. I didn’t trifle with weapons of any kind, but the death sword was way too dangerous to even point at a Fae. I had learned my lesson and didn’t play that kind of game.

I stepped back and lowered my sword to stand and face him. I smiled cockily at him.

“Well done
, enfant
. You handle it responsibly. Now, without blinking, without showing anyone that your mind is occupied, put the
Death Sword
away.”

Ah, I would have to refrain from blinking, which was something totally unnecessary, and yet, I caught myself doing it so often when I performed my magic. I had to concentrate to put the sword out of reach, but I had to pretend I was being observed. Give nothing away. I put on a poker face, the one my father had taught me to use, the one that so often made him double over in laughter … and the sword was gone.

I was surprised to hear a chuckle from Danté. “You are top of your class today,
enfant
.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

“Am I?” he asked, and then burst out with a throttle full of more laughter.

“What? What is so funny?”

“Your face, little Z … your face was so determined to give nothing away. Anyone who didn’t know you would not have had a clue, but I could see you straining.” He laughed uproariously and bent over his knees.

I slapped at his bent shoulder. “Stop it,” I demanded and made a face at him, which only set him off again.

I folded my arms, and when he at last got control over his laughing fit, he said, “Very well, then, call for your practice sword, and we will go a few rounds.”

It occurred to me that the kind of rounds I wanted to go with him had nothing to do with my practice sword.
Stop it,
I yelled at myself. Where, just where was that coming from?

* * *

It was one of my father’s favorite spots, looking down on the valley of jigsaw greens and spreads of Caledonian pines.

Here reposed our dolmens, monoliths once used by the Seelie Fae as a mode of transport between dimensions—and time.

Here, my dad had been killed by Gaiscioch
.

I had shifted to the spot after our training session that morning. Danté left, saying he had been summoned to Tir, and I needed to come here and think. I need to find a way to get to Gais. This waiting was driving me crazy with impatience.

Was I ready? I was not sure.

Nuad had said that he and Queen Aaibhe spelled the monoliths so that Gais would not be able to use them again to enter our world. He would find another avenue. He wouldn’t give up. I wanted to be there when he came through … but where would that be?

I moved over to the standing stones and touched them. To another they would feel cold; to me, they felt hot and alive. I stepped through the archway to the other side and turned to look back when I suddenly got an eerie feeling and spun around sharply. I gasped as I watched the atmosphere swirl and part.

I was no longer on MacDaun land!

Before I had a chance to shift away, I hear a familiar voice, loud, clear, and amused. “Always looking for trouble, eh, lass?” Chancemont in all his leathers, his loose blond hair flowing in the breeze, his ocean blue eyes bright, walked right up to me and lifted me off the ground.

I was so relieved it was Chance and not a load of Unseelies that I forgot myself for the moment and hugged him even as I demanded, “Put me down.”

“Aye … as ye wish, warrior-woman,” he said jovially as he set me down on my feet. He made a showy bow, took my hand, and pulled me along, away from the portal—away from MacDaun land.

“What are you doing?” I didn’t trust anyone, and I eyed him questioningly as well.

“Your land is spelled against us.”

“Us—as in your kind—just what is your kind?”

“It is spelled against my kind,” he answered gravely and touched my nose. “And ye’ll have the answer to that soon enough.”

I regarded him thoughtfully. “Does that mean you and yours can’t step foot on MacDaun?”

“It means that it would be uncomfortable to do so.”

“Why—what are you exactly?”

He sighed. “Why must you know? Is it not enough that I mean to call you—for the time being—friend?”

“For the time being? What do you mean to call me after that?”

“Perhaps lover,” he whispered as he reached for me.

I sidestepped him. “Ha.”

“Do you think it funny? Very few women can resist me for long.”

He was cockier than even Danté and needed to be brought down a peg. “That may be true, but I am not one of those women.”

He smiled. “Come with me for a walk … and we shall see.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Ah, you don’t trust me—or is it yourself you do not trust?”

His wicked grin was charming, but I was made of sterner stuff. “Hard to trust someone who won’t go the distance and tell you what he is.”

“But we fought together—that should be enough.”

“That was a common enemy. What happens when the enemy is no longer common to us both? What then?”

He touched my nose. “Wise little warrior, walk with me just for a little while—if you trust yourself, that is. I would that you would know me better.”

His Irish lilt was captivating, but I was not fooled by such things. I had looked into those deep blues of his and wasn’t convinced of anything. “Know you better than what?”

