He frowned when she went silent. Was she slipping away again? Was he losing her? Grateful for the fire on the hearth in his chamber, he tossed aside the damp blanket she was wrappedin, whipped back the blankets on his bed, lay her down, and dried her the best he could.
“Hell,” he muttered, peeling off his soaked pants when his magic sputtered. “How am I going to warm ye, lass?” His skin felt frigid to the touch. He didn’t have nearly enough blankets. “I can’t do this to ye.”
“Aye, laddie, ye can and will.” He wasn’t sure if it was his addled mind or not, but he swore he heard a brother he had only ever met a time or two when young. One who had been born into Scotland, where Liam and his Irish brothers had been born here. “Adlin?”
When he felt Riona’s urgency within his mind, he knew he had no time to look around for his long-lost sibling. Cold or not, he climbed into bed, pulled what blankets he had over them, and wrapped his body around Shannon the best he could. She felt like ice. Death. So he pulled her closer still. Tucked her face into the crook beneath his chin and chest.
Then he waited.
Prayed for her heart to beat steadily when it was still so sluggish.
Even though she didn’t respond, he kept talking aloud to her. Believed that it was important in order to keep her with him. Keep her in this life rather than another. This one versus one that might lay ahead.
He eyed the room for his MacLomain brother, Adlin, again, but there was no sign of him. Mayhap he had been a figment of his imagination? Part of being so cold himself? Either way, Liam kept chatting away about his life. Sometimes his eyelids slid shut. Sometimes, he felt wide awake. At one juncture, he felt more blankets come over them. Swore he saw an old man with white hair standing at the end of the bed, but a blink later, he was gone.
In fact, eventually, all was gone but the feel of Shannon against him. Not in a sensual sense but in a way he had never felt a lass. Something deeper.
Something integral to him.
Rather than analyze it, he kept talking to her. He told her about his time with his brothers growing up. How rarely he saw Cian and Declán. How often he had seen Aodh. How close they had become. He told her things he’d never told another. How he had been the only one there the first time his dragon brethren shifted as a lad. How intrigued they had both been.
“He was something else to see,” he murmured, forgetting his anger at Aodh for a moment. He smiled. “Truly awkward. He couldn’t spread his wings without falling over.”
He went on to tell her about how he and Aodh had worked alongside each other over the years to build their strength. His brother as a dragon, which didn’t come naturally to him. Liam with magic that had a tendency to skew in directions he didn’t want it to. That had a habit of doing more harm than good if he didn’t pay close attention.
“We managed it together, though,” he whispered, dozing when he needed to stay awake. “We pushed past our demons and made the best of what we were. Made the best of....”
That’s the last thought he had before he must have fallen asleep because when next he woke, it was to the very last thing he anticipated.
Chapter Eleven
“GO,” A FEMININE voice urged from behind Shannon on Liam’s dock. “If ye do not, ‘twill only mean death. Destruction. The end of all ye love.”
She felt like she was in a dream. That the voice was both inside and outside of her all at once. That she would be damned whether she listened to it or not. Yet when she saw Liam’s ship burn and witnessed the heartbreak on his face, she felt compelled.
“You’re right,” she whispered. “I should go.” She felt less and less like herself. “Otherwise, he’ll go through this alone.” She shook her head. “And he doesn’t deserve that.”
“Nor do ye,” the voice purred in her ear before it turned to a hiss. “As to him, he deserves to burn for what he did to ye, love. Deserves to watch his ship sink to the bottom of the sea. Deserves—”
“Nay,” she cried, her accent different. Not her own. Unwilling to watch him suffer any longer, she raced toward water she feared, took a deep breath, and dove in after the burning ship.
