Beyond the Highland Mist (44 page)

Adrienne clutched Marie’s hand and gasped aloud as she felt the soft kick in her womb. Somehow it felt as if the Hawk were near and needed her strength and love. As if something magical hovered, almost tangible enough to grasp with her slender fingers. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and willed her heart across the chasms of time.

Adam snarled. “Enough of this mortal idiocy. It’s time to end this once and for all.” He was bleeding, his lip cut and
nose shattered. Adam used his immortal strength to fling the Hawk to the ground at his feet. A sword appeared in Adam’s hand, and he laid the blade against the mortal’s throat. “Compact be damned,” Adam muttered, balancing the razor-sharp edge flush to the Hawk’s jugular. He cocked a brow and taunted the fallen mortal. “You know, for a moment there, I was worried you might have managed to learn something about my race, the kind of thing we don’t like mortals to know. But it seems I was right about you all along, and my worry was for naught. You are truly thick-witted. You really thought you could best me in a fistfight?” Adam shook his head and tsk-tsked. “Hardly. It takes more than that to defeat my kind. Oh, and by the by, prepare to die, mortal.”

But his threat elicited nary a quiver from the legend at his feet. Instead the Hawk arrogantly wrapped his hand around the blade and looked deep into Adam’s eyes. The intensity of the mortal’s gaze latched on to Adam’s and held with a strength all its own.

Adam tensed, and a flicker of uncertainty flashed across his face.

Hawk smiled.
“Amadan Dubh
, I compel you thusly …”

Adam froze and his jaw dropped, belying a very human expression of astonishment. The sword melted from his hand as the words of the ancient ritual of binding mired him tightly. “You can’t do this!” Adam spit out.

But the Hawk could, and did.

Adam growled low in his throat. It was not a human sound at all.

Twenty minutes later, Adam was gaping in disbelief. The Hawk had actually unrolled a parchment scroll from his sporran and was reading a very long, very specific list of demands.

“… and you will never come near Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea again …”

Adam shuddered. “Are you almost done, pretty bird?”

The Hawk continued without interruption, unrolling his scroll farther.

“Did you write a goddamn book? You can’t do it like this,” Adam said through gritted teeth. “You get one command. You can’t read that whole thing.”

Hawk almost laughed aloud. The trickery would begin now. Any loophole the fickle fairy could find he would try to use. But the Hawk hadn’t left any loopholes. He kept reading.

“I said give it up, you infantile, mewling mass of mortality. It won’t work.”

“… and you will never …” Hawk continued.

Adam snarled and raged, his icy face turning whiter. “I will curse your children, your children’s children; I will curse Adrienne and all her children …” Adam dangled evilly.

Hawk stiffened and paused. His eyes flew to Adam’s.

Adam stifled a snicker of glee, certain that the Hawk would slip and break his command.

Hawk’s lips drew back in a fierce snarl, “… and you will never seek to lay a curse upon my family, my seed, myself, or the family, seed, or self of anyone I command you to forsake or any Douglas commands you to forsake … including Adrienne; with Douglas being expressly defined as any relative by direct blood tie, marriage, or adoption, seed being defined as progeny, children adopted or otherwise obtained, you will not harm any animal belonging to …”

Adam paced a stunted space of earth, fear now evident in his every step.

“… obedience being defined as … and when you return
Adrienne to me, all will be in order at Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea … the Hawk and all his people being protected from any harm, alive and in the best of health with no tricks played … and Adrienne will be bringing her cat safely back through time with her … and …”

Adam’s face, once beautiful, was a livid mask of hate, “I will
not
lose! I will find a way to defeat you, Hawk.”

“… and you will forgo any thoughts or actions of revenge against the Douglas …”

Adam waved his hand and Adrienne appeared, looking utterly stunned, clutching a clawing cat in her arms.

The Hawk shuddered imperceptibly, knowing this was just one more trick by Adam to get him to break his command. Five months, five horrible, heartless months without a glimpse of his beloved’s face, and now she stood before him. Breathtakingly, heart-wrenchingly lovely. Hawk’s gaze rested hungrily on her face, her silvery mane, her lush body, her round belly …

Her round belly? His eyes flew to Adrienne’s, wide with astonishment and awe, as a violent possessiveness rocked his frame.

His child! His daughter or son. Blood of his blood—his and Adrienne’s.

Adrienne was pregnant.

Hawk was speechless.

Adam grinned wickedly—and the Hawk saw it.

He would
not
lose Adrienne. He had too much to read yet. With iron force of will, Hawk averted his eyes from his beloved wife.

It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his entire life.

Adrienne’s eyes devoured him.

She was afraid to interrupt, afraid to move. Somehow she’d been miraculously yanked right out of her library, and
Moonie, who had been across the room by the fire, was curled snugly in her arms. She could still see Marie’s startled face fading before her eyes.

And there was the Hawk, beloved husband and life itself.

“How could you resist me, Beauty?” Adam was suddenly the smithy again, kilt-clad and glistening. “I am every bit as beautiful as the Hawk and can please you in ways you can’t even dream. I could turn you inside out and make you weep with ecstasy. How could you forsake me?”

“I love my husband.” She’d spent many months clinging to the hope of the Hawk’s child growing inside her and studying everything about Celtic lore she could get her hands on in hopes of finding a way back. But the Hawk, it seemed, had found it for her.

“Love. What is this love thing you mortals prize so highly?” Adam sneered.

Enough, fool
, came a silvery peal of the Fairy Queen’s sigh.

Even Hawk slurred over his words, midsentence, at that voice.

And enough from you, too, beautiful man, legendary Hawk.

