Earth's Blood (Earth Reclaimed) (10 page)

“Well. You’re quite the little hottie.” D’Chel snugged his midnight blue robe around his slender waist and tied it with a blood red sash. He smiled provocatively at her. “Just think what we could accomplish actually touching one another.”

Aislinn bit her tongue. Let him think he had her cowed. She’d bide her time. Fionn would figure some way to find her. So would Dewi. No way she’d let a second MacLochlainn woman escape her clutches.

“You said we were going somewhere. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to see just where that is.”

“My, my. Not quite the post-coital talk I’d envisioned.” He leered at her. “You’re supposed to rave about my cock.”

Aislinn gritted her teeth. “Um, yes, it’s quite nice.”

His eyes narrowed. “If you think you’ll outsmart me, human, think again. You caught Slototh by surprise. The rest of us pieced together what must have happened. You waited until he was vulnerable, lost in lust, and trapped him. It will not happen again.” His voice rose, no longer sounding honeyed, and his copper eyes blazed with rage. “Bitch. I should kill you on the spot.”

“What about my spirit? My magic? The children you want from me?” She struggled to keep her tone neutral, rather than mocking. Alarm and fear sluiced through her. She had to stay alive long enough to escape.

“We shall see.” He gripped her arm and shoved her forward.

Aislinn warded her mind. It might not keep him out, but it was all she had. Her thoughts were a mixture of horror and hopelessness. D’Chel’s rapid mood shift from sexual to feral was more frightening than anything he’d done from the moment he’d snared her. If she couldn’t predict what he’d do next, she’d never be able to second guess him long enough to find a way out of his grasp.

I have to make him believe I won’t fight back. It’s my only chance.

Chapter Ten

F
ionn gritted his teeth. Bella’s talons raked his shoulder. Somewhere toward the front of the cavern system, Rune howled like a fey creature. The second D’Chel captured Aislinn, Fionn’s mind had cleared. He didn’t realize he’d been ensorcelled until that moment. He’d felt out of sorts, but had chalked it up to being anxious about getting in and out of the dark god’s world as soon as possible. It was why he’d chosen the underground route he’d stumbled on years before. “Aye, and that time ’twas a safer alternative,” he muttered. Fionn castigated himself for not tethering Aislinn to him, but realized he was wasting precious minutes.

“Rune. Come.”

The wolf trotted out of the darkness.
“Hurry. We must find a way out of here so we can rescue Aislinn.”

“What is wrong with the way we came in?”

“Blocked by rocks.”

Fionn clacked his jaws together in frustration.
“Can ye sense her through the Hunter bond?”

“Of course. Can’t you with your magic?”

“Nay.”
Fionn took off at a jog; he prayed the other end of the cave system was still open. It was a stroke of luck that Rune’s link to Aislinn was intact. D’Chel probably hadn’t factored that into his plans.

Two more long, looping bends, and he came to a large cavern with an underground lake. The way out was on the far side of the water. He added a few lumens to his mage light, but he still couldn’t see the tunnel on the far side that should lead to freedom. The water was murky, and he didn’t even want to consider what might be hidden in its depths.

Rune lifted his muzzle and sniffed.

“Can ye smell different air currents?”
Fionn asked hopefully.

“No.”

“Ye should use mind speech—”

“Why?” the wolf broke in. “They already know we’re here. If they didn’t, my howling back there would have alerted anyone who wasn’t already certain.”

“Good point.” Fionn stroked Rune’s head. “May as well save magic for what’s important.”

“I’ll go look for that way out we used last time.” Bella launched herself from her perch on his shoulder and flew across the dank pool.

“Doona be long.” Fionn shone his light after her, then remembered her exceptional night vision and dialed it back.

“What do we do if there’s no easy way out?” Rune asked.

Well, and what do we do?
“I could use magic to move the boulder blocking our egress. It would be faster to jump us out of here, though.”

“If you can do that, why are we wasting time hunting for a way out?” The wolf’s tone was plaintive.

“Because I canna determine exactly where I will bring us out. I may jump us right into a trap.”

“Where’s the dragon? Maybe she could move that rock.”

Good question.
“I doona know.”

“Can’t you call her or something?”

Fionn clamped his jaws together so hard they ached. He considered slapping himself to urge a return of rational thought.
I’m still not thinking straight.
“Yes, Rune. I’m ashamed I didn’t already do that.”

Bella’s winged form flapped toward them. “It’s no good. Someone shoved a boulder into that tunnel, too. It happened a long time ago. The earth didn’t smell freshly disturbed.” She reattached herself to his shoulder.

At least we dinna swim across that hideous-looking water for naught.
Fionn threw his mind wide open.
“Dewi!”

“Where the hell are you?”
she asked crossly.

