The Silent Goddess: The Otherworld Series Book 1

by N. K. Vir

  “I told you it was only a matter of time before your own magick woke up. After all this is Salem,” he said gleefully.

  “A Brownie?” Duncan asked.

  Robert realized they weren’t alone and glared at the man standing behind her. All his earlier glee melted off of him as a sarcastic face quickly took up residence in its place. “Yes you know, little brown men who like to help around the house,” he explained as though he was talking to a small child.

  Enter Robert the sarcastic, Annie thought rubbing her neck in embarrassment and soothing her aching whiplash.

  Duncan replied, good naturedly, “I am well aware of what a Brownie is Mo Caraid,”

  Annie glanced over her shoulder to see if his tone matched his face. To her surprise he was grinning happily back at Robert. His gray blue eyes flicked down to hers and he winked at her as if to say “I got this.” Then stepped out from behind her and extended his hand to Robert. He easily accepted the hand but instead of shaking hands each man grasped the others forearm.

  “Well met, I am Duncan.”

  “Robert.”

  Annie was baffled. Not just by the strange greeting, but usually she had to explain Robert to other people. At times she swore he did not live here on this plane. People either loved him or hated him instantly. Luckily Robert was a natural charmer and more people loved him than hated him.

  Duncan inquired, “Why a Brownie? Perhaps it was a Bean Tighe or other helpful household sprite?”

  Robert pondered the question and shrugged. “It could be either I suppose. Kat just said it was a Brownie.”

  Duncan nodded his head in understanding. Annie shook her own head in disbelief. Leave it to her to be attracted to a man who had no problems believing in and openly discussing Faeries like one would discuss the weather.

  Did she just say that out loud?

  Her eyes darted to the two men happily discussing the differences between Bean Tighes and Brownies seemingly unaware that she was even still there. She downed the rest of her wine grateful that her brain had refused to allow her mouth to talk about attraction and Duncan in the same sentence. Yes. It was easy to admit to the deep dark corners of her mind, body and soul that was definitely attracted to this tall, dark, good looking stranger. She could look and think about him all she wanted; she just couldn’t talk about it.

  That could lead to unwanted trouble.

  Now that was a strange thought. Why couldn’t she talk about it? Well obviously not to Duncan that would just be too bold. Why not to Kat?

  ‘Too dangerous,’ whispered a tiny voice inside her head.

  “Wine,” she said out loud. Yes she needed more wine tonight was definitely taking a turn towards the strange. Robert raised his hand, Duncan shook his head indicating his glass was near full.

  Annie climbed the steps to her house and bumped into a human wall. One arm snaked around her waist and was the only thing that kept her from falling down the stairs. “Easy there love,” said the human wall. “Where’s the fire?” Annie tilted her head back and grinned up at the wall.

  “Wine run Griff,” she explained. Griffin was the rock of her friends. He was quiet, always watching and very protective of his little circle of friends. He wasn’t much taller than Annie but what he lacked in height he made up for in his presence. Griffin always seemed to appear larger than he was. Where Annie saw a kind teddy bear-like face others saw a frightening, intimidating glare. His long wild hair was usually pulled back into a ponytail, that coupled with his all black attire and combat boots gave him the look of a renegade biker, well looks could be deceiving. In truth Griffin was one of the sweetest guys she had ever met.

  “I’ll get it,” he said dropping a brotherly kiss on top of her head. Annie heard a growl behind her. She turned her head towards the sound and saw Duncan glowering at Griffin. Her eyes flicked to Robert who shrugged and then back to Griffin who was staring back at Duncan. “Kat said you should stay out here,” he said to her but continued to stare Duncan down. Annie watched Griffin’s face carefully as his expression went from unreadable to surprise. He cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow before turning his attention back to Annie. “She also said to give you these and that she is starving,” he said handing her a plate piled with veggie patties. “Robert if you want to drink that flowery swill you call wine bring it inside.”

