Haunting Warrior (17 page)

Feeling foolish, she chose her words carefully, “We are in the Favored Lands. At least that is what this place was once called. Now it is part of the Dark Forest, part of Cathán Half-Beard’s kingdom.”

“Kingdom,” he repeated. “My father has a kingdom?”

“Yes,” she said, and her voice tightened with anger. “A kingdom built on a river of blood. A kingdom he conquered with his son, Ruairi the Bloodletter. That would be
you
, in case y’ were thinking to pretend y’ didn’t know that already.”

He blanched and pushed agitated fingers through his soft golden hair. Again, his reaction made no sense. Nothing about him did.

Saraid shifted her eyes and watched him warily. He was built like a god, hewn from hard muscle, sinew, flesh, and bone that bulged and tapered as a man should but rarely did. He was the Bloodletter in every way. Yet, he was not. It was there in his troubled eyes, in the revealing vulnerability of his mouth. Her gaze moved to the wound on his side, which was barely a scratch now. As if the blade had cut through a shielding layer before it nicked his skin.

And there was the pendant, hanging on a leather cord from his neck, power pulsing off it that she could feel, though he seemed oblivious. Where had it come from? Like the scar on his chest, she knew he’d not been wearing it while he’d lain with her on the bed, pounding heart pressed against pounding heart. She flushed, remembering the intimacy they’d shared, the way he’d made her feel passion when she’d been so determined to feel nothing but contempt. That alone was more convincing than all the other signs.

“You said Colleen told you I would come to save you. . . .” He spun and faced her. “Save you from what?”

For a moment, she couldn’t think, couldn’t understand what he asked. And then she remembered her own words, the sound of her voice as it hung in the sudden quiet.

It wasn’t exactly what she’d said. Colleen had said he had the power to save her people, not that he would necessarily use it for that purpose. She’d said he was looking for the Book of Fennore, and if he found it, he would darken the skies. She’d said Saraid must bewitch him. Beguile him. Do whatever she must to keep him from finding it.

But she had not said he would help her.

“Save you from what?” he repeated, letting the sentence fall short, underscoring the doubt Saraid could hear in his voice.

“Save
us
,” she clarified, compounding her lie with another. “My people. She said y’ would come and save my people.”

He shook his head, gave a soft bark of laughter that held no humor, and then looked at her again. She could see the battle going on behind his eyes to look stern, but there it was again, that vulnerability that was so at odds with the familiar face he wore.

“And just when did she tell you this?”

“Three nights past,” Saraid answered with a shaky exhalation. That much was the truth.

“Three nights? What would you say if I told you Colleen died five days ago?”

She raised her chin and gave him a hard stare. “I would say she looked very good, if that is the case.”

He paled at that, and she had a moment of satisfaction, but it only lasted until his next words.

“Okay, I’ll give you that one. A little thing like being dead wouldn’t stand in her way if she wanted to talk to you anyway. So what am I supposed to save your people from? The end of the world? The great flood? Maybe I’m supposed to part the seas and usher all of you to the Promised Land?”

Perhaps it was the sarcasm that even his strange accent could not conceal or perhaps it was simply her own dread snaking through her heart, coiling around her chest until she felt she couldn’t breathe. Whatever the cause, Saraid had had enough. He wasn’t the only one to have his world turned on end. He wasn’t the only one to be afraid.

Anger made her jaw tight and her blood hot. “Save them from the murdering lust of y’ and yer barbarous father, as y’ well know.”

Again she saw that queer mixture of distrust and fear shift through his eyes. In the great hall, the music rose to a booming crescendo. The Bloodletter froze for a moment and both of them stared at the curtain until another song began on the trailing notes of the last.

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Listen, if you say Colleen was here, then she was here. But if she said that I was coming to save you, she was spiking your punch, princess. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. I don’t even know where here
is
. But I can pretty much guarantee that it’s not to help you or your people. Sorry. I’m not that guy.”

She stared at him like he’d sprouted another head—which still wouldn’t have been as strange as what he
had
done.

