Haunting Desire (31 page)

Shealy stared at it. She’d seen her father with this journal before, but she’d never known its importance. She was beginning to think she’d never known anything.

As if sensing her feelings, Tiarnan moved his hand to her nape in a gentle caress. His touch was so warm that it melted some of the icy dread growing inside of her. Her father gave Tiarnan a thinly veiled look Shealy struggled to understand. He had a problem with Tiarnan, but she had no idea why. If not for Tiarnan, she wouldn’t have survived five minutes in this hellish place.

“Look, Shealy,” her dad said, pulling her attention to the journal. It boggled the mind to think this was a chronicle of the Book of Fennore, penned by Keepers over the ages. The pages were withered and browned, the red leather cover cracked and creased with age and grime. Kyle held it gingerly, as if he feared it might disintegrate in his very hands.

With utmost care, Kyle settled the journal in his palm and opened it to a page he had marked with a small slip of paper. He sent Shealy a cryptic glance before he turned the journal to face her. Tiarnan leaned close so he could see as well.

“Here is the prophecy. It tells of a woman who will have the power to release the Druid—the entity that has been the power of the Book for all of time.”

“Not anymore,” Shealy said. “Tiarnan told me it’s Cathán who runs the show now.”

“That remains to be seen,” her father answered. “However it is, this woman is
idir eatarthu
. That means she can walk between worlds. She can take others with her.”

He turned a page, and there was a picture of a woman straddling two land masses. One rippled with green fields and crops. Cattle roamed and people harvested grain. In the other, dragons filled the sky and wolves howled at a dark moon. Shadows hid the woman’s features but she had golden blonde hair.

“The prophecy says that if this woman should open the door between the worlds, the Druid will escape, and if he does, he will rain evil on the earth we love.”

Another page, another picture. This one showed the same two worlds, only now no cattle, no crops, no green fields existed. The people all lay dead in a wasted land.

“Only one man can stop this from happening,” her father went on in a strained voice. “A warrior who is part beast himself. To protect the world he loves, he must stop the woman from releasing the Druid.”

“How does he do that?” she asked, knowing the answer would not be good. Knowing the apprehension building inside her had its roots in this prophecy. Overwhelmed by exhaustion, by the emotional roller coaster that had brought her here, she braced for the worst. As if sensing her weakness, the thickening air became sticky and weighted. She fought the gelatinous feeling but still it crept in from every shadow.

“I think we’re running out of time,” she said again, but the viscous atmosphere seemed to gobble her words and no one heard.

“Turn the page,” her dad said.

This picture had been penned with quick, bold strokes. The image was clear, though. The woman who’d straddled the two worlds lay in a pool of blackened blood. Her eyes stared sightlessly, her face deathly pale.

“He kills her?” Shealy asked, though she didn’t want an answer. She took the journal from Kyle so she could see the details in the image. A man towered over the woman, larger than life, his clothes in tatters. She thought of that old American television show,
The Incredible Hulk
. This man wasn’t green, but he bulged with muscles, appeared ten feet tall, and his eyes glowed like amber.

She sucked in a breath.
Those eyes . . .

Shealy’s knees felt watery, her legs useless. How she managed to keep standing, she didn’t know, but that feeling of the room closing in on her grew.

Her gaze went back to the dead woman, and now she saw something that made her blood run cold. Low on the side of her face, a crisscross of fine pinkish white lines covered her skin. Lower still, a crescent-shaped scar hooked from just below a burned and damaged ear to her throat.

“That’s me,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper.

“And the warrior,” her dad said in a angry voice. “That would be Tiarnan.”

She turned her widened eyes to the man standing beside her. “Tiarnan?”

“Do not believe these lies, Shealy. I would take the blade myself before I put it to y’.”

“But look at these pictures. That’s us. This was written hundreds of years ago, and they drew us.
Us.
”

“I do not care what they drew,” he said, his voice deep and harsh. “I know y’ do not trust me, but I give y’ my word. I swear to y’, nothing would make me hurt y’, lass.”

“Show him the next page,” her father said coldly.

Kyle took the journal from Shealy’s unresisting fingers and turned the page to another sketch. This one showed five people on a desolate stretch of beach, running as they looked over their shoulders at dragons, swooping down on them. Most of the faces Shealy didn’t recognize, but she saw Liam’s clear enough. Eamonn’s, too.

