Hidden Jewel (Heartfire Series) (30 page)

It seemed the man was angry, arguing for or against something of importance. It seemed he was looking straight at them, or through them. But no, this was not their vision, merely a connection to a woman who was fast becoming the most important thing in their lives. And the man must be none other than Tiernan MacDuff. It was too easy to see the attraction of him, the ultimate perfection; neither Jacob nor Micah had ever thought of himself as more than the poor son of a poor man, his only real value being a rather pretty face. Jacob had used that face, his inherent good looks, to gain certain things they had needed on their exhaustive trek across the country, forced into it by Kiah; it was one of the more humiliating aspects of the recent past. But this man, this Tiernan... he looked, easily, like a god, an ancient leader of an ancient land, and he looked just like them.

"Sickly lad, my ass," Micah muttered, yanking his hand away from Jacob's with a jerk, breaking the connection into Ailill's mind at once. Eyes flashing in irritation, he met Jacob's surprised stare. "Did he look the least bit sickly to y'all?" he demanded in a coarse whisper.

"Nope... but it has been a long time," Jacob reasoned. He'd been captivated by the man, by the men; all of them. He could easily imagine Ailill's fiery hair amongst that sea of long, jet-black locks, her strong arms wielding a broadsword with the same grace and ease as he'd witnessed in the last dregs of that small battle. "She said two years, didn't she?"

"So."

"So, two years should be more than enough time to get better, to become... well, beautiful, again. Shouldn't it?"

"Beautiful? He ain't a girl," Micah retorted derisively.

"Neither are we, but look at
us
. Kiah said something about a pretty face, your's I mean." Unwittingly, Jacob's face paled at the name, the memory of the man talking about his twin that way, just before he nearly murdered them both.

"Kiah's a bastard. I hope he rots in hell for all E-
fuckin'
ternity and I'd be glad to send him there myself!" Micah spat back, rolling away from his twin's pallid mug. "I never hated anyone in all my life, but I sure as hell hate
him
. Can't wait to see him dead for what he did to you." He stood, glanced around for a shirt, body humming with a sudden and irrational fury. Watching the muscles of Micah's back flex, ripple, then still, Jacob hissed softly, his own muscles stiff with disuse, complaining when he moved to sit up in Ailill's feather-soft bed.

"I b'lieve my thoughts run about the same as yours, Micah," he replied calmly, an undercurrent of his true feelings evident even to his own ears. "But I think it should be Ailill who does the deed, when the time comes."

"
If
the time comes," his twin answered in the same vein. "We still ain't found the... the-"

"Blackhearted fiend," Jacob supplied, his attempt to lighten the mood a miserable failure. Micah's look was so wretched, so full of pain; it would have been impossible to muster even a small smile.

"You know she healed you, don't you?"

Sighing heavily, Jacob closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes," he husked, his mind suddenly filling with the worries he'd been fighting each day since. "I've thought alot about that. It's filled my days, you know? And I was so scairt for Abby, after. I've never been so scairt for anyone before, not even you, Micah; she slept so
long
, and every day I sat here, watched her go through the hell that Kiah meant for me... over and over, and what could I do?" His head swayed side to side, his expression sheer regret, eyes glittering with a sudden wash of emotion. "Nothin'. I couldn't do nothin' at all to ease her. It made me feel useless, worthless, but you know what the worst thing is?"

At Micah's silent shake of the head, Jacob stood up, arms raised in a gesture that took in the sparsely furnished room, the absolute lack of any sign that it was Ailill's, except for two things- a small leather-bound notebook, full of drawings, one being the most incredible coat-of-arms that Jacob had ever seen; the second object was a single framed picture on the bedside table; a small oil painting of herself, flanked on both sides by two lines of men dressed in the full Highlander's rig-out. Beautiful men, as exquisite as she; two of them were so familiar that Micah reached out a single tentative finger, touching on the one to her left.

"It's me." he breathed, at the same time that Jacob stated, "She knew exactly what she was doing, and I know why."

"It's me- us- Jacob," Micah repeated, dubious, frightened. He did not see the picture before, in all the time he'd spent in this room with Ailill; loving her, learning about her.

"It
is
us, yeah."

"And the others?" There were six of them besides the brothers, their own abnormally dark, still easily recognizable, the only true difference was the color of their eyes; two with velvet-black, three with emerald-green, and one, the youngest of the men in the picture, had eyes of such a startling icy blue that Micah shivered. Jacob frowned.

"They're in a battle right now," he remarked coolly. "We just saw them through Abby's eyes, through the eyes of a faerie princess. Except that one." Pointing at the man with ice-blue eyes, he shook his head. "I don't know about him, he wasn't there. I looked."

Staring hard for a long moment, Micah at last turned a searching gaze on his twin. "So, why'd she do it? Why'd she heal you if she knew it would cause her to be practically comatose, to have horrible recurring nightmares? It don't make any sense, Jacob."

"Because she's the one who will find Kiah, and she's the one who will kill him. It's her right, because he's never done anything but cause Ailill pain, torment her and everyone she loves, through many lifetimes. Because he murdered her, and our sons; he murdered
us
, Micah. All of us. And he will try to do it again."

His legs trembled, shook violently for a few seconds before collapsing altogether. If the bed had not been there, Micah would have found himself staring up into Jacob's suddenly wizened eyes from the carpeted floor. "How do you-" He halted, already sure of the answer Jacob would give. "A connection, right? A sudden sense of knowing, or of realizing things about a past that included us; a past
life
."

