by S. Young
Settling his hands on his stomach, he turned his head on the pillow to look at her again.
Rose.
Panic gripped him.
How could he hurt her now?
He visualized plunging An Breitheamh into her heart and made a low sound of agony.
Rose stirred in her sleep, her lashes fluttering, but she didn’t wake.
Fionn shifted onto his side to watch her.
If he didn’t take An Breitheamh to her, he’d have to find the last fae-borne. He couldn’t kill Niamh if she was his descendant. If he couldn’t kill Niamh, and he couldn’t kill Rose … Yet, that was taking a massive risk. What if he was too late to find the other fae-borne?
What good were these feelings, anyway? Fionn planned to take his revenge and die at the end of it. There was no future for him and Rose. Even if he didn’t have a plan to die, he’d never learn to trust her fully.
And what of Rose’s future? To constantly be on the run from fanatics who either wanted to kill her or use her to open a fucking gate?
Surely giving her a worthy death now was a blessing in disguise.
The mere thought nauseated Fionn.
“Rose,” he whispered, reaching out to touch a silken strand of her hair, “what have you done?”
21
The streets had blurred together as Rose sped through them faster than light. She flew over rooftops, jumped from balcony to balcony on seventeenth-century buildings that changed as she soared midair onto La Sagrada Familia. One minute she’d been in Orléan, now Barcelona.
She gripped the side of one of the spires, feet secured in the gaps in the stonework. Laughing, exhilarated, Rose held on tight as she glanced over her shoulder and found Fionn floating midair with invisible wings. His brooding expression was firmly in place.
“Let go, Rose,” he demanded.
Instead, she climbed.
“We mustn’t touch what isn’t ours,” he called out.
She stopped, pulled her knees up toward her chest, her feet flat to the stone, and pushed, arching her back, lifting her chin as she did a backward flip off the spire. It felt like flying.
Landing on the ground was like landing on a cloud.
Her surroundings were vague now, like an incomplete sketch. However, when Fionn appeared before her, he was anything but. He was full-color 4K HD.
“Show-off,” he said.
Rose felt excitement blossom low in her gut accompanying the flutter near her heart. “You like it. Admit it. You like me.”
Just as his lips pushed toward a smile, a tornado—or something like it—pulled him up into its grasp, taking the vague world with it in a smear of colors.
Her heart raced, all joy gone, only confusion and fear left as she stood in an eternity of darkness.
“Hello!” she yelled, the word echoing and echoing and echoing.
Then she was on the move, like the blackness beneath her was a walkway in motion; one that rippled and wobbled and then propelled her out of the dark.
Rose landed in a large room. Struggling to even out her breathing, she spun in the spot, staring at the circular room with its conical roof. A whitish, cracked, claylike material created a circular wall that came to just above Rose’s head. From there the ceiling, made of a wooden frame and hay, vaulted to a point in the center. In the middle of the room was a circle of stones, within which a fire was dying, the smoke filtering up to a small gap in the roof.
Edging the room was a table with pieces of pottery, a rough-hewn jug and cups … There were wicker baskets and benches with furs thrown over them near an entrance.
Behind her, simple framework and fabric draped like curtains created a crude separation of living and sleeping quarters. Rose jerked in surprise at the sight of a beautiful gray wolf sprawled in front of it, his head resting between his paws as he dozed.
A groan drew Rose’s attention from the wolf to the curtains as a large hand pushed the fabric aside, revealing more furs.
The wolf instantly woke up and stood, a large, majestic animal with piercing blue eyes. He began to pace impatiently until Fionn was there. There was a glow about him, and even though he sported a thick, long beard, Rose would recognize him anywhere. He stepped out of the furs, naked and magnificent.
Her breath caught.
He reached into the bed of furs, giving her an amazing view of that muscular ass of his, and pulled on rough trousers. With a yawn, Fionn crossed the room and picked up something that looked like bread from a plate on the table. The wolf followed, and Fionn reached out to scratch behind his ears. “Maidin Mhaith, Cónán.”
