No Time to Cry (Nine While Nine Legacy Book 1)

by Stasia Morineaux

  Serena exhaled relieved. “Bloody hell, for a bit there I thought she was talking about you, but you have green eyes.”

  “What?” I asked again, confused, pausing. Thinking back quickly over what exactly I had just spilled out of my mouth. I was taken aback by my realization. “No. No way,” I protested.

  Shite. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone any of that.

  I denied his implication, shaking my head. “That would just be crazy Liam, especially after what you said about Deimari. Why set myself up for that?”

  “Love is crazy, Do Mhórgacht.”

  They all lifted their goblets to me while I continued to shake my head at them all emphatically in denial.

  “No. Really.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” Liam promised as he pulled Serena to her feet, wrapped his arms around her, and danced her away to the woods.

  “I’m serious,” I called after them, assured Michael and Erin.

  Michael cocked his head at me and gave me a look that said to stop trying to pull the wool over his eyes. Oh yeah…he could read my mhésen. He knew my heart. Crap. I felt myself blushing as I kept my eyes adverted from him, staring off into the forest instead.

  Erin just nudged me and gave me a huge grin, before excusing herself to go dance some with a handsome redheaded boy.

  Now, what the heck was that? I squinted into the darkness and distance, past the dancing Erin, past the fire, trying to make sense of what I thought I was seeing. Just ever so briefly I could have sworn I saw a man with goat legs and horns, with not a stitch of clothing on. Pan? Or Puck? Or was it a faun or satyr? I’d have to look it up in the morning. I always got them confused. I shook the vision away, there was nothing over there.

  “Hey Michael?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What is the difference between a faun and satyr?”

  “Easy…A faun is a half human–half goat, from the head to the waist being human, but with the addition of goat horns. He tapped on my sculpted horns. And a satyr has horse-like features, including a horse-tail, horse-like ears. I’ve heard that both are pretty gifted in the lower regions, but with the satyr, apparently the tail and ears are not the only horse-like parts they inherited.” He wink-winked at me. He was silly when he drank.

  “I think I just saw a faun in the woods over there.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.” And he did not seem surprised at all.

  I couldn’t argue that tonight was a magical night. Something in me was more awake than ever before—and I needed to roam, needed to wander in the woods. But…I didn’t think Michael would let me do that on my own. He had more or less given a warning about traipsing off into the woods or traveling alone at night because of the Sióg. But I was kin to them in some way, right? I worked for Death. I doubt they would screw with me.

  I tapped a finger on my goblet, my empty goblet, signaling to him. Liam and Serena had swiped our bottle of cider and our wine bottle was empty. “And I’m kinda hungry. Do you think they have any more of those little cakes?”

  “I’ll go see. Cider or wine?” There was a smile in his voice.

  “Either.” I reclined back on the blanket staring up at the stars. “Wow. Look at that moon!” The trick was to distract him, get him away, so I could make an escape, and not to look at him. Focus on the moon.

  I watched as he stood and looked up at the sky. “Even more magic tonight with that moon up there.” He began to walk away, paused, and turned to me. “You’re something beyond us, I think.” Then he continued on his way to the other side of the fire to retrieve the goods, and I took the opportunity to sneak away into the woods that were calling so loudly to me.

  I scampered behind the line of trees, feeling exhilarated and unbound. I spun myself deeper into the woods looking up at the moon and the stars visible through the branches. Then I stopped and just breathed in the cool, crisp air and listened to the trees, the voices of the trees and the life contained within these wilds. Listening to the utterances of the wind. I could feel the energy and power of the place move through me, electrifying me, and my vision became sharper, as did my hearing and my sense of smell. I felt truly untamed.

  I looked all around me. Holy crow. There was a girl from the party over there; with…yes…my eyes were not fooling me after all, with a satyr. I blushed, her skirt was hiked up around her waist, her blouse tossed aside to the ground, and they were in the middle of…well…getting to know each other very well.

