Chapter 10

Today I was the one hiding but I refused to be ashamed.

After spending the night with Rasmus, my thinking was clearer, and my confidence was stronger. That was why I’d dragged Zenos from the house when I saw Mulan climbing the stairs to see her parents. The loud discussion that followed echoed through every corner of the house despite its size.

Since it was happening in some form of Chinese dialect, I couldn’t understand a word being yelled. It crossed my mind to find Rasmus who’d smiled and winked at me at breakfast. I had a feeling he understood what was being said but preferred no one to know that fact.

I didn’t accuse him of holding out because of his standing offer to silence Mulan’s family. Also, I wasn’t sure about whether to let Rasmus confine them and then seek Mulan’s forgiveness afterward.

They were getting on my last nerve with their spoiled demands to Henry’s people. One demon spoke enough of their language to understand and communicate what they expected.

So I ran like a coward after breakfast to avoid the situation and I took the snickering dragon mage with me. We went to my sacred space and found wrought iron seats someone had thoughtfully placed around the fire pit.

Maybe they thought I would use the fire for roasting marshmallows. I’d never done such a thing, not even when Fiona was small. After I consecrated the pit, I would use it only for rituals and spell casting. I made a mental note to tell Gale we needed a separate one for personal use. Maybe putting it behind Fiona’s house made the most sense. She was the only party person among us.

I’d only offered to play hostess but not to mediate between the Wu Shaman and her family. My part of the deal was to offer them a place to sleep and Henry’s help to feed them.

“I appreciate all the patience ya’ve shown me, Zenos, but don’t ya think we’re at the point where I should learn something? All ya’ve done so far is test me and my patience.”

Zenos shrugged as he grinned at me. “Yer life is far too chaotic, even for me. We haven’t spent more than a few minutes alone.”

I stared at him and sighed. He had a point. “Yeah, I know, but I desperately need to learn to keep people out of my head. Everyone hears what I’m thinking all the time.”

“At least yer thoughts are not boring. Ya have a wild imagination, which is fun. The only downside to listening to yer thoughts is that ya hold yerself accountable for bloody everything under the sun. Yer angst isn’t very entertaining.”

“Can’t ya be serious for five minutes?”

“Of course, I can,” Zenos said. “I just choose not to be. Being serious is boring.”

Out of threats that I felt might sway him, I hung my head and groaned. I raised it quickly when I heard the Wu Shaman’s family talking to each other in rapid whispers. They paused when they saw I’d noticed them, and then began whispering even more fiercely to each other.

I didn’t know their language at all but I certainly knew when I was the topic of conversation. I snorted and rolled my eyes, before turning away from them.

They were as rude to me as they were to Mulan—completely and utterly rude. It made me wonder if Mulan had been adopted. She was many things but never rude without reason.

“Bloody hell, Aran, we don’t have time to mess with those unbelievers,” Zenos declared, swinging his chin toward them. “Use yer magick and scare the buggers away.”

I threw up my hands. “Scare them? What do ya want me to do?”

“Be a witch, Aran O’Malley. Ya claim to be one so let’s see what kind of magick ya wield.”

I glared at him. “I thought ya were a powerful mage.”

Zenos grunted in disgust. “Oh, I am one. But those people whispering about ya are not my problem. Why should I waste my powers on them? It’s not me they’re yammering about, but ya still should chase them away for both of us.”

“They’re not my problem, either. They’re Mulan’s problem.”

“One of them is a problem for all of ya.”

Right. Zenos had said that before. “So tell me which one and I’ll deal with the person.”

“What kind of teacher would I be if I did everything for ya? Figure it out, woman.”

Glaring at him, I chanted until the wood in the fire pit caught and flamed.

“That little bit of fire wouldn’t scare anyone. Make it bigger,” Zenos ordered in a whisper.

I waved a hand until it roared upwards. Mulan’s people made alarm noises and turned back toward the house.

Zenos chanted something and dropped purple dust into the flames. It created a smoke that filled the surrounding woods. I watched as Mulan’s new brother-in-law used his cane to outrun his new wife and in-laws.

The dragon mage’s snickering stopped my musing. I faced him and glared. “The brother-in-law is my pick for a villain. He hobbled away from his wife and in-laws. If he could have, he would have left them to deal with the crazy magickals instead of facing them himself.”

Zenos snickered. “Ya’re fun when ya get riled.”

“Stop laughing at me, Zenos. Even if it’s not him, he’s a selfish old jackass.”

“Aren’t ya worried they’re reading yer mind and hearing yer opinions about them?”

