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His eyes danced with laughter. “No, but I had you for a minute there.” He pulled her close. “The arm’s better. Stiff, but still attached. I’ll live to fight another day.”
Flying high, she’d been unprepared for the sudden belly-punch of fear. Brendan joked, but it was the kind of grim humor people resorted to when the truth was too awful to contemplate. She glanced away, not wanting to show him how his words frightened her.
It didn’t work. He knew.
“Lissa?” he asked gently, tipping her chin back to him, worry in his gaze. “Are you truly all right?”
She didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to have to explain her feelings when she didn’t completely understand them herself. She would revel in what she had of hi
m. Try not to yearn for what he could not give.
With a brave smile and a shrug, she quickly changed the subject. “What’s this mark?” She traced the outline of a broken arrow bisecting a crescent. It began at the junction of his neck and left shoulder before curving down over his chest. “I noticed it before.”
Brendan’s stare seemed to reach right inside her. But instead of pushing for answers, he merely reached up to cover her hand with his own, slowly drawing it away from the tattoo. “Momentary insanity.”
“Did you have it done in Greece?”
“In the back room of a Paris brothel. Father was furious. Called me—well, I’m too much of a gentleman to repeat what he called me, but he vowed I’d regret it.” He closed his eyes for a brief moment, his jaw jumping. “He was right.”
She leaned up on an elbow, searching his face for some hint of the man behind the mask he wore so deliberately. The façade he created to keep everyone out. “Why did you leave Belfoyle? What really happened to make you disappear so completely? We all thought you dead, Brendan. Your family—” She dragged in a steadying breath before meeting his gaze. “—I—mourned you.”
He pushed her hair back from her forehead before pressing a kiss there. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It was a long time ago.”
But it did matter. She could see it in the shadows of his eyes. The strain of his body. Whatever had driven him away and destroyed the Douglases haunted him still.
Why wouldn’t he tell her? What could be so horrible?
Was it because she wasn’t good enough? Not smart enough? Didn’t have that invisible aura of power she felt in the presence of all those gifted with Fey blood?
Resentment licked along limbs so recently alive with passion’s fire.
“In other words, impossible for a Duinedon like me to understand,” she huffed.
He chuckled. “You may not have inherited the gifts of the Fey-born, but that doesn’t make you any less a part of our world.”
“But I’m not, don’t you see? I never have been. My father always said the Other were cursed to remain apart. To hide who they are. To stay within the shadows. And he was right. My grandmother was always seen as a madwoman by those who didn’t know.”
Brendan rolled onto his back, hands folded behind his head, his expression serious. “Yet, to those who knew her and what she was, Elisabeth, her affinity for growing things wasn’t seen as a curse but as a great gift. She chose to shower that gift upon Dun Eyre, making it a magical place.”
He was right. Dun Eyre was magical. Travelers from all over visited to see the magnificent gardens set among the rugged moors and rocky cliffs. Aunt Fitz would proudly show them round the house and grounds while Aunt Pheeney awaited them in the drawing room, where paying guests were offered refreshments and a cheerful welcome.
“I miss Dun Eyre. I miss my aunts.” She laid her head upon his chest, the steady beat of his heart calming the sudden ache in her throat. “I miss my dull, quiet life.”
He pushed her hair off her face, his smile wistful. “I miss mine too.”
It was the closest he came to a confession.
He closed his eyes, though he didn’t sleep. His body remained too taut, his breath too shallow. Gods, he was beautiful. The narrow chiseled lines of his face, the curve of sensual lips, strong patrician nose, and those sinfully long lashes. His broad chest tapering to a ridged abdomen, a narrow line of hair disappearing beneath the sheet covering his waist. Even the swirl of the arrow-and-crescent tattoo only added to his raw masculinity.
Her chest tightened, her hand reaching to caress him.
A smile hovered at the edge of his mouth. “Describe it to me,” he whispered, almost a plea.
“What do you want to know?”
“The look. The smell. Is Aidan well? Is he happy? What’s changed since I was last there? Tell me everything so I can see it.”
“You said you didn’t care. That you couldn’t look back and survive.”
