His mother’s voice nagged at the back of his mind, while lust inflamed his body. He had to talk to her. He had to tell Hannah the gateway back to Taroc Na Mor was gone. Surely then they could move on with their lives. She would accept the reality of things. He knew she would, just as she had accepted him.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” Hannah prowled over to him with a promising smile curling her inviting lips.
Pulling her close, Taggart breathed in the perfume of her hair and the honey-sweet warmth of her still damp skin. “Mother kept me o’er long. Did ye enjoy your bath, my love?”
As she buried her face into his chest, Hannah slid her hands up inside Taggart’s shirt. “Not as much as I’m going to enjoy being back in your arms.”
Swallowing a groan, Taggart pulled away and tucked her hands into his own. “First, we must talk. I’m afraid there’s something I must tell ye, Hannah, about the portal to Taroc Na Mor.”
A confused look darkened her eyes as Hannah searched his face. “What are you talking about? You said as soon as we saved your people from Sloan, we could go back to Taroc Na Mor. Enough talk, I missed you and I need you to hold me.” Hannah stretched forward and nipped at his chest.
With a groan, Taggart shuddered and took a step back. She wasn’t making this any easier. Patting her hands, Taggart hedged and pulled her closer to the bubbling fountains. “Not exactly. I believe I told ye I couldna desert my people. I never actually went into any details about returning to Taroc Na Mor.”
Hannah’s eyes narrowed as she jerked her hands out of his grasp. She circled him slowly, smoothing her robe and yanking the belt tighter about her waist. “Out with it, Taggart. What are you not saying? You’ve got a bad habit of omitting extremely necessary details. You’re a great deal like the little boy who only steals some of the cookies from the cookie jar.”
“The portal to Taroc Na Mor has been destroyed.”
Hannah stopped in her tracks, clenched the neckline of her gown, and scowled as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Destroyed? As in, gone, like I-can-never-go-back-ever-again destroyed?”
Taggart tilted his head with a weak shrug of one shoulder. “In a way.” She wasn’t making this easy on him. The curve of her cheeks flamed a decided shade of red. A clear indication the fires of her fury blazed higher. Uneasiness wrapped icy fingers of worry around his spine and raked their nails across his gut.
“It’s a simple question, Taggart. Either I can go back to Taroc Na Mor or I can’t. Which is it?” Hannah’s voice increased several decibels, nearing an irritated shriek.
This wasn’t going well. She shouldn’t be this upset. After all, at least they were together and she no longer sat inside Sloan’s prison. “Hannah, I can use my magic once to send ye back. But I can only send ye back alone.” Taggart paused, allowing his words to sink in and his frustration fermented when she didn’t say a word. “I canna go with ye when I send ye back and I can never bring ye back to Erastaed once ye’ve gone. We would be separated forever.” God’s beard. Why doesn’t the woman understand? All that mattered was the fact that they were together.
Hannah stood with her fists clenched. Her lower lip trembled as her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “How did the gateway get destroyed?” she asked with a trembling voice.
Ducking his head, Taggart turned away. He couldn’t bear the hurt and recrimination in her eyes. “We overloaded it,” he admitted. “Too many of us came through at one time when we brought all the Draecna through.”
“So, what you’re telling me is,” Hannah choked out in a quivering voice, “if you had been more careful, more patient, and had only sent through a few at a time, then I wouldn’t have to make the choice between everything I’ve ever known and loved and the man I’ve only known for a few months. The man who’s brought nothing but chaos into my life.”
Somehow, it sounded really bad when she put it like that. Perhaps that was why mother had been so very pissed. With a nod, Taggart replied, “Aye.”
“Get out and leave me alone. I can’t stand to look at you right now.” Hannah pointed at the door as tears spilled down her face.
“Hannah.”
“I said, out.”
“How many of the outer provinces are still ablaze?” Sloan paced the length of the table, which was in the center of the room and had all the regions of Erastaed mapped out on its surface. Outside the window, the smoke of the burning villages still darkened the horizon. The putrid scent of charred bodies and decaying flesh hung heavy in the air. Sloan inhaled the delectable perfume of the carnage. He just wished his brother’s scent reeked among them.
