Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Carys!”
She sat bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring from her body as her breath came in pants.
Duncan was already sitting next to her, his hand squeezing her own.
“Carys,” he repeated. “You’re having a nightmare.”
“Nightmare is the last commonly used remnant of the Old English word maere,” Carys mumbled. “It meant terror.”
“Take a breath, Professor Morgan.” Duncan brushed damp hair from her forehead. “What are you talking about?”
Carys’s brain was on overdrive. “And maere comes from the Indo-European root for something crushing. Something terrible. Maere, marōn, mara is also…” She took a shuddering breath. “Also where the first part of the Morrígan’s name comes from. At least they’re pretty sure it’s something… like that.”
Duncan gathered her into a giant hug. “What the fuck were you dreaming about?”
“Macha and Seren. London was burning. Then Baywood…” She turned her face into his chest. “There were planes buzzing in the sky. And sirens. Then the cabin and…”
He kissed the top of her head. “Christ, no more movies for you.”
In the firm embrace of Duncan’s arms, her heart began to slow, and her mind calmed. “It was a dream but not a dream if that makes sense.”
“None of this makes sense.” Duncan reached out to a pair of floating lights that emanated from the earthen walls of the room where they were sleeping. “Look at this place, Carys. I thought the Shadowlands was magical, but this?”
Jack of the Forest, the Green Man, the Green Knight, whoever he was, had stowed them in his strange pocket world in the middle of Sherwood Forest for the night.
Jack’s world was a place where tree roots had personalities, water babbled from an earthen pump, and leaves smiled when you walked past them.
It wasn’t just touched by magic, it was made of the stuff.
Carys didn’t feel unsafe in the least—in fact, she felt more than secure—but clearly the veil between Jack’s realm was thinner than normal if the Morrígan was sending her dreams and her Shadowkin—
“Seren was there,” Carys blurted out. “In my dream. Seren was there.”
Duncan pulled back to look at her face. “You were dreaming about her?”
“No, like… she was there. In my dream. Still alive. Or kind of alive.”
“I’m pale, but I’m not that pale.”
“You’re also not dead. That helps.”
Carys shook her head. “It’s hard to explain, but she was there, she realized she was dead, and she was talking to the Morrígan.” She frowned. “She said she liked her because she was a saucy bitch.”
“Oh aye, that sounds like Seren,” Duncan muttered. “Carys, can you do me a favor?”
“Probably.”
“Don’t tell Lachlan any of this.” He smoothed a hand down her hair. “Not right now. His head is already completely fucked.”
She closed her eyes and fell back on the pillow. “Do you think he was trying to die?”
“When he challenged the… Jack? Earlier?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.” Duncan scooted down next to her and put his arm around her waist. “Maybe. Maybe he was.”
“He loves Seren so much.” It was so obvious to her now. The love he had for Carys wasn’t like what he’d felt for Seren.
Seren was Lachlan’s person. Just like Duncan was hers.
Duncan kissed her forehead. “I understand his grief better now, because if anything ever happened to you…” His breath caught.
“Just be careful, will you? Because if you get taken to Annwn, there’s not a fae or a giant or a druid in the world who’s going to stop me breaking through magical worlds to get you back.
I’d make a deal with the devil himself. I’m not as polite as Lachlan, lass.
I’d just end up burning everything down. ”
Carys had a vision of Duncan in the armor that the Green Man had given him, taking an axe to the forest behind his house and telling Cadell to light everything on fire.
“Don’t burn everything down.” The floating blue lights danced over her head, and she reached up to touch one with her fingertip.
The light shivered and darted away as if she’d tickled it.
She turned toward Duncan’s chest and slipped her arm around him. “Don’t burn anything down. I’m supposed to save the world, not burn it.”
“Fine then,” he whispered. “But no trips to Annwn for you.”
“I don’t plan on it.” She lifted her face and kissed him, and the firm press of his lips on hers turned from reassuring to heated in seconds.
She still felt cold from her dream, so when Duncan slipped his hand under the oversized shirt she was wearing, she settled into the spreading heat, easing her leg over his hips as they lay on their sides and pulling him into the cradle of her body.
“Are you still shivering?” He trailed kisses along her cheek and whispered in her ear, “Let me take care of that.”
She smiled. “I hear blacksmiths are good at heating things up.”
“Och, that’s almost enough to make me spank you.” He playfully tapped his hand on her bottom.
Carys muffled her laughter in his chest.
Duncan’s hand was running up and down her side as he kissed her and pulled her closer.
