The Immortal's Unrequited Bride

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“Not yet.” He rose to his full, impressive height, his head approaching what had to have been a nine-foot-tall ceiling. “I would that you hear me out.”

“You would dare to ask me for, what? A favor?”

“I intend to see myself out of this prison and settle the score that landed me here, but the act of breaking free will require the assistance of one already tied to the mortal plane.” The cast-out god dipped his chin. “I would ask for your help, though not as a favor. I’m fully prepared to compensate you for your efforts.”

“‘Compensate’ as if I’m some two-bit floozy whose ‘services’ you can buy on a whim?” Hands curling into fists, Isibéal shook with unfettered rage. “Should you ask, I would vehemently decline...right before I cursed you to hell.”

The smile that had been convivial darkened, Irish-green eyes turning blacker than an ironmonger’s tongs. With precise movements, Lugh stepped toward her, the shadows hovering around him like vapor to a hot spring. “Would you like to know what being damned truly looks like, Isibéal? Are you strong enough to see what it is to be cursed to an eternity in the Shadow Realm? Would you like to know what it is to crave the heat of a single taper as one burns with a cold impossible to replicate in any other realm? Would you be able to stomach the truth of damnation, fair lady, and will it upon me again? Aye, again. For I am already there.” The subtle threat in his words provided the only warning she received before he dropped the little glamour he’d held as a shield to his vanity.

Hardly an outline of the man she remembered remained. Still tall, he was more cadaverous than brawny, more specter than solid form, and far more nightmare than dream. Semitransparent from head to toe, his skeletal form flickered beneath translucent skin that had taken on a hideous gray color, a color seen in those for whom death was imminent...or had already called. Most of his scalp was revealed, and what hair remained hung in thin, brittle clumps. But the vacancy of his eye sockets, the fathomless pits of misery that were exposed when his skeletal form flickered over the ghastly remains of his human countenance? She dared believe she could close her eyes ever again and see aught but that terror.

Lugh grabbed her wrist before she could move. “Tell me, witch, that you could, in good conscience, damn me to this existence for a crime I did not commit.”

“I—” A cry of sheer agony escaped her when he tightened his grip. Cold burned through her where their skin touched, the experience excruciating in its severity.

“I live with this every day, Isibéal. Every. Day!” he roared. Looming over her, those vacant eye sockets arrested her attention once again. “Every day,” he repeated, this time in little more than a whisper. “For a crime I again assert I did not commit.”

He released her, and she stumbled back, clutching her wrist to her breast. “You killed me.”

“I did not strike the blow that ended your life.”

Isibéal’s gaze snapped up and she searched his face, disturbed to find no sign of prevarication. “If not you, then who? For no one else stood at my back.”

“And that, my dear woman, is the point of contention, is it not? For how would you have known, how would you have seen, if anyone else approached you from behind?”

Chapter 4 (#ulink_46ad09df-def4-5bbf-812b-71eb9b094a57)

Ethan pressed the heels of his hands against his temples in an effort to silence the brutal noise in his head. It was like a band of drug-addled musicians had been released to tear through his gray matter with the goal being total annihilation. Whichever maniac was hammering out the drum fill was doing a hell of a job. The thrash-metal rhythm filled his head until the sound pulsed behind his eyes. He would give anything for silence. Anything.

Blinking rapidly as he fought to bring the room into focus, Ethan glanced at the group who hovered around him. “Fifty euro to the man who shuts down the noise,” he slurred.

“What noise?” a familiar, feminine voice asked.

“Kenny?”

Kennedy Jefferson, the woman who’d been his best friend for years, moved close enough that her thigh brushed Ethan’s bare arm as she settled the covers over him, pulling them up to his chin.

He rolled toward her, craving the comfort and compassion earned through years of friendship. Unfortunately, his stomach opposed. The movement sent it flipping over again and again, bouncing from one side of his belly to the other. Easing onto his back, Ethan closed his eyes. “The noise—it’s like amplified drums played by a nine-year-old boy hyped up on gummy bears and Gatorade. And the child has no musical talent. What he does have is a hell of a lot of time on his hands. And enthusiasm. Did I mention he’s nine? Nine. And he’s in my head.”

Kayden laughed. “Sorry, mate, but there’s neither music nor drummer. We just aren’t that posh a place to offer live music to our recovering patients. Budget cuts and all.” He winked. “Sure an’ ye understand.”

Niall clapped his hands before rubbing them together briskly. “Your head’s no place for children. I, however, am willing to chase the little criminal out for the money. Hand over the euro and we’ll talk. Sure and ye understand this is business and all.”

“Doing my best to understand,” Ethan said around his thick tongue. “Recovering?”

“How hard did you hit your head, mate?” Kayden moved into view and winced as he looked down at Ethan. “You’re in the infirmary. With any luck, your vanity will be preserved and you won’t scar.”

Infirmary. What was it about the infirmary that made him want to lie down and be tended to?

You’re injured, you idiot.

The quick, subconscious answer was true, but his conscious self rejected the idea that a singular truth could serve as such a comprehensive explanation. There was more to his desire to seek out the location of the old infirmary and discover the comfort that lived there—a bone-deep comfort that superseded anything offered via simple first aid.

There was an answer there, and he intended to find it.

