Three Days of Dominance (10 page)

Aroha did this
. Anger bubbled up. If she’d dared to manifest here, he would have struck her down in an instant—half sister or not, it made no difference. He clamped down on the anger. Fury would serve no one. Aroha had clearly crossed the line into insanity.

In a moment of stunning and awful clarity, he knew he must abandon his plans. Aroha’s unpredictable attack made this whole last-minute attempt far too dangerous. And to think he’d done this more for Aroha’s sake than his own. His own death he’d long ago come to terms with. For Danii to also suffer—He grimaced. No. It was too much to ask of her.

The leafy fingers of the weeping willows trailed across his head and back as he carried her through the tree barrier and into his private glade. Nothing could disturb them here, not even Aroha.

Killer came through with him, and after furiously shaking off most of the water in his coat, he sat on his haunches. His little brown eyes never left off watching Danii.

“Your loyalty to your mistress is commendable.”

Killer wagged his tail the smallest amount, and his doggy eyebrows made something like a frown.

“Perhaps, if I put her down, you will be happier?” Heketoro went to one knee and gently laid Danii on the soft carpet of pine needles. He wiped away a trickle of water at the corner of her lips, felt the softness of her skin.

He wondered if you could miss someone when you had passed on into the realm of death.

“Danii. Danii.”

Her eyes flickered open.
Where am I?

“Danii?” Heketoro looked down at her. She’d never seen anyone look at her with such concern. As if she was dying or something. Well, maybe her mother that time she almost drowned.

“Christ!” She sat up suddenly. A hacking moist cough erupted from her lungs. She hunched over, trying to remember how to breathe.

“Take some deep breaths. Your lungs are clear. One of my few remaining powers—control over this lake’s water if I try really hard. The damn stuff wouldn’t have dared stay inside you any longer.”

She shook all over.
Cold, so very cold
. Her bones had turned to ice. “K-killer, is he okay?”

“Sure.” Heketoro whistled, and the next moment a soft tongue slurped at her knee.

“Here. Let me get you warm.”

If she’d ever been wary of snuggling up to this man, now was not the time to argue. She let him wrap his arms around her and pull her into his lap. He pushed her hair to one side at the back of her neck and kissed the top of her head.

“You’re safe now.”

Slowly she took in her surroundings as the shivering subsided. She seemed to be on the banks of the lake, in a clearing inside a copse of weeping willows. The foliage hid them, the branches dangling over the lake’s edge like a living curtain, in some places dipping long leaves in the water. Nothing was visible beyond, no sounds of children playing or dogs barking penetrated, and she wondered if this little hideaway existed in the way normal places did.

“Nothing will get in here,” he told her. “I swathed this place in glamour a long time ago as my refuge. A human who looks this way will notice nothing unusual.”

Magic then? What if I go over and poke that leafy curtain? Is the lake really out there? Not that I feel like stirring right this minute. Here is too comfy. What happened back there
? She played it through in her mind. The whipping of the snapped wood, the minitornado, the strange voice goading her, warning—Aroha, his sister. She’d been almost drowned by the woman.

“Whoever attacked me, she said she was Aroha, your half sister?” Her voice shook as much as her body.
What the hell
? She was a police officer. This sort of thing, this should be something she could take in her stride….but, no, a good excuse here…this was totally beyond the understanding of almost anyone she could think of.

“Yes, I know it was Aroha.” Again he kissed the top of her head, then smoothed the tangle of her hair. “I’m sorry.”

“That crazy lady was your half sister? Remind me not to get on the wrong side of your family.” The warmth from his body had settled her. Despite recalling water going down her throat, she could breathe normally. What he’d done had worked on her perfectly. He’d asked her to come so he could show her proof of magic.
Proof of magic? Hah
! She’d been swamped by a tidal wave of the stuff.

She struggled and sat up, turned to face him. He looked so human. Except every time she saw him, he’d altered, like now. The bone structure, the muscles—both were more emphasized, broader, deeper, like a sculpture taking shape beneath the chisel of its maker. The tattoo on his face had crawled farther down and added a few neat spirals.

