Haunting Desire (26 page)

Had he smuggled Ellie back into camp? Returned her to the tent? Obviously, yes. But why? The only reason he could think of was to leave a sign. Liam had found Jamie and he wanted Tiarnan to know. He’d risked much, if this was what he’d done, and yet Tiarnan couldn’t help but admire the sheer genius of it. Liam was no longer a helpless boy and as hard as it was to accept, accept it he must.

Ellie stared at him and he smiled, finding the gesture came easily now, as if Shealy had unlocked some great door within him that had kept his smile imprisoned.

Ellie didn’t smile back, but she scooted a little closer, looking lost and forlorn. He reached for her, tugging her arm and settling her down in front of Shealy. He pulled the furs up and covered her chilled little body. Ellie gave a contented sigh when he put his arm around them both and she fell asleep in moments. Tiarnan lay awake, though, thinking of all that had happened since he’d first seen Shealy through the shredded darkness. He felt like a different man now—a new man. A man who might offer this woman a future. If only they could find her father and escape this hell.

After a while, the sun began to rise, casting a bright splinter of light across the hide tent, and in his arms Shealy stirred, waking Ellie, too. Together the two females pushed to a sit and turned to face him.

“How—where did Ellie . . .” Shealy let the question trail away as she drew the same conclusions Tiarnan had.

“He must have found the others and wanted us to know.”

Shealy nodded, pulling furs up over her chest. When she looked at him, he braced himself. Last night she hadn’t made him breach her barriers. She’d lowered them. She’d given herself to him in a way that still made his heart ache and his blood heat. Now she stared back. She still looked wary. She still looked defiant. But withdrawn . . . no, she didn’t even try for that. He smiled—again he smiled, some wondering part of his brain acknowledged—and brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. For a moment he indulged himself in the fantasy that Shealy was really his woman, Ellie their child, and that the morning would bring a day of meals spent together and moments shared.

The utter foolishness of it wiped the smile from his face. It was easy to deceive himself inside this tent, but outside waited Eamonn.

Eamonn . . .
The memory of the day his brother had conspired against him came back with a jolt that caused him physical pain. Eamonn was
here
, here on Inis Brandubh. He’d made Shealy and Liam his prisoners. What else had he done? How long had she been at his mercy?

“Did he hurt y’, Shealy?” Tiarnan asked, suddenly horrified that he hadn’t asked before.

She didn’t ask who. Instead she gazed solemnly back. “No. He didn’t hurt us.”

“Does he think to make us hostages?”

“I don’t know.” She scooted closer, until they were almost touching. Ellie crawled into her lap, and lovingly Shealy stroked the child’s head. “His men wanted to kill you, Tiarnan,” she said softly, as if they might be lurking outside the tent, listening. For all he knew they were . . . had been all night. “But Eamonn stopped them. He made them bring you here. There are guards standing watch, but they didn’t tie us up and that’s what the men wanted.”

“Do they know Liam is gone?”

She shook her head. “No. Once they put us in here, they didn’t come back. I watched when Liam slipped away. They were guarding us, but they didn’t see him. You’d have been proud of him. He moved like a shadow.”

He was proud, but he wished Liam hadn’t risked so much.

“You could have been killed bursting out of the woods like you did when you found us. Why did you do it, Tiarnan?”

He looked at her worried eyes, remembering those moments before he’d taken Eamonn by the throat. He’d had no concern for himself or his own safety. He’d only thought of Shealy and Liam and poor little Ellie. He lifted a hand, noting that the aches and pains from last night still lingered, but none were as severe as they’d been earlier. It was as if joining with Shealy had eased whatever ailed him. Gently she took his hand in hers and that small touch felt like an anchor, an anchor he’d been desperate to have for so many years.

He swallowed hard and said, “Jamie and Reyes tried to hold me back, but I saw y’ and . . .”

He felt his face grow hot and wanted to look away, but she’d trapped him with her storm-cloud eyes and wouldn’t allow it. Her soft fingers stroked the split skin over his knuckles, her touch so gentle it soothed.

“I couldn’t stand to see his hands on y’, Shealy,” he confessed at last, blushing more at his own weakness.

