Tiarnan caught his balance and inched to the side. Wrapping his fingers around a sharp flange, he leaned out, reaching. “Y’ next, Leary.”
Seeing how close it had been for him filled Shealy with dread. He was a warrior, big and strong and powerful. How could she possibly manage what he’d barely achieved?
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t think,” he commanded.
Liam stepped back, clearing the way. “He’s right. Just take a deep breath and run for it.”
Realizing she still had on her high-heeled sandals, Shealy quickly bent to take them off and felt him watching with that gold, glittering gaze, looked up, and found herself ensnared in it. Turning, she threw her high heels over the edge and into the distance, grinning grimly as a few of the wolves took off after them.
“Now, Leary,” Tiarnan ordered.
“It’s Shealy,” she corrected angrily as she faced the perilous chasm and Tiarnan, hand outstretched on the other side. “Shealy O’Leary.”
Too terrified to do more than obey, she hiked up her dress and made a running jump for the other side.
Halfway across, she knew she wouldn’t make it.
The certainty came with a wash of panic that made her skin hurt and her nerves burn. She flailed her arms and legs crazily, trying to use momentum, force of will, anything to breach the distance. Close, so very close, but not there.
Gravity sucked her down and she had only a second to read the terror in Tiarnan’s eyes before she plunged. Below her the wolves frothed, snarled, and snapped. She felt teeth graze her ankle and then a hand locked over her arm and pulled. Her fall halted with a jerk that snapped her teeth and knocked a cry from her. Still scissoring her legs to keep the wolves from latching on, she felt her body move up an inch, then another. One of the bigger wolves found a break in the stones, raced up, and vaulted at her. Its body hit her hard and she felt the grip on her arm loosen, and then she slipped, screaming, twisting while its claws scored her flesh as it fell. Another wolf jumped from below and nipped at her but couldn’t lock its powerful jaws on her thrashing leg. Above her Tiarnan and Liam shouted and Liam hurled rocks at the frenzied canines. She heard them yelp as they scattered.
Then Tiarnan’s strong hands were towing her up again and he had her in his arms. She shook from head to toe and clung to him, feeling the pounding of his racing heart beneath her cheek. He held her tight, telling her she was safe. But it was a lie.
“They’re coming,” Liam shouted.
Tiarnan effortlessly swung Shealy around to the ledge behind him, and leaned out with a hand. “Come on, then.
Now
.”
Liam did as his brother had, stepping back for a running start then leaping off the edge with grace and power that catapulted him cleanly to the other side. Tiarnan caught his brother easily, his landing surer, softer than Tiarnan’s had been—definitely less terrifying than Shealy’s. Tiarnan hauled the boy up, and Liam used his brother’s shoulder as a step to reach the next level.
The wolves had abandoned their efforts to reach the stone table and now found the break that allowed them to climb the rocky crag. They raced, slipping and sliding on the shale as they snaked between the boulders below, focused only on their prey above. Tiarnan pulled himself to the next ledge where Liam waited and then reached down for Shealy, hauling her up with one great motion. The sharp rocks cut Shealy’s feet when she landed, but she didn’t pause as she scrambled behind the boy and the man as they climbed, still feeling the graze of sharp teeth on her skin.
The wolves chased with speed and efficiency, gaining in numbers, getting closer until their snarls and yips felt like a hot breath bearing down on Shealy. And then suddenly Liam lay on his belly at the very top, looking down for Tiarnan, who hoisted Shealy up to him and onto the plateau before following.
They stopped for just a moment, the sound of their harsh breathing rising over the riotous sounds of the chasing pack. Ahead the rough terrain stretched flat for four or five hundred feet and then abruptly dropped to the churning sea. She could hear the crash and roar, smell the salt and brine.
“Keep moving,” Tiarnan said, and both Liam and Shealy did as they were told, sprinting across the flattened peak. Shealy’s lungs burned and her muscles quivered. Tiarnan grabbed her hand and pulled her faster until they reached the rim on the other side.
Just as she’d feared, they’d exchanged one peril for another. They stood at the edge of a plummeting cliff, and the only way down was another leap, this one from dizzying heights into the frigid sea. She stood above the churning waves, the roiling surf that slammed against rocks and sand, the certain death that such a fall would bring. She looked down at her bloodied legs and torn feet. Behind them, the wolves were gaining. They had seconds. Maybe less.
