Haunting Desire (23 page)

She looked up and around, thinking the location perfectly shielded from outsiders with its natural barriers and secluded location.

Tiarnan would never find them here unless by chance, and on Inis Brandubh, chance seemed as much the enemy as the men who held her captive.

T
IARNAN was so weak he could barely put one foot in front of the other. He’d followed the sound of Shealy’s scream through the forest, running like one of the vicious wolves on the scent of prey. Behind him, Jamie, Reyes, Zac, and the new one—Mahon—struggled to keep up, but he didn’t slow for them. He’d reached the three balancing rocks where Liam and Shealy should have been waiting. Frantically he searched the surrounding boulders and the nooks, calling their names, uncaring who else might hear him, knowing he wouldn’t find them yet unable to cease in his search. No one answered. Nothing moved.

They were gone. The realization thundered through him.
Gone.

Why would Liam have left this place? Why would he have disobeyed Tiarnan’s orders to stay? The answer crouched in his cloudy brain, a beast he couldn’t face. Only one thing would have compelled Liam to strike out on his own with Shealy and a child in tow, and that was danger.

There were no tracks on the rocks, no sand to capture a footprint, only stone stretching on rising levels. Sick with fear, with self-recriminations for having sent them off on their own, Tiarnan slowly made his way down to where the others waited.

“Spread out,” he said. “Look for signs of where they went.”

In the shadowed gloom, it was hard to see more than a foot ahead yet after a few moments, Reyes gave a low whistle. There, on the edge of the forest, they spotted tracks.

The four men squatted around them, noting the different prints. Mahon stood off to the side, watching with a stillness that Tiarnan had rarely seen in a man.
Mahon.
Another name he could trace back to the three men who’d told the tale of the Book of Fennore. It could not be coincidence that he was here. Nor could it be chance that men who reported to Cathán had been hunting him. “There were nine—no, eleven,” Jamie said, pointing at the tracks. “And the wolf. I told you there was a wolf.”

“So this is who you saw?” Zac asked what Tiarnan was thinking. “Not the ones in the clearing? Not the ones T killed?”

Jamie shook his head, casting Tiarnan another of those complicated glances that he couldn’t decipher. His brain felt like a primitive beast inside his skull, roaring with fury, snarling with frustration, searching for one thing and one thing only . . . Shealy.

Jamie said, “That’s my guess. And look here.” He pointed to a smaller set of tracks. “This is Shealy. I’d bet on it.”

That was all Tiarnan needed to hear. He charged through the trees, not heeding Jamie’s order to wait. The other man’s curses followed him as he forced his shaking legs to run.

Liam would not have left the rocks unless he’d been forced, and the scattered footprints told Tiarnan that he and Shealy had been led from this place. That meant led against their will. Led as prisoners.

The rage that simmered in his gut flared.

Jamie caught up and tried again to slow Tiarnan down, to talk sense to him, but finally stopped. Tiarnan was glad. The constant flow of words still hit him with jarring uncertainty. He couldn’t quite grasp what Jamie said and that wild jam of confusion in his head made him want to snarl with frustration. He pushed himself harder when he didn’t feel like he could take another step, leaving the others behind again as he crashed through branches and bushes, leaping over logs and racing flat out through the treachery that was the forest of Fennore. The tracks he followed were easy to see, now. They hadn’t attempted to cover them, and Tiarnan’s vision seemed to have sharpened until he could spot every broken twig, every disturbed leaf. They hadn’t expected him to hunt them down like the vermin they were.
Fools.

When the trail led him back to the clearing where he’d begun, where the mangled bodies lay strewn in horrific bits and pieces, he slowed, approaching with caution and stealth. His muscles quivered and he felt like his legs might give at any moment as he ducked low and peered through the branches.

