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As she hurried across the yard from the byre to the house, thoughts scurried like field mice through her head. The cows needed milking. The spinning was woefully behind. Astrid was down with fever. And Daigh was gone. He’d traveled to meet the prince despite her pleas that he remain with her. Instead he’d insisted. Had spoken of loyalty to his liege. His need to aid Hywel in securing a throne usurped by his conniving stepbrothers. And none of her warnings swayed him. Please, she begged the gods. Please bring him safe back to me.
Her head throbbed with broken mirror images of herself, but the only thought that surfaced was Hywel. Killed in battle. Dead in a slaughter that left few alive to flee. Including Daigh.
A hand came around her shoulder. Corded. Scarred. The tip of one finger missing. Closed the book on a sigh of fluttering pages. “A woman’s curiosity is a dangerous thing.”
The lilting accent wrapped around her. Dragged her back into the present on a tunneling tidal surge of emotion.
She spun in her seat, ribs pressed into her lungs. Breathing shallow and fast.
He took the chair beside her without invitation. Gazed on her calmly, though she felt the bash of his emotions like a hammer against the inside of her skull. His body vibrated like a stretched bowstring, though his face remained carved in solemn resignation. “Now you know the truth.”
She studied him covertly for the signs she’d missed. But nothing screamed dead man ahead. No hint of the tomb in his bronzed skin or thick dark hair. In the titan strength of his frame or his soldier’s agility.
“Are you a ghost?” Her voice came out in less than a whisper.
His eyes darkened from midnight to witching hour, and he shook his head slowly as if it pained him to move any muscle. “Nay. No spirit. But flesh and blood and bone. As human as any.”
“But you were”—she tried opening the book, but he trapped it beneath his hands—“there. With Hywel.”
“Aye. I died with him at Pentraeth.”
I remember the blood. And the mud as I fell.
“How?” Her head swam, and she thought she might be sick. She tried to breathe through the nausea. Managed a squeaking, “That would make you over six hundred years old.” She couldn’t stomach it. Turned away, but he caught her chin. Refused to let her hide her horror.
“What have you seen?” His eyes laid bare his pain. His grief. The bones of his face lay stark beneath his skin. Lips pressed grimly together. In the hollow just beneath his jaw, his pulse beat a frantic tattoo.
“I was there. I waited for you even though I knew what would happen. I knew you’d never return.” She dug her nails into her palms, letting the sting anchor her securely into the here and now. “Until now, I’ve only ever seen your past. But this time you weren’t there. You’d left, and I was alone. It was my past—my memory—too.” She gave a frustrated shake of her head. “Whatever is happening, it’s changing. Showing me memories that are clearly not mine to know. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not six hundred years old. I’m not a ghost or a spirit or . . . or . . . anything like that.”
“You’re Other.”
She shot him a your-point-being? glare.
“You carry the blood of the Fey within you. Perhaps the answer lies there. Part of your gift.”
“My gift is healing. A gift we’ve already established you don’t need.”
“Not all healing is of the body.” His gaze drew her in. The yearning she’d glimpsed from the first moment she’d met him, charged with hopelessness.
Without thinking, she reached out. Threaded her fingers with his. Squeezed her reassurance.
He glanced at their linked hands but did not draw away. His grip was firm and warm and lightning charged.
“What are you, Daigh?”
A long silence followed, broken only by the murmur of patrons. The tinkle of the front door bell. A visitor’s rather loud insistence on the clerk finding her a copy of Fanny Hill that did not have pages seventy-three to eighty-four missing.
Daigh smoothed the book’s leather cover with a broad, calloused hand, and she felt it like a caress against her own skin. Skimming her hips. Gliding across the tops of her breasts. Stroking her in all her most secret places until desire quickened to need. She squirmed, fantasizing and remembering and dreaming that hand on her. It was like being the worst sort of voyeur. Watching and experiencing simultaneously. And left her mouth dry and heart galloping.
“Do you know of the Domnuathi?”
She shook her head, unable to speak. A horrible heat spreading up from her center to color her face.
“We’re men born from our unearthed bones. Soldiers of Domnu. Alive only by the grace of our creators and the blackest magics.” He paused. Gritted his teeth. “Monsters.”
“So the life you remember is one that ended—”
“Centuries ago. Aye.” His hand closed into a slow fist, the roped veins blue against the bronzed weathered skin. Violence deferred but always present.
