Wicked Paradise (26 page)

“I’m well. It was inconsequential.” She licked her dry lips, hating the vulnerability the island’s energies created with her random visions. Morgan spent more time knocked out in a vision or asleep replenishing her magic on this maddening island. She couldn’t wait for WindWraith to die and stop sucking the life out of her.

Ryan opened his mouth to speak, shut it. Thoughtful, he scratched his tattoo. The dragon rippled and the ruby eyes winked. Finally, he curled his hands, cracked his knuckles. Pained reconciliation turned to confidence in his expression. “I know how to unravel WindWraith’s magic. But I need your help to weaken the bastard and hold it in thrall.” His tone both requested and demanded. “I need WindWraith inside me so I can take his magic home with us. His power will help me defeat the Fomorians ravaging my people.”

The dread in her stomach nearly made her retch. Was that all he wanted from her? Was that what the doomed vision tried to warn her? Morgan desperately wanted to flee to sort out reality and her vision. However, they had to confront the issue and waste no more time. Avalon and Ryan’s people were at great risk if WindWraith succeeded in his plans, whether it possessed her body or found a way to live in Ryan’s ether tainted body. Either way, the Fomorian was gaining more power than any creature alive or dead.

“You cannot do it. Not without me, and I won’t let you. We have to
destroy
it.”

“We’ll contain it, then destroy it.” Ryan thumped his chest. “Inside me.”

“It will change you into a monster if it doesn’t kill you first,” Morgan spat out. “Moreover, you cannot go home.” Her voice escalated into a high pitch.

He spread his legs in a rebellious posture, towering over her. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done it before.” Ryan’s encouraging tone sounded brittle in her ears.

“With a Fomorian this old and strong?”

“We’ll capture it and reduce its powers. Then I’ll absorb it inside me.”

His gaze was like a cold wind down her back. “Then what? There’s no way off this damned island. You said so yourself.”

“I’ve found a way—”

“We will never leave this island. It has been foretold,” she said evenly.

“You’re wrong. I’ll show you.” Excitement animated his face.

Ryan stretched out a hand. Inwardly cringing, she took it. A false, compliant smile barely twitched the corners of her mouth.

“Morgan, what’s wrong?” He squeezed her stiff hand.

“I feel an odd sense of unease.” The dialogue in the vision tangled her thoughts. Was it truly WindWraith? Had Ryan discovered a way off the island? Could he really take her home with him? Did she want to go to that wasteland only to battle evil? And risk Avalon’s people? No. She must make Ryan see reason.

“Of course you feel uneasy with everything we’ve gone through, still have to do.”

She let the matter go, wanting to first see the subject of his enthusiasm. He rubbed the small of her back, then led her through a tunnel trailing away from the main cavern. Barely wide enough for them to walk abreast, Ryan had to stoop beneath the low ceiling. Morgan noticed a distinct hum, felt the vibrations against her midriff. It intensified the farther they moved away from the large chamber.

The tunnel widened to the width of several men and Ryan slowed. Palpable energy stemmed from around a bend. It electrified her nerves endings, prickled beneath her skin like flickers of lightning. Felt exactly like the force that lured her from the smooth stone bed in her vision. Morgan grasped her neck with one hand, feeling her pulse drum against her finger.

“Don’t cross the entryway to the cave at the end.” Ryan’s severe tone left no room for objection.

She hunched a shoulder in response. What additional mysteries did this mystical island hold?

They stopped outside a craggy archway into another small cavern. About twelve feet round, radiant crystals covered its every inch. Energy swirled as intense as a vortex. It skipped out of tune to the beat of Morgan’s magic, similar to the disjointed sensation of traveling through the Sacred Stones on Avalon. She wriggled her hand out of Ryan’s and clung to the rugged tunnel walls, peering into the fascinating chamber.

In the center, a warped pillar rose to the gem-crusted ceiling, appearing to support the cave’s roof. Morgan guessed it about twenty feet high. Flakes as brilliant as sunlight on diamonds glittered on the pillar. Studying the cavity, Morgan found pockets of colorless stones embedded in the walls. The clear stones absorbed color from the surrounding multihued crystals, giving them the appearance of color. A thrill shot through her. The distinctly different, intensive energy came from the colorless gems. Wild, colossal, exhilarating.

