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He looked up, past Morgan to where someone else stood. Alone. Head down. And she realized that not all the stomach heaving, whirling-head queasiness was due to her injuries. Conor reeked of fey magic, raw and unrefined and instantly recognizable now that she knew how it affected her.
“It’s too late,” Jamys said. “He doesn’t know any of us. Barely knows his own name.”
She rose with Ruan’s help to her feet. “He’ll know me.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he answered. She shot him a look, but he put up a hand. “I’m only warning you. He’s not…he’s not Conor anymore. He’s someone—something else.”
She shook off his arm, took two staggering steps before she regained her equilibrium. Walked gingerly down the slope to where Conor stood.
Approaching him, she slowed. Suddenly unsure of herself. Afraid that Ruan was right. That this wasn’t Conor. He still carried himself with the sinewy self-control of the Heller, and his torn shirt exposed the cold marble of his skin, his mage marks lit with an unearthly silver glow. This was the Conor Bligh who had killed her father. Uncaring. Callous. Single-minded. How much had he lost while she lay unconscious? And what could she do to draw him back?
“They tell me…” Her voice came out shaky, and she cleared her throat. “They tell me you saved my life.”
He swung around, and Ellery reeled back, his empty, flaming gaze like a slap in the face.
“I did what was necessary.” His voice was as hollow of warmth as his eyes.
She squared her shoulders. “That’s not true. If you’d done what you ought to from the start, I’d be dead, Asher would be imprisoned, and you’d…you’d be Conor.”
A flicker of emotion passed over his face. Then his gaze shifted to the reliquary. Ellery hadn’t noticed it at first. But it lay where she’d last seen it, discarded in the grass. Only now the restless buzz of impatience had ceased. The brothers were quiet. It was just a box.
“The demon fey was reckless. That was his downfall,” Conor explained.
Ellery rubbed her arms up and down, not all of her goose-bumps coming from the chilly spring dawn.
“We’d have done things differently. Not so hard, really, when you think about it. And instead of a creature with a heart of brimstone and death, you could have a sorcerer with the power of the ancients guiding his steps.” His smile was as mocking and cruel as Asher’s had been.
It tore at her heart. “You don’t mean that, Conor. You fought so that no one would hold dominion over the worlds, Faery or human.”
He frowned. “That’s a name I remember from somewhere.” A shift, barely noticeable, but it had been there. And for a moment the fey had given way to the man. There was hope then.
Ellery recalled Lowenna’s words. With Ysbel’s death had come a viciousness and a temptation to use his gifts to hurt as he had been hurt. But he’d pulled back from that road. She’d pulled him back. Somehow. Could she do it again? “You’re Conor Bligh,” she stated firmly.
His eyes went dark, his voice harsh and stiff as if speech was unnatural. “No longer. He traded that life for another. He has passed beyond names.”
A spark of anger fanned to life. She’d gone through too much to be thwarted by some primeval fey with delusions of grandeur. “Look, you. I want my husband back. His vows to me come first. And I expect him to live up to them. Better. Worse. Sickness. Health. Does any of that sound familiar?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, his gaze returned to the reliquary. He squatted, putting out a tentative hand as if he meant to lift the lid. “It could be ours,” he purred. “They would serve us.”
She lurched to push him away. “Are you mad?” Knocked him back into the grass before sliding between him and the casket. “Damn you, Conor. We just rid ourselves of one monster. Are you trying to start this horrible mess all over again?”
He raked her with a gaze that could strip paint. “Do you dare touch us?”
“Damn right I dare.”
Anger didn’t begin to cover the burn that lit her like a torch. She’d been to hell and back. She ached head to toe from a hundred different hurts. She’d lost her father, her sister-in-law, and now her husband to Asher’s ambition. This ended here.
She dropped down beside him. Ignored the almost incapacitating wretchedness that came with being so close to such concentrated fey magic. Ignored his hard, stony gaze and rigid muscles. Took his face in her hands. And kissed him.
She was so close every freckle across her nose stood clear. The flecks of steel in her blue eyes. The scent of her skin. Her mouth moved slowly over his in a queer tangle of lips and tongues and teeth. Her breath sweet and soft in his lungs. Images flashed into focus. The woman, drenched and shivering in a long, baggy coat, yet still offering him a brave smile. And in his arms, a lithe strength hidden beneath the generous curves. Feelings slashed through his armored heart. Concern. Gratitude. Pride.
He gripped her shoulders, started to push her away. She clung like a burr, refusing to release him, her hands upon his chest, her body uncomfortably close. More images. Her hand in his surrounded by smiling people. Weeping for him on a rock-strewn beach. More feelings. Desire. Affection. Need. Love.
He threw her off. Broke away, breathing hard. “That wasn’t the response I got on our wedding night,” she quipped.
She was too pale. And she shivered. He felt her trembling, though they barely touched. Was she ill? Was she wounded? He put out a hand, wanting to brush her cheek, bring some warmth to that ghostly white skin. But a voice stopped him. Bound him to a chilly indifference.
“You’re Conor Bligh,” she repeated, force behind her words. “My husband. And if you think I’m going to let you go now, you’re mistaken. I love you, you great lumpen bullock.”
