Wrath: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 2

by Denise Tompkins

  “So you don’t believe he could have flashed to dragon and saved himself?”

  I shook my head, mute with the loss of him.

  Hellion listened carefully, his face a study in careful neutrality. “Is it possible he could have cloaked that quickly? Because no one reported anything. In fact, no one reported seeing us all fall.”

  Sarenia waved a hand. “He probably cloaked you on the way down, meaning he may have had time to shift. So you never saw the body?”

  A spark of hope seated itself in my heart. “No. No body.”

  “Then you’ve no proof he’s dead, Niteclif.” She started to add to her answer then stopped. “Yet you have come together anyway.” She waved a hand at us to encompass our apparent status.

  Hellion answered her, but instead of denying we were lovers he said, “Sarenia, you know the prophecy better than any, as your daughter was the one to deliver it. It’s been verified by three sources, as required by the Council. Maddy and I are predestined, and no amount of anger will change that.”

  I looked back and forth between the two. There was that word: predestined. Did Hellion really believe in true love or was he just accepting his fate? Most likely it was a little of both. I myself had acted on both, believing Bahlin was my One and then accepting pieces, but only pieces, of the prophecy as fact. Add into the mix the feelings I had of having known Hellion somehow before all of this, and it was one huge damn mess.

  Sarenia turned to me and asked, “Did you love Bahlin?”

  I was so thrown by the question I answered quickly and honestly. “Yeah. I still do.” I quickly looked over at Hellion. “I’m sorry, Hellion. You know how I feel.”

  He smiled gently and said, “I do. Yet you will love me too, only differently than you ever loved him. We are fated, you and I.”

  Goosebumps ran up and down my arms. Bahlin had said the exact same words to me weeks ago.

  “We are.” I wasn’t sure who it was that I was answering…or remembering.

  Sarenia sighed. “As much as it pains me, I must admit I believe this is right.”

  My head snapped around. “What’s right?”

  “The two of you. Your connection is visible, like one heart split between two bodies, one soul reunited. I fear that if Bahlin finds out, this will pain him greatly, prophecy or no.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “Be gentle with him, Madeleine Niteclif. He will need your patience and understanding through all this.”

  “So you believe he’s alive?”

  “I believe the odds are in his favor.”

  “Why did he not show when I scried for him?” Hellion chewed on his bottom lip, the action an undoubted holdover from youth, then smiled. “Ah, if he was cloaking himself with his full magic, he would have been invisible to me.”

  I nodded. “He could also have gone to his den. If he made the shift, he would have headed there. He told me it’s a magical place of safety for him.”

  “Did he take you to his den?” Hellion and Sarenia asked at the same time, both incredulous.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “It’s a huge sign of commitment from a dragon,” Sarenia answered, glancing over at Hellion. He was scowling and picking at the grass.

  I reached over and laid a hand on his arm to still his destruction. “You’re taking me to Ireland. Isn’t that kind of the same?” I moved my hand to trace the edge of his lips, and they twitched in response. Sarenia looked so sad.

  “What?” The belligerent word came out like a challenge.

  “He will take you home and seat you in his place of power. You’re right. It’s significant as well, Niteclif. You are well-mated, but at what price?” She stood, dusting herself off, and prepared to leave. “We will convene here again tomorrow evening so that all may come safely. I will spread the word. The king and queen of the fae will wish to attend.”

  “Oh yeah. We had a visitor—”

  “Follower,” Hellion interrupted.

  “Okay, a follower. He was fae. Do you think that’s what he wanted—to ask us to meet with the king and queen?” The thought made me nervous. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting with Tarrek’s parents. How do you express remorse for, essentially, arranging the murder of their psychotically deranged son? Hallmark doesn’t exactly make a card for that.

  Sarenia watched the different emotions cross my face before answering. “I’m quite sure the king wants to recommend a replacement fairy for the High Council. He is disqualified from serving because he is a ruling monarch. It would be like asking your president to serve on your Supreme Court, yes?”

