Page 47 of A Celtic Vow
“And queen,” Constance said before she could stop herself.
She meant it, though. Wanted it more than she could have possibly imagined, even the night before. He wasn’t just her protector and best friend but the love of at least this life. If he was the monster that imprisoned her in their last life, then may he have her again in this one. May he hold her hostage until her last dying breath. So she started to drop to a knee and propose, but he was there before she could.
“Never kneel to me,mo thine.” His warm hands came around her waist, and he dropped to a knee instead. “I only ever kneel to ye, my druidess. Only ever worship ye.” He looked at her with so much love her knees grew weak. “To that end, so that I might always protect and care for ye, willyemarryme?”
She couldn’t help but smile that he wanted to own this moment. To be the one to propose. Not just his dragon, either, but his human half.
“On one condition,” she said softly, tilting his head back up when he thought to lower it in respect.
“Anything,” he swore.
She trailed her fingers along his jaw. Felt the dragon heat beneath his skin. “That you allow me to worship you just as much.” She traced his brow. “That you remember, no matter what, we’re equals.” When her vision hazed red with her inner druidess, she was never so certain of anything. “If not, what hope is there for us? What hope is there for love if one partner is more precious or important than the other?” She shook her head. “That’s not how life works. How humankind or dragonkind should work.”
While she knew he fought the premise that none were ranked as high as Unnamed Ones in this era, he nodded. “Anything,mo thine.” He stood and cupped her cheek. “If we are to be equals, then let it be with undying loyalty to each other.” He perked a brow and found dry humor when he referred to what had happened to her beneath the tree. “And Idomean undying if ye could spare me that terror again.”
She couldn’t help a small smirk. “I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Please do,” he murmured before he brushed his lips over hers. “Because ‘twould be an honor to make ye my queen. To be yer king and dragon always. To love ye—”
Before he could go on with all the endearments she felt swelling inside him, she pulled his lips down to hers and kissed him for all she was worth. With all the passion that had been simmering in her from the moment she’d laid eyes on him in this life.
Only when Zeke released another howl, either of urgency or approval, did she reluctantly pull away. In any other reality, she would have told everyone to leave and brought Aodh back to the furs, but this wasn’t any other reality. Instead, it was one with an evil queen looming and a possible fragmented reality for Ireland and perhaps the world.
So she focused on the here and now.
“What kind of movement is Siobhán making?” she asked Shannon as Aodh snuffed out the fire and chanted their precious furs back into a trunk that vanished moments later.
“Nothing we can see, only sense,” Ulrik answered for Shannon, and with good reason. “Whatever she is doing, my dragon is acutely aware. More than it should be if dragonkind weren’t involved somehow.”
“Is she seeking me out again?” Aodh’s features tightened, his valor unending and well-founded, given he feared Constance would go to Siobhán first. “If so, let me go to her. Let me—”
“What?” Constance cut him off, not about to let him go anywhere near Siobhán ever again if she had her way. “Go to her so she can enslave your dragon again?” She knew that wounded his pride, but his life was worth more, and she made sure he knew it when she gripped his arms and looked him in the eyes. “Because she will, Aodh.” She shook her head. “You got away once. Don’t expect it to happen twice. She’s far too powerful, and you....” She pressed her hand over his heart and bit back tears. “You’re far too valuable not just to me but to your brothers. My sisters. Most of all, though, yourpeople.”
“She’s right.” Shannon rested a hand on his arm, getting through to his dragon just as readily. “The best way to fight Siobhán now is to work as a team, not go vigilante.” She looked at Constance. “We don’t know what Siobhán’s up to other than she’s amassing all her troops toward the north. According to Madison and Cian’s Fae, nothing via the sea yet.”
“She’s going for King’s Heart,” Constance murmured, positive of it. “But she’s biding her time.”
“So it seems,” Ulrik confirmed. “Because she hasn’t closed the distance between her troops and the tree. Rather, she seems to be setting up camp a ways off and waiting.”
“Watching,” Constance whispered, sensing something in that. “She wants me to come there.” She looked at Aodh. “Us to come there.”
“Then we should not,ta?”
“I’m not sure we have a choice.”
She had yet to do it but knew it was time. That she might see things much clearer if she did. So she went to the tree she and Aodh had planted as children, closed her eyes, and finally laid her hand on it.
When she did, it felt like the ground dropped out from beneath her, and the sky came rushing down. Like the wind, rain, and sun swooped around her. Like all of Ireland sank into her fingertips, then expanded. As if she felt every nugget of nature ever born on this island from the beginning of time to the end.
“As we figured, it was Siobhán who lured you away as a teenager,” she murmured. “Likely tried to lure both of us but wasn’t strong enough yet.” She looked at Aodh. “Something stopped you, though. The same something, or someone, who made sure our memories of one another were wiped out.” Her attention returned to the tree as she saw more. “Like I thought, despite me tapping into her power at the base of this tree, Siobhán never knew my blade was hidden here. Didn’t know where I had accessed her power from.” She shook her head. “The tree protected us. Protectedit.”
“Then we can only be thankful,” Aodh said.
“Very.” She caught even more and frowned. “That didn’t mean she didn’t look for it here, though. Very much expected to find it.”
“’Tis surprising she didn’t,” he replied. “Considering ‘twas her magic you tapped into.”
“Right.” Shannon considered her. “But I suspect it was Constance’s power in there too, which would only ever protect the blade.”
