Chapter Eight
Meg was still shivering hours later as she sat in Beck’s lap atop Sweeney’s great back. Beck had spoken very little. It seemed like a good thing to let him stew at the time, but it had been many miles since he said a word. Meg was getting tired of the silence.
After the incident with the homicidal water horse, Beck had taken her back to camp and warmed her up. He’d carefully laid her wet clothes by the fire to dry. He cleaned and cooked a couple of rabbits and forced her to eat. He’d lain under the blankets with her until he was satisfied she wouldn’t die from the cold. Then he’d given her back the dry clothes and packed up their camp. He’d said all of ten words to her, most of them commands. The silence was becoming a little unbearable.
She’d done the only thing she knew to do. If she was staying with him, then she needed to start training him. Sure, it usually went the other way. The submissive got trained by the Dom, but Meg had decided that her Dom was a dumbass, and things would work differently with them. She’d never actually gotten those books she ordered off the internet, so she was on her own. She would have to let her instincts guide her.
Everything she had said or done had been very submissive. She had given in to her urge and let herself cuddle up against him. Even while riding, she held on to his waist and buried her face in the curve of his neck. He probably didn’t notice it, but he relaxed when she clung to him. He preferred to be in physical contact with her.
Meg watched as the forest gave way to what looked like an endless field. Still, Beck was silent.
“Are we almost home?” Meg asked quietly, looking up at him.
“Almost,” he replied stoically.
Another moment and she couldn’t take anymore, but she had to tread carefully.
“I’m very sorry.” She nuzzled against his neck. She loved the smell of him. “Are you ever going to forgive me?”
His eyes were serious as he looked down at her, but he didn’t move away.
“It hasn’t been very long, love. My bones are still cold from jumping in the river after you. Perhaps you should let me warm up before we start talking about forgiveness.” He sighed and rubbed her back soothingly. “I don’t blame you. I should have known you would run.”
“I wasn’t running,” Meg protested. Beck’s eyebrows arched skeptically. “Okay, so I was at first. Then I realized that I want to give this thing a chance. We really do have a connection, and I want to explore that. I know you won’t believe it, but I was trying to get back to you. I got lost.”
“Of course you got lost,” Beck said with a frown. “You don’t know your way around the forest. You could have been killed. You almost were.”
She smiled up at him. “You saved me.”
“Barely.”
Meg thought about the strange little man in his red suit. She shivered now as she considered the fact that he had told her to get on the kelpie and ride. “Are those kelpie things common here?”
Beck shook his head. “No, but they are very famous.”
“So anyone who lives here would know not to ride one.” Meg was starting to believe that little red man had it out for her.
“Well, they are Fae creatures. This is what we refer to as a neutral plane. That means there wasn’t a civilization here when we found it. Fae creatures have wandered off and on the place for centuries. Some stayed. I suppose there are plenty of beings on the plane that might not understand what a kelpie is.”
“So he might not have known.” He might have been confused. Meg had a hard time believing that. He’d seemed to know the forest very well.
“Who might not have known?” Beck’s voice had gone positively glacial. “Did you meet someone in the woods?”
Meg realized she might have been better off keeping her mouth shut. “It was a man, a little man. He seemed old. He said he could take me to my home plane.”
Beck stopped the horse and looked down at her, his expression a mask of horror. “You met a Planeswalker? Oh, goddess, Meggie, that was a demon. What did you promise him?”
Meg shook her head vigorously. “Nothing. I told him I wanted to get back to you, and he pointed me to the kelpie. That was a demon? I thought they’d be bigger. I also thought they would have more style. I guess red is kind of their color, though.”
Beck let out a long breath of air. “He was a short man, dressed in red from head to toe?” Meg nodded. “It was Far Darrig, love. He’s a trickster. It’s his mission to trick travelers. He can read your mind, so he knows how to get to you.” Clicking his teeth, Beck got the horse moving again. “Don’t talk to strangers, love. I don’t want you to be alone until you get used to this place. If you need to go somewhere, you take me or Cian with you.”
Beck returned to his silence, his eyes on the road, watching for threats.
