Lost in You (4 page)

He took the reliquary, wrapping it back within its cocoon to muffle its influence. “I think your cousin should repay her own debts, don’t you?”

She frowned. “She’s dead.”

“But Mr. Porter isn’t. And if I’m not mistaken he wore a pearl of unusual size and quality in his neckcloth today. I arranged to meet him tonight. Mayhap it will take him only one lifetime to pay me back.” He flashed a dangerous smile. “That is if I allow him to live it out.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, her face shining with suppressed amusement. “Would you really kill him for this?”

He remembered Porter’s greasy repulsiveness. The man had the personality of a snake. Conor’s fingers itched to be around his throat. To tie him in knots. “For theft, dealing in stolen goods, lechery, and just for being a complete ass, I’d be more than willing to kill him.”

She laughed. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

Ellery looked around her parlor with a grimace. Had it been only twenty-four hours since she’d sat in this very spot and wished for companionship, a friend during the long, dark hours? She gave a dry laugh. Well, this was a warning to be careful what you wished for.

An open valise sat upon her sofa. Her few pitiful gowns lay in piles on various pieces of furniture in readiness for sorting. Even with Conor’s help, she only had three days to be gone from here.

She glanced up. The damp had become fog. It shrouded the cottage, muffling sounds, gathering like cloud at the edges of the lighted windows. Conor had left, assuring her he’d be back as soon as he could and with his pound of flesh—or Mr. Porter’s, he’d added with a wicked glow in his eyes. Would he return to tell her that her landlord had relented? With what she knew so far of Conor Bligh, it was more likely he’d come back to tell her Mr. Porter had taken an unfortunate fall off the cliffs below the village.

She tried not to give voice to the needling thought at the back of her mind that asked would he even come back at all? Now that he had his reliquary, why bother? He could take it and be gone before those horrible creatures returned. She folded a pair of stockings.

That was what she wanted. She folded a chemise. With the reliquary gone and Conor Bligh with it, it stood to reason the unearthly hounds would follow him. She folded a gown.

Didn’t it?

Looking down, she gasped with dismay. The clothes were a jumbled mess of wrinkled wool and muslin. So much for packing.

A low howl sounded from beyond the fog. Somewhere near Keigwin Tor.

Ellery’s blood froze in her veins. She couldn’t breathe. The quiet catch of the door threw her to her feet. She took swift inventory of the room, snatching up a heavy candle stand, brandishing it like a spear. “Show yourself. If you dare.”

Conor stepped into the parlor doorway, running a hand over hair silvered with fog. He eyed her makeshift weapon. “Crude but effective.”

“You’ve gotten rid of all my proper weapons.” He reached out, taking the stand away from her and putting it down. “And for good reason. Had that been your pistol, I’d have another hole in my ribs.” He touched his side. “I heal, but the power isn’t unlimited. Enough wounds, and I’m as dead as the next man.”

She appreciated Conor’s attempt at humor, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Too much was happening too quickly. She sank into a chair, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “I heard them again. Now that I know what they are, I feel the difference when they’re near. It’s a bitter taste in my mouth, a pain in my lungs as if I can’t breathe the same air.”

Conor raised a brow, but didn’t comment. Instead he said, “They search for the reliquary. Their master desires it beyond all things. He’d do anything to have it within his possession.”

“Will they come here?”

She wanted to flee the cottage, run until she could no longer feel the relentless pursuit of the
Keun Marow
. But another part of her wanted to stay and challenge them. How dare these creatures think she was easy prey for their sport? She’d grown up with war. She knew how to fight.

Conor seemed to suffer under the same restlessness. He moved like a caged animal, stalking the corners of the room. “We’re safe enough. I’ve strengthened my defensive wards, hiding my presence without alerting them to my magic. I also laid a false trail away from Carnebwen. That’s what detained me. I needed to make it traceable without being obvious.”

“Why do they want the reliquary?”

He paused at the window, closing the curtains against the night. “Asher wants it. They do his bidding.”

Ellery felt as if she were drawing teeth. Every question answered only brought ten more to her mind. “And who is Asher, or is that one of those things you don’t know or can’t tell me?”

His expression was one of uncertainty. “Take a chance I might believe you. It’s the least you can do after having me thrown out of my house.”

