Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods) (11 page)

Dayne took a deep, ragged breath, turning to watch the tiny foal poking a warm muzzle at his mother’s rigid body.

“I know, buddy. It’s gonna be okay.” He muttered as he scooped the little guy up in his arms to move him a few feet away. Sitting still as a statue, not daring to move a single frozen muscle, I watched him approach my hiding place in the shadows. If I raised my arm I could have touched him, but he wasn’t thinking about who might be hiding in the shadows. A deep furrow cut down the center of his brow, pinched by frustration, and he didn’t bother to take his eyes off the tiny foal before turning back to its mother. I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Hannah was his only concern as he knelt again at her side, his hands reaching out to her chest as they had before. Soft yellow light from the lamp cast his face in partial shadow as his head fell back, staring up to the rafters of the barn where cobwebs and abandoned bird nests littered the old thatched roof.

A second brightness mingled with the flickering candlelight in the stall, this one casting a diffuse greenish glow against the worn wooden walls. Dayne’s focus fell back to Hannah, and his hands moved along with whispered words over the once strong muscles of her chest. Mumblings so low they barely found my ears slipped out of his lips and muscles in his back flexed as if he were trying to push her away.

Silence seeped into the stall again. My eyes were wide as melons in my head and the ability to breathe had ceased somewhere deep in my lungs.

He leaned down to Hannah once more, cradling her enormous head in his hands while his lips moved into place at her nostrils. Another silvery-blue light broke into the stall and I heard Dayne exhale, like a strong wind whistling into her limp body.

My head jerked wildly when her hooves began to stir, scratching at the fresh straw, knowing I was witnessing something impossible. The great muscles in her back drew tight, bringing life back to her body, and her belly swelled with a first, gasping breath.

Her baby sprung up from his bed of hay, shying away from the danger of his mother’s wild flailing. Dayne jumped back too, his arms stretched out to cover the colt, protecting him from Hannah’s struggle to stand.

I struggled to stand myself, the warm jacket I held falling down to my feet and a chill that was more fear than cold splashed over me like ice water.

Hannah was standing before me, alive and looking around the stall as if nothing had ever happened. She nickered quietly and the baby rushed to her side, hungrily nosing at the utter beneath her.

Arctic cold seeped into my body, freezing every muscle as it progressed—the heart hammering in my chest the only sign of life it couldn’t squeeze out.

I didn’t recognize the pathetic whimper filling the stall as my own until Dayne’s head turned slowly away from Hannah and her baby to discover my hiding place in the corner.

The soft glow that had filled the stall earlier dispelled the shadows of my hiding place, washing me in emerald light. It wasn’t until Dayne’s eyes traced up the length of my stiff body that I knew its source.

His eyes bathed me in jade luster like the headlights of a distant car. Green and lush as the Irish fields surrounding Ennishlough. They widened for the briefest of moments and his body went as rigid as mine. A second later the light faded from his eyes and he was normal again. Still, I stood frozen before him. On the inside my body was begging me to run screaming into the night; on the outside not a single muscle would flex.

A smile softened his face and he took a step toward me. His movement broke whatever force had stolen my muscles’ strength and the ability to move was once again mine. I backed away from him, matching every step he took. After two awkward shuffles the wall met my back and I knew I was trapped.

My body spasmed with a scream so forceful it wretched from my throat, high and hot, numbing my ears as it tore into the night like razored claws on soft flesh.

Still he pursued me, and I was too shocked to put up a fight. Too shocked to manage anything more than simply shrinking against the wall at my back. Instinctively, I closed my eyes and turned into the wall, hiding my face from him, knowing I was trapped and at his mercy.

“Shhhh…easy Faye,” he cooed. “I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice was as smooth as hot honey, deliciously licking my ears and warming the cold fear in my body. I had heard this voice before, but only in my dreams, never in real life. It had the same effect on me it always did. Instantly, the tension dripped from my limbs and my insides unwound from around one another. Yet, I remained still, only moving to open my eyes so I could peek at him from behind the far corner of my lashes.

