Chapter Eight #4
But my gaze was on Owain as I pushed past Aisling and Ysolde and threw myself on the raven-covered Owain, an arrow clutched in my hand, stabbing wildly into the spinning, twisting black forms. I wasn’t sure which one contained Jerry’s essence, but I figured sooner or later I’d find her.
The shadow versions of her and Macha’s raven selves dissolved into nothing as I stabbed them, gradually revealing Owain beneath.
He’d been frozen, as if the Jerry swarm had turned him to stone, and to my horror, I could feel him being drained by her, the fine hairs on my arms standing on end in response.
She was taking away his power, everything that kept him safe from being imprisoned again.
He didn’t deserve such treatment. He’d changed how he thought, realized the mistakes he’d made in the past, and served his penance.
It wasn’t right that his own mother cared so little for him that she could strip from him everything he was, and discard his broken, empty form into a convenient prison.
“Not while I still have a breath to draw,” I swore as I tried to clear more ravens off him.
“This is bullshit!” one of the ravens said, immediately shifting back to human form, holding her side, which I’d evidently grazed because she didn’t poof into a gold light like the druids I had nailed in the chest. She glared first at me, then at Jerry.
“I don’t have a horse in this battle, and I’m not going to stay and get destroyed solely because you have a beef with your son. ”
No one stopped her as she hurried out of the fray, not even the druids.
Instead, they let out a battle cry that hurt my ears. From the corner of my eye, I saw Yrian had shifted into the form of a smoky gray dragon, a wave of fire boiling out of him that he directed into the druids.
I was almost sobbing with fear and frustration as I kept stabbing at the Jerry-ravens, one after another dissolving into nothing when the arrow skewered their shadow forms. There were about ten left, and as I raised my hand to jab at the nearest one, it suddenly turned its head and snarled at me. “You traitor!”
“Pot, kettle, black,” I said in a near growl, about to plunge the magicked arrow dead in Jerry’s raven chest, but she spat out a word that sounded very old, sending me flying backward.
I hit the stone wall of the house with a crunching sound that would have made me wince had I not been almost knocked insensible.
For a few seconds, pandemonium reigned about me, waves of Yrian’s fire taking down druids on one side, while on the other, Baltic wielded a sword that glowed with blue light.
Behind them, Drake and the two vampires were handily lopping off arms and legs of the druids who bypassed the first defense.
Aisling threw wards everywhere: some protective, which drifted onto the dragons, and some prohibitive that bound the druids’ feet to the ground, leaving them impotent with rage as they threatened her.
A roar ripped the air, and suddenly Owain was free of the raven swarm, his eyes blazing with a cold, pale light as he threw Jerry aside, leaping over fallen druids to pull me up into his arms, his body warm and solid and so comforting that, for a moment, I sagged against him in relief, but as I was about to push myself back, Jerry—now in her human form—rose up behind him, a wicked-looking, heavily runed and scribed silver dagger clutched in her hand.
She raised the dagger high, obviously about to pierce the back of Owain’s head.
“Nooo!” The word tore from my throat in a scream unlike any I’d ever made, and without thinking, I slammed both hands into Owain’s chest, throwing into the gesture every iota of energy I had, sending him stumbling backward a couple of feet.
It was enough. Jerry’s blade swung downward, barely missing him, but slicing down my arm with a burning pain that almost brought me to my knees.
Owain screamed an oath, dropping both his sword and the morning star, raising one fist to the air. “Orla!”
“About time,” the raven said as she flew down from her perch on the roof, landing on his hand, hopping quickly onto his shoulder. “Give him my talisman, you idiot knocker. He needs it.”
I tried to lift my hand to get the metal disk from my pocket, but my arm hung limply, not responding to my commands.
“You stupid bint,” Jerry said, jumping when Yrian directed a wave of fire at her. “I should have known better than to hire an apprentice.” She leaped toward Owain in a suitably dramatic manner, the bloodstained dagger raised high again.
I got the disk with my working arm right at the moment that time seemed to telescope, stretching out in a way that had Owain’s turn to face his mother slowed, my hand moving at a snail’s pace as I reached above his head, allowing the leather thong bearing the talisman to slide down until it settled around his neck.
The second it touched his bare flesh, he slammed his hands forward, palms out, white light channeled directly into Jerry. A look of utter surprise crossed her face for a moment; then she was gone, as if she’d blinked out of existence.
“Now, that’s what I’m talking about, some good old-fashioned banishment,” Orla said, hopping up and down excitedly. “Do it again! Send all those freaks of nature to the Akasha!”
The druids nearest us paused. As a group, they looked at the spot where a second before, Jerry was about to seriously harm her son. Then they looked at Owain, Orla, and finally me.
I lifted my bow.
“Er ...” The nearest druid cleared his throat.
Baltic and Yrian, both panting, lowered their weapons, while one last arcane ball zipped past my ear to hit an unlucky druid in the face. He went down with a squawk.
“Yeah, I’m out of here, too. My wife wasn’t happy I left her with the kids to answer Jerry’s call, and you never want to piss off an earth fury if you can help it,” another druid said, before giving Owain a half smile.
“Glad to see you’re doing well, and are out of the Hour.
Never did think it was right that you were put there.
Your brothers, yes, they’re batshit crazy, as my youngest would say, but you always seemed to be decent. Welp, brothers, shall we?”
“What about the others?” the druid with the pub owner girlfriend asked, gesturing to the bodies of the fallen.
“Eh. Da will bring them back. He always does,” the first one answered, then, with an apologetic smile at the rest of us, gave a little wave, turned into a raven, and immediately flew off.
“This was fun, but as Flann said, I have things to do. Later, all,” another druid said.
