Haunting Warrior (37 page)

“But you do know her better? And you believe her.”

Michael stared at him for a long moment before answering, his gaze moving from Rory’s face to his chest where the spiral scar appeared white in the morning light. “Aye, I believe her. But if I didn’t, those men down there might have convinced me. It’s quite a following y’ have for yerself, Ruairi of Fennore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Only that they say y’ are the Marked One they are here to follow.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“They say yer touched by the Book. That it wants y’.” He narrowed his eyes in a gesture that reminded Rory of Saraid. “That’s what yer here for, isn’t it?”

Rory could lie. He might even get away with it. But where was the point? “It is.”

“Well I tell y’ now, if y’ let it near my sister, I will kill y’ myself. Make no mistake.”

“Why would I let it near Saraid?”

“
You
tell me. All I’m saying is y’ should forget the fooking Book. It will bring no good.”

Rory looked away. “It’s what I came for. It’s my ticket home.”

Michael glared at him. “And what about my sister? She’s yer wife, isn’t she? Would y’ leave her?”

Rory’s jaw clenched. Would he?

“Maybe she’ll want to come with me.”

Michael’s glare hardened to a scowl. “If y’ give her over to that Book, y’ will not be going anywhere, with or without her.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not giving her to anyone or anything.”

“They say it wants her. Wants the both of you.”

“They who?” Rory demanded, looking past Michael to the men below, knowing the answer already.

The fish in the ocean.
That’s what Michael had called them earlier. Because they moved in groups or because there were so many of them? Since he’d first tumbled out that morning, their numbers seemed to have grown.

“Who?” he repeated. “Which one specifically?”

“Not just one. There are three of them. They’re yer fookin’ disciples it seems.”

Rory gave him a sideways look, hoping he’d see humor on Michael’s face. But he was serious. And there was fear beneath the steady gaze that met his.

Biting back a grunt of pain, Rory used the wall of the cave for support and stood. Bright colors and biting agony buckled his knees. A steady throb played the “Star-Spangled Banner” in his head, but he managed to stay on his feet without keeling over or dropping the puppy. He handed the small animal to Michael.

“Any chance you can patch him up?”

“Aye,” Michael said, taking the little dog with infinite gentleness. “But what are y’ up to?”

Before he could answer, Saraid emerged from the cave. “Where are y’ going?” she exclaimed.

She looked alarmed, and at first he thought it was his unsteady bearing that caused it. But then he realized. She thought he meant to leave her—again. Well she had good reason to suspect him of abandoning her. Hadn’t he been trying to do just that since the moment he’d appeared in this time and place? But not anymore. Maybe never again.

He brushed her cheek with his knuckles and tilted her chin up so she could see in his eyes.

“Don’t worry, princess. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve just got a little fishing to do.”

S
ARAID followed Ruairi down the sloping path from the cave to the meadow below. His steps wobbled distressingly, but he walked tall and proud as any warrior. He was big and solid, intimidating despite his wounded and weakened state. Stripped from the waist up, his skin gleamed golden brown, throwing the silky pucker of the spiral scar and the bandages covering his shoulder and arm into stark relief. Hard slabs of muscle defined his chest and torso. His skin had felt like satin stretched tight over oak when she’d touched him. A line of golden hair arrowed down from his flat belly to his trews, riding low on lean hips. A thin band of white showed above them where the sun had not touched. The sight of that flashing pale flesh did strange things to her insides.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he shifted his blue, blue eyes to her face. The heat in his look burned over her, through her. Made the rest of the world disappear, if only for a moment. Silently he took her hand in his and held it. There was ownership in the gesture, a possessiveness that should have made her rebel but didn’t. Instead the warmth of his grip soaked into her. She felt safe. Cared for. Protected.

The gathered men below noted their descent and one by one they stood and turned, watching him. Watching her. They’d seen the claim he’d made when he’d taken her hand and she had the sense that every step he took now was somehow foretold. Everything he did, perhaps.

