Haunting Warrior (39 page)

Rory didn’t care about Tiarnan and his feelings—Saraid’s older brother had been an asshole to Rory from the first moment, but he’d be inhuman not to feel some of the other man’s pain. It was obvious he loved Mauri. Hell, that had been obvious from the first time Rory had seen the two together, gazing longingly into each other’s eyes. He knew that the decision Tiarnan had made to use Mauri as the means to escape Cathán’s killers had probably been a balls-to-the-wall choice—not one Rory would have ever made. Still, he doubted Tiarnan would have done it if there’d been other options. He’d gambled, thought using her would save them all. And he’d been right, at least for the time being. But Tiarnan had lost everything in that roll of the dice.

Rory glanced at Saraid beside him, thinking how deep it would cut if she turned off her feelings for him as easily as Mauri had for Tiarnan. The thought nearly knocked him off his horse.

Is that where his head was right now? Of all that had happened, of all that was still happening, was his greatest concern for this stranger he’d married, held in his arms, made love to—fierce though that loving had been—and knew not at all?

She looked upset, and he knew it was over something said by one of the Three Stooges who’d blown into camp last night. He didn’t have to be a mind reader to feel the tension around her now. She’d lied to him—granted it was a lie of omission—but still it hurt more than he cared to admit. Now she was sealed up like Fort Knox, barely looking at him.

He wished he could do as she’d done—speak into her thoughts. Ask her what was wrong. But he didn’t know how. He’d
never
known how. His sister, Danni, could do it, and once opened, he could communicate along the channels she’d cleared. But he’d never been able to pave the way himself. A person’s mind was not like an animal’s, not like soaring through the woods and brushing against instinct and emotion pure and clear. A human’s mind was complex and daunting. A
female’s
mind was that times a hundred.

He shifted and rested a protective hand over the puppy that lay inside his torn and stained tunic, snuggled against his belly. Michael had patched the bedraggled dog’s wounds, and with a full stomach, it had only wanted to curl up someplace safe and dark to sleep. When it had wiggled its way from Rory’s hands to his chest, then poked its head under his neckline and down inside his tunic, Rory had laughed. Now the animal was like a furnace there, but he didn’t have the heart to move it.

He glanced at Saraid again, noting the tight line of her mouth, the small pucker of a frown pulling her brow together. What was she thinking? He let out a breath, frustrated. The Stooges told him that the other version of himself—the Bloodletter—had grown up in this place and been a victim of the Book of Fennore. Turned from a boy into a pitiless monster. It explained so much but left so many unanswered questions. His twin had lived here with his father until just yesterday when he’d died. Correction, until he’d been murdered.

“You knew me when I was a kid?” Rory asked.

Surprised, Saraid nodded. “Until y’ were ten and yer father sent y’ away.”

“Sent me away to where?”

“To foster with a clan in the north. Most people foster their children—sons and daughters alike. If our parents had lived, they’d have done the same with me and the boys.”

“Why does everyone send their kids off?”

“It’s good for them. For everyone, I suppose. Brings our tribes closer together, creates kinship. Most have great feeling for their foster families.”

That made sense.

“So who was this family in the north I went to live with?”

“That I do not know. They were Northmen, kin of Cathán’s wife. Y’ were taught about war while y’ were with them and they taught y’ how to fight like the Northmen do. Some think it was there that y’ and
riastradh
found one another.

Riastradh.
Rory tried to catalog the word and find its meaning, but he came up blank.

“What is that?” he asked at last.

“Do y’ not know?” she said, surprise making her lilt more pronounced. “It is the frenzy that takes a man when he fights. They say when he has
riastradh
, he has no sense of being a man, a human. He is aware only of blood and the need to spill more of it.”

Rory was silent for a moment, thinking of the red rage that had colored his world when he’d heard Saraid scream. He remembered next to nothing of what happened between the time her cries echoed in the still forest and his awaking this morning. Sure there were bits, disconnected pieces. But everything else was a strong hum that vibrated through him—not a memory, not a recollection, but a feeling he couldn’t pin down.

