Burned (44 page)

The memory theft incident is a notable exception—and believe me, I’m not done bitching about it. It’s a good thing he leveled that playing field. I need to know he can’t do it to me again, although I suspect he wouldn’t even if he could. He did have a few valid points. I shut him out every time he got close to me. Rejected him at every turn. I marvel at how well he restrained himself over the subsequent months after that night together. If I’d known what incredible sex we’d had and he kept rejecting me, I’d have gotten more than a little pissy. I’d have half hated that I’d taken his memory away, but it would have been too late to undo it … so … maybe I would have taught him to resist that trick so it could never happen again.
I get the impression he’s sometimes stymied, trying to figure out how to cope with me. From what I know of him, he was alone for a long time before me, Fiona the exception, and she was little more than an acquaintance with benefits.

Jada. I like the wench. Brilliant, strong, focused, gifted. I can’t think of many other people I’d want fighting at my back—if only I could believe she wouldn’t stab me in it at the first opportunity. Hate her for taking Dani, but if the kid had to come back as someone else, well, she couldn’t have come back more kick-ass.

I sneak a look at her then remember I don’t have to sneak anything. She really is beautiful. I smile faintly. Good for Dani. I always told her she would be. And there’s no doubt Ryodan thinks so, too. God, he’s got his hands full with that situation. He was practically raising the kid, now she’s a grown, fire-and-ice woman. Trouble behind, trouble ahead.

I’m looking forward to watching it play out.

The climb up the side of the mountain goes smoothly. Though patches of brilliant snow shimmer in the moonlight, we stick to the dark, rocky areas that thawed in the heat of the day’s sun, the better to blend.

Everyone blackened their faces before climbing, not that any of them have fair skin but Jada. We’re all in good physical condition, which renders the cable pulls that were pounded in for tourists unnecessary. At least the Hag picked a popular mountain to stake Christian on the opposite side of. We’d have been in a world of shit if she’d chosen Everest. Fortunately, Everest is too far from Dublin for her purposes. From her attempts to abduct the other Unseelie Princes—who she presumably doesn’t know are dead—she’d planned to eventually stake all of them to the side of Christian’s cliff.

I shudder. Gruesome.

As we begin the final stretch, I ponder the Book’s unnatural silence. I keep waiting for it to begin talking again, throw a few vile images at me, turn me visible at a critical moment, anything. I don’t understand why it’s gone so silent. It’s almost as if it’s actually
gone
.

It makes me nervous.

In time, I might begin to forget it’s there and wonder if that’s the
Sinsar Dubh
’s plan. To lull me into lowering my guards, like Barrons and Ryodan did with the princes.

As we navigate a narrow crevice between boulders, Ryodan says in a rough whisper, “When you get close to Christian, talk to him before you touch him. He’s a hair-trigger. You can’t afford to have him jerk and drop the spear. I don’t want any of us to have to climb this bloody cliff twice. Prepare him. He must be able to hold onto it and hold himself on the cliff until she comes again.”

In a low voice, I say, “What if it takes days?”

“Though it would mean he’s died fewer times, let’s hope it doesn’t,” Dageus whispers grimly.

Barrons says softly, “You must judge his condition when you get there. If he’s too weak, come back up.”

“I disagree. If you time it wrong,” Jada whispers, “we could be here for weeks. He’s strong. He’ll hold.”

“Aye. He is Keltar,” Drustan says quietly. “He will hold.”

“Kairos,” Dageus says, “this eve reeks of it. The time is now.”

We continue the ascent in silence. We all know our tasks and have agreed upon a number of contingency plans. I’m already wearing my rappelling harness. Barrons and Ryodan will hook me up and lower me over the side when we reach the
top. When I see Christian, I’ll make the call. Jada, Dageus, and Drustan are our lookouts. They’ll have binoculars trained on the Hag’s nest the entire time.

As we ascend the snowy peak, the others drop to low crouches near the ground.

