‘No.I wasn’t lying to you.’He didn’t need to ask who I meant.‘But I don’t want you to find him.’
‘Why?’My hand gripped the fabric of his shirt over his chest.
‘Because he is a dangerous and sadistic man, and I don’t want him near you.Ever.’He placed his hand gently over my fist, and I relaxed, releasing the fabric.
I pushed up onto my elbow so I could see him better.
He looked back at me with those obsidian eyes.I touched his face and traced his brow, running my fingers down his scarred cheek and along his tensed jaw.My hand lingered on the roughness of his stubble, and my fingertips tingled.The face staring back at me was still the face of the boy I had woken up to ten years ago.Perhaps the plains of his face had sharpened with age, and a toughness lurked behind his eyes, but his peculiar scar remained unfaded – as did the scars I could not see.
‘How did you get this scar?’I asked him, trailing my fingers over it again and feeling how the slight ridges fanned out like a fern.
‘I was struck by lightning when I was a child,’ he said, his voice husky.
Lightning was the last thing I would have expected.
‘Kiss me,’ he commanded in his deep, quiet voice.
My hand paused, hovering over him.‘I can’t.Cillian …’ I whispered.
‘Screw Cillian,’ he growled in frustration.
‘I care about him,’ I admitted.‘A lot.’
‘Do you love him?’His eyes bore into me.
‘Yes,’ I said without hesitation, knowing it to be true.
‘Do you want me?’he whispered, staring into my very soul.
Yes.I couldn’t say it because my desire for him scared me.It wasn’t safe and soothing like it was with Cillian.Torgrin had already shown he had the power to hurt me deeply.The thought of him with Bethel haunted me still.
Was it fate that made me want him?Fate might have brought us together for some purpose, but I wouldn’t allow it to take away my choice.
I dropped back down, laying my head on his chest.His heartbeat was fast and erratic.He might seem calm on the outside, but his heart revealed the truth.I listened as it slowed to a steady thump, the familiar sound soothing me to sleep.
†
The stars could not compete with the full moon’s brightness; its light broke through the shadows gathered around the crying woman.She knelt in the mud by the raging river where a man with sightless obsidian eyes lay.Her long, dark tresses brushed his pale, unmoving face, and her tears washed blood from his scarred cheek.A black owl took perch on a tree branch at the edge of the woods.
‘Save him!’the crying woman screamed at the nocturnal bird.
The owl took flight, its form folding and distorting until, in its place, a woman cloaked in bird feathers appeared.‘You know the price?’Her voice was scratchy, and her long talons clicked.
‘Anything!’the woman begged.
Scratch.Scratch.‘Put him in the river, and it will be done.’
‘He will live?’She grabbed the man under the arms, her swollen belly hindering her efforts.
‘No, but you will see him in the next life.’The owl-woman’s talons clicked impatiently.
The woman paused at the river’s edge, holding her lover desperately.
‘It is all I can offer you.Your immortality for a second chance in the next life.’The owl-woman did not wait for a reply, as she knew what the woman would choose.
CHAPTER 25
It took an entire day of non-stop riding to get to the camp where Cillian and Bethel waited.