"Not only that, no," said Jacob, sitting on the bed beside his brother. "Kiah likes to boast, as you know, and well... he said alot, when he was hurting me. I think he believed it would hurt me more, finding out that we were the lovers of a queen and that he took it all away in a single night. According to him, we were made; you know, like in petri dishes or something, so that we could be reborn; all of us in the picture, except for him." Picking up the small image, his finger hovered over one man, the eldest, standing just behind the small vibrancy that was Ailill. "Fergus MacDuff... our father, Tiernan MacDuff's father. We're not twins, Micah, but triplets. That's what she meant-"

"Ye look like yer brother, and I ha' loved him for all my days," Micah intoned softly, his burr a perfect mimicry of Ailill's own natural tongue. "But, no," he argued, staring at the image of Fergus MacDuff with wide eyes. "We've got blue eyes, they don't."

"Yeah, and she mentioned that, didn't she? She said she didn't know why ours had a blue tint because their's were black. It's a minor thing, Micah. And ours
turn
black with certain emotions. You can't deny it."

"I can deny it, and I would, if I had proof, Jacob."

"But you don't, so you can't."

"So... the only option here is what?"

"Well," drawled Jacob lazily, sounding more like himself than he had in nearly a week. "We should get dressed, is what we should do, and go find her, before we lose her forever. If you have doubts, or questions, or whatever, it's time to just speak up, Brother. She can't lie, that's another thing Kiah so graciously told me."

"Yeah, well, I'll believe that when I see it. And what if the truth hurts? What do we do then, Jacob?" Micah was already pulling his shirt over his head. When his face popped out through the cotton neckline, he met his twin's eye.

"After what I been through, I doubt anything Abby says could be all that painful. Don't you?"

Abashed, Micah flushed, his spine stiffened with the effort not to say anything at all. He did not want to know the facts, the memories of feelings were still too raw. Lacing up his mocs with quick jerky motions, he muttered, "lets go, then."

Her first sight of the men was no more of a surprise than the relentless sense of them she'd felt since her dip in the hotspring; on one of James' mighty steeds, they rode double through the deep shadows of the wood, nearly hidden from view as if it were full night instead of early evening. She thought it funny, the way both men scowled, stroked the sharp bridge of his nose, dark eyes closed as if in agony, their movements precisely the same.

"What's amiss, then?" Ailill inquired the moment her mare drew close enough to reveal that something quite obviously was amiss. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"No ghost," Micah cautiously replied; he looked utterly miserable. "A headache, is all."

"Och, aye. A lack of sleep, I think.” Without waiting, she pulled a small dark bottle from the front pocket of her nightgown and forced it into Micah's fist. "Do ye drink two swallows and give it to Jacob. No more than two though; it is very strong," she said, drawing back with a distinctly unnerved gaze, petting the mare's wide rump, just far enough space between the equine beasts that the men would have a hard time catching her if she chose to bolt; Jacob and Micah, each, had a rather murderous look in his eye.

       
Unwilling to question her, Micah did as she bade, making a face as the strong, slightly fruity-tasting liquid seared the back of his throat. Jacob coughed when he swallowed, a grimace marring his features, making him look suddenly much younger than his twenty years.

       
"You'll feel much better soon," Ailill said in the soothing voice of a trained healer. "Both of you."

        
Her eye was drawn back behind her, the way she had come, like a beacon in the night; she started slightly when Micah climbed quickly up onto the mare's back, slipping silently behind her warmth.

      
"I'll ride home with you," he murmured, making her wonder exactly what had passed in the hour that she'd been away; within moments, pleased, as her thighs moulded naturally to his own on the softly furred back of the horse, the reason did not seem so very important. She leaned gently back against him as she turned the beast onto the trail leading into the darkness of Wilderdeep, enjoying the comfort of pure male strength so close to her body, particularly after the rejection she had gotten from Tiernan.

     
His hand lifted of it's own accord once they were under way, sliding slowly up her bare thigh, under her gown and around her waist. The drug she had given him was having an instant effect on the beautiful young man and she looked over at Jacob to see if he, as well, had swallowed more of the highly narcotic bracer than he was supposed to. Smiling at her, teeth flashing brilliant white through the shadows of what promised to become a rather stormy night, Jacob nudged his horse in front of hers as the trail narrowed, seated straight backed upon his own mount, confirming that he, indeed, had not by the controlled way in which he managed the beast.

       
Leaning her head lightly back into Micah's chest, Ailill relaxed her hold on the reins, knowing that her well trained mare would follow the proud stallion without incident. Focusing her full attention on Micah, she noted the way his pectoral muscles played behind her head, how the muscles rippled through his forearm as his hand lightly caressed her stomach beneath the soft linen cloth, the tips of his long fingers drawing small circles around her navel, across the tightly packed muscles beneath her skin. The sensation of touch was heightened by the drug, magnified many times over; he was enjoying the smooth-fuzzy texture of her bare flesh with an increasing intensity that startled her.

       
"It's like a peach," he whispered, as he had a couple weeks ago, his other hand sliding up her thigh. The ruffled edging of her gown moved up under his wide palm with the motion. "Soft...and firm...and sweet." Reaching up, he smoothed the thick, silky mass of damp hair away from her face, running his fingers through the long tresses as he bared the delicate line of her neck beneath. Bending his dark head closer, the heat of his breath in her ear sent a tickling ripple of gooseflesh down her body and she gasped involuntarily as his large hands suddenly cupped her naked breasts firmly, squeezing the nipples into erectness as his teeth began to nibble softly on the warmth of her flesh.