by A. S. Green
Rowan’s heart settled into a more normal rate, though only just barely. “This has been a night for a whole lot of firsts.”
He cocked his head to the side and moved up the mattress to sit beside her. He laced his hand with hers, and she stared down at his fingers.
“What firsts are we talking about?” he asked. “First time someone’s tasted your cunny? Or first time ye walked into a male’s bedroom, stood in the doorway like a haloed angel, then stripped yourself bare?”
Rowan’s face flooded with so much heat it nearly set her hair on fire. “Both.”
Declan laughed softly. “Those were rhetorical questions, love. I know young daoine females aren’t out in the world sowing wild oats. What on earth made ye do it?”
“I… I wanted to share something with you. Daoine don’t have anamcharas, at least not like the cú sídhe. But if we did…you would be mine.”
She’d known this since nearly the first time they met two years ago. She couldn’t believe she was finally saying it out loud, and to him. It made her feel both exhilarated and immensely sad because she knew, when he’d said that nothing more could come of it, that he’d been right.
She shrugged as if her feelings were of no consequence, even though those were the four most important words she’d ever uttered. You would be mine.
Declan reached across his body with his left arm and cupped her cheek in his hand. He stroked her bottom lip with his thumb and somehow, the way he did it, communicated his own great sadness.
“I’ve known it for a long time,” she said, “and I understand that we can’t be together. So I at least wanted to have this weekend.”
“Aren’t daoines supposed to be virgins when they marry?”
She drew her eyebrows together in concentration. Had she missed something? “I still am, aren’t I?”
“Aye,” he said, giving her a look that was pure sex. “For now.”
Then he kissed her again. It was long, slow, wet, delicious—full of tongue and sweet nips—and Declan’s low sexy groans made Rowan feel beautiful and powerful and so fully herself that she didn’t think a word had been invented to describe just how perfect she felt.
But things didn’t go any further than that. When Declan finally broke the kiss, because he was going to have to be the one to do it, he positioned the pillows behind her and pulled the blankets up under her chin. Then he settled his warm body beside hers and tucked her protectively against his chest.
“This,” she said.
“What?” he asked, resting his chin on the top of her head.
“This is where I’ve always wanted to be.”
Chapter Nine
THE PÚCA
While Declan and Rowan slept, Branna was sixty miles to the east—deep inside a large underground burrow and hidden by a thicket. She was alone. That was something she’d grown accustomed to. It was hard to do anything for over fifteen hundred years and not get used to it. A púca was not something that attracted many friends. Lovers, yes, once upon a time anyway. But not friends.
For now, she didn’t need either. All she wanted was to sleep, because lately exhaustion had been her closest companion.
The great lake was rough tonight. The white capped waves crashed on the rocky shore, building a thin coating of ice. She’d hoped the waves would lull her to sleep as they’d done so many times before, but it was just the opposite. There was a disturbance in the air. It had been there for months, and it had been bothering her for just as long. It was a foreign kind of vibration—and yet somehow familiar. Like a lie told so many times you started to believe it.
The niggling sensation—part longing, part apprehension—had kept her awake for days. She’d only just fallen asleep when the sound of the waves was punctuated by someone moving in the woods, just outside her main escape tunnel.
Branna opened one eye. You have got to be shitting me.
There weren’t many who knew where to find her. Cormac MacConall was one. A lone druid who masqueraded as head of the local PTA was another. Not to mention, there was a colony of honest-to-goodness cotton tails who wanted to make her their queen. (They were pests mostly, and she’d seen Watership Down. Thank you, next.)
She thought about shifting into human form to confront who might be out there, but then she thought better of it. Slowly, cautiously, she stuck her twitching nose out toward the entrance to the burrow and sniffed at the air. She listened for the sound of pine needles being crushed under foot. If she were more on her game, she might have been able to detect a heartbeat and whether it was agitated or at rest. But whatever was interfering with her sleep was doing a number on her senses, too.
She hopped toward the exit. Clearly, when it came to sleep, she didn’t stand a grogoch’s chance on ladies’ night.
When she finally emerged, she wished she’d stayed underground. She wished she could unsee what was plainly left where she wouldn't miss it. There, on the ground outside the thicket, was something she hadn’t seen in over fifteen hundred years. And yet it felt like yesterday.
She shifted to her human form so she could pick it up. She turned the object over in her hand.
“Well, fuck me.” Then she laughed at the irony because that was just the point, wasn’t it? Someone was fucking with her.
The gift—or more appropriately, the warning—was a small stone carving in the shape of a rabbit. It was no bigger than a baby’s fist. A hole had been drilled through an ear so the carving could hang from a leather cord. The cord itself was much newer than the stone, and unfamiliar.
She held it up and let the pendant dangle in front of her face. The ancient memory of a hay loft above a stable assaulted her. She could practically smell the dust and the scent of candle wax.
She understood now—that unknown force that had rattled her for months—and the knowledge of its source pierced her heart with an even greater sense of dread.
Her only thoughts: Could that bastard be here? Here, on American soil; and, if so, what did he know about the MacConalls?
