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“Go to hell,” Aidan cursed.
That seemed to amuse the man. The corner of his mouth curved into a smile, his hands flexing in a spasmodic jerk. “I’m already there.”
Lazarus’s curse smashed into her. An avalanche of cascading, pummeling, body-crushing battle magic trapping her beneath it. The spell’s force pushed the air from her lungs. Tore through her like a scythe. She struggled, but like a snare, the poisonous mage energy coiled and twisted itself around her. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t swallow. Her vision hazed and dimmed.
She tried screaming, but there was no time. No time for anything but a final reassuring thought—I’m coming for you, my son. Mama will see you soon.
Cat’s body lay curled in a ball as she attempted to shield herself from the spell’s lethal force. A tangle of hair curtaining her face. Pale arms hugging her body.
Lazarus’s jaw jumped, his body as rigid as if he suffered alongside his victim. And his gaze held a grief almost as great as Aidan’s. But then that gaze hardened to a diamond brilliance, any second thoughts eliminated through sheer force of will. He gave a regretful shake of his head. “Stay my hand, Kilronan. Give me the diary.”
“Fuck you,” Aidan snarled. His grip tightened on the sword’s hilt, but without the strength to fight, it was useless. At least he wouldn’t make it easy. If the bastard wanted the diary, he’d have to search every bloody nook and goddamned cranny of Kilronan House to find it.
“As you will.” Lazarus’s evil stare held centuries of destruction. His dark magic crude, but effective.
Aidan’s agony as the man’s curse ripped through him was like a roaring, living thing. The will and then even the ability to move were stripped from him. His body began to unravel strand by strand. Tingling and then numbness spread inward from his fingers and toes. Racing to his heart. Leaping from nerve to nerve until, all senses deadened, he collapsed. Felt death reaching for him in the bitter, frozen cold of Lazarus’s magic.
A yell came from outside. The calls grew louder. Oh gods, Jack was home. Aidan needed to shout a warning. Call him off. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. His body unresponsive, his mind clouded and sluggish.
A door slammed back on its hinges. Shouts echoed off the plastered ceilings and columned hall. Reverberated through his body with the jangling shock of a tuning fork.
He caught sight of booted feet. A tilted glimpse of Jack’s horror. The gowned figure of a mesmerizing woman.
A shimmer of color danced in front of him, the air running like water. His eyesight narrowed to a pinprick. Then the world went black.
Aidan tossed back the brandy. Poured and tossed back a second. Let the cauterizing fire slide through his insides. Calm the restless tension jumping just under his skin. It didn’t work. He poured a third.
Jack watched him from his place by the window, his expression grave but cautious. “Aidan, perhaps you—”
He flinched. Downed the brandy. “Don’t say it.”
Jack held up placating hands. Settled back into anxious silence.
Aidan ground his teeth against the throbbing pain in his leg. Kept up his impatient pacing. Lit a cheroot from a nearby candle, inhaling on a lung-soothing drag. Stubbed it out, tossing the whole into the grate. Kept pacing. His mind all for what went on upstairs. Off his last image of Cat draped in Jack’s arms, a death pallor cast over her already ivory features.
“She sleeps.”
Aidan staggered to a halt. Lifted his gaze to the woman at the door. The reason Lazarus had been prevented from gaining a final victory. The cause of his own continued survival, though it grated to admit.
A sloe-eyed beauty, Miss Helena Roseingrave was denied perfection only by the corded strength in her arms, the broad shoulders, the squared-off jut of her chin. In all other respects, she was amazing. Jack obviously agreed. His eyes ate her alive, a foolish smile hovering at the edges of his mouth.
Her gaze swept over the two of them, the usual Amhas-draoi arrogance in full view. “She’ll sleep for the next twenty-four hours. That’s normal. When she wakes, she may or may not remember what happened. That too is normal. Don’t push her. Memories will return in time.”
Aidan felt the first unclenching of his innards. The first stirring of a warmth stolen from him after the glacial freeze of Lazarus’s attack. He hadn’t lost his one chance at completing the diary’s translation. At understanding what secrets it harbored that would warrant murder.
The woman’s sphinxlike stare remained fixed upon him as if she read his thoughts. Saw his self-interested relief. His refusal to linger on any emotion softer than expediency.
He wanted to wipe that smug reproach from her face. Tell her what she could do with her disdain. Instead, he reminded himself she had saved him. Saved them. He stood in debt to the Amhas-draoi. A disturbing idea, but enough to banish the misery wrought by Cat’s lifeless body, the chalky gray of a face whose contours he’d traced only days before, the curve of a mouth his lips still remembered.
Jack crossed to the door, bowing to Miss Roseingrave as if in the presence of royalty. “Forgive my cousin. He’s stunned to speechlessness with gratitude.”
Amusement lit her dark eyes. “I see that.” She sobered. “But I understand his reluctance to accept our help. The history between his family and the brotherhood does not make for easy confidences.”
Aidan broke his stubborn silence. “If you want to gain my trust, you can begin by telling me who or what just attacked us?”
She offered a curt campaigner’s nod in return. “His name is Lazarus, just as he told you.”
“Cat killed him. I saw her do it. No human could have survived that shot.”
