Legend 4 - Free Falling (15 page)

I saw that they did indeed have modern amenities such as electricity and modern machinery … although I did not see any cars. It was like a dimension trapped between time zones.

I looked at Chance, and although I still had a heavy lecture to give him about whisking me away without permission, I was for the moment intrigued by his world. I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “What the heck—where are we … what is this?”

He laughed and flirted with a girl in a tight pair of jeans and a clingy red sweater who was just passing by us. She made eyes at him but kept on walking … swaying … making sure his gaze lingered. I shook my head.
Player
in the biggest sense of the word came to mind, but I tugged at his leather sleeve for an answer.

“This is our home. Dravo, we call it.”

“But why … why do you live apart … from us. Wasn’t Ireland your home?”

“Aye … but then, as you already know, we are immortals. Our children are born—as long as we don’t have them with humans—immortal. We decided it would be easier to make a home in another dimension, where we can live freely without having to make up lies about deaths and births. We have all we need here.”

I watched his people as they went about their business. They all seemed occupied and happy, very happy. “Do you have an economy? How do you go on … ?”

“We have what we need,” he answered simply, and then he laughed. “Not what you expected?”

“Well, in the first place, I wasn’t expecting anything, because I wasn’t expecting to be kidnapped and brought here! Point me in the right direction. I have to get back.”

“Not yet.”

“
Now.”

“You can’t leave without my escort. The walls weren’t made for a Fae to pass through in either direction without one of us as escort.”

“Walls—you mean like a shield?”

“Precisely … now, why don’t you take off your clothes and have a swim.” He was trying to steer me towards an inner courtyard, which I assumed was private. I stood my ground, but I asked, “Oh … I suppose you have a heated pool?”

“An infinity pool … quite refreshing.” He tried taking my hand.

I yanked away from his touch. “Home, Chance … now.”

“No. I have sent everyone off to their own homes, as soon as I brought you here.”

“I didn’t see or hear you do that.” I said in spite of myself once again.

“Yet, I did … we communicate very well together, we Milesians.”

I made a face at him and looked away because he was already in the buff except for a pair of black boxer shorts that did very little to hide his dancing dick!

It was time for me to leave. I called for Danté in my head as loudly as I could. Would he be able to hear me from another dimension?

Chance reached for me, but I frowned at him and stepped away. “Is this your idea of seduction—taking a girl against her will?”

“You don’t know what you want yet.”

“Oh yes, I do, and I have it … back there.” I waved my hand around as I didn’t know what direction my universe was, but I needed to make a point.

“
Danté—
you think your future is with Danté? He is a Fae … he knows nothing about taking care of the woman in you. He wouldn’t be able to please you … ride you as I will, Z. He won’t know how to anticipate all your needs, and satisfy them—but I promise you, woman, I will … oh yes I will.” He grabbed me then and tried to kiss me. I kicked him in the shins as I screamed, “
Let go of me!”

However, he seemed to think I might like it rough and tried to persuade me by holding me tighter. I wasn’t concerned, really. I had come to understand Chance. He had a ‘forever’ twinkle in his eyes, as though he had gone through life laughing. I strongly suspected he had never truly been in love; he liked his freedom too much. There was no real harm in him when it came to females. He liked us—probably too much—and believed we really liked him. I knew he would release me as soon as I made it clear. One day he was going to meet someone he couldn’t live without, and then …
whew
. But never mind all that; I didn’t like being played with and stomped my foot at him to make it clear. “Let me go!”

“Do you mean that? I can’t believe you mean that,” Chance teased.

“I THINK THE LADY REQUESTED YOU TO RELEASE HER.” Danté’s big, booming voice was at my back, and then he had shifted and I was at his back, peeking around his body and thinking Chance was in trouble now—and so he deserved. I didn’t appreciate being abducted by force and trickery. However, Chance wouldn’t have hurt me, and eventually he would have returned me home. I had never been afraid of him, just annoyed with him.

Knowing all of that, I didn’t want Danté to kill him—and Danté appeared to be in a mood to do just that.

Chance put up his hands and grinned, not afraid and not abashed. “Och, man, so it is like that, is it?” He inclined his head and then came up grinning. “Well, well, I didn’t think ye had it in ye!” He wagged his finger. “So be it, but … here is the rub. If ye mistreat her … if ye make her cry … I’ll come for her and make her mine.”

