Under A Celtic Moon (2 Tales of Fantasy Romance)

By Angelique Armae and Candace Sams

UNDER A CELTIC MOON is an anthology featuring two tales of Fantasy Romance.

TEA ROSE IN TALLOW By Angelique Armae

"When the Dord Fiann—the hunting horn of Ireland's Fianna warriors—sounds three times, the great chieftain Finn MacCool will rise again and fight old enemies who have returned—namely the Dark Fae."—Maeve McKinley, Sovereign of Bloodlong.

Moira McKinley is Queen of Organized Chaos. She's surrogate mother to her eleven orphaned sisters, eats cereal for dinner, and grows window box herbs with a green thumb. In other words, she lives a pretty normal life. That is until she receives news that challenges everything she holds dear…

It isn't every day an Irish solicitor shows up on your suburban New York doorstep telling you your eighty-five-year-old granny has gone missing. And stranger still, reveals that the woman who has nurtured you for the last ten years isn't the soul you thought she was, but rather is some ancient guardian descended of the gods and whose first duty is not to her human bloodline but to a clan of immortal warriors tasked with saving the world.

That and the fact the gates of the Celtic Otherworld-Mag Mell-have just crashed, unleashing the vilest of Fae demons. And as an extra kicker, just in case all that other stuff isn't enough to cozy your brain up to, you and your sisters aren't really as batcrazy as you always thought. Those little habits you shucked up to nuisance, like waking up in the middle of the night wrapped in thorny briars…while still in your bed…are all par for the course when you're made up of stuff that feeds the dark side.

Stuff those Fae demons are on the hunt after.

Stuff those immortal warriors are determined to protect.

Stuff you might all end up dead over.

Stuff only missing granny holds the key to…

Warning: Contains sexy vampires, wolf-shifters, and dragons.

THE LAST KNIGHT By Candace Sams

Garrett Bloodnight is bound by his promise to protect the citizens of Great Britain. Through two World Wars, he has upheld the laws regarding immortality, as well as every regulation devised by politicians. For his long-revered service, and his steadfast loyalty, he has been awarded a life of luxury in hills of Cumbria. It's there that he hopes to live out eternity. Alone but content.

When a young beauty enters his domain as a new immortal, Garrett is ordered to train her for service to the queen. No one told either of them that their paths were meant to cross, and in the most bizarre way.

Whether they like it or not, Garrett and his apprentice are inexorably drawn into very old, and dangerous obligations. Secrets over a thousand years in the making come to rest on the front steps of Bloodnight Hall. For the immortals living there, destiny's call must be answered. They have no choice. They either stand together or they will be destroyed by magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Summerborne Books, LLC
• Release date: Nov 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781942346234

Book preview

Under A Celtic Moon

Under A Celtic Moon

2 Tales of Fantasy Romance

Angelique Armae

Candace Sams

Summerborne Books, LLCUnder a Celtic Moon

UNDER A CELTIC MOON

2 Tales of Fantasy Romance

By Angelique Armae and Candace Sams

Publisher: Summerborne Books, LLC

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TEA ROSE IN TALLOW

Copyright © 2017 Josephine Piraneo

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THE LAST KNIGHT

Copyright © 2017 Candace Sams

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ISBN 978-1-942346-18-0 (ebook)

ISBN 978-1-942346-23-4 (Paperback)

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Cover by Josephine Piraneo

Formatting by Glass Slipper WebDesign

Cover photos: Deposit Photos

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents in this book are fiction and figments of the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real. All Rights Reserved.