  Robert scurried past them on the steps and disappeared inside. It was then that she realized Griffin still had on arm wrapped around her waist.

  “Griffin,” Kat hollered from somewhere inside. “Get in here and help me out!”

  “Coming,” he yelled back over his shoulder. “You all good?” he asked Annie.

  Annie nodded. “Fill me up and all shall be well,” she said trading her wine glass for the plate of patties. Griffin released her and turned to walk away then abruptly stopped, turned back and planted another quick kiss on Annie’s cheek. Another low growl rumbled behind Annie and Griffin chuckled, his hazel green eyes shining with mischief in the setting sun.

  “Yep, that’s what I thought,” he said as he too quickly disappeared inside leaving Annie alone again with Duncan.

  Just when she thought the night couldn’t get any stranger Griffin had decided to act out of character. Griffin was not an affectionate person by nature, protective yes, but usually from a distance never so up close and personal. What had gotten into her friends? They were all acting strangely, well everyone except Kat.

  That was when it hit her, this was all Kat’s doing.

  Kat was a perpetual match maker. She took that aspect of her patron goddess very seriously and was forever trying to match up Robert and her to one male or another. Ever since she and Griffin had become a couple she had spent all her free time focused on finding Robert and Annie partners. Annie wondered what Kat would be spending on roses tomorrow as an offering for her patron goddess.

  Annie glanced over at Duncan giving him an uneasy smile. “So,” she said. “That’s my little band of misfits. Usually they behave a little better when I have company over.”

  Duncan didn’t move and Annie laughed nervously as she busied herself with getting her grill ready. She kept chatting away afraid her new neighbor would bolt, who wouldn’t? Salem was known for its curious cast of characters from the drag queen of Salem to the homeless guy who loved to hand out strange pieces of junk to anyone who would accept them. At times Salem was drowning in crazy, but it was what she loved most about her adopted town. Annie kept up her idle chatter as she fought with her temperamental grill which usually refused to light; tonight was no different. Never once did she look at Duncan, she wasn’t even sure he was still there. Regardless she continued to talk.

  “So Kat and Griffin have been together for about two months,” she explained as she gave up on the electronic ignition her grill used to possess. She fished under the grill for the lighter she usually kept stashed there. “Manual ignition it is then,” she said out loud in an attempt to keep an uncomfortable silence from forming. “So anyways,” she said removing the grates and turning all the knobs on high. “They’re kind of like momma and poppa in our little clan with Robert and I being like the brother and sister duo.”

  Finally she dared to look over at Duncan who stood arms across his chest grinning at her. “I like yer clan,” he said emphasizing the last word. “They’re unusual aye, but verra protective.”

  Annie let out a relieved breath. “And just a little invasive,” she said to her open bedroom window which overlooked the garden. She was rewarded by the sound of her friends scurrying away from the open window pushing each other as they tried to escape from their spy perch.

  Duncan chuckled next to her. He bent his head down close to her ear and kept his voice low so only she could hear his words. “I have to admit to a spark of jealousy. I didn’t expect to come all this way and have you taken from me chuisle mo chroi.”

  Annie turned to face him. He was inches away from her now. All she had to do was lean forward slightly to touc
h him, to kiss him. She was shocked that she wanted to do both so very badly. She raised her gaze and found his eyes and was delighted with what she found waiting or her there. His gaze drifted from her eyes to her mouth. Annie felt her eyelids flutter and finally lower in anticipation of a kiss she was sure was soon to follow. A light breeze drifted across her face, in the distance she heard a bird screech and then her nose was assaulted with the sulfuric smell of gas.

  Gas!

  Her eyes snapped open as she spun towards the grill remembering she had turned the gas on high. She quickly turned all the knobs off. She was breathing heavy, sucking putrid air in and out of her lungs. Duncan had retreated a few steps away from her in the confusion; he too seemed to be struggling to breathe. She heard him mutter what must have been a Gaelic curse judging by the way he raked his fingers through his hair.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. She truly was sorry for ruining what she was sure would have been an amazing first kiss.

