Haunting Embrace (42 page)

Shadow figures rose from the pages, memories that danced like wisps of smoke. He was aware of Meaghan watching them with terrified eyes, but he couldn’t reassure her. He couldn’t pull his attention from the task at hand. Kyle stood entranced as spiraling shapes wove around him, pulling him closer. The part of Áedán that had yearned to be human wanted to push the other man back, but sacrifices had to be made, and his only goal was to kill the beast and save Meaghan. Right now that beast controlled Kyle.

His chant rose as he cast his spell like a fisherman’s net. The entity he and Elan had created rose like a writhing dragon. It waited, breathless. Within its eyes, Áedán saw Cathán. He saw evil. He saw utter darkness that stretched beyond eternity. The entity and Cathán were coiled so tightly that there was no way to distinguish where one ended and the other began. This was good, because it meant that he need only slay one monster. This was bad because their united force would be impossible to defeat.

Kyle said they knew the ritual, so Áedán had to be very careful. The steps were clear. Once the beast was roused, he must feed it blood, then use the pendant to enthrall it while speaking the words that would pledge his soul and free Cathán’s. Like any deity, the entity wanted blood given in sacrifice.

Still streaming the words of power out into the sea of darkness and corruption that lurked between the Book’s covers, Áedán took Meaghan’s unresisting hand in his own. It looked so small and pale that it broke his heart. He pressed her palm to his lips, murmured, “I’m sorry,” and then, “Good-bye,” against the skin.

Meaghan pleaded with her eyes, but she couldn’t move or speak, and Áedán couldn’t stop the wheel he’d started spinning. Pulling his knife from its sheath, he slashed a line across her palm and turned her hand so that her blood would spill into the open Book. Then he took the knife to his own hand and let his blood join with hers.

A sound rose from the fanning pages, a keening that made his brain hot and his skin cold. He wanted to jerk back. He wanted to flee.

Instead he held tight to Meaghan’s bleeding hand, placed the pendant in the scarlet pool in her palm, and then sealed it with his own open wound. The dragon beast made a sound of sheer pleasure. Sexual and perverted, it echoed through the cavern. Meaghan made a sound as well, one of violation and rage. The feeling of desecration found root inside Áedán, as well, and slammed home the memory of what it was to be part of the Book. He’d told Meaghan he was a prisoner, a hostage. Now total recall of the twisted and sadistic relationship burst forth, reminding him of its dominance, of how it had made him submit to its will.

It demanded submission now, but Áedán forced himself not to weaken. He spoke his words, compelling the dragon to fixate on the pendant soaking in their spilled blood. He watched the viscous red leak from between their fingers and slide down their arms.

Something within him seemed to rise up, and he knew it was his soul—his essence. Kyle’s empty shell collapsed and Áedán felt his own knees wavering as his spirit joined the other shadow figures hovering over the Book of Fennore. He sensed his body still standing, hand clasped tight to Meaghan’s, but the center that made Áedán who he was had been cored.

The force of the beast sucked him in like a great tornado and spun him around, slamming his consciousness against Cathán’s. He felt the life draining from his body, his will to live as a human being evaporating like condensation in a hot wind.

His voice was no longer his own. The beast had taken control, and now it chanted a different spell—one of its own making. The very spell that Áedán had heard on that fated night millennia ago when he’d been sucked into the world of Fennore like krill into the whale’s gaping mouth. He tried to reach out with what remained of himself, pulling at the emotions that would have no home within his prison.

As if sensing the rush of feeling he grappled with, Meaghan’s eyes blinked open, and then she looked at him. Not at the body he’d left behind, but at the spirit he’d become. He forced the love he felt for her to travel the short distance that separated them. Urged her to follow the trail, to
feel
what he needed her to do.

She blinked again and then focused on something beyond him. From the corner of his eye, he saw a blinding light and then a pulsing glow.

Elan. Elan, moving closer. He felt the instant that Cathán and the beast saw her, too. A howl rose from one, a whimper from the other. It seemed they knew more than Áedán about her purpose, because for the first time, he felt fear in them both.

She bent and picked up the knife Áedán had dropped. Holding her arm out, she drew the blade over her wrist, opening the veins that held her lifeblood.

