Gift of the Realm

by Mackenzie Crowne

  “They were real, Colin.

  Saraid and Owein were real, not just fictional characters from a heartbreaking legend.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “They’re your ancestors.”

  “And yours,” he reminded her. “You’re a descendant of Saraid and Owein, too.”

  “I didn’t miss that detail.”

  “Yes, but has it occurred to you what that means?” At her blank look, he added, “We carry Owein’s blood, Keely, as well as Saraid’s.”

  She stared at him for a moment. Her disbelieving laughter took care of the residual tightness in her belly. “Fairie blood?” she scoffed. “Please!” A lifted brow was his only response. “That’s as ridiculous as it is impossible.”

  “As ridiculous and impossible as sharing your dreams with a handsome Irishman for a decade?”

  She narrowed her eyes at his taunting grin, but had to admit, he had a point. Fairie blood. Good God! How was she supposed to feel about that? She had no clue. She was going to need some time to come to grips with all she’d learned in the past few hours—if coming to grips with the unbelievable was even possible.

  Gift

  of

  the Realm

  by

  Mackenzie Crowne

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Gift of the Realm

  COPYRIGHT Ó 2012 by Lorene M. Ferry

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Diana Carlile

  The Wild Rose Press

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Faery Rose Edition, 2012

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-154-8

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For Marty.

  The fat Irishman who loved a good tale, and

  offered an encouraging word,

  even when he wanted to roll his eyes.

  I miss you, Dad.

  Prologue

  Tanned skin, the color of aged whisky, filled Fiona’s appreciative gaze. Even though Brogan’s shoulders tensed in anger, she couldn’t help but admire the breadth of them and his finely muscled back. Thick mahogany locks, damp with sweat, fell forward in a silken curtain to shield his strong profile. Her lover was a fine specimen of the male form.

  Strong and steady, the still waters of his temperament hid a cauldron of passion he’d been only too happy to share with her these past few weeks. In bed, his enthusiasm for her bold response allowed her to express the soft, womanly feelings he drew from her—feelings she thought never to know again after Fitzgerald Quinn’s painful betrayal. Out of bed, his serene confidence in the rightness of their unexpected joining affected a calm on her volatile and often eruptive personality. And, for the first time in a long time, the future didn’t look so bleak. Most importantly, in his position as Guardian of the Fairie Realm, her father could have no complaint with Brogan as her choice of mate.

  She thought Brogan felt the same way.

  “You said you loved me,” she hissed, sitting up and snagging a corner of the satin sheet to cover her breasts.

  “That I do,” he replied without looking her way. He rose from the bed, gloriously naked, to snatch up the breeches and tunic he’d been wearing before he’d stripped them both bare an hour earlier. Temper was evident in every line of his magnificent body. “But princess or handmaiden, I’ll not be spending eternity with a fairie who carries the memory of her human lover in her heart even as I bring her to pleasure.”

  “Unfair, Brogan. When you touch me, there is no other in my mind.” A regal toss of her head sent her long, pale hair rippling to pool at her waist. Her blue eyes flashed with fire. “I only asked you to help me find a way to make Fitzgerald Quinn pay for his deceit.”

  Brogan yanked the breeches up over his loins with ill grace. “I’m sick to death of hearing the man’s name on your lips. King Cael denied the match, Fiona, and he gave the human his protection! Even if I wished to aid you in your futile quest for vengeance, did you think I would go against my king? I wouldn’t and you know it well.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked to the door, his tunic clenched in a large fist. He wrenched the door open and glanced back at her. His eyes, as green as the emerald hills of Ireland, raked over her before meeting her willful glare.

  “I’ve given you time to put the hurt behind you, but you’ve let it fester until you can think of nothing but destroying that useless excuse for a man. I hope your bitterness can keep you warm, princess, for I no longer will.”

  The walls of her sumptuous bedchamber rattled under the power of the slamming door.

  Chapter One

  Gravel crunched beneath the tires of the SUV as Keely O’Brian brought the vehicle to a stop along the shoulder of the road. At the bottom of the hill, spread out like a three-dimensional postcard, sat the Village of Dunhaven, Ireland. She gripped the steering wheel, drinking in the sight like one who had been wandering in the desert for far too long, thirsting for the sweetness of home.

  “Well, Donovan,” she murmured. “What do you think?”

  A wiry muzzle dropped to her shoulder, and she lifted a hand to scrub absently at the dog’s scruffy beard. An almost human groan of pleasure sounded in her ear. Reflected in the rear-view mirror, the Irish wolfhound’s eyes were slits of pleasure—his large mouth open in a grin full of sharp, white teeth and lolling tongue.

  “I agree,” she laughed, her gaze searching out the roof of Morna’s cottage among the dwellings below. Hers now. The cottage had passed to her nearly ten years ago, at her grandmother’s death. Her smile slipped. She shouldn’t have stayed away so long.

  The decision to give up her position in her father’s law firm, to come back to Ireland, and make her home here, hadn’t been made lightly. No, she mused, a decision weighed for nearly a decade couldn’t be considered impulsive.

