Haunting Desire (32 page)

But Jamie didn’t even spare Tiarnan a fleeting look.

“I don’t need to ask him. You fight with a man, you learn a few things about him. He’d cut off his own hand before he’d use it against a woman and he’d probably chop off both before he’d hurt you, Shealy. You didn’t see what he did when he thought you were being threatened. You didn’t see him fight to protect you. He’d never hurt you. Ever.”

Stunned, Tiarnan watched Zac and Reyes nodding in agreement, and their faith humbled him. He didn’t deserve it, yet he wanted to fall to his knees and thank them.

“If you want to tell me how Tiarnan ran in front of a firing squad to save your pretty ass, that I’ll believe. But he’d never harm one of his own.” Jamie leaned forward until Shealy was forced to meet his eyes. “And you, Shealy O’Leary, like it or not, are one of his own.”

Those words were spoken so softly that they might have been a velvety breeze on the twilight air, but Tiarnan felt them reverberating down to his soul. In his entire life, no one had ever spoken up for him in this way. His brothers, Michael and Liam, followed him, yes. But no one had ever stood for him with such certainty and conviction. Eamonn, even before he’d turned, was ever the devil’s advocate, fighting each decision Tiarnan made, questioning every choice. Tiarnan had begun to think he didn’t deserve the loyalty that he’d been given.

Jamie turned to Tiarnan and asked, “Tell me how? How did you go . . . wherever it is you went? How did you find Shealy’s father?”

“It was me,” Shealy said before he could stop her. “I did it. It’s what I do, apparently.”

“It’s what y’ do,” Eamonn repeated, his voice as soft as the shuddering breath she released, as hot as the popping embers of their campfire.

Tiarnan braced himself, seeing the catastrophe that loomed just ahead.

“And how is it that y’ do this thing that makes a man vanish before my very eyes?” Eamonn asked.

“I don’t know how I do it,” she said sharply. “It just happens.”

“It just happens? Y’ just
happened
to leave this place?” he went on, incredulous. “And y’ just
happened
to take Tiarnan and this man, Mahon, with y’? And where is yer father if y’ found him?”

“We don’t know,” Tiarnan answered.

“Well that’s bloody brilliant!” Eamonn shouted. “Y’
don’t know
. What
do
y’ know?”

“I know that I do not answer to y’. Nor does Shealy.”

“That’s where yer wrong, brother.”

Tiarnan took a half step forward, placing his body in front of Shealy’s. Glad to have some action to channel his confusion, pain, and fear. “Y’ said we weren’t yer prisoners. It shouldn’t surprise me that y’ have gone back on yer word.”

Eamonn flinched, but he didn’t back down. “I’ve not gone back on it. Y’ can leave anytime y’ want, Tiarnan. But the woman, she stays.”

“The woman stays with
me
,” Tiarnan corrected.

“The woman has a name,” Shealy said, her temper restored. “And she has a mind of her own. I’ll do what I choose to do and neither of you have a say in it.”

“Time out,” Jamie said. “Everybody just take a step back and breathe.”

Jamie’s deep voice commanded attention, but the tension spiraled higher. Just when it looked like his calming words would have the effect of grease on a fire, Liam came out of a tent with Ellie in his arms. The little girl spotted them and gave a sharp cry, wiggled out of his hold like a wet seal, and then darted across the camp to Shealy. Her distress was so real, so raw that it whipped them, and no one could say a word as they watched Shealy scoop her up and hold her tight. Shealy rocked her sister side to side with soft hushing sounds.

“I’m sorry, Ellie,” she murmured into her ear. “I didn’t mean to leave. I didn’t do it on purpose. I’m sorry.”

Tears streaking her face, Ellie jammed a thumb in her mouth and held on tightly. Then after a moment, she lifted her head from Shealy’s shoulder and said, “Yiam,” around her thumb.

“I’m here, little one,” Liam said, smoothing the silky hair on her golden head. She reached for his hand, pulled it from her head, and tucked it tight against her chest, pinning his fingers in place between her body and Shealy’s with her small, firm grip. Smiling gently, his little brother didn’t try to break away. Instead he moved closer until he stood just behind Shealy.

