Redmayne would have come striding from the shadows by now, wearing that conceited sneer. If it wasn't the Englishman, then who could it be?
She swallowed hard, remembering the captain's warning about gypsies and thieves, and the mysterious smuggler he'd been seeking. No. She was being ridiculous. It was probably no more than a lost sheep, or a red deer foraging in the night. Then why did the quiet tighten about her throat like a hangman's noose?
For the first time in Fallon's life, she hated the mist that obscured the castle walls, the cliffs, the trees, and whoever or whatever lay hidden among them. But she'd always masked fear with belligerence. Squaring her shoulders, she called out.
"I dare you to step from the shadows! Or are you too much of a coward?"
She caught a faint rustling, the stealthy sound of movement, the crunch of stone. Breathless, Fallon wheeled in the direction of the sounds just as a dark shadow tore from its veiling of mist.
A man took shape, as if sculpted from raw night by the hands of the coming storm. But the figure that stumbled toward her had none of the dangerous elegance or hard polish of Captain Lionel Redmayne.
He staggered to a halt, half hidden by a mass of gray stone, bracing himself against it. Dark hair tangled about a face almost terrifying in its savage beauty, a square jaw, high cheekbones all shadows and planes. Moonlight silhouetted thickly muscled arms and a magnificent breadth of masculine chest. Something sharp and lethal glinted in one strong, square hand—a dagger?
Fallon reeled. Could it be Ciaran? Who else would plunge out of the mist, looking so—so primitive?
By the snakes of St. Patrick, she'd done it!
It was Ciaran.
She'd imagined this moment a hundred times, pictured the warrior of the mist, but nothing had prepared her for the reality of the man who stood before her, draped in midnight shadows.
This was no gallant warrior, flinging his cloak over puddles so she could cross, battling her enemies like Galahad from the Arthurian legends of old. This was a man of raw animal power, fearsome intensity, not some languishing knight ready to surrender his soul to kiss the hem of her gown.
She could sense something feral in those burning eyes, a wild creature balancing on the thinnest sheen of ice, expecting to crash through at any moment.
She should say something! She would say something, just as soon as she was able to breathe again. But it was a surprisingly difficult task when confronted with such a daunting specimen of masculinity. Would it be rude to pinch him to make certain he was real flesh and blood?
Her throat squeezed shut as eyes of searing green met hers. No. Better not poke him unless she wanted to feel that dagger blade pressed against her throat.
St. Patrick and the angels, what had she done? She'd called back an Irish Galahad, and gotten Dailraid the Destroyer. What if he decided that bashing and thrashing was such great fun, after three hundred years that he refused to go back where he belonged once she was through with him? This whole night was turning into a disaster! She had to take control of this situation somehow.
She forced words past the knot in her throat. "I can... can hardly believe you're really here! I was so afraid you wouldn't come. But things were getting so desperate, and you'd promised."
He was staring at her, angry, wary, searching her eyes almost desperately. Something dark darted across his features. Could it be fear? No. Impossible.
"Do you know why you're here? I mean, is that included in the magic? Or do I need to explain—"
"Magic?" he echoed. The first sound of his voice shivered through her as if she were a harp string he'd touched, the richness of his voice tempered with a slight rasp, as if it hadn't been used in a very long time.
His mouth hardened in accusation. "You cast a spell on me?"
Fallon took a step backward, beneath the force of those fierce eyes. "No! I mean, yes. But it wasn't malicious. I didn't trick you, like the fairies did."
"Fairies?" his face grew even grimmer.
"This is proper magic," she tried to reassure him. "The only way to get you here. But I don't know exactly what to do with you now that I've—"
She was blathering like an idiot. Blast, she had to keep her wits about her. After all, just because Redmayne hadn't made a second appearance yet, didn't mean he wasn't on his way back up the cliffs. Trouble was, once she'd gotten the infernal warrior of the mist here, she'd expected him to explain the rules to her. It seemed that hurtling through the centuries and crashing through the gates of Tir na nOg must be more of a shock than she'd realized. She tried to stem the quiver of panic that worked through her. It was no wonder the man was sensitive about spell-casting, considering his past. The last thing she needed was to anger him.
