Predestined

by R. Garland Gray

  Leaders of the fire festival, men and women dressed in fine red garments, walked among the cheering revelers with small torches and twigs with streaming red ribbons.

  In the shadows, Bryna stood alone. She could not look away from the dais and her chieftain mate. The black faery webs enhanced Tynan’s dark, mystical allure. He wore no personal decoration, unlike the rest of his people who showed off their brightly colored tunics and girdles of chains.

  She pulled her gaze away and looked out among the people. The Tuatha Dé Danann were on a precipice. Some, like the line of Dark Chieftains, had faery blood in their veins, binding them to an ancient calling. Others, like Ian and Edwin, were still completely mortal. Only time would tell if the tribe went the way of the faeries or returned to their mortal ways. Even Bryna did not know this.

  She glanced back at Tynan. He sat motionless, his gaze searching restlessly over the crowd for her. Hawk climbed up on his father’s lap, his face alight with the rare fire spectacle.

  Bryna knew she belonged on the dais with them, yet she could not move from the shadow of the tar barrel where she stood, hiding. There lived a strange emptiness in her heart these days, for although Tynan treated her like a cherished mate, he had yet to speak of love.

  “Child, you should be up there with the chieftain.” Her teacher came to stand before her, and Bryna sensed a dispute coming.

  “I should,” she agreed, but did not move to comply. Maidens danced in the courtyard, faces eager and bright with promise. A whirlwind of magic and moisture blew in from the surging sea, bringing clouds and the threat of rain.

  “Why do you stand here in the shadows?” Derina demanded, jerking the brown hood down to her shoulders.

  “Sometimes, I need the shadows,” Bryna replied calmly, yet beneath her surface the pounding of the bodhran, the ancient war drum, throbbed in her blood.

  “Foolishness, you doona need the shadows. You need him. His heart picked you, child, not his geas.”

  Bryna looked back at her teacher. “What did you say?”

  “I am surrounded by willfulness.”

  “Teacher,” she warned.

  “Child, the chieftain loves you, though he does not speak it. His child already roots in your womb.”

  Bryna started to argue, but stopped. She looked down her body, her right hand sliding over her stomach in wonder. “I am with child?”

  “Aye, you carry the next heir.”

  She did not ask how the druidess knew. “I doona feel weak or ill,” she murmured, her senses turned inward.

  “Why should you?”

  “Last time I felt a draining inside me.”

  The druidess huffed with impatience. “Last time you dinna accept your faery self and your faery self could not accept the child. You are different now. When was your last moon time?”

  “I have not had it since coming from the faeries.”

  “Good.”

  Bryna felt heat rise in her cheeks. “Must you know everything?” She blinked back tears of joy.

  The druidess’s empty eye sockets crinkled. “For a goddess, you know very little. His geas awakens only after his heart chooses one born of faery. Dinna I tell you this?”

  “Nay, you did not.”

  “Being the territorial goddess, you should know it. Once love comes, the chieftain’s geas is reborn in the next heir, carried through his blood, and passed on until the next awakening.”

  “I dinna learn the ways of the faery until a short while ago. You should have told me about his heart’s choice. This does not come natural to me, this fey awareness.”

  “It should.”

  “The only thing that comes natural is the sensing of men’s lies and the coming of storms, like the one approaching now.”

  “A storm comes?” The druidess looked around. “Ah, so you doona know everything,” Bryna said triumphantly.

  “You are in a temper tonight,” her teacher complained, pulling her hood back up. “Must be the babe growing in you.”

  “I am not in a temper,” Bryna argued.

  “You are prideful and stubborn and that one over there,” she pointed a bent finger at Tynan, “is scowling at me like the black evil himself. I doona like it.”

  Tynan watched the exchange between his faerymate and the ancient druidess with growing irritation. Bryna belonged beside him in the celebration, not skulking in the shadows.

  Last night she had joined her body to him in a mating of such pure pleasure that he grew hard thinking of it, yet he sensed a strange distance in her that he could not breach.