He was smiling at me, just like he did every night in my dreams and I turned my head in tiny timid jerks to face him.

“Why are you upset?” His full lips spread wide over the alabaster smile I loved. Relief so powerful it almost made my eyes cross washed over me and I leaned into the hand he rested against my cheek. This was the same Dayne I dreamed about almost every night since I arrived in Clonlea.

“What’s going on?” My hoarse voice cracked with strained speech.

“You’re dreaming, Faye.” Every inch of my body longed to be warmed by his touch when the heat of his hand wrapped around mine. The dusty corners and cobwebs and abandoned nests took on a surreal, dream-like quality. All soft and fuzzy to my heavy eyes. I tingled with blissful euphoria, like my insides had been stuffed with soft cotton and sunshine the moment his fingers tangled through mine.

“Well that makes sense.” My voice was a peaceful whisper, and a sugary smile spread across my face as I looked at our hands entwined between us.

“It does?” He tilted his head and looked down at me.

“Well, yeah.” I crinkled my face and rolled my head drunkenly as if this should be obvious. “I dream about you every night.”

“You do?” His free hand reached up and caught one of my loosened curls. “What do you dream about me?”

“You should know you that by now.” Hannah stirred behind him and my head snapped away from the trance he had put me under. “Hey, are sure this is a dream?”

“Don’t you want it to be a dream?” He nodded his head, turning my chin back to him with a finger. “How else could you explain what I just did?” I nodded my head obediently. “Beside, you would be able to feel this if it weren’t a dream.” He reached down and pinched my arm. I felt nothing and he smoothed my hair back in place as I looked at the patch of reddened skin.

I quietly watched every twitch of his face in awe as he led me out of the shadows where I had taken refuge from him. With a touch as delicate as he had handled Hannah with, he bent to the task of cleaning dust from my clothing and untangling the cobwebs stuck in my hair from the dusty corner. Yep, had to be a dream—a nightmarish dream at first, but a dream none-the-less, cause Dayne kinda hated me in real life.

An idea sparked somewhere in the back of my near slumbering mind.

“Well if this is a dream…” My voice trailed off and he stopped brushing the stall debris off me. He straightened and studied me with a puzzled look.

Without giving myself time to think about it, I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him to me before he could protest. I licked my lips right before they touched his and let my body melt over his. Holding him as closely as I could, pulling his lips to mine, his body went stiff as a board under my touch. His arms fell to his sides, his lips were hard as stone against mine. When I pulled away, his face was a blank, wide-eyed mask, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense because it was
my
dream after all.

A minute passed and we stared at each other saying nothing. I traced the line of my lips with cold fingertips, the feel of his lips still tingling on mine.

“Let’s get you tucked back in bed.” He finally broke into the easy grin I knew in my dreams and took my hand, leading me back to the makeshift bed in the corner, enchanting me with that smile. After lying me down against the hay bale and tucking Phin’s jacket up under my chin he turned to leave.

“Aren’t you going to stay?” I propped up on an elbow and looked at him with puppy dog eyes. He turned back to me, his eyes straying slowly to the ceiling as if he expected to find some kind of answer.

“Do I usually stay?” He finally asked.

“Always,” I said, nodding my head. Slightly confused again that I had to remind dream Dayne of what our nights were usually like.

“Of course I do.” With a smile that could melt icebergs, he walked back to me and sat down on the ground beside me, crossing his legs and resting his arms on his kneecaps.

“Not like that,” I said, reaching up for his arm. “Like this.” I guided him down to me and aligned his body beside mine, turning over so I fit perfectly in the spoon of his body. His arm draped over my waist and I pulled his hand up for a pillow, snuggling my back as close to him as I could get.

“We do this every night?” His voice whispered along the bare curve of my neck, the hot breathy sound sending shivers all the way down to my toenails. I could only nod in response, the nearness of him making my heart beat in a funny way that practically stole my breath away.