Flashes of what had happened here peppered his thoughts as he stared at all the blood and gore soaking the ground, but none of them made sense. He remembered the wrath, the searing ferocity, when he realized that these men threatened Shealy and Liam. He’d always felt protective of his brother, but the molten ire that had welled up inside him—it was like nothing he’d ever experienced. It had frightened him even as it took control, dominating him, filling him with power and strength. He’d killed them all—twenty men, struck down before Jamie and the others had even reached the clearing. But he remembered only two. There’d been the first, who’d drawn his weapon and advanced without a clue about what waited for him behind Tiarnan’s eyes. And then Paidric, the cowardly traitor. After that . . . only seething anger.

He wanted that cruel anger now as he followed the tracks away, gaining on them until he could see the branches moving up ahead. They stopped, and he heard voices. They were striking camp.

He inched closer, peering through the trees until his gaze finally found who he’d come for. There they were, Shealy, Ellie, and Liam. Alive.

It was all he saw. All he
could
see.

Behind him, Jamie and the others quietly crept to where he crouched.

“What’s the plan, T?” Jamie whispered.

Tiarnan was beyond an answer. He simply moved forward, silent as a stalking panther. Fast and agile, though his limbs felt rubbery. He managed to evade Jamie and Reyes’s reach as they tried to hold him back. Weapon clenched in each hand, he came to a stop directly behind the man who held on to Shealy’s arm before anyone even noticed he’d breached their guard. The wolf startled and backed away without a sound, its tail curled between its legs and its ears flattened.

“What the—” the man he’d stalked mumbled, and in a corner of his mind, Tiarnan felt something familiar jolt him, but he cared only about Shealy and his brother.

The rest of them would die as easily as the others for daring to take what belonged to him. This man’s death had arrived in the form of a furious warrior and his first clue to his fate was Tiarnan’s blade, tight against his throat.

“Move and I’ll cut yer head clean off,” Tiarnan growled in the man’s ear. His voice sounded rough and gravely, feral even to himself. The wolf crouched low in submission.

“
Tiarnan
,” Shealy mouthed his name on a breath as the captured man raised his hands, shouting, “
No
!” when his soldiers spun with weapons drawn.

Liam didn’t hesitate. With a chop to the throat and then a jab to the gut, he disarmed a second man who’d been guarding him. The man was twice Liam’s size, but he found himself on the ground with his own sword pointed hard into his chest before he knew what had hit him. Pride swelled within Tiarnan’s chest.

“Get behind me, Shealy,” Tiarnan said softly, trying to gentle the growl of his voice. She did as he asked without hesitation and that savage beast that seemed to be clawing his insides roared with satisfaction.

“Yer wondering what killed all those men in that clearing,” he said, making sure they all saw him now, making certain they all heard him, all felt the violence in his abraded voice. Knowing he was covered in blood from his hair to his boots, he smiled. “Well, yer looking at it.”

Flashes of disbelief crossed their faces, but never truly took hold. He could only imagine what manner of monster he appeared to them. He was glad for it.

Smile stretching wider, he said, “I’ve no war with y’ unless y’ fight for Cathán. Y’ can go yer way or y’ can die. It matters not to me. The choice is yers.”

And he hoped they’d make it quickly, because his vision now faded in and out of focus and he felt himself sway as blackness tried to creep into his consciousness and take control. Only then did it occur to him that he must have been wounded in the fight, that perhaps all the blood was his own. This rescue of his might end in his death before the deed was done. He braced himself and fought back the swirl of darkness. He would not fail Shealy, Ellie, and his brother. If it took his dying breath, he would do what he came to do.

“What if we want to fight with y’, Tiarnan of the Favored Lands?” the man Tiarnan held with a blade at his throat asked.

As always, the old title caught him off guard, but now the familiar voice gave it a weight that brought a crashing pain and throbbing ache. He knew that voice and suddenly, he knew whose life dangled at the end of his sword. He listed to the side, his legs unsteady. It felt as if he’d been hit in the gut with a giant stone that had pulverized his insides.

“Who calls me this?” he demanded—or tried to demand, but his voice broke and the rough gravel of it turned the words into a guttural slur. He didn’t want the answer. He knew it already.

For a moment no one spoke and then Liam, his words as cold as the icy waters of Wolf River, said, “’Tis Eamonn. The traitor.”

