Page 5 of Against the Veil (Endangered Fae #3)

Chapter Four

Fever Dreams

The fae have no taboos regarding nudity and most live clothing-optional lives. With that in mind, we advise any guests who may be distressed or offended by naked fae to remain in the human-staffed office area of the complex. —Orientation Guide for Visitors to Tearmann Island

L ight pressed against him, heavy and unwelcome. Zack moaned and tried to roll away. A warm body curled beside him prevented the movement. His hand brushed against skin. A warm, naked body.

He forced his eyes open, the lids so heavy he wondered if he might need a winch. A spill of fox-red hair lay on the pillow. A graceful slender curve of shoulder peeked out from under the sheet.

“Sionnach?” That’s not my voice…

The body rolled to face him and Zack found himself staring into jewel-bright green eyes. “Good morning!” The Fomorian herald propped himself up on one elbow. “How do you fare?”

Zack tried to sit up and found he couldn’t even lift his head. His chest hurt, his legs ached, and his head felt like someone had pumped toxic sludge into it. “I feel terrible.”

“Of course you do.” Sionnach leaned forward to kiss his forehead. “I’ll fetch one of the healers for you.”

“Um…Sionnach?” No, that raspy, broken whisper really was him. “Why are you in my bed? Did we…?”

“Did we what, hero of the iron caverns?”

Zack felt himself flush.

“Oh!” Sionnach’s silvery laugh filled the room. “No, no, my dear. We have not mated. While you are deliciously handsome, you were far too gravely wounded. Even Faolchú would not think of it at such a time. And Angus would most likely box my ears, in any case.”

Sionnach rose from the bed, his white-tipped, russet tail waving behind him. At least with Sionnach, one could pretend he was half-dressed, since he had fur from the waist down.

“So, um, what’s the deal?”

“The deal, as you say, is that you have been terribly chilled.” Sionnach patted his hand. “The healers asked us to take it in turns lying beside you to keep you warm.”

“Us?”

“Myself and Angus. And yes, Faolchú, the big oaf. He’s been so worried for you. Nathair—”

Zack smiled despite the pain, picturing this strange parade of bed companions. “Was Finn here, too?”

“No. Finn has been ill and is not permitted to leave his room for fear of infecting other shifters.” Sionnach tilted his head to the side, his smile just short of wicked. “But Lugh was here when he could be.”

“Oh.” Zack cursed his fair complexion as he felt his blush deepen.

Not that it means anything. Everyone else was here, too.

But he remembered bits and pieces of dreams with Lugh holding his hand, begging him not to die.

Another thought occurred to him. Hadn’t he been in Missouri? “How’d I get here, bud?”

“The Consul broke his self-imposed rules for you,” Sionnach said softly. “He made a doorway into human territory and retrieved you.”

Zack wished he could think straight. The whole nightmare mess wasn’t making sense. “Wait. I thought you could only make those magic doorway thingies between this world and the Otherworld.”

Sionnach gave him an odd little smile. “No one taught our Diego that magic has limits, and so he does as he wishes.” His tail waved behind him as he left the room.

Of course. Diego had done the retrieval. That fact shouldn’t have hurt so much.

“God, Morrison, you’re an idiot,” he whispered. “You survived. Whatever else happened, you’re alive.”

He hoped someone would tell him what really had happened, and soon.

The bits and pieces he thought he remembered just didn’t seem possible.

You live with fairies, you guard a fairy prince, one of your best friends is a shapeshifter who can turn into a dragon, and you’re having problems with a mean dog with thumbs?

Yes, he was. The thing that had attacked those kids wasn’t just a mean dog.

He had felt the malevolence from it, looked right into its crazed eyes, and the beast had stared back at him, not like an animal would, but with malicious intent.

That thing had wanted to cause pain. At least that’s what he remembered.

He wanted someone to tell him he was wrong.

“Zachary, you’re awake!”

“Hey, your furriness. How’s everything?” He smiled, never so glad to see black furred ears.

Eithne slid up onto the bed beside him and took his face between her hands. They had pads and retractable claws like a cat, but they were still hands. “You are still too pale.”

“I’m sorry,” he said as a reflex.

“None of that. I’m so pleased to see your beautiful eyes open.” She ran a hand over his hair, down his throat and over his chest, purring all the while.

“What’s the prognosis, Doc?”

She smiled and rubbed her furred cheek against his. “You will live, healer-warrior. Regaining your strength may take some time, but you are mending well.”

