Haunting Desire (37 page)

And where was the Druid?

The mist began to clear, and Shealy knew she was coming to the end. She couldn’t hold them without the blanketing white. She could see Zac and Reyes, coming back into themselves, drained from the battle with the monsters of Inis Brandubh, and with a last burst of strength she reached deep inside and found another doorway she could pry open. She didn’t know where it led, but it was away from here. Away from danger. The men jerked as they realized that they hung suspended over a chasm that would kill them if they fell and then again as Shealy swept them up. She forced Zac and Reyes to go through, not knowing where they would land, praying that it was somewhere safe.

The two men wanted to stay with Jamie, they were trained to be the last to go, but there was no time for any of that. Exhausted, she drew in a deep breath.

“Shealy?”

It was Tiarnan, and she turned to find the man she loved, no longer a giant, no longer her avenger. He was pale and gray, exhausted beyond any man’s endurance. She reached for him, and he wrapped those strong arms around her.

“Y’ saved Liam,” he said.

“Yes. He’s with your sister now. Ellie, too.”

“Ah, I thank y’, my Shealy. And what do we do now?”

In his question she saw that he’d given her the choice of what would happen to both of them. She knew it was a monumental thing for a man who’d tried to control even the wind.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “He’s coming for me.”

“Then y’ must send him somewhere he cannot escape. You must not let him loose.”

“The Druid, Tiarnan. He is here, too. I saw him, with Meaghan. Where can I send them?” she asked, but then she knew.

She looked back at the Book of Fennore. Her father and the others were trying to close it. Seal it with the strange chant her father muttered over and over.

The damage that Tiarnan had done must be mended so that no one else was ever sucked into this terrifying place again. In her gut, she knew there was only one place to send them.

As old as the earth and sky, the Book radiated a hum in a seesawing rhythm that stroked her in the thick, vaporous white. As she watched the pages begin to fan once more, she saw the ancient symbols move in a blur that was mesmerizing. Her father’s voice rose and with it a swirling storm began to grow around them. Shealy wouldn’t have much time.

Thunder exploded above them, chasing sizzling spears of lightning that threatened to impale the frail humans. A great, tearing sound ripped through the air, and like wallpaper being stripped, fissures appeared in the sky above and the earth beneath them. That great suctioning force pulled them all closer to the Book. Only Cathán seemed able to fight it.

Shealy looked at her father, Jamie, and Kyle, a front line around the terrible Book. Behind them, Eamonn looked young and terrified, arms wrapped around his panting wolf. And there . . . there was Meaghan and the unconscious man with the velvet voice. Áedán, she’d called him, but Shealy knew who he really was. The Druid. She had to get Meaghan away from him and then somehow bind him to Cathán and trap them here.

Closing her eyes, she forced herself to pull the storm and vapor in tight around them, then she focused on Cathán, found him in the wind and rain that pelted the disintegrating world. Next she sent out a line for the Druid, wrapping tight around him.

“You will not have your way,” she breathed, and her voice became a tempest, her will a cyclone that hauled them closer. “You will not win.”

Meaghan was screaming, reaching for the man she called Áedán. She didn’t understand who he was, and Shealy couldn’t stop and tell her. They fought for control as the storm rose.

Shealy pictured another doorway, opened it, and looked through to the fanning pages of spiral symbols, runes of a time so long ago they were as mystical as their meaning. She pried that door open, crying as it fought to keep her out. And then she shoved Cathán, the man who’d ruined so many lives, into that small opening. With a deep breath she tried to jerk the Druid free of Meaghan’s grasp and hurl him through as well, but the door was smaller and a great blast knocked her back.

“Let him go,” Shealy shouted at Meaghan. Around her the men stared, shocked, trying to figure out what she was talking about. They couldn’t see the unconscious man, but Meaghan held him tight.

“He’s evil, Meaghan. He’s the Druid.”

It was obvious the other woman couldn’t understand Shealy’s words over the deafening noise.

“He’s a prisoner like me,” she shouted.

There was no time to explain. “Let him go or I can’t help you.”

