Author's Note: so here we are with a new chapter. Excitement! Who's excited? Anyone? No one? Someone? Well, I hope you guys are enjoying the journey so far and I hope you enjoy the chapter. I love you all! Huggles! And this chapter is dedicated to WhenNightmaresWalked because they're going to be starting some pretty intense awesomeness soon and I want them to know that I'm thinking about them! Love you, hon!

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Chapter Five

What's in a Name?

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The journey back to the cottage was a somber one. Although Nuada carried Dylan on his back, as before, whatever exhilaration she experienced from that particular mode of travel seemed to have faded. She kept her face pressed against his shoulder and was almost unnaturally silent as they made their way back to Central Park and the little cottage just inside its gates.

Dylan said nothing as they entered the stone house. Nuada helped her remove her coat, then watched almost helplessly as she stumbled into the kitchen without a word to him. Something about the way she moved had every instinct pricking. Tossing her coat onto the coat-rack, he followed after her silently. and found her at the kitchen table, her face in her hands. Though she was nearly completely silent, her shoulders hitched as she cried almost soundlessly. Each wrenching sob seemed to rip out of her with breathtaking force.

"Dylan," he said softly, his voice cutting through the storm of soundless weeping. She stilled, almost as if she held her breath. Nuada gently laid a hand on her shoulder. He could feel the tremors shivering through her; she reminded him of a frightened rabbit. "Dylan…we need to talk, mo crídh," he said, and slid into the chair beside hers. He took her hand and examined it carefully. A few spots of blood stained the white linen bandage. Wet blue eyes met his. "What happened?" The prince asked.

She shrugged, as if they were discussing something utterly boring. "Cut myself on some scissors," she replied in a quavering voice. "You were there, you saw. I fumbled them and cut myself. No big deal."

"That is not what I meant," he murmured. The prince knew she would not miss the undercurrent of steel in his voice. "Something frightened you. Will you tell me what it was?" But his lady looked down at the table and said nothing. "The men who attacked your sister attacked her for a reason—to get to you. Didn't they? Who are they?"

Biting her lip, Dylan shook her head. "Don't ask me. I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't!"

"Dylan—" He began, but she brought her fists down hard on the table, making it rattle.

"Nuada, I can't! For your sake and mine, I can't. If I tell you, you'll do something reckless and get hurt. I know you. I know you! You see me in tears and you go ballistic, okay? So I can't because…because…" She swiped her hands over her face in a vain attempt to remove any trace of tears but a fresh one spilled over anyway. Nuada brushed it away with the backs of his fingers. The gentle touch just brought more weeping. "I can't," Dylan whispered. "Please don't ask me."

"If I promise not to do anything reckless, will you tell me?" He could do nothing if he didn't know what was wrong. And besides, he could make that promise and still put a very violent and bloody end to Patrick and Xander, since Prince Nuada Silverlance was never reckless. But Dylan shook her head. "Dylan…why must you keep this a secret from me?"

Dylan dropped her head, hiding behind the curtain of her hair. Nuada's hand stretched out, and with cautious fingers he parted the curtain to see that the fragile mortal had gone white, was squeezing her eyes shut, pursing her lips into a tight line. She reacted to his touch with a shiver. "Nuada…if you do anything crazy, anything that breaks the truce, your father will hurt you again. He might even kill you and I…I just couldn't bear that. I couldn't, not after…you mean too much to me."

Even as warmth coiled in his chest at her declaration, fury pulsed through his blood. These monsters would escape justice because his father had frightened Dylan to the point that she was afraid to give them up, for fear they would be—justly—punished. No. No, that couldn't happen. Whoever these men were, they had hurt his Dylan in the past. Assaulted her. He'd actually felt it. Felt the savage agony of being ripped apart. He couldn't let that go, truce be damned. He would make these men pay for what they'd done, both to his lady and her kin. Though Nuada had no fondness for Dylan's family—he despised them, in fact—they were still her family, and no enemy of hers had the right to lay hands on them.

"These men hurt you," he said softly. "They have to pay for their crimes, Dylan." When she simply shook her head, he leaned in with deliberate slowness. "I know what they did to you. Tell me their names," Nuada ordered. His voice was so empty it would've terrified any warrior that heard it. Dylan's face tightened. The prince cupped her chin, tilting her head up so he could look at that pale, pale face. "Tell me the names of the men who assaulted your sister…and raped you."

