Haunting Desire (27 page)

“I’ve more than issues,” he interrupted.

“But if you refuse to eat, so will Ellie. What good will anyone be if they’re starved half to death and too weak to stand? Look at her, Tiarnan. She’s just a little girl. She needs to eat.”

He grimaced, looking back at the little girl who sat with a mutinous expression, arms crossed over her small chest, glaring at the platter of food.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Oh,” Shealy said. “Of course. I should have known. You probably don’t need food, big strong warrior that you are. I suppose you’ll just want to wait until you faint again before you decide it’s time to eat.”

Tiarnan’s mouth fell open. “I did
not
faint.”

She just raised her brows and turned away. “Whatever,” she muttered as she went.

His face grew hot with humiliation. “I was wounded,” he insisted.

“Uh, no. You weren’t.”

The certainty in her voice shocked him.

“I checked you out, Tiarnan. I thought you must be bleeding to death when you collapsed. But you barely have a scratch on your body.”

He tried to think of a response to that, but he’d just washed and knew it was true. A few bruises covered his ribs, but there were no wounds on him.

“I don’t know what happened to you,” Shealy went on. “But I do know you’re weak right now.”

He stiffened his spine and glared at her. “I am not weak.”

With a roll of her eyes, she said, “Okay,
weakened
. Is that easier on the ego?”

“I didn’t notice y’ complaining about my weakness last night,” he said.

Her face turned pink but her gaze remained steady. “Yes, you were Superman last night. I’ll not deny it. But unless you want to destroy your hero status in my eyes, you’d better eat something. Please. For Ellie’s sake.”

She was right, and he knew it just as he knew it was childish to refuse food when who knew when the next meal would come. But Shealy didn’t understand what it meant to him to eat food that Eamonn served.

Silently she waited, and with a sigh, he lifted a piece of bread and shoved it in his mouth before he could talk himself out of it. “Eat,” he barked at the little girl.

The child moved closer and began cramming food in her mouth like it might be snatched away the next second.

“Easy sweetheart,” Shealy said, sitting on the other side of the child. “You’re going to choke.”

Ellie slowed down when she saw Shealy take a bite and began to eat like a human instead of a ravenous wolf cub. Tiarnan’s anger drained as he chewed. Shealy was right. For all he knew, Eamonn meant to kill them soon and Tiarnan would need all the strength he could muster to protect them.

But even as he thought it, he knew that wasn’t Eamonn’s intention. He didn’t know what Eamonn had in mind, but if it had been to murder them, he’d had ample opportunity to do it already.

A chilling thought occurred to him then. Could he know about Shealy’s father?

“What did y’ tell him?” he asked quietly as they ate.

“Tell him? Who? Eamonn?”

Tiarnan nodded.

“Nothing—well, last night after you collapsed—”

Tiarnan made a sound in his throat at that but bit back the denial. He
had
collapsed, as much as he wished he hadn’t.

Shealy went on, “I told Eamonn that we were searching for my father and that Cathán might be holding him prisoner.”

“Did he ask why?”

“Of course not. Why wouldn’t I search—”

“No, Shealy. Did he ask why Cathán wanted yer father?”

“Oh. Yes. I told him I didn’t know.”

The fist in Tiarnan’s stomach eased a bit. “Did he believe y’?”

“I think so.”

Once the food was gone, the three of them better for having shared it, Eamonn approached once more. Tiarnan rose to face him, eyeing him suspiciously, but Eamonn only thrust out Tiarnan’s sword and ax, both still anchored in his belt.

Cautiously, Tiarnan took them.

“When Liam awakes and breaks his fast, y’ can go.”

“Liam isn’t here,” Tiarnan said with satisfaction.

Eamonn glowered at him. “What do y’ mean, not here? I brought him here myself last night.”

“Well yer guard is not so good, is it then, because he left.”

“Why?”

“Because he wanted nothing to do with his traitor brother I suppose.”

Eamonn blanched but spoke boldly, as if the words hadn’t cut him deeply. “Y’ always did let him behave like a wild boy.”

“No more than y’ did, as I recall. Why are y’ letting us go?”

“I will not be yer jailer.”

“That’s exactly what y’ were trying to be when y’ sided with Cathán,” Tiarnan said coldly. “Or have y’ now turned on him as well?”

