by Elle Lincoln
“Shh.” His breath fans against my neck, eliciting a rather inappropriate response for the current situation. My body shivers and I immediately move him up on my mental list of ‘who I want to devour first’ when we get back to the cabin.
I’ve had enough of this holding out bullshit, but I’ll dwell on that later. Right now I need to know what’s going on. So, as any normal girl would, I lick Balor’s arm.
He jerks away and scowls down at me, but I just shrug and go to look around. Only he’s now pushing my head down into the bush as a whizzing flies by my ear.
What the hell?
“Archers,” Balor whispers, his entire body tense.
“Didn’t think about that, did we?” I sure as hell didn’t. I should have, since it isn’t like we are here on vacation. Which makes me wonder if this is a decent place to vacation. Probably not, on account of the archers and all.
Balor grunts before looking down at me. “Stay down and don’t look at me, no matter what.”
“Umm, sure?” I say it like a question, because it’s pretty hard not to look at him, ever.
“Promise me you won’t look at me.” He reaches up to finger his leather eye patch. I never questioned its presence, but I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to mess with, and I’m pretty sure it can kill even an immortal with just a mere look.
“I promise.” I’m not lying, I really will try not to look.
“Casseus doesn’t believe these are our kidnappers. But I need to take them out as quickly as possible.” Another arrow whizzes over my head. The bush is worthless cover.
Balor rolls away and with one last look at me, he walks forward where I can no longer see him. I’m not a fan of hiding behind a bush. A bush that has weirdly large leaves in a pretty blue-green color. I’m fingering a leaf when the other three men roll into me. Literally.
Mac rolls on top of me with the other two at my sides. His mouth is inches away from mine and there is a spark in his eyes that wasn’t there before.
“Enjoying yourself?” I tease him.
“Very much, Little Raven.” He rolls his head in a smooth move to rest on one palm, while the other hand runs a lazy trail up my body.
It’s a damn shame this is happening now, because I can’t decide whether or not I want to push him off of me and get a real peek at Balor, or indulge a little in his body. Choices. Choices.
“I know what you’re thinking.” He leans down, now a breath away. With his next exhale his salty breath skates over my lips.
I’m losing myself. “What’s that?”
“Ye want to watch Balor kill all these archers.” Patrick leans down, his eyes hooded.
“Enjoying the show, Trick?” I punctuate his name.
“Oh, aye, just waitin’ for my turn.”
That... that is an unexpected reply. It’s my fault really. I teased him first.
“Let her watch Mac. We’ve all seen it, besides he’s almost done. Taken out six of ‘em so far. You’ll miss the last if you don’t roll off of her.” Patrick pushes Mac off my body. Then, with more gusto and strength than I gave the Irishman credit for, he yanks me into his lap.
No. Fucking. Willpower.
He’s wearing these old-timey pants and my god, he’s erect. I don’t know if I turned him on or if it’s the fight to come. But oh, sweet little baby Jesus does he feel good. My body pushes up against his, trying to get closer to him and his heat.
His hands grip either hip, where he squeezes and pulls me even closer. His scruff tickles my neck and I shut down a moan.
“I’m not complaining, little one, I’ll take it when I can, but now you’ve missed Balor’s work.” His whiskey-scented breath flutters over my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
Oh, fucking fuckity fuck balls. It’s like I’m strung so tight I can’t think straight. Even in the worst of situations, my body is craving these brutes. I blame the weeklong hiatus where all I could do was watch them and listen.
I roll off of him before straightening my black shirt and green cargo pants. “Well. If you will excuse me.” Laughter rolls behind me and I’m pretty sure at this point it was their intention to completely distract me while Balor did his thing.
Either way, I can finally get a look at the Realm’s landscape. Balor is off in the distance, slowing walking toward us. He leaves behind literal piles of archer ashes. I twist my lips in silent disappointment that my distraction crew worked me over. But not for long.
