Millennia-old Irish patterns were inscribed into the columns, those swirls and weaves of an interconnected world – of supernaturals, gods, and humans.
Life and death and rebirth.
The land, the sea, the sky.
The past, the present, the future.
To think, there was so much of this history hidden or lost.
No,purposefully erased.
Kyan stepped up onto the dais, drawn to the stone, but as he did, they both heard the unleashing of an arrow.
Nicole didn’t have time to scream as it shot towards him.
She threw herself closer without thinking, a warning cry barely scraping her throat as the arrow jerked in mid-flight and speared into a tree trunk instead.
Nicole whirled back to see—
A …dog?
A huge silver-coated Irish wolfhound whose head reached her chest, its size nearly as otherworldly as the look in its intelligent amber eyes.
Nicole staggered closer to Kyan, grasping his arm, relief making her light-headed. It must have been some long-forgotten trap to deter thieves, or—
‘Don’t mind Failinis,’ said a low voice.
Kyan’s head snapped to the young woman across the temple ruin, her long white hair unbound. Flourishing in the wind, the ends were a dark emerald green. She was limned in subtle muscle under her brown clothes and had a beautiful, unearthly quality.
While she looked to be in her early-to-mid-twenties, there was an agelessness in her eyes, lined dark to turn the steel in them into an almost sensual cat-eye. Around her, or perhaps breathing off her, was the incredible feel of green, tinged with darkness.
This was the Druid the Wake had sent Logan to kill.
The Druid who might have answers to so many of their questions.
‘Apologies for the trap, I laid it so long ago I forgot it was there.’
She looked at Nicole for a half second, and then her green eyes slid to where Kyan had positioned himself beside her.
‘Túatha Dé leat,mo dheartháir,’ the stranger said.
Nicole didn’t know much Irish, but she’d been teaching herselfa few simple phrases over the months she and Kyan had been apart. Evidently, that was all she needed.
Because if Nicole was right, that would mean the Druid girl, last of her kind, and possibly the key to this entire mystery, had just called Kyan …
Her brother.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Kyan
KYAN COULD BARELY FORM A THOUGHT.
‘Brother?’ Nicole breathed.
‘That’s not possible,’ he found himself saying.
‘Aye, it is,’ the Druid said, walking closer. A smile toyed with her lips, and her eyes raked over his face, as if seeing him for the first time. There was a flicker there – of pride? Pain? It was gone just as quickly. ‘But you’re suspicious. That’s good.’
