Haunting Desire (38 page)

After all they’d been through, she knew that couldn’t be true, but it was hard to argue with those amazing eyes and that crooked grin that made her knees feel weak.

“Do you know what I think—” she began, but Tiarnan only laughed.

“How many times do I need to tell y’, lass. Don’t think.”

Turn the page for a preview of Erin Quinn’s next book in the Mists of Ireland series . . .

Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!

F
ROM the deck of the small fishing vessel, Áedán could see the dark opening of the sea cavern at the base of the jagged shoreline. From here, it looked smaller than he knew it to be, but it called to him, a black hole that was at once ancient, threatening, and expectant. So many turning points of his life had played out in that cavern that in his mind it had become a great, yawning beast waiting to devour what was left of him.

High above it, castle ruins teetered in crumbled disgrace, the desolate remains adding another layer to the menace that shrouded the cliffs. Slowly, he scanned their stark solitude before his gaze returned unerringly to the arched opening at sea level where the icy tide surged in and out, in and out. Each suck and pull begged Áedán to come closer and impelled him to flee until he felt mad from the conflicting urges.

He’d been too long without emotions, without the trappings of humanity. Now the influx of so many disagreeing reactions left him feeling bound and burdened.

He forced himself to look away and focus on the fishing net in his hands. Since they’d docked in the bay an hour ago, he’d been cutting away the rotted sections and replacing them. It was a tedious, loathsome task—something he’d never imagined one such as he would be reduced to. He refused to consider that his present circumstances might be anything but temporary, though.

“You’re looking peaked, Mr. Brady,” Mickey said, stepping out of the cabin to eye Áedán critically. “Are you under the weather, then?”

Mr. Brady.
Áedán hadn’t known where he was and—at first—couldn’t remember how he’d come to be there when Mickey had found him five days ago, washed up on the rocky beach. Mickey had asked his name, and Áedán almost answered without thought. For too long he’d been known only as Brandubh, the Black Raven, the Druid, but it would be foolish to announce to this stranger that he was the powerful entity of the ancient Book of Fennore—the being that had been feared by humans for thousands of years.

“Bra—I mean, Áedán,” he’d amended quickly. “My name is Áedán.”

Mickey had stared at him with narrowed eyes. “And would that be Brady, you were about to say?” he asked, knowing he hadn’t gotten it right but inadvertently offering Áedán the cover he needed.

Áedán nodded. “Yes. Brady.”

“You’re a tad south, aren’t you?”

Áedán shrugged, not sure what was meant by that.

“Ah, well. What’s it matter? You speak a bit odd, but I won’t be hiring you for your elocution, will I now?”

To that, Áedán said nothing. Mickey had put him to work on the
The Angel
and questioned him no more. From that point on, he became Áedán Brady, and for the privilege of sleeping in the surprisingly tidy berth below deck and taking meals with Mickey and his lovely, pregnant wife, Colleen, and his infant son, Niall, Áedán had toiled like a slave every day since.

It was incomprehensible that this had become his reality. That he,
Brandubh,
had come to this miserable existence.

“I am fine, Mr. Ballagh,” Áedán answered Mickey’s question now, looking into the fisherman’s concerned face. “Just a bit seasick, I suppose.”

“Aye?” Mickey frowned. Mickey was more at home at sea than on land.

The waves that had been gently lapping the hull of
The Angel
surged suddenly, tilting the boat to a dangerous angle, halting any other comments as Mickey hurried to check the lines securing her
.
“I can’t say I’ve ever seen the bay like this,” he said, eyeing it distrustfully before cutting his gaze to the man-made barricade that usually subdued the fierce tides enough to create a safe harbor. “Would you look at how fast that storm is moving in? Best batten the hatches else it will be on us before we’ve a hint of what’s in store.”

It was much more than a storm approaching, but Áedán didn’t say it. He didn’t know what came under its guise, even though it rasped against his senses like the scales of a serpent slithering through the night.

He picked up the knife he’d been using, intending to sheath it so he could help Mickey, just as a more violent surge slammed the boat. The knife jerked across his other hand, cutting it deeply. Immediately blood began to spill from a long slice on his palm and drip to the deck beneath his feet. It caught him by surprise, the sight of his own blood. He could not recall the last time he’d seen it.

His involuntary curse had Mickey hurrying to his side. “Ach, looks bad, lad,” Mickey said, whipping a handkerchief from his pocket. He gave it a dubious glance and then wrapped it around Áedán’s hand anyway. “You best go on to the house and tell the missus to patch you up. She’s not worth much, that woman, but she can stitch as well as any doctor.”

Áedán looked at the sky and then the ship that still needed to be readied before the storm.

“Don’t worry on that,” Mickey said. “I’ll finish it up, and you’ll have your meal and your bed just as if I’d had a full day’s labor from you. It will all come out right in the end.”

Áedán held to that thought. Yes, it would all come out right in the end. When he was restored, when he was once again as powerful as he’d been, Áedán would remember Mickey’s act of kindness.

Gratitude
. He frowned in disgust.
Another
emotion.

With a nod, Áedán stepped onto the weathered dock and strode away in the direction of Mickey’s small house. But the lure of the cavern intensified with each step until he found himself turning toward it
.
Denying it seemed pointless and too cowardly—
too human
.

No matter that he answered to the name of Áedán Brady now, inside he was still Brandubh. The Black Raven. The most powerful Druid to ever draw breath.

