Autumn Moon (6 page)

N
EWPORT
, R
HODE
I
SLAND

A
YRES
E
STATE

The ocean raged, crashing against the gray rocks of the Rhode Island shoreline, as Taliesin drew closer to the brink of the cliff. The woman who stood on the banks below raised her face to the salted spray and tendrils of her golden hair whipped about her serene profile. She wore casual modern clothes, forced to blend with humans since his last fuckup in Avon. Her jeans tapered into knee-high boots, and a black sweater hugged an undeniable feminine form.

She was on a different shore, in a different country, but Merin belonged near water.

Even here, her melancholy seeped into his bones with more virulence than the frigid Atlantic winds. It didn't stop him from admiring a Celtic warrior in her element, even
if he was the cause of her sadness. A narrow path had been worn into the cliff's edge, and he followed it to the banks below.

“You are certain that Pendaran isn't aware of this place?” Merin questioned as he approached.

“You're safe for the moment.” That was because Pendaran was currently engrossed in pursuits of Elen, but sharing his recent vision would only stir Merin to act, and risk changing the outcome of this evening's events.

“Then it will do,” she said as any nomad would, “until we move again. The others will arrive in the morning.”

Like her children, Merin protected non-shifting members of her household from the Council. They were called
Hen Was
, the offspring of the first Guardians, born in their human form and forced to become slaves when they couldn't summon their wolves. Unlike a Bleidd-born wolf, they'd been allowed to live and serve. The
Hen Was
in Merin's ménage had been with her for more than a thousand years. Torn between two worlds, they lived as long as the rest of this afflicted hybrid race. But unable to shift and heal, they wore the scars of their experiences. Humans shunned their mutilations, and Guardians preyed on their disadvantage. When Merin's betrayal had become known, all twenty-six of them had followed her into hiding.

Not that he faulted their loyalty. As one of the few Guardians who'd offered him compassion in his youth, there wasn't much he wouldn't do for her. Any moments of normalcy, however brief, he owed to Merin. Reopening his New England estate was a minor infraction to the conventions that tangled his cursed reality.

As a Seer, he was hobbled by visions of a future he couldn't change without hurting the very people he tried to help. If he meddled with the freewill of humans, the results
were never good, as his last interference proved under summer's first moon.

It was a personal hell. To know, to care and to wait helpless in the shadows of his visions while others bore the weight of his existence. Even Guardians and their offspring were bound by that divine code, a treaty cast from the heavens; their souls were human and their fates as precious and precarious as mortals.

And just as easily damned.

“Why did you do it?” Taliesin needed to know. He could predict futures but not thoughts, and Merin's had always been strong in both respects. “You could have killed Pendaran, but you let him live because I asked you to. Why?”

A soft sigh fell from her lips. “Can we not forget that encounter?”

“No.” He didn't have the luxury of forgetting.

“You offered your own life, Taliesin.” Her distressed tone provided an odd comfort. “To stop the violence, you were willing to die.”

“So?” After days without sleep, when images of savagery—past, present and future—flooded his mind with ruthless potency, he was still willing. Like his ill-assigned protectors, he wasn't completely immortal to this world. Or so he bloody well hoped. He'd yet to have his head or vital organs removed to test the theory, however. “Would it matter to you if I did?”

“You insult me with such a question,” she hissed as concern turned to anger. “And yourself for asking it.” Her voice carried the weight of burdens that belonged to him. “I promised to keep you safe, and to foster you as if you were my own blood. What do you think would happen if I allowed you to die for us?”

“You believed my mother would retaliate?”

“Of course!” She turned her sharp gaze on him with undeniable certainty. “I would.”

Ah, it was no wonder why Ceridwen favored this woman, as did he. “Well, I'm fine, as you can see.”

“Our lives are a gift,” she continued, ignoring his attempt to ease her conscience. “Our wolves, our longevity . . . it was all given to us to protect you. A gift can just as easily be taken away. Then everything I've done, all those years I've allowed my children to believe I rejected them, all those years I followed Pendaran's orders . . . it would all be for naught.”

She paused on a broken breath, a rare show of weakness from a warrior who never faltered from her chosen path. “I shunned my sons and tortured my daughter. And now, when I look at them, I only see hatred in their eyes.” She made a quick sweep of her cheeks, shaking her head. “No, my sacrifice has been too great to have it all end with you. And if that's selfish, then so be it. I've earned the right to a bit of selfishness.”

