by Sarra Cannon
“You are the last of the Cenél nEgoghain, child. Eoghan was son to Niall Niogiallach. I brought him into his own as sacral king of Tara over a thousand years ago. The clan lived in Lochlann, a place of myth and magic far to the north—”
“Stop.” Aislinn shook her head. “Too many names. I’ll never remember, let alone be able to pronounce any of them.” She glanced at Fionn. “There’s that Irish history you wanted to force feed me.”
“A wee bit,” he conceded.
“Come closer, child. I will not eat you. I promise.” Dewi lowered her snout and puffed a tiny flame Aislinn’s way.
I rode her in my dream…
“It was not a dream.” The dragon chuckled. Smoke curled from her nostrils. “Come.” She crooked a claw at Aislinn and then glanced over one shoulder to her broad back in clear invitation.
“I-I can’t,” Aislinn whispered.
“Och aye, ye can and ye will.” Fionn came up behind her, placed a hand on either side of her waist, and gave her a none-too-gentle shove. “Ye wouldna want to risk offending her. She is sacred to us.”
Aislinn’s heart pounded. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry as a riverbed after a year-long drought. The men parted to let her through. Heat engulfed her as she got closer to Dewi.
Aislinn laid a hand on the glittering scales. They were beautiful. Looking up at the huge body, she spied the two horns she’d grasped in her dream, but how on earth would she ever get to them? “Could one of you bring me that ladder over by the garage?” She barely recognized her voice as her own. It sounded thin and shaky.
One of the men stifled a laugh. “Come to the front, lass. She’ll pick you up.”
“Oh.” Aislinn let herself be herded to the proper position. When the dragon’s curved talons closed around her waist, she shut her eyes, afraid to look. What if she drops me?
“I could, but I won’t. Not unless you give me reason. Open those eyes. Put your hand on my shoulder and swing yourself up. Catch one of the horns on my back or my head if you need help.”
Aislinn felt awkward, but somehow, she ended up astride Dewi. She looked down at Rune, Bella, and the men. It was a long way to fall, and they hadn’t even left the ground yet. Fear thrummed a tattoo against her neck and chest. She tried to get herself under better control. This will be just like in my dream.
“Only better.” Dewi laughed and spread her enormous crimson wings. They were covered with leathery skin, not scales. A couple of pumps, and they were airborne. Aislinn held the horns at the base of Dewi’s neck in a death grip. She focused on a small pattern of scales right in front of her, terrified to look down. Even that felt like too much, so she squeezed her eyes shut tight.
“Your eyes are closed,” the dragon chided. “How will you ever learn to fight from my back if you cannot even open your eyes?”
“Is that why we’re doing this?”
“Do you know nothing of your ancestry?” Despite the wind rushing past them, Aislinn heard a note of incredulity in Dewi’s question.
“Not the ancestry you mean.” Aislinn forced her eyes open. At first, she looked outward, marveling at the vista of east central Nevada spread below her. Okay, this isn’t so bad. She realized she was breathing again. Her heartbeat, though far from normal, had slowed enough she wasn’t worried about passing out and falling to her death. Dewi flew in large, lazy circles, with Marta’s house as an epicenter.
“Hang on.”
“Whoa, I was just getting comfortable.”
The dragon laughed again. “I know. But child, we do not have the luxury of you spending a hundred years learning to ride me. You will sit upon my back and lead the charge against the dark.”
“Me?” Aislinn’s voice came out as a squeak.
“And who else? When I ride to war, it is with one of your blood astride me. That is how it has always been.”
“Who was the last?”
“That would be Ian Gwinn MacLochlainn.”
“When?”
Dewi laughed. Fire belched from her mouth. Smoke swirled and eddied past Aislinn. “I do not keep track like you humans, but sometime during the seventeenth century. Or maybe it was the sixteenth.” The dragon banked, turning sharply first one way, then the other. After the initial swoop that left her stomach behind, Aislinn found it was rather like a carnival ride. She grinned, face plastered into the wind. “I think I’m going to like this.”
