Smoke in Moonlight (CELTIC ELEMENTALS) Page 2

  A wry smile twisted his lips as he leaned back and closed his eyes, letting the moonbeams wash over him. Such a childish notion, really. Aine’s light gave him life, the only real life he would ever know. Pain was the only thing he had ever gained from denying that. And he was weary of pain. So weary....

  As the moon lit his powerful body from head to toe in her glow, his form rippled once, as if distorted in the heat of an awesome fire, then he simply.... melted into the moonlight.

  Smoke crept from the tree line where he had stood. It twisted and coiled like a sentient being possessed, slinking to the water’s edge. A great grey shadow slowly formed, raising itself against the purple sky. A single, savage howl tore across the lake as the werewolf vanished into the forest, leaving the night hushed in its wake.

  Chapter 2

  When Lacey got her first sight of Ireland, it was shrouded in mist. She sat back from the plane window with a sigh, after trying for 10 minutes to see anything, even a hint of green, but the nothingness was so nearly impenetrable she wondered how the pilot could manage to land.

  But manage he did, and as the wheels bumped down Lacey's spine tingled. She bounced out of her seat the moment the seat belt sign flickered off. Outside the plane, the traffic in Shannon Airport was sparse. Most airlines flew into Dublin now. Lacey wasn’t interested in Dublin. She planned on spending the bulk of her time in the west and it had made sense to get there as quickly as possible.

  She wasn’t even spending the night in Shannon, instead she planned to bunk down in Ennis, a small town to the southeast before making her way to County Tipperary.

  That was the grand plan, but 3 hours later she hadn’t even left the airport. The car agency had managed to lose her internet reservation, though she had confirmed it by telephone before her flight and had her print-out with her. Lacey found herself bone-tired and starving by the time she finally slid into the front seat of her--for the near future anyway--little red Ford Anglia.

  The wheel being on the wrong side was disconcerting--as was driving a manual for the first time in forever. That still wasn’t half as bad as the sensation, while driving out of the suddenly teeming city, that everyone who flew past was going to crash right into her! The urge to swerve was nearly overwhelming. The agent at the airport had assured her it would get better once she was out of the city, but by the time Lacey had left the lights of Shannon behind; it was approaching dusk, she had a raging headache and if she didn’t eat something soon, she was positive her stomach would start digesting itself.

  What a start to her dream vacation, she thought ruefully, very glad that Katie couldn’t see her now.

  That thought had her straightening in her seat and glaring at her pale reflection in the rearview mirror. One minor delay wasn’t going to get to her, goddamnit. She was in Ireland, for God’s sake. Really and truly. She was damn well going to enjoy it.

  Cautiously, she pulled off the side of the road and down a little dirt path that hardly looked vehicle-worthy before rummaging around in her carry-on until she found a crumpled granola bar and a package of gum. Sustenance in hand, she got out of the car. It was cool, but pleasantly so, especially when she clamored up to sit cross-legged on the nicely warm hood.

  During her hours in the airport the mist had vanished and the quickly darkening sky was a deep, clear azure with tatters of mauve clouds stealing across it here and there. The sun was a molten red-gold ball half-sunken behind the rolling black hills. Everything smelled green, even if she couldn’t see much of it and a river was chattering along somewhere. The pleasant sound was easing away her headache with gentle fingers, so soft and soothing.

  God, she was tired. Lacey leaned back and laid her head on one arm and stared up at the purpling sky. By the time the first star popped out, the half-eaten granola bar had dropped from her free hand to land with a thump on the grass. Lacey didn’t notice. She was sound asleep.

  Many miles to the east, the man prowled among his family restlessly. They laughed and ate and stole sideways glances at him, pierced with furtive concern. They did not voice their worries, which itself made him uncomfortable. His family were never at a loss for words. The fact that they were silent tonight underscored his own feelings of unease.

  Feeling smothered, he slipped outside into the darkness, cursing the waning moon and her dying light. Once the moon started to shrink he was locked inside this human form. No escape for him this night. He laid his hands on the low stone wall and bent his head in frustration, his fingers curling into fists. Something had been stalking him all day, a presence that he couldn’t place, not in his human form. But he recognized danger and it was maddening not to be able to identify it.