That seemed to get through to her. Meaghan was still shaking her head, but reluctantly she released the man.

The howling storm unleashed like a demon. The rain became acid, the lightning, blades that sliced through them. Her father’s voice rose above all, chanting, chanting, and then suddenly the Book slammed shut with a bang that resounded like a bomb and the spiraled knots of the lock charged forward, forged into one, mating with a primeval violence that ended with a final metallic grind. The door she’d pried open shut with a resounding
boom
. Cathán was on the other side, but not the Druid. . . .

“No,” Shealy cried. They’d only imprisoned Cathán. The Druid was still free. . . .

B
UT there was nothing she could do. The world of Inis Brandubh no longer existed, and they were caught in the evolution of its demise.

The screams of the world shattering around her crowded into her head, scattering her thoughts. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter that the Druid had not been trapped in the Book, because there wouldn’t be anything left of him either. They were going to die, here in this nonexistence.

No
, a voice from within said. Not if she could help it.

Once more Shealy searched for an opening she could force into a door, focusing on the only place that she could bring to mind—that stark cliff where their car had plunged to the rocks and sea. She saw the hint of a doorway at the edge of her sight, focused, bringing it closer. There it was, just at the tip of her fingers.

She struggled to pry it open, to create a passage wide enough to escape, but the opening fought back, trying to collapse in on them. At last she managed to grasp it with her mind, to force it to open wider. The fearsome cliffs, the angry sea waited, but night and day seemed to be blinking like a strobe light over them and Shealy understood that time was moving at lightning speed. Eamonn reached for his brother even as Shealy tried to shove Tiarnan through as well, but there were some things even Shealy couldn’t accomplish. Moving Tiarnan, evidently, was one of them. Eamonn, arm still looped around his wolf, was sucked into the beyond, but Tiarnan would not budge.

Frustrated, she wasted no time turning to Meaghan, gathering her up and shoving her through the closing door. At the last moment, Meaghan reached for the Druid as she sailed through. It happened so fast, Shealy could do nothing to stop it. He’d escaped, just as the prophecy had warned. Meaghan had taken him, but it was Shealy who had set him free.

There wasn’t time to think of the repercussions or dwell on her failure, not with the crush of doom rolling down on her.

She turned her power on her father, Jamie, and Kyle. Still holding the passage to the rocky shores of Fennore open, she shoved the two men through. Then she pictured Ellie, and the scenery of that opening changed, and for an instant she glimpsed her sister, held in Liam’s strong arms. Her father tried to tell her something, but the door was collapsing and there was only time for her to shout “I love you, Daddy,” as she managed to hurl him through just as the door slammed shut and the mist vanished completely.

She was alone in the black with Tiarnan.

They clung to one another, neither falling nor floating. The torrential storm had devoured the hellish world of Inis Brandubh and nothing was left but the cold. The desolation. The nothingness. There were no more doors to find and pry open. There was no escape.

“I don’t know how to get us out,” Shealy said.

Tiarnan held her tight and pressed his lips to her temple. “Y’ve done enough, Shealy.”

“No. Tiarnan, the Druid escaped. He went with Meaghan. Wherever I sent her, he went, too.”

She was crying and Tiarnan soothed her. “Y’ did what y’ could. Y’ were brave as any warrior.”

She shook her head. “But—”

“What will be will be. Destiny has its own path. We’ve learned that.
I
have learned that.”

She realized there were tears on Tiarnan’s face. Or maybe it was her own tears she felt.

“Y’ saved yer father and yer sister. ’Tis what y’ came to do. And y’ saved my brothers, my friends. If not for y’, lass . . .”

Yes, she’d done what she came to do. But now she was scared. How long would they survive in this void? Seconds? Hours? Forever?

“If I’m going to meet my maker, Tiarnan, I’m glad to be doing it with you.”

“And I with y’, Shealy O’Leary. Y’ve made me be more than I ever hoped to be. Y’ gave me a purpose and for the first time in my life, I fulfilled it. I wish I could save y’ now. That is my regret.”