My breath catches in my throat. Trees the size of redwoods dot the landscape in impossible hues. On Earth, trees have bark of brown, and while some are still brown, there are many that are black, red, orange, and grey. The ground isn’t covered in grass but moss, ivy, and dirt. Again the colors are... impossible. My puny human brain can’t grasp the spectrum of colors. It’s as though all my life I’ve been seeing the world through dirty glasses and they’ve now been torn from my face with perfect vision.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mac comes to stand beside me. His eyes are bright and his skin is healthy and flushed.
“You’re feeling better, aren’t you?” It’s a stupid question, considering the evidence shows upon his skin. His curly hair is even shinier and his golden skin emits an ethereal glow. Now I can see him as the god he is, and it’s equal parts breathtaking and scary.
“I am.” He grasps my hand and twirls me toward him. “Thank you.” He brushes his lips against mine in a chaste kiss before letting go.
I shake my head, reminding myself we are here as a search and rescue party, not an orgy party. Though, the latter can be our reward. Maybe.
I clap my hands and listen to the echo bounce throughout the forest. Oops. I grimace, didn’t know that would happen. “Right then, what now?”
“We need to track the kid and quickly. Time moves differently here.” Casseus has said little all morning. He’s been more serious than I’m used to seeing him. I worry my lip, wondering about his new attitude.
“How differently?”
“Depends on how far we venture from the rift. The farther we get, the more time moves differently. The closer we get to the tear, the more time moves akin to Earth.” Casseus is looking around, his black eyes scanning anything and everything. I don’t know what he sees, but his stiff shoulders are telling. He doesn’t like it here. “Balor?”
Balor removes his shirt, which is little more than rags at this point, and his face is straining. His eye closes and the other is covered once more with the leather patch.
“Hey, why didn’t you use your eye the other week?” I pat myself on the back for that question.
“Because it wasn’t necessary.” He doesn’t open his eye as he answers, he just keeps it closed, scanning.
“It takes a piece of his sanity each time.” Mac gives me a more thorough answer, and I’m not impressed with it.
“Then why use it now?”
“Enemy territory love,” Patrick answers. My head is spinning as they all talk. I need to line them up when we converse.
At least now I understand.
“That way.” Balor points off in some odd direction. Does Never Eat Stinky Worms even apply here?
We move through the forest, and because it’s easier, I go incorporeal and float through the alien foliage.
“You know it’s mildly creepy when you do that.” Mac walks beside me on silent feet. He’s too graceful and each step is perfectly placed. It’s another reason I went all misty on them. I’m not that graceful.
“Can you see me?” I ask, wondering if he can even hear me.
“Yes, I’m guessing it’s because of our special link.” Well, that makes sense.
“Hush,” Balor demands.
Silence wraps around us like the shadowed cloak Casseus favors. It consumes me until all I hear is my blood rushing and the leaves crunching beneath the guys’ feet. Aside from being stuck in the pocket between this world and Earth, I’ve never listened to such a quiet forest.
I hate it. It isn’t natural, it isn’t n
ormal. I think about Patrick’s pets and I wonder, if they were here would I be listening to a cricket’s mournful song? Or the croaking of a bullfrog? There isn’t even any lingering song of a bird to echo amongst these ancient trees. I miss it, the noise.
Balor holds up a hand. I peek around his still enlarged body to see a clearing. He gestures for us to move. But where? I don’t know military hand signals and I wonder how he does. Casseus grasps my forearm and drags me behind a tree with Patrick. Mac and Balor have moved to the next one over, where they look like they are arguing. I edge over to see around the trunk.
Ahead is a clearing, and in the center sits a cabin with a smoking chimney.
“What’s going on?”
“I believe we have found the boy,” Casseus states with a grim expression.
“Then why are we hiding behind a tree?” I move to step away, but Patrick grasps my arm.
“Archers guarded the tear.” He holds up one finger ticking off his point. “Meanin’ they can’t close it. Good for us, bad for them. Second.” He holds up two fingers now, his eyes crossing as he stares at them. It’s very distracting. “We are in enemy territory.”
