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The little girl took a fall but clambered onto her knees, but then the boat tipped onto its side. She rolled onto her back and slid along the decking to the open rail. Just in time, she managed to grab onto one of the mainstay poles of the railing; the child held on as best she could as her lower body hung over the side of the boat.
A swell of water seemed to form a hand as it collected onto itself and raised grasping, watery tentacles. The water appeared to have a mind of its own as it reached for the boat and the little girl.
Royce didn’t think; she didn’t care about rules or the long-ago Treaty with Man. A little girl was in trouble. Without thought to herself or the punishment she most certainly would incur for her ‘interference’, she shifted to the child and removed the Féth Fiada of invisibility so the girl would be able to see her and not be frightened.
“You’re okay—I’ve got you,” Royce said as she held the child cradled in her arms and shifted inside the cabin, where people were screaming and trying to hold onto seats and whatever they could find as the boat tipped dangerously from side to side in the wild and huge waves.
“Mom!” the little girl shouted out, and Royce spied the mother, who was screaming her child’s name in her attempt to locate her.
“Danielle!” the mother cried again. Royce did what she had to do and shifted with the child, put her in her mother’s arms, and shifted away before they could ask any questions or think about what they had just witnessed.
She told herself they wouldn’t think about how—they would only be thankful they had found each other.
Royce returned to stand at the water’s edge and saw Chance, his legs spread apart and his fist in the air. He was commanding wind and water using an old Gaelic spell that Royce should have remembered earlier. She grimaced to herself. I should have paid more attention to my lessons!
She wondered fleetingly where he had learned it, as it was a Seelie Fae spell, but shrugged it off. The Milesians were a resourceful lot. Chance had been around for the war with the Fae and the subsequent Treaty. There was no saying what he had learned along that journey.
She worked in tune with Chance, using a spell to move the boat forward, shifting style, to gain ground on the vicious whirlwind tornado at its back, but the force of raging wind and water was still gaining speed and power.
Royce turned to Chance and watched him. She was struck by the determination of the man. He did not question, as Trevor did. He didn’t worry about interfering with fate. He took action. She looked around for Trevor, but he was nowhere in sight.
Chance LeBlanc was a mystery to her, and at that moment, all she knew was that she believed in his ability to fight Pestale’s Dark Magic. Chance didn’t question the useless, perhaps even outdated, edicts of the Treaty—or the need to allow fate to rule. These were traditions and bygone rules of long ago, thought Royce as she watched him. Chancemont LeBlanc simply did what needed to be done, and she found herself drawn to his inner strength.
Not romantically, she told herself. He was still a ‘heartbreaker’, and he had remained unattached all through the centuries. He had never committed to anyone all these hundreds upon hundreds of years. In comparison, she was the equivalent of a twenty-year-old human and had not even reached her full maturity. And yet, she wished he might show an interest in her—would he … could he?
What she wanted was commitment. Ridicu
lously, she wondered if he had ever been in love. All silly musings considering the gravity of the situation, and she hurriedly shoved such thoughts away.
Chancemont stood, much like the God of Thunder, his fist raised high as he chanted. It was actually beginning to work. The gale force of the tornado had subsided, and the boat, although still tipping from side to side, was well out of its grip. The swells in the Lower Lake were still unnaturally huge, but even so, they were beginning to diminish.
The people from the boat could not see her or Chance standing at the water’s edge fighting black magic, since they were cloaked in invisibility. No doubt they believed they had somehow survived a freakish storm.
“Chant with me, lass—because the devil hasn’t given up yet. Let’s show the Dark Prince what we can do …” he yelled in Royce’s direction before shouting out the ancient words, “Fuascailt suaimhneach.”
“Fuascailt suaimhneach,” she chanted, joining him. He took her hand, and she felt the energy between them as it shot across the lake and blasted what remained of the swirling dark mass into a gentle mist.
However, Chance had been correct—Pestale had not given up the fight.
Horrified, Royce watched the swirl of wind and rain suddenly develop into a riveting mass of fury. Out of its depths a blistering and horned creature appeared. It clawed and bellowed out furiously and sounded as though it had come from the black pits of hell, and it filled the atmosphere with a bloodthirsty and bloodcurdling roar.
“Chance …?” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper.
He pulled her close and grinned. “Demons—he thinks to use a demons? As though a demon can’t be stopped. Lord love ye, lass, just draw on what ye are!” He laughed as though thoroughly enjoying the challenge. Holding her tightly, he told her gleefully, “Chant!”
And so they did, over and over.
The horned creature couldn’t see them in their Féth Fiada—it wasn’t Fae. As always they were when cloaked invisible to all but other Fae. However, the demon Pestale had called forth felt the might of their combined magic, and his claws swiped at air and wind and them.
It drooled, seethed, and raged, but while Chance and Royce held it at bay it couldn’t move forward towards the boat quickly heading for the dock by Ross Castle.
Then, just as instantly as the tornado of wind and water and the monster had arrived, all of it was gone. The storm that had nearly capsized the boat had vanished as though it had never been. Royce was astonished; she had not thought Pestale would give up so easily.
People on the boat were clapping and shouting, “Bravo!” to no one in particular, and Royce supposed that if they had seen the horned demon they simply put it down as a trick of the eye.
Chance looked at her and swooped her up into his arms cradle-like as though she were no more than a babe. “There, little Princess—what do you think now?”
She laughed, for he obviously wanted praise. “Quite well done, big Milesian—quite well done.”
