Destiny United (31 page)

Kieran and O’Ryan took up swords and stormed out of the
tent without a word. The Seelie followed in a sweep of barely contained
violence. Marcelo pulled Aila to his side as hoots and hollers grew louder.
Scuffling feet told of a violent struggle. The sound of swords clashing wasn’t
promising either.

He looked down at Aila’s worried expression. “Zealots,
most likely.”

“Do you speak Irish?”

“Of course. I speak all Gaelic languages. And most Latin
based too.”

She slapped his chest. “Now is not the time to boast!
What did they say?”

“Literally, ‘let a cat eat you and the devil eat the
cat.’”

She grimaced.

“It’s an old Irish curse.”

“Weird, bloody fae,” she murmured, repeating his earlier
words. He had the ridiculous urge to laugh.

Another voice, this one closer, rang out above the rest.
“
Téigh go dtí an diabhal!
Long
live O’Leary!”

“Now what?”

“‘Go to the devil. Long live –’”

“I got that part,” she snapped. “Who’s
O’Leary?”

He shrugged. “The zealot’s leader
perhaps.”

She sighed impatiently. “Well, we can’t just hide out
here. We have to help.”

He tightened his arm around her waist. “We most certainly
can
hide out here. In fact, I think it’s time
for us to go. Before the battle begins.”

She pulled away but he kept hold of her wrist. “The
battle?” Her face paled. “No! We were negotiating. We were doing so well!”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “
Querida,
you can no more stop this war than you can
stop a hurricane. Centuries of built up hate cannot be contained by one fae
woman.”

Her fists clenched and she stomped a foot. “I do
not
accept that!”

His voice softened. He was willing to beg in order to
avoid a battle between them. “
Mi amor
, please
don’t force me to take you away against your will.” He stroked the inside of her
wrist with his thumb. “You know my terms. As soon as I perceive a threat, you
would do as I say.”

“
Your
terms, not mine. I
never agreed.” Her brows descended. “I’m not giving up. The whole world is a
threat, Marcelo. You can’t keep me on a shelf like a fragile doll forever.”

“The hell I can’t!” He tugged her arm and enclosed her
within his sheltered body. He closed his eyes as he focused on his destination.
But the familiar chill didn’t overcome him, and when he opened his eyes, they
weren’t in
Rheol Hearn
. He looked down at Aila.

Her mouth was curled up in a small smirk, her voice quiet
but proud. “Shields up.”

Before he could growl his indignation, Kieran stumbled
into the tent, blood splashed over his clothes and face.

“Kieran!” she shrieked, trying to pull away. Marcelo kept
a firm grip on her wrist.

“The battle has begun,” Kieran panted. “There’s nothing
more you can do.” He looked at Marcelo. “Get her out of here.”

I’m trying!
He was
about to grab her about the waist and sling her over his shoulder but she spun
toward him, whipping out the dagger he’d given her and slammed the hilt on his
wrist. He dropped her arm in reflex and she took off out the tent door. He
followed on her heels wondering where the hell she’d hidden the knife and why
he hadn’t seen that coming.

“Kieran,” she called out amidst the carnage surrounding
them. The air was heavy with blood and sweat. Eyes were black like night and
filled with rage. Fangs glistened against dirty, bloodied faces.

She spotted Kieran. He dueled a red haired fae, matching
swings with their long swords. “Stop, Kieran! If you order your people back we
can still work this out!”

“It’s too late,” he answered, thrusting his sword deep
into his enemy’s belly. Aila screamed. Marcelo wrapped an arm around her waist
pulling her backward toward another tent. The
whoosh
of
an arrow sliced through air then Aila’s body rocked with the force of something
piercing it.

He looked down at the small body in his arms and his
world collapsed. Blood gushed from her chest, soaking through the fabric of her
shirt. She’d been hit with an arrow straight in her heart, the very place she
was most vulnerable.

Her eyes fluttered but remained open, focused solely on
him. It wasn’t pain that filled her eyes, it was acceptance.
No!