“Will you kiss me?” Meg asked very politely. She didn’t want to think about all the creatures on this plane that might kill her. She had other things to worry about. She had a husband to train.
“You want me to kiss you?” His voice rose slightly as he asked the question, as though he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
“Yes,” she said with as much innocence as she could manage. “I have since the moment I met you. Kiss me, please. It makes me feel safe.”
His gray eyes looked slightly mystified, but he bent his head down and softly kissed her lips. Meg held still, letting him control the kiss. It was gentle, tender even, and when he pulled away, he kissed the top of her head as well. He settled his cloak around her shoulders, surrounding her with warmth.
Meg tried pushing her contentment outward. She wasn’t sure about how the whole psychic connection worked, but she knew it was there. He needed to know and come to trust that she was happy with him.
When she felt him chuckle deep in his chest, she knew it had worked. It was the sound of a man who was satisfied with himself. Meg had begun to realize that Beck was very unsure of his ability to please a woman. His instincts were all screwed up. Something had happened to make him doubt himself and turn his back on his true nature. She had to smash that wall down if they were going to be happy. She would use their connection to do it. She drowsed, happily thinking of all the ways she intended to get past his barriers.
* * * *
“Wake up, love.” His voice pulled her from her nap.
Meg tried to sit up and realized that Sweeney had stopped moving.
“Well, finally,” a familiar voice said from below her. Meg rubbed her eyes and saw Dante standing with crossed arms, looking up at them. He looked haggard and tired. “It took you forever. I expected you late this morning.”
“Meg decided to take a ride on a kelpie,” Beck replied sardonically. “It caused me to push back my schedule.”
Dante’s green eyes were wide and his mouth dropped open. He was utterly fangless now.
“Seriously?” He turned to Meg. “What the hell were you thinking? Kelpies like to eat people.”
Meg stiffened at the thought of what might have happened. “It was going to eat me? You didn’t tell me it was planning on eating me!”
“Well, it wasn’t inviting you to tea, love,” Beck replied as he handed her down to the vampire. Dante set her squarely on her feet. “It was a close thing. The kelpie took her deep. I had to slit its throat before it would let her go. I damn near drowned myself.”
“That explains it.” Dante rubbed a palm across his forehead. “Early this morning, Cian stopped breathing. It freaked me out. I really thought he was dead this time. He started again after a minute of my frantically shaking him. I was surprised that worked. He’s weaker than I thought.”
Beck slapped his cousin on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine now.” He turned to his horse and released the saddle on its back. With an easy strength, he hefted the heavy saddle with one arm and smacked the horse’s rump with the other. “Go on now, go rest.” The great beast lumbered off to wherever it went to rest.
“You haven’t seen him.” Dante rushed after Beck. “He’s worse than ever. I don’t know if you can bring him back.”
Meg followed the small procession, trying to take in her new home as she hurried to keep up. It looked like a farm out of the shire from Lord of the Rings, if the inhabitants had averaged six and a half feet and let everything fall down around them.
The front yard was badly in need of attention. There was a small flower garden, but whatever had grown there lost the battle against invading weeds. There was also an odd-looking motorcycle leaning against a fence. Meg noted the bike proudly boasted a Harley Davidson logo.
Beck sighed as he looked at the garden, completely ignoring the bike. There was an air of unsurprised disappointment about him. “I suppose the vegetable garden is the same.”
“Worse.” Dante’s boot kicked the dirt where there should have been flowers growing. “Flanna and some girls from the village came and saved what they could. She said she would preserve the vegetables and make jelly from the strawberries, but that was all she could promise.”
Beck nodded. “I’ll be sure to thank Flanna in the morning. Her family is good to us. We’ll need every bit we can salvage if we’re going to make it through the winter.”
“Damn it, Beck, I can help.”
Whatever the vampire was about to say was cut off by Beck’s low growl. “I’ll provide for my wife.”
Meg slipped her hand into Beck’s. It was a good time to continue his training. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
She wasn’t. She was slightly terrified. The house, or brugh as Beck called it, was small, and though solidly built, it had an air of neglect about it. Meg had more work to do than she could have imagined. She tried to let none of that slip through. She focused on giving off an air of trust and love.
