chapter Sixteen
The soft, familiar lapping of water against stone told Daroch he was in his grotto. At least, he dared hope he was. He tried to move and pain lanced through him, though he welcomed it as verification that he was yet alive.
“I think he’s stirring, Kylah,” a young sweet voice pierced the pain in his head. One he’d heard before. But where?
Thank you, Druid, for what you did.
His memory returned to him. Kylah’s younger sister, sweet-faced and deceptively innocent looking. She was safe. Alive. Well, not alive, exactly.
A cool, wet cloth had been wiping at his face, but it left him, and a hand reached beneath his neck. His soul recognized the touch immediately.
“Drink this. It will help with the pain.” Kylah’s gentle voice soothed with as much efficiency as any tonic she could give him. But Daroch forced himself to swallow the bitter brew she gave him, testing his mind by identifying each herb by its taste.
That achieved, he decided to risk opening his eyes. Daroch drank in the sight of her, hale and whole and as lovely as she’d ever been. Kylah gazed back at him, her eyes shining with so many emotions, he didn’t have the capacity to identify them all. Wouldn’t pay heed to the word lurking in his pain-and-tonic-muddled thoughts.
A second head popped into his vision from where he stared up from the flat of his back, a younger, lighter version of Kylah, this one still glowing a luminescent blue and smattered with freckles. “Did you really decapitate two people in one day?” she asked with youthful rapturous awe.
“Kamdyn!” Kylah admonished.
“They werena people,” he corrected through a raspy throat. “They were—”
“Faeries.” A third head materialized above him and Daroch surged up, causing all three women to leap away from him.
“What the f*ck is she doing here?” Daroch struggled to his feet searching for his sword, his staff, anything he could use against the interloper.
“Daroch.” Kylah went to him, slipping her hand into his and wrapping the other about his arm as though preparing to support his buckling weight. He tilted a little, as the cave spun around him, but he shoved his woman behind him, ready to deal a final death to the diminutive Fae.
“Get me my sword,” he commanded the room at large.
No one moved to obey him. Contrary, bull-headed highland women. Why couldn’t they just accept that what he said was always right and do as he bade them?
“I mean you no harm, Druid.” The dead Queen’s hand-maiden floated above the black waters of the grotto, intricate designs of ice forming in the water below her.
“She helped me bring you home, Daroch.” Kylah stepped out from behind him. “Her name is Tah Liah and she has something to offer you.”
“I want nothing from a Faerie,” he growled, fighting feelings of betrayal.
“Not even the restitution you are owed?” The Fae called Tah Liah asked.
Daroch lurched toward her on unsteady feet. “What could you possibly have to offer me that would serve as restitution for all I have lost?” His voice broke on the last word, and Kylah moved to steady him, though there was no need. Rage strengthened his bones and began to erase the damage done by the Banshee Queen and her lethal magic.
“Cliodnah helped Kylah’s older sister, Katriona, defeat her Laird’s enemies and, in doing so, broke the pact not to interfere in human affairs,” Tah Liah explained.
“What does that have to do with me?” Daroch asked.
“According to the contract, if she were to ever again interfere with humans she would owe you, her wrongly captured slave, a great boon. As she is dead by both our hands, the council of Queens will learn of her treachery and by Faerie law, I will succeed her as Queen of the Banshees. As such, I plan to keep our sacred pacts, beginning with the debt she owes you.”
Daroch snarled. “I repeat, I want nothing from ye but yer departure from my home.”
“Not even a fresh beginning?” The Faerie asked. “Rarely, a Fae is granted the ability to reach through time. I can petition the council of Queens to return you to your own time, to your own people. Your memory of the horrible days you spent with my Queen would be as naught and you would live your life back among the Druids.”
Beside him, Kylah gasped, and her fingers tightened their grip on his. Daroch looked down at her and she met his gaze, her liquid green eyes swimming with tears.
“You could go home.” she struggled to give him a watery smile and failed, utterly.
Daroch’s chest tightened. In the time he’d known her, Kylah’s face had become so incredibly dear. Her voice flowed through his thoughts constantly, arguing with him even when she wasn’t present. He’d only begun to learn the forbidden mysteries of her body. Of her unconquerable spirit. He’d only basked in her encompassing love for one night.
He wanted—needed—a lifetime.
“Could I use my boon to keep Kylah with me, to restore her life and humanity?”
“Daroch?” she whispered, as though she dare not believe what she heard. “Why?”
Did she truly have to ask?
“You love her,” Tah Liah observed.
Daroch shook his head, but pulled Kylah closer. “I doona believe in love. But I canna stand the thought of spending the rest of a century sleeping without her by my side. I couldna return to my time and my people. I couldna live a life without her in it.”
