Behind the Veil: 3 (Temptation Unveiled) (17 page)

She did. She trusted him more than she was willing to admit.
But she’d be a fool to ever put her fate completely in someone else’s hands.
Especially someone who had the kind of power Finn did to hurt her.

But she trusted him enough. She took a breath. “Kyle? Stay
here, okay? We’ll be right back.” She thought about the dinner and turned to
look into his eyes. “I mean it. Stay. And don’t let anyone in. If this place
has a lock, use—”

The light dissipated to a soft blue glow. “—it,” she
whispered, her gaze following the wall of the cave up. And up. And up some
more. “Finn?”

His tone was subdued, almost reverent in reaction to their
new location. “Yes?”

“Don’t ever flash me away in the middle of a sentence again.”

Silence.

She lowered her eyes and stared at him. “I’m serious.
Promise me you won’t do that again.”

Finn hesitated. “Can I promise I won’t do it unless there’s
a good reason?”

“What was the reason?”

Now he looked sheepish. And sexy. How did he do that? Damn
Fae. “I didn’t want to hear you coddling your human anymore?”

“Seriously?” She pulled herself out of his grip and started
to pace again. “You and I— Well I don’t know
what
we are, but even if we
were
something
, we wouldn’t be for long if you ever tried to keep me
away from the people I love.”

“Sher—”

“I mean it.” She turned and pointed at him, stumbling on the
rocky ground in her heels and swearing under her breath. “We may have almost
had sex a few times and it may have been fantastic, so now you think I find you
irresistible, but Kyle and I have always been friends. Not fuck buddies, not acquaintances
who happen to work together—
friends
. He’s like my brother. Heck, until
that ménage claiming session, I hardly remembered the man
had
a penis. I
certainly didn’t know he had a jaw line.”

Finn was standing in front of her now. “Sheridan Margery
Kelly.”

Her full name stopped her in her tracks. “What?”

He looked meaningfully over her shoulder. “We are not alone.”

Well, hell. “We’re not?”

He shook his head.

“Just tell me. I can take it.” She set her spine and stood
ready to slip out of her heels and run. “Are there spiders? Are we not alone
because there are giant spiders living in this dark, dank cavern of the damned?”

Finn bit his lip and shook his head again, though his eyes
had widened a little at her words. What? Everyone had a phobia. It was
perfectly normal. But she knew she wasn’t that lucky. Giant spiders might be
terrifying, but they wouldn’t be offended by her talk of ménages, almost-sex
and her friend’s anatomy.

She reached out with her senses. Feeling her new ability
rise to the occasion. And knew.

It was a Dweller. Surprised. Fascinated by all the noise she’d
been making and by her words.

Amazed and frightened that he couldn’t read anything from
her mind or emotions.

Sheridan turned around slowly, trying not to startle him. He
was thinner than Dian. Paler, if that was possible. And completely naked. “Oh
my.”

The Dweller tilted his head, his clear eyes never leaving
hers. “Oh my.”

Finn took her hand and pulled her behind him, his head
lowered. “Dweller, we mean you no disrespect. We seek a friend. She has long
curling hair, red as ruby fire. I sensed her very near to here. Have you seen
her?”

“Oh my,” the Dweller repeated, ignoring Finn and craning his
neck to continue his study of Sheridan.

Oh brother. Sheridan peered over Finn’s broad shoulder. “I
think we should leave this guy alone with his private…with his thoughts. We can
find her.”

Within the space of a heartbeat, she was caught in the
Dweller’s grip. His face was so close to hers she could almost make out the
faint outline of his light pupils. How had he done that? Moved that fast and
taken her with him? And his grip. She struggled, but to no avail. For a skinny
Fae, he had power.

Finn was snarling, a strange almost-growl beginning to
rumble in his chest. But Sheridan sensed that wouldn’t be helpful. “Finn, stop
role-playing. You are
not
Damon.”

Her words startled him into silence, giving her a minute to
think. Maybe she could use her gift to settle this peacefully. She was no Meru
either, but she could be loving and compassionate. She could be a giver. She
didn’t have to knee the Dweller in his unprotected groin and pin him to the
ground just because she wanted to.

She focused on knowing him. Feeling what he might be going
through. He was frightened, she could easily see that. Reacting to stimuli that
he wasn’t used to. But there was more.

He was alone for a reason. He was…slow to learn. It was
harder for him to join the others in their efforts to communicate with Danu.
Harder for him to hear the song.

She sent him a soft, understanding smile. “It’s okay. I feel
out of step all the time. My family always understood this life, but I never
did. You don’t have to be like the others to be loved. Unique is not wrong.
Danu is unique, isn’t she?”

His pale forehead wrinkled and she understood. “I’m not
reading your mind. And no one can read mine, so don’t even try. Just trust me.”
She took a breath and crossed a few mental fingers. “And let me go.”