“Never going to happen, and, Chance, touch my woman ever again without her leave … no, never mind that, touch my woman, and I’ll wipe the floors with you!” Danté snapped. “She will never be anyone’s property … Z is her own person, but try this again, and you will know what it means to abduct not just any Fae’s woman,
but my woman!”

Chance laughed right out loud and put up his hands. “You can’t blame a man for trying—I mean, just look at her!”

Danté turned to me, but he wasn’t smiling as he ignored Chance’s remark. “What the hell were you doing going after a sect of Unseelie by yourself?”

“Well … I … er …”

“And without informing me? I was lucky that Breslyn noticed you take chase.”

“How did you get past our Dravo shield?” Chance asked Danté curiously.

Danté true to form stood like the warrior he was and said, “I am a Royal Fae prince. Do not think that because we allowed you to live, because we signed the Treaty of Man, because we have never invaded your world, that we could not! We have always been powerful enough to wipe you out to your last man. We chose not to.”

So saying, Danté had my hand, and once again I was shifting, but this time it felt different, more like Fae shifting. When we stepped out onto MacDaun land under the midnight sky, I said to him, “Shifting with Chance was way different.”

“That is because what he does is an imitation of our shifting. They are what they are because of Danu dust and Danu gold, but they are not Fae.”

“What does that mean?”

“When Danu was destroyed, particles of it were scattered throughout the earth. Some areas received a high concentration, and the Milesians lived in a high-concentration area. They breathed the dust, they farmed the land and ate the dust … and became immortal. They also found gold dust from our planet … and our gold is very different than earth gold. It enables us to create death weapons. It is what they did.”

“Huh …” I uttered, and just then I looked up. “Oh Danté … look … a shooting star …”

~ Fourteen ~

DANTÉ DIDN’T LOOK at the falling star. Instead, he looked down into my eyes and then took me wildly, almost frantically, into his arms and kissed me, and he kept on kissing me as though he would never let me go.

His tongue played with mine, teased it into step, and waltzed pressed up against my own in a way that took me to another world. His kiss whispered poetry into my body, and I was lost to his touch, to the expertise of his fingers as they traveled over me, and I didn’t even know when he put a cushion of quilts on the damp grass before he lowered me onto it.

He didn’t use magic to take off my clothes, so I felt them flung away from my body. I was lost to his passion, and all the while I drowned in his kisses—kisses that took over my nerve endings, my blood, and my mind. All I knew was that I never wanted it to stop …

I wanted more, more kisses, more touching, more Danté.

He kneeled over me, naked except for his gold torque. His long, auburn hair was a tawny mass around his handsome face, and his huge stallion rod danced as he gazed slowly over me and whispered hoarsely, “Beautiful woman … you were made for this … perfect for this …” Then he lowered his face between my thighs, spread them so that he could nibble at leisure, and I arched with the pleasure he gave me.

His hands went under me and grabbed a firm hold of my ass, and he pulled me into his mouth. He licked and nibbled there, and he tongued my clit until I cried out his name and pulled at his hair. He raised his head, and his voice was low and husky. “Slowly … I want this to last, love … I want to make you go off over and over …”

And I did.

He moved up my belly, licking and kissing until he reached my nipples, where he suckled and fondled and suckled some more, teasing me until I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer. I pressed my hands against his chest, and suddenly he had me in his arms and we were rolling over until he was on his back.

I started kissing his chest, licking at his nipples and then further down to his belly, and then I had that huge rod of his in my hand. I loved stroking it, licking it, kissing, and then sucking at it—sucking it in and out, hearing his primal sounds of pleasure, reveling in his groans of raw desire. Suddenly he said my name, and then he pulled my arms and situated me on top of him as he moaned low in his throat. “Ride me, beauty … ride me now …”

And I did.

I had wanted him inside me, but even as I rode him like he asked, even as I felt that stallion dick of his fill me and rub just the right spot so that I was screaming with pleasure and climaxing, I knew a naughty need to tease and pleasure him in other ways. I lifted off him, and even though he growled and grabbed to put me back, I turned for him and wiggled my ass. “Want this, baby?” I asked.

He did.

And he slammed into me with that talented rod. It didn’t take long after that for him to make me explode with a pleasure I had never experienced before Danté.