He hadn't thought his list of regrets could grow any longer. Leave it to Merin to prove him wrong. “Even if you had killed Pendaran, there are other Council members all too eager to take his seat,” he pointed out. “And your children will forgive you.” Merin wasn't aware of this, but that forgiveness had already begun, now that they knew her actions had been a ruse to keep them away from Pendaran and his Council, along with the many descendants who could shift and followed the Guardians' creed. “And Elen will learn who ordered that torture.”

There'd been a time when the Guardians, bloodthirsty pricks that they were, had used fear and pain to trigger the
change, until all attempts had proved unsuccessful. Even for Elen.

Merin's head tilted with interest, too sharp to miss his unfiltered comment. “What do you know that you're not telling me?”

“I've told you enough,” he clipped, angry with himself.

“Have you spoken with Pendaran? A meeting has nothing to do with your Sight,” she pressed. “At the very least, you can share that.”

“No.” When she frowned, he elaborated, “I haven't met with him.”

“Sin,” she chastised. “You told him you would. To put him off will only make him focus more on my children.”

She rarely used his nickname, and for a moment it caught him off guard. “You speak of his last words on Avon's bridge. If you'll remember I never agreed. And I stopped following his orders a long time ago.”

“Pendaran views you as a son.”

He sneered, “You think I don't know that?” He despised what Pendaran had become, but Taliesin still remembered a different man, before darkness seduced his honor and sorcery became his obsession. Pendaran's attempts to heal a forsaken race had only cursed it more.

“He will listen to you,” she pressed.

“I can't get involved.”
Especially now.
Taliesin ran his hands over his face and voiced the reality of his uselessness. “It came as an order from my mother. And I do listen to hers.”

“You listen when it suits you,” Merin returned, but remained quiet in thought for several moments. “The time has come, hasn't it?” When he would refute her claim, she held up her hand. “No, I'll not listen to your vague denials.
I knew this would happen when I let Pendaran live, but you gave me no other choice with your stupid stunt. Now that he's witnessed her gift, he'll pursue Elen for her power. He will want to control it through her.”

A sudden vision pierced his senses; not of Elen, but of Merin. Flashes of her sitting at Rhuddin Hall's great room rolled out in his mind's eye. She was with Sophie and Dylan, and others. Joshua, her grandson, caused her to laugh. He'd seen Merin laugh before—a fake performance, he now realized. Like cake being offered to a diabetic man, the scene was as tempting as it was self-destructive. He could be a part of that family, share in their laughter—if he were willing to poison their lives.

“What will you do?” A rhetorical question he'd grown accustom to asking, since he'd just
Seen
where her plans led.

“I must go to Elen. Once everyone arrives safely, I will travel alone to Rhuddin Village. The others will stay here to open the house while I'm gone.”

“Please tell Sophie I'm fine and among the living, but share nothing else. Not even where you're staying.”

“You've never given me a message to deliver before.” Merin frowned, making her displeasure known. “You care for my son's human wife.”

“She reminds me of you,” Taliesin said, “only she's nicer to me.”

“Give her time.” The slight turn of her lips contradicted her words. “She hasn't known you for as long as I have.” Then she did something that shocked him speechless; she reached out her hand and placed it on his arm. Merin's mate had been killed before the birth of her final son, and a part of her had died with him. Offered touch was a rarity. “You know I jest.”

He managed to say, “Do I?”

“Don't leave us, Taliesin. We need you to live.”

Spoken for survival. Because his death would end them all. What he would give to have one woman want him for love. Too much, he thought bitterly, which was the reason he would forever remain alone.

Elen's current lesson involved a gathering circle, but the only thing she'd gathered so far was her tutor's frustration. As instructed, she'd drawn the circle by dragging a shovel in the soft earth of her recently tilled cucumber patch. It seemed rather basic to provide the concentration Ms. Hafwen claimed it would. No salt filled the shallow channel, as Mae, her former teacher in these things, dictated there should be. Just crude markings and an aggravated pixie.

“If I could have gray hair, you would give it to me.” Ms. Hafwen hovered with her hands pressed to her temples. “This is a simple joining and shouldn't be as difficult as you're making it.”

“But Mae taught me—”

“Stop!” A disparaging sound resonated like the wail of a tortured bird. “I don't want to hear any more about that woman's teachings.”

“Mae would have a fit if she ever heard you say that.” Her childhood teacher wasn't a woman who took insults well. Mae, who currently resided in Avon as their healer, was a master of potions, and those who offended her usually received an interesting comeuppance in return.

