Just Believe

by Manning

  “That's it. Eochy O'Shea.”

  “Did she describe this Eochy O'Shea?” He hoped there was another fairy named Eochy O'Shea.

  “Mom said he was like a rooster.”

  “That's Eochy, all right.” Gaelen's sympathy for Susan Tinker eroded in the face of the anger building against Eochy.

  “Do you know him?” Annabelle asked.

  “Yes, I do.” He got off the bed and without even thinking squooshed and headed for an infinitesimal space in the window frame.

  Wham!

  He bounced back to the opposite wall, splatting against the landscape hanging over the fireplace.

  Forcing his rage to a calmer temperature so he wouldn't frighten Annabelle, he unsquooshed and waited a second for the lightheadedness to pass.

  He turned to her, carefully phrasing his request. “Annabelle, dear, would you be kind enough to sweep the salt off the sill?”

  With a silent nod, her eyes wide, she jumped off the bed to do as he asked.

  “Not on the floor, please. Sweep it into your hand and toss it into the fireplace.”

  “Okay.” She did as he bid, but took a wide circle around him.

  Gaelen frowned at her apparent apprehension. Fool! He should have prepared her. Sure he'd told her about it, but she'd never actually seen him squoosh.

  “I'll be back as soon as I can.” With that, not waiting for her reply, he squooshed again and headed for the space in the window frame.

  He took the Great Circle route to New Jersey, and he didn't stop until he reached the boulder covering the opening to the cave where the North American Federation held its meetings. Dashing under this minor impediment, Gaelen flew down the corridor. Why did he come here? Eochy would be in his big white house by the Potomac River at this time of day. But still Gaelen flew on toward the Great Meeting Hall.

  There were lights shimmering at the end of the corridor, signaling someone's presence.

  “Come on in, Gaelen. I've been waiting for you.”

  Gaelen flew in and hovered for a moment. Eochy sat in his big chair at the Great Table. Ninety-nine chairs were empty between them.

  Unsquooshing, Gaelen took his time getting to his own chair at the Great Table, but he didn't sit down. He set his hands on the back, willing himself to stay calm.

  “Why?” he finally asked.

  “Why what?” Eochy asked in return, a smile playing on his lips.

  “You hypocrite,” Gaelen spat.

  “Have a care, lad. That's a serious accusation.”

  “What's the problem, Eochy? Can't face what you've done?” Gaelen glanced around. “Let's get the One Hundred in here. I'll say it again. Hypocrite!”

  Eochy jumped to his feet. His huge chair spun out behind him. “Take that back.”

  Gaelen held Eochy's gaze. “Never. You seduced Susan Tinker. Now you have the gall to try to send her daughter to Tir-Nan-Og for falling in love with Lucas.”

  “You know perfectly well that's not why she has to go. Lucas revealed his nature to her.”

  “And what did you do to Susan Tinker?”

  Eochy looked away. “I ruined her.” Gaelen knew he wasn't referring to anything sexual. “'Tis true. But Vern took care of her. He understood her.”

  Gaelen couldn't believe his ears. “I ought to pluck your wings out you heartless—”

  “I'm not heartless, Gaelen.” Eochy's eyes pleaded for understanding. He leaned against the table, his whole body begging. “That's why I forced the law through the Elders's Council. So no other woman could be hurt like that again.”

  Gaelen hardened his heart. “Well, it didn't work, did it?”

  “No. Because your brother didn't obey it.”

  “Here's a flash for you, Eochy. Neither have I. Now you try, you bantam rooster, to banish me to Tir-Nan-Og. If I go, you go.” Eochy blanched. “Sure, now it means something to you.”

  “The law doesn't work retroactively.” Well, Eochy was a lawyer in his spare time, wasn't he?

  “What do you think the Council of Elders will think of your situation, Eochy?” The expression on Eochy's face slackened in realization. Gaelen knew he had him. “Yes, we fairies have a grand sense of justice. You'll either fix this mess and take care of that dear woman, or I'll see you languishing in Tir-Nan-Og for a century or two. You've got until I get back from Ireland where I've got a mess of my own to clean up.”

