Chapter 21 #2
Scáthach took his hand and tugged gently.
“Sit here beside me. I’m not quite ready to sleep and we need not keep watch here.
The realm has shrouded us.” She gestured to the circle of fog around them.
“It won’t allow any of our light or warmth to been seen; the Autumnal Realm will keep all spirits away from us.
” She scooted over a little and rearranged the travel pack she leaned against, folding her cloak so that the two of them could share it like a pillow.
She smiled as he leaned on it, sighing at the softness of the fur.
“It’s warm enough we won’t need to use this as a blanket. ”
“I agree.” They lay beside each other, their faces little more than a handbreadth apart.
Scáthach caught his gaze. “Tell me why you don’t sleep.”
He didn’t answer immediately and when he did, he spoke slowly, carefully crafting his words with truth. “My mind. It won’t quiet. Instead of allowing sleep, it . . .” His voice faded. He turned his head and his gaze skittered away from hers.
She touched his chin gently, returning his gaze to hers. “You can talk to me. You can tell me anything, especially the truth. Instead of allowing sleep, your mind thinks of what?”
He swallowed, drew in a long breath, and on the exhale said, “My death.”
Scáthach went very still. Her hand moved from his face to his chest, where she pressed her palm against his tunic, feeling the steady, strong beat of his heart beneath. “Tell me, Sentanta.”
“My mind imagines my death over and over and over,” he said in a rush.
“All the different, gruesome ways. I’m not easy to kill, so it will be horrible.
A burning. A dismembering. A disemboweling.
A beheading.” Cuchulainn closed his eyes and shuddered.
When he continued speaking, his words fired quickly in short bursts.
“I’m fated to die young, so it must be soon.
But what is soon?” Eyes still tightly closed, he shook his head.
“Do I die in days? Months? Years? I can’t have many more years.
Every time I try to sleep, my mind imagines.
And guesses. And shows me possible deaths. Over and over and over and—”
“Sssh,” she murmured as her hand went from his chest to his head.
Gently, she smoothed back his hair. Then she sat and began to trace circles over his temples.
As his eyelids fluttered to open, Scáthach pressed her hand across them like a blindfold.
“Don’t open your eyes. Don’t think of anything except my touch.
” Scáthach’s fingers sank into his hair and she massaged his scalp.
“Think only of my fingers against your skin.”
He drew in a deep, shaky breath, and when he released it, his body finally relaxed, sinking into the soft fur.
“There is only now,” she whispered to him.
“Only this moment. There is no need to think of the past or of the future. Neither exists here. There is only you and me here in this place of death and truth.” Then she took her own advice.
She didn’t consider the past. She didn’t think of the future. She bent and kissed him.
His breath caught. His body stilled.
Scáthach lifted her lips only a breath from his. “I should have asked first. May I kiss you?”
His eyes didn’t open, but his lips tilted up. “Yes.”
Her hands moved from his head to his neck and his broad, muscular shoulders, and back.
With sensual, languid strokes, she caressed him as she explored his mouth.
He tasted of sweet heather mead and desire.
She teased his tongue with hers and nibbled his lip.
Cuchulainn moaned low in his throat as she kissed the strong line of his jaw before she returned to press her lips to his.
The flame of passion began to burn deep within Scáthach.
He was so strong and beautiful and he was giving himself completely to her.
She broke their kiss, moving away briefly, intending to peel off her tunic and then his.
She wanted to feel his skin against hers—wanted him closer. Wanted him inside her.
His eyes had not opened, but at her absence, his lips parted—perhaps to beg her to return, to kiss him again. Instead what escaped his mouth was a long, loud snore.
Scáthach stared down at Cuchulainn. She had never seen him so completely relaxed. It seemed his bones had turned liquid as he melted into the furs. He snored again, softly this time, and she had to clap her hand over her mouth to hold in her laughter.
Cuchulainn was asleep.
Still holding in laughter, Scáthach lay down facing him.
She studied his face as he slept. He looked so peaceful—so serene.
Seeing him thus made her realize how tightly he held himself.
She’d thought he was relaxed and easy around her, but this Cuchulainn, the sleeping man, looked almost like a different person.
He was no longer godlike, sculpted from rigid stone, powerful and divine—the Hero of Ulster.