“Maelorwen hasn't earned the right to know me, and I doubt she ever will.” Ms. Hafwen settled on a nearby sunflower, with her wings fanning at a pace to soothe and not fly. “I need you to follow my teachings now. This lesson is a gathering circle,
not
a protection circle. It is for you to concentrate on, nothing more.”

Like training wheels on a bicycle, Elen supposed, feeling like a child learning balance on unfamiliar ground.

“I told you when we first met that you'd been given a powerful gift.” Ms. Hafwen paused to shoo a hovering bee seeking pollen. “And that you needed to do more with it than run rivers of moss and force transformations.”

“I remember.” Excitement and trepidation fluttered within her stomach, sensing this lesson was going to be different from her former ones.

“That time is now. Energy is elemental,” the pixie explained. “Your gift is linked to the element of Earth, which is why you have clung to your garden and the forest around you. But you can do much more, Elen. You can command the other elements if you but ask. They are all connected to nature.”

“How do I ask?” More important: “How do I control them if they answer?”

“With respect.” A simple answer filled with warning. “Until you master this skill, it's best to practice on a confined space.
Call
the air that services your plants,” she repeated from her earlier instructions. “Use your senses.
Feel
it, like you do your garden. Then invite it to join the ground you have designated within your circle.”

“I'm trying.” Elen had been standing in the center of the earth-scribed ring for more than an hour now.

“I know you are, but it's imperative that you succeed when you try.”

“I'm aware of that.” And she was, all too well. The soil under her feet was the easiest to connect with, warm from the afternoon sun and rich with nutrients from composted plants; it was a renewal of life that vibrated up the soles of her bare feet.

“Good,” Ms. Hafwen chimed. “That's good. Doubt is your greatest enemy. You must believe you can do this. If you want the elements to respond, you need only to invite them with conviction.”

Elen inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly, banishing all dangerous uncertainties from her mind. She could do this. No, she
would
do this. Opening her senses, she savored the taste of autumn on the back of her tongue. A sudden breeze ruffled her hair and brushed across her skin. It coaxed a sigh of pleasure. “It feels . . . I don't know . . .
sensual
.”

“That would be the element of Air.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, offering insight with understanding. Ms. Hafwen was Fae and didn't fault natural occurrences of life, including pleasure. If it was misused with ill purpose, or non-consent, then she would. But that was not the case in this situation. “It is the carrier of nature's procreation. Never forget the purpose of each element, because it will respond in kind. Air breeds, Earth feeds, Water cleanses and Fire resolves.”

Yes.
Elen identified the differences. Air was lighter, quicker, and more spirited than Earth. Water was too far away, but she sensed its cool presence in the lakes and streams that veined off their great mountain and into the forest. Fire wasn't ready to meet her just yet, but the others . . . Oh yes, the others were more than ready to play.

Especially Air.

It teased by circling her with tender caresses, and she teased back by whispering acknowledgments in return. In her mind's eye, she envisioned all the life Air helped to sow. Was it not Earth's messenger? And, as Ms. Hafwen had pointed out, the carrier of procreation? She pictured it flowing as wind, caressing flowers, wheat and trees as it traveled and spreading seeds and pollen on fertile grounds.

Sensing its building momentum, she held out her arms, palms up. And to her delight, a small disturbance formed in the center of her right hand; it was a vortex, albeit a tiny one no larger than her tutor, and it tickled as it danced across her skin. “I did it.” She laughed, losing her concentration, and the disturbance dissipated into a gentle breeze. “Oh no . . . It's gone.”

“Is it?” Ms. Hafwen asked in an unusually quiet tone. “Are you sure?”

Elen paused, feeling its lingering force, but it was a different energy than what plants provided. It seemed contented to wait, and to rest for future storms. “I don't know,” she admitted.

“Touch the circle.” The pixie flew a good distance away before issuing that command, and then further still to settle within the protective branches of the hawthorn tree. “Don't break it,” she warned with a piercing cry that carried to where Elen stood. “Just tap it, and then step back.”

Curious, she walked to the edge of the circle and touched her toe on the inner rim.

And a maelstrom erupted, encasing her in the eye of a vortex the width of the circle and the height of her barn, if not taller. Air and Earth enclosed her in their furious joining, forming a moving wall of turned soil and wind.