Contents

TEA ROSE IN TALLOW

About Tea Rose In Tallow

GLOSSARY – TEA ROSE IN TALLOW

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

About Angelique Armae

THE LAST KNIGHT

About The Last Knight

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

About Candace Sams

TEA ROSE IN TALLOW

By Angelique Armae

About Tea Rose In Tallow

When twelve sisters inherit a clan of Irish vampires, they embark on a journey of magick, danger, and ultimately love…

Moira McKinley is Queen of Organized Chaos. She's surrogate mother to her eleven orphaned sisters, eats cereal for dinner, and grows window box herbs with a green thumb. In other words, she lives a pretty normal life. That is until she receives news that challenges everything she holds dear…

It isn't every day an Irish solicitor shows up on your suburban New York doorstep telling you your eighty-five-year-old granny has gone missing. And stranger still, reveals that the woman who has nurtured you for the last ten years isn't the soul you thought she was, but rather is some ancient guardian descended of the gods and whose first duty is not to her human bloodline but to a clan of immortal warriors tasked with saving the world.

That and the fact the gates of the Celtic Otherworld-Mag Mell-have just crashed, unleashing the vilest of Fae demons. And as an extra kicker, just in case all that other stuff isn't enough to cozy your brain up to, you and your sisters aren't really as batcrazy as you always thought. Those little habits you shucked up to nuisance, like waking up in the middle of the night wrapped in thorny briars…while still in your bed…are all par for the course when you're made up of stuff that feeds the dark side.

Stuff those Fae demons are on the hunt after.

Stuff those immortal warriors are determined to protect.

Stuff you might all end up dead over.

Stuff only missing granny holds the key to….

GLOSSARY – TEA ROSE IN TALLOW

Dord Fiann – the hunting horn of Ireland’s Fianna warriors. The Dord Fiann must sound three times in order for Finn MacCool and his Fianna to rise again and fight for the human race.

Fomori – Celtic gods/demons of chaos who bring about destruction and violence to man’s world. Also known as The Unseelie. Their essence smells and tastes of clove.

Fomori Storm Brew – a type of poisonous ale fermented by the Fomori, used to incapacitate their enemies. Smells of rotting seaweed.

Mag Mell – Celtic Otherworld.

The Order of the Sisters Corvus – A royal house among the Tuath Dé, belonging to the bloodline of Maeve (The war goddess Macha) McKinley and her sisters Badb and Nemain. All three are also sometimes referred to as The Morrigan, three goddesses of war. They are represented as crows or ravens and can shapeshift as crows or ravens.

Tuath Dé/Tuath De Danna – Celtic gods of good. Also known as The Fae/The Seelie.

The Morrigan – A trio of Irish goddesses associated with war and fate. She appears as a crow or raven. The trio consists of the goddesses Macha, Badb, and Nemain. The three are sisters to the land goddesses Ériu, Banba, and Fóda.

TEA ROSE IN TALLOW

By Angelique Armae

Prologue

"When the Dord Fiann—the hunting horn of Ireland’s Fianna warriors—sounds three times, the great chieftain Finn MacCool will rise again and fight old enemies who have returned—namely the Dark Fae."—Maeve McKinley, Sovereign of Bloodlong.

Summoning a vampiric chieftain and his immortal warriors to take on a deadly storm of Fae demons, was not what I had imagined my purpose in life to be. But on a chilly October morning, when I disembarked from a packed Aer Lingus jet where I’d spent six hours flying over from New York, Fate literally rocked my world the second my foot hit the tarmac. Seismologists announced the earthquake as minor with only a one point five magnitude on the Richter scale, but little did the world know that what had transpired that morning beneath the famous Forty Shades of Green, had nothing to do with Mother Nature’s natural forces…

Chapter One

MOIRA

Northport, New York, One Day Earlier…

W hat do you mean my grandmother is missing? I stared at the wavy-haired solicitor who’d flown across the Atlantic this evening and now sat on the opposite side of the kitchen table, his stack of formal looking papers spread out among twelve bowls of half-eaten Lucky Charms cereal. What can I say? With a dozen girls—now all women—in one family, breakfast was often had for Sunday dinner. And the cheaper the better.

