Pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes, Fionn willed his body to cool and his arousal to fade. It was difficult with her scent on his fingers.
He’d eventually done the right thing but he wouldn’t pat himself on the fucking back for it.
Settling his hands on his stomach, he turned his head on the pillow to look at her again.
Rose.
Panic gripped him.
How could he hurt her now?
He visualized plunging An Breitheamh into her heart and made a low sound of agony.
Rose stirred in her sleep, her lashes fluttering, but she didn’t wake.
Fionn shifted onto his side to watch her.
If he didn’t take An Breitheamh to her, he’d have to find the last fae-borne. He couldn’t kill Niamh if she was his descendant. If he couldn’t kill Niamh, and he couldn’t kill Rose … Yet, that was taking a massive risk. What if he was too late to find the other fae-borne?
What good were these feelings, anyway? Fionn planned to take his revenge and die at the end of it. There was no future for him and Rose. Even if he didn’t have a plan to die, he’d never learn to trust her fully.
And what of Rose’s future? To constantly be on the run from fanatics who either wanted to kill her or use her to open a fucking gate?
Surely giving her a worthy death now was a blessing in disguise.
The mere thought nauseated Fionn.
“Rose,” he whispered, reaching out to touch a silken strand of her hair, “what have you done?”
21
The streets had blurred together as Rose sped through them faster than light. She flew over rooftops, jumped from balcony to balcony on seventeenth-century buildings that changed as she soared midair onto La Sagrada Familia. One minute she’d been in Orléan, now Barcelona.
She gripped the side of one of the spires, feet secured in the gaps in the stonework. Laughing, exhilarated, Rose held on tight as she glanced over her shoulder and found Fionn floating midair with invisible wings. His brooding expression was firmly in place.
“Let go, Rose,” he demanded.
Instead, she climbed.
“We mustn’t touch what isn’t ours,” he called out.
She stopped, pulled her knees up toward her chest, her feet flat to the stone, and pushed, arching her back, lifting her chin as she did a backward flip off the spire. It felt like flying.
Landing on the ground was like landing on a cloud.
Her surroundings were vague now, like an incomplete sketch. However, when Fionn appeared before her, he was anything but. He was full-color 4K HD.
“Show-off,” he said.
Rose felt excitement blossom low in her gut accompanying the flutter near her heart. “You like it. Admit it. You like me.”
Just as his lips pushed toward a smile, a tornado—or something like it—pulled him up into its grasp, taking the vague world with it in a smear of colors.
Her heart raced, all joy gone, only confusion and fear left as she stood in an eternity of darkness.
“Hello!” she yelled, the word echoing and echoing and echoing.
Then she was on the move, like the blackness beneath her was a walkway in motion; one that rippled and wobbled and then propelled her out of the dark.
Rose landed in a large room. Struggling to even out her breathing, she spun in the spot, staring at the circular room with its conical roof. A whitish, cracked, claylike material created a circular wall that came to just above Rose’s head. From there the ceiling, made of a wooden frame and hay, vaulted to a point in the center. In the middle of the room was a circle of stones, within which a fire was dying, the smoke filtering up to a small gap in the roof.
Edging the room was a table with pieces of pottery, a rough-hewn jug and cups … There were wicker baskets and benches with furs thrown over them near an entrance.
Behind her, simple framework and fabric draped like curtains created a crude separation of living and sleeping quarters. Rose jerked in surprise at the sight of a beautiful gray wolf sprawled in front of it, his head resting between his paws as he dozed.
A groan drew Rose’s attention from the wolf to the curtains as a large hand pushed the fabric aside, revealing more furs.
The wolf instantly woke up and stood, a large, majestic animal with piercing blue eyes. He began to pace impatiently until Fionn was there. There was a glow about him, and even though he sported a thick, long beard, Rose would recognize him anywhere. He stepped out of the furs, naked and magnificent.
Her breath caught.
He reached into the bed of furs, giving her an amazing view of that muscular ass of his, and pulled on rough trousers. With a yawn, Fionn crossed the room and picked up something that looked like bread from a plate on the table. The wolf followed, and Fionn reached out to scratch behind his ears. “Maidin Mhaith, Cónán.”
Chewing on the bread, Fionn strode toward the entrance, the wolf shadowing him.
Rose followed.
It had taken her slumberous mind to catch up, but as she dashed out of the roundhouse, her consciousness realized she was dream-walking again, this time in Fionn’s dreamworld. And he seemed to be dreaming about the past.
Rose marveled at the view as she skidded to a stop outside the house. She was on a hill. Sprawled below her was a village, a collection of roundhouses of varying sizes, all with land that was being tended. A great stone wall surrounded the village border. A pale blue sky hung above them as Fionn took in the view of people working and talking in the small town below.
She followed his gaze to what looked like the entrance to the fortified town where men with weapons sat outside what might have been a guardhouse.
“Taispeánann mo rí an iomarca dó féin dá mhuintir.”
The foreign words brought both Fionn, Cónán, and Rose’s heads to the left, where a striking redhead appeared, walking up the slope toward the entrance to the roundhouse.
Fionn strode toward the woman, turning her in his arms, and shocking the shit out of Rose as he broke into a wide smile.
She’d never seen him smile like that.
“Éad, mo ghrá?” Fionn asked.
The redhead shook her head, laughing as Fionn pressed his lips to hers.
Jealousy seared through Rose as they held each other tight, their kisses passionate, their embrace loving.
Who was this?
“Aoibhinn,” Fionn murmured as he broke the kiss. “D’airigh mé uaim mo bhanríon.”
“Tá do chogadh tábhachtach.”
Rose had no idea what they were saying, but the woman seemed to be reassuring him.
“Cá bhfuil na gasúir?”
The redhead grinned and turned her curvy body toward the entrance.
Fionn shook his head. “Níl siad istigh ansin.”
The woman chuckled, tipped her head toward the entrance and yelled, “Caoimhe, Diarmuid!”
Two seconds later, a young girl, perhaps seven or eight, hurried out of the roundhouse followed by a tall, lanky young man who could have been anywhere between the ages of eleven and eighteen. His physique said he was older but his baby face said he was very young.
Rose frowned. Where had they come from?
Oh. Right. Dream.
But who were they? Taking a step closer, she peered at the kids as the girl wrapped her arms around Fionn’s waist and he grinned down at her. He then turned to converse with the boy. Rose was stunned.
The boy had his smile. The girl had his hair.
Were these … Fionn’s children?
What?
Cónán moved toward the boy who curled his fist in the wolf’s ruff as he grinned up at Fionn.
“Níor choir duit a bheith imithe chuici.” The woman’s words, whatever they meant, caused a massive shift in Fionn’s dreamscape.
The children vanished and the village faded to a forest lit only with flame from a massive fire behind the woman. And Fionn … he was now beardless and wore leather trousers.
A gold circlet rested l
ow around his neck. His torso was bare.
Without his beard, he looked more like the Fionn she knew, except his green eyes blazed with the light of another world.
Cloaked figures appeared out of the trees behind him, advancing menacingly as the redheaded woman watched on, chin raised in defiance.
“Mo grá?” Fionn reached for the redhead.