Corter stood in the doorway with his bandaged arm lashed to his side. “At least half a dozen still burn bright. A few more are no more than smoldering piles of ashes.”
Studying the table, Sloan traced a nail along a silver-edged line running along one of the mountains to the north and turned his head to read the inscription. “And yet no one has given up Taggart’s whereabouts? No one has seen the newest female Draecna or the guardian?”
With a snort, Corter shook his head. “Not even when we stretch them across the fire pits and turn the dogs loose on ’em.”
“Such loyalty,” Sloan muttered. The people had always loved his brother. Sloan had never understood it. The man was half beast. Were they complete fools? He could turn on them in an instant. “Has anyone sighted the goddess lately? I’m sure with the guardian traipsing about, Isla and her royal guard won’t be too far away.”
Corter shrugged his unbandaged, hairy shoulder, swiping a grubby hand across his face as he limped closer to the table. “I’m tellin’ ye, Sloan. Ain’t nobody talkin’. And now that slinkin’ Mia’s dead. We ain’t got no good spies left.”
Tapping the table with his longest black fingernail, Sloan scowled up into Corter’s face. The man best be glad he’d changed his mind and decided to let the fool live. “Order the Waerins to gather information. Have them use their shape-shifting abilities to source out Taggart and the guardian, but they are not to leave a trail of bodies in their wake. There will be no more killing unless I personally approve it. Is that understood?”
“Why not?” Corter asked. “It’ll just save us time later.”
With a roll of his eyes, Sloan tugged his handkerchief out of his sleeve and pressed it to his lips. Corter’s stench reeked worse than usual, accentuating the fact that he was such a bloodthirsty little minion. “If we allow things to calm down a bit, perhaps Taggart and Hannah will relax and show themselves.”
Corter’s eyes widened with understanding. “Ahh. I gotcha now. I’ll talk to Metador and have him take it from there.”
Sloan inhaled the perfume scenting his lace-trimmed handkerchief. Mia. Pity the little chit had decided to splatter herself all over his chamber floor. Scowling at the table, Sloan slipped the cool cloth between his fingers and thought how her lifeless eyes weren’t that much different from how they’d been when she’d lived.
No matter. He’d easily find a replacement once this sordid business with Taggart and his bothersome guardian was resolved. Crumpling the handkerchief into a ball, Sloan focused his gaze on the collapsed pedestal that had once held his precious egg. A female Draecna. If only he’d known. He could’ve better prepared. Clenching his teeth, he remembered his father. By the fire of all Hades, he could’ve sired his own generation of Draecna hybrids.
The chaos of rebuilding echoed all around him. Constant hammering and shouting battered his sensibilities throughout each day and late into the night. A curse upon his brother and his army of Draecna! Leaning on the table, Sloan glared at the map and willed it to give up the hiding place of his brother.
“I will find you, Taggart,” Sloan hissed down at the colored topographical vista. “And when I do, I will dine on your heart while ye watch.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Is she speaking to ye yet?” Thaetus settled himself into the chair beside Taggart, wincing as his body hit the seat.
Eyeing his friend’s pained movements with a sympathetic cringe Taggart shook his head. “Not yet. I’m sure she’ll come around. Hannah is a sensible lass.”
“And your mother?” Thaetus wheezed into his cup as he sipped his morning grog.
“My mother never stops speaking,” Taggart retorted while massaging his temples. Gads, her voice still pounded in his head. He wondered if she’d spelled him with a nagging hex to keep her words constantly drumming in his brain.
“I heard that, Taggart.” Isla’s voice echoed down from the rafters as golden particles sifted into the room.
“ ’Tis very rude to eavesdrop, Mother,” Taggart noted as he fixed the sparkling ceiling of the kitchen with a murderous glare.
The golden particles swirled and solidified into the shining form of the Goddess Isla. “I was not eavesdropping. I was in this room before the two of ye decided to come in for your morning grog.”
