“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll start seeing them later.” She gasped. “Charlie. Unicorns!”
He followed her gaze, certain this had to be the first of her visions because, hell, there was no such thing as a unicorn. Except there was definitely something down the path. Three somethings, shaggy blue ponies with white manes and tails. Protruding from the middle of each forehead was a blue-tipped white horn.
“That’s a unicorn?”
“Of course. They’re wonderful eating.”
He gaped at her. “You eat unicorns?”
She cocked her head. “Do you have unicorns in your realm?”
He laughed, then realized she was serious. Of course, she was serious. She was a brownie in an enchanted forest deep in fairyland who liked to eat unicorns. Any minute now he was going to wake up in the psych ward of some military hospital with a pretty doctor shaking her head at him, ordering him locked away in a padded room for the rest of his life.
“Unicorns aren’t real,” he told her. “In my world, they’re not real. They’re legends. Mythical, magical beasts.”
Tarrys smiled gently. “These are quite real, quite common, and not magical at all.”
“Those horns look wicked.” They were nearly as long as his forearm.
“They use them to dig for grubs.”
Grubs. In blue dirt. Hence the blue tips. “You’re shooting the myth to hell, you know.”
Her grin widened and she swung away as she watched the beasts. “They’re usually very timid. I’m surprised they’re letting us get so close.” But as they continued toward the blue beasts, the unicorns raised their heads and began to trot toward them.
Charlie grabbed Tarrys’s shoulder. “Get back.”
But his concern was met with amusement. “Charlie, they’re harmless. And they can’t hurt me even if they wanted to.” She eased out from beneath his protective hand and met the creatures, who greeted her as if they were favored pets. Amazingly, though they rubbed their heads against her hips, their horns never touched her.
The flock of tiny birds joined them, fluttering about Tarrys’s head, landing on the backs of the unicorns, singing a melodious tune that sounded ridiculously…happy.
Tarrys’s laughter rang through the forest and Charlie stared at her. It was like dropping into the middle of a Disney movie. Cinderella in her rags, petting unicorns while birds danced and sang around her head. If these were her nightmares, there was something seriously wrong with this girl. Except this wasn’t a vision. It was a hundred percent, absurdly real.
Another black trimor leaped at him, and he only flinched, no longer bothering to protect himself from the animal that wasn’t there.
Tarrys turned to him, her eyes sparkling like jewels. Her laughter wove through him, easing his tension, warming him. Filling him with a joy of his own. “Come here, Charlie. You’ve got to see them. Aren’t they beautiful?”
Beautiful, yes. Not the ponies, but Tarrys. Achingly so.
He moved slowly toward her, not wanting to scare off her new friends. The unicorns eyed him cautiously, but didn’t move away as he joined her. She looked up at him, a poignant mist in her eyes. “They like me.”
He slid his hand into her hair. “How could they not?” She was so perfect, so precious. His head dipped before he knew what he was doing. The touch of her lips against his swept him away. Her mouth moved under his, her tongue welcoming his own as her arms went tightly around him.
So precious.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her, certainly hadn’t meant to get lost in the taste of her again, but he had little control where she was concerned. He needed her. Man, how he needed her. Slowly he pulled away to discover even more birds singing from the trees.
“This forest loves you,” he muttered, then looked back down at her, tumbling into violet depths as deep as the sea. And with a sudden, haunting certainty, he knew the forest wasn’t the only one. God, he didn’t want to love her. Yet how could he not? How could anyone not?
He pulled back and released her, shaken. Another trimor leaped for him and he flung up an arm. Movement in the distance caught his eye. An eighteen-wheeler was now racing toward him. In Esria. Touching none of the trees. Glancing behind him, he saw the contingent of Esri still aiming at him, black trimors prowling between them.
“This forest hates me.”
Tarrys took his hand. “Don’t see them, Charlie. They’re not there.”
