Darach (12 page)

"He can't swim you know."

"Who? Darach?"

"Eoin and I would swim, and Darach would just sit and watch. Re, I don't understand my head. Why am I dreaming about Darach and water? It's like my mind is deliberately placing him in peril in my thoughts, and the adrenalin snaps through me, and…" He plopped down at the small table by the window.

"What are you doing now?" Regan swung his legs so his feet were flat on the floor, and he ran both hands through his short hair, yawning widely.

"Thought I'd go back over what we have." Kian was rifling through the pile of papers and books piled haphazardly on the table, and Regan crossed to place his hands on Kian's shoulders, starting a rhythmic massage on the tension he found there. Kian wasn't relaxing, though, and Regan knew just from that, it was going to be a long night.

"What are you looking for?"

The book they had lifted from the Smithsonian fell open to the last page Kian had been reading. It was in Ancient, holding words that, as yet, modern scholars had not been able to fully translate. Up until last month, the book had been part of a closed estate collection. It really was probably the only tome that had somehow made it from the Otherworld to here.

"There's a whole lot of nothing in this book, but in my dreams, some of the things I see I can link to paragraphs here."

Regan sighed inwardly. He would never let on what he really wanted was sleep, because it seemed at this moment Kian wanted to talk.

"Go on."

Kian smiled at him gratefully, a wealth of understanding in his eyes. "Elements and Fire feature a lot." He traced some words with his index finger, "Loads of mentions of the Cariad, then a whole load of writing about elements, and that's the bit I remember from my time with the Cariad. I mean, I was only there a couple of days, just enough to learn how to cross to this world, but they did talk of elements, how with Fire there is always a connection in nature. Somehow. They wanted to show me, but all I wanted was to get here and catch the Fire thief. I was impatient. I should have listened more."

"It explicitly states there is an element in the Fire?" Regan was intrigued. "Like how red Fire is healer's fire? What is the element for that then?"

"No. Damn it. That's just it. It doesn't explicitly say freaking anything. Nothing is black and white. It's just one hell of a lot of complicated convoluted blah blah blah." Frustration laced his voice, and he shoved the old book to one side in disgust.

Regan covered a hand with his and pulled out a battered notebook. Kian had nicknamed it "the dreams book", and so far, Regan had catalogued each image Kian could remember having seen in his sleep. Regan figured it was a useful exercise and hoped the two of them might learn something from everything Kian had in his head. He turned to the last page. "So, okay, Darach again, this time with added water and added peril?" He stopped with the pen poised over the paper and raised an eyebrow in question. Kian smiled ruefully.

"Added water, added peril, and then other stuff that isn't Darach. Some Cariad, Ceithin, the one who helped me, and his sister, but it was just memories. Then I saw new information."

"
New
new stuff?
"

"Don't freak out on me, okay?" Kian sat back in the seat and crossed his arms across his chest. He looked uncertain. Worried.

"Shit. How bad is this if you think I am going to freak out?"

"It just doesn't make an awful lot of sense."

"Does any of this?" Regan offered simply. He tapped a quick rhythm on the notebook and then waited until Kian got his thoughts in order.

"
It
'
s this room. A white room. I don
'
t get a feel for where the room is, or even how big
it
is.
"
Regan nodded, then flipped for a new page in the notebook
and
wrote a heading,
White Room
. He underlined
it
twice then looked at Kian expectantly as if
it
was normal to be cataloguing your lover
'
s dreams.
"
Okay,
it
has a door, a bed, and white walls,
but no windows,
and there is someone there. Someone who is looking at me
. A
man. Not talking
,
just looking right through me. I have a sense of the man
,
he is tall, dark
-
haired,
and
has
beautiful clear golden eyes. He has Fire. I can see
his Fire
.
It
sparks around him,
and it
'
s
amber.
"

"Hang on. Wait a minute." Regan leafed through the notebook to the page headed Fires and checked a notation. "You said amber Fire was rare. I wrote here that hardly anyone had it. Some rare shit then, in this guy?"

"
Very rare. A first I thought
he
was Council, but then I realized something
.
"
Kian stopped, but Regan didn
'
t
push him
. H
e was used to Kian rambling.
"
This room has a door
that
'
s
locked
,
warded,
and the man I see is a prisoner.
"
Regan wrote the details down under
White Room
.

"Who has him prisoner?"

"I can't tell who. All I can tell is where. He's a prisoner in this world, not in the world I came from."

Regan put down the pen.
"
Let me get this straight.
Someone
in this world,
my
world,
"
he clarified,
"
is holding someone from your world prisoner, someone with
amber
Fire.
"

Kian nodded. "It's worse than that, I think."

"Think?"

"
The Nameless, the original
Eicio
,
they have him locked away somewhere.
"
H
e buried his face in his hands
.
"
T
his man
… H
is Fire is sustaining him
,
but
he
'
s got this huge emptiness
. H
e
'
s being drained. Re, they
are feeding from his Fire
.
"

"He's like… what? Some kind of recharge socket?" Regan was aware what he said sounded stupid, but he didn't have the wherewithal to word it better. The idea of one of Kian's kind being held prisoner and being used for his Fire was horrific in concept.

"I can't see where he is." Kian yawned, and stood to stretch tall. "Need sleep. I have to know."

