by S. Young
Not knowing what to say, Thea slumped into a chair and buried her head in her hands.
The silence between them was unbearable.
Finally, Conall moved around the room. When Thea got up the nerve to look, she saw he’d packed their stuff. Without looking at her, he shoved his car keys into his pocket and shrugged his rucksack onto one shoulder. “We need to go.”
So they did.
They left the hotel without speaking a word and as Conall drove out of Oslo toward Brevik, the distance between them grew until it overwhelmed Thea with an entirely new kind of misery.
Upon reaching the ferry at Brevik, Thea and Conall were displeased to discover that the freight ferry only allowed commercial vehicles onto it. Conall had turned to her, expression pinched. “I need to get Callie back as soon as possible. You have to use your gift. I’m sorry.”
She heard the genuine apology in his voice, and she understood. The truth was that if anything happened to Callie, it would destroy Conall, which in turn would destroy Thea. And that was why, even though it made her sick to her stomach, she manipulated the port authority who were checking vehicles driving onto the ferry. She made them see the SUV as a small commercial van with required papers and all.
“We do what we must to survive,” she repeated softly as Conall drove them onto the ship.
Renewed silence descended upon them as they made their way to the main lounge where they’d have to sit for the long crossing. There were tradesmen and long-haul drivers already settling in, some heading directly to the cafeteria for lunch.
Thea couldn’t even think about eating.
She followed Conall toward the back where there was a group of empty seats in the corner, but just before they reached them, he abruptly turned. Thea staggered to a halt as he towered over her. His expression was etched with harsh intensity.
“I love you,” Conall said, the words rough as if they’d been grounded out. “But I willnae force you to stay with me and endure a mating bond. Not if it makes you feel like a prisoner. When we get to England, you can leave. I dinnae expect you to come to Scotland with me and I dinnae expect you to heal Callie either. God forbid you see me as anything like that bastard who tore your back to shreds.” And on that, he strode away, fists at his sides, before pushing the door to the deck open with such force it slammed, drawing everyone’s attention.
Thea felt a sob rise from her chest and wondered what had happened to the woman who could control her goddamn emotions. Hurrying out of the lounge, away from prying eyes and ears, she held the tears in until she could find a restroom. Finally, she found the ladies’ toilets where she sat in a stall and did her best not to bawl her eyes out.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
He was choosing her over his sister. By setting her free, he was choosing her over Callie. He loved her so much he was letting her go.
Quiet tears slipped down Thea’s cheeks as she tried to be strong.
Yet sometimes being strong wasn’t about weathering storms alone. Sometimes being strong was admitting you needed someone.
Thea needed Conall.
More than she was comfortable with.
However, there was no changing the fact that her happiness depended upon his.
And she’d hurt him.
Pulling herself together, she drew in a shaky breath and moved back out through the lounge and onto the deck. He stood in the distance, braced against the railing as the ferry cut through the choppy waters. The wind battered him, but he was an immovable force. Conall MacLennan was the most steadfast, honorable man she’d ever met.
Thea swayed slightly as she approached him. Feeling her presence, he turned to look at her. Once upon a time his face, those wolf eyes, had been intimidating and fierce. Now they were beloved. And while others might see a menacing flatness to his expression, Thea saw the bleak. It broke her heart.
She held out a hand, praying he’d take it. “Please.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw, but he reached out and enfolded her small hand in his. She squeezed it and then turned, leading him back down the deck. They were silent as Conall followed her through the ship and back into the empty ladies’ restroom. Thea locked the door behind her and leaned against it. Conall stared around and turned to her with a questioning expression.
“I should never have compared our mating to what happened to me with Ashforth. I didn’t mean it to come out like that and I hate that it did.” Tears shimmered in her eyes and the intensity in Conall’s was no longer icy. “For a … for a long time, I’ve been alone, and not just physically alone, running from Ashforth.” She swiped impatiently at a tear. “I gave up on love years ago. I never thought I’d love anyone, and I never imagined that anyone would love me again.”
He moved toward her. “Thea—”
She cut him off, holding up her hand to stop his advance. “You have to remember that the idea of finding a mate is new to me. There are still parts of my life that are very human. Finding out we’re mates … you’ve just accepted it. And it’s not that I don’t believe that we are. I know”—she pressed a fist to her gut—“I know deep in here”—and then her chest—“and in here that’s it true. It’s just taking me a little longer to understand what it means. But I don’t want to walk away from this. Yes, my fear wants me to because I’ve watched the people I love die around me, and moving on with my life has been impossible every time.” She took a step toward him, her heart hammering so hard he had to hear it. “But when I saw that vampire plunge the silver into your neck, when I felt you dying in my arms …” Her tears fell freely now. “I wanted to die too. Running from Ashforth was just about surviving until you came along. You woke me up, Conall. You gave me a reason to fight instead of run. After everything I’ve lost, you terrify the shit out me”—she laughed through her tears and his gray eyes darkened with tenderness—“but the thought of losing you terrifies me more.” She gasped when he moved, crowding her against the door.
He pressed a hand to her breast, right over her heart. “Say it,” he demanded, guttural.