"About the magic. Naturally, I wouldn't have bothered you if it wasn't truly important. If you'd just let me explain." She made a move toward him, and he leapt away from the stone, light as a cat on his feet.
Whatever explanation had been in Fallon's mind vanished.
Moonlight filtered down, washing him—all of him—in a waterfall of silver. She only glanced at him a moment, but the image seared itself into her memory forever.
Shoulders gleamed like freshly cast bronze, droplets of silver light snagging on a hair-roughened chest before they trailed down a flat belly to long, hard-muscled legs. And there, framed by narrow hips, a dark nest clung between his thighs, outlining...
A squeak of disbelief erupted from Fallon's chest, fire spilling into her cheeks as the realization struck her.
Ciaran of the Mist loomed before her, naked except for the dagger in his hand.
Chapter 2
She knew him.
The fact slammed against the inside of his skull with the force of a battle hammer. He didn't dare fall, must keep alert, ready. A warrior's senses throbbed through him as he fought to hide the cold stone of fear weighing his belly and to still the tremor in his hand.
The whole world writhed in mist, strange, unearthly shapes looming above him, below him, grasping at him. An even thicker, more terrifying haze filled his brain—confusion, bewilderment, emptiness.
No matter how he searched, nothing was there but a thundering pain in his temple that made his stomach churn and a brutal chill from the battering of the wind. He couldn't catch a shred of memory. He was lost, somehow. But he'd never known a man could be so lost he couldn't find himself. Even his body felt unfamiliar, as if it didn't quite fit. As if it belonged to someone else.
But whom? He struggled against a choking sensation of panic.
The only real thing in his world was the woman, with her rippling flame-colored hair a banner against the backdrop of stone. As unearthly as the place itself, she seemed to shimmer in the mist, her heart-shaped face painted with lantern light, skin creamy as a babe's, chin determined, tip-tilted eyes brimming with fairy tales, lips full and ripe, parted in astonishment, awe. Unspeakably strong, terrifyingly vulnerable, she seemed to have cast a net woven of moonbeams across his senses.
Even so, the aura of knowing in her raked across his wire-taut nerves. Did she suspect the truth? That he was no one. Nothing. A creature lost within his own haze-filled mind.
Who am I? Help me. The scream echoed through him, silenced by a hard core of pride not even panic could banish. Fear filled his mouth, unfamiliar enough to taste bitter. He loathed himself instinctively for feeling it.
With all the effort he could muster, he crushed the horror welling inside him, his voice rusty and unfamiliar as he forced out the words.
"Where am I?" Sweat soaked him despite the chill.
Blast, she'd been staring at him so hard she'd all but bored holes through him, but suddenly her gaze flitted around like a berserk moth, up above his head, to the side, anyplace it didn't touch him. "I... I... can't—"
"It's a simple enough question!" he roared. "Where am I? What happened to me? An accident? Accursed thieves? Damn you, tell me—"
"I can't! I can't even think with you... you standing there—"
"Would
you prefer me flat on my face? It would be easy enough to arrange!" he snapped as the earth heaved again. He reached out, bracing himself against rough stone with the palm of one hand.
He'd obviously roused her temper. "At least then I wouldn't see quite so much of you! Maybe you're accustomed to running about like that in Tir na nOg, but these days we prefer more covering." She yanked off her cloak, revealing a willowy form garbed in delicate blue cloth, a white sash caught beneath lush breasts. She thrust the cloak toward him, embarrassment emanating from her in red waves.
"What are you babbling about?" He started to snap, then glanced down. Bare flesh gleamed in the moonlight. Naked. He was standing here naked! His face flamed. "Where the blazes are my clothes?"
"You came this way. It might have been nice if someone had warned me! Although, I imagine Mama didn't think the information appropriate fare for a six-year-old."
He glared at the woman, his skull splitting with pain as he lunged for the cloak, struggled to wrap it around him. But his fingers felt clumsy as oxen hooves. The garment was still warm from her body. But it couldn't stave off the hideous sense of being vulnerable, imprisoned inside himself.
