Give Me (Wyrd and Fae #1)(9)

“This is me.” She threw her backpack over her shoulder and winked at Lilith. “Don’t let Elyse choose you. You wouldn’t fancy a snogless life battling ghosts in a damp old cottage at the edge of nowhere.” She kissed Marion’s cheek. “Tell Dad hi for me, Moo. We’ll see you Saturday.”

She fairly skipped up the aisle to the exit and reappeared outside on the platform, her face alight with joy. She leapt into the arms of a young man, wrapping her legs around his waist. The two locked in a passionate kiss as the train pulled away.

“My husband’s daughter,” Marion said. “Tintagos Village isn’t smart enough for her. She loves her broadband and her mobile.”

And loves Jimmy too, Lilith thought. She’d seen the movie Wimbledon. She knew what snogging was. Sharon was right; Lilith didn’t fancy a snogless life in a damp cottage. She didn’t fancy the snogless life she already had in the dry desert.

Marion picked up her knitting, and Lilith leaned back to watch the world go by. Soon they were back in Dumnos County—at least, that’s what she assumed when the laptop ladies uttered frustrated sighs and put away their computers. Again farms and flocks of sheep alternated with postcard villages. The repeating view and the train’s rocking movement soon lulled her to sleep—and to Tintagos Castle.

Again she descended the stone staircase as a song wafted in from a lower hall. There was no Elyse, but again she tripped and fell into the arms of the prince. He looked into her soul. She felt she’d known him beyond mere lifetimes, through eternity.

“Diantha,” he said.

Diantha. The name was familiar, easy. It must be her real name.

The prince lowered his gaze to her lips, and her body responded with swelling urgency.

“Galen.” That was his name. He was Galen, and he was her love. Her life. She had waited for him for so long, she couldn’t stand it. He kissed her, and she gasped with desire. He slipped her nightgown off her shoulders and she ran her fingers through his hair. Diantha. Yes, that was right. Galen.

The scream of a steam whistle and the metal-on-metal squeal of train brakes jolted Lilith out of the scene, back to the real world. Marion was rummaging through her bag. “We’ve arrived, dear. I have something for you.”

Lilith yawned and closed her eyes. She was on fire. Her hot arousal from the dream had to be obvious.

Marion handed her a soft pink knitted hat and matching gloves. “A gift from the Tragic Fall. You’ll freeze without them.”





3

Tintagos Halt



By the time the train groaned to a stop, the laptop ladies were at the door with their luggage. While Lilith retrieved her trunk from the storage bin, Marion jammed her knitting needles into a ball of yarn and stuffed them into her bag. She brightened when she spotted a man waiting on the platform.

“Ian!” The bag bang, bang, banged against the seats as she moved up the aisle past Lilith with a sing-song “Halloo!” Ian couldn’t possibly hear. She bounded down to the platform like Sharon going after Jimmy. Although she didn’t leap onto him and wrap her legs around his waist, their kiss was equally enthusiastic.

Lilith stopped at the top step of the train car as Ian locked Marion in a bear hug and rocked her back and forth. “My precious girl. It’s good to have you home.”

“Silly man. I was gone but a day.” She kissed him. “Sharon was on the train.”

“And how is my darling daughter?”

Everyone in the world was in love.

Everyone else.

Ian caught Lilith’s eye and saluted her, fist to forehead, as if tugging an imaginary cap. He stopped a man dressed as a footman in full livery and pointed to Lilith. The man appropriated her trunk and wheeled the thing away after Marion and Ian.

A blast of wind raised chill bumps on Lilith’s bare arms, and she was glad for the hat and gloves. The moist breeze carried a hint of the ocean and felt soothing on her face.

“Lily, you’ve come at last,” said a voice. A woman.

Lilith gripped the handrail and looked up and down the platform, though it was futile. The voice was in her head, from her dreams. Elyse on the stone landing in the castle. The train platform was empty but for the swirling natural mist that mixed with the train’s hot steam.

“Give me your hand.”

A different voice. Deep, self-confident, male—real. It sent an eager flutter over Lilith’s solar plexus. A man emerged from the mist and steam, his gloved hand outstretched toward her. He was tall and red and big-boned. His ruddy complexion looked like it had rebelled once but had given up the fight. He had shaggy chestnut hair and green eyes that hinted of dangerous pleasure.

“Lilith Evergreen, I presume?” A West Country accent tinged with humor.

Say it again. Say my name again.

His rough face was not at all handsome. His voice was jagged like a demon lover’s—low and crushed velvety, promising things no good woman should wish for. Lilith found herself thinking of sex—and not in the privacy of a dream, but here, now, in broad daylight.

The man’s duster reached mid-calf, and his long scarf was the color of dark moss. He tipped his moss-green hat, a Mad Hatter’s bell crown topper, and bowed with a flourish. “Bausiney. Cade Bausiney.” He sounded like James Bond. “Tour guide extraordinaire. Ian has commandeered my rig to haul the lot of you down to the Tragic Fall.”