Haunting Embrace (12 page)

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she choked.

Ah
. A reaction she hadn’t wanted to reveal, it was there in every line of her stance. “I never said there was. I only said you were different.”

“Disturbed.”

“Disturb
ing
. Not the same thing.”

He realized then that the shine in her eyes had less to do with rage than it did with pain—not physical pain, but something deeper, rawer.

“I’ve hurt you,” he murmured, his tone a dark brew of fascination, shock, and revelation.

“Feck off.”

She turned and began walking again, her steps tight and fierce, her arms stiff at her sides, fists balled in the pockets of her borrowed jacket. Intrigued, he followed, catching up easily enough. The indignant silence that hung around her felt as cold and abject as a blustering storm. It spurred something inside Áedán that he didn’t recognize at first.

Remorse.

He was sorry for baiting her. The emotion staggered and dismayed him.

“Meaghan,” he said. “Meaghan, wait.”

She turned on him like a predator. “Wait for what, Áedán? Do you want to tell me lies? Or do you want to insult me? Tell me that I’m not normal? Well, I fecking know that already. I’ve never been
normal
. But I’m not some freak—no matter what has happened or why I’m here, I know that.”

“I never implied that you were.”

“No? Then why did you bring it up?”

“To distract you,” he stunned himself by saying.

The taut silence that followed toyed with the myriad of exposed emotions twisting tight inside him. Cautiously, he stepped closer to her, stopping less than an arm’s length away. Too close, he knew, but he could not bring himself to retreat.

The flesh between her brows puckered again, and without thinking, he brushed his thumb over the silky flesh, smoothing the furrow away. And once the frown vanished, he found his hands cupping her chilled face, wanting nothing more than to heat her flesh with his, wanting nothing more than to hold her. It confounded him, the need to comfort her, but it seemed that where this woman was concerned, his actions came with a will of their own. He pulled her to him, her body stiff and unbending.

“I am sorry,” he said, meaning it. Astonished by it.

Her rigidness ceded just a bit, just enough to give him a measure of hope.

Hope?
He shoved that away, refusing to analyze it.

“You came from the future, Meaghan,” he said, reluctantly giving her the explanation she deserved. His lips hovered once again over the fragile shell of her ear. “I came from the past.”

“When?” she asked, her voice muffled by his jacket. But the hands that had been pushing against his chest eased, neither taking nor rejecting.

“Longer than you can imagine.”

“I can imagine a lot after what I’ve been through.”

Yes, he supposed she could. “Millennia,” he said, and the word hurt as it emerged. “I was condemned to the Book of Fennore an eternity ago. That is why I was imprisoned there.”

He swallowed painfully, confused by his own need to confess to her. A voice in his head urged him to be quiet, to reveal nothing more.

“Why?” she asked.

“I’ve never known. In all the years, I’ve never known. I was condemned without explanation or justification. Condemned with the suddenness of a lightning strike.”

She tilted her head back and scrutinized his face. He fought to keep his expression bland, to hide the crippling panic he felt at being so exposed. “Who condemned you?”

She asked too much. He could not reveal the depth of the betrayal. But the answer, when it came, shook with honesty.

“The woman I loved,” he said simply, but there was nothing simple in the wash of emotions that went through him. Dark and complex, they tried to tow him under, reminding him why for centuries on end, he’d chosen not to feel.

Meaghan caught her lip between her teeth as he’d seen her do before, saying nothing as she waited for him to go on. Her silence somehow soothed him even as the vibration around her flared and his own pathetic words emerged.

“When you met me, I told you that I was called Brandubh.”

“Brawn-doov,”
she repeated, her voice giving the old title a melodic sound. “The Black Raven. Yes, I remember.”

“And to that you scoffed and demanded to know my
real
name. The name my mother gave me.” He almost smiled, remembering her feisty jeer, but he felt too hollow for that. “Brandubh was the name given to me when I joined the order of Druids.”