“Holy shit!” Joshua's voice filtered through the contained tempest she'd created. “That is
so
cool!”

Panicked, Elen swept her foot over the ground to break the circle, and the vortex dissipated, but not as gently as the first one she'd conjured. Dust and gravel whipped about her garden and traveled through her orchard, causing a weaving tumult of trees and projectile apples. The shutters on her cottage banged and groaned but held firm until the worst of it calmed.

“What are you doing here?” Elen asked her nephew, blinking grit from her eyes.

Joshua held up a covered plate. “I brought Ms. Hafwen a present.” Tall like his father, the teenager had to duck under her garden arbor to avoid hitting his head. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, while the sword Dylan had given him hung from a belted scabbard and rested against his thigh.

“The closing needs work.” Ms. Hafwen flew to Joshua's shoulder, a prime perch to glare at Elen from. “Unless it's a hurricane you're wanting to produce, you need to unravel the joining before setting it free. But you did well, Elen. I am pleased. You accomplished what I wanted you to. From this point on, Air will respond to your call. Remember that in times of need. Now,” she chirruped when she turned to Joshua, “my dear boy, what have you brought me?”

Joshua, Sophie, and now Cormack, were the only ones who knew of Ms. Hafwen's true identity. But Elen suspected Joshua was her favorite.

Less gangly now that he'd stopped growing, he had his mother's brown hair but resembled Dylan in every other way. He'd aged in the short time Elen had known him, but there was still a youthful mischief about him, a blessing in light of what he'd survived. Having been in the battle that took place in these woods, he'd watched Guardians kill his grandmother and kidnap his mother.

And he'd seen Elen mutilate one right before his eyes.
Did it matter that she'd ripped out the Guardian's power to save Joshua's life? Yes, she knew that it did, but once violence was seen, it could never be unseen, at least for those who still bore a conscience. And that knowledge had a way of aging the innocent.

His black gaze now bore the weight of that experience. But he still lived, and learned, and offered sheepish grins as he held up the plate with a pixie attached. “Apple crisp, anyone?” The little cheat knew Ms. Hafwen had a weakness for baked sugar and fruit. “Enid left it on the counter, and I didn't want it to go to waste.”

“Of course you did not.” Ms. Hafwen was all aflutter, trying to peel the foil away from his blatant bribe.

“How did you get here?” Elen asked.

He gave a flippant shrug. “I walked.”

She shook her head, knowing full well he'd understood the implication of her question. “I meant how did you get around the guards?” Even now, Cormack was in the woods that surrounded her cottage, meeting with Gabriel and Sarah.

“I have my skills.” Joshua made a sliding motion with his free hand, demonstrating how smooth he thought his skills were.

It might have earned the welcome he sought, if worry hadn't tightened her chest. “Do your parents know you're here?” She knew they didn't but asked the question anyway.

“I overheard them talking,” he hedged. “Porter's busy securing the outer gates. Sarah, Gabe and Cormack are outside your orchard and the rest of the guards are regrouping at the bend of Yellow Moss stream. Mom went with Enid to warn everyone in town—”

“So no one saw you leave,” Elen finished. Sophie, no doubt, had told him to stay put. “Your mother will worry if she comes back and you're not there.”

Their territory was massive; it included a village in the valley of a mountain region, along with several lakes, notable rivers and countless streams all joined within a wildlife refuge that protected the territory from modern development. The enormity of their land posed an almost insurmountable challenge for defenses, especially when hunted by creatures who thrived in such a concealed, and vast, environment.

“She'll be pissed,” he said with a determined tone, so like his father it was eerie. Stubborn as wolves, the two of them were, and just as courageous. “But I'm old enough now to be drafted for human wars, and it's not right for you to face yours alone.”

Elen wasn't sure what might burst her heart more: love or fear?

“I'm not alone,” she pointed out while turning toward the horizon. The afternoon sun had yet to sink below the canopy of trees, but they only had an hour, if that, before it fully set. “And you know this isn't a human battle we're dealing with.”

“Are you saying human wars aren't dangerous?” he challenged.

“You know I'm not.” Just as she knew when an argument was futile—and when to call for reinforcements. She unclipped her cell phone from her waist and hit Sophie's number. Dylan didn't trust the modern devices, even though Porter secured their connection, but Sophie always answered hers.

She picked up on the first ring. “What's happening? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Elen said, “but Joshua's here.”

A curse that would make Cormack proud came across their connection. “I'm on my way.”