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Hope warred with terror. Ethan wanted—needed—to know what was going on. With the banished and damned gods rallying as the Shadow Realm’s power shifted, the appearance of this otherworldly stalker had him unnerved. He waited on Rowan to speak.
Nada. Nothing. Niet.
The assassin just continued to stare down the hall, his eyebrows drawn together.
Ethan scooped up his dagger and, to hide his trembling hand, gestured with the blade as he spoke. “Tell me, or the next time you end up in the infirmary, I’ll set up an account and profile for you on www.hotmenofDublin.com and tie the account to your phone so it posts your location...no matter where you are.”
He fought to keep from flinching when the man’s arctic-blue gaze refocused and landed solidly on him. The vacancy in those eyes made it seem like Rowan was no more than a husk of a man. A shell. Soulless. His response did little to dispel the impression. “I’d refrain from referring to the being as an ‘it.’”
Ethan tried not to grin and failed. “You’re telling me I’ve picked up a...what? A ghost? As in, an incorporeal stalker?”
“Of a sort.”
Grin fading, Ethan couldn’t stop the sudden buzzing in his ears. “What ‘sort,’ exactly? And how do I get rid of it?”
“‘It’ is a woman,” Rowan answered softly. “And I’m not sure you want to be rid of her.”
“Why?” The buzzing grew louder as something heavy pressed against the corners of Ethan’s mind.
“Because it would seem she’s your wife.”
* * *
Isibéal Cannavan quite literally hovered around the corner and out of sight of the assassin with the terrifying eyes. The man had seen her. Could see her. But that wasn’t what had scattered her so and left her suffering with uncontrollable palsy. She’d touched the man now known as Ethan. The man she knew as Lachlan. And the terrifying man who could see her had either heard her or read her lips when she uttered that cherished yet damning word. “Husband.”
Nor was her admission what had sent her careening down the hall. All she had wanted was to touch Lachlan. Nothing more. So, after summoning every ounce of will she possessed, she had concentrated on Lachlan’s bare neck. And she’d done it, had felt him. But the very second the sensation registered, an excruciating pain had ripped through her and torn an involuntary, albeit soundless, scream from her throat. Nothing, not even the sword strike that had taken her life, had ever hurt so badly. She had been catapulted away from him as if she’d taken a far more violent blow to the midsection. Even now her hands hovered over the sight of the original deathblow. She looked down, half expecting to find blood staining her gown.
There was nothing there.
Isibéal rubbed one thumb and forefinger together, still convinced it should be blood-slicked. Her other hand she held clamped against her side. Despite the fact that she didn’t need to breathe, her chest heaved. Pain still ricocheted through her, pinging about like a maddened hornet trapped in a jar. It was of no consequence, seeing as she refused to regret her actions. She wished with fierce intensity that she’d been able to retain the sensation of Lachlan’s warmth. A fitting reward that would have been worth the lingering pain. Such was not to be. Touching her husband had taken every ounce of available concentration and more than that in bravery to master her form and create the brief connection. To retain it would have taken the very thing she did not possess.
A mortal body.
That she would never again realize the intimate feel of Lachlan’s form sliding beneath her hands, stroke the stubble along his jaw, experience his lips against hers or his arms cradling her... The realization, both compounded and comprehensive, had been enough to do what the pain had not done, driving her from the keep.
She raced to the cliffs, teetering to a stop inches from the edge.
Wind whipped through her.
Her simple gown did not so much as move.
If her sacrifice had not saved her husband’s life, it had, at the very least, saved his soul. She must remember that. Never would she regret her choice. How often had she sworn from her cursed grave that she would suffer a hundred eternal damnations to simply be able to see and hear Lachlan...now Ethan...after all these centuries? Someone had heard her fervent prayers and granted her this boon. If that single touch meant she was forever removed from Lachlan, so be it. It was a price she would pay a thousand times over to know he lived once more.
She pressed her fingertips to her lips before whispering his name in reverent invocation. “Lachlan.”
Recognizing her husband on sight had been a matter of no regard. Even now her heart called to his, just as it had the first time they’d met. Lachlan Cannavan looked much the same as he had before her death. He who had once led the Assassin’s Arcanum had been an attractive man with dark blond hair, a strong jaw and merry blue eyes more inclined to shared laughter than somber weight. Broad-shouldered with muscle layered over muscle, he had commanded any room. She had watched him long enough in this life to know that he still did. His modern clothes struck her as odd, but he looked so similar to those around him that she had to assume what he wore was fashionable. None of this was truly relevant, however.