Hearing it spoken, confirmed, shattered something deep within him. Disbelief warred with acceptance as the echo followed the collapse of his control.
Eamonn.
His brother. His enemy. He grasped the man by the hair, turning him against the point of his blade, not piercing skin, but grazing it in a manner that left no doubt that he would kill.

When he looked upon his brother’s face, the wash of black that had been fading in and out became fiery red and his wrath ignited a blaze inside him that burned out what was left of his strength. He felt his knees give, realized he would fall an instant before he toppled like the ancient giant brought down by the pebble in his shoe. The hard earth rushed up at him as he fell what seemed an impossibly long way down. Shealy called his name and the sound of her fear chased him as he plummeted to the ground. Then there was nothing but the burn of betrayal chasing him into the dark.

W
HEN Tiarnan opened his eyes to the sound of rain, night had crept to its velvety pinnacle.

He lay flat on his back in a crude tent with hide sloping from a short peaked crest to pinioned walls to the ground where it met another stretch of hide that kept the damp earth from soaking through to the furs beneath him. He didn’t know where he was.

Frowning, he turned his head, wincing as even this small shift wracked his body with pain. It felt as if every joint had been ripped apart and then reseated improperly. Breathing was excruciating. Even thinking brought its own brand of torment. What happened to him? Why did it feel like some hulking terror waited just out of sight, ready to pounce as soon as he showed signs of life?

His eyes focused on Shealy next to him and something eased in his chest at the same time it tightened everywhere else. She was safe. Shealy was safe.

She slept on her side, face pillowed on her bent arm. Her lashes made lacy shadows on her cheeks, their gold tips fluttering as her eyes moved behind closed lids. What did she dream about, he wondered with a sudden and consuming desire that it be him. He wanted to touch her and found his fingertips brushing the silk of her face before he could stop himself. He knew very little about this woman, and yet in that moment, he felt like he knew everything he’d ever need to know.

Reluctantly he pulled his gaze and fingers away and looked beyond her soft form to the shadows clustered all around them.

They were alone.

He turned, seeking Liam, but didn’t see his brother anywhere. Where was he? And where was Shealy’s sister—where was Ellie?

Gingerly he sat up, scowling at the pain that shot through him. What had he done to himself? Was he wounded? He moved his hands over his body while a hazy image of himself drenched in blood crowded into his head. Was it a dream or a memory?

He must have washed, because his skin was clean and he smelled of soap, but he had no recollection of bathing. He realized that beneath the furs covering him warmly, he’d been stripped. Where were his clothes? His sword? His ax?

Perhaps Liam had his weapons. Likely his brother sat outside this tent keeping guard with Jamie and the others nearby. Ellie might be dozing beside him. The girl liked his brother.

But something about that scenario felt too wished for to be right. A flask sat beside him and he lifted it, drank the cool water inside, and tried to put the pieces of what had happened together.

A sound drew his attention, and he looked back at Shealy to find her eyes open and watching him. The strange silvery light of them glowed in the darkness, pulling him closer. He lay down again, turning on his side to face her.

“How do you feel?” she asked softly.

“Like I’ve been trampled by a herd of cattle. Where is Liam?”

“Gone.”

The word froze him. “Gone . . . where?” he said, keeping his voice calm. Had something happened to his brother while Tiarnan slept like a pathetic babe?

“To find Jamie and the others. He slipped away when it started to rain. He took my sister with him.” She said it calmly yet he saw the anxiety in her eyes, her worry for the little girl.

“Why?”

“We thought it better that he get her out of this camp in case . . .” She gave a small shrug. “You passed out after you found us. We didn’t see Jamie, but we guessed he was close by. Liam went to find him.”

His brain stuttered and sputtered as it tried to churn that information into sense. “Where are we?”

“With Eamonn. Don’t you remember?”

It all came crashing down on him, wave after wave rolling over his head, stinging his eyes with the salt and brine of bitter memory, scouring his skin with the sand and grit of violence.

“Y’ should have stopped Liam from leaving.”

“Really? Stopped Liam?” She smiled wryly and raised her brows. “I’m sorry, have you met your brother? I’d have better luck stopping the rain.”