“Aye, the fact that ye just weren’t visible isn’t a factor?” Taggart drummed his fingers on the table, wishing he had something stronger in his cup. It appeared he was going to need it.
Isla glided around the table and poured herself a drink. “I was merely keeping out of the way until I was called upon to finalize the mating vows.”
Draining his cup, Taggart pounded it down on the table and fixed his mother with a baleful glare. “Well, since one of the participants in the ceremony refuses to speak to the other, there’s a slight problem with the I do’s.”
“Then I suggest ye get busy and fix it.”
Don’t say it. Taggart bit back the first words springing to mind. He had to be respectful to Mother. He rose from the table to pace about the room. Something about walking helped him think. “Tell me, dear Mother. What exactly should I do? Ye never seem short on advice.”
“Mind your tone,” Isla warned as she settled herself in her seat at the head of the table. “Thaetus, ye’re looking stronger every day. Don’t forget the herbs I prescribed.”
Sliding farther down in his seat, Thaetus bobbed his head. “No, ma’am. I shan’t forget. Thank ye ever so much.”
Isla sipped her steaming drink. Her long, graceful snout fit perfectly into the oversized tankard and she curled a dainty claw from the handle. Setting her mug aside, she turned back to her son, her eyes narrowed as she leaned forward in her chair. “I know ye must have some of your father’s seductive genes running in your veins. Woo her, Taggart! Ye must convince her she canna live without ye. Are ye daft or just a bit slow?”
Thaetus choked on the mouthful of grog he’d just sipped and showered the table with the amber-colored liquid.
Pummeling Thaetus on the back, Taggart shot his mother a heated glare. “Have pity on the poor man, will ye, Mother? He still suffers from the aftereffects of Mia’s poison.”
Isla rose from the table and pulled a braided cord hanging beside the hearth. “Rub his back, Taggart. Do not beat the poor man, and I am not the one who caused him to choke.”
A half-grown Draecna scurried into the room in answer to the silent summons. His head was bowed, his narrow chest heaving, as his gaze darted furtively between Taggart and the goddess across the room.
“Dasim, please help Thaetus back to his room and let Gilda know ’tis time to prepare the meals.”
With a bob of his head, Dasim scooped Thaetus up into his arms and cradled him like a babe.
“I can walk!” Thaetus sputtered as the Draecna carried him from the room. “I have never been so humiliated in my entire life.”
Isla closed her eyes with a resigned sigh and turned her attention back to her son. “Dasim is the one survivor from the hatching the Guild attempted. I’m afraid he doesn’t always quite understand.”
Frowning in Dasim’s direction, Taggart searched his memories with a shudder. The botched attempt at bringing forth the young Draecna without a proper guardian had proven fatal for most concerned. “I heard one had suffered ill effects while all the others had perished.”
“Only young Dasim survived, and still suffers greatly with the results of the struggle.”
Circling the room to stand beside her son, Isla combed a claw through Taggart’s hair, then rested it on his shoulder. “Now promise me ye’ll get on with this wooing business. I wish to see ye properly joined and moving on to the task of gifting me with grandchildren. Ye’re over seven hundred years old, ye know. How long do ye expect a mother to wait?”
Taggart leaned his elbows on the table and propped his chin in his hands. “Ye know, Mother, I havena been around for ye to meddle with in several hundred years. Ye really need to pace yourself lest ye burn yourself out.”
With an affectionate cuff to the back of his head, Isla chuckled as she left the room. “Don’t give it a passing thought, my boy. I’ve been saving up.”
She’d never see them again. Her stomach churned with a mixture of frustration and homesickness as she stared down the mist-covered mountain. Her beloved mountain of Jasper Mills would be lost to her forever. She’d not even get to revisit her newly favored landscapes of magical Scotland. No. She blinked back the tears that came to her eyes from the sight of strange mountains in a foreign world where people wished her dead. Hannah hugged her legs tighter against her aching chest and rocked back against the cold, hard ledge.