Ellie was not satisfied yet, though. With an expression of obvious distress she looked at Tiarnan. It was clear in her expression what dilemma she fought. She wanted to pull him nearer as well, but to do so she’d either have to give up the tight clutch she had on Liam’s hand or take her thumb out of her mouth. Finally, with a look of grim determination, she yanked her thumb out, leaned so far over that she nearly unbalanced Shealy, grabbed a fistful of his tunic in her tiny hand, and pulled him into the circle she’d created around herself. Tiarnan could not have denied her anything and especially the very thing his own heart craved.

Eyes on Shealy’s face, he stepped in close, blocking out the others, the rest of the world, as he captured her hurt gaze and held it tight. He wrapped his arms around them all, one hand settling at the dip of Shealy’s waist. The other hand went to Liam’s shoulder where he gave his brother a gentle squeeze, closing a circle with Shealy in the middle. Satisfied that they were all connected now, Ellie gave a heartfelt sigh and laid her head under Shealy’s chin.

“She’s been crying since y’ disappeared,” Liam said softly.

She looked up into Tiarnan’s face and he touched her forehead with his, closing his eyes to the pain he saw in her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to leave you,” Shealy whispered again to her sister.

As Tiarnan held the huddle of people that were his world, he was filled with such a violent need to protect, to keep this unit whole, that it nearly buckled his knees. He didn’t care what the others thought; he clung to those he loved like the desperate man he was.

“Why don’t we all move over to the fire?” Jamie said, breaking the solidified silence.

No one argued, and Tiarnan heard them breaking up, moving toward the campfire. Slowly Liam stepped back. He placed his hand on Tiarnan’s shoulder and said, “Y’ do what is in yer heart, brother. I will follow.”

The pledge was spoken so simply, so calmly, but the words filled him until it felt like he would burst. Liam walked away, leaving only Tiarnan with Shealy and Ellie in his arms. The child stayed quiet, head tucked beneath Shealy’s chin, eyes closed. He wanted to say something to Shealy, something that would make everything right, but there were no magic words that would do such a thing. There was only this moment, strung like pearls to the next.

He would do as his baby brother instructed. He would follow his heart, and that meant follow this woman. No matter where she led him, no matter what she demanded of him.

Without a word, he took her hand, not letting her resist, but when he would have moved to the fire, she stopped him.

“What did he mean, Tiarnan?” she asked.

Tiarnan froze, wishing he could pretend not to know what she wanted. Wishing he could lie and tell her some untruth that would satisfy that entreaty.

“Eamonn,” she went on. “He said ‘again’. What did he mean by that?”

With a deep breath, Tiarnan faced her. Faced his own misery. “There are many reasons why my brother betrayed me,” he said softly. “One of them involved a woman.”

She looked startled by that, and he imagined she pictured a lover’s triangle wedging the brothers apart. Oh that it had only been that.

“We were under attack,” he said, “and I used this woman, who trusted me, as a hostage to save my brothers.”

He couldn’t look at Shealy. Couldn’t breathe through the weight of his shame. “I thought in doing this I would save all of us, but I miscalculated and she was wounded. Because of me.”

“You hurt her?” Shealy asked incredulously.

“I did not throw the knife, but it was my fault the blade found her.”

Shealy absorbed that in stoic silence, but he could not look up. Could not face the disgust that would turn those stormy eyes dark.

“Did she . . . die?”

“No. But she blamed me, as she should. When she was well, she left with Eamonn. Every day since, I have seen her blood on my hands. I have relived those moments and wished I could change how they’d passed.”

She shifted and he felt the weight of her stare on his face. “Would you do it again?” she asked. “Same circumstances, same odds. Would you do it again?”

He swallowed hard, but he did not have to think twice. “No. I was a fool not to trust my brothers to defend themselves. Eamonn was right—I fought alone, always thinking that only I could control the outcome. Had I believed in them, none of them would have been hurt.”

“You don’t know that, Tiarnan,” she said softly.

No, he didn’t. “It doesn’t matter. I brought shame on myself and on my family with my actions. Better for all of us to have died than what I did.”

“Is that what you really think, Tiarnan?”

“Yes. I was wrong that day, but I will not be wrong again. I did not mean for her to be hurt, I would not have hurt her myself, but I endangered her. It is not a mistake I will ever forget.”