Tiarnan sucked in a rasping breath and took a step back.

“You know these people, Tiarnan?” Kyle asked.

He nodded. “My brothers. My sister. Her husband.”

All the color had drained from his face. When he looked at her, his eyes burned with thoughts he would not express. She moved to him, put her hands against his chest.

“Read them the sonnet,” her father commanded.

The thickened air surged around her, filling the room like water poured into a tank. Shealy knew she wouldn’t be able to stop the suction that even now pulled at her skin.

“We don’t have time,” Shealy managed to say, louder this time. She tried to push away from Tiarnan, but her knees gave and he caught her just before she fell. Kyle hurried to her side as Tiarnan swung her into his arms. He took her hand, and reached out to touch her father as well, but she knew it was too late. That gel-like sensation that she’d come to know too well rushed in at her, overwhelmed her. It filled all the dark corners and pressed tight to her chest, blocking the air in her lungs. The world turned to a thick fog that swirled and obscured everything from sight. Only the sound of Tiarnan’s heart beating, the feel of his arms kept her anchored. But even that wasn’t enough. She couldn’t see her father anymore, couldn’t find him in the static world of white.

There was only Shealy, Tiarnan, and Kyle locked in the swirling melee that held her tight. Then suddenly she was falling, falling. She felt Tiarnan’s arms tighten around her, curled herself into him. And then her body struck something hard and unyielding. It knocked the breath from her lungs, and blackness swam behind her eyes.

T
IARNAN hit the ground hard, disoriented and confused. His head felt heavy and his stomach sick. He eased to his hands and knees, clammy and queasy. Cathán’s dungeon, the old man who was Shealy’s father, the cold dark—all of it was gone.

Beside him, Shealy rolled onto her back and stared at the sky. He reached for her, turned her face to his. Her eyes were clear, but her pupils were huge and her skin very pale. She focused on him and for a moment something warm moved through those stormy depths, and then a guarded look pushed in and replaced it.

Tiarnan pulled back, hurt and angry. She didn’t trust him—after all they’d been through together, she’d still kept secrets. And now . . . now, it appeared that she believed the lies she’d just been told . . .

Abruptly he stood and took a step away. They’d returned to Eamonn’s makeshift camp. The sun had been rising on a bright morning when they’d stood in front of Jamie, when Shealy had taken Tiarnan and Mahon to the dungeons and her father. Now the sun tumbled from the sky in a violent blaze of color. It would be dark soon. He turned in a circle, searching for Mahon, and spotted him on hands and knees a few yards away. Donnell O’Leary was nowhere in sight. Either he’d been left behind in that dungeon or Shealy had flung him somewhere else.

Shealy.
How could she have kept secrets from him? How could she believe that after holding her, after loving her, he could ever hurt her?

“They’re back,” someone shouted from near the fire and suddenly the camp came alive with activity, but in the center neither Tiarnan nor Shealy moved.

Jamie rushed toward him with Reyes on his heels. They helped Mahon stand and then gathered round. From the other side, Eamonn strode angrily forward with four of his men behind him. One he recognized as Nanda, the Indian man who’d brought them food and water.

Jamie’s steps slowed as he came nearer, and Tiarnan felt the burn of curiosity and wariness in the gaze that raked him from head to toe.

“Where you been, T?” he asked, looking at Tiarnan like he was a stranger—a dangerous stranger. That shadowed caution was too close to what he’d seen in Shealy’s eyes, and it infuriated him. He’d fought beside Jamie time and again, yet now his friend had doubt in his troubled gaze. Would he turn on Tiarnan as Eamonn had? Would they all?

“T?” Jamie repeated. “Where you been?”

Tiarnan didn’t know how to answer the question. He didn’t know where he’d been, how he’d come to be there, or why he was back now. It seemed best to say nothing at all.

Frowning, Jamie glanced at Shealy, studying her grief-ravaged expression, her averted gaze.

“You, Shealy. You’re all right?”

She stood unsteadily and gave him a tight nod.