  Gaelen squooshed and escaped before he could get around the Great Table to flatten Eochy.

  ~*~

  Annabelle waited up for Gaelen's return. No way she could go to sleep after seeing that. So that was squooshing.

  It was almost like he'd exploded. And the expression on his face was so...angry. Where was he going? And what was he going to do once he got there? The second question frightened her more than the first.

  She'd never seen him like that. He'd always been so even-tempered, even when dealing with—

  Well, no, he'd been about to strangle Dr. Duncan. That had been a Gaelen she'd never seen before, the same one who'd flown out of here.

  What if he didn't come back? What if he had exploded? How many times could you squoosh your atoms before your atoms squooshed back?

  She shook that idea right out of her head. After all, she'd know—though she didn't know exactly how she'd know—if he'd ... if he wasn't coming back.

  She settled in for a long wait, prepared to be patient.

  Her eyelids grew heavy. She got up and sprinkled water from the antique washbasin on the dresser on her face and walked around the room to stay awake.

  On the tenth lap around the tiny bedroom, her eyes gritty, Annabelle sat on the bed. For someone fighting sleep, that was a mistake. The warm, marshmallow soft mattress beckoned her to rest, surrender to her fatigue.

  “No, I can't sleep until he's back,” she told herself, even as she gave up the fight against gravity and fell back on the crisp, clean white sheets. “Just for a minute. Oh, my eyes are so tired. I'll just close them for little while.”

  She woke from a sound sleep, snuggled into the warm body behind her. Gaelen snored softly in her ear, a rumbling sound she found comforting in an odd way.

  “Gaelen,” she whispered. “Gaelen, wake up.” She turned over so she could face him.

  In sleep, his handsome face seemed like that of a young boy. She looked her fill, soaking in the high brow, the wheat-gold hair with a hank dropped over his closed eyes. The strong jaw and the generous mouth, his full lips tipped in just a hint of a smile.

  What did a fairy dream about?

  He must have sensed her intense study of his face. His eyes cracked open. He squinted at her as he came awake.

  “Hello.” She brushed the wayward tendrils of gold off his brow.

  “Hello.” His smile widened at the touch of her fingers against his skin.

  Annabelle moved toward him and, in some unspoken understanding, Gaelen wrapped her in his arms, rolled to his back and pulled her onto his chest.

  “Where were you?”

  He didn't answer immediately. She pulled away to look him in the eye.

  “I went to New Jersey to take care of some business.”

  “New Jersey? How in the world did you get to New Jersey and back so quickly?”

  “I flew. You saw me.”

  “You can fly that fast?”

  “Sure. All that energy pointed in one direction provides a hell of a boost.”

  “I guess,” she replied, impressed. “Do you fly at the speed of light?”

  “Don't know. Never been clocked. I can beat the Concorde by a good ways though.”

  “I suppose all fairies can fly that fast.”

  He seemed offended, and she hid a smile at his bruised masculine pride. “I suppose.”

  “What kind of business? Or is it none of mine?” she asked, not realizing until she'd said it how much she was really asking.

  “How can I tell you it's none of your business? Everything that affects me affects you.”

  Th
ey gazed into each other's eyes. Words became useless to them as they began to speak in a silent language of infinitely greater economy.

  Gaelen raised his hand to her face, stroking her skin with the backs of his fingers, smoothing away all worry. Lacing his fingers through her hair, he molded them to her neck, urged her to him.

  Annabelle followed him, giving herself over to his will. He was what she wanted, what she'd waited for. Even though she hadn't known him before, she'd known he was out there somewhere waiting for her.

  Their lips met in warm union, matching perfectly, as though made for each other, created from the same mold. Annabelle surrendered to the yearning to join him. Wherever it was he wanted her to go, whatever it was he wanted her to do, she knew she would, gladly.

  He probed gently, seeking her acquiescence.

  She opened to him, urging a deeper union between their two souls. Gaelen's tongue tasted, then sparred with hers, gently mimicking the joining of their bodies.

