The Silent Goddess: The Otherworld Series Book 1 (15 page)

Through his watery gaze he saw a figure break the surface of the water and he went willingly into the embrace of the death that had eluded him for so long.  His mortal shell fell away as he was carried into the Otherworld to become from then and forever Faeriedae.

Until this moment, when she stood again a breath away from him he had cursed his eternal life.  Now she trembled beneath him; her breath dancing on his lips, the scent of her sweet smelling skin filling his senses.  All he had to do was breath and she would be his again.  She had accused him of being aloof, when all he needed, all he wanted was to crush her against him and never let go.

A growl, one not emanating from his own throat had cut through to his warrior senses, to his duty and to his curse.  As her eyes closed in anticipation of a kiss that would, and could never come.  He had sensed to impending danger secretly thanking it, for he had almost tempted fate, again.  He threw himself in front of her and stared into the coal bright eyes of the Cu sith, the harbinger of death.

She had chosen that moment to come to her senses.  He had felt her tense in fear behind him and unconsciously he had pressed close to her.  His back ignited on fire as he leaned into her shielding her with his body.  Her hands had acted out of instinct, gripping his shoulders.  He heard his own breath hiss and her breath hitch in pain.  He ignored his back and the burning pain that engulfed him; his only thoughts were for Annie’s safety.

The sound of hounds howling and barking in the distance broke through the silent standoff.  The Grant was running, warning of the impending danger.  The Cu sith sure that his message was received retreated into the shadowy night.   Still Annie clung to his back, seemingly unable or unwilling to move.  Only then did he realize it was his own crushing weight that had left her with no escape.  He quickly stepped away; she released her grip and sank boneless to the ground.  Her body fell like a rag doll, her neck unable to take the weight of her head gave out and her head fell to her knees.  He could hear her chest and lungs struggle to keep up with the demand for oxygen her heart was craving.

He fell to his own knees trying to beg forgiveness for his own curse.  His hand stretched out of its own accord trying to offer comfort.  When he realized its intention he called it back afraid he would cause more harm.  She rose slowly to her feet to glare down at him.  He buried his face in his hands as she began to speak.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded breathlessly.  He raised his head to meet her eyes expecting anger; but the emotion he saw etched on her face was something far more dangerous.

“A Cu sith, a black angus, a hound of hell,” he explained struggling to his own feet as the fiery pain in his back erupted anew.

“That is not what I meant,” she hissed her teeth clenched as she struggled with something Duncan feared to name.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked fearful of the answer.  She shook her head violently, her eyes clenched shut.  “Please talk to me, look at me,” he begged. 

When she refused both of his requests he debated challenging his curse further.  His hands wanted to reach out and cup her delicate face.  Only through sheer willpower did he force them to grab onto the oak tree imprisoning her again between his arms.

“Run Annie,” he said forcing the words from his lips.  “Run before I touch you again and hurt us both,” her eyes flew open and locked onto his.  He felt his control slipping.  His body, pain be damned, had a mind of his own. “Run,” he whispered again.

She dipped under his arms as he dug his fingers into the bark of the oak willing it to give him strength.  He felt her body heat lingering.  He kept his eyes clamped shut as the hair on his arms stood at attention while her hand hoovered over him.

“I felt no pain,” she whispered as her hand carefully rested on his bicep.  His eyes flew to hers as he hissed in pain and watched as her eyes widened then glazed over in pleasure.  He watched her chest rise and shutter under the emotion, only then did he understand the cruel depth of the Battle Queen’s curse.  For it was pain they both felt, one afraid to touch, the other craving it.  Duncan cared little about the pain her touch caused him; he only wanted to see that look in her eyes again.  He would destroy his entire body to watch just one more of those tiny shudders ripple through her.

“I’m not strong enough Annie please run,” he begged again.

Something in his expression must have registered because before he could blink she was gone.

Chapter Eleven

Knackers the Great

             
“I’m not strong enough Annie run.”

The feral undertone of his voice had snapped her back to reality.  She did as he commanded she ran, not caring where her feet fled to.  Her vision blurred and her lungs burned, then suddenly she was flying.

The sudden impact of the ground sent air flying out of her lungs.  Her throat was making a strange sound, her palms and knees were on fire.  She didn’t care about any of that; she was more concerned with the thought that she was never going to breathe again.  She tried to get to her feet but failed and landed hard on her already sore knees.  She tried willing her chest to move, and then she tried begging.  She swore to any deity that would listen that she would never, ever again hold her breath if she could just breathe now.  Her blurry vision darkened.  Her body’s muscles suddenly seemed incapable of holding her up.  She was dying and she knew it.  She wasn’t afraid like she thought she would be.  She didn’t see her life flash before her eyes.

Or did she?   

The last thing she remembered before the darkness of death took her was a soft voice tinged with a soft burr telling her to breathe.  Then she sank willingly into the darkness.

