Catch & Hold-Legend (Legend series) (9 page)

“It will not work,” she said with a soft smile.

“Why not?” Danté demanded, standing up and pulling me up beside him in spite of my resistance. He is a gorgeous prince, all muscle and strength, and while he wasn’t looking, I admired.

“Only the princess may invoke the command.” And so saying Crystal left us to figure out what next to do.

“Huh,” I said, and now I was smug. “Only the princess … I guess, big boy, that means me.” I rubbed my nails against my shoulder and then blew on them as I cast him an awful look. “I guess that means me. Right then … here
I
go,” I said, moving away as though I were actually about to leave without him. But as he stood there frowning unhappily, I reached out and took his hand. Wasn’t about to leave him in the land of the uglies with Morrigu on the prowl.

I didn’t have to physically dive into my Faeness. It was just there; I knew what to do—I knew what to see in my mind’s eye as I repeated the words Danté had said, “
Chur Tir na
nog.
”

Danté had my hand, but apparently that wasn’t enough because he pulled me into his arms, and it felt wild, hot, and right. I had missed him so much, and for the moment, just that moment, I forgot the grievance I had against him and allowed myself to just enjoy the pleasure of his arms.

The next thing I knew we were in Queen Aaibhe’s antechamber. When I stepped away from him, it was like stepping into the cold again. Almost immediately I missed his embrace and the warm feeling of belonging.

The doors opened wide, and the queen called to us in anxious tones,
“
In
 … come in. There is no time to waste. Now—tell me …”

~ Five ~

SOME HOURS LATER and after quite a bit of scolding and affection, the queen sent us on our way, on yet another mission. Sighing, I wished we could have had a moment alone together. I really needed some time with Danté.

However, off we went, leaving Tir and the queen as we shifted into beautiful, green Ireland—Killarney to be specific.

Danté didn’t speak as we shifted, but he drew me to him, and before he would allow me to step away, he held me and looked down into my eyes with those gold and glitter-filled, beautiful eyes of his.

I couldn’t deny the bond I had with him. It just was. However, I still needed to make a show of resistance. I heard him sigh impatiently, and then he only held me tighter, and with a show of authority.

I knew I could have probably broken away from his embrace. I knew I should probably make some effort to do so and drive my point home, but I didn’t. His arms felt so damn good, and then he rested his chin on the top of my head, stroked my hair, and whispered in my ear, “Black velvet …”

It was what he said about my hair when we had made love, and my eyes closed as I recalled how it felt when he had nibbled at my ear and then kissed my neck and worked his way down to my breasts …

And oh, that got me ready to have him right there and then, and I knew I wanted him inside me.

I shook myself free of desire. First, he had some explaining to do. Plus, now, now as we stood on the grassy knoll overlooking the Middle Lake of Killarney, there was something else we had to do.

No time to admire the mesmerizing beauty of our surroundings. I was horrified to look ahead and find a horde of yet another ugly caste of Unseelies screaming at an inner-ear-breaking pitch as they streamed out of an open monolith portal.

It seemed like chaos reigned, and then we saw Breslyn, Ete, and another two beings—one a human, an unusual and handsome hunk of a human, a Druid I sensed at once. The golden-haired female with him was part Fae. We had already met in battle not so long ago—Shee Willow of the violet eyes.

The four of them had formed a circle and were fighting the dark monsters back towards the portal. Each of the four had their death weapons in hand, but even so they had a serious problem, as they were dangerously outnumbered.

I blinked myself into black spandex, and I must have looked good, because Danté made a low-throttled sound in his throat as he looked me over and said, “Time to fight … but, damn, I wish it was time for something else …”

I liked the sound of that, but at that moment one of the two-headed uglies, larger than his brethren, was waving a weapon around at Breslyn’s head. I realized all at once … “Danté—he has a
death weapon
!” I found this unbelievable. Gais had actually entrusted one of these slow-thinking beasts with a Seelie death weapon? Why would he have done that? There just weren’t enough of the weapons to take the chance on losing one to us.

Danté knew immediately what we should do. He grabbed my arm, and we shifted to Breslyn’s tight circle. I stood beside Ete, with Willow on the other side of me, and laughed. “We have to get together just for a simple brew one of these days,
you know
.”

She laughed and took off both heads of the ugly who had gotten too close to her, and I beamed happily as I turned to do the same.

Blood and gore ruled for the next few minutes as we slashed and diced and dropped them one after the other, but there were so many, and they just stepped over their dead and kept coming, insane with need and hunger, which made them all the more determined.

We worked in harmonized action, synchronized to protect one another, but I worried as Breslyn and Danté were poised to take on the big ugly with the Seelie death weapon.

No time to watch them as three uglies came at me with their outstretched claws aimed for my face. I took them down, and Shee Willow giggled and said, “Wow, Z, stay close to me—you are good.”

“Is that your guy?” I indicated the hunk fighting at her back.

“Yes, Shayne … you’ll meet him later.”

I laughed. It all seemed so absurd, slashing through gooey uglies and talking like girls. Not the life I had envisioned for myself last year when all was right with the world and I was still in university mode.

No time to think about that as I sliced an ugly in half, kicked him out of my way, and went after the next two-headed beast.

Two more uglies came at us, and we took them on together. Honestly, other than the poison they emitted from their tongues and claws, they were of little danger to us. However, some were breaking away from the pack, and Ete called out to us, “Z … Z, can you come with me? I saw a few of them break off and head for the village.”

I shifted to her side, and then we shifted into the village, where we found five of them. They had already managed to kill an older man and a young woman and were leaning over them, feeding off their bodies like wild animals.