  Her parents didn’t understand. Then again, Tom and Shannon O’Brian had always been a bit perplexed when it came to their only child. They loved her, and were proud of her accomplishments, but they’d never quite known what to make of the odd weed in their perfect garden.

  Her gaze shifted unerringly to the cloud-shadowed knoll in the distance. At the edge of the cliffs overlooking the sea, the timeworn columns of Dunhaven’s Door stood as they had for countless centuries. Those seven weathered monoliths pulled at her, filling her dreams—those fanciful dreams that had visited her for as long as she could remember.

  An obsession with an ancient ring of stones she’d never seen was exactly the kind of thing her parents would have scratched their heads over—if she’d bothered to mention it. She hadn’t. How could she explain something she didn’t understand herself? Especially once she’d visited Gran the summer before starting college.

  It was ten years since the dreams changed. From the very first time she’d stepped foot inside the ring at Dunhaven’s Door, her dreams began coming at her like stealthy attacks, clawing at her mind with an urgency, leaving her anxious and confused. And Colin Quinn played a starring role in each of them.

  She grimaced at the memory of their last encounter. Within the dark confines of Quinn Manor’s gazebo, she’d foolish
ly sought Colin’s help understanding the dreams.

  Water under the bridge, she reminded herself.

  She was no longer a wide-eyed teenager, easily dazzled by a pair of laughing blue eyes and a dimpled smile. Experience was a harsh professor, and since the night in the gazebo she’d been determined to become an “A” student.

  She’d done her best to put Colin Quinn and the world of folklore and fantasy behind her after returning to New York. In the end, the effort proved impossible. Though she’d busied herself with her studies, staggering under a heavy course load until she earned her law degree, the dreams continued.

  Her habit of documenting the details of her nightly adventures helped keep her sane, and eventually she wove those details into a story that became the basis for her first novel. The process had been enlightening

  Through the act of writing Into the Mists, she’d learned that though the dreams may set her apart, casting her in the roll of weirdo and freak, they couldn’t destroy her. The experience also taught her that merely surviving the dreams would never be enough.

  Donovan nuzzled her neck from the back seat, and she hummed in anticipation of their surprise appearance. If she’d timed things right, she’d be arriving just in time for the party being held in the garden of Quinn Manor for Kathleen Quinn. Gran’s best friend was turning seventy-five today, and Colin was sure to be there.

  She was nervous about seeing him again, because, whether he knew it or not, he had a role to play in whatever task the nightly visions required of her. He may think her mad when she approached him to demand he assist her in solving the mystery of Dunhaven’s Door, but assist her he would.

  She’d lived with the dreams long enough.

  Besides, unlike the last time she’d faced him, this time she wasn’t alone. If Colin Quinn so much as looked at her wrong, he’d find himself facing down one hundred and fifty pounds of intimidating canine.

  The vision of Donovan growling out his displeasure while his large paws pinned Colin’s wide shoulders to the ground made her smile. She pulled back out onto the road and headed for Quinn Cottage.

  Keely let her gaze run over the tiny house. She’d contracted a local woman to care for the cottage when it had come to her at Morna’s death. Clearly, Mary Flynn took her job seriously. The whitewashed stone structure was well tended and neat as a pin.

  A pang of grief tightened her chest. Like Keely, Morna had loved Quinn Cottage.

  Its time-weathered, thatched roof and busy, mullioned windows were just as she remembered. The bright flourish of perennial flowers Gran once babied along each spring lined the walkway, and twin baskets of colorful blooms hung on each side of the front door.

  The original homestead of the Quinn family, it had been more than three hundred years since the last Quinn lived there. A seafarer by trade, Fitzgerald Quinn left the cottage behind, building and moving into Quinn Manor once he’d made his fortune.

  The source of that fortune was a mystery to this day. The theories were wide-ranged, from shady shipping deals and smuggling, to outright piracy. But Keely preferred the theory in which the long ago Quinn wooed and won a young fairie princess.

  According to one legend, Fitzgerald’s fairie lover, Princess Fiona, was furious over her father’s refusal to approve a match between her and a mere human. In defiance, the stories claimed she secreted every last bauble of her vast fortune from the fairie realm, pouring them at her lover’s feet in place of her heart before returning to the realm, never to be seen again.

  While the thought of the couple’s thwarted love saddened Keely, the story itself held a certain charm and fit with her whimsical impressions of her grandmother’s hometown. Whatever the true source of the family’s wealth, one Quinn or another had lived in Fitzgerald’s manor ever since, and those subsequent Quinns had proven their knack for increasing the family fortune. By all accounts, the current Quinn had inherited that knack. Her gaze swung to the twin chimneys of Quinn Manor, visible above the foliage at the top of the lane.

  “Come on, Donovan,” she called. “Let’s get this over with.” She clipped the leash to his collar before heading up the lane.

  The manor came into view as she passed beyond the trees overhanging the quiet road. The largest jewel in Dunhaven’s crown, the manor sat upon a gentle rise like a modern-day castle. Built of the pale granite found locally, the stone had weathered with the years, gleaming in the summer sunlight, and its many windows sparkled like diamonds.