  I couldn’t help but watch for just a moment. I mean…it was a satyr! I blinked a few times trying to clear the image away because that could not possibly be real, but they didn’t budge. I felt almost drawn to them.

  The satyr turned his head and saw me, smiled and waved for me to come over. I shook my head. But my feet started moving towards him and my breathing became more rapid. I could feel the draw of him. It was powerful and nearly irresistible. He was a beautiful creature. His torso was strong and well muscled. His thighs, covered in brownish-red fur, were also thickly muscled; his long horse’s tail shook as he thrust into the girl bent over in front of him.

  I shook my head to clear away the manner in which my body was responding to him. Backed away, turned and loped off in a different direction. The girl’s cries of pleasure followed me. I couldn’t help but wonder ever-so-briefly what it would be like to couple with such a mystical beast.

  But, absolutely not, I had exploring to do and had no interest whatsoever in having a one nighter with an Other Realmly being.

  I stopped short, there was my horse.

  “Eyvindur.” I called to him, but he wandered away behind some foliage and I lost sight of him.

  But then I spotted some of the bobbing lights…from my dreams…they were here now. I ran after them, leaving the trail, skipping over ferns and toppled branches, laughing, feeding off of the energy of the forest, following the warm lights.

  Will o’ Wisps! That was what they were called!

  This was even better than the dreams. I halted suddenly, the breath knocked out of me. A man on a horse, I’d made a turn, come around a tree and very nearly ran smack dab into a dark haired man astride a large black horse.

  “Gideon.” I breathed out. He turned his face, looking down at me, but it wasn’t Gideon. Same build, very similar features, but his eyes were a lustrous green. I inhaled sharply. He was gorgeous. He was Otherworldly.

  We were at the edge of a clearing, but it wasn’t the one where the party was being held.

  “I’m sorry; I thought you were someone else,” I said softly, having a hard time squeezing out any words at all.

  “No problem, mo milis.” He dismounted from his horse. He was tall, taller even than Gideon. My body was reacting to him against my will. What was with me tonight? Michael hadn’t said anything about increased libido tonight, just increased magic.

  I began to back away from him, turned my eyes back towards the way I came…I think it was the direction I’d come from. Oh great. Had I gotten myself lost in the woods? So cliché.

  “Come talk with me, Milis?” He implored, leading his horse toward the clearing. He let it go to graze on the dark green, thick grass. He waved me over to him. And I really wanted to go talk with him.

  “I can’t. I should get back to the party.” But I made no move to leave.

  He shrugged. Smiled warmly.

  I could hear the music from the party, but I couldn’t tell from which direction it was floating.

  “Come sit with me, talk with me; I’ll lead you back to your party in a while.”

  I bit my lip. I found myself really wanting to talk to this man whom was obviously from that other realm that Michael had been speaking of.

  “My name is Collum.” He smiled again. It lit up something in my heart. “And what might your name be lass?” He held out his hand to me. How had I gotten so very close to him? I was right in front of him, his hand, his large hand, closed over mine. That small touch sent little electric waves through me that took my breat
h away. So much like Gideon.

  The bagpipes were playing in the distance, what was it about them that spoke to me? It tickled my brain, as if trying very hard to recall something that was being dangled just out of my memories reach.

  He pulled me along behind him. He looked up at the moon. “Och, she’s a bright one tonight.” His accent was thick and most definitely yet another Scottish/Irish blend, what Gideon had called Ulster Irish.

  “Come here to me,” he said in a low, deep voice. And I did. I moved in closer, so very close to his black clad chest. I rested a hand against it. It rose and fell against my palm. I pulled it away. He chuckled low, it was sensuous.

  I looked him up and down, not in a checking-him-out kind of way—though I guess I was sort of—it was just that he was very familiar. What he was wearing, I’d seen it before. Then it struck me. It was the garb of the hunters, minus the armor. Dark, fitted clothes made of some sort of fabric unknown to me. Nearly like suede, but not really. So soft to the touch, but durable also, in shades of grey and black.

  Was he one of the hunters, one of the riders from that dream the other night? From that place I go when I dream?

