Demon Day (2 page)

His upper lip twitched. “Breandan and
Maeve were birthed by different mothers to my own.”

“
And may the gods keep them
warm in their embrace for an eternity,” said a high trill from
behind me.

A fairy, the first I had ever laid
eyes on, skipped up to us and curtsied, clasping her hands behind
her back and giving me a sheepish look. Her fiery hair drifted over
her shoulders, and the damp, darkened tips slid across her pale
green collarbones. She was slender, and moved with an innate poise
gifted to our kind.

“
Grace fell over herself
telling me you were here, and that she had tended to you. I thought
I would check to make sure you were alright.” Maeve’s scarlet
irises darted between Lochlann and me. The tension between us was
evident by the way her eyebrow climbed. “You are
alright?”

My eyes went from narrowed to
slitted.

“
I will be,” I replied
flatly, and rested my head back on my knees to watch a dragonfly
flit across the water’s surface.

Maeve came to sit cross-legged on my
other side, and sighed. “You know I had no choice. And I did do all
I could to help. I made sure the chains didn’t–” She cut off
guiltily.

Lochlann chuckled. “I know you helped
her, sister. I am not mad.”

She gathered herself up and
nodded. “Good. Breandan is always so grumpy and serious, but he
smiles when Rae is around. Can you believe it? Breandan
smiling
. We need to keep
her happy so she doesn’t up and leave him.” Maeve giggled and
played with the tufts of weeds and flowers by her wriggling toes.
“I’m glad to help you if it means I get to see one of my grouchy
brothers’ content once and a while.”

“
Says one in a constant fit
of giggles.” There was a deep affection in Lochlann’s voice when he
spoke to her and I peeked at his face.

It had softened as he watched his baby
sister. The affectionate expression was one I’d not seen on his
face before, and it warmed my heart. All I had ever seen was him
scowling at Breandan. I’d assumed he was cold to everybody, even
his own kin. Possibly this fairy lord was worth following? It
wasn’t like I had many options.

Lochlann needed me, my blessing, to
become High Lord of the fairy race, and I needed to decide sooner
rather than later if I was going to give it to him. The least I
could do is make sure if I did follow him that he was truly as
dedicated to his people as Breandan and Conall professed him to
be.

Maybe if it didn’t feel like the
morning was a massive inhalation of breath waiting to exhale, I
would stay, and learn about him. Possibly, if I didn’t feel a
pressing need to be gone from this place, I would come to
understand him much better.

But as it was I felt a sudden and
urgent need to be gone.

“
I’m going after Devlin,” I
said quietly. Lochlann and Maeve’s attention shifted to me.
Straightening my legs, I flexed my wings, and rolled my head around
my shoulders. “I’ll get the grimoire back and we’ll take it from
there.”

“
It would be better if you
stayed,” Lochlann said in a measured voice. From the tone I could
tell he was being mindful to not sound like he was ordering me
about. “I have already tasked Conall with the retrieval of the
spell book. He is my best warrior and tracker by far.”

“
Then I’ll go with him,” I
said simply.

As far as I was concerned the
conversation was over, and I reached through my bond to Breandan to
discover where he was. It didn’t take me long to find him, and it
took even less time for him to find me, making me think he’d been
closer than I had known. Breandan knew how to mask the bond, and at
some point I had to get him to teach me how.

He stepped from the shadows of a tree
and paused for half a beat when Lochlann abruptly stood.

As he approached a hot flush spread
over my limbs, and my wings fluttered.

His body was tall, face unspeakably
beautiful, and his countenance fierce. Breandan glowed with a
silver light that pulsed beneath his skin, and made the black
tattoos covering his lean body from head to toe shift and move. The
marks on his torso were stunning, swirling lines, and intricate
patterns that weaved around runes of power, and incantations of
magic. As always his eyes ensnared my attention first and kept my
attention the longest. His silver-blue gaze was a prison I would
readily endure for an eternity. They were mesmerizing, and more
often than not trained on me. Drooling in the company of his family
was probably not good manners, so I let my gaze drift to the left
and enjoyed tracing the shape of his ear, curved to a slender
elliptical with a sharp point.

He wore dark segmented trousers, rigid
across his thighs and shins, but flexible about his waist, groin,
and knee joints. Fairy males did not wear tops so their chests were
always temptingly bare. Breandan’s smooth and hard chest was more
tempting than most.

Heart thumping - worked up from my
bold and intimate stare - immediately I stood, and waited patiently
for him to hold me when what I wanted was to run headlong into his
arms, and rub myself over him.

He stopped a few paces away and
wrapped his hands round my upper arms and pulled me into him. I
went willingly, my nature crowing in joy at the pleasure rippling
from where his skin touched mine. I was unable to drum up
resistance despite my inner turmoil at how easy enduring his touch
became. Sighing, he brushed his lips across mine. My heart skipped
a thump. Warmth. Sunlight. My mouth parted when he paused a
hairsbreadth away from kissing me again, and I breathed him in,
melting in his arms.

The power of our bond flared and
settled around us like a comforting cloak.

Oh gods, it was true that I belonged
to him.

“
Brother.” Lochlann’s voice
cracked like whip and shattered the sweetness of our
reunion.

Breandan tensed and his face smoothed
into a blank canvass. I blinked up at him, seeing much in his
silver eyes, and wondering how it was possible to read so much from
the way they watched me. He tried to disentangle himself, but I
placed my hands on his broad shoulders and rested my cheek on his
chest. I couldn’t help it, and the steady boom of his heartbeat was
grounding.

He breathed out, the sound almost a
chuckle, and wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on the
crown of my head and swaying me gently in comfort. I made a small
noise of contentment. Had he truly expected me to push him
away?

