The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance (23 page)

So, he was not king of al he saw here. He did not possess pretty words any more than a pretty face. But he had not come this far to lose his son to a sweet smile and a sour attitude. “I have an urgent message you must hear. It is better spoken privately.”

“I am armed,” she warned, rising from her chair. Instead of immediately fol owing him, she stopped to cover the infant in his cradle. “I learned to kil a man when I was only six. I do not fear using a blade.”

She lied. Anyone with half an eye could tel the gentle Princess might poison a man with words, but never gut one with steel. A good ruler should have no need to shed blood. She had the makings of an excel ent queen.

“I do not wear armour,” he told her. “If you wish to kil me, you can. But for now, I am al that stands between you and a wolf hungry for power.”

“And wealth,” she conceded, taking up her mantle. “Come, I have need of herbs from the garden.”

Finn had forgotten the rich, musky scent of mortal women and the heat that pooled in his loins at the brush of soft skin against his cal used palm. He’d been living in a perfect world of perfumed air, a timeless world without need or desire. Until now, he hadn’t missed the human impulse to reproduce, to make his surroundings better, to create new out of old. He wasn’t certain he wished to return to those driving urges again.

Except escorting the exquisite Princess Anya to the kitchen garden reminded him of how much he’d lost when he’d left his humanity behind.

“Do you believe in heaven?” she asked, lifting a reed basket and carrying it to the herb bed.

“The priest says Maeve and my brother are watching over their babe from the clouds.”

“I am no priest, but yes, I believe Others watch over us,” he said honestly. “That does not mean they can help us if you think the ghost of your brother wil slay your enemies for you.” She granted him a scowl and crouched down to clip her herbs. “Your urgent message?” Lost in the sharp scents of herbs and earth and woman, Finn had forgotten what he’d intended to say. The sun here was not the warm, golden light of the Other Side, but he enjoyed the brisk bite of the wind against his skin, recal ing the days of flesh and blood – and what he could do with them. “You must catch salmon with bait,” he told her, recovering his rattled wits.

“I don’t eat salmon,” she informed him. “I do not eat the creatures of the field or sea. They have a right to live as much as I do.”

It was his turn to scowl. “And such fasting al ows you to see things that you have no right to see.

You
saw
me the other night when you should not have. Why do you not accuse me of being a demon?”

“If you are a demon, then I must accept that Patrick is one, too, and that I wil not. If mortals see you, then you are real and as human as I. It is only the Others, the ones I glimpse through the Veil who are not human. Do they urge me to eat salmon?” she asked with curiosity.

“No, they bait me as they bait you,” he growled. “But they must approve of you if they have brought Patrick here.”

She nodded serenely as if they spoke of what meal they would have that evening and not the mysteries of the universe. “Thank you for being honest and not tel ing me I am imagining what I see. The priest would say that I speak with angels, or he would be forced to cal me a heretic, but I know it is arrogance to believe we know everything. I certainly don’t know what you mean about salmon and bait.”

He crouched to help her with the basket, and an arrow hissed past his head, into the earth beneath the keep’s wal . Before she could so much as cry out, Finn flattened the Princess beneath him and rol ed with her under the shelter of a garden bench. He could feel her heart thumping wildly, in tandem with his. He had not come here to die so ignobly.

The arrow had come from the bailey. Finn scanned the ramparts, noting scurrying figures but no archer.

“I can’t breathe,” the Princess said from under him. “If we’re being attacked, I need to reach my knife.”

Beneath him, she felt soft, warm, and curved in al the right places. Finn longed to forget archers and lose himself in her flesh. Lifting his weight on both elbows, he let his hips press against hers.

Dodging death raised his appreciation of life. “I see no more archers. You may have a traitor among your sentries. And if you cannot reach your knife like this, then you are very badly trained.”

“You would teach me better?” Her fair features expressed more curiosity than fear.

“I would, after I throttle the traitor.” He rol ed off her. “You are the bait. Choose your salmon and wiggle.”