A soft and knowing look passed between the new Banshee Queen and the woman he clung to. It puzzled him, but he dare not admit it as a sudden unsettling realization that he was outnumbered by women left him uncomfortably silent.
“It is nearly impossible, what you ask.” Tah Liah sounded as though she regretted her words. “The return of a life demands the balance of a human virgin sacrifice, one born of flames. You above all people should know that, Druid.”
His hopes fell with a heavy weight. Kylah would never allow the sacrifice of another innocent, not even to solidify their future together.
“What about me?” Kamdyn’s quiet voice permeated the somber cave. “I died in a fire, and was… am a virgin.”
Tah Liah’s silver eyes sharpened with interest.
“Kamdyn, no,” Kylah insisted. “You do not know what you are offering. These Fae, they are cruel and brutal.” She turned to Tah Liah. “I mean no offense, but my sister is young and impetuous, and after what happened to Daroch, I cannot allow this.”
“All those who are loyal to Cliodnah and Ly Erg will swiftly be dealt with.” Tah Liah gestured to Kamdyn. “I will be in need of a hand-maiden and you will be under my protection. I can promise no harm or degradation will befall you at the hands of the Fae, and you will only be set to tasks of the utmost importance. A high place, indeed, for someone who was once mortal.”
“Ye’re all mortal, now, Faerie.” Daroch couldn’t keep himself from reminding her. “I will ensure the use of Arborlatix is widespread and prevalent.”
Tah Liah speared him with an impatient, meaningful look. “I understand that, and it is more the reason to avoid humans in the future.” She turned to Kylah. “You would give up your new found immortality for this Druid?”
Daroch’s heart seized. He hadn’t thought of it that way. For the moment, Kylah was strong, immortal and he’d rid her life of her enemies.
Kylah glanced from her sister, who smiled and nodded, then to Daroch, and back.
“Without question,” she insisted, “I love him with all my heart. But… Kamdyn…”
“Stay with your Druid.” Kamdyn went to her. “Mother will have you and Katriona to look after her and as this ghostly Banshee, I can do nothing. I can have… no one.” She stole a shy look at Daroch. “Though I know I would have your love, I would truly be alone.”
A tear slid down Kylah’s cheek. “Oh darling, I didn’t even consider that.”
“What an adventure this will be for me.” Kamdyn’s soft green eyes began to sparkle with eager anticipation. “I want to do this, Kylah, for you, for your Druid, and for myself.”
Daroch’s heart swelled with gratitude, but he couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“You’re welcome,” Kamdyn told him with a smile and turned to kiss the air next to her sister’s cheek.
Kylah gave a soft sob, but returned the ghostly kiss.
Kamdyn drifted toward Tah Liah, and took the hand of her new Banshee Queen. It was the last they saw of either of them, as they faded into the nether.
Kylah gave one last sob, and then a gasp as her entire form began to tremble.
“Kylah? What’s happening.” Daroch clutched her to him, felt her body grow incrementally warmer as Fae flesh became human, fused with blood and mortal energy. He dared not hope. He dared not trust the word of a Faerie.
Suddenly, she pulled back, a radiant smile catching the tears that fell from her eyes. “Could you have imagined, Daroch, when this day dawned that we’d have your vengeance, and then be blessed with my life… our lives?”
Daroch felt a smile overtake his own mouth and, for once, he did not fight it. “It truly defies the odds.”
“I love you, Daroch McLeod.”
Daroch sobered. “I… meant what I said to the Faerie. I canna imagine one single day without ye in it. I feel this—perplexing and primitive drive to possess every part of ye. To be what no other man could possibly be in yer eyes. I want ye to belong to me and to tell me what to do. I want to be the answer to all yer infuriating questions. I want…”
Kylah stilled the movement of his lips by laying a gentle finger them. “If you said, ‘I love you, Kylah’, that would encompass all of that and save us a great deal of time that could be spent doing things other than talking.” Heat flared in her eyes and she made a gesture toward his antechamber.
“I love ye, Kylah.” Daroch tested the words and realized nothing he’d ever learned, studied, discovered, or confirmed ever felt more like the absolute truth.
About the Author
Kerrigan Byrne's stories span the spectrum of romantic fiction from historical, to paranormal, to romantic suspense. She can always promise her reader one thing: memorable and sexy Celtic heroes who are guaranteed to heat your blood before they steal your heart.
Kerrigan lives at the base of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and his three lovely daughters. She's worked in Law Enforcement for the better part of a decade.
*Kerrigan donates a percentage of all book sales to www.womenforwomen.org to help the innocent survivors of global war and oppression.
To find other books by Kerrigan, visit her website at: www.kerriganbyrne.com