Chewing on the bread, Fionn strode toward the entrance, the wolf shadowing him.
Rose followed.
It had taken her slumberous mind to catch up, but as she dashed out of the roundhouse, her consciousness realized she was dream-walking again, this time in Fionn’s dreamworld. And he seemed to be dreaming about the past.
Rose marveled at the view as she skidded to a stop outside the house. She was on a hill. Sprawled below her was a village, a collection of roundhouses of varying sizes, all with land that was being tended. A great stone wall surrounded the village border. A pale blue sky hung above them as Fionn took in the view of people working and talking in the small town below.
She followed his gaze to what looked like the entrance to the fortified town where men with weapons sat outside what might have been a guardhouse.
“Taispeánann mo rí an iomarca dó féin dá mhuintir.”
The foreign words brought both Fionn, Cónán, and Rose’s heads to the left, where a striking redhead appeared, walking up the slope toward the entrance to the roundhouse.
Fionn strode toward the woman, turning her in his arms, and shocking the shit out of Rose as he broke into a wide smile.
She’d never seen him smile like that.
“Éad, mo ghrá?” Fionn asked.
The redhead shook her head, laughing as Fionn pressed his lips to hers.
Jealousy seared through Rose as they held each other tight, their kisses passionate, their embrace loving.
Who was this?
“Aoibhinn,” Fionn murmured as he broke the kiss. “D’airigh mé uaim mo bhanríon.”
“Tá do chogadh tábhachtach.”
Rose had no idea what they were saying, but the woman seemed to be reassuring him.
“Cá bhfuil na gasúir?”
The redhead grinned and turned her curvy body toward the entrance.
Fionn shook his head. “Níl siad istigh ansin.”
The woman chuckled, tipped her head toward the entrance and yelled, “Caoimhe, Diarmuid!”
Two seconds later, a young girl, perhaps seven or eight, hurried out of the roundhouse followed by a tall, lanky young man who could have been anywhere between the ages of eleven and eighteen. His physique said he was older but his baby face said he was very young.
Rose frowned. Where had they come from?
Oh. Right. Dream.
But who were they? Taking a step closer, she peered at the kids as the girl wrapped her arms around Fionn’s waist and he grinned down at her. He then turned to converse with the boy. Rose was stunned.
The boy had his smile. The girl had his hair.
Were these … Fionn’s children?
What?
Cónán moved toward the boy who curled his fist in the wolf’s ruff as he grinned up at Fionn.
“Níor choir duit a bheith imithe chuici.” The woman’s words, whatever they meant, caused a massive shift in Fionn’s dreamscape.
The children vanished and the village faded to a forest lit only with flame from a massive fire behind the woman. And Fionn … he was now beardless and wore leather trousers.
A gold circlet rested low around his neck. His torso was bare.
Without his beard, he looked more like the Fionn she knew, except his green eyes blazed with the light of another world.
Cloaked figures appeared out of the trees behind him, advancing menacingly as the re
dheaded woman watched on, chin raised in defiance.
“Mo grá?” Fionn reached for the redhead.
Revulsion crossed her face, making her look hard and cold where only moments ago she’d been soft and loving. “Ní mise do ghrá!”
As the hooded figures reached Fionn, Rose wanted to yell in warning, the words almost spilling out when she reminded her panicked emotions that this was just a dream. Her reminder came just in time because as the hooded figures fell upon Fionn, the black of their cloaks whipped out at Rose, covering the world in the fabric, rippling and whooshing like banners in the wind.
Then there was light.
Greenery all around.
Rolling hills of grass.
A gentle brook bubbling somewhere in the distance.
Birds singing.
“Rose?”
Thinking he’d discovered her in his dreamscape, Rose whirled to face Fionn and instead saw herself with him.
A dream version of herself.