Clearing his throat proved pointless. It was raw and swollen and refused to give any quarter. Regardless, he managed to scratch out a few words. “The infirmary upstairs. Is it still in use?”

“There isn’t an infirmary upstairs.” Dylan’s cold voice and sharp enunciation were unwelcoming at best. “How hard did you hit your head, warlock?”

“Not hard enough to convince myself I’m fond of you,” he responded with saccharine sweetness.

Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “You try my patience.” A slow grin spread over his lower face. “But you’re entertaining enough.”

Gareth, second in charge of the Arcanum, moved into Ethan’s field of view. “Anyone know how to knock this bowsie out just a wee bit longer so we might tend his injuries? You die now and you’ll ruin our survival statistics.”

Ethan huffed out a semblance of a laugh. “I wouldn’t trust you to keep Sea Monkeys alive, Gareth, so hands off my person.” Eyes squinted, he flipped the covers back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The room swam.

I had to choose Sea Monkeys.

His stomach surged, and he swallowed convulsively at the rush of bile that pushed up the back of his throat. The effort wasn’t enough, though, and the fraction of control he’d held disappeared. Without his consent, his stomach rejected the little bit of lunch he’d managed to get down before the showdown with the ghost. Someone appeared at his side sans commentary. The figure, male by form and aura, offered a bucket and settled a cold rag on the back of his neck.

Moments later, when Gareth was confident there was nothing left to offer, he sat up. The washrag slipped, but he managed to snag it before it fell out of reach. He wiped his face and then set the rag and can aside with a soft “Sorry. Thanks. Both.” He gently shook his head. “You know what I mean.”

With the men hovering and shifting to keep an eye on him, Ethan wiggled his way back into bed. The whole third-floor-infirmary thing was still nagging at him. He knew there had been another infirmary, but he didn’t know how he knew, only that there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that he was right.

He needed irrefutable proof. What he would do with it, he didn’t know. He wasn’t even sure what difference it would make.

A sharp stabbing sensation deep in both ears made him shout, surge to a sitting position and grab his head.

“Ethan?” Kennedy appeared at his side and slipped an arm around his waist.

Her voice rang in his head, tinny and unnatural. Scooting forward, Ethan swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Every muscle protested and he swore he heard his joints creak. “If I don’t start moving, I’m going to freeze in place. I...” He glanced at Kennedy. “I need to get out of here.”

The Druid’s Elder and Dylan’s father, Aylish, stepped into the room and, seeing Ethan sitting there, crossed to him with long, strong steps. “Rowan sent for me.”

Ethan scowled at the room in general before his gaze rested on Rowan’s. “Thanks, mate.”

“Seriously, don’t mention it.” The large warrior didn’t smile. “Ever.”

Aylish raised a hand between the two men. “Something is happening here, and the puzzle is ours to piece together. Rowan, give me some space.” Aylish turned to Ethan. “Warlock, tell me of the infirmary you referred to.”

Ethan managed a small shrug. “Not much to tell. I just wondered if it was still used.”

Aylish laid his hands on Ethan, one over his heart and one around the back of his neck. Soft but persistent power pushed into him, through him, and rendered him mute as it filled him, searching, seeking.

“Not to worry.” Aylish’s eyes drifted closed. “This will only take a...” His brow furrowed and then, without warning, he whipped his hands away and stumbled back from Ethan. “Oh, gods.”

Ethan couldn’t help looking over his shoulder. Nothing there. Spinning with infinite care, he faced the Elder again. “Based on your reaction, I’m going to assume what you found is more significant than an emotional hangnail, bigger than the proverbial bread box and more lethal than Conan over there—” he glared at Rowan “—without his double espresso shots in the morning.” He tried to smile—might have—but his lips were so numb he couldn’t feel them. When Aylish said nothing, Ethan stood and rolled his shoulders, ignoring the pervasive drumbeat still hammering through his head. “If no one is inclined to tell me what the hell is going on, I’m going to my room, stripping to my unmentionables and catching some z’s. This cat’s nine lives are shot.”

Aylish grabbed Ethan’s arm just above the elbow and turned him around. “You won’t make light of this, warlock. It impacts each of us on some level.”

Ethan started to ask how the cacophony in his head could affect anyone other than him, but the riff grew louder. The drumbeat burrowed deeper, a parasitic sound he couldn’t shake. Each note was hammered out before burying itself deep in the center of who he was, into his very psyche.

Panting through the excruciating headache, Ethan bent forward, rested his forearms on his knees and dipped his chin to his chest. “How does it affect... How?”

Aylish stepped closer, gently shushing everyone with a wave of his hand. No magicks but rather absolute authority. “Ethan, you are not as removed from us as you, and we, have believed.”

His heart tripped over the hope he’d carried without comment—hope that he might one day find his place and identify that piece of him that was forever absent. That it could be here, in Ireland? In a country that sang through his blood? His heart lurched. Was it possible that there was more to him than his bland history? More than a middle-class American kid who went to college and did everything he’d been expected to do? More than...this? All of this? Because he wanted to be more. Craved it. Needed it in the worst possible way. He wanted an identity that thrilled and challenged him, a reality that pushed him to be better and do more. When his last breath came, he needed to take it knowing he’d made a marked difference in the world—a difference somehow more significant than the practice of medicine afforded him.

And your stalker? his subconscious whispered. Where does she play into this?