“Of course you will. You were made for this, as was your mother. Too bad she fled the Old Country before her magic ripened.” Something—maybe sadness, maybe disappointment—hung beneath Dewi’s words.
The circles tightened as they got closer to the ground. At what seemed like the last minute, Dewi spread her wings like huge sails, and they landed far more lightly than Aislinn would’ve thought possible.
She threw a leg over, prepared to slither down Dewi’s side, but the dragon reached back and plucked her down, depositing her into Fionn’s arms. “My scales are sharp,” Dewi said. “That would not have been a good way to dismount.”
Aislinn wriggled out of Fionn’s grip. So full of life she wanted to embrace the entire world, she danced around the yard, weaving in and out of the men with Rune nipping at her heels and barking. An undercurrent of Gaelic followed her. The only thing she made out was something like, let the lass have this moment. ’Twill end all too soon.
Aislinn spun and wove her way back to men and dragon. “Amazing!” She breathed deep. “Simply amazing.” She looked right into Dewi’s eyes, no longer afraid. “When can we do it again?”
“Soon. You need practice marshaling your magic in flight—and hitting targets from the air.” Something warm brushed Aislinn’s face and traveled down her body. Dewi was breathing on her, marking her. The warmth felt maternal somehow, with a tenderness that brought tears dangerously close to the surface.
With her scales glimmering in light from the newly risen sun, Dewi became progressively more insubstantial. In moments, she was gone. Aislinn wrapped her arms around herself. Without the dragon’s warmth, the chill of dawn ate into her. “Where’d she go?”
“To gather as many of us as she can find in the Old Country—and other places.” Gwydion’s voice was deadly serious. “We go to war, lass. The sooner we mobilize worldwide, the better our chances will be.”
“Yes, either we oust the dark, or surrender to them. There is no middle ground,” Arawn snapped.
“You’re only just now realizing that?” Aislinn stared at them, arms akimbo. She sounded rude, but didn’t care. “Christ, I’ve known that ever since I watched my father die at their hands three years ago.”
Fionn motioned for her to be quiet, but she ignored him. “Whoever Dewi went to find, I’ll bet it’s not the humans I’ve fought side by side with. Who’s going to tell them what’s happening?” She scanned the group, but the men seemed to be looking elsewhere. “We need to warn them. Remember, the Old Ones gave us our orders. That’s how we knew where to go and who to fight. We had no idea they were in league with the dark.”
The more she thought about it, the madder Aislinn got. Finally, she picked up a good-sized rock and chucked it at a nearby fence. It plonked off, and she chucked another. “Pretty fucking convenient, if you ask me. No wonder we never made any headway.”
She ran to Fionn and grabbed his arm. “We have to let what’s left of my race know. Otherwise, the Old Ones will lure them right to their doom. Plus, they’ll fight for us. I know they will. They want to rid Earth of the dark more than anyone. We’re the ones who’ve suffered most, watching everyone we ever loved die.”
The tears that had threatened earlier overflowed and streamed down her face, but she didn’t care if they made her look weak.
“Just how are ye proposing to do that?” Fionn’s voice was gentle.
She brushed at her wet cheeks impatiently. “I know where some people are. I could tell them. They could tell others. It would be like a chain.”
“How long would that take?” Gwydion,
who’d walked over to them, asked.
“I don’t know. Does it even matter?”
“Ye canna save them all—” Gwydion began.
“I know that,” she broke in. “The important thing is that we at least try to warn as many as we can. We could start right here. There must be people between here and the Utah line.” Spinning on her heels, she ran for the house.
Fionn and Rune dashed after her. “What are ye doing?” Fionn called.
“I’m going to get a few things together. Then I’m leaving. There’s nothing for me to do here right now.” Pounding up the steps, she slid through the wards and into the house.
“If ye insist on going, I’m coming with you,” Fionn said. “But hold up, there are things ye need to know that might make this easier.”
“I am coming, too.” Rune panted. “We are bondmates. That means we stay together.”
“What things?” Aislinn was in the bedroom, tossing things into her rucksack.
