AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How many?” she whispered.
“Three.”
“How old were you?”
“Nineteen.”
So young. So damned young. It was hard to imagine Ryder as a teenager. Even harder to see him as vulnerable and easy to manipulate. Obviously that’s what had happened. She didn’t expect that he’d been an angel, but he hadn’t been a devil, either. He’d been twisted. Used.
“Where was your family?” Why hadn’t they helped him? Saved him?
“My parents were both dead. I lived with my uncle, my father’s brother.” Ryder’s jaw hardened, and so did his eyes. “He was never able to handle me. My uncle was not what you’d call a powerful man. He was an empath, but nowhere near as strong as you.”
She nodded. He’d been basically alone. “What happened to this man who hired you?” she asked. “Where is he now?”
Ryder glanced down, then up again to look her in the eye. “I killed him. In all fairness, he was trying to kill me at the time.”
“And since then...”
“I returned to Cloughban, determined to leave that life behind.” Ryder was wound so tight, she suspected this story did not have a happy ending. “I came home and went to work for my uncle. He owned the pub back then. I tried to make up for the difficulties I had caused him. Most of all, I tried to leave all the darkness behind me and embrace a simpler life.”
Out of all that, one word stood out. “Tried?”
Ryder shrugged, and again he looked away from her. “I was still...who I was. Drunk on power, able to do and have and be anything I wished to be. After a few months my uncle and I started fighting again. I was planning to leave Cloughban, to move to a place where no one knew me, where I could truly start over. But then I met Sybil and I stayed here for her. She was beautiful and funny, and she loved me. I thought I loved her, the way a young man will. I did love her, for a while.”
She should not feel even an inkling of jealousy over a dead woman, but what Echo felt at that moment was definitely jealousy. He had loved her...
“That almost sounds like the end, but I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
His jaw tightened, his eyes went hard. Dark. “No, it was not the end. My uncle was the last of the Duncans, other than myself. He didn’t like Sybil. Looking back, maybe he saw what she would become. We’ll never know.” His hands clenched into fists. Was it a trick of the light that the wide leather band on his right wrist shimmered? Maybe. Maybe not. “When I told him I was marrying her, we argued. He forbade the marriage. I shouted in indignant rage. His heart exploded in his chest as every lightbulb in the pub exploded.”
She could see it too well, almost as if she’d been there. His uncle, the empath, had absorbed all that rage and it had killed him. “It was an accident.”
“Was it? He wasn’t like the others I’d killed. He wasn’t a bad man who’d profited from the suffering of others. He was standing in the way of what I wanted, and he died. Sybil and I had planned to leave Cloughban, to travel after the marriage. This is no place for a powerful wizard. We were thinking London, maybe Paris. With my powers we could make a fortune in no time, and if anyone got in my way...well, their hearts could explode, too.”
Much as she cared for him now, she would not have liked the boy he had been. Ambitious, power hungry, willing to kill... “But you stayed.”
“I had no choice. I was the last of the Duncans, destined to be keeper of the stones and leader of these people.”
“And this?” She waved a finger at her own throat.
He touched the stone, which rested just beneath the collar of his gray shirt. “I made these talismans for myself the day Cassidy was born. I had tried for a while to simply keep my abilities in check, but all too often I was tempted to use them. They’re like a drug. The more I use them, the more I want to use them. Why not? Why let such talent go to waste?”
Echo tried to keep her voice light, even while inside she felt anything but. “So, it was like walking to work when you had a Ferrari parked in your garage.”
“I suppose.”
She turned her back to Ryder and whipped the eggs vigorously, putting all her frustration and anger into working the eggs into a frothy mixture. She didn’t want him to go dark, didn’t want him to be without those protective talismans. But she’d seen it; she’d seen him become the man who was willing to kill.
She had to ask, “So, why not save Cassidy and then put the protective shields back on again?”
He didn’t say anything until the long moment of silence intrigued her and she turned to face him again. Then, while she was looking into his dark eyes, he told her the truth.
“I’m afraid I won’t want to.”
Chapter 17
The librarian was being very nice to her, but Cassidy wasn’t fooled. Even though her ability to know what was coming didn’t extend to herself, she understood that Maisy was not her friend. No matter how much she smiled her creepy smile.