“No,” he shouted, but he had no voice of his own.

She held her wrist over their still-clasped hands and let her sacrifice cover them in a hot spill. Though his connection to his body had been severed, Áedán felt it and it grounded him, drew him closer to the corporeal existence that had once been his.

Her light began to dim in moments, but Áedán felt stronger with each fading pulse. Meaghan sat straighter and then she rolled to her knees. Elan pried open their two hands and plucked the pendant from Áedán’s paralyzed fingers. Their blood dripped from the dangling amulet. Elan placed the pendant around Meaghan’s neck and settled it against her bare skin.

As soon as the pendant made contact, Meaghan gasped, and Áedán felt its power shooting through him like a flaming lance.

Elan moved to Áedán’s side, her light nearly extinguished as the blood poured from her open wound. It looked brilliant against the paleness of her skin and the white of her robe.

“I free you,” she said, and she flattened her palm on the spread pages of the Book of Fennore, smearing it with her blood and pouring her last bit of light into the depths of darkness. “I make myself your sacrifice.”

As if ripped, the ties around Meaghan’s ankles fell away and Meaghan stumbled to her feet, gaze fixed on the extinguished glow of the White Fennore.

The pages of the Book fanned violently, Elan’s substance so depleted that they moved through her hand and wrist as if they didn’t exist. Meaghan stepped past her and pulled Áedán’s inert body into her arms. She pressed her mouth to his unfeeling lips, murmuring words that he couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand. But he felt them, a hot vibration against the ice of his skin. A sleek memory in the turmoil of his thoughts.

And then, she gave him her breath.

The sweet purity of it filled his collapsed lungs and traveled through his sluggish bloodstream. Emotions infused the gift, hot and electric, rich and nourishing. He felt love and compassion, forgiveness and hope, joy and goodwill. Twisting through them was loss and grief, but even those had a sweetness that blossomed in his chest. The feelings mixed with the darkness, becoming every color ever conceived. In light, white is the presence of all colors. Inside Áedán, it was the same.

The brightness exploded, chasing back the shadows, incinerating each tendril of gloom. The beast within the Book howled and fought to keep Áedán captive as the light and Meaghan’s love wrenched him free.

Chapter Thirty-three

W
ITHIN the writhing vapors above the Book of Fennore, Meaghan found Áedán—not in flesh but in soul. She saw the clear brilliance of his essence, the muddied chaos of his emotions. Surrounding him were other shapes, sliding in and out of focus. A creature that took the shape of every nightmare monster she’d ever dreamed. Dragon, devil,
beast.
And linked by chains as thick as her arm was Cathán with his hard blue eyes. Pain and terror contorted his striking features as he fought a battle she couldn’t see.

On one side of her stood Áedán’s corporeal form, on the other, the barely flickering light that was the White Fennore. Meaghan made the link between them, connected to one by touch and the other by some indefinable bond. The pendant burned against Meaghan’s skin, but she felt it fortifying her. She could sense how thin Áedán was stretched between the Book and the world that was real.

She stared into his eyes, willing the man behind them to return, to blink, to react. The deep forest within them shifted and shivered with the effort, but Áedán didn’t return. She felt danger all around her, threatening to spill out and take him over. She was afraid—only a fool wouldn’t be. But Meaghan would not retreat. She took his face between her palms and let him see that she would love him no matter what.

“I feel what’s in your heart,” she said. “And it’s good.”

She stretched up until her lips met his, breathed into his mouth the words that filled her own heart. “I love you, Áedán. Trust me. Trust
yourself
.”

And at last his arms went around her, convulsed until he had her in a grip that was painful, but she didn’t complain. He buried his face in the crook between her neck and shoulder, and she felt him breathing her in, anchoring himself in her scent and feel. Her arms circled him, her fingers plunging into the silk of his hair as she held him, murmured senseless words, let him unravel the gnarled braid of his turmoil. He was not a man who trusted. She’d known that from the start, and yet she felt him trying, felt him reaching through his matted issues and trying.

She’d won a small battle. She’d restored a part of him. But she could still see the swirling essence that made up his heart and soul trapped in the mists of the Book. She would not stop fighting until she held all of him again.

