Haunting Embrace (16 page)

Meaghan couldn’t answer. She looked back to Áedán, found him staring at her with shocked eyes and a pale face. His emotions ripped through her like hot razors, slicing deeply but so quick and clean that she was sure pieces of herself would fall free before she even registered the pain. For a moment, it seemed that only the two of them existed, trapped once again in a netherworld.

She snatched the pouch from the table, dropped the pendant inside it, and pulled the drawstring with a snap that commanded the silence encapsulating them all. She could still sense the drone of power buzzing from it, and she felt exposed, endangered . . . preyed upon in this bizarre circular room. She swallowed hard and moved to stuff the pendant back in her pocket, but Jamie reached across the table to stop her.

Beside her, Áedán moved so quickly it left her stunned. His big hand slammed Jamie’s shoulder, knocking the other man back before he could reach her.

“Don’t touch her,” Áedán warned, his voice low and full of threat.

The two men faced off, every muscle tense, ready to rise to a challenge that Meaghan hadn’t seen coming. Quickly Meaghan stuffed the pendant into her pocket and buttoned it. She could feel the burn through the fabric and wished for her coat to protect her skin, but it hung on the rack just inside the door downstairs, and she didn’t dare turn her back on the fuse that hissed between the men.

“Where’d you get that pendant, Meaghan?” Jamie asked her, but he didn’t look at her while he spoke. He and Áedán remained locked in a silent battle, and neither seemed inclined to disengage.

“My grandmother gave it to me. It’s a family heirloom.”

The words must have caught them both by surprise because, as one, they faced her. Jamie with confusion. Áedán with something more disturbing, as if she’d unwittingly offered a solution to a plaguing quandary.

“Why?” Jamie asked.

“When?” Áedán demanded.

“And you think it will help you find the Book of Fennore?” Kyle said calmly—yet she knew he focused on the tension between Jamie and Áedán as much as she did. The two men were like a rumbling storm in the strange room, with Meaghan and Kyle at the precarious eye waiting for the deadly shift.

She chose to answer Kyle and ignore the other two.

“I think it must be linked to the Book of Fennore,” she said softly. “This pendant is embedded with the same symbols that mark the cover and pages of the Book.”

That wasn’t the only reason she knew the pendant and the Book of Fennore held a connection. Even if the pendant had looked nothing like the symbols of the Book, she’d have known they belonged together. When she held it, it made her feel like a channel to something deep and unknown. It was tantamount to balancing on a blade’s edge above a gaping chasm.

Áedán’s stare was fixed and penetrating. She had the uneasy feeling that he’d heard her omissions along with her words. There’d been a moment there when the room had seemed to vanish, when only Meaghan, the pendant, and the verdant stretch of Áedán’s eyes had existed. She’d been galvanized by the sensations shooting through her.

Kyle said, “Why did your grandmother give the pendant to you, Meaghan? Did she know what it was?”

He touched her again and Meaghan looked warily at Áedán. He didn’t like it. She’d have to be blind and dim-witted not to realize that. Áedán looked like a great beast guarding his territory, and somehow she’d fallen into his perceived boundaries. He made a sound deep in his throat, but he was more concerned with Jamie than Kyle at that moment.

Cautiously, she put some distance between her and Kyle; at the same time, she reached out with her senses to gauge the emotions churning around her. Either Kyle was as cool and calm as he looked or her sensors had been dulled by Áedán’s wildly flaring aggression and the persistent buzz of the pendant burning into her leg.

“I don’t think my grandmother knows anything about the pendant,” she said in answer to Kyle’s question.

She could feel the amulet thrumming, blazing now. Angry, wanting to be free. The reaction felt strong—stronger than before. Why had it become so agitated? Was it because of someone in this room? Because of the chaos and tension that bound them together?

“Are you all right, Meaghan?” Kyle asked gently.

Keeping her eyes lowered, she rubbed her forehead with her fingers and nodded. “I’m fine. Sorry, just a little overwhelmed, I guess.”

“We all felt that way in the beginning,” Kyle said.

His tone and his words held consolation. He used past tense. Did that mean he no longer felt beleaguered by what had happened to them? If she remained stuck here, would she come to look at it as something terrible that no longer affected her too much?

