“For the love of Fae children, Nora,” he whispered, “I beg you no.”
She ignored that plea. “I still say you should have told me what you were doing when you were doing it,” Nora said, and cracked two eggs into a bowl.
Afternoon sunlight slid through the kitchen windows and lay across the pedestal table where Eileen sat doing her homework. Bezel was nearby, talking to the dog; Quinn was stalking around the perimeter of Maggie’s kitchen like an ancient Viking looking for someone to behead.
“It’s not something males talk about,” he argued.
Nora huffed out a breath and looked across the room at her lover. He’d come into her life in a rush, swept her off her feet and had made her love him more than she would have thought possible. But that didn’t give him the right to plot out her child’s life before that child had even drawn his first breath!
Before she could say any of that, though, Eileen spoke up. “Did you know that thirty-three percent of domestic violence begins with a simple argument?”
“There is no violence here, child,” Quinn reassured her.
“Not yet,” Bezel tossed in, “but it looks promising.”
“Quiet, pixie! No one asked your counsel.”
“I am,” Nora said, waving a wooden spoon at Quinn as if it were a broadsword. “What do you think, Bezel? Do you think it’s right for him to decide my little boy is going to become a warrior?”
“I think you should keep making those cookies,” Bezel said, then hopped onto a chair beside Eileen. “My wife, Fontana, makes cookies with Terezia berries.” He sighed. “Fontana’s quite the cook. I miss those cookies.”
“Terezia berries?” Eileen asked.
“Think raspberries but better,” Bezel said, then stabbed a finger at her math homework. “That one’s wrong.”
“No, it’s not,” Eileen argued. “The answer’s in the back of the book and I checked.”
“The book’s wrong,” Bezel told her with a shrug. “Pixies know math.”
“Pixies are a plague on the Fae,” Quinn muttered.
“Don’t you pick on Bezel because you’re mad at me,” Nora told him.
Quinn took a deep breath and Nora watched his chest swell to enormous proportions. And though she was still furious with him, she couldn’t help the instinctive sigh of appreciation that slid from her lips. The man was really completely gorgeous. And normally very supportive.
“Woman, you must see that our child is already destined for great things,” Quinn said, trying to be placating, which only irritated Nora further.
Grumbling under her breath, she went back to stirring the cookie dough. She’d had a craving for chocolate chip cookies and her oven was broken, so she’d come to the main house, since Maggie was off in Otherworld. This kitchen, the one she and her sister had grown up in, was comforting in a way the guesthouse just wasn’t. This kitchen held memories, echoes of her family, her grandparents and the kids she and Maggie used to be. Watching Eileen doing homework at that table was comforting, too, and right about now, she could use a little comfort.
Everything was changing so quickly. Eileen was growing up, Nora was pregnant and Maggie was a queen. They had a pixie living in their tree and a grandFae who slipped in and out of their lives like a wisp of smoke and demons trotting through their hometown trying to kill them. Nora needed to hold on to a little normal. But even that thought made her smile, since for years she’d dismissed normalcy as boring. Funny, now that the everyday and ordinary was so far removed from their lives, it looked pretty good to her. Practically like a vacation.
“Mom?”
“Do your homework, honey,” she said, and stirred the brown sugar and egg mixture until it was creamy. This she could cling to. Homework. Homemade cookies.
“I am, but—”
“Nora . . .”
“Quinn, I’m pregnant and crabby and you really don’t want to push me right now.”
“I’m only trying to say that—”
“Seriously?” She reached out for the flour and realized it was moving away from her. No, it wasn’t moving. She was. “What the heck?”
“You’re floating again, Mom,” Eileen said wistfully. “Why can’t I float? I’m part-Fae and I should get to float.”
“All we need. Floating kids,” Bezel muttered.
Sheba, sleeping under the table, opened one eye, spotted Nora in midair and slunk under Bezel’s chair for protection.
“Stars and comets,” Nora muttered, grabbing for a cabinet and missing completely. “Somebody get me down.”