And suddenly they weren’t. Charlie stared, chilled by the suddenness of the transformation. Between one instant and the next, the Esri and trimors disappeared, the dark mists vanished and golden daylight filtered into the woods between the colorful leaves of healthy trees.
Even the truck had vanished, though…really? A truck? His gaze swung to Tarrys. “How’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You made them disappear.”
“I did?”
“Your power’s growing.”
She crinkled her brow. “I don’t feel any different. But something’s definitely happening here.” A soft confusion lit her eyes. “I belong here, somehow.”
Charlie looked at the unicorns and the birds. “Yeah. You could say that. Yet you say you’ve never been here before.”
“I haven’t. I’ve seen the forest from the distance, but I’ve never been inside.”
He tugged on her hand. “We need to keep going if we’re going to find the princess and figure out how to spring her by tomorrow night.”
As they walked, the unicorns followed the birds trilling overhead. They’d gone from horror show to Disney movie in a matter of minutes and he had a feeling the day’s entertainment wasn’t over. When Tarrys’s hand spasmed around his, he knew he was right.
“What’s the matter?”
“I see Marceils. With hair,” she said, her voice filled with wonder. But her eyes were facing down and unfocused.
Charlie looked around to make sure, but saw only unicorns, birds, and half a dozen of the neon-green chipmunks that had joined the procession.
“There isn’t anyone here, Tarrys. Whatever you’re seeing isn’t real.”
“It’s real,” she murmured. “What I’m seeing isn’t happening now, but it’s real. And I’m getting answers.”
Chapter 21
Tarrys could feel Charlie’s hand in hers and knew he stood beside her, holding her against him, but her senses were elsewhere. Even though they were standing deep in the Forest of Nightmares, she sensed that they’d stumbled upon another time. Another era.
In front of her, beneath a tall thornewood tree, stood two people, a man and a woman, with eyes only for one another. Neither was as tall as Tarrys, but the man was thickly muscled and handsome with eyes as blue as the human sky. The woman was slender, her eyes as violet as Tarrys’s own. Both had rich brown hair, his brushing his shoulders, hers in a straight fall to her waist, intertwined with golden silk ribbons.
The man took the woman in his arms, his eyes filled with love, his face aglow with happiness, then kissed her tenderly, passionately. As they kissed, flowers rose from the earth around their feet, blooming in a profusion of pink and yellow and blue.
When he finally pulled back, the woman looked down at the flowers, then up into her man’s face and laughed with a joy so pure it brought tears to Tarrys’s eyes.
“You are my one mate,” the man said, his voice low and rich with love. “As I told you.”
The woman kissed his mouth. “Aye. And you mine.”
They kissed again and the man’s hands slid up to cover one of the woman’s small breasts. “I don’t know if I can wait to mate with you.”
The woman’s mouth turned up. “Our joining ceremony is only seven nights away. Then we’ll be together fully and always.”
But the joy between them shattered with a shout.
“The Esri!” Another woman with hair more red than brown crashed through the woods toward them. “They’re in the forest.”
The couple gaped at each other, horror dawning in the
ir expressions. “But that’s impossible!”
“I feared this would happen,” said the auburn-haired woman, as the three began to run. “We’re strong, but the Esri are stronger. The villages are all destroyed, the people enslaved. Only the temple village remains. I’ve always feared they would come for us.”
“But the forest magic is strong,” said the first woman, her straight hair flying out behind her. “I’ve strengthened it myself.”
“Three Esri found a way through undetected. I don’t know how, but it doesn’t matter now.” Tears were beginning to stream down her face. “All is lost.”
“No,” the man said, his voice strong and emphatic. “We’ll fight them. They’ll not beat us. How can they possibly win against the power of our priestesses?” But the words were barely out of his mouth when an arrow struck him in the leg, sending him crashing to the ground.
“No!” his love cried, falling to her knees beside him.
