Faerie Fate

The little clock she’d received as a
present on her twenty-fifth birthday whirred and chimed the time. One small,
tinkling chime. Two. Finally, twelve in all. Midnight between March twentieth
and March twenty-first. The vernal equinox. The day when light and dark, good
and evil, love and hate all balanced on the finely tuned axis of mother earth.

Voices, strange with lilting accents,
whispered somewhere in the darkness of her dream.

****

“She sleeps,” said a
soft voice,
feminine, one Becca didn’t recognize.

“Aye,” said the second voice. This one was
deep, male, arrogant.

“Will she remember?”

“Nay, she’ll not.”

“How then will she know what to do?”

“She’ll know.” He sounded confident.

“What of him?”

“Aye, he’ll definitely know now. He should
have known the last time, but she was too afraid, and he was too full of
himself.”

“What is so different this time?” She was
skeptical.

“She was young then, not matched well to
him. Now, she’s no young soul. She’s had all those lives without him, the
lonely nights, and the ache in her heart for all time. This time, she has
courage born in the fires of suffering. She’ll know not to run from him, but to
him.”

“You’re sure with the knowing of it this
time?”

“Aye.”

“And, if it doesn’t work?”

“Ciaran dies. Again.”

A sharp intake of breath
came from
the woman. “That cannot happen. Too much went wrong the first time.”

Praise for Silver James...

“Captivating, Timeless and Passionate! FAERIE
FATE crosses the boundaries of time and faerie law to reunite two souls in the
sacred binding of love. Silver James is a writer to watch!”

~Jennifer Lyon, author of
Blood Magic
, Book 1 in the Wing-Slayer Hunter Series (Ballentine)

“In
FAERIE FATE Silver James delivers non-stop action and a strong, funny heroine
in this time-travel historical. Rebecca finds love lasting through the ages,
immortals toying with human lives, and the strength to defy even the Old Ones
to get back to her only mate, the one she is bound to for eternity...”

~Carol Shenold, author of
the Tali Cates series, Eternal Press

“One
stand-out story which belongs in a ‘best of the year’ anthology, is Silver
James’ [writing as Penny James] CAFÉ MIDNIGHT—a fable where a police officer is
helped out in his detecting of a crime by Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Sam
Spade, Holmes and Watson, and Charlie Chan. Asta, Nick and Nora Charles all
have walk-ons. It’s affectionate, uncontrived and very well-written...”

~Andi Shechter, About.com
Guide to Mysteries

Faerie Fate

by

Silver James

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Faerie Fate

COPYRIGHT
Ó
2009 by Silver James

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used
or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author
or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [email protected]

Cover Art by
Rae
Monet

The Wild Rose Press

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Faery Rose Edition, 2010

Print ISBN 1-60154-685-8

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

One of the
things a writer dreams about (this one, anyway) is dedicating her book to those
who helped along the way. I have so many to thank:

My loving husband and
daughter (I promise to buy y’all enough “unmentionables” to make up for lack of
laundry services when I’m writing); my oldest, bestest friend, Toy, who first
read this book and loved it; my best friend, Justin, for cheers and tech help,
despite disliking the genre; my family and friends, Stacie, Kelly, Kier (no
relation to the hero of
Faerie Fate
),
Cheri and Jeff, and my critique partner, Amanda, who all kept the faith even
when mine flagged.

I can’t leave out my editor,
Frances Sevilla. I also want to thank my own personal Irish leprechaun, Paul,
for his help with the language and the setting and for his friendship.

Most of all, I want to thank
my dad for giving me a love of books and encouraging me to dream and use my
imagination. I know he’s smiling as he watches me from Tir Nan Óg.

Prologue

She woke up groggy
from a fitful sleep. Bracing for the throbbing ache sure to follow, she
stretched her legs, desperate to ease cramped muscles without inducing the
agonizing pain that caused those cramps. Rebecca was all too familiar with
pain. She groaned aloud as a shooting star shot up the inside of her thigh and
into her back, branding skin and muscle with white-hot heat as it traveled.

Taking a deep
breath, she glanced at her watch. It was only six o’clock and still dark
outside. She was so tired of not sleeping well. When was the last time she’d
slept through the night undisturbed by nightmares or pain? Had it been
twenty-five years?

