Enchanted Moon (Moon Magick Book II)

by Scott, Amber

  “You’ll be leaving them where they are.”

  By now, she recognized the gravelly voice of Quinlan’s attacker. Or perhaps she could sense the inky energy emanating off of him, so like Kristoph’s own. Her mind split for a moment in wonder that the sorcerer could truly be dead.

  Yet she felt no safer.

  The opposite.

  Glancing at the man standing above him, her eyes went to the glowing orb he held aloft. The bloodstone.

  “Quinlan. Ailyn. You cannot run from fate. I swear to ye, if you comply, ye’ll not regret it.”

  Coldness entered her stomach. The sort of still chill of knowing events were utterly beyond her control. She looked at Quinlan then followed his frown downward to Maera. She’d stopped reaching. Instead she gone to her knees and held Colm in her arms, stroking his fur. Far more blood than she’d thought soaked his fur revealed itself on his stomach. Fresh, red blood. The blood of her mother’s people. Nothing like the azure of Kristoph’s.

  Nothing like Ailyn’s father’s.

  Nothing like her own.

  Quinlan reached his outstretched hand to her. The expression on his face turned the cold inside her to ice. There was such pain in his eyes. And that awful resolve. He cupped her cheek and nodded. He got up, reaching to help her up as well. Before allowing him to, she retrieved the pendant from her neck. Fully anticipating that someone would stop her, she dropped it to Maera. It was all she could do. Maera caught it, looked up. Gratitude shone in her eyes as she pressed the pendant to her chest. A green butterfly slipped through the princesses clutching fingers, telling Ailyn all would be well.

  If she could keep these people from her brother and his love, they would make it back home. She knew it down to her bones.

  “It isna too late to stop this, Niall,” Quinlan said, not an ounce of fear in his voice.

  The sweeping hues spiraled toward Niall. The stone held high in his fist seemed to suck the energy in. Niall’s gaze lit with mad anticipation.

  “It’s happening,” Niall stated.

  He backed away, gesturing for them to follow. The gathering circled in on them, herding them to follow Niall. Quinlan stood his ground. He squeezed her hand.

  “I canno imagine you dinna already ken it lass, but I need to know you’ve heard the words.”

  Ailyn shook her head, trying to pull her hand from his. He yanked her to him. Her body hit his. His hands went into her hair, holding her face so that she was forced to see him.

  “I love you.”

  She shut her eyes in pain. A physical pain that coursed from her cheeks down her throat and into her heart. If she didna say the words, the pain might take her with it. She opened her eyes. “I love you, too, Quin.”

  Aye, she did. And sure she knew that begging him to not do it, to stay, would be useless and remiss. She had to surrender to the force between them and know he would do what he intended. She couldna stop him from leaping off that precipice, nor could she wish away the risk of his death at the bottom.

  “I trust you,” she said, letting the water welling in her eyes fall free.

  Niall beckoned.

  “Aye?” Quinlan asked, the rain pelting his face, his eyes never leaving hers.

  “Aye.” She nodded. She did. She trusted his actions, his decisions. He’d not yet led them astray. She surrendered their fate to him.

  Quinlan backed up a step. She followed.

  Another.

  Two more.

  “Stop them. They mean to jump!” someone in the gathering shouted.

  Ailyn’s stomach fell to her toes. Quinlan edged back one more step. The crowd rushed them. Quinlan jerked her around, nodded. “Now, lass!”

  Gulping a breath of air into her lungs, Ailyn watched him leap forth. She followed but a second behind. He let go of her hand. A scream tore from her throat as the swell of sea below closed in on her. A flash of light broke through the stormy horizon.

  Her body hit the surface hard, knocking the air from her. Blackness enveloped her. So black that she could not even sense the cold or wet of the water. Only its roar.

  Then silence.

  She’d not fallen into the water at all.

  Perhaps she’d died.

  Which meant Quinlan might have as well.

  Ailyn tried to make sense of the silent darkness. A small light drew her eyes. She reached for it. As she did it grew, spreading its warmth, giving depth and definition to her new surroundings. The sky above held bright canopy of stars flanked by shadowy boughs. The soft sound of a woman’s voice echoed through the trees.

