Chapter 50
ALEX
Nick made tea. Of course he did. What else was there to do in a crisis?
Or at least, in the aftermath of one. When Alex woke again, he’d pulled on some clothes and, but for his dishevelled hair tied back in a loose knot, and the leaves still tangled in it, she wouldn’t for a moment have guessed that anything supernatural had happened at all.
That he hadn’t been swallowed back up into the forest, that he hadn’t been the oak at the heart of the wild wood.
That he was just a man and she was just a woman and there had been a terrible storm.
Because all of those things were in fact true.
As well as all the rest of it.
The dream, or nightmare, whatever you called it, it was all real.
After they had drunk all the tea in the pot, Alex realised she was still covered in dirt and blood and God alone knew what else so they made their way upstairs by torchlight.
Her room was still and quiet and the oppressive atmosphere was gone.
The painting was just a painting now, and Blaise Chambers was a man long dead and buried.
‘I can get rid of it if you want,’ Nick said when he caught her glance. ‘I can take it outside and burn it right now.’
Alex smiled at him. It was still raining, the dawn barely breaking through the clouds. ‘Good luck starting a fire in that,’ she told him.
All the same, he took the painting off the wall and hurled it down the corridor towards the stairs. They listened to it bang and crash down the stairs until it fell to the hall floor.
It was almost dawn, and the wind had died down. The rain was just rain now and Nick was here with her. He paused at the doorway to the bedroom, hesitant, so Alex threaded her fingers through his and tugged him inside.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely sure,’ she told him, without hesitation. ‘Take off those clothes. We need to wash and warm up.’ And then she realised what she had just said, the other implications that might come from those words, and her commanding manner. ‘Nothing else. Not unless you want to.’
His hand closed on hers, warm and gentle, but firm. He managed a smile. ‘Of course I want to, Alex.’
After what had happened earlier, she decided that was far more than she had hoped for. Too many lines had blurred and Chambers’ malign influence had been so strong she was barely sure what had been real and what had not.
Alex swallowed hard and Nick lifted her hand to his lips, kissing her tense knuckles carefully.
‘Let’s revisit this later,’ he murmured. ‘Go and shower. I’ll see you in a—’
He was leaving her? No. She couldn’t let him do that. She pulled his hand to her chest and held it there. The sudden terror that swept over her at that thought made the world spin sideways.
‘Don’t. Please, don’t go.’
She was safe with him. She would always be safe with him. And right now, she needed to be safe.
Nick nodded, still watching her cautiously, and led her into the ensuite where he turned on the shower.
There was still hot water, by some kind of minor miracle, and soon the little tiled room was filled with steam.
The two of them shed their clothing and stepped into the shower together, taking it in turns to scrub each other clean.
It wasn’t sexual, not really. This was cautious and gentle, a study in care for each other.
He cleaned each cut and scrape on her, and she did the same for him.
And finally, she stood with him, arms around his body, his around her, and the water cascaded over them both.
They took their time drying each other, and finally, fell into the bed together, swaddling themselves in the blankets, bodies wound together.
It was warm and animal, and perfect. All Alex could have wanted right now.
It wasn’t like before. Not this contented embrace, his arms so strong and gentle around her, their legs tangled together.
In the morning – well, later in the morning – they would have to talk and make plans.
They would have to assess the damage to the house and the estate.
But more than that, they would have to try to untangle their experiences and see if there was some kind of way forward, knowing what they knew.
And they would need to address reality itself and whether that had changed.
But right now, Alex didn’t care. Couldn’t care.
Bone-deep weariness swept through her and she pressed her face into Nick’s chest, felt his heartbeat beneath his skin, listened to the rise and fall of his chest and let his warmth wrap itself around her.
He still smelled of the woods, of cedar, and cloves, and something else she couldn’t place. The wild, perhaps. Or just Nick.
‘Alex?’ he whispered.
‘Yes.’
‘I was lost. I was part of the wild. I wasn’t human anymore.’
It sounded so normal. Perhaps it was to him. At the same time it sounded like a dream that dispersed on waking like morning mist.
‘But you came back.’
‘You brought me back. Your love. Our love.’
‘You came when I called, when I needed you most. You came back to me.’