“Shhhh,” he whispered. “When I say the walls have ears, they could literally have ears here. I’ve no idea.”
“Neither do I.”
Duncan’s mouth covered hers as he teased his fingers between her legs, then slid them inside, stroking the channel of her sex as her body grew soft and languid in his arms.
He stroked her over and over until she was arching with pleasure, and then he released his erection and slid inside, making love to her with slow, devastating strokes.
He rolled Carys to her back, his mouth muffling her moans of pleasure as he braced his body over hers and rocked her back and forth in a bed made of twisted branches and living vines.
The chamber filled with soft lights, and when Carys came again, the air was redolent with the scent of jasmine.
Duncan planted his hand next to her shoulder and thrust into her with a sheen of perspiration glowing on his face while blue and white lights danced overhead. He came with a muffled exhalation, his jaw clenched in pleasure.
He fell forward, rolling to the side and gathering Carys into his chest as his lungs worked like a bellows.
She blinked at the shower of soft golden light that surrounded them and saw lilies, daisies, and daffodils blooming on the walls, the flowers nodding their heads as their soft scent filled the room.
A soft humming kind of music in the air lulled her to sleep as Duncan held her in his arms.
Carys stepped out of Jack’s cottage the next morning and into Sherwood Forest.
Not the magical forest where they’d been but the absolutely average and ordinary forest where she turned and saw what looked like a storage shack standing between two large pines. There was a sign on it, and in the distance she saw a trail marker and an early-morning hiker walking with a dog.
“Well, that’ll do my head in if I think about it too much.” Duncan walked ahead and scanned the area.
Cadell stepped out after them, then Laura and Lachlan and Naida and the rest. Each of them looked around as they stepped out of the shack and into the Brightlands.
Jack was last to leave. He ducked his green head under the doorway, and when he raised it on the other side, he was a jolly-looking young man with a ruddy red beard and bright green eyes, dressed in a flannel shirt and a pair of canvas utility pants.
He nodded at the trail in the distance as he slung a backpack over his shoulder. “Shall we? Your van should be on the road where you left it.”
Laura cocked her head. “You need to teach me that trick, Jack.”
He winked at her. “Can’t give all my secrets away, shadow-walker.”
Cadell was glaring at Jack, so Carys grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the tree line.
“Please don’t murder the nice forest god,” she muttered. “He’s just flirting with her.”
“He is an ancient fertility god,” Cadell muttered. “He would like to do more than flirt.”
Time to change the subject. “Seren was in my dream last night.”
Cadell didn’t question it. “What did she say?”
“Let’s see, she called the Morrígan a saucy bitch, then started to fight me about Lachlan.”
Cadell nodded. “Yes, that sounds like Seren.”
“Duncan said the same thing. Well, about the saucy bitch comment. I didn’t tell him we were fighting about Lachlan.” She waved her hand. “We weren’t fighting! I don’t want Lachlan, obviously. But she was… kind of pissed.”
“She could be quite jealous about him. He was a favorite of the women in the court.”
Knowing Lachlan’s charm and personality, Carys wasn’t surprised. “She accused me of stealing you too.”
Cadell cut his eyes toward her. “That’s ridiculous. The bond of a dragon and their nêr is not as fickle as a mere romantic relationship.”
Carys and Cadell stepped over a rotten log, which put them on a stretch of manicured path.
“I think she was just pissed that the Morrígan had dragged her into my dream, and then it became obvious that Macha had ulterior motives when she started chanting ‘Fight, fight, fight’ like we were in a middle school hallway.”
The dragon nodded. “So she was trying to divide you, which means that you and Seren cooperating across realms must be important in some way.”
She looked up. “Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. You’re right.”
“Well, I’m much older and wiser than you.” He patted her head. “But you have your strengths too.”
Carys rolled her eyes. “Thank you so much.”
Cadell came to a halt in the middle of the path. “You had sexual relations with the blacksmith last night.”
She felt her cheeks heat and immediately tugged on his arm to keep moving. “Uh, I know you can sense my moods and stuff, but if you could avoid broadcasting my sex life to a couple of strangers and the entirety of Sherwood Forest—”
“You had sex in a magical cottage that belongs to a fertility god,” Cadell said bluntly, though he kept his voice low.
“Okay, not that it’s any of your business,” Carys said through gritted teeth, “but I am on birth control, so it’s fine.”
“Of course.” Cadell nodded. “I’m sure your human chemicals are much more powerful than epochs of magic.”