With trepidation in her heart, Branna tilted herself to the lakeshore and threw the vile pendant into the raging waves of Lake Superior.
Chapter Ten
DECLAN
The next morning, Declan woke at dawn, feeling an edginess of strained anticipation. His body hadn’t got the injection on schedule, but so far so good. He was awake at least. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the sun rise. He glanced over at Rowan, so impossibly beautiful with her golden hair spread across his white pillowcase. By Danu, it was just like his dreams. Better than his dreams
Feeling inspired, he glamoured on a pair of sweat pants and retrieved Rowan’s discarded nightie, which he set on the bed for when she woke up. Then he crept downstairs to make her breakfast. Turn about was fair play, after all.
He had just loaded the omelets, bacon, and coffee onto a tray when he heard her call out for him. He didn’t exactly enjoy how worried she sounded, but today he was more moved by it than annoyed.
“Never fear,” he called up to her as he ascended the stairs, “breakfast genie is here.”
“What?” she asked, and he heard the mattress creak.
“Stay where ye are,” he called. “Don’t get up.”
“All right,” she said, and by now all worry had left her voice and she sounded more curious.
When Declan arrived in the doorway, he opened his mouth to say something, but stopped before any sound came out. Instead, he stood there with his mouth hanging open, so taken by the beautiful scene he nearly dropped the tray.
Rowan was sitting up and back in her nightie. Her long hair was wild and tousled around her head. Her eyes, soft and lazy. Her cheeks, flushed. By Danu, she was the sexiest female he’d ever seen. If she looked like that after a night of foreplay, what would she look like when he had her truly sated?
He cleared his throat and entered the room, firming his grip on the edges of the tray. “This is a thank-you breakfast.”
“Thank yo
u for what?” She adjusted the thin strap over her shoulder.
As if she didn’t know. “For everything.”
She pulled her knees up and sat cross-legged in a nest of blankets. Declan set the tray in front of her, and he pulled up a chair to the edge of the bed.
“I want to ask ye something,” he said, not really sure why he wanted to disrupt this perfect moment, but knowing he had to deal with his thoughts sooner, rather than later.
“Then ask.” She picked up her coffee cup in both hands, and took a cautious sip, judging its temperature.
“Yesterday, we were talking about the ‘point’ your da had been trying to make with me, about all your…suitors.” Damn, the thought made his hound start pacing, and it was such an agitating feeling that Declan had to stand up and move himself. “You called it fucking bullshit.”
“And then you made fun of me for it.”
He grinned, but he wasn’t about to be led off track. “Did ye mean it? Are those other males just bullshit?”
She took a bite of her bacon, then set the rest of the piece down and slowly licked her fingers. If she was trying to taunt the hound, sliding those fingers in and out of her mouth was doing a damn fine job of it. Declan paced to the end of the bed, then to the window, while he waited for her response.
“Most daoine females are married by nineteen. I’m twenty-four. My father has it in his head that I should marry someone who would raise our family’s standing among the sídhe. He’s been very particular.”
Declan winced. He wasn’t the type Rowan’s father would choose for her, not by a long-shot, though that was no surprise.
“Right, but are ye really seeing this Niall, John, Alex and Daniel?” She was incredibly desirable, of course, but seeing four males at the same time? It didn’t seem particularly…proper. Or daoine, for that matter.
Her eyebrows went up in surprise. “You remember their names?”
He frowned. What did she expect? He’d remember and despise those names for all eternity. “Are ye?”
She sighed. “Niall, I’ve never met. He’d been invited to dinner, but my mother rescheduled because I had to work all weekend.”
Declan clenched his teeth, hating to be reminded that he was her work, and a stabbing pain clocked him right in the gut.
“John, Alex, and Daniel…I’ve met them each once. Again, dinner at our house. We’ve spoken on the phone. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I am ‘seeing’ any of them.”
“Have they all kissed you?” The stab came again, twisting his stomach.
“No one has ever kissed me, except for you.”
“But…” He took two steps closer to the bed. “That’s impossible.”
She shrugged. “Not really.”
“You’re twenty-four.”
“I’m daoine.” She rolled her eyes as if that should explain everything. It kind of did.
“Aye, but someone like you…ye should have been kissed often and well for years by now.”
“Someone like me?”
Declan saw her back go stiff, and he remembered her reaction to his compliments before. He didn’t understand it, but he knew not to mention her beauty. “You’re a good kisser, love.”
“Oh,” she said, and her cheeks bloomed. “Well, good. I wasn’t sure…” Her voice trailed off, as she watched him crawl across the bed toward her.
He kissed her again, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth. She bit his top lip between her perfect white teeth. “Ooooo,” he said. “Who knew Nurse McNeely was such a vixen?”
“Shut up,” she said, then she kissed away the sting of her bite.
“If one of those suitors proposes, and your da approves, will ye marry him?”
Her eyebrows drew together as if she didn’t understand his question. “I’ve never disobeyed my father before.”
“Why not?” He winced as another shooting pain raced through his gut and made tears spring into his eyes.