Not wishing for further argument while someone wished to kil him, Finn flung the baffling woman over his shoulder, picked up her basket and carried both into the safety of the keep.

Four

Choose her salmon and wiggle
, Anya mused that evening, sitting at the head table, picking at her mushrooms and carrots while the others feasted on fish brought up from the sea. What a strange thing for a man to say, but then, Finn was not real y a man, or was he?

He’d certainly felt as solid as any man. If she’d questioned his faeness before, she certainly could not after being shoved from the chapel, rol ed under a bench, and carried over a brawny shoulder. Finn mac Connel was al muscled man.

She darted a look to the warrior apparently enjoying his meal. He’d smel ed like a man when she’d been lying under him. He’d felt so alive, she could have sworn he’d been aroused. And she’d been too stupefied by her unexpected desire that she’d hardly understood that he could have died out there.

The meal was quieter than usual. While mead flowed freely and the feast was fit for a king, they’d hung one of their own this day – the first death of the battle ahead. The traitor had been caught and tried and justice done swiftly, as it must be. The archer had been kin of Connol y’s.

“There wil be war, won’t there?” the late Queen’s lady-in-waiting asked from the seat at Anya’s right. Cail eagh had been lady to Anya’s mother as wel as Maeve. She wore the black of mourning for the many lives lost this past decade.

There would be no war if Anya married Dubh and gave him al the wealth he lacked. His lands were rocky and not suited for farming. He fought viciously for every field of fertile ground he could claim. She understood how he thought and why. But his thinking was of the past. These days, they must fight the enemies that threatened from outside, not each other.

“There is always war,” Anya agreed. “It is choosing the right war that matters.” If she married Dubh . . . She would have to kil him before he kil ed Patrick. She had been trained to defend herself, but she had never kil ed, for self-defence or any reason.

Her gaze strayed to the big man apparently enjoying the feast. He was of Faerie but not one of them. He was much too solid, too real. Surely, if he could enter the Other World, he had gifts far stronger than her own. He had protected her with his life,
as he would protect Patrick
.

She knew now what she must do, even though it broke her heart. She stood. Few noticed or cared. She quietly departed for the stairwel . Finn fol owed, as she’d known he would. Even though he’d been as lost in feasting and drinking as the others, he halted, for her. And for the infant.

She left him at his post on the landing and entered her chamber where the maids entertained a wide-awake babe. A beautiful babe, one she would claim as her own, if she could. Smiling as if she hadn’t a care in the world, she took the child king into her arms and cuddled him. He swung his little fist as if to touch and explore her. She already adored him with al her heart and soul, and tears fil ed her eyes as she carried him from the chamber, down the stairs.

Without questioning, Finn fol owed in her footsteps, outside to the secluded garden where she’d told her brother he could not build because the Good Neighbours rode through this place. A hidden door al owed them to pass through the wal unhampered. Her brother had laughed and cal ed it a Faery gate, but she had felt the appreciation of their unreal Neighbours and known that the passage had been the right thing to do. The Others had inhabited this land wel before mortals.

When they were alone in the moonlight, Anya turned and held the child out to Finn. It took al the strength in her to do so. “Take him where he wil be safe, until he is ful grown.” As usual, he did not do as told but studied her with wariness. “A babe needs a woman to care for him. I cannot.”

“Salmon eat bait. If I am to be swal owed whole, then I cannot guarantee the child’s safety. I would rather die than lose him that way.” Tears sprang to her eyes, tears she hadn’t al owed herself to shed since she’d known the mantle of responsibility would fal on her frail shoulders. “I thank you for offering me this chance to escape my fate, but I see now that I was being selfish.”

“The child is mine,” he said resolutely. “I wish him to grow strong and true and take the place that is his birthright. He cannot do that from a place of weakness.”

“Yours?” Surprised, she gazed into the babe’s wide dark eyes, seeking a resemblance, but the warrior was hard and stern and the babe had yet to develop such character. Patrick gurgled and sucked his fist. And she loved him. Weeping, she offered the babe again. “I cannot protect him from Dubh. He is ruthless and single-minded. You must see that. If anyone must be sacrificed, it is I, not the child.”