The rest of the druids murmured similar excuses, and in a few seconds, they’d all left.
I touched Owain on the arm, pulling his attention from glaring at the sky to me. “What did you do to your mother?”
“What you suggested,” he answered, frowning when Orla hopped onto his head. He lifted her off, setting her on a stone planter next to the door before examining my arm. It still hurt, but was already starting to heal.
I dug through my memory of the last half hour, but came up blank. “What did I say?”
“You mentioned sending Orla to the Akasha—”
“That bitch!” Orla said on a birdy gasp. “She did? Well, I know whose head I’m going to poop on the very next time I have the chance. And I’ll be sure to eat a bunch of berries first, so it’s nice and seedy, and extra runny!”
“—so I sent my mother there. It seemed like the best way to get her to leave us alone until we find the blood moon,” he finished, ignoring Orla.
“She’ll get herself out eventually, but it takes longer to get out of the Akasha than the Beyond, so we should have at least a few weeks of peace before she does so. ”
I smiled, using my nonhurt hand to wipe blood from a scratch on the side of his face, aware of, but not paying attention to, the dragons and vampires who were tidily stacking up the bodies of the (evidently temporarily) dead druids against the side of the house.
“That is the perfect solution, and you know that I’ll do everything I can to help you. ”
“You already have,” he said, pulling me up against his bare chest. For a moment, I hesitated, testing my emotions to see if we were go for everything that I badly wanted to do to, and with, him, and getting the go-ahead, I tipped my head back to kiss him.
“Oooh, he has his soul back. Nice job, Berry,” Allie said, emerging with a bunch of coats and shirts in her arms, handing them out to the men.
For the next four minutes, I paid no mind to anything but allowing my libido to unleash itself in kissing Owain, the sense of him sinking into my veins, filling me with a sense of rightness.
“I’m in so much trouble,” I whispered against his lips.
“Why?” he asked, his eyes pale as the winter moon, but at the same time so full of warmth, I almost felt like stripping down.
Or perhaps that was just the feeling of his skin beneath my hands.
“Because I’m going to fall madly in love with you, and then I’ll have the mother-in-law from hell.”
“Literally,” Aisling said with a laugh as she and the others entered the house, leaving us alone with Yrian and Becket, both of whom were draping some tarps over the druids.
I searched Owain’s face, asking softly so they wouldn’t overhear, “What did Allie mean about your soul?”
He hesitated for a few seconds, then said slowly, “Many Dark Ones are born without souls, which can only be redeemed by their Beloveds, what you would call soulmates.”
“OK,” I said. “But you aren’t a vampire.”
“No, but when Desislav and the others laid the bloodlust curse upon us, they took our souls as punishment. It was part of the curse that was passed down to our descendants.”
“I doubt it was Desi who insisted on you forfeiting your souls,” Yrian said as he and Becket walked past us to the front door.
She entered, but he paused to add, “I’ve long suspected that Kashi had his fingers in that pie, and from what my youngest brother tells me, it is likely Kashi, not the other princes of Abaddon, who wanted the souls of you and your brothers. ”
Owain’s lips thinned for a few seconds. “That is of some comfort, but it does not change my stance on Desislav and the blood moon.”
Yrian inclined his head in acknowledgment of that statement, and entered the house, the door closing softly behind him. I one-handedly helped Owain into his shirt and coat, ignoring Orla when she went into a detailed rant about people who want to unfairly banish helpful witches-turned-ravens.
“So you got your soul back?” I asked him. “How?”
“You sacrificed yourself for me,” he answered, a slow smile raising my temperature at least five degrees. “A Beloved who does that redeems their Dark One’s soul.”
“I’m not a Beloved any more than you are a bloodsucking vamp,” I told him, wanting, for some reason I didn’t wish to examine closely, to dance and sing and kiss Owain all over his body.
“I am happy to have you do so, but only after I’ve taken my turn kissing your delectable self,” he said, turning toward the house. “And yes, I want to feed from you.”
I gave a little jerk to the side, sure I had kept that thought well hidden in the shadows of my mind. “Really? Will it ... er ... hurt?”
His smile was made up of such lasciviousness, a blush swept up from my chest. “No, but I promise you’ll be a boneless heap of satisfied woman by the time I’m done feeding.”
“Oooh,” I said, a shiver of anticipation rippling down my back. “I’m going to hold you to that promise. But ...” I paused, making him turn back toward me. “What are you going to do about the dragons?”
He was silent for almost a minute before heaving a heartfelt sigh. “I will treat with them.”
“Huh?”
He frowned. “How old are you?”
“Eighty-two. You’re going to treat them how?”
“I’m going to treat with them—negotiate. Yrian seems not unreasonable, even if the other dragons are less inclined to be so. I don’t know how joint custody of the blood moon would work, but I am willing to discuss the matter with him.”
Relief filled me at yet another sign that he wasn’t the deranged, homicidal madman that everyone thought him. “OK, but I reserve the right to sic Orla on them if they don’t play ball with you.”
“Hey!” Orla shook her feathers until she was puffed up like a black hedgehog.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do! No one gets to do that, not even lover boy, there.
I’m my own person, a powerful hedge witch, and I am not going to let you two sideline me so you can make lovey eyes at each other, and probably go shag for hours and hours and hours, leaving me all alone with no one.
No, sir, Owain cursed me, so I’m going to stick with him every second of every day, if only to show you two who’s really in char—”
“I really want to learn how to do that,” I said after Owain, with a glance toward the fractious bird and a quick flick of his fingers, put an arm around me and escorted me into the house.
“I’ll teach you,” he promised, the sound of Orla’s squawk as she was sent once again to the Beyond music to my ears.