Earth's Hope

by Ann Gimpel

  Fionn grinned. “Nidhogg left afore the fun began. Ye dinna tell me ye were a regular James Bond.”

  “Please. Emma Peel.”

  “Och, and I liked The Avengers too.” He crooked a finger her way and patted the bed.

  “Gwydion said rest.” Her body ached for him, but she could see how tapped out he was.

  “I’ll rest better with you in my arms.”

  She couldn’t come up with even the teensiest argument against that, so she closed the distance between them and jerked his sweatshirt over his head. Once his bare chest came into view, she ran kisses from the hollow in his neck down to where both nipples puckered, surrounded by their fine scattering of golden hair. He groaned when she licked his nipples and buried his hands in her hair.

  Aislinn busied her hands undoing his jeans. He preferred the button closures, probably because zippers hadn’t been invented when he was young. The bulge of his cock pressed against her hands as she fumbled to get his pants open. Now that she was this close to him, her fingers shook and her breath came faster. She tugged his ridged flesh out of his snug pants, not bothering to try to get them off. Instead, she moved down, kneeling before him, and took him into her mouth, kissing, sucking, nibbling the way she knew he liked.

  He murmured something in Gaelic that she was pretty sure meant stop, but she ignored him. This wasn’t the time for long, drawn-out lovemaking. This was a celebration they were both still alive. His penis grew even harder under her ministrations, and she reached between his legs and tickled his anus with a fingertip, urging him to let go. He cradled her head between his hands and drove himself into her mouth, making decidedly male sounds that sent every drop of moisture in her body straight to her crotch.

  Just when she was certain he couldn’t possibly get any bigger, his cock swelled even more and jerked as he came. She sucked hard, willing him pleasure, and kept working him with her hands and mouth until she was certain he was done.

  “I love you, Aislinn,” he managed between gasping for air. “Ye’re my heart, my life.”

  She pulled his still-erect cock from her mouth and grinned up at him. “At least that was in English.”

  “Ye’d understand the Gaelic.” He reached beneath her arms and pulled her to her feet where he closed his mouth over hers, kissing her with an intensity that stole her breath.

  She wound her arms around his body and pressed her engorged nub against his thigh. He moved so she could straddle him and cupped her ass with both hands, holding her tight against him. It was how she’d come the first day she’d met him, riding his leg between both of hers. The memory of it drove her over the edge. Spasms coiled from her belly lighting every nerve on fire, and she held onto Fionn as the world dissolved around her.

  When she could breathe again, she gazed at him. “I vote for the bed.”

  “Och, lassie, I thought ye’d never ask.” He let go of her and pulled his pants up enough to hobble to the bed. Once there, he sat on the edge, and pushed his trousers all the way off.

  Aislinn wriggled out of the oversized sweat pants and top Dewi had rummaged from somewhere for her to put on and dropped them over a chair. Fionn had pushed the duvet aside and she crawled beneath it to join him. Wrapped in his arms and lulled by the even cadence of his breathing, she fell asleep almost immediately.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A cold, wet nose pressing into Aislinn’s face woke her, and she opened her eyes to see Rune staring down at her. His hind legs were on the floor, but his front ones splayed over the duvet.

  “Gwydion sent me to wake both of you.” He swiped her from chin to nose with his tongue. She peered out the window at darkness, but that didn’t mean much in the northern realms where it didn’t get light until midmorning.

  Fionn rolled against her and ruffled Rune’s fur. “Where’s Bella?”

  “Right here.” The raven settled on Fionn’s side of the bed, digging her sharp talons into the duvet.

  Fionn scooted until he sat with his back against the headboard and gazed at wolf, raven, and Aislinn. “’Tis the last private moment we’re likely to have,” he said. “I’ll be brief. You’re my family, all of you. My only goal for the coming days is for all of us to survive. So”—he drew his blond brows together into a straight line—“if I tell ye to do something, ye will do it without question. I canna fight if my attention is split three different ways worrying about you. Understood?”

  Aislinn nodded solemnly. They’d had this discussion before, and she’d never paid much attention to it. Yes, and look where it’s gotten me.

