Chapter Eight
Iona
The next two weeks were one long, frustrating Respen hunt.
With the mayor as backup, we visited the huge, magical tree where the griffins had one of their sprawling nesting villages.
The pride denied any of them were missing.
I told them what had happened to Baareo, and the griffins agreed to let Vildra and me cast a spell to scan for signs of alien magic.
Between the two of us, we should have detected anything suspicious, but we found nothing.
Meanwhile, Dearg, in wolf form, took a good sniff around. He didn’t find anything either.
We didn’t give up. Vildra, Dearg, and I tried the same revelation spell again during the next day’s Fleethoof shoot, reasoning Respen might have replaced one of the cast or crew. Even with the matriarch’s power boost, we came up dry.
We kept scanning, kept searching, but there was no sign of any alien magic that might belong to my psycho brother or even more sociopathic mother.
“Respen’s setting us up,” Dearg told me.
“He’s letting us think that he’s given up.
Probably hopes I’ll leave you alone and he’ll be able to swoop down on you.
He’s going to wait a long damn time, because I’m not going anywhere.
” Despite the grim note in his voice, his declaration that he intended to stay made me relax.
I did not want him to leave me. And not just because I feared Respen.
Not even because we did a lot more than sleep every night.
There was something about the taste of Dearg’s mouth, the sensual skill of those royal hands, the thrust of that thick cock. But most of all, there was the way he looked at me. The intensity in those remarkable eyes suggested a borderline desperation that mirrored my own.
Yet he seemed to believe no one could love him. Not even me.
It made me want to go to the Palace of the Two Kingdoms and hunt down every damned fairy who’d treated him like something to use, either for pleasure, bragging rights, or some plot. I wanted to beat every damned one of them like a rented mule.
Which was violently irrational, but I didn’t give a shit. I was violently irrational where he was concerned.
Every night we explored one another, tasting every inch of skin, experimenting to find out where the most sensitive bundles of nerves were.
We experimented with positions, bondage, toys -- a bit of everything.
Sometimes we giggled and played like children, rolling across my big bed in mock combat.
Sometimes his eyes took on a feral light, and he made love to me with the kind of desperate hunger I had never experienced before.
I suspected -- hoped -- Dearg was falling for me as I’d definitely fallen for him. Thing was, whenever I started to tell him so, I choked. I’d thought Mom had loved me once. Look how that turned out.
One evening we lay sweating and happy in the aftermath. I sprawled on top of him, loving the way he cradled me like something precious. And then I made the mistake. Drawing in a deep breath, I sighed. “Cachamwri’s Egg, I love you.”
I froze the minute the words were out of my mouth. It had been an impulsive statement, but I realized it was true. Unfortunately, I also knew how he’d react.
And I was right.
Dearg froze under me. His gaze met mine, naked and vulnerable. “Don’t say that. Not unless you mean it.”
“I do mean it,” I said, lifting my head to frown down at him.
“It’s only been two weeks. People don’t fall in love this fast.”
“The hell you say.” I slid off him, wanting some distance as I grew irritated. “You think I’m one of those empty-headed bimbos in your father’s court?”
“Of course not.” Dearg rolled to his feet, gloriously naked, and began to pace, the muscles of his long legs and tight ass rolling. He raked a hand through his dark hair, and the muscles of his biceps flexed.
His Dragon Mark lifted its head and laughed at me, eyes sly, as if it knew exactly what I was thinking.
Cachamwri wasn’t wrong. Irritated or not, I never got tired of looking at Dearg, wanting him, loving him. I’d finally admitted to myself that I never would. I also knew he’d been burned too many times, and he wouldn’t just accept the idea I loved him.
I rose to my feet and stepped into his path, just as naked as he was. He stopped short, his gaze sliding downward before jerking back up to mine. Ha! He’s as obsessed with my body as I am with his. “Are you saying I don’t know my own emotions -- my own mind?”
“Of course not. But --”
“But nothing. I’m in love with you, Dearg.
I started falling for you the first time you stepped between me and the Respen centaur during that shoot.
I’ve seen how determined you are to protect me, even if it means risking your life.
I’ve seen your intelligence, your steely courage, your sense of duty to the Two Kingdoms. When you fight…
” I broke off, searching for words. “You remind me of a tiger -- powerful, dangerous, and beautiful.” I grinned wickedly.