Quinn was there an instant later. He dragged her back until her feet hit the floor and then he cupped her face between his palms and bent his head for a brief kiss. “There is much for us to discuss, I know. But our child has a destiny, Nora. One that you will share as your blood becomes more Fae.”
His touch was warmth and life and love and always sent shivers through Nora’s body. She loved him. She wanted to be with him. But she had to know that her child got to choose what he wanted to be. She wasn’t going to fall into line just because things had always been a certain way.
“Why does he have to be a warrior?” Nora fisted one hand in Quinn’s shirt and held on to keep from floating again. “What if he wants to be a carpenter? Or a Fae plumber or something else?”
Bezel snorted.
“He will have a warrior’s heart,” Quinn told her, ignoring everyone else in the room. “His choice will be to become that which he already is.”
She dropped her forehead to his chest and blew out a breath. “That’s not a choice, Quinn.”
Tipping her chin up with the tips of his fingers, he looked into her eyes. Nora read so many emotions in those cool, blue depths, she was staggered by them all.
Even knowing that, though, Nora had to stand her ground. She’d fought too hard to regain it. During her first marriage, her sense of self had been systematically eroded. Her ex had, with tiny digs and cutting remarks, whittled away at Nora’s confidence until she’d been plagued with self-doubts. He had made choices for all of them, dismissing Nora’s opinion as worthless. By the time her ex had taken off with their former babysitter, she’d doubted even her own sexuality.
She’d come home with her daughter and slowly gone about rebuilding her self-assurance. She’d opened her mind and her heart to dreams of the mystical and had been delighted to find that her grandmother’s stories of being part-Fae were all true.
She was raising a beautiful, loving daughter. She had a great sister and a good life.
Then Quinn had appeared out of nowhere and fulfilled wishes she hadn’t even realized she was harboring. She’d felt empowered again. Strong again. She knew she was loved and had blossomed under his devotion. She knew she was a better person, a better mother, because he had come into her life. But still she had to stand up to him because not to do so was to risk losing everything she’d gained.
“Our son must have a choice,” she said.
“We are Fae. We are who we are destined to be,” Quinn argued.
Bezel snorted again. “Warriors.”
“Little troll,” Quinn countered, shooting him a hard look, “where would your kind be without the warriors who defend you?”
“Yeah, yeah . . .”
Shaking his head, Quinn turned back to Nora. “It is an honor to serve the Queen and all of the Fae. To stand with brothers in arms and defend all that is most precious to you.”
She saw his pride in who he was and his desire to have a son who would follow in his footsteps. “But to decide his fate before he’s born . . .”
“It is the way of things. The way of Otherworld and the life you are coming into.”
She swallowed back a knot of nerves. Was there always a downside? Would becoming Fae mean losing her sense of self-determination? Could she survive having her choices stripped from her again? “What if I don’t want it to be that way?”
“You humans. All alike. I want that. I don’t want that.” Bezel shook his head. “Sometimes a
thing just is.”
“Bezel, you pestilential pixie,” Quinn ordered, “take Eileen to your tree house.”
“Why do I have to leave?” Eileen demanded.
“Why should I?” Bezel asked.
“No, they don’t leave,” Nora told him.
Quinn muttered something unintelligible just under his breath and Bezel wheezed out a laugh.
“Fine. We do this here and now.” Quinn looked into Nora’s eyes. “Even now, you fight to stay on your own feet. You float, Nora. Soon you will be flying. You’re becoming Fae, love. Your body, your blood, your very soul are changing and there is no way to stop that.”
So, Nora thought, the choices she’d made already—to become involved with Quinn, to love him—had ensured that her future choices had disappeared. “Will I lose all that I am?”
Quinn smiled gently and smoothed his fingertips along her cheek. “Foolish woman. All that you are will remain and become even more so. Do you love me?”
Nora sighed. That was one thing she was absolutely sure of. “Yes.”