He laughed. “So suspicious?”

“Sure. I’m from New York.” I smiled at him. “Honestly, though, what is the big secret—why not just tell me if you are an immortal or … whatever?”

“You are a Daoine princess—a Seelie Fae. There was a time when yours and mine were at war, and we certainly did not trust one another’s word or action.”

“I wasn’t there at that time—were you?”

“We will discuss that another time,” he said almost aloofly. He wasn’t giving anything away. And then before I knew what he was doing he was scooping me into his embrace. I pushed at his hard chest, which felt like iron beneath the leather, but he bent his head and took a kiss that sparkled with passion. When he set me free, I jumped away from him.

“That you will never do again without my say so!” I snapped. Yes, I had mildly flirted with him, but something about him—perhaps his arrogance, or the secretive reserve he maintained—had put me off.

He chuckled and took my hand as he walked me back towards the dolmens. “I don’t have time now … but I want to see you safely back. Go through the archway back to MacDaun.”

I turned once to look at him as I passed through the opening, and he grinned before he said, hand on heart, “It’s killing me to let you go, when it’s bedding ye I should be doing.”

I was so damned shocked that I stopped midstride and wagged a finger at him. “Ha, fat chance, buddy.”

He laughed and said with a cocky look on his face, “We’ll see, eh? Sounds like a challenge to me.”

“Does it now, Chancemont LeBlanc?” Danté’s voice was low and threatening as he suddenly exploded onto the scene. He had my forearm and pulled me behind him. “If you know what is best for you—then stay away from Radzia.”

“Not until she tells me to,” Chancemont retorted angrily, and I suddenly was sure these two knew each other.

“She is under my protection—and I am telling you to stay away from her.”

Chancemont made a mockery of the bow he swept Danté. “And still, I will require the words from her.”

I didn’t like being put on the spot, so I snapped, “I am no one’s property.”

I saw Danté’s gold-dust eyes and quickly added, “However, Danté is training me for battle. He has been protecting me, and I mean to respect his wishes whenever I can, so I suggest you two kiss and make up.” I pulled out of Dante’s hold and shifted home.

~ Eleven ~

DANTÉ SHIFTED RIGHT into my room. He stood there in his denims with his auburn hair still braided at his neck, and something in his gold-dust eyes froze the words I was about to spit.

“What am I going to do with you?” He shook his head, paced for a moment, and then turned to stare at me. “Don’t you know who
they are
? Haven’t you guessed?”

“No … who are they?”

“They are Milesians.”

“So—what does that mean?”

“Didn’t your parents teach you anything about our history?” Danté’s eyes were open wide, but he didn’t wait for an answer as he dove right in. “During our war with the Milesians—that final war on Irish soil—we discovered that they had been able to create ‘death weapons’ from Danu dust. Danu dust from our planet. In the forging of their weapons, they breathed in that dust and acquired properties … Fae properties. They don’t like to admit it, but it is the Fae properties that have kept their small band alive all these centuries. It is our Fae properties that allow them to use some of our magic … like shifting … and still they hate us. Even the Treaty could not stop them from hating us for our past offenses against them.” Danté shook his head. “And now I find you cavorting with them? Z … don’t you realize he would use you and then throw you aside?”

“I … I—he wouldn’t use me, Danté … You see, he isn’t the one I want …”

“And then who do you want—that puppy Dunbar?”

I shook my head and couldn’t speak because the truth was in my eyes if he would only see it. I saw him in that moment and realized just how beautiful an essence (what humans call soul) he possessed. He stood like a grand, larger-than-life god, and in my eyes at that moment he was magnificent, but I was aching—hurting for him and sure at that moment that he just didn’t want me. Instead, he looked … so damned
tortured!

However, the next thing I knew he was at my bed and pulling me up and into his arms—and those arms of his, massive and strong, they felt so good that I couldn’t help running my fingers over them. He had my body pressed up against his rock-hard chest, and it thrilled me as nothing before ever had.

I was filled with a wanton call. Shivers of desire skirted in and through my veins, and sensation blasted through me in a way I had never thought possible. There was no one like Danté—not for me. His touch sent me into fantasy and devastated all logic. His touch fused me to him, and I was sure it was like the joining of two objects never meant to be apart. I felt mind and heart fall into a spin.

His tongue commanded mine as it made its way into my mouth and swept me with hot, primal desire, and I bent to him, molded myself to him. He moved his velvet tongue tantalizingly, urging mine to meet and rock with his, and I did just that. I gave myself to him as he took firm hold of my butt and pulled me to him hard and boldly demanding.

