Haunting Desire (29 page)

“What are y’ talking about?” Tiarnan repeated angrily. “What is going on?”

“You knew,” she breathed again. “You knew she was here, because I
told
you. I told you I saw her. I told you Ellie was your daughter. You sent Mommy to this place and you
left her
.”

“No, Shealy. Sweetheart, no. That’s not—”

“What. Is. Going. ON?” Tiarnan shouted, startling them all into silence. They turned their stunned gazes to him. “Tell me. Now.”

M
EAGHAN shivered in the cold, eyeing the man who sat with his back against the wall, watching her with equal focus. Áedán could sit very still for long periods of time. Meaghan envied that even as she stood and began pacing again.

Stripped but for the fancy jeans that rode dangerously low on his hips, Áedán looked like a model in an advertisement for sex. A five o’clock shadow covered his jaw, setting off the glittering green of his eyes, framed by long, spiky lashes that any woman would covet. His hair was black and long enough to tie back, which he’d done with a shoelace. He had a broad and muscled chest, smooth and without hair, tapering down to abs so tight they looked painted on. His large hands dangled between his bent knees, scarred in many places. The hands of a working man. Her father had hands like that.

His skin was burnished, whether by sun or by heritage, she couldn’t tell. It seemed he had no ethnic markers—no traits that defined his genetic makeup. He might be from anywhere and everywhere, all trace of his race somehow melded into one sculpted form. Meaghan had been able to sense the emotions of others since she was a child, but here—
wherever here was
—her gift had been snuffed out. She couldn’t pick up anything that Áedán might be feeling. It rattled her, making her realize just how much she depended upon her ability and how much she missed it now.

“Why are you Cathán’s prisoner?” she asked.

He gave her a dismissive look. “He wants what I have.”

“You’re not even wearing a shirt or shoes. What could you have that he’d want?”

She saw the flash of white teeth in the murky darkness before he answered. “Power.”

“Power?” she repeated. “If you’re so powerful, how’d he catch you?”

He stood, as lithe as a big cat. Through the small window high up on the other side of the bars, a rising sun slanted a few weak rays into their cell, making his bare skin glow. She couldn’t help watching him as he paced. He was a truly gorgeous man if somewhat strange and more than a bit scary. His eyes were very cold. When he’d gripped her face, she’d felt the chill of them.

A door opened at the top of the stairs, interrupting before he could answer—if he’d intended to answer at all. Hard to tell with this guy. Meaghan moved to the bars. Beside her, Áedán did the same, making her feel very small as he towered over her in his sock feet.

She expected the guards who’d brought her down to appear, but the man who descended was obviously someone of importance. He carried himself with an authority that seemed second nature. He was heavyset and solid, clothed not in furs or modern jeans like Áedán, but in a bright blue and purple tunic with a spiraled image woven into the front. She recognized the symbol, of course. It was ancient and prevalent in Ireland, and it was also duplicated on the ceiling of the great room in the renovated castle where her family lived.

Over his shoulders hung a massive fur cloak that was white and amazingly bright in the shadowed dungeon. It looked very soft, rabbit perhaps, and Meaghan found herself wondering how many bunnies had died for the making of it. A gold chain held it in place, and it didn’t surprise her in the least that the clasp was yet another jeweled triple spiral.

A very big guard walked beside him, armed to the teeth. As the first man moved closer, the shadows concealing his features shifted, and Meaghan caught her breath. His hair glinted golden and red, and a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee covered his lower face. He looked youthful with the only wrinkles in his sun-browned skin coming from the laugh lines that seemed somehow incongruous on the chilling face.

She knew who it was instantly.
Cathán MacGrath.

She’d never met him of course. Cathán had been married to her mother when he vanished, and though her mom was pregnant with Meaghan at the time, Cathán wasn’t Meaghan’s father. Meaghan resembled her mother’s second husband too much to ever doubt her parentage. From the dimples to the stubborn chin, she was Niall Ballagh’s daughter through and through. But she might have been this man’s child or raised as such, had he not become abusive and twisted. If he hadn’t disappeared all those years ago.