Light sparkled off her, her eyes impossibly blue.
She was … beautiful.
Was this how Fionn saw her?
Rose ached at the thought.
She turned her attention to him. He was as he was now, dressed in one of his fine suits, his overcoat fluttering behind him in the soft breeze. Those startling green eyes gleamed in the daylight as he approached her with a tortured expression.
“Fionn, what is it?” her dream self asked.
He halted close to her, reaching to cup her face in his large palm. Rose touched her own cheek as if she might feel the tingle of his touch. Then he bowed his head toward hers and whispered across her lips, “I’m so sorry, mo chroí.”
So distracted by the fact that Fionn was dreaming of her like this, Rose noticed An Breitheamh too late. The dagger was fixed in his other hand, a dagger that he plunged into her dream self’s heart.
Confused, horrified, Rose stumbled to her knees along with her dream self, watching miraculous tears roll down Fionn’s cheeks as he held her dying in his arms.
“What have I done?” he rocked her, murmuring the question over and over.
What the fuck? Rose choked on silent screams as the air behind the dying Dream Rose shimmered and peeled open, like water receding from shore, revealing another world beneath.
Faerie.
The gate to Faerie.
Fionn laid Dream Rose on the ground and gently removed An Breitheamh from her heart. As soon as it was out, covered in her blood, he threw his head back and roared the most terrifying, anguished sound she’d ever heard.
Then he slumped over Dream Rose’s dead body, the very image of defeat.
“Fionn.”
His head jerked up to the right. The redhead was back.
“Aoibhinn?” he gaped, confused, his cheeks still wet with tears. He did not look like the Fionn Rose knew at all.
Aoibhinn gestured to Dream Rose’s body. “This is worse than what I did to you. You shared the bond. How could you?”
“I can’t take it back, can I?” he asked hoarsely.
She shook her head. “Do you want to? After all, it was the only way to open the gate.”
Understanding and terror flooded Rose. She had to wake up, she had to wake up. She had to get away from him!
That bastard!
That lying, vicious, psychotic bastard!
Fionn’s head snapped toward her, and he looked right at her.
Horror darkened his face. “Rose. No.”
22
Her eyes flew open, blood whooshing in her ears from her pounding heart, and without even thinking about it, her body traveled.
One second Rose was lying in bed next to Fionn, the treacherous bastard, and the next on her feet by the bed, facing him.
He was awake. Already up on his feet by the opposite side.
His rugged features hard, his eyes glinted with determination and … accusation?
“You can dream-walk,” he growled. Accusatory.
Oh no. Rose was going to kill the motherfucker.
She flew at him, a blur across the bed, but he was fast, too fast, traveling from one side of the room to the other before she could thrust a fist through his chest. It wasn’t something she’d ever done before but Rose reckoned he was the best son of a bitch to practice on!
“Don’t.” Fionn held up a hand against her, his expression implacable. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
The last few hours came flooding back, weakening her at the knees.
The fight.
His battling the vampires to protect her. Him being weird, her refusing to back down until he shared what was going on with him.
Him kissing her. Taking her to the bed, his hands on her body. The rightness of it. The desperate need for him.
And then … she’d no longer been conscious, which was how she found herself in his dreamworld.
“What did you do to me? We were …” she whispered, gesturing to the bed.
Fionn shrugged. “You fell asleep.”
Oh, yeah, sure, she’d fallen asleep when the guy she wanted most in the world finally broke his damn control and put his mouth and hands on her.
“You put me to sleep.”
The dream poked and prodded her, painfully reminding her of the truth. “You put me to sleep because …” Misery unlike anything she’d ever felt clawed at her. The agony of his betrayal. Tears threatened, but she refused to give them to him. “You’ve been planning to kill me all along. That’s why you’d look at me like you wanted me but then push me away. You’re a sick bastard but not sick enough to fuck the woman you’re planning to betray. To murder.”
