And all she was, was his.
Lust burned. Love shattered. Need beyond the physical overwhelmed.
When she straddled him, those eyes like melted gold, her body taut and glowing in those streaks of morning, he was lost.
So she took him, slow, slow, glorious torture. Then stronger, deeper, until her breath caught on moans and her heart thundered under his hands. And driving, driving, fast, wild, and straight into the heart of the storm.
She slid bonelessly down on him, rested her head on his chest. Her lips curved when his arms came around her, as they had around the wolf before they’d slept.
She’d have slept again, warm and content, if not for the sudden and desperate hunger. She hoped to God there was food of some sort close by.
“You watched me change,” she told him.
“It’s not the first time.” He stroked her hair. “It’s magnificent. Oddly arousing.”
She snickered at that, then her head shot up as she sniffed the air. “Food.”
“There’s a kind of sitting room where—”
“No, here.” She rolled off him, leaped up.
On a table were platters—that hadn’t been there—eggs, grilled meats, bread, glossy pastries.
He pushed up to his elbows. “Tell me that’s coffee.”
She sniffed a pot as she stuffed bacon in her mouth. “Tea, but it’s strong. I’m starving.”
He watched her eat, still naked, still flushed from sex, her hair tousled and shaggy, her hands grabbing greedily.
“I’m in love with you.”
She glanced back. “Hey, you said it right out loud.”
“I’m in love with you. Damn it.”
“Sounds more like you. Better get your ass up if you want any of this.”
“I’ve been married. Twice.”
Riley paused, deliberately poured tea. “That’s not surprising in three centuries.”
“The first was about forty years after . . . after. She was young and sweet-natured. I shouldn’t have touched her, but I did, and more than once, and with that she— She got pregnant. I couldn’t ruin her. I had ruined her.”
“So you married her. Did you tell her?”
“No, I didn’t tell her. And I didn’t need to, as it turned out, as both she and the baby died in the birthing.”
“I’m sorry.” In that moment, she felt his grief as her own. Dull and deep. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not uncommon in those days. I swore I’d never touch an innocent again, such as she had been. And didn’t. More than a hundred years and I married again. She was a bit older, not innocent. A widow. Barren. We enjoyed each other. Her I did tell, though I doubt she believed me. Until she grew older, and I didn’t. And she grew bitter with it. I had soldier’s work to do, but I always came back to her. And one day I came back to her too late. She’d hanged herself, and left a letter for me. Cursing me.”
Riley nodded, sipped some tea. “I’m sorry. It sucks. For the first, if I got pregnant, it’s now the twenty-first century. I’m strong and healthy. For the second, I’m not vain, and I’m not stupid. And over all that, I don’t need marriage.”
“I do. With you.”
She choked on the tea. “What?”
“It’s stupid. It’s a mistake. We’ll both regret it.”
And looking at her, just looking at her, he didn’t give a damn.
“I want the pledge. For a day, a week, for fifty years or if you live to a hundred and four.”
“You’re serious? You’re asking me to marry you?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” He rolled out of bed, stalked over. “Give me the damn tea.”
“But I’m all aflutter.”
He shot her a viciously dark look. “I didn’t love them. I cared for them, both, and I pledged to them. I honored the pledge, without love, as I thought love wasn’t necessary. Or possible. I love you, and I’ll damn well have the pledge and make it.”
“I could say no.”
“You won’t.” He slammed the tea down. Then closed his eyes a moment. Opened them with his heart in them. “Don’t. Don’t say no. Give me this one thing.”
She reached up to frame his face. “Do you understand I don’t need this to stay with you, to love you, to accept you’ll go on after I stop?”
“Yes. I don’t need it to stay with you or to love you. I need it because I will and I do. I need it because in three and a half centuries, you’re the only woman I’ve loved.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? Just . . . okay? That’s your answer?”
“Yeah, okay. I’m in.”