  Blazing masses of rope hung between them, silhouetting his faerymate in the shadows of the fire. The sound of the drum beat loudly in his ears.

  When the druidess walked away and Bryna raised incredulous eyes to him, he shot out of the chair.

  “What?” Hawk gasped in surprise, almost toppling over.

  Tynan handed his son to Ian and jumped off the dais into the crowd. He came to her side in just moments.

  “Bryna, what did the druidess say to upset you?” She looked up into his eyes, a faint blush staining her cheeks.

  “ ‘Tis nothing, Tynan. You know how Derina can be.”

  “I know. Why did you not join me on the dais?”

  “I needed to stand apart for a time.”

  “Apart from me?”

  “Aye, for a little while. I had a need to listen to the land.”

  His gaze skimmed the horizon. “Do you sense invaders coming?”

  “Nay,” she hurried to reassure him. “The land is calm . . .”

  “Calm?” He looked back at her, his eyes narrowed in observation. “You tremble before me. Your hands press to your stomach protectively, causing me to wonder if you are ill.”

  “Nay, not ill.”

  Tynan’s nostrils flared when she looked away from him.

  Above them, lightning arced, illuminating the overcast sky in black and gold. Thunder exploded in ageless magic, releasing a waterfall of silvery rain. Turbulence reigned beneath his faery’s serene exterior.

  He turned his face towards the dark purple sky, his eyes blinking against the raindrops. “Another one of your rainstorms comes, faery.”

  “They are not my storms.”

  “They most assuredly are your storms.” He glanced back at her, the passion of the tempest streaming through his blood, his link to his goddess mounting with each breath. “You will talk to me this eve of what bothers you.”

  She did not answer.

  Done being patient, he scooped her up in his arms. “Tynan, put me down!”

  “Not until I know what is wrong and put an end to this silence between us.”

  Unmindful of the pouring rain, he carried his faerymate towards the steps of the Keep. People had run for cover everywhere, leaving only the flames hissing at the rain, an ongoing battle of primordial forces between water and fire.

  Tynan entered Kindred and climbed the center staircase two steps at a time.

  “Put me down,” his faerymate commanded with all the authority of a goddess.

  “Aye, I will.” Tynan strode across the landing into their chambers. He kicked the door shut behind him and entered their bedchamber.

  “Tynan!”

  He dropped her unceremoniously in the center of their bed, where she quickly scrambled back to the edge.

  Tynan stepped back, mindful of the shapely limbs that could lay a man low.

  “Daoine Sidhe,” he warned. “You are drenching the fire celebration.”

  Standing, she flung wet curls out of her eyes and glared at him, her eyes bright with anger and some other emotion he could not fathom.

  “Strong emotions in you seem to trigger rainstorms.”

  “I dinna mean to bring the storm, Tynan. It happens sometimes.” She moved away from him. Un-clasping the gold brooch under her chin, she pulled the drenched cloak from her shoulders.

  “The elemental force of the storm surges in you, faery. I feel it in my blood.”

 
Bryna felt every raindrop as it kissed the land in joyous completion of its journey. She had not realized that Tynan sensed it as well.

  She turned to face him and found him studying her damp, gray gown. It had been his first gift to her.

  “No faery webs to tempt me tonight?”

  She looked away.

  “I wish to end this distance between us, here and now.”

  “There is no distance, Tynan.”

  “You hold yourself from me, even when I am deep inside your body.” He backed her up against the wall. “Talk to me.” His head lowered, warm lips brushed hers. “Talk to me.”

  Bryna thought to push him away. Instead, her fingers curled in the wet silk at his temples, holding him close, returning his kiss. He tasted of rain and cherries.

  There was a wildness in him tonight that reverberated with the thunderstorm. She should have known he would be sensitive to her nature, to the pulse and link of the hills, the lochs and the sea.

  Warm hands slid up her thighs, lifting the hem of her gown.

  He broke the kiss and Bryna felt a wrenching inside her, an echo of the disturbance inside him.