Saraid was watching him with curious eyes and he felt stripped beneath the steadiness of it. At least she was looking at him again. After a moment, she went on, but her gaze still lingered on his face, probing, seeking.

“Others say y’ were born with
riastradh
and the Northmen only nurtured it. However it was, y’ left a wake of blood and death wherever y’ went. I know now it wasn’t yer fault and I feel bad for that boy who had his life stolen from him. It’s glad I am that yer sister gave y’ a second chance. The Bloodletter that lived here . . . he was not a man. He was a caged beast.”

“Christ. And you married me anyway?”

“I told y’. I did it for the hope of peace.”

He shook his head at the foolishness of that. She should have known better than to trust Cathán or a man who was renowned for his killings.

“Tiarnan said the Bloodletter came in person to offer for me. Y’ told him y’ desired me. He believed y’.”

Rory stared at her, noting the way the sun gleamed off her hair, setting the reds mixed in the dark strands aflame. Her face pinked up as she gazed back at him, watching him take in every feature of her face from high proud cheekbones to round and stubborn chin. Her eyes were drowning deep, her brows a graceful arch above them. Her nose was a little long, but it balanced her other features and ended at her full and kissable mouth. Rory had known from the first moment he’d stepped inside his twin that they both desired her.

“There’s no lie there,” he said. “I do desire you.”

His mouth went dry at the way those words seemed to travel over her skin, heating it. Turning the dark of her eyes molten.
Desire
was too mild a word for what he felt when he was near her.

Her blush deepened, and he wondered if she’d heard his thoughts.

“Is it true what y’ said earlier,” she began, talking fast to hide her discomfort, “that y’ put the mark of the Book on yer own flesh?”

“Yes,” he said, and it was his turn to look away.

He didn’t want to talk about that. He’d rather talk about this
desire
thing between them. But he knew Saraid well enough by now to know she wouldn’t let it go. It wasn’t in her nature to move on when she knew there was more.

“Why would y’ do such a thing, Ruairi?”

“I was bored.”

She leaned over and touched his hand. “Do not lie to me.”

The simple request carried so much weight.
Don’t lie
, it said.
Not after all we’ve been through together. Not if you want there to be more for us to share.
It was written in those velvet eyes, and he couldn’t ignore it. Yet, she had lied to him. He wanted to point that out, to deflect her investigation into the life of Rory MacGrath. He knew he could turn the tables on her with a word.

Or he could do something totally outside his experience. He could trust. He could believe that she had a reason for not telling him what the Three Stooges had said. He could trust that eventually she would tell him why.

“The Book marked me when I was five,” he said slowly, drawing the words out, feeling their sharp edges as they emerged. “Inside, I mean.”

Her eyes widened, but she said nothing.

“It changed who I was. Who I was going to be. Made me feel like I didn’t fit in my life anymore. It took my father and left me behind, holding the bag, thinking it was my fault. Like if I’d done something differently, he’d still be there. It left me empty, torn apart.” He shook his head. “I didn’t realize until yesterday that I’d been literally ripped in two.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable with this baring of his soul. Saraid watched him with those knowing eyes of hers and waited for him to go on.

“I was fifteen, maybe sixteen when I burned the mark on my chest. I guess in my own twisted mind, it was my way of lashing out. Hurting what it thought it owned.”

She considered that for a quiet moment before speaking. “I can see where y’ might have thought of it that way. I wish I knew how to hurt it back.”

He wanted to say it didn’t matter, because he was going to destroy the Book. He didn’t care if the Three Stooges riding behind them thought it was impossible. He would find a way.

“It was the truth, what I said to y’, Ruairi,” Saraid blurted suddenly. “I never knew my mother had the Book until they told me last night.”

The look in her eyes was black and tortured, and he realized with a sudden dawning comprehension that part of what had her upset was him. She was worried he thought less of her now for having caught her lie. He nudged his horse closer so that his leg touched hers. Gently he covered her hand with his and let his thumb stroke the heated pulse at her wrist. She took in a ragged breath and lowered her eyes.

“I believe you,” he said. “But you need to talk to me. Tell me what’s going on behind those big brown eyes.”