What mattered most was that, after an innumerable number of centuries, she had touched him, touched the man she’d thought lost to her for eternity. Her hand dropped from her lips to hover over the quiet at her breast. She might not possess a heartbeat, but she still possessed a heart. Of that she was certain. Otherwise, her chest wouldn’t ache with such vacancy.
A soft but persistent tug behind her breastbone drew a small gasp from her.
“I will not,” she snapped. “You do not command me.”
Though she spoke to the air, she had hope that he heard her—the God of Vengeance and Reincarnation, once known for far greater things than cold-blooded murder.
Lugh.
He summoned her yet again, this pull on her being stronger as his will forced her back a step.
Pressure in her chest eased.
She so was not ready for this.
After she’d risen from her grave, nearly a moon’s cycle passed before she understood what the pull meant. The more insistent it became, the more certain she was that the curse Lugh had laid on her at death had been consequent.
The wordless command intensified.
She resisted giving in and doing as bade, instead stepping forward. The summons caused her limbs to ache as it evolved into a silent demand. No matter. She was not his to order about. Not now. Not ever. Still, the sensation grew.
She set her jaw and leaned forward.
When the pull finally stopped, the release nearly drove her over the cliff. Not that it would hurt her, but it still unnerved her when she ended up hovering in midair.
There was no way to predict how long Lugh would leave her be this time. Every day she remained free of the grave, the god grew stronger and more insistent she answer his summons. He fed from her freedom, siphoning it like a leech. She resented his presence, despised the fact that she had no control over what he took from her. That resentment was nothing compared to the vitriolic hatred she harbored for him, though. His death curse had stolen more than her life. To say she had suffered through the centuries would be like saying a blacksmith’s forge burned hot.
“Understatement.” She huffed out a sharp breath, at the same time absently tucking a loose curl back into the hair piled on her head.
Not once had she ceased her pleading with the gods of light and life, beseeching them to find mercy and release her from the hell to which she’d bound herself. She’d had no idea what that spell would mean long-term. Darkness had blinded her. Her corporeal and incorporeal bodies had been trapped in her grave. But by some small grace—damnation?—she’d been able to hear everything that happened in the castle. It had nearly destroyed her mind even as it shredded her heart, hearing that Lachlan had died despite the bargain she’d struck and the subsequent sacrifice she’d made that summer night.
Her life for his.
She swiped at the tears that tracked down her cheeks at the memory of hearing that Lachlan had perished, the heartache as fresh as ever. “Fickle gods have no care for those whose lives are destroyed by their impetuous choices.”
And now both her sacrifice and Lachlan’s death would amount to naught. With the disturbance of Isibéal’s grave, the very grave to which Lugh had linked his binding to the Shadow Realm, Lugh’s confinement to the underworld would begin to deteriorate. While she had been bound to her grave, so had he been to his. But now that she was free? That freedom would empower the god to begin his own resurrection process. Once he manifested, she had no doubt he would rain vengeance on those he deemed enemies, past and present.
And Lachlan, nay, Ethan, would be at the very top of his list.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_e025d6b2-cd67-5050-9027-b1454e8c6710)
Thoughts raced willy-nilly through Ethan’s mind as he crossed the threshold into his room. Wife. Mine? No. Married. Me? No. No, no, no, no. Crazy-ass ghost. Rowan’s wrong. No other explanation. And then he was back to Married. Me? No. No, no, no, no. At some point in what had evolved into a mad dash down the hall, his feet had gone inexplicably numb. With a little luck and some staunch medicinal Irish therapy, the rest of his body would follow within the half hour.
He shoved through the door to his rooms and crossed straight to the small bookcase with the bar on one end. With the tip of his dagger, he performed an impromptu game of eenie-meenie-miney-mo. The blade landed on an unopened bottle of Midleton Very Rare. Ethan grinned without humor and pulled the bottle off the shelf. No glass needed.
“Waste of fine whiskey.”
