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Winded, his heart thundering, Conor bent head down, hands on knees. Sucking in great lungfuls of air. Spots burst in his eyes. His stomach throbbed. But he couldn’t rest. Already he sensed the approach of others.
The ward stone’s power ebbed again. He’d strengthened it yesterday and already the warp and weft of the mage energy had unraveled. Enough to embolden the Keun Marow. Enough to put everything under Daggerfell’s protection at risk. Including Ellery. If Asher penetrated the wards…If he got to Ellery…Conor would have failed. And there would be no stopping the Triad.
He wouldn’t let that happen.
Approaching the ward stone, he laid his hands upon the rock. The buzz and tingle of magic sparked up his arm. Raced through his bloodstream. “Dor. Ebrenn.” Each word fell heavy with command. “Dowr. Tanyow.” The air around him crackled. “Menhir. Junya. Gwitha rag Asher.”
As his voice died into silence, light—red and gold and green—twisted and curled over the rock. Pulsed outward east, west, south where it met and melded with the mage energy from the three other ward stones. A constant current. Safety as long as nothing—and no one—interfered.
“Morgan told me which was your room.” Ellery stepped into the bedchamber, shutting the door behind her, leaning against it as if Conor might make a break for it.
He’d been in the act of undressing for bed. His shirt was gone, the tattoos vivid swirls of blue against the muscled bronze of his bare chest. Tired as she was, her heart skipped, settled into an unsteady rhythm.
He glanced at the case clock. One in the morning. “You should be in bed.”
“And who are you? My mother?”
His scars from her injuries—she couldn’t think of them any other way—were now completely gone, but he carried himself gingerly, wincing as he sat to pull off his boots. “You’re tired,” he said.
“And so are you, but I don’t see you tucked up with a warming pan and a cup of milky tea.”
A ghost of a smile touched his face. “Five minutes later and you would have.” He pulled off one boot. Dropped it to the floor before straightening.
That’s when she saw it. A long, ugly weal across his stomach. A fresh wound. “You’re hurt.” She rushed forward.
He caught her wrist before she could lay a hand on him. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” Now that she was close, she saw the edges had already knit closed, the skin pink but healing.
“That’s new. Something happened.” She met his eyes. “Asher tried again, didn’t he?”
Letting go of her wrist, Conor pulled off his other boot and sat back. “The demon’s testing our defenses. Looking for weakness. He didn’t find it tonight.” His gaze remained frustratingly inscrutable.
Conor wasn’t going to make this easy. But now that she was here, she felt a fool. She tumbled the stone in her pocket, wishing she’d just gone to bed. But she’d wanted to show him she knew how much she owed him. Prove that he was right to trust her—that she could understand if he’d take a chance.
“Did you need anything?” he asked. “I can call you a maid if you like.”
She refused to be intimidated by his polite dismissal. She pulled out the pearl, shoved it toward him. “I wanted to give this back to you. It’s not mine. And Molly stole it, so it wasn’t hers either.”
This caught his attention. He stiffened, a guarded look on his face. “I claimed it for you.”
“But I don’t want it. It’s…” she looked down at the shimmer of colors. How far could she have gone with this jewel to pay her way? She held it out again. More firmly this time.
“It’s dirty. Take it.”
He palmed the pearl. His eyes sought hers, curiosity and hesitation mingled in their lightning depths. “Why the change of heart?”
“The truth,” she answered, softly. “You killed my father. I can’t forget that, but I’ve seen Asher for myself. I see what Father’s curiosity wrought. What I don’t see is why you let me believe you were responsible for the massacre that followed. It was Asher.”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “Who told you?”
“Does it matter? Why did you let me think you’d murdered them all?”
He shrugged. “I had my reasons. It seemed best to let you believe.”
“To believe the worst of you?”
He stood up; so close to her she felt his body’s warmth, saw his pulse jump at the base of his throat. “Just because I didn’t kill those men, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have if I had to.”