His lips pressed a kiss to the top of her head, the hair still damp. ‘I’ll always come when you call, Alex, a chuisle mo chroí.’
She smiled at the lyrical sound of the Irish. She loved the way he spoke it, like music remembered from long ago. ‘You said that before. What does it mean?’
He took her hand gently and pressed it to his bare chest. She could feel his heart beneath his ribs, the rhythm steady, strong, and so very alive. ‘It means that you are the beat of my heart, Alex. And always will be.’
Sleep took her effortlessly, safe in his arms.
‘Oh no, Granny!’ Maeve’s voice rang out through the house, appalled. ‘Look at the mess!’
The sound brought both Nick and Alex to wakefulness as if they’d just been hit with an electric shock. They were together in bed, naked, and any second now—
‘We’ve got to get dressed,’ Alex hissed and Nick stared at her helplessly.
His clothes from last night were still a wet and muddy mess on the floor.
So were hers. But at least her other clothes were all here to hand.
Anything clean he owned was in his own room, down the corridor. ‘Run,’ she said. ‘I’ll hold them off.’
He wound a sheet around himself and made for the door, a very hesitant Greek god indeed. Alex threw on fresh clothes, and made her way to the stairs as quickly as she could to intercept their visitors.
Patricia looked up from the hallway, her hand very firmly holding Maeve back.
‘Well, you certainly had a night of it,’ the older woman said and then winced as her own words registered. She carried on in a rush, determined not to dwell on what had very definitely happened but couldn’t be admitted right now. ‘The storm, I mean. Are you all right? No one was hurt?’
The storm. Of course, the storm. And the damage to the house.
Nothing else. She couldn’t possibly know about anything else.
Except she had probably heard the doors and the running footsteps because Dr Patricia Neary was no fool.
‘We’re fine,’ Nick called, emerging from his own room wearing a t-shirt and jeans as if nothing had happened at all and he had been there all night, sleeping soundly.
He hadn’t managed shoes, Alex noticed. Patricia did not look fooled for an instant.
‘The storm took out the power, and we’ve taken some damage but we’re both okay. Best stay out of the study though.’
Patricia fixed her knowing gaze on him now and nodded. ‘I saw. It must have hit much harder here than in the village. We should call Jimmy óg and his brothers, get them to have a look.’
The talk turned to the builders and insurance, and how they were going to make safe the building, while Nick lifted Maeve in his arms and held her close.
Maeve chattered on about what had happened in the village, about losing power and the tree branch coming down and blocking the road, and how they couldn’t get an answer from his phone. But Granny had said it would all be all right, because her daddy wouldn’t let anything bad happen, and now it was.
Nick listened to her, holding her close, while Alex and Patricia made tea, and found a cache of his biscuits in one of the tins.
‘I’ve never seen this place so quiet,’ Patricia said at last. ‘Nor him so at peace. It’s all worked out then?’
Alex hesitated. ‘I think so,’ she said finally. There was no point in denying any of it. Not to Patricia. ‘It was… it was almost too much. And I thought I’d lost him. There were things the woods showed us, both of us, which will take some figuring out. But…’
She glanced at the man and his daughter. There was no mistaking that bond.
‘I know my daughter made… questionable decisions,’ Patricia said after a long and thoughtful pause. ‘Always did. She was headstrong and always thought she knew best, even as a child.’
Questionable decisions. That was a phrase for it, Alex supposed. But that meant Patricia knew. Alex didn’t know how much, but Patricia knew enough of it.
‘I think she did what she thought was right,’ she replied cautiously.
Patricia was still watching Nick. ‘She made mistakes, no doubt about that. And it cost her dearly. But she always did what was right for Maeve. We don’t like to talk about magic much around here, but it’s very much part of our lives.
Sally reached out to the wild wood for a guardian for her daughter, and it sent Nick.
Where he came from, what he was… I don’t know.
But he is one of the best men I have ever met.
And if he was a changeling, he isn’t now.
He’s human, flesh and blood. And he is our Maeve’s father, in every way which matters.
Always has been. Always will be. He raised her, he loves her.
And as far as I’m concerned, as far as Maeve is concerned…
The paperwork says the same thing, just so you know. And now the house is safe, he’s free.’
Alex just nodded. Patricia knew. She probably knew everything. She didn’t miss a trick.