Fey Born

by R. Garland Gray

  CHAPTER 8

  THE DAMP MORNING CAME AND went, leaving behind warmth and a clear, blue sky.

  Exhausted, Lana sat alone in the shade of the hawthorn tree, waiting for the return of her guardian mate. She slept little last night, troubling thoughts drifting between her guardian and trying to understand the light and dark within her. With her legs tucked under for balance and comfort she leaned back against the sturdy trunk of the tree, hair tumbling free about her shoulders. Beside her right thigh, Keegan’s sword lay upon the ground in its worn leather scabbard. Her fingers absently traced the smooth surface, coming to rest on the hilt. She was destined to become this, she mused, afraid and slightly intrigued. It was something beyond her nature. A bringer of death, she thought, and wondered if the enchantment, which so secured her future knew of the flaw residing in her heart. If it did, it made a poor choice.

  Ever so slowly, she pulled the sword out of its scabbard.

  The handle was made of wood and flanked with a bronze guard. The blade had blood grooves in it, a mortal battle weapon carried by an enigmatic guardian. She had so many questions to ask Keegan. Would the magical transformation to a fey host hurt? How would it be done? Would she drink a magic potion and become light and mist? Would her heart be strong enough to survive it? She probably would not ask that question. Would she remember who she was? Would she still be Lana?

  “Does it matter?” she said aloud into the silence, and slid the sword back into the scabbard. “Destiny has decreed this future before my birth,” she whispered despondently, and then lifted her head. It must be for a good reason, she reasoned, trying to remain positive. Mayhap it was to benefit her people. She must trust that in time she would find her answers. For now, she must accept her destiny. But how? she wondered. How?

  By following my instincts, she concluded, and felt calmer. I will begin there and see where it takes me.

  She looked up at the cloudless blue sky, marking the sun’s position. Morning became an early afternoon full of bird song and soft amber light.

  Tucking a blond curl behind her ear, she watched a small badger hurry across the grassy path she had walked with Keegan the day before.

  “Left you he has.” Master Spriggan said, popping out from around one of the pillars.

  Lana hid her surprise. “How long have you been watching me?”

  Sitting down in front of her, he adjusted his blue, rock-crusted coat. “Always watch, pretty. Make sure you be safe.”

  “Did Keegan tell you to watch over me?” she asked with wariness.

  The spriggan shook his big head. “Guardian stares at loch. Fury lives beneath his skin. Dangerous to speak to right now, so I stay away. Hungry?” In his hand, he held a golden slice of freckled bread out to her. “Spriggans make the best berry bread.”

  The bread smelled honey sweet, but Lana was cautious of the creature. She studied his small obsidian eyes, trying to judge the authenticity of his offering, and then declined with a murmured “thank you.”

  Shrugging, the creature bit into the offering he initially held out to her. Purposeful sounds of delight rumbled in his throat. Lana frowned, feeling the pull of her own hunger. Reaching for her small food bag, she dragged it across her lap and found it unexpectedly empty.

  “Badgers,” he offered in innocent explanation for the missing food. “A family of them came last night.”

  Climbing to her feet, she walked over to Keegan’s larger food bag and kneeled in the grass. Peering inside his bag, she found it, too, was empty. “They must have raided this one as well. There are teeth marks along the edge of the opening.”

  “Aye, ate everything. Always hungry those creatures.”

  She looked up at the spriggan; his mouth was plump with berries and flakes of golden freckled crust.

  “Wild animals doona approach humans unless desperate, and the land is full and bountiful with food this season.”

  “Must have been good food.”

  “Aye, it was.” She looked around. “I was awake most of the night. Where did they come from?”

  “Holes in the land. They dig.”

  “I know badgers dig.” She shrugged and rose, resettling herself against the trunk of the tree.

  “Hungry now?” He retrieved a second offering of bread from his deep jacket pocket. “I doona mind sharing.” This slice was wrapped in thick green leaves and he held it out to her. “Eat. My bread be flavorsome. Even guardians have a liking for it.”