  Her mother’s voice. Singing in the tongue of their ancestors. Singing the tale of a princess who left her people behind in order to save them. Who gave up her immortal Fae birthright in order to join the mortal world and safeguard them all.

  “This is your song, my sweet bird. Awaken!”

  Ailyn jerked upright. Reality slammed to the fore, loud and intense. She lay on a stone slab. Quinlan lay next to her unconscious. They were at the center of a gathering, encircled by trees. A ring of small fires enclosed her and Quinlan upon the slab. At the foot of the stones stood Niall, holding the bloodstone aloft and shouting at the night sky.

  The crowd chanted as well. Words she couldna understand.

  The trees framed the full moon in a cloudless sky.

  She pushed at Quinlan’s shoulder. He did not respond. His face was ashen and wet. No longer wet from the storm, now gone. From sweat. Tendrils of violet lifted off of him and into the stone. Niall was sucking his life-force from him.

  Ailyn grabbed for the pendant at her chest. Gone. She’d given it to Maera. She had naught but her feeble wits to aid them? She could not forsake him.

  She shifted. The stone beneath her wobbled. She held still a moment then cast her instinct to not move aside. Let the stones fall. Let them crash to the ground before them. She rolled onto Quinlan, straddling him. Taking his shoulders, she shook him with all his might, screaming his name.

  The crowd roared in approval.

  The violet aura emanating off of him thickened in the air. A cloying scent all too familiar met her senses. She abandoned her hopes of waking him by physical force. Attempting to block the energies flowing from his chest, she lay against him, working her arms around him.

  “Dinna leave me now, Quinlan. I need you.” Ignoring the tear the coursed down her cheek onto his, she kissed his cold lips. “I need you. Come back to me.”

  Again, she kissed his lips.

  Her chest tingled. She squeezed his neck, running her thumbs over his ears, refusing to say goodbye. If they’d survived that leap, surely they could survive this magick as well. “Come back to me.”

  His hands wrapped around her ankles. Ailyn inhaled sharply, hope shooting through her. The chanting grew faster. What could they do to stop this darkness?

  “More,” he whispered at her ear.

  She pulled back to see his face. “More?”

  “Aye,” he said. “Grow the power and then take it back, lass. As your mother once fought.” His eyes shut. His head lolled to the side. “Harder.”

  “Quinlan? What d’you mean? As my mother once fought?” The color coming from his chest weakened. Her mother had not fought. She had cried. Her heart broke upon losing Ailyn’s father and she’d never been the same.

  Her father murdered.

  Her mother bereft.

  She could not face such a cruel fate as that. Mayhap her mother had done all she could to save him. She did not know. What could a brown blood Fae with mere traces of magick remaining do to save a man such as her father was? A powerful man with powerful magick in his veins. The kind Ailyn had denied could run through her own for all her life.

  The air around her blurred.

  Immediately she thought of the night she’d followed Maera through. The veil.

  Quinlan’s life-force was powering the bloodstone. The bloodstone was conjuring the veil. Given enough power, it would rip the veil apart. Ailyn shut her eyes and begged th
e goddess’ for their aide. She could not do this alone. She called to her mother’s spirit. To any that would hear her.

  When she felt the cold settling in her stomach, this time she recognized it.

  Aye. She knew this chill deep within.

  Power. Icy, steely power.

  She focused on its pure, cold, cleanness. She watched it grow and spread. She felt it course down her arms like rivulets of rain, up her spine like a rod.

  When she opened her eyes, she had the notion she could fairly breathe this power out. Carefully, slowly, she rotated herself on the slab. The light entranced the crowd. Niall was entranced by his own words.

  Many had closed their eyes.

  A mistake.

  They would not see what they had awoken.

  Ailyn rose to her feet, trusting that first instinct now of not to rock the slab upon which she stood. Quinlan’s legs sprawled between hers. They’d not take him from her. No one would.

  The veil shimmered full, a curtain of energy. She could see her kingdom on the other side, the faint outline of a wolf becoming a man. Colm. Safe.