  So intent was he on his internal struggles, he didn’t hear the click of the latch or the woman until she laid a hand on his arm. His head whipped around and a snarl curled his face before her smell wafted up to him. His shoulders fell and he took a breath.

  “Gods, Mam! I still can't believe yer able to do that to me."

  The woman smiled and patted his arm. “Be easy, Ronan, my boy. Your father always did say I had a light step. And it’s served me well a time or two, I think.”

  “You remember it that way, maybe,” he mumbled at the wall, “not I.”

  She laughed and swatted his arm. When he didn’t look up with an answering smile, her laughter faded. She sighed and her eyes drifted back to the fading moon. She was silent so long, Ronan finally looked up and followed the direction of her gaze. He shook his head.

  “You’re wrong to be glad it’s waning, Mam.” He said in a tired voice. “It makes no difference, anymore. Not really.”

  “Ronan, I’ll not hear ye talk that way, not ever. Especially now.” Her voice was resolute, but her face still held that knowing smile.

  He turned away, trying to hide his disdain. Once he would have died rather than disappoint her, but it was much too late for that now.

  “Mam, give it up. Nothing has changed, nothing will ever change, don’t you realize....” Suddenly the import of her words struck him. “What do you mean ‘especially now?’ What have you seen, Mam?”

  There was no excitement in his tone, only urgent necessity. Maybe his mother’s sight would illuminate this shadow he felt on his soul. What he had left of it, anyway.

  “Nay,” his mother said, “I don’t see as clearly as I used to, Ronan, not even in the other world. But...” her deep brown eyes left the sky and sparkled into his gray ones, brimming with anticipation. “Something is coming, something that can save you. I feel it in my bones, Ronan. It’s the first real hope I’ve had in...”

  “That’s a lie!” Ronan pounded the wall once with his fists, his words slicing through hers sharply. “All hope is a lie, Mam. It’s just a trick the gods play on us for fun. Damme, don ye know that by now! Whatever you see, it isn’t going to help me.”

  He took her hands into his own and shook them gently, his eyes boring into hers. “You've got to stop believing that anything can save me, Mam. That's… no longer possible. If it ever was.” He dropped her hands and stalked away, passing the light-silvered door and vanishing into the night.

  Moiré Fitzpatrick turned her back on the moon and watched her son fade away.

  “Ah, Ronan, that’s tha one thing I canna believe,” she said softly. “The gods owe me and I think it’s finally time they paid up. You hear me, Aine? You give my boy a chance this time. Enough is enough. Even a goddess should know when to bow out gracefully.”

  Moiré glared over her shoulder at the moon before slipping through the door. The breeze that sighed down the eaves in her wake seemed to trill with laughter, but the voices from inside quickly drowned it into nothingness.

  She was running through the woods, the harsh light of a full moon making shadows jagged and monstrous. Smoke was ahead of her, twisting and alive, but something horrible lurked behind, forcing her to run forward. She'd fallen more than once and her hands and feet were burning with pain and she could taste the coppery blood where
she'd bitten her tongue. But some viciously urgent purpose pushed her on, something more powerful than fear or pain. But it was cold,

  ... so cold and hard and...

  Lacey sat up with a jerk, searching the darkness with bewildered eyes.

  "What the hell?" Her voice sounded weak and slurred to her own ears.

  It was a pitch-black world she'd awakened to, with pieces of the disturbing dream clinging to her mind like a shroud. In the moment it took for her disorientation to subside, fear paralyzed her. She held her breath, anticipating a snarl that never came.

  When Lacey saw the stars twinkling overhead and a moon just barely on the wan far to the east, she cursed her sister for her contagious dreams and her own consummate stupidity falling asleep on a car in a strange country in the middle of the night.

  "Damn it, Kate! For someone with no imagination, you sure managed to paint a vivid picture."

  And now, she was talking to herself.

  Brilliant.

  With an oath, she slid off the now icy hood and dropped to the damp ground, her legs protesting with a cascade of fiery pinpricks. Lacey hopped up and down, trying to get her legs to wake up and her mind to clear only to hear a nasty, final sounding crunch under her feet.

