She bit her lip, hard, staring at the screen. Reached for the mouse. Pulled away. Reached again, her finger hovering above it. Even without contact, she could feel the chill.
Her choices: lose Cian by letting him die to kill Lucan, or lose Cian by betraying him, by allying with his enemy to keep him alive.
Either way, she’d lose him.
And if she kept him alive, he would surely hate her. “I can’t do it,” she whispered, shaking her head.
A few moments later, she powered down the computer and left the library.
As the door closed behind her, from deep in the shadows, concealed behind a velvety drape, Dageus watched the display go dark and sighed.
Earlier that day, after Lucan had gone, Jessica had cornered Dageus as he’d been hurrying—unnoticed, he’d thought—in the back entrance to the castle, in an attempt to avoid contact with Cian, as he’d been doing for several days now, unwilling to risk his powerful ancestor trying to deep-read him.
Dageus, do those ancient people, the Draghar inside you, know anything? Is there any way to save him? she’d asked, her face wan, her jade eyes dark with grief.
He’d drawn a deep breath and given her the same answer he’d given Drustan when, a few days ago, his brother had asked him the same question.
Nay, lass, he’d lied.
* * *
26
Memory/Day Nine: Cian and I were married today!
It wasn’t anything like I used to imagine my wedding would be, and it couldn’t have been more perfect.
We wrote our own vows and had a private ceremony in the estate chapel. When it was over, we scribed our names in the Keltar Bible, on thick ivory parchment edged in gold.
Jessica MacKeltar, wife of Cian MacKeltar.
Drustan, Gwen, and Chloe stood as witnesses, but Dageus wasn’t feeling well, so he couldn’t come.
Cian is my husband now!
We had a wedding breakfast of cake and champagne and honeymooned a long, rainy day away in a big four-poster bed before a roaring fire in a magnificent, five-hundred-year-old Scottish castle.
His vows were beautiful, so much better than mine. I know the MacKeltars thought so too, because Gwen and Chloe both caught their breath and got teary-eyed. Even Drustan seemed affected by them.
I wanted to say the same thing back to him, but Cian refused to let me. He got really funny about it. He placed his hand on my heart and mine on his—it was so romantic—and he said:
If aught must be lost, ’twill be my honor for yours.
If one must be forsaken, ’twill be my soul for yours.
Should death come anon, ’twill my life for yours.
I am Given.
The words gave me chills through my whole body.God, how I love the man!
Memory/Day Eight: We decided on names for our children this morning. He wants girls that look like me and I want boys that look like him, so we decided to have four, two of each.
(I’d settle for one. So, if anyone’s listening up there: I’D SETTLE FOR ONE, PLEASE.)
Memory/Day Five: Damn the man—he asked me not to be there when it happens!
Jessi didn’t see it coming. The conversation began innocuously enough. They were lying in bed in the Silver Chamber, Cian stretched on his back, Jessi sprawled, blissfully sated, on top of him. Her breasts were pillowed against his hard chest, her legs were parted across one of his thighs (and every time he moved the slightest bit she got a delicious residual tingle from the orgasm she’d just had), and her face was pressed into the warm hollow where his chest met his neck.
They’d been making love for hours, and had just been laughing about how they wanted to go raid the kitchen, but neither of them had the strength to move.
As their laughter died, there was one of those long moments that stretched uncomfortably. They’d been occurring more and more often of late, as there were so many things both of them were being excruciatingly careful not to say.
“What if we broke the mirror, Cian?” she blurted into the strained silence. “What would happen?”
He cupped the back of her head, threading his fingers into her curls. “The glass is but my window, or door, if you will, on the world, Jessica. The actual Unseelie prison I inhabit exists in another realm. I would be trapped inside that Unseelie place, with no way out. Then, when the tithe was not paid, both Lucan and I would die. He in your world, I in a windowless broch of stone.”
She shuddered, hating that image. “If you knew that breaking the mirror was a sure way to keep Lucan from passing the tithe through, why didn’t you do it before you ever came to Chicago?”
“Och, lass, prior to meeting you, I had no one to summon me out, or I might have. I attempted to persuade the thief to release me, but he thought he was going mad and crated the mirror up. After that debacle I concluded mayhap ’twould be wiser to let time and distance separate me from Lucan. Trevayne searches constantly for relics of power and has many contacts. I knew not which merchants might have ties to him and feared if I continued showing myself word might get back to him and he would succeed in reclaiming the mirror before Samhain. Then, once I’d met you I had to be able to leave the glass in order to protect you. ’Twas why I was so concerned it not be broken, so you would not be left defenseless.” He paused, then added softly, “There was also the small fact that I never wanted to live more greatly than I did the moment I saw you, lass. For over a thousand years, life had meant naught to me but vengeance. Then the moment my vengeance was at hand, life suddenly meant everything. ’Twas a bitter pill to swallow.”