Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2)) (29 page)

This move wasn’t lost on Daoine, and she knew exactly what I was thinking.

If I destroyed LisTirna, I destroyed Dayne too. He wasn’t leaving this god-awful place. If it burned, he burned with it.

My words were nothing more than an empty threat, and Daoine was smart enough to see that.

“Oh, we’ll manage just fine. Do you really think you’re the only fire goddess to ever need
snuffing
out?”

“I didn’t come here for a fight, Daoine. Let me go in peace and I will never bother your precious LisTirna again. You have my word on that.” I offered with all the enthusiasm of a corpse.

“I can’t let you go. Even if I wanted to, the elements of earth, air and water are bound by a pact older than all the worlds to destroy fire when it’s found walking among us.”

“Right,” I sighed, and looked over her shoulder where her army waited. Turning my back to them, I stared once more at the open air at the end of the valley and the horizons in the distance. I didn’t have a clue where that valley went, but it had become my only option. “Well, if you want to destroy me,” I paused, turning back to Daoine, shrugging my shoulders in a mockingly helpless way. “You’ll have to catch me first!” I gave her the most disgustingly sardonic smile I could manage and took off running. My body spreading out like a flying squirrel when I leapt into the air. I was so fast they didn’t have a prayer at catching me.

As I glided through the air I could hear Garyn barking orders to his army of moths as they ran forward, the grass swishing at their thighs.

I considered slowing down, toying with them by making them think they had a chance at catching me. But the truth was, I was so over LisTirna I just wanted to get out. Only problem was I didn’t have a clue where the portal was. Nothing looked familiar as I fell to the lower level of the valley and began running again.

I was almost to another clump of trees when I was blindsided from out of nowhere.

With the force of a nuclear missile he crashed into me. The blow rattled my teeth and pushed me to the edge of consciousness. My brain battered the inside of my skull in shockwaves so brutal I couldn’t think.

When I opened my eyes and looked into warm emerald pools, I knew I had to be in some unconscious dream. Because those eyes weren’t supposed to look at me like they loved me anymore.

Breath was hard to come by. Whether it was from the squeeze of his massive arms encircling me or that my heart was so battered and confused it was struggling for every beat it made, I wasn’t sure.

There was little room for things like breathing between the disco-ball-barked tree at my back and the rock hard slab of his body pinning me against it. But Chassan had already shown me that breathing wasn’t necessary anymore, so I didn’t protest.

Looking into his warm emerald eyes—eyes that were filled with as much duty as they were desire—I could see the old Dayne fighting with what he had become in my absence. His body leaned into mine, wanting me the way it always had before, but he had enough restraint left in him not to close the deal. Not to lean forward and place his pillow soft lips against mine, even though my body hung so limply in his arms I was all but begging him to.

When he didn’t give into temptation, my hopeful heart shattered and fell to my toes. His decision was final, and anguish stuck in my stomach like a dagger. He had chosen duty over me, and I couldn’t look at him anymore. I couldn’t be so close to him, so close to the only thing I wanted and suddenly couldn’t have.

I pushed away from him, raising my arms between us and trying to pry his body from mine. He didn’t budge. I doubled my efforts, summoning all of my fire-goddess rage and punching at his stupid marble boulder of a chest. He half smirked as he looked down at me, securely fastened in his hulking arms.

“It’s no use. Faye. Your magic grows weaker every second you stay in LisTirna.” His words sounded louder than they actually were since we were surrounded by a thick tangle of forest on all sides, so dense LisTirna’s ethereal light couldn’t reach us. The space was grey and hazy, but with my magic eyes illuminated, I could see just like it was high noon.

“Why don’t you just leave me alone!” I shouted, struggling viciously against his arms. His hand shot around my side to cover my mouth. He looked expectantly into the shadows of the trees, searching each shadow in turn.

“Shhhh!” He hissed, shooting a murderous look at me and then refocusing his glowing eyes into the distance, searching for the army that was chasing me. “Do you want them to find you?”

“Why do you care if they find me?” I seethed as viciously as I could through clenched teeth. “You’re one of them now, remember?” I stilled my body, going ram rod straight—my own silent protest to being in his arms.

