Earth's Requiem(52)

“And do ye like what ye see?” Blue eyes sparkled.

Her throat was thick with desire, but she managed to croak, “Oh my God, how can you even ask that? You’re the most beautiful, the most perfect—”

“Nay, lass, that would be yourself ye’re describing. Your hair is like liquid fire, and your eyes are golden. I’ve never seen eyes like that afore. And your breasts… If ye’d lived hundreds of years ago, poets would have written odes to them.” He opened his arms. “Come here. I canna stand the distance between us.”

She understood, because neither could she.

When they finally got up hours later, her nether regions were sore as she shifted around to pull on her clothes. “Ouch.”

“Och aye, and I have just the cure for that.” He winked.

She swatted him. “I’ll just bet you do. More of the same. Nope. I need a break. And a bath. I can smell myself.”

“We can go to the river. I’ll even make the water warm for you.”

“You can do that?”

“Uh-huh. So can you. I’ll show you how.” Fionn stood and collected his clothes strewn on the floor. He stretched his arms above his head and pivoted his torso from side to side before getting dressed.

Groaning, she came to her feet and made a mock bow in his direction. “Lead on.”

He took her hand and opened a path through his wards for all of them. Rune and Bella were more than ready to hunt, dashing off the minute they were above ground. As she followed him to the river, Aislinn wondered if she’d ever had so much sex before in such a short time frame. It didn’t take long to realize she hadn’t. For one thing, no one ever stuck around very long once their most immediate needs had been sated.

Fionn was talking to her, but she hadn’t heard him. “Tell me again,” she said. “I was thinking.”

He eyed her. “About what?”

She shook her head.

The look he gave her sharpened, but he went on. “I was just giving you a tutorial on how to make the water warm in a circle about yourself. You will want to mix water and fire in equal proportions.”

“Water will extinguish fire,” she protested.

“Watch.” He gave her that ten thousand-watt grin again, shucked his clothes, and stepped into a deep pool in the river.



She couldn’t help it. She smiled back and got out of her own clothes. Splashing over to him, she was pleasantly surprised to find that he stood in the middle of truly warm water. “Wow! I’m impressed. Water and fire, eh?”

He inclined his head. To his credit, he didn’t say, I told you so.

Warm water really did go much further than cold. It soothed her inflamed tissues, too. He showed her a root that soaped when you crushed it between rocks.

“What is that?” she asked delightedly as she squished slimy goo all over her body in bath temperature water.

“Indian soap root. An older name is Bear Onion.”

She memorized what it looked like so she could find it again. It even did a pretty good job with her hair. Of course, it wasn’t all that dirty, since she’d just washed it the day before. She had a feeling soap root would manage the oils better than sand, though. Aislinn fingered the gash down the side of her face. It still hurt, and it would leave a hell of a scar.

Thoroughly clean, they lay naked on rocks warmed by a combination of magic and the sun. It was temperate for so late in the year, and she luxuriated in not being swathed in layers of clothing. Fionn used his shirt for a gathering basket and brought them wild blackberries that had dried on their vines. She popped one after another of the tiny black globes into her mouth, enjoying the combination of sweet and tart. Rune padded over and flopped down beside her, part of a mangled rodent hanging from his mouth. Bella overflew them and then flapped her way to a nearby tree limb. She cawed raucously. Aislinn wondered if it was the avian equivalent of laughter.

“This is the first time I haven’t been scared in…” She hesitated. “Maybe in years.” She bit at her lower lip. “I’m not sure it’s good. I need to be scared so I’m alert.” She glanced around them, half expecting some dark creature—or maybe a human shade—to jump out of the foliage.

“There’s safety in numbers,” Fionn said. “With four of us, it’s not likely something nefarious could slip past.”

Aislinn wasn’t so sure about that, but she held her peace. She didn’t want to ruin what felt like the most perfect day since before her father had been killed. Swiveling so she could look at Fionn, she asked, “Tell me why you can speak Gaelic. Are you from the United Kingdom?”