No Time to Cry (Nine While Nine Legacy Book 1) (35 page)

 I traced me fingertips lightly
down his fingers where they lay over my hair, I could hear his heart, strong
and steady…and speeding up under my touch. My heart leaped forward to match. My
touch did affect him.

I felt his hand move away, but before my
heart could dip with lament, he cradled my face between them, lifting upward
away from his chest, heard him say, “For you, Milseachd.”

     I forced my
drowsy eyes open from my trance-like state just in time to see his eyes lock on
my lips, then slip closed, and felt his mouth meet mine. And I died a little
more, but in a good way.

“Gideon,” I sighed softly against his
mouth. And then kissed him back. I took a shuddering breath, feeling so much. I
slid my hands to his chest. Oh to finally have my hands against his chest. He
wasn’t pushing me away. He brushed his lips over my cheeks, my eyes, back to my
lips.

I was breathless. I was muzzy headed and
lulled by him. I just wanted to savor his touch, breath him in deeply. I was
soothed by his scent, his heartbeat, entranced. So close—finally so close.

I moved my hands over his broad
shoulders up to his neck. He pulled me closer to him, pressed me to him. He
kissed me softly, bit my bottom lip and pulled it gently into his mouth. Which
was just about all I could stand. My world spun out of focus. Gideon. Finally
Gideon. I felt faint; my entire body went weak and felt insubstantial.

It was a good thing he was holding me so
tightly crushed to him. I felt tears building beneath my closed eyes. 
This was all I had ever wanted. Wanted since I first saw him at Elysium if I
was to be completely honest. This was Gideon—my Gideon. The only one I wanted,
had ever truly wanted. Had searched for all my life—and finally found in death.

I ducked my head away from his kisses,
felt his fingers tangle in my hair. I nuzzled his neck, inhaling lightly as I
did so, breathing him in, making myself even more lightheaded and breathless.
Over one side, under his jaw, nudging his chin up with my mouth to expose his
throat, I littered kisses across the bared flesh there, delirious with it all.
I grazed my cheek against the other side of his neck, breathing in more of him.
I took his earlobe between my lips, tugging gently, and then spread more kisses
down his neck to his T-shirt clad shoulder. Oh that had to go.

Before I’d quite finished that thought,
or my travels, he raised my head with his hands. I inhaled sharply in objection.
He looked into my unfocused, misted eyes, then hungrily claimed my mouth again
with a deeply groaned, “Iliana.”

I ran my fingers up the sides of his
face, over his temples, into his hair. My heart was performing the most
incredible acrobatics. He pulled away with another rumbling groan. “My
Draghail,” he spoke raggedly, resting his forehead against mine. “Now we really
need to talk.”

“No. No way. That’s just never any
good.” I was breathless, shaking my head. I was shaking all over.

Gideon laughed softly and hugged me to
him, burying his face in my hair, inhaling my scent. Finally inhaling me into
him. Filling his lungs with me. “Ah…what have you done to me?”

I was touching him, finally touching
him. I was finally pressed tightly in his arms and I couldn’t stop touching
him, afraid this was another dream and I’d wake.

 “You’re worth every risk.” My
voice was just above a whisper. I touched his neck, my hands stroking down to
his chest. I couldn’t still my hands. I couldn’t get enough of how he felt
under my hands, even through his clothes.

I moved my head away and rubbed my cheek
against his, grazing my lips against his briefly as I made my way to the other
side of his face, his slightly
stubbled
, unshaved
cheek. I loved the way it felt against my soft skin. I’d thought about it so
often all these weeks.

Oh to finally be here. I pulled away and
ran my hands over his shadowed jaw, so mesmerized by every detail of him. I
looked into his eyes and what I saw
there
took my
breath away. So much need and desire, so much emotion. Gone was the detachment
and cold and practiced indifference. He wanted me as much as I wanted him. I
could gaze into those deep, deep blue eyes forever. Oh, the way he was looking
back at me. It was worth it. Every loss for this.

“You were worth dying for,” I breathed
out.

He stroked my face, my hair, taking in
all of me before kissing me again, holding my face in his hands, so I couldn’t
move from his attention again. He kissed me deeply, possessively, claiming me,
finally, no more denial.

I ran my hands into his hair, tearing my
mouth from his. I kissed his face, his throat, lifted his shirt roughly over
his head, throwing it to the floor. I drank him in with my half-closed eyes,
working my hands over the curves and cuts of his muscled shoulders, chest, his
stomach, feeling the rapidly increasing rise and fall of his chest as I ran my
hands over his body, my tongue tracing everywhere my hands had been, tasting
his skin.

He picked me up against him and tumbled
me backward, onto my back, into the pillows, growling deeply in his throat with
desire. He pushed up onto his hands, pulling away, taking his mouth away from
my kisses.

When he spoke, his voice was coarse and
his breath was shuddering. I stroked his rough cheek, reaching for him. He held
my hands over my head, buried his face in my hair. “Gideon,” I purred to him.

“Oh, Milseachd,” he growled. Then
unexpectedly he was moving away from me, breaking my heart ever-so-slightly,
and pulling me from the bed, leading me to the couch in front of the fire. I
wondered, in my dazed state, if Michael had brought back an ember for this fire
too.

     He sat down in
the middle, drawing me down with him, my legs stretched across his lap, putting
his arm around me, tugging me closer, his other arm hugged around my bent
knees.

“A talk is long overdue—” he began.

“No. Gideon, I don’t want—” I began.

“Yes. It should have happened sooner.”