He shook his head, then lowered his brow to hers. “What a pair we are.”
“It works.”
“It works,” he agreed. “I guess you’ll want a ring.”
“Treweth—the Anglo-Saxon root of betrothed. Means truth. The ring’s a symbol of the promise. I appreciate symbols.”
“I’ll find something.” He drew her in. He’d found her, hadn’t he?
“It’d be nice to stay here.” Skin to skin, heart to heart. “But.” With reluctance she drew back. “I’ve got some questions, and the first is, where are the damn stars?”
“Safe, we’re told. I’ll fill you in. We should get dressed, find the others.”
“Great. Where are my clothes?”
“Couldn’t say.”
Her brows knitted. “Didn’t you get them?”
“Considering the situation, I didn’t think to pick up after you.”
“Well crap.” At a loss, she looked around the room, then walked to a delicately carved wardrobe. Stared at the contents. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Doyle studied in turn, smiled. Inside hung a pair of leather breeches the color of cowhide, a simple shirt, a leather jerkin, and his own coat and boots.
And a dress the color of old gold with silver laces and piping along with kid boots.
“Seriously? You get the cool leather pants and I get a Maid Marian dress?”
“It’s that or naked.”
“Let me think about it a minute.”
She wore the dress—and scowled at herself in the mirror. “Where am I supposed to put my gun, my knife? Where are my gun and knife?”
“We’ll sort it out.” Doyle strapped on his sword. “You look beautiful.”
“I look like I’m going to a Renaissance fair.” She tugged uselessly at the bodice. “That’s a lot of landscape. Why are breasts such a thing?”
“I’ll show you later,” he said and went to answer the knock on the door.
“Good morning! Oh, Riley!” Annika swirled in. “You’re beautiful! Oh, how pretty. Do you like my dress? Isn’t it wonderful?”
She did a spin, sending the skirts flying out, all sea green and silky. “Sawyer said it’s like my eyes, and yours is like yours. Sasha’s is so pretty and blue. Everyone is in our sitting room. We’re to wait until they come for us. We’re going to meet the queen.” She took a breath, focused on Doyle’s face. “You’re happy! I can see your happy. You’re with Riley!” She threw her arms around him. “You must get Riley a ring now.”
“I’ll work on that.”
“Will I do the stand-up at your wedding?” she asked Riley.
On a laugh, Riley stopped feeling awkward in the dress. “You bet your ass.”
“Come, come. There’s more food. And coffee.”
“Coffee? How’d you get coffee?”
“Sasha asked.” Grabbing Riley’s hands, Annika tugged. “We have only to ask.”
“I missed that memo.”
In the sitting room the others stood, Sasha in flowing blue velvet, Bran in the dignified black of the sorcerer, Sawyer in brown tanned pants and a hip-length jerkin over a cream-colored shirt.
“Nice threads,” he said to Riley.
“Middle Ages prom dress.” She studied him as she beelined for the coffee. “You got a Han Solo deal going.”
“I know, right? I’m digging it.”
“So, sorry I had to change and run last night, but Doyle’s caught me up. Nerezza’s like a bitch cat with nine lives, and the stars don’t go up until we finish her off.” She gulped coffee. “And so a pilgrimage to the sword stone, an Arthur the Young twist. Then we freaking end this thing.”
“That sums it up,” Bran agreed. “May it be so simple.”
“I need my weapons,” she began, then turned when a young man in trews and doublet stepped to the door.
“My ladies, my lords. Queen Aegle requests the honor of your presence.”
It wasn’t every day you met a queen, Riley thought as they followed the page up the wide stairs. It wasn’t every lifetime you met the queen of a magick island who’d ruled for more than a millennium.
She’d expected the huge double doors, but had assumed to find them guarded. Instead they were flanked by glass urns of flowers.
She’d expected a kind of throne room, and the size met that description, along with what seemed like acres of clear glass floor. But the decor struck as simple—flowers, candles, colorful fabrics—and a throne, clear as the floor—more like an elegant chair than royal.