Sweeter than the chiming of bells, her voice was a sensuous stroke of heaven. But Hawk continued, without interruption, “… and as used in this command, the word
person
shall mean and include, where appropriate, an individual or other entity; the plural shall be substituted for the singular and the singular for plural when appropriate; and words of any gender shall include any other gender …”

Adrienne watched her husband, her eyes blazing with love and pride.

The fool will obey me. I am his Queen.

Hawk paused a whisper of a breath, not enough to break continuity, but enough to acknowledge.

And besides, you’re past commanding. You’re pontificating and being positively redundant. Still, well done, mortal. She is safe, you both are. I will see to it for now and always.

Hawk continued, “… all elements conjoined by ifs, ands, or buts, or other conjoining verbiage shall not, when seemingly in conflict, operate in exclusion or limit in any fashion but shall function conjunctive, overlapping, and allowing the broadest possible definition of the terms as used herein…”

The Fairy Queen sighed.
Ahhh, I see. You will not cease this drivel until I offer you assurance. Clever man. You seek my troth? I grant it. You have the sworn oath of the Fairy Queen upon the pact of the Tuatha De Danaan. T’will never be broken, lest our race vanish.

Hawk released the scroll and it rolled shut with an audible snap. Only then did Adrienne see the tremor in his hands as he met her gaze, eyes triumphant.

“She has given us protection and fealty.” His smile could have lit the Samhain bonfires. His eyes swept her from head to toe, lovingly lingering on every inch in between.

“We’re safe?” Adrienne whispered, tears springing to her eyes.

I shall see to it myself
, the silvery voice lilted.
Now and for always. Fool?

Adam growled.

Since I can’t seem to keep you out of trouble you have a new companion. Aine will spend the next five hundred years with you. She will endeavor to keep you in line.

Not Aine!
Adam’s plea was a shade away from a whine.
That snoopy little fairy has a crush on me! I could spend my time pleasing you, my Queen. Let me!

You will please Aine, fool, or you will spend the next thousand years in the foot of a mountain by yourself. You think you’re bored now?

With one last searing look at the Hawk, Adam vanished.

Now where were we?
the Queen asked. Adrienne squinted hard in the direction of the voice. She could barely discern the shimmering outline of a woman hovering in the misty air behind the Hawk.

Ah, yes. The two of you were about to have a wedding on the ridge by the sea. The fool has a beastly sense of timing. I shall pick up where it was left off. I, Aoibheal, Queen of the Tuatha De Danaan, name you man and wife. Neither mortal nor immortal shall ever tear you asunder, lest they incur my eternal wrath. There. You’ve been wed by the Fairy Queen. None can lay claim to such a legend.

Adrienne and the Hawk were still staring at each other across a space of garden, both afraid to move even an inch.

Well? Kiss the woman, you big beautiful man! Go on.

The Hawk sucked in a harsh breath.

He’d changed, Adrienne realized. Time had rendered him even more beautiful than before. She didn’t know he was thinking the same thing about her. His eyes slid over her, from her silvery-blond hair to her bare toes peeping from under a pair of strange trousers.

And then she was in his arms, folded in that strong embrace she’d dreamed about every night for the past five months as she lay in bed, her hand resting on her rounded belly, begging the heavens for just one more day with her husband.

He brushed her lips with his. “My heart.”

“Your heart is … oh!” She lost her breath beneath his ravishing lips.

“Ahhh,”
the Queen marveled, for even the Tuatha De Danaan were in awe of true love.
You are worthy of what I now give you
, she whispered just before she vanished.
Consider it a wedding gift….

A
DRIENNE BREATHED DEEPLY
. N
OTHING WOULD EVER COMPARE
to the scent of roses and spring rain, the unceasing roar of the waves against the west cliffs and the splash of salt in the unspoiled air. She had ducked outside to watch twilight move in over the sea. Then she would return to Lydia and continue making baby plans. She smothered a laugh with her hand. Lydia had finally outright ordered the Hawk to go away, complaining that she couldn’t possibly welcome her daughter-in-law back properly and prepare for her grandchild if he wouldn’t stop kissing her all the time. Not that Adrienne had minded.

Like a chastened boy, the Hawk had glared.

“You have the rest of your lives together,” Lydia had remarked crisply, “while we women have only a few short months to prepare for the babe.”

“
A
few short months?” Hawk had looked stunned. Then worried. He’d raced off, muttering under his breath.

Now Adrienne stood on the stone stairs, head tilted back, drinking in the quiet beauty of the velvety sky. A flicker of movement on the roof caught her eye.

Grimm peered over the parapet at her and his handsome face lit with a smile. She and the Hawk had talked that afternoon and he had filled her in on what had transpired, including Grimm’s part in helping to bring her back. Only hours before, Grimm had clasped his hand to his heart and on bended knee begged forgiveness for lying. She’d granted it readily.

“Hope you’re not looking for a star, Grimm,” she called up to him.

“Never again,” he vowed fervently.

Adrienne gasped, as at precisely that moment a tiny white speck sparked and sputtered, then traced a downward spiral across the sky. “Oh my God! Grimm, look! A shooting star!” She squeezed her eyes shut and wished fiercely.

“What did you just wish?” he growled down at her, rigid with tension.

When she opened her eyes again, she said saucily, “I can’t tell. It’s against the rules.”

“What did you just wish?” he roared.

“My, aren’t we superstitious?” she teased with a smile.

He glowered down at her as she made her way back into the castle. Glancing over her shoulder, she flashed him an impish grin. “Brace yourself, Grimm. I will tell you this much—I spent my wish
on you.”

“Don’t you know how dangerous it is to be throwing idle wishes about, lass!” he thundered.

“Oh, this one wasn’t idle at all,” she called cheerfully before the door swung closed. On the rooftop of Dalkeith, Grimm sank to his knees and stared up into the sky, desperately seeking another wishing star … just in case.