She stared, wide-eyed.

Faerie spirit
. Google had been right. When he wasn’t standing, well, sitting, in front of her, doubts crept in. But now, she wouldn’t dare to doubt him, or his existence, in any way. He was fae.

His lips curved in a smile, one eyebrow raised, and she turned away again rather than face the intensity of his scrutiny.

Her neck stung. She put her hand there. It came away stained with watery blood, and she recalled the spinning leaf that had done that. Forensics would have fun. What in the name of…of anything would you charge Aroha with? Assault with a deadly leaf?

What had she gotten herself into? The blood spread, staining the lifelines on her palm. Not make-believe. Not anymore. Faeries were real. And from what she’d seen, they packed serious weaponry.

This clearing was carpeted with soft needles. Pine needles. How was that possible? Where were the trees they’d come from? The world, the normal world, seemed to be falling away from her. Emergencies and the unexpected were meat and potatoes to her, but no matter which way she turned this, it overwhelmed her.
Faeries and magic
. Maybe if she said that over and over enough times?

Heketoro smothered her hand in his. Pleasure shimmied through her, sending her blood humming.

A whine at her feet reminded her of Killer. He looked up at her, tongue out as always, before giving Heketoro’s foot the next slurp. Little twigs stuck out from Killer’s sodden, tangled coat.

“Your taste in men has gone downhill,” she muttered under her breath.
Faeries, magic and sex. What a combination.

She’d come here out of curiosity and to find out why he thought she should help him with this curse. She’d come because, in all honesty, she was half-besotted. Now she was here, she didn’t need any more convincing about magic, and Aroha had given her a new piece of information that altered everything.

Heketoro brushed his fingers across the top of her ear.
Nice
. She inhaled through parted lips, her lids half closing, then snuggled her head back against his chest

“You seem to have recovered.” His voice, just behind her ear and so deep, it seemed to rumble through her soul and then quicken the ache between her legs.

She’d almost drowned, surely she shouldn’t be thinking about sex? There must be something wrong with her.

Her clothes, of course, were soaked. Her T-shirt clung to her body, every contour of her breasts outlined. Her black gym shorts, being Lycra, did that anyway. And she was rapidly warming up, everywhere. Maybe she should move away from him. Except, it was so nice, cradled here between his legs.

Think of something else
. “Your half sister mentioned the curse.”

“Yes. I told you this, also.”

“Hmm. Why me, Heketoro? Why’d you pick me out of everyone in the world?” He paused for a long while, and she wondered why. Surely he knew?

At last he sighed. “I don’t know if I should tell you much more. But this… I chose you because I wanted you.”

Oh, hell
. That answer didn’t help. The egg throbbed inside her, broadcasting heat and desire. Eyes wide, she put a hand to her belly.

“You feel it awakening. I feel this also, as can Aroha. The egg, the toah—it’s how she found you. I have to destroy it.”

Blood warmed her cheeks.
The fae could sense a toah from a distance
? Aroha had known—that was horrendous. The silence lengthened.

She cleared her throat. Questions, questions—so many of them swirled about in her head, she didn’t know where to start. “If you destroy it, how will you get rid of this curse? And you don’t know if you want to tell me more? I don’t understand?” That seemed odd, when he’d wanted her here so he could explain.

He said nothing, only smoothing his hands down her arms, then resting them on her thighs. With her legs inside his, she felt trapped, but in the nicest way. Her surroundings shrank away, making her mindful of every place his body shaped against hers.

“Mmm.” She wriggled her bottom before she could stop herself.

She’d kept his egg inside her, and from what he’d said before, it stored sexual energy. This was a recipe for trouble. The hard length of him against her bottom was giving her precisely the wrong sort of ideas. She didn’t want to make love to him again, did she? All the little signals her lower body had been sending her beat in rhythm at her, low and intense.

Okay, so that was a yes; she might as well sit on a bass amplifier as have her bottom where it was, pressing into his crotch. Oh-h, the man got to her. But still, not yet—no thinking of
that
until she’d sorted everything out. He was holding back for some reason, and she’d find out why. Maybe a different line of questioning would work?