Her instincts were screaming for her to get out. To flee. Yet the naive woman who had begun to fall in love with a stranger needed answers. “Do you deny it?”
“It was just a dream,” Fionn replied gruffly.
“Don’t lie to me!” she shrieked.
Fionn looked away, running a hand through his hair. A slight tremble in the movement gave him away. If it hadn’t, the wave of emotion hitting Rose—foreign, panicked, remorseful, and desperate—did. He’d forgotten to mask himself from her in all the confusion; she was feeling everything he felt.
Those were not the feelings of a man planning to kill her.
It would explain perhaps why she’d never felt danger from him.
And so she stupidly waited when every fiber of her being told her to escape.
Finally, he settled his flinty regard upon her. “The children who were born to open the gate need not die,” he confessed. “Not for anyone but me.”
“You?” she gritted out.
“I had a wife and children.”
Rose remembered the shock she felt watching him interact with his wife. The jealousy, even. The disbelief at seeing his children. “I saw them.”
“I had people and land that I vowed to protect when I became their king. When I agreed to go to Faerie to save them, I was agreeing to become Aine’s whore, not just her slave.”
Despite the betrayal of the dream still turning her stomach, it was not in Rose’s power to halt the flash of anger and sympathy she felt at his confession.
“I tricked her as I said I did, and my people betrayed me upon my return. But what I left out was that I had a family. And my wife, Aoibhinn, had remarried. She was bound to the new king and together, they sentenced me to an eternal sleep. I was surrounded by druids as she stared in revulsion at me, at what I’d become, while the man who’d taken my place, a stranger, held back my son from coming to my aid. My daughter wailed her despair from the arms of one of my men.”
“Your wife betrayed you?”
Fionn nodded, expression carefully blank. “The Faerie Queen took everything from me. Everything. Trapped me with powers I have no right to. Abandoned me to an eternity of emptiness. She may have closed the gates to protect both our people, but I will never forgive her for what I lost.”
“Aoibhinn.”
He curled his upper lip into a snarl. “F
uck that treacherous bitch. I’m talking about my mortality. My right to see my children grow, Rose. My Caoimhe and Diarmuid. Lost to me because of Aine and what she turned me into.”
Rose glowered at him. She didn’t want to be sucked into his sad tale of woe. “And how do I fit in to your story? Don’t lie. I’ll know.”
“There’s no point lying now, is there.” Fionn studied her, his countenance dispassionate, completely at odds with how he’d behaved in his dream. At complete odds with the emotions she’d felt from him only moments ago before he got a handle on them.
“You need not die to open the gate. Just a drop of blood. In fact, someone can only go to Faerie as your companion. That’s what the Blackwoods want from you. To convince you to take them to Faerie. But Aine made it so I can’t enter Faerie with ill intentions without sacrificing one of the fae-borne using An Breitheamh. She assumed it would be a difficult decision for me since I’d been an honorable man.”
Flashes of the dream pounded in Rose’s head.
Fionn crying.
Roaring as if devastated by her death.
What was true?
What was the lie?
“You want to kill me to open the gate so you can take your revenge on the Faerie Queen?”
“She made me the thing I hated, and when I returned home, my wife and her new husband decreed I was a monster. My son, now a man, disagreed. Our people didn’t disagree as such, but they were conflicted. This had been done against my will, to their king—their king who had offered his life to save them all.
“So Aoibhinn compromised. She asked the druids to put me to sleep, that if I was meant to ascend beyond my curse, the Fates would awaken me. Young women of the village sacrificed themselves in honor of the king I’d once been. Their blood is not on my hands but Aoibhinn’s. She betrayed me and forced my children to watch. All because of that cruel bitch of a fae.”
“So you’ll kill me to get your vengeance?”
That goddamn muscle ticked in his jaw, his voice hoarse as he replied, “Do you really think I can kill you now, Rose?”
She scoffed. “I’m to believe you’ve reconsidered?”