“Ye have all the human gifts—”
“Ridiculous,” she spat, not bothering to look at him. “I had Mage and Seeker—”
“And ye added Healer and Hunter in the blink of an eye,” he interrupted. “That leaves Seer. We discussed it while ye were getting to know Dewi and agreed ye must have that talent as well. MacLochlainns carry all the gifts. I told ye that ye had magic long afore the Surge. ’Tis not my fault ye dinna believe me.”
“So?” She tossed her pack over one shoulder. “I’m ready to go. I plan to use my Seeker skills to find others like me.”
Fionn closed on her, his blue eyes glittering. “Use your Seer skill first. It will show you a number of…probabilities. The best part is if ye doona like the future ye see, sometimes ye can change it.”
“I suppose you have all five gifts, too?” She looked hard at him.
“Och aye, Lass. And a few more to boot.” He took her hands, his gaze never leaving her face. “This willna take long. Let me help.”
He hummed a low, hypnotic melody. Without understanding how she knew what to do, she picked up a harmonizing thread. Not unlike the day she’d slipped inside his head, a scene blossomed before her. She was back near her cave. Bodies lay strewn in the streets. Coming close, she recognized many of them, and her heart ached. Somehow, Travis wasn’t there. Did that mean he was still alive? Was any of this real? Or was it a future that hadn’t yet happened?
She asked a Seer’s question, trying to sort what was real from what her eyes showed her. The bodies vanished, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Shelving her Seer magic in favor of Seeker skills, she went looking for others like herself and found them in caves and grottos, hiding from things that were trying to kill them. She tried to communicate, but no one recognized her presence, no matter what she did. She wondered what sort of magic rendered her totally invisible. Whatever it was, she needed to learn more about it. Though it was a problem now, she could think of lots of situations where it would be a boon. Finally, she grabbed a stick and wrote her message in the dirt. She put it lots of places so people would have to see it.
Danger. Do not trust the Old Ones. They are allied with the dark. Fight with us. Come to Ely as soon as you read this. Look for magic there, and you will find us. Once you’ve read this, destroy it.
For all their erudition, she was fairly certain the Lemurians couldn’t read English. I sure hope not. If they can, we’re in for a bunch of unwelcome guests. She thought she heard Fionn chuckle in the back of her mind. God, but she loved him.
“Good ye figured that out, mo leannán,” echoed in her head.
So now I’m his sweetheart…
She wrenched herself back to Seer mode. The scene shifted to Salt Lake City. Her childhood neighborhood didn’t look any worse than when she and Rune had left it. Good. It meant there’d be people to save. She wondered if she could do something from her trance state besides scratch messages in the dirt. It would sure save a lot of time. Ducking into a tunnel that she knew led to a Hunters’ den, she ran through it. Sure enough, three Hunters and their animals were home. They looked gaunt and worried. Aislinn touched one, but he didn’t so much as flinch. The bond animals—a cougar, a wolf, and a German shepherd—sniffed the air. They sensed her, but couldn’t quite put what they perceived into a cohesive whole without a visual.
Aislinn pulled Mage magic. Fionn poured power into her, helping. She’d never tried to combine two gifts at once—she’d always used them sequentially—but she was desperate. She was here. The Hunters and their animals were here. If she tried to return later with her body, they might be gone. She held her breath. Please, please, let them sense me.
The mixture of magics did the trick. One of the Hunters, a solidly built woman with greasy black hair, hissed. “Something’s here.”
“Yes, my name is Aislinn—”
The woman’s head whipped round. She raised her hands to pull magic. “Show yourself.”
“I cannot. I am far away. But trust that I am human. I come to warn you—”
— —
Aislinn would have fallen to the floor if Fionn hadn’t caught her. They’d visited at least a hundred humans, spreading the word and exhorting them to tell everyone they knew. He backed her toward her bed. “Ssssh. Lie down, mo croi. Let me get you some mead.”
Rune jumped onto the bed, licking her face and chiding her about leaving—even astrally—without him by her side.
“She’ll be fine, laddie,” Fionn assured the wolf. “Stay with her. I’ll be right back.”
