Chapter 12
Ifelt the first hints of the sun and used a simple spell to close the drapes.
“You’re insatiable,” Tynan said, leaning toward the nightstand next to the bed.
“I’ve not spent a night like that in all my years.
” His tone was soft and playful. I thought of all his years and considered it quite the compliment.
Then again, I’d not had a night like that before either.
I snuggled into the velvet of the comforter.
He fumbled with a bag on the table. “I have a gift for you.” He sat beside me and held up a gold-and-silver chain. The twist of the contrasting metals was so delicately exquisite. There was a charm dangling from it. I took it in my hand.
“A bat?” The tiny bat was as intricate as the chain, his body fashioned from an emerald that glowed at my touch.
He smiled. “I thought you would find that amusing. It’s an amulet I asked Bevin to make for us.”
“Us?” I gave him a questioning look, having learned not to take anything at face value in this world.
“Put it on.” He clasped the chain around my neck as I leaned forward.
“I know you can hear me in your mind, but I cannot hear you. With this”—he ran his long fingers along the chain—“you can call to me anytime, and I can find you.” He kissed me softly.
“When I am away, and you wish me near, you can call me, and I will come. No matter the distance, no matter the time. I will come.”
“You won’t ever be that far away from me, Tynan, will you?”
“You will need your…space, Keena. Time with others. I will go about my life for days, maybe weeks or months at a time. When you want me or if you need me—”
I scrambled up to him, crawled into his lap and wrapped myself around him. “I don’t want…space or others…” Some great leader I am, babbling like a teenaged girl.
“You will, and I understand and accept. It’s the way we are and the way we have always been.
You’re just not accustomed to it, but you will come to understand it and embrace it in time, just as you have the rest. You’re going to do great things, Ma Guerrière, for our people and for mankind.
You can’t hide from who you are because of your feelings for me.
No more than I can let my feelings for you intrude on your duties. It is all part of your birthright.”
“I shouldn’t have let you be bound to me. It was too much to ask, too much.” We hadn’t talked about it since it happened. I hadn’t had an opportunity and really hadn’t wanted to break the magic between us by bringing it up.
“I wouldn’t go back and change that for my life, my love.
You could send me away today, and I would live my life content with these two nights with you.
If you grieve for me, because you grieve for nothing.
My soul is filled with you and your magic.
I will carry you with me forever, no matter what. ”
I snuggled next to him when he lay back in the bed, closed his eyes, and watched as sleep overtook him. I said his name in my mind, concentrating.
Yes, my love?
He had heard me even in his sleep. Will you hear all my thoughts when I wear this amulet?
Only what you wish me to hear. Bevin’s insistence.
Then I want you to know I love you.
I knew that. He sounded like a cocky boy. I grinned as I got up and went to dress.
I was wearing the black nightgown Hogan had left me the night before as I headed straight for the kitchen. Abbey was waiting for me with a huge grin on her face. She pushed a mug of coffee at me as I slid onto the stool.
“You narked on me yesterday,” I said, pretending to scold.
“You kept me up half the night with your thunder,” she spat back and we both laughed.
“Sorry.”
“Can the man walk this morning?” She took a sip from her tiny cup.
“I didn’t see him try.” The coffee was perfect. I inhaled the scrumptious scent. “Abbey?” She caught the change in my tone. “How do you handle…I mean the…”
“Spit it out, girl.” She crossed her legs as she sank back into a half-empty bag of sugar like it was a beanbag chair. Her lovely sea-green hair spilled over her shoulders.
“Do you have many different…lovers?” I watched her face change again.
“I thought you were going to ask me something hard. Yes, as many as I can.” She smiled proudly and crossed her legs. “I just don’t announce it with thunder.”
“Doran says that will only be with Tynan.” It was really a relief when she told me that. I couldn’t stand the thought that everyone in WildLand would know every time I came. And what would happen on a stormy night? Would they think I was having an orgy?
“Keena, you were raised with the human ideal of monogamy. I swear it’s the only culture that teaches women to completely suppress the sexual side of their nature as they grow into womanhood.
Look around the forest. All the other male animals compete for the prize of a female.
Sex is the most natural of things. Humans and even some of the Kith have somehow distorted that natural urge and made it dirty, almost evil.
You are the Priestess of the Wild. Your true being is as beautiful and as wild as all nature.
