The girls appeared in the stairway door, and he motioned them inside.
“I’ll go,” Fiana said.
“No, baby, it’s raining. Besides, her highness has commanded me to go. I’ll go back to the store. My hands still reek anyway.”
“And I need water,” Arleigh said.
“Domestic or imported?” When she gave him one of her looks, he rolled his eyes. “Never mind, I’ll decide. Why didn’t Stephen ever dig a damn well?”
He started for the door and had almost managed his escape when he heard the shuddering exhale.
“Ryder, what have I done?”
“Don’t get me started.”
“Why are you so angry with me?”
“Do you want the unabridged version or the Cliff notes?”
“I want you to talk to me.”
“Yes, that’s what you all say,” Ryder said, rolling the cold, dripping shirt to his elbow, “until we start to talk, then all of a sudden, we’re babbling, and you tell us to get to the point. On the other hand, when you have something to talk about, we’re supposed to shut up and listen. But when something’s on our mind, it’s, sorry, Jack.”
“Who’s Jack?” she asked.
He rolled his eyes and slammed the door for emphasis, although his heart wasn’t really in it. He left the cottage and headed for the wilds of Trinity Island. He got some beef for whatever bland stew she had on her mind, and carried buckets of water from the stream. He changed his clothes, taking his time, and she was stirring something in the hearth when he returned. He hoped he wouldn’t come down with pneumonia. Hard to fight a Ganconor with pneumonia. He sat at the table and read his Keats, trying to ignore her, but every movement he caught from the corner of his eye made him look at her. Looking at her made him want to touch her. If he touched her…
He chatted with the girls, but his heart wasn’t in it, because a somber Arleigh ignored him. He wished he could escape, maybe ride around the island, but of course nature had conspired against him, forcing this close proximity. She drove him crazy but, despite the weather, he couldn’t dare leave her alone, and he couldn’t make three little girls responsible for her. It wasn’t exactly that he didn’t trust her, but well, he didn’t trust her. He picked up his book because he could feel her eyes on him.
How could he be in love with a woman he couldn’t trust? It went against everything he believed in. She cleared her throat, but he continued to pretend to read.
“Your Master Keats is not familiar to me. Would I have known him? I cannot possibly remember everyone I met o’er thousands of centuries, but he is certainly familiar with the legend. Perhaps there is a new Leanan sidhe, and he met her.”
Ryder raised his head, surprised she wanted to talk. He peered at her suspiciously. There had to be an argument brewing in her somewhere.
“Is he dead?” Her hand paused in midstroke, hovering over the bowl.
Ryder glanced at Fiana. No help there. She shrugged. “Keats hasn’t been born, well, yes, he’s dead.”
“Probably young and handsome?”
“Yes, quite the catch. Definitely memorable.”
“I was often drawn to poets. The romance within a poet is so alluring.” She paused, stirring rapidly, a blush stealing over her face. “If he’s dead, there must be a new Leanan sidhe. I have often wondered who she is, what she looks like, how her methods differ from mine.”
“Why don’t you two get together and compare notes?” Ryder said. “I’m sure it would be a blast. How to seduce, how to make a man waste away to nothing, how to kill with kindness.”
“Compare notes? You mean talk with each other? That would be interesting. We—” The smile that hovered on her face vanished, and she glanced down at her bowl. “Oh, that was one of your jokes.”
She went back to stirring the eggs.
“Tell me more about your life, Arleigh.”
“Aye,” Hannah said, “you’ve never told us anything about yourself.”
“Come on, Arleigh!” Corliss cried. “Tell us!”
She glanced up, but her eyes looked hesitant, doubtful. She shook her head, and her hair flowed about her shoulders. He wanted to know everything about her. Beyond his little inquisition, that had mostly been designed to make her uncomfortable, he hadn’t asked anything about her, and what she had shared with him was filled with holes. Why hadn’t he ever asked about the hardships she had experienced or her arrival in a new world? How had she felt about her life in this cottage, about Stephen and the girls? He was in love with her and knew nothing but her name and her rather questionable origins.