She cringed from the words. "How do you know that they…? Never mind," she said before he could answer. Shaking her head, she said, "I don't know why I'm surprised; you're so good at reading me. I can't hide anything from you, can I? But it doesn't matter who they are."

"Nithesé—it matters." Oh, it mattered. He had to focus on this one thing that mattered, so he could stop thinking about the fact that someone, somewhere, was walking around with Dylan's blood on their hands and her pain on their soul. After the brief glimpses he'd received at her sister's apartment, Nuada was determined to extract every drop of pain these men, whoever they were, had served up to the woman he loved…and then he'd kill them. Nuada would lose himself in hunting down this lately-revealed threat and killing them. The mortal blood would be hot against his skin, the stench of iron burning in his nose, and the satisfaction in delivering justice would be perfect.

His hands shook. Every inch of skin prickled with an animal awareness as the need to bring down this enemy, the ache to rip them apart, settled over him. Oh, it mattered. It mattered. How could she doubt that?

"Tell me their names. Tell me now, and I will hunt them down, and then I will kill them—slowly—to pay them back for what they did to you." But she shook her head again. Nuada was quiet for a long moment before asking, "How old were you when they hurt you?"

Dylan flicked a glance at him, then stared hard at her toes, which were scrunching and un-scrunching in her shoes in agitation. She drew several shallow breaths. In a voice that was barely there, she whispered, "I was twelve the first time."

The first time. Gods…twelve years old. Barely more than a child. She was just a girl…just a little girl…A sickening thought shot through Nuada's mind, crystallizing in his brain like a spike of ice. Could it possibly have been…? Fighting the urge to grab one of the empty mugs on the counter and hurl it against the wall, Nuada asked in a vicious snarl, "Patrick and Xander?" Wide-eyed, Dylan nodded. "Why didn't you tell me they were still stalking you? Why didn't you tell me they were still a threat? Stars curse it, Dylan, how am I supposed to protect you if you do not tell me these things?" Before she could reply, he added in savage demand, "Why have the human law enforcement done nothing?"

"Their father has money. Power. Influence." She shrugged helplessly. "He protects them. I've tried to take them down before, Nuada, but it won't work short of murder, and I can't do that. Neither can you," she added sharply as Nuada's expression turned feral. "I'm not surprised they haven't let me go yet. They had a system, I found out in the institution. If they had someone particularly…fun, they told their father and he would come and see for himself. That's what happened in the institution. He wanted to meet me. He…liked me. So they kept me. Then I took myself away." She shook her head, an odd expression crossing her face. "They didn't like that."

"Kept you?" The question was soft, vicious with horror and black fury. Nuada's heart lurched in his chest. His stomach twisted until he had to fight not to be physically ill. How could she say such things so calmly? "Continued to hurt you?" She nodded. "For how long?"

Dylan swallowed. "Three and a half years."

The half-mad rage that filled Nuada in a tenebrous flood had him shoving to his feet, shaking with fury and bloodlust. His hand itched for sword or lance, that he might track this Patrick and Xander and their twisted sire down now and put a bloody end to them. Three years? They'd had his lady at their mercy for three years? He clenched his teeth; they snapped together so quickly he bit the inside of his cheek and the fey sweetness of his own blood filled his mouth. Those putrescent pieces of human vermin had to die. They had to die now, tonight. He had to hunt them down and…

"You can't go after them," Dylan cried, clutching at his sleeve. "Please, Nuada, the king will kill you. He'll kill you! Please don't do it!" But he couldn't offer her the words she longed to hear. He couldn't tell her he had no intention of executing those monsters, because he had every intention…but it would take time if he didn't have their surname, and Dylan refused to give it to him. The thought enraged him. Why would she protect her assailants? Why defend these monsters? Simply for Nuada's own sake? The rage boiling in his blood turned hotter; curse his Father to the blackest, most desolate waste of Annwn for making Dylan so afraid.

Instead of speaking and lashing out at her unjustly, he offered her a bow and stalked off to seek his bed.

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Nuada did not look around when he felt the sun on his face, or the soft kiss of the wind against his back. He kept his eyes closed. He did not want to see again this place that pulled at his memory and his heart. It was only a dream. A dream, yet still a memory, which meant only one thing…

"Brother, what are you thinking?" Condemnation. Irritation. Confusion.

Nuala.

Forcing his voice to remain passive, empty of the molten anger and hot frustration riding him, the prince demanded, "Why did you bring me here again, my sister? What do you hope to accomplish?"