Eamonn stopped just in front of Tiarnan, so close his presence became a challenge that matched the rage on his face. Jaw tight, he demanded, “Where were y’, brother? How did y’ do it?”

Tiarnan could only imagine what they’d seen. He, Shealy, and Mahon must have disappeared right in front of them.

“It was the girl, wasn’t it?” Eamonn demanded. “Her.” And he pointed at Shealy.

It took all of Tiarnan’s control not to slap his brother’s hand down. His mind worked quickly as he tried to find an explanation that didn’t involve the truth, for even now, even knowing how little faith Shealy had in him, Tiarnan would protect her. He would show her that his heart was true or he would die trying. He didn’t know how these men would react when they learned that Shealy could open the door between the worlds—when they learned that she’d known she had that power and had kept it from them—but he figured that the fewer people who knew, the better. Still, he would have to explain at least some of what had happened. They’d all seen Tiarnan, Shealy, and Mahon disappear. There was no hiding that.

“We must talk,” Tiarnan said to Jamie, ignoring Eamonn and his questions. “We found Shealy’s father.”

Jamie stared from Shealy to Tiarnan with shock and silent consideration. Eamonn was not so composed.

“Y’ found her father?
Y’ must talk?
I’ll hear what y’ have to say.”

Tiarnan rounded on him. “Y’ would hear what I have to say?” he snarled. “Y’ would have me trust y’? Is that it? Well I don’t. So either we battle it out or y’ step away.”

Eamonn clenched his fists tightly and for a moment Tiarnan thought that at last they would fight, but then he let out a tight breath and shook his head. Disappointment and relief made bitter companions in Tiarnan’s gut.

Shealy gave Eamonn a look of disdain and defiance. Tiarnan might have smiled at the daunting front the small woman presented, but there was nothing to laugh about now.

“It doesn’t pertain to you anyway,” Shealy told Eamonn. To Tiarnan, she said in a brittle voice, “I’m sorry, but I think it would be best if our paths parted now. I’m going back for my dad and then I’ll find a way to . . .”

She paused and he felt the anguish of her thoughts as they tangled with her words.

“I don’t want you to have to choose between me and the ones you love.” Her eyes filled with tears and she brushed them away with a trembling hand. “I can’t do that to you. To either one of us. I don’t think—”

Tiarnan didn’t let her get any further.

“How many times, Shealy O’Leary, do I have to tell y’?
Don’t think
. Our paths do not part. Not now. Not ever.”

“Not even in death, Tiarnan?” she asked softly. “Not even when you’re forced to kill me or watch your brothers and sister die?”

“Kill y’?” Eamonn said. “What are y’ talking about woman?”

Shealy’s chin trembled, but she stiffened her back. “Evidently, there’s trouble brewing here on Inis Brandubh, and Tiarnan and I may not be able to stop it from escaping unless Tiarnan stops
me
. There’s a prophecy that says he will murder me to save all the people he loves.”

The horror of the words coming from her lips overwhelmed him. He wanted to grab her, shake her, demand that she forget the lies that journal had told. He wanted to make the words she’d spoken, the pictures they’d seen, vanish. Make it so they never existed at all.

As the silence drew in around them, he felt everything inside him spilling out, the muck and mess that made him the man he was. It was all there, exposed and rotting in the dwindling light, unworthy of the bond that kept the pieces whole. Now Eamonn would tell Shealy about another time when Tiarnan had been forced to choose between his brothers and a woman he’d cared for . . . and Shealy would be convinced that the prophecy was right.

“Again, Tiarnan?” Eamonn demanded as if prompted by the rampant thoughts in Tiarnan’s head, and the question drew Shealy’s frowning gaze.

Before she could ask, before she could question what Eamonn meant, Jamie interrupted, “Kill you?
Murder
you, Shealy?” He gave a harsh laugh. “I don’t believe it.”

The pain in Shealy’s eyes made them glow silver gray. “It’s true. Ask him.”

Tiarnan braced for the question. For Jamie’s dark and intense gaze to swing to his face, analyze the tumult of emotion he’d read there. Jamie was good at that. He’d see the lies and he’d see the truth. But to have his honor questioned by a man he admired would take the legs out from under him. It was already more than he could bear to have Shealy look at him with that fatalistic shine to her tear-drenched eyes.