The deep voice nearly drove Ethan out of his skin. His knife clattered to the floor, and he fumbled the expensive whiskey. Sunlight flashed through the bottle’s rich amber content as the decanter went end over end, its impact with the stone floor forecast in horrid slow motion. Ethan lunged for the bottle. His knees scraped the uneven floor, the burn advertising that he’d taken the first layer of skin off. But by the gods’ grace, he snatched the bottle out of the air before permanent damage—the kind that involved curses and broken glass and bandied accusations—occurred.
Rounding on the intruder and light-headed with a wild cocktail of anger, adrenaline and something too close to fear for comfort, Ethan gestured with the neck of the bottle. “Stop sneaking up on me!”
Rowan shrugged and, with his heel, shoved the door to the suite closed before zeroing in on the bookshelf. He plucked the Very Rare from Ethan’s hands as he passed. “I realize you’re not Irish and, therefore, are arguably ignorant, so I’ll tell you once. You don’t get fluthered on Midleton’s. It’s too fine a drink for that. Choose a bottle of Jameson’s, Blended.”
“What? Why?”
Rowan placed the Very Rare on the shelf from whence it came and selected a nearly new bottle of Jameson’s Blended, handing it to Ethan without pomp or flourish. “Why?” He blinked once. Twice. “Easy. Midleton’s is a rare whiskey made for sipping, not drinking. It’s a whiskey for celebration, not obliteration. And while Jameson’s is also an admittedly fine whiskey, it’s half the cost. Your guilt won’t be so pricked when you’re puking it, and your toenails, up come sunrise.”
Ethan blinked at Rowan. “That was a speech.”
The muscular man rolled first his shoulders and then his head, rocking the latter back and forth until he paused to stretch and his vertebrae made a popping sound. “Made my point, didn’t I?”
“Sure, but it seems there were extra words in there. Some might even say they were compassionate words.”
Rowan shot Ethan a bland look before plucking a glass off the shelf. “Shut up and pour.”
“You too good to drink from the bottle?”
The larger man didn’t respond, simply held out the highball glass. When Ethan didn’t move fast enough, Rowan snatched the bottle and poured a solid two fingers of whiskey. Neck corded and hands trembling, he passed the glass to Ethan, picked up a second glass and poured again.
Ethan swirled his drink, staring at the play of light against fine crystal. “I’m not sure what to think, seeing as the ghost got to you. You. She must have been terrifying, horrid even. Dude, I bet that was it. She’s a hag, isn’t she? Proof she’s not my wife. I mean, looks aren’t everything, but when you take your marriage vows? That’s it. You’re waking up to that mug for the rest of your life.”
Rowan lifted his chin and locked his stare with Ethan’s. “Did you just call me ‘dude’?”
“Maybe?” He shrugged. “Okay, fine. Yes. But it was my second choice. First would have been Special Agent Supernatural—SAS for short—because of all the freaky shit that goes on around here. ‘Dude’ slipped off the tongue easier.” Sure, Ethan could have been a little more couth, but it would have been wasted effort. Besides, he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to worry about offending the centuries-old Druid. Let Rowan turn him into a toad. With any luck, Ethan could counter-curse the other man on the way down. Gulping down the contents of the proffered glass, Ethan took the last swallow and gasped as powerful fumes rushed out his nose, cauterizing the tender skin. “I’d turn you into a gnat.”
Rowan’s eyebrows drew together for a split second. “A gnat?”
“Well, you’re turning me into a frog.”
“I am?” Rowan shook his head and tossed back the two fingers he’d poured. “I haven’t had enough to drink for you to make sense.”
“I always make sense,” Ethan countered. “Sometimes.”
Rowan grunted as he poured himself a second shot.
“So, let me be blunt.” Ethan set his glass down, commandeered the bottle and took a long draw, his breath exploding from his lungs as if he were a mythical fire-breathing creature. He wondered that the room hadn’t been incinerated. Voice raw, he managed to wheeze, “Why are you here?”
Rowan shrugged and sipped at his glass. “Personal reasons, I assure you.”
“And here I thought you cared,” Ethan murmured before taking a less aggressive pull from the bottle’s mouth.
“Don’t think that my presence here is any type of indicator that I give a personal damn about what you do or don’t do.” The barked response bore an accusatory tone. “I don’t leave my friends in trouble.”
“By your own admission last Thursday after sword practice when I cut you like a little bitch, I’m not your friend. And as far as my troubles go?” He lifted the bottle in toast and took another pull. “The only one I have involves a crazy-ass ghost-hag-stalker no one but you can see. Soon as I banish her? Life’s golden.”
