“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes.”
He settled his hips between her thighs, and his shaft slid inward and upward, barely touching her, growing slick as her wetness covered it. The tip grazed her cleft. She arched up, opening herself, begging him to fill her at last.
He thrust. It was a sharp, quick plunge, and she felt the snap of something breaking, the mildest discomfort before the waves of pleasure began. He withdrew almost all the way, teasing her cleft with the head of his shaft, and then entered again.
Nothing came from Mariah’s lips but moans as he settled into a rhythm, thrusting and withdrawing, his thickness stretching her wide, making his mark deep inside her body. Deep, but not deep enough. She raised her legs and clasped her ankles about his chest, and he cradled her bottom with one hand as he drove into her again.
She knew instinctively when it was nearly finished. A strange thrumming began in her belly, a feeling as if a dam were about to burst. Ash moved more rapidly, his eyes closed, his head tilted back. Just as the thrumming filled her entire body, he stopped. She tried to hold him inside, but he left her, and the opening he had filled wept with grief.
But he was not so cruel. He clasped his hands around her waist and lifted her, carrying her with him as he rolled onto his back. He eased her down onto his hips, and she slid over him, crying out again in relief and ecstasy. She spread her hands on his chest and moved as he had moved, impaling herself while he grasped her hips and shuddered in time to her motions.
This time there was no stopping the wave. The dam gave way, and she drowned in it, the small muscles inside her contracting in release as Ash thrust into her over and over again.
She collapsed into his arms, laughing and weeping. He wrapped himself around her, stroked her hair, murmured words of praise and adoration. Then there was quiet, a silent melody of life that had finally opened up to her.
“I must go through the Gate.”
She didn’t hear him. His words were so much empty noise, meaningless in this blissful new existence.
“Mariah.” He cupped her face, lifted it, stared into her eyes. “It is time.”
Stunned realization shot white inside her head. All the lazy warmth fled her body, and she felt as if he had reached inside her chest and torn out her heart.
Nothing had changed. It was over. He was leaving her.
“Please understand,” he murmured. “Mariah…”
She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go.
She had told him that she wouldn’t let him go. She had told him that she loved him. She had given herself to him after so many days of longing, of waiting, of doubt. And yet the first words he had spoken afterwards were about the Gate, about leaving, and she hated him for it.
“Mariah,” he said, kissing her forehead, her brows, her eyelids. “I would never leave you for any other reason than stopping Cairbre. But I must go—and I cannot manage the Gate myself.”
A blossom of bitterness opened up beneath her ribs. “You mean I am still of some further use to you?”
He glanced aside, something like pain in the set of his mouth. “I have tried to explain.”
“Explain? Is that what you call…what you call—”
“No, Mariah.” He stroked her back. “Tell me, would you love a coward?”
Oh, yes. She would stay with him no matter what he was. But she saw now that, no matter how little she really understood his reasons, Ash would not abandon his determination to defeat Cairbre, if only for her sake.
She could not hate him. She could only love him all the more.
“How can I help?” she asked in a small voice.
He looked away again, and she knew he was suffering, too. “Think carefully, Mariah. Did your mother ever disappear?”
“I…beg your pardon?”
“Did she ever go where you could not find her?”
Mariah wriggled free and sat up, suddenly self-conscious and aware of her near-nudity. “She spent most of her life at home or…or in asylums.”
“Then you and your father were not always with her.”
A peculiar memory entered her mind, as incongruous as anything that had happened since they had left Donbridge.
“There was a time,” she said, “when my parents and I traveled into the mountains of Colorado. It was a wilderness with few roads, but my mother seemed more…sane there than anywhere else. We stayed in a lodge with a few other guests. One morning…” The memories were becoming clearer now, as sharp as broken glass. “One morning we couldn’t find her. We were terrified that she had wandered away and become lost. A search party was sent out. That night they found her…” She turned her head to stare at the fallen stones. “She was sitting under a tree next to a cairn of heavy rocks. She said she had walked through the cairn into another world.”