Ryan’s breath warmed the side of her neck. “I knew a portal existed somewhere on the island. It was the only thing that made a lick of sense in bringing us here.”

“My father’s magic brought us here,” Morgan replied sarcastically, hands on hips, inching away from him.

“That’s what you said,” he retorted. “But I know portals. I’ve traveled through every known one on Earth.”

“But you said we may be in another dimension?” Confusion howled like a ceaseless windstorm inside her brain. She rubbed her aching head, wishing to squeeze sense out of it. Did Father know all this?

“Portals can take you from one to the next. You just need to know what’s at the receiving gate. You also need strong magic to teleport.”

“How do you get home once you’ve gone through?” Was the monolithic stone ring a space or time portal? Was WindWraith using it somehow? Not if the crystals weaken him, surely? She pressed on her temples.

“The same way. Knowing specifically where you want to go.” He leaned against the rough earthen wall. “I lost my memory once chasing a shape-shifting demon in Scotland. I got stuck in the highlands for two weeks until my memory returned and I remembered where the portals were located.

“We arrived through this one, believe it or not. Ancient Druid magic,” he hesitated, “and the amulets may have assisted with the time aspects and the island’s secrecy, but the portal facilitated the teleportation.”

“Gwilym said there’s no way off the island,” she murmured to herself.

“He’s wrong,” Ryan declared in her ear from behind.

Startled by his closeness, she stumbled, her heel landing in the threshold, on the fringe of the maelstrom. Intense power spread from her foot to her knee. Nothingness replaced the bottom half of her leg like a phantom limb.

“Ryan!” She raised her defensive magic and seized hold of his hand grappling her waist.

Wind spun up from the ground, spiraled toward the ceiling. Morgan’s braid unraveled and hair whisked about her face. It felt as if a giant leech was sucking the life out of her. The translucent stones radiated brilliant hues, saturating the room in rainbows. The force wrenched her through the entrance and she struggled against the cyclonic wind.

“Drop your magic!” Ryan tugged her safely out of the cave.

She forcibly constrained her magic, locking her insatiable power inside her core.

“Damn, it’s strong. It pulled you in by linking to your magic, trying to control it.”

Gasping, she rested her forehead on his chest and hauled in air to quiet her frantic heart. Ryan’s embrace lulled her into a false sense of security, and she begged for proof to quash her last vision. Goddess help her if she had to deal with WindWraith inside Ryan.

“We need to leave this site now.” She sniffed. The moment she spoke the words, her connection to Ryan sparked inside her, sprouting a renewed awareness along their bond. Pure and clean, a part of her body as familiar as her hand.

Ryan smoothed his hand down her back. Their bond twitched fully awake and sweet relief sailed through her, loosening the tight muscles in her arms. Her amethyst hummed, flared in harmony with his. Joyful tears stung her eyes.

Pieces of the vast puzzle clicked together in Morgan’s mind. WindWraith was unable to unite with one who possessed ether. Ryan’s ether magic would kill it. Which meant the Fomorian’s sole goal was to subjugate Morgan’s body. WindWraith didn’t want to take her away with him as the vision foretold. The devil wanted inside her! It needed her body to use the portal. And it couldn’t subsume her until it sucked Ryan’s magic dry
and
stole all the magic from Avalon.
Sweet hell on Earth!

Ryan’s voice interrupted her disturbing ideas. “You wouldn’t have gone anywhere. There has to be an activation.”

Morgan limped away, combing her fingers through her mused hair. “Activation?”

“I’m still figuring it out. I’ve never seen a portal like this with all these crystals and power.”

In thoughtful silence, they returned to the main cavern. Morgan edged her hip on the hot spring’s ledge, staring cross-eyed at the tunnel leading to the electrifying cave. She had to do something lest matters progressed beyond no return. Before she lost Ryan for good to that blasted portal, or to death. She feared speaking her thoughts aloud, possibly giving them away to WindWraith. A hot coil of fear brewed in her stomach.

Ryan squatted between her legs. “You see why we must wait to complete the binding spell...to make love.” He took her hand possessively. “I can’t put you at risk of taking my ether inside you through our bond.”

“But you said once consumed, WindWraith will become your magic,” Morgan challenged, the coil in her stomach expanding. “Won’t it become pure and innate?”

