Haunting Embrace (15 page)

“Meaghan.”

Kyle again, trying to get her attention.

Áedán let his hand drift up to Meaghan’s nape and the silky skin beneath the heavy warmth of her hair. He rubbed in a gentle, possessive way that every man in the room noted. She shot him a startled glance, and he thought she might push him away. Instead, she looked back at Kyle and nodded.

“Tiarnan—the big warrior who was with us there—he said that he’d damaged the Book of Fennore somehow and left it open and gaping like a giant Devil’s Triangle, just waiting to suck people in. That’s how we all ended up in the belly of that nightmare. We were trying to seal the Book up in the end.”

Áedán went very still, intent as he watched Kyle speak.

“We trapped Cathán—I still don’t know how we did it. But there was another—someone who was supposed to be even more powerful. A Druid, if you can believe. He escaped.”

Meaghan glanced at Áedán and quickly away. Would she tell the truth? Would she reveal his identity to his enemies? Betray him?

Was the history she thought they shared about to be repeated?

He forced himself to remain relaxed, composed, when inside his turmoil raged.

“Where is this Druid now?” she asked, looking for all the world like this was the first she’d heard of him.

Áedán felt something knotted in his chest begin to loosen.

“We don’t know,” Kyle answered. “If he’s walking around, we haven’t seen him.”

Meaghan cocked her head. “How would you recognize him if you saw him?”

Kyle blew out a breath of air. “We’re hoping instinct will guide us.”

There was irony there that should have struck Áedán as funny, but in the taut silence that followed, Áedán felt like he’d been stretched across a huge divide, and each moment thinned him until he might split down the middle, two halves forever incomplete.

“
I’ll
know,” Jamie said, still glaring at Áedán. But he didn’t accuse, he didn’t attack. He might have some suspicion, but not enough to spur action. The man had too much confidence to believe his enemy would dare stroll into his den.

Meaghan cleared her throat. “So you three are the only ones who made it here?” Meaghan said after a moment.

“Until you,” Kyle answered.

Áedán felt a moment of relief at the confirmation that only these two Keepers and Eamonn had made it to this world. The old Keeper who’d known the ancient words had been separated from them. Áedán felt sure
he
would have known what Áedán was.

“We haven’t seen anyone but you three either,” Meaghan said in a calm, earnest voice.

“You two came through together?” That was Jamie. He arrowed that glowering scowl on Áedán.

Coldly, Áedán gazed back. “No,” he answered. “I came five days ago. Alone.”

“No rhyme or reason,” Kyle said with a sad shake of his head, and Áedán had to assume that none of them had arrived together. Like petals thrown into the wind, they’d landed at different times, wherever chance had taken them, some here and some who-knew-where else? This affirmation of what they’d all experienced seemed to subdue the aggression he felt from Jamie.

“The old man and the others are gone,” Eamonn said from his seat on the ledge. “There’s no purpose in asking what happened to them or to my brothers. Let us hope they are in a better place than we are.”

“It could be worse,” Áedán said. “You could still be there, trapped inside.”

Eamonn did not respond. Sullen, he looked down at his wolf.

“Have you heard anything about the Book of Fennore since you came here?” Meaghan asked. “Any rumors? Do you know where it is?”

“We looked for it—still do—but we’ve yet to hear even a hint at where it could be. Lately though . . . I could swear I feel it,” Kyle admitted.

Áedán forced himself not to react to that. If Kyle was aware of the Book, then the Book was aware of Kyle. Was that what Áedán had sensed as he and Meaghan approached the lighthouse? Was it connected to these men and not to Meaghan at all?

“Yeah,” Jamie said with a deep breath. “I feel it, too. Stronger today than ever before.”

As one they all looked at Eamonn. He said nothing, but a gleam of panic prowled deep in his eyes.

“What do you mean, you feel it?” Meaghan asked.

Kyle cut his eyes to Jamie before he answered. At first, Áedán thought Kyle was asking for permission to share. Obviously Jamie led this small pack. But then he saw the weight of that exchanged glance. It wasn’t about permission, it was about trust. These men had survived a year in this place with only themselves—and Eamonn with his wolf, he supposed—to rely on. They did not risk without consensus.

