Hidden Jewel (Heartfire Series) (53 page)

Without a word, Ailill hauled herself to her feet, feeling beaten down, exhausted, feeling thoroughly filthy. There was not time to bathe
and
to question either man, for she knew that she had much to say to them and that it would take a while. Micah's eyes were following her every move, as were Jacob's, even as he gathered the sleeping bairn into her sling; both watching her to see, would she argue against them, or would she invite them to come along this time. The former of both quandaries won out as Ailill led the way to the heated pool deep beneath the earth, to wash, to heal, her raven loves following close on her heels. It was simply too soon.

Bacchanalia

True to her word, Ailill was back in two days time, no better for information than she had been when she left. It was downright irritating. To top that off, her cousins had sent word... they would be delayed, unable to join her at the end of the month. Something was going on within her family, and being left out of the loop, being stuck in America, far from her loved ones, was more than simply disheartening. She did not understand the secrecy surrounding her cousin's unexplained absence anymore than the reason for such a sudden change of plans. No one would tell her anything, her parents damningly closemouthed even when she demanded the answers she sought. Jacob and Micah were as clueless as she and that bothered her; it left no one to talk to.

Except baby McKell. As she reached the two-month, and then the three-month milestone, the bairn was certainly a beauty, as soft and cuddly as could be, her silken curls as dark as the men who'd claimed her. She found herself whispering her concerns into that sweet face, more than once. It helped. In more ways than one. The tiny body became her shield when the desires of the brothers grew too great for Ailill's stubborn denial of them. In her wish to not pit brother against brother, the tiny woman chose abstinence, much to Micah's growing dismay. Jacob had taken to the trails he'd trodden before Ailill came into his life, though, to his credit, he was much less boastful of his conquests. The fact that she felt him slipping away every few days, that she could not completely ignore a streak of envy for whomever it was that the man might be lying with, was naught but a bane to her own precarious love life. It would be just a matter of time before Micah followed in his brother's footsteps, she knew, for both men were more alike than even they knew.

As the last of the colorful leaves dropped from the trees and the air grew chill with the onset of Winter, Ailill Bascna-Morna realized, almost too late, just how isolated she had become. How lonely for familiar company and home. These men, these midnight eyed brothers, had made her soft, vulnerable to the desires of her own torn heart. What she needed was time away, from Hidden Jewel, from her parents continuing secrecy. The smell of spit-up on her shirt, in her long hair, made her realize that she was also badly in need of a break from playing Mam to the growing bairn. When the dark brothers approached her on the morning before Christmas Eve, a unified effort to take her out "on a real date", as they'd said, Ailill could not find it in herself to refuse them, though she'd certainly tried. 

They spent the evening in company with a large group of peers, agemates who had gathered for a last hurrah before the doldrums of winter set in, to celebrate the Christian holiday in style. Because her parents were home once again, more than pleased with their role of in-house babysitter, Ailill chose to go at the last minute despite a certainty that she had smelled snow in the air all day, though the sky had been crystal clear, a lovely blue that matched the eyes of one girl who would not leave off the two raven-haired brothers from the moment they stepped through the door into the gathering hall of Willow Wisp.

Far too beautiful for the other lads to ignore, it seemed as if all of them gathered around Ailill like a freshly tapped keg of beer as soon as she stepped into view behind her twin dates. They ogled her, those mortal men, unashamedly begged for a dance, despite their own partners standing close by. A stranger, easily proclaimed by her looks, her manner of dress and speech, she’d been dutifully snubbed by most of the teenaged and twenty-something girls since she'd arrived in May; the few who seemed welcoming were nice enough at first, though it soon became obvious they were more interested in Micah and Jacob, her constant companions and by far the most attractive young men in the room, than the daughter of the town’s founders; too naturally lovely, too petite, too different compared to every other girl there, the fiery haired Ailill felt entirely out of place in a room full of blond and brunette strangers.

The attention her companions received was naively unexpected, disturbingly unwelcome; at least to Ailill. One girl in particular raised her ire, the one with the sky-blue eyes; her short blond hair and a high-pitched tinkling laugh set the fiery wee Highlander’s nerves to humming. Jacob had called her Jade and kissed her on the mouth in greeting. Micah had whispered that she was too clingy even as the slim, pretty girl insinuated herself between him and Ailill, clinging to his arm with a death grip, trying to steer him away from the tiny redhead whom she'd intentionally given no more than a passing glance. He carefully extracted his arm, a glance directed at Ailill enough to show that, though she
had
been his first bonafide lover, Micah had done at least a bit with this particular girl; her knowing gaze swiveled about the room, not surprised to find that kisses were given freely to the popular young woman, reciprocated with an eagerness that made Ailill cringe beneath a carefully worn mask of standoffish inscrutability, seeing such wherever her eyes roamed. Sitting back with an inward groan, she wondered what the hell would possess the twins to bring her to what would ultimately be no more than a
Bacchanalia
; even at home she had been carefully guarded from situations such as this, spirited away just as night passed into the next day, the witching hour, when even the most upstanding citizens of her own hidden hamlet shed the facade of goodness like a cloak, the inborn nature of them all coming out in a most blatant form of hedonistic revelry.
, in all honesty, she
had
been a virgin up 'til but a few months ago. Even still, the very idea of her being here...
Och, it'll definitely not take long for these people to shed their own cloaks, and even less if the ones over in the corner are any clue
, she reflected in silent vexation.