“
You understand I would do
anything to keep you safe, to keep you with me?”

Brow crumpling in confusion as to what
he referred to exactly, I nodded once. I was slowly coming to
understand this – Breandan’s need to have me with him. I felt it
too.

“
Say-so,” I murmured and
leaned back.

I had not seen my fairy since I’d
saved Tomas from the sun, and there was much feeling between us.
Thankfully, none of it seemed hateful. I knew had Breandan not
stood between his brother and I that Tomas would more than likely
be ash. Lochlann had prepared to do battle with me and if his skill
was anything like his younger brother’s I would have been in
serious trouble. I didn’t even know if Lochlann could touch the
Source and wield magic. Yet Breandan had defended me and given me
time to get my vampire safely into the cool ground to rest until he
could protect himself again.

Breandan ran his finger down the
bridge of my nose, breaking my reflective trance. “Good,” he
concluded.

Breandan’s voice was something
indescribable. To my ears every syllable was silkily profound. I
was sure no one else could hear the raw beauty of his voice, and in
some strange way I was glad, as it meant I could covet it for my
own.

Over his shoulder I saw Conall join us
and my frown smoothed as I wiggled my fingers in a wave at him.
Already I felt better simply for having my fairy close and touching
me.

“
The bond is ancient and
powerful,” Lochlann’s voice had my shoulders hunching like he’d
poked me with a stick. It took a great deal of will for me to not
want to supplicate myself to him when he spoke like that, but
Breandan no longer seemed affected and his hold on me tightened. “I
would never go against the will of the gods and of magic,” Lochlann
continued as he moved closer to us, “but we must observe that
faiykind expect … certain customs to be observed and revealing this
connection has been forged between the Priestess and the former
Wyld Guardian would not be wise.”

Lochlann stopped at my back, so close
I could feel the heat of his chest. I shifted in Breandan’s arms
and pushed forward, not liking how close he was. Over my head,
Breandan locked eyes with his Elder, held his gaze in a lengthy
silence.

There was a sudden and palpable
pressure in the air.

Maeve skipped forward, her gaze
flitting between her two brothers. “Brother….” Both turned to her,
like me, unsure of which she spoke.

Conall appeared at my elbow, and I
blinked at his protective stance, his hand on my shoulder as if
prepared to rip me away from Breandan. He watched both of the
fairies with a careful eye, his long fingers flexing on my
skin.

I held my breath, tense, not wanting
them to fight, but too afraid to say anything lest it start them
arguing.

After a beat, Lochlann backed two
steps away and continued smoothly with, “Rae, you must be discreet
about your attachment to Breandan. The people are frightened,
confused. They have much to concern themselves with, and the last
thing we need is for them to lose all faith in their new leader
before he has even acceded the throne.”

Conall bowed his head slightly and
released me, but did not step away, kept his stance
defensive.

I arched an eyebrow.
“Throne?”

“
We have not used the term
King or Queen in many millennia, but the High Lord and High Lady
are effectively royalty,” Conall explained his glare fixed on
Breandan.

I pursed my lips. “So what is the
Priestess? Where does she fit into that arrangement?”

Lochlann breathed out hard from his
nose in impatience.

“
Traditionally the High
Lady was the Priestess,” Breandan said quietly.

“
Oh, right,” I said
cordially, running that through my mind a few times. It took a few
beats for it to click and make sense what that meant for me
personally. My eyes widened and though I was nowhere near him I
took another step away from Lochlann into Breandan, the idea of
being his making me feel ill.

“
I’m not thrilled either,”
Lochlann said, surly. “Not only does my future Queen not dote on me
she was not raised as a lady, but as a human warrior. She is bonded
to my younger brother, is willful, reckless, and has a blood tie to
a vampire.” He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled darkly.
“The gods laugh at me.”

“
But I can’t … I mean, you
know that I would
never
–”

“
Choose me over him?”
Lochlann motioned to Breandan with a bold swipe of his hand. “I am
aware but it changes nothing. Until then we must give the people a
united front to gather courage from. I will not ask you to mate
with me until you are ready, or unless there is no other
choice.”

I spluttered and quivered as I tried
to come up with a semi polite way to tell him he had a better
chance of mating a high goddess than with me. Seeing the horror on
my face and my furious rebuttal on my lips, Conall jumped in and
argued, “The mating of the fairy Priestess with the High Lord is
tradition.” His gaze bounced between the three of us unsure of whom
to target.

Lochlann held up his hand for him to
be silent. “Our mating will not be discussed at this time, but I
will not let you make a fool of me in front of all demonkind. Can
you be discreet?”

He asked the last not just of me and
for the first time his gaze fell on Breandan who flinched as if it
was a physical slap. Meeting his brother’s contemptuous gaze his
own eyes filled with anger, and went wild. He looked away, jaw
working manically before he clenched his fists, and swallowed
whatever it was he wanted to say.

There would be no swallowing on my
part that was for sure. “We can try to be discreet,” I agreed. “But
for our safety, not your pride.”

I looked back at my fairy who had
regained control of himself, and gifted me with a long, heated
stare that slid up one side of me, and rubbed down the other. My
wings fluttered and my breathing deepened as I sank into him. The
air between us warmed and buzzed with tension.

Conall cleared his throat and Breandan
tore his gaze away, a light flush across his cheeks. My own face
burned and I dragged in a shaky breath. I removed myself from his
arms, and hugged my stomach to make my trembling less
pronounced.

Discreet. Right.

“
You’ll have to do better
than that,” Lochlann said in a tight voice and held out his hand to
me. “Walk with me around the tree bases before you leave. I will
announce we agreed you will seek out the grimoire once you have
left.”