No Time to Cry (Nine While Nine Legacy Book 1) (30 page)

 
~
Chapter Twenty-Nine ~

Gideon’s near a cottage at the edge of
the woods. There is a woman with him, but not the one from before. This one
appears to be younger and she has long silky blond hair that reaches her lower
back, and a shapely figure…she’s pretty, though she’s not as tall as me. I
think she’s kind of on the short side for him, barely reaching his chest.

She’s reaching
for him, in too friendly of a way for my liking, almost as though they have
been intimate, there is just that familiarity to the manner in which she
touches his arm, lays her hand against his chest. I hate the look on her face.
It’s one of seduction. She wants Gideon and I hate her.

She sees me in
the woods, watching them, and gives me a look and a smile of derision that
suggests nothing less than contempt and jealousy. But she’s the one with him
why should I receive this look?

And then it
strikes me, crashes into my head like a ton of books dropping from the top
library shelf. She is the Roghnú. And she was the one in the dream that chased
me down and threw me to the ground, tried to kill me.

I yell to
Gideon, to warn him…

It took me only a few seconds to catch
on that I was awake and not in a forest, I had fortunately only cried out
within my dream and
not
in the back room of Elysium. Even though I was
the only one in the room, it would have been terribly embarrassing had anyone
heard me yell myself to wakefulness.

I’d nodded off
while reading a book in the comfy retro ‘30s armchair…the one Gideon usually
sat in. The afternoon sun pouring in the large window must have lulled me to
nap-land. What a
sucky
dream.

What exactly was
I to make of these ongoing dreams?

 I think
I’d proven to myself they were real. Gideon had to know something. Must be able
to tell me something more by now. It had been almost an entire month.

Only a month?
Had all of this happened in just one month? It seemed like so much longer.

“Oh bugger,” I
sighed, borrowing one of Liam’s phrases. What to do for the next hour or so until
meeting up with Erin for some Halloween fun. She had invited me and the others
to a feast and bonfire party taking place at the home of a friend of hers who
lived near the woods.

My cull had been
at11:00 am and I’d had the remainder of the day to myself—the entire crisp,
cool, Halloween day to do with as I pleased. The sky was that brilliant blue
you only get in autumn, with a scattering of the puffiest white clouds I’d seen
in quite some time. I could feel Halloween in the air or as Michael had informed
me,
D
eireadh
an
S
amhraidh
. I’d known of
the
holiday
before, the
history, the rituals, all of it—I’d written about it in one of my novels, so
I’d done my research—but I’d never personally attended any
D
eireadh
an
S
amhraidh
celebrations,
and I’d always called it Samhain in my books. Michael told me in their language
it was
D
eireadh
an
S
amhraidh
,
meaning Summer’s End.

At first I’d
gone home to write, but was too fidgety, I felt the need to be outdoors in that
air, and eventually found myself walking to the coffee house, of course the
silly Brom had followed me. Oddest cat ever.

I had that
pins-and-needles feeling again. Maybe a change of venue…maybe I should stop by
the pub for a pumpkin ale, since it was on my way home. I was back to feeling
restless, oddly impatient. But I wasn’t really sure about what.

Was it this
whole Gideon/Roghnú thing? Obviously if I couldn’t be with Liam, there was no
hope of the rules being different where Gideon was concerned, so then what did
it matter if Gideon wanted the Roghnú. Though I still had no idea
why
Liam could be with Halah, but not me. So maddening.

 Or maybe
it was just the weather making me edgy. The wind scented with fall leaves and
fires burning somewhere in the neighborhood. There was a definite energy in the
air that was different than any other autumn day so far. I
knew
I could
contribute that to it being Samhain. It was a day of magic and mysteries and
tonight would be even more so.

As I descended
the steps of the coffee house I watched the shadows of the leaves playing
across the ground in front of me, so pretty the way the late afternoon sun did
that just right. And I stumbled, quite gracefully, off the last step…and right
into Gideon. He caught me before I could tumble to my knees, steadied me by my
arms. He held me away from him, but didn’t let me go as he walked me away from
the steps and closer to the garden.

“Where are you
off to in such a hurry Iliana?” The way he said my name made me shiver. He gave
me that all-knowing look of his, slightly disapproving with just a little more
than a touch of distrustful.

Why did that
have to send a pang through my heart? I didn’t want him being suspicious of my
actions all the time, or always expecting, or waiting, for me to screw up
either.

He’s just my
boss…just my boss. Nothing more. Forget the dreams. Forget the stupid Roghnú.

“I have to
leave, stuff to do…” I looked down at his hands where they held my
bare
arms; the skin felt on fire where they firmly clutched
me.

He was so very
close to me.

“More writing?”
And he was angry…of course he was angry.

 I could
feel it rolling off of him. His chest was heaving and he was shaking as if
trying to contain his rage. Had I really thought that just because we’d had a
couple of nice nights out, getting along just fine, that he’d ever
not
find fault with me?