“No regrets, Tiarnan. I have none where you are concerned.”

He smiled at her. It was too dark to see those whiskey eyes or the flash of teeth. But she felt the smile.

The black closed in, binding them tighter. A howling sound came from nowhere and everywhere at once; it whipped them and sealed their desolation. Shealy clung tighter to Tiarnan, and he sheltered her in those strong arms. No matter what came next, she knew he’d never let her go.

Then suddenly there was a light, pale and ethereal, floating just overhead like a pinpoint star in a tapestry of velvet. Shealy and Tiarnan watched it as it flickered, went out, and then appeared again, brighter this time.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice but a breath in her ear.

“I don’t know.”

But as she watched she felt something inside awaken and lift its head. The star flickered again and that awareness blossomed, greeting the small arc of energy.

“Oh my God,” Shealy breathed.

“What?” Tiarnan asked.

“Ellie.”

As if speaking the child’s name gave the star power, it flared, lighting up the area where she and Tiarnan waited. Shealy reached up for it, with her mind, her senses, her heart. She felt the warmth of the connection, the bond that went beyond sisterhood.

A passageway. And here was Ellie showing her where the other side was.

This was no doorway. It was no tear in the fabric of the world through which they could slip. This was a lifeline and it was up to Shealy to grasp it.

“Tiarnan,” she said softly. “I think we’re going home.”

“Home?” he said, staring at the pulsing light. “Is there such a place?”

She peered at him, making out his features in the glow. Then she smiled and pressed her mouth tight to his. “There is for us. I love you, Tiarnan.”

He kissed her then, softly, sweetly. “And I love y’, Shealy.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, made sure his hands were firmly anchored at her waist, and then she closed her eyes and pictured that light as a tunnel, leading them through to the other side.

She heard Tiarnan suck in a deep breath, and then they were falling, falling, falling.

They hit the ground like stones, hard enough to make colors dance in her head. She groaned with pain, but when she opened her eyes, there was sun on her face and she could hear the sea in the distance. Tiarnan’s arms were still wrapped around her, his heart a steady beat in her ear.

“Tiarnan,” she whispered. “We made it.”

He rolled to his back and looked up at the sky for a dazed moment, and then he laughed and so did she. They lay on the rocky beach, drenched in the fresh chill of salt water, and they laughed.

“Do you mind telling me what’s so funny?” a deep voice asked.

Shealy thought her heart might burst with the joy of being alive. Of being here—
wherever here was
. She turned to the voice and saw a huge blond man with the bluest eyes she’d ever seen standing in the froth of the surf.

“Ruairi?” she heard Tiarnan breath.

The man’s eyes widened as he saw Tiarnan, and an instant later a pregnant woman skidded to a stop behind him. The man held out a hand to steady her. “Easy, Saraid,” he said.

“Is it true?” she cried. “Is it Tiarnan?”

Tiarnan stood, reaching down to help Shealy while the pregnant woman threw her arms around him. Shealy recognized her now from the picture she’d seen in the journal—his sister, and the blond man must be her husband. Before she could process it all, she saw Liam and Ellie racing toward them and behind the two came her father, slower but with no less joy in his face. Then she was in the center of a group hug filled with laughter and tears and knowledge that this moment was a miracle.

She held tight to Tiarnan, felt his strong arms around her, and she thanked a God she’d thought she no longer believed in for giving her this man and this day to love him.

And she prayed for those she’d sent out on their own with the prophecy of the Druid a hot breath behind them. She and Tiarnan had managed to overcome one of the journal’s dire predictions. Perhaps it could be done again.

She, Tiarnan, her father, and the others had done all they could, though. They’d fought, and she had to believe they’d won the battle if not the war.

Safely within Tiarnan’s arms, she held her little sister tight and gazed with love at her father. As Tiarnan’s sister jabbered about a thousand different things at once, Shealy tilted back her head and smiled at the sun.

“Ah, Shealy,” Tiarnan said softly. “Y’ are more lovely to me now than y’ve ever been.”