Her stab at amusement fell as flat as his had earlier. Instead, he approached the hearth and the dull fire lit against the damp chill. He clutched the mantel with both hands, his head bowed as he watched the flames. “Asher is one of three brothers, demons of the faery realm. Sons of the witch, Carman. They sought dominion over the
fey
once before, but were defeated and imprisoned. Now they seek to return.”

Finally some answers. Not exactly ones that made sense by any normal standard, but she had left normal far behind. “And the reliquary?”

“The Triad were imprisoned within the reliquary. Bound to it for all time. It was hidden away to guard against their release.”

Ellery didn’t like where this was going. “But someone opened it.”

Conor’s eyes locked on her. Lit with an amber glow, they reminded her of a wild animal’s. Deadly. Ruthless. Without pity. She looked away, unable to face him.

“Yes,” he said, “someone broke the seals. Asher was set free and escaped, but I kept the other two contained and maintained hold of the reliquary.” So much said in that one simple sentence. Ellery remembered the blood and the carnage in that Spanish chapel. She couldn’t see how anyone had survived that battle. He continued, “I was wounded. I lost the reliquary. I couldn’t follow.”

She knew exactly what it had cost him to stay alive. He bore the scars of that struggle in the dark emptiness of his eyes, the loss of his humanity in return for the power of the
fey
.

“But you did follow. You followed me. The reliquary was among my father’s things.”

He nodded once. “It was.” He left the obvious assumption hanging unspoken. “But just as I followed your trail, Asher followed mine. He knew I’d stop at nothing to get the reliquary back. And where I can travel easily in the mortal world, he cannot. He’s not of this time or this place. It constrains his hunt. His power. He hopes I’ll lead the
Keun Marow
to it.”

Her father. Her father had brought all this about. Had he known what it was when he found the ancient casket among the treasures abandoned by the French? Or had it been simple curiosity that started such a cascading chain of disaster? The air seemed colder, the room’s familiarity suddenly unreal. Her lungs worked to expand as she fought for breath. “And then what happens?”

“Either I send Asher back to his prison,” Conor’s head snapped up, his body tense and on the alert, “or he destroys us all.”

In the silence after his words, she heard the sounds outside the cottage. In the garden. In the lane. A shuffling of bodies and a chink of weaponry. She didn’t need to hear their cry to know the creatures were there—and waiting. The
Keun Marow
had found him.

Conor heard the hunters almost the same instant Ellery’s thought seared his brain. His muscles tightened. His lips curled back from his teeth as he growled low in his throat. They wouldn’t take him. He wouldn’t be dinner for Asher’s army. He thought of his sister. Nor sport for his sadistic pleasure.

He thrust his hand deep in his pocket before he remembered her ring wasn’t there. Instead, his fingers curled on a stone the size of a hen’s egg. The pearl. He’d wanted to present it to Ellery and watch her reaction. But the time for that had passed—if it had ever been.

A low keening wail shivered the air, echoing down the high hills, curling up from the deep coombes closer to the sea. More took up the call as the
fey
hunters encircled Carnebwen.

An anger grew inside him, a hatred born into him with his
fey
inheritance and sharpened to a loathing over years of watching people he cared for and loved taken from him one by one. His blood burned, his muscles thickened and warped in preparation for a renewal of the battle on the tor. He pushed the urge away, restraining the shift before Ellery noticed. She’d accepted his explanations this far. He didn’t want to test her limits yet.

He swung around, pinning her with a sharp stare. “Do you trust me?”

She froze, scared but defiant. “Do I have a choice?” Reassured that she wasn’t about to panic, he slid his sword free, testing its balance as he sized up his options. Now that they’d been discovered by Asher’s pack, subtlety and subterfuge were no longer needed. But magic was out of the question as well. Any spells he might wield would only increase their strength. Make his task harder. He gripped his sword. “Stay out of the way, but follow my orders.”

Smashing glass and splintering wood sounded from the kitchen as a pack of hounds stormed the back. Others hammered against the sturdier main entrance. “We’ll force our way out.”

“Through them?” she shouted.

His eyes flicked to a window, overlooking the west side of the cottage. “Only if we have to. Can you manage the drop?”