I ground myself against him, against that huge cock I was certain had to be way too uncomfortable in his tight jeans. I allowed my body to suggest to him what I wanted. I burned with hunger as I felt him slide his other hand under my sweater … and somehow my bra was undone …

He didn’t have the patience to undress me. All at once I felt the magic in the air as both my bra and sweater were gone. He bent his luscious mouth to my nipple and began suckling there … and I wanted to scream with the pleasure that erupted inside me.

I couldn’t think—I didn’t want to think at that moment. Sensations sizzled through me, and I wanted more of them … I wanted more of him. I couldn’t remember ever feeling that way about a man.

I had only known boys … he was so much more.

He bent me backwards and whispered my name as though it was wrenched from him, “Radzia … you beauty, you …”

He was breathing hard, and his face was drawn in passion. It excited me beyond thought. I reached for the zipper of his jeans.

All at once, he stopped himself and pulled back, and his words sounded as though they were torn from his throat. “Forgive me,
enfant
 … I am despicable … to take advantage of you now when you are … I …
forgive me!
”

And he was gone
.

Gone … I crunched into a fetal position, grabbed my pillow, and held it to my naked torso … because I had so wanted him to stay.

* * *

I moped around all evening. I scarcely touched my dinner as I wondered where he had gone and why. Well, I knew why. Obviously, he didn’t have enough ‘feelings’ for me and was honor-bound (knowing his standards) to keep me at a distance.

Well, that was all wrong. I was all grown up … I knew the consequences, and besides, it was probably too late. He could just forget about sparing my ‘feelings’. I was already too far gone and now just a bit too hurt. The fact of the matter was plain. I was far too taken with his big Royal Self—and that was it in a nutshell!

I guessed that made me a fool. I had never been a fool before. I’d always had my head on straight. I hadn’t had that many romantic encounters, but the ones (one) I had, I knew full well what I was doing and never got so sucked in.

Now, what do I do?
I’d let myself fall for someone who couldn’t want me in a thousand years …

I’d given him an open invitation to my bed, and he’d run away as though I were a death knell. Where the hell had he gone? Was it to some Fae beauty?

I clicked on the TV and found
Cowboys and Aliens
on the pay channel. Loved that movie.

Tried to get into it again.

This is ridiculous
, I told myself. I wasn’t sitting there all alone while he was no doubt getting some female Fae to … to … oh no … I couldn’t finish that, because the notion made me want to cry. Awful. I didn’t cry—I just didn’t… usually.

I got up, snatched up my car keys, and a few moments later was slamming out of the house and into my Jeep! Time to hit the pub.

I didn’t get far, just off MacDaun land, when I saw something in the distance. It glowed red. Odd, it looked like something in a syfy movie, but there it was glowing red. I told myself I’d better take it slow. I know I was frowning, because all my warning senses were going off in my head. I had slowed the car, and now I came to a full stop. It was like a red aura had enveloped the building—and yet, it seemed to come from inside …

It hovered inside and outside. This was my neighbor’s outbuilding, a large and aged toolshed at the back of their bed-and-breakfast inn. Should I investigate?

What the heck?
I asked myself as I put my car into park alongside the road and watched, but I didn’t have to watch. I knew in my gut and with my Fae sense … this was without any doubt
black magic!

My first thought was Unseelies, so imagine my surprise a few moments later when I encountered something I had never seen or expected here in our small village. Two figures enswathed in black robes exited the toolshed, picked up something, and went back inside. Now—hold on here; the MacClennys had to know about this … unless, unless they were being held captive?

Next, my Fae hearing picked up on the chanting, and I knew at once it was Romany—the language of Gypsies. Could it be a simple explanation? Didn’t want to go charging in unless I was sure something nefarious was going on here. Perhaps the MacClennys had guests that practiced some kind of harmless Gypsy incantations when everyone was asleep? Naw—I knew better.

This was too much of a coincidence, considering everything that was going on in my quiet little town, and I didn’t believe in too many coincidences, especially of this magnitude. I mean, come on—we had Unseelies on the loose, and now Gypsy black magic?

I left my Jeep parked along the road and shifted to the MacClennys’ outbuilding, invoking the Féth Fiada to hide my presence.

After that, the rest should have been easy—right?
Wrong
. Nothing was ever easy. It was a fact of life that kept slapping me in the face—life was hard, harder for some than others, but never easy for anyone.