“It’s simply not done. I’ve learned to be persuasive with him. That’s how he agreed to let me go into nursing. And I will occasionally hide the truth, which is how I am able to be with you here now. Alone.” She cupped his cheek in her hand. “But when he’s specifically directed me to do something, or not to do something…I have never disobeyed him.”
“Not even when ye should?” What he wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall if she ever got up the nerve to tell her father where to stick his pompous social climbing.
“I couldn’t have imagined a time when I should disobey my father—”
Declan looked away as his chest constricted. What was going on with him? It wasn’t like he thought he could marry her, even if her father thought he was the shit.
“—until,” Rowan said.
Declan looked back at her. He thought she’d been done talking.
“Now,” she said. “I can imagine what it would be like to disobey him now.”
“Would ye?” Declan wanted that. And he didn’t want that. He didn’t want his anamchara married off to some asswipe; but at the same time, she deserved better than a weak-willed addict. Maybe she should listen to her father.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to wait and see.”
Declan felt an unwelcome hope rise in his chest, then another crushing pain caused him to double over.
“Declan?”
Oh shit. Oh fuck. He knew what this was, and it wasn’t conflicted emotions or any shit like that. Damnit! How could he have let his guard down? He should have been better prepared.
Rowan rubbed his shoulder. “Declan, are you okay?”
“Get your kit,” he growled.
Panic and anger brewed up inside of him. He could feel his control slipping away. If Rowan didn’t get that medical kit of hers, he’d end up saying something cruel, something in anger that he’d soon regret.
He knew she’d seen and heard it all from him before. How many times had his brother Aiden called Rowan in emergency situations just like this? But this wasn’t like the times before. Everything had changed; Declan and Rowan were different than before. And he hated for her to see him so weak.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, curling her fingers into his bicep.
“Fuck! Get your fucking kit. I need my shot.”
Rowan flinched, but then her expression fell into one of professional obstinance. “I didn’t bring any vials.”
Declan grabbed her by the arms even while telling himself to put some space between them. “What do ye mean ye didn’t bring any?”
She pushed her palm against his chest and stiff-armed him. “It wasn’t part of your treatment plan.”
“You’re lying!”
Declan tore himself off the bed, and stumbled to Aiden’s room. Her open suitcase was on the floor, but not the small leather kit she’d brought with her all the times before. He dropped to his knees and started digging through turtlenecks, patterned leggings, the black zip-up jacket she wore when she’d done yoga the morning before…
“Where is it? Goddamn it, Rowan, where’s your kit?”
“Declan, stop. That’s my stuff.”
He stood and whirled. Judging by her wide-eyed expression, he imagined he looked even more terrifying than he had as the hound. “Call him.”
“Who?”
“Doc!” Declan raced back to his room. There had to be something in his bathroom he’d overlooked…maybe a leftover pill from his old prescription…the ones from before Doc started him on the monthly injections…something. Anything.
“I don’t have to call him,” Rowan said calmly. “I know what he’s going to say. Just take a deep breath. Remember the breathing exercises we practiced during meditation yesterday. You need to hyper-oxygenate yourself and then—”
“Fuck meditation!” Declan felt the edges of his body ripple with the change. His hound was flexing in and out of its manifestation. He had to get a grip.
“Listen to me!” she cried.
Good. She was losing her calm, too. Maybe t
hen she’d do something about this. “No! Fix this.”
“You seriously won’t just listen to me?” she asked, throwing out her hands in frustration.
For fuck’s sake, what was wrong with her? Couldn’t she see that he couldn’t close his lips over his teeth? “No!”
“Then, fine, Declan. Fine.” She put her fists on her hips. “Have it your way.”
Declan’s anger simmered down by a fraction. “What do ye mean, ‘Fine?’”
She sighed resignedly. “I mean, fine. Go outside. I stashed a vial outside, just in case.”
He pushed past her and blindly raced down the stairs, missing the bottom step, and crumpling to his knees on the hard floor before pushing himself up and staggering out the front door. His meds were outside. Relief was just outside. He had to hurry. Hurry!
He rushed over the front porch, his eyes wide and scanning the yard. Where would she put it? In the hedge? Under the porch?
He stared up at the overcast sky and gulped at the cold, fresh air. His lungs inflated. His vision cleared—not completely—but just enough. He inhaled again. Then again as something lifted. He was suddenly lighter. His heart still raced, but his skin wasn’t crawling. The pain was still there, but bearable now.
Rowan’s hand landed on his back. His heart stuttered at her touch, and his lungs filled with air.
“Again,” she said. “Deep breath.”
He did what he was told, not because he wanted to but because it felt so much better.
“That’s it. One more.”
He took a few more calming breaths until he’d settled enough to speak and acknowledge his shame. “There are no vials out here, are there.” He knew the truth of it even as he said the words.
“In through the nose,” she replied, “then let it out slowly.” She breathed deeply herself, as if he needed further demonstration, and all the while she stroked her gentle hand back and forth across his shoulders.
He took in another breath and let it out slowly.
“How’s that?” she asked. “A little better?”