Tammy Falkner - [Faerie 02] (20 page)

The land of the fae held healing waters for faeries who were injured on missions. It was rarely used, but it was there. Claire wasn’t even sure the waters would work on a human. But she couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not now that she knew she loved him. She’d never even told him.

“Where are we?” the butler asked.

“In a dream,” Robinsworth said. “You’ll wake up tomorrow and barely remember any of this.” He carefully laid Finn’s body in the grass and held his hand tightly, even though Finn was unconscious.

Claire’s grandmother bustled down the steps, a vial of shimmering water in her hands. “Will it work?” Claire asked.

Her grandmother shook her head. “I’m not certain.”

Claire took the bottle and hunkered down next to Finn. “Drink,” she said as she poured it past his lips.

“Now we wait,” her grandmother said.

***

Finn woke to a thousand tiny anvils being pounded by mallets in his head. And someone had stuffed his mouth full of sand. He licked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and blinked his eyes open. Lying beside him was Claire, asleep. She was curled into a ball, fully clothed. Robin slept in a chair across the room. Finn looked toward the window. Night had fallen.

He lifted his head, groaning at the pain of it. “Where the devil am I?” he said.

Claire startled awake. “Finn!” she cried. She rolled quickly toward him and pressed kisses to his face over and over and over. “I knew you wouldn’t die,” she whispered, tears rolling down her face.

“I wasn’t as certain as you,” Finn croaked out. She reached over and got him a glass of water and brought it to his lips. He drank slowly until she pulled the glass away. “Where are we?”

“Land of the fae,” Robin said as he woke.

“How did we get here?”

“We came through one of Claire’s paintings.”

Finn looked down at his naked chest. He’d been shot in the chest. He’d bled. He’d bled so much that her body had been covered with it.

Claire wore her faerie clothing, which she’d once told him was made to shrink and grow when she did. She wasn’t wearing his blood. “Am I alive?”

Claire nodded. She’d never looked happier, not in all the time he’d known her.

The butler from home stuck his head in the doorway. “Lord Phineas has awakened?” he asked.

Finn arched a brow at Claire. “We brought the butler to the land of the fae?”

“You’re heavy. Robinsworth couldn’t carry you all by himself.” She shrugged.

“How’s the land of the fae treating you?” Finn asked the butler.

“Well, my lord. Very well.” He blushed furiously.

“He thinks he’s in love.” She rolled her eyes.

“So am I,” Finn said.

Claire’s heart expanded. “I love you too.”

“You do?” He looked like a motherless child, looking for hope.

“I gave up my magic for you, didn’t I?”

Finn sat up on his elbows, clearly startled. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s forbidden to bring anyone to and from the land of the fae without permission,” Robin clarified for him. “Claire was aware of it, but she brought us all anyway.” He coughed into his closed fist. “She might lose her wings.”

“Why would you do such a thing?” Finn cried, the motion of it making his chest hurt. He wasn’t healed completely, though he was better than he’d been before.

“Because I love you more than my magic, you dolt.” She punched his arm, looking guilty when he winced. “I always will.”

Finn’s heart swelled in his chest. But at the same time, it broke for her pain. She loved her magic. Yet she’d chosen him over it. “Will they punish you severely?”

She shrugged, taking his hand in hers and clasping it tightly. “I don’t care.”

“I care enough for both of us.” He would never forgive himself if she lost that part of herself because of him. She’d chosen him over magic. She’d picked him for forever. She’d given up the most important thing in her life. He wanted to weep with the beauty of it. “You should have left me to a human physician so you could keep your wings.”

“You were dying.” She rolled her eyes again. “Don’t be obtuse. I picked you, you idiot. You! I picked you. You’re all I want. You’re all I’ll ever want.”

A knock sounded at the window and Claire went to thrust it open. Ronald climbed over the sill and landed on the floor. “Can’t you use a door?” Finn grumbled.

“Can’t you use a window?” the gnome grumbled back. He had him there. If Finn could come and go through windows, he might be inclined to do so. “I have word from the Trusted Few.”

He held the note out to her.

She read it quickly, placing a hand to her heart. She read short phrases from it aloud. “Robinsworth, as an ambassador between the two lands, has come forth with a proposition…” She paused, reading some more, looking up at Robin occasionally. “…By decree of the Trusted Few, you may keep your wings on a probationary basis…” She read some more, her brow furrowing. “…Mentor fae that would like to shift from world to world as your penance, and teach those who grew up the way your younger sister Rose did to embrace their magic…”

She stopped reading. Her eyes filled with tears. “Some penance,” she said.

“Does this mean we’ll have a fae household in London?”

“Apparently. Does that bother you?”

She passed him the note. At the bottom, the instructions also said, “That man you tossed into a painting must be located.”

“Can’t we just leave him there to rot?”

“Where did you send him?”

Claire shrugged. “I’m not certain. We can check the paintings when we get home and go look for him.”

“Wherever he is, my lord, I imagine he’s a bit confused,” the butler said from the doorway. “Like me.”

“You’re in the land of the fae,” Robin chided. “What do you have to be confused about?”

“I just saw a unicorn prance by, and it turned its nose up at me, Your Grace.” The butler laughed.