“You’ve said that already,” I point out.
“Aye, and it’s still true.” I roll my eyes at Patrick.
“What if I go incorporeal and check it out?” I worry my bottom lip, since I already know they won’t go for it.
“No.”
“Nae.”
Thought so.
“Get down and creep toward the cabin. All of us at once.” Casseus crouches low.
I peer over at Balor and Mac who are doing the same.
“You guys need to teach me how to do the whole telepathy thing,” I muse.
“Why? Then you’d know what we feel too.” Casseus pulls out a toothpick and chews on it, he’s nervous. That’s his tell.
“Are you implying you know how I feel?” This shocks me and I move to stand and scold them, our location forgotten.
Patrick drags me back down to the foliage. “Aye and hush, we like it.” Those hazel eyes of his know far too much... Sneaky leprechaun. “Focus now, leer later.”
I was not leering at his bulky, muscular form.
Lies, I tell myself.
Balor points to the side of the cabin. We all head there and I feel like a special agent. Special Agent Sluagh, here for the rescue.
“Stay.” He looks at each of us, but I’m the only one to stand up to protest. “No. Stay.”
“Do I look like a puppy to you?” Dammit, I’m a great, immortal Lady of the Hunt.
“No.” His one good eye roams down my body and his lips lift into a sensual grin. Oh my. Then he turns and walks off.
“What the hell was that?” I don’t expect an answer.
“That was...”
“Shut up you,” I whisper harshly at Patrick, who only chuckles at me. “What’s he doing?”
“Remind me never to watch a movie with you,” Casseus states. I turn my head toward him like I’m possessed.
“Excuse me?” What kind of comment is that?
“I bet you talk through movies. Annoying.” He sings the last word like the bird he is. I’d be more amused if it wasn’t a slight toward me. But since it was. I’m kind of pissed off.
“Sure, don’t.” I actually may talk during movies. But not much.
“I bet you’re oral.” He’s chewing on that damn toothpick with a lazy smile.
I open and close my mouth like a fish. How is it he renders me speechless like this? Good thing I don’t have to reply because Balor is whistling at us.
I’m the first to run toward him and the door to the cabin stands open. Balor guides me in, turning his back on the other guys.
There’s a small boy lying on a cot. His curly blond hair is slick with sweat and he’s shaking.
“He’s feverish.” I run toward him, lifting his slight frame easily. I cradle him close and he doesn’t even awaken. “He needs a doctor.”
I turn around as the others walk through the door. I didn’t realize there’s another person in this small cabin. She looks familiar, but I just can’t place how I know her. Or where I met her. Balor’s eye is stuck on her and she holds her dainty, dirty hands up.
“Morgana.” Mac’s face freezes as he stares at the woman in front of us. I look back and forth between the two, their eyes glued to one another. There’s history here, history I don’t fucking like. “How?”
She swallows, her Cupid’s bow lips open and close. Her long, dark brown hair is pulled back and dirt covers her face and dress. Resolve settles over her features. “You need to take him and go. They will look for him.”
“Why should we believe you, witch?” Spittle flies from Balor’s mouth and he grows even more.
“Stand down, lost king.” She holds her frame tall with defiance in those blue eyes of hers. She may have a history with my Mac, but I kind of like her. Yes, my Mac. “Time is of the essence, we need to go.”
“We?” Mac finally catches up with what’s going on and his face blotches with anger. “You cannot be trusted, how do we know you didn’t take the boy from his mother?” I’ve never seen Mac this angry. Not when he saved me at the hotel and not in the woods when my head snapped. No this is something deeper, harder. This is something you never recover from.
“No, I can’t be trusted, but what are your choices?” She juts her chin out more and her lips twitch with the hint of a daring smirk.
“There is always a choice,” Mac all but whispers the words. “You won’t fool me again, Morgana.”
