The next instant, the two forces collided in mid-air. She flew at him at the same moment he rocketed at her in all his power. He cracked his tail around to lash her against his body. He beat his wings to raise her above the trees, and the two tumbled over and over in their struggle.
The evil Faery made a dive for his throat. Her dagger teeth cut his skin, and she came away bloody all over her face. He bellowed in pain, but he wouldn’t let her go. He wrapped her in his coils, and they catapulted over the city into the clouds.
In a distant corner of his mind, he worked through the possibilities. Was this wicked Faery part of the curse? Maybe her dreadful experience in this lifeless world robbed her of any knowledge of goodness. He would probably never know why she attacked him. He was too busy fighting for his life, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill her. He kept thinking about Hazel.
His Faery vision showed him Hazel as an old woman, bent and rotten from years of her power festering and corrupted inside her. He struggled through the air with an older shade of Hazel. Her power exploded out of control. She had no clue what she was doing. Hazel would attack Fergus this way if she lost control of her power. He had to show this old woman mercy if he could find any way to do it.
She called up incredible strength, not only to defend herself against him, but to destroy him in her howling fury. She snapped her teeth and scratched with her claws. Her evil infected his skin and turned his heart to lead, but he still fought back.
He tightened his coiled tail around her. In one furious yank, he jerked away and whipped his tail to spin her through the air. She somersaulted away. The minute she righted herself in the air, she rocketed at him faster than ever. A deafening roar of murderous rage blasted out of her mouth.
Fergus couldn’t allow this to continue. He had to stop her, even if it meant killing her. Before he could think, he opened his mouth and shot a blistering jet of flame at her. It hit her hard and sent her careening backward, far out over the city beyond sight. She flew far, far away, and when he cut off the fire, she vanished into thin air.
He fluttered there above the trees for a long moment before he descended and set his feet on the ground. He brushed off his kilt and stole a glance around the neighborhood. No one looked up from what they were doing to notice a dragon and an evil Faery battling it out above their city.
He set off back down the sidewalk toward Hazel’s house.
Chapter 12
Hazel yanked the door out of Fergus’s hand. “Fergus! There you are! I’ve been going out of my mind wondering when you would get back.”
He leaned against the kitchen counter. “It’s naught tae me, lass. If ye dinnae wish tae mate wi’ an Urlu, I dinnae care ought aboot’t. I mean, I care and all, ye understand. I care a wee bit more’n that, I can tell ye. I ainly mean if that’s the way ye want’t, I’ll no abandon ye ’ere tae make the best o’ it on yer own. That’s all I’m sayin’.”
She shook her head. A glowing smile spread over her face. “Forget about all that. Look, Fergus!”
She held a piece of paper in front of his face. He turned away. “I cinnae read that.”
“Sure, you can,” she insisted. “Just look what it says. Here’s the answer we’ve been looking for, right in front of our faces.”
“I cinnae read, lass,” he replied. “That’s what I’m tryin’ tae tell you.”
She stared at him before she fully understood what he was saying. “Oh. Well, that doesn’t matter. It’s an article in the newspaper. I found it in the mailbox after you left. It’s dated last week, and it’s talking about the Stone of Scone. Look. There’s a picture.”
She folded the paper back. She moved around to stand next to him so they could look at the picture together. He gazed down at the picture of two old men standing on either side of a large square stone.
“These men are anthropologists,” she told him. “They’re studying the Stone, and they’re bringing it here! They’re bringing it to a lab in New York to study it. Don’t you see? We can get to it. It’s not like we’d have to travel to Scotland to find it.”
He sniffed down at the picture. “This an’t the Stone o’ Scone. It’s a fake.”
Hazel spun around. “What?”
“It’s no the real Stone,” he told her. “Look at’t. Anyone can see.”
“What do you see?”
He shrugged. “I cinnae say. I can ainly see it’s no the real Stone. They would ne’er allow the real Stone tae leave Scotland.”