“I was wrong about Cathán,” he confessed in a low, shamed voice. “I believed his lies.”

“Why?” Tiarnan asked before he could stop himself. And in that one word was a wealth of other questions. Why had he chosen Cathán over his own flesh and blood? Why had he turned on his people? Why had he taken the last thing they had, their unity, their brotherhood?
Why?

Eamonn shook his head, perhaps hearing all of those other questions. Perhaps simply refusing to answer.

“I will not rest until Cathán is dead,” he said. “Whether y’ call that another betrayal or justice, it matters not.”

Tiarnan looked at the men in the camp. The faces that turned to him held a desperate edge. Eamonn was their leader, and yet Tiarnan could see that these men didn’t fight
for
him. It was there in their hollow eyes, in the twitchy glances that they cast between them. Tiarnan could tell from the way they watched his brother with a bleak mixture of contempt and fear. Perhaps Eamonn had won some fight for dominance, but he did not have their loyalty. They would turn on him without compunction and they didn’t bother to hide it.

“Y’ still fight alone, Tiarnan?” Eamonn asked, distracting him.

“Alone?”

“It’s how it always was. Y’ made the decisions. Y’ chose our fate. Always alone.”

His accusing tone bewildered Tiarnan. “’Twas my place to do that.”

“Not just yer place. All of ours. But y’ made yer bloody pacts without asking one of us what we thought.”

As much as he hated to admit it, Eamonn was right. He’d never consulted anyone before he chose the path they would take. The arrogance in such a thing astounded him now, but at the time it had seemed the only way, his only option.

Perhaps, though, Eamonn had seen his actions in the same tainted light that Tiarnan saw Eamonn’s treachery. Eamonn had made decisions of his own, based on what
he
thought was right.

“Yes, I made the wrong choices. But y’ betrayed us all, Eamonn.”

“I tried to save what was left of us,” Eamonn answered with an angry step forward. “Y’ could no longer see what was coming. Y’ could only see what y’d lost already, what lay in ruins behind y’.”

That it was true only served to make Tiarnan angrier. “And what about y’, Eamonn? Were yer choices so much better? Y’ fight alone as well, don’t y’? Tell me it’s not true.”

Eamonn hung his head. “No, my decisions were no better. My actions were those of a coward. I’ve no pride in the role I played. I am cursed and disgraced, and I have no one but myself to blame. Go, Tiarnan. May y’ find a way to live with yer choices as I will never find the way to live with what I have done.”

Tiarnan’s throat was tight as he stared into his brother’s haunted eyes. After all that had happened, after Eamonn had turned on him and taken arms with the enemy, he still responded to the pain he saw in his eyes. He still wanted to banish the shadows. To make the world right. None of them had ever known a real life or lived in a time of peace, devoid of pain and loss and suffering.

He might have reached out then. He might have taken his brother’s hand in farewell if not forgiveness, but a call of warning split the chilled morning air and suddenly the weapons flew from their sheaths and pointed at a lone figure that appeared.

Looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world, Liam strolled into camp.

Behind him came Jamie and Reyes, each holding a man that Tiarnan did not recognize by a twisted arm and pointed knife. Following them was another who had his arm wrapped around Zac’s waist, Zac’s arm around his shoulders. Tiarnan stared, knowing he’d seen the man before.

He wore a strange collar and carried a satchel slung over his neck.

Zac leaned heavily on him as he clutched at a wound in his gut that spilled blood between his fingers. His head lolled and his skin was pasty.

“Let them pass,” Tiarnan barked as Eamonn’s men moved to block them. Eamonn turned, giving him an angry look.

“Y’ are not my prisoner, but I say who enters this place.”

Tiarnan glanced over Eamonn’s head to the guards at the perimeter of camp. “Let them through.”

The guards hesitated for a moment, and then the one named Nanda said, “It’s James and Cooley with them. Let them in.”

Eamonn’s face reddened but he turned back as the small group staggered forward. Tiarnan had never been so happy to see someone as he was to see Liam, cocky and unharmed, and Jamie, steady and indomitable as he marched into the camp with his prisoner in his grasp. Beside him, Reyes did the same.

“Y’ can let him go, Reyes,” Tiarnan said, nodding at the prisoners. “These men are Cathán’s enemies. Not ours.”