“A Gate,” Ash murmured.
“She said she had been in that other place for only a few minutes.”
“A few minutes in the Blessed Land may pass as hours in this world,” Ash said. “She was partly Fane. She found a way from your country into Tir-na-Nog.”
“And now you think I can open the Gate, too.”
“It is possible that if we try together, we may succeed.”
The moon was sinking low in the sky. In a few hours it would be dawn. Sinjin and the dowager couldn’t hold Donnington forever. He was an expert hunter, and once he was free, he would track them down. If she waited for Ash outside the Gate…
“I’m going with you,” she said.
“No. If Cairbre discovers that we have entered Tir-na-Nog, he will be able to take you anytime after you have stepped through the Gate.”
“I am not afraid of him.”
“You do not know him. Once the Gate is opened, you must go on to the station. Find a place to stay in London. I will follow when I can.”
“If you can.” She got up, pulled on her petticoat and picked up her skirt. She reached into the pocket and fingered the cloth-wrapped talisman. “That isn’t good enough for me.”
A look of bitter self-contempt crossed his face. “I swore to protect you.”
“Even you can’t protect me from everything.” Least of all my own fears.
“Listen to me—”
“Both Cairbre and Donnington have tried to use me. This is my battle as much as it is yours. Either I go with you or I won’t help you open the Gate.”
She watched him struggle with the choices she had given him. A moment of blazing intimacy passed between them, as overwhelming as their loving, as those first few times in the folly when she had not even begun to guess how much he would mean to her.
“You must do exactly as I tell you,” he said. “We will have only the element of surprise on our side. I will confront Cairbre as soon as I see him. You will remain out of sight. If he comes for you, you are to return to the Gate and your own world.”
“I agree,” she said. “What about the horses?”
“We will take them through with us. No harm will come to them in Tir-na-Nog.”
She turned away, fastened her skirt, then pulled on her shirtwaist and jacket. She still felt horribly exposed.
“What shall I do now?” she asked.
Gently Ash turned her to face the stones. “Your mother knew,” he said. “You will know, as well, if you open your heart.”
She thought of Mama, of her flashes of humor and deep compassion, so often mingled with bewilderment and that terrible distance Mariah had never been able to cross. She imagined that crossing now, between herself and her mother, between Mrs. Marron and that other world she had once seen so clearly.
Ash’s warm hand took hers. Their flesh became one. Light shimmered over the stones, and their shapes seemed to waver, to become as insubstantial as clouds.
There was no literal opening, no enormous gate creaking inward to let them pass, but Mariah knew when they had succeeded. Her body felt light, as if she might simply fly into Tir-na-Nog.
“It is done,” Ash said. “You are well?”
“Yes.”
“Release your mount the moment you enter Tir-na-Nog. Find a place to hide.”
“I understand.”
She waited while Ash unsaddled the horses and removed their packs, then took the reins of her mare and followed Ash and his gelding toward the stones. She flinched as they drew level with the Gate, but nothing blocked their path. The stones had become ghosts, like the ground and the trees around them. She closed her eyes. Her feet touched grass as soft as down.
Light. Wondrous light. The smell of the most delicate perfume. A feeling of such contentment that she stood where she was, unafraid, while the new world opened up around her.
“The horses,” Ash said. His voice was strange, thin, as if it were fading away. She released her mare’s reins, and the animal burst away in a run, the gelding by her side.
Mariah quickly lost sight of them, but she felt no concern for their well-being. She was transfixed. The sky arced above, a perfect azure lit by a perfect sun, neither too bright nor too dim. The clouds were no more than wisps of lace tumbled about by a fragrant breeze. Each tree was an ideal of its kind, embraced by vines that might have belonged in a tropical paradise. Red and white deer with crystal horns grazed undisturbed on the luxuriant grass. And the flowers were just as she had witnessed in Ash’s vision…thousands upon thousands of every variety she had ever seen and many more besides.
