Chapter 8 #2
Carys winced, but seconds later she saw tiny hooves kicking through the bloodstained mess.
“Good girl!” Tegan praised her. “I’m so proud of you.”
Despite Tegan’s words, the doe’s body kept heaving.
“Another?” Tegan’s voice went soft. “Of course you have another.” She bent to the deer’s head. “Would that I were you,” she whispered. “Mother of two souls.”
Her mother’s voice made her sad.
Carys wished she had a sister. Laura had four sisters. Sometimes she complained about them, but Carys could tell she really loved them, and if Carys was her best friend, then Laura’s sisters were her second-best friends.
When Carys asked if she could have a sister, Tegan smiled and said that she was as lucky to have Carys as if she’d had a hundred children.
That made Carys laugh. A hundred children didn’t sound very lucky to her. That sounded loud.
As the doe labored to birth the second fawn, Tegan sang something in Welsh. It was an old song, a lullaby her mother sometimes sang when strange dreams haunted Carys and she couldn’t sleep.
Pan elei dy dat ty e helya
Llath ar y ysgwyd llory eny law
Ef gelwi gwn gogyhwc
Giff gaff dhaly dhaly dhwg dhwg
Sometimes Carys dreamed of running across green hills and jumping in streams she didn’t recognize. The place in her dreams was soft and green and foggy, but it wasn’t home.
And sometimes when she was sleeping, she heard her mother singing. But when Carys heard the song in her dreams, she understood every word. She saw her father going out to hunt, a fur cape on his shoulders and a spear in his hand.
Tegan urged the doe on. “There you are, mother, there you are.”
The second fawn fell into the ferns, and a flock of birds took flight.
A branch broke behind her, and Carys turned with a gasp.
Carys woke with her hand clutched over her heart and a harsh breath sucked into her lungs.
There you are, mother. There you are.
“Carys?” Duncan sat bolt upright. “What’s wrong?”
“I had a strange dream.”
Mother of two souls.
“My mother…” She blinked the tears from her eyes.
“She knew. I’ve never let myself really think about it, but of course she knew.
She knew when I was born that Seren would be born in the Shadowlands.
She knew that she had another daughter she would never know.
” Something in Carys’s chest folded in on itself. “And if I ever have a baby…”
She’d always wanted children… but maybe she didn’t now.
“Shhh.” Duncan gathered her into his arms and rocked her as silent tears fell from her eyes. “Carys, we don’t have any control over that.”
“We give birth to life and death at the same time,” Carys murmured. “To light and dark. That’s why the fawn is covered in blood.”
He stroked her hair back from her forehead and kissed her temple. “I think you had a bad dream, lass.”
Not a bad dream. Not a bad dream. It was a memory.
“You can’t think about it that way,” Duncan whispered. “If there was no life here, there would be no life there.”
She blinked. “Lachlan is alive.” She pulled back so she could look at Duncan. “If you have a child, the fae would give the other twin to your brother. But Seren is dead.”
Duncan rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s too early for this.”
“I know.” She closed her eyes and rubbed a hand over her face. “I’m not even making sense to myself. We’re both exhausted and I’m still tired but I had this dream and I woke up thinking—”
“Not that kind of early.” Duncan’s voice was hoarse. “Carys, you know I love you. I loved you before I even met you. And now I’m just… I’m mad for you, woman.”
She melted into his chest and slid her arms around his waist. “I love you too.”
“So what makes you think I’d want children with anyone but you?”
Carys froze.
“See?” He laughed a little bit. “It’s too early to have this conversation.”
“Oh.” Her face heated. “Yeah. It is.”
“I understand why you had the thought. I’ve thought about that most of my adult life, but I always took comfort in the idea that if I had children, Lachlan and Seren would raise their other selves.”
“But Seren is gone.”
“And? Lachlan is still around. As much as my Shadowkin annoys me at times, I trust him like no one else.” Duncan took Carys by the shoulders and turned her to face him.