He loosened his grip, but before he let go, she felt
something else. He knew. He’d seen Ceri.

She lifted one hand to cover his, no longer afraid he would
hurt her. “Please. She’s our friend. We only want to make sure she’s safe.”

He nodded and let her go, lifting one spindly arm and
pointing. “Oh my.”

Relief nearly brought her to tears. “Thank you.”

He disappeared into the darkness and Finn was instantly at
her side, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her hair. “I
shouldn’t have brought you. Shouldn’t have put you in danger again. I’m so
sorry.”

“I’m fine.” She closed her eyes at the intensity of emotion
in his voice. The sheer pleasure of being this close to him again. She needed
to stay clear-headed. “Finn, he thought Ceri looked sad. That she was crying.
We should find her.”

He lifted his head, staring silently into her eyes for a
long, charged moment. “Then we go.”

“Yes, then we go.” At least she knew she could do it now.
Without losing herself. Without taking that sad creature in. “Apparently,
Dwellers aren’t that enlightened. If they were, they wouldn’t leave one of
their own feeling abandoned and outcast.”

Finn shortened his steps, reaching for her hand and kissing
her palm. She shivered. “What was that for?”

He shook his head. “You don’t know, do you? How rare you
are.”

“Not where I come from.” She tried to laugh his words off,
almost afraid of what might come next. “I’m a dime a dozen back home. No human
likes to witness injustice.”

“There is no one else like you, Sheridan Kelly. Not in any
dimension. Not on any world. And, as much as you resist it, you are not human.”

“So they keep telling me.”

They turned the corner as Finn stopped speaking and Sheridan
gasped. “Ceri! What happened?”

The fearless Fae exile was huddled in a corner of a small,
naturally formed room. She was crying. “He won’t come back. He’s gone and he
won’t come back to me.”

Finn knelt down beside her. “My friend, how badly are you
hurt? Who did this to you?”

A flickering light in the corner of her eye made Sheridan
turn her head. The pool from her dreams. Exactly like the one she’d seen Danu
staring up at her from. Dian was kneeling beside it, staring unblinking into
the water. “Dian?”

Ceri’s laugh was watery with a touch of hysteria. “He can’t
hear you, Druid. He’s lost. Dian is gone.”

“This isn’t like her,” Finn told Sheridan in a hushed tone.
He’d tried to talk to Ceri, but now she was ignoring him. Blocking him. “There
isn’t a scratch on her. She isn’t wounded. Ceri is a battle-tested warrior. She’s
lost family and friends and she has been exiled for centuries. She has known
suffering, but I have never seen her like this.”

The answer was simple. “She loves him.” Sheridan shrugged. “And
warriors aren’t perfect. Everyone has bad days, even the flawless Fae. I’m assuming
neither of you can hear him, since Ceri is reacting so strongly?”

He might have answered, but she didn’t hear him. She couldn’t
look away from Dian. What had he seen? Why was he so still? And why had she
been so focused on finding him since the queen finished the protection
ceremony? She’d followed that feeling without question, the way she usually
tracked her hunches. The way Meru lived her life.

But now what?

She moved closer to the kneeling Dweller, so still in his
contemplation of the small, iridescent blue-green pool of water that he could
have been a marble statue. “Ceri, I’m going to need you to snap out of it
enough to answer me. Has he been here before? To this exact place?”

“No.” Ceri seemed to be forcing herself to speak. Her words
came out hard and hollow. “He was called, he told me. When he saw it, he said
it hadn’t been here before. That this place didn’t exist. That Danu had willed
it here.”

When Sheridan knelt beside Dian, Finn’s body tensed. “Sheridan,
what do you think you’re doing?”

She studied the Dweller’s frozen, smiling profile. “Getting
answers. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Embracing my gifts, like the prophecy
said. Finding the key in shadows or some woo-woo shit like that.”

She felt his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t do this, Sher.
Wherever Dian is, you’re right, I can’t see it or feel it. I can’t follow. I’m
here to protect you, but I can’t if you won’t trust me.”

Sheridan reached up to cover his hands with her own. “And I
can’t follow my destiny if
you
don’t trust
me
. I’m not helpless.”

His fingers tightened. “What if you lose yourself? Become
what he is?
Know
him too deeply?”

She shook her head, knowing her mind was made up. Willing
him to accept. “What if I save him, bring him back and find out where the spear
is?”

His forehead pressed against her shoulder. “You drive me
crazy, woman. You know that, right?”

“I know.” She lowered her hands and watched herself reach
for Dian. Was she really doing this? “Just…don’t go anywhere until I get back.”

His “Never” was the last thing she heard as her hands
connected with the smooth skin of Dian’s arm. He was frozen. Lifeless. No
wonder Ceri was so thrown. It felt as if his spirit had left his body. As if
all that was left was a shell that looked like Dian.