Was she a fool to think what she’d seen made him the man Colleen prophesized? Whatever had happened in this room, it could all be a part of some bigger plan Cathán had devised. Perhaps it was all an illusion—even Stephen’s dead body lying on the floor beneath Ruairi’s cape. Cathán was a worshipper of the Christ God, one who scorned the old ways, the Druid ways. But he would not be the first to proclaim one faith and exploit another to his own advantage. Only someone with mystical powers could make it seem that one man had become two. Could Cathán have found someone who possessed such capabilities?

Ruairi snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Earth to Saraid. That’s your name, right?”

“How can y’ pretend not to know my name?”

He flushed at that and shot a quick glance at the bed, and she saw a reflection of her own surprised wonder that two strangers had shared something so . . . incredible.

He paced a few steps away and then turned to face her once more. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t going to make a damn bit of sense, but I don’t know who the hell you are. I don’t even know how I got here.”

“Y’ walked,” she said, lifting her chin. “Beside me. Our hands were bound.”

“Yeah, I got that much. But I don’t know why . . . before that I . . .”

 

He shook his head with frustration, those blue eyes wide and bewildered. For a moment, she almost wanted to aid him, might have if she wasn’t feeling so lost and helpless herself. He let out a deep breath and raked his hair with his fingers again. Watching him with all the trust she might give a loosely tethered bear, she kept her tongue and waited.

“I’m not who you think I am,” he said at last.

She knew that to be true, but she said, “And who are y’ then if not Ruairi the Bloodletter?”

Though she’d meant for her tone to ring with scorn, something inside her cracked and her voice wobbled, revealing more than she wanted. He heard it, that weak flutter, saw it in her eyes . . . the same scared child that seemed to lurk in his. He lifted a hand, let his knuckles gently brush her cheek, and for an instant, she wanted to turn into the warmth of that caress. Stunned at her own thoughts, she quickly looked away.

He paused and she felt his gaze searching her face, but she wouldn’t—couldn’t look up.

“I woke up this morning and went to my grandmother’s funeral,” he said at last.

That did get attention and drew her startled gaze to his. “Y’ lie.”

“No, I swear it. My grandmother was Colleen Ballagh, and we buried her today.”

Colleen of the Ballagh.
Saraid narrowed her eyes and waited for him to continue.

“In the middle of the funeral, I saw you.”

“Me? I witnessed no funeral.”

“I followed you,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Into a cavern beneath my sister’s . . . house. It’s a castle really.”

If she hadn’t seen him split into two men, seen him become a child and then disappear at the same time he became a new man at her side—if she hadn’t seen the unbelievable, she might think it was madness that afflicted this man. But she had seen it. No matter that it was impossible,
she had seen exactly that
. And as crazy as he sounded, she felt that he spoke the truth.

“Come closer to the light,” she said, managing to make her voice commanding, though her knees shook and inside she was quaking. Could it be true? Had he seen a vision of Saraid?

He resisted, but only for a moment before moving to stand before her. The light cast by the flames seated in sconces about the room flickered shadow and illumination on his features in alternating patterns. He was still naked, unabashed as he stood before her a mighty warrior. But now that the immediate danger had passed, there glinted in his eyes an awareness of her that suddenly surfaced above the confusion she saw there . . . a spark that her own awareness turned to flame. Feeling the heat rise up her throat, she tugged the red blanket she’d wrapped around her tighter.

Cautiously, she took his face between her palms and stared into his eyes, looking for that wildness that came to those who’d lost their senses. The impossibly blue eyes that stared back held a myriad of emotion—but no madness. She saw intelligence, and she saw fear, hovering in the shadows. She felt it humming beneath his skin.

His face appeared just as it had when he’d taken his vows. Strong, lean, sculpted. Eyes like the sky on a winter’s day, lashes long and curling, feminine but for the masculine features surrounding them. But the cruelty that had gleamed in those eyes . . . that was gone. So, too, was the cruel line of his sneer. Now those lips were soft, parted as he silently watched her.

“I saw you in my dreams,” he said softly. “You came, every night. And I saw this.” He indicated their surroundings with a lift of his chin and a glance of those blue eyes. “Every damned night.”

