by Laura DeLuca
“I’m afraid so.” Morrigan almost cried with relief because she’d had no idea how she was going to explain his condition without giving them away.
“Don’t be too hard on him, lassie,” the innkeeper said. “I am sure he will pay for it tomorrow. And I would not be surprised if my own husband was not sitting on the bench beside him.”
She chuckled again and shuffled off to deal with other patrons. Morrigan thanked the Gods and struggled to guide Tiarn up the steps to their room. As soon as she had the door open, she plopped him down on the straw bed. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was drunk because he watched her with the strangest smile as she struggled to remove his soggy boots, cloak, and tunic. His pants probably should have come off too, but she didn’t have the nerve to go that far. She was relieved to see there was already a fire going, because she had no idea how to start one the old-fashioned way, and she couldn’t use her fire starting abilities for the same reason she couldn’t use her telekinesis.
“You are beautiful,” Tiarn told her. She blushed as she placed the thick wool blankets all the way up around his neck. “And so very kind. I cannot believe you are . . . .” He let the sentence trail off.
She smiled and sat on the corner of the bed. “That I’m what?”
“It is so cold in here.”
She wasn’t sure if he was changing the subject or just rambling from the fever. He was still shaking, almost violently, despite the warmth of the room, so she didn’t press him. She found a few extra blankets on a nearby chair and brought them over. She was surprised to discover Tiarn needed—demanded more. He pulled Morrigan, soggy dress and all, down onto the bed beside him. She was stunned he had the strength to do it, but she didn’t struggle to pull away. Nothing had ever felt as right as being in his arms.
“Only your flame can warm me, fire witch,” he whispered.
She felt her heart hammer with fear—fear of another rejection, fear it was only the sickness talking. Yet, still, she couldn’t deny him. She pulled him close, trying to quell his tremors. Her hands stroked his hair and glided along his shoulders in an effort to provide some comfort.
“No one has ever shown me such tenderness,” he whispered. His eyes were heavy, almost closed. “If I believed I was worthy of love, then certainly I would give that love to you, my sweet Princess Morrigan.”
Then he was asleep, and Morrigan was left to wonder if their budding love would ever have the chance to grow to fruition.
Chapter Seventeen
That was only the beginning of what had to be the longest night of her life. Tiarn’s fever got progressively worse, even after she managed to force a second dose of antibiotics and aspirin down his throat. He flitted in and out of consciousness and drifted back and forth between rationality and complete delirium. One minute he would be sound asleep, and the next he would be screaming and ranting. She knew there couldn’t be any other patrons renting the adjacent rooms or certainly they would have complained about the noise.
When the food arrived, Morrigan only cracked open the door, and prayed Tiarn would not cry out in his sleep again until after their host had left. Trying to get him to eat the thick beef stew and bread had proved impossible. When she lifted the spoon to his lips, he cursed and brushed her hand away.
“I cannot touch that. I cannot stand the smell. Please, Morrigan, take it away.”
Morrigan was concerned when he refused to eat, but she could hardly force feed him. At least she had managed to get a little water into him along with the medicine. Still, the food didn’t completely go to waste. She managed to shovel a few morsels into her mouth while Tiarn was sleeping, and she found a moment to change out of her wet clothes. She pulled out the extra pair of stretch pants and the sweater she had brought and let her gown hang across a chair in front of the fire to dry.
Morrigan savored the few minutes of quiet. She took out her sketchbook and drew the likeness of Brigid and the everyday people of the town. She listened to the rain beating against the roof of the inn. The light patter was almost mesmerizing, but her quiet peace was short lived. Too quickly, Tiarn was tossing and thrashing. In his agitation, the piles of blankets were knocked to the ground. She ran to grab the bundle from the floor and started to rearrange them on the bed, but Tiarn pushed them roughly away.
“Too hot,” he mumbled. His face was covered in beads of sweat, yet still his body wracked with tremors.