I felt myself fill with rage as I dove in and started stabbing and cutting and slashing … All at once I felt Ete pulling me away, pulling and yelling and holding me. “Z … its done, it’s over … they are dead …”

I watched, breathing hard, and I felt myself shake as she blinked them into another dimension and took my hand. “Come on … let’s get back.”

“Are you sure there aren’t any others lurking in the village?” I looked at the bodies of the two people they had already killed and mutilated.

“Not sure—here let’s do a quick tour together,” she said, and we started to jog through the small village.

When we were done we shifted back to the lake where we had left the others to finish up the job. I breathed a sigh of relief to see Danté was okay. However, with Breslyn taking down an Unseelie at his back, Danté had gone after the big ugly holding the death weapon.

I stepped towards him, but Ete held me in place. “Don’t distract him, Z.”

I knew that she was right, and so I stayed in place. Although it was killing me, I kept still.

Danté stepped towards the big ugly with a dynamite thrust and stabbed it in the throat, but it didn’t go down. Instead the damn thing started haphazardly swinging the sword at Danté.

I couldn’t stand it; I shifted behind the bugger, and damn if my sword didn’t go all the way through it. It splattered me with goo, and for a moment, I didn’t bother to blink the mess away as I watched the green, bloodied thing sink first to its knees and then dissolve into a mass of gushing, disgusting gruel.

Danté grabbed the sword, which he then sheathed with a thought and threw to Breslyn’s waiting hands. Then he turned and screamed at me, “What do you think you are doing? He had a death weapon he could have turned on you, Z!”

I laughed, thought myself clean, and pointed at the seven-foot spider coming at him. He hurriedly went about the business of leveling the many-legged monster as I shifted back to Ete and Shee Willow, but as I turned to look at him, our eyes met. In that moment frozen in time, forever burned into my mind and memory, he literally took my breath away.

Then the world returned. I heard him chuckle as he turned to Prince Breslyn—by the way, Bres has a style about him that makes a woman (even if she is spoken for) lick her lips—and I felt myself chuckle as well. Then I gave myself a scold and watched Danté as he grinned, slapped Bres on the back, and asked, “To the queen, or should we keep it for now?”

“
To the queen
—we get in enough trouble without holding back recovered weapons from her. Besides, it will win us some credits, eh?”

They both laughed as though they were attending a ballgame, nothing more, and then they were punching one another’s shoulders in the comradely style they had evidently shared over thousands of years. Watching them, I felt my heart swell. There was no time for more, as the Dark Fae were still bearing down on us, and we went into action.

We all fought tirelessly for the next twenty minutes. Then, all at once and without warning, the Dark Fae stopped in their tracks like someone had flicked a switch. With one mind they all began to retreat with a backwards motion. They didn’t shift, so I assumed that skill was beyond these particular castes. And then as one unit they began to scream and run as fast as their awkward and grotesque bodies could take them.

They were headed for the lake, where the portal hovered just above the water. This was the second time I had witnessed a huge monolith hovering over a body of water—and wondered if it meant something.

Somehow Gaiscioch had managed to work his black magic on this ‘traveling’ monolith, which usually only a Royal could do. We could do nothing but stand and watch as the Unseelies dove into the open entrance to their Dark World.

Gais had the power to produce a gateway to the Dark Realm, but what was worse was that it was portable. He could obviously send it where he chose.

* * *

After we got over our collective astonishment, we chased the stragglers and took some down as they tried to make it back to the safety of their Realm. I didn’t feel pity for any of them, and that was odd. In the past, even when I killed a little crawly I always felt something.

I noticed that none of us appeared to feel an ounce of pity. We saw them for what they were: sociopaths without compassion or remorse. They were little more than cold, eating machines. And then they and the portal vanished as though it had never been.

“What the bloody hell!” seethed Breslyn in some frustration as he turned to look at Shayne Bantry and Danté. “How did Gais manage that?”

“Apparently, he has learned a new trick,” Bantry said thoughtfully.

His petite wife, Willow, went to him, and he immediately hugged her close and kissed her lips. I whispered to Ete, “Why is a Druid priest fighting with us? He’s human—he could be killed.”

“Immortal,” she whispered back, “and a long story … for another time.”

I felt my brows arch. “Sounds like one I want to hear right now.” I knew there was no time just then, but I filed it away to ask about later.

Ete brushed her waist-length auburn hair away from her face and gave me a look. “Shee Willow and Shayne Bantry—ah yes, a good story there …”

“You read the question in my mind.” I nudged her with a smile. I discovered that I had begun to think of Ete as not just a friend, but as family. I suppose fighting side by side on several occasions does that—we had a common goal and enemy, and that always makes for fast friendships.

“
Enfant
 …” Danté’s soft whisper brushed my ear as he came up behind me and rested his hands on my shoulders. I let him. Why? Because, some of the time, some things are simply beyond our control to prevent, like a force of nature, and Danté, to me, was a force of nature. He then moved to take my hand and put the tips of my fingers to his luscious lips. Again, I let him but only for a moment before I pulled away and shaded my eyes as I turned a hard, cold shoulder his way.

“Let us repair to Bantry and lay out a plan,” Bantry said in an Irish brogue that was very attractive. I loved the way he looked at Willow …

“Shouldn’t we tell the queen about the flying portal?” I frowned, as this had me disturbed. How had Gaiscioch accumulated the power to make the dolmens hover and come and go at his will?

“She already knows. Breslyn sent her a message. She is investigating the situation at her end with Queen Mab even as we speak.”

I digested this. Queen Mab was the queen of the Daoine and my mother’s cousin.

Breslyn had Ete in his arms, but she gently broke away from him and walked towards me. She discarded the silky Fae short thingy she had been wearing and replaced it with a set of tight-fitting jeans, a blue sweater, blue denim jacket, and boots to die for. Now here was a mate for Bres, who was also a very cool dresser.