  Rune lifted his head. “My allegiance is to Aislinn. I will do whatever is needed to protect her.”

  “There is rarely time for talk during the thick of a battle,” Fionn said. “Ye must trust I wouldna instruct you in an action that would put her at risk.”

  Sensing things would only go downhill from there, Aislinn laid a hand on Rune’s head. “We’ll be good soldiers. I don’t want to end up in the dark gods’ clutches again—ever.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” the raven muttered. “I never wanted to be a hero.”

  “But you have been.” Rune gazed at the bird. “You’ve launched diversionary tactics and put yourself in danger for Fionn.”

  Bella twisted and pecked gently at his snout, the bird’s way of saying thank you.

  Aislinn hated to leave the warmth of the bed. Fionn had nailed it when he said they were family. It was a long time since she’d had one, and the thought of losing any of them tore at her heart. Her throat swelled with suppressed emotion, and she blinked back sudden tears, hoping no one noticed.

  “Och, mo croi.”

  Fionn reached for her, but she slipped between the wolf and the bird and got out of bed. If she let herself be held, cuddled, she’d devolve into a syrupy mess, not something she needed this morning.

  The floor felt cold against her bare feet, and she hurried to dress, pulling on layers. Last time she’d been to the borderworlds they hadn’t been cold, but who knew if the dark gods could control the temperature. Black wool pants were followed by a black, stretchy, long-sleeved shirt, a thick, synthetic green jacket she’d filched from their time at Marta’s house, thick socks, and her battered boots. By the time she reached for her rucksack, intent on making certain she had food, water, a hat and gloves, Fionn had snugged into fresh battle leathers, and Bella was attached to his shoulder.

  He walked to her side, kissed her forehead and said, “See you downstairs. I’ll dish up whatever’s made for breakfast.”

  Aislinn nodded, still too emotional to trust herself to talk. Rune watched her from a spot near the door. He sat, ears pricked forward, and tail stretched behind him. She hefted her rucksack, draping it over a shoulder, and looked around the room wondering if she’d ever see it again.

  Crap! When did I get so morose?

  But she understood. Before Rune, before Fionn, she’d had nothing to lose, nothing precious to her. That had changed. She didn’t want to go back to her solitary existence in the abandoned mineshaft in Utah, but life had certainly been a whole lot less complicated then. She shuttered her feelings, burying them deep, and marched out the door with the wolf right behind her. As an afterthought, she sealed the door with magic. It wouldn’t hold forever, and it wouldn’t keep one of the Celts out, but the space was hers and Fionn’s, and she wanted to lessen the odds of someone wandering in.

  Two flights of stairs and the great room passed in a blur. By the time she pushed the kitchen door open, holding it for Rune, she was back in warrior mode. It had taken longer this time to clear her mental debris aside and focus, which worried her. Maybe her time with Majestron had scarred her in ways she had yet to discover.

  Or maybe I’m just tired and sick of fighting. Foes you can’t kill are a bitch. God only knows when they’ll pop up again.

  “Come eat, leannán. I poured you coffee too.” Fionn patted the place next to him at the table. A few humans ranged at the table’s far end, but no o
ne Aislinn recognized readily.

  Grateful, she sat next to him and dug into a barley and dried fruit mixture, eating methodically. “How long before we leave?” she asked between bites and swallowed scalding coffee. It was black and bitter, the way Fionn liked it. She preferred it sweetened, but wasn’t about to complain.

  “As soon as we finish. Everyone else is out in the front courtyard.”

  “I’m mostly done.” Aislinn scraped two more bites out of the bottom of her bowl and drained her coffee before getting to her feet. She rustled through the pantry and dropped nuts and dried apricots into a cloth bag, adding them to her rucksack, along with a generous flask of water. “Are you taking anything with you?” she asked Fionn.

  He shook his head. “Nay, lass. We willna be there that long. At least I doona believe so.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Every time I don’t plan ahead, I’m always sorry.” She shouldered her pack and buckled the waist belt. “Lead out. Who’s going with our team again?”