Thea nodded, trembling with the feeling that overwhelmed her entire being. “I love you, Conall. I love you.”
His answering kiss was ferocious with need and Thea met him, searching lips against searching lips, hungry tongue against hungry tongue, as their hands roamed each other, devouring, loving.
“I need you.” Thea broke the kiss, panting, as she fumbled for his belt buckle. “I need you.”
“I need you. I love you,” he breathed harshly against her mouth, unzipping her jeans as she worked on his.
Thea pushed them down with her underwear, kicking off her boots so she could free her legs. As soon as they were, Conall grabbed her by the ass and lifted her up against the door. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and she felt him hot against her. Then he thrust in deep with a battle cry that excited the hell out of her.
Thea held on tight, groaning against his mouth as pleasure zinged down her spine and legs. Their eyes locked as he drove into her in powerful, primal glides.
“Ceannsaichidh an Fhìrinn,” he growled against her mouth.
He’d said that before, just before he shifted to wolf back in Germany. “What does that mean?” she gasped as he moved, faster, deeper, harder inside her.
“‘Truth conquers,’ Thea.” His wolf eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “And this is our truth.”
She loved that.
God, she loved him.
“Yes,” she agreed, her fingers biting into his shoulders as his hips thrust faster, more desperately.
He kissed her, swallowing her gasps as she masked his groans, and the tension built and built and built—
Thea froze as it split apart inside her, and she couldn’t contain her cry of release as she throbbed around Conall in delicious tugs. He came seconds later, his roar buried in her throat as he shuddered through his climax.
Surrounded by his scent, spice and earth, feeling his ho
t breath on her skin, her arms wrapped around his powerful shoulders while he was buried deep inside her, Thea never wanted to move. This was a kind of bliss, happiness, she hadn’t expected from life.
She would fight for it until her dying breath.
“I love you,” he murmured against her neck before lifting his head slowly to look deep into her eyes. That love was open and clear for the entire world to see. “There are no words for how much I love you, Thea Quinn.”
Gratitude and exultation flooded her as she clasped his face in her hands and whispered, “I don’t think there is a word for this much love. It’s too big.”
Pleased, he kissed her slowly, his grip on her almost bruising. When he finally pulled back, it was with obvious reluctance. His eyes turned molten when she let out a little gasp as he withdrew from her body.
“When we get home, we’re spending an entire week in bed. No. A month.”
Thea chuckled as they set themselves to right, unable to look away from each other as they dressed. She loved that to him, his home was already her home. Thea was excited to see the beautiful place he’d described to her so lovingly.
And then she remembered something else she had to apologize for. “Conall, I shouldn’t have asked you about changing me … knowing the risks involved.”
He clasped her face in his hands. “I would give you anything in the world, Thea love, I just … I cannae lose you. And certainly not by my own hand.”
“I know.” She sought to reassure him. She reached out to touch the scar on his neck from the silver blade. “Believe me, I realize now what I was asking. And I’m sorry that I did. We never have to talk about it again.”
At some point they would have to discuss Thea’s immortality and their inability to have children, but it was a discussion for later. For now, they just needed each other. Their bond gave them strength, and Thea needed all the strength in the world to finally face the man who had brutalized her so many years ago.
24
They grabbed a quick bite to eat and then an exhausted Conall slumped down on one of the lounge chairs, his legs sprawled, while Thea sat on the seat next to him. He pulled Thea’s legs onto his lap, her feet dangling over the seat on his other side.
Her seat was next to the wall, so it meant she could recline.
“You should lie down,” she said. The book she’d stolen from Vik rested on her knees. She’d gotten some sleep in the car while Conall had none.
He patted her knee. “I can sleep anywhere.”
And true to his word, Conall closed his eyes, his head resting against the wall behind him. His breathing evened out quickly. Thea watched him sleep, her chest aching.
Hers.
He really was hers.
Wondering if she’d ever get used to the fierceness of her emotions, Thea reluctantly pulled her eyes from him and cracked open the book to a slightly yellowed page.
* * *
FAERIE
A Journal by Jerrik Mortensen
Oxford,1936
First Printed for Jerrik Mortensen
At Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1683
* * *
Jesus, Thea mused. She wondered who Jerrik had in his thrall to get his book published at Oxford University press in the seventeenth century. Someone with a rare first edition had gone on to have it printed again and somehow, Vik, the obsessive researcher, had gotten his mitts on one.
Thea felt a little flutter of nerves as she turned to the page. According to Vik, Jerrik had been much older than when the journal first began, so he hadn’t chronicled his time as a vampire until centuries later.
She read, falling into his descriptions of a fae world that was exquisite and brutal, and hours passed as Jerrik told his story to her from beyond the grave …
* * *
(Roman Calendar Year 132 BC)
Geimhreadh, Faerie
There is never a day here I do not wonder at Faerie. My brother and I move through this world without need of protection; the bright star in the sky here does not burn as it does in our world. Days of running free through the other lands to reach Geimhreadh. The journey on horseback would take weeks. Months. Our vampire speed holds us in good stead. Yet as soon as we cross into Geimhreadh, we feel peace. A world of eternal darkness, the moon here impossibly brighter than our own, a light upon our skin that soothes rather than burns. If I could, I would live here for all my days as the creature that was made of me. Eirik does not agree. Although he enjoys some pleasures afforded by Faerie, he takes more pleasure in the power he holds over humans back on Earth.
