be the last time they would lie wrapped in each other, loose-limbed and sated.
She stayed as long as she dared, watching the late-afternoon sun paint Lachlan’s skin in warm colors as he drifted into a deep, quiet sleep. Then she rose, wrapped her robe about herself and crossed the hall to her infirmary, where she set about gathering a basket full of fresh bandages, salves and healing ointments she’d made. They would be needed on the coming morn when mediation turned to war.
Dressed and packed little more than an hour later, she tried to leave. Truly, she did. But she craved one last look at her husband’s face, peaceful in sleep, long lashes fanning over his cheeks. This was how she would remember him, always and forever.
Emotion welled, filling her chest until she could not breathe.
“From my very first breath until time ceases, you have been and will always be the heart of me. I love you, Lachlan Cannavan.”
Isibéal shut the door and then headed down the stairs and toward the stables. Pausing at the keep’s huge front doors, she swung her traveling cloak about her shoulders and raised her hood against the misting rain.
She had a long ride ahead if she were to die before the sun’s zenith as agreed.
Ethan Kemp forced himself to keep his pace slow as he made his way down the castle’s long, forever-chilled hallway. He’d been called a lot of things over his thirty-four years—warlock, physician’s assistant, American expat, friend, lover and, on occasion, fighter—but he’d never been called a coward. That was a moniker he refused to sport. So he would not allow himself to walk faster, speed up or, gods forbid, run. He would not curse. He would not look over his shoulder. Again, anyway. Why bother? He knew what would be there. What had been there for the last several months. Always following him. Always just out of reach, that shapeless smudge on the air. Nothing tangible. A mirage.
Hand at his side, he held the dirk with apparent disregard. Looks could be deceiving. He was under no illusion the blade would help him fight something he couldn’t see, but the weight of the weapon was better than nothing.
Besides, if the Assassin’s Arcanum—the biological outcome if 007 met Highlander and had unprotected sex with Practical Magic—found out he was running from shadows and tricks of light? Gods save him. He’d rather have his balls waxed than take the endless ribbing he’d receive from those five men.
While the heart of Druidism centered on a high regard for life and peaceful existence, the Assassin’s Arcanum, protectors of the Druidic race, were an entirely different breed. The Arcanum was composed of men who did whatever was deemed necessary to ensure that their brethren could live within their chosen—peaceful—parameters. But the assassins? From manipulation to murder, they were the things that went bump in the night. No mark would ever take notice of an assassin’s approach any more than he would the assassin’s departure. Dead men don’t hear a thing.
And while Ethan had developed a deep appreciation for the assassins’ mad skills with both weapons and elemental magicks, he wasn’t part of their inner circle. Not really. They’d gone so far as to jokingly label him their mascot—or resident pain in the ass. The moniker depended on whom he’d either helped or irritated at the time of conversation.
There were places Ethan had found he fit better than others. When the Assassin, Dylan O’Shea, had made the decision that compelled Ethan to participate in both weapons and hand-to-hand combat training, no one had been more surprised at the outcome than Ethan himself. He’d done well. No, not well. He’d excelled in a way that defied logic. That was when Dylan had begun involving Ethan in some of the Arcanum’s less risky ops, inviting him along as an extra set of hands to manage the element of earth, since none of the other men possessed that skill. But it didn’t change Ethan’s status among them. He was an outsider, a man without legitimate purpose, and it bothered him far more than it should.
A weighted stare settled between Ethan’s shoulders, and he clenched the dagger handle tighter. Last time he’d experienced something like this, assassins—junior assassins—had bagged and tagged him, hauling him from Atlanta, Georgia, to the Irish countryside in County Clare. That still irritated him. The purpose for his warlock-napping had been legit, though. His closest friend, Kennedy, had asked for the chance to say goodbye before the assassins or, more specifically, the Assassin, killed her. Ethan had arrived in time to see her beat the odds, and the gods, and then marry the man she’d fallen in love with.
That her new husband, Dylan the Ass, had been her appointed and questionably willing executioner?
“‘Love is blind’ and all that crap,” he muttered as he rolled his shoulders. “More like it encourages perfectly sane individuals to perform in certifiably insane ways.”
After the dust finally settled from that little magickal brouhaha, Ethan hadn’t wanted to leave her.
At least, that was the public version of events.
Privately? There was another chapter in his play-by-play living memoir. One he hadn’t discussed with anyone.
Ethan hadn’t been able to leave.
He’d tried.
Sure, he could pack his bags and buy his airline ticket and make noises about going back to the States. But when it came time to go? He would stand at the largest window in his small suite and stare out over the cliffs as the clock ticked past his boarding call, past his departure and well past his scheduled arrival.
He would stand there listening. Looking. Waiting. For what, he didn’t know.
Then he’d unpack and start the cycle over, trying to live until he could manage to leave.
No one said a word to him about the number of times this had happened. The Arcanum simply carried on as if he’d be there. The Druids’ healer and surgeon, Angus, never moved Ethan’s supplies or the medical files he kept on each patient he’d treated. His place setting was always laid out on the dining table. And the tyros, or assassins-in-training, never questioned him as he moved throughout the castle or across the grounds. He wasn’t one of them, but he had become part of the familiar landscape. They’d accepted his presence if not him.
None of that was what kept him ensconced in the Arcanum’s inner circle, though.
Truth? All he knew was that his heart was here. Not in Kennedy, although he’d suffered a moment of sheer panic right after she’d married, wondering if he’d unwittingly fallen in love with her. The revolting idea was too close to incest, though, and he’d been relieved. Yet that relief hadn’t translated to anything near understanding.
He’d had to accept that knowing his heart was here and understanding what that meant were two unrelated things. He had no idea what it meant that he couldn’t make himself go back to his former life. Didn’t understand how this drafty old castle, known among Druids as The Nest, had somehow become the GPS location labeled “Home” on his phone. Couldn’t explain how, after only days here in this foreign land, it wasn’t foreign at all. There was no logical explanation.
Despite his gifts in magick and his intimate ties to the element of earth, Ethan didn’t appreciate things that defied logic. Not like this. And definitely not when the heart—his heart—was involved. He loved this country, this keep and the very land beneath his feet. Loved it with absolutely no reserve. It was as if Ireland was his, and he was hers, logic be damned.
A