She regarded him with her head on one side. He could see things others couldn’t, but she never expected him to be able to do it with a picture in the newspaper. He stared down at the picture with that far-off expression he got when he saw something below the surface.
Hazel shivered. “Well, listen to what the article says. It says a few crack-pots claim the Stone is a fake, that the real Stone of Scone was hidden and a replica created, and the English took the fake Stone with them to England and then repatriated it a few years ago. At least two different people claim to be in possession of the real Stone. We’ll have to find it.”
“It winnae do no good,” he returned. “We cinnae find a Stone from ’ere tae replace the one taken from Scone Abbey by the curse. We mun’ find the same Stone.”
“One of these could be the same Stone,” she pointed out. “The curse could have brought the real Stone here —I mean our Stone—and planted it in Scotland.”
A hint of a smile crept over his face. “It could ha’e planted the Stone in yer back garden, too.”
Her eyes snapped to his face. His eyes twinkled. He was joking. She burst out laughing. “Well, you’re the one with Faery sight. Why don’t you tell us where it is?”
He blushed and looked away. “I cinnae do that.”
“Why not?”
His gaze migrated back to her face, and his eyes widened. “I…. I dinnae ken. I ne’er thought I ought tae, but I… I suppose there’s no reason I couldnae.”
She tried not to grin. “So…did you see it in the back garden?”
The smile vanished off his face. “No, lass. I didnae see the Stone o’ Scone in yer back garden.”
“What did you see on your walk?”
“Ne’er ye mind. The important thing is tae find the Stone and take it back tae the Abbey—the Abbey in our own time—I mean, in my time.”
The words stabbed Hazel in the guts. “Do you mean….?”
“If ye want tae stay ’ere,” he replied, “I willnae try tae stop ye. I dinnae wish tae stay ’ere wi’ ye. I would do anythin’ else fer ye, lass. Ye ken that as weel as I. If ye mean tae stay, I’ll stay wi’ ye. I dinnae care if ye dinnae wish tae mate wi’ an Urlu. I understand now why ye’d feel that way, and I winnae bring’t up again. Just ken I’ll stay. I’ll help you.”
She looked up into his eyes. He stood right in front of her, as clear and solid as ever. He was Urlu, but all of a sudden, it didn’t matter anymore. He was just Fergus, the same Fergus who always stood by her, no matter what.
What difference did it make in the end if she became Urlu or not? She was already Faery. Turning away from him would never change that. If he returned to Urlu and left her behind, she would be just as Faery as she ever was. If she mated with him, if she finally gave in to this aching desire for him, she would be Urlu, too. So what?
The newspaper fell out of her hand, and she attacked him with arms and legs flying. She mauled his mouth and grappled her arms around his neck. She had to get hold of him now before she lost her mind.
What was she doing with herself, pushing him away all these months? What was she thinking, turning her head so she wouldn’t see his blue dragon form soaring over the castle to the mountains beyond? What was she doing hiding in her room when she could be living the life of the castle with her friends and family?
Yes, family. That’s what they were, but she never let herself believe it before. She could have been there. She could have enjoyed untold connection and belonging if she only accepted it. She
wouldn’t make that mistake again.
She gobbled his mouth in greedy bites. She nipped his lips and swept her tongue through his mouth. She pressed her breasts against his chest and slipped her knee between his legs. He raced to keep up with her maniac passion.
He matched her for a minute. Then he shoved her back with a gasp. “No, lass!”
“I don’t care anymore!” she cried. “I don’t care. I just want you. That’s all I want.”
The next minute, they collided in insane ravenous desire all over again. He strapped his muscled arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor. He met her craven mouth in rabid kisses. His hands glided all over her, down her hips to her ass, up under her shirt to her armpits, and around her sides to her breasts.
She squealed in excitement. She never gave herself to any man like this. Throwing herself at a man as handsome and enticing as Fergus would have sent her into spasms as it was, but this took her to a different plane of experience. He was Urlu, and getting with him would make her Urlu, too.