When he returned carrying a flask and a bowl of food, she’d kicked off her boots and stuffed a pillow under her head. She tried to smile, but it felt beyond her. “Why do I feel like an entire team of mules kicked me in the guts?”
He grinned. “Because ye just used more magic than ye’re used to—a whole lot more.”
“Look at all we did.” Pride filled her. “Once I’ve had something to eat, we can hunt down more people to warn.”
He sat next to her on the bed, offering first the flask, then the bowl of yesterday’s stew. “I have to admit it was a good idea. We’ll need all the manpower we can gin up. A hundred humans would help a lot.”
“What if we can find two hundred? Or five?” Aislinn spooned food into her mouth. Even though she was almost too done in to chew, she needed fuel before she could leave again. “How much of that was your magic?”
He shrugged. “Maybe a third. Maybe half. ’Tis hard to quantify such things.”
“Thank you.” A thought occurred to her. “Will I get stronger? So I won’t need as much help from you?”
“Och aye, lass. ’Twill be interesting to see just how strong ye become.”
Handing him the empty bowl, she opened her arms. Fionn shucked his clothing, snuggled next to her, and smoothed hair back from her face. He kissed her, his mouth gentle against hers. Before when they’d come together, they’d clawed at one another, desperate with need. This time, their lovemaking was slow and sweet. His hands glided under her clothes, caressing rather than grabbing. She covered his face with kisses and strung them down his chest until he moaned low in his throat. Murmuring endearments in Gaelic, he moved enough of her clothes aside to slip a hand between her legs. She wriggled against it, savoring the climax that rippled through her.
When she reached for him, he was hard. Christ, he was always hard. Aislinn smiled and wrapped her hand around him. She licked his chest and belly, positioned herself between his legs, and took him into her mouth. She’d never done that to him before. They’d always been in too much of a hurry to slam their bodies together. Licking, sucking, and stroking, she worked her way up and down his shaft, gratified by his gasps and moans. His cock swelled and got even harder, though that scarcely seemed possible. She cupped his balls and knew he was close by the tension in them.
He put a hand on either side of her head and pulled her off him. “I want to be inside you.” His voice was rough with emotion. “To feel your body around me.”
“Are you sure, be
cause—”
“Aye, quite sure.” He pulled her on top.
She spread herself to accommodate him. He felt so incredible that it was hard to breathe when he buried his full length inside her. Sex had never, never felt this mesmerizing. He pulled nearly all the way out, hands on her hips to keep her still. The tip of him danced just at the entrance to her vault, teasing her. She tried to slither out of his grip so she could get him back inside, but he wouldn’t let her. When she thought she couldn’t stand anymore, with every nerve ending on fire, trembling on the edge of another climax, he pushed into her ever so slowly. She came before he hit bottom, crying and shaking against him. He made that incredible sound like a big cat on the prowl and juddered hard inside her. The jolts of his release rocked her as his hands on her hips moved her just the way he liked.
Tears streaked her cheeks. Where had they come from? Overcome with emotion, she kissed him, murmuring his name over and over in between kisses.
“We shouldn’t have.” Guilt roiled through her as she pulled away. “There’s so much to do…”
He offered her a crooked smile. “That may have taken all of ten minutes, fifteen tops. I say it was time well spent. Get dressed. Go toss some water on your face, and we’ll have another go at warning more of your kinfolk.”
“How long do we have?”
“At least until Dewi returns. Then she will require all your attention.”
“You never told me why she was hanging out with the Old Ones, masquerading as their dragon, Orione. While you’re at it, does anyone know what happened to him?”
He grinned. “That sounds like the woman I love. A piss pot of questions, to be sure.”
“Are you going to answer any of them?” She couldn’t help it. She grinned right back. “By the way, I like the sound of what you just said. The part about loving me.”
His eyes softened from the midnight of a deep ocean to a mellower blue. “As do I, lass. Ye asked about Dewi. Originally, we, um, assigned her spy duty under Taltos. She’d run into a patch of difficulties and needed to get away from Ireland and us Celts. Once she was ensconced in her tunnel, though, somehow she knew ye would turn up sooner or later. Orione was weak. She killed him and used illusion to take his place.”