He cradled her small body in his arms as he collapsed
onto his knees. “Aila,” he said firmly, “listen to me. You will live.” He
sounded so confident, so sure. But inside he was quaking. Very carefully he adjusted
himself on the ground so her upper body rested in his lap.

He placed his hands on either side of the wound, trying
to stop the bleeding.
Fuck!
The arrow was deep. “You
won’t die,” he told her. “I won’t let you.”

She smiled and reached out to touch his cheek but her
hand dropped with the effort. He picked it up with slippery, bloodied hands and
held it to his face. Seeing her so weak, it finally struck him.

“I love you,” he said, his voice shaking with emotion,
“and you will not leave me.” It was a command, but a useless one. Her eyes were
already fading. He tapped a hand on her cheek. “Aila! Live!”

A dribble of blood streamed from her parted lips. With
shaky hands, he wiped it with his shirt. “Live, damn it!”

Her heart faltered. “No! You must live!” He searched the
ground around them for something to stop the bleeding. “Fetch me a blanket. A
doctor!” he yelled to no one in particular. “A bandage. Anything!” His voice
cracked when her eyes closed. Kissing her eyelids he commanded her, “Wake up!”

You can’t take her,
he raged
to the gods.
You can’t have her! She is mine!

He shook her limp body, though it was too late. He was angry
with her. So angry. “How could you do this to me?” he yelled at the pale,
lifeless form in his arms.

She gave up, she didn't even try to fight it. He kissed
her face, running his lips along every inch of her skin. How could she do this
to him? He sniffed her hair, her skin, branding the scent into his memory. For
that’s all he would have of her. A memory.

He’d just found her after eight hundred years of
loneliness. Eight hundred years of miserable solitude and he hadn’t even gotten
more than two weeks with her.
Two weeks
, he
screamed to the gods again.

“
Fucking
two weeks!”
he roared out loud.

His heart felt like it had been ripped out of his body
then stabbed a million times with a silver blade. It hurt like nothing he’d
ever experienced. He could scarcely breathe. His body crumpled under the weight
of his grief. Resting his forehead on top of hers, he wept.

For seconds, minutes, hours – it didn’t matter – he held
her tight against his body, unwilling to let her go. She was everything. His
ray of sunshine in an endlessly dark world. She made him smile, made him hope.
She gave him life. What would he do without her?

In eight hundred years, he’d never shed a single tear,
now he was sobbing like a babe.

Kieran stepped into view and reached down to touch her.
Marcelo’s growl was so menacing that he staggered back immediately.

Finally he raised his gaze to take in the scene around
him. It was still and silent, not even a cough dared interrupt his grief. “Who
did it?” It was a barely audible guttural sound.

Kieran gestured towards a fae male lying dead on the
ground, shot with his own arrow. It was too quick a death for the bastard but
Marcelo couldn’t bring himself to care.

He kissed her lips softly one last time then roared into
the sky, pain and anguish slicing through his very bones. He could feel the
moment her soul left her body, for it left him too. He flipped from raw,
tortured agony to hollow. Stark and bare.

“Calm yourself, vampire,” came a heavenly feminine sound
from beside him.

He looked up into beautiful glacial blue eyes surrounded
by thick black lashes. Rosy cheeks and full red lips smiled down at him. A long
mane of charcoal hair hung down over her shoulders. She wore a yellow-green
dress that billowed loosely around her hips. Instinctively, he knew what she
was.

“Goddess, please,” he begged softly. “Take me.”

She bent down to her knees and stroked Aila’s hair. “What
would you give to have her back?”

“Anything. I would trade my life for hers.”

“Your love is deep and her courage is admirable. I have
come to grant a favor.” She raised her voice and faced the fae, wide-eyed at
her presence. Whispers of Artemis, goddess of the wilderness, erupted around
them.

Ignoring them, she continued, “I have watched the young
one from the heavens. Her bravery and wisdom are to be rewarded.” She turned
her powerful gaze to Marcelo. “I will grant her life, vampire, if you trade
something of yours. A life for a life.”

He should have been cautious, gods were known to be
tricky, but he didn’t care. Hope burst through him like the sun over the
horizon. “I said anything, goddess, and I meant it. What would you have of me?”

