Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

A ndas took us to a wide yet shallow braided river.

“How long have we got here?” I asked.

He shot me a look, then muttered, “About twenty minutes.”

“You can stay longer than that.”

“It becomes very uncomfortable.”

I thought back. “We were together for longer than twenty minutes in the cave. You were uncomfortable then?”

Andas frowned. “No, I wasn’t.”

I did a sweep of our surroundings, then perched on a flatish rock. “Tell me. I’ll figure it out anyway.”

“You know what I know,” he muttered. “I can’t stand in the same place for long.”

But why?

“There must be something more to it.” I narrowed my gaze on him. “There must be.”

His jaw clenched. “I’ve wondered if…the fae I’m made from.”

“Aaden and Cormac,” I supplied. “Those were their names.”

“I realize that,” he said tightly.

I lifted a shoulder. “Why does it bother you?”

Andas rounded on me. “Because you loved them, and I don’t want to know that you’ve loved any other. I want to possess every part of you, even your past.”

I nodded. “I feel the same way.”

I’d surprised him, and he lost some of his fury.

He rubbed a hand through his black hair. “Both felt adrift in their own way. Cormac because his family’s morals clashed with his own. And Aaden because he never felt like he belonged. I wonder if my inability to stay still derives from that.”

Could be. “Do all Unbalances struggle with it?’

“I cannot access the memories of past Unbalances. Just as you cannot access the memories of your mother.”

That made sense. “Then we should explore why you can stay in one place longer when with me.”

He flashed me a grin. “I had excellent incentive.”

My blood warmed at the reminder. Would that mean we had more time to explore each other again. “Or did Gaia put a hiatus on that aspect of your nature as part of her gift?”

“Ask her when she next calls, would you? The uncertainty is fucking annoying.”

I bet it was. “How did you get to Keefe?”

“Attacked his daughter.”

My stomach lurched. “Is she okay?”

“Alive. Saving her will take it out of him and buy us some time.”

Orlaith had chosen her path in this, but I couldn’t imagine life without her in it. I still held out hope this was all a giant misunderstanding. “Everyone needs balance. Orlaith is Keefe’s weakness.”

“And counterpart, I think,” Andas said. “I’m unsure how much she’s involved in his plans, but she does have a say, or at least is privy to the details.” At my look, he added, “I’ve been watching them.”

When I opened my mouth, he said, “No, you can’t know how. What did you say about keeping your secrets?”

I bit back a smile, then sobered. “You know more about Keefe than you’re letting on. Keep your secrets about your spies, but tell me more about him.”

Andas jerked his head. “Let’s move first.”

We walked through the portal, and I barely took in the vast desert.

I rested back on the cooling sand, and Andas lay next to me.

“His name is Sucellus. Or was. Long, long ago.”

“A god?” I whispered. “They still exist among us then.” I’d always assumed that Gaia and her like existed in another realm completely.

“He was a god,” Andas said, shaking his head. “When his barbs paralyzed me, I was able to glean some information about his past. Once, he was great. Friend to Gaia and the common folk. Farmers and hunters paid homage to him, welcoming his abundance and power of fertility for their crops. But as the millennia passed, their adoration lost its warmth. He turned to his lesser affinity, that of wine. He began to enjoy the power of intoxication, and more of his power was poured into this aspect of himself—stolen away from the powers which created abundance and harvest for all creatures. He strayed too far from his purpose, and an effort to oust Gaia from the almighty throne saw him thwarted and cast out of the ranks of the ancient powers.”

“His power was taken.” If not, my mother never could have placed him in the prison realm.

Andas nodded. “His magic was reduced to a trickle, and he was left at the mercy of your mother, who had no knowledge of what he’d been.”

No, or she never would have sent him to deliver Orry to me. “He knew that the power would come back to him.”

Andas glanced at me.

I nodded. “He said as much. He always planned to return.”

He hummed. “Perhaps. I can’t say. But I saw the moment he regained power.”