Nuala's touch, light as a breath on his shoulder, had him fighting the instinct to flinch away. When had it become Nuala that he shied away from, and Dylan whose comfort he sought? Since the night I dreamt of blood and butchery. Since the night she did not shrink from me, but instead pushed away my nightmares.And his twin... when was the last time she had done anything to help soothe the grief in his soul?

"Where are you, my brother? Why do you not return to us? Father is..." Furious.The word whispered across the mystical link that bound them. But all his sister said, in a gentle voice, was, "Concerned."

Concerned that perhaps he'd found the final piece of the Golden Crown and would now pull the various strings he had tied into his father's court and find someone to steal the other two pieces? Concerned that, in his fury at the forced courtship, his not-inconsiderable temper had finally snapped and he'd... what? Hurt Dylan? Killed her to rid himself of the human pest? Rage was a black pulse in Nuada's chest. He would never hurt Dylan. He loved her, and though that made him a traitor to his people, to all the Fair Folk, it prevented him from ever lifting a hand against the mortal woman who'd stolen his heart.

"Do not lie to me, Nuala," the prince snapped, shutting his eyes to hide their shift from topaz to molten bronze. He didn't want to fight with her. Not here. Not now. Not at all if he could help it. He was still raw from his time with Dylan earlier that night, their confessions of mutual love, her acceptance of his treacherous marriage proposal. So all he said was, "How dare you lie to me in this place?"

"Then tell me where you are—"

"It is notyour business, Nuala!" He did open his eyes then, and didn't miss the way his sister—his twin, the other half of his soul, who should have known that he would never harm her—flinched away from him. He didn't miss the fear in her eyes. The fear that seemed to always shimmer just below the surface, no matter how gently he went with her. It only fueled the rage burning within him. Nuala feared him, despised him, as if he were the type of monster he currently wished to carve out of Dylan's life.

"Am I a prisoner," Nuada continued, "to be dragged back to Father's hall when it suits him, to be publicly shamed and humiliated before the entire court? Or am I Crown Prince Nuada Silverlance, son of King Balor, heir to the Golden Throne, war chieftain of Bethmoora?"

"Brother—"

"I will not be a prisoner, Princess. Not to the humans and not to you. Or to the king." It hurt—like a poisoned knife in the back, it hurt—to put the icy walls of court and rank and title between himself and his father. Between himself and Nuala. Sister, twin, other half of his heart. But it was the most efficacious defense at the moment and the only one he could think of. "You look me in the eye and ask me, 'Where is your honor?' But my lady looks into my eyes and she does not need to ask."

"She is young, and foolish," was all Nuala said. Then, the most damning words of all. "She does not know you, Nuada. We do."

The Elven princess felt the pain, then. Her brother's pain. Swift as an arrow. Sharp as the edge of her brother's sword. She didn't want this. Didn't he see that she didn't want it? Didn't want to hurt him this way? But her brother could not hope to find protection in a mortal's naiveté on the subject of the prince and his broken honor. Such a paltry defense would not stand against their father's anger at being so openly disobeyed.

Prince, warrior, protector, lord and friend. Paragon of honor, courage, and all those other impressive, princely virtues. I know who you are. Words. Mortal words. Why did Dylan's words always serve to leave him...almost dumbfounded? Every time. For a moment he allowed himself a sliver of anger. It should not be that he was forced to resort to finding solace far from his home and his family, forced to seek it in a mortal woman's lowly cottage at the edge of the woods...in a mortal woman's kind eyes and easy smile. It simply should not be.

Just as it should not be that he loved her, loved her with his entire soul, as if she were a vital part of him that had been missing ere now. It should not be that he could find hope, even peace, with one of the children of Adam when he was supposed to despise her. Shouldn't be, but was.

"I defend you to our father, my brother, but I cannot hold him forever," Nuala murmured when her twin did not speak again. She could feel the anger pulsing between them. Feel the darkness of his constant rage, the fury that always seethed and smoldered deep inside him. That anger frightened her. Did Dylan truly not see it? That was only further proof that the human was blind to Nuada's faults. But with the anger were flickering bits of emotion that came and went so swiftly the princess could not name them. Rather than try, she simply added, "You must come back, and soon. It has been almost a week."

"And what waits for me there, my sister?" The violent storm of emotions roiling within her brother began to die a little. He sounded so tired suddenly. Almost defeated. She knew it was cruel to push him yet again this way, but..."There is no welcome for me in Bethmoora."