  Why couldn’t all explanations be so simple? I wondered, nodding in understanding.

  “The vampires and shapeshifters must also recommend their replacements, so I will coordinate that. Unless, of course, you’d like to do so, Hellion?” Sarenia watched him carefully.

  “My interest in serving the Council has never run toward leadership, but thank you for the vote of confidence,” he answered formally. He slipped an arm around me and pulled me close, silently daring her to suggest otherwise.

  She inclined her head to him and walked away. Stopping, she turned back to me and asked, “And what will you do, Niteclif, if you find Bahlin has survived?”

  Self-doubt washed over me. “I don’t know, Sarenia. He left me and sort of affirmed it was for the best. Do I love him? Yes. Is it enough? I don’t think it’s enough to carry the whole relationship, no.”

  “And besides, Sarenia,” Hellion said, his voice resonating so that it carried across the distance effortlessly, “I ask her only to share the burden of love, not to bear it alone. Odin has spoken, and she is my heart. I will not let her go willingly.”

  “Odin means nothing to me.” Once outside the circle, she disappeared.

  Chapter Eight

  Night crept in from the shadows, finally falling around us as a blanket of stars covered the blue-black sky. Hellion drew me close and kissed me, and the stones seemed to hum their approval. “What’s that?” I asked, gently pulling away. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the easy intimacy that had developed between us today, appealing as it was.

  He wrapped his arms tighter around me and raised his brows. “You truly do not know?”

  “Wouldn’t have questioned it if I did.” I ducked my chin, trying to buy the time I needed to regain control of my facial expression following the tenderness of the kiss.

  He lifted my face to meet his. “Will you kiss me, just once, as if you hadn’t a care in the world?”

  I shrugged. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it wasn’t like I was cheating. Except on his memory, I thought. Before I could convey my change of heart, Hellion kissed me more enthusiastically.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I kissed him back. The stones quivered with energy, nearly singing their praise. It felt like my heart was vibrating with the intensity of their sound.

  It sounds joyful, I thought.

  Hellion broke the kiss but kept his hand on the back of my neck. “It’s a lover’s henge, Madeleine. When lovers come together inside the circle and kiss, the stones answer them if their love is true. If it is not, the stones remain silent and the lovers are cast apart.”

  My stomach plummeted to my feet. So this is it. I was surprised I wasn’t any more terrified than I was. I didn’t run screaming. I didn’t have a panic attack. I stood and stared at him, feeling the beat of his heart and seeing it echoed in his eyes. Seriously, they seemed to pulse.

  I looked away. “Why do your eyes do that?”

  “What? Oh, the pulsing? It’s power. When I feel some strong emotion they change, just as they do when I channel magic, large or small. It’s a consequence of my power and the same reason they’re truly black. They’re a mark of my standing in the magical community.”

  “What color were they?” I pulled back more strongly and, after a brief moment, he let me go.

  “Plain brown,” he answered softly. “Do you know you’re the first person to have aske
d me that since they changed?” He stroked my face and laid his forehead to mine.

  I thought back to a discussion with Bahlin, and it became relevant all over again. “How long will you live, Hellion?”

  He shrugged but was much more direct than my dragon had been. “The level of magic I carry slows the aging process. It’s impossible to know exactly what my lifespan will be since my power only increases with practice, but I would guess another three to five hundred years.”

  “How old are you?”

  He laughed and said, “I guess it’s fair since I know your age. I am three hundred thirty-eight years old.”

  I flinched. Seems I really had a thing for older men. “You look good for your age,” I said, and he squeezed my hands.

  “Very funny, chit. Shall we go on to Ireland?”

  Suddenly the whole thing seemed funny, and I laughed out loud and nodded.

  Laughing with me, he picked me up and spun me around, the world blacked out and we were gone.