She stilled in his arms, and then her fingers clenched the fabric of his coat, and she looked up into his face, wary but not yet afraid. Her eyes grew wider, the color so clear he thought he might drown in the depths of blue.

“Druids?”

“My family was slaughtered by marauders when I was a boy. My mother lived just long enough to take me to the place she’d thought I’d be safest. To the Druids. I was raised among them. I learned their ways from the time I could walk.”

“Were they evil?” she asked innocently.

Áedán shook his head and he did laugh, though the sound had more sorrow than joy. “No. It was not an order of evil. They taught me to nurture the land, the people, the gods that governed us. They taught me to be one with nature.”

She waited, her hands still bunching the wool of his coat, her knuckles red and chapped from the cold. He kept one arm around her, holding her against his body, needing her softness, her strength as he bared his soul. With his other hand, he pried her fingers free and tucked her balled fists beneath his open jacket where they settled like small, frozen birds against his chest. He felt a shiver go through her, felt its echo in himself.

“I was an apt pupil. I learned their ways, embraced their rituals. I was the most gifted of all their students. And when I grew to a man, it was to me the leader of my new tribe came for counsel. He granted me favors. The people worshiped me like a god. I began to think I was kin to the gods. That I was above the laws of mankind. I grew drunk on my own sense of power and I turned my back on my teachings to be my own teacher. I learned the dark ways and thought myself justified because I was Brandubh and I had the right to do whatever I wanted.”

Her fingers spread against the rough cotton of his shirt and pressed against his thumping heart, forcing the confession from his lips.

“I am Áedán, son of Áedán,” he said. “I am Brandubh, son of no one. I am the Druid of the Book of Fennore. I am everything and I am nothing. And I am that which you call evil.”

Chapter Eight

M
EAGHAN stared at Áedán, certain for a moment that she’d misheard him. Surely he hadn’t said
he
was the Druid? She’d asked him the question point-blank, but she hadn’t really expected him to say yes. If anything, she’d been braced for a jeering denial, more sarcasm to make her feel like a fecking idiot.

I am that which you call evil.

Evil?
Really? How did she begin to put the parameters of its definition around the tall man standing in front of her with his forest green eyes and sculpted features? Even when they’d been prisoners and she hadn’t known if he should be feared or trusted, Meaghan had never sensed
evil
about him. She didn’t now, despite his admission.

He watched her, his eyes guarded, his expression giving nothing away of what he might be thinking. How did he expect her to respond, for the tension in his stance told her he anticipated a reaction. Screams? Condemnation? Terror?

She thought it might be all of the above. Though he worked hard not to expose his thoughts, she felt him mounting his defenses, girding his vulnerable underbelly against whatever she might do or say next. His confession had left him open and exposed. But how would she use this information? Who would believe her if she ran into the streets crying out, “Áedán is evil”?

Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps he was merely manipulating her. Giving her a reason to fear him without the ability to do anything about it.

As if agitated by her thoughts, the pendant in the pocket of her ugly dress grew suddenly hot against her thigh and a faint hum began to drone from it in low, jerky pulses. She realized that the pendant seemed to be reacting to her emotions, becoming somehow disturbed as the tension rose within her. Unnerved, she withdrew her hand from where it pressed against his. Using the padding around the pocket to insulate her fingers, she pulled the pendant away from where it rested against her leg and clenched it tight, but the almost-sound it made vibrated down into her bones.

She wanted to take it out and see what had caused the strange flare, but she didn’t. Not in front of Áedán. Not until she knew more.

“Why tell me the truth?” she asked, staring into his unsettling eyes, searching for answers. For something that would justify the feeling lodged deep in her chest, urging her to believe in him, regardless of the fact that he’d just called himself a devil by another name.

“Your enemy is Cathán,” he said. “You were correct. He controls the power of the Book now. It is in my best interest that you know that.”

True, but not the entire truth. Not the answer to her question either. Why he’d told her was hidden in the knotted emotions he’d camouflaged behind the greens and golds of his wary gaze.