“You need to stay covered,” Morrigan told him.
She forced the covers back over him. As disturbing as it was to see him so drenched in sweat, she recalled reading that the best thing for a fever was to sweat it out. He only struggled for a moment, but she realized it was because he had passed out again. She bundled him up tight and took advantage of the reprieve to check his arm and change the bandages. She unraveled the gauze. Underneath, the wound was not bloody, but the long cut looked puckered and swollen, with a thin veil of yellow discharge leaking through.
She tried not to gag as she took out her meager first aid kit and hoped it would be enough to help him. For the first time, she missed her old home and its modern conveniences. She wished she could just pull up to an ER where a simple flesh wound would be easy for a team of trained physicians to heal. Of course, if they saw him morphing into a wolf, they might want to dissect him—so maybe they were better off in Tír na NÓg after all.
Tiarn didn’t even notice as she cleaned the wound for the second time. She tried to use the products sparingly, in the hopes of getting at least one more use out of them before they were gone. He hardly moved as she worked, he was sleeping so deeply. It made her nervous at first, and she had to check his pulse every few minutes and make sure he was still breathing. She saw his chest rise and fall steadily, so she continued with her work. She noticed the hydrogen peroxide bubbled a great deal more than it had the first time, which hopefully meant it was doing its job. She was just putting on the finishing touches when Tiarn began to stir again.
He was not quite awake, yet he moaned and thrashed on the bed. His eyes rolled into the back of his head so she could see only the whites, and his body trembled furiously. She was terrified he might go into a seizure or stop breathing. She struggled to remember the CPR basics she had learned in health class, even as she did what little she could to soothe him. She found a little towel next to a chamber pot which was filled with clean water for bathing. She wet the towel in the water and carried it back to try to cool the raging fire within him. She wished she could control the flames that consumed him as easily as she did the element.
Tiarn flinched as she dabbed the cool cloth to his feverish brow. She fought him from pushing it away with one hand while she nervously chewed her fingernails on the other. Tiarn was tossing and turning in his troubled sleep and gripping the blankets so roughly she was surprised there was anything left of them. It seemed as though hours had passed with no change. He was quiet aside from the moaning, but then he began to mumble incoherently. It was just a whisper at first, but as time passed, the cries grew louder. She struggled to make out his words, but some of them seemed like they might have been in another language, perhaps Gaelic or something even more ancient.
“Tiarn,” she whispered. “Tiarn, can you hear me?”
His fever seemed to get worse no matter what she did. He was growing more and more delusional. She had no idea what to do, and she was terrified he was going to die. That wasn’t only scary because she would be stranded in an alien world all alone. She was also afraid of losing him when so much remained unspoken between them. They deserved time to explore the feelings they had been trying to suppress from the second their eyes met through her classroom window. That moment seemed like a lifetime ago. And for Tiarn, it might truly be a lifetime, because she wasn’t sure he was going to leave the inn alive.
“No, no, I couldn’t have . . . no, no, please . . . .”
Tiarn’s delirious ramblings were converting back to English. The anguished whimpers woke Morrigan from her own se
lfish reveries. Tiarn had opened his eyes, though they remained glazed. She knew she should be a little nervous that the wolf would take over, but she couldn’t even begin to worry about her own safety. She only knew he was seeing something that was far removed from their quiet room, and whatever it was, it was devastating to him.
“Dead! No, not the child. He cannot be dead!”
He was starting to get louder, and Morrigan was afraid the innkeeper was going to come back to see what was going on. Yet, a part of her wished he could continue. What child was he talking about? Could he be a father? Maybe he had a younger brother or sister? He cried out in despair again, practically weeping as he reached out a hand to the invisible child of his past.
“It’s all right, Tiarn,” Morrigan soothed and touched his forehead with the cloth, though it was already starting to dry. “Can you hear me? Everything is all right. You’re safe here.”
“Mor . . . Morrigan?” His voice was thick, confused.