“Would you want that world to not exist? Would you want the Shadowlands to fade away? To have no more nêrys ddraig. No more alchemists or healers to learn from unicorns. No more human children who grow up… dancing with pixies in the meadow! Not even a little part of humanity to live with all that magic?”
“Of course not.” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to stay in the Shadowlands, but she would never want it to fade away.
He stroked her hair. “Know that whatever happens with us, any child you have—either here or in Baywood—their Shadowkin would be treasured.”
“You’re right.” She hugged him hard. “I know you’re right.” She sat back and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Carys, you’ve been hit with about ten different realities crashing in on you over the past month.” He held her tightly. “You’ve nothing to apologize for.”
“I just had all these realizations hit me at the same time. I’m remembering dreams and things from my childhood in an entirely new way, so I try to remember more and then I wonder—”
“Carys.”
“I know.” She gave him a shaky smile. “Spiraling again.”
She blinked and looked at him.
Then she really looked at him. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” Duncan was shirtless and rumpled. He had pillow marks on his forehead and hooded eyes that still hadn’t woken up entirely.
And there was a very prominent bulge in his boxer shorts.
He saw her looking and sat up against the headboard. “Ah, lass, it’s morning. He has a mind of his own.”
Carys pushed Duncan back against the pillows. “I feel like he might be trying to distract me.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m sure that’s what it is.”
She threw her leg over his thighs and straddled him. “He’s probably trying to keep me from spiraling about things I can’t control.”
“There’s no use in it, is there?” His voice was hoarse again. “Take your mind off it.”
Carys reached down and gripped him over his boxers.
Duncan let out a short groan. He shifted, easing the shorts down his legs until he was sitting with his manhood proudly displayed, and Carys wrapped both hands around it.
She stroked him slowly, deliberately teasing him with a firm grip.
Duncan reached for the oversized shirt she’d worn to bed. “That needs to come off.”
She kept her right hand on his cock but lifted her left so he could pull off her shirt. Then she switched sides until she was naked, still straddling Duncan, her hands still wrapped around his erection.
A groan rumbled in his chest when she scooted back and took his cock in her mouth, circling her tongue around the head and humming as she continued to stroke him firmly.
“That’s enough of that.” Duncan reached for a condom, then tugged her up until she was poised over him, her breasts in front of his mouth. “Now that sight will wake a man from the dead.”
Carys guided him into her body and shifted until his erection filled her. She let out a soft sigh, Duncan’s cock filling her, his hands at the small of her back. She let her head fall back when he put his mouth on her breasts, and the roughness of his beard scraped against the tender skin.
He teased her nipples with his tongue as Carys began to move, riding him slowly, her legs pushing her up and down as Duncan’s fingers dug into her hips.
He lifted his head and licked his lips, which were flushed and swollen. Duncan bit his lip, his eyes closed. He took one hand from where he gripped her hips, moving it to where they were joined, stroking her as her body stroked him.
Carys braced her hand on his shoulder when she felt herself start to come.
It started at her thighs, radiating up and to the center of their joining until her climax took over, her muscles contracting and releasing in rapid waves as Duncan braced his hand on the bed and drove up into her body as she shook.
She felt like the top of her head floated away, and she could barely see.
Duncan flipped them over, his body still driving into her, and moments later he nearly shouted when he came.
He braced himself on his forearms, capturing her mouth with his, kissing her over and over as her body relaxed and stilled. Her chest rose with rapid breaths and she closed her eyes, floating in the feeling of his fullness in her, the scent of his skin, the awareness of air brushing over her skin.
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“Shh.” He kissed her chin. “I don’t need words right now.”
“I love you so much.” She felt her heart ache with it. He had been the fire that burned so bright she could barely look at him.
“I suppose I’ll take those words if you’re offering them.” He brushed his lips over her temple and rolled to the side before he gathered her up in his arms and pulled her against him. “Love you, Carys.”
And now he was the rock that she could depend on. The mountain who kept her feet from slipping when everything around her felt like chaos.
“We’ll figure all this out.” He kissed her temple again. “I promise you. We’ll make it all right.”