She’d forgotten any shyness and self-doubts in the glorious, craving thirst for more.

Nothing about him was smooth or pampered or polished. And everything about him excited. When his hand skimmed over her center, the glorious shock whipped through her, ripped through her until her body quaked.

She cried out on the unbearable release, and still he didn’t stop. Helpless, she wrapped her arms around him, held on, held on.

Let go.

“God. God. Keegan. Wait.”

“You’re strong,” he murmured. His voice, thick, breathless, had her opening dazed eyes. “Take more. Take me.”

He slipped inside her, slowly, almost gently at first.

She saw lights whirl around the room, saw them reflected in his eyes.

“Strong,” he said again. “Soft. And, gods, the heat of you.”

He began to move, and she came again, a flash of orgasm that arched her body, had her hand flying up to grip his shoulder.

“Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

“All the gods couldn’t stop me. Ride with me now. Ride with me.”

She rode, a hard gallop now, reckless and desperate and thrilling. The light pulsed, faster, still faster as the bed rocked under the flurry of speed.

They blurred, everything blurred but him as for one brilliant moment his face, so close to hers, came into sharp focus.

And all the lights spun into one, in the room, in her, in him.

As his body collapsed on hers, he buried his face in her hair. She’d gone beyond soft, like wax melted in the sun, and still her heartbeat echoed the thunder of his.

In the room, now quiet, he heard the crackle of the fire, the easy music of the wind, and Breen’s long, long sigh.

“I’m heavy,” he mumbled, with no intention of moving yet. “But you’re strong.”

He felt her hands in his hair, felt her fingers run along his tribal braid. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Then you weren’t paying attention, were you? This is a flaw you should fix.”

She sighed again. “I didn’t think you liked me, especially. Considering how often you kill me, or insult me, or curse me.”

“I don’t like you on the training field because I’m to train you, so I kill, insult, and curse because you need it.” He lifted his head, looked down at her, at the riot of fire curls spread over the pillow. “I like you otherwise.”

“I guess that’s fair, because I don’t like you on the training field either, where you’re a bully. But I like you otherwise.”

She glanced toward the fire, where Bollocks curled on his bed, sleeping.

“Bollocks slept through it.”

“A wise dog, as this was no business of his.”

She smiled, looked back at Keegan. “I’m not used to this.”

“To what?”

“Lying under a world leader, to start with.”

“You lie under a man who wants you. Why should the rest matter?”

“I could also say I’m not used to being naked with someone so . . .built. Fit,” she qualified. “Hard-bodied.”

She amused him, allured him. The combination struck him as unique as she herself. “Did you choose soft, weak men for lovers?”

“Comparatively.” To please herself, she pressed a hand to his chest. Yes indeed, hard-bodied. “This has been a strange and wonderful day. A red-letter day.”

“I’m fond of red, it seems.” He wound a lock of her hair around his finger, unwound it. “So then, can there still be pizza?”

She laughed, then hugged him in such a free and friendly way his heart tipped.

“Absolutely, because I’m starving.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Though he hadn’t intended to, Keegan stayed through the night. When you stayed and slept after mating, you added import and risk, but he stayed.

And in the morning, before the sun broke the night, they mated again. After, there was coffee—something he had only on his rare visits to the other side.

She scrambled eggs, piled them on toast, and he found it more than good enough, breaking their fast outside at the table in the weak sunlight with the dog splashing happily in the bay.

He had no complaints when he went back to his world and his duties, and she remained—for the morning—in hers.

Still, he continued hard on her in training—her life could depend on it after all. And he resisted going to her bed the next two nights, telling himself to keep some distance, and using the need to join the night patrol as a reason.

The third night he cast a circle. He worked a spell he’d devised to see through the portal, through the locks he had helped make. Odran’s scouts and spies continued to push through cracks, and some, he knew, had slipped through.

If he could see through to the black castle, if he could link just enough to read the plots and plans in the black god’s mind, he could better defend Talamh, and all in it.

But though the power of the spell was great, so great it all but burned in his blood, he could see only shifting shadows in the dark, only hear mutters and murmurs, and once the horrible cry of the tortured and damned.

It weighed on him as he unwound the spell, as he closed the circle.