I peered through a dirty window and saw both Mr. and Mrs. MacClenny dressed in black robes, but their hoods were off their heads, as were the hoods of a couple of others I did not recognize. I counted thirteen people all dressed in dark robes, and I couldn’t tell who the hooded ones were. Then all of them pulled their hoods on and low so their faces were hidden. One of them—the tallest in the group—wore a red ornamental robe with odd embroidery throughout, and he seemed to be in charge, as he directed them with merely a lift of his hand.

It was obvious to me, although I had never encountered one before, that this was a witches’ coven. Yup, a coven, and it was here in MacDaun Village. It was so totally unexpected that I actually was stunned speechless. It didn’t matter as there was no one to speak to, but if there had been—you get the picture.

Their leader—I suppose a warlock—held some kind of urn over a pit in the center of the toolshed. They were all chanting a Gypsy spell … a Dark spell. What the hell was going on here? And then an answer presented itself to me when a portal in the middle of the shed’s floor opened as though a tunnel to hell had been exposed. This … thing crawled out on its elongated belly and pushed itself up to its full and considerable height (I thought about seven feet). It was without doubt the most hideous Unseelie I had seen to date.

Its body was blobbish and indistinct, and in spite of its height, it looked smaller because it was hunched over, no doubt because of the weight of carrying two grotesque heads. It had two … two heads (I feel I have to repeat this simply because I do). Those heads were identical and absolutely hideous in the extreme. They (the heads) spoke to each other with mouths that were overly large—so large that it didn’t matter that they didn’t have noses on their heads; they probably didn’t need them. They drooled—both heads drooled
. I hate drooling.

They snickered (the two heads snickered at the same time) to one another as though enjoying a private joke. But they quickly returned their attention to the coven and announced as one, in a voice that was threatening in tone and animal-like in texture, “Hungry …”

The coven leader in the red robes moved off to a closet and immediately produced what evidently was to be their meal: a young woman, probably not much older than myself. She was unconscious as he carried her to a slab of stone that served as a tabletop.

Okay, I had to think. This needed finesse. I would have to be quick. I would have to shift in, get the girl, and shift out before the two-headed thing could get to me. I had one major advantage on my side—surprise. They didn’t know I was here, which thankfully would be my ace, and damn, I needed an ace right then as I didn’t have a weapon.

Needed to get in and out before the two-headed thingy would see me and attack. Good plan.

Someone—a jester no doubt—likes to squelch good plans. I had heard it said that a good plan was only good if it worked.

Mine never stood much of a chance, because for some unknown reason (perhaps because the creature sensed my presence), the ugly thing looked up at the window and saw me. All Fae (Dark or Light) can see past our own magic. He saw past my invisibility and roared with fury! Claws, long and sharp, shook in the air, threatening me, and then he added verbal threats in ancient Danu. This was so not good.

Could he shift? I had to be smart, so I waited to see if he could shift. I knew the moment the ugly squinted and went into its head to do just that, and as it shifted, I did the same, maintaining my invisibility so the coven would not see me.

The two-headed thingy shifted outside, but
I shifted
into the devil’s den, picked up the girl, who immediately became invisible when I took hold of her, and shifted back to my car.

If he tried to track us, he might be able to track my scent, but as I put my foot to the pedal and got the hell out of there, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to track my car! A Seelie Fae could … but Dark Fae didn’t have that skill—a fact I knew instinctively.

The woman was unconscious, and it looked as though she had taken something of a beating … and her clothes were torn in such a way I was pretty sure she had been raped.
Sick sons-of-a-bitch
!

I drove her to the hospital as fast as I could and called for help. Nurses came running out to my car, which I had parked haphazardly to get their attention. And that was when I realized I was in trouble.

You see, I couldn’t leave. I had to leave if I was going to maintain my anonymity, but I just couldn’t. I had to know she would be okay, so I stayed, and that made me the target of questions. I answered as many questions as I was able, saying only that I found her on the side of the road. The police allowed me to go home, telling me they would contact me if they needed any more information. My name was on record. Bad, so very bad.

Later on the ride home, I wondered if I should go after the beast and track it before it killed someone. I also wished I could find Danté.

As it happened my wish was granted by the powers that be; Danté appeared in the passenger seat, scaring the bejeebers out of me.

“Where have you been, and why is it you cannot stay at home where you are safe?” he growled at me.

He looked good—so damn good in his black sweater and jeans. His hair was a mass around his handsome face, and his lips … oooh … his lips …