"It's your home!" Nuala protested, reaching out to him. As a child she would run to him and throw herself into his arms—when she wasn't pummeling him for putting something disgusting (like a frog) in her bed. Those embraces had been so easy. Yet it was so hard to bring herself to touch him now, knowing what she knew of him. Still, she managed it. Managed to just lightly lay her hand on his shoulder. She could feel the winding tension in him through that small contact. Tried to pour comfort and love through their bond.

"No," he said softly, feeling the words echo in his skull. He was saying no to so many things—including, for the first time in his life, his sister's delicate mind-touch. He tried to ignore the relief he felt from her as she pulled away. "No. Bethmoora is not my home." Not now. Perhaps when his mission had been accomplished and his father had been made to see reason regarding the humans. Maybe then Findias would be home again. But for now his home was a little stone cottage on the edge of the woods, surrounded by a sweet little garden and a white-washed wood and stone fence. His home was a beautiful and scarred mortal woman who offered all of herself and held nothing back.

"Father loves you, Nuada. You know that." AndI love you, my brother, so very much. If only you could see that.

The look he gave her, so carefully blank, was all the more heartbreaking because she felt his grief. Felt it, knowing he strove to suppress it so she would not. How heavy it was. She yearned to smooth away the lines of strain around her brother's eyes. She wanted so badly to hold him to her, to comfort him as when they were children. But she couldn't. She knew she couldn't.

"Please," he said, his voice a mere thread of sound. "Sister. Tell Father... tell him that I love him, that I have always loved him. I mean no disrespect with my actions. But I will not return to Findias without Dylan at my side. My honor and duty to her, and the king's orders, demand this. And she is not ready to return. When duty no longer calls me away, then will I return."

The prince turned away from his twin, and something in the grass caught his eye. A small, pink flower with an ivory center. Petals like silk, none of them bigger than a brownie's eye. Without thinking, Nuada knelt down and plucked the little wildflower. He would never have done so in the waking world. But this was a dream and the flower looked strangely familiar. Where had he…?

Dylan. At midsummer, when he had seen her at the medieval faire in Central Park. Nuada recalled the memory easily—Dylan in a long, flowing ivory and primrose-colored gown, the late-setting summer sun burnishing her hair. She'd worn a crown of pink silk flowers. Flowers just like this one. When it had fallen on him, he'd felt her gaze with all the force of a blow. He remembered what he'd seen in those silvery blue eyes like rain-swept autumn lakes: hope. Hope that it truly was him, that he had come back into her life after more than four moons away. She had yearned for him as he had yearned for her, though he hadn't been able to admit it to himself at the time.

There is no welcome for me in Bethmoora.Nuada's own words mingled with Dylan's promise. You are always welcome here, Nuada. Always.And her eyes. The welcome had been there for him to see, as visible as a campfire in the dark. He could read her so easily with just one look into silver-washed eyes of impossible blue.

"And if this answer does not please your king?" Nuala asked softly, shattering his thought.

Clenching his fists, daring to risk a gamble, he replied just as softly, "If Father doesn't like it, he can tell me so himself when I return. Hear me, Nuala. I will not yield. I will return in my own time, with my betrothed at my side." And exerting all the magic he possessed, Nuada forcibly wrenched himself from the dream his sister had woven around him before she could question him further. He snapped awake on Dylan's bed to a soft thump and a muffled exclamation of pain from the bedroom doorway. One molten bronze eye sliced to the half-open doorway. Dylan stood there in her pajamas—black sleep-pants and a burgundy tank top with the words Santa Baby in gold across the bust—looking sleep-tousled and confused and mildly irritated with herself.

"Oh, sorry," she mumbled, brushing idly at her hair, which hung in fetching tangles around her face. "Didn't mean to wake you. Bat was cuddling with me and came racing in here. I remembered what happened last time he slept with you," she added with a yawn. Leaning heavily against the doorframe seemed to be her only means of remaining semi-upright. "Didn't think you wanted that so I tried to stop him…but it didn't work. Then I whacked my foot. Sorry."

"Not at all," Nuada murmured. His eyes—still somewhat wearied by sleep—traced the delicacy of collarbone and slender shoulder in the light from the hallway, captivated by the way the fairy-lights and the glow of the bedroom fireplace illuminated Dylan's skin. "I…would you come in here, actually? I think we ought to finish our conversation."

Stifling a yawn behind her hand, she trudged over. "Do we have to?" She asked, sinking down onto the bed. "M'sleepy."