Rebecca tossed her
head from side to side on her pillow. She clamped her lips shut, trapping the
groan welling up to join the tears spilling down her cheeks. Crying didn’t
help. She’d never found solace in them yet she couldn’t stop. Today was March
twenty-first, her fiftieth birthday. Half a century, and half of that had
already passed her by. Her body felt a hundred. Her mind begged to feel
twenty-five again, to be young enough, fit enough, to experience the passion
and pangs of first love. Twenty-five years ago to the day, she’d been turned
into an old woman overnight.

When the spasms
started, she practiced her deep breathing technique to get through them. The
familiar routine would see her into the next period of calm. God, she was only
fifty. Women in their sixties and seventies had a better quality of life than
she did. She was tired—tired of the pain, tired of the loneliness, tired of not
being able to live life as she wanted. There was an alternative, one she’d
considered several times, but she was too stubborn to succumb to its dark lure.
Death was forever.

Rebecca punched her
pillow to fluff it. Twisting and turning to find a comfortable position, she
sought ever-illusive sleep once again. She wanted to sleep until noon. She
wanted to sleep forever, but right now, her body insisted on attention. After a
struggle, she made it to the bathroom.

When she’d finished,
she leaned against the lavatory, panting as she stared at the face in the
mirror. Somewhere in there had to be the twenty-five-year-old who had been so
full of life. Her dull gray hair no longer glistened with gold and silver
highlights. Skin once softly kissed by the sun now looked like crumpled
parchment. The lines etched across her forehead and around her mouth spoke of
the pain she’d endured. Scars crisscrossed her chest and arms, as they did her
whole body. She’d been an athlete and fought back, willing her body to regain
the muscle tone it once enjoyed. As strong as her will was, the pain was
stronger. Year after year, it beat her down. She’d had no family left by then.
No husband or lover to comfort her and one by one her friends dropped by the
wayside, unwilling or unable to watch her decline.

For the past ten
years, she’d been utterly alone but for the procession of home health aides who
came once a day to help out for an hour or three or five. Rebecca despised
herself. She’d planned to do so much with her life before her body betrayed
her. Turning from the mirror, she stumbled back to bed, each step excruciating.
Gratefully, she sank onto the bed and pulled her legs under the covers. She
started her deep breathing, waiting for the pain that would come. When it hit,
she was surprised. This time, the bone-jarring ache was relatively mild. She
glanced at her watch again, then shook her wrist. The watch still showed six
o’clock. “Guess I need a new battery,” she mumbled, closing her eyes, praying
sleep would come.

Out in the living
room, though, time ticked off by seconds. The little clock she’d received as a
present on her twenty-fifth birthday whirred and chimed the time. One small,
tinkling chime. Two. Finally, twelve in all. Midnight between March twentieth
and March twenty-first. The vernal equinox. The day when light and dark, good
and evil, love and hate all balanced on the finely tuned axis of mother earth.

Voices, strange with
lilting accents, whispered somewhere in the darkness of her dream.

****

“She sleeps,” said a
soft voice,
feminine, one Becca didn’t recognize.

“Aye,”
said the second
voice. This one was deep, male, arrogant.

“Will she remember?”

“Nay, she’ll not.”

“How then will she
know what to do?”

“She’ll know.” He
sounded confident.

“What of him?”

“Aye, he’ll
definitely know now. He should have known the last time, but she was too
afraid, and he was too full of himself.”

“What is so
different this time?” She was skeptical.

“She was young then,
not matched well to him. Now, she’s no young soul. She’s had all those lives
without him, the lonely nights, and the ache in her heart for all time. This
time, she has courage born in the fires of suffering. She’ll know not to run
from him, but to him.”

“You’re sure with
the knowing of it this time?”

“Aye.”

“And, if it doesn’t
work?”

“Ciaran dies.
Again.”

A sharp intake of
breath
came from the woman. “That cannot happen. Too much went wrong the
first time.”

****

Fear numbed her
whole body, her heart pumping madly as she struggled to breathe. When she
opened her eyes, a whirling kaleidoscope of light and dark and fantastic colors
swirled and danced around her. Her stomach churned.

