Lightning In Sea (CELTIC ELEMENTALS Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Acknowledgments

  Untitled

  Also by Heather R. Blair

  Cast of Characters (and list of terms)

  Lightning In Sea

  Heather R. Blair

  Trampled Herb

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Thank you to all the readers & friends who have been with me since the beginning.

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  © 2017 Heather R. Blair

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Untitled

  Also by Heather R. Blair

  Cast of Characters (and list of terms)

  Prologue

  The Cloak of the Sea God

  In the days of the mighty Cróeb Ruad, back when the world was young, the greatest of that great warrior band was called Cúchulainn. The Hound of Ulster had many adventures in his youth, but perhaps the strangest of these is one he never remembered afterward.

  One fair spring day, when the sky was alive with the sound of returning wings, the young warrior was walking next to a lake with his dogs. They fetched him a wounded bird out of the water. In the early morning mist, its body was a bright, true gold with wings fletched silver, though one had been torn nearly off.

  Feeling pity for the poor thing, Cúchulainn put his dirk away. Instead, the warrior used the bit of magic he possessed to heal the creature. He was sorely surprised when the bird then transformed into a beautiful maiden. At first the lad was angry, thinking this yet another trick of that evil goddess called the Morrighan, who had already in those days begun to test him severely. But this was no goddess of death, only the young queen of the fairies, one called Fand.

  She laughed at his fierce expression and the sound was so sweet and light, exactly as the bird’s had been. The warrior could only laugh in return, his heart instantly at ease.

  They began to talk and thereafter Cúchulainn visited the lake almost every day. Soon to be married, Fand found the company of the young warrior as amusing as Cúchulainn found hers soothing. Even after her marriage to Manannán mac Lir and the young warrior’s to the lass Emer, the two continued to meet. While liaisons between gods and mortals were a common thing, even if marriage between the two races was strictly forbidden by the laws of the Tuatha de Dannan, there was nothing untoward in their friendship, though one watching the pair might think otherwise.

  Such were the ill musings when the goddess of death crossed the rise one day and saw them in the mist. Furious one of her race had succeeded in winning his trust when she had not, Bav set out to destroy their bond by means most foul. Her brother, mac Lir, was a jealous man, as men are wont to be, gods or otherwise.

  Bav arranged for mac Lir to be watching from the deep waters of the lake one morn. Cúchulainn and Fand were walking down the shoreline as was their custom when Bav caused a bit of bracken to snag the queen’s dress, stripping her bare. When a stone caught her heel, throwing the fairy forward, it was a natural thing for Cúchulainn to catch his lovely companion.

  Triumphant, Bav lifted her hunting horn to her lips and blew, drawing magical folk and mortals for miles around.

  Finding his young wife naked and in another’s arms, surrounded by witnesses, the sea god’s wrath was a terrible thing. He strode from the middle of the lake, the sky darkening though it was naught even midday.

  Unfurling his great cloak, one weaved of the glistening silver waters of Avalon itself, he looked into his wife’s face and spoke these words:

  “As you have forgotten your vows, so now will all memory of you be taken from this one.”

  He shook the cloak once between the lovers, the fabric such a shimmering magical sight all those around gasped for the beauty of it. All, that is, except for Fand. The fae queen watched instead her young warrior’s face.

  Cúchulainn was aghast to find himself embracing a young, naked stranger with his sweet wife, Emer, looking on. He set Fand down at once and left that place. The young warrior did not once look back.

  Cúchulainn never again returned to the lake. Soon the Hound forgot its existence entirely, as well as the woman who had once been his dear friend.

  Fand, however, visited the lakeshore so often people took to calling it Fae’s Pool. They said the water had been replaced with the tears of the young queen who’d lost her human lover.

  The place lies shrouded in mist to this very day.

  If you come to visit the fairy queen’s pool, be very still and quiet and you may yet hear the sound of her weeping soft and low…

  1

  Sloane Nelson shivered in her sleep as the plane descended through the clouds. She jerked awake, her hand over her mouth to silence the scream still burning in her throat. She looked around wildly, but the cabin was quiet. No one else seemed the least bit disturbed.

  She’d only screamed in the dream then, not out loud. Thank god. What an awful nightmare.