  If the guardians ate it, then it must be all right, she reasoned quietly. With only a slight hesitation, Lana took it and nodded her thanks. She settled herself once more against the tree trunk, still fighting indecision. The bread felt warm in her hands and smelled like honey. Purple berries littered its center. Holding it to her nose, she took a small whiff and then nipped at an end. Light spongy sweetness burst in her mouth. Never had she tasted anything like it before.

  “Like?” the rock faery prompted knowingly, and smiled in satisfaction.

  “Delicious.” She finished her slice all too quickly.

  “More?” He held out another offering, a thicker slice.

  Lana accepted this offering, too, and bit into it. A furious rush of syrupy berries filled her mouth, making her light-headed.

  When every last crumb was eaten, she licked her fingertips. Looking up, she found the spriggan watching her with a peculiar intensity. It unsettled her a wee bit, this sudden focus, as if she had grown horns.

  “More?” he prompted.

  She shook her head, feeling oddly warm in her stomach. “My thanks for the bread, Master Spriggan. I have never tasted that kind of sweetness before.”

  “Spriggan bread very tasty.”

  “Is there no other food left that you accept bread from our spriggan friend?” her guardian mate inquired with a touch of irritation.

  Lana’s heart jumped wildly in her breast. Shielding her eyes with her left hand, she looked up into the bright sun. A large shadow stood to the right of the hawthorn tree.

  “I was hungry and our food bags are empty,” she justified, trying to keep the quiver of relief out of her voice.

  “Badgers,” the spriggan interjected in quick explanation.

  Silence.

  Lana felt her guardian’s ruthless assessment and wondered at his displeasure.

  “Leave us, Master Spriggan,” he growled.

  Grunting in his haste, the spriggan rose quickly to his feet, bobbed his farewell, and disappeared behind one of his pillars. Just before he vanished, she thought she saw his body drop, as if stepping down into a hole in the ground.

  Lana moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and waited. She was very much aware of Keegan’s disapproval, even though she could not fathom why.

  Like the false breath of the Gods, a sudden white mist brushed across the tips of grasses and settled around her in a boundary of faint moisture. “Keegan?” Lana startled as a magnificent faery guardian knelt before her on one knee. His proud head was bowed in homage. Strands of brown hair shimmered, dancing in gold and red glints.

  His body was lean and muscular, covered in the majesty of silvery gray. Every slope, ridge, and male definition of him was easily seen for her perusal. He was made of nature’s excellence, a dangerous male sensuality making her cautious yet filling her with womanly excitement.

  This was his true form, one of beauty and intimidation. Enormous wings glimmered, rising from his shoulder blades. They were spun from the laces of moonlight and black spider webs, the edges smooth and curved like a butterfly’s wings. Her gaze dropped to the silver cuff on his right wrist. The sight of it steadied her nerves. He folded his right arm across his chest, his hand locked in a tight fist, a sign of tension.

  “I ask forgiveness for touching you,” he said.

  “You dinna touch me.” She sat up straighter, feeling the attraction of him and a sense of foreboding.

  His long lashes lifted ever so slowly. He watched her with a strange intensity and her body warmed in reac
tion, his dominion over her complete. Lana knew from that instant on, she would never be able to deny him anything.

  Keegan’s gaze narrowed. He knew what she saw when she looked at him.

  The Gods formed him for the protection of the lands and waters. The Goddesses shaped him for a female’s pleasure.

  He stared at the quiver of her lower lip. She had power over him, his bride innocent. The mating claim he initiated with her was strong in his blood, a throwback to his once mortal ancestry. The handfasting tapped into the underlying wildness in him. He wanted to mate on the damp shores of a crystal loch, in the cool running streams that roamed the land; he wanted to lay his fey seed within her womb and ignore the punishment that would come after.

  “I am not your true mate, Lana.”

  “We are handfasted,” she stubbornly insisted, her eyes watching the sweeping movement of his wings. He forced his back muscles to relax.

  “Lana, you were meant…”

  “Nay,” she interrupted him. “I wish for us to mate, Keegan.”

