by Scott, Amber
The billowing, lavender hues muted to gold until it dissipated into the light of the dawn. Reality crashed back down upon Ailyn as hard as any wave below. Twice she’d made love to Quinlan. The first time, she could allow herself to believe the idea that no babe would come of their joining. Now, though, she could not deny the possibility.
Nor could she deny her heart’s longing for him to be hers forever. To do so, though, meant never returning to her world. A weight settled upon her. There was no room to revel in this new realization, no space to explore this new emotion. Rejoicing would be premature. So she buried her hopes and joy deep.
Claiming to be his did not make it so.
There seemed to be nothing that could make it so.
As though he felt reality pressing down as well, Quinlan lifted his head and stood, moving her gently to stand before him. A wealth of wordless emotion hung between them. Ailyn could not hold his intense gaze, glancing for her clothes instead. He bent to help her retrieve them.
“If we can locate an exit, I think we should get to Tir Conaill. To Breanne.”
Tugging her tunic on, Ailyn nodded. Her thighs were an aching, shaky reminder of what they shared, now gone. “Aye, if Maera is well, given that I have my pendant again, I’d like to try to conjure the veil somehow.” Her chest squeezed. “To return home.”
“Aye. Breanne can help. I feel sure of it.”
He looked sure. He sounded sure. Yet Ailyn felt it a lie. That as much as Quinlan wanted to trust, to stay strong and chart their course, fate had other plans.
She could not shake the thought that no matter how they proceeded, now that she had her pendant, they were on a path set for Samhain that they could not walk away from, no matter how many turns they took.
“We can use the pendant. Mayhap it can light the tunnel to help us navigate the best route to freedom,” she said, tucking the object under her tunic and adjusting her clothing. The fabric felt odd and cumbersome after such intimacy that they’d shared.
“Aye,” Quinlan replied, fastening his mantle. The sea breeze blew his wavy locks, giving him a dangerous appeal.
Ailyn scolded herself. She’d made love to him but moments ago, yet there she was eating up his incredibly handsome visage like a starved man at a feast. It was as if her mind clung to the distraction her attraction offered. She didna wish to face what truly mattered. She didna wish to think of Maera, her brother, of the bloodstone, or the veil.
In the lingering glow of feeling Quinlan’s body join in perfect union with hers, the world had been pushed away so that he felt more real than any quest or consequence. Why could she not stay here with him? Alone in a sea cave with naught but his arms and their passion to sustain them through the storm above.
Because that wasna how life worked. Love brought naught but turmoil. Jealousy, obsession, broken hearts. A life without such keen passion was a better-lived, safer existence. One that she would soon be free to seek. Once the disaster her brother tricked her into had been resolved.
Pensive, Quinlan held the “key” Daniel had given them in his hand. “Naught more than a useless stick is what it is,” he muttered. Giving her a crooked smile, he tossed it out into the sea. A high-pitched, whiffling sound came from it as the wind carried it downward.
Ailyn turned to make her way back into the cavern, and then halted as the sound grew louder. She spun back around in time to witness the key fly upward, a trail of glittering gold following. It careened up the cliffside. Quinlan gripped a craggy wall, leaning out to peer up. Ailyn’s pulse quickened in her throat. What had he done by throwing it away? She watched his scowl intently, inching closer to the lip of the cave mouth despite her fears of a bloody death below. Quinlan jerked back into the cave, emitting a surprised grunt.
The key landed with a clatter at his feet, a sprinkling of golden dust in its wake. He knelt, and shot a glance up at her. Mischief lit his face.
“What?” she asked, not entirely sure she wanted an answer.
He held a finger up, then gently retrieved the key. “Danny lad doesna know all, methinks, lass.”
Ailyn’s apprehension deepened. “What do you mean?”
He stood, key in hand. The mischief in his eyes was gone. In its place shone hard determination. “I’ve an idea. But you’re not going to like it.” He leaned out of the cave mouth again, this time peering upward. Then he looked down, wincing. “I have serious doubts of our chances of finding a suitable exit.”
