Celtic Dragons

by Dee Bridgnorth

  His jaw was aching with the force of her palm, but Eamon didn’t show it. He hadn’t so much as flinched when she’d struck him, the strong muscles of his neck keeping his head in place despite the force applied. “But you can’t kill her,” he said. “You said yourself that you can’t kill Autumn without upsetting your whole plan.”

  Nova leaned in closer, drawing one nail down his red cheek. “I can’t kill her…yet. There are plans set in place that you can’t upset. Go home, Eamon. Stay out of the way. Don’t make me angrier than I am now. If you do that, then only you and Autumn have to die. I’ll spare her children and your friends. Make me angrier, and I’ll take them all. And trust me. Once the plan plays out and Massachusetts falls under my power, I will be the one who chooses who lives and who dies.”

  Closing the gap between them, she kissed him fiercely, drawing blood as she bit down on his lip. Then the whole room faded, and Eamon was floating in darkness, heat suffocating him even as ice flowed through his veins. He tumbled, out of control, trying to grasp onto something—anything—and failing every time his hand reached out.

  And then he landed, still in darkness, disoriented, and in pain. All he could sense was water nearby, the fresh breeze tickling at his nose and offering some comfort that there was something familiar around him. It was a short-lived comfort though as his head spun and he began to lose control of his thoughts, drifting into unconsciousness as he lay there in the dark.

  He knew that there was something he had to do—somewhere he had to be—but he couldn’t manage to remember what. He couldn’t claw his way out of the sleep that was pulling him under, and as he gave into it, only one clear thought echoed briefly in his mind.

  Autumn, get the girls somewhere safe. Autumn … Autumn … Autumn …

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Autumn

  “You don’t understand,” Autumn told the woman who was running their bed and breakfast, desperately trying to remain calm in a situation that felt anything but. “He’s been missing for twenty-four hours. That’s not right. He’s a tourist. He’s here with us. I’m telling you that something has happened to him.”

  The woman patted her arm lightly as they sat together at the breakfast table in the public area of the bread and breakfast. “Do not worry. He will come back soon.”

  Autumn’s knuckles whitened as she gripped the table. “No! Something is wrong. I need to know how I can get him help. I need to call the police. I need to talk to someone who speaks English very, very well. My friend has been missing for twenty-four hours, and he wouldn’t have just gone away.”

  Sympathetically, the woman patted her again. “There are pretty, pretty women in the island. Very pretty.”

  “He’s not having an affair!” Autumn shouted, slamming her hand against the table as she stood up. “He’s hurt. Okay? He’s hurt. And I’m here by myself, and our plane leaves in the morning, and I don’t know where my friend is. Do you understand me?”

  “Shh, shh,” the woman urged, gesturing toward Anna and Rachel, sitting at the other end of the table, wide-eyed and afraid. “You upset them.”

  Autumn gritted her teeth together, the total helplessness of her situation almost more than she could take. “You don’t understand,” she told the woman again. “I need help.”

  “More sheets?”

  “Fuck!” Autumn shouted, dropping her head on the table.

  “Mommy,” Anna said, her voice tremulous. “Mommy, I’m scared.”

  Guilt nagged at Autumn and she forced herself to get her emotions under control for the sake of the two girls staring fearfully at her. Picking her head up, she stood and walked over to her daughters, crouching down in front of them. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said to Anna, stroking the girl’s hair, lighter than her own. “I didn’t mean to scare you, and I shouldn’t say words like that, should I?”

  Anna shook her head, looking down.

  “I like it when you say bad words,” Rachel offered. “It reminds me of Grandpa.”

  Despite herself, Autumn smiled. “Yeah, I can see why. Listen, I need you two to listen carefully, okay?”

  The girls both nodded, Anna looking up at her again. “Eamon isn’t here right now, and I don’t know where he is. He hasn’t been here in a while, has he?”

  “He’s lost,” Rachel said, sighing. “Maybe he fell in the lake.”