“Honey,” he said.
She looked at him, and a tear dropped on her cheek.
“Talk to us. We want to know everything about you.”
“No,” she said. “The more I say, the angrier you become. ’Tis better if I stay quiet.”
“I won’t get angry,” he said. “Scout’s honor.”
“Will you tell us about your life? About these sisters of yours?”
“Sure,” he said. “The Weird Sisters. I’ll fill you in on every grueling detail of my own childhood.”
She hurried and finished cooking. She had her smile back, and she hummed a little while she cooked. Fiana leapt up from the table to help, eager to hear. While they ate, she told them the story of her life. And he fell in love with her a little more.
Chapter 31
When the girls finished breakfast, they went outside to do their chores. Arleigh rose from the table and put the dishes to soak in the washbasin. She had told them everything she remembered from the thousands of years she had spent casting her spell over men of different times and places. She had seen so much of the world, experienced so many different cultures, but men had been the same everywhere. Willing to love her, willing to die for her. She felt sick thinking of the path that had led to her humanity.
“A time came when I wanted to give love in return. ’Twas not a decision. It just happened.”
“Because you fell in love,” Ryder said. “Do you remember him?”
“No, I don’t have specific memories of Remy. But I remember the feelings. They were not to belong to me, so I was banished to a world that was neither alive nor dead, where the banshees waited to be called, where babes waited to be born, where faery sparks waited to be created. ’Twas not a miserable existence, but I waited with little hope and no explanation. Now I am mortal and yet so much more. There’s power still.”
“You’re drop-dead gorgeous, Arleigh,” Ryder said. “That’s not a power. It’s good genes.”
“’Twas unnatural to Alice. When she told me the legend of the Leanan sidhe, I denied it, but I began to remember shadows, and the curse began to take those I loved.”
“Not a curse, honey,” Ryder said.
“Then why did they die?”
“Do you know how hard it is to stay alive in this time? The average life span is that of a gnat. Do you know how many diseases there are? How much bacteria there is in the water? Do you understand what actually kills people? People can die from a tooth infection, from a splinter, from a dog bite.”
“From a bee sting?”
“Sure, if they’re allergic. These deaths have nothing to do with you.”
She tried to smile, but worry consumed her. This man with his strange ways and even stranger words always searched for answers where there were none. She scrubbed at the dishes with a vengeance.
“A curse is a curse.”
“I’m still alive,” he said.
“Aye, but I am preparing to lose you.”
“Not going to happen,” he said. “I’m going to find some way to prove to you this curse isn’t real.”
“I wish you could,” Arleigh said, “but the Leanan sidhe is not supposed to be human, and I can’t control the power and take what I need. It has to be given.”
“That’s not power; it’s love. I don’t want you because of an imaginary power you think you have. I want you because of who you are, not what you we
re.”
She shook her head. “’Tis out of your control.”
“That’s bullshit, Arleigh.”
Ryder rose from the table, and Arleigh took a deep breath. She flinched when he caught her arm. Soapsuds trailed across the floor.
“Honey, quit telling me how I feel. The Leanan sidhe is gone, okay? I’ll admit there’s fallout. You’re pretty good with faeries, and God knows what else, but you’re a live woman. If you take away the glossy faery crap, we’re left with you. A very human Arleigh Donovan. No magic. No tricks. No illusion.”
“Just me?”
He pulled her against him. She wanted to believe him, to trust him.
“There’s not a man alive who wouldn’t want you,” he said, “but it’s not a curse. It’s you. You’re stunning. You’re desirable. You can even be very funny when you’re not being a pain in my ass. You have a way about you that makes a man feel like a man. That’s not a curse either. Your mother was wrong, honey. She should have told you your beauty, your passion, and your charm are all part of who you are.”