I snorted as I stared at them. They huddled by the front door whispering again. It was hard not to sneer, and harder still not to conjure a murder of crows to shit on their heads.

Goddess, I had never disliked people as much as I disliked them. They treated Mulan like shit, were rude to Henry and his people, and viewed me—someone kind enough to take them into my home—as a devil.

I turned to see Zenos rubbing the grin from his face. It was obvious I did not need to explain my feelings to him. He’d already heard them. Maybe they had heard my thoughts. But they were only humans, weren’t they? Mulan mentioned none of her family being magickal, except her.

“That’s a lot of anger ya’re keeping under control there, lass. Ya seriously need some way to keep people out of yer head, don’t ya?”

I sighed and shrugged. “That’s what I’ve been telling ya. My Irish temper rises easily when I’m treated poorly. I also don’t like it happening to my friends.”

He leaned forward. “What if I told ya that ya possessed a hundred times the amount of magick ya’re aware of having?”

“I’d tell ya to prove it.”

The moment I uttered the words we were suddenly in a different place. The chairs were gone, as were the fire pit and greenhouse. Zenos and I stood in a grove of fruit and olive trees.

A bunch of people milled about chatting in groups but they seemed completely unaware of us.

“Where in Danu’s name are we?” I asked as I looked around.

Zenos grinned at me. “This is one of my sacred spaces. Well, not mine exactly, but I have permission to use it. The grove belongs to Goddess Morgana. She and I are friends. The people ya see here are dead, though. They came to Morgana in their afterlife. I walk among them invisible as a ghost with no one asking anything from me. My soul gets to rest here. Ya’ll want to find spaces like this of yer own.”

I couldn”t imagine instantly transporting to somewhere and coming back without paying a heavy, magickal price. “How did you bring me here, Zenos?”

Zeno lifted one bushy red eyebrow. “I didn’t bring ya, lass. The beings ya merged with brought ya along. Whoever bound them to the stone was a very powerful mage.”

“The Dagda is not a mage. He’s a god. I talk of him in the present tense because he took human form again to train me. The guardians helped him but I still don’t know why they got involved or how he knows them. Those claiming to be superior beings have decided I don’t need to know the details.”

Zenos chuckled at my rant. “Well, I’ll tell ya. Danu was one of the original beings who came to watch over the world. Legend says Danu got promoted over and over. Yer God ancestor was Danu’s child. He was also her first druid.”

I shook my head. “No, The Dagda wasn’t a druid. The Dagda was the first king of the Tuatha de Danann. I never heard him call himself a druid.”

“Druids, mages, and witches are just names we give to natural-born magickals. Yer ancestor was of both worlds—the elemental one that keeps our planet spinning in space and the one made of light that few have eyes to see. The first magickals all pulled power from the earth and the elements. Witches still practice those old ways but the greatest power passes through blood. Yer mother and father were both witches by blood, but yer father didn’t practice the craft, so his power never passed to ya. It’s the ethereal genetics that the watchers—or those ya call guardians—monitor. They see beyond the physical to the light energy of a person.”

I couldn’t argue about the power Rasmus had or what he saw in humans. I had yet to figure those things out. All I knew was what Rasmus had told me, which was that he was a scientist among his people.

And I believed that because I knew I was part of his experiments. He’d all but confessed it.

But the dragon mage seemed unclear about my family. I knew what I knew about Da and would defend that truth until my last breath. “My father was not a non-magickal. His power passed to my daughter. We only recently found this out.”

“I didn’t say he was a non-magickal. I said he neglected his craft. That’s a different matter. Yer girl, though, she’s got an angel riding her arse. He’s on a mission to train her in powers she doesn’t respect but she won”t be rid of him until it”s done. If the angel fails, he becomes completely mortal and therefore powerless. Angels would never risk losing their powers so failure is not an option. They’re as full of themselves as any other immortal.”

I shook my head. “Why did no one teach me these things before you?”

“Ya aligned yerself with males who decided what to tell ya based on what they considered being in yer best interests. They believe in the ignorance is bliss approach to handling women.”

I grunted. That definitely was the case with my parents and Jack.

“Or ya could have aligned yerself with a non-magickal and yer magickal keepers decided it was best to keep ya in the dark so ya’d keep yer non-magickal in the dark.”

My parents had done exactly that. They’d hidden the truth of my heritage from me for years.

“Damn you, Jack,” I said, rubbing my face. “The latter was my issue. Everything in my life always comes back to the selfish, power-hungry bastard I married. He’s not a complete non-magickal, but he’s close to one. He possesses a wicked nature. Ya can’t know how much I hate him.”