  When she reached for just what had made it so awful, though, everything in her mind swirled away like water
disappearing down a drain. She was left only with a racing heart, vague images of a terrible storm and a rune-covered rock high on a hill that dripped blood . . . and the awful sound of her own screams.

  Sloane shuddered and let out a long breath. She’d had the dream before. Many times, actually. She should be used to the damn thing by now.

  Relaxing back into her seat, she lifted the window shade. Sunset was feathering gold over the blue-black expanse of sea below. Nestled midway between Ireland and Scotland, the island was visible on the darkening horizon. Manx—the Isle of Man—had always felt more hers than California ever had, even though she was a Valley girl, born and bred.

  It used to surprise her, but after twenty years, she’d learned to accept it.

  Now that feeling was justified. Sloane hugged herself with a breathless giddiness she hadn’t felt since she’d published her first book.

  She’d taken the leap and left the States, and LA, for good. No more earthquakes, no more smog. No more family who didn’t know the meaning of the word, no more clingy ex-husband. No more lawyers, no more courtrooms. Sloane felt like she could breathe deeply for the first time in years.

  She traced the outline of her favorite place in the world as it grew larger in the blurry plane window. If she didn’t want to, she’d never have to leave Manx again.

  Everything was going to be just perfect.

  Finally.

  Maybe perfect didn’t exist, Sloane decided an hour later. Jenny hadn’t met her at the airport as planned. Instead, Sloane found herself stuck in a cab with an unusually loquacious local who was regaling her with tales about his one trip to the States, to some high school in North Carolina, where he’d been impressed with the indoor pool and the ‘sexy’ accents. He seemed disappointed with hers, asking her just how far California was from the Carolinas.

  When she told him, he looked at her in the rearview mirror like she was mad. American distances never quite sank into islander heads. Sloane shrugged and looked down as her phone pinged again. The text was from Jenny, cursing her shit luck and apologizing one more time.

  Jenny Creer was two years younger than Sloane. Black-haired and blue-eyed, Jenny had a sunny disposition that persisted in spite of the crap life tended to hand her with gleeful regularity. They’d been partners in crime from the first summer Sloane had spent in the Isle. Just now, Jenny was stuck somewhere between the airport and her boyfriend’s place in Peel, her ancient car having taken its last gasp about an hour ago. Gery didn’t have a car of his own, so Jenny was waiting on her dad to pick her and the car up and haul them back to Ramsey.

  No worries, Sloane texted back. Best-case scenario, by the time the cab dropped Sloane off, Jenny would already be waiting at the flat. Of course, with Jenny’s luck . . .

  Sloane looked out the window into the night that was always so much blacker here and shook her head with a rueful half smile on her lips.

  Far above the beams of Sloane’s cab winding up the narrow coastal roadway, Tir’na N’og swirled in the late summer sky. The city of the gods was nearly abandoned this night. A sickle moon winked faintly, dusting her pale light along the deserted streets.

  Lughnasa was nigh at hand, and since most of the preparations for Lugh’s big day were being completed in the Otherworld, this nighttime domain of the gods had been left eerily quiet and still—except for a lone hooded figure moving swiftly through the star gardens. Crimson curls stood out starkly against white velvet, green eyes intent on the rune-etched bowl before them.

  Bav, goddess of death, one third of the triumvirate known as the Morrighan, leaned closer to the scrying pool, glad to have the place to herself for this task.

  She should leave well enough alone, Bav knew, as she poured water into the shallow basin. But she couldn’t resist one quick peek, just to see what was going on . . .

  The face drifting over the water had her lips tightening. So much trouble over one little soul.

  “She’s arrived then.”

  Bav jumped as Fand’s musical lilt trilled in her ear. She scowled at the figure forming behind her, one impossibly delicate and beautiful, silver-gold hair glimmering to a tiny waist in the moonlight. Bav lifted an eyebrow at the curious look on the fairy queen’s face. Once upon a time, Fand had been her brother Mac’s queen as well. That had ended badly.

  A twinge of guilt pinged in Bav’s chest. She frowned, rubbing at it.

  She was going soft.

  It had started when she’d saved Lugh’s pet werewolf’s love, then there’d been that business with Aidan—Bav swallowed hard—and now, here she was feeling regret over a centuries-old trick that had done everyone a favor in the end.

  What in the name of Danu was wrong with her these days?

