She drew her fingers down the length of his spine. “Stay for a bit?”
“Mm.” He nodded as he gathered her close and rolled onto his back. “Yeah.”
With her head tucked against his chest, the strong beat of his heart lulled the battle of thoughts. How far she’d fallen, the doom that waited for her when she finally landed, no longer mattered. She lay in Angus’s arms, tethered to emotion she hadn’t experienced in centuries of existence. Safe. Even if that safety was merely self-created delusion.
****
As Isolde slept in his embrace, Angus stared at the thick ceiling timbers. Though the physical evidence of his internal trembling had stopped, he could still feel the jello-like shaking taking place far deeper. Pleasure and lust were one thing—he was no stranger to those emotions, and he didn’t shy away from indulging when they were offered.
But tonight surpassed every meaningless involvement between the sheets that he’d experienced since he put Camille to rest. He couldn’t even say that it resembled what he had once known with his wife. The blunt truth was he couldn’t ever remember feeling so connected with someone, or such a tumult of ecstasy. Which both shamed and terrified him.
A small voice inside him said he should have felt this way with Camille. That he hadn’t…
He silenced the thought with a sharp frown. Camille’s death had broken part of him, and he couldn’t go down that road again. Admitting that Isolde had burned past lust and scorched his heart meant accepting the mortality of love. If they somehow managed to find a way past Hatherly and Thomas and he somehow lost her…
A finger of ice scraped along his ribs.
He couldn’t do this.
Gently, he eased out from under Isolde and slipped from the bed. As much as he longed to spend the night at her side, he needed distance. And there was the matter of Thomas—until Angus could rationalize things in his own mind, he didn’t want Thomas asking questions he couldn’t answer if his son saw him leaving Isolde’s room in the morning.
Better that they spend the night apart.
He pulled on his trousers, but as he reached for his shirt, Isolde rolled over. The soft sigh that escaped her lips held him spellbound. His heart thumped hard, which only strengthened his resolve to leave. So many things divided them. Things he didn’t know how to conquer. She would never understand his decisions about Thomas—she couldn’t, given her own loss of family and heritage. And he could never bring himself to throw Thomas back into the clutches of terror that he had overcome.
Already he was having the same nightmares. The same visions of someone coming to get him that had once made Angus question whether or not Thomas saw something the afternoon Camille died. Whether maybe her fall wasn’t so accidental after all. But there was no one on this earth who would have wanted to hurt Camille, and the thought had become insignificant. She’d fallen and struck her head. The moss was slippery. He himself had slid on it a time or two when they’d first been married.
Isolde shifted again, curling those long elegant legs into herself. The chill that lingered in the room steered Angus’s thoughts away from Thomas and back to the woman in the bed. He tugged the quilt out from under her and gently tucked it around her sleeping form. Resisting the urge to crawl back under those covers with her felt like someone had grabbed his heart and torn it into two pieces.
But he couldn’t.
He didn’t know how to stop from falling into her, and yet, if he lost Isolde, not even Thomas could ease that devastation.
Chapter Nine
The low call of a dove dragged Isolde from fitful slumber. Not yet ready to confront morning, she huddled into the covers and rolled onto her side. But the quiet of the room broke into her consciousness, prompting her to open her eyes. Where Angus should have been fast asleep, the pillow beside her was empty.
She reached out to touch that barren spot with a sad smile. So much for fleeting fantasy. His absence only proved what she’d known all along—he wasn’t ready to move beyond Camille.
Regret pulled through her veins, twisting her belly into a hard ball. Memories of his big, strong body moving against hers threatened to drag her into a tidal pool of sorrow. More evidence that she’d let him too far into her heart. His distance shouldn’t bother her. And yet, it hurt more than she cared to admit.
That sealed it—she was leaving this afternoon. No more mixing up desire and emotion, no more beating her head against the wall about Thomas. And leaving would insure Drandar went with her.
