The becoming, p.34
The Becoming, page 34
“I’d speak to you a moment. Out of the rain,” he added when she said nothing. “If it’s the same to you.”
She wanted a warm drink, a blazing fire, and time alone to brood, but she turned and walked into the cottage.
Keegan brought in the bag she’d forgotten, set it on the table.
“I’ll not apologize to you, as I’ve apologized to you more in these past months than to all and any in the whole of my life.”
Breen hung up her cloak, then walked into the kitchen to make herself tea.
“There wasn’t time to waste with you being delicate about the matter.”
“Delicate.” She’d worked hard on the cool and aloof, but felt the ice crack. “Is that what you call my reaction to being stripped naked, without my permission, against my will, in front of a dozen?”
“They weren’t there to gawk at you, and what needed doing needed doing quickly. Bugger it.” He strode away, slapped a hand toward the fire to start it, strode back. “It’s a body, for gods’ sake. Everyone’s got one.”
Since Bollocks stood beside her, head ticking back and forth from her to Keegan, she got a biscuit out of the jar for him.
Rather than gobble it down, he just stood with it clamped in his mouth.
“Really?”
“Aye, for these purposes. You’d have sunk like a stone in all of that, and until we were in the water, at the breach, how could I know how bad it was? How much it would take to seal it? All the time it took to get there, Yseult had that time to gather herself. She might have tried coming back through, and then we’d need to take her on with Marg and Sedric already weary, with my sister carrying.”
She wished it didn’t make sense, but still.
“In the time it took to get there, you could have explained things to me, what I’d need to do.”
“I didn’t think of it. There’s a woman I once bedded who tried to murder the one I’m bedding now who’s gone to Odran. Her father, a good man, a wise one in the ways needed, has resigned from the council, and I can’t find the words to change his mind on it. Her mother will mourn the rest of her days. The man who loves her is no good to me now, and won’t be until he can draw himself back, if he ever can.”
He paced as he spoke, like a man caged.
“She meant something to me once. Meant enough for me to be with her. And in being with her, I played a part in all of this. I don’t take blame for it,” he said before she could object. “But that’s the fact of it. So I didn’t think to tell you that if you went into the water fully dressed you’d sink like a shagging stone, as I thought you had the sense to know it yourself.”
“I might have figured that out if you’d told me we had to go into the water in the first place.”
“Well, how the buggering hell did you think we’d make the seal if not there at the breach?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to apologize for giving you credit for more logic than you seem to have on it?”
She poured her tea, very slowly. “In the world where we stand now, and where I’ve lived most of my life, we’re more private about nudity. Should I apologize for giving you more credit for knowing that than you apparently have?”
“I was in this place once on this side where the women on the stage took off …” He saw the hole he was about to fall into. “Well, never mind that. It’s war, Breen. I can wish for peace, and for the time and skill to give you the room you need, but I don’t have it. What we did tonight we couldn’t have done without you. I needed you. We needed you.”
She softened enough to get another mug. “You expect me to train and to learn how to fight in this war with my fists, with a sword, with a bow, with my gifts. And I’m trying.”
She poured tea into the mug, handed it to him. “I expect you to learn how to explain things to me instead of making decisions for me. I’ve told you enough about my life here so you should understand what it’s like for me when decisions are made for me.”
“That’s fair. That’s fair,” he repeated. “I’m likely to be as poor at it as you are with a bow, but I’ll work on it.”
Satisfied the crisis had passed, Bollocks took his biscuit and went to stretch out by the fire.
After he sampled the tea, Keegan sighed. “I appreciate the tea, but I’m wondering if you’ve some whiskey to go into it.”
She went to a cupboard, took out a bottle. When he held out the mug, she poured some in. And when he made a come-ahead gesture, poured more.
“Thanks for that.” He took a drink, then another. “I don’t see how there’d be trouble over here tonight—or what’s left of the night—but I can’t risk it. I can’t leave you alone. I’m not asking to share your bed.”
He drank again as she watched him over the rim of her mug.
“In truth I’m too bloody tired so I don’t think either of us would enjoy that much in any case. I can take Marco’s bed, or the divan in there. I’d know you’re safe. I need to sleep, and I won’t unless I know you’re safe.”
He looked exhausted, and she realized she hadn’t really factored that in. And not just physically, she thought, but in every way exhausted.
“You can share my bed. To sleep,” she added.
She set down her mug of tea, opened her bag to take her pages out and lay them on the table. She started to shoulder the bag, but he took it.
“I’ll carry it up.”
With a nod, she started toward the stairs. “Come on, Bollocks. Bedtime.”
He bolted up ahead of her, was already curled in his bed when she came in. She lit the fire before taking her toiletry case out of the bag Keegan carried in.
She went into the bathroom, shut the door.
When she came out, Keegan, like her dog, was already in bed— and both of them asleep.
She changed into flannel pants, a T-shirt, lowered the fire to a simmer. Thinking what a complicated, often difficult man she’d ended up involved with, she slid into bed beside him.
