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Laying a finger beneath his chin, I raise it until we stare into each other’s eyes. “Do you understand the difference now between your ‘rut’ and making love?”
“Aye, oh aye.” He gathers me in his arms. “I’ve the notion there’s even more to it.”
I kiss his collarbone. “So—much—more.” My lips brush the side of his neck. “Sionnach?”
“Yes, love.”
“Don’t you dare ever try to ‘rut’ with me again.” He startles against me. “Only make love with me.”
He dips his head to give my nipple a quick lick then a playful pinch. “You have my word.”
We lay together, descending from the wonder of it all. My head rests on his chest as he hums melodies in my ear, his fingers tapping their soothing rhythm on my back. Making love with this man surpasses satisfying. It’s enchanting. My selfish heart wants to squander the night here in his arms, but we’d both regret our weakness. I want to ask him if there is any version of the future where we can stay together but hold back. For now, I don’t want to know. After the last soul is saved, I will bring it up.
If he’s still with me.
If not, I’ll have my answer.
For a fleeting moment, I worry about our recklessness. I’m on the pill, so pregnancy is not an issue. I calm myself by deciding Sion’s waltz with being human and the eons of time since he’s been with a woman seriously decreases his chance of passing anything else unwanted to me.
Pressure builds in my chest. Whether from lingering passion or the progression of the Celtic day, I can’t tell. Sionnach draws in a quick breath and presses an ear to my breast above my heart. He looks confused for a moment and too worried for my liking.
“We’d best be going. The closer we get to Beltane, the harder it is to judge time. We’ve enough left of our day to push on to the next soul.” He sits and pulls me onto his lap, kissing his way along my cheekbone until he stops at my nose. “Your wee nub is as round and sweet as a Faerie kiss.”
Máthair would like him, I know it. And now that he’s stopped holding back his feelings for me, I just might be starting to love him.
We stand. He dons his rumpled shirt, slipping into the vest and jacket while I dress in my Victorian layers. His eyes slide from my lips down the length of me as he dresses. For a charged moment, my body begins to respond in a counterproductive way given our tasks at hand and time limitation.
“No need to change clothing before we cross to meet the next soul.” I’m barely listening. It’s all I can do not to shove him back onto the deck.
Taking my hand, he raises my arm to the moonlight. My cuff is pushed halfway up my forearm. He touches my freckles one at a time. “Drops of gold across glorious marble skin.”
Sionnach captures my gaze with his as he slips my sleeve into place. I steal a light kiss on a tiny mole the color of caramel above the arch of his left eyebrow to confirm it tastes as sweet as it looks.
His hands glide over my hips to the small of my back. Slowly, he brings our bodies together. The Veil Sprites, my internal keepers of the Celtic clock, begin to flap in protest. Our kiss is liquid fire, flowing between us until our lips fall away from one another, and we recall how to breathe.
I want to shed my clothes and stand naked with Sionnach in the moonlight. I want to see him and him to see me with nothing separating our spirits. I want to feel his heartbeat against my bare breast and deepen the connection between us.
It can’t be this night. Making love does not stop time. There are souls in our care, and they must come first.
Wordlessly, he threads his fingers through mine and leads me to the eyepiece of the Leviathan telescope. I close one eye and peer in. The moon is close enough to hold in my hand.
Sionnach strokes my hair and sings. “Greeting to you, gem of the night! Beauty of the skies, gem of the night! Mother of the stars, gem of the night! Foster-child of the sun, gem of the night! Majesty of the stars, gem of the night!”
At the end of this Celtic folk prayer that I’ve heard my grandmother whisper every month to the full moon, me the swan, and he the fox, float on druids’ breezes into the arms of the Veil.
Shrill screams of Veil Sprites pierce the air around us. Darting in a mad frenzy as if trying to escape the passage, the Sprites sting in panic wherever their light touches my skin. The walls of the Veil shift between prism glass and membrane, unable to hold either form. Beneath our feet, turquoise and violet orbs deflate and spill out through cracks opening across the floor.
A ghastly howl no earthly creature is capable of rises between the transforming walls just out of sight. Sionnach whirls toward the sound, shoving me behind him. With a sickening rip, holes burn and gape in the Veil walls around us like wax paper ignited by the purple-blue flame of a torch. Heat sears across my face intense enough to singe flesh.
“Run!” Sionnach yanks my arm as we sprint down the tunnel of the decaying Veil. A roar grows louder behind us. Flames crackle from every direction. Licks of heat slap our legs, bodies, hair.
I push beyond my capabilities, and with a burst of speed, we gain enough distance from the oncoming thunder to dive through a yet unspoiled section of the Veil. Our bodies tumble onto a patch of dewy grass, colliding with bone-crushing force.
We scramble away from the flickering walls. Sion insinuates himself between me and a tunnel of fire spinning in the air. A shadow manifests from the inferno, rising as tall as a tree and as wide as a country road. It flounders behind the last lingering barrier of the Veil. Around us, an evil wind shrieks to block all other sounds of the night.
The figure continues to grow as it looms higher. Mystical walls entrap it in a cocoon, but still the thing expands, stretching the Veil with it.
This is no dream flash. My blood sings a warning that whatever I’m seeing is deadly. A man swathed in heavy robes with a cap on his head stretches an accusing finger in our direction.