  “Bryna,” he said in an agonized whisper, his lips caressing her cheek. “I love you, please love me.” Large hands cupped her buttocks and lifted her. “Love me, faery.”

  “Oh, Tynan.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, her heart brimming with joy. “I love you so.” The black faery webs responded to her happiness, to her willingness to join, truly and fully this first time in the ways of the fey. They slit open over his manhood. He shifted and embedded himself in her honeyed sheath.

  Bryna threw back her head, lost in his love, lost in the rainstorm, lost in his fire and forcefulness of her chieftain mate. Her nails scored the black webs covering his sinewy arms.

  “Take me, faery.”

  He belonged to her now, only to her.

  Bryna took him.

  Took him.

  Cherished him.

  Loved him.

  The powerful, ancient rhythm of his thrusts set the pace, but she enhanced their coupling as only a territorial goddess could.

  The air shimmered around their straining bodies in a veil of gold and silver. Love for him poured out of her, weaving a spell of faery passion around them.

  Fire roared through his blood with a deep intensity. Tynan became one with his faerymate and the thunderstorm, lost in the sensation of a primal force beyond anything he had ever experienced.

  They blazed.

  Hotly.

  Passionately.

  His faerymate soared in his arms, climaxing in a white-hot explosion of brilliance.

  Tynan closed his eyes and threw back his head. Light burst behind his lids. With a violence bordering on pain, he spewed his seed into her womb in a luminous eruption that robbed him of his strength.

  His legs weakened under him.

  With Bryna in his arms, he slid to the floor still deeply embedded in her, her legs wrapped around his hips, the folds of the damp gray gown hiding where they remained joined.

  He struggled to breathe, never having felt anything like this mating before. His faerymate cupped his face. “I love you, Tynan. You are the air that I breathe.”

  Tynan stared into pools of glittering mist. His chest tightened with strong emotions. “I love you, faery. I always have.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “I dinna know.”

  “I dared not admit it even to myself.”

  “Why?” The single word burst out of her.

  “I thought if the faeries knew my true feelings they would use them against me. I could not survive if they took you away.”

  “I would never allow that, my heart.” She smiled through her tears, her hands cupping his face. She thought of the child she carried. “Tynan, would you allow a territorial goddess to give you another gift?”

  “Another gift such as this?”

  “Nay, my love.” She took his right hand and pressed it firmly to her stomach. “I carry your heir.”

  He stared at her in amazement, his eyes searching and then dropping to her stomach.

  “You are not ill this time?”

  “Nay, we are strong and healthy.” She wiggled on his lap to prove her point, piercing the dread that had found its way between them.

  “Shall I show you?” Her hands locked on his broad shoulders to hold on. Her legs tightened around his hips.

  He chuckled low and shook his head. “Bryna, I need a few . . . BY THE GODDESS!”

  Tynan’s head flung back. He bucked, coming off the floor and for a second time that night, he experienced a climax like none before.

  And for a third . . .

  And for a fourth . . .

  EPILOGUE

  SUMMER SLIPPED AWAY ON SHORTENING days, making way for the newborn cold. Snow fell on the land and from the sea came a blustery Feabhra, February, wind.

  Tynan paced the hall all day, his leather boots soundless. Time went by in a blur of apprehension.

  He wore a gold torc about his neck, and a black woolen tunic and breeches. His hair fell unadorned to his waist except for a braid at each temple. Dagger and sword had been set aside long ago. He prayed silently to the mother goddess for the birthing to go easy on both his faerymate and son.

  He stopped at the foot of the staircase, staring again at the landing that led to his chambers. Servants scurried up and down the stairs, their hands full of items gathered at Derina’s and Rose’s bidding.

  Herbs.

  Cloths.

  Buckets of hot water.

  “How long does it take for one wee babe?” Hawk asked nervously, standing in his best green tunic between Ian and Edwin. He had even washed his hair for the occasion.

  Ian crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

  “Babes have their own way of doing things, even if they are born of magic.”

