“Borrowing tomorrow’s troubles keeps one prepared,” she said, but leaned closer and molded herself against the long, hard length of him. She rocked into him with a suggestive wiggle. “I like being prepared.”
He lifted her up, walked her over to the bookcase, and backed her against it. “And that is why I dinna wear a thing under my kilt. Hold fast to the shelf and let me love ye. ’Tis solid enough, I grant ye.” He couldn’t resist a grin. “I guess ye could say I am prepared in that way as well.”
With a seductive smile, she clamped her hands onto the lip of the shelf as he rucked up her dress and buried himself inside her. “I have always wondered what it would be like to go up against the wall with a Highlander,” she said, already sounding a little breathless. “Going up against the bookshelves with a Fae prince will do.”
As he rocked into her with tantalizing slowness, he squeezed her arse and plunged even deeper. “Back where I belong,” he groaned. “I never shouldha left.”
“That is the problem with you,” she said with what sounded like all seriousness.
He halted pumping. “What?”
She arched her back and wiggled. “Even though you give a whole new definition to the word orgasm, I can’t ever get enough of you.”
“Same, my own. Same.” All other conversation was lost or forgotten. All he needed was her, and all she needed was him.
* * *
“Mairwen!”Keeva sounded out of breath, reminding Mairwen that she needed to speak with her assistant yet again about maintaining a sense of decorum. “They come! The outermost boundary wards just warned me.”
Mairwen stood in the doorway of the meeting hall in the Seven Cairns of the Seventh Realm’s Scotland. She never much cared for visiting this particular plane of existence. It hit entirely too close to home, even though her father hadn’t lived or ruled there for many an age. “Ensure everyone stays clear of the hall,” she told Keeva. “Princess Faeniana and each of her advisors possess wicked tempers. Collectively, they can be quite dangerous.”
“Aye, Mairwen.” Keeva darted away, disappearing into the building to connect with the villagers through the Ether, the magical matchmakers’ collective mind, the telepathic system that ensured the alarm went out to every Divine Weaver. Those Weavers would quickly warn any mortals living among them. Soon, every window in the village was shuttered.
At least the child worked quickly. Mairwen stood as tall as her diminutive form allowed and emitted a sense of calm. Today’s efforts had to succeed. The cards had warned her that Lexi and Jeros had more than their share of problems coming without the onset of war between the Fifth Kingdom and the Seventh Realm plaguing them as well.
Princess Faeniana rounded the corner at the far end of the village between the wards that admitted visitors. She stormed up the cobble-stoned thoroughfare, her glittering robes billowing around her. Those of the Fifth Kingdom were known for their flamboyant style. Her equally colorful advisors scurried along behind her, taking care not to draw too close, but also not fall too far behind.
Such a shame,Mairwen thought. No matter how many incarnations, the princess’s cold, bitter soul was destined to walk life’s path alone. Yet another reason for her cruel nature. Thankfully, not many found themselves faced with Princess Faeniana’s fate. Only those who had angered the goddesses beyond belief had one half of their splintered souls obliterated as punishment.
Mairwen offered the expected bow. “Welcome to Seven Cairns, Princess Faeniana. Thank ye for accepting my invitation.”
The terrifyingly beautiful royal arched a silvery white brow. “Ye said the cards bade me come for my own good. How could I refuse?” She rolled her shoulders, resettling the folds of her vibrant purple robes around her. “Show me this reading. Surely, ye must be mistaken.”
“The cards only speak specific readings to me a single time,” Mairwen said, knowingly stretching the truth, but doing so for the common good. “But I can show ye that of which I speak in the scrying glass.”
“I dinna care how ye show me, witch, just show me. I have the Realm to conquer. Father stepped down from the throne and granted me my rightful place as queen of the Fifth Kingdom.” She hissed a cruel laugh. “It seems he did not much care for our rat-infested prisons.” Faeniana cast a narrow-eyed glance at her advisors. “And if I discover that one of ye is involved or knew of what the witch is about to show me, prepare to regret the day ye were born.”
“I would never,” snapped the tallest of the advisors before looking down his long, beak of a nose at the short one beside him. “Quelldos, on the other hand.”
The distinct scent of singed clothing filled the air, making the tall advisor shriek. “Ye will stop that at once!”
Faeniana silenced them with a loud clap of her hands. “Ye will both stop and remember exactly whom our enemy is. That is where our energies must lie!”
Mairwen toyed with the idea of turning them one against the other. It would merely take a bit of tweaking to the false images she had already prepared. As she turned and held open the door to the hall, she decided against it. It appeared they already had a lion’s share of infighting. A bit more would be unlikely to turn them from their cause of attempting to conquer the Realm. “Please. Come inside. The scrying glass awaits.”
The tall scrying glass, an oval mirror older than Mairwen could remember, stood in its ornately carved stand at the end of the room. Its surface swirled with an eerie gray murkiness, a softly sparkling mixture of darkness and light, almost as if the glass itself was a portal to another time.
Mairwen barely fluttered her fingers, willing her old friend to come to life and put on a show that would hopefully save the Seventh Realm. It sprang to life, bursting with motion and color, but kept everything out of focus. “The glass senses ye, Queen Faeniana.”
“Can it not focus? This is useless,” snapped the royal as she swept closer.
With another slight ruffling of her fingers, Mairwen nodded. “Yer warning, Yer Highness.”
The scrying glass focused, sharpening the scene with startling detail. Faeniana sat crumpled on the scorched earth, her face in her hands, rocking back and forth as she wept. The world around her was blackened and gray, incinerated past all recognition. The only color in the scene was her purple robes, and even then, they were dimmed with ash and stained with streaks of blood. Bodies were scattered everywhere. Dead Fae warriors from the Fifth Kingdom and the elite guard of the Seventh Realm. Even her advisors were dead. Their forms were draped across the rubble beside her.
“This war is for naught,” Mairwen said. “What good is it to be queen if there are none left to rule, none left to serve ye as ye wish to be served and worshipped?”
Expressionless, Faeniana stared at the image. Her only movement was a slow, steady tapping of her thumb as she clasped her hands. “But I am victorious. Yes?”
