Beyond the Highland Myst(629)

Gwen and Chloe were making sympathetic little noises, and he could just smell the bloody female bonding going on in the room. Everyone was bonding, except for the invisible person.

Bloody hell, he was hungry. But did he get to eat? No. Gabby had spoken for both of them, bypassing a meal, accepting a light snack in the library.

Shortbreads, candies, and nuts? A mortal body could expire of starvation on such meager fare.

And she'd not yet even gotten to the part where Darroc and the Hunters had appeared yet. Gwen and Chloe seemed fascinated by the notion of Sidhe-seers and had been asking dozens of utterly unnecessary questions about what it was like to be one. At this rate, it could take all night to get to the important parts— like what Adam needed them to do. If only he could speak for himself! He was beginning to wonder if she'd even manage to get it all wrapped up by Lughnassadh.

Currently she was elaborating about those idiotic, apocryphal O'Callaghan Books, and Chloe. antiquities lover and relentless bookworm, was trying to set up a time to come to Cincinnati to see them. Books. Faery was in danger, his queen was at risk, Darroc was trying to kill them, Hunters were on the loose, and they were talking about frigging books!

It mollified him only mildly to hear her say. "You're welcome to see them, Chloe, but, frankly, I think my ancestors might have gotten a lot of stuff wrong."

About high damn time she admitted that, he thought, eyes narrowing, his gaze raking over her possessively. Willing her to look up at him. To make him feel less invisible.

But she didn't so much as cast a tiny glance his way, she was too busy answering yet another irrelevant question.

He was just about to stalk out and go help himself to something from the kitchen when Dageus said thoughtfully. "So 'tis the féth fiada he's cursed with that keeps us from seeing him?"

Adam's head whipped around. "What does he know of it, ka-lyrra?" he said, suddenly alert. Dageus was another human wild card, like his Sidhe-seer; the things he'd endured in the past year had changed him in ways of which none could be entirely certain. Had changed him so much, in fact, that when the present Dageus had encountered himself in the past— which should have canceled one of them out— it hadn't. Which was part of the reason the High Council had so firmly advocated his destruction. Of course, some among them had been driven by more nefarious motives, like Darroc.

"Yes, it is, and Adam wants to know what you know of it," Gabby related for him.

Dageus smiled faintly. "More than I e'er wished to. I used it myself to borrow a few rare tomes I needed not too long ago. We call it the magic mantle, or Druid's fog. 'tis no' easy to wear, 'tis a chilling spell. There are two versions of it. The version the MacKeltars were taught, and the spell the Draghar knew— a much more potent, triumvirate enchantment, in the Tuatha Dé tongue. I ne'er used that version."

" 'The Draghar'?" Gabby echoed, frowning.

"For a time," Chloe explained. "Dageus was possessed by the souls of thirteen ancient, evil Druids who'd been banished by the Tuatha Dé to an immortal prison four thousand years ago. They were called the Draghar."

"Oh. I see." Gabby sounded quite unconvinced of her own words.

Chloe laughed softly. "I'll explain it all later, Gabby. I promise."

"Bloody hell, yes!" Adam exploded, stalking to Gabrielle's side. Closing a hand on her arm, he said urgently. "Ask him if he still retains the Draghar's memories, Gabrielle." During the time the thirteen dark Druids had possessed Dageus, their knowledge had been his, and they'd once been privy to virtually all Tuatha Dé lore. Adam had assumed that when Aoibheal had destroyed the Draghar, she'd stripped those memories from the Highlander's mind.

But what if she hadn't? If Dageus knew the ancient countercurse in the Tuatha Dé's tongue, he could terminate Adam's enchantment! No mere mortal could do it, nor could he himself, but a full-blooded MacKeltar Druid who knew the ancient words certainly could.

He'd be able to speak for himself, be seen again, be solid again, be able to make it unmistakably clear that Gabrielle was his.

"Okay, but they can't see me again, Adam. Stop touching me."

Stop touching me. Being invisible was making him feel impotent enough around the Keltar, and impotent was not a feeling Adam was capable of dealing with on any level, and her words provoked something fast and furious and primal in him. He was consumed with the sudden imperative to make her remember that not so long ago she'd been begging him to kiss her deeper, that he'd had his hand down her pants. Damn near inside her, and would have been there— with something far more intimate and personal than a hand— if they'd not been interrupted. That they had some serious unfinished business to attend to.