Mr. Ryan adjusted the sleeve of his beige Aran sweater, his demeanor calm and collected. If I had to guess, I’d put him at around thirty-five years of age, but with a soul that I sensed, based on the intense look in his green eyes, could have lived centuries. I understand you’re upset, Moira, he said. It is a natural reaction to such news, but I’m here to explain everything in as best a way possible.

"There is nothing best about our grandmother having gone missing," my sister Bridget said, leaning forward, the gold harp charm hanging from a leather cord around her neck teetering quite close to the bowl of marshmallow and oats floating in milk at her place setting. Despite being the younger of the two of us at twenty-eight years old, only one-year shy of my own age, she had the defensive spirit of a Pitbull in her veins. No one messed with a McKinley sister when Bridget was near.

I reached for her arm and nudged her to back down. Let’s give Mr. Ryan a chance, shall we?

My sisters all had eyes on the man, well, ten of the eleven did, Hannah couldn’t exist a second without those damn earbuds shoved into her ears. I doubt she heard a single word the man had uttered.

Music doesn’t make you deaf, sis.

At least the baby was paying attention, though I have to admit her reading me so easily was an issue I’d fought with for years. It doesn’t do an ounce of good in the way of parenting, and considering I’ve been her surrogate mother for the last decade—since she was nine—our complicated relationship has landed the two of us in the thick of it more times than I cared to remember. But again, at least she wasn’t off in la-la land, her mind wandering without detail to the situation at hand.

I couldn’t say the same for Mr. Ryan. He just gave me a blank stare as his ruddy cheeks grew redder, the tint spreading from his face to the top of his brow and disappearing under his wavy, amber-streaked blond hair.

I needed to take the initiative before one of my other sisters decided to finish the pounce Bridget had started. Nana is eighty-five years old. She never leaves the house except to buy groceries and to walk to the local pub once a week for a pint with the other grannies who live in the cottages on her street. It’s all she talks about during our midday phone calls. She loves her cottage more than she loves anything else.

About that… Mr. Ryan thumbed through the papers in front of him and pulled out a stapled batch with the word DEED written in bold across the top. Your nan’s house isn’t exactly a cottage.

Well whatever the hell you call it, she doesn’t go out much. I really can’t see how a homebound person can get lost.

There’s a lot you’re not seeing. Mr. Ryan removed his glasses, his bright green eyes appearing almost as if they’d changed a shade or two since his arrival, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Still, the man looked more leprechaun than lawyer. Though I hadn’t sensed anything out of the ordinary, and after having raised eleven sisters on my own for ten years, being accustomed to sensing doom before it happened was a given. Make-shift-mother’s-instinct and all that crap. But Mr. Ryan hadn’t presented himself in a way that would have made me think he was anything but ordinary, save for the look in his eyes that I couldn’t quite define.

He folded his glasses with calculated precision, then set the wireframed bifocals gently on the table before clasping his hands. A whiff of clove floated my way. For the sake of ease, since you and your sisters do not speak Irish, I will refer only to the anglicized version of what I am about to tell you.

I braced myself. What in God’s name could be so secretive about dear old Nana?

Mr. Ryan cleared his throat. Maeve McKinley lives in Castle Nightblood on Bloodlong Island, an autonomous country in the Irish Sea. He paused.

I suspected he was waiting for a frantic response from me or my sisters, but since we each had our own dreadful secrets, not one of us fainted, gasped, or even fell off our chairs at the shocking news. Go on. I nodded.

The man let out a deep breath, then continued. Bloodlong is unknown to any map or book, its history only recorded on a few scarce scrolls which are all safely guarded in Castle Nightblood’s private library. The United Kingdom and Ireland are both aware of the island’s existence but have mastered the art of circumventing it. They’ve been paid heavily to do so, and I am not talking monetary funds, but we’ll get to that another time.