“Trapped in a cave system. Boulders are blocking both exits.”

A long hissing sound filled his mind. Dewi was obviously annoyed and trying to keep it under wraps.
“Do you sense where I am?”

Fionn sent magic spiraling outward.
“Aye.”

“Jump to me.”

He buried his hand in Rune’s ruff and called the casting. His magic was sluggish now that he asked it to actually do something. Fionn poured double the amount of power it normally took into the spell. He did not want to get stuck in some unspeakable in-between place. The unnaturally still air in the cavern shimmered and then stilled. “Come on, goddammit,” Fionn growled. He chanted aloud to strengthen the binding.

After a pause so long that he was certain his magic was too weak to transport them out of the cave, the air brightened. Fionn gave it everything he had. In a far corner of his mind, he was horrified it had taken so much effort to produce a trivial spell. He felt a familiar tightening in his gut and knew they’d be out of the cave in seconds. Whether they’d come out next to the dragon remained to be seen.

Everything went dark for the few moments before Fionn plunged through a portal. Sharp rocks sliced into his battle leathers. He fetched up against something that didn’t yield and scrambled to his feet, hands raised to call magic—if he had any left. Defying both motion and gravity, Bella still clung to his shoulder. Barely visible in moonlight filtered by dead branches, Rune rolled out of the opening. Fionn barked a command to close it and scanned a small clearing in the dead forest. It was still night, though he didn’t see how it could be, unless nights lasted far longer here than on Earth. Where was the dragon?

“Right in front of you.”
Her voice dripped scorn.
“You ran into me. I realize this place addles you, but why in the goddess’s name did you close off the portal before Aislinn had a chance to emerge?”

Rune leapt to his feet. He turned in the direction of Dewi’s voice. “My mistress has been taken.”

“Use mind speech,”
the dragon snapped.

“But Fionn said—
”

“Yes, and his decisions have been so stellar of late that you’re willing to follow them?”
Steam jetted from a patch of darkness. The dragon had cloaked herself just as she’d said she would. A long-taloned foot emerged from the blackness and pounded Fionn’s chest.
“How could you have lost Aislinn? And the child.”

Fionn opened his mouth.

Before he could say anything, Dewi jabbed him again.
“Never mind. Who has her? Perrikus?”

“D’Chel,”
Rune answered.

“Pfft.”
More steam.
“So both those bastards are here.”

Fionn gathered his scattered wits.
“I want you to take Rune and Bella and—”

Rune’s teeth closed around his calf. When the wolf released him, he said,
“I am not leaving without Aislinn.”

“I am not leaving you,”
Bella chimed.

Fionn rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
“’Twould be easier for me were I by myself—”
he began.

“Too bad,”
Rune snarled.

Bella didn’t bother to talk; she just pecked the side of his head.

“You waste time,”
Dewi said.
“Do any of you have any idea where Aislinn is on this infernal world?”

“I know exactly where she is,”
Rune replied.
“The Hunter bond is…different here, but I can still sense her.”

“Which way and how far?”
Dewi asked.

Rune inclined his head.
“That way. I have no way to measure distance, but perhaps the time from the sun’s rise to when it sits high in the sky.”

“She canna be six hours away.”
Fionn’s eyes widened.

“Of course she can,”
Dewi retorted.
“The dark ones use magic to travel, too. All of you, on my back. They already know we’re here—”

Fionn shook his head.
“Nay. No point running off half-cocked. We must have a plan.”
He drew in a tense breath. Aislinn’s survival depended on them. If they blew it, she wouldn’t get a second chance. He thought about his child and forced his mind away from dangerous territory. D’Chel would kill it where it grew in Aislinn’s womb. Mayhap he already had…

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,”
Dewi hissed. She hooked a talon through his sleeve hard enough to draw blood.

“Stay out of my head.”
In a blinding moment of reckoning, Fionn understood how Aislinn felt when he helped himself to her thoughts. He vowed never to do that again and prayed he’d have a chance to follow through.

“I will do what I think best,”
Dewi informed him.
“In terms of a plan, I already have one. We will jump to within easy striking distance. Once we’re there, if I can overfly where Aislinn is sequestered, it will make our task easier. Once we see what we face, we can plan further.”

“If they’re here, Gwydion and Bran might be able to help, so long as there was some way to reunite them with their bodies…”

“I had considered that,”
Dewi said.
“They’re both here, yet I have no idea how to use that to our advantage. The body’s owner must summon it. For that, his magic must be intact.”

“Let’s go,”
Rune shouted.
“We can talk while we travel.”

“No,”
Dewi countered.
“We cannot. It will take all my concentration to maintain my invisibility spell and fly.”

“If I cannot talk with you, how will I be able to tell you where Aislinn is?”
Rune asked.

