Haunting Warrior (51 page)

“Y’ did it?” she said or asked. He couldn’t tell.

“No.”

Surprised, she eased herself to a sitting position and looked around. “It’s gone, though?”

He nodded. “Tiarnan . . . he must have taken it. He must have figured out how to . . .”

Her eyes widened with horror.

“I’m sorry.”

He pulled her to him, uncaring of the pain, uncaring of anything but the breath that moved through her lungs, the steady beat of her heart next to his. The sweet scent of her filling him.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said, and the words broke as his hold on his emotions did. He cried like a baby, holding her, rocking her, drowning in her warmth.

Her arms were around his neck, and she clung with the same feeling, the same wonder and pain and bewilderment.

“I heard y’, through it all, I could hear y’ calling me back.”

After a moment she pulled away, touched his face, kissed away his tears.

“It’s over, Ruairi. Whatever you did, it was enough. I feel it.”

“You mean . . .” He frowned, not sure what she meant.

“The Book—it had a part of me, and there was this hole where that piece should have been. But now it’s gone now and I
feel
again.”

Stunned, Rory tilted back his head, looked at the symbols now seared into the ceiling and walls, recognized Saraid’s name amongst them. Had they done it? Had he and Tiarnan accomplished the inconceivable? Was what he’d felt tearing away from her the Book’s hold? The chains that had bound her?

“It wasn’t just me, Saraid. It was your brother. Without Tiarnan, the Book would have won.”

Her smile was soft at that, and she nodded, as if in response to a question. “That is good. Failure was too hard a thing for him to bear.”

“I’m sorry,” Rory said again. “I don’t know what happened to him after . . . I saw him holding the Book, but then they were both gone. I don’t know if he took it, or if it took him, Saraid.”

“I will believe it was the first,” she said, pressing a fist to her heart. “I will believe that.”

They helped each other out to the beach where the sun blazed with welcome heat. He didn’t take her back up to where the others waited, though. He needed to have her alone, to feel the woman he had missed so desperately. He led her around the rocky point and up to a place he’d discovered as a child. It was in a small clearing, nestled between the forest and the sea, secluded.

She didn’t ask him where he was going. He figured she knew. Back with the others waited responsibility, heartache—for there was little doubt that Liam would die before sunset—and the weight of the world. But for now, there was only Saraid and Rory.

He took her in his arms and held her for a long, silent moment, letting her feel what was in his heart, what he could not voice because words were too inadequate. Tears were in her beautiful eyes, once again warm and rich with emotion. She smiled at him, and they sparkled the way he loved, filled with the fire he yearned for, the warmth he needed more than air—it was all there. All for him.

He pressed his lips to hers and kissed her softly, slowly, like they had all the time in the world. And they did. He felt it. The kiss was a pledge—a silent declaration they both breathed in and made a part of themselves. He held her close, knowing he’d never manage to get close enough to her heat, her scent, her touch. He kissed her again, losing himself in the feel of her mouth, the fire of her passion.

He’d never given himself, not like he wanted to do now. It scared him, thinking of it, picturing the surrender, the control she would have over him once she saw how completely enthralled he was, and for an instant he pulled back, survival instinct shouting for him to flee. But Saraid was not a woman like any other, and she refused to let him go. She moved as if she owned him already, branding him with her lips against his heart, her hands moving over his chest, covering the symbol burned there. She kissed his scars, opened her mouth over his throat, and let her tongue taste him as he had her.

Their clothing was tattered and torn, easy to shed. The act of removing each layer became a dance of exquisite torture. Each inch of creamy flesh drove him closer to the edge of reason, and then they were stripped. They were bruised, battered, chewed up, and spit out, but they were alive and they were whole and they were together. He pulled her down to the soft grass and took her in his arms once more, overwhelmed by how soft she was, how she fit so perfectly to the hard planes of his body. The first time they’d made love, it had been Rory who was shielded from the full force of it. The next time, Saraid had come to him through the distance of the Book. Now it was just the two of them with nothing to keep them apart.

He turned, pulling her with him until she straddled his hips, the hot wet heat of her pressing the hard length of him into his own belly. It was blessed agony that he would endure forever and do it gladly. Control was meaningless when faced with what he felt. She controlled him already, with her eyes, her lips, her courage, her heart. If that made him her puppet, then who cared?

Not me
, Rory thought with a sense of helpless surrender. And he found that giving in was not the same as giving up. He found that instead of lessening, it empowered him. He was her husband, and as strange and unnatural as the word felt in his head, there was also something very satisfying in knowing it, something that flamed and sparked with elation at all it signified. He was her husband, and she was a treasure that had been given to him. One he would guard, love, and cherish.

He stared into her eyes, fell into a well of warm emotion. But the fall was soft, the splash inviting and embracing.

“I will love, honor, and cherish you,” he vowed. “ ’Till death do us part.”

“And I y’, husband.”

For all the sins of his life, he must have done something good to be here, now, with her in his arms.

She made noises, small moans and purrs, whimpers and pants that set him on fire. Christ, she was perfect, perfect in every way. She matched his rhythm, arching her back and hips to meet each thrust. She was the salvation he’d never thought he’d have, and he made another vow, this one silent, to protect her forever. She had called him to her over insurmountable barriers of time, and he would never leave her.