And dropped into sleep the moment she shut her eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
She woke alone, and to the shimmer of sunlight. A glance at the clock showed it was after eight—long past her usual get-up-andget-going time.
Then again, she honestly didn’t know what time she’d dropped into bed.
She got up, grabbed a hoodie, and went down to find her dog.
From the back door she spotted him in the bay, and Keegan on the shore throwing the ball. Time after time Bollocks swam after it or leaped up to snatch it from the air.
She had good reason to know he’d do that for hours.
Leaving them to it, she made coffee and—muttering at herself for being stupid and vain—did a light glamour before she carried the coffee outside.
“Your arm will fall off before he gets tired of that game,” she called out.
Keegan heaved the ball again before he turned. “So I’ve come to know. I fed him, as that’s easy enough, but I didn’t know for certain how to work the machine for coffee.”
“Fortunately, I do.” She offered him one of the mugs.
“Thanks. It’s good. I’ve thought of having Seamus try growing the beans, as he’s a wizard with such things, but tea’s the tradition. I might ease it in after things are settled and done.”
“I’ve never asked you what you plan to do once things are settled and done. I mean what else you plan.”
“Ah well, handling the business of peace still needs doing. Seeing the laws are held, the roads kept clean and clear, help’s given where it’s needed, keeping trades running in our world and with the ones beyond.”
He shrugged. “And the bloody politics of it all never goes away. I read your pages.”
“What?”
“You shouldn’t have left them sitting right there if you didn’t want eyes on them. I liked them.”
“I barely wrote anything when I was at the Capital.”
“What you did, I liked. The words roll. You used the castle and the village, how they feel and look, how they smell. It seems to me people will see it who never go there.”
“Thank you. That’s the hope.”
“You’re not so angry this morning.” He picked up the ball a soaking Bollocks dropped at his feet, and obliged the dog by throwing it again.
“Maybe not.”
“And myself, I’m not so tired. So I can wish I had the time to persuade you back to bed, but I have to go back to the Capital.”
“Maybe not so angry doesn’t mean I’m ready to have sex with you.”
“That’s where the persuasion would come into it.” He reached out to wind her hair around his finger. “But I have to go and deal with the mess of things there, then come back and shore up what’s left of the mess here. If I’m back with enough time for it, I’d like you to go somewhere with me on Cróga.”
“Where?”
“We’ll talk about it if there’s time.” Once again he picked up the ball. “You’re a demon dog for certain,” he said, and threw the ball. “You’ll come to Talamh later today. You’ll want to write first, have the quiet awhile, but you’ll come.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see you there if I’m able. Marco should be back before dusk. Earlier by far if he flies with Brian.”
“I think dusk.”
“The last time this is,” Keegan told Bollocks as he again picked up the ball. “So make it good.”
He feinted a throw so Bollocks dashed toward the water, then back again. Feinted again and sent the dog into leaping, dancing, barking delight.
Watching them made Breen wonder what Keegan had been like as a boy, just a boy, before he’d lifted the sword from the lake. Before he’d shouldered the responsibility for worlds.
“I have to go,” he told her. “I need to speak to Harken before I fly east, and see that all’s well at the falls. I’m …explaining things.”
It took effort, but she suppressed the smile and nodded. “I can see that.”
“All right then.” He put an arm around her waist, tugged her to him. “Kiss me, would you, as it took powerful restraint not to wake you when you lay soft and warm beside me at dawn.”
“I might not have minded.”
“Now she says it. I’ll keep that in mind the next time. Now kiss me, Breen, for the ride east will be cold.”
She put an arm around his neck, tangled her fingers in his hair. And took her time about it. Testing her power, she brushed her lips lightly on his, watched his eyes as he watched hers.
Then changed the angle, brushed again.
Smiled.
“You leave me wanting,” he told her.
“I could.” And that, she thought, was a power she hadn’t known she had. “But …” She gave his bottom lip a little tug with her teeth. “I won’t. Kiss me back, Keegan,” she whispered, and took his mouth.
What he felt poured into her, the mad heat of need. It left her staggered, aching, thrilled.
“It wouldn’t have taken much persuasion.”
“Gods spare me.” He dropped his brow to hers a moment, then straightened, stepped back. Handed her the mug. “I have to go.”
Cróga landed on the beach behind him.
He turned, mounted, gave her one last look. Then was gone.
She wrote a blog, then tested her skills with magicks, creating images for it from memory. The hillsides, the bridges over the river, and Bollocks leaping into the water, Marco on horseback.
Satisfied, she wrote an email to Sally and Derrick before she treated herself to a Coke and settled in to work.
The words didn’t always roll, but it felt good, really good, to be back at her desk, back at her laptop, back in the quiet.
And tomorrow, she promised herself, back into her preferred routine.
She wrote into the afternoon, then pushed herself away. Time for a real shower, she decided, and clothes that weren’t pajamas.
Time for Talamh.
As Breen and the dog walked into the woods, Shana stirred awake.
She remembered, vaguely, bathing …being bathed?
Warm, scented water.
It seemed like a dream, and what did it matter when everything felt so soft and lovely?
