The Shadow Road by Belinda Burke

Author:Belinda Burke [Burke, Belinda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Erotic Romance Fiction
Publisher: Pride Publishing
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * * *

Tighe was working when the summons came from his mother, one of his own birds fluting her voice at him. “Tighe, come to me.” Nothing else, no reason, and he sighed. There was never a reason, though she had to know by now that she could send more of a message than that.

He didn’t bother changing, only got up and walked out his door, faintly focused on the palace—on his mother—but her want must have been much stronger than his, because the path made itself short and obvious, and it was only a few minutes’ walk through the Summer wood to the palace gate. She was waiting for him in her high seat, the strangest smile on her face that he’d yet seen and dark things riled behind it, some terrible intention. She spoke at him without preamble.

“Tighe, are you still with that lover of yours, the gancanagh?”

Her question set him back a step. “His name is Faelan, Mother.” He had already more than a tingle of foreboding.

“Hmmm. Yes, that one. Go quickly and bring him to me, won’t you? Bran’s come, and he wants to meet his father, needs to learn his power. The gancanagh are of dark Summer, so I will send yours to guide him. They’ve met before, Bran will trust him.”

Tighe stared at her, almost confused. It made sense, but…

“Do as I said.” Her voice snapped him out of his thoughts, but he hesitated, and she repeated herself at once. “Do as I said.”

He slipped out of her presence and back into the wood, full of questions that he knew would not be answered—not yet, anyway. She could have summoned Faelan herself, so why him instead, and then send him after his lover? And the way she’d asked about him. Still with him? When she’d teased him about the Spring Rite, about how they’d been seen together?

Finally, she said. She laughed at me. She—

Cold settled in his stomach, a hard and uncomfortable knot. Something was wrong with all of this. “I should’ve looked at her more closely. I should’ve…” He stopped, shaking his head, and continued forward. When he lifted his eyes again it was because a familiar sweetness was in the air. “Faelan.”

Faelan looked up at once, his features showing only aggravation and anger, but the expression dissolved when he shook off the one he had been talking to and turned to Tighe instead. “You’ve come looking for me? I thought you wanted to work today.” There was an edge in his voice, something new and rough beneath his usual teasing tone.

“I did. My mother called for me. She wants to see you.”

Faelan tilted his head. “She called for you…to see me?”

“Yes.” Tighe’s appreciation of the strangeness of it was reinforced by the questioning in Faelan’s voice. “I’m to bring you to her. Something about my brother, and his father, and dark Summer.”

“She could have called for me herself. She’s my queen. I must obey. Why…?”

“I don’t know. It bothers me, but—” He gestured back the way he’d come.

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