“Run!” He grabbed her hand. “Run to the temple. Save yourself and your sisters. If you fall, if our priestesses fall, all is truly lost.”
“I love you,” she whispered, tears in her eyes.
“And I you. For always. Now go!”
The two women ran. The man worked the arrow from his calf. But as he rose, another arrow pierced his neck and his thigh. A tall, white Esri ran out of the shelter of the trees, fell on him and cut off his hair.
“Rise, slave,” the Esri commanded, and the blue-eyed Marceil did as he was told. “Deliver me to your priestesses.”
Slowly, Tarrys became aware of Charlie holding her tight against him, stroking her hair. She was shaking, not with fear or cold, but with the shock of sudden knowledge, sudden understanding. And shadows of things to come.
“It’s okay, Tarrys. There’s nothing here but me and the unicorns. And the birds. And a few chipmunks. And whatever the heck the pink turtle things are.”
Tarrys looked up at him, the gentle affection in his gaze washing away the cold. “The Marceils created the magic that lives in this forest. The forest protected the last of the unenslaved Marceils against the Esri.”
Charlie glanced at the unicorns. “No wonder the forest and everything in it seems to love you.”
Her eyes widened. “Maybe that’s why I could order you to stop seeing the nightmares and you did. If the Marceils created the defense, they must have had a way to allow friends through.”
“You think they had friends among the Esri?”
She thought of the terror she’d witnessed in that vision. “Probably not.” But she’d been deeply moved by what she saw. “I’ve always thought of mine as a slave race. I knew we hadn’t always been so, but no Marceils remember that time and none were allowed by their Esri masters to share it with their children. The past was lost to us. All we knew was slavery and weakness.”
Charlie slid his hand beneath her hair, cupping the back of her neck. “You’re not weak.”
“I was. Until my hair was allowed to grow.”
He shook his head, his gray-green eyes warm and serious despite the half smile. “No. You’ve never been weak. You were born a fighter. Even decades of slavery didn’t break you. Baleris was a powerful son of a bitch, yet you thwarted him. Without your help, we never would have defeated him.” His thumb stroked her jaw, sending warmth flowing through her. “You’ve never been weak.” He grimaced. “If you want to talk about weak, look at the zombies humans become when they’re enslaved by the Esri.”
“That’s not weak, it’s enchanted.”
“Exactly. Marceils were never weak, just overpowered in an unfair fight. We do have a lot in common, don’t we?” Laughter crinkled his eyes and made her chest tight with longing. For his kiss. For his love. But mostly, for his safe return to his world where his laughter would continue for years to come. And if she could go back with him, her happiness would be complete. Even if she rarely saw him again. The only thing that mattered was getting him safely home and helping him save his world.
“Did that vision tell you anything else?”
She nodded. “A millennia and a half ago, during the Esri’s enslavement of the Marceilian race, the forest acted as the defense for the temple village. But the Esri found a way to breach it.”
“So at the center of the woods is a village. Probably where they’re keeping Ilaria.”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s where we have to go.”
Chapter 22
“How deep is this forest?” Charlie muttered. They’d walked the entire night and most of the morning and they still hadn’t found anything but trees. On the plus side, he’d had no more nightmares. He might yet come out of this with his sanity intact. On the negative side, they were running out of time.
Tarrys met his gaze, but didn’t bother to answer. Not that he’d expected her to. He’d asked the same question every hour and she didn’t know the answer any better now than she had the first dozen times. All they could do was keep walking and hope they stumbled upon the princess eventually. Really, how big could one forest be?
Damn big, apparently.
Tarrys’s gaze turned front and he watched her, unable to take his focus off her for any amount of time. Even now, the birds followed them as if welcoming a conquering hero. He remembered the look in her eyes, the wonder that her race had once been more than slaves. That she was more. Watching her now as she strode through the forest with the grace and agility of a trained warrior, her head high, he had no trouble believing she was descended from a proud and ancient race. But he’d known she was more than a slave for a long time now. Since that day on the roof when he finally looked past her lack of hair and absence of human blood, looked into her and recognized the intelligence and strength within. She’d been a constant revelation to him, so the last few days were no surprise.