The eternal night is not my only sanctuary here. I fear that Eirik’s growing distaste with Faerie has more to do with my mate than anything else. My mate. My slow, beating heart gallops faster at the mere thought of her.
Andraste.
A princess of the Night Lands.
Mine.
My mate.
As Eirik and I slow our speed upon entering Réalta, the royal city of the Night Lands, I cannot help but stare at the world so vastly different from ours and find joy in it. Eirik thinks me a fool. That I have not yet grown used to their superior living. But our world seems primitive in comparison. Our squat, brick dwellings with holes for windows. Here there are towering buildings carved into mountains, windows that stretch for miles, shielded from the outside by the opaque sheets called Gleamings. Some were transparent. From my lady’s chamber, I can see every glittering star in the night sky.
Others, like those along the front facade of the Geimhreadh Palace, were stained with colors so exquisite the beauty was almost too much. The palace itself was built entirely of a material like the marble used in the city of Rome. Yet the Romans built with brick and merely covered facades with the expense of marble, a show of power and wealth. Once upon a time, I thought Rome the most superior place I had ever visited.
That was before Faerie. Where entire villages are built from marble.
The marble here was inset with the tiniest gemstones that sparkled like diamonds beneath the moon’s glow. I had never seen its like.
We moved as ghosts over paving stones across the Royal Square where market dwellers sold their wares. There were stalls of meats, sweet pies, clothing, furs, jewelry, weapons, and even blood for their visiting vampire kin for sale.
A shriek drew my attention toward the center of the square where a large water fountain stood. It was a marble sculpture of my beloved and her two sisters, their hands raised as if to the heavens. Water fell from those hands by way of magic.
Another shriek tore my attention from the middle sculpture of Andraste. A human female was crying and begging as fae wearing royal guard uniform tore at her clothing, hell-bent on taking their pleasure from her. Another shriek rent the air but not from her.
Only feet from her another human woman was on the ground, her gown ripped open to reveal a back that was now bloody from a flogging. A tall fae I recognized stood over her, wielding a weapon much like the flagrum I’d seen in Rome.
It was Lir, the queen’s captain, a brutish son of a bitch who found joy in human misery.
“The queen is here,” I said to Eirik.
I turned to him. Eirik’s eyes blazed at the scene playing out on the square.
“There is nothing we can do for them,” I reminded him.
My brother had strange morals. He would drain a human dry without thinking about it, but he detested rape or any abuse of those he felt were weaker than him. It was dishonorable. I, myself, did not partake in any of the more abhorrent activities against the humans we sometimes witnessed during our visits to Faerie. Moreover, I rarely lost control when drinking from a human.
Yet I could see past the brutality against humans to the marvel and wonder of Faerie. To me this world was far more eminent and illustrious than ours and the fae within it. However, Eirik considered humans our people, to be treated as we saw fit, not as how the fae saw fit.
He curled his lip as his eyes connected with Lir’s. The queen’s captain s
neered at my brother. I cursed under my breath as Eirik refused to look away.
“You will get yourself killed,” I growled.
“Let him try.”
“Eirik, he is thousands of years old and borne of pure magic. You would be dead in an instant.”
“Queen Aine would never allow it.” His answer wasn’t smug. He did not enjoy Aine’s attentions when others would. But his continued refusal of those attentions perversely made my brother one of the Fae Queen’s favorites.
“Perhaps you should give her what she wants.”
“And deny Fionn his time with her?” he joked, speaking of the queen’s consort.
When we finally were led into the palace, we were directed to the throne room where Queen Aine held court. Andraste and her sisters sat near and my eyes connected with my mate’s. Everything around me disappeared but her. The sparkling marble floors, walls, the magnificent paintings that graced those walls, the balls of lights that glowed around the room with no aid of fire. Just pure magic.
Nothing was as magical as Andraste.
I could almost feel her love warming through me.
My brother would be sick if he heard my thoughts. He thought love was a disease.
I disagreed.
Vehemently.
Fae, humans, werewolves, and vampires crowded into the throne room. It was here on Faerie I first heard the unusual music that often played in my mind whenever I returned to our world. We did not have such beauty of music. It reminded me of the sounds made by the lyre, but on a celestial level of bliss the lyre could never achieve.
Fae musicians played in the corner. We were forbidden from taking anything from the fae world back into ours, but I often contemplated ignoring the rule just to steal one of those instruments made of wood and string. The humans needed this music more than the fae did.
“Fionn looks as delighted as ever to be here.” Eirik smirked.
My eyes moved to the queen’s human consort who stood by her side. Six years ago, Fionn had been one of the youngest kings of Éireann. The fiercest warrior. He stood at a great height, taller than even many of the fae, and powerfully built. The male had the most startling green eyes. So vivid, he could almost pass for fae. His people thought him a god. And he and his tribes hunted fae, determined to wipe them out of existence. I had wanted to kill him.