“Then he was given his power to counter us once I bound us together?”

Andas sighed. “Yes. It took two powerful fae males, a tree of life, and a bond to Underhill to create a strong enough vessel for me, but an empty god provided the perfect vessel for other gods and goddesses to fill with the power to balance us.”

I exhaled. “Shit. I can’t believe he was a fucking god once. What does that make Orlaith? Did you see anything about her?”

“Nearly time to move,’ he said. “Orlaith and Keefe aren’t blood related. I believe her lifestyle, which embraced many kinds of intoxication, originally called to his nature and lost power. For a short time, they shared a bed, but that side of their relationship changed when she was imprisoned in bat form, and neither of them view the other in a romantic way any longer from what I could see.”

My brows shot up. “I hope not. She calls him father.”

“That was his alias in the prison realm, but that is how they’ve come to view each other since imprisonment—as father and daughter. He is as ancient as time itself, remember, and gods and goddesses don’t see things the way we might. That aside, the urge to protect and mentor Orlaith has led to respect and love. I’m unsure at what point Keefe decided to plant some of his essence in her and to take some of hers into him, but this has created a bond of sorts between them—a familial one.”

I pulled a face. “He put a leech in her?”

Andas cut off. “How did you guess?”

“Your sluagh tried to kill me with leeches.” When he blinked, I said, “Sigella mushed them up and made them into tea, don’t worry.”

He blinked again. “There’s no one like you in the world.” He looked almost sad as the words left him. “Who would I become without you? I live in fear of losing you.”

And I lived in hope of sharing a life together. But then my nature was to hope and believe in light places, and his was to seek out caves and dark corners.

Keefe’s nature tended to bring about some messed-up shit, and I’d heard Kik tell mares to call him Neigh Daddy too many times for me to forget. Believe me, I’d tried.

“So he was her customer for a while, then grew to love her and implanted his magic in her. Now he sees her as more of a daughter figure.” I sucked in a breath. “If we can burn his magic out of Orlaith, then she might stop being a moron.”

Andas didn’t say anything, and I could feel through his essence that he, like me, had no idea if that would work. He stared off over the dunes, and I pursed my lips as an idea came to me. Bound as we were, our essences always touched now, but it was just a soft feeling. A constant reminder of where he was and how he fared.

I poured into our connection now. I rested my essence alongside his as if we rested in bed together as an old mated couple might.

He didn’t budge his stare from the dunes. “What are you doing now?”

There was a resigned weariness to his voice that startled me to laughter. “I’m glad you’ve given up on guessing.”

His lips quirked. “Your unpredictability will make life interesting.”

My heart skipped a beat. He spoke as if we might have a future. I couldn’t think past each day, sometimes not past each hour or minute.

Andas stood. “I need to move.”

There was no ‘we’ about it. “Try to stay.”

He rolled his shoulders. “It itches, and then it gets worse. Believe me. I don’t want to leave.”

“So why don’t you stay?”

“Because it’s not just discomfort. The magic gathers to shun my darkness.”

I shifted my focus to the magic under his feet and swore. “Whoa.”

He was right. The realm was rejecting him. “It’s like this in all realms?”

“Yes.” His hissed reply spoke of his increasing discomfort. If I hadn’t been able to feel the change in the magic, then I would have been able to glean the effect from the quivering of his essence. “Anchor through me. The magic doesn’t reject my presence.”

Andas blew out a breath, but I felt the press of his essence against mine. I wrapped my magic around his, and his essence stopped shaking.

He tilted his head. “The discomfort is less. Still there, but less.”

“Told you there was an answer.”

“And will you always stay by my side and wrap your magic around me?” he mocked.

I brushed the sand off my leathers, then rested a hand on his chest and pushed up to kiss his mouth. “Just give me a chance,” I whispered to him.

His burning gaze told me everything he felt and all the hope he didn’t have. Fine. I could hope hard enough for both of us. He could fear enough for both of us.