He shuffled the papers, bringing to the top what appeared to be an antique map, it’s edges scorched and yellowed. Bloodlong has a natural way of masking itself to the human eye should someone accidentally venture near it either by water or air, which does happen often. Though breeching its airspace is more common than invading its coastal boundaries considering its location between Ireland and the United Kingdom. It’s reachable solely by charter plane from Dublin or by private boat. And despite its political independence, it is heavily tied to Ireland, and to a lesser extent, England, Scotland, Wales, Spain, Italy, The Vatican, and France, through a long and very powerful, Celtic bloodline.

Mr. Ryan obviously had smoked one too many shamrocks in his day.

Why are we only hearing about this now? my third eldest sister Nessa asked, pinning back a lock of her short, wavy blond hair with her favorite rhinestone studded barrette.

Because until Maeve went missing, there was no need to involve you all in her daily life.

The nonchalance of Mr. Ryan’s attitude surprised me. Nana’s daily life is our business, sir. She’s all we have. Ten years was a long time to be orphans. But Nana had been with us through the darkest of those days, spending as much of that time as possible living with us here in Northport. Her leaving to return to Dublin one year after our parents died, nearly killed the twelve of us. Surely this must be a mistake.

A serious look crossed Mr. Ryan’s face as he shifted in his seat, the chair’s oak spindles crying out with a creak. It wasn’t that the man was heavy, in fact he was quite muscular, and I surmised he was accustomed to a strenuous daily workout. The chair was simply too dainty for him. Perhaps it would be wise if you saw for yourself. Made the trip over so you can see, first hand, what I am talking about.

We’re not going to Ireland. All three of the triplets spoke in unison, Rose and Peg shaking their heads, while shy Rin just frowned. I worried most about Erin as she had always been the quietest of the dozen.

I don’t suggest you all go. Mr. Ryan stared down the table, his gaze suddenly fixed on Cat.

And who do you think should make the trip? Bursts of prismatic colors sparkled off Cat’s dangling diamond earrings, a gift from Nana three years ago. A twist of her shiny black hair escaped her hastily coiffed bun as she cocked her head to the side, her glare a dangerous mix of what I could only assume was anger and hurt.

My Ryan swallowed, then focused his attention back to me. Just Moira.

Siobhan and Fiona, the twins of the twelve, simply huffed. That left only Aine and Dierdre who hadn’t yet chimed in on the strange conversation. And strange it was as I had never anticipated sitting around the kitchen table, at dinnertime, discussing my grandmother’s disappearance with an Irish solicitor.

Fine. I agreed. I’ll go to Ireland. But just for one week. If by the end of that time our grandmother is not found, my sisters will join me. Pray that does not happen, Mr. Ryan. Your lovely country does not need this crazy dozen traipsing about its streets. I motioned my hand toward the crowded table. The secrets my sisters and I held, were many. They were also not up for public conversation lest we all risk the chance of being committed. Only one other person knew about our ‘gifts’ as she always put them, and that was Nana. I doubted my sisters and I could survive if our grandmother was truly gone. We didn’t know how to control the strange energies we each possessed, and as silly as that might sound to some people, when you woke in the middle of the night, your body wrapped in briars that had appeared out of nowhere, you couldn’t just fall out of the bed and roll your way to the local emergency room. Doctors didn’t keep a supply of magick-infused hedge clippers on hand. Nana understood all this, had a way to calm the raw, untamed magickal powers swirling inside each of us. My sisters and I couldn’t live without our grandmother.

I’ll have an itinerary sent over for you in the morning. Mr. Ryan gathered his personal copy of the documents he’d given each of us and slipped them into a black briefcase before standing. Leave the details…and worry…to me.

I learned long ago to never leave anything to anyone but myself, though voicing that opinion probably wouldn’t get me far with Nana’s solicitor and at the moment making enemies with Mr. Ryan probably wasn’t wise. But if the man thought I was going to wait around for him to order me up a ticket to Ireland, he was sorely mistaken. I’ll be ready. I lied.