  “Your name lass, what might it be?”

  I met his eyes, he ran a finger along my jaw, his touch sent more shivers through me.

  “Iliana.” I managed to get out through my suddenly arid mouth. I licked my lips to wet them, they were so dry.

  “Iliana.” The way he said it, it purred from him, and yet another quake coursed through me. He laughed quietly. “Dance with me, Milis.” It wasn’t a question.

  He pulled me tightly to him, pressed the full length of his body against mine. He moved with the music, moved me with him, sliding his body against mine, until the tempo increased and he spun me away from him, still holding my hand.

  We had no fire to dance around, but we danced like we did. It felt amazing to dance under the stars and the dark autumn sky.

  I was laughing, my head thrown back to the dark, velvety night sky and I felt so uninhibited and fierce that tears were in my eyes. Life should always be this.

  He pulled me in, looking down at me as he twirled me about him, in sync with the raucous tune floating to us on the wind, and when the song ended he crushed me to his body.

  I was winded, nearly panting and full of joy for this night and the wildness it held.

  He held me tightly to him as he fell back to the ground, pulled me down on top of him. He held my face in his palms, searching it, running his thumbs along my cheeks. He started to kiss me, nearly brushing his mouth against mine, but pulled away slightly, just out of reach. He looked in my eyes again. Waiting for something.

  I stretched to him. He smiled. His eyes glinted, stars sparkling in the deep green. He grazed his mouth against mine. The lightest, barest of touches, but enough to create a sharp, spark-like sensation that made my breath seize.

  He left his mouth against mine and whispered in his thick burr, “Mo Milis.” His breath was hot against my lips; it mingled with my own breath.

  I licked my dry lips. He groaned. I could feel him move against my stomach, the hardness of him, and my insides reeled with anticipation, promptly wanting him.

  He rolled me to my back, planting himself between my thighs, his weight mostly on his hands. He looked down at me. He was beyond handsome, that word wasn’t enough. I reached for his head, pulling it down to my face, but he still held back that kiss.

  He lowered to his forearms, coming closer to me, pressing more into me, along my body. My head swam in the most lovely way.

  I could feel the contradiction in temperature, the chill October air against my now superheated flesh. My shirt was gone, as was my sweater. My jeans still remained in place. And for some reason I hated that. His shirt was gone too. I didn’t remember either of us pulling it away from his body, but I was ever so pleased that it had gone away.

  I ran my hands over his chest and shoulders. So hard, so well muscled. I ran my hands up into his tangled hair. I looked past him and up into the night sky, the stars were shining brighter than I’d ever seen them. He looked behind him, to the sky.

  “I’ve never seen them so bright.” I said simply, working to catch my breath.

  He looked back down at me, wonder on his face. “They shine for you tonight.” He grazed his mouth, just so barely, against mine again, so barely that it was torture. And a sound, almost a whimper, came from me, making him laugh lowly.

  Then he kissed me firmly…and thoroughly, tasting my tongue with his, exploring my mouth. And something in my head exploded and flowed through my entire body. Just with a kiss? He pulled away, stared down at me. He fingered the feathers in my hair, the horns resting there too. And he smiled.

  “Oh, you are a special one. I knew when I first saw you the other night, on your horse. You’re going to be a strong one.”

  “You were there?” I searched his face, trying to remember any of the other rider’s features. I hadn’t been able to see them. “You’re one of the riders?” A silly question. I knew that he was.

  He brushed a tendril away from my face, traced my ear with a finger, more shivers came with his touch. And I reached for him, trying to pull his face closer for another of those kisses. But there was something I should be remembering, and it was important. But all I really wanted was to lie under the night sky with him, all else flew from my mind.

  He ran his hand down my neck and over a breast, his eyes moved back to my face. “So very beautiful. So irresistible. So very rare.”

  Words I had waited to hear from…who…who was it that I’d been wanting to hear that from? I couldn’t recall.

  Collum traced a finger across my cheek.