With a heavy sigh, she forced herself to leave the bed. As she crossed to her wardrobe, the flash of silver against the morning light drew her attention to her phone and reminded her Fintan had returned her message last night. She drew on her robe and picked up the cellular. A tap to the screen brought it to life.
Taran’s in France. Verified by Micah, Brigid’s guard. Thornborough Henge’s Beltane ritual is tomorrow night, right? The ancient magic there lures Drandar yearly.
True, their sire couldn’t stay away from Thornborough on the night the Beltane fires lit the sky. But in the four years Isolde had been at Hatherly, not once had she sensed him so soon. Nor so close. Thornborough was several dozen kilometers away.
Outside her door, Thomas’s laughter rang down the hall. Isolde turned toward the sound as an uncomfortable thought registered. What if Thomas wasn’t dreaming about Camille or Angus?
What if he wasn’t dreaming at all?
A chill gripped her, and she quickly tapped out a response. How many of our people did Ealasaid bring down from the Selgovae lands?
She replaced the phone on the desk. While she waited on her brother’s response, she opened her small traveling bag and pulled out a pair of lightweight beige sailor’s pants and a black cowl-neck sweater. A little wrinkled from being squashed into such a small space, but perfectly serviceable for breakfast and a taxicab ride to Sheffield where she could rent a room until her flight departed the morning after Beltane.
Her phone vibrated with an incoming message. She dashed to the desk. Fintan’s answer stared back in black and white, yet she sensed his underlying excitement. 32—Why?
Isolde took a deep breath, not wanting to type what her gut insisted she say. She counted to ten, then fifteen, before she keyed in: See if “Shaw” is one of them.
It would take him a while to research the genealogy. She might as well eat breakfast before she had to confront Angus and explain that she was leaving this afternoon.
She set her phone down, ran a brush through her hair, and left her room. She’d always liked Hatherly at this hour, when the staff was up, the household just waking, and the visitors not yet clamoring through the halls. It was comfortable and the hustle-bustle reminded her of eras gone by, when estates like this were regal and revered. Simpler times that suited her preference for solitude.
Thomas looked up, beaming as she entered the small dining space off the kitchens. “Isolde! Can I show you the tadpoles today?”
She took the seat beside him and rumpled his hair. “Of course. We can go after breakfast. Did you sleep okay after your father tucked you back in?” As the head of the kitchen staff, Enid, dropped an English muffin on Isolde’s plate, Isolde gave her a brief smile. “Thank you, Enid. Strawberry jam?”
Enid shot Thomas a false look of scolding. “Talk to the master there, Isolde. Ask him where it went.”
Thomas ducked his head and squirmed in his seat. “I ate the last of it.”
Chuckling, Isolde poked him in the ribs. “That was mine.” When he looked up sheepishly, she winked.
“Grape or blackberry.” Enid set a jam tray at Isolde’s left, then bustled away from the table, into the kitchens once again.
While Isolde lathered a generous dollup of blackberry jam onto her muffin, she studied Thomas. “What were you dreaming about last night anyway?”
His grin vanished, and he pushed his plate of fruit aside. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sometimes talking about it makes nightmare
s go away.”
He shook his head as he sank further into his seat. “No.”
Not the reaction she’d been expecting. Thomas told her almost everything. This wasn’t anything at all like the little boy she’d grown so close to. Reaching out, she set her hand over his. “You can tell me, Thomas, really. I won’t tell your father.”
Wide blue eyes tipped up to look at her from beneath a shaggy mass of blond hair. In his speculative stare, Isolde recognized the trepidation, the hesitancy to both believe in what she said as well as take her into confidence. But as she swallowed and prepared to encourage him once more, he opened his mouth.
Heavy footfalls in the hall made him snap it shut once more. He shook his head emphatically. “Father’s coming.”
Her muffin halfway to her mouth, Isolde froze. Angus. To her shame, her heart tap-danced into her ribs. Warmth spread through her, and her belly fluttered. On the heels of excitement, her dark nature surged to the surface with one dominant desire—kill.
