Fianna the Gold Read online

  Abbie choked. The red, enameled tray shone with a mind-boggling collection of small, loose jewels and crystals. Amethysts, diamonds, rose quartz, and tiger’s eye.

  “We all put in,” Guin said. “We keep track of who owns what, but like to pretend-play with our favorite pieces.”

  They carried on with a detailed explanation of the value of each piece. Abbie nodded. Were they kidding? Was this a big joke? A treasure trove of gems, out here in the middle of nowhere, being used as poker chips?

  “Want to touch them, Abbie?” Fianna asked in a soft, sexy voice. “Go ahead. They feel so good.” She placed her hand right on top of the gems, the hand with the intriguing ring Abbie lusted after. Fianna continued her distractingly sensuous narrative. “The treasures are cool and warm both—as if they are alive.”

  Diamonds. To play freaking poker with. Yes, she wanted to touch them. Eager to respond to Fianna’s irresistible invitation, Abbie laid her palm over the gems and closed her eyes. Tiny pulses thumped on her skin, whispering, “Take me. No, take me. No, take me. No, take—”

  “You like them?” Orla asked slyly.

  “Yeah.” Abbie snatched back her hand. “Very cool.” She cleared her throat. “Gorgeous. I can’t believe this is what you use for money.” She’d never told anyone that gems always seemed to speak to her, pretty much her whole life. Yet, if anyone would understand, these women might. What a crew. Pretend-playing with thousands of dollars of loose jewels.

  “Want, want, want,” the voice in Abbie’s head whispered. Longing tightened her throat as they divided the tray contents among the four of them with speedy calculation. She ended up with a generous collection, divided up by value. It made her light-headed just gazing at everything.

  Guin dealt the first hand. Everyone anted up with a white quartz crystal. Abbie bet on a pair of Jacks but lost to Fianna’s full house. She winced when Fianna swept the quartz crystals into her pile. They played a few, low stakes rounds, so Abbie could get a feel for their rules and the unnerving use of gems.

  She noted the feel of the cards while she contemplated her hand. Something seemed different here, almost buzzy, as if the cards had an energy inside. Not to mention the gems, which pulsed seductively against her skin. Jewels always talked to her, but not like this. She started to notice a pattern between the sizzle in the cards and the faint pulse of the jewels, but that was crazy, right? Was she the only one who had these reactions?

  “Three,” she told dealer Guin, and reviewed her hand briefly. The women had excellent poker faces. She couldn’t tell if her buzzy card madness was shared or not.

  “Abbie, we’re curious how you ended up here,” Fianna said casually, as she discarded two cards and picked up the new ones. She aimed her next remark to Orla. “I see your diamond and raise you a rose crystal.”

  Orla frowned in response, which didn’t fool Abbie. She was pretty sure what Orla held. Faker.

  “What do you recall from last night? Anything?” Fianna asked.

  “Not much,” Abbie said. She didn’t want to chat about last night, she wanted to play cards. Mesmerized by the table action, she watched her playing partners in silence as they caressed, rolled, and tapped jewels with their long, tapered fingers. No matter how large or small, the diamonds counted as aces, and they moved in and out of play like a shiny dream. Abbie loved the less bright ones, too, the quartz crystals with their murky, mysterious depths. She longed to win, just to hold the beautiful, shiny bits for a little while longer.

  “And your clothes?” Fianna asked. “Any idea?”

  Nope, not going there. “Not sure,” she mumbled. “I wasn’t hurt, though, so can we talk about this later?” Abbie refused to have loony-toon conversations until the game concluded. The game in progress ruled everything. Her stomach tightened with familiar, excited tension as the hand she held came into sharp focus. The cards buzzed like mad and warm gemstones twitched under her fingers. “All in,” she said, and pushed her entire pile to the center.

  “What’s your play?” Abbie nodded at Fianna.

  Fianna swept her share to the middle. “Call,” she said.

  Abbie found herself in the twitchy group spotlight again. The intense focus of three sets of expectant, glowing green eyes made it hard to breathe. With her heart in her throat, Abbie flipped her cards. “Straight flush.”

  Hoots and hollers followed with a show of losing hands. Fianna had four queens.