The way he moved and played and kissed, pumped himself into me, became a part of me, had bonded us in a way that fused my heart to his with secret threads. When he touched and stroked and danced inside me, I knew myself his for all eternity …

And then I heard him moan, and it was a hoarse, low, and primal sound. His voice when the words tore out of him was raw with hunger. “You feel so right—everything about you fits me, completes me …
enfant
, I have never felt this way …” And then he was driving himself into me harder, faster, saying my name over and over, and telling me how beautiful he thought I was. Then, as though sensing the moment in which I was about to go off again, this time he allowed himself to do the same. I have to note that our lovemaking was perfection …

Only one thing was missing for me. I wanted to hear him say he ‘loved’ me. I believed that he did. I wanted him to know it, acknowledge it, be happy for it …

He made love to me for hours on those quilts under the midnight’s dark blue velvet sky, and then he shifted us to my bedroom, where he held me as I drifted off to sleep—still waiting for those words that didn’t come.

* * *

Danté and I were having coffee on the terrace, and Sally was happily working in the kitchen sneaking knowing glances our way. She looked as happy as a young girl with a new set of clothes for her doll.

“We did quite a number on those beasties yesterday,” I said, content for the moment, proud of our accomplishment, not thinking about the future, or for once, Gaiscioch. Then Danté said his name, and I felt myself tense with the old need.

“We did well only because Gais wanted to test our measure. Do not underestimate him
, enfant
 … he is capable of a great deal. He is a Seelie Fae … not a Royal, but a Fae who has lived longer than our queen …”

“So what are you saying? He doesn’t have the power of a Royal—does he?”

“I think he has achieved more than the usual power a non-Royal can attain. Breslyn and I believe that Gaiscioch has a portal he means to open on what the humans call Halloween—our Samhain. We also believe that yesterday he sent out the lowest castes through the river portal only to see how many of us it would take to eliminate them and how long it would take to do so.”

“Why? How will that help him? He doesn’t know if we used all the power available to us.”

“He knows how long it took for Aaibhe to close the portal. He believes now that he knows how it drained her. It is our opinion that he has a Seelie orb and that he viewed the battle and watched Aaibhe as she closed the mouth of the portal. We believe he does a great deal of observation with this orb of his. Z, we have to accept that he has a more powerful and larger portal he means to open on the eve of Samhain, and that closing that particular portal will drain our queen considerably. I think he believes he can snatch her in that weakest moment, even with one of her princes standing guard. We know he must have something up his sleeve, if he thinks that, because while he is mad, he is not and never has been a fool.”

“Yes, but will Aaibhe be weakened so much that she will be in danger?”

“I am afraid if the portal is as large as we suspect, closing it will indeed drain her for some hours. However, our queen has a few tricks up her dainty sleeve, but you already know her aunt, Daoine Queen Mab, well enough to know that ‘snatching’ Aaibhe is not something Gais could do … unless Aaibhe wills it.”

“Will Queen Mab help with closing that portal? Where will he open this portal?”

“Two questions I don’t at the moment have an answer for. However, we strongly suspect he will not open one portal, Z, but two—two portals, and we believe Gais will open them both simultaneously. One will be much smaller than the other. Gais will want us divided, distracted. We believe the larger of the two will be opened somewhere in Inverness and the other, smaller one in Ireland … probably near Dublin.”

“What are we going to do? And if you have teams set up, I am on yours.”

He touched my chin and frowned. “Right at my side … don’t you know that yet? Don’t you know I won’t let you out of my sight?” He shook his head. “The only way you will be out of my view will be if you go off willy-nilly as you too often do, Z.”

I smiled and looked at his hand, now covering mine. “Go on … there is more, isn’t there?”

He frowned. “I also suppose I had better keep you with me when I investigate not only this situation but any that arise. It is hardly what I want, but you are a trouble magnet, and I don’t see any other way of keeping my eye on you. Better I suppose to have you at my side, rather than leave you to your own convoluted devices.”

“Yes, yes, you have finally seen the light, but where are we going? Accompany you where?” Now I was excited, and then a question presented itself to me. “How do you know so much about Gais—were the two of you once … friends?”