Then again, a chair of gold and jewels might have seemed simple compared to the woman who graced it.
She was radiant.
Topped by a diadem of jeweled glass, Titian hair spilled luxuriously over the shoulders of a white gown. The tiny clear stones scattered over it sparkled like diamonds. Perhaps they were. Her beauty stole the breath. Luminous perfection in a sculpted mouth, in vividly green eyes, and high, keen cheekbones.
When she smiled, Riley would have sworn the light shimmered.
The three goddesses stood at her right side. On her left sat a massive white wolf with eyes of bright gold.
Annika swept into a fluid curtsy. “Mother of magicks, queen of the worlds, Aegle who is radiance, we are your servants.”
“You are welcome, Children of Glass. You are welcome, Guardians of the Lights.”
She rose, glided down the three steps from the throne, crossed to them with her hands outstretched. She took Annika’s, kissed Annika’s cheeks.
“Wonder of the sea, you have our love, our thanks. Traveler of time and place.” She kissed Sawyer. “You have our love, our thanks. Child of the moon.” And Riley’s. “You have our love, our thanks. “Warrior of forever, you have our love, our thanks.”
She moved from Doyle to Bran. “Son of power, you have our love, our thanks.” And last to Sasha. “Daughter of visions, you have our love, our thanks. I would give you more than this, but your journey is not yet complete. Will you finish it?”
Sasha answered as Aegle’s hands still held hers and the words rose up in her. “We will travel the path of the gods to the circle of power, and beyond to the Tree of All Life and the stone and sword. We will fight the last battle, light against dark.
“I can’t see who wields the sword, or if the sword strikes true. I can’t see the end of Nerezza, or our end.”
“You cannot see, but you will take the journey?”
“We’ve pledged to it,” Bran answered.
“It’s an oath,” Annika added, then looked at Sawyer.
“All in.” He kissed her temple. “Ah, Your Majesty.”
“We could stay here.” Riley drew Aegle’s attention. “The guardians are on Glass, and the stars, and it’s within your power to move the island to another place, even another dimension. We could stay, potentially without interference from Nerezza for a couple of centuries. Or so I’ve read in several records.”
“You are a scholar and a seeker, and what you say is truth. Is this what you would wish?”
“No, I just wanted verification. No disrespect.”
“I would give you time. You would enjoy learning more of us, more of this world. Digging.”
“Very much. But there isn’t time, not here and now.”
“Not here and now.”
“Then we finish the journey.” Riley looked at Doyle. “So say we all?”
“We finish. My woman needs her weapons.”
Riley’s eyebrows shot up—not just at the my woman, but because he spoke in Irish.
“In the chamber you share when you return, and garb suitable for what is to come.” Aegle laid a hand on Doyle’s arm. “You have only to ask. Such is our love, our gratitude. Only ask.”
The queen stepped back. “It is our greatest hope that you will return here, victorious, and together with all of Glass, we will watch the stars shine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
As they started back, they passed servants, ladies-in-waiting, courtiers—as best Riley could figure. Each would stop, bow, or curtsy. It struck her as awkward as the dress.
“So that was our royal pep talk.”
“Wasn’t she beautiful?”
“I’ll give her that.” Riley nodded at Annika. “She lives up to her name. And she looked about what—sixteen? Had about two miles of red hair.”
“But it was like Sasha’s,” Annika said. “Like sunlight, in many braids.”
“Black.” Sawyer twirled his fingers. “Curls.”
Riley stopped on the stairs. “Red—Titian red, long and loose. Emerald green eyes. Sasha?”
“Black, but swept up. Her eyes were more like yours, Riley, but a few shades deeper.”
“All things to all people.” Riley nodded as they continued. “We saw her as we imagined her—or somewhat. You spoke to her in Irish,” she said to Doyle.
“She was speaking in Irish.”