I was still
looking down at his hands, he had wonderful strong hands, his fingers were
long, thick, his palms just the right amount of rough, by no means were they
soft.

I finally dared
to look up at his face. His eyes had that measured, almost cold, somewhat
furious look in them. My heart was pounding, but at the same time, I so loved
when he had that assertive, unyielding power exuding forth…nearly as much as
when he was happy, smiling and laughing with me. I just stood there, not sure
what to do…just feeling his flesh against mine, breathing him in, breathing
with him.

“No…not
tonight…” I trailed off. He was looking at my arm, my tattooed arm.

“Nice tattoo.”
He growled.

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Was I supposed
to get your permission first for that too?” Something in me kind of snapped. I
was the mad one now…or too. I tried to pull my arm away, but he held firmly,
moving us further from the house and deeper into the shadows near the gazebo.

He turned my arm
up roughly to view the full piece of ink, his breath hissed from between
clenched teeth when he saw the entire design.

“What is this?”
He seethed.

“A tattoo.” This
conversation seemed familiar.

He shot me a
furious look. “Why this? Where did you see
this
?”

“The same place
I’ve been seeing everything lately, wherever it is I go in my dreams.”

“And the things
you’ve been writing about, dreams as well?”

“Yes, I told you
that already.”

He dropped my
arm. He still looked completely raging, but he was pale now.

“By the way,
where’s my necklace?”

He shot me a
withering look. Why did he appear so conflicted at the same time?

He paced away
from me, running his hand through his hair, messing it up quite nicely.

 “You’re
meeting with the Roghnú, the one that chose
me
to die?” Why did I feel
so betrayed by that? I wasn’t sure why I’d asked, he had said that’s where he
was going. It would be easier to fall back on the claim that everything we
shared was only in dreams, but that was not really true.

The way he
talked to me, touched me, looked at me…there
was
more to it, than mere
dreams.

The wind picked
up ruffling the leaves above me. It drew my attention upward. Brom Tom was
stretched out across one of the big branches. The sun painted his pale orange
fur a bright sunset hue. It must be around four o’clock.

That magical
quality was taking over the garden; amber, bronze, burnished gold. It connected
to that place in me where my power rested. Everything went into soft focus and
yet was sharper at the same time. The air became silk and velvet
simultaneously, and more tranquil.

 I could
hear the crows beginning their echoing conversations. The breeze wrapped around
me, held me, spoke to me softly, secretly, soothing.

And then it
dropped the bomb on me.

“Yes, I am. I
told all of you that yesterday.”

“She was with
you in the woods, at the cottage.” I said incredulously. “I saw you with her.
The blond woman, long blond hair. She’s the Roghnú. Deimari.” I felt sick.

“What are you
talking about?” I wouldn’t have thought he could become any more drained of
color, but he did.

“You know all
about the dreams.” I snapped out a short flippant laugh. “Oh my gods…you know
all about them, and yet you stand here and make me detail them all out to you?
You know why, how it’s happening, how I’m bringing things back, and that I’ve
been driving myself mad trying to figure it all out.”

He had nothing
to say.

A thought dawned
on me, and I’m sure
I
paled. “So you
were
there in the dreams.
Are they even dreams?” He was there, he knew everything. He’d been in the pool.
He’d been in the woods. He’d been the rider. All those first kisses belonged to
him. All
his
passion in the ‘dreams’ was
his
...not just of
my
minds
making.

 I swayed.

Steadied myself
with a hand against the tree.

He was livid,
infuriated but still pale, as he pushed my entire body against the tree,
holding me there with his own body.

“You were
there?”

“Yes! That’s
what I’ve been telling you.” I gritted my teeth.

His body was
firm against the length of mine; his closeness was nothing but cruelty to me at
this point. But that
glimmering
inside me unfurled and did its thing,
reaching through every cell of me, traveling through my limbs and out of my
flesh. It wrapped around my heart and reached out to him, I could feel my wings
extending from my back.

His face was so
close to mine, searching my eyes, and I wanted him. I still wanted him. My body
relaxed into him…but my brain ranted on.

“She wants me
dead; your precious Roghnú wants me dead. Did she tell you that? Is that why
the two of you were so
cozied
up?”

He made a
growling noise deep in his throat and spun me away from the tree, shoving me
away from him as he did, leaving me stumbling away from him.

 “What are
you playing at little girl?” He snarled at me.

“I might ask the
same of you. What are you doing to me Gideon? It’s heartless. It’s cruel.” I
wiped hot tears from my face. Angry at them for being there. “Do you even have
a heart?” I spit out at him.

He stalked over
to me, looking taller than his six-feet-five-inches, as if he had increased as
his anger had grown.

I backed a step
away. I could feel my wings at my back, no longer spreading toward him to
embrace him. The power had receded back into me, coiled back into my mhésen. I
hated that I could smell him, that scent of spice and smoke and woods. It made
me feel weak, breathless. It took me back to the forest, to his kiss.