To stop the sudden erratic nature of her pulse, she focused inward, on the strength her mother had infused within her. She drew upon that ancient power, summoning it from the core of her being and pushing it outward until her pulse quieted and the darkness fell into silence.
On a deep calming inhalation, she opened her eyes, and her breath caught all over again. Angus moved around the table to take the seat across from them. He wore a pair of khaki trousers with a dark green polo, but his confident gait made the simple outfit distinguished. And the way his gaze locked with hers as he lowered himself into the chair brought vivid visions of the night before to life.
“Good morning, Thomas. Isolde.”
Good morning—she didn’t know what she’d expected, but that informal greeting left her numb. Doing her best to resist the stab of disappointment, she returned his cool salutation with a tight smile. “Morning, Angus.”
At least his distance would make it easier to inform him she wasn’t staying to help with the estate. Falling in love with Angus might be the worst thing she had ever done. But the resulting heartache made it possible to walk away.
****
Angus clasped his hands beneath the table to hide the evidence of his internal shaking. What to say to Isolde? He wasn’t dumb enough to think his casual good morning had won him any favors. No, he’d been around enough women to realize not even looking at them as he said good morning after a night of tangling up the sheets would land him squarely in the doghouse. And the pinched corners of Isolde’s mouth told him he’d achieved that in less than five minutes of being in the same room with her.
Problem was, with Thomas sitting in the same room, he couldn’t follow through on the instinct to haul her out of the chair, kiss her soundly, and whisper that he’d awakened hard for her all over again.
At the mere thought of the intimate exchange, his cock threatened to return to the painful state he’d been in when he’d finally opened his eyes and accepted morning had arrived. He stared at his empty plate at a complete loss. Say something, idiot.
Isolde made the task easier by speaking first. “I’d like to talk to you privately, Angus, after Thomas shows me the tadpoles.”
Angus shot his son a frown. “No tadpoles, Thomas. I don’t want you down by the river. Even with Isolde.”
As Isolde arched a reproachful eyebrow, Thomas shoved away from the table. He tossed his napkin on his plate of crumbs. “It’s not fair, Father.”
Before Angus could process the outburst and encourage Thomas to do something else he enjoyed, his son bolted from the room, nearly knocking his chair over in the process. Angus sighed. Warily, he let his gaze slide to Isolde.
To his complete surprise, she remained silent.
He cleared his throat to choke down the cobwebs that had gathered on his tongue. What in the world was wrong with him? He’d never had so much trouble merely functioning around a woman in his life. “Is your schedule full this morning?”
She blinked. “My schedule? I believe I just informed you I needed to speak with you.”
“Yes you did.” And oddly enough, he knew he absolutely didn’t want to hear whatever she intended to say. “I’d like to speak to you as well.” He pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. To give his hands something to do, he shoved them into his pockets. “Would you come with me a moment? I found something I’d like your opinion on.”
“Angus, the Hatherly antiquities—”
“It won’t take but a moment.” When her lips pursed, he scrambled to add, “Please.”
Isolde let out a harassed mutter. “What is it you found?”
Starting for the door, he inclined his head, beckoning her to follow. “Come see. It’s very interesting.” And with a little luck she’d know exactly what it was, as well as whether he should keep it, whether he should allow it to go with the estate, or if it were as old as he believed, whether he should turn it over to a museum as a piece of early British cultural history.
Her footfalls echoed behind him as he made his way through the halls to his room. Once there, he opened the door and gestured for her to enter with a sweep of his hand. She stepped inside with a wary glance that left him cursing himself all over again for his cold-hearted greeting. He needed to say something. But what eluded him. And now, she’d pulled inside herself, treating him to the same cool reserve, making him doubt she cared to hear what jumbled around on his tongue.
Later. This conversation would break the ice. Then, when they’d related to one another like normal, he’d breech the subject of last night.