Meaghan took another step back. The corners of Áedán’s mouth tightened in response. Trying to appear calm and unruffled, she asked, “But Cathán is trapped inside the Book of Fennore. He can’t get out, can he?”

Áedán nodded cautiously. “His physical form is locked away, but do not think that makes you safe from him. He can summon you— enthrall you—merely by his voice. He can entice others to do his bidding.”

“How?” she asked.

His brows lowered as he thought through his response. She had the sense that it was important to him that she understand completely.

“Cathán is no longer corporeal, but his essence is very real. He can see what is happening in the world around him. More than that, he can sense it. He can discern grief from joy. The Book anchors him to a place and time, but within that realm, he can reach out and speak to the hearts of those in need. The more desperate the soul, the louder their voice and the more able he is to hone in and deceive them. Use them.”

“But can he force them? Can they say no?”

Áedán’s smile held no humor, and the chilled flatness of it made her shiver.

“Yes. And some will. But humans are wretched beings. They need, constantly. They crave more. They yearn for that which they think has been denied them. They feel mistreated. They want their due.”

“Humans? You speak as if you aren’t one,” she said.

He shrugged, neither confirming nor denying her observation. Since they’d left Colleen’s, she’d felt the complex and confusing swirl of his emotions brushing against her own like mink against naked skin. Her subconscious had used it as a barometer to gauge the hidden undertones of his words. Now she felt only the absence of any feeling from him at all. A cold nothingness that undermined her determination to remain composed.

“Okay,” she said. “So Cathán can lure some unsuspecting person into his web and use them. What about you? What can
you
do, Áedán?”

His gaze snapped to hers, and she saw bitterness layering the glittering green. It ran deep as the ocean and quick as the tides.

“I can do nothing,” he said. “All the power I had when I spoke for the Book of Fennore is gone. It belongs to Cathán now.”

“But before Cathán, before you were condemned to the Book of Fennore, you said you were a powerful Druid.”

“That was centuries ago.”

Centuries.
She fought to keep her mind from stumbling on that and falling into a spiral of lunacy.

“So you don’t know how to . . . do it anymore? Whatever you did as a Druid that made you so powerful?”

He narrowed his eyes, anger and something that looked a lot like panic gleaming with them. “I told you. I was cursed to spend all of eternity in the Book of Fennore.”

“I understand,” she said and then shook her head. “Forget I said that. I don’t understand at all. What I mean to ask, though . . . well, if you were once a mighty Druid, then how could escaping a curse change that?”

“It changed me,” he said reluctantly. “The curse changed me. But even before that . . .” He swallowed and looked away. “I broke my covenant and betrayed my calling.”

What he’d done pained him.
Shamed
him. She didn’t have to be empathic to feel the wash of his disgrace or the steel door slam on that line of questioning.

Carefully, she chose her next words. “For years—centuries, you said—the Book of Fennore has been destroying people.”

“People destroy people. Greed and corruption destroy people. Hatred and vengeance destroy them. I was just the vehicle that took them there.”

“Evil.”

“Yes.”

And still she felt no evil in him. Nothing to support that simple affirmation. “Did you want to hurt them?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“They disgusted me with their sniveling pleas and their petty grievances. They came to me knowing the cost, and still they begged for my gifts, then cried when I took what they owed.”

“Why?” she said again.

“Why what, Meaghan? Why did I take or why did they come?”

Meaghan shook her head, uncertain of the exact question she meant to ask. “Why were you so cruel?”

His lashes came down over the jewel brightness of his eyes, hiding what he thought, but the blast of his emotions bit at her skin like a shower of frost. “Cruel?” he repeated disbelievingly. “Cruel is being condemned for all of eternity.
Cursed
to live millennia in a solitary existence.”

“But that wasn’t their fault.”

“I cared not. Does that shock you, beauty? Does that offend your sensitivities? I do not care about my
fellow man
. I do not consider them worthy.”

“I don’t believe you. You helped me when Cathán wanted to hurt me.”

“Cathán thought you were useful. My guess is that he still does. And if you are of use to him, you might be of use to me. That is why I helped you.”