At her words, Finn stared as if she had suddenly developed a halo and wings. He brushed her cheek with his knuckles and stared into her eyes. “Niamh?” he asked in a disbelieving whisper.

“Have the Others brought me to you? I swear, no other would sacrifice herself for our son.” Memories settled on Anya like a soft mantle, warming her heart and thoughts as she turned them inwards. “No one has cal ed me that since . . .” She tried to recal . “I had a nurse once, a nurse who took me to see our Good Neighbours riding.
They
cal ed me Niamh.” She looked at him oddly. “You know me?”

“From another time and place.” Finn stroked her face boldly, tenderly, testing the quality of her hair and skin but studying her eyes. “You do not look the same, but your heart . . . your heart is mine.”

Anya did not understand his words so wel as his expression. Heart thudding at her daring, she stepped forwards, stood on her toes, and tested a kiss against his chisel ed lips. And to her amazement, they softened.

“My bait, no others,” he whispered against her mouth, pul ing her against his chest, with the child gently crushed between them. “You wil wiggle only for me.” The intoxicating liquor of his kiss prevented her from laughing at his odd idea of courtship words. Before she fel too far under his magic spel , she pushed away. “How?” she asked, unable to form ful phrases while her head spun, for it did seem they were meant for each other. She could feel it in that place that recognized what lay beyond this world.

“They knew,” he said obliquely. “They knew I merely survived with them. That to live, I must make things better, and their world is too perfect for an imperfect mortal. They knew this world needs me more than theirs, and they brought me to you. Mortality is a price I wil ingly pay.”

“You can stay?” she asked, holding her breath in fear, widening her eyes as she studied the rugged, broad-minded man who held her and looked upon her as if she were the answer to his prayers. How could any woman resist such a man?

“I can,” he said with certainty. “Together, we wil buy Dubh’s lands and put his tenants to work so that we al might grow wealthy together. So someday, Patrick may inherit peace.”

“Yes,” she sighed happily, as the babe gurgled in delight. “Yes, and we wil be good neighbours to everyone, even to those we cannot always see. Where have you been al my life?” With a roar of joy, Finn lifted her and the babe in his mighty arms and swung them around in the moonlight. “I’ve been here, with you, inside your heart al these years!” Beneath the spreading oak by the hidden gate, an invisible, elegant troop of riders nodded approval at the joyous couple – before turning their mounts and gal oping into the mist rising from the sea.

Shifter Made

Jennifer Ashley

One

Baile Ícín (near Dingle), Ciarraí, Ireland – 1400

“Smith.”

Nial knew without looking up from his anvil that the woman who addressed him was Fae, or Sidhe as the vil agers cal ed them. He could smel her, a bright, sticky-sweet stench that humans found irresistible.

He kept his head bent over his task – mending a cooking crane for a vil age woman was far more important than speaking to a Fae. Besides, his name wasn’t Smith, and if she couldn’t cal him by his real name he saw no need to answer.

“Shifter, I command you,” she said.

Nial continued hammering. Wind poured through the open doors, carrying the scent of brine, fish and clean air, which stil could not cover the stench of Fae.

“Shifter.”

“This forge is fil ed with iron, lass,” Nial cut her off. “And Shifters don’t obey Fae any more. Did you not hear that news 150 years ago?”

“I have a spel that keeps my anathema of iron at bay. For a time. Long enough to deal with you.” Nial final y looked up, curiosity winning over animosity. A tal woman in flowing silk stood on his threshold, her body haloed by the setting sun. Her pale hair hung to her knees in a score of thin braids, and she had the dark eyes and slender, pointed ears common to her kind. She was beautiful in an ethereal way – but then al Fae were beautiful, the evil bastards.

The wind boiling up from the sea cliffs cut through the doorway, and she shivered. Nial raised his brows; he’d never caught a Fae doing a thing so normal as shiver.

He thrust the end of the crane into the fire, sending up sparks. “Come in out of the weather, girl.