“Yes, Tiarn, it’s me.”
She was beyond relieved that he was aware enough to recognize her. His fingers stretched and searched wildly for hers among the maze of blankets on the bed. Morrigan reached out to grab hold of his hand. She thought he was just looking for comfort and it would be a gentle gesture, but he squeezed her fingers with surprising force. She could see her knuckles turning white under the strength of his grip.
“Go!” he ordered. His teeth were bared in a combination of fear and panic, and beads of spittle flew from his lips. “Leave me; you must leave me . . . before I kill you too!”
At first, Morrigan felt shocked and a little afraid. Then she calmed down when she realized it was probably the same delusional babble he had been spewing since they arrived. She had seen him in battle. He had been careful to never strike a fatal blow, though he had ample opportunity to do so. She knew he was no killer. Yet, he had hinted at something similar earlier, even before the fever had claimed him.
“Please, Morrigan. You must flee . . . you must leave before it is too late. I cannot harm you, not you, not my sweet princess.”
“It’s all right, Tiarn,” she repeated. “You didn’t hurt anyone. And I know you would never hurt me. Just try to relax and go back to sleep.”
He shook his head furiously. “Don’t you see him? The boy! Goddess save me, I have killed a child! What makes you think I will not kill you as well?”
“Tiarn, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Morrigan whispered. A small seed of doubt was beginning to creep in. “There is no child here. No one is hurt.”
He growled and squeezed her hand even tighter. She flinched at the unexpected brutality of it and tried to pull her hand away, but even in his illness, Tiarn was too strong for her. He gripped her hand even tighter, with more strength than she would have thought possible considering his weakened condition.
“You know not what you risk by remaining here, Princess,” he spat bitterly. All hint of tenderness was gone from his voice. “You do not know me! I am an animal! A monster! I have done darker deeds than you can even imagine!”
As if to prove his point, his green eyes flashed and changed to yellow slits. His canine teeth extended into a gruesome snarl, and a low rumble emitted from his chest. Morrigan, though shaken, refused to leave her post. She had seen this inner struggle in him before. She knew there was goodness within him, no matter how hard he tried to convince her otherwise.
“I won’t leave you, Tiarn,” she told him. “I can’t.”
She stared him down until finally he collapsed against the pillows in an exhausted, defeated heap. His eyes flashed back and forth between animal and man, before settling into their former glazed state.
“I do not wish to harm you, Morrigan,” he whispered desperately. “I would rather die.”
She smiled gently and went back to wiping the sweat from his forehead. “You won’t, Tiarn. I know you won’t. No one is going to die here tonight.”
“The boy!” he cried out again, and she knew the moment of rationality was gone. He had started to sob, and he clutched her hand in desperation. “The child . . . I did not mean to harm him . . . oh please, not the child. . . .”
The next few hours continued much the same. He would beg and plead with her to save the child he spoke of, only to fall to pieces again when he realized it was too late. It was a nightmare that he lived over and over throughout the course of the evening. The physical pains of his sickness were eclipsed by the emotional torment he suffered. Seeing the man she loved in such torment all but ripped her heart to shreds. Morrigan would have done anything to spare him that agony, but all she could do was hold him, comfort him, and somehow try to convince him everything was going to be okay.
Several times during the course of the evening, she glimpsed the face of the lycan. Each time the transformation would begin, Tiarn somehow found the inner strength to drive the beast back down, despite his illness. She saw how difficult the struggle was. He seemed drained and broken to the point she was unsure he would continue to fight. Somehow, he always did, and she marveled at his willpower.
