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now.
The blonde shrugged. “I just thought you should know. You
should give it a lot of thought before you risk your life trying to save a stranger’s.”
Liadan walked away, and Meg got Cian calm again. She sat down
and pulled out the computer Dante had left her. She pulled up the
articles she’d found and reread them. She then went deeper. She
found more information on Fae psychic bonding than she could have
hoped for. Vampires were very interested in it as it mirrored their own
bonds with consorts. Sure enough, there was a possibility that
bonding with someone as far gone as Cian could hurt her. It wasn’t a
big possibility, but it also wasn’t recommended.
And despite what Liadan had said, if Cian died, Beck would more
than likely go insane.
She looked at Cian as he sat by the fire. He was watching her,
waiting for her to do something or go somewhere so he could follow
her. He reminded her of a puppy, eager to please.
If she had half a brain, she would take her husband’s mistress’s
advice and just flee the scene. She should take a day or two to decide
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if she really wanted to risk this for one man who had dumped her after
two days of marriage, and another she barely knew at all.
“You’re a very pretty lady.” Cian’s voice was all smooth tones.
There was a deliciously decadent look on his face. “Can I buy you a
drink? My name is Cian Finn, by the way.”
Meg set the computer down. She had never been one to slowly
peel a Band-Aid off. It was better to just rip it off and get the pain
over with. “Oh, we’re so doing this now.”
Cian stood up, a seductive smile crossing his face. “I was hoping
you would say that, gorgeous.”
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Chapter Eleven
Meg sat on the bed across from Cian. He was sitting with his long
legs crossed over each other. His big gray eyes were watching her
intently. He looked so much like Beck that her heart hurt. She wanted
to lean over and kiss him. She wanted to promise him everything
would be okay, but she held her ground. She didn’t need to fall in
love with a second version of him. One was all the heartbreak she
could take.
“Cian, I need you to concentrate.” Meg crossed her legs and tried
to relax. She sat in front of him on the big bed they had shared the
night before. Taking his hand in hers, she took a deep breath to settle
her nerves. “Do you remember why we’re here?”
His lips curled into a tempting curve. He was shirtless and wore
nothing except a pair of white linen pants. His long, black hair fell
well past his shoulders. It shone in the afternoon light. “I think I can
guess. Do you want to be on top?”
Meg shook her head and stayed patient. “We’re not having sex,
Cian. We’re bonding. I’m your bondmate. Beck sent me to you. We
need to bond so you can think straight.”
That seemed to get through to him. His eyes cleared for a
moment, and his hands tightened on hers. “You’re my wife?”
Meg knew her face was slightly sad as she responded. “So I’ve
been told. It’s okay, Cian. I won’t hold you to it. We just need to
bond, and then we can be friends.”
He shook his head vigorously. “No. Too far gone. Hurt you.”
“It will be fine, Cian,” Meg assured him. She wasn’t sure, but she
tried to instill a sense of calm resolve in her voice.
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His gorgeous eyes filled with frustration. He was trying to make
her understand and couldn’t seem to form the words. “Please, go. No
hurt.”
Meg moved closer so their legs were touching. “It won’t hurt me,
Cian. It’s going to be all right. Do you remember how to do this?”
His face cleared like a cloud had passed over and now the sun was
shining. He smiled again. “Cad è mar atà tu?”
Oh, crap. He’s gone into Gaelic and now I can’t even understand his delusions. She tightened her hands around his. She was going to have to make the connection on her own. She leaned forward, and
luckily, Cian seemed game. He leaned forward, meeting her in the
middle. She touched her forehead to his.
“Is tù mo ghrà,” he said, his accent lilting around the traditional Gaelic that went with the ceremony. Her bonding with Beck had been
devoid of any of the ceremonies that went along with bonding, but
Cian seemed to remember. “You are my love,” he had said. She
remembered it from the DLs. Meg tried to tell herself it was just
words.
He pulled back and looked down at her as though waiting.
“Is tù mo ghrà,” she repeated.
If Cian wanted all the trappings, then she would give it to him. If
he really was the other half of Beck, then she feared she meant those
words.
He smiled, satisfied, and put his head to her forehead once more.
He rubbed his head lightly against hers as though he loved the
connection.
If they had been on the twins’ home plane, there would have been
a great deal of pomp and circumstance involved in the ceremony.
There would have been witnesses and a decorated altar. The
downloads she had read on the subject talked about the beauty of the
ceremony. There would have been flowers—marigolds, St. John’s
wort, and shamrocks. There would have been a length of ornate rope
to bind their hands together for the handfasting ritual.