“We aim for there,” Tiarnan said, pointing down to a surging tide pool between the stones. “The water looks deeper. The rocks are not so many.”
She didn’t see as many rocks either, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, just below the surface. The three exchanged one silent glance, a good-bye, good luck. Shealy didn’t know. The fear in Tiarnan’s eyes was a living thing with jaws as great as those of the wolves. Not fear for himself, but for his brother. For her.
“Me first this time,” Liam said, and without hesitation, he took the plunge.
Tiarnan reached for him as his body flew off the edge, as if he might stop him, as if there were a choice. Of course there wasn’t. With a growl of frustration, he pulled Shealy close, gripping her hand tight in his. Behind them, the wolves had breached the edge of the plateau and raced, bodies stretched long and flat as they covered the distance in seconds.
“Be brave,” Tiarnan urged.
With no time to think of what she did, Shealy leaped with him from the ledge, their hands still locked tight as they plummeted. One wolf followed them into the nothingness of the fall, snapping its jaws as they dropped, yowling as it realized what it had done. Shealy’s scream tangled in her chest with her terror as she sailed down and down and down, anchored only by Tiarnan’s strong grip. She heard a sickening thud as the wolf slammed into something hard and jutting, braced herself to do the same. But in the end, all she felt was the stabbing cold of icy water. All she knew was the darkness of its depths.
Chapter Three
T
IARNAN hit the cold water and it felt like being skinned alive.
The shock of it surpassed the heart-stopping plunge into the freezing waters. It took control of his mind, twisting it with panic and deadening his limbs until he felt like stone sinking hard and fast to the bottom of the ocean. His grip on Shealy’s hand loosened, and the churning sea ripped them apart.
He opened his eyes in the cloudy depths, frantic, fearful. Battling the cold paralysis, he struggled for the surface. His lungs burning, he burst up out of the water and gulped in a wet breath of air, searching for the woman and his brother. No one answered when he called their names, no one else bobbed in the harsh waves.
He dove, dread pulsing in his blood even as the waters leached all the heat from him. A flash of white and pink caught the corner of his sight. Her dress, there, the Leary woman, with her eyes the color of coming storms. He kicked hard, caught her under her arms, and pulled her up to the surface. Her huge gasp made his heart stutter with relief. Still searching for a sign of Liam, he struggled against the deadly currents and made it to the rocky shore.
Shudders of cold wracked her body, and he hated to leave her even for a moment, but his brother was still out there and he had to find him.
“Go,” she said through chattering teeth, somehow reading his mind. “I’m fine.”
He hesitated only a moment. Numb from the cold, he dove back into the tide. Underwater, sounds became muffled moans and groans that drifted unerringly and eerily through the murk. He had no idea how long he’d been submerged in the dark waters, only that his lungs ached, his eyes stung, his skin burned with the icy cold, and he’d seen no sign of Liam. Still, he dove deeper, ignoring the danger in the bitter chill, the numbness cramping his muscles, draining him like a sieve.
Feeling helpless, hopeless, and desperate, he broke the surface with a gasp, shouting Liam’s name, treading the choppy waters, spinning and searching for his brother’s head bobbing among the waves. He heard Shealy calling to him, pointing at something from the shore and followed the line of her pale arm. There he was, facedown and floating away. It felt like forever to reach him, pull his face from the water. His skin had turned gray, his lips blue. He wasn’t breathing.
Hooking his arm around Liam’s chest, Tiarnan swam as hard as he could. And then Shealy waded out, taking his brother and dragging him in. As he pulled himself after, he saw her kneeling over Liam, ear to his chest. Frowning, she pulled open Liam’s shirt and pressed hard above his heart with the heels of her joined hands. She counted, pumped again, then repeated the action. Then she plugged his nose, sealed his mouth with hers for a beat of one, two.
“What are y’ doing?” he gasped.
“CPR,” she said, hands at Liam’s chest once more, then her mouth to his again. Twice, three times, and then . . .