“Manannan Mac Lir.” Oh shit, she’s using his full name. “There are choices that must be made. Choices that don’t always agree with the heart.”
“Save it, witch,” Balor interrupts.
“What did you do to the boy?” I speak up for the first time, and for the first time this woman realizes I’m here. She assesses me and her lip curls into a sneer. Guess I’m lacking something.
“Nothing getting back to his homeland won’t cure.” She dismisses me and looks back at Mac. “Go, they will find him if you linger much longer.”
Well then. I’ll save story time for later, because someone owes me an explanation.
“I have one stipulation for saving the boy.” We all stop moving toward the door at her words. “Take me with you. If Mac is here, you can get me across the rift.” Oh, so she’s a goddess stuck on this side. Intriguing.
I don’t even have time to reply before Patrick punches her in the side of the head and lets out a small snicker when she falls. He’s fucking crazy.
“Did you just punch a woman?” I angry whisper. I can’t believe none of the others are protesting his actions.
“Oh, that’s no woman.” He full body shivers. “Bloody sorceress. Blah.”
Balor lifts the boy from my arms, his tiny body looking so slight against his bulk. “We need to hurry.”
As I step from the cabin, howls echo through the woods. Freaking Fae.
Chapter 3
Bette
Running and Running
As much as I want to play tourist, those howls have me moving quickly toward the forest. I don’t regret coming here, but I do regret not understanding the finer print that most people don’t read. Like oh, say, wolves. And by wolves, I’m really hoping these aren’t werewolves, since I can only handle so much crazy in one day.
I’ve hit my max for crazy today.
“Split up, throw the scent off.” Balor takes lead, but not before handing the small boy off to Mac. “Bette, go with Casseus and Patrick. Casseus transform. Bette dissolve.”
“I don’t know where I’m going.” We didn’t walk long through the forest, but I don’t know this landscape. I didn’t know how tricky it could be, especially being in the Realm. The pocket between everything was alive. Not one part of me doubts that truth followed here.
Plus wolves. Their howls just alerted every Fae creature in a hundred-mile radius we were here. I don’t like our odds and ev
en less so as we near the tree line.
“Follow me,” Patrick finally answers, and I dissolve into the mist. Unconsciously, I draw the thickening Sluagh in the area surrounding us into a fine mist. Again, that pang of loss spears my heart that I cannot strengthen it to thick fog. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less dangerous. With one thought their acidic molecules will burn skin.
I follow Patrick through the woods, passing through vegetation I really want to take a deeper look at. One day, I vow, we will be able to pass through the worlds. One day, Mac will be able to come back to his homelands to visit or stay, even though an ache blooms in my chest at the thought of him leaving me.
Of any of them leaving me. In a manner of weeks, they have burrowed under my skin, leaving pieces of themselves. Maybe it is our link and maybe not, but I want to delve into what we could be.
Without a crisis, that is. Like a normal relationship, except one where I don’t have to choose.
Casseus flies down, swooping low between Patrick and I. His inky eyes hold mine for a moment before he settles on Patrick’s shoulder. I know they do that telepathy thing once more. I envy the ability. And we will talk about them feeling my emotions. Later, of course.
Patrick stops his silent feet and glances around the forest. “Bette.” I glide over to him where he hides behind a thick tree trunk. “Two wolves directly behind us.”
I peek around the tree without worry they will see my body. I don’t see the wolves, yet, and I don’t allow my darkness to drift toward them. “I see nothing.”
“They’re there.” He grips his ax and the knuckles of his hands turn white. His shaggy, red hair falls across his freckled face. Lines deepen upon his forehead, but his eyes glint with the thrill of a fight. He’s a crazy man, and I love it. It’s contagious and I anticipate what is to come.
Almost. “Are they werewolves?”
“Were...” His smile is all teeth and dimpled cheeks. “Does it matter? They’ll rip ye to shreds, and then we’d have to leave ye here to knit back together. I doubt I’d be on Balor’s good side after that.”