As he had the night before, the short, bull-like man, Leary, stepped forward. Flanking him on either side was Mahon Snakeface, expressionless beneath his fanged tattoo, and Red Amir, so tall that even Ruairi had to tilt his head to look into the black pools of his eyes.

The three bowed when she and Ruairi stopped before them, and behind them, the others followed suit. Ruairi was as disconcerted by the deference as she’d been last night. The moment stretched uncomfortably and she realized Ruairi had no idea what to do. She squeezed his hand and tried to reach out to him with her mind the way she’d done with Tiarnan in the banquet hall. At first she met only a wall of resistance, but then it gave softly, and she spoke.

Startled, he jerked his head and looked at her. Then, with raised brows, he said, “That’s enough. Rise. Stand up. Whatever.”

With the formality of a royal audience, Leary introduced his two companions and then waited. She could feel Ruairi’s strength waning and sent another suggestion to him. This one found its way without barriers.

“Apparently we have a lot to talk about,” Ruairi said. “Why don’t we sit down?”

The gathering parted, and Leary led the way to their campfire. Logs had been set in a circle around it. Ruairi gingerly lowered himself to the nearest, pulling her down beside him. Once he was seated, the others did the same. Leary, Mahon with his frightening snake tattoo, and Red Amir took their places across from Ruairi, so they could see each other’s faces as they spoke. The remaining two logs were quickly occupied by men who were apparently leaders. The rest settled on the ground and quietly waited. The air held the hush of expectation.

They were all staring in fascination at the scar on Ruairi’s chest and the amulet that dangled from his neck by a leather thong. She understood the superstition and fear she saw in their expressions. She’d felt the same when she’d first seen them.

“How do you know me?” Ruairi asked in that direct way he had.

“It is written that you would come,” Leary responded, in the elusive manner of his own.

“Written where?”

All three men smiled at that. Red Amir reached down and scooped up a handful of dirt, letting it sift through his fingers. “Written in the earth and sky.”

“Great.” Ruairi shook his head. “Who wrote it?”

This question caused a shifting among them that made a ripple to the last man seated on the outskirts.

“This you know already, Ruairi of Fennore. Do you test us?”

Ruairi took a deep breath and slowly let it out. She felt his tension, his frustration, his resolve. But beneath it, she felt something more. Wariness and hurt from a man who didn’t trust easily. A man who only recently had reassembled the missing pieces of himself.

“If you want to call it a test, call it a test,” Ruairi said. “But I want answers. What does the Book of Fennore have to do with Saraid?”

Saraid’s startled gaze went to his face as she realized the tension she felt was for her. His concern was for
her
.

Surprised by Ruairi’s question, the trio looked at each other, and a murmur spread through the gathering.

It was Red Amir who finally spoke, his voice as dark as his skin. “To answer that I must ask another question. Do you know the history of the Book of Fennore?

Ruairi shook his head. “No, and I don’t want to know. I don’t care. I only want to know why it wants Saraid and why the hell anyone would think I’d hand her over.”

The anger, the passion in his voice wrapped around her. She’d known he desired her. Even the Bloodletter had told Tiarnan there was desire. But what she heard in Ruairi’s voice was more than that. So much more it frightened her.

“The Book has great power,” Red Amir said. “It gives great power.”

“That’s not what I’m here for, and it doesn’t answer my question.”

Leary leaned forward, his massive shoulders making his head seem too small. “What is your purpose?”

“To find it. To keep the Book away from my father, I guess. I didn’t get a lot of details before I left.”

Saraid held her breath, waiting for him to give the other reason. He’d told her it was his “ticket” home. A home far away from her.

“Why do you wish to keep it from your father?” Leary insisted.

Ruairi hesitated a moment and then he said softly, “Because he does want the power.”

It seemed that speaking those words injured him in some way Saraid didn’t understand.

“He wants the power more than anything else,” Ruairi finished.

No one spoke for a long moment and then in a hushed voice, Red Amir said, “You think you can destroy it.”

