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“If I don’t, Cat dies.” Hated the fear quivering the edges of his voice.
“For all you know she may already be dead, and this just a bluff to flush you from Belfoyle’s protections.”
Please don’t let it be so. Please don’t let his last image of Cat be grief-stricken resignation as he’d shoved her out of his life. What he’d give for one more chance—
“Even if she lives still and you surrender the Kilronan diary to Lazarus, do you truly think he’ll allow either of you to remain alive? She’s dead either way.”
“Not if I win.”
Daz’s features grew ferret sharp. “And how do you think you’ll manage that? I didn’t save you from the Unseelie once so you could try again, boy.”
“If I can defeat Máelodor’s Domnuathi—even if I can delay him—the Amhas-draoi will arrive. They’ll take control of the diary. See that Máelodor never gets his hands on it.”
“And lose yourself in the process?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
His hand went to his chest where his scar prickled with a frozen burn. The vessels surrounding the buried Unseelie splinter pulsing like a second heart.
His only hope for success lay in summoning the dark force stirring within him. Drawing on it to combat Máelodor’s unstoppable killer. Manipulating the violent flow of mage energy without being consumed by it. Avoiding complete conflagration.
Simple.
Lazarus stood just inside the door to the gatehouse, a ramshackle building empty save for a nest of mice whose droppings could be seen strewn across the dusty f
loors and piled in untidy heaps by the wainscoting. The walled front garden held almost as much discarded refuse. Overgrown bracken cleared and never removed. A broken barrel. An old set of lumber left to rot in the weather by some former tenant.
Cat watched her captor as he watched for Aidan. He rested at his ease on the door’s porch, but she sensed he was neither resting nor at ease. Once or twice his hand strayed to the scabbard at his waist, to the pommel of the well-used sword, his fingers stroking the rounded knob ornamenting the hilt. A few barely whispered words hanging on a breath: “Roedd hi’n noson fel hwn.”
It was a night like this one.
Did he know she understood Welsh? Was it meant for her ears or simply thought given voice?
He’d not tied her. No doubt assuming she’d be too terrified to run. Too weak to make trouble.
He was right on both counts. Add to that nauseous, cotton mouthed, and heartbroken.
Old sorrows.
Her family. Jeremy. Her son.
Fresh tragedies.
Geordie. And now Jack.
They mingled in her mind like so much flotsam. Broke against the edges of her awareness. Piling one upon another until she drowned beneath them all. Silent, unbidden tears wet her cheeks.
Wind rattled the window, and she glanced out to search the night. Strained for the sound of an approaching rider. Yearning for it. Dreading it.
Would Aidan fall to Jack’s same sudden fate? Would he wear a look of surprise as his life drained away? Would Lazarus’s gaze as his blade slammed home remain as empty as an open grave? His Domnuathi’s ruthless composure creating stone where once a real heart beat?
“What happens if Lord Kilronan refuses to agree to your terms?” she brazened.
Did she really want to know? Not by the look Lazarus settled on her.
“If he refuses, my lady, he’s not worth your tears.”
Unable to tolerate the solemn, heavy stare another second, she turned away. Her fingers finding the cool glass of a window pane. Tracing a final message in the dust.