“Plus, you fuck like the Horned God. How could I not love you?” I swallowed and took a chance.
“The question is, how do you feel about me?” The question came out sounding more vulnerable than I’d intended, but fuck it.
He looked taken aback, maybe even a little embarrassed. “I… You’re… Maeve’s Forge, I don’t even know how to describe it. So damn beautiful, so damn powerful. Smart…”
“I’m not fishing for compliments, Dearg. I want to know how you feel.” I lifted a brow. “Or are you leading up to say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’”
“Egg, no. I just… I want you. I’m falling for you. I’ve probably been falling for you since that damn vision…”
I blinked. “Nothing about that vision struck me as particularly sexy.”
“Not the parts I showed you, no.”
“So what parts didn’t you show me? And why?”
“Ahhh…” He broke off, looking adorably guilty. “The parts that predicted we’d be lovers. I didn’t feel showing you images of us mating like mink would give you the right impression.”
I thought about how I’d have reacted during that first meeting if he’d projected images from the last two weeks. “Okay, fair point. But how did you react to them?”
His voice dropped to a deeper register. “I wanted you. In the vision, you told me you loved me -- and I wanted that even more. Not just because of your beauty or your power or anything else. I’ve always wanted the kind of love my parents have, but I never thought I’d find it.
The idea you could give me that… Well, it scared me bloodless, because what if the real you… didn’t?”
“Dearg, I’m not one of those shallow, stupid court cunts. I’m one hell of a lot smarter, for one thing. For another, I know a hero when I meet one.”
He met my gaze, his level, sincere. “And so do I. Once I met you, once I saw the way you backed me up against Respen in that first fight, once I saw how devoted you are to the people of Summerwood… I fell hard.” His mouth twisted.
“I just didn’t want to take the risk of ruining my chances by pushing love at you too soon. ”
I studied him, decided to come clean. “You do realize you’re not the only one who’s been burned? Who’s been afraid of getting hurt again?” I shook my head. “The shit I saw in my mother’s court…”
Dearg winced. “And you were just a kid. I spent my childhood as the beloved prince.” He grimaced. “That doesn’t mean people didn’t periodically try to kill me, but none of the threats were sexual. Everyone knew my father would cut them apart and my mother would eat the pieces.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I can believe that. Though the queen’s cannibalistic streak raises questions…”
“Oh, she wouldn’t really eat anyone…” he said hastily.
“If they’d touched one hair on your little kid head, they’d have been kibble.”
“Uhh… Probably.” He lost the grin and stepped in close to cup my face in his calloused hands.
“Which brings me to the other problem. If you and I try to make this work, you’ll be buying into our mess.
There’s at least one rebellion brewing right now -- and it’s not an outlier.
Sidhe aristocrats have hated my mother since she pushed for reforms requiring the nobility to take care of their sick and poor instead of working them to death.
You wouldn’t believe how many of those bastards took offense.
Goran Galatyn is just the latest to try to use that anger to dethrone my father.
Luckily, the nobles know Dad is beloved by the people of both kingdoms. They’d have a serious revolt on their hands if they tried to kill the royal family. ”
“That’s some Game of Thrones ‘taurshit there.”
“Basically. Still, the people’s reaction is why nobody has tried anything serious since Mom started rattling cages. The nobles could have ignored her efforts to guide us into the first stages of democracy if I hadn’t become a werewolf.”
“They need to take that up with Merlin.” The alien mage had designed the spell to be passed down in werewolf DNA, where it was dominant. If a child didn’t successfully transform into a werewolf -- usually somewhere around sixteen -- their magic burned them alive.
“My point is that if we marry, you’ll be in the crosshairs with the rest of us.”
“Who’s my grandmother, Dearg?”
He paused. “Maeve, of course.”
“What’s her other name?”
His lips twitched as it started dawning on him where I was going with that question. “The Mother of Fairies?”
“That’s right. Who are the two top gods of the Sidhe pantheon?”
“Maeve and the dragon god.”
“Exactly. You are Cachamwri’s Blade. If you bring home Maeve’s granddaughter, every fucking noble will suddenly find the situation a lot more acceptable.”
His brows shot up. “You think it would be that easy?”