Her kitty facial expressions were tough to read sometimes, but he thought he caught concern in her eyes. “What is it? What’s the part you’re not telling me?”

“It’s…naught to be anxious over.” Her smile never faltered.

“What? I’ll never walk again? I’m gonna lose the arm? C’mon, Eithne, I’m a big boy. You can tell me.”

One pointed ear twitched atop her head as if flicking off a fly. She watched him for several long moments, searching his face. “What do you recall?” she asked. “Of the attack?”

“Most of it. But it’s hard to tell how much was real. I mean, it couldn’t have been, right? Upright monster that looked like some demon dog with thumbs. Right out of some bad B movie.” He swallowed hard since her face still didn’t register anything. “The police found it, right?”

“The police…” The Fomorian princess frowned. “They shot at your attacker, though they claim they could not see it clearly. It ran. They followed its trail with dogs and stick lights.”

“Flashlights,” Zack corrected absently.

“Yes. What they found was a naked man lying dead in the woods.”

“So the thing attacked him, too?”

She looked away, though her claws still combed through his hair. “The man died of a gunshot wound.”

Zack’s heart lurched. His brain skittered away from the only possible answer. “What does all this mean?”

“Perhaps nothing. It is dangerous to draw conclusions before we know more.” She turned back to him and smiled. “Danu and Balor wish to hold a feast in honor of your bravery. As soon as you are able to sit unassisted.”

He let out a snort. “I’m not a kid, Eithne. You can’t make me forget everything by promising me a party.”

“I meant to do no such thing,” she said with a laugh and leaned in to kiss his forehead. “Have you had terrible dreams? Does your heart race without reason? Is there a burning under your skin?”

“Um…no. I mean, I had some bad dreams about that monster, but who wouldn’t?”

“Then we should not be concerned. And it has been far too long since the fae courts met in celebration. If—”

A series of gunshot-sharp sneezes from across the hall interrupted her.

After the tenth sneeze, a tortured crack followed by a crash further disturbed the peace.

A soft voice drifted out from behind the door, then Nathair emerged.

He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it with a weary sigh.

The scales along his arms and atop his head, normally bright green, had a dull cast to them.

At least Nathair wore jeans on his perfect, compact body when he roamed the embassy.

“Everything all right, bud?” Zack called out, his voice a little less hoarse now that he’d been using it.

Nathair caught sight of him and managed a smile. “Zack, you’re awake! You look much improved.”

“Never mind me, what happened in there?”

“Ah. Finn’s sneezing fits…perhaps they’ve told you? No? They cause uncontrolled shifting. This last fit was all sea creatures. The orca broke the bed.”

“He okay?”

“Well enough. Oh, he’s come to no harm.” Nathair rubbed a hand over the side of his face. “But he asks endlessly when Diego will be finished with work. Demands stories and tea and to have his back rubbed. He is restless and weak, bored and petulant.”

Zack raised an eyebrow at that. Years of dealing with difficult patients had given Nathair the tolerance of a saint. It wasn’t like him to sound like he was close to strangling someone in his care. “Sounds like you need a break, bud.”

“I need Faolchú at the moment. Finn insists that the only reason he shifted to orca is that he has been on land for so long. He wants to be placed in the tub.”

Eithne rose and glided from the room. “I will fetch him.” She caressed Nathair’s cheek on her way down the hall, making good her escape so she didn’t have to answer Zack’s questions. Something had her worried, no doubts there, but she clearly wasn’t sharing until she was ready.

After Faolchú had carried Finn to the sunken garden tub down the hall, the upstairs quieted again.

Occasional splashes drifted to Zack and the soft rumble of Faolchú’s voice, but these were peaceful sounds.

He found his eyes sliding shut and wondered if Eithne had done something to make him sleep.

Probably. Unconscious was one thing, but the body needed real sleep to heal.

Maybe Diego would have less evasive answers when he came upstairs after work, or maybe Lugh was due in soon.

Lugh. He’d clop up the stairs, his hooves ringing on every step.

He’d be wearing the royal dress uniform he put on for state occasions, the one with the waist-length jacket with all the gold buttons, so tight across his huge, ripped chest. He’d have that heart-melting smile turned on full power.

He’d unbutton the jacket slowly, then the white dress shirt underneath, leaving them both on and hanging open to frame his gorgeous pecs and that bounce-a-racquetball-off-it abdomen.

Zack chuckled at himself when he realized his little fantasy had gotten him hard as hell. With thoughts of Lugh climbing into bed with him, wrapping those powerful arms around him, he drifted off to sleep.