  “I don’t think so,” Autumn said, patting Rachel’s arm. Though, the truth was, he could have. He could be anywhere. She hadn’t seen him since they’d parted ways and she had gone to the hotel with the girls and he had gone in search of Nova. Since that time, she had heard voices and been attacked by a wolf that, for all intents and purposes, could have been in her imagination—except for the scrapes remaining on her neck—and Eamon hadn’t answered a single call or text.

  For twenty-four hours, he had been silent, and she knew that something was terribly wrong.

  She also knew that he had their tickets on him, and that she was stuck on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where she didn’t speak the native language or have any resources. She didn’t even have Euros to spend, and as soon as their reservation at the bed and breakfast ended, she would lose access to what had been their only food supply for the past twenty-four hours.

  Between being frantic about Eamon’s safety and panicked over how she would get home, keep her job, and take care of her girls, Autumn didn’t have a moment for any other thought. Her nerves were raw, her mind exhausted with its endless circles, and her body worn out from its struggle with the magical predator from the day before. Somehow, in the midst of all of that, she had to keep a smile on her face for her children.

  “Then where is he?” Rachel asked, bringing Autumn back to the conversation. “He wouldn’t leave us here. I know he wouldn’t.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Autumn agreed.

  Anna’s bottom lip trembled. “Did he die, like Daddy?”

  Autumn’s tender heart broke right then and there, and she pulled her daughter into her arms, holding her close. “No, baby,” she said, although she had no logical reason to hope that Eamon was still alive. “No, he’s not going to die like Daddy. I’m going to find him for you, and you’ll see that Eamon is just fine.”

  “I liked him.”

  “We all like him,” Autumn agreed, easing back from the young girl and offering an encouraging smile as she brushed Anna’s hair back. “We’ll tell him that when we find him, okay?”

  Anna nodded, but Autumn could see in her eyes that she wasn’t convinced. Autumn wasn’t convinced either, particularly since she couldn’t leave the girls and go look for Eamon on her own. Having the girls here held her back, but she couldn’t let it stop her completely from looking for Eamon.

  “Okay, let’s go for a walk,” Autumn said, standing up. “Let’s walk around the town, and maybe we’ll run into Eamon. Maybe he’s out for a walk too. Or he could be down by the lake, looking at how pretty it is.”

  Rachel nodded enthusiastically, but Anna looked up at Autumn with skepticism, as though to say that she knew Eamon would never be sitting idly beside a lake, soaking in the beauty, while they worried about him. Her daughter was old enough not to fall for such things, but for Rachel’s sake, they both kept up the act, getting their shoes on and readying themselves to go outside.

  The weather when they had arrived in Sao Miguel had been gorgeous, with blue skies, a mild heat, and perpetual, light ocean breeze, but over the last day, the weather had gradually become stormier—not a surprising turn of events, given the island’s location in the middle of the Atlantic. Though it was mid-July, when Autumn and the girls stepped outside, there was a light chill in the air, and the breeze had transformed into a whipping wind that tugged at their clothing as they hunkered together and began to walk down the street in the direction of the lake.

  Within minutes, the sky opened up and rain began to fall down over them. Rachel tugged at her mother’s hand, looking up at her and squinting through the falling r
ain. “I don’t like it out here. It’s cold, and I’m getting wet!”

  The indignation in her daughter’s voice, under other circumstances, might have amused her, but Autumn was just about out of good humor. She pressed Rachel’s hand gently. “I know, honey. But think about Eamon. I think he’s lost out here, and you don’t want that, do you?”

  “No…” Rachel agreed reluctantly. “But why don’t you just call him?”

  “I have,” Autumn assured her. “Many, many times.” Nudging both girls along, Autumn kept them going. “Let’s look for a little while, okay? Then we’ll go back and figure out how to make a fire. How about that?”