              She felt her spirit, her essence, her soul? She wasn’t sure what to call herself now that she was dead.  Ghost, sure that worked. She felt her ghost leave her body.  She frowned down at her crumpled form.  Why as she so dirty?  What was she wearing?  Strange dark leggings covered her legs; a darker tunic covered her torso exposing her long pale arms.  Her ghostly face frowned.  Where was the color?  Oh, there it was strapped to her feet.  Well, she gave a ghostly shrug, at least it was pink.  She drifted closer to her fleshy husk.  Was her hair really that dark and short?  Maybe it was the odd light the large false stars were casting.  Her face was smudged with dirt and small bits of rock clung to one pale cheek.  Her cheeks were never pale.  Duncan had always said they were the color of a soft pink rose.

             
Duncan.

              She pushed away from her poorly made twin and searched the area for him.  Nothing around her looked familiar.  There were too many dwellings shoved so close together.  A large stone structure stood in front of her.  It was ugly and had far too many windows. 

She hoped people did not actually live here like this.  There was no grass, no green rolling hills dotted with wild flowers.  It looked like a prison.  Her eyes searched for nature, trees, and creatures anything that would remind her of home.

              Beyond the ugly stone structure was a road, at least it resembled a road.  It was black and looked like it was made of thousands of melted bits of stone.  Large metallic beasts with clear dead eyes slumbered on top of the foreign road.  Beyond that were trees and a small grassy area that was caged in by a black arrow shaped fence.  She felt anger rise up in her.  She must be in the natural world for only humans would try to cage in nature.  She reached down for her power.  She would free the earth from the human grip.  She raised her ghostly arms and focused her eyes on the offensive fence, and froze.

              Duncan stood there gripping the offensive gate; his gaze looked through her to the strangely dressed girl lying motionless on the ground.  Her heart bled for him.  He was such a noble creature.  Human suffering had always bothered him. It was one of the many reasons she had fallen in love with him when he was little more than a boy.  He had always protected those weaker than him.

With a thought she was in front of him.

He had changed, but only slightly.  The boy she had known was gone, a man, a beautiful man stood before her now.  His lean boyish frame was gone only to be replaced by the steely frame of a warrior.  His chest had thickened, his shoulders had broadened.  His face had filled in; his jaw was wrapped in the shadow of a newly growing beard.  His hair still fell about his face in the same way curling recklessly about his head.  His nose had a slightly different angle as though it had been broken.  His full lips were drawn down in sadness.  But it was his eyes that startled her the most.  The colors that swirled like liquid mercury were filled with heart wrenching pain as he gazed at her poor copy lying motionless on the ground.

She reached out her arms to enfold him in a comforting embrace, and fell through him.  His body shuddered as she passed through him.  What sort of dark magick was this?

              “No,” the sound of his voice was raw and filled with emotion.

“No,
runsearc,
” she whispered into his ear.

He shuddered again as he spun towards her voice.  His eyes darted in the darkness searching for the origin of her voice.  She watched as his hand grasped for a sword that was not attached to his hip.  She quirked a brow at him and blew out a ghostly sigh.

“Meadowsweet,” he exhaled closing his eyes.  “You are gone,” he said falling to his knees sobbing.

English?  Why was he speaking in English?

“Tell me who and they shall fall before I do,” he said promising the empty air.

She thought that was a strange request and did not understand what he meant by it.

“She cannot for she does not know,” said a familiar female voice.

“Caelia” she and Duncan hissed in unison.

A ghostly memory gnawed at her but slipped away when she tried to recall it.  It left her with one word, one heart stabbing emotion; betrayal.

“Say her name,” Caelia demanded from the shadows.

“No,” Duncan snapped back.

The shadow figure pointed through her towards the girl lying broken on the road.  “Say her name.”  Duncan’s gaze followed the path towards the girl’s body a whimper escaped his throat as his eyes fell upon her again.  “Say her name.  Neither can survive without the other.  Say it!”

Duncan inhaled a long deep breath in preparation for the anguished shout that he threw from his throat the next instant, “Annie!”

Her ghost was sucked violently backwards as it traveled with the air and filled Annie’s lungs.  Her eyes popped open as she filled her oxygen starved lungs.  The air was tinged with salt and meadowsweet.  Her body folded in half as she shot herself to a seated position.  Her chest heaving; still struggling to inhale, she ached with every breath she drew into her body.  A shaky hairy hand reached out to her shoulder.

Her wide eyes traced the foreign hand to and equally hairy arm, to a shoulder and up to a neck followed by a grinning face.  Her eyes popped out of her head as Puss in Boots’ smile widened before he spoke.  “Hello lass,” he greeted.  “Me name’s Knackers.  Knackers the Great,” he said puffing out his chest and giving her a wink.