But whatever she was, she was Tarrys first and always. His partner. His…friend.
His.
He fought off the sudden attack of possessiveness. He had much bigger problems right now. Like finding and freeing Princess Ilaria before the gate opened, which he was beginning to think was akin to finding the holy grail. A myth and a damned impossible task.
He stifled a yawn, needing sleep, though not like before, when the poison had hit him with exhaustion he couldn’t fight his way through. No, this was normal tiredness. He hadn’t slept in more than a day and hadn’t slept well in weeks.
Tarrys glanced at him with eyes that seemed to see right through him. “You need to rest.”
“I’m good.”
“Yes, but will you be tonight?”
“We’ll rest before the attack. If there’s time.” They had to get through that gate tonight. There was no option. Now that the entire Esrian race knew a human was in this world, they’d be guarding the gates on this side just as the Sitheen had been guarding the gate on the Washington, D.C., side. If Harrison or any of the others tried to come after him, they’d be killed or captured before they ever got a chance to escape. No, he and Tarrys had to get through that gate tonight.
“I don’t want to stop again until we find the temple village,” he continued. “Or Ilaria. Is it possible we’ve hit more magic and are on some kind of treadmill, doomed to wander through here forever?”
He was half-joking, but the gaze she leveled on him held no humor. “I’ve been wondering if the temple village is shrouded so that we’ll never see it.”
Charlie groaned. “The forest likes you. It wouldn’t do that to you, would it?”
“The forest might not. But the Esri control the village now.”
“Would the Esri do that? Hide from us?”
“I doubt it. They’ll want to kill you. They’ll want to enslave me.” She said the words so simply. As if she expected that outcome. Accepted it.
“How many Esri are with Ilaria? Do you know?”
“I know the story. Three hundred years ago, King Rith overthrew the queen and ordered her daughter, Princess Ilaria, confined to the forest. It’s said there we
re three Esri immune to the forest’s magic who delivered her here along with twenty Royal Guards to watch her and make certain she never left.”
“Twenty to guard one woman in a place she couldn’t possibly escape from?”
“Yes. After what I saw in that vision, I wonder if those three Esri were the same ones who overran the forest when the Marceils were here.”
“Did those three return to court after the transfer?”
“No. The three were murdered as soon as the transfer was complete. Some suspect they were killed on the king’s order so that the princess could never escape.”
Two of them against twenty guards. If they were human guards, he wouldn’t be that worried. He’d sneak up on them, one at a time, and take them out. But there would be no sneaking up, no quiet deaths, on this mission. Not only did the death chant result in a rather spectacular fireworks display, but with his death mark, every Esri knew where he was every minute of every day.
Disconcerting, to say the least.
Yet his only chance at reaching the princess was to take out her guards. All of them. Preferably from a distance.
“Have you ever shot a fire arrow?” he asked her.
“No.” Her brow crinkled. “I would expect the fire to be extinguished by the wind of flight.”
“It would be. Unless we wrap the points in cloth and find some kind of accelerant. Something to keep the cloth burning through the air.”
“The sap of the thornewood tree burns.”
“Perfect.” They were everywhere. “How many arrows were you able to collect?”
“Six.”
“We’ll need more. At least twenty.”
Tarrys nodded. “I’ll make arrows while you sleep.”
Charlie gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Let’s find that village first.”
“Hurry,” the auburn-haired priestess urged her sisters. The three violet-eyed women pressed their hands to the trunk of a huge yellow tree. “The priestesses beg entrance to our chambers, oh tree of Esria.” At once, a stair appeared, descending into the earth. The three women lifted gowns and ran lightly, if urgently, down the steps.
A Warrior's Desire (Harlequin Nocturne) Page 16