Page 76 of A Celtic Vow
“I’ll always be here,mo thine.” She moved her hips faster. “In your heart. All around you. And I’ll always love you.”
When she shuddered and cried out against his neck, he couldn’t help but close his eyes to bliss, press deep, and let go as well. Lose himself so much he barely heard his dragon’s inner roar of anguish. Barely caught how at odds it was with how he felt.
Until his dragon’s anguish became rage, and he opened his eyes to find her gone.
“Aodh.” Liam was crouched in front of him, shaking him in concern. “Are ye awake now?”
He blinked and frowned, trying to understand what was going on. “Where’s Constance?” From what he could tell, he had been sleeping against the tree, fully clothed. Fear grew as he staggered to his feet and looked around but saw no sign of her. “Where’s my wife?”
“Good question.” Liam stood as well and shook his head. “We’ve been looking for both of ye for hours.” He gestured at where Aodh had just been sitting. “We passed this tree several times, and ye were not here.”
“Hours?” He narrowed his eyes. “We haven’t been gone that long, and we were right here at this tree.”
Almost as if they finally sensed him there, her sisters and his brothers appeared, along with Tréan and Ulrik. Based on their confusion and concern, they hadn’t seen Aodh and Constance here either.
“Where is Constance?” he ground out again when he didn’t sense her anywhere nearby. “She wasjusthere. We were talking about our time together as children. Starting to talk about how we had taken a part of King’s Heart to King’s Fall. How we had planted....”
“What is it?” Shannon asked, just as concerned. “What is it about the tree at King’s Fall, Aodh?”
“She distracted me before we could talk about what happened at its base.” He blinked, overwhelmed by what he suddenly understood. “Why darkness swamped her when she tried to hide her blade there when we were teenagers. Why she might have been lost to us had her guardian angel not saved her.”
“She didn’t want you to know for sure where that darkness had come from.” Madison blinked back tears as she looked at her sisters. As whatever magical veil Constance had cast them under fell away. “She didn’t want any of us to know a connection across time had formed between her and Siobhán because the enemy was part of her death in another life. A connection that tethered her every bit as much to Siobhán as Aodh because they were druid sisters.”
“Does this mean what I think it means?” Tréan frowned at them. “That Constance is allied with Siobhán somehow? That she’s fled to the enemy?”
“Nay.” Aodh clenched his fists and shook his head, refusing to believe it. “Never.”
“Yet she has gone somewhere,” Ulrik said. “For even I can no longer sense her inner beast.” His dragon eyes flared as he gazed south, then looked at Aodh. “Let me scout for you and see what might be hidden from us before any of you step foot on Siobhán’s land.”
“Nay.” He started to shift, but Ulrik clasped his shoulder and shook his head sharply. “The worst thing you can do right now is let your dragon act on fear and rage and rush into this, friend. ‘Tis very likely what Siobhán’s counting on.”
“He’s right, brother.” Cian clasped his other shoulder and met his eyes. “We will ready ourselves as Ulrik scouts, then attack with a cool head rather than act on emotion and see our men fall because of it.”
“I will go with him, uncle,” Tréan said. “Like Ulrik, I have the ability to get close, and with the two of us, we can cover more ground.”
It took almost more than he was capable of to listen to them. Not to go after her right away. Yet he knew he’d have a battle on his hands if Ulrik’s dragon stood in his way because, like it or not, the Viking was more powerful.
“My queen is no traitor,” he ground out, clarifying lest any of them think otherwise. He didn’t care if all the evidence started to point in that direction. “When she...whenwe...” He shook his head, hearing her final passionate words to him for what they were. “She said things to me before she left. That our love is true, and she would not betray it.” He kept shaking his head, certain of it. “We have come too far for that. Gone through too much.”
“I agree.” Shannon nodded at him with reassurance. “If I know my sister, she’s not betraying us but trying to save us. Trying to save the world single-handedly.” She glanced at Madison and Riona grimly. “Even if she knew about Siobhán long before us. Even if she’s been in touch with her without us knowing.”
“You think that’s what the sounds were coming from her bedroom in the twenty-first century, don’t you?” Riona’s eyes widened. “You think she was already communicating with Siobhán?”
“If she tapped into Siobhán’s power when she hid her dagger,” Madison said, “it’s safe to say Shannon’s right. That they were already talking.”
“Or arguing.” Liam frowned. “There was a lot of anger coming from that room, too. Then a lot of silence.”
“Then there was my sketch,” Riona said softly, looking at Shannon. “The one of Siobhán and Constance standing beside each other on the cliff at her castle.”
Aodh knew of it but thought nothing of it. Not until now.
“Your sketches don’t always portray a truth but a possibility,” Liam reminded, seeing how upset Aodh continued to grow. “And I think in this case ‘tis just a possibility. That Shannon’s right. After watching Constance in all of our kingdoms, there can be no doubt she has a kind and true heart. One that could withstand even the darkest of evil.”
Even though everyone nodded in agreement, it didn’t eliminate Aodh's fear because her last words to him had felt so final.
She would always be with him.
Love him.