Her deepest being screamed Yes! to all of it. She wanted this. She wanted to throw all caution to the wind. She wanted to throw her old self in the trash can of history and become something completely different. She never belonged anywhere before. She certainly never belonged to the Urlus.
Sleeping with Angus’s brother wouldn’t have changed that, but this certainly would. She would have to fit in. She would never NOT fit in again. She would belong to all Urlu even more than Elle and Carmen did. She would fly over the mountains. She would race with the Guard and haunt the clouds.
Her heart soared to the skies when she imagined it. This was her moment. Her whole life came to this, and she wouldn’t hold back. Her heart burst with the joy of it, and through it all, she had him. She would finally have him with nothing to stop her.
Her skin burned to touch him. Her fevered desires bubbled out of her, and she rubbed her inflamed flesh against his leg. His hard package dug into her sizzling tissues. God, she wanted him! She wanted everything that he was. She wanted to inhale him until she became him.
She couldn’t stop kissing him. He intoxicated her, now that she unleashed the bonds holding her back. She released her pent-up tension to feel him against her for the first time.
He lifted her higher and scooped one leg around his waist. She hurled the other around him and clung to him for dear life. He carried her into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. His hand slipped up her neck to cradle her head. He ran his fingers into her hair. Her hair tie came loose, and her hair draped around her face.
She rubbed her aching crotch on the hard knob under his kilt. He groped all over her in matched fury. They gasped for air between kisses while their tongues danced and played back and forth from one mouth to the other.
His hands found her breasts under her shirt. He tugged her bra out of the way and massaged them between his powerful fingers. Hazel mewed in ecstasy. Her juicy insides hungered for him inside her, to complete the circuit long left unfulfilled.
He flexed his hips to meet her grinding down on him. The more she rode him to quickening delight, the harder he got. He snarled under his breath in throbbing fury.
All of a sudden, he grabbed her and pitched back on the bed. He crammed his hands down her pants to grip her smooth curves. He pushed her pants off to reveal her alabaster flesh to the world.
Hazel sparkled all over at his touch. Her nerves screamed for this. She welcomed his hands commanding her to respond, and when he flipped his kilt back to reveal his rigid shaft, she welcomed that, too, in her vibrant living self.
Her hair brushed around his face. She couldn’t see anything but his eyes staring back at her. The close grip sealing him inside her only completed that intense union between his soul and hers. They were together. They always had been. She just never noticed it before.
Now she couldn’t ignore it. She had to look into him and let him look into her. Someone in this crazy world had to know what she was, and it was always him. Did he feel the same way about her? Did she know him better than anyone else?
He thought so, so who was she to argue? He stretched his arms out to his sides and let her kiss down his neck to his chest while his thick shaft moved in and out of her deepest insides. Her hair tumbled around his face and chest, and she sighed in blissful fulfillment.
She moved faster, and he groaned in agony. He couldn’t keep his hands off her. He touched her sides. Then his rock hard arms closed around her. He crushed her against him and guided her down on his shaft. He pumped up into her to milk the delicious moans from her soul.
She spread her hips over him. She drove him to her depths. He mouthed her ear and sank his teeth into her neck. He growled low every time she sat down hard on his knob. He flexed his hips to meet her coming down.
His essence mingled with her sweet honey, and she anointed his body with her steamy elixir. Her head swam in ecstasy, and she galloped faster to meet her fulfillment rushing at her with unstoppable force.
She draped her breasts across his chest. She propped her arms against his midsection, and her fingernails dug into his skin. He howled at every kick of her hips, but she didn’t hear that. She heard only the crash of surf in her ears as the great wave crashed and shattered her into space. She screamed to the skies. She screamed his name. She screamed until she went hoarse from the incredible ecstasy of meeting him in cosmic union, just the way she always wanted to.
