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Her head shot up, an angry burn in her eyes, chin trembling with emotion, but no sign of crying. “I have the damned thing.”
“You?”
“I kept it safe for seven years, didn’t I?”
“Lissa—”
“Don’t call me that. And don’t look at me as if I’m some sort of simpleton who can’t understand words of more than two syllables. I wept all over you like a watering pot long enough to slip it from your neck before Helena noticed. No doubt she thinks I’m a blubbering crybaby, but it worked. If the stone was so damned special, my life’s destruction counted as nothing, then I knew it must be important. And I didn’t trust them. Not completely. Not then.”
“You do now?”
“Do I have a choice?”
A silence fraught with recrimination and regret on both sides blanketed the wagon. Gods, he hated this helplessness. Being at the mercy of others. He’d spent too long trusting no one to so easily put his faith in another’s hands.
She reached beneath her gown, pulling free the simple chain. The stone hanging dark and lifeless. Unclasping it, she handed it to Brendan. “Here. If I never see it again, I shall count myself fortunate.”
The stone barely touched his palm before the visions crashed through his brain.
A man picking among the fields of dead, cheeks blackened with dirt and sweat, streaked with tears. Finding one body among the hundreds, he dropped to his knees, cradling the corpse as if it were a sleeping child. Lifted his head to hurl a curse to the sky, his face caught by a bloody sun. Eyes burning hot and gold as molten steel.
“It can’t be,” Brendan whispered. “I won’t let it happen.”
Dropping the stone as if scalded, he dragged in a breath like a drowning swimmer. The defeated warrior and his fallen comrade, both fading beneath a pall of smoke and fog and gold-edged mist.
Once again he was in the wagon with Elisabeth. Somewhere on the road between Dun Eyre and Dublin. A distant ringing of bells still echoing in his ears.
“Did you really think you could return to Ireland and not be caught?”
“Let’s say I was hopefully optimistic.”
The wagon hit a bump, the jolt like an explosion of nerve endings from his shoulder to his fingertips. “Does he do that on purpose?” Brendan groused.
Helena Roseingrave gave a smile of half amusement. “Rogan’s no member of the Four-in-Hand, but his other talents make up for any lack of skill at the ribbons. It was he who discovered your trail outside Gort and tracked you down. Lucky for you.”
Luck? She called this luck? Lying in the back of a wagon with a hole in him that hurt like the devil at the mercy of a woman he knew by reputation as being driven, dangerous, and, according to Jack, the world’s best kisser? Though he doubted he’d ever be in a position to test that last quality.
“He’s a mage-chaser?” He cast a respectful glance at the hunched back of his tormentor on the box. Many Other possessed the ability to sense mage energy. Those skilled enough to follow it like a hound follows a scent were rare indeed.
The wagon dropped with a rattling thud into another pothole, slamming his shoulder into the side of the wagon. Spots shot before his eyes, and he almost passed out at the pain. “Bloody hell, that hurt like a m—”
“Shh! You’ll wake your captive.”
Elisabeth lay rolled in a blanket, a folded coat as her pillow. In the narrow bed of the wagon, she’d curled uncomfortably close to him. A peep of red hair and the curve of a pink cheek was all he could see above the blanket, but she gave off heat like a furnace, and if he stretched his hand just a bit to the left, he’d be able to rest it on the swell of her hip. Not that he would. Of course not. This was Elisabeth. He needed to gain hold of himself.
“Is that what she told you?” Somehow he’d thought they’d moved beyond Elisabeth’s initial fury. Knowing she still regarded him as the devil incarnate hurt more than he thought it would.
“That was the least insulting thing she told me. Though, for a prisoner, she seemed awfully concerned over your survival. Cried all over you. Rogan had to pry her away before I could sew you up. Let me guess, your incredible Douglas magnetism swept her off her feet.”
“That’s right. Nothing like a little mayhem and terror to get the blood pumping. Better than oysters and sentimental poetry.”
Guilt gnawed at him. It was his fault Lissa had been dragged into this. His fault she’d almost been killed back there. “Elisabeth’s involvement was a mistake. She’s nothing to do with any of this debacle,” he said.
“Another victim of Brendan Douglas? Shocking. You must be racking up quite a count of people who’ve paid for your errors.” Her eyes bored into his.
“Why didn’t you let me die back there? Or kill me yourself?” he snarled.
She gazed upon him coolly. “Perhaps you’d prefer that. A swift clean death at my hand to what waits should Máelodor recapture you?”