Áedán made note of it for later.

Kyle shook his head. “I can’t explain it. It’s just a sense that the Book is out there. And today it seems closer.”

“It’s searching,” Áedán said. “It’s what it does.”

“And how the fuck would you know what it does?” Jamie demanded.

“I, too, was its prisoner. For far longer than you.”

“That’s what you said. I still don’t remember seeing you.”

“Do not blame me for your own blindness.”

Jamie looked every inch the warrior he’d once been, bristling with aggression as he glared at Áedán from across the table. The fierce black man was not the biggest monster Áedán had ever faced, though. It would take more than his wrath to intimidate Áedán.

“What’s it searching for?” Meaghan cut in before the antagonism ratcheted up another notch.

Me,
Áedán didn’t say.

“Who the fuck knows?” Jamie muttered.

“I’m told I must find it,” Meaghan admitted with a note of desperation in her voice.

“Told?” Jamie leaned forward against the back of his chair, gripping the ladder railing tightly. “
Who
told you?”

“No one you’d know,” she said quickly.

“Try us,” Jamie said in a silky, dark voice that dripped threat.

“I grew up on this island. My family has lived here for generations. My grandmother lives here now.”

Under other circumstances, their shock might have been humorous. As it was, Áedán could find nothing to laugh at in the situation.

Meaghan said, “She has a gift, my grandmother. She sometimes knows things before they happen.”

“And she told you?” Kyle asked gently.

Meaghan nodded.

Kyle covered her hand with his once more, holding it as he stared deeply into Meaghan’s eyes. “Why? Why must you find it? It’s an evil thing. You’ve seen the other side of it. You of all people should know what horrors it holds.”

Áedán tensed beside her. He hated that she looked at Kyle with such unabashed trust, wished that she’d look at him that way. He tightened his hold around her shoulder without meaning to, squeezing hard enough that she glanced at him with surprise. He knew he should ease up and release her, but he didn’t.

“I have to find the Book because it’s the way out,” Meaghan said softly. “The way back to where I belong. Perhaps where we all belong.”

Kyle caught his breath and Jamie sat back for a silent moment. Áedán felt his skin go icy. He was the only one who didn’t want a way back. He would never return to the world of Fennore.

“It’s not a way to where I belong,” Eamonn said, his voice shaking with anger. He stood suddenly, startling the wolf, which bounded to its feet, fur on end and teeth bared. “There is no such place for me.”

With a low growl, the wolf followed Eamonn as he stalked from the room. Its huge paws padded against the worn wooden floors as it passed. As he watched the other man leave, Áedán felt a strange kinship to him. There was no place where Áedán belonged either.

Jamie dismissed Eamonn with a soft snort of breath. “Fucking drama queen.”

Kyle looked a bit more sympathetic. “His has not been an easy road,” he said.

“And ours has been a walk in the park?” Jamie asked.

“They don’t know anything that will help you, Meaghan,” Áedán cut through, tired of the men already.

He felt confined in the strange round room, with its narrow view on the world outside. He wanted to quit this place, and he wished he could simply stomp out as Eamonn had. But he would not leave Meaghan, and he knew she was not inclined to go at the moment. She stared at Kyle like he was a work of art, something crafted from gold and meant to be revered. Áedán wanted to lunge across the table and wrap his fingers around the other man’s throat.

“I think you’re wrong, Áedán,” Meaghan said. “There’s a reason why we five ended up here and no one else did. We are meant to find the Book. I know it.”

She paused, and Áedán floundered in the wary silence she left in her wake. Then slowly, she lowered her hand to her thigh, rubbed something that lay within the pocket of the ugly brown fabric of her dress. He’d noticed her doing it several times before but hadn’t dwelled on it. Now he wondered what she had hidden there. With a look of determination, she pulled the button free of its hole and clenched something in her fist. As she raised her hand to the table, Áedán saw a fine tremble go through it.

She shot him a quick, apologetic look that he didn’t understand, and then she set a small black pouch on the table. “I have this,” she said.