“English and Russian,” Sawyer said.
“She spoke to me in my mind once, in the language of the merpeople.”
“Of all the strange, I guess it’s not the strangest,” Riley considered.
“And it wasn’t just a pep talk. She gave us something.” Sasha looked down at her own hand. “She gave us light. Didn’t you feel it?”
“I felt something,” Riley admitted. “Let’s hope it works.”
“We make it work. We’re ending it, and Nerezza, today.”
Riley turned to Doyle. “Sir Pessimism’s taking a turn on the Optimistic Highway.”
“She looked like you,” he said shortly.
“She what?”
“I saw you. That’s who she was, the form, for me. Whatever the hell it means, we make it work. We’re not losing this. I’m not losing you. So we end it. Gear up. Let’s get moving.”
He stalked off.
“Doyle’s happy,” Annika said. “He loves Riley. He’s going to get her a ring.”
“We’ll worry about the last part after we end the bitch. And I’m damned if I’m doing it in a dress.”
She peeled off, followed Doyle.
He stood studying the new items in the wardrobe. “You’ll be happier with this.”
“She looked like me?”
He took out Riley’s gunbelt, set in on a table. “I didn’t know you when you were sixteen, but yes. Your face, your hair, your eyes. Those are eyes I trust, and that’s what I felt. We’re not going to lose this.”
“All right then.” Riley put her hands on her hips, scanned her wardrobe choices. “This is more like it.”
In sturdy trousers and a leather vest with pockets for extra clips, she went back to the sitting room with Doyle. She picked up a hide canteen, sniffed the contents. “Water.” And strapped it on cross body. “Couldn’t hurt.”
Sasha and Bran joined them. Bran patted a leather satchel. “Salvaged from the boat. A few light bombs.”
“Water.” Riley offered Sasha a skin. “Any idea how long a hike?”
“I don’t know.” She turned when Annika and Sawyer came in. “I guess this is it. I thought—it seemed—as if we came together to find the stars, get them here. But this is it. We’re guardians, and it’s always been leading here.”
“We will guide you to the path.”
The three goddesses stood in the doorway of the terrace, backed by the warm light of the sun.
They walked together, two by two, down to a courtyard where a fountain spewed rainbows, where flowers soared and spilled and fruit dripped from trees like glossy jewels.
People stood in silent respect. Children raced and waved.
They moved through a gate, past a grove, then a green field where a man and the boy working with him stopped, doffed their caps.
Riley heard the cluck of chickens, the coo of doves, the throaty hum of bees. A woman with a little girl on her hip smiled at Riley, dropped a quick curtsy. The little girl blew kisses. Others stood outside of cottages, tidy as postcards, hats in hands or hands on hearts.
In a small bay, fishermen stopped casting their nets and saluted.
“The people of Glass are with you.” Luna gestured as they crossed a stretch of white sand toward the path. Flowers and baskets of fruit, glinting stones, pearly shells heaped at the verge. “Offerings to the guardians, and wishes for a good journey.”
“On this day, at this time, the path is only for you.” With her sisters, Celene stopped. “Only you can walk it. What waits at its end is only for you.”
“Brave hearts,” Luna said. “Walk in light.”
Arianrhod set her hand on the hilt of her sword. “And fight the dark.”
And they were gone.
“I’d say that’s god-talk for you’re on your own.” So saying Riley stepped onto the path, started up.
The first quarter mile was paved with stone, lined with trees, a gentle rise. It turned to hard-packed earth as the trees thinned and the rise steepened.
How many miles had they walked together since they’d started? she wondered. She should’ve kept a log.
In places the path narrowed so they went singly. In places it roughened so they navigated ruts, climbed over rock. On one outcropping Riley stopped, turned to look back.
The island went absolutely still below her, like something caught in a ball of glass. All color and shape without movement. A painting spread over sea and sky.
A bird caught in midflight, a wave frozen above the shore.