He stopped in front of the bars and stared at Meaghan for a long moment. His eyes were a clear and frosty blue and they glittered in a hard, flat way that made her want to step back. She forced herself not to move. Beside her, Áedán stiffened and she could feel the hostility rolling off of him in waves.

“Is she the one?” Cathán’s guard asked.

“No idea,” Cathán said, still studying Meaghan.

“Who does he think you are?” Áedán asked in a low voice.

Cathán had not looked at Áedán since coming down and he didn’t react to Áedán’s question.

“I’m no one,” Meaghan said.

This made Cathán smile. “I think you’re lying. How did you get here?”

“I don’t know. I was searching for my brother.”

“Your brother?”

“Rory MacGrath. I think you know him.”

Cathán froze at that and his cruel features took on a predatory edge. “Rory is your brother?” he said softly.

“Half brother.”

As soon as she said it, she wanted to call the words back. Cathán’s expression went from cold to frigid, and she realized a moment too late that he’d mistakenly thought she was his daughter, and as distasteful as the idea was to Meaghan, it might have kept him from hurting her.

Now his cold eyes glittered, making her think of a reptile eyeing a tasty morsel.

“Who is your father?” he said in that same, deadly quiet voice.

Meaghan swallowed. “Why?” she asked, trying to match the steely tone. Trying and failing.

Cathán leaned forward, the movement nearly imperceptible but the menace exponentially huge until Meaghan wanted to scuttle back and hide.

Meaghan did step back. She couldn’t stop herself. The violence in Cathán MacGrath hummed around him, vibrating the air between them until it settled deep in her gut like a sickness. When she looked into his eyes, it wasn’t a sociopath she saw. It was an animal, a predator that didn’t care if its prey was scared or hurt. It didn’t thrill to the kill, desire the terror, gain satisfaction from the conquest.

It just did what it needed to do to get what it wanted. Nothing else mattered to it.

If Meaghan didn’t answer Cathán, he would have no qualms about taking her apart piece by piece. And he would do it with the same passion he might have when cutting the meat from the bone of a chicken.

Meaghan lowered her eyes and mumbled, “My father is Niall Ballagh.”

She was not prepared for the rage that suffused his face, making him for a split second once again human . . . and even more terrifying.

“Niall Ballagh,” he repeated. “The
filthy fisherman
?”

“A good man,” Meaghan said and then, because she couldn’t stop herself, “Clearly the better man.”

Beside her, Áedán snorted softly. “Have you a death wish, beauty?”

He’d been so silent, she’d forgotten he was there. Now both his words and the casual way he called her
beauty
startled her.

She glanced at him, finding herself momentarily distracted by all that bare skin so close to her. His eyes glowed jewel bright in the gloom and his teeth flashed.

Cathán scanned the cell again and Meaghan saw a small crack in his composure when he didn’t discern whatever it was pinging against his inner alarms. But the moment was there and gone so quickly she might have imagined it.

“Niall Ballagh.” Cathán shook his head. His disbelief would have been humorous if it didn’t feel so malignant. He paused, eyeing Meaghan for another long moment. “She went from me to a filthy fisherman. Your mother was a whore.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The words were foolish, but they felt good on her lips and powerful in the air between them.

Cathán lunged at her, reaching through the bars for her throat, but before he could touch her, Áedán moved, coming between them and shoving Cathán back. She saw the power in Áedán’s action, the force of his feat, but cause and effect seemed inconsequential here. The hard push deterred Cathán, but it didn’t send him back as it should have.

Luck was with her, though, and Cathán’s guard moved up just as Áedán thrust out, and Cathán stumbled over him and went sliding hard on the stone floor. He was up in an instant, rage turning his eyes into flinty points of malice. He scanned the cell, searching, Meaghan knew, for the force that he had felt.

“How did you do that?” he demanded.

“Don’t tell him anything,” Áedán warned.

She didn’t like Áedán ordering her around, but it was good advice and as much as it rankled to back down, she took it. Silently she gazed back at Cathán. She couldn’t help the hard smile that she knew had curled her lip. For a moment, they stood locked in one another’s sights.