  It had been close, too close. One moment his gut was seized tightly in the ugly grip of unwarranted jealousy and the next he was inches away from kissing her. He could not forgive himself for either emotion. He had growled; growled like the angry beast that still inhabited a piece of his soul, and not just once but twice. It had taken every ounce of control he could muster not to rip Griffin off Annie and pummel him until the beast inside him stopped raging. He had held on and quickly realized the other man was testing him instead of holding her the way he would have it was brotherly and protective, not a man staking his claim.

  He had been so relieved, almost giddy, that he had almost forgotten about his curse. She was chatting away and all he could do was sit and listen to the lovely sound of her voice. Such a simple thing yes, but it was something he had not realized he missed so much. When he finally replied to one of her comments his words just seemed to flow out of his mouth. It was the way she had looked at him, No more like the way she used to look at him before…

  Luckily fate had intervened and stopped him from making a tragic mistake. He had no idea what kind of pain the curse would cause, just the memory of the physical pain he had endured during his vision. If that was what the curse invoked he would never touch her again no matter how much he wanted to. Pain meant little to him, but he would never allow himself to cause her pain. He had to try harder to keep his distance and to keep his feelings in check. Judging by how things were going so far he was failing miserably, and he feared the more time he spent around her the harder it would become not to tempt the power of the curse.

  The rest of Annie’s dinner party had gone smoothly. They all ate and talked; sipped on wine and joked with each other. As the evening wore on he found himself enjoying their company. The four of them had created a bond with three of them orbiting one. None of them seemed aware of what they were doing; but as Duncan sat back and observed he began to notice it more and more, they were protecting her. More than once he caught one of them glancing into the shadows, like they were watching and waiting for something dangerous to appear out of them. Duncan was sure two of them were druids. Kat and Griffin shimmered silvery; in fact Duncan was almost positive Griffin was the druid he had seen controlling the mist earlier that morning. He decided to put his theory to the test.

  “Since you’re all practicing witches,” he began. “Can you think of a reason someone would be practicing magick early this morn?”

  His eyes shot to Griffin as the man squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. Kat and Griffin exchanged nervous glances while Robert feigned interest in a nearby bush. Annie instantly became angry and immediately jumped to her feet and pointed an accusing finger at Griffin. The man shot him an angry glare and Duncan who tried to look as innocent as possible, all the while doing a happy internal jig.

  Payback, he thought.

  “You promised you wouldn’t,” Annie hissed at Griffin.

  Griffin raised his hands in an attempt to calm Annie. “In my defense you are not the only one on this street that has been bothered by that little shit.” His eyes filled with hatred as he ground out those last words. “In case you forgot there was damn near a street fight out here the other night.”

  Duncan sat up straighter, and leaned forward, his interest more than peaked, and he needed to know more. “What is goin’ on?” he asked quietly.

  “It’s nothing really,” Annie muttered in reply.

  Duncan ignored her and asked the question again. This time he directed it at Griffin. Griffin hesitated a moment then refocused his attention on Duncan. “There’s this ass hat that lives next to Kat,” he said giving the woman nestled on his lap a squeeze. She patted his hand comfortingly in return. “He’s a menace, and that’s putting it lightly. At first he was just a pest. Now,” he said sighing. “Well let’s just say he won’t’ be a problem anymore.”

  Duncan nodded at the other man silently thanking him for taking care of what he could not. He wondered if that was what they were all on alert about. He would have to keep an eye out for the human. Duncan glanced over his shoulder up at his window where he knew Knackers would be watching and listening. He caught Annie watching him; he saw her squinting into the darkness at his window. He saw the curtain quickly shut and hoped she had missed it. She wasn’t ready to meet Knackers just yet.

  “Is there somebody up there? She asked still squinting up at his window.

  “Just my cat, Knackers,” he explained.

  Just then a loud crash, followed by what Duncan could have sworn was a yelp came from inside Annie’s house. All their heads turned at the sound but it was Robert who broke the tension.