No, Ash had not deceived her in this. Neither one of them was mad. Her mother had been right all along. Sane, misunderstood, abandoned for being more than human.
And she felt a part of her she had never recognized—the Fane within herself—begin to blossom just like the flowers at her feet. Now at last she knew what she was. Surely there was no suffering in this world, no fear, nothing such as Ash had described.
The sprites appeared out of nowhere as they had done before, tiny winged creatures buzzing around her, uttering tiny cries like the stings of minute wasps.
“Cairbre,” Ash whispered. “Go back, Mariah.”
Going back was impossible. He must know that. But as she opened her mouth to explain, a man appeared before her. A man who resembled Lord Caber, but only in his barest outlines, as if someone had created the mortal lord from an imperfect sketch of a god.
This was the original—this gorgeous creature with eyes of silver-green and hair only a blind man would have dared to call brown. His brilliant garments were seamless and so finely woven that not a single thread could be detected.
The dream of beauty slipped from Mariah’s grasp. Cairbre. He was no longer merely a name nor a version of the man she had met in the ballroom at Marlborough House. She had seen him long before.
“Arion,” Cairbre said pleasantly. “And Mariah. How delightful.” He twitched a finger, and the tiny fairies darted to form a moving halo around his head. “I confess I had not expected you to manage the Gate, Arion, let alone surrender her to me. But it seems that your true nature has overcome your human scruples.”
More than once during the past weeks Mariah had felt as if she were walking on a narrow bridge suspended over nothingness. Now she stood on that bridge again, and it was Cairbre’s words that threatened to send her sailing over the edge.
“Yes,” Cairbre said to her, ignoring Ash. “You and I met before that night at Marlborough House, but the human part of your mind could not accept what you had witnessed. We shall remedy that presently.”
Ash roared. He charged at Cairbre, teeth bared and eyes wild. Cairbre’s raised hand stopped him as if he had flung himself against a brick wall.
“Now, now, Arion,” Cairbre said. “You kept your part of the bargain, and I shall keep mine.” He made another gesture, fingers dancing in midair.
Ash was gone. Another creature stood in his place, the creature Mariah had seen in her dreams, in Ash’s vision…the magnificent beast whose rearing shape graced the escutcheon of the earls of Donnington.
“You seem surprised, my dear,” Cairbre said. “But of course you never did meet Arion in his true form.” He reached toward the unicorn with his graceful hand. The animal snapped fruitlessly with strong white teeth and trembled with rage.
“You cannot harm me now, Arion,” Cairbre said. “Once your horn could have done me grave injury, as it might have mortally wounded my enemies had you chosen to cooperate. But I have become too powerful for you.”
The unicorn made a terrible sound, so full of despair that Mariah nearly sank to her knees in sympathy.
“Ash,” she whispered.
“Did he tell you?” Cairbre said with patently false sympathy. “Did he make you believe that he had a chance against me?”
“He told me what he was,” she said. “I had faith in him. I still do.”
“And do you have faith in what you see around you?”
“Yes.” She met his gaze steadily. “I know what you want. You won’t get it.”
“If Arion cannot touch me, you certainly cannot defy my will.”
“I shall certainly try.”
“So much spirit.” His eyes glinted with pleasure. “Tell me, did Arion claim that he loved you? It is said that we Fane cannot feel human emotion. Why should he know any better, beast that he is?”
Ash squealed and bent his head, the razor tip of his spiraled horn nearly touching Cairbre’s chest.
“I wonder what he would say if he could speak?” Cairbre said. “Does enough mortal remain in him that he would beg your forgiveness? Or is taking his revenge all that fills his mind?” He sighed. “I see that you still don’t understand. It is time for you to remember.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MARIAH SWAYED. She was no longer in Tir-na-Nog but another place, a familiar place beside the stones in her own world. And others were with her: Donnington, his voice a roar in her ears; Cairbre, lips curled in anger…and Ash, bound, sprawled on the earth, his black eyes both bewildered and stark with the same rage she’d just seen in the beast he had become.