  “This is Aidan’s daughter, Isleen.” Fand trailed a slender fingertip over the human woman’s face, ripples distorting the reflection of golden hair and pale crystal eyes with their hint of green.

  “In a matter of speaking,” Bav admitted grudgingly. “Her name is Sloane now.” Reincarnation explained it best, she supposed. The spell she had woven over Isleen’s soul ensured Aidan’s daughter would be born again. It would have been nice if the effect hadn’t taken eleven hundred fucking years to manifest in the woman before them, but such was magic.

  Stubborn, willful and as contrary as the Irish themselves.

  Behind the face in the pool, a shadow swirled, the glint of teeth flashing in the darkness. A stone rose through the shadows, covered in glyphs. Glyphs to weeping blood.

  Fand let out a low gasp, looking up at Bav. The goddess’s lips tightened briefly before she raised a hand to swirl the foreboding images away.

  “I’m staying out of this one.” With an imperious finger, Bav ordered the blood-tinged river water from the basin, directing it back into the worn leather pouch at her waist as she prepared to leave the scrying pool.

  Blocking her way, Fand raised a thin golden eyebrow. “That’s possible—you staying out of anything?”

  Bav blinked. “I wasn’t aware you understood sarcasm.”

  “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me. I still care for your brother, despite your scheming. He’s in danger. I know you feel it, too.”

  Bav forced a laugh. “Any danger that bastard’s in he can damme well handle his own self. He wouldn’t lift a finger for me when I needed him.”

  “Bullshit,” Fand whispered at her back. “He did you a kindness and taught you a lesson at the same time.”

  Bav’s shoulders stiffened, bloodred curls quivering, but she didn’t turn. In a cascade of Kelly-green sparks, the goddess of death disappeared, leaving Fand alone in the deepening night.

  The fairy queen dropped her eyes to her feet and the translucent floor showing the wink of the sea far, far below.

  “Better be careful, Mac,” she whispered before Fand, too, disappeared into the dark.

  2

  Sloane hesitated as the cab drove away, looking down at the latest text on her phone.

  Sorry, love! Might be another hour. Go have a pint on me.

  With a sigh, Sloane left her luggage on the doorstep and slipped the phone into her pocket before heading around the corner. The Fiddler’s Head was small, nestled between a bookstore and an abandoned bakery, but an inordinate amount of light and laughter sprinkled out onto the streets, the heavy wooden doors flung wide to welcome in the summer night.

  Sloane frowned as she approached the pub.

  It was all too easy to remember how many times she’d walked through these doors. Most of those memories were good.

  Others, not so much.

  5 years ago

  The ferry ride from Dublin to the Isle of Man was beautiful normally, if a hair slow. But even in mid-July the Irish Sea was temperamental. Today the trip had been dark, dreary and cold, the sea spitting angrily. Then on the train up from Douglas, she’d been stuck next to a group of loud American tourists who had talked unceasingly about Gods of Man, the shatteringly popular paranormal book series
that had brought them to this remote region. Sloane, author of said books, had hidden behind her red balaclava for the bulk of the trip, praying to the gods she didn’t believe in not to be recognized. Normally she got on well with her fans, even the slightly rabid ones, but after the call from her parents, she wasn’t up to it.

  More money.

  It was always about more money.

  With a sigh, she slid her tired body onto a stool at The Fiddler’s Head and ordered a full pint of Guinness instead of her normal halfer. The barkeep raised his grizzled eyebrows as he set the foaming tankard in front of her.

  “Is ye feelin’ the weather then, Sloane?”

  She took a hearty gulp of the stout before smiling up at the old man. “Not so much now, Keith.” It was true, the island always made her feel better. She swiveled in her seat, taking in the crowded room. “Got yourself a fell crowd for Yn Chruinnaght, I see.”

  Keith snorted and rubbed at his already gleaming bar. “Thanks to ye!”

  Sloan shushed him, not wanting to be recognized, her eyes still roving the pub in the flickering light from the roaring peat fire. The locals seemed to have done a vanishing act; most of the chattering horde she could see were tourists, some she recognized from her ferry, some not. There were also a handful of cocky-looking guys she pegged as TT bikers, along with their inevitable hangers-on. The race had been weeks ago, but there were always those who stayed on longer, enjoying the relative quiet after the storm and gearing up for next year.