He felt her tighten around him and he shifted, moving his hand between them so he could touch her at the same time. She came instantly, with a buck of her hips and a cry that made him want to howl with pleasure. He joined her, feeling every muscle in his body squeeze tight and then expand in the rush of climax.

For a long time after, he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe while the sensations washed over him, and even after he could feel his hands and feet, pounding heart and light head, he didn’t move. He couldn’t put into words what he was feeling, but the roll and burn of emotion had hewn him, and now he was shaped in a new form.

He was changed. She had changed him, and nothing would ever be the same. He let that wash over him, felt the solid weight of it. Embraced the wonder.

With a laugh of stunned bliss, he rolled to his side, pulling her with him, as he collapsed against the soft, sweet grass. Because now that he’d found her, he at last knew his life’s purpose—to live with Saraid, here or any other place—it didn’t matter. They were two halves of the same whole, and what they’d shared had forged them into something that could never again be separated.

I
N the weeks that followed, Saraid was torn between mourning and celebration. For so long, living had been about survival, but now they had a home where they were safe and there was no way not to rejoice in that. It was more than she’d dreamed possible. But when she and Ruairi had returned to the beach, it was to learn that both Tiarnan and Liam had vanished without a trace.

“Liam was there, in the
curragh,”
Michael said. “I felt the earth shake and turned my back for a moment—just a moment—and when I looked again, he was gone.”

Gone. Just as Tiarnan was gone. Three brothers had been lost—two to the unknown—and the last to betrayal. Their absence was a hole in Saraid’s heart that she feared would never fully heal. All she and Michael could do was hold tight to the belief that gone did not mean dead and the hope that one day their brothers would return to them.

Ruairi had described the horrible events that took place in the cold, dark cavern on the day he’d brought them across the seas, had told her about the strange spiral runes becoming words as he and Tiarnan shredded the pages . . . the white light, the earsplitting noise. . . . But he had no explanation for why Tiarnan had vanished or where the Book of Fennore had gone. He couldn’t explain what happened to Liam. No one could.

Michael thought that Tiarnan had given his life in exchange for Saraid’s. “If the Book offered Ruairi the chance to take yer place, why not yer brother? He would have done that for y’, Saraid. Y’ know it’s true.”

She did know, and it was possible. Yet for reasons she couldn’t explain, it didn’t
feel
right.

Still, she waited for many nights afterwards, dreading and expecting her brothers’ deaths to come to her. They never did, though, and she took heart in that. Until the day she saw their spirits, she would continue to believe that somewhere, somehow, they lived.

RORY stood at the edge of the cliff where one day a castle would stand in defense of this island that sheltered them. He gazed out at the ocean alive with whitecaps and gulls, smiling at the peculiar sense of kinship he felt with the sky and sea. He turned and faced inland where one hundred and sixty-five survivors had begun the settlement that would one day become Ballyfionúir.

When he looked back, a spry little woman sat on a boulder at the edge of the cliff. She wore a white flowered shirt and polyester pants. On her feet were bright white sneakers. When she’d come before, she’d scared the crap out of him. This time, he’d been expecting her.

“Hello, Nana,” he said, wishing he could hug her. Wishing she was really here.

“Sure and don’t I know you’re glad to see me?” she said, black eyes sparkling.

“I am. I wanted to thank you.”

“I know, child. I know. ’Tis I who should thank you, I think, if such a thing really matters. You belong to this time and place, Rory. Sure I can see it. And you’re happy?”

He smiled, “Yes.”

“Then so am I.”

He wanted to ask about his mother, Niall, and his sisters. What they had thought when he just disappeared. Were they worried?

“Don’t worry, child,” Nana said. “They know.”

Strange as it was, he believed her.

“It’s time for me to go, now.”

“To heaven?” he asked, feeling very young and unsure as the words formed. Did he even believe in heaven after all they’d been through?

“
Phsst
,” Nana said, cackling for a minute over his naiveté. Then, seeing what must surely have been a stricken expression, “No, not heaven but not the other place, either, Christ willing. You’ve done a good thing here, Rory—or is it Ruairi now?” The wicked grin flashed; the eyes sparked and gleamed. “But, I’m thinking I’m still needed on this earth.”

“Here? With me?”

“No, child. It’s not for you to worry about. You get busy here. Build your castle. Have babies with that young beauty you’ve wed. Lots of babies.” She grinned wickedly.

“But—”

“It’s Tiarnan’s turn to carry the load now.”

“Tiarnan? He’s alive?”

Nana sucked her teeth and squinted at him. “
Alive
is a peculiar word, isn’t it now? Who really knows what it means?”

Apparently, not Ruairi. He stared at his grandmother, dumbfounded. “Can you never just say what you mean, Nana? Do you always have to talk in circles?”

“Aye, I suppose I do.”

And with that, she was gone.

SARAID found Ruairi back in the cavern, still looking for the Book of Fennore. He felt responsible for Tiarnan and Liam vanishing and thought that if he could find the Book, he could somehow undo the damage. She could have told him it was a futile search, but it gave him purpose that she sensed he desperately needed.