It was his turn to scowl. «And such fasting allows you to see things that you have no right to see. You saw me the other night when you should not have. Why do you not accuse me of being a demon?»

«If you are a demon, then I must accept that Patrick is one, too, and that I will not. If mortals see you, then you are real and as human as I. It is only the Others, the ones I glimpse through the Veil who are not human. Do they urge me to eat salmon?» she asked with curiosity.

«No, they bait me as they bait you,» he growled. «But they must approve of you if they have brought Patrick here.»

She nodded serenely as if they spoke of what meal they would have that evening and not the mysteries of the universe. «Thank you for being honest and not telling me I am imagining what I see. The priest would say that I speak with angels, or he would be forced to call me a heretic, but I know it is arrogance to believe we know everything. I certainly don’t know what you mean about salmon and bait.»

He crouched to help her with the basket, and an arrow hissed past his head, into the earth beneath the keep’s wall. Before she could so much as cry out, Finn flattened the Princess beneath him and rolled with her under the shelter of a garden bench. He could feel her heart thumping wildly, in tandem with his. He had not come here to die so ignobly.

The arrow had come from the bailey. Finn scanned the ramparts, noting scurrying figures but no archer.

«I can’t breathe,» the Princess said from under him. «If we’re being attacked, I need to reach my knife.»

Beneath him, she felt soft, warm, and curved in all the right places. Finn longed to forget archers and lose himself in her flesh. Lifting his weight on both elbows, he let his hips press against hers. Dodging death raised his appreciation of life. «I see no more archers. You may have a traitor among your sentries. And if you cannot reach your knife like this, then you are very badly trained.»

«You would teach me better?» Her fair features expressed more curiosity than fear.

«I would, after I throttle the traitor.» He rolled off her. «You are the bait. Choose your salmon and wiggle.»

Not wishing for further argument while someone wished to kill him, Finn flung the baffling woman over his shoulder, picked up her basket and carried both into the safety of the keep.

Four

Choose her salmon and wiggle, Anya mused that evening, sitting at the head table, picking at her mushrooms and carrots while the others feasted on fish brought up from the sea. What a strange thing for a man to say, but then, Finn was not really a man, or was he?

He’d certainly felt as solid as any man. If she’d questioned his faeness before, she certainly could not after being shoved from the chapel, rolled under a bench, and carried over a brawny shoulder. Finn mac Connell was all muscled man.

She darted a look to the warrior apparently enjoying his meal. He’d smelled like a man when she’d been lying under him. He’d felt so alive, she could have sworn he’d been aroused. And she’d been too stupefied by her unexpected desire that she’d hardly understood that he could have died out there.

The meal was quieter than usual. While mead flowed freely and the feast was fit for a king, they’d hung one of their own this day — the first death of the battle ahead. The traitor had been caught and tried and justice done swiftly, as it must be. The archer had been kin of Connolly’s.

«There will be war, won’t there?» the late Queen’s lady-in-waiting asked from the seat at Anya’s right. Cailleagh had been lady to Anya’s mother as well as Maeve. She wore the black of mourning for the many lives lost this past decade.

There would be no war if Anya married Dubh and gave him all the wealth he lacked. His lands were rocky and not suited for farming. He fought viciously for every field of fertile ground he could claim. She understood how he thought and why. But his thinking was of the past. These days, they must fight the enemies that threatened from outside, not each other.

«There is always war,» Anya agreed. «It is choosing the right war that matters.»

If she married Dubh. She would have to kill him before he killed Patrick. She had been trained to defend herself, but she had never killed, for self-defence or any reason.

Her gaze strayed to the big man apparently enjoying the feast. He was of Faerie but not one of them. He was much too solid, too real. Surely, if he could enter the Other World, he had gifts far stronger than her own. He had protected her with his life, as he would protect Patrick.

She knew now what she must do, even though it broke her heart. She stood. Few noticed or cared. She quietly departed for the stairwell. Finn followed, as she’d known he would. Even though he’d been as lost in feasting and drinking as the others, he halted, for her. And for the infant.