She found herself in a bed that cradled her like clouds, with sheets of white satin against her skin. On the ceiling, painted gods and faeries, elves and strange beasts danced and fornicated while clovenhoofed demons played pan flutes and sly-eyed creatures feasted on the breasts of laughing Fey.
It was all so gay!
The room with its white silk draperies, its gilt furnishings was easily twice the size of the one she’d left behind. And so much more opulent, with its marble floors and crystal lamps.
She’d dreamed of creating a room just like this when she’d taken her rightful place in the chambers of the taoiseach.
She slipped out of the bed with its towering gold posts and swirled the thin white silk that draped her. The fire, of wood, not peasant peat, simmered in a housing of more white marble with a mantel drenched in fresh flowers.
She drew back the drapes, lifted her face to the stream of the sun, her gaze to the view of a thundering sea.
No tiny balcony here where she could barely stand, but a wide terrace with flowered vines tangled around the railings. She started to step out, but the wind blew fierce so she shut the glass door again.
It pleased her to see her favored scents and creams and paints arranged in pretty bottles on a dressing table with soft gold-backed brushes for her hair, jeweled combs, a gold-framed mirror that reflected her beauty, a chair in the palest of pink velvet where she could sit and admire herself.
Opening the first door of the four-door wardrobe she found gowns, jeweled bodices, flowing skirts, rich fabrics. Squealing with delight, she opened more to find riding clothes, shawls, scarves, furs, an entire section of shoes and boots.
Lush, alluring underpinnings, nightwear, robes of silks and satins.
In velvet-lined drawers she found jewels, the ornate, the elegant, the stunning.
This, so much this, was worth every terrible moment of her flight from Talamh. Damn them all!
To amuse herself, she plucked sapphire stars with a teardrop of diamonds and put them on her ears, slid rings that caught her fancy on her fingers.
As she turned her hands to admire, she saw the scars, the shape of a knife hilt, scored into her right palm. It no longer burned her skin, but it burned, hot and strong, in her heart.
Payment. One day there would be payment.
But today, she wanted only delights, and found more when she wandered into a generous sitting room. She’d barely begun to explore when a knock sounded—almost a scratching—on the door.
Shana lifted her chin, said, “Come.”
The girl had straw-colored hair pulled tight into a knot at the base of her neck. She wore a shapeless gray dress, kept her eyes downcast as she carried in a tray.
“To break your fast, mistress.”
Shana gestured to the table near the sitting room’s terrace doors. The girl scurried over, began to set out the teapot, the cup, pastries, a domed plate.
“Should I pour your tea, mistress?”
“Of course.”
“I am Beryl, and will serve you as long as it pleases you.”
“Where is Yseult?”
“I cannot say, mistress.”
“I wish to meet with Odran.”
“I am told Odran, our lord, our master, will send for you.”
“When?”
“I cannot say, mistress.”
“So far, your service isn’t pleasing.”
The girl glanced up, just an instant, but Shana saw raw fear. That did please her.
“Go tidy the bed and lay out the blue velvet with the jeweled cuffs and hem, the blue kid boots with gold heels, and the proper under-garments. Then go away. Come back in one hour.”
Satisfied, Shana sat at the table, removed the dome to find a pretty omelet and a rasher of bacon.
She thought how painful her hunger had been in Talamh, how she’d lowered herself to eat carrots and turnips yanked out of the dirt.
She ate slowly, savoring each bite, and with each bite imagined her glorious revenge.
When Breen climbed over the wall to the road in Talamh, Morena, Amish on her arm, hailed her from the farm.
“At last!”
“Late start. I’m going down to Nan’s.”
“We’ll meet you there then. I’ll get Aisling. My own nan’s already there.”
With the hawk still on her arm, Morena spread her wings and flew toward the cottage.
Amused, Breen continued on. She’d missed this—only a few days, but she’d missed this walk down the road, past the farm and the sheep. Had missed seeing Harken out in the field with the horses as he was now. She’d missed the quiet low of cattle, the smell of green grass and peat smoke on a brisk fall breeze.
The way Bollocks trotted beside her, she knew he was as happy to be back as she.
“We’re not really castle types, are we?”
She veered to the side when a wagon rumbled up, and noted the trio of kids in the back.
“No school today?” she wondered aloud. “What day is it? I’ve lost track.”
She saw the group she thought of as the Gang of Six playing a game with a red ball and flat sticks in a near field, so called out.
“No school today?”
Mina, the de facto leader, waved. “Well, it’s Saturday, isn’t it? And welcome back to the valley.”
“It’s good to be back.”
One of the boys transformed into a young horse, snatched the ball in his mouth, and raced off with it.
“Foul!” Mina cried, and went elf speed in pursuit. “There’s a foul!” Fantastic as it was, Breen thought as she continued on, it was blissfully simple. Children playing on a Saturday afternoon as children did everywhere.
Or should.
She made the turn toward Marg’s cottage, marveled at the flowers still blooming despite the chill. And saw the blue door open. Because she was expected. And she was welcome.
Inside, the fire snapped in the hearth and the air smelled of fresh bread and sweet things.