Chapter 8

It wasn't the first night Darach couldn't sleep since arriving in the Valley. Something always conspired to keep him awake. Either nightmares chased him from sleep, or waking dreams meant he couldn't relax enough to drop off. He still had a primitive fear of the water lying on the valley floor but he was also conscious of the fact that sitting near the water seemed to still his thoughts. Sometimes he found Brigid there. She had the element of water twisted in her Fire too, and she showed him a few skills she had mastered. Her movements were smooth, controlled, but his remained jerky and a little uncoordinated. Other times, Llewellyn sat with him. He wove stories of the Cariad and City dwellers into a patchwork of history so tangled Darach couldn't see where the City ended and the Cariad started. He had been with the Cariad for a while now, and every night when the others left, it was Ceithin who found him, running him through exercises to control his Fire, to harness the energy in his element. Tonight was no exception.

"I'm tired," he said, yawning widely as Ceithin set himself down next to him. He wasn't lying about being tired, all his training added up to no sleep, and he was near dead on his feet physically. He just wished his brain would shut down and allow him to rest.

"Too tired to train?" Ceithin didn't sound angry or disappointed. In fact, he sounded equally as tired. It startled Darach to think his strong, confident Cariad suffered from something as common as weariness.

"I know I need to." The darkness invited confidences, and Darach let his barriers fall, lying back on the lush grass, breathing deeply of the valley's clean air then holding his breath before he released it in slow, measured amounts.

"
I think you are ready
;
I think
we
are ready.
"
Ceithin spoke quietly, his gaze distant.

Excitement coursed through Darach at the prospect of seeing Kian again.

"Really? You think I am good enough?"

Ceithin chuckled. "I didn't say that, youngling."

Darach knew he was teasing. He'd grown used to the affectionate way Ceithin used teasing and laughter as a means to praise. Still, adding the word youngling rankled a bit. "Can you stop calling me youngling now?"

"Does it annoy you?" Ceithin's question sounded so sincere.

Pride surged through him that he was finally being asked as an equal. "Yes, it does." He rolled onto his side, gazing up at Ceithin who was looking down at him with an impassive and calm expression on his face. He was being serious. Finally Darach could see the serious, compassionate, caring side of Ceithin.

Or not.

"Nope, you'll always be youngling to me." And then, with a burst of laughter, he lay down next to Darach, clearly unable to stop the amusement from spilling out.

Darach was so far past tired he couldn't even retaliate, although the sudden small cloudburst—one of his newest tricks—he conjured just over Ceithin's head left Ceithin unable to breathe because he was laughing so hard. Darach propped himself up on one elbow, fascinated by the expression on Ceithin's handsome face, cataloguing the long sweeping lashes, the square jaw, the hair dark and tousled, and the generous lips curving invitingly with every smile.

He could no more help himself than he could stop the Fire he had inside him, and before he could analyze and consider and conclude, he leaned in and captured Ceithin's lips with his own. The laughter stopped, and Ceithin answered Darach's need with the touch of his tongue to Darach's lower lip.

Darach pulled back at the touch, lust curling in him, and waited. Ceithin was either going to punch him or just incinerate him with his Fire. Time stopped, and the only movement was Ceithin blinking, an expression on his face Darach had never seen before; a mix of confusion, shock, and raw, naked need. In a flurry of unrestrained motion, Darach was pushed onto his back with Ceithin looming over him. Suddenly terrified, Darach squeezed his eyes shut.

"Open your eyes," Ceithin demanded, but Darach couldn't. Mutely, he shook his head. He was mortified, shocked, needy, and so damn scared of what he would see. "Your eyes are so blue," Ceithin whispered. "Open them, Darach. Let me see them."

He relaxed and opened his eyes because Ceithin didn't actually sound like he was going to kill him. "I'm sorry?" he offered cautiously.

"There they are—beautiful, blue, stunning—and don't ever be sorry." He lowered his head until only the tiniest of spaces existed between them. "I have wanted to do this since you climbed on that horse."

The kiss was gentle
,
at first. Darach had kissed and been kissed before, but
this
,
the insistence inside him, pushing him, forcing him to feel
,
was intoxicating. Ceithin angled his head, deepening the caress, his tongue tangling and tasting, one of his hands moving to cup Darach
'
s face. The touch was firm, confident
,
and suddenly
,
Darach wanted to physically harm every single guy who had tasted Ceithin. Their lips parted, allowing Ceithin to concentrate
on kiss-biting a gentle trail from lips to throat, marking him
with
little nips and touches until Darach whimpered and tried to pull Ceithin up,
demanding his lips against his again. His laugh deep and soft, Ceithin complied. The
lust
rising between them was intense
.
Ceithin
'
s skin was cool to
the
touch,
especially
the small of his back, the strip of flesh
Darach
had wanted to taste for so long, and with no conscious thought
,
he closed his arms around Ceithin and encouraged
him
until Ceithin was lying across him. The weight of the other man on him, his sex hard and heavy against his
,
was all too much, and
an
orgasm beg
a
n its undeniable coiling
in Darach
,
simply
as a result of Ceithin
'
s lips on his body.

Then Fire happened.

At first, it was nothing more than a cautious touch of scarlet, a searching enquiry to blue, and then violet as the sparks inside them twisted and tousled in the night. Ceithin supported his own weight with one hand and forearm, his other moving from Darach's cheekbone to his hair, caressing and holding securely. Darach was the one with free hands and he used them as much as he could. He thanked god for the loose pants that meant he could carefully reach in and touch Ceithin.