No. This man was mortal and sublimely touchable. There was a kindness to his sleeping face that was undeniable, and as Scáthach’s eyelids began to flutter, she made her decision. She knew what she would do with Sentanta. As sleep took her, the Queen of Shadow’s full lips tilted up in a smile.
* * *
“What happened!” Cuchulainn bolted awake, peering around and gathering himself as if for a fight—until his gaze found Scáthach. She squatted near the crackling fire, placing more strips of salted, smoked pork across the hot rocks.
She grinned at him. “What happened is you slept. All night and a good part of the morning. I was loath to wake you, but it was getting late and I was hungry, so . . .” She turned a piece of sizzling meat and shrugged.
He ran a hand through his hair and stared at her. “I fell asleep.”
“You did.”
His cheeks flushed. “While you were kissing me.”
She lifted her brow and her grin turned wry. “Actually, you fell asleep when I stopped kissing you.”
“You stopped kissing me?”
“My intent was to undress us and then continue with the kissing, but that’s when you . . .” She shrugged, made a loud snoring sound, and then laughed.
He wiped his hands down his blazing face. “That’s when I fell asleep.”
“Indeed!” Scáthach nodded at the meat and the bread and cheese warming on another rock. “Are you hungry?”
Cuchulainn sighed as he stood. “What I am is mortified. But I’ll wash before I eat.” As he walked past her toward the stream, he muttered, “Or maybe I’ll just drown myself.” Scáthach’s laughter drifted with him through their curtain of fog.
When he returned, his face and hair were wet. He sat cross-legged beside her. Scáthach handed him a thick slice of bread she’d piled with steaming meat and melty cheese.
“Thank you,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Scáthach spoke around a bite of cheese. “I’m glad you slept.”
“If the alternative was kissing you, I prefer the kissing to the sleeping,” he told her.
She swallowed, took a quick drink from the waterskin, and then leaned into him, kissing him softly. “There’s no reason you can’t do both.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously as she finished with, “Just not simultaneously.”
He almost choked on a bite of food. When he was finally able to speak, he said, “I shall keep that in mind.”
They finished breaking their fast, and the moment Scáthach extinguished the campfire, the fog blanketing them from the rest of the Autumnal Realm dissipated. Chance looked up from grazing and nickered before trotting to the chariot and placing himself in position before it.
“He’s smart,” said Cuchulainn as they put on his harness and reloaded the cart.
Scáthach stroked the stallion’s neck. “He is.” She rubbed his wide forehead. “I’m impressed by how much he’s matured.” Chance lipped her cheek, and she laughed as she climbed into the cart beside Cuchulainn.
They trotted back to the road and continued along it. The wan day was exactly as the day before. The sky was low. The breeze was chilly. There was little sound or movement around them.
“I keep expecting to see more of the dead,” said Cuchulainn.
“The first time I visited, I said the same thing to Mother. She reminded me that Annwn is an entire world in itself and is much larger than it seems. But the Autumnal Realm does appear more sparsely populated than it is because this particular part of Annwn exists only to help the dead be self-aware enough to transition to the Summerlands,” explained Scáthach.
“That does make sense. The dead here need the solitude.”
She nodded. “Yes. It’s different in the Summerlands.” Her voice quieted. “And in the Winterlands.”
He glanced from the road to her. “They aren’t solitary there?”
“Some are, but it’s no different in the Winterlands than in the mortal realm. People who choose hatred and darkness tend to attract those who are like-minded. I will admit that I have only been to the Winterlands once.” She shivered. “Mother did not want me to visit with her there again.”
“Does she visit the Winterlands often?” he asked.
“No. She sees little need. As she put it, the dead there have no desire to know themselves. What they long for isn’t the Summerlands and being reunited with their loved ones and ancestors.
They want power. Violence. The return of whatever they thought they controlled in life.
” Scáthach’s voice was devoid of emotion.
She repeated her mother’s words as if by rote.
“They only want to be accepted into the Summerlands so that they will be reborn—just as dark, just as flawed and evil as they were in their previous lives—so they can begin the whole terrible cycle again. My mother will not allow that.”
“You’d think refusing to let those types of spirits reincarnate would eventually remove evil and violence from our world,” said Cuchulainn.
“If people didn’t have free will to make their own life choices, that would be true, but as long as mortals have choice, some will always choose poorly.”