Haunting Warrior (11 page)

She swayed against him, lost her balance, and he used the movement to pull her tighter, pressing her body to his, feeling her soft breasts flatten against the muscles of his chest, wishing he was as naked as she. Her hands circled his neck, fingers digging into his hair.

Christ, it was like falling into a blazing inferno. He felt the heat all around him, coming from within, from without, singeing his fingers, his heart, his soul. She made a sound that licked the flame through his blood. Then she eased back, trailing her touch over the hard muscles of his chest, her fingers lingering on the spiral scar for just a moment before dragging down the flat dip of his belly. He caught his breath, waiting for her to go lower, praying she’d go lower. But instead she dipped into his pocket and pulled free the pendant his grandmother had given him. She dangled it between them, her body angled away from his, forcing him to focus on what she held until at last he reached for the glittering object. She pressed it into his hand, curling his fingers around it.

And then she whispered the words he knew he’d been waiting to hear. The words he’d fled from in his dreams. The words that had lured him here, to this place with her. Now.

With her lips against his once more, she said, “
Hurry
,
Ruairi
.
Hurry
.”

R
ORY had the sensation of floating. He was neither here, nor there. He was trapped between the two.

The cavern was gone; the woman, too. He was outside again, in fresh air beneath a rising sun. All around him was open land, green and lush as only Eire could be. But there was no trace of the sea, no scent of the ocean lapping damp shores. He might still be in Ireland, but there was no place on the Isle of Fennore where he wouldn’t smell the salt and spray of the rolling waves. And the landscape was too wild and too hostile for it to be the island he knew.

He was moving with a steady, rolling gait.
Horseback?
It fit, and yet a part of his brain rejected the idea as quickly as it came. The sensation was there, but incomplete in a way he couldn’t explain. He looked to his left, and the twin he’d dreamed of so many times before emerged from a blurred silhouette into crisp clarity. As if it had taken Rory’s attention to bring him into focus. Rory filed that away in his too-weird-to-contemplate compartment and studied his body double.

The other Rory rode a mighty black horse with ribbons braided into its mane and tail, coat gleaming and adorned with bright silk scarves. It was dressed up for something and excited. It tossed its head and lifted its hooves high in an agitated prance.

His twin looked confident in the saddle. His fur cloak was flung back from his shoulders and draped over the horse’s hindquarters. The dead paws still attached to the skin flapped in the breeze and made a parody of petting. As he had in the dreams, Rory’s twin wore a long blue shirt embroidered at the hem and seams with spirals and symbols in purple and gold. On the chest was the intricately woven triple spiral, the pattern exactly like the pendant Rory’s grandmother had given him. Rory looked down, realizing only then that he still held the pendant. His fingers were tangled in the leather cord, the hard metal and jewels pressed into his damp palm.

He thought to return it to his pocket, remembering how his dream-woman had pulled it out and pressed it into his hand before he’d suddenly fallen into this crazy quasi dream.

It was only then that he made another realization.

He had no pocket. He had no clothes. He was stripped. Stark naked and hovering beside his twin like some wacked cherub in a celestial painting. Rory’s body rocked with the sensation of riding the horse, mimicking the movements of his twin, but there was no animal beneath him.

He tried to get his mind around what he was feeling, seeing . . . experiencing. It wasn’t Rory astride the great beast, but he shared the sensation of it. The steady roll of its gait, the feel of its barrel chest expanding with each huge breath, the toss of its head. He felt his twin’s admiration for the spirited mount. The sparking satisfaction that he and he alone had broken the stallion into submission. His pleasure mingled with a churning tension and anger that roiled just beneath the surface.

The dreams of the woman had been strange, erotic, disconcerting. He’d felt a similar sense of participation in them. But this . . . what he felt now . . . this was something altogether different. Rory couldn’t explain how or why, but it was. Definitely it was.

“Quit your brooding, boy,” a voice commanded.

Startled, Rory snapped his attention from his twin to the man who’d spoken. Like an optical illusion, his shape and form burst from the smear of colors and became suddenly clear and vivid while his voice roused some slumbering recollection that splintered the surface of his mind but did not emerge enough to grasp.

