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She started to walk around him. Through him would be just too odd. “Go back to whatever hell you’re haunting. I’m through.”
Her hand was on the door when the snaky voice shuddered through her. “You care for Bligh, don’t you?”
Her pulse thundered. Her hand shook. That was the real question, wasn’t it?
“What would you do to ensure he doesn’t come back to you in pieces? Or worse?” His slithery words congealed her blood. Curled around her heart until it shriveled into a tight little ball.
“Conor Bligh has the mark of greatness on him. It needs only a world that can appreciate his kind of magnificence. I could give him that world. I could raise him up to greater heights than he could ever realize as one of Scathach’s soldier boys.” His voice dropped to a hissed whisper. “Or I could tear him down so that nothing remains of the amhas-draoi but a putrid carcass.”
“If you admire him so much, why kill him?”
“He is with me or he is against me. To realize my dream of a united world, fey and Mortal, I would sacrifice even such a treasure as Bligh, though it would break my heart to do it.” His tone softened. “If you care for him at all, you can save him.”
“What do you want?”
“The reliquary. Bring it to me before Beltane and all is forgotten. You and Bligh can live out your lives in peace. And perhaps even find a place within my new order for yourselves. A place of power. Of distinction.”
She focused on Conor’s wolf-head ring. Locked her eyes on it as she fought to breathe. “And if I can’t get it?”
“If he meets me at Ilcum Bledh, I will kill him slow and feed his body to my Keun Marow. Your choice.” He paused.
“Sleep on it.”
She knew without turning around that he’d gone. The unearthly green light vanished, throwing the room back into darkness. Inhaling a shuddery breath, she released the knob. Looked around. There was nothing to show her she hadn’t been dreaming. But she knew.
Just as she knew with a certainty that Conor had been right. He wasn’t coming back.
She sank to her knees, clutching her stomach. Asher’s power was too great. She’d be a bride for a day. A widow forever.
Hot tears tracked her face, and finally she wept.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Conor strained to peer through the morning fog that drifted over the sea like smoke, picking out the sails of a distant ship hull down on the horizon. Waves creamed onto the beach, the outgoing tide exposing tiny brown shore crabs and shoals of fry in rocky pools. He inhaled deeply, letting the freshening breeze off the Channel clear his mind of the muddle left after hours of reading. Refusing to remain closeted with the dry words of the long-dead another moment, he’d left the library at dawn. He didn’t want his last days spent bent over a book. Instead, he walked the boundaries, inspecting each ward stone in its setting. Reinforced them. Reassured himself.
To the west, he’d stalked the lonely hills and fields. To the north, he’d tramped the glades beneath Daggerfell’s towering ashes and oaks. Made his way east to the shore and stood watch as ships headed up the Channel toward Falmouth. Southampton. London.
He’d imagined going to Ellery, arousing her with a sensuous caress, sheathing himself in her moist heat as he kissed her awake. Bringing her to climax even as her dreams faded into day. He rubbed a tired hand down his face. That was the last thing he should do. He’d almost killed himself staying away from her last night. He couldn’t falter now. Not when he was so close.
He’d found the passages he’d sought, though they only confirmed what he suspected. There was another way. One that didn’t call for fulfillment of the curse. But it was only slightly less final than death.
Could he do it? Could he give himself up to the emptiness, the soul-draining change that would enable him to put an end to Asher once and for all? There would be no turning back once he drew on the ancient Fomorii power. Let the Ancient Ones dominate him. Transform him.
He sighed. It didn’t matter. He would do what he must. But he would make certain Ellery never saw him that way. Would remember him as the man he was and not the being he would become.
He’d tried making it right. If Beltane spelled the end, she wouldn’t suffer for his recklessness. He’d leave her his family. His home. And if the gods granted them a child from their one night together, then his son or daughter would
bear the protection of his name. Of his honor. It was the best he could salvage from that disaster.
He straightened, stretched. Now that his mind was made up, the ache across his shoulders faded. A calm settled over him.
He picked at the lichen on the rock where he sat, watching the gulls croak and shriek as they swooped to the tide pools to feed. He tossed a pebble, scattering them up the beach. All but one who watched him with a cocked head and a clever gleam in his eye. “Go on,” he said, flicking another stone toward the gull.
A subtle, spicy aroma reached his nose at the same time a slide of scree sounded from the dunes above. He turned just as Ellery reached the beach. “He thinks you’ll feed him.”
“To what?” he answered more sharply than he intended, but the sight of her so soon after his lusty imaginings had caught him off guard. The breeze sent another wave of her lush fragrance toward him, and his groin tightened.
“I didn’t find you in the library.” She joined him, her hands bunched in her apron pockets, her expression serious. “I thought you might be here.”