The horrible sound of the Book had receded, but she was not so foolish as to believe it had gone away.

Moving with instinct that had no reason other than its burning pressure, she placed her sliced hand against Áedán’s once more, feeling the heat of their blood mixing together, feeling a surge of energy coil in the tight hollow where their palms met.

Áedán’s voice rose again, speaking that strange tongue that she couldn’t understand, and yet she knew that he cast a spell upon the beast and upon Cathán, who writhed in agony in the vapors. She felt Cathán reaching out to her, his voice more powerful than Áedán’s, his will so irresistible that it coaxed her to release this man who she loved and join him instead.

It tempted. It lured.

Áedán’s fingers tightened around hers, and she felt his spell taking hold. The drops of their blood binding them to the Book, binding the Book to the spell. Trusting Áedán to keep her safe, Meaghan did what she’d been afraid to do for her entire life. She opened herself, spread her thoughts and senses to the wind, and let them guide her.

The feeling that hit her was like a million volts of electricity. The beast within the Book roared with power. Even as she took up her weapons and faced it, she felt it seducing her, offering her everything she ever wanted, all of the power in the heavens and earth. She would be a goddess if she joined it. And in that promise were images, bright and crisp. There was her family and everyone she loved with her, living a blessed life filled with every advantage possible.

It was the stuff of dreams, of fantasies. But what the clever beast inside the Book of Fennore had not taken into account was that Meaghan, unlike Elan, had no doubts about Áedán. She knew that his word was the truth, and she would stay the course.

She fought back her panic and stepped forward, mentally entering the churning world of the Book, feeling the decrepit touch of the beast, the hungry grope of the thing that had once been Cathán and then, trapped in the center of the malaise, was Áedán’s soul. In the real world, she held his hand in hers. In this world, she took him in her arms, lifting him with strength that came from within. She would seal the Book, but she would not leave Áedán behind.

The beast screamed in rage, cringing back from the light she shed in the darkness. Still Áedán’s voice went on, and she could feel the tendrils of the spell hardening, tightening,
working
. At last Meaghan pulled Áedán free. As his soul slipped back into his being, Áedán’s voice grew stronger, louder. Their blood pooled over the pages of the Book, and the symbols dissolved beneath the onslaught. Áedán spoke three sharp sounds, and the Book slammed shut. He released her clasped hand and turned their opened palms to the beveled cover, smeared it with blood, over the sides, into the creases of the pages. Every place it touched, it clung and thickened. Meaghan yanked the pendant from around her neck, pressed it to the lock and twisted it. The click came like an explosion, and the bloody Book went quiet.

Áedán blinked his eyes, gasped, and stared at her in stunned disbelief.

“I knew you could do it,” Meaghan breathed into the sudden silence.

Áedán’s expression held no joy, though. His eyes desperate, he shook his head. “No,” he said. “What we did, what happened today, it will change everything. It will change
you.
I thought I could fix it, but I failed.” He fell to his knees. “I failed.”

At first she didn’t understand—not his words, not the tears in his eyes. He tried to lower his face, to hide them from her, but they’d come too far for that. One spilled over his lashes. Meaghan knelt beside him and pressed her lips to the salty trail it left on his cheek.

But in the emotions that he felt, Meaghan saw the clear picture. In the past that stretched behind them and wrapped into a future yet to be realized, they’d changed too many critical elements. Cathán’s birth would no longer be shaded by Brion’s suspicion that another man had fathered him. He would not grow up in a loveless household. He would not turn to the Book of Fennore to fill the gaping lack in his life. He wouldn’t vanish from this very cavern, leaving Meaghan’s mother free to marry Niall Ballagh.

From this point on, the Book of Fennore would be sealed, the power within it forever snuffed.

Panic threatened to overwhelm her. Had they changed things so drastically that she would not be conceived? Would Meaghan, like Elan, merely fade into nothing?

As if in answer, Meaghan sensed a glow coming toward her. It spread outward and a voice began to speak—not the dark and insidious tones of the Book of Fennore, but a sweet melody that she knew came from the spirit, from Elan. She no longer keened for all she lost. She wove a song of tomorrow and brought the notes as a guide to lead Meaghan now.