Chapter 13
Fergus kept his eyes closed. Hazel nuzzled behind his ear and kissed his neck. He hugged her into his shoulder and floated on a pillow of contentment. Her body warmed him under the coverlet on her bed. She never stopped moving against him all night long. Now the sun shone through the window where neither of them bothered to shut the curtain.
He stroked her hair and murmured into the ear pressed against his mouth. “Ye’re Urlu, lass.”
She didn’t answer. She bit the skin above his collarbone and nibbled down his sternum. Her blazing red hair scattered across his chest. He rubbed her neck and watched her head bob to one side when she flicked her tongue around his nipple.
“Lass?”
She mumbled something unintelligible. “Mmm-hmm.”
“You’re Urlu, lass. Are ye goin’ tae mate wi’ me as a dragon now?”
She still didn’t answer. She dragged her tongue down his stomach, lower and lower. She was insatiable, no matter what she was. He wondered a few times in the last few months if she might be sexually frigid, if she was too timid and frozen to function in bed. He never dreamed she would have the opposite reaction when the time came.
He had to find a way to get her attention. He had to distract her from…. that. “Be careful, lass. The dragon’ll bite ye.”
She came up laughing. “I am the dragon, and I’ll bite you.”
He kissed her. “Ouch.”
She propped herself up on her elbow. “So tell me something.”
“Anything, lass.”
“Where’s the Stone of Scone?”
He started back. “Eh? How should I ken where it is?”
“Just look,” she told him. “Use your sight and tell me where it is.”
He inspected her with his head on the side. “Eh?”
“You could see it through that picture, so you should be able to see it without even looking. Just turn your sight on the Stone and tell me where it is.”
He blinked, and all of a sudden, he knew it was true. He could see the Stone out there somewhere. All he had to do was look, and there it was. Why didn’t he think of that before? Maybe too many things happened one right after the other to distract him from it.
He turned his eyes away from her sex-disheveled face. He gazed out the window. Faery hovered there beyond the surface. He saw the King under the mound surrounded by his courtiers and his queen. He saw Sinclair and Douglas and Athol far away there, too. They stood in the same court with the King. He sighed.
“What do you see?” Hazel asked.
&nbs
p; “The lads—Menzies and Douglas and Sinclair. They’re awright. I thought they were dead.”
“Where are they?” she asked.
“They’re home. They’re back in Faery where they belaing. They must ha’e gone there after we came here. The curse must ha’e sent them home.”
Hazel’s head sank onto his chest. “Thank God. I thought they were dead, too.”
He hugged her head in his big hand, but he didn’t turn aside from the vision. There was Angus and Robbie and Callum and Jamie, all safe and sound in Urlu. They didn’t even notice Hazel and Fergus were gone.
He scanned his sight over the landscape, but he didn’t see the Stone anywhere. He saw the Stone from this time, away off there in Scotland, but it didn’t shine and twinkle in the distance for him. That wasn’t the Stone he wanted.
He searched everywhere, in this world, in Urlu, in Faery, and far afield.
Hazel murmured in his ear. “Can you see it?”
“It’s nowhere.”
“It must be somewhere. Can you see where the holes lead?”
He shook the dust out of his eyes to look at her. “They lead nowhere, too. Dinnae ye ken that, lass? It’s the curse. What if they disappeared the Stone? They could ha’e wiped it out o’ existence.”
“I don’t believe that,” she replied.
“And why no?”
Her eyes shifted away from his face. Now it was her turn to stare off into space. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have, maybe because the curse comes from me. The curse wouldn’t wipe the Stone out of existence. Think about it. If it sent those guys home when it brought us here, maybe it did the same thing with the Stone. Maybe it sent the Stone and everything else it took back to where they were before. Maybe the Stone is back in Scone Abbey, and all those people are back home, along with the tables and fenceposts and everything else.”
He bit back a smile. “That’d be a nice thought.”
“We have no reason to believe it’s not true. If we’re here, the others may be here, too.”
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