“Faye…” he dragged my name out like he was disappointed in me. Still, I refused to look at him, refused to let him see the effect his proximity had on me. His warm emerald eyes cast a faint glow over my face when they turned back to me, yet I still refused to look at him. With a sigh, he ducked his head into my line of vision and turned me skillfully in his arms so that I had no choice but to stare into his deep green eyes. He searched my face with a lost look that confused me. Why was he so burdened by the thought of me hating him? Why would he care? He was letting me
go—
had already replaced me with my twin, even—
and
now he was upset that I was upset? Apparently his ego had grown to match Ara’s while I was away as well.

“I’m going to get you out of here.” He finally said, releasing me to my feet, but still holding onto my arms so I couldn’t run. “It’s my fault you came back here. I won’t let my mother kill you because you were stupid enough to love me.”

Hearing him say that, hearing him acknowledge our love, yet treat it with such flippant indifference, stabbed a dull knife straight into my struggling heart.

I lost my fragile grip on the anger that was holding me together. What else could I do at that point? My insides splintered into a million shards of shiny glass and rained down to the soft grass at our feet. Again breathing became difficult and I was on the verge of hyperventilating.

I had nothing left. I had no one to go home to. I had no one who really even cared about me. I had an army of Sidhe chasing me in his world and I had an angel of death hunting me in mine. Which was the lesser of two evils? I didn’t have a clue.

What I did know was that I was in the only arms I ever wanted to be in, and the thought of losing them made me want to die on the spot. Who needed armies and death angels to do the job when a broken heart would suffice? Not to mention it was far less messier, far less blood.

I dropped my head, not wanting him to see my tears, and began to sob uncontrollably into the soft folds of his annoyingly white shirt. It was soft as a feather against my cheek, soaking up the tears as they fell from my eyes. In no time, I was a blubbering mess with wet cheeks, a snotty nose, and red rimmed eyes.

Still, he didn’t let me go. He pulled me into his solid chest, tucking me into the familiar nook at the base of his neck, rubbing my back and trying to soothe me like he always had. I hated to let him do it. I hated to need any part of him if I couldn't have all of him. Only, I didn’t try to pull away. As sad as it was to admit, he was all I had and all I wanted. So I clung to him until I could quell the tears enough to make them stop.

“One day, Faye, you will see that the only way I could’ve possibly loved you was to let you go.” He whispered as he planted a hard kiss against the crown of my head. His breath was hot one minute, tickling my scalp in a delicious way, and then cool the next as he inhaled the scent of me in a deep, needy way.

He didn’t want to let me go. I could feel it in the way he held me.

“What is that supposed to mean? You only love me if you let me go?” I pulled away from him and this time he let me. I shrugged out of his grasp, crossing my arms and fixing him with a hard glare. “I could save us both from this horrid place and you know it!” I hissed.

“I know you could, and a month ago I would’ve let you.”

“So, what? I’m a month late so I get nothing?” I threw my hands wildly into the air, frustrated with the cryptic way he was talking to me.

The wheels were obviously turning in his head as he tried to decide how he could explain himself to me. All the while, carefully looking into the distance and stopping to listen every few seconds to be sure the army wasn’t upon us just yet.

He strode around the little opening we were in, listening as he went with his ear turned to the forest.

“I was selfish before, Faye. If you
saved
me.” He rolled his eyes and smirked, clearly letting me know how he felt about a girl saving him. “What life do we have to go back to?”

“Ennishlough. America. Who cares? As long as you’re with me it doesn’t matter.” I pleaded with him, reaching out for his forearms and pulling myself to him, hoping I was giving him answers that would change his mind.

“It can’t work, Faye. You could take me from this world a million times, but the moment the queen calls me, I’m helpless to resist.” His voice was gentle as he looked at my arms circling his.

“When you become king she can’t tell you what to do anymore. You can leave with me.” I fisted the fabric of his shirt in my hands, pulling him to me. The neck of his tunic gaped open as I did, revealing a few more inches of the softly glowing skin stretched over his broad chest.

“If mother was gone and I was an absent king, who would be sure my kind was kept in order? Who would they have to answer to?” He traced one of my fingers, then sighed and dislodged my grip from his arm.

“Ara,” I answered automatically, knowing how much she wanted Dayne’s birth right.

“We’ve been over this a million times. Do you honestly think the world of humans would survive if Sidhe were answering to Ara?”

I focused on the ground, refusing to answer. He was right. Ara wasn’t an option if the world’s were going to remain in balance. She would wipe them out with one stroke. I concentrated on the boot prints he left in the soft green carpet when he moved from me, the air feeling colder and lonelier without him near.