Don’t even think about that.
She refused to consider for an instant that she might be trapped here forever.

“What time is it?” Meaghan asked as the steady ticktock of the clock in the kitchen penetrated her confusion. She was suddenly fearful that she’d lost all track of time in the shifting currents that swirled around them.

“Almost five,” Kyle said.

“I need to go.” She moved abruptly toward the stairs, glancing at Áedán as she did. His expression was closed, his eyes reflecting nothing of what he thought. “I told Colleen I would be back before dinner.”

“Colleen?” Jamie repeated.

“Colleen Ballagh,” Meaghan answered. “My grandmother.”

He muttered something that sounded like
Colleen of the Ballagh
, but didn’t explain. Colleen’s visitor, Saraid, had called her the same thing.

“Do you know Colleen?” she asked. In a small town like Ballyfionúir, most people knew each other, but Colleen had said they’d never met. Meaghan didn’t see recognition in Jamie’s expression, only caution. If she didn’t find it so hard to believe, she might even think he looked afraid.

“Heard of her,” Jamie said.

If possible, Áedán became more rigid.

“Can I come back?” she asked, directing her question to Kyle. “Will you help me find the Book of Fennore?”

“Yes,” Kyle said without hesitation. “If you believe it can get us out of here, then yes, I will help you.”

“You realize it could just pull us back to where we were?” Jamie said, his tone sharply edged. “I’d much rather live in a lighthouse than fight for my life every day there.”

Jamie voiced nearly the same sentiments Áedán had earlier, but instead of agreeing with him, Áedán asked, “Are you such a coward, then?”

Jamie didn’t even bat an eye or raise his voice, but then, he didn’t need to.

“You want to find out what kind of man I am? I can give you a lesson right here, right now.”

The smile that curled Áedán’s lips was cold and fierce. He wanted to grasp that gauntlet. Meaghan could see it in his face. She didn’t understand how or why the situation had spiraled so out of control, but clearly these two men wanted to take one another down.

Feck.
“We don’t have time, Áedán,” she said quickly. “I have to get back. So do you. Mickey will wonder where you are.”

Áedán had not looked away from Jamie.

“Áedán,” she insisted. “You know he will punish Colleen if we arrive late.”

The mention of Colleen facing Mickey’s wicked temper did the trick. She saw the tension ebb from his shoulders, and he tore his gaze away from the black pits of Jamie’s eyes. His fists, though, remained clenched tight.

“Perhaps later, you can give me your
lesson
,” Áedán said to Jamie, the taunt insultingly clear.

“That’d be my pleasure.”

Jamie took a step forward and so did Áedán, both men as graceful as cats. Very big cats, roped in muscle and ready to pounce.

“Do you think we could crank the testosterone down a wee bit? It’s giving me a headache.”

Meaghan put a restraining hand on Áedán’s arm, mentally rolling her eyes as she did it. Like
that
would make a difference. Holding him back if he meant to attack would be like holding back a charging lion.

But these thoughts vanished as soon as her skin touched his because, at that moment, two things happened.

He snapped his gaze to where her fingers curled over his muscled forearm, Jamie forgotten.

And everything he thought, everything he felt rushed at her like a torrential storm.

Hatred and suspicion, anger and betrayal, pain that raged through each cell in his body, and fury that demanded blood to be satisfied flooded Meaghan. And holding it all together was the agonized bewilderment of a man who never saw the precipice until he’d plunged headfirst over it.

The churn and turn of each conflicted sentiment slaughtered her own thoughts and feelings, leaving her a shredded and bleeding mass of uncertainty.

Áedán’s eyes narrowed and he shook her off, backing up a step. The horror in his expression slammed against her, making her suck in a breath.

Unaware of the turmoil and conflict, Jamie gave a bark of laughter, muttering something about the testosterone giving everyone a headache, and then he turned his back on Áedán and the rest of them.

Feeling like she walked a tightwire over disaster, Meaghan said good-bye and fled the lighthouse, a host of questions dogging her footsteps.

And a man she didn’t trust but couldn’t ignore, following too close for comfort behind her.

