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“Excuse me?”
“Stay with me. Please.” His eyes pleaded with her as if he were drowning and she held his only lifeline. “Sabrina.”
With his fluid lilting voice, her name on his tongue rolled and rippled like water. Sent a shivery rush straight to her center.
“Your Sister Ainnir doesn’t talk, she glowers. Ard-siúr asks questions but provides no answers.” He plowed a hand through his dark hair. Exhaled a heavy sigh. “I need to learn what brought me here. Who I am. That’s impossible closeted in this monk’s cell.”
He held his fear close, but flashes of it speared her consciousness. Punched through her strongest defenses until she sensed his dread. Understood his panic. Her mind reeled with untamed emotion. It hammered behind her eyes. Kinked the muscles at the base of her neck. Never had anyone affected her in such a dramatic fashion. Bursting into her consciousness like a tidal wave.
Did he know what effect he caused? Or was his invasion unintentional?
She forced herself to relax. Clasping her hands in a posture of patience, she focused on locking her mind more firmly against his intrusion. It worked. Somewhat. At least she could breathe again. But the sensation of being caught and buffeted in the rip curl of his thoughts and feelings lingered.
“I’ll help if I can, but there’s not much to tell. One of the village children discovered you washed up in the shallows.” There. She’d managed two complete sentences without stammering like a child. “It’s an odd sort of cove. The current brings all sorts of things into the rocks there. Old timbers, broken barrels washed off ships. Bodies or what’s left of them.” Catching her gaffe, she stuttered to a halt. Just when she found herself easing into normalcy, she stepped right in her own words.
His gaze flickered and went still. A hand fisted at his side.
“I can take you there if you’d like.” She heard the words. Looked around in surprise as if someone else had just suggested a lonely trek to the cove. Was she mad? The last thing she needed was to be alone with this man who made her feel as if she’d been turned inside out, upside down, and back to front.
He didn’t answer until she wondered if he’d even heard her. Perhaps she hadn’t spoken aloud after all. Perhaps she was saved from her own foolish impulses. Uncomfortable with his continuing brooding silence, she filled it with the first thought that popped into her head. “You speak Welsh.”
“I do?” An excited glimmer brightened his dark gaze.
Her pulse sped up, but she met his eyes with a sheepish smile. “You did last night in your sleep. Just a few words. Nothing that made sense.”
“You kept this from me.” The accusation implicit. “What else have you learned?”
Tipping her chin in a determined show of reserve, she ignored the drumming of her heart. “You mentioned a diary.”
His brows drew together in a scowl of concentration. “A diary? What did I say?”
“You were asking for it. Demanding it. Does that mean anything to you?”
He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. His effort to make sense of the riddle she’d presented almost tangible. When he opened them again, tension shivered off him. Stirred the air like a storm charge. “I have sensations. Impressions. But no memories. Not about a diary. Not about anything. My mind’s empty of the past.”
“Except for the woman,” she reminded him, “The one in your dream.”
His gaze narrowed on her with renewed determination. “It was your face. I must know you. I just can’t remember from where. But it’s you. Of that, I’m certain.”
Impossible. She’d know if she’d met this devastating giant of a man whose mage energy radiated like an electrical storm. Men like him didn’t visit the bandraoi. And she’d not traveled farther from Glenlorgan than Cork in the last three years.
“People imagine funny things when they’re ill,” she suggested.
“Do they imagine women they’ve never met? I don’t believe it could be so, Sabrina.” Her name like a caress.
Butterflies threatened to explode out her stomach. Smoothing her apron, she cleared her throat with nursely efficiency. “I should be getting back to my duties.” Patted his shoulder like she might a child, though the masculine frame beneath her fingers was decidedly un-childlike, and she was certain he felt her trembling. “You were more dead than alive when the villagers brought you to us. It will take time for you to recover your memory, but I’m sure it will happen.”
He gazed down on his calloused palm, the slash of old cuts evident even there. Closing his fist, he shrugged. “You’ve seen my scars,” he replied, hunching his shoulders as if warding off a blow. “Perhaps it’s best if I don’t.”
“I’ve made up my mind.” Ard-siúr held up a hand before Sister Brigh could argue—again. “And that’s final.”
From her inconspicuous seat behind Sister Ainnir, Sabrina clamped her lips together, smothering a smile. She couldn’t help it. She loved seeing the cranky old priestess stymied every once in a while.
Sister Ainnir’s low-pitched voice responded to Ard-siúr’s resolve. “We can’t make him remain if he chooses to go.”
“No, we can’t force him to stay, Sister Ainnir,” Ard-siúr agreed. “But we can make it clear that his injuries still impair his mind. And while he may feel he’s fully healed, his body can weaken without warning. Dizziness. Fatigue. Headaches. Until he recovers his memory, it would be better for him to remain.”
“But his continued presence disrupts our routine,” Sister Anne chirped. “Already rumors circulate among us. He’s a wanted brigand. A smuggler. A murderer. Each story more hair-raising than the last.”