Zenos chuckled. “None of his light energy lingers on ya, Aran. Hating him gives him yer energy. It also elevates him to something he’s not. Ya need to lower yer feelings until yer ex-husband is no more important than someone ya might hire to help ya with vile household tasks ya don’t want to do, like cleaning yer gutters or scrubbing yer toilets.”

I laughed at his description. “Oh, if only it were that easy to stop hating my ex.”

Zenos glared at her. “Well, work on it. Dealing with that annoying male energy is holding ya back. Do ya want to hear the rest of what I want to share? Or have ya decided to be stubborn about it?”

I blew out a breath. The dragon mage read me like a book. “Sorry. I want to hear everything. Can we go back to the fire pit? I don’t want anyone to worry about where I went.”

Chuckling, Zenos shrugged. “Ya mean ya don’t want the guardian worrying.”

I shrugged as my face turned pink with guilt. “We’ve found a new peace between us. I’d hate to disrupt it right away.”

Seconds later, I was back in my wrought-iron chair, and Zenos was back in his. I put a hand over my chest and felt the stone vibrate against my fingers.

Had the stone brought me back? Or had Zenos?

The dragon mage leaned forward and clasped his hands as he stared into my fire. “I have an intriguing history lesson to share with you. During what yer four Celtic tribes called the Great War, demons weren’t the only ones who fought and lost. An assortment of earth-born magickals were involved in the battles. When those magickals got defeated, they begged the ancestor God ya love so much to take their lives in a manner that preserved their magick. This is how most powerful artifacts came to be. The souls of those magickals who were conquered now power them to this day. Yer far darrig’s stone works like that.”

My hand went to my chest. Goddess, I’d voluntarily put the artifact The Dagda created inside me. How many dead magickal souls powered it?

Three, came the answer. Always three.

Hearing them speaking to me in my head, I blinked at Zenos in shock. “I put the souls of three dead magickals inside me. Why did The Dagda never explain that to me?”

“Because for him, the artifact was an experiment that luckily worked out well. He designed it so his magickal son could call on the conquered magickal souls for extra help when life became dire. Cermait made his father’s stone a part of him so no one could use the power against him. Yer demon said most of yer predecessors never used the stone at all. They thought of it as a magick bauble. What were yer reasons for merging with it like ya did?”

I laughed dryly and rubbed my face. “I put the stone inside me to keep my ex-husband from stealing it again. Jack’s girlfriend had it in her possession the whole time I was in prison.”

“Why didn’t ya kill that betraying bastard and be done with him?” Zenos asked.

“Our daughter’s a crier,” I said bitterly. “If Fiona ever found out I took her father’s life, I’d have heard about it for the rest of mine. Ending his life occurred to me countless times, and if I had a nickel for each instance I’d dreamed of it, I could have easily paid for this property in cash.”

The dragon mage’s laughter rang out through my sacred grove.

I sighed and smiled. “Thanks for telling me the truth, Zenos. It helps me see things as they are. But ya still haven’t told me how to keep people out of my head.”

“Achieving that goal requires a complete commitment, with no room for compromise. If ya shut everyone out, ya’ll not hear yer artifact, either.”

“Oh,” I said, crestfallen that I would have to make such a choice. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Aye,” he said. “But maybe I could make ya a charm that would prevent some from hearing ya. It wouldn’t be a hundred percent.”

I considered that for a moment. “What’s the catch?”

His chuckle was soft. “There are several catches as you call them. I would be one of those who would always hear ya.”

I smirked at his grin. “Fine. I can live with ya hearing me. Ya already know all my secrets.”

“The charm also wouldn’t work on demons.”

My sigh was loud. “I guess that’s because of my connection to Conn. My energy is merged with his.”

“Precisely,” Zenos said. “And I’m not sure about the guardians or yer Wu Shaman. It likely would work on yer witch family, the fairies, and I think on yer far darrig friend. Time would tell.”

I shrugged. “That would at least cut my embarrassment by half.”

“See now? That’s why I like ya so much. Ya’re a realist, Aran. Would it change yer mind about bedding me if I told ya I’m better between the sheets than yer guardian?”

“No,” I said with a chuckle. “I’m a monogamist. But I will owe ya for yer training.”

Zenos nodded. “The only thing I want is for ya to let me stay for the big finale. Things haven’t got exciting yet.”

I waved a hand. It was work to pretend his teasing didn’t worry me and I was sure he knew it. “Stay as long as ya like. If ya want to give me any other lessons, I’m available for them—providing they aren’t of a carnal nature.”

“Done,” Zenos declared, slapping his knee. “I love a good bargain.”

Normally, I loved one too, but something warned me any agreement with Zenos would not be good.