"Answer me, now! Where am I?"
She blinked, bewildered, as if he were a particularly dull child. "We're at your castle."
"Mine?" His gaze slashed about, trying to grasp some wisp of familiarity, some shred of his lost self. But even his eyes betrayed him, his vision blurred, distorted, useless. But even still, he could see the jagged rubble. "Falling down. Must not care for refurbishing."
"It's just very old, and—"
"Damn the castle." His hand swept up to rake back the hair tangling across his face, but his fingers collided with something sticky. A gash in his temple. The woman noticed it at the same moment.
"You're hurt!" she gasped. "When I threw the stone, I must have injured you."
Blast, why did it hurt so much to glare? "You did this to me?"
"I didn't mean to. I was just so disappointed. I thought it was all a lie—the stories I'd believed for so long."
"You're not making any sense. You know who I am."
"Of course I do. I summoned you."
"Summoned me? Why? Who am I?"
He could sense the leap of her pulse, the nervous thundering of her heart. "You mean you don't know who you are?"
"Answer the question!"
"You are Ciaran MacCailte."
Ciaran. A name. His name, the woman claimed. Why didn't it mean anything to him? "Ciaran." He echoed, testing its syllables like a blind man seeking with the tips of his fingers, striving to recognize the lines of a familiar face. But it was still as strange, as unreal as the mist swirling around him.
"I can't remember," the admission tore from him, his voice cracking. "Why can't I remember?"
The woman's voice gentled. "All that hurtling through time and space must've been more difficult than I realized. It must've left you in shock."
"Through time?"
"From the land of the fairies."
"Fairies?"
"That's where you've been, ever since they cast their spell on you. But you won the right to return every three hundred years when things were bleakest."
"Stop! Damnation!" He pressed one hand to his skull. "My head hurts enough without you mocking me. I—" the words died, a sick sensation knotting in his stomach. "You mean... you're serious. She's serious!" He rolled his eyes skyward to whatever fates were perched on the storm clouds, roaring with laughter at his plight. Wasn't it bad enough he'd been bashed in the head and his memory was gone? He had to be found by a woman who had lost her mind. Mad Irish. The label flickered through his consciousness. He'd heard the term a hundred times somewhere he couldn't recall but he'd never entirely appreciated the truth of it until now.
"You're Ciaran of the Mist," the woman insisted, her chin jutting out at a stubborn angle. "Come to right great wrongs, to fulfill the promise of your legend."
"My legend? What the—?" He couldn't help but reach out with one hand, brace himself against some stone abutment. He took a staggering step, as if he could outpace the haze choking his mind. If he could clear it for but a heartbeat, he could make sense of this whole mess, grasp it somehow.
"Listen, woman—whoever you are."
"Mary Fallon Delaney. Fallon of Misthaven House. My mama gave me the cloak brooch to summon you. Her grandmother had it before her."
Perfect. She'd been spawned by an entire family of lunatics. "Miss Delaney, I might not have a clue who I am, but I know damned well I'm not this figment of your imagination. No legend. No fairies."
"You are Ciaran. You just can't remember yet. I'm certain it will all come to you after you get some rest. If you'll just come with me to Misthaven."
He grimaced, and it hurt like hell. He could rest until the millennium, and he'd never remember any land of the fairies. He knew he wasn't that insane, whoever he was. But what was he going to do until he did regain his memory?
He could hardly go traipsing door-to-door, his hips swathed in a woman's cloak, demanding to know if anyone recognized him. But the sooner he got away from this lunatic woman the better.
"Take me to the nearest authorities. There must be a local magistrate? A garrison of soldiers?"
"No! You can't possibly go there!"
Hope flickered inside him. "Someone might have reported me missing."
"I doubt they have files reaching back a thousand years." She said it so gently he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled.
"This isn't some sort of game of make-believe! And I'm not going to let you pretend otherwise. I'm a man, not some kind of myth. I'm flesh and blood, and I'm going to find out who the devil I am the quickest way possible."