“I believe so.” Ryan feathered his fingers from her knee to her inner thigh, stopping before his touch had a chance to turn intimate. “Do we take the risk? Are you sure innate magic isn’t accessible to the other if we complete the bond?”

“We must kill the infernal Fomorian and forget this nonsense of returning to your home! What if the alleged gateway doesn’t work and you consume this evil?” Morgan’s voice lowered an octave. “WindWraith wants me. Isn’t it obvious? It can’t touch you with your ether, just like your Fomorians at home can’t touch your people. It’s gorging on our powers so it can consume
me
and leave this island. It will cause untold destruction to the Druids of both our worlds unless we destroy it.”

“How does it maintain a link to both worlds when it’s never been to my world?” He tapped his finger on her forehead. “What knowledge is floating in your head about that?” Scarlet frustration blotched his face and shoulders, and his troubled blue eyes were tormented with confusion and indecision.

Much of her knowledge came from Gwilym’s tales, but more had emerged over the last day from both his potion and WindWraith. The information had mystified her until her vision and Ryan’s revelation of the powerful crystal cave.

She smoothed her messy hair, wetting her hand in the water to pat down the flyaways. “I believe WindWraith has a link to your land through his son, Alasdar.” She repeated the story of WindWraith’s fall to the female Sluagh. “I saw the bones of a human in a cavern where I believe the Fomorian lives. I think the human came from your world. There was clothing similar to yours.”

Ryan raked his hand through his long hair, pulling at the snarls caused by the whirlwind. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“WindWraith confuses me. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. But that cavern may prove the truth of things he told me in my vision.” She left it a singular vision, still unsure how to proceed. She trusted Ryan with her life, but she feared he’d only step up his plans to absorb the black magic of the Fomorian.

“Then the portal works.” He grinned triumphantly.

“I don’t know!” Morgan slapped the spring’s surface, splashing warm water over them. “Strong crystals line the cave. WindWraith cannot get to it in its present form.”

Ryan scratched his jaw. “Point taken.” He nodded at her to continue.

Victory slithered through the knot in her stomach, and she fought down a smirk. “WindWraith must have discovered how to use the power without being near it. Somehow, it has forged a link to its son in your world.”

Ryan paced in front of her. “Which means he’s a member of the Alasoron—” Horror engulfed his face and he staggered. “His son is Alexander. The name Alexander is the modern version of Alasdar.” He slammed his fist into his palm. “Son of a bitch.”

“Oh my.” A wintry hand crept up Morgan’s spine. “I never contemplated that. You think that’s how the Alasoron Cabal defeated the other Cabals?”

“It makes total sense.” Ryan resumed pacing short, stomping steps. “If WindWraith passed on his ancient Druid blood to his son, why can’t the Alasoron’s touch my people with the same ancient blood, if what you say is true?”

“I think it’s the dilution of Fomorian and Sluagh blood throughout the ages. The Sluagh destroyed WindWraith’s magic when she turned him. If WindWraith returns to your land after possessing one with the strong, pure blood of an Ancient, there’s nothing stopping it.” Thoughtful, she swished her fingers through the soothing bubbly water. “It cannot go through the portal without possessing the perfect vessel. And it can’t do that until it contains immense magic.”

“Perfect. It can have my body.”

Morgan wanted to smack him on the head to knock sense into him. “It will fight you to the death if you try to consume it. You know that! If it conquers your ether, it will leave this island and destroy your people, killing me in the process. Is that what you want?” She slammed a fist on her thigh.

“Matters will never reach that point,” he replied. “We’ll rest a couple of days, restore our flagging power. I have some ideas.”

She contemplated their quandary. The cave’s air curved around her like a blanket of quills. “Then we will never mate.” Her mouth compressed hard. Had she been deceived all along? By Ryan, by Gwilym? By ancient Druid rituals and customs? Even if they killed WindWraith and Ryan managed to leave the island, he’d have the Alasorons to conquer, more tainted magic inside him. Dear Goddess, she was in love with a man she could never have completely.

Ryan knelt and rested his cheek on her knee. His hands shook on her legs. Morgan hated to see his misery. She smoothed back his hair as he kissed the top of her knee, his lips soft on her frigid skin.

“I don’t know.” He rose and walked away, his back ramrod straight. “I’ll clean up and go catch some fish for dinner.”