  The walk was a short one, thankfully. Between the countless hours spent in his crate on the overnight flight, and the hour-long ride from the airport, Donovan was ready to run. He yanked and jerked at the leash, stopping to water every tree and plant between the cottage and manor. His attempt to lunge after a bird he’d flushed from the undergrowth nearly wrenched her arm from her shoulder.

  “Calm down, you goofy beast,” Keely scolded as the sounds of celebration drifted from beyond the manor’s side gate. She yanked the dog to a halt, ignoring his excited whines to palm his large head in her hands. Even at a respectable five-foot-eight, she barely had to bend to peer into his soulful, brown eyes.

  “I expect you to be on your best behavior, Donovan. Especially if we’re allowed inside. That means no snatching food from countertops and absolutely no slurping from toilets.” A long, pink tongue snuck out to do some slurping at her chin, and she laughed. “That won’t work either. If you embarrass me, there’ll be no shoes for a week.”

  “You feed him shoes?” a deep brogue asked from behind her.

  Keely turned her head, a grin on her lips. The grin died, and she straightened to her full height when the owner of the voice came into view.

  Colin Quinn, looking as sinfully alluring as she remembered, came to a stop, hip-cocked casual just outside the gate. A decade ago, at twenty-four, the mantle of power and influence associated with the Quinn name had rested precariously on his broad shoulders. Now, the cloak of authority and confidence looked as natural on him as the casual clothes covering his lanky, six-two frame.

  Jeans, faded to just short of disreputable, encased his long legs, and the black, short-sleeved polo displayed a muscled chest, broad shoulders, and trim waist. His thick, raven-black hair ruffled in the breeze. An easy grin curved his sharply cut lips, and his cobalt-blue eyes twinkled with humor.

  When she’d been seventeen, she’d had no defense against the wealth of Black Irish charm he’d wielded like a well-honed sword. To her chagrin, that charm obviously hadn’t diminished with the years. It was disheartening to discover her over-the-top reaction to him hadn’t diminished, either. As it had with each glimpse of him that summer so long ago, her heart leaped in her chest.

  Colin Quinn was still everything a man should be, strong, confident, and...beautiful.

  Crap. So much for hoping he’d acquired a potbelly and a receding hairline.

  Beside her, a low rumble began in Donovan’s throat. The sound bolstered her flagging confidence, and she rewarded her dog with a pat to the head. “Good boy,” she praised out of the side of her mouth.

  Dark brows arched above Colin’s humor-filled eyes.

  Clearing her throat, she ignored the butterflies fluttering in her belly. “He doesn’t eat shoes,” she answered with a lofty tilt of her chin. “He mauls them.”

  Colin chuckled, leaning down to brace one wide-palmed hand on a knee. He held out the other, palm down. Donovan bristled at her side, but he inched closer to the man, now down on his level.

  “I can’t vouch for the safety of your fingers,” Keely cautioned.

  Colin ignored her warning.

  She thought of tightening the leash, denying Colin an introduction to her pet, but she’d waited too long. Donovan reached the outstretched hand in two healthy steps, and after a single sniff at Colin’s fingers, his rumbling displeasure changed to a whimper of welcome.

  To her utter disgust, her ferocious looking dog dropped to his haunches, giving Colin his brightest doggie smile. Long fingers scratching a
t the beard beneath his dark muzzle had Donovan quivering with visible ripples of pleasure.

  “Some watch dog you are,” she admonished grumpily.

  “It’s not his fault,” Colin said without looking her way. His hand moved to scrub at the dog’s neck in a rough caress. “I’ve a way with animals.”

  As if to prove his words, Donovan moaned low in his throat, and his tail thumped out his enthusiastic approval of the man. “There’s a lad,” Colin crooned. “What’s he called? I assume he answers to something other than ‘goofy beast.’”

  Keely blinked at his teasing tone, as well as the warm humor on his face while he continued to study her traitorous dog. Either Colin didn’t recognize her, or he didn’t recall their last encounter.

  Good. Either scenario works for me.

  “He also answers to Donovan,” she replied.

  “A fine name for a fine beast.” With a final pat, Colin straightened. A dimple winked at the corner of his smile when he looked her way. “He’s beautiful, Keely,” he said, proving at least that first scenario false.

  And the way he said her name, like a dark caress, made her fiercely glad she didn’t have a tail. All it had taken were a few softly spoken words and a single dimpled smile to have her all but quivering with awareness. She took refuge in scrubbing at the wiry hair between Donovan’s ears.

  “Thank you,” she muttered, disgusted with her reaction.

  “How long have you had him?”

  She’d adopted him the day she’d sold her novel. The wolfhound seemed an appropriate celebratory gift—considering her childhood dreams and the black wolf that shared them before she’d come to Ireland, and met Colin.

  But talk of her dreams was for later. She fully intended to have that conversation with Colin, however, not until she was ready. Not today. Today was for celebrating, both Kathleen’s birthday and her own homecoming.