At first an organized affair, with tables of food and a bar filled to brimming with a wide variety of homemade spirits and ale,
blah
, people chatting companionably on the benches lining the walls around the dance floor or at the tables opposite, the gathering soon picked up. The tempo of the music blasting from speakers on the walls became more rhythmic, a pulsing beat that Ailill felt deep inside, made her stand up, resolutely seeking escape through narrowed eyes. She was not the only one who felt it, but noted with delusory clarity that she was the only one in the room who did not need the addition of alcohol or drugs to be affected by it. She watched from the corner of her eye as Jacob and Micah shared a spliff with the blond Jade, who had apparently made her circuit around the room, returning to stand between them, as if that were her right! The girl’s eyes followed their own to where Ailill was standing a few yards away; the rather pouty lips moved near the ears of both men, saying something crude about their choice of a date, no doubt. She was tall enough that she did not have to shout to be heard above the din, her pale face nearly even with those of the men. Casting an inconspicuous glance down her own length, Ailill cursed softly; she was the shortest person in the entire place, a fact that had never bothered her before. Her choice of dress for the evening seemed only to add to the lack, her small body too well covered, invisible despite the fact that she had worn a more revealing dress beneath; experience had proven just how warm a large gathering of young people could get. She was not the only one to double dress, she noted with a grimace, her eyes on the rapidly filling dance floor.

When Jade’s irritating laughter rang out over the increasing noise of the party, Ailill’s spine stiffened visibly beneath the blue cotton blouse she had worn, a color Micah said he loved the first time she had worn it; she turned and walked away, instantly despising the very idea that her men, as she had begun to think of them, would even want to be around the ruttish bitch. When she turned back, casting a glance over her shoulder, the shot of whiskey she had just swallowed trailing a pleasant flame down her chest, Ailill saw that the girl had moved, her pale eyes flashing invitingly from a few feet away, near what looked to be a curtained alcove; the dark eyes of both men rested steadily on her while they lit up once again, the aromatic smoke encircling their sleek heads in a blue haze. Flashing them a not too friendly look, Ailill picked up a full bottle from the bar and left the room. She wished desperately for an escape from the entire situation, missing her first love, the only lad she had ever gotten stinking drunk with, far more than she had over the past few months.

It took no more than a word, spoken silently to herself, to unlock the
mental door
, as Tiernan had described it to her when she was twelve. It was a defense, this door, against anything unwanted from happening to her, a way to keep herself fully aware even while everyone around was getting sloshed. If she wished to be drunk or sober, she only had to unlock the door.
He
had told her how to unlock it;
he
had been by her side when she got falling down drunk the first time; and it was
he
who had helped her when her first, and only, taste of vinifera wine had sent her tumbling headlong into the worst incidence of nightmares she had ever had.

“
Och, lad. I wish ye were here,” she muttered, raising the cool bottle to her lips, smiling at the heat that slithered downward, toward the jagged shard of ice that had taken up residence in her belly since she had stepped into the midst of this uncouth, unschooled group of juveniles intent on having an orgiastic good time.

Orgiastic seemed quite right, to Ailill’s mind, the sounds coming from the smaller side rooms making her uncomfortable just to be standing in the hallway, drinking alone as a light snow began to fall outdoors; the small flakes shimmered like diamonds in the glowing flames of the streetlamps, a steady fall cut momentarily sideways in a gust of chill wind. Turning back toward the noisy revelry, she paused in the doorway, frowning. The overhead lights had been turned off earlier, the room lit with dimmed electrical sconces along the walls for better ambiance. In the quarter hour that she had been gone, those lights had been replaced with colorful strands knotted about the ceiling, making the room almost too dark to see beneath the chasing lights. A strobe flickered rapidly overhead, in time with the pulsating beats of the music, the gyrating bodies seeming to move in slow motion over the dance floor, a primitive call echoed throughout the close-packed forms, the waving limbs. It took awhile to find them, the dark heads of her men invisible in the shadows, the black shirts both had worn adding to the difficulty of seeing where they had gone when neither was where she had left them. Irritated, with them for being invisible to her, off with the damn blond, irritated with herself for showing the jealousy that was not even supposed to be there, the green-eyed monster gaining its head through the flickering light, Ailill strode down the room and sat down on the nearest empty couch, idly checking the bottle in her hand to see that she did not overdo it. Long legs moved close, drew her gaze up just as a strange young man with close-cropped brown hair bent down, a bit too close for comfort, and attempted to ram his tongue down her throat, his efforts squashed with a swift kick to the shin. Making a face at such rudeness, Ailill swilled a bit of whiskey to rid her mouth of the unwanted taste, spat it at the lad's retreating back; turned her eyes to scanning the room as it slowly began to tilt and spin.

She felt them before she saw them, a sense of being drawn away from the noise, the occasional arm or leg or bared torso that passed by with the lights, her gaze pulled up at once to where they both stood, side by side, unmoving amongst the throng. The darkness of the brother’s eyes pierced her heart, intense with the feelings of letting go of their usual stoic demeanor, long bodies loosened up with more than just the
green goddess
, apparent when they moved as one toward her. Suddenly uncertain, Ailill quaffed as much of the liquor as she could before they reached her, the half-empty bottle snagged from her fingers with an ease that surprised her. Blinking, feeling downright pissed with drink of a sudden, she saw Micah raise the bottle, eye the level she had left, and say something to his twin before they both drank deeply. Bending down, close to her head, Micah peered into Ailill’s flushed face, her darkened eyes holding him for a long moment.