"I know you're confused. Upset. Who wouldn't be, considering what you've been through? I never guessed how difficult it must be for you, plunging into a different place and time."
"I didn't plunge anywhere, except off my feet or into somebody's fist! I'm going to the authorities whether you help me or not!"
Fear edged her voice. "Don't you understand? It would be too dangerous. Why, minutes before you appeared, the new commander of the garrison at Galway was here at the castle, poking around."
"Thank God." Finally he was making progress. The prospect of coming face-to-face with someone still possessed of his senses was more wonderful than he could have imagined. "Take me to this commander."
"You can't mean that! I couldn't possibly. It's far too dangerous. Even if he didn't believe you were Ciaran—"
"No fear of that. I'm not about to tell him this ridiculous story you've come up with. He'd think me a lunatic."
"No. He'd think you were something far more dangerous. Don't you even wonder what he was doing here? He warned me to beware of thieves prowling around this area. Ireland is filled with men shoved off their land, desperate in the wake of the last rebellion. And then, of course, there is the main reason Redmayne has been transferred here. He's searching for some mysterious leader of a ring of smugglers who have been making the Crown's soldiers look like fools for some time now."
He squirmed inwardly, dark possibilities spilling out before him. "You're being ridiculous. I'm no rebel! No thief!" he cried. Yet why did he feel this creeping sensation of danger at her words, this prickling of instincts even the blow to his head hadn't dulled? What did he really know about himself? Only that something had driven him out into the night, to this remote place with its unearthly shadows. Was there the slimmest chance he might be the fugitive this Redmayne sought?
"Please, Ciaran, think! Redmayne won't recognize you, won't be able to give you back your identity. But that won't matter! Considering all the unrest, Redmayne will think it safer to keep you behind bars rather than leave you to run about the countryside. Is that what you want?"
Claws tightened about his chest, and he couldn't breathe as a flash of memory washed over him. Walls imprisoning him, his hands bloody as he pounded against the locked door. Quickly as th
e fleeting image had come, it was gone. All that remained was the sensation of helplessness. Icy sweat broke out all over his body. No. He couldn't risk being imprisoned. Didn't dare.
She clutched at his arm, her fingers trembling. And he was stunned at the sizzle of recognition that seemed to race through him at her touch. "You have to come with me to Misthaven. I beg you."
He tugged away from her, breaking the disturbing contact, and snarled an oath. If there were even the slimmest chance he was one of the fugitives this Redmayne sought, he'd be putting his neck in a noose if he went to the garrison. For all he knew, this Redmayne could be an enemy he should remember. The man had been here just before he'd stumbled out of the mist. What if the gash on his head was a souvenir of Redmayne's regard?
He concentrated, probed into the dark reaches of his memory, trying to catch hold of the reason that the very name Redmayne slid like a blade's edge across his nerves. Or was it merely this woman's odd delusions that were unnerving him?
After all was said and done, what choice did he have except to go with her? He was at this mad woman's mercy.
Only until I can discover who I am, he assured himself. Until I can make some other arrangements. Until I can find the self I lost somehow in this infernal mist.
Maybe the woman—Fallon, wasn't that her name?—maybe Fallon was right. If he just had some time to rest, to plow through the morass inside his head, he might find some fragment of the man he was, and his memory would return. It would. It must.
What if you never remember? a voice inside him jeered. What if you've lost yourself forever?
No, he couldn't think that. Wouldn't. He would remember, somehow. Resolve settled, heavy in his gut. Something to hold on to in a world gone mad.
He gripped the ancient dagger, the only thing that felt familiar, right, in his hand. This was the only clue to his identity that his attackers had left him.
He would unlock its secret, find himself again.
He turned to Fallon. "I'll go with you because I have no other choice. I have to find out who I am, who did this to me. Someone left me here on these cliffs, naked, alone, my head bashed in. Maybe they left me to die. I intend to find them before they return to finish what they started. And when I do..." He touched his fingers to the gash in his temple. "I'll make certain they'll pay for what they've done."
Her Magic Touch (Celtic Rogues Book 3) Page 4