In one smooth motion, he tugged her up into his arms and crushed her mouth with a hot, savage kiss, plunging deep, claiming, saying with it: I am your man, and don't forget it.
Had she not yielded instantly, gone soft against him, accepting his kiss completely, he wasn't sure what he might have done. He was merely grateful that he didn't have to find out. In the library, invisible, with little to no foreplay was not how he wanted her first time to be. He wanted her first time to be an overwhelming, mind-numbing. perfect seduction that would brand her to the very core of her glowing golden soul.
Fortunately, she not only yielded, her knees did that little, utterly feminine buckling thing that made him feel like a veritable god among men, and he was able to make himself let her go.
When he did, she sank limply back into her seat, lips parted, eyes unfocused. She flushed, looking dazed, then shook her head abruptly.
He was pleased to see that Dageus and Drustan eyed her intently, then exchanged a thoughtful glance. Good, he'd finally marked his territory, at least a little.
"He wants to know if you retain the memories of the Draghar," Gabby said with another shake of her head, as if she were still trying to clear it.
Dageus nodded. " 'tis why I brought it up."
"You do?" Drustan said, looking startled.
"Aye, though they've gone, their memories remain. Their knowledge is mine."
"Christ, you told me naught of that," Drustan growled. "All of their knowledge?"
"Aye. Masses of the stuff littering my mind. I spoke naught of it as 'twas of no relevance. With the Draghar no longer inside me, I have no temptation to use any of it. And the answer is aye again, I believe I can remove his curse. I, for one, would prefer to be able to see him. I doona care for this invisibility of his at all. 'tis making me uneasy."
"Yes, " Adam said, punching the air, elated. "Do it. Right now. Hurry the hell up." If he'd had the slightest suspicion that Dageus still possessed the memories of the thirteen, he'd have come here first, the instant the queen had abandoned him in London.
But he'd never imagined that Aoibheal might permit those memories to endure; so much of the Draghar's knowledge was innately dangerous, intrinsically corruptive. He snorted. His queen was slipping. When he was immortal again, they were going to have a long talk. Perhaps it was time he took a seat on her infernal High Council himself and got into the thick of things.
"He says, 'Would you please try?" " Gabby translated, tossing him a wordless little rebuke. He shrugged. Couldn't she understand his impatience?
"Is it forbidden magic?" Drustan asked Dageus.
"Nay. But 'tis the old Tuatha Dé magic. Not something we were necessarily given to use, though considering the queen left me it, well. .." He shrugged.
"Do you feel 'tis dangerous in any way?" Drustan pressed.
"Nay, 'tis but a chant in their tongue."
"For Christ's sake, would you say it already?" Adam hissed. "I need to be seen. I can't stand this bloody frigging invisibility."
" 'tis your choice, brother. I leave it to your judgment." Drustan said.
After a moment's reflection, Dageus said, "I see no harm in it." Of Gabby, he inquired. "Where is he?"
When she pointed, Dageus rose and, circling the area she'd indicated, began to speak.
Or rather, Gabby thought, he opened his mouth and sound came out, but he wasn't speaking. It wasn't a single voice that issued from his lips but myriad voices, dozens layered atop one another, rising and falling, swelling and breaking. It was melodic yet chillingly dissonant, beautiful yet strangely awful. Like fire that one could crawl inside of trying to get warm, only to end up freezing to death in it.
It raised all the fine hair on Gabby's body, and she realized that if this was the old Tuatha Dé tongue, it was not a language Adam had ever spoken around her.
Whatever tongue he'd been speaking on those infrequent occasions wasn't this. This was a voice of raw power. Such sound could mesmerize, could seduce against a person's will. It was old magic, undiluted and pure. The kind she'd always imagined the Hunters possessed. A terrible magic.
As it built to a crescendo, she shuddered, closing her eyes.
"Easy, ka-lyrra; it's because you're a Sidhe-seer that it affects you so," she heard Adam say softly. "It's why I've not spoken my tongue around you. Your instincts to guard, to gather your people and flee, are being roused. In ancient days you would have heard us coming on the wind and secreted your villagers away. Breathe. Slow and deep."
She did as he said, pursing her lips and breathing through her mouth, trying to wait it out, hoping it would end soon. He was right, the mere sound of the ancient tongue was filling her with a bizarre kind of battle-readiness, a bone-deep urge to round up the MacKeltars and make them hide. Then to ride through the nearby towns, sounding the alarm.