  She would not see him again. The loss would cut deep once she could feel such a thing again. Now, though, all she could feel was cold certainty. She reached her hand forward and whispered in her father’s sacred tongue. “This light, this love, is mine.”

  Niall’s eyes slammed open as she spoke. His hand began to shake.

  “Mine alone.”

  His hands covered the top of the glowing stone. He shook his head, his gaze filled with a desperate plea.

  “This love I keep.” His desperation touched her heart. She felt his sadness. She understood. He only ever wanted what she now fought for. His love to live. But not at the peril of so many. “This love I keep. This light I extinguish.”

  A wind whipped through the trees. The fires sputtered out. The amethyst hues swept away. The veil trembled. The hum in the air quaked.

  “This light I extinguish.”

  The bloodstone’s glow burned brighter with every word, hissing louder. Niall’s hands shook. He gave one last shout, commanding the veil to part. But in his eyes she could see--he knew. He knew he’d failed.

  There in his hands, the glowing stone exploded. Beams of bright blue light shot outward. The crowd dispersed in a panic. Niall fell to the ground, struck.

  Slain.

  Ailyn’s entire being shook. She lowered her arm, gingerly lowering herself as well. The stillness in the air might as well have been the darkness she and Quinlan leapt into. Except this was real. The ice inside her was gone. The tendrils of light were gone. Naught but smoke from the fires remained.

  She put Quinlan’s hand in hers. He had lovely hands. Roughened yet soft. Big, strong. And warm.

  A drizzle of rain began.

  She lay down next to Quinlan, letting the tension and fear and shock run their course. Quinlan’s arm wound about her shoulders, pulling her in.

  “She was right.”

  “Who?” Ailyn asked, her voice hoarse.

  “Your mother.” When she tensed against him, he gave her another squeeze. “Not now, lass. I promise you, I’ll tell you. We’ve a few more critical tasks to attend to before such tales, love.”

  Reluctantly, but also to fatigued to care much, she relaxed back against him. They had time now. Time enough. Time aplenty.

  Epilogue

  At some point they would learn how they had survived the fall. Eventually word would spread. Tales would be told. Those who had gathered at the rite lived among them after all. Anonymously.

  Or perchance Daniel would recall more than the snatches of memory he could claim. Or Breanne would shed light on the true events as they unfolded.

  Some days later, lying in the low light of evening with Ailyn’s warm body nestled in his arms, Quinlan could offer such details little more than passing thought.

  Naught could penetrate the spell he’d found himself under.

  Ailyn’s spell.

  Not even the turmoil abounding through the entire Tuath from losing a betraying king could pierce Quinlan’s joy. She was here. In his arms. His. Was it possible? Was she real? Aye. The tickle of her hair as she restlessly moved proved it. He sighed heavily, his heart seemingly ready to break his chest open so full it was.

  Three—or was it four?—days time was simply not enough to take in all that had passed. His entire world had been kicked onto its side, all he held to be true tumbling out. Never could he have guessed what beauty would replace that hollowed out space. He traced a line from her chin down her throat, watching the proof of her heart beating.

  Was she truly his? Forever?

  Grimacing adorably, Ailyn rolled over, knocking her forehead smack into his chin. He grunted, adjusting his arm so as to rub the offended area while his bride slept on unperturbed. He chuckled.

  The fire crackled, his bride softly snored.

  It took all his will not to wake her, to make love to her again. But she needed rest, to be sure. He’d not make her suffer simply because his reeling mind would not allow his own rest. Too much awe filled his thoughts. Awe over the wealth and depth of emotion this woman wrought in him. The awe nigh overwhelmed him until it muted back to shock. Shock over Niall’s actions. Shock over Ailyn’s actions, shock at the sheer magick they’d conjured.

  Shock that somehow in the midst of all this turmoil he’d lucked into a love so pure, so fathomless he should he perish in this very moment it would be in bliss. Ah, but death would mean missing more moments of Ailyn. Such a fate would be most tragic.

  He kissed her nose.

  The cry of a baby nipped his musings. He grinned. The priest had wed them under early dawn’s light. Daniel having returned to his appropriate age had insisted he witness the ceremony. Quinlan suspected the man carried a deep burden of guilt for not being better able to stop Niall and Jamison. He trusted life would see him through, though. Perhaps even, one day, love. With his own sister Rose eager to also witness the ceremony they’d quickly after rushed Ailyn and Quinlan to Breanne’s.

