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He stood braced in front of the hearth, hands clasped behind his back, gaze wandering in horror over the cottage flower wallpaper, the dainty, lace-encrusted furniture, the herd of cherubs whose painted eyes all seemed to focus on a nearby sculpture of Zeus in naked splendor, thunderbolt in hand.
Despite his otherwise relaxed exterior, Aidan looked as though he’d like to hurl a few thunderbolts of his own. “What was she thinking, Cat? It’s like a damned Paris brothel in here. And what is that horrid smell like overripe fruit?” He sniffed the air by the mantel where purple and blue flames glimmered in the grate. “I knew I should have arranged things myself.”
From the far corner out of Sabrina’s restricted line of vision came the amused reply, throaty and smooth as velvet before breaking into a girlish giggle. “She does have a certain unique taste.”
“It’s not funny,” he grumped.
“You can laugh or you can cry. I choose to laugh. I’ve spilled enough tears for a lifetime.”
Aidan glanced at his watch. Paced a strip of rug, fumbling with his fob. “Where is she? I sent the maid to wake her over an hour ago.”
“Stop fretting. She’ll be down soon enough.”
“I’m not fretting.”
“You’re nervous as a kitten in a thunderstorm. Relax. She’s your sister. It’ll be fine.”
“You don’t sound nervous at all.”
“She’ll accept me or she won’t. I’ve gotten quite good at not caring overmuch.”
“No, you’ve gotten good at hiding that you do care. Different entirely, a chuisle.”
Love and intimacy and tenderness weighted his words, and Sabrina felt like an intruder on some private moment.
Backing away from the door, she cleared her throat. Took a few heavy steps. And glided into the room as if she’d only just arrived.
Daigh stalked the narrow garret. “I’ve tried. And failed. If you want Douglas, you’ll have to find him yourself.”
“And you? Given up trying to implicate St. John in this business? Or has Kilronan’s sister changed her views on bedding a corpse,” Roseingrave stormed. “Perhaps she finally found out what you’d done. To her. Her family.”
His gaze narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Her look tore through him with spear-point intensity. “You’re Lazarus. No matter how you pretty up the reality, you’re a creature of death. And you deal it as casually as any animal.” She gave a hard, brittle laugh. “Did you and Brendan Douglas share a toast when you told him you’d murdered his cousin?”
“Damn it—”
“You killed him. Didn’t even flinch. Didn’t even wait to see if he suffered. Just left him in the road, drowning in his own blood. Did you care? Did you even suffer a pang of remorse?”
“I never . . .” Or had he?
A dark road, sloppy with rain. A carriage and a man with a gun. The Great One’s orders, commands Lazarus could not deny.
The explosion of images rocked him back on his heels.
Fear. Surprise. And the dead weight of a body toppling silently and softly into the mud. A woman’s scream ripping
across the storm.
He dropped to the bed, his hands clutching his head. Bile and vomit scouring his throat raw. His body numb and cold with sweat as images flashed like lightning through his brain. A deadly hunt from Dublin through the Slieve Aughty mountains to the barren, coastal cliffs of County Clare. A battle rippling with flame and Unseelie magic. Lord Kilronan’s vicious hate. Lady Kilronan’s pleas for a final mercy. And a diary. A diary he’d captured for Máelodor in his quest to resurrect Arthur for his own violent and twisted ambitions.
“Live with that, Lazarus,” Roseingrave mocked. “I do.”
He remembered. Everything. In one cataclysmic flooding of memory, it all came rushing back.
The presence slipped and slid through his brain, scales flexing, eyes burning, rage scorching its way through his body as if he were being consumed from the inside out. Seeking, hunting, gathering what it could from its growing control. With every beat of Daigh’s heart, Máelodor’s poisonous mage energy intensified. His powers and Daigh’s strength forming one monstrous being. He held it back as best he could, but it was like holding back the tide.
“You play with a dangerous weapon, amhas-draoi,” he snarled. “What makes you think you won’t end as dead as Jack O’Gara?”
