A raven’s cry pierced the air as it took flight from one of the barren trees that edged the clearing. Startled, my gaze flicked up to the wide expanse of black wings. A second later the bird disappeared, replaced by Henry, whose large form blocked much of the sky.
I scrambled to my feet, Ailish alongside me. Henry pushed the sword tip into the soft earth to keep it upright. Then without uttering a single word, he pulled me into him and pressed a lingering kiss to my forehead. My breath caught from an unexpected shock of heat that flowed through every fiber of my body.
Lightheaded, I inhaled deeply to help regain my bearings. His familiar male spice teased my nose, but there was something else...something wild. “You smell different,” I murmured. Rather taken by the change, I tucked my nose into his neck and inhaled again.
Lifting his head, he glanced into the woods behind me. “We should go.”
I started in surprise. Of course we should go, just as soon as we discussed what had happened in the clearing. “Do you know who you fought out there?” Another question followed before he could answer the first. “Do you know what it means?”
“I’ve a fair notion.”
He sounded so calm, I doubted he had the slightest notion whatsoever. “My goodness, Henry! That man you fought, well, he isn’t a man at all. I mean not in the human sense. He’s the sun god Lugh of the Tuatha Dé, and by what he said you’re his descendant.” The words tumbled out faster and faster, matching my excitement. “At least I’m fairly certain with the surname O’Lughnane. And he clearly called you son.”
“Selah—”
“Except you don’t speak Gaelic,” I continued without pause, “so you wouldn’t have understood him. I did though, every word of it. And it means that you’re like me.” I pointed between Ailish and myself. “Like us.”
“I understood everything he said.”
My eyes widened. “But he spoke in Gaelic.” I turned to Ailish for support. “Didn’t he?”
“That’s the way me ears heard it.”
Sweat dripped into Henry’s eye, and he ran a linen sleeve over his forehead to mop the remaining drops. “Doesn’t matter what language he used, I’m telling you I understood it.”
If that was the case, I found his behavior all the more shocking. “How come you’re so calm then?” I looked at him closer, struck by an odd idea. “Did you know before you came here today?”
Henry exhaled. “All I knew for sure was that I had changed somehow. It started this past summer, not long after we kissed in the woods at Brighmor, and has been growing stronger ever since. Then the moment I stepped foot in Ireland, it felt as though two sides had gone to war inside me.”
“I felt it too, in the bathing chamber, when we were...” I darted a look at Ailish, who was unabashedly hanging on every word “...you know,” I finished instead, my cheeks growing warm from the memory.
“At the time, I assumed it was an effect of your goddess blood. In part I was right, as you had just woken something inside me.”
My gaze shifted to the spear still gripped at his side. “And now you’ve learned that you’re descended from the sun god.”
He gave me a sheepish grin. “It could explain why I like to fight so much.”
A laugh escaped unintended. “I should have known from the beginning that you weren’t fully human.”
For a fleeting moment, a minute crack appeared in his calm expression, revealing a very different side to his emotions. It lasted only a second before the mask was restored, but in that time I glimpsed the battle currently raging inside him—between old and new, familiar and strange.
Understanding flooded my heart. Taking his hand in mine, I held it close. “I know it’s a lot to accept at once. Go as slow as you need to, and I’ll be here to help.”
“If only it were so easy.” His expression hardened and tension charged his deep voice. “I would have liked some time to adjust, but the knowledge is more valuable to me now than ever before.”
“What do you mean?”
He tipped his head in the direction of Deidre’s cottage. “Did you learn anything of use from the woman?”
“A great deal actually. Deidre knows for certain that Carmen is Deri’s mother, and she suspects they’re working together to break the curse. Her prison is about an hour’s ride from here.”
Henry dropped my hand. “You can tell me the rest on the ride back to the inn. James and the others may have arrived by now and can help us recruit more swords.”
Wariness pulled me back a step. “Not if you’re thinking of Sean and his men. We’ve no time to waste with any more quarreling.”
Henry’s mouth thinned as he slanted a look skyward in what appeared a bid for patience. “From what Tom and Cate told us of the legend, it took four Tuatha Dé to subdue Carmen. Is this correct?”
I nodded, and the spear tip seemed to glow a bit brighter.
“Four full-blooded gods and goddesses to subdue a single witch.” Henry yanked the sword from the ground, his knuckles white on the hilt. “I just fought against one of those gods, and only by his good will am I still alive. So how exactly do you think a few descendants can stand against Carmen?”