You’ll see. It will come as naturally to you as the magic did yesterday. ”
“Thanks, Abbey.”
She bowed her head and refilled the coffee with a flick of her wrist. I noticed she could also cast without speaking.
“Now, what else do you want to know?” she asked.
I thought about it for a moment. “I’ve heard a bunch about my mother, but no one seems to want to talk about my father.”
She bobbed her head. “Well, he is half Demon, born of an Incubus and a human somewhere in England. Your mother found him there. I think she wanted you to have some of his human blood.”
“He IS?”
“Craples,” she said, standing. “I thought you knew!”
“Is?” I asked again, almost whispering.
“I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this. I have a big mouth.” She started pacing the chopping-block table. “Doran may have my hide for this one.” She kept pacing and muttering.
“Abbey, I won’t tell her how I found out. Please, tell me about my father.” I started to grab her to make her face me, but I was afraid I’d accidentally hurt her. “Abbey, if she finds out, I’ll tell her I forced it from you, as your priestess.”
“Of course, you’re the heir, the priestess. I have to tell you what you ask.” She stood with her hands on her hips. The shimmering bubble appeared again.
“You’ll have to give me that spell,” I said as she cast.
“Anytime. So you know how your mother died.” I nodded my head. “Well, the Slaugh have your father. Somewhere on their island.”
“They still have him?” Cold fear and anger fell across my body like a chill.
“Yes. Thule isn’t far. It’s a very dark and disturbing place.
The Slaugh are the hosts of the unforgiven and take the souls of the evil in humankind, but they also like to accumulate other things.
Collectors, if you please…sometimes of the most hideous things.
They fly out at night to go about their collecting and slumber by day. ”
It gave me a chill remembering that Bran created Vampires—and that the Vamps and the Slaugh shared that particular nocturnal trait. “Have you been there?”
“Cauldrons, no! I’ve heard of only a few who have ever escaped the island. And they’re none the healthier for it when they return.”
“Why do they have my father?”
“It’s thought that they held both yours and Dema’s fathers to use as bait.
To use as leverage after one of you becomes High Priestess.
But they also keep things just because they want them.
It could be as simple as that. They like keeping secrets and souls, all things morbid.
” She shuddered. “Dema’s father died by their hands long ago. ”
“So King Bran has my father.” I felt real hate brewing in me for the first time in my life. It smoldered in my stomach, burned through the mark.
She snorted. “The king is more of a figurehead, Keena. The real danger is from Nessum. He’s actually a fallen angel, cast out from heaven.
Nessum is the one who created the Vampires, trying to get stronger souls for Bran.
The Dark Angel is also probably the one who left the island and captured your mother. ”
“Dark Angel… Do you believe in God, Abbey?” I was careful not to offend her.
She fell back onto the sugar bag. “Of course I do. Who doesn’t?” She was very matter of fact. “We are all creatures of the God and Goddess, Keena. Otherwise, we would have no power.”
I was puzzled. “But I thought that the Christians were the reason for the fallout between the Kith and the humans?”
“Yes, but only because a king spread lies about us to one religious group, who steadfastly worshipped only one god. The poor, uneducated folks of that age went off half-cocked. That doesn’t mean we’re not still God’s children.
That’s why you have to reunite the Kith with the humans and bring peace to us all. ”
“Uh, no pressure or anything…”
“I mean that humans and the Kith are all God’s creatures. If Bran and Nessum keep meddling in human affairs and causing troub—” She stopped short, stomped her little foot and cursed herself under her breath.
“Spit it out, little woman.” I smiled at her.
“In for a penny…” she sighed. “The Slaugh have been trying to start wars for centuries. They stir up political turmoil, cause famine and plagues, whatever they can manage to cause chaos…mostly in third-world countries because they lack much of the modernization of the west. But if one of the plagues spreads…I don’t want to think of the damage they could do. ”
“Shit.” I picked up a spoon and began tapping the side of my mug.
“Just when I think I can handle all this…” I tapped until Abbey raised an irritated eyebrow.
“It’s just one great big pig after another around here, isn’t it?
So, I have to best my sister to claim the birthright, then reunite the humans with the Kith and stop the Slaugh from killing off most of the human population? ”
“Yes, yes and yes,” she answered.
“That’s all? No biggie. Have it done by lunch tomorrow.”