Dian, who had made her face herself and her desires. Who had
delighted in butting his nose in where it didn’t belong. Dian, who had
voluntarily protected her best friend from harm by sharing in his claiming.

Something sparked to life inside her. An echo that sounded
like him. Felt like him. She focused and pushed harder.
Know him
, she
whispered to herself.
I know him.

He—she—
they
had heard a voice. It was a voice they
had spent a lifetime dreaming of hearing as they prayed with the others in the
holy caverns. It was the song they’d given up on until they saw the wounded Fae
with the tangle of red curls lying at the edge of their people’s home. They’d
known in that instant that she was their new path. Their reason for being. They
delved into her mind, experiencing so much life. So much passion. So much pain.

Ceri. They knew as they carried her up and out into the
Realm they had felt pulsing with chaotic thoughts above them that they would
never be the same. That they would never return to their people or their own
personal quest for Danu. But they had no regrets. How could anyone, even their
glorious goddess, regret this much love?

And then the voice. It called to them as they prepared to
protect their human claim. After they’d heard the thoughts of those who had
wandered into the territory of the exiles for secrecy’s sake. Those thoughts
had known things. Known the queen would claim a
Fianna
champion. Known
that champion had to die from an unfortunate “accidental” blow. That it was
just the distraction needed to throw the
Fianna
off the scent of the
sect.

The voice had come to them then. Telling them to take
Ceri to the deep below. To find Her there. Danu. To help fulfill the prophecy.
To save their love and the Realm.

“Sheridan, I am here.”

That was the voice. It belonged to Her. The one who had
brought them here.

The feminine voice, patient and understanding, issued a
gentle command. “Remember who you are. You have control. You’ve sipped from the
waters of coire, from the waters of the cauldron. You are Sheridan Kelly,
daughter of Lily and cousin of Meru. Dian is the conduit, but you are still
yourself.”

She knew that now. Sheridan could still feel Dian, knew
he was with her, that he too heard the voice. But she had no real concept of
where they were. All she could see around her was mist. “Danu?”

“Yes, Sheridan. I’m here.” The sound of her words were
like water. Sunlight. “This was the only way I had to ensure you would be safe.
To speak to you through a trusted soul, a soul that could only be retrieved
from this place through true knowing. None of my people will be able to read
this memory. And Dian will never speak of it to anyone, not even his beloved,
without your permission.”

Sheridan had so many questions. Where was the spear? Why
couldn’t Danu see the members of the sect who aided the
Dark
? Why hadn’t
they become Horde? And why on Earth would anyone think Sheridan could find what
a higher being couldn’t? Why her?

Where no one else could, Danu seemed to hear her
thoughts. “You are right to question. It is a monumental task. Without the
proper provocation, it may be an impossible one. As to the why, you are Áine’s
descendant. But you know you are more than that. I can tell you that even were
Enlil not a threat to all our worlds, you would have found your way to my
Realm. You may think you are the least prepared, but your destiny was written
in time long before you were born.”

Now she sounded like Myrddin. “We make our destiny where
I come from, Danu. We choose it.”

“An admirable, though misguided, human belief,” Danu
demurred. “But if you believe it, then choose. Do you wish to abandon your
family to the dangers of Enlil and his followers? Do you wish to leave the spear
lost so it cannot protect people like Dian and Ceri? Young Crystal and the
loyal Vikings who will protect her to their dying breath? Meru’s unborn child?
Do you wish to forget what you feel for Finn and return to the life you had
before?”

“No.” She’d thought about it. She’d mourned the loss of
the simpler life she’d known for months. She’d wished she’d never known
anything about gateways and portals and egotistical aliens and Fae. But when
given an actual choice, Sheridan knew she wouldn’t want to forget her family.
Forget Finn. She couldn’t forget him or what he made her feel. It had changed
her, though she was fighting it every step of the way.

Badger was right. She was stubborn. “So you brought Dian
here, held him captive just to speak to me. Can you at least tell me why those
in collusion with the bad guys haven’t become Horde?”

“Dian chose this for himself. His wish was to commune
with me. Now he knows he has my blessing to spend his days in love instead of
prayer. I would never hold him against his will.” Danu sounded insulted…and
concerned. “Thoughts are things, but deeds are what ensures the change. These
Fae must have an understanding of the magic that few others do. They can aid
the Horde and Enlil with information, but without committing violence or
stealing a life force with intent, they remain hidden in shadows.”

So that was the loophole. “You must know what Dian heard.
That they are planning to kill the
Fianna
champion.”

“I do,” Danu confirmed. “I also know that Finn will
insist on being that champion. He will claim his blood right to do so and Damon
will comply. He is Fae, and no one without the blood has ever participated in
the games. I’m sure that is what Morrigan, the current queen, is expecting. He
will fight and they will wait for the opportunity to kill him.”