  “Nidhogg, Dewi, Bran, and about ten humans. We decided to take more than the original four who trained with us after that mess with the demons. Andraste threw in her lot with the other group, which is why Bran will be part of our effort.”

  “How many bond animals?” Rune asked.

  “Not sure,” Fionn replied. “Eve is in our group, so her mountain cat, Tabitha, will be along. Beyond that, I couldna tell you.”

  Fionn angled his head and glanced at Aislinn. “Ye dinna ask the most important question, lass.”

  She met his gaze, mystified. “What? It doesn’t matter which borderworld we’re going to.”

  “I meant about the command hierarchy.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, that would be important to you. Remember, for a long time I worked by myself, only checking in with the Lemurians when I had to.”

  “It needs to be important to you too.” His voice held a stern note. “Nidhogg is in charge, with Dewi second, me third, and Bran fourth.”

  “That’s going to piss the humans off,” she observed.

  “So far, they seem grateful for our help.”

  Aislinn bit her tongue. Fionn probably mistook reluctance to engage in arguments so close to their departure on an extremely dangerous undertaking for gratitude. She cleared her throat. “Which world are we going to?”

  “The same one ye were on afore. It makes sense since several of us were just there, plus it’s the same place Nidhogg was imprisoned for hundreds of years.”

  She remembered the dry, dead air and the ominous stillness of the borderworld. The atmosphere was dying, since Perrikus had killed off all the trees. “Do you suppose it will be worse than the last time we were there?”

  Fionn blew out a tense breath and followed her outside the manor house. It was still pitch black, probably around six in the morning. “If ye’re asking about how hard it was to use our magic there, it shouldna be that much worse. It hasna been all that long since our last visit.”

  She walked to where Dewi, Nidhogg, Bran, and a group of humans stood. The dragons glowed, lending muted light to the gloom. On the far side of the courtyard, Kra, Berra, Gwydion, and Arawn stood in a similar cluster with Andraste at its center. The low hum of her voice held a grim note.

  “Will we be able to communicate with the other group?” Aislinn asked.

  Nidhogg shook his head. “We’ll be on our own. The plan is to return here as soon as our job is complete. If no one has yet returned from the other group, whoever’s back will attempt to offer aid.”

  “So that could be them or us,” a human said.

  “Yes.” Nidhogg raised his forelegs. “Quiet until I’m done. We will aim for the spot on the borderworld where Perrikus’s stronghold is. If he’s there, he’ll know the moment we break through the barrier between Earth and his miserable excuse for a world, so there’s no point in setting down far from our target and then having to teleport a second time.”

  Steam hissed through the dragon’s open mouth. “Your magic will not work as well where we’re going. It will be slow to respond and take a whole lot more effort to achieve the same results.”

  “We won’t exactly have time to experiment,” Eve mumbled.

  “No,” Aislinn broke in, “we won’t. Since my magic is closer to yours than the Celts, I can tell you it took roughly double the wattage for me to do anything.”

  “I requested silence until I was done,” Nidhogg reminded them. Side conversations that had bloomed died away. “Good lead-in to my second point, though. I command this group. Dewi is my second. That means if something happens to me, she takes over. It also means if I’m not close enough to see what’s happening where you are and she is, you listen to her. Fionn is third in the command structure, and Bran fourth.”

  “What if we don’t agree with something?” Eve squared her shoulders and walked dead center in front of Nidhogg.

  “You won’t agree with everything,” Dewi replied, “but if each of us is fighting our own war, we may as well not go. The dark gods are quick to recognize dissention, and they’ll play it to their advantage.”

  “Any other questions?” Nidhogg glanced around the group.

  Aislinn repressed a shudder. Now that it was upon them, the last place she wanted to go was back to Perrikus’s world. It was where the dark god had killed her unborn son, and where Fionn had almost died, or done whatever it was the Celts did when they were so badly hurt their bodies couldn’t go on.

  Rune nudged her side and she buried a hand in his thick neck ruff, grateful for his warm, animal presence. He pushed into her mind.