“But,” I said, lowering, “I see what you mean. We’ll figure out a better solution.”

Andas battled a smile but lost the war not to chuckle.

“What is it?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Just wondering how I’ll survive the force of you.”

I had that thought about him daily. “You won’t. The humans have changed their tune. An alliance between them and fae is imminent.” I smirked. “Sorry about that.”

Andas’s chuckle turned sinister. He cupped my cheek and kissed my temple. “I’d expect no less considering you’re currently the greater power between us. However, as things stand…”

The exodus of power from my body drew a scream, which arched toward him. My body sagged in the aftermath, and Andas lowered me to the sand, kissing down my neck before tracing his nose up to my jaw. My head lolled and he gripped my chin, drawing my face back to press his mouth against mine. His tongue tasted me.

I glared, and it was Andas’s turn to smirk.

“We had a deal,” he reminded me.

Strength was returning to me. Strength, not power. I could feel that Andas had turned the tables again. If I’d needed to save a world of humans from drowning now, I wouldn’t have had the ability. “ I bested Keefe.”

“Then how was I able to take your power back?” Andas challenged. Something on his face changed, and he focused intently, as if listening to something from very far away. A slow grin spread across his face.

“Do I want to know?” I asked between gritted teeth.

“Probably not. You’ll find out soon enough.”

Then I wouldn’t chase it. “I’ll get that power back someday.”

Andas lost his grin, and when he extended a hand down to me, I took it. He steadied me while gripping my arms. “I don’t doubt it. There is an ebb and flow to such things, but the ebb and flow is usually not so swift, nor…painless.”

I heard his unspoken question?—

Can you bear that?

I couldn’t answer him, and Andas didn’t truly expect an answer because how could we know if this would all end in fifty years? How could we say that we wouldn’t be trying to kill each other again in a month?

If Keefe hadn’t removed us entirely by then.

“Day by day. Suffering by suffering,” I told him.

Andas slid his hand down and squeezed my ass.

I slapped his hand away. “I’m still pissed at you. I had plans for that power.”

“As do I.” Andas kissed the side of my mouth. “The time of darkness is here, my love.”

He flung off my magic and was gone in the next breath.

As for me? I’d been immobilized.

My love.

I felt Kik’s essence slacken as he moved toward me.

“Ah knuckles,” he howled, closing the portal behind him.

The land kelpie had sunk up to his knee joints in sand.

“You look stumped,” I told him.

He scowled. “Watch it. I can still hoof you into next week.”

“Did you discover something about Keefe?”

“No, you took too long, and I got it in my head that you should be chaperoned around the master of darkness.”

I quirked a brow. “You want to chaperone me?”

“And why not?” He tried to draw himself taller, but only sunk further into the sand.

I could think of about one hundred reasons why not. “What advice do you have for me then?”

“Don’t give it away. He’ll leave you as soon as you do. Trust me.”

“Too late. And he didn’t.”

“He—you did what?” He struggled in earnest, and I watched as he sank lower and lower until sand filled his mouth.

Kik extended his neck and spat the sand out, the rest of his body no longer visible. “I’ll shove my hoof so far down his throat that he’ll be coughing ponies!”

He continued ranting for a few minutes, but then stopped shit-talking and rolled an eye in my direction. “You just gonna let me keep spitting creative and violent intentions like that? What’s got you? Constipated again?

I bit my lip against a smile. Andas had just ripped away the lion’s share of our power, and I imagined he was on the way to start wars and spread darkness through the realms. I’d do everything I could to stop that. But…he loved me.

I beamed at my friend. “Constipated, yes.”

“Then let’s get you some prunes. I got your back, kiddo. Climb on because I am literally stuck. I’m gonna need to open a portal underneath us.”

A frantic tugging in my chest stole my breath.

“Not to the court,” I told him. “The naga are calling.”

“On it, kiddo. Are they under attack?”

I couldn’t tell. But they weren’t the only important thing in that cave. Not by a long shot.