She left him at his post on the landing and entered her chamber where the maids entertained a wide-awake babe. A beautiful babe, one she would claim as her own, if she could. Smiling as if she hadn’t a care in the world, she took the child king into her arms and cuddled him. He swung his little fist as if to touch and explore her. She already adored him with all her heart and soul, and tears filled her eyes as she carried him from the chamber, down the stairs.

Without questioning, Finn followed in her footsteps, outside to the secluded garden where she’d told her brother he could not build because the Good Neighbours rode through this place. A hidden door allowed them to pass through the wall unhampered. Her brother had laughed and called it a Faery gate, but she had felt the appreciation of their unreal Neighbours and known that the passage had been the right thing to do. The Others had inhabited this land well before mortals.

When they were alone in the moonlight, Anya turned and held the child out to Finn. It took all the strength in her to do so. «Take him where he will be safe, until he is full grown.»

As usual, he did not do as told but studied her with wariness. «A babe needs a woman to care for him. I cannot.»

«Salmon eat bait. If I am to be swallowed whole, then I cannot guarantee the child’s safety. I would rather die than lose him that way.» Tears sprang to her eyes, tears she hadn’t allowed herself to shed since she’d known the mantle of responsibility would fall on her frail shoulders. «I thank you for offering me this chance to escape my fate, but I see now that I was being selfish.»

«The child is mine,» he said resolutely. «I wish him to grow strong and true and take the place that is his birthright. He cannot do that from a place of weakness.»

«Yours?» Surprised, she gazed into the babe’s wide dark eyes, seeking a resemblance, but the warrior was hard and stern and the babe had yet to develop such character. Patrick gurgled and sucked his fist. And she loved him. Weeping, she offered the babe again. «I cannot protect him from Dubh. He is ruthless and single-minded. You must see that. If anyone must be sacrificed, it is I, not the child.»

At her words, Finn stared as if she had suddenly developed a halo and wings. He brushed her cheek with his knuckles and stared into her eyes. «Niamh?» he asked in a disbelieving whisper. «Have the Others brought me to you? I swear, no other would sacrifice herself for our son.»

Memories settled on Anya like a soft mantle, warming her heart and thoughts as she turned them inwards. «No one has called me that since.» She tried to recall. «I had a nurse once, a nurse who took me to see our Good Neighbours riding. They called me Niamh.» She looked at him oddly. «You know me?»

«From another time and place.» Finn stroked her face boldly, tenderly, testing the quality of her hair and skin but studying her eyes. «You do not look the same, but your heart. your heart is mine.»

Anya did not understand his words so well as his expression. Heart thudding at her daring, she stepped forwards, stood on her toes, and tested a kiss against his chiselled lips. And to her amazement, they softened.

«My bait, no others,» he whispered against her mouth, pulling her against his chest, with the child gently crushed between them. «You will wiggle only for me.»

The intoxicating liquor of his kiss prevented her from laughing at his odd idea of courtship words. Before she fell too far under his magic spell, she pushed away. «How?» she asked, unable to form full phrases while her head spun, for it did seem they were meant for each other. She could feel it in that place that recognized what lay beyond this world.

«They knew,» he said obliquely. «They knew I merely survived with them. That to live, I must make things better, and their world is too perfect for an imperfect mortal. They knew this world needs me more than theirs, and they brought me to you. Mortality is a price I willingly pay.»

«You can stay?» she asked, holding her breath in fear, widening her eyes as she studied the rugged, broad-minded man who held her and looked upon her as if she were the answer to his prayers. How could any woman resist such a man?

«I can,» he said with certainty. «Together, we will buy Dubh’s lands and put his tenants to work so that we all might grow wealthy together. So someday, Patrick may inherit peace.»

«Yes,» she sighed happily, as the babe gurgled in delight. «Yes, and we will be good neighbours to everyone, even to those we cannot always see. Where have you been all my life?»

With a roar of joy, Finn lifted her and the babe in his mighty arms and swung them around in the moonlight. «I’ve been here, with you, inside your heart all these years!»