“You want some whiskey in that coffee?”
I put my face in my hands and felt the amulet dangling around my neck. Tynan.
Yes, my love.
He startled me. Oh—I’m sorry, I was just thinking of you.
How sweet. He laughed just a little and the sound tickled my spine.
I’ll be more careful. I didn’t mean to disturb you.
Were you thinking of our lovemaking? His tone was light and playful.
I was blushing and Abbey saw it. She gave me a questioning look. Yes, I was…you?
I’ll never dream of anything else again.
Good night, Tynan, I thought with a laugh.
Abbey was still looking at me like I was crazy. I showed her the amulet. She took the charm in her fingers, admiring the work. “A communications charm,” she murmured. “That Bevin is so good.”
“Back to the point, Abbey. How do I get my father off that island?”
Manus’s loud, booming voice sent us both screaming to our feet. “You’ll do no such thing!”
Abbey lunged, steak knife in hand, before realizing it was him. He had been curled up just under the table at my feet.
Abbey shrieked at him, “Listen, you scraggly old pussy, if you don’t quit lurking around my kitchen, I’ll sic a Werewolf on you!”
“I’m not lurking, it’s warm in here, and I haven’t been able to sleep in my bed since…since it started thundering so often.”
At least he had tried to be polite about it.
“Nonetheless, quit lurking.” She was trying to straighten her frazzled hair. Manus changed to his man form, bursting the bubble as he did so. I should be used to seeing him change but it still gave me the jeevies. I had asked him once if it hurt. He said it stung.
Stung? To change from an eleven-pound cat into a rather large man?
I found it hard to believe. He said that his change wasn’t as dramatic as a Were’s because he was a natural Shapeshifter.
That was all I got at the time since we were sparring and he wanted my attention on the fight. I’d never thought to ask him again.
He must have wandered in here in cat form because there were no clothes in sight and he faced us naked now. I found it hard to take him seriously. “Keena, Priestess of the Wild, you will not, under any circumstances, go to that island, and you will not attempt to save your father.”
“Awful pushy for a naked cat,” I quipped.
“I am not making jokes, Keena. The island of Thule is off limits to you. You can’t even begin to imagine the dark magic and nefarious things that reside there.
It is most certain that Coyle is dead. I ask your word!
” He looked frightened. He had a strong grip on my shoulders, and it was tightening more as he spoke.
“Okay, don’t get so worked up.” I was trying to pull away, but he just held me tighter.
“I mean this, Keena.”
I finally just stood and yanked myself back and he let go. “I said okay.”
He huffed. “I know you, Keena. You forget I spent eighteen years at your side. I know what you like to eat, I know your favorite songs, your first love and when you lost your virginity as a human—”
“Eww,” Abbey said. “How could you let him be around you that much?”
“I thought he was a cat for Christ’s sake.” I shot him my best shut-your-mouth look.
“What I’m saying is that I know you too well. You get an idea in your head and won’t let it go. I know you’ll dwell on it and plot on it, and you will do something stupid.”
I huffed. But he was right, and I hated that he knew me so well. As my loving pet, I had treated him as my confidant, held him to me when I cried. He had been there with me for everything as I grew up.
“You have too many important things to do to risk yourself with this.”
“But he’s my faattherrrr!” I whined and I hated that too.
Abbey finally chimed in. “Keena, he’s right. There are only very old rumors about Coyle, and even if he has managed to stay alive in that place, he’ll be…well, not a very sane man if he were to return.”
“I give you my word,” Manus said, taking me more gently by the shoulders this time.
“Once you have succeeded Doran, I will help you negotiate for the return of your father, if he is still alive. Bran will want to be in your favor.” He tried to smile.
“If Coyle has made it this long, a little longer won’t make a great deal of difference. ”
“I don’t fight Feldema until the Autumn Equinox. That’s months.”
“He has been with the Slaugh for twenty-eight years. Six more months…that’s all I ask, Keena. You must promise me.”
“You need that time to get better with your spells for Feldema,” Abbey said quietly. “She’s had many years to practice and study. You’re gifted, but your spells will be unpredictable. You need all the time you have. She’s very dangerous to you still.”
I sat back on the stool. There was too much to think about, too much to worry about at once. Tynan being bound to me, Dema, my father, the prophecy… “Maybe I do want that whiskey.”