“Then I’d live here with you. Nothing holds me to my world, Dayne. I’d stay here with you forever.” I spun on my heels, my tone urgent, finding him running a finger over a tree’s mirrored bark. His reflection shown back at me, and from that angle I could see the torment playing over his features.

“I know you would. If I asked, you would never leave my side. And you would probably think you were happy. But this isn’t your world. You’ve got more power in your pinkie than my mother has in her entire body. You weren’t meant to be hiding among the Sidhe. There is some greater purpose for you to serve. And keeping you here would be selfish.”

“Do you hear the words that are coming out of your mouth?” I drew my face into a disgruntled question mark, unable to process what he was telling me, and grabbed at his shoulder, spinning him to face me. “You are making zero sense!”

“I know,” he chuckled at the way I was glaring at him and it made me mad. His smile fell away and he sighed, shaking his head as he leaned into the tree. “I don’t expect you to understand. But I know you were born to this world for a purpose, and hiding in LisTirna isn’t it. My mother has seen things. Things she will not tell me, but things that have convinced her you must be destroyed. I can only…” His words stopped abruptly and he grunted in a guttural, breathy way, the air seemingly trapped in his chest.

His face twisted into a horrible mask that frightened and confused me.

“Dayne?” I placed my hand on his chest, but he didn’t answer, continuing to stare blankly through me.

A strange wheezing noise hissed from behind closed lips, and his face went instantly pale, all emotion and thought draining from it as he frantically searched my face with wild eyes.

Blindly, he reached for me, as if he couldn’t see me standing inches from him. My body ignited with fear.

“Dayne! Dayne what is it?” I grabbed his hands, pulling him into my arms as he began to stumble forward. We fell into the lush wall of tree leaves and vines at my back. His body was impossibly heavy on top of me and he didn’t try to move, falling like a lump of lead.

I pushed at his massive body, my hands roving over his back, searching for something to grab hold of and push him off me. His massive weight was crushing my chest and making it hard to breathe again.

That’s when I felt it.

Blood is a peculiar thing. A fluid slick as hot candle wax, yet somehow sticky as a half sucked lollipop.

The scream that formed in my chest and caught in my throat would have woken the entire population of Ireland if Dayne’s weight hadn’t kept it from bursting out of me. My hand was drenched, coated, covered, in bright red as I removed it from his back and held it in the tiny shaft of light filtering through the canopy overhead. Tangling my fingers in the soft gauzy shirt that was staining from blinding white to deadly red with his blood, I struggled harder and managed to wiggle out from under him, leaving him resting on his side.

An arrow, maybe five inches long and carved with familiar vines and leaves protruded from his back. I sunk to my knees, pulling him into my lap and stroking his hair soothingly as I tried not to let the panic register on my face for his sake.

Inside, I was unraveling at the seams quickly. Frantic. Unsure of what to do. I gripped the arrow in my bloody hand to pull it out, then remembered better and left it. Dayne’s face was frozen in torment, and for a moment I feared the worst. Until he opened his eyes and drew in a ragged breath.

“Dayne, what do I do?” I whimpered into his ear. I couldn’t see Daoine’s army, but I knew they were coming. Their feet sounded like a horse galloping on concrete to me, yet to normal people the forest would have still been silent. I had maybe a minute to get out of there before their arrows would find me under the tangle of leaves and brush where we had fallen.

The arrow hanging out of Dayne’s back was meant for me, I knew it was, but he had shielded me from it, and was now lying limply on the grass, gasping for breath. Guilt tore at my stomach and filled my mind with crazy thoughts.

“Faye,” he uttered weakly, and I pressed my face closely to his. “You have to go. Follow the stream, it flows behind the altar. You can find the portal from there.” Dayne pointed a weak finger to a trail that disappeared into the woods. When I concentrated on the sound of flowing water, instead of stomping feet, I found it gurgling a few yards down the path to our right.

“I’m not leaving you!” I shook my head resolutely, and got a strong grip under his arms. With every ounce of strength I could summon, I tried to lift him off the ground. But it was no use. His body was massive, and my strength was failing. He groaned at the pain of being moved and pulled my hands away from him.

“Leave me, Faye. Save yourself.”

“No!” I grabbed at his arms again, determined to drag him all the way to the portal if I had to. “They’ll kill you.”

“They don’t want me, Faye,” he gritted his teeth and stilled my hands with his. “They want you. You can save us both, but you have to leave. Now!” He pushed me away from him, toward the trail he had pointed to earlier, but I didn’t leave.

