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She sought to do the same for him, but he dodged her interrogations. Answered questions with questions until she surrendered. He’d not speak of his years as Máelodor’s slave. And the dim and hazy memories of his previous life he hoarded like gold, unwilling to spend them on her when he needed all to feed the demon within him.
“Does Lord Kilronan share your father’s view? Will he find you a husband untroubled by your loss of maidenhead? An earl’s daughter would make many turn a blind eye.”
Sabrina speared Daigh with a glare though he remained focused upon the floor and did not see the agitation in her gaze. “I don’t think so. His wife surely might intervene if he tried.” She knew she spoke truth. Cat would be on Sabrina’s side, and no matter what Aidan’s feelings, the new Lady Kilronan was a powerful ally. “They may grump and despair of me, but I’m safe enough from old lechers and young fortune hunters.”
“You care about your family.” He looked over, his face shuttered, his eyes gleaming obsidian. “It’s in your voice. The way you speak about them.”
“I don’t know why I should. They never cared about me.”
“How can you say so? Lord Kilronan seemed a protective brother when I met him last.”
“Protective doesn’t equal loving.” She tossed away the stem.
“Is that why you chose to hide away here?”
She didn’t grow angry. Didn’t defend. Simply shrugged deeper into her cloak. “I’m not hiding anymore.”
His mouth twisted in a grim half smile. “Nor should you. You’re a brave woman, Sabrina. If you weren’t, you would have run the first time you laid eyes on me.”
“I did.”
He gave a gruff laugh. “You should have kept running.”
“I couldn’t. What I saw—what I felt—made me stay.”
“You can still leave. It might be better. The bandraoi will be wondering where you are.”
“Ard-siúr refuses my entry into the order. They no longer govern what I do or who I do it with.”
She leaned back, staring up through the cracks in the shingles as silence fell between them. If only this could last forever. Yet time rushed forward, carrying them onward toward treacherous shoals. She sensed it in Daigh’s slow drawing away from her. The heavy line of his brow, the hardness entering his gaze. Already the pleasure of these hours slipped away from them. She would capture what she could before they vanished forever.
As if sensing her mood, Daigh spoke. “There is not much time left. Already Máelodor’s power over me grows difficult to resist. I am being drawn back under his control.”
Her heart kicked up into her throat. “But Ard-siúr . . . or perhaps the Fey themselves. Didn’t you say Miss Roseingrave told you they could free you?” Not yet. Please, not yet.
“No. This is beyond your Ard-siúr’s skills, and I have tried summoning the Fey, but I am not of any world they understand, and so they ignore my calls. This is my battle.”
“You said memories break his hold upon your mind.”
“For now.”
“Then let’s build a wall of memory to shut him out.”
He arched a brow. “You would—”
“I would do whatever I could for the man I love.”
He sucked in a quick breath, his body tensing. “You must not say that.”
“My body is my own. I offer it freely. My love also is mine to bestow where I choose, and that I offer only to one I know is worthy of it.”
“I can promise nothing.”
“I’m not seeking promises.”
He leaned toward her, his lips warm and firm against her own. He kissed her, his tongue gliding within, the sweet drugging taste of him in her mouth. The clean masculine smell of him in her nose. His left hand cradled her nec
k as he pressed closer, probed deeper while his right skimmed her ribs, the curve of her hip.