He cupped her cheek, his fingers spearing up and into her hair. “We are one, Nora. As it was meant. When Culhane first sent me to you, to watch you because of your closeness to Maggie, I knew the moment I saw you that nothing in my life would be the same. Ever. You are the heart of me. And I will do all I can to ease your passage into your new life.”
“I think I’m gonna hurl,” Bezel said.
Nora ignored him. “But? I heard a but there.”
“But you must choose to make it so. You must be open to it as you have been from the beginning.” He smiled. “Take what is offered and see it for what it is.”
She had chosen to become involved with Quinn. Even when she found out who and what he was, she had chosen to continue along this path. So she wasn’t really losing anything, was she? She was already living her choices.
“What about Eileen?” Nora asked, with a glance at the table where her daughter watched her. “She’s not fully Fae. What about my daughter?”
“Our daughter,” he told her, and turned to smile at the girl beaming at him. “Eileen will be with us and if the time comes when she chooses to become fully Fae, your sister, the Queen, can make it so.”
“Really?” Eileen piped up, eager and excited.
“Aw jeez . . .”
“Bezel!” Nora frowned at him, then looked back at Quinn. “Eileen chooses.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “She chooses for herself.”
“Woo-hoo!” Eileen crowed, and hugged Bezel until the pixie sputtered indignantly.
Nora sighed and laid her head against Quinn’s broad chest. Smiling, she said, “She’ll choose to become Fae. She’s already chosen.”
“Our children will be well,” Quinn assured her.
“You promise?”
“I vow it.”
Nora closed her eyes and let his strength surround her. She’d trust in her warrior. Believe her own heart. And live with the choices she’d already made.
Chapter Nine
Maggie lay sprawled across Culhane’s chest and didn’t want to move. Ever. Here was good. She was comfy. Her body was still practically glowing and she felt more relaxed than she had in her whole life. Every cell in her body was replete. And what a good word that was.
Culhane had been absolutely right when he’d warned her what seemed like a lifetime ago that sex with a Faery would rock her world. Well, he hadn’t used those words, but that was the basic meaning and, boy howdy, had he known what he was talking about.
With his hands on her, his body inside hers, she’d forgotten everything. The Mab threat. The worries over her sister. The duties of her new queenhood. Her suspicions over her grandFae. Absolutely every single thought that wasn’t a celebration of what he was doing to her had just disintegrated.
Of course, now that the festivities were, if not over, at least at halftime, those thoughts came flooding back. But she mentally fought them down. She didn’t want to think yet. She wanted to keep feeling. And if that made her selfish, then she’d just have to live with it.
“Are you sleeping?” he asked quietly.
“Are you kidding?” She turned her head to look at him and smiled. “Give me five or ten minutes to let feeling come back into my legs and we can go again.”
He laughed, and it was a loud, rich sound that seemed to echo off the high ceilings and crystal walls surrounding them. “Maggie Donovan, you are a rare woman indeed.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“I’m pleased you think so.”
“Oh,” she said with a sigh, “I really do. We should have done that weeks ago.”
He slid one hand along her spine, down to the curve of her behind, and Maggie moaned softly in response.
“Everything in its time, my Queen.” His deep, nearly musical voice rumbled out around her. He continued to stroke her skin with long, slow caresses designed to rekindle the fires inside.
And it was working.
She took a breath and thought about what he’d said.
“Queen,” Maggie repeated, pushing herself up on his chest to look down into his pale green eyes. She gave him a wry smile. “Queen Maggie. Doesn’t sound very regal, does it?”
“It sounds just as it should. As it was meant to be.”
“You really believe that,” she whispered, her gaze locked with his. “That I was destined to rule here.”
“I do.” He took her shoulders in his hands, reared up from the bed and deftly flipped her over onto her back. Now he loomed over her, his dark hair like a black silk curtain on either side of his face as he looked down at her. “You are the destiny of Otherworld. You are my destiny.”