“No!” she screamed.
The car turned over and over, as jagged glass sliced her skin, and crumpled
metal gouged her body. “No,” she whispered, knowing if she survived the
horrific crash, her life would be changed again, this time for eternity.

****

He bolted up, sweat
seeping from every pore in his body. Fear. The emotion tasted cold and coppery
in his mouth. He pushed his hair back from his face and took a long, shuddering
breath. He needed to remember this dream that left his heart hammering and his
lungs gasping for air. Ciaran drew a deep breath to steady his nerves. When he
looked up, Niall, the captain of his guard, stood in the doorway staring at
him.

The older man’s brow
knitted with worry, but he tried not to let it show. “The dream again?” Niall
already knew the answer. These past few nights passed fitfully for his
Taoiseac
.
He would consult his wife the next time he saw her. She was gifted with the
sight. Mayhap, she could divine what haunted his young chief.

Ciaran got up and
paced, his restless energy propelling him around the room like a stalking wolf
looking for prey. “I remember naught of it, Niall, but for the crushing pain
and fear.” He turned stricken eyes to his old mentor. “Not mine, though. Hers.”
His hollow voice whispered with echoes from the grave.

Niall rocked back on
his heels. This man he’d watched grow from a gangly lad into a warrior prince,
the Black Wolf of Connaught, never spoke of the fairer sex, never even noticed
the dreamy sighs and covetous glances he left in his wake. There wasn’t a
cailín in the castle or village, nor probably anywhere in the entire land of
Eire, who wouldn’t give him a rousing tussle in the hay. Tall, Ciaran stood
more than a head above even the tallest soldier in the ranks. His long hair,
black as a raven’s wing, glinted with the same magical indigo lights in the
sun. As cold and mysterious as the sea, Ciaran’s blue eyes changed from storm-tossed
to sun-glistened in a heartbeat. Broad-shouldered, long-legged, the man was a
warrior, stronger than any in his army.

“Hers?” Niall kept
his voice strictly neutral.

“Yee heard me.
Hers!” Ciaran shouted. “Though I have no knowin’ of who she is. She’s hurt,
Niall, in great pain and lost somewhere in the dark, in a place so baleful that
the sun refuses to shine. I don’t know how to get to her!” This last admission
erupted from his anguished soul.

A cold shiver ran
down Niall’s back. He had to seek out his wife now. She would have the knowing
of it, and if she didn’t, she could ask the old Druid who lived in the woods
behind her cottage. Niall knew Siobhan took food and drink to the old man, as
well as blankets and cast-off clothing. He’d followed her once, making sure she
was safe while he watched the two of them from his hiding place in the trees.
Appearing older than time, the white-haired old man gazed up at Siobhan with
the doting eyes of a father.

Niall had never seen
Ciaran so agitated. Even on the eve of their biggest battles, this man was the
calm eye of the storm. Now, he stalked to one end of his chamber and back
again. Over and over, he paced. He was a caged wolf—an angry, dangerous wolf,
black as the night itself. “Who is she?” he snarled at his second in command.
“Why does she haunt me?”

“Peace, Ciaran,”
Niall soothed. “I dunno who the cailín may be. If you will allow, let me go to
Siobhan. Mayhaps, she can divine the meaning of your dreams.”

“Go, Niall.” Ciaran
groaned and rubbed his temples. “Go now and bring her to me.”

Niall turned on his
heel and fled down the hall to the stairs. Never had he heard Ciaran’s voice
filled with such despair. He clamored through the great hall, issuing orders on
the run. Men roused from deep slumber, spurred by the harsh tones of his
shouts. One scrambled to his feet, belting on his sword and scurrying up the
stairs where he took a post outside Ciaran’s door. Another darted out the
massive oaken doors ahead of him, already shouting for the fastest horse to be
saddled.

Niall waited in the
courtyard for his horse and turned his face up to the full moon. He sniffed the
air. The stars and moon put the time at just after midnight.
Alban Eiler
,
the vernal equinox. A shooting star blazed across the sky. He sighed, afraid
naught but evil could come from this night. The portents worried him. He was
thankful to be going to his Siobhan. She’d have the knowing of what to do.