He went to his dresser and picked up the scroll case. “I found this with the things in the cellar. Do you know what it is?” As he turned and presented the old leather canister, Isolde’s eyes widened.
“You found this?” Gingerly, she curled her fingers around the canister then let go, as if she feared to touch the thing.
“It’s okay. Take it.” He clasped her by the wrist and pressed it into her palm. “It has some sort of old scroll inside it. I think it’s very old. I thought perhaps you could advise me what I should do with it.”
Isolde swallowed and accepted the case with more confidence. Her gaze darted to his, but the smile she flashed was too bright, too sudden to be genuine. “I doubt I can help much, but I’ll take a look at it later today.”
Suspicion prickled the back of his neck. Isolde knew a lot about early British culture and society. If she recognized that case this quickly—and her false demeanor of sudden pleasantry convinced him she did—maybe he’d really stumbled onto something of significance. Something that he could leave to Thomas as a means of replacing the legacy that came with Hatherly.
He furrowed his brow as Isolde ran a shaky finger down the length of the aged hide casing, inspecting the irregular seam. “Why don’t you take a peek now?”
“Now?”
“Is there a problem with now?”
“I…well…Thomas has been wanting me to spend some time with him.”
Angus arched an eyebrow. Isolde definitely knew something about this scroll, and whatever it was, she didn’t want him to know. “Thomas can wait a few minutes. I’m sure this won’t take you long.”
As her silvery eyes lifted to his, they issued a silent plea Angus couldn’t fathom. But instead of objecting like he’d expected she would, she nodded slowly and took the scroll to the edge of his mattress where she sat down.
Odd. Damned odd. It wasn’t like Isolde to bottle things up inside or to keep things from him. Sure, once or twice she and Thomas conspired, but nothing like this. What in the world had he discovered down among Camille’s things?
Chapter Ten
Isolde’s hands shook uncontrollably as she fiddled with the lid on the canister, desperate to delay witnessing what she already knew was rolled up inside. Her mother’s power emanated through the thick hide covering, stirring Isolde’s darker soul to contemptuous limits. Half of her longed to rip into the container, pull out the scroll, shred it into pieces, and deliver it t
o the breeze beyond Angus’s window. The other half of her spirit rolled inward with despair.
As the brittle leather laces gave, she surreptitiously stole a glance at Angus’s hands and swallowed back a groan. Traces of the iridescent magical residue lingered on his fingertips in Nyamah’s telltale aura of royal blue, deep violet, and gold. No wonder Drandar’s presence had been strong last night—Angus had opened this. Drandar would have sensed the ancient magic no matter how many miles away he was, or which plane of existence he lingered on.
“Isolde, is something the matter?” Angus asked.
“N-no.” Nothing she could begin to explain. He’d laugh his foolish head off if she tried to convince him she was half demon and this scroll held the power to destroy her vile sire.
If she could perform the ritual.
But doing so would render her mortal, and she couldn’t begin to combat Drandar, let alone her immortal brother and sister Taran and Brigid if they chose to act on Drandar’s behalf. Or if he convinced them it would be worth their effort.
She swallowed hard and pulled the scroll out of the case. The power that met her fingertips dealt a startling blow, and Isolde choked down a gasp. If it weren’t for the centuries of training she possessed with that very power, the touch would have scalded.
Doing her best to maintain calm she didn’t possess, she unraveled her mother’s runic words.
“Well, any ideas?” The mattress shifted as Angus sat at her side. His aftershave reached her nose and taunted her to lean into his warmth. So close… So damnably tempting.
No. Not now. She didn’t dare touch Angus when this scroll was marked for her.
Instead, she took a deep breath and nodded. “It’s likely Celt. The hide is typical of the early tribes. The writing very similar in design.”
He leaned in, his shoulder brushing hers as he gently touched the ancient sigils. “These are runes, right?”
Again, Isolde nodded—she couldn’t form words. Between the might in her hands and Angus’s excruciatingly close proximity, she could hardly keep her thoughts focused.
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