“And you love me because of who I am?”
“Do you see me wasting away? Am I dying of love for you? Am I loitering on a hill, alone and pale?”
“Not yet,” she whispered, “because I can’t seem to let you go.”
“Arleigh, I belong to you, heart, mind and soul. I don’t want you to let me go, but if I have to lose you to prove my love, then I’ll go. Voluntarily. Is that what you want me to do? Should I walk away? Will that be enough to prove I love you?”
“Please don’t,” she said. “I think I would die.”
She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. His words had such certainty and were hauntingly familiar. She could not let him go. She would never let him ago. She felt him smile against her mouth.
“So I stay. And you stop talking the nonsense. Agreed?”
“Aye.”
“Good. Once upon a time there lived a man and a woman who were in love, and they lived happily ever after. End of story.”
“Even if what you say is true, ’tis not a happy ending we’ll be having. Flynn won’t allow it. One of us will die.”
“Flynn can go to hell,” Ryder said. “And, for the record, neither one of us is going to die. I didn’t come all this way to die here, and I’ll kill everyone in this colony before I let something happen to you.”
“You said you weren’t a warrior,” Arleigh said.
“I’m not,” Ryder said. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
He swept her off her feet, and she laughed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to prove it to you,” he said.
“The girls could come in!”
“No, they won’t, because at this very moment they’re reading my mind.”
* * * *
As the boat drew up to the dock, Cameron Flynn surveyed the property of Trinity Island. It was indeed beautiful, and he wished he had owned it, but some things were not meant to be. He loved this land on the other side of the sea, but he missed the rolling hills of Ireland, the crisp scent of the air, the mists that clung to the meadows. He missed his home, his estates. But soon he would be home where he belonged, in a time that belonged to him, where he could control every aspect of his life with no interference, no need for pretense, and no possible repercussions for anything that crossed his mind.
Being lord and master of an estate mattered little if he had to follow the rules of society. He had never been very good at following rules and had no intention of continuing to do so. He saw nothing but change stirring around him, and he did not like what he saw. He needed his own place, his own time. But before he could return home, he needed the one thing missing, and soon she would be returned to him.
He didn’t expect Kendall to turn her over willingly, and that suited Flynn just fine. Kendall would feel that need to fight for her as so many human men were prone to do. Mortal men always felt the need to fight, even when they knew the odds were insurmountable. Even when they knew how futile their sacrifice would be.
He would have probably done the same in his former life. Hell, he had done it, and the fact that Remy Caindale had lived had nothing to do with his warrior’s skill but everything to do with the bitches that surrounded him. Flynn would not make the same mistake with the three little witches he had under his control.
He looked forward to killing Ryder Kendall. He thought Kendall would fight hard, but how well he fought, how much courage he had, wouldn’t matter. He would die because there was no other option.
Of course he had to get them out of the cottage. Those damnable little faeries had woven their magic and spun their enchantments so thoroughly the cottage might as well have been plated in armor. That presented a problem for him but not for the men who followed him. Humans one and all. It had not been hard to fabricate a believable story. They may have left England behind, but the people of Jamestown were still Englishmen at heart. His charge of witchcraft against Arleigh Donovan was trumped up, but his little band of cohorts didn’t need to know that. They were more than eager to follow him on his desperate search for the witch who had ensnared Stephen Caindale’s daughters in her web of magic.
By the end of the afternoon, Arleigh Donovan would be at his side, and Ryder Kendall would be dead. All because he willed it. It was going to be a very good day.
The men tied the boat, and Flynn stepped onto Trinity. The moment he touched the ground, he could feel her, and his fists clenched at his side. Kendall was fucking Arleigh. Oh, there would be such pleasure in seeing the man’s blood flow. He would watch Kendall’s entrails fall from his body and the pain wrack his face. But the most enjoyable part of all would be the look on Kendall’s face when he finally realized he had lost.