“I promise you won’t go hungry,” Beck said, stroking her hair. He did it unconsciously now, Meg noticed. He hadn’t started reaching for her yet, but when she touched him, he pulled her close and seemed to revel in the contact.
Dante watched the byplay. For the first time since she’d woken up, there was a hint of a smile playing on Dante’s lips. Meg realized she had gotten used to the vampire smiling. It was funny how comfortable she could get with someone in so short a time.
Beck sighed and squeezed her shoulders. “I’m going in, love. You stay out here for a moment with Dante. Let me get Cian ready. He’d kill me if I let you see him at his worst.”
The door opened and closed behind him. Meg was left alone with a grinning Dante.
“The human learns,” Dante snarked.
Meg rolled her eyes and punched him on the arm. She had never had an obnoxious brother, but that was what Dante felt like. “I’ll have you know I am highly educated, asshole. I have two degrees. How many do you have?”
“Only the one,” Dante allowed. His chest puffed with pride. “I graduated from the most respected business college in America.”
“You mean Vampire America.” Meg really wanted to see what America looked like with vamps in control. “What did you major in? Boozing? Partying? Falling asleep in class?”
Dante looked thrilled with her new attitude. “The real Meggie Finn comes to life, thank the gods. I thought you were a little boring there for a while, but I caught the faintest hint of bitch, so I had hope. I merely minored in boozing, though I was excellent at it, thank you. I have a degree in management systems. How about you?”
“English and history,” Meg replied, looking out at the barn. It needed a coat of paint, but it looked solid. There was a pen with what looked like sheep in the far field.
Dante looked highly amused. “You studied English? Seriously? You got a degree in a language you already spoke?”
“There’s more to it than that.” It wasn’t the first time she’d had to defend her choice of degrees. “There are novels, and the study of how to write.”
“The schools must be different there. I knew how to write in first grade. I guess you’re slower. All I know is my parents would never have paid for me to lounge around for four years studying a language I already knew how to speak and reading DLs. Maybe you should have taken a course in how to avoid getting eaten by deadly forest creatures.”
Meg planted her feet and scowled. “It wasn’t like there was a sign saying ‘watch out for woman-eating horses.’ How was I supposed to know?”
“You weren’t supposed to run,” Dante said with a sad shake of his head. “You were supposed to listen to my advice and stick it out with Beck. They didn’t teach common sense at your school, did they?”
“I’m not running anymore. I am done with running away. It just gets me into trouble. For your information, I’ve decided to take your advice and work on Beck.”
Leaning against the side of the house, Dante’s smile became slightly lascivious. “Have you got him to top you yet, sweetheart?”
Meg returned the smile without a hint of self-consciousness. She was also through with feeling ashamed of the things she wanted. Nearly dying in an icy cold river trapped by a horse with Super Glue for skin had cured her of that. “Not yet, but I’m working on the problem. So you know something about the type of relationship I want with Beck?”
The vampire shrugged. “Sure. It’s very common where I come from. You’ve got to understand, he has his reasons for being afraid of what he needs. You’ll have to pull it out of him.”
Meg let a little of her anxiety show. “That might be hard. I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s not like I’ve had a Dom before. The truth is, I was just sort of reading about it before I met Beckett. Now I know what I want, but I’m not sure how to get it.”
“I can help you with that, sweetheart.” He pulled out that ever-present tablet. It apparently had a home inside his jacket. He typed something on the keyboard and flipped it around. The LCD screen flowed as an enormous list of downloadable material on the subject came up.
“Have a problem? We’ve got a DL to solve it.” He let his lanky body slide down to sit in the dirt by the front door. “Sit with me, Meg. We’ll look at some porn. This could take a while.”
Meg took a deep breath and stared at the vampire. She decided it was time to make a deal. “I will, but only on one condition.”
“I’ll bite,” Dante said with an ironic grin.
“Later, you have to take me for a ride on that motorcycle.” The bike looked really cool.
“You got it, sister,” Dante agreed.
Meg was satisfied and sank down beside Dante to see what they considered porn in the good old Vampire US of A.