She looked it, he thought. Every time she blinked it seemed to take a Herculean effort to open her eyes again. She rubbed one eye with a loose fist and Nuada felt something warm and soft melting around his heart. Then to his complete surprise she curled up like a sleepy kitten near the foot of the bed, pillowing her head in her arms and tucking her good knee up to her chest. Her bad leg stuck out over the edge of the bed. Her eyes drifted closed.

"Dylan?"

"Sleepy-sleepy," she mumbled, yawning into the crook of her elbow. Silky strands of dark hair fell across her face. Hunkering down to make herself more comfortable (and inexplicably using Nuada's shin as a psuedo-pillow), she added, "Talk about Blackwood brothers later. Sleep now, 'kay? Good night."

A smile tugged at the corner of the Elf's mouth as he watched her begin to drift off. She had to be exhausted if she was doing this. He knew from their discussions that the Law of Chastity proscribed sleeping in the same bed as someone of the opposite sex. "Dylan, you can't stay here," Nuada said gently. She shifted and made an ambivalent "mmm" in response. Trying to talk to her about anything would be futile at this point. "Darling, you have to go back to the sofa."

Or he couldn't be responsible for his actions. He knew what would happen if he allowed her to sleep beside him tonight. Half-asleep at some point, he would reach out for her, bring his lips to her skin in an instinctive desire for the contact, pull her to him out of a blind need to hold her close…and she would respond as ardently as she had outside earlier that night. And if she did that, they would end up making love, drowning in the need to join together, drowning in each other. Nuada knew that once he had her, once he immersed himself in the softness of her skin and the taste of her, the two of them would be unable to do anything else but love each other through the night—his Elven stamina always served him in good stead in the bedroom—but when it was over at last, she would regret it. Her faith would make it so. He didn't want that.

Without opening her eyes, Dylan replied, "Hmmm-mmm."

By employing much finagling, gyrating, wriggling, and juggling, Nuada managed to get out of bed without knocking his lady to the floor and scoop her up in his arms…where she promptly cuddled against him, sliding her arms around his neck and pressing her face into the triangle of flesh revealed by the collar of his tunic. Her breath was warm against his skin. The caress of it made the hair at his nape and on his arms prickle. Little darts of heat sparked under his skin. Forcibly ignoring them, Nuada carried his truelove back to the den and the sofa she'd been using the last couple days as a place to sleep. "Say goodnight, beloved."

"Don't wanna," Dylan mumbled, burrowing closer to the prince as he bore her down the hall. "Stay. No school." Nuada raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Somehow he managed to refrain from swallowing his tongue when Dylan began nuzzling his clavicle. Her lips were soft were they traced over the ridge of collarbone and the concavity at the base of his throat. "Mmm, Nuada…love you…"

Disentangling her from him was almost as difficult as picking her up in the first place. Perhaps his difficulty stemmed from the fact that, deep down, he didn't want her to let go. She clung to him with the same single-minded devotion she always displayed when asleep. He could feel every pliant, lush curve of her body pressed against him. If he'd been a dishonorable man, he could have taken incredible advantage of her. As it was, he settled for taking only the very slightest advantage.

After he'd covered her with her blankets, the Elven prince leaned down and touched his lips carefully to Dylan's. They were so incredibly soft, he could scarcely restrain himself from coaxing them apart and drinking from her in a heady meeting of mouths and tongues they'd experienced out in the snow. Ah, Fates, he could still taste her. Her response to him had been…well, a surprise. He'd known Dylan was a woman of intense emotion but the way she'd kissed him…it had nearly driven him to his knees, just as this chaste little kiss threatened to do. She was so beautiful, so warm and yielding and sweet. Her arms tightened around his neck and she made a soft sound that heated his blood.

But things were going too far. He needed to let her sleep. Needed to make sure this didn't devolve into a passionate interlude she would hate him for in the morning…well, the afternoon, anyway. He owed her better than that. She deserved better than that.

"Good night, my love," he whispered against her lips and, getting to his feet, left the room as she fell fully asleep.

It was only when he'd returned to his own borrowed bed that he realized: Dylan had, inadvertently during her sleep-addled mumblings, given him Patrick and Xander's surname.

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Author's Note: so for the first time in any variation of this story, Nuada knows the Blackwood brothers' surname. What do you guys think he's going to do now? Dun-dun-dun! And you may have recognized snippets of events and conversations from chapters of the main storyline. That's because certain events are going to occur in this variation, pretty much no matter what, and so I drew on the original versions and then rewrote the scenes with some new stuff or from new perspectives or whatnot (like in the last chapter). Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter and remember, reviews are love! Yay!