As soon as he crested the first hill and was out of Mickey’s sight, he veered off, his feet moving faster of their own accord as he headed to the ruins that landmarked the place to descend. The sky darkened and lightning split it into a thousand gray-white pieces as rain began to pelt him with fury.

Filled with urgency, he fought down the pervasive dread that battered him like the sea against the cliffs. He did not know what waited in the cavern, what new turning point it had in store. But he refused to let fear control him. Never again would he allow anything—
anyone—
to rule him.

By the time he reached the point where he could see the ruined castle, he was drenched and out of breath. For a moment he stilled, quaking inside as thunder exploded above. Emotions he couldn’t begin to comprehend churned into foam and flotsam, miring any logic that might have surfaced.

Mindless, he raced to the stairs, pausing at the top as his eyes followed their deteriorated slope to the rocky beach below. He knew it had been millennia since he’d hacked them out of the granite cliff, and yet seeing the eroded decay solidified the sense of an eternity come and gone that was his life. Yet he could remember clearly the feeling of dangling over that abyss, of laughing at the danger, the peril of a fall as he’d carved each step. The stone had sparkled with hidden crystals and the sun had favored them, favored him. He’d been Brandubh, the bold Druid. Powerful. Feared.

The steps were nearly worn away and caked with moss and slime. Treacherous in this storm and still he made his way down, trying to convince himself that his actions were his own. That he came because he was ready, not because he was compelled. The throbbing pain in his wounded hand kept him alert, kept him here and now when it felt like a thousand hooks had embedded in his skin with the lines attaching them stretched taut and towing him forward.

The storm had arrived with all the stealth and vehemence of his perdition. It whipped the sea into a tempest, and huge waves slammed against the beach, trying to shuck him out from between the rocks. They did not dissuade him. He was set now—determined to reach the cavern and face whatever it was that made a Druid fear.

He breached the point where giant boulders made rebellious sentries to the entrance, withstanding the rage of the tides. Then at last he stood in the small passageway that led into the cavern.

A shudder shook him from inside out, like the thunderous storm unleashed. He crossed the threshold into its blackness like a lamb to its slaughter.

The shadows inside heaved and lulled with the fearsome waves, splashing a black tide pool up against the guard stones that surrounded it. For a moment, he took it all in, comparing every detail to his memory of them—the rough walls, the uneven floor, the oily pool that glittered like a thousand mirrors reflecting and refracting the waning light from outside. But it was the runes on the walls—endless spiral symbols that had burned into the stone—that struck him to the core.

Those symbols covered the Book of Fennore, had flowed over each of its sacred pages. Those symbols were embedded in his soul like scars upon scars.

Breathing deep of the wet salty spray, he forced himself to advance into the cavern, laboriously separating shadow from shape. He felt the humming power that had once been his, felt the presence of the Book of Fennore, though he could not see it. So intent was he that he almost stumbled over the woman.

Stunned, he looked down at her crumpled body, and recognition caught him as unaware as this sudden storm, as his presence here in a place he’d vowed never to return to.

He’d seen her before, met her in the nightmare world called Inis Brandubh—a prison named ironically for the prisoner. They’d been allies of sorts, if such a thing could be had by one such as he.

Was she the reason he’d felt compelled to come here? A mere human? A woman?

She wore the same clothes she’d had on when last he’d seen her, though they were decidedly worse for the wear. Sprawled on the hard cold rocks as if she’d been flung there by a greater power, her skin was pale and unblemished, her hair damp and clinging to her head. She looked frail and defenseless, yet he knew better than to forget that beneath that pallor lurked a feisty woman who’d almost broken his nose the first time he’d met her.

He stood over her now, taking in the full curves, the soft slope of her belly, bared where the T-shirt rucked up around her ribs. Dark, greenish bruises covered her arms, and a particularly nasty one spread upward from her hip bone, black and purple above the waist of her jeans. For a moment the sight of her battered flesh touched off something inside of him. Sympathy? Compassion? Concern?

The alien emotions jeered at him. He did not care about others, especially those who weren’t of some use to him. For
eons
he’d been an entity, a thing that did not experience, did not rejoice, did not mourn. He’d lived to siphon the emotions of others, to drain them dry, make them so empty that they’d choose death over their hollow existence. But he’d
felt
nothing for them, for their plight, for their demise.

And he felt nothing for this woman either.

She stirred, her eyes opening in the darkness, the palest of blue. She looked frightened, and with a groan she tried to lift her head. It seemed the effort took more than she had, but after a moment’s struggle, she sat. She hadn’t seen him yet, but her hands moved to tug her T-shirt back in place and smooth her hair in a self-conscious manner so unguarded that it made him pause.

Then she turned that clear, bewildered gaze to his face.

“Áedán,” she breathed, and in the moment it took for the sound to whisper over his skin, he saw her expression change from puzzlement to recognition and then something darker, sweeter. It surprised him even as it shocked a reaction from him.

The stark answer filled his head. An eternity without end.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, his confusion making his voice harsh, his infuriating fear still riding him without revealing its source.

The blue eyes darkened, wounded, and like a fool he felt another wave of compassion.
Feck,
he thought, using one of Mickey Ballagh’s words.

He hunkered down beside her and she flinched, the small reaction like a flame held to his bare skin. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he snapped, his anger feeding itself. “How did you get here?”

She shook her head, and Áedán noted that her eyes seemed glazed and unfocused as she searched his features. Instead of answering his question, she placed one palm against the roughened stubble on his cheek and the other over his pounding heart. He found his own hands against the soft, rounded curves of her shoulders and told himself he meant to push her away.