  I opened my eyes to a lovely living room in what looked like a very old house. The walls were plaster and the hearth was stacked fieldstone. A fire blazed and the lights were set low. Large, masculine furniture lined the room. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were set into opposing walls. It was the kind of place that made me feel as if I could curl up and read for hours with a glass of neat whiskey at my fingertips and a hunting dog curled at my feet.

  “Oh, Hellion, it’s lovely.” I stepped out of his arms to look around the room. I walked the perimeter, picking up and setting down knick-knacks and running my fingers along the spines of the classics—Dickens, Frost, and Brontë among them. More modern books were held on another shelf—Gabaldon, King, Butcher, Hamilton. I could definitely stay here for ages.

  He moved up behind me and slid his arms around my waist. He dropped his chin to my shoulder and I sighed. Why was he so comfortable to me? No idea. A small kernel of self-doubt still existed, wondering, Why me? But I wasn’t sure if it was a question for the moment or the question of the ages.

  Sliding his hands down my sides, he grabbed my hands, and soft music began to play on the stereo.

  I looked over my shoulder and into his black, pulsing eyes. “Did you do that?” My voice carried softly across the short space between our lips.

  “Mm-hmm.” He kissed me gently, still swaying back and forth to the eerie, sexy Celtic crooning.

  I leaned back slightly, breaking the kiss. “No kissing. In fact, we probably shouldn’t be dancing.”

  I made to step away from him and he said, “Just relax for a moment, Maddy.”

  I tried to relax my stiff shoulders. “What about the lights and the fire?”

  “The house is staffed, and they prepare for me each evening on the off chance I pop in.”

  “Bad pun.”

  He shrugged and spun me out and pulled me back. I ended up facing him, his arms holding me gently. “Years to perfect romancing the ladies is turning out to be beneficial for me,” I teased.

  He grew still and serious. “Madeleine, prophecy or no prophecy, I believe we would have ended up together. What I feel for you surpasses everything I’ve ever felt before.”

  My heart contracted but any response I might have offered hung up in my throat. I put my hands on his chest and pushed away gently, needing space. Too fast, too fast, screamed my head, while my heart whispered, Maybe. I couldn’t so blindly accept the prophecy as he did. I was a creature who should be ruled by logic, but logic held no place in the deepest corners of the heart. It was like being blind, moving ahead without any reassurance of what was around the corner or, more immediately, right in front of you.

  He watched me struggle and bent to kiss me softly despite my earlier warning.

  I turned away and his lips brushed my cheek. Taking his hand, I led him to the sofa and sat down. “I wanted tonight to get to know you. I need to feel more connected to you than the prophecy affords, Hellion.” I realized I’d put myself in yet another strange country with a man I hardly knew, with no knowledge of where exactly I was, or how I’d get away from him if I needed to. Not the wisest thing I’d ever done. It ranked right up there with punching my dragon in the face. Can’t think about that.

  Hellion sat down with me and leaned back on the sofa, putting his feet up on the ottoman and pulling me close. “Of course, mo shíorghrá. What do you wish to know?”

  “First, what does that mean?”

  “It means ‘my eternal love.’ But surely you’re not here to learn the Irish?” he teased.

  “No,” I answered so quietly the exhalation of breath was louder than the word.

  “Don’t worry, Maddy, love. It will be fine. You’ll see. Odin wouldn’t have paired us if it were not to be so.”

  “I don’t know how not to worry,” I admitted. “I’m such a practical soul, Hellion. I don’t buy mysticism and messages from gods.”

  “Not even when they are personally delivered?”

  “I didn’t firmly believe in any of you until Bahlin finally fully shifted in front of me, and by then I’d seen each of you up close. Hell, I’d been in the sithen.” I shrugged, and the weight of his arm around my shoulders was heavy. Suddenly I felt stifled, like I couldn’t quite catch my breath. I stood up and walked to the window and stared at my own reflection, the darkness outside barely separated from the light within by the thin skin of glass. Profound, that.