She followed the track of his gaze before offering him a grim smile. “I’ll manage.”

The hammer blows grew vicious. Howls split the air as the first
Keun Marow
crashed through the back kitchen.

Conor smashed the window as the lead hound pushed his way into the room. Then another behind him. They slid to a stop. Their gazes narrowed, their nose slits widened as they scented the power he was giving off. He hoped they choked on it.

The first creature drew a knife from his belt. “You?” he hissed. “Here?”

Conor pulled Ellery behind him. “I’m overjoyed to see you too.” He whipped a dagger out, releasing it before he’d finished speaking. It sliced through the air, embedding itself in the first hound. The creature howled and crumpled dead to the floor.

The second
Keun Marow
paused as if surprised to find resistance. Then he stepped over his dead comrade just as the main door smashed back on its hinges. “We’ll feed well for this night’s work.” His lips drew back over long yellow teeth.

Conor heard the scuffled footsteps as the pack entered the cottage, felt their presence in his mind as a nauseating stench. But he waited. The more of them bottled up inside, the longer he might have to use his power to aid his escape. He had to time it well. The magic would give him an initial edge, but he couldn’t draw on it for long. They’d track it—and him. Once he was away from the cottage, it was up to his natural abilities to keep him and Ellery safe.

He held his sword at the ready. The
fey
hunter kicked aside a table as he slashed down with his weapon, aiming for Conor’s head. He deflected the blow, then slipping beneath the hound’s guard, Conor’s sword bit deep into its side. The
Keun Marow
shrieked and fell.

Conor shouted, “Now. Go.”

Ellery scrambled toward the window, as two more
Keun Marow
pressed the attack. One lunged for Ellery. Conor stepped between them, cutting down and through, feeling the satisfying crunch of muscle and bone under his blade.

The second attacker leapt for his throat. To keep the beast’s claws from impaling him, Conor twisted away, but fell over a table. The hound struck him in the shoulder, the glancing blow sending a sudden pain knifing through Conor’s body. Dark mage energy tore through him, the cold excruciating, the numbing pain dulling his sword arm.

Conor staggered for the window, but stumbled to a halt, seeing Ellery still perched on the ledge, watching the battle with wide frightened eyes. “Jump!” he ordered.

“I can’t leave you.”

“Jump, or we’re both dead.”

She leaned forward on the damaged sill as a hound fought to get to her. Conor lunged, but his sword arm remained clumsy. The hound whipped around, his claws unsheathed. He struck Conor a blow across the chest, before turning on Ellery, raking her arm from shoulder to wrist. She screamed, plunging off the ledge into the darkness.

Using the butt of his sword, Conor knocked the hound back before he could strike again. The
Keun Marow
tripped over Ellery’s forgotten valise, Conor’s blade sliding cleanly home.

He surveyed the damage. Three dead. Two mortally wounded. The pack that attacked him on the tor numbered at least twice as many. He grabbed one of the wounded hounds, fixing him with a deadly stare. “Where are the rest?”

The creature glared back, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. “Didn’t expect you here.”

“Why have you come?”

The hound lolled, his eyes glazed.

Conor shook it. He’d no time. He still needed to find Ellery. “Answer me.”

It raised its head. “Magic. Strange magic. Asher wants it.” It said nothing more.

Conor rose, less confused, but more suspicious. His chest on fire, his head muzzy with the hound’s poisonous mage energy, he forced himself to step over the dead and dying to reach the broken-in front door.

He discovered Ellery in the crushed bushes beneath the parlor window. She lay sprawled on her side, one arm flung out as if she tried breaking her fall, the other bent oddly beneath her. The left side of her dress had been shredded by the hound’s attack, revealing deep bloody gashes down one arm and across her shoulder. His heart hammered as he knelt beside her, pushing aside the dark cap of her hair. She couldn’t be dead. Not yet. Not like this.

Her breath caught on a moan. “You’re alive.”

She opened her eyes. “Am I?” She tried sitting up, but fell back with a string of curses that would put any soldier to blush.

He hid behind a stern expression. “Your arm looks broken.”

“It feels broken.”

“The wounds are deep, though the bleeding is sluggish.”

