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.
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