“They hate to pull carriages. Way too high in the instep, if you ask me.” Claire giggled. God, he loved that sound.

Finn reached for the lump at her temple. She had a good-sized bruise on her cheek as well. “Mayden had better hope no one ever finds him in that painting, because I will make him pay for hurting you if he ever comes back.”

“I love you,” Claire said, clutching his hand.

“Because I was about to die?” he asked. He was teasing, but she wasn’t.

She was dead serious when she looked into his eyes. “Because I need you, love you, want you, and can’t live without you.” She placed his hand on her belly, which had grown even rounder.

“You told me not to fall in love with you,” he reminded her.

She pressed her lips to his. “It’s a good thing you’re not a good listener.”

Claire’s ankles were swollen to the size of loaves of bread. And her back felt like someone was on the inside, wringing her spine in his hands, twisting until she writhed with the pain. At least the pain was coming and going. It had been since the night before, when Claire and Finn had made love into the wee hours of the morning.

“Sophie swears to me that making love is what brought their first child into the world,” Claire said.

He pulled her to sit in front of him in front of the settee. “Then I think we should do it over and over until we bring her into the world,” he growled in her ear as he massaged her shoulders.

His hands slipped down and hefted her naked breasts in his palms. “I want to see my son or daughter suckling here,” he said quietly in her ear.

“Any excuse to look at my breasts,” she teased, slapping at his hands. She turned in his lap and laid her head on his shoulder, her legs draped over the arm of the chair. She was completely naked and so beautiful. He almost hated for her to put clothes on at times. He loved watching her body grow, talking to her belly, and rubbing her all over when she was achy and stiff.

A kick rose against his hand, where it lightly stroked her belly. “Ouch!” she cried. “This one is going to be active,” she said.

“You need something to keep you busy,” he said.

She snorted. She was constantly busy with the school for faeries that she ran. She got to hand out missions and attend missions with new faeries, and they didn’t have to go back and forth to the land of the fae and leave their human families for very long.

She also stayed busy helping with Finn’s investigations. She could play the part of anyone he made up, and play it to perfection. He didn’t ask her to do it often in her state, but at times, it was helpful to have her around.

As she’d gotten bigger, it had become more and more difficult to go into and out of paintings. So, they hadn’t yet located Mayden. But they’d checked all the paintings that were not of real places, and he wasn’t in any of those. If he had been, he would have been stuck there. Instead, he’d been tossed into a real place and was now fending for himself wherever he ended up. They’d find him eventually. But it hadn’t happened yet.

Claire’s belly tightened beneath his hand. “What was that?” he asked.

“That was your son. I believe he’s ready to make an appearance in the world.” She grunted and lumbered to her feet. “You had better send for the physician. And my mother.”

Sophia had had her baby two weeks earlier and was still settling into motherhood. She would visit after the baby was born, Finn was certain. Robin visited with him often and even helped with his investigations. Not to mention that Robin had left some of his land holdings in Finn’s care since he’d done such a good job those three months when the duke had been gone.

Finn didn’t mind the work. It kept him busy. But no matter what, he always found time for Claire. He loved her to distraction. And when he’d learned that she’d given up her magic for him, that she’d chosen him, his heart had swelled with pride and affection. She’d picked him.

Another contraction racked her small frame as she climbed into bed naked and pulled the counterpane beneath her armpits. She looked up at him. “Finn, I have a secret to tell you,” she murmured. “But you have to promise not to be angry at me.”

Any time she said that, the hair on the back of his neck stood up and he grew truly fearful. “What is it?”

“The physician said I’ve gotten awfully big during this pregnancy.”

Finn was aware of every nook and cranny of her body. He knew exactly how big she’d gotten. “What of it?”

A contraction racked her frame. “He said there’s a good chance we might have more than one baby.”

“At one time?” he barked.

“Yes, at once,” she said, the contraction easing as her face softened. “I need my mother.”

Not long after that, her mother and the physician both arrived. And the physician was right. They had one little girl with pointy ears and one little boy with the same. Two fae children. The boy they named Lucius after Claire’s grandfather. And the girl they named Cynthia. As she came into the world, Finn said, “She sounds like a tinkling bell.”

Then she let out the biggest cry they’d ever heard. “That’s no tinkling bell, my lord,” the physician had said. “That’s a church bell, which can be heard far and wide.” But the moniker stuck. She was often called Tink or Bell when she was old enough to protest the nickname. But she was Lord Phineas’s first fae child. The first of many.

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Double Enchantment

by Kathryne Kennedy

Too much of a very good thing…

High society enjoys their powers based on their rank, but Lady Jasmina Karlyle’s magic causes nothing but trouble. Her simple spell has gone horribly wrong, and now she has a twin running around the London social scene wreaking havoc on her reputation. When both she and her twin get intimately involved with gorgeous shape-shifting stallion Sir Sterling Thorn, Jasmina finds herself in the impossible position of being jealous of herself…

Still isn’t enough…

Sterling is irresistibly drawn to Jasmina. She seems to have two completely different sides to her personality though, and the confusion is driving him mad. Is love just the other side of lust…or is what he has with Jasmina much, much more than that?

“A hugely imaginative story with terrific characters, a complex plot, and a heartwarming love story.”
—Star-Crossed Romance

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