There were also several times when she thought she was going to lose him to the fever. His body was burning, but he wouldn’t drink. He would tremble and gasp for air, and a few times she was sure she heard the death rattle. The endless night seemed to go on and on like that forever, until finally the sun began to peek through the windows of the inn. With the breaking of the morning sun, Tiarn’s fever finally broke as well. While it didn’t go back to normal immediately, he felt considerably cooler. He ceased his constant tossing and finally fell into a true, relaxed sleep. She could hear the sound of his steady breath rise and fall, no longer raspy and uneven. She said a silent thank you to the Goddess for allowing him to pull through this nightmare and prayed it would be the worst battle they would have to face before reaching her mother.
Morrigan realized all at once that she was exhausted. She had only dozed briefly the night before in the log she had holed up in, and after that they had been moving nonstop all day. She didn’t want to stray too far from Tiarn in case he needed anything. She curled up next to him in the double bed and laid her head down on the feather pillow. Beside her, Tiarn sensed her nearness. She almost expected him to push her away now that he was more himself, but instead, he shimmied over to give her a little more room. Even more shocking, he put his good arm around her and pulled her close. Morrigan fell into a well-deserved sleep, safe and secure in the shelter of his arms.
Chapter Eighteen
Morrigan awoke to a loud pounding at the door. She bolted upright in the bed and was disoriented for a moment. This wasn’t her foster parents’ house or even the forest floor where she had made her bed the last few nights. In a rush, the previous day’s events came back to her. She reached out for Tiarn, to see how he was faring, only to find the spot beside her empty.
“Tiarn!”
She was instantly alert and filled with fear. She imagined he might have morphed into the wolf as she slept, and at best, done away with the village chickens. At worst—she wouldn’t even let herself finish the thought. She jumped out of bed and reached for her shoes so she could search for him. Just before she was about to have a complete and total nervous breakdown, she saw him. Tiarn was fully dressed and leaning against the table, gnawing hungrily on the stale bread that was left over from the previous night’s meal. He gave her a cocky smirk as he ripped into it. Before she could open her mouth to ask what he was doing out of bed, there was another pounding at their door.
“Tiarn, what? Who . . . ?”
A new panic was starting to take hold. Were the soldiers of Arianrhod waiting behind the door? Surely they wouldn’t have bothered with such civilities as knocking. They would have broken down the door, without waiting for a reply or giving any warning.
“It is just the innkeeper,” Tiarn told her, completely relaxed. “I requested she bring up our breakfast. I also took the liberty of requesting the room for an additional evening. It is your turn to
rest, Princess. The queen can wait one more day.”
The pounding at the door was a little more insistent this time. Brigid’s cheerful voice called out. “Is all well in there, my dears?”
Morrigan was about to reach for the handle when Tiarn grabbed her arm. “You cannot let her see you this way, unless you plan to produce a screaming babe.” Morrigan had almost forgotten about the disguise. She had never been much of a morning person. “Get back into bed and cover up before you give us away. I will answer the door.”
Morrigan nodded and pretended to sleep while Tiarn exchanged a few more bronze rings for a day’s worth of meals and another night’s stay. While she was happy for the reprieve from their arborous journey, she worried about leaving her mother at Arianrhod’s mercy. Then she realized Tiarn probably needed the extra day’s rest even more than she did and was just too proud to admit it. She didn’t argue, but she decided if she had to sacrifice another day, she was going to take advantage of their time together. One way or another, before they took up their journey, she was going to find out the whole truth about her dark knight.
She studied him as he exchanged pleasantries with Brigid, looking for any lingering signs of his illness. He seemed the picture of health. He had even taken the time to wash up and shave. For the first time since they met, his face was surprisingly free of dark scruff. It made him look even more handsome, and she felt her heart flutter.
Tiarn gave her a toothy smile as he placed a tray of eggs, flapjacks, and bacon down on their table along with a pot of coffee. Morrigan was surprised to see that some things, like the standard breakfast spread, appeared to be universal. Tiarn was already digging in as she made her way over, but he had set aside a generous portion for her. He was already almost finished; a few pieces of eggs stuck to his chin as evidence. Morrigan was so relieved to see him eating again that she had to smile.
“Feeling better, I see.”