She heard them speaking, Donnington and Cairbre, weaving their web as she lay at her husband’s feet. She heard them discuss their scheme for her, just as Ash had described: how Donnington had located a virgin girl of Fane blood to become Cairbre’s bride; how she had struggled against Cairbre’s attempts to carry her through the Gate.
“But there is one thing you could not have heard,” Cairbre said aloud, cutting into the memories. “I gave Arion one chance to return to Tir-na-Nog. Since I could not compel you to enter the Gate, he was to win your affection and loyalty, so that you would willingly follow him wherever he led you. Once he had brought you to the Gate, I would open the passage, and he would take you through it.”
And then, she realized, Ash would at last resume the life he wanted so desperately, as king of the unicorns, all but immortal, beautiful, free.
Now she was here in Tir-na-Nog, all according to plan. Ash had brought her, and he was himself again.
You love one who will betray you. You will not see the trap until it is too late.
Lies, nearly everything he had told her. Except…Cairbre wanted a virgin. Ash made love to you. He begged you to stay on earth. Why?
Perhaps some part of him had really cared for her. But it hadn’t been enough.
She pressed her face into her hands. She would rather have been insane than face this terrible truth. And yet…
Part of the memory was missing. She couldn’t grasp it. Cairbre wouldn’t let her.
“I pity you, Mariah,” the Fane said. “I would have spared you this pain. But the sorrow will fade, here in this world where you belong.”
Through strangely dry eyes, Mariah saw Arion drop to his knees before Cairbre, a supplicant begging mercy.
“Oh, no,” Cairbre said. “You have no worth to me now. You are humbled at last, great Arion.” He returned his attention to Mariah. “You shall have everything you desire in my world, my dear. Every luxury, every indulgence, to bring you perfect happiness. You shall be my queen.”
The only possible response was a gri
m sort of laughter. “You have done nothing but bring suffering for everyone you’ve touched,” she said. “In my world, I’d simply call you an evil man. But you are much worse than that, because you truly believe you are a god.”
Cairbre’s face twisted into an ugly mask. “I am a god, human. In every way your little mind can comprehend.” He snapped his fingers. Arion grunted in shock as chains appeared around his fore and hind legs, jerking him to the ground. He lay there, sides heaving, like a sheep awaiting slaughter.
And then he gave up. His bright intelligent eyes dulled with a film of despair; his neck was stretched across the grass, throat exposed as if for the knife. The glitter of his horn vanished, replaced by the rusty tones of a tarnished blade.
“You see what is left of your lover,” Cairbre said, setting his foot on Arion’s withers. “Except he never was your lover, was he, my dear? The gift of your virginity has been saved for me.”
He was wrong. Even his superior senses, his vaunted powers, couldn’t discern the truth. But Mariah knew she had to play along.
“That’s a gift you’ll never have,” she said. “Unless you give me something in return.”
“And what is that, little mortal?”
“Arion’s freedom.”
“You would have me set Arion free, in spite of his deception?”
“It was your bargain with him. If you swear, by whatever you call holy, that you’ll let him return unmolested to his old life and never seek to do harm to him again, I’ll give myself to you. I’ll bear you all the children you wish.”
“Is this what humans call forgiveness?” he asked. “How extraordinary.”
“Do you agree?”
“I could still force you.”
“Someone else said that to me. But I am still part Fane. It might not be quite so easy as you suppose.”
A beautiful smile spread across Cairbre’s face. “What is it that you fear most, Mariah?” He answered his own question before she could speak. “It is obvious, of course. Donnington informed me about your mother, your close acquaintance with what humans call insanity.”
“My mother was not insane.”
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