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The twins’ father would have overseen the marriage, and bells
would have been rung throughout the city to let the people know the
heirs had been bonded. Music would flow out of the palace all night
long.
The little cottage was quiet. There were no flowers, but Meg felt
the weight of what she was doing all the same. She was binding her
life to this man. It wasn’t something she could walk away from,
though. Liadan had advised her to run, but how could she? She could
no more walk away from Cian than she would be able to watch a
person drown and do nothing to save him.
It was more than that. She could never abandon half of Beck to
fate. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t love her. She loved him. That
was all she could control. She firmly intended to fall out of love, but
she couldn’t let his brother die.
Then she stopped thinking, or rather she ceased thinking, her own
thoughts. Cian’s brain assaulted her.
She was flooded with memory and thoughts, dreams and fancy,
and everything that was Cian. Now Meg understood what the blonde
had been trying to tell her. She was overwhelmed with him. Sights,
sounds, even smells and emotions battered her system. She felt her
body sag under the onslaught, but Cian’s strong hands held her in
place.
She saw a young girl. She was chasing her through a gleaming
white palace. She was his sister. Bronwyn. The name was as clear in
Meg’s mind as the image was. In the vision, she was Cian, and she
was a seven-year-old boy, full of mischief. Bronwyn had been a bra
t.
She had tossed a mud pie straight in his face, and he was going to get
retribution. Meg could feel the cool marble under his bare feet. The
palace was filled with light. Cian wasn’t really mad. He was just
playing a game. In Cian’s body, Meg ran past Beck. He was coming
out of a room with his father. Beck looked so serious. He was somber,
but she could feel him. She could feel how much he wanted to join his
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twin and their sister. Beck wanted to play, but he simply nodded at his
twin and followed their father.
Math. She was hit full-force with a load of equations she grasped
for a moment, and then they were gone. Cian’s head was filled with
math and science and theories on everything. He was so smart. His
mind worked a thousand miles a minute. Meg couldn’t process it all.
Her brain hurt. Poems and stories and articles on anthropology and
engineering written in several different languages flew in and out of
her head.
She felt a pounding pressure begin.
And the women…so many women. He loved sex. He craved it.
He needed it to feel whole and complete. He got lost in his mind
sometimes, but his body always insisted on having its fair share of
time. There were blondes, brunettes, and girls with hair the color of
the sunset. He was affectionate toward them all. He liked them one or
two at a time, and he loved it when he shared a female with his other
half. Cian liked to hold a lover in his arms while Beck fucked her. It
had been so long since they shared a truly intimate experience. Beck
had become so rigid in his sexuality. He hadn’t stopped sharing
women with his brother. He had done something worse. He had
stopped sharing himself with anyone. Beck had closed off entire
sections of their being, and Cian felt the loss.
Meg felt her pulse pound as she was flooded with memories of
Cian’s lovers. She had a brief vision of a beautiful blonde with her
hand possessively on Beck’s arm. They walked into a brilliantly lit
ballroom, and everyone cheered. Cian was left out. It was the night of
his formal engagement, but he didn’t want to be there. He couldn’t
stand the woman. Cian was sure she felt the same way about him. He
was in the way, and he knew it. Beck was resplendent in his formal
court attire, but his face was pinched with duty. Beck didn’t love her,
either. How were they going to get out of this? Meg was swamped
with Cian’s panic as he realized he was trapped.
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Meg heard herself moan as the siege continued. Her hands
tightened on Cian’s arms. She held on for dear life. Tears squeezed
out of her eyes as she became sure her skull was going to split. She
hoped it did. It would relieve the overwhelming pressure.
No, she felt Cian protest deep in her soul as the scene in her brain
changed. He didn’t want to remember, but it was coming, anyway. It
was far too strong to be denied.
Smoke was everywhere. Meg lifted her head and put a hand to her
ears. It was so loud. She was in the middle of a battle. There was fire,
heat, and the sound of metal on metal. She looked down. A teenage
girl was lying in her lap. She looked up with soft brown eyes. They
were filled with tears.
“Mama?” the girl asked. She wasn’t confused, Meg realized. She
was asking a question.
“She’s gone, Bron.” Meg heard Cian’s voice speaking, saw
through his eyes, was assailed with his memories. His voice was filled
with sorrow. His mother was dead. He’d seen her die at the end of a
soldier’s blade. He hadn’t been able to get to her. “Father’s gone,
too.”