He looked at me as though I had suddenly grown another head. “How could you think that? I never liked him—ever. Breslyn and I always thought him an arrogant bastard, and there is no other way to describe it. He was, however, the queen’s dear friend, and he was on the Council.”

“Hmmm … and as insightful as she is, she never saw it coming?”

“We often lose sight of the truth when friendship or love is involved,” he said softly and flicked my nose.

I eyed him. What exactly was he trying to tell me? Was there something here I didn’t want to hear? I changed the subject. “So now what?”

“To the MacClennys’ place—it is time we had a chat with them.”

“How will you manage that? They will be on guard. They must know by now that I was the one that discovered them at the shed.”

“Precisely. They will be on guard, and they will be extremely nervous. People give up quite a bit when they are nervous.”

“I don’t think they are at the head of the coven, though.”

“No, they are not. I have my own suspicions about that.”

“Tell me.”

“Not yet,
enfant
, not yet.”

“Do you think they will tell you?” I shook my head over this; I didn’t think so.

“What I think is that this coven, and these Satanists, are dedicated to helping Gais only because of what they think they can achieve in the new world he has promised them. Your parents never picked up on the cult here in the area because probably until recently, until their new leader arrived on the scene to take them forward, they were just playing the game without any real power.”

“So this new leader of theirs … he has whatever it is that gives them power?”

“They always had the pit, a witches’ pit, but their leader—a warlock—must have the artifact that opened it.”

“Wow—who could it be?”

“We’ll see. For now, we’ll go question the MacClennys.”

As he started off towards the garage, I skipped alongside him and took his hand. He squeezed mine and put it to his lips. I know Sally was looking out the window, and it made me giggle to think of her smiling. She had been so hoping I would find someone and smile again …

“It isn’t a funny situation.” Danté frowned at me, always serious, always looking to practicalities.

“I was laughing because I can imagine Sally’s expression watching us.”

“Oh,” he commented, straightening as a soft smile curved his luscious lips. I wanted to pet him all the time and couldn’t believe we had come from the snarling two we’d started out as to this …

“I think,” Danté said as he pressed the garage button and the door lifted, “that Gais is using various magical mortals, some of them Gypsies, to aid him to disguise and hide the artifacts he needs on this side, to open the portals for Samhain. The mortals will not be able to tell us anything of any import, but we do need to round them up and stop them from helping him.”

“What will we do with them?”

He grinned wickedly. “We may not destroy them if they are human, but we can and will detain them and confiscate our artifacts.”

I considered this for a moment before something else popped into my head. I looked him in the eye and asked, “What about
your redhead
? Did she tell the Council anything?”

“She
is not my redhead,
and, yes, she confessed to helping Gais by giving him information that she learned during Council meetings, but unfortunately, Gais is not stupid. He told her nothing of any consequence.” My Danté sighed heavily. “However, at least we now have the mole amongst us out of the way. Come then, my
enfant
 … we’ll take the BMW in your garage. I like that vehicle, and this time,
I
will drive.”

I laughed and rushed to the passenger side of the car; he grinned and was there immediately opening the door. I laughed and said, “I can open my own door.”

“No question of that, but I like doing it for you.”

That was another thing I had discovered about my big prince—he was extremely affectionate and gentlemanly, and that had surprised me. He liked to hold hands when we walked. I’d find him reaching to touch me when we were conversing. He’d stroke my cheek softly when I was agitated, and his manner was so very caring. I had not expected that.

Very surprising, his genuine display of affection—I had not thought his big ol’ warrior self would be capable of the open attention.

* * *

My reflection in the window stared back at me, and I could see I was no longer the Fae that I had been. I am Gaiscioch of the House of Ulder, not Royal, but respected in times long past … in Danu and then later in my beloved Ireland.

My Fae eyes were undergoing a change, taking on the darkness of the black magic I had been steeped in. The gray streak in my hair … had taken on width, and I saw a stranger in the reflection staring back at me.

One day, when I brought the Fae back to their former glory … My brethren thought I was a traitor, but one day, they would thank me. Just now I knew they abhorred my name, but soon they would revere it.

Just now they thought I mean them harm; I did not. I needed to kill those who stood in my way, but once the four Royal Houses were destroyed, they would thank me. I would rule them firmly but with kindness. And one day, after I had humiliated her and dragged her through the streets of Tir,
Aaibhe would be mine.