Jamie raised his brow in question, but at Tiarnan’s nod, Reyes gave his prisoner a push and the man scrambled away.

“What happened to Zac?” Tiarnan asked, looking at the wounded man.

“He killed Farmsworth, that’s what happened,” the man Reyes had just let loose shouted.

“He gave as good as he got,” Jamie said. “And he attacked first.”

Eamonn looked at his man. “Is that the truth?”

The “
yes
” came reluctantly. Tiarnan looked at the men standing around the camp, still armed and ready. “We can fight y’ here and now, or y’ can lower yer weapons. Y’ve seen what I can do. Y’ don’t want to test these men either.”

“Lower yer weapons,” Eamonn said a fraction too late. The men had already listened to Tiarnan.

Jamie stepped forward. “You good, T?”

Tiarnan nodded, nearly grinning. “I’m good.”

“Shealy?” Jamie asked.

“Thank you, Jamie,” Shealy said from behind Tiarnan. “We’re fine. All of us. But Zac should get some help.”

The man called Nanda stepped forward. “Bring him to the fire,” he said.

For a moment, distrustful glances moved between the two groups of men, and then Mahon stepped forward and Zac limped along beside him. As soon as they passed, Liam approached, cupped the back of Tiarnan’s neck, and pulled him into an embrace. Even as he held his brother, Tiarnan thought that somehow the two of them had changed places. Liam had been worried about Tiarnan’s safety and though Tiarnan had been concerned, he realized with a start that he hadn’t doubted for a moment that his brother would return.

“Good to see y’ looking so fit, brother,” Liam teased. “Our Shealy took care of y’, did she?”

Our Shealy.
When had she become that? And why were Liam’s eyes sparkling with laughter, as if he knew just how completely Shealy had
taken care
of his brother? Tiarnan grinned back as he stepped away, seeing the knowing smiles on some of the faces surrounding him. Others had expressions of hunger—not only for the physical relationship he had with Shealy, but for the brotherhood that Tiarnan shared with Liam. They were family, blood. Nothing could take that away from them.

Eamonn gazed at them with the same pained yearning, and Tiarnan wanted more than anything to pull him into their circle. Right and wrong were not so black-and-white as he’d thought just days ago. Only the cold rage in Liam’s eyes when he glanced at Eamonn kept Tiarnan from acting on the impulse.

Liam scooped Ellie out of Shealy’s arms, saying, “How’s my favorite girl?” as he made gobble noises at her throat. Ellie wrapped her arms tightly around him and pressed her cheek against his.

Watching the two of them, Tiarnan almost missed Shealy stepping forward. She’d gotten in front of him before he realized it, placing herself in danger if anyone decided to attack. He reached out to stop her, but she stared beyond him to Mahon, her expression so shocked that it made Tiarnan pause, cutting his eyes between the man and Shealy.

“Father Mahon?” she said, her voice shaking, her brow furrowed with confusion. “What are you doing here?”

The man called Mahon let loose a strange, strangled laugh and said, “Now isn’t that a question. Evidently, you brought me, Shealy.”

S
HEALY shook off Tiarnan’s restraining hold and stepped closer to Father Mahon, still not quite believing it was really him.

A man so attractive that his pledge to God seemed like a gauntlet thrown down to challenge every female on the planet. He’d come to her dad’s aid after the accident, offering prayer and support in those long weeks when Donnell had mourned Shealy’s mother and Shealy had still balanced between life and death. When she’d finally stabilized, he’d visited her often, praying and reading from the Bible until she’d finally told him to go find someone else to bother. Her faith had been shattered by her mother’s death. Later, her dad told her Father Mahon had been training to be a priest but had left the church without taking his vows, that he’d gone away because he’d questioned his faith. She’d always regretted that she’d been so cold and rude.

Donnell had taken Shealy and moved to Arizona without a backward glance after that, and Shealy had forgotten about Father Mahon.

Now as she stared at him, she realized he was the man she’d seen standing in her dad’s study when she’d gone from the river banks of Inis Brandubh to the real world and back. . . .

Tall, with golden brown hair, he was dressed in a plain white button-down shirt and the same black trousers he’d been wearing then. Both were torn and dirty, but a clergy collar circled his neck. Had he reconnected with his faith, then? Had he gone on to take his vows?