  Tynan glared at Ian.

  The older man simply shrugged. “The snowstorm ends and twilight approaches. The babe will be born then.”

  Tynan peered at the windows. The snowstorm had indeed ended, leaving the land awash in purple light.

  An otherworldly scream tore from his chambers above. Blood drained from his face. Turning, he looked up the staircase.

  Upstairs, Bryna panted as the last of the labor pains left her body.

  “Please, Rose,” she whispered shakily, “let me see him.”

  “Easy, child.” Derina helped Bryna sit up in bed just as Rose came to the edge. The simpler had cleaned the babe and swaddled him in white cloth. Bryna held out her arms, then found them filled with tiny warmth. She looked down. Her son’s eyes were not the lavender of twilight, but the silver gray of rain. He stared up at her from beneath black lashes and gurgled loudly.

  “We know who the father is by that thatch of black hair.” The simpler smiled, stepping back.

  “Aye, that one,” Derina grumbled, gathering the soiled cloths. “Hair black as pitch. Eyes pierced of twilight.”

  “Eyes of silvery mist,” Bryna corrected. Her son had a small, heart-shaped mole on the big toe of his right foot.

  “Eyes of silvery mist,” her teacher mumbled. “That will change.”

  “Mayhap,” Bryna replied, but knew it would not. The faery geas of her chieftain mate would pass from son to grandson and awaken in that time, but that was many years away.

  Suddenly, the sounds of heavy footsteps were heard coming up the stairs. Her chieftain mate barged through the door and stopped, his face pale with dread.

  Bryna smiled gently. “Come, Tynan.” She held a hand out to him. “Come and meet your son.”

  He appeared to be in a daze, walking slowly forward, unaware of the departure of the simpler and druidess. He eased himself onto the edge of the large bed, careful not to disturb her.

  “Are you well?” he asked hoarsely, touching her face.

  Bryna held his calloused hand to her cheek and kissed his thumb. “Both of us are well, my love.”

  “Bot
h.” He peered down at the fretting babe in her arms, his face illuminated with wonder. “He is so small, Bryna,” he murmured in awe.

  “He is small for now, though our son has your big hands and feet.”

  “Our son,” he murmured in a voice shaky with emotion. Touching his son’s wrist, a tiny hand instantly gripped his little finger. Her chieftain mate laughed loudly, his face alight with love and mirth. Leaning forward, he kissed her cheek tenderly. “I love you, faery.”

  “And I you, my heart.” She turned to him, her lips brushing his, her heart warmed with joy and contentment.

  She had found home.

  She had found love.

  She finally BELONGED.

  . . . and the land glimmered with faery blessings for promises well-kept, and true love found.

  - The End -

  - Notes on Text -

  Aile Niurin - Hell Fire

  Áine - Another name for universal mother goddess.

  Bodhran - A Celtic war drum.

  Dana - Universal mother goddess.

  Daoine Sidhe - Faery folk.

  Duil - Desire.

  Draiochtach agus sidhe - Of magical and faery.

  Eire - Ancient Ireland.

  Fey - Faeries.

  Feypaths - Underground secret passages created by faeries.

  Fortnight - Fourteen days or two weeks.

  Fir Bog - Belgians, mystical settlers of Connacht, known as the bag men.

  Gá - Need.

  Geas - A magical obligation.

  Idir - Between.

  Laigin - Ancient name of Leinster.

  Meahd - Balance.

  Milkwater - Goat milk and water drink.

  Mi na ngaoth - Month of winds, February.

  Months - Months - Eanair (January), Feabhra (February), Marta (March), Aibrean (April), Beltane (May), Meitheamh (June), Nollaig (December).

  Sennight - Seven days or one week.

  Sidhe - Gaelic name for the faeries in both Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland.

  Teastaigh - Madness and want.

  Torc - A neck ring, commonly made of gold or bronze.

  Tuaicthe - Anguished hearts.

  Tuatha Dé Danann - Collective term coined in the Middle Ages for the people of the goddess Dana.