  He sucked air into his lungs at her unaccustomed boldness. “We canna mate. We are different.”

  “Nay, we are not so different.”

  “I am Rain,” he said forcefully between clenched teeth. “My true name, Lana. It is Rain.” A slight mocking smile touched his lips. “I am fey.”

  “And I am not?” she shouted back at him, causing him to blink. “What is this then?” She pointed at the place of her birthmark. Her cheeks were flushed pink with life and temper.

  He looked down at her flat stomach. “The sword’s birthmark,” he answered slowly, carefully.

  “ ‘Tis a fey mark, is it not?”

  He could not deny it. “It is fey.”

  “I am fey then,” she stated decisively.

  He grimaced.

  “I am fey!” She did shout then, her eyes fever bright.

  He had no choice but to nod in reluctant agreement.

  “Well then,” she said in triumph, “I am glad we have cleared that up.”

  “Have we?” He was not at all sure.

  “Aye,” she replied fiercely.

  He saw scrutiny and judgment within the liquid depths of her eyes. May the Gods and Goddesses help me, when she finds her true dark strength, he thought. More temper was coming, and he braced for it.

  “Where were you, Keegan?”

  “Near,” he answered, keeping his tone even.

  “I was alone.”

  “Never. I sense you always.”

  “Why did you stay away so long?” He could hear the hurt in her voice.

  A bitter half-smile touched his lips. “I needed time away from you. Needed time in the loch.”

  “You went for a swim?” she asked incredulously.

  An ice-cold swim. He nodded.

  “Why?”

  Did she not know?

  “Why, Keegan?” she asked softly after the silence came and stayed. “I was alone and fearful. I dinna know if you were coming back.”

  “I will always come back,” he said firmly, noting the odd sweat on her brow. “I stayed away from you to cool the lust raging in my blood.”

  She swiped at her forehead and muttered something about a hot day.

  He stretched out his wings to relieve some of the strain which formed there, and her eyes followed. “I am fey, Lana, but I am also male bred.” He climbed to his feet to give emphasis to his body. A bitter resentfulness filled him.

  This mutual attraction must end. He told himself she was not beautiful, told himself he did not want to hold her in his arms. Unfortunately, he knew exactly what he wanted.

  Lana told herself she was under some lustful spell, a dream she could not awaken from. She felt hot and wanton, an ache in her woman’s place like none other she ever felt before. Hysterical laughter gushed up and then stuck in her throat. She covered her mouth in mortification. What was wrong with her? Her guardian mate was studying her as well, probably wondering the same thing.

  In the past, Keegan’s fey form always made her distrustful. Now all she wanted to do was to crawl inside those resplendent webs and touch the firm warm male beneath. She climbed unsteadily to her feet with just that intent.

  “How much of the spriggan’s bread did you eat today?” His manner was one of peculiar attentiveness.

  “I ate two slices.”

  “Only two?”

  “Aye.” She took a step forward and stumbled.

  A large hand gripped her elbow to steady her. Looking down at the long blunt fingers wrapped around her, she stared at the silver webs crossing a thick wrist and felt a decadent urge. Bending down, she plastered her nose on the webs crossing his sinewy forearm. “You always smell so wonderful,” she mumbled.

  “You are spell cast,” he countered gravely.

  She lifted her head and looked up. “Why are you angry with me?”

  “I am not angry.”

  “I can tell that you are,” she retorted. “Your lips go all tight like this.” She mimicked him.

  “My lips doona do that.”

  “Aye, they do.” She moved closer and he stepped back, his hand still locked around her elbow.

  “Are you afraid of me, Keegan?”

  “You talk of foolishness.”

  “Do I?” She motioned to the straining bulge between his legs. “Your words say one thing, your body says another. Kiss me.” She puckered up her lips.

  “ ‘Tis a false lust you feel. You have been spell cast, Lana.”

  She huffed in disagreement and pressed her mouth to the silky webs covering his left nipple.