“Are you ending me Gideon?” I blurted
out.

He looked at me, amazed, shaking his
head in disbelief, nearly laughing. “Yes, Milseachd. That’s why I can’t stand
to take my hands off you.” He kissed me, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
That felt better. Too soon he broke our kiss. “More talk, less of that for
now.” His eyes traveled over my face. “I heard Michael filled you in on some
things this evening. Taught you some about
D
eireadh
an
S
amhraidh
?”

I nodded.

“Tip of the
iceberg.”

My hand found
his shoulder, he’d put a shirt back on and the material of the T clung to the
curves of him snuggly. My fingers roamed the curve of that shoulder. He caught
my hand and placed it in my lap, but he held on to it. Smart. It really wanted
to go back to stroking his arm.

“When I went
away, when I was gone for those two weeks…I was in T
iarnas
, the homeland,
the dominion of the Sióg.” He stopped, letting that settle in my mind, reading
my face for a reaction.

“Okay.” I sat up
straighter. I was not in trouble, or going to be killed again. And Gideon was
sitting here offering up answers. And he had his arms around me, and was right at
that moment placing a light kiss on my bare knees. “Michael mentioned that
place last night, and the Sióg. Briefly anyway.”

“Alright, so,
we’ll start off with
Na Síraide Cinn, The Everlasting Ones. They hail
from
T
iarnas
…Dominion...the Realm of Sióg.”

“He said the
Sióg have been here for thousands of years. Is that true?”

“Yes…many
thousands.
Na
Síraide Cinn are the Siog, they are one and the same.

“Huh.”

“These days
they’re more commonly referred to as Fae, mistakenly so, but we are.”

“
Ohhh
."

“I told you
before you would need to forget everything you’ve ever been taught.”

“I thought you
just meant in regard to death.”

“Nearly
everything.” He rubbed my knee. If he kept doing that I’d never hear anything
he was telling me. “We first came to the Great Northern Lands. We were Sióg,
but we were also
Ál
faer
.
Think of dwelling on Earth, you’re a
Terrean
, but
you’re a human as well. Same thing. The Norse called us
Ál
faer
,
not Sióg. We were sent as guardians and protectors, to live in unison with
humans. There are nine domains of guardians within the Rúnaigh.”

“Wait, not just
us? There is more to the Rúnaigh?”

He nodded. “Of
course.
Na Teagmhasach Bháis, The Contingency of Death;
Ai
ríoch
de Beocht, Caretakers of
Life
;
Ai
ríoch
Cruthaitheach, Caretakers of the Arts; Ai
ríoch
D
raíochta
, Caretakers of
the Enchantments; Ai
ríoch
N
ádúr
, Caretakers of Nature; Ai
ríoch
Breathnadóir,
Keepers of the Records and Watchers of the Earthbound; Ai
ríoch
am Uilíoch,
Caretakers of Universal Time; and Eirr
Rúnaigh, Warriors of
the Rúnaigh.”

“That sounds an awful lot
like the choir of angels.”

“Time to unlearn. I’ll get
to why it sounds familiar in just a bit.”

He gave me a crooked half
smile.

As if he found the
comparison funny.

     “The
Ál
faer
are merely one
race
within a realm of beings whose mythology is spread
across all of Europe. They are one of the most well known and yet strongly
misunderstood, the lore having become corrupted and vague…and it’s often difficult
to get straight answers out of them.” He paused and gave me a sidelong glance,
a smile played at the edge of his mouth.

     “Kind of like
you huh?” I teased.

“Yes…kind of.” The curve at the edge of
lips lifted just a tad higher. “
Once they were well
settled in the North, the
Ál
faer
broke away into factions traveling south, and east, and west. They became known
as Alva in Sweden, Aif in Holland, Fee in Germany and France, Sidhe in
Scotland, Sióg in Ireland, Fae in America and the U.K…all are the word that
should still be
Ál
faer
.”

I had to keep my mouth from gaping open.
“Elf and Fae?” No way.”

 He stared me down.

“What?” I shrugged.

“Yes. And don’t interrupt.
We, the
Ál
faer
,
were the first of the Sióg to arrive in this Realm…and the others that arrived
from Tiarnas later came at a time when the term Fae was already widely in use.
Over the centuries I guess it was just easier for humans, particularly after we
became
myths,
to simply keep lumping us all in together under the main
category of Fae.”

“Like what…what kind…what
others?”

He gave me the stink eye for
interrupting, but how could I not? He was telling me the real history of the
Fae!?

 “Okay, I’ll give you a
few quick ones…but then no more butting in, Milseachd.
Púca
, Piskies, Brownies, Redcaps, Fauns, Kelpies…too many to
list right now. So, please let me continue.”

“Alright,” I pouted. 
“No…I’m sorry, but I have to…” I did it again. “So, all
Ál
faer
are
Sióg, but not all Sióg are
Ál
faer
.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And in current terminology,
Álfaer is equivalent to Elf. And
Púca
, Piskies,
Brownies, Redcaps, Fauns, Kelpies, Elves, and all the ones you have not
mentioned, would be categorized under the Realm of Fae. Incorrectly, but
still.”

 “Yes.”

“And in truth, had the
records and histories been kept correctly, the main category should be Sióg,
not Fae. With
Púca
, Piskies, Brownies, Redcaps, Fauns, Kelpies, Álfaer, and
all the ones you have not mentioned, being categorized under the Realm of Sióg,
rather than Fae. Because Fae and Elf are the same, words derived from Álfaer.”