“All words to warm my heart.” Conor couldn’t help it. He laughed. Few faced what she had and came away with their sense of humor intact. Asher and his minions had stripped his bare long ago. “We’ll see to both injuries once we’re clean away.”

She gave a panicked glance back at the cottage. “They’re—”

“Dead, but we can’t stay here any longer. It isn’t safe. Can you travel?”

Ellery closed her eyes for a moment before biting her lip and nodding.

“We won’t have to go far before I can see to your wounds. You’ll be throwing punches again by tomorrow.”

Her eyes snapped open. “Tomorrow?” She lurched forward, bit back a scream, and collapsed unconscious.

“Just as well. This will hurt,” he whispered before gathering her up in his arms.

Her head rested against his shoulder, her short crop of curls brushing his sleeve. He found himself staring. His heightened eyesight picked out the freckles across her nose, the sickle-shaped scar by her temple. Not so many years ago, he might have pictured himself finding a woman like her. Loving.

Having children. Living a life rich with laughter and passion. But that felt like another lifetime. And those fantasies had been replaced by darker dreams.

Conor paused, listening. Something felt wrong. He lifted his head, testing the air for danger. Beneath the dull pound of the surf came another noise, a dissonant chord against the comfortable night sounds. A second pack hunted. A second pack approached. Conor couldn’t hold them off, not with the mage energy frying his blood. He glanced once more at Ellery’s sleeping face. “I’m sorry for using you. But it has to be.”

Then with a phrase, he gathered the invisibility of the
fethfiada
around them both and slid into the trees.

Ellery opened her eyes, looking up into the night sky, a thin smudging of gray in the east. Tangled branches overhung her bed, and the rush of spilling water sounded to her right. She moved, and pain lanced her side. Across her shoulder. Down her arm. But beneath the sharper agony was a dull throbbing that pulsed through her entire body. Even her toes hurt.

How had she gotten here? Nothing came to mind other than fragmented flashes of trees and rain and Conor’s steady breathing as he carried her. That last impression had been the strongest and the one she clung to when all she wanted to do was scream.

Conor’s heat, the rhythm of his heart beneath her ear, the hard, muscled feel of his arms holding her close kept the suffering from taking over.

“You’re awake.” His voice sounded behind her. “I’d have worried in another hour if you hadn’t moved.”

She tried tilting her head to spot him, but even that slight gesture sent the spasms spiraling out of control. “Come where I can see you.”

He slid into view, looking as sleek and deadly as he had last night. Mayhap more so with his jaw shadowed by whiskers, his eyes shadowed with worry. He wore only a cambric shirt tucked into his leather breeches. Ellery understood why when she realized what she lay wrapped in. Beneath his greatcoat and jacket, she had on only her thin chemise. “My clothes?” she asked.

“They were shredded by the
Keun Marow
.”

She started with a sudden thought for the ring she’d stuck in her pocket that morning.

“Is this what you’re concerned about?” He held up the wolf-head ring.

“I found it,” she answered, no longer surprised at his ability to read her thoughts, but ashamed she hadn’t given it back to him earlier.

“I took it.” He rolled the ring between his fingers, making it glitter in the thin light of the setting moon. “It belonged to my sister.”

“You told me you had no sisters.”

“I don’t—anymore.” He tucked the ring away in his pocket, his tone curbing further questions.

Kneeling beside her, he pulled aside the coat. She winced at the sudden explosion of cool air across her torn skin before Conor placed one gentle hand on her shoulder and one at her waist. His fingers traced each bloodied gash, felt her arm from elbow to wrist and back again. She didn’t even question whether he knew what he was doing. Of course, he did. He knew how to do everything. Or so she was finding.

Time seemed to stretch out in all directions as he explored her hurts as if he sought to memorize every mark the
Keun Marow
had made on her body.

Ellery watched his eyes as he worked. They glowed with an unnatural light, and she found if she concentrated, she could push aside the other thoughts. Thoughts triggered by his healing touch, but curving off into outrageous and highly inappropriate directions. A warmth spread through her body, a delicious heat that begged for attention. Her gaze wavered, dropped to his clenched jaw, the line of his mouth. Could he know what she was thinking?

He spoke under his breath, whispered words lost on the breeze. His shoulders tensed, his chest heaved with every breath. Her wandering eyes snapped back to his face.