  “No, no, no!” She reached down with a sickening feeling to pull her dew-beaded and now thoroughly cracked iPhone from the wet grass next to the car.

  She wrenched open the car door and flopped inside, tossing the dead and useless phone in the passenger seat with disgust and dropped her head to the steering wheel with a low moan. Maybe her first novel should be about a crazy American tourist who gets herself stranded in the wilds of Ireland and....

  Shivers raced down Lacey's arms as the nightmare crept back over her. Perhaps it wasn't best to finish that thought, she decided. With a shudder, she finally identified that wrenching emotion that had driven her on and on in that terrible dream, toward some unknown, but no doubt dreadful fate. Despair. She’d only ever felt it so strongly once in waking life, but it was unmistakable.

  Lacey swallowed down the bitter taste in her mouth.

  She sat in the car letting the sick feeling in her stomach subside before turning the key. She may be more familiar with dreams than her sister was, but if this was the kind Kate normally had, no wonder she wished to opt out.

  With considerable effort, she shoved the nightmare out of her mind and focused on now. As the car hummed around her, she realized making her reservation in Ennis was out. She'd have to find a phone to call and apologize tomorrow. Or later today, rather. Since she was wide awake with that stop out of the equation, she figured she might as well head on to her real destination, County Tipperary. Where her Ryans had come from, so long ago.

  Her stomach growled loudly. Lacey sighed, finding the pack of gum in her pocket and shoving a piece in her mouth. The next time she ventured on a cross-Atlantic journey she was going to make damn sure to pack a bag of food. A huge lovely bag of food. With another sigh, Lacey turned the car onto the roadway and headed east, chasing the moon.

  He found himself unable to sleep. Yet again. In and of itself, that wasn’t surprising. The dream, however, was.

  Ronan stretched his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling, his heart still racing. Normally, he never remembered his dreams. Even now, he could only catch bits of images, feelings. But those feelings....

  His fingers knotted in his longish black hair. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt fear; real, human, gut-paralyzing fear.

  It was ridiculous. He ripped the bedcovers from his body, feeling the cold sheen of sweat on his skin. Stalking naked to the window, his heavy muscular body illuminated only by starlight, Ronan stared out at the night.

  He hadn’t even been afraid when he’d first changed, not for long anyway. And now while he might feel briefly guilty at the piercing thrill of transformation, even that was fading. Had been fading for years. Certainly, he never felt fear. He craved the wildness too much. The guilt merely remained as a reflex. An offering to his family, perhaps.

  But, in this dream, he knew terror. He woke smothered by it. And who was the woman with the aquamarine eyes, the one who haunted him there? She was a tiny thing, but all woman, ripe with curves that his hands ached to traverse. A tempting pixie with red-gold hair and blue-green eyes.

  His desire for her surprised him, it gnawed at his belly like a wakening hunger. In the dream, he knew they had attempted to quench that desire. The images he recalled had him hardening in response, even as the sweat of his fear continued to evaporate into the night.

  Despite the strength of his desire or maybe because of it, she made him uneasy. He hadn't lusted for a woman like that in… shit, he couldn't remember. Women and sex had been a non-issue in his life for a very long time. If he got the urge, he satisfied it. With as few complications as possible.

  This was different. Yes, it was a dream, but Ronan knew better than to dismiss his dreams. Something was warning him, he could sense it. This woman was real and dangerous. She looked beautiful, and innocent, but she was tied to the terror he had felt. He was sure of it.

  Ronan shook his head, stomping back to the mess of a bed. Ludicrous, being afraid of a woman. He paused at that, as he lay down once more, stretching out on his side, so he could gaze out at the sky. That was a dangerous oversimplification--the knee-jerk reaction of a man.

  He, of all men, knew the power a woman could wield. His thoughts jumped to Aine, then the bloodlust of the Morrighan and even sweet Brigid, and he wondered. And feared.

  Hating the fear. His own life would mean less to him than a mote of dust but for the others that would suffer if he should perish. He was their only defense. That was increasingly all that held him back from the darkness. And sometimes even that...