Saraid was shocked by the confession, for she had dreamed of a man as well. A man whose features she could never make out . . . a man whose touch had awakened a yearning she hadn’t understood.

His voice took on a seductive pitch that played along her senses as he went on.

“Then this morning, there you were at the funeral. My sister saw you, too. You motioned for me to come”—his voice dropped lower and he leaned in—“and I followed you to the cavern.”

His face was still cupped between her palms, his skin warm to her touch. She thought she should let him go, step away. But she didn’t do it.

“Then you kissed me. You told me to hurry.”

The breath of his whisper teased the hair at her temples, sending chills down her spine. His lips were only a heartbeat from touching her and despite logic, despite fear and suspicion, she found herself swaying forward.

“Hurry, Ruairi,” he murmured. “That’s what you said. The next thing I knew, I was here, just before we walked to the church.”

He frowned, as if he was trying to work it out in his own mind, but he didn’t look away from her eyes.

“You couldn’t see me at first, but there were moments when I felt like you knew I was there. It was like I was inside his”—another gesture, this time to the place where his crumbled body had bled into the rushes—“inside his skin. That’s how it felt.”

Her startled gaze widened and she couldn’t deny that sense of duality she’d felt when she first saw him. As if there were two men inside the one. He saw it all in her expression now and it seemed to fill him with satisfaction—with comfort, as if it was important that she saw him—saw
through
the man he wasn’t to the man he was.

Hope gleamed in his eyes for a moment, hope that she believed him. That she understood. She could feel it reaching out, begging her to accept what he said. But she didn’t know what she believed. Her own eyes? Or the face of the man who’d butchered so many of her loved ones? Which was real?

She tried to turn away but he gripped her arms, holding her so close she could feel the hard ridges of his body through the blanket. He smelled clean, spicy with a scent she didn’t recognize, a scent as indefinable as the mysterious man she’d wed. Layered over that intoxicating scent was her own fragrance, which had rubbed into his skin where it had touched her own. And they’d touched in many ways and in many places. The memory of it made her sway.

“I am not the man you think I am,” he said, his voice low and rumbling with emotion.

“Nor I the fool y’ take me for,” she whispered back.

He exhaled heavily and slowly shook his head, making her feel exactly the fool she claimed not to be. She’d disappointed him, and for a moment, she wished she could unsay those words. At last he released her, and she felt strangely bereft. Colleen said she should bewitch this man, but it felt that
he
had cast a spell on
her
.

He took a step back and then another. His eyes were dark with frustration and something else, something wounded and exposed. The mismatch of those emotions playing across the face of a killer shook her.

“Okay. So we agree to disagree. Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that I got hit in the head during the fight. Or maybe someone back home slipped a Quaalude in my tea. Maybe I am a fucking nut case. I don’t know. But I swear to you, I’m telling the truth. I shouldn’t be here. I’m not this Bloodletter guy that you think I am. I can’t even guess what my grandmother has to do with this, but knowing her, it’s just a twisted joke she’s playing on everyone. Maybe we’ll all wake up in the morning and realize it was a bad dream. However it is, I didn’t know a thing about your world—about anything until I saw you on the hillside waiting for me.”

Saraid swallowed hard, both pulled and repelled by his fervent speech. She believed him, but she wasn’t ready to admit it. Not yet.

“What is a
kwaylood
?” she asked in the deafening silence that followed.

“Never mind,” he said with a shake of his head. “Whether you believe me or not is the least of our problems. Right now, we’re in a whole world of hurt unless you think it’s normal for a father to send one son to kill another.”

He reached down and scooped up the clothes he’d shed earlier. She watched as he fumbled to put them on, like he wasn’t sure where all the pieces went or how they should be bound. He managed to get his trews up and laced before he looked at her. His eyes darkened as he caught her staring, and his gaze skimmed over her heated cheeks to the bared flesh of her shoulders and chest. Then he was gazing deeply into her eyes once more, and she felt as if he knew every crazy, unpredictable thought that was in her head.