“Look at me,” she said, and when he brought his eyes up, she searched them for the truth. He could do nothing more than gaze back, open and exposed for the treacherous fool he was.

“The prophecy,” she began. “It said you would have to choose—”

“The choice is made. If y’ believe nothing else of me, believe that, Shealy. I will never be a danger to y’. Never.”

The declaration hovered between them, fragile but fierce. Tiarnan’s heart turned to stone as he watched her consider it. It would crumble like granite beneath a hammer if she turned away.
Please,
he begged silently.
Please do not turn away.

After a long, painful moment, she nodded. “I believe you.”

The breath he released felt like it had been locked inside his chest for a million years.

There was so much more he wanted to say to her, but Jamie cut him off. “T? You coming?”

Then Shealy turned and moved away without another word and the moment was lost. He caught her before she took her seat by the fire and took her hand again, braced for her rejection. When she didn’t pull away, he found a place to sit with a log behind him to lean against and pulled Shealy down between his legs so that her back rested against his chest, Ellie tight in her arms. Liam sat to his right and wrapped his big hand around the child’s small foot, letting her know he was there, too.

After Jamie and Reyes settled beside Zac, Eamonn and his men filled in the spaces in between. Mahon hovered at the fringes, silent even now as he gauged the mood and the possible outcomes of this meeting. Wariness canvassed the air between them, reinforced by the suspicious glances they all exchanged.

At last, Jamie said, “Let’s start with the clearing.”

“The clearing?” Eamonn demanded. “What fooking clearing?”

Jamie gave him a cold look. “The one with a hundred body parts in it.”

That shut Eamonn’s mouth, but Tiarnan didn’t feel any satisfaction from it. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he didn’t want to talk about the clearing. He didn’t want to discuss the bodies.

“What about it?” Eamonn said.

“Tiarnan here killed about twenty men in just under five minutes. Granted he’s not my brother”—and Jamie shot him a look that seemed to contradict that statement—“but I know the man, and I’ve never seen him do anything like that before.”

Tiarnan opened his mouth to deny that he’d done anything out of the ordinary, but no words came out. Suddenly a flashing assault of images filled his head. Men, charging him with their weapons drawn. Tiarnan, looking down on them from what seemed a great distance. Blood. Everywhere, blood.

“I always thought he had a wee bit of the
riastradh
in him,” Liam said in a very calm tone.

Riastradh.
It was said to transform a man into something that wasn’t quite human, something that knew only death and destruction. A creature that would battle until no blood was left to spill. A man-beast that probably resembled the drawing he’d just seen. Tiarnan swallowed hard, feeling Shealy tense against him. Every damning image in that journal seemed to confirm that the prophecy was true, but he knew his own heart. He’d betrayed it once. He would not do so again.

Encircled by his arms, settled between his spread knees, Shealy was remembering the image in the journal as well, he knew. Her words echoed silently between them.
You were like five men and ten feet tall. . . .
He prayed she wouldn’t turn and look at his face, wouldn’t see the horror lurking in his eyes.

“What does that mean,
reeastr. . .
?” Reyes asked.

“It’s the frenzy that comes over a man in battle,” Eamonn answered in a choked voice.

“It’s more than that,” Liam said, giving Eamonn a dirty look. “Tiarnan, y’ remember the night of our sister’s wedding, when y’ fought a dozen of Cathán’s men at once?”

“Not only Tiarnan fought,” Eamonn said. “I was with him. Y’ weren’t.”

“I was a boy,” Liam answered coldly. “And y’ all forced me to stay behind. But even there I was fighting
with
my brothers. Y’ were fighting for the other side.”

“I didn’t,” Eamonn snarled, paling so that his angry eyes seemed to burn in his white face.

Liam turned back to Shealy. “My brother Michael told me later. The odds were twelve to three.”

“I killed my share,” Eamonn insisted stubbornly, but there was a pleading note in his voice that Tiarnan could not help but hear.

“It was an ugly situation,” Liam went on. “But in the end, Tiarnan brought down eight men in the time it took Eamonn and Michael to kill four.”

A hushed silence followed and Tiarnan felt the curious eyes of all upon him.

“When we came on you, T,” Jamie said. “You were . . .”