  Annabelle only barely felt the glide of Gaelen's fingers up the length of her leg, pushing her nightgown before them, and their movement along her waist, slipping inside her sensible cotton panties, now seeming the most provocative of lingerie. His big hands massaged her flesh.

  She groaned. He groaned, the vibration tickling her lips. With more urgency, Gaelen pulled her to lie atop him, skinning her panties off her. Of course, Annabelle assisted him in this as she would anything he asked of her.

  Then her nightgown went in the opposite direction. Again she was more than willing to lean up, move right, left, whatever he needed her to do.

  “Annabelle,” he whispered against her lips. “Are you willing?”

  “Don't be stupid.” She gathered his face between her hands and sealed her answer with another kiss. “I've waited my whole life for you.”

  He wrapped her in an embrace fueled by passion and, Annabelle thought a bit foggily, some other more desperate motive.

  She pushed herself away and sat astride him. “Wait,” she whispered when he would have kept her from moving further away. “I want to see you, too.”

  Her fingers flew to his shirt, unbuttoning it as quickly as their clumsiness permitted, and she followed them with her lips, touching them to the warm golden skin of his chest as she revealed it to her hungry eyes.

  Gaelen raised his shoulders so Annabelle could pull his shirt off him, then he lay still, allowing her to do her will. She lowered his zipper, a tooth at a time. Every tiny click sounded loud as a gun shot in the silence. Their heavy breaths matched, one for one. Annabelle felt cool and realized she was sweating.

  Gaelen's face, too, glowed in the weak lamplight.

  “Get a move on, girl,” he growled.

  Annabelle smiled. Her heart sang. Her body thrummed with its own song, one ancient and earthy and sensual. A song telling the deepest secrets a woman knew, even if she had never heard them before.

  She pulled his trousers down the length of his long, strong legs, and shoved them to the floor.

  “Come here, darlin'. Come to me,” he asked, holding his arms open to her.

  She laughed, and it was the sound of her heart's song. She jumped into his arms and Gaelen laughed with her, their songs blending in a harmony as old as time.

  His mouth captured hers again, and this time he released his passion in a branding fire. He marked her for all time as his alone. She felt the fire melting any other allegiance, leaving only Gaelen.

  Their bodies touched, every inch in contact with the other. Her mind was too full of Gaelen to pay attention to anything else. He filled her eyes, her nose, her ears. Her hands could touch nothing else except for him.

  Her body seemed ready to disintegrate under the pressure. How much could one person feel before she couldn't accept anything more?

  She almost pushed him away, afraid of more, but he slipped beyond her questing fingers, settling a little lower on her. His tongue encircled the tip of her breast, and she writhed in ecstatic agony. His teeth gently nipped her. She cried out, not “No more,” but “Yes, Gaelen, yes!”

  His mouth suckled her. She thought she'd have to die now.

  Without words, without thought, her legs parted. Surely she didn't do that? But try as her brain might to slow this down out of self-defense, her body wouldn't listen.

  Gaelen growled and moved between her legs, taking her body's invitation. He kissed her again, tenderly, his lips barely touching her, his breath cooling her fevered brow.

  “My love,” he whispered, catching her lips again.

  Annabelle's heart took over and she enfolded him, pulling him to her with arms and legs and soul.

  Then he was inside her, and he possessed her—and she him—in a completely new way. They were one, joined together heart, soul, and body.

  The whole world, the entire universe, was right here in this bed, in this tiny room, in a cottage in a remote Irish village. And its sole inhabitants were Gaelen and Annabelle.

  She dared to open her eyes to look at him. He rested on his elbows, keeping his weight off her, and his eyes were open, too. They met, held, but for just a second. That one look was enough to push her over the edge into the splintering, glittering abyss.

  “Oh, Gaelen, love.” Her voice was a moan.

  The light around her changed. At first she thought it was the aftereffects, but she opened her eyes and her lips parted in wonder.

  Gaelen still loomed above her, but above him....