And with that I had settled the notion of hopping on a plane and crossing an ocean to go hunt down my eighty-five-year-old grandmother—on my own. Though the flurry of anxiety swirling in my gut said I was about to embark on a journey that would change me, and the world I had known since birth, forever.

And not necessarily in a good way.

Chapter Two

FINN

Castle Nightblood, Bloodlong Island, The Irish Sea

Waking before dusk wasn’t one of Finn’s usual habits, yet here he was laying on his back, holding his hands over his eyes trying to block out morning’s light as it slashed through the gap in the drapes guarding his four-poster bed.

So much for succumbing to the death sleep. He really did make for a sucky vampire.

The skin on the back of his hand tingled.

For the love of the gods’, what in the hell was going on in that sordid world out there? He should never have given up his coffin.

He cast aside the blanket, untangled his legs from its heavy, cotton weave. Unlike other vampires, the Fianna weren’t cold-blooded, their bodies gave off warmth, felt heat just like any other living being, and tolerated sun at different levels depending on the current state of their existence. At the moment full sunlight was off limits, but small amounts for short bursts or under some form of protection like a tinted car window or a curtain, was tolerable. Maybe after cooling off a bit he’d be able to get in a few more hours of sleep.

The bed drapes thrust open.

Maeve is missing.

He squinted, the bright light now fully engulfing his range of vision, stinging his eyes. It took a second, but his sight did adjust, focused in on the strapping hulk of a man standing to the right of his bed. Killian. Soon you’ll be missing, too, if you don’t step out of that blasted sun and not because you’ll turn to ash, but because I’ll kill you myself.

Killian huffed. I thought this was important.

It is, but I’m bare-ass naked, so I’m about to become toast. Now draw the damn bed hangings and get the fuck over to the other side of the room so neither of us ends up a pile of dust.

Killian did his bidding.

Thank the gods. Where the hell had he gone wrong with his men that more of them fancied the sun-facing front of the castle rather than the shadow-draped, windowless back? There had to be something seriously off with his leadership skills.

Rolling over, he shifted his thoughts to Killian’s dreaded announcement.

Maeve McKinley had been queen and guardian to his clan of immortal vampiric warriors for three quarters of a century, taking the throne at the tender age of ten, but not officially ruling Bloodlong until her eighteenth birthday. More precisely, she was the matriarch whose magick and blood sustained their lifeforce. The same blood and magick that could banish them in a heartbeat if she so chose. Or if an enemy had captured her and chose for her.

The last possibility nagged at his brain.

He tugged open the drapes on the left side of the bed, rose and headed for the armoire across the room. A chill raced up his legs as he padded barefoot over the cold, stone floor, the slap of his feet echoing through the room. When did this happen?

Four days ago.

He froze, the clenching hand of darkness closing in around his chest. He took a deep breath and counted to ten, gave his heart a bit of time to push away the negativity bearing down on him. It refused. Why wasn’t I told this Wednesday?

Killian’s faint outline appeared in the cheval mirror in the corner. Aedan didn’t know until last night. And even at that, he wanted to gather the facts before jumping to the wrong conclusion, but Maeve is indeed missing. When he arrived in Dublin as usual to do his weekly check-in with our wayward sovereign, she wasn’t at home or at The Order’s headquarters. He also said her staff was in a state of disarray, one person more panicked than the other, but no one was talking except to say Maeve hadn’t been seen since Wednesday evening. And that only came from Magnus.

From experience, he knew people tended to be more chatterbox than mute when riddled with anxiety, unless they were hiding something, didn’t have the answer, or feared for their lives. And considering the oddballs on Maeve’s staff, his bet was on the fact they didn’t know the slightest of what misfortune had befallen their mistress. A touch of fear probably played into their reactions, as well, with the exception of that freaky butler Magnus. That vile beast didn’t even fear God. Why Maeve insisted keeping him on, was a frickin’ mystery.