“No!” The violent rejection of that idea jarred her. “Help
me find the spear so I can stop them. Help me save Finn and fulfill Áine’s
prophecy.”

“If you listen, you will understand I am doing exactly
that. I’m here to tell you three truths. The first is that with the gift of
true knowing, you and your predecessors have often forgotten that knowing
yourself is just as essential as understanding others.”

“Know thyself?” Sheridan muttered. “I was hoping for
something a bit less vague.”

“The second truth,” Danu continued, though her words were
more strident, “is about the spear of Lugh. He will return it to his inheritor
when there is accord on all sides and the circle is complete.”

If Sheridan could have seen anything but mist, she might have
grabbed that anything and shaken it in frustration. “You and Áine must have
taken the same class on how to confuse people. Just tell me what to do and I’ll
do it. I’m very good at taking directions. And while we’re at it, tell me why
they call that ball of light a spear.”

“Do not be flip.” Danu’s repetition of Meru’s admonition
silenced Sheridan. “The answers are there if you will just listen. And try not
to see the world so simply. Everything is not black and white. The spear has
many forms, depending on the need. Inert, it will appear as a harmless orb.”

She would pretend she hadn’t just been called simple. “What
is the third truth?”

Danu’s voice changed, serene once more. “The third truth
is about the past and it will guarantee you a place in the games in Finn’s
stead, if that is the path you choose. You see? I do know you, my fearless
Sheridan. You remind me so much of my old friend that on occasion I worry.” She
paused as if refocusing. “I can tell you, but I believe it is more important
for you to contact Lily.”

“My mother? The third truth is I need to talk to my
mother?” But why? What could her mother possibly know about what was going on
here? Her mind raced as she went over everything Danu had said. Something was
there, right on the edge of her consciousness. In the corner of her eye. But
what?

“You must go back now. Finn will tear holes in space and
time to find you if you don’t.” Danu’s voice held traces of a smile. “I am
happy for him. So many of my children will never find what he has. Not even I
was that fortunate. Be patient with him. Regardless of his own beliefs or his
shame, he has always been worthy.”

Sheridan didn’t want to think about Finn right now. Didn’t
want to share what she was feeling. It was too new. Too intimate. Instead she
asked a question she didn’t know she’d wanted the answer to. “Why would I have
always come here?”

Dian’s voice, sounding awed and far away, answered for
his goddess. “Your inheritance, Sheridan Kelly. Your inheritance…from Lugh.”

She came back to her body with a short shout of shock,
pulling away from Dian and falling straight into Finn’s powerful embrace. “Holy—that
was—Dian? Is he okay?”

“I’m here.” Dian’s voice sounded raw, as if he were just as
affected as she was by the vision. Ceri collapsed beside him and he wrapped his
arms around her soothingly, rocking back and forth. “I’m here, my darling one.”

Finn sounded shaky. Unsteady. “Sher, love, talk to me. What
happened? You’ve been still as a stone for hours.”

Hours? “Ceri and Dian should go home so he can recover. And
so Kyle knows we’re safe.”

“I’ll take him.” Ceri stood Dian up, allowing him to lean on
her for support, though he seemed to be coming back to himself much faster than
she was.

Sheridan reached out and grabbed at the fabric of Dian’s
silk pants. “Dian?”

He looked down at her, his pale eyes wide with awe and
sincerity. “You can trust this child of Danu as well, Sheridan Kelly. With
everything. I owe you more than my life, for that is what you have given to me.
More than my life.”

He owed her nothing. She shook her head, but he was too
entangled in Ceri’s hair as they flashed away in a brilliant burst of light for
him to see. Her heart was racing, her mind moving at a thousand miles an hour.
She needed something to ground her. Something to stop her from falling apart.

She looked at Finn. “I need you.”

The pulse at Finn’s temple twitched at her words. After a
moment, he closed his eyes and pulled her closer. “I’m yours.”

She blinked away the brightness of the light he’d encased
her in, looking around to see where they’d traveled. “Do I know this place?”

“Danu’s Joy.” Finn lifted her to her feet, not letting her
go as he turned to show her the view. “The site of our first kiss. Followed by
the first of many rejections.”

“Danu’s Joy,” she echoed softly. It was a beautiful place,
though she wasn’t overly fond of being reminded of Finn’s goddess at the
moment. Too many questions. Too many fears swirling around in her head. She
didn’t want to think about it now. Didn’t want to know anything else but this
place, anyone else but Finn, existed. Nothing else seemed to matter.

She trembled against him, the desire to lose herself in
passion too strong to ignore. “I’m releasing you from your promise. I know it’s
one you made to yourself about waiting until I was ready, but I’m ready now. I
trust you and I need you and I’m ready.”