She was wounded. Bleeding and broken after the attack in the cottage. How could she be imagining Conor Bligh’s body wrapped around hers? It didn’t make sense. She should be writhing in agony. She should be weeping. She should definitely not be wishing he would take her in his arms and crush his mouth to hers in a kiss that would shatter her like cannon shot.

He shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut. His neck muscles strained, his whole body rocked back with a jolt as his hands fell away from her.

Conor knelt, head bowed, hands at his sides. As if the whole world waited, all went quiet. He raised his head, his once bright eyes gone black and staring. “How do you feel?” His words came clipped, raspy.

Ellery frowned, but now that he’d asked, she did feel different. “Better.”

She moved her head. Her arm. Nothing. She sat up. A dull ache, but no more than if she’d slept on it ill. Dried blood streaked her side, but her skin was intact, as smooth as if the
fey
hunter had never clawed her. “What have you done?”

He shook his head, slowly as if it weighed him down to do so. “Only what I had to.” He paused. “You’d never have lasted.”

His shirt. Black as the rest of his clothing, she’d not noticed at first. But the sky lightened with every second and now it was clear that patches of the fabric were stained and wet with blood. Across his shoulder, down his arm. Wounds that were not his by right.

She scrambled across to him, taking his head between her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. “What have you done? How could you take this on along with everything else? I need you, you great lummoxing brute.”

A glimmer of amusement touched the black of his eyes. “Need?”

It had slipped out before she knew it. “I need you to keep me safe from those creatures,” she backtracked. “You’ve gotten me into this mess. You’ve got to stay alive long enough to get me out.”

He caught her wrists in his hands to free himself. But he didn’t release her. He held on, their hands and gazes linked, a questing look in his eyes as if she were a stranger. “It’s all right. I’ve told you I heal.”

She slipped her hand from his, touching his bloodied sleeve. “But the wounds. They’re awful. And my arm was broken—or is it your arm now?” She dropped her hand to her lap, her eyes hot with tears she wouldn’t allow to fall. “It’s like blindman’s buff. Just when I get my bearings, I’m spun about and can’t tell up from down.”

He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Not blindman’s buff at all, but that game we all used to play. You fall backwards without looking, not knowing whether your friend will catch you or let you drop.”

“Trust.”

“Exactly.” She saw the toll the wounds were taking on him in the tight lines of his face, the bleak hollows of his eyes.

“Most today believe like you do. That the
fey
world is a child’s tale or a crone’s superstition. Even the
Other
keep much of their powers hidden. But that doesn’t make the magic any less.”

“So I should give myself up, fall backwards and trust that you’ll catch me. That you’ll never let me fall.”

Though only inches separated them, it felt to Ellery like a chasm had opened at her feet.

His expression went flat; he pulled his hand away. “Never trust in the tameness of a wolf.”

“Shakespeare. King Lear.”

His eyes widened in surprise.

She grimaced. “My mother had a book of plays,” she explained. “She read it to me over and over when I was little.”

“It’s true, Ellery. I’ll keep you safe from Asher and his hounds. Beyond that, I make no promises.”

His words were meant to be cruel. To destroy the moment she knew they’d shared, even if he wouldn’t admit it. She didn’t understand his motives, but she would heed his warning. No promises. No future. That was the way of men. And women had two choices. Accept it, loving only for the moment, or accept it, never loving at all.

Ellery had seen what the first choice had done to her mother. She would not commit the same mistakes.

“So what happens now?” she asked. “We can’t go back. And those beasts are out there. Somewhere.”

Taking a shaky breath, he pulled himself up. Gingerly, he moved his arm, flexing his fingers, bending and straightening his elbow. “We’ll travel toward the coast. Lands End. Keep off the roads. Stay hidden. It’s only until the first of May. Beltane.”

“What happens at Lands End at Beltane?”

Conor flinched as he buckled on his scabbard. “I cast Asher back into his prison and seal the reliquary.”

“And that will end it? I’ll be safe then?”

He said nothing, all his attention on breaking camp, erasing the signs of their stay.

“Conor? Answer me. What happens after Beltane?” He met her gaze, his expression unreadable. “Yes, Ellery. That will end it.”