His men knew what to do. Grab the woman. If the man tried to stop them—and there was no doubt in Flynn’s mind Kendall would—kill him.
He led the way toward the cottage. Such a beautiful day for a killing.
* * * *
Arleigh stretched against him, and Ryder’s body once again responded to her touch. If the magic of the Leanan sidhe made him feel the way he did, he would willingly fall under her spell. The woman who kissed his throat and pressed herself against him was what he wanted, and he would slay an entire battalion of Ganconors to keep her. He wrapped his arm around her tighter. She nestled against his chest, and suddenly stiffened.
“He’s here. I can feel him coming.”
Ryder tossed back the quilt and leapt from the bed. He grabbed his breeches from the floor and pulled them on, staggering toward the bedroom door.
“For Christ’s sake, get dressed! Hurry!”
He pulled open the door. The faeries flew around the keeping room like disoriented paratroopers, swooping and falling, their lights pulsing in a frantic rhythm. Ryder felt like he’d stepped through the gates of a demented carnival midway.
“Addy!”
The pink prism hovered in front of his face, blinking furiously.
“Flynn,” she gasped. “He’s here. With others. Humans.”
The girls rushed through the cottage door, hair flying, their faces pale. Fiana slammed the door and threw her body against it.
“Damn it!” she cried. “It’s the middle of the bloody day! And there’s no full moon tonight! I told him I needed a full moon to stall. What can he want?”
“He wants Arleigh,” Ryder said.
“No,” Fiana said. “He wants to go home. I told him two days! Hannah, get the boxes! Oh, my God, he couldn’t…”
Ryder rummaged in the trunk, looking for any weapon he might know how to use. He had been to enough Renaissance festivals to know what they were, but damn, they were all so heavy. These men must have the strength of Neanderthals.
He glanced at Fiana.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“No, no, I can’t, he wouldn’t expect me to do that.” She grabbed Hannah’s arm. “Would he expect me to do that?”
Hannah’s small fa
ce puckered, and Corliss burst into tears. All three looked positively terrified, and he knew exactly how they felt. He hefted a sword, swinging it through the air to test his balance then grabbed the ax that lay on the hearth stones.
“These aren’t going to work. I need a shotgun. A bazooka. A grenade launcher.” Adelina swooshed around his face, trying to get his attention. “What can I use?”
“Nothing will stop a Ganconor.”
“Jesus, Addy, he’s not the fucking Terminator. There has to be something.”
She shook her head, and her golden hair swirled around her.
“What would happen if I squashed you like a bug? Something bad must happen, right?”
“I would dissolve,” Adelina said, “only to reappear elsewhere. You can cut off his head, but he will reappear again.”
“But I smashed his face in yesterday,” Ryder said. “There were cuts and blood. It had to hurt. He looked like hell.”
“He chose to let you hurt him,” Adelina said. “He likes to feel the pain to remember his humanity, but ’twas his choice. He will not let you have the advantage again. Not when so much is at stake.”
Fiana pulled on his arm as Arleigh came out of the bedroom, dressed in one of Stephen’s shirts. The large linen shirt enveloped her to below the knees, but her slender calves were visible, and Ryder groaned. The panic level escalated, and when he heard his name called from outside the cottage, his heart hammered in his chest.
“Get upstairs,” he said. “All of you.”
“I can help,” Arleigh said. “I know how to use the weapons.”
“No, I’ll handle it.”
She looked doubtful, petrified, conflicted. He knew how she felt because he felt the same way, but he didn’t want her around when they streamed through the door and ran him through the gut with a sword before he had a chance to lift his. He reached over and caught her chin, kissing her hard.
“I love you. You know that, right?”
She nodded. Fiana herded her sisters toward the staircase but seemed reluctant to join them.
“Go!” he shouted.
Fiana turned back. “Ryder, there’s more—“
Carlton, Amber - Trinity Magic (Siren Publishing Romance) Page 33