She stared at him with her mouth slightly open and then she grinned.

“It’s not funny,” he said.

But her expression was so surprised and pleased that he found himself smiling back at her. With a shake of his head, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was hard, possessive, and binding. He knew it even if she did not.

When he pulled away, she lowered her lashes, hiding whatever she might be feeling. A part of him was glad, but another part wanted to demand she raise her eyes and show him all of her secrets.

“We should dress and see what waits for us outside,” he said softly. “If Eamonn plans to kill me, I’d just as soon face him now.”

She gave a jerky nod. “Your pack is in the corner. I hope you brought a change of clothes because your others were . . . well you won’t want to wear them again until they’ve been washed and even then . . .”

She trailed off and he remembered the blood. He’d been covered in it.

“My sword and ax?”

“Eamonn took them.”

That made his jaw tighten with anger, though he’d already assumed as much.

Shealy moved Ellie from her lap and still holding the fur, reached out to snag his pack, giving Tiarnan a glimpse of the long line of her spine and the round softness of her hips before she settled down again. Turning her back to him, she told Ellie to cover her eyes so they could both pull on their tunics. He pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin of her shoulder before she clothed it and was rewarded with a small shiver and deep breath that pulled something tight inside him. He was rock hard as he eased his trews up over his hips, glad his tunic hung low. When he glanced up, he caught Shealy watching him, her eyes shining and bottomless. Her cheeks pinked and she tilted her head, hiding the scars on her left side as she shoved her feet into a pair of Liam’s old boots. When she looked up again, he squatted beside her and tucked her hair back once more. She gave him that defiant look he’d come to expect, and yet another smile curved his lips as he pressed them to her ear.

“Y’ are beautiful. Every bit of y’,” he whispered.

She didn’t flip her hair out again when he moved away, and that pleased him more than it should have.

Shealy talked to her wee sister as she straightened her clothing and finger-combed her hair into a braid. She’d coaxed a smile from the child before she’d finished, and Tiarnan’s heart clenched as he watched them. Thoughts of Eamonn stoked his fear that he would not be able to protect these two females that had become the center of his world.

“Give me a hug,” she told Ellie, and the child threw her arms around Shealy’s neck. “I love you, Ellie. I’m so glad I found you.”

Once Tiarnan had felt that much love for his sister and each of his brothers, thought nothing could ever test that emotion. He still loved them all, but Eamonn had broken his heart. To be betrayed by a brother he would have died for was a blow that no words could ever describe.

He’d been enraged when he’d first seen Eamonn, but now he felt something closer to resignation. The time had come to confront him. When at last Shealy stood at his side holding Ellie’s hand, he was almost ready to face his traitor brother.

They stepped from the tent into the harsh dawning light, startling the man who’d dozed off nearby—close enough to see them if they emerged but not so close, he noted with relief, to have heard them. Tiarnan scanned the crude camp, spotting a second and third guard positioned around them. A small fire with a spit over it burned in the center of a few scattered tents that, like theirs, had been constructed of hide and rope strung between trees. He counted nine men in the group. There might be more in the tents, but they weren’t big enough to hold many. The men he could see stared balefully back at him, weapons ready.

Eamonn stood beside the fire, watching Tiarnan warily. He should. If it hadn’t been for Shealy and Ellie, he might well have ripped his brother in two with his bare hands. Eamonn, it seemed, knew it. He hung his head in something that looked surprisingly like defeat before taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders. With the manner of a man going to his execution, Eamonn crossed the camp and came to a stop in front of him. The wolf followed placidly but halted before he reached Tiarnan. With a low growl, it sat and watched with shifting eyes. Eamonn’s men all surveyed the happenings with an alertness that told Tiarnan that they knew which way the wind blew for Tiarnan, knew he hated his brother.

Eamonn had aged since Tiarnan had last seen him. His face was drawn, thinner than it had been. Gone was the boyish roundness and in its place was a hardened and scarred man. The black chains around his throat and wrists were new as well. They gave Eamonn a sinister look that went with the black heart that Tiarnan had never noticed until the day Eamonn turned on him and left his own heart in shreds. Beside him, Shealy watched uncomfortably as the two men stared at one another. There’d been a time when another woman had stood between them, and Tiarnan had chosen to protect his brother over her. He would not make that mistake again.