Bronwyn held her stomach. She was bleeding profusely. Cian
knew it was only a matter of time. They were trapped. There was fire
at their back and an army behind the only doorway out. He held his
sister close to his heart. Beck was still fighting, but he was shielding it from his brother. Cian would have known if his twin was dead. He
wondered if Beck would die when he did. Would Beck feel it when
the soldiers outside burst in and shoved cold iron through his gut?
Cian’s hands shook, but he didn’t let his sister see how scared he
was. He needed to be strong for her. There was a knife at his side. He
wasn’t a warrior, but he would use it to defend her. He had killed a
man with it already. The soldier who had stabbed Bronwyn hadn’t
been content with taking her life. He had to try to rape her as well.
Now his corpse was cooling not ten feet away. Cian tried not to think
of him. He focused his being on the sister he was losing.
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“Love you, brother.” Her smile reminded him of the five-year-old
girl who had followed him around like a puppy.
“I love you, too,” he choked the words out. Meg felt wetness on
her face and realized Cian was crying.
Bronwyn’s eyes went dull just as the door exploded inward. Cian
looked up, clutching his sister. He was ready to join her.
Beck stood in the doorway, covered in blood. He held a bloody
sword in his hand.
“We have to go,” he said with dark eyes.
Then the images came rapidly. The gun that was Cian’s brain
suddenly went into machine gun mode. She couldn’t keep up. She
was in a forest running from soldiers who had been sworn to hunt the
twins down and execute them. She ran from plane to plane. Then she
was building this cottage with Cian’s hands. Refugees were
everywhere. There was not enough food to feed them, and they
looked to Cian and Beck.
A smoke-filled image invaded Meg’s brain. Liadan stood by the
bed, whispering to Cian. He tried to get up, but the smoke was too
much. It was time to fade.
It was too much. It was too fast. Meg felt the moment her brain
shorted out. She barely made a sound as she slipped into a blissful
darkness.
* * * *
Cian Finn came to on the bed of the cottage he had built. He was
disoriented. It seemed to be morning, or maybe afternoon. He shook
his head. It was afternoon, he decided as he studied the shadows on
the walls.
He felt magnificent. His head was clear. How long had he been
like that? It had been a nightmare of chaos. The clarity in his brain
was bliss after the long pandemonium he had been living in.
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Cian sat straight up in bed. Meg. She had bonded with him. It was
very difficult for him to sort through everything that had happened in
the last few years. He was certain now it had been years since he
began the long slide into chaos. He might never get those years back,
but he remembered Meg. Meg was the one clear thought in his head.
She was his wife.
Cian felt a moment of pure panic when he saw her lying so still on
the bed. Her legs were underneath her at an odd angle. For a moment,
he was sure he had killed her, and he knew his life would be over, just
as he had gotten it back. Then her chest rose slightly. She was alive.
<
br /> She had survived the onslaught that bonding with him would have
caused.
Gently, Cian opened the bond between them. It was new, but Cian
was impressed with the strength of it. Her mind was tired, but
functioning. She was in a deep, dreamless sleep. Her brain needed
respite.
He leaned down and pulled her legs into a more comfortable
position. She sighed and rolled toward his warmth as though she
knew he would protect her. Cian grinned as she cuddled closer to him.
If he hadn’t just put her through hell, he would consummate his
marriage in the physical sense. He would roll her onto her back and
get between those pretty thighs of hers. He would ride her until they
both passed out from the exertion. She was his. He had seen down to
her soul. He knew she was perfect for them.
As she had gone through many of the important events of his life,
he had gone through hers. He kissed the top of her head and inhaled
her sweet smell. So many people had disappointed her. How could
they not have seen how wonderful she was? Sure she was quiet, but
her mind was quick, and she had the most delicious sense of humor.
She was sassy and independent. Her sensuality had been completely
untapped and unappreciated by the men in her life. Cian wouldn’t
make the same mistake. He was considered to be the smartest man of
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his generation. He had no intention of proving dumb when it came to
his wife. She was an amazing gift.
Cian’s hands clenched as he thought about the last little scene that
had played out in his head. He was going to kick his brother’s ass
when he returned. He was an idiot, that other half of him. Beck had
made Meg feel worse than that worthless ex-husband of hers.
She was exhausted. Her entire body was relaxed as she slept so
trustingly in his arms. Cian would make her see how beautiful she
was. He would have to be careful, though. His brother had dug them a
deep hole. Beck had taken her body, but had refused to share his soul
with her. It was selfish, and Cian intended to have a long talk with
him about it. She was their responsibility. They had to fulfill all of her needs, and Beck would have to see that her needs were different than