Rowan stepped closer to Ethan. “You won’t banish the woman until we’re sure she’s not your wife.”
Ethan’s temper snapped like a mousetrap. The victim here, though, was his common sense. Pushing into Rowan’s personal space, he glared at the Druid. “Get it through your thick, geriatric skull, dude. I’ve never been married. Won’t ever get married. So the only thing I know for sure is that the woman wants something bad enough that she’s motivated to lie in order to get it.”
Rowan pushed Ethan back with enough force that he stumbled.
“Asshole.”
The bigger man set his glass down and, moving faster than thought, closed his hand around Ethan’s throat. “Leave it be.”
Simple words issued with such hostile overtones didn’t steal the underlying truth. Rowan gave a shit about him on some fundamental, purposeful level.
Wrenching free of the assassin’s grip, Ethan spun and stalked to the window. He braced a hand against the casing and leaned into it, pressing the pads of his fingers into the rough stone. He watched the waves rolling into the cliff face and took a drink.
This time the whiskey burned slower, spreading through the middle of his chest before radiating down his legs and along his arms. Lingering surprise at Rowan’s roundabout admission stole Ethan’s sarcasm. His fingertips twitched around the glass. Shoving off the window’s frame, he forced himself to face the man who inexplicably considered him a friend. “What do we do to get rid of her?”
Rowan retrieved the bottle of Midleton’s and poured himself a clean shot.
Ethan’s eyebrows drew together and he absently rubbed his furrowed forehead. “I thought that wasn’t the whiskey you drank to get drunk.”
Ice-blue eyes met his. “You’re getting drunk. I’m only here in a support role. Plus, you drank from the bottle. I prefer to keep my glass to my person.”
“Whatever.” Ethan took another sip, appreciating the ease with which the strong alcohol now went down. “Why are you so supportive of my intent to get blotto? You don’t even like me.”
“If you’d been paying attention to the gossiping hens around this place, you’d have heard I don’t like anyone or anything.”
“Gossip is for little girls and old women. Oh, and doctors. You wouldn’t believe how doctors gossip around their computer monitors in a hospital.” He shook his head. “Crazy.”
Rowan snorted. “Don’t be a fool. Gossip is limited only by one’s ability to communicate, be it by mouth, hand or other method.” Lifting his glass to his lips, he paused. “So, how long are you going to avoid the specter in the room?”
Ethan’s hands spasmed and the bottle he’d claimed fell to the floor, shattering on impact. “Where?” He glanced around wildly. “Where is it? She? It? She’s here, isn’t she?”
Rowan watched him through those notoriously shrewd, dispassionate eyes. “I haven’t seen her since she took off down the hall.”
“You said she was here. You said, ‘How long are you going to avoid the specter—’”
Rowan interrupted with a sharp look. “It was a question similar to ‘How long will you avoid the elephant in the room?’”
With a ragged curse, Ethan picked his way across the glass-strewn floor and back to the bookshelf where he blindly retrieved a third bottle. “And if I’d been an elephant handler traumatized by a crazed elephant, I’d have reacted the same.”
“Lucky for us you don’t have any elephants in your past.”
“It’s far more likely there’s an elephant—maybe even two—hanging around in my past than there is a woman who can claim with any legitimacy that she’s my wife.” Ethan pulled the cork free of the new bottle with a sharp pop. He took a long draw and coughed, his response as harsh as if the words had been run over a coarse cheese grater. “Trust me.”
* * *
Isibéal slipped unseen through the doors of the castle. That she could pass through walls of glass and stone, doors of wood and iron, still bothered her. For all that she’d been dead for centuries, she’d been trapped in her own personal hell. This? Moving free in the world? It would take some getting used to.
Wandering across the massive foyer and toward the stairs, attention wandering as she stepped from stone to stone, she didn’t see the man in time to keep from passing through him. She shuddered as she emerged, a sick sensation stealing through her middle even as a muffled whump had her looking back.
The man she’d passed through had collapsed and now flopped about like a flightless chick cast from its nest too early. The paroxysm he suffered proved severe as he smashed his head against the stone again and again, his arms and legs alternately flailing and stiffening as straight and rigid as an arrow’s shaft.
Isibéal moved to kneel at his side. She wanted to help him, to ease whatever pain he suffered, but without a body?
She sat back on her heels.