He rubbed his neck, a dull ache lingered in his muscles, spread to his shoulders and arms. The last time he had woken in this much agony was on the eve of The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, the night before the Tuath Dé battled to free themselves from the Fomori. We can’t make a move without Maeve. Officially, Ireland and all the other ancient nations that relied on his warriors, considered his band of immortals to be hibernating. Which made for a good tale of myth, but reality was vastly different than the stories that had been written about him and his men. Has there been any hint at ordering us into the world?

Killian shook his head.

Finn’s gut dropped. As with so many other times throughout history, they were once again left in a state of limbo. The clan couldn’t operate without their matriarch’s say so as the act would be in direct violation of the international law that had been agreed upon by various countries and Bloodlong. It was the one rule Maeve had pounded into his head the day she took reign over him and his men. The same lecture he’d received from every other clan elder going back cycles. Regardless of whatever era in Irish history they were in, and he and his men marked their history by Ireland’s, the rule remained the same: Never venture into the world as a whole clan unless ordered to do so by the monarch of Bloodlong, for the sake of saving the righteous.

They even had a safeguard in place, the sounding of the Dord Fiann. If that darn horn did not sound three times, their full powers would not return. And without those powers, they had no choice but to stay put. And put they had remained during many excruciating world events. But certain powers had to come together to sound the horn and there was nothing altering that fuckingly annoying fact. It wasn’t like any of them could run out and blow the horn themselves, or even ask Maeve to do the task. The supernatural event was solely left to a power greater than all of them, and that power didn’t always rise during challenging times. How the blasted horn figured out what was important and what wasn’t, he’d never know. Those stagnant moments had been pure agony on him and his men.

He swiped a pair of gray dress slacks, a red tie, and a white button-down oxford from the top shelf of the armoire. Get Ryan over here. We need to have a talk.

Killian held his tongue.

Please don’t tell me the man has gone AWOL again. Wasting valuable resources searching for one unofficial warrior is starting to get tiring.

You know he’d die for Maeve.

So would any of the rest of us, yet you don’t see us acting stupidly. Now what the hell has he done?

Ryan flew to New York.

Oh for Pete’s sake. He’s gone to the girls, hasn’t he?

I honestly don’t think he realized the impact of that decision. Killian ran his hand through his black hair. As he moved, the Celtic dragon cuff at his wrist slipped past the sleeve of his black sweater, its twisted gold design catching the sunlight, sending a bright flash bouncing across the room.

Finn jumped out of the way. Until they were officially called up by the Dord Fiann, tolerating a full beam of direct sun wasn’t an ability gifted to any of them.

He glared at Killian.

Right. I’ll shutter the windows. Killian scooted across the chamber.

Finn concentrated on the room’s five standing candelabra and willed them to ignite. The sound of flickering flames erupted on the instant, sent a little whoosh through the air.

Ryan should never have installed these automatic shades, Killian said, working the keypad to the side of the first window. I understand he doesn’t care to live like us vampires, but he needs to get the timing on these damn things straightened out so they work in our quarters according to our lifestyle. He can have all the human trappings he wants in his own rooms.

Maeve should keep that man on a leash, Finn said. A short one. He bent and grabbed a pair of boots off the floor, then stomped back to the bed. Dress shoes would have looked better, but boots were made for running down narrow, puddle-filled corridors in the seedier side of town, and he never knew when an escape would be needed. We have to stop him, because if those women get it into their heads that they should come over and start meddling in this affair, whoever has taken Maeve or prompted her to go to the-gods-know-where, might decide one McKinley in their snare isn’t enough.

Aedan appeared in the doorway, a sword gripped in his right hand.

Of all his personal crew and closest clan friends, Killian and Aedan topped the list. But rarely did the latter of the two show up looking like a wolf hound who had been run into the ground, his light brown hair standing on end and his hand clenched so tight, his knuckles showed whiter than salt.

By the gods, man. You look like hell.

Aedan frowned. "You would