He paused, staring at her, perhaps awaiting a reaction. Ailyn gave none. She was no fool. Nor blind. She could guess what he intended. “You’ll fall to your death.”
“Possibly. Or, with this in hand, I’ll scale the cliff, locate help, and return for you— either through the entrance, or with a very long, very sturdy rope.”
“Madness is what that is. I’ll never agree to it.”
“Not madness. You saw the key return.”
“Aye. The key. Not the key plus the weight of a man.”
“You’re not even considering it, lass.”
“If one of us can be taken to safety by the key, then why not both?”
He cocked his head. “I’ll not be testing this on both of us.”
“You’re not testing it at all. You’re trusting a stick to, what, carry you to the ground above?”
Something flickered in his gaze. Ailyn refused to wonder what else he had surmised about the key. She refused to listen to any more of such nonsense as this. More and more, her life felt like some twisted jest by the gods. “You intend to leave me here. Alone.”
“You’re a capable warrior, Ailyn. You’ve real power in your veins, which I lack, and between the two of us, I’m far likelier to locate aid.” He stepped close, taking her face in her hands. “Your life matters more than mine.”
She hated the verity of his argument. Pressing her lips together. “And if you fail and plummet to your gruesome death, you sentence me to one as well. How is that reasonable? How is that fair?”
“It’s neither. But, you are far more able and far more courageous than you give yourself credit for, lass.” He kissed her nose, rubbing her cheeks with his thumbs. “If you can think of any better solution, I’m entirely open to it.”
Her mind searched for one, but she only circled back to what they’d already decided. “Let us at least explore the passageway as planned, ’ere you risk your neck.” A neck she’d grown very fond of wrapping her arms around. A neck that had risked enough for her already. “If we find you’re right, then I’ll agree to the alternate.”
He gave her a look that reminded her she really had little say either way. If he wished to trust the key’s power and attempt to scale upward, she couldna stop him. Short of taking the key for herself, that is. Which she wouldna do. With so many lives at stake, she could not abide simply remaining concealed in wait. She didna wish such loss to burden the rest of her days.
Though she knew down to her very soul that losing Quinlan would darken every night until her last breath.
Quinlan chewed on her suggestion a moment, then gave her a single nod. “Can you make the pendant glow? We’ll need the light.” He gestured for her to lead the way.
Her acute tension eased away as she retrieved the pendant with a shaky hand. Willing it to give light with every ounce of her energy, she strode to the back of the cavern, past the trickling water. Past the dust swirls and shaft of sunlight. The roar of the sea faded with each step. The pendant warmed in her palm, its light at last growing. Ailyn grinned, turning to triumphantly show Quinlan.
But he wasna there.
“Nay!” she called out, pendant forgotten. She rushed back to the cave mouth, knowing full well what she found there would change everything. The whiffling sound of the key met her ears. The hint of golden sparkle in the air drew her frantic gaze. She halted at the spot he’d earlier stood, gripping the cave wall and forcing herself to look down into the violent sea.
Nothing but tall, foamy waves filled her vision. “Quinlan!” she
screamed, her heart slamming against her ribs. Her legs wobbled with fear. Please. Please surface.
Nay, dinna surface. Dinna be in the waters at all. She squeezed her eyes shut a moment then bade them open. She peered upward. The craggy surface menaced worse than the fathoms of sea. The wind whipped at her hair, loosening tendrils from her braid. Salty spray stung her cheeks. Storm clouds loomed on the horizon. She strained to see any sign of him. The deep green pattern of his mantle, the coppery glint of his hair, and bronzed skin.
Nothing. She saw nothing to give her hope. No golden dust, nor faintest whiffle.
Pain cinched around her heart. A sob choked her breathing. She stumbled back, hugging the wall. Her foot hit metal. With a loud clang, his sword fell to the ground. He’d left it behind. Hugging herself, she fell to her knees, telling herself the drop was not so great a distance. Surely Quinlan had made it. Surely the furlong or so would be an easy feat with the aid of magick.
He’d not leave his sword if he didna plan to return to her. Unless he feared its weight would hinder him. Or worse, if he feared she would need it, sure that he’d not return at all.