  This prospect lifted the girls’ spirits slightly, and they wandered down to the lake, following the path around it while Autumn kept her eyes peeled for any sign of Eamon. It was a lost cause, and she knew it. He wasn’t going to be just wandering around the lake, but she didn’t know where she was or where to even begin looking for him. The only thing she knew to do was to contact the local authorities, and if she didn’t somehow stumble upon him in the next few hours, she was going to have to. She would simply tell them that they had been on a family vacation when he disappeared, then hope that nobody discovered that they were there to search out the most powerful witch in the Boston area to try to combat the coven who had decided she was too dangerous to remain alive.

  “Mom, what’s that?” Anna tugged at her arm, and Autumn turned toward the lake, looking to the spot Anna was indicating.

  “I don’t know,” Autumn said, frowning. In the middle of the lake, a spiral was slowly and steadily forming, sucking the lake water into it as it grew beyond the center of the lake and began to encompass more and more space.

  There was no one else around, with the weather as bad as it was, so Autumn couldn’t tell if anyone else would see the same thing, but she could feel the enchantment coming from the spiral. It was pulling at her, as though urging her to put her foot into the water. She swallowed hard, physically keeping herself back from the lake, afraid that if she moved even an inch nearer she would inexplicably run straight into the underwater tornado forming.

  “Rachel!” Autumn gasped, as her daughter let go of her hand and began to rush toward the water, dark hair streaming behind her as her small, sandaled feet slapped against the rough ground. “Rachel, stop!”

  “No, Mom, it’s okay,” Anna said, still staring at the spiral. “Come on! Let’s go for a swim!”

  Autumn grasped Anna’s arm before she could get very far, throwing her daughter behind her as she took off after Rachel.

  “Mom!” Anna protested, scrambling to her feet after landing on the ground. “Mom, that’s so mean!”

  Rachel was fast on her feet, and she was flying toward the water, several yards ahead of Autumn. Her body still aching from her battle with the wolf the day before, Autumn pushed herself as hard as she could, catching up to Rachel just as her foot hit the edge of the lake. Wrapping her arm around her daughter’s waist, she picked her body up off the ground, trying to contain the struggling child.

  “Mom, I want to go swimming!” Rachel shouted, fighting back against her mother in a way she never would have on her own. “Let go!”

  “Mom, let her go!” Anna shouted, tugging at Autumn’s arm enough to unbalance her.

  Slipping on the wet grass, Autumn went down to one knee, and Rachel was able to slip out of her grasp, running straight out into the now-churning water with Anna right behind her.

  “Girls!” Autumn scrambled to her feet, knowing instinctively that she had to get to them before they reached the center. Her own safety no longer mattered, and she charged into the water, feeling an electric sensation along her skin as it splashed up at her. “Girls, stop! Anna! Rachel!”

  They weren’t listening to her, screaming and splashing each other as they grew closer and closer to the center point of the widening vortex. “Hurry!” Anna urged, grabbing Rachel’s hand. “It’s going to be so much fun under there!”

  Panic gripped Autumn, and she fought against the water without seeming to make any headway toward her children. “Please!” she shouted. “Anna! Please! Anna, look at me! Rachel! Stop! Damn you, Eamon! Where are you?” Her voice cracked with strain and desperation, and she stumbled forward in the water, the current around her changing direction to keep her from getting any closer to Anna and Rachel.

  Autumn didn’t stop struggling, but she was making no progress toward the girls, and she was utterly helpless as she stood there watching Anna reach the center of the lake vortex first, lifting her hands above her head as she prepared to dive into it. “No …” Autumn called, the wind carrying her voice away. “Anna …”

  A loud screech above her startled Autumn enough that she jerked her head upward, stunned at the next wave of the attack. As if it wasn’t enough that her daughters were being magically lured into a seething current of water, above the lake flew a fierce-looking dragon, shock-white in color, with eyes gleaming so brightly that she could see them from the ground.

  It screeched again, making a beeline for the girls, and Autumn’s voice ripped from her. “Leave them alone!” She thrashed against the water, but it only seemed to quicken around her feet, dragging her away. “Leave them the hell alone!”