Liam coughed, rolled to the side, and vomited what seemed like a pond’s worth of gray-green water. Sucking great gulps of air, his brother flopped back against the beach. Alive. Suddenly too weak to do anything else, Tiarnan stretched out on the other side of him, shaking like a sapling in a stampede. They were alive. All of them. He hadn’t believed it possible.
Shealy fussed over his brother for a few more minutes before she moved to Tiarnan’s side, took his face between her small hands, and looked into his eyes. “Stay with me,” she said.
He didn’t know where she thought he might go. He couldn’t feel his fingers or toes. She began rubbing his numb limbs, moving methodically from his shoulders to his arms, down to hands. He was too surprised to even speak when her brisk touch reached to his legs.
“We need a fire,” she said. “We need to get warm.”
He nodded, but when he tried to stand, he found that he couldn’t do more than agree. He shook uncontrollably and the harder he tried to stop it, the more the trembling wracked his body.
Shealy jumped to her feet and scanned the rocky beach. Her pink and white dress hung limp and dripping, nearly transparent. Her skin puckered with cold, her breasts taut against the strange, wet material. He could clearly see the outline of them, her legs, the apex of her thighs. He almost laughed at the heated thoughts running through his frozen brain. He couldn’t even stand and yet he pictured that gown coming off, imagined covering her body with his, pushing inside her heat. Possessing her.
He cleared his throat and tried again to stand. Failed. Embarrassed to be so weak in front of this woman, he growled low in his throat.
She gave him a startled glance. “You stay there,” she ordered. “I’ll gather up some driftwood. I hope you have matches.”
He didn’t know what
matches
were but thought he might be able to start a fire if she could find dry wood.
She scurried up the beach where driftwood had wedged into the stone. Some of it might be dry enough to light. She scooped up as many pieces as she could carry, giving him tantalizing glimpses of long creamy legs and silky thighs as she bent. He’d never seen clothing like she wore, and he alternated between wanting to cover her up before anyone else might glimpse her and stripping those sodden garments off.
Beside him, Liam coughed again. “Are we dead, then?” his brother asked. “And she’s an angel come to torment us with what we’ll never have?”
The sound of his brother’s familiar voice gave Tiarnan the strength to sit. Above them, the wolves still circled and snarled, but they were smart enough to see disaster in the only way down and had given up hope of catching their prey. A few feet away in the foamy surf, one wolf lay dead, black lips pulled back around its sharp fangs, eyes open but sightless. Its body inched back and forth as the tide rolled in and out.
Shealy hurried to where he and Liam waited and dumped her pile of wood beside him. Moving like a gnarled old man, Tiarnan arranged the pieces and dug his flint from the pouch at his hips. In moments he had a spark and then a flame. He bent low to gently blow on it, felt Shealy’s gaze fixed on his mouth, and another flame altogether burst to life inside him. She glanced up and caught his startled gaze. For a moment, he was lost in the silver sheen of her eyes. Her face turned red and she quickly looked away.
Before long he had a blazing fire snapping and sparking. As the three huddled around it, he glanced nervously at the sky. The sun blazed bright and high, but he knew it could move with startling speed and unpredictability. It might set in the next few minutes or the next few hours. They would warm themselves for a short time and then they must move on. They could not risk dark coming before they reached their encampment on the islet at the center of this forsaken island, where he and a few others had been cursed to live.
He pulled his shirt off and draped it near the fire to dry. He wanted to shuck his trews as well, but Shealy watched his every move and he feared he wouldn’t be able to hide just what that silvery gaze did to him if he bared all. The salt water stung his open wounds, but it washed away the dirt and blood and healed as well, leaving his skin feeling tight and singed. Across the blazing fire, Shealy had drawn her knees up and pulled the skirt of her strange gown over them. He eyed the raw wounds on her legs and feet.
“Come here,” he said to her.
“Why?”
“I want to look at that bite on yer leg.”
She flinched, as if the mere mention of the wound made it more painful. Gingerly she rose and moved to his side. Liam watched with restless, wary eyes. He’d been raised in a time of war, had killed his first man before his tenth birthday. There were few Liam trusted, and his suspicion of this woman—whether or not she looked like an angel—felt palpable.