  “Clever playing!” Guin said, as she gathered the cards and handed them off to Orla to deal. “Where did you learn poker?”

  “Las Vegas,” Abbie said. “Grew up near the strip. My dad worked in the industry, did various jobs for the casinos over the years.” She patted her amassed winnings with an affectionate hand. “This, though, is a unique type of gambling.” She smiled at the women for the first time and held up a diamond. “I wouldn’t go spreading word of this game anywhere if I were you.”

  The women laughed and Orla started shuffling. Abbie tried to avoid direct eye contact with Fianna, whose intense, green-eyed gaze was unnerving and distracted her from her cards. The game was in play and that was priority. Her hand tightened on her stash protectively. Mine, she thought, and a weird, hissy sort of sound flew out of her throat.

  The game froze in a dead drop of silence. Her hosts seemed riveted on their cards and no one moved. Then, as if nothing odd had happened, the play continued. Abbie wondered again if she was still tripping—and that noise she’d made, was that what froze the game? The energy seemed off, in ways she couldn’t put her finger on. What just happened? But she shook the feeling away and sank back into the cards.

  Abbie won the next hand, and the next. The three of them played with a ferocious, clever intensity that excited Abbie’s larcenous greed to new heights. No one seemed to mind at all. For some reason, the more she won, the happier everyone seemed. She admired their inspired strategies and Guin’s poker face was near perfect. Abbie still cleaned up. Once she caught on, she was nearly unbeatable. Fianna stopped asking questions and instead, set about trying to beat her.

  The bigger Abbie’s winnings grew, the better she felt. The play went on and Abbie lost track of time, caught in an addictive, rapturous loop. They stopped only for snacks, and then a brief pasta dinner, and went right back to cards.

  “Blast!” Orla slapped down her cards with a final snap and a rueful smile. “I’m out! You’ve got most of my money.”

  Everyone laid their cards out. “Congratulations,” Guin said. “Very tricky playing.”

  Fianna rewarded Abbie with a dazzling smile.

  For five dangerous seconds, Abbie basked in their approval, grinning like an idiot, as if she were hanging out with friends. Reality crashed in when she realized the room had darkened and the sun had set.

  “What time is it?” she asked, mad at herself for losing track, and unhappy about having to return the pile of shiny little things. “Is it too late to head out?”

  “How about tomorrow?” Fianna said. “It’s dark. We should wait for morning.”

  Abbie stiffened. She was positive she didn’t want to stay here overnight. Yeah, it was late, but with the full moon and a borrowed flashlight… An inexplicable need to leave prompted immediate calculations. Once she had her mind made up, not much stopped her. She rolled an amethyst under her index finger. So pretty. So not hers.

  “We’ll go early,” Fianna said. “You’ll be home by tomorrow afternoon. Until then, we’ve got plenty of room and food here and you’re more than welcome to stay.” Tiny pings sounded as they returned the collection of gems to the red tray.

  Abbie’s hand convulsed. “Okay,” she lied. She didn’t want them to know she planned to go, she realized. She wanted to exit quietly. She shoved her clenched hand into her sweatpants pocket. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” she asked in fake politeness. If the house settled down, maybe she could sneak out, her thief’s instincts for subterfuge surging as if she were in the middle of a heist.

  “Not at all,”
Fianna said, as she settled on the sofa and stretched her long legs out. “This turns into a bed.” She ran her fingers through her hair in a nervous gesture.

  Abbie watched, fascinated in spite of herself. The light caught and shimmered on the gleaming auburn shades in Fianna’s hair. With difficulty, Abbie yanked her glance away from the hair and all the rest of Fianna’s hotness, which took her to the very large bed. Big enough for three. A poly situation hadn’t occurred to her, although she doubted the relationships were romantic, what with the whole family resemblance thing. Still. She aimed a covert look at the women but couldn’t get a feel.

  Guin claimed the worn, overstuffed chair while Orla sprawled on the oak wood floor, head propped on a pile of cushions. Abbie stayed in the chair at the poker table, too nervous to move. An expectant feeling settled over the room, which made Abbie’s stomach clench.

  “So, Abbie. Now that you’ve had a chance to eat and relax, can you remember anything more about how you got here?” Orla asked from the rug.