She’d never see the folks of Jasper Mills again. Never see any of her friends. The woods would take over Jake’s grave and wipe it from existence. Vines of ivy and bushes of wild sumac would engulf the stone, causing it to be lost forever until some hunter stumbled over the marker. Burying her face in her arms, she released a shuddering sigh, hoping at least some of the honeysuckles had taken root around Jake’s headstone to bloom on their anniversary.
There was no question that she would stay here. When she’d thought Esme had burnt Taggart to a crisp, she’d felt the same ripping open of her heart that she’d felt when Jake had died. She didn’t know when she’d made the mistake of allowing herself to love him, but somehow she’d given her heart completely to Taggart. But why did he have to take her choices away? Why hadn’t he been more careful?
“Guardian, it is not safe to be outside of the cavern. It would be best if ye returned inside with me, please.” Esme edged her way out on the ledge beside Hannah, scooting her feet sideways along the rim of the path as she curled her tail around her body.
Hannah wiped the back of her hands across her face, sniffing with a shrug of one shoulder. “I needed somewhere where I could think. No one’s going to bother me out here.”
“Why do you cry? We are safe with the goddess. Her caverns are well guarded by the most trusted Draecna. I would think you would be pleased.”
“It’s complicated, Esme.” Hannah pinched the bridge of her nose. Ugh, she hated crying. It stuffed up her nose and made her head throb. She knew better. Tears never solved anything.
“Males?”
“You’re extremely wise for one so young,” Hannah observed without opening her eyes. “What do you know of males, Esme?”
“Entirely too much, since the crystal caverns seem to be crawling with them.” Esme folded her paws across her stomach and rocked back on her heels. “They appear to think quite highly of themselves and don’t seem to think females know very much at all.”
Massaging her temples, Hannah paused. “Ah, you’ve been talking to Septamus. He just takes some getting used to. He should be able to help you with your lessons. He’s helping William.”
Two rings of smoke puffed out of Esme’s glistening nostrils as she expelled a snorting huff. “Lessons!” She sat bolt upright on the ledge and fixed Hannah with a narrow-eyed glare. “I am a female, Guardian. Females never require lessons. I thought you understood that.”
“Well apparently, I need lessons,” Hannah muttered as she scrubbed her face with her hands. “Esme, I really came out here to be alone. I discovered I can never return home again and I’m having a hard time letting go.”
“But ye will be with your mate, correct?” Esme tilted he
r head and waited for Hannah’s answer as though she were a teacher waiting for a student’s response.
Hannah nodded. “Yes. I’ll be here with Taggart. But I’m still going to miss all the people I loved back home. And I’m going to miss my homeland and everything I left behind.” How could she explain the aching homesickness battering her heart to the logical, fact-based Esme?
Esme studied the sky for a moment, wrinkled her brow between her horns, then turned and shook her head at Hannah. “Is not being with the one who makes your heart sing all that truly matters?”
Hannah closed her eyes and leaned back against the ledge. Yes. That was all that truly mattered. Esme had hit the nail on the head. No wonder female Draecna didn’t need lessons. Leave it to Esme to boil it down to the facts.
Her auburn curls shone by the light of the fire like fine brandy swirling in a snifter. Taggart’s groan caught in his chest; his fingers itched to lock in those silken tresses and lower Hannah beneath him on the bed. The silk wrap she wore as she sat reading clung to the swell of her breasts and traced the path his hands and his mouth longed to enjoy. His mouth watered for the taste of her velvet skin and the luscious sweet buttons of her nipples.
She’d bathed in scented water and perfumed herself with oils. He drew a deep breath and shuddered. The lilies, the same scent she’d worn the first night they’d made love. She’d forgiven him; she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Holy blazes. If he kept this up, he’d soon be so hard he’d be unable to walk over to her.
First things first, he’d give her the gift he’d fashioned from his own birth shell his mother had entombed in the depths of the caverns. Then they’d make love the rest of the night and plan the date of their official joining.
“Hannah.”
She raised her head, her eyes dark with need, her wrap barely closed at the waist. Setting aside her book on the couch beside her, Hannah leaned back against the pillows and smiled an invitation for him to sit. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
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