  “By the goddess!” he hissed in surprise. His hand locked in her hair, pulling her off him. He tilted her head back and sniffed at her.

  “Kiss me, Keegan,” she said brashly, so unlike the Lana he knew. “I want to taste you in my mouth.”

  “I know.” He inhaled the spriggan’s sweet bread on her breath, a lust spell baked into food.

  “Covet bread,” he breathed out ruthlessly. The pupils of her eyes were unnaturally large for the brightness of the day, a marker of the lust fever to come.

  “Spriggan mischief,” he snarled. An exceedingly impudent spriggan, he thought with rising fury, to try to take a female he had marked in a mating claim.

  She snagged a handful of his hair and tugged, trying to pull him down. He was not amused. “Lana,” he said through clenched teeth, “let go of my hair.” He covered her smaller hand with his. Sacrificing several strands of hair, he was able to pry the slender fingers loose.

  “Why do you not kiss me?” she demanded, pursing her lips like a spoiled child.

  “You have eaten a spriggan’s covet bread.”

  She blinked, a thread of sanity returning, though briefly. “What is covet bread, Keegan?”

  “You have been spell cast with a spriggan’s lust, my brash one. It seems Master Cadman wishes to mate with you.”

  “Well, I doona wish to. I would rather mate with you.”

  “Therein lies the problem.” Pulling her into his arms, he winked out.

  ———

  Sweating profusely, Lana came back to awareness a few moments later. She must have passed out for a moment, she thought, rubbing her damp forehead. She lay beside a fallen tree, long dead, her body sweltering and throbbing. Up above, a twilight sky shone in deep mirror shades of lavenders and pinks, white clouds gliding effortlessly through the air.

  The colors seemed muted here, indistinct against the horizon. Rolling over on her side, she found herself on an emerald green shore leading down to a large loch. In the blue waters, two white swans swam in silence, their beaks yellow and black in the faded light. She watched them, a mated pair, staying close to each other. Somewhere along the shore of the loch was their nest.

  Pushing up on her elbows, she looked around at the silvery limestone cliffs and outcroppings of rock and ledge. Beyond the azure waters, emerald pastures and hills spread ever outward.

  “ ‘Tis a fey place, Lana.”
<
br />   Startled, she looked behind her.

  Keegan sat bare-chested, his back against an ancient oak, legs crossed at the ankles, his true form hidden once again.

  She peered at his silver cuff, her talisman, her charm of safety. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked slowly.

  “I doona wish to sate your lust fever in the front door of the spriggan’s home.”

  “His home?”

  “Aye. The pillars, which interested you, are the doorways to his underground dwelling. He is a rock faery, after all.” A dangerous smile etched across his handsome mouth.

  Lana sat up abruptly and buried her face in her trembling hands. Her pride was hurt, her body throbbing in hunger. A shimmering light appeared in the corner of her eye and she looked up.

  Keegan was no longer behind her. Instead, he perched on the dead tree trunk next to her thigh. Like a hawk, he studied his prey with an appraising focus, left hand gripping the bark for balance, fingers digging into the decay.

  “I know what you need,” he said in a whisper of arrogant male confidence.

  “What?” she snapped, a blending of temper and desire. “A guardian’s melding?”

  He smiled slowly, tilting his head to one side. “You know of our magical blood to blood mating.”

  “Nay.” She knew only the word and nothing else of the dark mystery.

  “Because that is exactly what I intend to do to you.”

  “I would much rather swim in a cold loch.” She felt a need to fight him.

  “I think not.”

  “I doona care what you think. If a cold swim in a loch is good enough for you, it should be good enough for me and my false lust.”

  “The waters will not give you ease.” There was a warning in his voice.

  “Why?”

  “ ‘Tis a lust fever, and if not satisfied it will make you ill. It seems I must do something to aid you.”

  “By melding with me?”

  “Aye, after I prepare you.”

  Drawing her legs close to her tender breasts, Lana wrapped her arms around her shins and shook her head. “Prepare me for what?”

  “For my touch.”

  “You said you canna touch me,” she murmured, her pride still hurt.