  Here come the questions again. “What do you mean?” A twinge of trickster intuition pinged inside her head. More than just cards had been played. The feeling persisted when no one responded to her question, they just looked at her with those eyes.

  “Whatever you can think of,” Fianna coaxed. “Any little thing.” Her rosy lips tilted in a slight smile, causing the arch of her cheekbones to catch the candlelight, shadowing her gorgeous face in a bronze glow. Orla and Guin lounged in rapt, long-legged poses of sinuous mystery. How could she resist such a triple onslaught? Abbie surrendered under the weight of so much hot attention. She gave a deep sigh and reached for the freaky scramble of images.

  “Look, I was just camping—by myself. My friends decided not to stay the night and I did. Then…something woke me up. I’m not quite exactly sure what. And after that, everything gets very fuzzy and very weird.”

  “What do you mean, weird?” Guin asked.

  “Like, I don’t remember, I just sort of woke up here.”

  “You mean in the cabin?” Orla’s question sparked even greater interest.

  Abbie swallowed hard. “Outside. In the meadow below the path. I needed help and your place was the only house I could see.” She wasn’t used to being questioned like this. What did they care? She’d be on her way soon enough. Besides, how could she explain what she didn’t understand herself?

  “And then?” Fianna invited Abbie to spill her guts. It was like trying to resist a primal force.

  Shit, it was all so confusing. Okay, whatever. If they were so damn interested, she might as well share some of the crazy stuff and see how they reacted. “One thing, just so you know…there’s probably a good reason why I can’t remember much of last night. I’m sort of embarrassed to admit it’s probably because I took magic mushrooms. You guys know what that is? Psilocybin? A mushroom with hallucinogenic properties?”

  Orla let out a whistle. “I’ve heard of those. Perhaps that explains some things?” She grimaced and shrugged her shoulders. Abbie didn’t miss the furtive look that flashed between the three of them.

  “Even so,” Guin said. “The parts you do remember might trigger other memories.”

  “Maybe. But that’s the thing about psychedelics,” Abbie said. “Memories can be pretty fuzzy the day after.” She swallowed against a sudden taste of bile in her throat, a potent reminder of the drug use from the day before and the damn baggie of pieces she’d been warned not to consume all at once. Why did she make such stupid choices?

  She didn’t know where her clothes had gone, or what the heck had happened last night, except all the unknowns scared her, and she didn’t want to discuss the details with this group, for whatever reason. She needed to get the hell out of there and recover her senses. Back to her ludicrous plan B. Abbie dropped her head into her arms, crossed on the table. “I am so screwed up,” she mumbled into her elbow.

  “I know this must be confusing.” Fianna’s voice floated overhead.

  What must be confusing? What was she talking about? Abbie peeked sideways at Fianna’s face and her expression made her straighten in the chair. Fianna wanted something from her, and she exuded a dangerous sensuality that both promised and threatened. Abbie nearly lost herself in their locked gazes. If Abbie was confused before, she was certain now that Fianna had explanations. Yet, still, she didn’t want to stick around.

  The room had gotten very quiet and she realized she was alone with Fianna. She forced her gaze away from Fianna’s mystery allure for the hundredth time and concentrated instead on sounds of wood hissing as it burned, and let her thoughts whirl as to what to say next.

  Fianna moved to the chair next to hers at the table. She reached for Abbie’s clenched hand and gave a gentle squeeze. Abbie twitched and pulled away, afraid of the electric thrill in Fianna’s touch.

  “Would it be possible to get more of that tea? My headache is coming back,” Abbie said. Fianna nodded and turned on the stove to warm the leftover tea. Abbie watched her graceful moves around the kitchen—not a motion wasted, every action precise and unhurried. Fianna had been kind to her, right? They all had. Her thief’s brain told her she was being manipulated, yet her rebellious heart wanted to open, maybe a little, to relieve some of the awful tension inside. She reminded herself no matter what, she was outta here tonight. A little more sharing couldn’t hurt, right?

  “I wish I did know what happened,” Abbie said, wanting relief from the seesaw of emotions. The urge to confess overwhelmed her. If she shared her insanity, maybe the craziness would stop. Yet as the thoughts sprang into her head, bolts of pain shot through her skull. The more she tried to make sense of anything, the worse her head felt.