Barrons leads the rest of them, sticking to the barren patches. The moon silvers the mountain with a faint merlot tinge. Invisible, I stride to the cliff’s edge, battling a stiff breeze. I inhale deeply of the crisp cold mountain air. Far to the north I see the needlelike spire where the Hag roosts. Ryodan’s right. Nobody could climb it. Not with her sitting on top of it as she is now, back to us, knitting feverishly away, bloody, snaky hair spilling down her back and bloody, snaky guts from her gown dripping over the side. Even with her gone, it would be a dangerous feat. Although as a potential plan B, we might wait for her to leave and try it, if plan A fails. If I could get into her nest and lie in wait, invisible … wait, I don’t dare stab her. But then again, if everyone else rescued Christian and abandoned me here until I got control of myself again …

Hopefully it won’t come to that.

“Are you ready?” Barrons says in a rough whisper.

I nod, then append it with a “Yes.” I keep forgetting they can’t see me, since I can see them.

“Where are you? Touch me.”

I slip my hand into his, and for a moment he just stands there, looking down at where I am, then he closes his eyes and laces strong fingers with mine. I hear exactly what he’s not saying in them:
You better bring your ass back to me, woman
.

I reply with mine,
Always
.

He laughs softly then somehow finds my face and kisses me,
light and fast, and I taste him on my lips, need him again, hard and fast and soon.

Then he and Ryodan are groping around on me, hooking pulleys to my rings, preparing me for my first-ever rappelling trip down the side of a twelve-hundred-foot cliff.

Going over the side is the hardest part. The wind is cutting up here, pelleting in stiff gusts. I close my gloved hands on the cable as I ease over the edge, feeling about for footing. I eye the thin cable dubiously. It’s all that’s keeping me connected to life. I’m not sure even
I
could survive a twelve-hundred-foot fall. I know I wouldn’t like the recovery from it. “Are you going to hook it around something?” I whisper.

“Ryodan already secured it to a rock. You’re safe. We’ve got you,” Barrons replies. “If something goes wrong, you have only to pull yourself up.”

“Your primary objective is getting Christian out of here,” Dageus whispers. “Doona fash yourselves with the rest of us.” Then he adds something in another language.

Drustan says, “Gaelic. A blessing in the old way.”

“Thanks,” I murmur.

“If you prefer, I will go,” Jada says.

I hear something different in her voice and look up, past Barrons, and catch my breath. It’s the first trace of Dani I’ve seen. Jada looks worried. About me.

I smile, but she can’t see it, and say, “I know you would. And appreciate it. But I’ve got it. Just keep an eye on the Hag for me.”

“You have to kick off, Mac,” Ryodan says softly. “Go down a dozen feet, push out gently, drop twenty feet or so, regain the face and repeat.”

“Don’t push out hard,” Jada whispers. “Get your climbing
legs. Descend slowly at first.” She doesn’t add
and do not puke
but I hear the unspoken recrimination in her voice.

I glance down and am instantly sorry I did. I almost puke. I’m hanging above a sheer drop.
I can do this
, I tell myself.
I can do this
.

“Did you eat Unseelie, lass?” Drustan whispers.

“Got it on me. Hits fast as a shot of adrenaline.”

“Go,” Barrons says. “We don’t know what shape he’s in or when she’ll next stir.”

I keep my eyes locked on his dark face as I force my feet to do the counterintuitive on a cliff and kick myself off it.

My first drop takes me a short ten feet. The instant I feel myself free-falling, I grab the cable and squeeze. My gloves grip hard and yank me to an abrupt halt. I take a deep breath, exhale, and try again. This time I drop about fifteen. My heart is racing and lodged high in my throat.

Each time I kick off, I feel a little more secure, trust that my cable is solid and I’m not going to fall. After my fifth try, I force myself to glance down and see where Christian is, and estimate he’s still about eighty or so feet below me. I decide to start talking to him when I’m a dozen feet away. I glance up and see three heads looking down but the moon is behind them so I can’t make out their features.

When I’m twenty feet or so from Christian’s head, I feel a tight snap of the cable, a prearranged warning if anything in our current situation changes. Shit, I think, glancing around wildly, half expecting the Hag to erupt from directly behind me and somehow pierce me with her lance even though I’m invisible.

My blood chills. I
am
still invisible, right? The Book would have no reason to expose me now. I glance up at my gloved
hand then down at my body. Yup, still invisible. Then what? I brace myself on the rock and turn to look at the Hag’s nest.

My heart sinks. She’s stirring, standing, bloody dress dripping over the side of the spire, black holes where her eyes should be trained in our direction.