* * * *
Beck walked into the house and swore silently. His twin was a pig. How he’d managed to live with that slob brother of his for thirty years without killing him was a mystery to Beck. The small living room and kitchen area was cluttered, and it looked like no one had done a single dish since he’d been gone.
“You were supposed to be fading, Ci,” he muttered to himself. “Not wrecking the kitchen.”
He quickly went around, straightening up what he could, so Meg wouldn’t take one look at her new home and walk out. She might think the woods would be cleaner.
“Beck?” Cian’s voice was weak and barely carried out of the bedroom.
“I’m here, Ci.” Beck walked through the door and stared at the room. It looked like someone had cleaned up in here. There were neat piles of papers and books stacked around the room. More than likely it had been Dante. Vampires tended to be a bit fastidious. If his cousin had spent the night and this morning sitting at Cian’s bedside, he had probably felt compelled to straighten up a bit.
The room was dim. All the shutters were closed. Beck walked to the two small windows and tossed them open, letting the afternoon light in. It illuminated his twin’s self-proclaimed deathbed.
Cian lay on his side. His hair was lackluster, and he’d lost weight. In the light of day, his skin looked pasty. Though he probably hadn’t been out of bed much for the better part of two months, he looked tired and haggard. Beck tried to summon some sympathy.
“Get out of bed, ya bastard.” Beck kicked the bed. The frame shook, but Cian stubbornly stayed prone.
“No.” Cian replied with far more bite than a dying man should have. He pulled the quilt up to his neck and pointedly closed his eyes. “I’m done, Beck. It ain’t worth it. I can’t think anymore. My mind won’t work.”
“You think you’re the only one having trouble?” Beck was tired of listening to his brother’s whining. Sometimes Cian forgot he wasn’t the only one hurting. “I wanted to kill everything in my path for a while there. I had to stop myself from going into a rage and killing innocent people. You just can’t focus.”
Cian’s gray eyes opened suddenly and burned with resentment. “You can’t understand. I can’t even read a book anymore. My mind drifts. Sometimes I don’t remember where I am. Do you know what it’s like to have everything that made you who you are taken away?”
Beck rolled his eyes. “I bloody well do. You’re not the only one who’s in trouble here.”
Cian shook his head and dramatically turned away. It apparently took all his energy. “I don’t want to fight anymore. There’s no point to it. I haven’t the energy. Can’t we just get along? It won’t be long before I’m gone. I feel it, Beck. I feel death coming for me.”
“You sound like a bad play, Ci,” Beck said with an affectionate laugh. Cian had always been overly dramatic. Goddess, it would be good to have his brother back.
A sad sigh came from the figure on the bed. “And you sound like you couldn’t care less. I suppose I understand. I haven’t been much use to anyone lately. Well, did you have any luck on your hunting trip? Did you catch anything?”
Cian was turned away, and Beck knew he couldn’t see his sly smile. “I didn’t catch anything to eat, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Beck didn’t mention that he’d actually eaten Meg’s sweet pussy quite a bit the night before. He didn’t think he’d ever get his fill, either.
“Oh, well,” came the ho-hum reply. “I wasn’t hungry, anyway.”
“I didn’t really go hunting. I went to market and got us a wife.”
Cian sat straight up in bed.
“Yeah, I thought that might get you moving, you lazy bastard.”
Cian appeared more animated than Beck had seen him in months. His hand went back to smooth down his hair. “There’s a girl here?”
“Meggie’s a woman,” Beck corrected. “She’s all woman, not a girl.”
“Meggie.” Cian rolled the name around on his tongue as if he were tasting it. He seemed to like the flavor. “How did she escape from Tir na nÒg ? Do you think Torin is hunting her?”
“No, you don’t understand.” Beck put a single hand on his twin’s shoulder, a silent request to calm down. “She’s not Fae.”
Cian slumped back down. “Oh, I thought you had found us a bondmate. I guess that was a stupid thing to think. Well, I hope she brings you some pleasure in our last days.”
“She’s a human from the Earth plane, and she is most definitely a proper bondmate. She’s also the most beautiful thing in all of the planes,” Beck said with confidence. “I already bonded with her and feel spectacular, but if you’re not interested, I’ll keep her for myself.”
