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She plowed ahead before she could come to her senses. “I can’t face them. The curious stares. The pointed questions. Not now. Not yet.”
Was it working? Was he regarding her with something more than exasperation? The heat spread to her face. Blood pounding in her ears.
His gaze knifed through her. “Are you certain this is the path you would choose? There is no going back.”
Was she certain? She focused on Aidan’s letter. All of Aidan’s letters actually. The ominous upcoming discussion. His desire to pull her back into the family fold. Her wish to get back to Glenlorgan. Gather up her old life where she’d left it. Taken all together, they gave her courage when common sense told her she played with fire.
She squared her shoulders. “I am.”
He opened his mouth as if to argue, but settled under the determined stare she leveled at him. Surrendered with a quick wry smile. His dark hair gleaming blue. His body bearing a blast of inferno heat she felt to her toes as he walked her through the garden to the gate and the mews beyond. His hand upon her back like a brand. The damped fire of his gaze as he beckoned to a waiting carriage shooting sparks into his eyes.
“Where do you wish to go?”
She shook her head, unable to form words. Unable to think beyond being here with this man who unsettled her just by being next to her. “I don’t care.”
Settling her in her seat. Tucking heaping lap rugs around her, he rapped on the roof and with a bark of command, ordered, “Drive.”
Ruined it by shooting her a look that was anything but commanding.
He watched her from the carriage’s opposite seat, his arm lying casually across its back. If not for the battering crush of his mind against hers, she’d have believed his pose of nonchalance.
But now that she’d committed herself, she wasn’t sure where to go from here. Would he envelop her in a passionate embrace? Did he
wait for her to make the first move? Was it her, or was it extremely warm in here?
“At the Halliwells’ . . . I felt it again, Daigh. It was like all the other times.”
“A dream?”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
His hand clenched to a fist but in no other way did he show his agitation. “Tell me.”
“I was in a hall crowded with people. They were nervous. Upset. You were there in company with a group of men. I was . . .” Her hand fell to her stomach, and she caught back a gasp. Her eyes flew to his. She said nothing, but kept her hand resting lightly across her abdomen as if protecting it.
With every word, his face hardened, his mouth thinning to a tight line, the shadows fighting for control. “When I saw you with St. John. I was this close . . . I fought it back the only way I could. There was a memory of . . . I don’t know. Hywel had already escaped to Ireland after his father’s death, but there was word he planned to return. I . . . damn it, I can’t remember any more. The darkness swallowed it as it has all the others.”
“But some remained. Enough to see that your memories connect us. I’m seeing what you’re remembering. As you’re remembering it.”
“So am I causing your visions? Or are you triggering my memories?”
“I wish I knew.” She fought to keep the waver from her voice.
He swung across to her seat. Nestled her closely against him. His heart thundered in his chest. Slammed against her palm. Thrummed in the chilled air of the carriage.
A man and a woman. A kiss. A promise. A tumbled bed where lovers wrestled. She suddenly realized she wanted these memories. Not just to recall them, but to relive them.
“It doesn’t matter the how or why, Sabrina,” he said simply. “Only that it is. For without these memories, the presence would have long since devoured me from the inside out. They are all that stand between me and Máelodor.”
He fell silent, only the sound of his breathing and the occasional creak of the coach to break the quivering tension. The pressure of his emotions built around them like ice upon a dam.
She curled into the crook of his shoulder, using all her empathic gifts to settle the tangled roil of his thoughts, ease the angry questions straining against his heart. Slowly his body relaxed beneath her while his mind calmed from the storm-angry churn of confusion.
“You’ve been given a gift, Daigh. A second chance. An opportunity to reclaim what was stolen from you six hundred years ago.”
“Everyone I remember is dust, Sabrina.”
Her heart turned over at the grief in his voice. She leaned in. Let her hand glide over the ripple of his chest. Delighted in the shiver of his muscles. Finally found the words she was looking for. “Not everyone you remember,”