Those blue eyes flickered with excitement. “Your soul.”

His forehead creased, uncertain what she meant.

“For when you perish, meeting your true death, your soul
will belong to me. You will work for me, do my bidding. You will hunt for me.”

He nodded. “It is done.”

She smiled once then turned to face the fae crowd. “I
hereby claim this child as Aila Quinn the Favored One. Anyone who would try to
do her harm will answer to me.” As she said it her pupils filled with crimson,
her fingernails turned to claws, the roots and trees around them shifted
restlessly in the ground. A fierce wind blew in from the south as clouds
darkened the sky.  The showing of enormous power was enough to scare the fae
into submission. Even Marcelo was intimidated.

And just as quickly as it had come, it was gone. The sky
its normal rusty scarlet, the trees were still, Artemis more beautiful than he
could imagine.

She leaned over Aila’s body and placed one slender finger
to the center of her forehead. When she lifted it, a crescent shaped moon, a
shade darker than her natural color, marked her skin. It could have passed as a
birthmark but that it was so perfectly shaped and centered.

Breath surged into the small body. Her heart beat, weak
at first then gradually growing stronger. He sobbed again, but this time in joy.
He rocked her limp body, wiping his tears from her face.

“You’re going to be all right, my love,” he told her
though she wasn’t yet conscious. He pressed his forehead to her hers. “
Mi
amor
, you will live.”

Aila woke with hazy memories.
Muted sun streaks lit a bedroom where she lay staring at a familiar ceiling. A
spicy, wild scent flooded her senses. She was in
Rheol
Haearn
. In Marcelo’s bed. How did she get here? A vast array of jumbled
images floated through her mind. The fae war, a glowing light, Marcelo’s broken
expression, pain, an arrow –

She gasped and shot upright gripping her chest. Marcelo
was by her side in an instant.

“Shh…you’re okay,” he said, gently pushing her down
against the pillows. He smiled down at her, stroking her cheek. “Glad to see
you’re finally awake.”

She struggled against the hand on her shoulder.
I have to stop the fae war!
How long had she
been sleeping? Had she missed it?

Marcelo remained unmovable, concern crossed his features.
“Calm down,
querida.
You’ve been sleeping for
three days now but you are uninjured. There’s no reason to panic.”

Three days? Then it was over. She had failed. She nodded
sadly and relaxed against the pillows. Marcelo sat down on the bed. With tender
hands he stroked her hair and face, a wide grin set upon his lips.

“What happened?” she asked. “I…I think I died.”

Death had been nothing like it was in the movies – a slow
motion tragedy performed to a Celine Dion track. No. Death hurt. Like a bitch.

She had known she would die the second the arrow hit. She
had accepted it. Her only concern had been for Marcelo. Love had poured out of
him, warming her soul, making it easier for her to slip away. She remembered
thinking that it wasn’t a bad way to die. She had been loved,
really
loved, if only for a week.

But here she was, in Marcelo’s bedroom, her stubborn
vampire beaming at her side. He didn’t seem to be able to wipe that silly grin
off his face.

She looked down at her chest where a pink puckered scar
had formed. She was healed. Unless…

“Am I in heaven?”

Marcelo laughed and it sounded like music. She melted
into the pillows, her own silly grin stretching across her face.

“No. You are very much alive. And I couldn’t be happier.”
He grasped her hand, crushing it in his bigger one. His smile faded and his
voice was low and grave. “You scared me, Aila. I’ve never been so afraid in all
my existence. I was broken when you died. I begged the goddess to kill me too –”

“Goddess?”

He smiled again. “That’s who gave you life, Aila.”

A goddess had saved her?

“Artemis is her name. She saw your courage and gave you a
second chance. It’s quite an honor. The fae believe you to be divinely blessed.
They will listen to anything you say now, love. It isn’t over and it will be
hard work – work that will require that pretty mouth of yours, but you can
fulfill your destiny. You can begin to unite the fae.”

She squeezed her eyes shut then opened them repeatedly,
trying to determine if this was a dream. A goddess? She hadn’t even known they
existed yet she had been healed by one? Because of her courage?