Despite desperate hopes against it, the image of Quinlan’s body battered again and again against the rocky bottom filled her mind. She covered her face, nigh choking on emotion. “Foolish man! What were you thinking, Quinlan?”
Nay. She’d not assume the worst. She wiped her tears away, mindless of the pendant’s filigree scraping her skin. She swallowed the emotion. “Morrigan, hear my plea. I beg you to show me what fate Quinlan has met. Brigit, please, hear my words, I invoke you to show me the way.”
Naught but the salty wind met her senses, though. Where was the nudge she so desperately needed now? Silent. Day by day, ever more here in this mortal world, the Source waned. Not all magick, though. The goddesses might be silent, but the pendant wasna. It warmed in her hand still, sending a soft hum over her palm and up her arm.
Defeated and broken but yet resolved, she retreated from the craggy edge. She would believe he’d made it until she discovered otherwise. She had to. Believing otherwise would crush her will to go on. Colm, Maera, and all of the Fae world needed her to trudge forth. To fight until her dying breath.
As her father would have hoped her to.
As her mother had.
On weak legs, she strode back to the passageway.
A faint echo drew her attention. She halted, looked up, straightening. Aside from the trickling stream and distant waves, though—there! She heard it again. Was it her name?
Her heartbeat skipped into triple time. She let the pendant fall from her fingers to her chest, peering up the crevice, listening.
“Ailyn?”
Her gasp sounded more like a squawk. “Quin, is that you?” If it wasna, let it at least be Daniel. Or Colm. Anyone who could help. But more keenly than any other, she hoped it was Quinlan. “Quin?”
A rush of water poured through the crevice, forcing her back a step. Another gush splashed over the rocky wall and floor, revealing a small bit of fabric. Ailyn reached for the wet material, immediately recognizing the colors to be of Quinlan’s mantle.
She pressed it to her chest in a tight fist, giddy with relief. So giddy that she only briefly wondered how he found the crevice, how he conjured such a brilliant way to assure her that all was well. She would skin him alive for striking such fear in her soul, but not unless and until she escaped as well. Now on far sturdier legs, she set off toward the passageway at the back of the cavern.
Chapter Twenty-three
“Enough. If the scrap of tartan doesna find its way to her, so be it,” Jamison said.
“Unacceptable. Force him to bring her to me,” the man said, his hand tightening on Quinlan’s throat.
He strained against the man’s steely grip. “Dinna count on such luck, Jamison,” he grit out.
“Aye, well if the fabric is not lure enough, we’ll fish her out by some other means.”
Kristoph lifted Quinlan off the ground, backing him up so that he dangled off the edge.
His struggles were of no avail and would plunge him to his death, a death he’d already narrowly escaped thanks to the wooden staff Daniel had called a ‘key’. Quinlan could hardly breath let alone call down to Ailyn to warn her. His cheeks washed with hot anger and shame.
Never could he have guessed this is what his leap would bring him to. Not two seconds after hitting the ground with a hard thump, Jamison had greeted him with a menacing laugh.
“What took you so long, friend?” the burly galloglas had said, rising from his lackadaisical lean against an oak.
Having only enough time to scramble to his feet, Quinlan was easy prey. Plus Jamison brought help—Kristoph, Quinlan presumed given the curved scar Daniel had described along at the man’s neck.
A scar all too familiar now that his mind kicked up the memory of Jamison’s mark beneath his beard.
“Scream if you can. She’ll not hear you,” Kristoph said, his strange violet gaze taking Quinlan in. “She’ll hear naught but hope drumming through her veins now. Hope for you. Hope for Colm. We’ll need no further bait.”
The man spoke more to Quinlan than to Jamison, watching every word’s impact and deep impact they had. Blows to his heart, to his pride. Wounds that stung worse than any cut. He’d failed her. He was wont to keep her safe and pulled a trick that now proved foolish beyond words. Forgive me, lass.
He struggled against the hold, mindless of the precarious footing he would find along the rocky edge. Ailyn’s mother had shown him the true elements necessary for the rite to work. A triad of the bloodstone, Ailyn, and her true love.