“Er-em. That tornado, windstorm…whatever.” My God, it still seemed unbelievable. “Why did Aroha attack me?”

“I would imagine you’ve aroused her interest. She thought I planned to complete the ritual with you in two days and destroy the curse. She wants to be free to return to our world.”

“But, so you do, don’t you? And why attack me if she thinks I’m going to help you?”

“Because…she is mad. Over the last hundred years, she’s slowly lost her reason. I no longer understand why she does anything. She’s unpredictable, dangerous. Promise me, you’ll never let her into your house. We fae cannot enter without permission. Remember that; it is very important.”

“Of course.” Why would she even consider letting her into her house? She squeezed her eyes shut. This was getting her nowhere.

“You told me to come to the lake so you could explain, and now you’re going around in circles, avoiding my questions. Deliberately. If what Aroha said is true”—
here it is, if I say this I’m committed
—“then in two days, you’ll both die as a result of this curse exploding, or…or sucking out your life, or hell, I have no idea
how
it will happen, but you’ll die! And stupid as this may seem, I care about that happening.” She swallowed, and a tear slid down her face. “I don’t want anyone else dying on me.”

Heketoro flinched, then put his hand atop her head. “Anyone else? Who has died?”

She worked her throat a moment before the words came out. “My brother. Jacob. He’s in …he was in the army, and deployed in Afghanistan. Never came back.”

“I’m sorry, Danii.” He stroked her hair, pulling it behind her ear and down her back, breathing slowly until the calmness in him made her tears dry up.

“The truth is, with Aroha behaving unpredictably and the inherent danger in destroying the curse, I don’t think it’s worth involving you. She is wind fae and though the curse is constructed so that I have to be the one who stops it, she has somewhat more power than I do. I cannot guarantee your safety.”

“The curse is constructed? That sounds terribly like a town planning document or something. Is that a job description? Curse Constructor?” So, one way, his death was certain—the other way, she
might
get hurt? Seemed uneven, and it seemed inconceivable to choose certainty over maybe.

“We have what are called Justices, like your judges. Once I was found guilty of killing the Goddess’s son, Justice Emana Tatu—one of our higher judges—crafted this curse.”

“And are you a murderer?” she asked quietly.

“What do you think?”

She clasped her hands together in her lap, frowned. All her instincts said no. Else what was she doing sitting here?

“No. Here though, I guess we’d haul you up before a court and convict you of manslaughter. Send you to prison.”

“The curse is my people’s way of doing that.” He tugged on her hair again. “Does it bother you?”

“No.” She shook her head. She didn’t have to think at all for that answer.

“Thank you,” he murmured, his breath feathering her hair.

“You were saying…about the curse?”

“Ah, yes. The curse winds down after one hundred years, and then, yes, our life essence is extracted from us. We die. The toah egg, if charged sufficiently, could be used to both destroy the remnants of the curse and to open a portal into my world. The three days is simply a requirement to make it difficult for me to succeed. Normally there is no such restriction on powering a toah. There, I’ve told you the facts.

“In a few minutes, you will remove the toah. If it’s inside you too long, the magic will make it meld with you, then more magic would be needed to shift it.

“I will destroy it; then we will have nothing more to do with each other.”

What the hell
? Her heart quailed at his words. He’d rattled all that out like it were the details of a parking ticket.

“Then why are you still holding me?”

He cleared his throat, and she heard his heartbeat quicken. Did he regret what he was saying? Did he have deeper feelings for her? She squeezed her eyes shut. This seemed to imply exactly that.
Maybe there was hope for me?

“Why? Clearly it’s because I like doing this. Holding you.” His voice tightened in command. “Now be quiet and let me have this last bit of pleasure.”

She tensed and for a moment didn’t dare to speak. But, pleasure? He liked just holding her. For some reason that unraveled her, and she sat in silence doing exactly what he’d said—enjoying being held.

Killer rested his head on Heketoro’s thigh, standing calmly as his ears were patted. The branches of the willow trees hissed as they swayed in some unseen wind. She wondered if they somehow echoed the emotions of their creator—if that was what Heketoro was.