  “We will remain linked,” he told her. “My senses are sharper than yours.”

  “Come close to Dewi and me,” Nidhogg instructed. “There is no air between here and the borderworld. Try not to panic, we’ll finish this teleport as fast as we can.”

  * * * *

  Fionn’s lungs burned. Traveling between Earth and the dark gods’ borderworlds was painful because an airless void eddied between them. It reminded him of when he and Arawn had barely escaped Perrikus’s world. It had taken a week afterward before his lung tissue stopped hurting every time he inhaled. Rather than being on his shoulder, the raven was cradled in his arms, and she had her beak tucked inside his leather top, presumably taking advantage of an air pocket. He wished he had something like that to tap into.

  Hell, he wished this was over with. All of it. He wanted nothing more than to settle in with Aislinn and watch over her while her stomach swelled with their children. He’d made a huge mistake not telling her about impregnating her the first time, and he still mourned the son who would never be.

  Next time, he vowed. There has to be a next time.

  He felt lightheaded from lack of oxygen, and the muscles in his legs threatened to cramp. Just when he was wondering what the holy hell Nidhogg was up to, the unremitting black around him shaded to gray at its edges, and he knew they were closing on their destination. Anticipation shot through him, along with a healthy jolt of adrenaline. If they did their job well, the dark gods’ threat would be eradicated. At least for a long time. Leaving Majestron Zalia a smoking heap of melted flesh had been a coup, and an unexpected one.

  Fionn rolled out of a rough portal, landing hard. He shot to his feet, scanning everything at once, intent on ferreting out any immediate danger. The dragons were already there, holding the gateway open with their magic. Bella gave a muted squawk, wrenched out of his hands, and took up her customary spot on his shoulder. Fionn watched anxiously as humans dribbled through the gateway. Where were Aislinn and Rune?

  Dewi nudged him. “She’s here. Don’t worry. You’re not the only one watching out for her.”

  Fionn narrowed his eyes. “’Tis scarcely the place to fight over who Aislinn belongs to. There’s enough of her to go around.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Aislinn said and walked to him, with Rune by her side, having exited the portal when Fionn wasn’t looking. “Damn it! I always forget something.” As she talked
, she worked her hair into sloppy braids and reached into a pocket for a black watch cap that she pulled low on her head, tucking her hair under it.

  “How far are we from the place Perrikus held Arawn and me prisoner?” Fionn asked.

  “Less than a mile,” Nidhogg said. “Be grateful we’re not going where I was detained.” He blew fire into the stale, dead air, and a nearby tree lit up like a firecracker, cracking and popping.

  “Not much remains of that hellhole,” Dewi noted, satisfaction evident in her voice. “I didn’t leave anything for them to salvage when I rescued you.”

  Bright light flashed behind Fionn when Nidhogg shot fire at the gateway to seal it. “We march,” the dragon said. “Except Dewi and I will fly.”

  “I’ll see everyone gets there.” Fionn hooked a hand through Aislinn’s arm. After a quick look over one shoulder to make certain everyone was watching, he set a quick pace. Dragon wing beats whooshed above him, rustling his hair and clothes with the dragon equivalent of prop wash, and branches crackled as humans and bond animals hurried after him. He’d counted three Hunter companions in addition to Rune and Bella: a wolf, a mountain cat, and a hawk.

  Bran caught him up. “Have ye looked about?”

  “Nay. I prefer surprises.” Fionn glanced sidelong at the god of prophecy.

  “I dinna feel any of the dark ones here, but they could be shielding themselves.”

  Fionn set his jaw in a determined line. “If they’re not here, we’ll destroy the stronghold and move on.”

  “The dark gods aren’t the only bad things here,” Aislinn said.

  Fionn recalled the oversized beaver-like animals that had nearly been the death of him. One on one, they were trivial, but there’d been hundreds, maybe thousands of the toothy bastards.

  Nothing says the dark ones havena imported something even worse.

  A wave of magic hit him in the solar plexus. He could have powered through it, but Fionn stopped and sent his own magic spiraling forward.