“Come close, wolf.”
Dewi drew her foreleg back into the murk surrounding her.

Rune whined. He tucked his tail and slithered forward until the darkness around the dragon swallowed him.

“I can’t believe you were so stupid as to lose Aislinn,”
Bella snarked in their private mind speech.

“What’s it to you?”
Fionn snarked back.
“Ye are so jealous of the lass, your feathers have developed a definite greenish cast. I canna imagine how ye’ll be once the bairn comes. There’ll be no living with you.”

“I like Aislinn.”
The bird was silent for a space.
“It’s just that, since she came into our lives, you scarcely talk with me anymore, unless I ask you to. It’s like I’ve become an inconvenience.”

Fionn opened his mouth to protest and then snapped it shut. Bella had a point. He’d been so entranced with Aislinn, he hadn’t paid much attention to his raven. It hadn’t helped that they’d been either under attack or on the run ever since he’d found Aislinn and Rune near his home in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains.

He reached to stroke Bella’s feathered head.
“Ye make a good argument, bonded one. I am sorry, and I will try to do better.”
The raven leaned into his touch, which was always a good sign.
“Aislinn likes you. ’Tis not like it was with Tara.”
Fionn wisely chose not to remind his bird that the war with Aislinn’s mother had been mostly of her own making.

“Thank you.”
Bella pecked gently at his hand.
“I will try to do better as well.”

Rune materialized out of the dragon murk and stalked to Fionn’s side.
“We have a workable arrangement. If I sense we are off course, I have Dewi’s permission to tell her to land.”

Dragon laughter sounded in Fionn’s mind.
“No, little wolf. You may ask me to land. No one tells me anything. We shall jump the first distance. Come within my shrouding.”

The first task was getting Rune onto Dewi’s back. After he’d tried to leap and failed, Fionn stood behind him on Dewi’s bent foreleg and pushed. The dragon’s scales were sharp. They must have cut into the wolf’s pads, but Rune didn’t so much as whimper. Finally, Fionn was settled at the base of Dewi’s neck, with the wolf sprawled in front of him. “Good job,” he whispered into Rune’s ear. “Would you like me to send a calming spell into your mind?”

The wolf’s body trembled.
“Will it dull the Hunter bond?”

“I doona believe so. Would ye like to experiment?”

“Oh, please.”
Dewi sounded exasperated.
“We won’t be flying for this leg. It’s easier for me to keep track of everyone if you’re on my back when we jump.”

“I’ll be fine.”
Rune’s voice held a quiet dignity that made Fionn proud of him.
“Let’s just get going. We’ve wasted far too much time as it is.”

“There’s a piece of wisdom.”
Dewi snorted and smoke plumed above them.
“Fionn. As you’ve figured out, magic is sluggish here. Link your mind to mine and share your power. We are going much farther than you did when you brought the animals out of the cave.”

Sweat rolled down Fionn’s sides, and he was breathing hard by the time they emerged from the portal. He barely had enough energy to speak the word to close off Dewi’s and his combined working.

“Perfect,”
Dewi crowed.

Fionn gazed about them.
“Which way is Aislinn?”
he asked Rune.

“In line with Dewi’s nose.”
The wolf started to sit and then apparently thought better of it.
“We are closer to Mistress, but not as near as I thought we’d be.”

“Why is that?”
Fionn asked.
“I doona understand.”

“You will,”
Dewi trumpeted in mind speech.

Fionn put his hands over his ears and then realized it was pointless since the sound came from inside his head. The dragon was up to something. He recognized it in the tone of her voice and the set of her head on her long, sinuous neck. He blew out an annoyed breath.
“Ye’ve detoured to free Nidhogg. Damn it!”
He pounded the side of Dewi’s neck with his fist; her scales stabbed him.

“We are much nearer Aislinn.”
Dewi sounded indignant.
“We have closed the distance by at least half. We need my consort. He is a magician.”

“Dewi.”
Fionn chose his words with care.
“For all ye know, he is weakened beyond measure by his years of imprisonment.”

She lapsed into Gaelic.

“Aye,”
Fionn replied.
“Now ye mention it, I sense his energy, too. All it means is he yet lives.”
He shut his mouth before the rest of what he wanted to say leaked out. It wouldn’t do any good to argue with Dewi. She’d convinced herself that her course of action was the soul of altruism. For him to point out she was being selfish and putting them all at grave risk wouldn’t buy anything but ill will.

He gauged the distance to the ground. It was a long jump for Rune.
“We are getting down,”
he told the wolf.
“If ye wait for a moment—”

Rune gathered his haunches under him and launched himself off Dewi’s back. He landed solidly and loped to a nearby tree. Fionn climbed down, not wanting to waste magic if he didn’t have to.