  Just start talking, she told herself. “Honestly, I really don’t know how I ended up here, let alone how I got in the state I was in. I woke up, minus clothes, in a sort of PTSD state, no idea where I was. I was a mess and didn’t understand anything, and still don’t, really. I will say the thing I’m…um…actually sorta worried about the most is the…the situation with the men.” Her throat tightened. Here’s the part where things went “Weird.”

  Fianna’s cup dropped to the table, her tea sloshing over the rim. “Men? What men? Were you hurt?” she asked fiercely.

  “I don’t think the men hurt me—I mean, if they were actually real, but I can’t tell you why. It’s when I go blank.” Abbie took a sip of tea for her aching head, and the exotic warmth loosened her tongue, letting the words tumble out unrestricted, “The problem is, I’m so unsure about what really happened—then, and later. Remember, I was really stoned, tripping with supercharged senses. Were the men only in my whacked-out head, or for real?”

  “They were real,” Fianna said bluntly. “Believe it. What else? Tell me everything.”

  There it was again, that laser-like attention, boring into Abbie’s head, as if to uncover every secret.

  “Are you sure the men and the fact you lacked clothes had no connection?” Fianna asked in a low tone.

  To her embarrassment, Abbie’s lips trembled. Maybe it was the caring in Fianna’s voice. The Weird Box, the place in her brain where she stuffed all the Weird that was part of her life, ached with its bizarre load and rattled in panic as she tried to shake things out. The box had followed her, all the way to the wilds of Mt. Hood and here she was, revealing her most secret Weird self. No wonder her head hammered. She drank down the tea and felt a stony daze of relief.

  “I don’t know what happened to my clothes, which, yeah, totally freaks me out, but I don’t think the men…you know…did anything to me. It may have been the opposite.” She huffed a reluctant laugh. “The flashes I get are too freaky to be real.”

  “You think so?” Fianna’s raised eyebrows asked why not, causing Abbie’s stomach to do another backflip.

  “My last clear memory is unzipping the tent flap,” Abbie said slowly. The tumble of images clicked into newly vivid, startling pictures. “Two big men were walking toward my campsite. The moon wa
s out, which really helped me see. One had a gun and the other a rope. I nearly fainted with shock. At first, I was scared like crazy. And stoned, don’t forget, out of my head. Then, after that…the freaky bits.”

  “It’s okay,” Fianna said. “You’re safe.”

  Safe? No way in hell. Fianna was a goddess, or she’d never be getting this info out of Abbie. But maybe, if Abbie told her more, she’d uncover some of Fianna’s secrets. Abbie struggled to recount the fantastical images. “I remember…heavy feelings of being super pissed-off and under attack. I was so mad, like nothing I’ve ever experienced.” Abbie stopped, the sheen of truth in her words shocking. She glanced at Fianna to see how she was taking it and was stunned by the compassion on her face. Fianna murmured encouragement, her eyes very soft.

  Abbie let the images flare, burnt orange and blood red, blinding. “The rage was so intense, it was like…exploding. I lost all control, and went crazy berserk, screaming like a banshee and yet…also…like a warrior. A goddess…like I owned the world.” Really? These were very hot memories pouring out of Abbie’s freaky brain. What else did she remember?

  She made herself push against the darker, scary places. “I get flashes of the men—if they were real—running away—as if I did something to them.” Her stomach knotted. “Like I was so badass, I made them run. Ha-ha, right? Except…I remember…fire, like fire coming out of me. Long shooting flames and horrible sounds of screaming. Then, I don’t know what happened, except suddenly…I was in a dream, a fantastic, incredible dream. It felt so real, but it couldn’t have been. Too insane.” She aimed a quick glance at Fianna. “The flying dream. I get those. Like, lots. But this one was different.”

  Fianna’s eyes glinted like the emeralds Abbie had gambled with, inspiring a confusing mix of lust, which scrambled her brain even further as she seesawed between terror and attraction. No wonder she wasn’t on her way back to Portland yet.

  “Have you ever had a flying dream?” Abbie asked.