Eamonn motioned to one of his men, who brought him a large basin filled with water. Silently he handed it to Eamonn, gave Tiarnan a dark look, and then retreated.

“Ye’ll want to wash before y’ eat,” Eamonn said, setting the basin on the ground in front of their tent in a gesture that screamed servitude and confounded Tiarnan.

“I’d rather starve then eat yer food,” Tiarnan shot back, his voice cold and calm. It didn’t match the churn of rage and pain inside him.

“I know that,” Eamonn said softly, and there was an edge of regret to his voice that almost penetrated the haze of Tiarnan’s anger.
Almost.

“Do y’ plan to keep me prisoner, Eamonn? Because I’ll tell y’ now it’ll be the last plan y’ make.”

“Yer not my prisoner. Y’ can go anytime.”

Tiarnan laughed harshly. “Do they know that?” he asked, gesturing with his chin at the guards set around the camp.

“No one will stop y’,” Eamonn said, before turning and walking back to his men, wolf at his heels.

With disbelief, Tiarnan saw the others lowering their weapons. Did he mean it, then? Why would he capture them only to set them free?

Bewildered, Tiarnan stayed where he was, trying to sort out just what this meant. Something roasting on a spit nearby tantalized Tiarnan, distracting him. He couldn’t remember when last he’d eaten, and his stomach growled, protesting his decision to forgo what had been offered. He felt hollowed out and depleted of every ounce of strength. He glanced back at Shealy and the child, knowing they hadn’t eaten either, yet neither complained.

Shealy moved to the basin Eamonn had left and dipped her hands in it. There was a cloth for washing and a hunk of crude soap that smelled strongly of tallow. She rubbed the gritty clump into the cloth, washed her face and hands then Ellie’s before cautiously looking at Tiarnan. Biting back a groan, he followed her actions and scrubbed the crusted blood from his nails where it lingered as a reminder of the violence he’d inflicted yesterday. Once his hands and face were clean, he couldn’t seem to stop. He pulled his tunic off and washed his arms and chest. Shealy had already cleaned away the blood, but the memory of it made him want to scour his skin from his body. Draped over a rope were the clothes he’d worn yesterday. The rain had rinsed much of the blood away, but still it crusted the tunic, ground into the creases of his trews. The puddles below were thick with it.

He already felt defenseless, missing his weapons and aching like an old man, but the cold water had revived him and he felt better for it. Should he test them now? Demand his weapons and march away from this camp? But if Liam had gone for help, he would return. What if they attacked him? What if Tiarnan couldn’t find him first?

While he debated the next step he should take, a dark-skinned man brought over a platter of roasted meat and hard, coarse bread. He glanced at Tiarnan and then away as he handed it to Shealy.

“Thank you,” Shealy said softly, taking it from him.

He gave a short bow and took a step back.

“What is your name?” she asked, surprising them all.

Why did she want to know his name? What did it matter what this filth called himself?

He gave her a startled glance then looked warily at Tiarnan. “I am called Nanda,” he answered.

“Thank you, Nanda.”

Nanda gave her a quick nod, then a formal bow. He took the bowl of water and returned to Eamonn’s side. The two men spoke for a moment, and then Eamonn stared at his brother once more. Deliberately Tiarnan turned his back.

He said nothing as Shealy and Ellie sat down on a fallen log with the platter of food in front of them. Ellie looked from the food to Tiarnan and back again several times. It took her about a half a second to work out that Tiarnan had refused to eat. Ellie sat back and crossed her arms, shunning the offering as well. Tiarnan felt a reluctant grin on his face. She was a smart one, this child. She knew to wait for the adults to taste something and deem it safe before she would try it.

“Tiarnan,” Shealy said, “may I have a word, please?”

Startled by the exasperated tone, he nodded and stood, moving a few steps away. Shealy followed and Ellie watched with barely suppressed trepidation.

“I understand that you have
issues
with Eamonn,” she began.