  “Oh,” she whispered. She raised her hands over his shoulders to his iridescent, multicolored wings. Her fingers hesitated, then brushed the translucent material. “Oh,” she breathed again, stroking his wings with both hands.

  Gaelen's reply was a groan of exquisite pain, and he fell on her.

  His wings enfolded them both.

  They lay there for a bit, breathing deeply and evenly.

  “Bridget and Dagda,” he moaned at last.

  “Is that good or bad?” Annabelle asked.

  “Both.” Gaelen eased off her. He glanced back at his wings with a grimace.

  “What's wrong?”

  “I think I might have torn one.” He actually blushed.

  “Aren't they supposed to come out like that?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She sat up. “Turn around and let me look. Where do they feel hurt?”

  He turned. Annabelle gave him a wide berth.

  Boy, did they ever spread. She wondered....

  “Look at the root of the left one,” he said. “Maybe it's just pulled.”

  She pushed his left wing aside and peered at the place where it came out of his back, right at his shoulder blade. Tenderly, she pressed her fingers against his skin. He didn't react.

  “Right here?” she asked, pressing at the base of the wing.

  “Yeah. See anything?”

  “What, besides a fairy's wing? Nope, nothing special.”

  He favored her with a glare. “It's not funny.”

  “I'm sorry, honey.” The endearment slipped out, as though she'd been calling him sweet names forever. “Does it hurt a lot?”

  She rubbed his back, brushing her fingers against his wings, not exactly innocently. He jerked with every touch.

  “Stop that,” he said, not hiding his smile.

  “What? Are they ticklish?”

  “No,” he said, swallowing a laugh.

  “Oh, they are! How interesting.”

  “Stop it, you witch.” He turned, brushing her face with his wing, and grabbed her hands. “Teasin’ a poor innocent fairy lad.”

  “Innocent? Somehow, I doubt that!”

  He chuckled with her, then spread his wings behind him and lay down, pulling her with him, wrapping them both. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope.

  “What are they for?” she asked, fingering the flowing colors.

  “Careful there, or you'll find out what they're for,” he answered in a growl.

  “Oh-ho! They're sexual organs, eh?”

  “W
ell, not totally. They're for ornamentation, luring a female, like feathers.”

  “But they're sensitive,” she added, gliding one fingertip along a vein.

  “Yes,” he said, grabbing her hands and holding them still.

  “Do they always come out when you, ah....?”

  “No.” He seemed embarrassed by this. “Actually, we're supposed to be able to control them by the time we're my age.”

  Ignoring the warning to let this matter go, Annabelle asked, “Why did you...?”

  “I didn't. They did.” He hugged her tighter, and seemed unwilling to say more, though after a moment, he added, “I haven't been taken like that since I was a lad. I'm not an innocent, Annabelle.”

  “I didn't think you were.”

  “I've known lots of women, fairy women all of them. And I had a fair regard for each one. But—” He stopped, his lips forming and discarding words. “But with you, it was....”

  “Yes, it was, wasn't it?” She let him off the hook and nuzzled his neck, inviting him to lose himself in her again.

  Gaelen tipped her chin up. “Now, we must sleep. We have a big job in the mornin'.” His lips drifted over hers, promising much more. Then he settled down, drawing Annabelle closer.

  She was content to remain in his embrace, their legs entwined, within the colorful cocoon of Gaelen's wings.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Wake up, love,” Gaelen kissed her forehead. “Time to get to work.”

  Annabelle woke, blinking against the lamplight. A glance at the velvet black just beyond the lacy curtains hanging at Mrs. O'Hara's guest bedroom window told her it was ... still night? They hadn't slept the day away, had they?

  “What time is it?”

  Gaelen glanced up at the window. “I'd say about four thirty.”

  “Four thirty? Why so early?” she asked over a yawn.

  “We have to be there before daybreak, ready to enter when the door opens. Come on, now. Up with you.”

  With a stretch, she turned to Gaelen, still sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to come fully awake. He was already dressed. Sitting up, she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him around, studying his back.