“Yes.”

The three men shook their heads. “It cannot be destroyed, not even by you, Ruairi of Fennore.”

“Okay. One, quit calling me that. Two, I’ve had it with the double talk. Just tell me what it wants with Saraid or get the hell out of my sight. I don’t have time to dick around with you.”

The murmurs became a rumble of unease, but Ruairi didn’t falter.

“Why does it want her?”

Mahon’s snake eyes looked cold and angry, but Leary held up a hand and the gathered men immediately silenced.

“To answer, you must first know what the Book is,” Leary said.

Ruairi let out a frustrated breath, and Saraid felt the anger in him. The helpless rage that came from not being able to control the world around him. She squeezed his hand, turning his head. For a moment he stared into her eyes, searching for something he seemed desperate to find. She wished more than anything she knew what it was he sought. She thought she would give it, no matter what it was. His eyes widened for an instant, and she wondered if she’d spoken in his mind. Then his gaze became heat, intimate, burning warmth that roamed her features possessively.

Red Amir went on. “You cannot see what waits ahead of you. You do not know what has been in the past.”

When Ruairi looked back at the three men who sat across from them, his voice was cool, but to her toes she felt the lingering promise that had filled his gaze.

“Okay,” Ruairi said with a resigned sigh. “You’re bound and determined to tell me, apparently, so I’ll listen. Give me the history if you have to, but when it’s done, I’ll expect an answer.”

Leary and his two companions exchanged another pointed look and then Leary nodded. He seemed to gather up his thoughts, and Saraid found herself holding her breath, waiting. Ruairi rubbed her icy fingers between his hands and pulled her a little closer to his side.

“I am a descendent of the people born to this land, of a time before time was counted with numbers,” Leary began at last. “It has been my duty to carry the story, the history of our people and the history of the Book of Fennore. I am bound by honor to pass it on so that it will never be lost.”

A
seanachaí
, Saraid thought. The keepers of history were revered above all others. No wonder Leary’s companions were so offended by Ruairi’s disrespect.

Ruairi studied Leary for a long moment and then he said, “I am also a descendent of the people born to this land, but from a time when time is counted in seconds.”

Seconds?
Saraid stared at him with disbelief. Who could count the seconds?

Leary smiled. “That matters little. You are marked by the Book of Fennore. For you, time is irrelevant.”

“I wasn’t marked by the Book,” Ruairi said, never looking away from the stout man’s eyes.

“Explain.”

“I did this to myself. With a bottle of tequila, a Bic lighter, and the end of a hanger. There was nothing prophetic about it.”

Saraid didn’t know what any of those things were, but she could not believe he had burned this symbol into his own flesh and didn’t feel it was prophetic. What else could it be?

Leary only shook his head. “Have you never wondered why, Ruairi of Fennore? Why would you do this if not because the Book wanted it so?”

It was obvious Ruairi did not like the question. He scowled at the bullish man.

Mahon, speaking through the fangs of his tattoo, said, “It is told that once there lived a powerful Priest—a Druid who could commune with the gods, with the fruits of the trees, the animals who lived there, the ground beneath our feet, and the very air in our lungs. We were all one people on Éire then. All of the same beliefs. There was one king and he bowed only to the High Priest known as Brandubh, the Black Raven.”

Red Amir picked up the narrative, speaking into the pause, his frizzy red hair glinting in the sun. “There came to this Priest a woman named the White Fennore. Her beauty was like that of a goddess, a dream.”

Beside her, Ruairi stiffened and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Confused, Saraid tried to make sense of what she’d seen in that fleeting look. There’d been both question and . . . fear.

“The Priest fell instantly in love with her,” Red Amir went on. “She was a woman he could not resist. A woman every man desired.”

The strange trio of
seanachaí
looked deliberately at Saraid and beyond them she felt all eyes follow theirs. With a mixture of astonishment and dismay, she stared back. What did they mean by this attention? She was no goddess, no dream.