  Where they’d retired.

  Spent days and nights in each other’s arms.

  He had made love to Ailyn, fed her sweet lips and slept hidden from the world.

  Eventually they would need to emerge. If for naught else but to thank their host and hostess, congratulate them on their own blessing—a healthy babe.

  Ailyn tossed and turned again, oblivious to his watch, flopping her leg out of the covers and mumbling. Quinlan poked the tip of her nose. “Does my beast awaken?”

  She squinted one eye open, glaring at him. “Nay,” she grumbled, winding her limbs around him.

  Quinlan chuckled, pushing off just enough to get space. “I’ll fetch us some sustenance, lass. Sleep.”

  Ailyn grinned and let him go.

  A splash of water hopefully helped diminish the smell of sleep and…not sleep. The muscles in his thighs protested, a delicious reminder of just how little they’d slept. Wearing a deep grin, he quietly stepped into the hall only to nearly collide with Ashlon. Who all but dropped the swaddled bundle in his arms.

  The look Quinlan received would have sent another man running the other direction. Quinlan grinned wider.

  “Wake this child and I’ll murder you here and now, Quinlan Blake.”

  Quinlan chuckled deep in his belly. “Wouldn’t dream of it, friend. In fact, I was on my way to inquire how Breanne fares.”

  Ashlon’s expression softened as a tiny hand reached free of its swaddles. “Getting much needed rest. News that her mother will heal gave her much relief. I imagine your bride will be sleeping as well. Or do her snores mark her keen boredom?”

  “Aye. Bored stiff, she is. Naught will excite that one,” he lied, pride welling up his chest. Bride. He loved the word. He’d never have guessed. To think he’d once fancied himself in love with Breanne. That young emotion paled next to this.

  When he had first proposed they wed, he’d told himself it was a matter of honor. Duty. Lies.
He’d fallen for the lass from the moment she’d walked into his world and upturned it. Then attempted to run the other way. Yet kept returning to her. Quinlan scrubbed a hand over his face. He sorely needed a shave. And a bath.

  “I’ll be damned. You are in love with her,” Ashlon said, gently rocking the tiny form in his arms.

  Quinlan pinched his brows together. “Dinna tell me I’ve gone as outright doe-eyed as you get over Breanne. I have, haven’t I?”

  Ashlon clapped his shoulder. “Dinna fash yourself, Quin. It happens to even the toughest of us. I promise to only tell every last person in Tir Conaill who will listen.”

  “Ah, how kind of you, Sir Ashlon.” He gave a sarcastic bow. “I’ll be sure to do the same on behalf of your daughter,” he said, gesturing at the bundle.

  Ashlon shook his head. “Son, ye idiot. This is my son.”

  Quinlan guffawed, clapping his mouth at the involuntary sound. “A son then? How much fury has Breanne spit over that minor detail?”

  A smug look crossed Ashlon’s weary face. “None.” A twinkle lit his gaze.

  “Well done, then, friend. Less to fret and gray over with a son, I imagine.”

  The twinkle vanished, Ashlon’s earlier scowl returning. “I’ll be wishing a daughter for you and Ailyn then.”

  Despite the light tone, Ashlon wore a somber expression. Had he hit a nerve? Or did other events weigh on the man’s mind? “How much does Breanne know of Niall’s fate?” Quinlan asked. Losing her stepfather considering the young loss of her father had to be crushing for Breanne.

  “I’ve not yet told her. Only that Una’s good health has returned.”

  Quinlan nodded soberly. There were many wounds to mend in Tir Conaill, much lost in their king’s death, but also much to be grateful for. A high pitched wail that could make ears bleed carried down to them, followed by Breanne’s distinctive holler. “Ashlon!”

  Understanding seeped into Quinlan’s fatigued mind as he glanced at the sleeping babe in Ashlon’s arms.

  “Not a word,” Ashlon warned, his scowl showing something Quinlan had yet to ever see in the man’s gaze—terror.