Áedán’s breath stopped completely. He stared at the tiny bag, feeling the waves of power emanating from within it, and at last he understood what he’d felt humming around Meaghan. He knew without having it unveiled what waited inside. Knew without yet seeing that
this
was what he’d been sensing all along, what spiked his dread into something darker, colder, more terrifying. Deep within him, the doubt that the brief glimpse of Elan staring out of Meaghan’s eyes had planted began to take root.

No,
a voice within him still tried to deny it.
No
.

With obvious reluctance, Meaghan reached for the drawstring.

“Don’t,” he said without meaning to.

Her startled blue gaze swung to meet his. For a moment, he held it, silently begging her not to open the pouch. For a moment, it worked. For a moment, no one spoke. No one moved.

And then the color of amethyst filled in the hues of her gaze, and once again he saw Elan watching him. Filling him with icy dread. He could do nothing as Meaghan pulled the string and dumped the pendant out on the table. The drone of its power lashed out at Áedán, so strong, so sudden that it shoved him back. He lurched to his feet, his chair zinging across the floor.

Alarmed, Meaghan asked, “What’s wrong, Áedán?”

He shook his head, unable to voice the warning as she reached for the leather cord and dangled the pendant from her fingers. It swayed in time with the laborious beat of his heart. His lungs felt shrunken, his need to breathe exponentially enlarged. Alternating waves of blazing heat and vicious cold seemed to wash over him as he followed the pendulous swing of the talisman she held.

He forced himself to look away and took in the entranced expressions of the two men at the table. Both watched with fascination and dismay, mixed so completely that one could not be discerned from the other.

“What is it?” Jamie asked, but he’d leaned back, as if instinct had guided him away from the thing she held.

“Where did you get it?” Kyle murmured, voicing the question Áedán could not form. The other man leaned forward, as if dared by some inner voice to hide his fear.

“Do you know what it is?” Meaghan asked.

“Looks old,” Jamie said.

Áedán fought the urge to cover the damned thing, to hide it from their prying eyes. He knew exactly what it was. He knew, because he had made it with his own hands. He’d hammered the silver, set the gems, given the sacred amulet to Elan, the woman he’d loved, with his pledge, with his heart.

And Elan, who could see death, had used it to entomb him within the Book of Fennore.

As he stared, mesmerized by the ancient sparkle and dull shine, he had the sense of something huge moving beneath his feet, beneath the earth, like a rampant fire, devouring all that lived as it consumed the crust that divided the land from the lavas that flowed underneath. It shook the ground, it sent tremors through the air.

Meaghan held the key to the Book of Fennore. With it, she could open the Book.

And if he was right about what—about
who—
he’d glimpsed behind Meaghan’s eyes, then she could lock it up with him inside once more.

No,
he wanted to shout. But on that day when Elan had cursed him, she had promised to return one day and judge him again.
Judge. Him.
His fury flared at the memory. He’d waited in vain for that day to come. Could it be now? Had she chosen to use Meaghan as her vessel?

Meaghan turned suddenly and pinned him with her gaze, looked so deeply
into
him that he felt as if he fell through the tunnel her eyes had become. Down and down he plummeted until he saw his own soul laid bare by the beauty and treachery within her. And suddenly he understood the history that seemed to span their past. The history they shared was with the Book of Fennore.

And with a past that seemed destined to repeat itself.

Chapter Ten

K
YLE stood as if mesmerized and moved around the table to her side. Meaghan forced her gaze from the endless green of Áedán’s eyes to focus on him. She, too, pushed to her feet, unwilling to remain seated between the two towering men. A wave of vertigo unbalanced her when she stood, making her sway while black and white spots bloomed behind her eyes. She felt like she might topple into some great abyss, a darkness that held every fear she’d ever conceived.

Kyle reached out and caught her arm to steady her in the same instant that Áedán grabbed the other, and panic shot through her at the searing touch of both men. She twisted and tugged, staggering back once she was free. She didn’t understand the terror that suddenly gripped her, but it vibrated in the air around her, pressed down like a fierce storm from above.

She still held the pendant in her hand. It dangled gleefully, swishing back and forth in the invisible currents that buffeted them all.

“What the fuck?” Jamie muttered. He was on his feet as well.