She’s tense, preparing for flight.

Son of a bitch.

She’s coming.

      35      

“Off into the sunset, living like there’s nothing left to lose”

MAC

I glance up but don’t see anyone at the cliff’s edge. Only a thin black cable snaking over the side.

Good. That means they warned me and sought cover, as was our contingency plan.

I glance down. If the Hag comes for Christian now, I’m perched on the side of the cliff a mere twenty feet above where she plans to hunker down and flay the Highlander. I’ll have to hang here, wait for her to finish, then climb back up and wait until Christian heals a little to try again.

Unless she’s going somewhere else. Could I be so lucky?

I glance back over my shoulder, peering through the moonlit night. She’s still standing in her nest, macabre gown of guts dripping over the edge, swaying from side to side in an eerily reptilian manner, nose in the air, head tilted as if listening intently.

Surely she didn’t hear the sound of my boots hitting the side of the cliff over all this wind and from a quarter of a mile away.

Did she? I have no idea the acuteness of her echolocation skills.

I hang there, debating options. I don’t need to kick out anymore. I can inch down another ten feet, whisper to Christian, give him the spear, kick out to draw her near him. Then pull myself up out of the way really fast.

Or … I could hang here while she kills him again, wait and inch back up.

Only to inch back down later.

I
so
don’t want to do this again. The way I see it, the odds of failing are directly proportionate to the number of attempts, increasing each time.

What would Jada do?

That’s a no-brainer.

I steal another glance at the Hag.

She’s still standing in her nest. Not hearing any vibrations. As long as she doesn’t, we should be fine.

I begin to inch slowly downward.

When I’m ten feet from Christian’s head, I say softly, “Christian, it’s me, Mac. Don’t talk loud. Keep it low.”

I have to repeat it several times before I hear a guttural groan.

My head instantly whips to the Hag but she’s still standing, unmoving.

“We’re here to save you. I’m bringing you the spear. I’m going to pry one of your hands free,” I say in a low voice. No way I can try to drive a spike in now. She’d hear it for sure. It’s going to be risky enough prying one of the rivets out. “You’ll
have to hold on until she comes for you again. Hide the spear.” As soon as I say that, I think, Where exactly do I expect him to hide it? The man is naked.

I’m beginning to realize we overlooked a few critical details in our plan.

I hang there, boots carefully braced on a tiny, narrow ledge on the sheer cliff face, being buffeted by a stiff, cutting wind, suspended by nothing but my frightfully thin cable (yes, I read the weight rating; it doesn’t make me feel any better), and force myself to take one hand off it to rummage around in the pocket of my jacket for a bottle of Unseelie flesh, neatly sliced and diced months ago. I keep them hidden all over the bookstore. I’ll take every advantage I can get right now. I half expect the
Sinsar Dubh
to either prevent me from using it or try to amp it up in some nasty way. Biting back revulsion, I gingerly work the lid free and ease the wriggling contents into my mouth.

My body stiffens as it hits me like a thunderbolt.

Energy, sexuality, vitality, and strength burn in my veins. No wonder so many people are so addicted to it. I feel strong. I feel alive. I feel invincible. I remember eating it once before and taunting Barrons to hit me, punch me, fight with me.

I ease down a few more inches. So far no malevolent commentary from the Book and no apparent negative side effects. If you exclude a ferocious desire to eat it again once it wears off.

“Christian, can you hear me?” I whisper.

“I … hear you,” he says weakly. “Mac … I smell … Unseelie flesh. You … eating it? Ken you what … vile stuff … does … to you.”

Despite the agony in his voice, I swear I hear a faint note of teasing.

“Are you strong enough to hold yourself up for a little while if I free one of your hands?”

“Aye,” he whispers. “Give me … the bloody spear … kill the … bloody bitch. Can’t see … you. Naught but … black and moonlight. Am I … blind?”

“I’m invisible.”

“Och, and … why wouldn’t you … be.” He sort of laughs but it turns into a blood-chilling moan of pain.

“How long do you think you can hold yourself if I get your hand on an outcropping of rock?”

He’s silent and I get the sense he’s resisting the urge to snarl
Forever
, trying to gauge what he believes he can actually do. Finally he says faintly, “A few minutes … no more. I’m gutted … nigh dead. Keep … blacking out.”