Her heart did a funny little flip-flop action as something ancient and powerful stirred inside her. Looking up at him, she felt, for the first time, that maybe he was right. Maybe this was destiny playing out. Bringing her to exactly where she was supposed to be at exactly the right time.
Maggie felt as though she could do anything as long as she had him beside her. He was strong and fearless and yes, okay, arrogant and pushy, too. But beyond all that, Culhane made her feel as if anything were possible. He made her feel alive. Important. Needed.
She reached up with one hand and stroked his hair back from his face, allowing her fingers to linger on his jaw, then trace the curve of his lips. When she thought about what that mouth had already done to her, what it could do in the days and weeks and hell, eternities in the future, her whole body trembled in anticipation.
“I never thought about destiny until I met you,” she said quietly, almost surprised as the words slipped out.
He gave her a half smile and drew her fingers into his mouth. She breathed in fast, shallow gulps as his teeth nibbled at the pads of her fingers. When he released them, he said only, “Your destiny was linked to mine. I felt it when I first saw the prophecy. I knew it when I first saw you.”
Maggie laughed shortly. “Ah. When I was twelve and drowning, you mean? When you pulled me out of the ocean before I could up and die on you? That’s when you knew?”
“Yes,” he said, suddenly solemn. His gaze moved over her features as surely as a caress would have. “You fought to live. Even when you were a child, your strength pulled at me. You showed me then that you were a warrior in your heart. And I knew you would one day be mine.”
“Wow.” She swallowed hard and reveled in the rush of emotion crowding her chest, filling her heart.
She probably shouldn’t be feeling this good, Maggie told herself. What with everything going on at the moment. But she did. Everything was falling into place. She’d finally made a damn decision, accepted her role as Queen and even better, she’d had the Fae orgasm she’d been promising herself for weeks.
Now all she had to do was survive Mab’s escape, clean up a pesky civil war among the Fae, buy a Christmas tree for the house and have more Faery orgasms. Not necessarily in that order.
He shifted ov
er her and she felt his erection, hard and eager again, brush against her inner thigh. Her inner muscles clenched and she blew out a breath.
“Culhane . . .” Something occurred to her and she stopped, tipped her head to one side on the pillow and asked, “Do you even have a first name?”
He frowned. “Of course I have a first name. Doesn’t everyone?”
She’d always thought so, but in all the time they’d spent together, Maggie had never heard him called anything other than Culhane. “So what is it?”
“Unimportant,” he assured her, and dropped one hand to rub his thumb across one of her nipples.
“That’s cheating.” She sucked in a gulp of air, grabbed his hand and stilled it, despite the celebration going on down in her hoo-hah. Her hormones were already putting on their party hats for a second go-round and God knew, she hated to disappoint them, but . . . “Good distraction. Now, what’s your name?”
“I am Culhane.” He shrugged. “It has always been enough.”
“Uh-huh.” Wildly curious now, mostly because he was actually refusing to answer her, Maggie sat up straight, tossed her hair back from her face and folded her arms beneath her boobs. “Come on, let’s have it. Is it embarrassing or something? Howard? Dwayne?”
“There are other things we could be doing,” he muttered.
Oh yes, and she really wanted to. But first things first. “Come on now, tell the Queen. Please, God, your name’s not Lance. I knew a Lance once. A complete dweeb.”
He sighed. “It is not Lance.”
“Horace?”
“No.”
“Stanley?” Maggie was grinning now, enjoying watching Culhane squirm uncomfortably. Had she finally found a chink in the warrior’s armor? He was always so arrogant. So sure of himself. Yet ask him his name and he turned all sulky and crabby. Yep, she was enjoying herself.
“No. There are no Fae named Stanley.” Clearly irritated, Culhane pushed off the bed, waved one hand in the air and instantly, he was dressed in his usual clothes. Brown pants, green shirt, brown leather boots and a knee-length brown coat. Even his long, thick hair was neatly gathered at his neck. The image of a man completely at home with himself. Confident.
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