  My eyelids drifted closed, he kissed them tenderly. I moved my head to meet his mouth and he gave me another one of those kisses that shook my body. I felt him smile against my lips. He’d felt the quake through me. I couldn’t touch him enough. My hands slid across his shoulders and down his back, tugging him tighter against me.

  He rose on to his hands, staring down at me. Oh, he looked so much like Gideon, but behaved so much differently.

  Gideon!

  That was it, that was who I was trying to remember. But Collum actually touched me, whereas Gideon always kept back from me no matter what I might see in his eyes. Collum actually kissed me, touched me, saw me.

  But Collum would not be here tomorrow. I shook my head, trying to clear the haze that his nearness brought on. He was only here for tonight, for Deireadh an Samhraidh, tomorrow he would be gone.

  It should be this way with Gideon. I’d seen that look in his eyes. Why did Collum have to look so similar? All of tonight should have been with Gideon. The feasting, the drinking, the dancing madly under the full moon…and this here. This should be with Gideon.

  “Wait. This…” I turned my face from his. It was too hard to say this while looking up at him. “Gideon…I don’t know you. I shouldn’t be here. It should be Gideon.”

  Collum’s body went rigid over mine.

  “Gideon is it?”

  I couldn’t look at him. His voice held a fierce edge. He turned my face to him, my eyes to his. “He is the one keeping you from me?”

  I nodded, barely. It was me keeping me from him. Gideon had barely touched me, and that was generally as a way to either keep me from collapsing to the floor, or to contain me.

  I wanted to reach up and pull his face down to me, lose myself in more of his kisses, but I fought that urge.

  “He tells you little to nothing. Brings you no answers.” He exhaled sharply.

  Why did I have to be so drawn to him? I kept telling myself over and over it was just the magic and influence of this night. Don’t do anything that I will regret tomorrow. But how could I regret how I felt when I looked at him.

  I tried tugging his face back to mine, but he shook his head, smiled a crooked wolf grin and blazed a trail of kisses down my throat and down between my breasts, down my stomach, stopping just at the waist of my
jeans. He tugged me up to his mouth, his arm under my waist, licking my stomach. I moaned loudly, surprising myself with the sound.

  He chuckled softly.

  ‘I have infinite patience. No. I think I won’t be leaving here after all. Not again. Not anymore. The time is getting close, close enough. You’ll see…if he ever tells you anything.” His gaze traveled back up my body—his hungry gaze—and resettled on my face as his body resettled between my thighs securely.

  He grabbed one of my legs and crooked it up over his waist, running his hand firmly down my thigh, across my hip and up my side. Tiny electric quakes fluttered through me with breath pilfering quickness. “Maybe I should be the one to do it.” He pondered a moment. “Tell you all the things you should know.”

  That woke me from my seduced haze a bit. And I remembered more. “His Roghnú, the Roghnú…Deimari, I saw her with him that night…wait, no…today. At a cottage. She was touching him. She wants him. And she wants me dead.”

  Fire blazed in his eyes. “No one will be harming you Iliana. I’ll see to that.”

  “But that’s his job, he’s my Cerberus…I mean Caomhnoir.”

  “Is he now?” He ran his hands into my hair and raised my mouth to his, kissed me deeply again. I arched into him, oh…how I wanted him. His mouth was so firm, so hungry, so…just so.

  Breathlessly I said, “I can’t do this. It’s more confusion. This last month has been nothing but confusion. And tonight…tonight took it all away.”

  “Shhhh…” he pressed a finger to my lips, tracing them, smiling down at me. “I took it all away. But you’re right, not tonight. When we lay together, it will be because you know it’s us and not the influence of this particular night. It will be what your heart desires.” he said deeply, staring into my eyes. “No, I think not this night. Now that I’m here, and you’re here. I won’t be going back, nor will many of the others.”

  My heart leaped, what he said made my heart happy. On a larger scale than just my personal satisfaction. Something about the others staying too. Something about a kingdom realized. But I had no idea what any of that meant. I shouldn’t be feeling any of this.