The footsteps hunting me were unmistakable, running through the underbrush, snapping tree limbs and popping vines as they thundered toward our hideout.

“I don’t want to leave you again! I may never...” Dayne raised a weak finger to silence me, pushing it against my lips and looking at me with such wounded heartbreak in his eyes that it stole the breath from my chest.

In that moment, I realized what he was doing. I realized that Dayne didn’t
want
to let me go, but he had lived this life longer than I had, and he knew he
had
to let me go. For reasons neither one of us knew, I had been released into the world. My dangerous magic had been set loose. Things like that didn’t happen by accident, and he was too selfless to come between me and my true purpose. That’s what he meant when he said the only way he could love me was to let me go.

He knew as well as I did that I would stay with him forever if I could. But LisTirna wasn’t my world, and it wasn’t where I was meant to be. We were all born with a purpose. A reason that gave our existence meaning. A purpose I couldn't ignore, and a purpose Dayne refused to get in the way of. That purpose wouldn’t find me in LisTirna. I had to leave. I had to get out while I still could.

“It’s not about doing what we
want
to, Faye. It never has been. For us, it’s about doing what we
need
to.”

“I love you,” I whispered through my tears and leaned over him, clasping our blood soaked hands together at his chest. Our faces were so close to one another I could hear a raspy rattle deep in his chest. The kind of gurgling sound a person makes when death is knocking on their door. Immediately, I knew the arrow had pierced something vital inside him. Fighting the tears for his sake, I dropped my forehead to his cheek and held him as best I could in the few seconds we had left together.

Then something inside me woke up, something snapped, and I realized that this didn’t have to happen. It didn’t have to end this way. Dayne wasn’t immune to arrows; he wasn’t immortal. But our magic could save him.

His breath was shallow and wheezing. With a trembling hand I grasped the arrow and yanked it from his back in one swift motion, hurtling it from us like a bomb. He groaned again and rolled over on his back, writhing in agony, his chest bucking up in the air as if searching for something to soothe the pain.

Summoning all the power I had left flowing in my veins, I placed my mouth over his pillow soft lips one last time, found the stuttering rhythm of his heart under my palm, and exhaled into him what little magic remained. I never thought about what I was really giving away, about how dangerous it was for me to give up everything I had with a Sidhe army chasing me. At that moment, saving Dayne was all that mattered.

His wavering hand found my cheek, and suddenly, my lips weren’t saving his life, they were kissing him goodbye. As his strength returned, he pulled me to him, reviving as our lips worked against each other. His hand gripped around my neck and pushed our lips together so violently it would’ve shattered a normal person.

There was way too much sorrow in our goodbye, because both of us knew it was probably forever. I ran my hands over his chest, wrapping my arms around his body and pulling myself to him.

I was seconds away from saying to hell with it all, and letting the Sidhe catch me just so I didn’t have to pull myself from Dayne’s embrace. Then another arrow whizzed so close to us that it sheared off a golden ringlet from my head as it passed.

That brought us back to reality, and as the lock of hair hit the forest floor it echoed in my ear. They were here. They were right on us, and if I didn’t leave at that moment I wouldn’t get away.

“Go!” He hissed in agony as a foot rustled the grass near where we lay.

The next second I was gone, flying through the woods, leaping over anything that came in my path. Flying to the river that gurgled in the distance. When I found it, LisTirna began to look familiar again. I raced to the little stream where he had first taken me in his world. Where the wishing pearls had once given me such hope in our future together I never would have thought I would be leaving this place alone.

Along the wooded trail where Christine had appeared to me, back up the trail to where Daoine made her judgements on her amethyst mountain. Back to the very altar where she had ripped us apart, and ruined my life.

I should have kept running. At the speed I was going, the portal was seconds away. I could leap back through the watery moon that served as a gate between our worlds. But then what? Would I forever be running?

Would I forever live in fear of who was hunting me? Constantly keeping one eye over my shoulder? And whose to say Daoine wouldn’t send her army to chase me in my world? I didn’t see where it ever stopped. Running from my problems wouldn’t make me any safer, wouldn’t stop the ones who wanted me dead from hunting me.

Daoine and her army of demigods certainly weren’t as dangerous a threat as Chassan was. Dayne had told me I was much stronger than her. If I could lure her from LisTirna, where my power would be reignited, I could probably defeat her. If she was gone, Dayne would take her place. And while that wouldn’t exactly solve the problem our love affair was facing, at least the Sidhe would have a ruler who didn’t want me dead.