  The dragon was in a nosedive, heading straight for the girls, who had become distracted from their enchanted fascination with the center of the spiral as they noticed the fearsome creature above them. As Autumn watched in horror, the dragon’s talon-tipped feet stretched out, his claws just inches from her daughters as they reached up for him.

  It grasped Anna’s arm and yanked her up out of the water, tossing her into the air and catching her on its back. Then, as Autumn watched in shock, it circled back around and used its talons to grasp the back of Rachel’s shirt, lifting her out of the water and tossing her up in the air as well so that she fell tidily beside Anna.

  Unsure whether to be afraid or relieved, Autumn watched with her jaw dropped as the dragon then turned toward her, gliding low above the spitting waters. She didn’t know if she should fight it or not, but when it reached her, it scooped her up with its nose and tossed her onto the back of its neck where she clung to the gleaming white scales and looked over her shoulder at her daughters, both of whom were safe and absolutely delighted by the ride they were getting.

  The dragon bucked and Autumn slid down its neck toward her babies, landing beside them and pulling them into her arms with a sob of relief. She had no idea what was going to happen next, but she’d been forced to watch her daughters nearly drown to death in an enchanted lake, and now they were clinging to her, solid, warm, whole, and breathing.

  For the moment, that was more important than the millions of questions swirling through her mind.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Eamon

  He’d heard her call for him, and only then did Eamon realize that he had been in the midst of a dream. It was a horrible dream, filled with fear and death and every bad feeling or memory he had. He’d had to watch his parents die again, had to watch Autumn attacked by a wolf, had to see Moira and Kean losing the people they loved, had to see Ronan being removed from his position, disgraced and rejected—the first of the Dragon Clan to be exiled.

  Throughout all of it, he’d been watching from afar, helpless to do anything. It had been so real, his emotions so intense, and he had begged several times—though no one could seem to hear him—to be allowed to just die himself rather than having to watch the people he cared about go through so much pain.

  And then he’d heard Autumn’s voice, clear, panicked, and insistent.

  Damn it, Eamon! Where are you?

  The moment he’d heard her, he’d opened his eyes and faced the realization that the misery he’d been trapped in wasn’t real. He didn’t know if the panic in Autumn’s voice was real, but he didn’t stop to question it. If she needed him, he had to get to her, and there was no telling how long he had been trapped in that nightmare. Anything could have happened to he
r while he lay prone in the forest, useless to her and the girls.

  The trees had surrounded him, blocking his view, and Eamon hadn’t stopped to question his instinct to strip down, shift into his dragon form, and rise above them. Stretching out his wingspan was the best feeling he’d had in a long time, and he flew higher into the air, using his eagle-eye vision to scan the surrounding area.

  He knew that she might not be anywhere near him. The voice he had heard was in his head, not in his ears, and she could be halfway around the world for all he knew. But it was clear that he was still on Sao Miguel island, and that gave him hope that he could spot her.

  It had only taken a moment for him to see her on the edge of the blue lagoon lake, and when he’d realized what was happening to the girls, he hadn’t hesitated. Flying toward them had been pure instinct, and he had plucked each of them out of the water and settled them on his back before he’d even stopped to consider the consequences.

  Now, as he was flying them to safety, he realized that he had made it almost impossible to continue to hide his true nature from Autumn and her children.

  But he had to. They had been through so much and had so many shocks to their system that one more might set them over the edge. The girls had seen far more than they ever needed to, and it would hurt him if they were suddenly afraid of him because of what he was.

  He couldn’t imagine it. He didn’t want to imagine it.

  So he dropped down into the woods, near where he had left his clothing, and tumbled the three girls off of his back, making sure to land them somewhere soft. Using their inevitable disorientation to his favor, he didn’t wait for them to get their bearings before he lifted into the sky again. He didn’t look down, and he didn’t use his superhuman hearing abilities to hear anything that they might be saying. He didn’t want to know what their reaction to him was, because if they were afraid, even knowing that they didn’t know it was him, it would cut him.