She swallowed and shook her head.

“Come on, spill it,” he said. “I told you my secret.”

He smiled, dipping his head so he could see her face when she kept it lowered. He knew she caught his grin from the corner of her eyes, but she didn’t smile back.

“Did y’ never wonder why I wasn’t already married?” she whispered.

Rory frowned and shook his head. “No. In my world you’re still young for that.”

Now she did smile, but it was filled with sadness. “In my world I’m quite old. Most women have husbands and children before they reach their twentieth year.”

He gave a small nod. “Okay. Why didn’t you? Were you waiting for me?”

He’d meant it to be teasing, but there was a throb in his voice that shook him. Christ, he had it bad for this woman. Beneath his hand, her pulse beat frantically.

“No,” she said stiffly. “I was not waiting for y’.”

Good to know she wasn’t trying to spare his feelings. Not so great to know she hadn’t been waiting, because somewhere deep inside, he suspected that
he’d
been waiting for
her
all his life.

Frowning, he said, “Then why?”

“No one would have me, Ruairi.”

He looked her over, not sure what she meant by that. She wasn’t joking—that was painfully clear. But what kind of idiot wouldn’t
have
a woman like Saraid? She was beautiful, sexy as hell, and she was smart. There was so much courage and honor. Loyalty and integrity. The men of this time had to have shit for brains not to want that in their women.

“The men, they fear me,” she said. “They fear what I can do.” And suddenly he began to see the light. He could picture the anxious faces in his father’s hall. The servingwoman who’d been shaking in her shoes as she’d come close to Saraid. Even Cathán had seemed nervous when she turned those dark eyes his way. A spiraling plunge began deep inside him as he considered this.

“What can you do?” he asked softly.

Her pause stretched between them, long and filled with the unsaid. He wanted to stop the horses, get his feet on solid ground and take her in his arms. Hold her tight, let his hands do what his gaze couldn’t stop doing—touch her, every inch, every sweet spot. He wanted to kiss her, pull the words from her mouth, savor her faith in him.

“I am like the White Fennore,” she murmured, her words solemn. He had to strain to hear her. The shame in her tone was deep and pained.

“In what way, Saraid?”

Finally she gazed at him and the look in those warm velvet eyes drove a hole through his heart. They glittered with tears she was too proud to shed, gleamed with pain that went deeper than words could express. And over it all was the shame that hunched her shoulders and made her bottom lip tremble.

“I know death’s secrets,” she said on a breath lighter than the breeze that teased the leaves of the mighty oaks surrounding them.

He struggled to put a framework around her statement. Death’s secrets? What did that mean? And then in his mind, Rory heard Leary weaving his tale in the morning air, telling them about the High Priest and the White Fennore. He’d said
she
knew death’s secrets. And she’d died for it.

Saraid was waiting, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Her eyes looking like they might overflow with everything she felt. She’d condemned herself, he realized. And now she was waiting for him to join her in the damnation.

“Are y’ not shocked?” she said.

He shook his head, gazing solemnly back. He released her hand to cup her face, turning it so she couldn’t look away. Gently he moved his thumb over her lip, across the teeth that held it until that sweet mouth softened. “You are what you are and I wouldn’t change any of it.”

Now her mouth opened in surprise.

“Not any part,” he said, feeling the pressure of emotion behind his words. Remembering how much of his life he’d spent wishing someone would say the same thing to him. He didn’t share death’s secrets, but he’d shared secrets with the Book of Fennore and at some small level, he knew what she was feeling.

“I wouldn’t change one goddamned thing,” he muttered, his voice husky. “But I am sorry.”

She shook her head. “And why would y’ be sorry?”

“It must hurt, knowing when people are going to die. That’s a heavy load to carry.”

A tear swelled over the dam of her lashes and slid silently down her cheek. He edged closer still so that her right and his left leg were trapped between the bodies of the animals and leaned in to press his lips to the salty trail, murmuring against the silk of her face, telling her everything was going to be okay. She turned her face into his throat and more tears followed the first in a silent release of this thing she’d held tight and painful in some dishonored place in her soul.