If they killed him they would have one less element.
So be it.
Did they know as much, though? Or did they, too, mistake the pendant as the third piece? His life was worthless if he let her down. His eyes strained to see more of Jamison than the blur in his periphery. What dark arts were these that held him invisibly and stronger than any chain or man? Krisoph leaned so close that his nose nigh touched Quinlan’s. His hot breath smelled like…honey and heather? He smelled like Ailyn.
Nay! Impossible. A trick. Quinlan fought to suppress the burning hot possessiveness clawing up his chest over the idea that this man had ever been so close her as to smell like her. The violet eyes held his in an icy stare. “So this is what she wants, is it?”
Chilly fear ran down Quinlan’s back. The sky above darkened by degrees. As if it night’s cloak threatened to steal the day. His thoughts tumbled, tripping upon themselves, over and again coming back to Ailyn. She wouldn’t know the trap the key brought him to.
Jamison’s smiling visage showed just beyond Kristoph’s back. “Daniel!” he called in a shout over one shoulder.
Daniel?! Bile shot up Quinlan’s throat. It’s bitter taste recoiled his tongue. Kristoph’s invisible grip cinched tighter on his throat. He refused to fall for Jamison’s ploy. Daniel would not betray Breanne. He would not betray Ailyn. Not even to save his own skin. Daniel might be young but he was far from naïve and Ashlon had helped instill character in him sturdier than the oak Jamison—nay! From behind the very oak Jamison had stood in wait came one all too familiar figure.
A scream of rage bubbled up his chest. His arms, his chest, his head strained against the invisible bindings. The scream released in a muted growl and never in all his life had he felt so weak. So powerless.
The newest betrayer would not meet his eyes. Shamed is what he was and well deserved, too. Quinlan would have spat. He would have drawn his blade and run Jamison through. Kristoph, as well. Daniel, though, he would save. He would drag him bound and gagged to his sister. To her husband who had shown him how to become a man.
Jamison cuffed a hand to Daniel’s shoulder. “Be a good lad and fetch the lass, Danny. We’ve little time for error, mind you.”
Kristoph’s attention didna waver from Quinlan’s face, but the men behind him were all Quinlan could see. He watched, horrified.
Daniel gave Jamison a jovial grin, his appearance strikingly young. Bright naiveté shone in his eyes. He bent to the ground a moment. When Danny stood, he tossed the wooden staff—the key that had powerfully jerked Quinlan up the cliff’s face to this very spot—up into the air. Then with a grin, he caught it. Was this a game to him? Had his journeys to discover the lore addled his mind? Would he be cursed to wax and wane through aging?
The sense of betrayal cut Quinlan deep, but alongside it, sorrow ebbed forth. Breanne would now lose her brother, too? Certainly her mother was on death’s bed. She would have no family left save the one she was creating. He could not worry for Breanne’s heart now, though. Not with the invisible grip on him seeming to seep into his skin, penetrating the muscle and clogging his airway. It wasn’t merely difficult to breathe. The air itself did not feel like air. Not the nourishing cool relief his body needed.
Nay, more like breathing fog. He could taste cloying sweetness in it. What luck could possibly strike now? Naught that he would count on. Enchanted staffs, magickal pendants and speaking ghosts would not give him air to breathe. Nor would they conjure a band of warriors to his aid.
Kristoph’s gaze danced with delight as though the man fed off Quinlan’s struggling. Not merely fed, exalted in it. Quinlan’s forced himself to stop fighting for air. He imagined he’d fallen deep into the waves below and in order to surface, he had to stop kicking, turn his stomach upward and keep holding his breath. He shut his eyes, clinging to the image when suddenly the bindings gripping him released. He fell to his knees, coughing. His throat felt raw, his stomach churned.
The dirt he stared at as he fought to recover might have been the most beautiful sight except a trail of dark blue invaded it, smoke coming off of it. Stench vile beyond words emanating upward and sending him back onto his heels. There on the ground before him lay Kristoph. Niall O’Donnell stood above the Fae man’s twitching body, a blue soaked dagger in his hand. His shoulders heaved. Anger glittered in his eyes.