“Dayne?” I asked as I closed my eyes, relishing the deliciously rich and spicy scent of him. “Are you sure this is a dream?”

“That’s what you’ll remember in the morning.” His voice was soft, mixing with the sweet smell of hay, as his hand rested over my brow and eyelids. “You’ll only remember the dream,” he whispered.

“Oh my girl!
You’re a miracle worker with the horses!” Phin’s voice booming into the stall woke me the next morning.

I struggled to pull myself from dream, but it wouldn’t release me. Something held me in the shadows of sleep, refusing to let me wake.

Eyes. Eyes were watching me again. A pair of cold, aquamarine orbs glowered at me from an unfathomable depth of darkness. A color that was anything but human. My heartbeat raced and fear shivered up my spine before bursting in cold wet sweat on my neck.

From the shadows of an unseen face, they stalked me, gripping my chest in an unrelenting strangle hold of fear. I wanted to scream, but its grip stifled my lungs, rendering me helpless under its spell.

“Faye?” Phin’s voice ticked up with concern and his footsteps rustled the hay in the stall. My body flailed against the hay bale, but I couldn’t force my eyes open. I knew I had to pull myself out of it. Had to answer him before he suspected. I tried to scream again, this time pulling a sharp intake of air deep in my lungs.

“It was Dayne. He fixed Hannah,” I gasped absentmindedly, eyes closed, my mind still fighting against the unrelenting vision.

The realization of what I’d said broke the spell and my eyes flew open.

“Huh?” Phin scratched his head as my mind began running, trying to catch up with the words that were coming out of my mouth. “Dayne’s in Shannon, waiting to see if he needs to bring a surrogate. I just talked to him.”

I sat up, looking from Hannah and her foal standing in the far corner of the stall to Phin who was beginning to eye me with a suspicious smile. My breathing was beyond labored, rocking my body back and forth in the hay, trying to coax my thundering heartbeat back to a normal pace.

They weren’t real. Couldn’t be.
I repeated over and over in my mind.

“Been dreaming about Mr. Dayne have we?” Phin rubbed his stubble of unshaven beard and nodded knowingly. My cheeks burned like fire and I turned away as I sat up, rubbing at my forehead, busying myself with folding the blankets and trying desperately to act as if I wasn’t freaking out. Which I absolutely was, because in trying to deal with yet another freakish vision I’d revealed to Phin that I dreamed about our impossible boss. I didn’t know which was worse, but I did know I needed to get out of there before I let any other well-guarded secrets slip.

In a flurry of movement meant to distract us both, I tucked the makeshift bed under my arm and breezed passed him standing in the stall door, my eyes never leaving the ground as I passed.

“Does you no good, Faye. Mr. Dayne, bless him, he breaks hearts at every turn.” He followed me into his office. “No use pining away all summer after him.” Phin leaned in the doorway, and I turned my back on him to collect myself enough to find normal for a few minutes before I could disappear.

“I wasn’t…He didn’t…I’m not…” I threw the blankets over the arm of his well-worn couch and stormed back to the little table we had set up outside Hannah’s stall, needing something routine because my mind was racing so quickly I couldn't make sense of anything. Phin’s hearty chuckle and footsteps continued to follow me. I quickly measured out the milk mixture and shook the bottle a few times before turning back to Phin.

He had the decency to cover his smile by scratching at his nose, and I knew which secret was worse at that moment. Phin didn’t have a clue about the freaky, superhuman visions that plagued my nightmares. He thought my flustered ramblings were about the freaky, lucid dreams I had about our boss. Phin was not the kind of uncle who would forget what I’d said, and I knew the rest of the summer would find me suffering through endless jokes on the subject.
At least he doesn’t suspect the truth,
 I thought.

I tried desperately to act normal while I forced the awful vision that had stolen my amazing Dayne-dream from my head. As far as Phin knew, the only star in my dreams was Dayne DeLaney, a fact he found hilarious.