Chapter Eleven

M
EAGHAN would never know how she’d managed to keep her face from showing her thoughts. Perhaps she failed, yet Áedán strode silently beside her, absorbed in his own ponderings. He might not have noticed if she’d sprouted multiple heads.

What had she seen when she’d touched him? For there’d been images in that dark mix of emotions, pictures blurred by the impact of his furor. Mysterious, dangerous, obsessive memories that had flashed with the speed of a shuffling deck of cards. She’d been unable to grasp any one image before the next toppled over it, before another took its place.

Where had that perplexing hatred she’d felt in him come from? And why had it seemed to be directed at
her
?

Áedán waited until they’d traveled along the twisted path and the lighthouse was no longer in sight before he spoke.

“When did Colleen give you the pendant, Meaghan?” he asked softly. His voice sounded deeper than usual, and the deep rumble of it made her shiver.

“After we left the cavern. She said her visitor, Saraid, told her to give it to me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It frightened me.”
You
frighten me.

“It should,” he said but didn’t bother to explain. “Did Colleen tell you why Saraid meant for you to have it?”

Meaghan shook her head. “She thought it might take me home. Obviously, it didn’t. Do you know what it is?”

“A key.”

Meaghan swallowed. She’d guessed it, but hearing his confirmation unsettled her even more. She nodded slowly, saying, “A key to the Book of Fennore. Does that mean it opens it or that it controls it in some way?”

“Both. And neither.”

His eyes glimmered with a thousand shades, myriad emotions swirling in golds and greens, flecked with pain and grief, with rage and yearning.

Meaghan forced herself to look away from all she saw there. “I’m sick of your cryptic answers,” she said. “Why can’t you just tell me the truth?”

He turned on her suddenly, hostility burning in his eyes, but with it, something else. Something wounded. “What truth do you want to hear, little witch?”

“Little wit—? Why are you so angry? Let’s start there.”

His flare of rage singed her skin and made her stumble backward. He advanced on her intently. He looked big and scary and wild-eyed, and Meaghan was completely at his mercy on this isolated and deserted road.

“What do you mean to do with your key, Meaghan?” he demanded. “Trap me?”

“Trap you . . . ? No. Why would I do that? I’m trying to get us home.”

“Home?” he repeated. “Get us
home
?”

He spoke softly, but the whip and lash of his outrage flayed her.

“It is because of
you
that I was trapped for all of
fecking eternity
,” he said. “Because of you, I have no home.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. “What are you talking about? Do you know how crazy you sound? I wouldn’t know how to trap you if I wanted to—and I don’t. Are you listening? I don’t even
want
the fecking pendant.”

“No? Then give it to me.”

“Why? What will you do with it?”

Instead of answering, he gave her a smile colder than the waters she’d plunged into that afternoon. She bumped against something hard and realized that once again he’d backed her into one of the huge balancing boulders at the cliff’s edge. They were alone up here, just the two of them, with not another soul in sight. If he wanted to, he could take the pendant, push her over the side, and no one would be the wiser.

She licked her lips, tried to slow her shallow breaths. He watched her every move.

“I didn’t trap you anywhere, Áedán. I was a prisoner just like you were.”

“Oh yes, and why, I wonder, did Cathán want you there?”

He took another step, using his arms to cage her against the boulder.
Caught between a rock and a hard place,
she thought grimly. In her pocket, the pendant purred happily.

“Why did he want you, little witch?”

“Don’t call me that. I’m not a witch.”

He lowered his head and breathed in the scent of her, a huge predator ready to abrade her skin with its sandpaper tongue before it began to feast.

“You heard them,” she said, gesturing back to the lighthouse, trying to keep her voice steady to hide the terror she felt. “The Book was like a Devil’s Triangle. People were sucked in. I was one of them. It wasn’t Cathán who wanted me. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Bollocks,” he said softly, using slang he must have learned from Mickey. “More than chance brought you. I see what’s in your eyes.”

His voice dropped an octave until it became something she felt rather than heard. He lifted a hand to her throat, let his fingers curl over the sensitive skin. He didn’t squeeze; he didn’t hurt her. In fact, the emotions pouring off him now were much sweeter than rage. They spilled like hot, spiced rum over her, coating her. Turning her into something perilously flammable.