She felt her eyes roll back into her head as darkness consumed her again.

             Annie slowly slipped back into awareness.  First her ears awakened to murmured sounds.  Voices she realized, but none that she was familiar with.  She was sure she could hear two distinct voices, one female and one male.  She tried to remain calm and keep her breathing steady and even.

“Did ye have ta hit the poor thing so hard?”  The female voice asked.

“Should I ‘ave let the metal demon ‘it ‘er then?”  A male voice spat back.

Metal demon?  She felt like she had been hit by a truck. 
A truck
!  Her memory came screaming back then.  The flash of headlights coming towards her, being tackled from behind, a big scary dog, Duncan tells her to run. 

“Duncan!” she hadn’t realized she had screamed his name till a small hand patted her arm.  She heard soft cooing noises.  They sounded tender and motherly.  The warm hand disappeared.  Annie tried to open eyes but her head throbbed with the effort.  She felt a cool cloth being pressed on her forehead and sighed.  A soft scent drifted to her nose.  She concentrated on that scent and decided it was lavender.  She felt the throb in her head lessen slightly and tried to open her eyes again.

Her eyes felt glued together, heavy and swollen like she had been crying.  If her eyes looked as bad as they felt she was in trouble.  She forced them open, losing a few eyelashes in the process.  Her vision was blurry and trying to focus made her head swim and her stomach roll.
 

“Try an’ sleep,” said the motherly voice.

Since her eyes seemed to be of little use she tried her voice.  She felt her lips move but no sound escaped them.  Her throat was dry.  Damn why had she done that shot of whiskey?  She never drank that much.  Well at least her brain was waking up from its alcoholic slumber.  Yes the alcohol explained a lot.  The strange scary dog as big as a cow?  Just a large escaped dog, nothing unusual about that.  Her bizarre conversation with Duncan?  Flights of fancy left over from her childhood.  The truck lights?  Well that made more sense; she must have stumbled into the road, a near miss.  In fact she had probably dreamed the whole thing.  What about the cool cloth, the scent of lavender, the small accented motherly voice, where did they come from?  Of course, it was Kat.  In the morning she would have to apologize and make it up to her.

“Sure but that doesn’t’ explain me,”
said a voice inside her head.

Now she was hearing voices.  She had way too much to drink.  Enough, she decided.  I’m going to fall asleep and forget this whole terrible night tomorrow everything will be better; except for that pounding.  What was that noise?

Her ears strained to listen.  She caught snippets of words and voices.  She recognized a voice, the tone, the way certain words dropped letters or how others seem to roll off his tongue.  His tongue, Duncan’s tongue.  A moan that even to her ears sounded like his name fell out of her mouth.  There was silence for a moment followed by the sounds of struggle and the loud crash of something breaking.

“That is enough!”  Shouted a shrilly all too familiar voice.  A weak smile crossed Annie’s face.  She knew that tone, that was Kat and Kat was angry; and when Kat got angry stuff got broken.

A disturbing thought crept across her mind.  If Kat was breaking things out there who was in here with her? 

“I’m Fiona,” said the motherly voice as if it had read her mind.  Okay at least she wasn’t imagining someone sitting next to her.

“Water,” Annie managed to croak. Since the unknown visitor seemed to be so comforting Annie pressed her luck and continued to believe it meant her no harm.  If she could moisten her dry burning throat maybe she could ask questions and get answers; because the images and thoughts rattling around in her head made no sense.

She felt her head being lifted off the bed, a glass pressed to her lips, she felt water flow into her mouth and she began to greedily drink.  Breathe, she reminded herself, you promised to breathe.  The glass was removed from her lips; her head fell back onto the pillows grateful for the soft landing.

“Rest
bhanphriosa,
” the soothing voice whispered.

Her eyes snapped open.  She blinked rapidly clearing the haze that covered her eyes.  Her vision focused on the blurry face that wavered in front of her.  Slowly her eyes took in the details.  A small child-like face loomed above her.  A dwarf, no, that wasn’t what they liked to be called, a little person sat on the edge of her bed.  Her kind, warm brown eyes smiled down at her.  Her plump ruddy cheeks bunched up under her eyes as her bow-like mouth spread into a motherly grin.

“There’s me bonny lass,” the tiny woman said.  Her voice was so kind and loving like her eyes that Annie couldn’t help but manage a weak smile in return.  What a sweet Bean Tighe, she thought.

Her body rocketed upright.

Her head immediately protested as her temples began pounding.  Bile rose in her throat as her stomach debated rising in revolt with her head.  She clamped a hand over her mouth in an attempt to quell her body’s rebellion, she knew this was a battle she would probably lose but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try and win.  With energy she didn’t know she possessed she launched herself off the bed toppling the Bean Tighe/little person onto the floor as she bolted for the door and raced to make her appointment with the porcelain god.