The man rode a horse to the twin’s right. Behind the two of them were others who seemed to materialize only as Rory’s gaze passed over them. A long line of others, to be exact. Men, striding in formation, two abreast and no less than fifty deep. A pair in front carried banners with the same tri-spiral image that marked the pendant and the twin’s tunic. The procession twisted and snaked over the hillside, following the two on horseback with the kind of subdued obedience that made Rory think of disciplined Nazis marching in perfect precision. Questioning nothing as they moved as one. Wondering at his own snap judgment, he noted how their eyes tracked the man riding beside Rory’s twin as he swayed in the saddle, waiting for the tiniest shift of movement to guide them.

No one seemed to notice Rory was there. He was invisible, as he’d been in the dreams. But he wasn’t dreaming now, was he? He’d been wide awake—standing up even—when this . . . this vision or whatever the hell it was had taken him. And where was the woman he’d followed? She’d disappeared again and left him here like a clown with his balls hanging in the wind.

Frowning, Rory turned his attention back to the man riding beside his twin. His voice had been familiar, but Rory didn’t know why. He’d spoken in a strange archaic language that Rory had never heard before, and yet he understood what was said. He’d never been more grateful for his natural ability to comprehend the meaning of a language before he even grasped the mechanics. It was the only gift of his heritage that he’d never rejected.

The man’s hair glinted golden and red, salted at the temples with gray, a sign of age that was not mirrored in his youthful face. More gray flecked his neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, but few wrinkles creased the sun-browned skin or fanned from the bright blue eyes. He had an open face. Friendly. And yet there was something hidden in his expression that contradicted that impression in the same way the gray contrasted with the young-looking face. Rory couldn’t say just what it was.

He was heavyset and solid, clothed like Rory’s twin in bright blue and purple with a replica of the spiraled image woven into the front. His fur cloak was white, amazingly bright in the crisp morning sun. Rory couldn’t hazard a guess on how many animals had died to make the garment. A gold chain held it in place, and it didn’t surprise Rory in the least that the clasp was yet another jeweled triple spiral.

The black horse his twin rode tossed his head again, and instinctively Rory tightened his thighs, holding on when the horse reared in agitation, understanding how stupid it was even as he did it.

“Control that beast,” the man beside them said. He flicked a quick glance over Rory’s twin, and there was a perplexing mixture of contempt and regard that caught Rory by surprise. And strangely enough, that unfathomable look brought with it absolute recognition. Rory hadn’t seen this man for twenty-five years, but he knew instantly and without a doubt who he was. Impossible, unbelievable, and yet undeniable. The man was Cathán MacGrath. Rory’s father.

A wash of incredulity stole his breath and filled his lungs even as tears burned his eyes and blurred his vision. How many childhood fantasies had included moments like this when Rory would singlehandedly find the man he’d loved more than anyone? The man whose loss he felt responsible for?

Memories came at him like lightning in the thunderstorm of confusion. The last time he’d seen his father had been that night beneath the ruins when they’d both held the Book of Fennore between them. When they’d fought each other and the demons inside to control it. How was Cathán here, in this bizarre fantasy that continued to warp and race to inexplicable ends? And did his being here mean the Book was, too?

“I don’t like it,” Rory’s twin said angrily. “We can call them out and stomp them to dust if that’s what yer wanting, but this skulking y’ have us doing is not right.”

“Christ, but you’re like your mother.” Cathán spoke in the same strange tongue, only betraying himself by drawing out his “yous” instead of clipping them short.

Rory’s twin obviously found this offensive, and the simmering rage Rory sensed in him boiled into festering fury. “If the men knew of yer plans, they’d be of the same mind,” he insisted coldly.

“Which is why they don’t know of it, you fool. We’ve been stomping Bain’s fucking people to dust for ten years and still they defy us. I see them gaining power, working the sympathies of others against us. This will take the heat from their flame. They will be powerless.”

“They’d be powerless dead,” Rory’s twin insisted.