“Don’t challenge him,” Áedán said. “Look away. Damn you, look away.”

Quit telling me what to do
, she wanted to snarl. Instead, she raised her brows and continued to look calmly back at Cathán until he gave a low laugh that made all the hair at the back of her neck stand on end.

She’d hated this man her entire life. He’d been the anonymous face that could be blamed for everything that had ever gone wrong in Ballyfionúir, in Meaghan’s world. And now that she’d met him, that hatred was justified. He’d beat her mother when she was his to love and cherish, wounded her big brother in a way he’d never recovered from. Meaghan had heard the talk, the whispered rumors. And now she saw the truth of who and what he was.

“She’s the one then,” the guard said to Cathán.

“Not the one I thought, but she is important. I’m sure of it.” Cathán leaned closer, pinning her with those inhuman eyes. “Beautiful, too. An added bonus.”

“The only bonus you’re getting—”

But Áedán had grabbed her arms from behind, yanking her hard against his chest. His lips hovered over her ear. “Do not antagonize him, Meaghan. He will kill you.”

She knew that, but in those few minutes she’d realized that nothing she did would affect the outcome of Cathán’s actions. He would kill her no matter what—perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next year. All she could do was decide how that end would come about.

“There is a prophecy,” Áedán said darkly. His mouth brushed the sensitive skin of her ear as he spoke. “About a woman who has great power. She is
idir eatarthu—
of two realms. She can move between this world and the real world. You do not want him to think this woman is you.”

“You were saying?” Cathán asked, eyes narrowed.

He sensed Áedán there, guiding her, but he couldn’t see Áedán. Another chink broke from the brittle façade he presented. Cathán thought himself all-prevailing in this twisted place, but somewhere deep within, he must know there was a higher power and he feared it. Was that power Áedán?

“Hold your tongue,” Áedán breathed.

Against her back, she felt the rise and fall of his chest, the heat of his skin, the brute strength of him. Yet when he’d attacked Cathán, that power had been muted, just as his presence was undetected.

It cost her every ounce of her dubious self-control to do as he asked, but slowly she took in a deep breath and exhaled before answering Cathán. “I didn’t say anything,” she told him.

That sharp, glittering stare cut through her, dissecting her belligerent silence, trying to dismember her thoughts. She felt the slice and dice of his probe and the terror that she’d managed to hold at bay became a spinning blade, whirling deep in her gut. She wasn’t afraid of dying—no that wasn’t true—of course she feared death. But more petrifying was the idea of being at this man’s mercy, because she saw that her first assessment was truer than she could have imagined.

Cathán MacGrath was not human. Not anymore.

“I’m not the one you’re looking for,” she said, her voice sounding thick and unstable.

Cathán stared back, nonplussed, but behind his impassive face she saw the calculations running, a ticker tape of scenarios he would devise to find the truth. A shudder crept through her. Áedán loosened his hold on her arms, let his warm hands travel down to her wrists and up in a soothing caress. But nothing could calm the dread fanning from inside, teasing the edges of hysteria in her mind. She was suddenly grateful for the cell, for the bars that separated her from Cathán.

“Did your mother ever tell you how we met?” Cathán asked, his voice a soft threat in the dank quiet.

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer.

“I knew she was a stupid, pliable woman. And her mother was just as ignorant. But she had the Book of Fennore.”

Something flickered in those brittle eyes and then was gone. Behind her, Áedán tensed, as if he feared what Cathán would say next.

“The Book called to me,” Cathán went on. “It
chose
me.”

“It’s a book. How could it choose?”

The question sounded harsh, defiant. But inside, Meaghan quaked.

“It’s true. I chose him,” Áedán said, startling her, adding to the spinning fall of her courage.

“What does that mean?” she asked before she could stop herself.

It was Cathán who answered. “The Book of Fennore is not just a book. It’s not a
thing
. Not anymore.”

Meaghan shook her head. There were no words to explain what she thought, what she needed to ask. At her back she felt the rapid rise and fall of Áedán’s chest. Something she or Cathán said had agitated him, but Meaghan couldn’t understand what.