Cian was on his feet before Beck could finish. “I need to change clothes.”
Beck sniffed and shook his head. “You need a bath before I’ll let you anywhere near my own sweet Meggie.”
Cian’s face turned stubborn. “Our own sweet Meggie.”
“Fine, then.” It was good to see his brother up and about. He wasn’t worried about sharing Meg with him. He had expected it all of his life. He’d shared everything with Cian. Now he wanted to share a life, a real life, with Cian and Meg. He walked to the dresser and pulled out a pair of clean clothes and a bar of soap. “But I should warn you, she slept with me last night. She might not want you.”
Cian huffed. “Well, if she’s only had you for company, she’ll need a little intelligent conversation. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but mostly you just grunt.”
“She doesn’t seem to mind the noises I make, if you know what I mean.” She didn’t. She seemed to have forgiven him for his brutish behavior before. She’d been a sweet bundle of soft femininity in his arms while they traveled home. He’d found the ride a bit rough since he’d been hard the whole time, but he wouldn’t have changed it. He liked holding her. After nearly losing her, he found it calmed him to have her close.
Cian tossed off the pants he’d been wearing. “I can’t believe you bonded without me.”
It wasn’t what they had planned. It hadn’t been anything close to the traditional ceremony they would have had—nor had it concluded in a full bonding. The guilt of that weighed heavily on him, but he hadn’t been able to open himself fully to her. She wouldn’t have been able to handle some of the things he’d done. “You would have done the same, little brother. Trust me. Once you’ve seen her, you’ll understand.”
Holding the items in one hand, Cian walked through the bedroom to the back door of the cottage. He looked back at his brother. There was the slightest hint of uncertainty in his eyes. “She’s a proper bondmate, then?”
Beck cocked an eyebrow questioningly. “The bond works. I know. It will work with you, too.”
“That’s not what I meant, brother,” Cian said. “I was asking if she’s like the other bondmates. Is she anything like Maris?”
Beck remembered well how Cian felt about their intended. He could barely stand the sight of her. She had made her preferences clear. She wanted to be queen. She would have preferred to only be married to the warrior half of the King. “Not in the way you mean. Meg is sweet, and she’s got quite the mouth on her. She wasn’t raised to be a high-born lady, but she deserves no less respect. She’s a little scared, too.”
Cian’s spine straightened. “We’ll make sure she’s got nothing to be afraid of, then.”
“Go, make yourself presentable for our little wife. I’ll find us something for dinner.” Beck was grinning as he changed the sheets on the bed and straightened up the room. Out of the back window, he could see Cian hurrying down the path to the pond. It had been a long, long while since he’d seen his brother move so quickly.
As happy as he was, getting married also brought about a range of problems for Beck. He was going to have to figure out a way to bring in some steady income because he didn’t want Meg to feel she had to keep the house. She was a bondmate, not a housewife. He made up his mind to talk to Dante. Susan Dellacourt had told him she was always interested in his services. The vampire companies had long-reaching arms and always had some strange security problem clogging up the roads of trade. He might be able to make decent money that way.
In the back of his mind, he knew once word got out that he and Cian had bonded, the loyalists would come calling. They would offer him a lot to lead the attempt to reclaim Tir na nÒg . Beck was sure they would come, and the pressure would be on. He would have a decision to make, and now it didn’t seem like a clear one.
Once he would have done anything to get the chance to avenge his father. Was he willing to risk Meg? For the first time since he was seventeen, it seemed to Beck that he might have a future. It would be a very different one than he was raised for, but it was his. He could have a good life with Meg and Cian, and eventually their children. All of that could be lost if he gambled on taking back his crown.
Beck shook off the dark thoughts. That was a worry for another day. Today he needed to feed them, and that was all that mattered. He hoped Cian hadn’t managed to kill all their chickens while he was busy fading. Beck walked out the back and down to the chicken coop where he selected a particularly healthy hen and proceeded to efficiently chop her head off.
The hen was fat and would make a good meal. The day might have started rough, but if it ended with a full belly and a warm bed, Beck would call it perfect.