If he couldn’t penetrate the dark, if this remained out of his reach, he’d have to risk more spies of his own.

And not all came back.

He called his dragon, intending to fly out over the water and let the remnants of the spell still echoing inside him quiet.

Instead, he flew through the portal, then high over the trees to the cottage, to Breen.

Enough distance, he thought. He’d burn off the spell and his failure inside her, and sleep.

Only a single light burned in the window, one below her bedchamber, when he landed. He told himself to leave her be, to let her sleep. But he walked through the fluttering pixies and opened the locks and the door with a wave of his hand.

He stepped through, glanced back at Cróga. “Go rest where you will, mo dheartháir. I’ll make my own way back.”

The minute he closed the door, he felt her.

Sleeping yes, but with visions that brought fear and pain.

Tossing light ahead of him, he raced for the stairs and up. He found her shuddering in bed, her eyes wide and glazed. The dog stood on the bed beside her, and whined in distress as he licked her face.

“I’ve got her now, friend. I’ve got her. But bloody hell, she has to go through it. Visions come for reasons.”

He knelt on the bed beside her, smoothed back her hair. “But you’re not alone now, mo bandia.” He reached for her hand so she’d find comfort when she came through it.

And found himself ripped into the vision with her.

The world, his world, the heartbreaking green of hills and fields burnt to black, with the smoke rising so thick it blocked the sun and sky.

Gray, all gray, and the stench of it like death.

Lightning, black as pitch, ripped through the smoke to turn the house of the farm entrusted to him, to his family, to smoldering rubble.

Through the blasts and roars, he heard the screams of the dying, the keening wails of the grieving. Bodies—men, women, children, animals—littered the ground with pools of their blood seeping into the scorched earth.

It ripped his heart, ripped it into pieces that would never, never be mended.

He drew his sword, pulled up his power, a power now so fueled by rage and grief, the steel in his hand pulsed red. He sliced through a demon dog who’d stopped to feast on what had been a young faerie.

Pushing himself through the smoke, he cut down a dozen with blade and fire and rage. And still they came. He fought his way to his sister’s house, where even the flicker of hope died. Nothing remained but a tumble of blackened stone.

He stood, a man of power, a man of duty, and screamed out in fury that would never cool, in grief that would never rest.

Still, he could feel dim flashes of light as others fought with what they had left in them. He called his dragon, but already knew Cróga would never come to him again.

The severed bond, another grief, another fury.

Cróga was gone, as the farm was gone.

Without horse or dragon, he’d never reach the Capital, and his mother, in time to launch a defense. Even if the Capital still existed.

He pushed his way back. If Marg lived, if he could find Breen, they could join power and find a way, there had to be a way, to save what was left.

He nearly stumbled over an old couple, elves, grievously wounded, curled in each other’s arms.

He tried to heal the woman first, but even as he spread his light through her, her eyes dimmed and died. When he turned to the man, the old elf shook his head.

“No. My life mate has gone to the gods. I choose to go with her. They came so fast, and the dark with them. Go, go and fight, Taoiseach. Save us.”

He ran, sword slashing, power sweeping.

And hope flickered again. Though the gardens had withered black, Mairghread’s cottage stood.

“Breen!” He shouted for her as he ran toward the cottage, and she stumbled out of the smoke.

Blood coated her hands, streaked her face.

“No!” She threw power at him, weakly, so weakly. “I saw you fall, I saw you die. It’s just another trick. You, Nan, Morena, everyone’s dead. They killed Bollocks. They killed everything.”

“It’s not a trick. I’m here.”

As he started toward her, Odran dropped down at her back. He wrapped his arms around her, smiled at Keegan.

“You’ve lost, boy. This world is mine now. She is mine now.”

“She will never be. Talamh will never be. Move away from him, Breen.” He couldn’t lash out, not with power, not with sword, or he’d harm her as well.

“I couldn’t stop them.”

Odran spoke close to her ear. “You’re not enough. You’ll never be enough.”

“I wasn’t enough,” she said dully. “I’ve never been enough.”

“Lies.” All of this a lie, Keegan realized. Spun into visions by the dark god. “Go back to your hell. Your illusion’s done.”