  His gray eyes sought the stars, his mind unwillingly to finish the thought and acknowledge how very thin that particular veil was getting. A gossamer wisp of a thing, really.

  Just before he fell back into fitful sleep, Ronan decided. The dreams were a warning. Whether she wielded the terrible power he felt, or if it just followed her, it did not matter. She was a threat to him, and those whose lives were in his hands.

  If the woman with the aquamarine eyes came to him in this world, he’d have to destroy her.

  Chapter 3

  By dawn, Lacey had decided a better map might be more necessary than backup food. Pink light was streaking the sky, but the sun had somehow shifted to her left. Which should be....south?

  She wasn't any great shakes with direction, but she knew the sun in Ireland damn well rose in the east just like the rest of the world. She had gotten turned around in the night and was now headed north, apparently.

  Pounding the steering wheel and making inarticulate sounds of rage, Lacey pulled into the first turn she saw, missing in her exhaustion it was much too narrow and hemmed in by trees to turn around in.

  "Oh, crap, crap, crap!" She moaned. It was this kind of thing that made for good reality TV. Maybe she should consider going back to television and producing her own travel show, 'Lacey's Guide To How to Screw up Your Vacation with No Effort Whatsoever'.

  The car began to shake as the ruts in the track grew bigger. With her neck getting pounded and plumes of dust beginning to rise around the windows, Lacey had just decided to brave certain tragedy by trying to back down this stupid sheep trail to nowhere, when the trees abruptly cleared.

  Her jaw dropped and she stomped on the clutch. Ahead stretched the prettiest lake she had ever seen in her life.

  Glassy water gilded in rose and gold by the rising sun was cupped within a small velvety green valley framed by tree-covered hills. It looked exactly like the fairy-tale version of Ireland she had always held in her mind.

  "It's a mirage," she whispered as she opened the car door. "A hallucination brought on by exhaustion and lack of food."

  But even after she'd rubbed her gritty eyes three times and walked until the incredibly calm water was nearly lapping at her bo
ots, the picturesque vision remained intact.

  With a happy sigh, Lacey curled down on the grass and smiled. This was more like it. If she could only conjure up a nice, enormous breakfast to go with her fairy lake, all would be right with the world.

  “Well, now. I don’t have a proper breakfast, but I daresay you’d not be looking down on a bit o’ bread, would ye?”

  Lacey yelped and almost jumped into the water, before spotting the young woman sitting on a smooth rock right next to the lake. She was tinier than Lacey-- who was barely 5 feet tall herself--and had dark hair and dazzlingly blue eyes. She was also stroking a large, snow-white goose. She smiled mischievously as Lacey managed to stay on dry land by the skin of her teeth.

  “Aye,” she said without the slightest trace of apology, “I didna mean to scare ya into a swim.”

  Lacey arranged her shock into what she hoped was some semblance of a normal expression.

  “Ummm, that’s alright, I guess.” She stared at the dark-haired girl, eyeing the large loaf of bread she appeared to be sharing with the bird. “I didn’t see you.... and I didn’t actually realize I’d said anything out loud.”

  The girl shrugged and tore the crusty bread in half, tossing it nimbly to Lacey, who, of course, nearly dropped it into the damp grass, making the girl giggle and Lacey blush.

  “Mayhap ye didn’t. I’ve got good ears....and Americans think much too loudly.”

  Lacey gave her a sharp look, while trying not to shove the whole of the loaf into her mouth. It smelled unbelievable.

  ”How’d you guess that? Oh duh, my accent, I suppose?”

  “Oh, aye.” The girl nodded, but Lacey had the impression she was lying. And what an odd thought, that was.

  But the girl was an odd sort of person, somehow. Lovely enough, with that delicate pearlesque skin that only the true Irish could boast and the goose certainly seemed devoted to her. Its’ feathers were flush with her dangling legs and it showed not the slightest trace of fear as she stroked it. Lacey had always found animals to be a much better judge of character than herself, but something seemed off to her. Perhaps it was just that the girl seemed to be a bit of a prankster. Lacey never had much use for that sort of humor. It always came off as somewhat cruel.