  The glass reflected Hellion’s movements, and I saw him stand and walk up behind me. He didn’t touch me but I could feel the power roiling around him. It was like being buffeted by a commanding wind without a hair on your head moving. Very strange.

  “Maddy?” he asked tentatively. “I have a favor.”

  “Sure,” I answered without thinking.

  “Come to bed with me.”

  “That’s a bit more than a favor, Hellion,” I snapped out.

  He dipped his head but not before I caught the flash of teeth and the smile. “Not for sex, Maddy, but for contact. It seems we’re easier with each other when we’re touching. I’d hold you while we talk. Of course, if you’d prefer sex, I’m fine with that.”

  I relaxed a little and turned to face him. “I’ll go to bed with you only if you promise to not try to seduce me. Okay?”

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before answering. “I suppose,” he groused, but he finally touched me and pulled me close.

  I leaned back into him and laid my hands across his forearms.

  “Come to bed, my Madeleine.”

  What had happened to my moral compass? I shivered, not sure who I thought I was fooling with my talk of abstinence. It wasn’t working. I knew in that moment that it was inevitable that some night soon we would end up in bed for more than comfort. And if I wanted to add logic to the mix, there were two options for me: I was either the whore of Babylon or following my destiny. I could suddenly see with disturbing clarity why people used destiny as an excuse.

  Morning dawned bright and clear, and I had my first look at the grounds. They were unbelievable. Hellion’s cottage was more historic manor house with beautiful flower gardens surrounding it. I yanked my jeans on and rushed down the stairs only to meet him coming up.

  “You’re an early riser,” I said almost accusingly.

  “Only today. You’re a cover hog.” He smiled, and I did my best not to think of the time Bahlin had accused me of the same thing.

  I’m not going there.

  “Sorry.” He quirked an eyebrow and I attempted a grin. It came across as pained-looking, I’m sure. “Okay, I slept like the dead. I’m not really sorry, but I’ll try to be better.” It was out before I could stop myself.

  Hellion moved on as if I hadn’t just admitted there would be a next time. “What would you like to do this morning before breakfast? Because I know you’re not going to go rushing back to London to begin the investigation without breakfast.”

  “It’s all about food with you, you know it?” I demanded, moving passed him to look out the
mudroom door. “I want to wander the gardens and have you tell me about the flora and fauna. I’m absolutely enamored,” I said, looking over my shoulder.

  His eyes pulsed. “As am I,” he said gently.

  Uncomfortable with any kind of intimacy in the light of day, I opened the door and stepped out into the warm morning. I was so tired of it being dreary that the sunshine was like a celebration, and I’d never seen anything so green as Ireland in all my life. The rolling hills, the grass around the house, the bushes. It was vibrant, with splashes of color everywhere the eye looked. There were primary colors and pastels, bright and soft mingled together, with crisp interjections of white here and there. Every color of the rainbow was represented, and it was all done so well that it didn’t feel overwhelming to the senses, but rather earthy and organic. The multitude of flowers gave off a combination of scents, some spicy and some predictably floral. It was heady just to stand, eyes closed, and breathe in the smells.

  We walked and talked the morning away, discussing nothing to do with flowers but about everything else. I learned more about his childhood in the 1600s and the changes he’d seen; we talked about the United States and the things I missed of home. He learned that I loved English and hated math, while he was an alchemist at heart and couldn’t write terribly well. We shared many of the same likes and dislikes, though he couldn’t fathom that I didn’t like seafood. Nothing was too small to discuss, dissect, consider. We held hands, and he cradled me gently under the rose arbor. He lifted me over a small mud puddle to keep me from getting dirty. He laid me down on a bed of clover and held me close, my head resting in the depression of his shoulder, the silence comfortable. It was the single most beautiful morning of my life.

  As was his wont, he demanded food early that afternoon. We went back to the house, and I blushed when the staff met us at the front door.