  “Yep! Definitely a Brownie.”

  Chapter Six

  A Walk in the Willows

  Morning came too early for Annie. The early morning sun lit up her bedroom and poked incessantly at her closed eyelids. She let out a groan as she threw her arm over her eyes in a feeble attempt to shut out the bright light pouring in through her window. Sleep had come in short bursts last night and had been peppered with scattered images that although had persistently haunted her last night refused to be recalled now as her consciousness took over her groggy mind. She pushed the memory of dreaming aside and begged for sleep to return. After floundering in her bed for a few more minutes she realized falling back to sleep was futile. What she needed was a shower and an unhealthy amount of caffeine, and not necessarily in that order.

  Her eyes refused to open properly as a thick crusty substance had apparently decided to cake itself to her upper and lower eyelashes. She shuffled into the kitchen half blind, fumbling her way over to the coffee maker. It was then that her nose woke up. She sniffed the air around her again and realized that her nose had not lied, there was already coffee brewing. A groggy, “Humph” escaped her scratchy throat. She didn’t remember setting the timer on her coffee maker; maybe Kat had done it for her. She shrugged, not caring too much about how the coffee had come into being she was just grateful it was made and ready to be ingested.

  A few stumbling moments later a steaming cup of the elixir of life in her hand she was shuffling around her bathroom twisting knobs and preparing a scalding shower. She carefully sipped at her coffee while she rubbed at her eyes in an attempt to rid them of the sticky goo that insisted on clinging to her eyelashes. Steam began to fill her closet sized bathroom as she abandoned her clothes and coffee and stepped into the blissfully hot steaming water.

  An eternity later Annie was scrubbed, dressed and on her third cup of coffee as she emerged from her house. She squinted up into the clear blue sky frowning at the sun that had decided to wake her a good hour before her alarm clock usually would. Her job as a tour guide required her to keep strange hours. Tours, like most of the business in town, did not begin operations until late morning carrying on throughout the day and sometimes well into the night. Tonight was one of those nights for Annie. She had promised another tour guide that she would cover his ghost tour that evening. She blew out a breath that she hadn’t realized she had been holding, she hated do
ing ghost tours. She preferred her little historic walks that informed the tourists that there was more to Salem than just witches. Of course that’s what made Salem a hot tourist attraction; one incident in history had branded Salem as the witch town.

  Now no matter where you looked you were reminded that witches, innocent women really, once roamed the streets. The iconic image of a witch riding on her broom was everywhere from tee shirts and mugs to the high school mascot and even painted on the side of police cruisers. But at least that was part of history, the ghosts were not.

  Ghosts were simply a product of overwrought imaginations that tried to find a supernatural answer when a mundane one would fit. Phantom smells, sudden temperature drops, shadows and whispers all had logical explanations. In Annie’s skeptical mind there was no such thing as ghosts. It was this belief that made leading a ghost tour such a chore for her. She had the script down pat and even added a little of her own spin to it. It wasn’t the tour itself that she minded; it was the never ending supernatural questions that always plagued a ghost tour.

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Yes,” she would lie. Because honestly why would a non-believer in the supernatural be leading a ghost tour.

  “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

  “Yes right here were we are standing…” another lie for the tourists. Then she would spin a tale more based in folklore than in actual truth. It was a talent she had inherited from her father who was a professor of folklore and mythology at a small college in upstate New York.

  These were the usual question that were always asked on every tour usually by some husband or boyfriend that had been dragged on the tour by his wife or girlfriend who was a firm believer. Following Annie’s made up answer the men were usually smacked and given an ‘I told you so look’. Tourists were nothing if not predictable.

  Annie began massaging her temples that were throbbing already at the impending migraine the ghost tours seemed to bring on; coupled with the fact that sleep had been hard to come by the night before meant Annie was going to need more than her usual dosage of caffeine followed by more than a few beers at the pub later that evening.