The bigger question that scenario posed made my stomach churn with dread. Was I capable of taking someone’s life?

Time to consider that question was not a luxury I had.

The army of moths were right behind me, enraged even further by their inability to catch me—twice now. It was almost comical how easy it was to elude an army of Sidhe when I had the power of fire on my side.

With a wicked grin, I strode confidently over the mountain of amethyst to Daoine’s carved stone altar. The light was the same, ever present, never changing, shade of pinkish purple, like I was trapped inside a giant bubble of chewing gum.

I leapt up to the altar, standing on it to get a better view. The Sidhe army were approaching on one side. The forest of fairy fires burned on the other. The lounging figures that surrounded them payed attention to me now, all sitting up, hearing the angry voices of the army approaching and obviously seeing the shadow of someone daring to defile Daoine’s altar as I most certainly was.

I was pretty sure this was the most excitement LisTirna had seen in eons.

Bursting through the tangle of trees where I had exited the forest moments before, the army came. Marching slowly and steadily, Garyn at the front, directing his minions with great sweeps of his giant arms to fan out and flank me where I stood. Dressed in the pale clothes of LisTirna, they stalked over the land like moon light, brightening it as they went. It was beautiful, the elegant and rhythmic way they moved. Had I not known they were intent on killing me I would have enjoyed it more.

The truth was, someone was about to die. I didn’t see anyway around that. The Sidhe were certain it was me—no one could face those kind of odds alone and win. But I was as determined to leave LisTirna alive as they were to kill me.

As the army fell into rank and prepared to attack, a great call echoed through the land. A cry so ear splitting and unnerving it made everyone wince and turn their heads toward the heavens. I clapped my hands over my ears, and peered into the clouds.

A great bird circled overhead. I gasped, thinking it was Chassan. Had he joined forces with the Sidhe to kill me? My eyes went wide with the thought.

An army of Sidhe was one thing, but facing the Son of Sun was something entirely different. I began to back pedal, my eyes darting from the massive bird overhead to the army shuffling and scurrying below. Did I have enough time left to run? Were they distracted enough that I could still get out of here?

I got my answer—a resounding NO—when the bird switched its circling and began to swoop with alarming speed toward me. When our eyes locked, the bird glared at me with radiant purple eyes, not molten gold. It was Daoine, taking the shape of her eagle body and bearing down on me with razor sharp talons waiting to tear into my soft flesh.

I leapt to the side just as she would have snatched me in her talons. Only, my magic was so weakened by LisTirna and saving Dayne I miscalculated my jump and ended up crashing down the side of the amethyst mountain. Tumbling head over heels, crashing into rocks, slashing through trees and brush, scraping along the wall of amethyst all the way to the bottom. Normally, I would’ve had enough strength to catch myself, but not now. Whatever powers LisTirna hadn’t weakened I had given to Dayne to save his life. It was useless. I was just as weak in this world as I had been the last time I faced Daoine.

With a great thud, I smacked against the ground, not even bothering to see where my attacker was before I sprang to my feet and began to run.

In the distance, I locked my eyes on one of the fairy fires burning soft blue. It was fire, however odd it looked, and if I could get to it, I could recharge my powers enough to fight.

I hoped.

The great whooshing swoop of Daoine’s wings followed me, pushing a mighty wind over the land as I ran and she flew overhead, expertly mimicking my path. It was hard to keep my course, constantly needing to close my eyes or shield my face with an arm to avoid the dust and debris her wings kicked up.

Still, my feet kept up the pace. When the fire was a few yards from me, its warmth caressed my cheeks like an old friend. An embrace that stoked my magic and coaxed a fiery sizzle up from the base of my spine. Feet from it, I raised my hand and began to call to the flames in my mind, just as I had done in Dayne’s room.

Nothing. I redoubled my efforts, my calls becoming motherly pleas. The flames hissed, but instead of leaping toward me, they flattened low over the ground, struggling for life. Overhead, Daoine shrieked so loudly it shook the trees. Amazingly, the sound continued to grow louder the longer it went. She was in a death dive. Hurtling her body toward the earth to scoop up her prey. Only, I refused to lose so easily.

Her body sliced through the air like a knife, sounding exactly as I remembered the bird on Chassan’s mountain sounding. I closed my eyes to listen, and when she was inches from closing her razored talons on me, I fell to the earth and rolled into the fire. Only there was no fire anymore. Not even a measly coal remained to stoke my magic.