“No,” Cathán said, his tolerance departing with the one word. He reached over and grabbed Rory’s twin by the front of his tunic, crushing the fabric in a tight fist. “They’d be martyrs, and there’s no worse an enemy than a martyred one. Now shut it and do as you’re told.”

“Wed the witch.”

“Aye. Wed and bed her, you pathetic imbecile. Get her with child and be quick about it. Only then will we own her. I wish to Christ I could do it myself.”

Rory stared at his father with disbelief, trying unsuccessfully to put his memory of his father into this sharp, hard mold.

“I give you this chance to be a man, Ruairi. Do not fail.”

“I am a man already and y’ give me nothing,” Rory’s twin said angrily, jerking away.

To that, Cathán’s response was cold, mirthless laughter. “You are what I say you are. A beast as sure as the one you sit on. I mean what I tell you, boy. You’ll not harm her. We’ve tried the whip, now it’s time to try the honey.”

Rory’s twin clenched his jaw on whatever he wanted to say, but his ire shimmied around him like a silent windstorm. Rory recognized it. Saw it in the taut line of his shoulders and the dark scowl on his face. He’d worn that expression himself, felt that smoldering anger waiting to ignite and explode. Felt at once comforted and distressed to see it now.

He exhaled, felt his twin do the same. He wanted this . . . this
episode
to end, but he couldn’t make himself wake or come to or whatever the hell it was he needed to do to end it. He felt like he was drowning in it and he couldn’t find the surface.

“I still don’t see how this is the answer,” Rory’s twin blurted, as if he couldn’t help himself. “Marriage or no, Bain’s people will never be our friends.”

“No, they’ll not be friends, but a man thinks twice before killing his family. And a mother will do anything to save her babe. You get the girl with child, son, and I will take care of the rest. Do you think you can manage that or will I have to help you there as well?”

The insult did not go unnoticed. Rory’s twin leaned forward and glared at Cathán, and for the first time Rory noticed a flat gleam to the blue eyes that were so like and so different from his own.

“Watch yerself, old man,” he said in a tone deceptively soft.

For a moment, Cathán looked uneasy—frightened even—and Rory viewed his twin with new eyes. He was massive and armed to the teeth. But what made him truly terrifying was the rage on his face and the pitiless well of those eyes.

“Once we have the Book, you’ll thank me for this,” Cathán said, spurring his horse forward, bravely giving Rory’s twin his back.

He heard the capital
B
in his father’s tone, knew it could be none other than the Book of Fennore.

He leaned forward, hoping to urge his twin to catch up to Cathán and ask more about the Book. But whatever signal connected the two of them didn’t seem to work both ways. Rory felt the churn of frustration inside his twin, but he was unable to convey his own needs.

Ahead, Cathán came to a place where their path was met by another and he stopped. The procession came to a halt behind him and waited for Cathán to tell them what to do next. The horses shifted and snorted, the men scanned the clearing and the forest line on either side with anxious eyes. Rory felt his gut tighten. What were they waiting for?

He joined them in scrutinizing the horizon, searching for movement and finding none. A dark, dense forest crowded up to the road on the right, and the branches waved in the breeze, leaves shushing the birds that twittered and cawed.

Uneasiness moved through the men like a wave and drew Rory’s attention to a small party of four cresting the hill. He felt his twin’s tension as he spotted their horses, felt the expectant hush as the small group drew closer. Among them was the woman who had haunted his sleep, haunted his thoughts, brought him here. Rory felt the breath leave his lungs.

She was as beautiful and seductive in this fantasy as she’d been each night she’d tormented him. Dressed now in more than just a shift, she wore a blue gown that shimmered in the clouded sunlight. Her hair had been braided into an intricate pattern and then coiled around her head. The dark gleam of it caught the sun and reflected it. Her skin looked golden, eyes almost black and tilted at the corners. Her nose was a little long, her mouth a bit too wide. But the small imperfections somehow balanced her face and made it all the more perfect. She was as exotic and magnificent as an orchid in a bed of roses.