“You should be sorry,” Sorcha gasps behind us. Her voice is barely above a whisper. “If there was even a chance I was willing to help you before, I take it back. I’d rather hang here for eternity.”
I make a threatening step toward her, but Kiaran stops me. He’s staring at Sorcha with an intense, considering look. I know that expression: He’s making a decision. Weighing the alternatives. Kiaran is careful like that.
That’s how I know that whatever he’s about to propose is either incredibly foolish or very dangerous, and probably both.
“MacKay—”
“You said you’d do it for a price,” he finally says to Sorcha, avoiding my gaze. “Name it.”
“No.” I put my hand against his chest to push him back. “Don’t you dare.”
But the stubborn arse won’t even look at me. He says to Sorcha: “Just tell me what you want.”
Sorcha’s smile is slow. It cuts through me quicker and more painfully than any blade. And when she looks at me with that arrogant, mocking hint of a fang between her lips, I know. I know what she’s considering.
Whatever will hurt me the most.
“She knows exactly what I want,” Sorcha says in that cheerful, singsong voice of hers. The one from my nightmares. “Don’t you?”
Kiaran. She wants Kiaran.
My fingers curl into fists. “Go to hell.”
Sorcha laughs, a throaty, seductive sound. “Been there, done that,” she says. “And I’m prepared to go again. For that, my price is steep.”
I blanch. And I’m prepared to go again. Through the door. What did she experience on the other side?
The Morrigan. Sorcha’s expression says it all. The Morrigan is still alive.
Sorcha doesn’t wait for my answer. “You’ll need my blood to open the Book, too. You can even have it when we find it. But you, Kadamach? You’ll be mine, wholly and forever. She’ll never see you again. Those are my terms.”
I rake her with a look. “This is a disgusting deal, even for someone like you.”
“Oh, but I was so moved and inspired by your earlier words.” Her melodic voice is back, mocking me. “He’s mine every bit as much as I’m his. You said I didn’t understand that. Now I will, won’t I? Kadamach won’t be yours anymore; he’ll be mine.”
My control is fraying at the edges, barely there. Kiaran’s restraining hand on my arm is the only thing keeping me from snapping Sorcha’s neck. Then he slides his fingers down my arm and presses his palm to mine, a calming touch.
He whispers in my ear, “Don’t let her see. Remember?”
I try. I try so hard to hide it all. That awful spiraling helplessness I haven’t experienced since I lost my memories is returning and pulling me down, down, down again.
Sorcha’s teeth flash in a grin. “What say you, Falconer? Does saving the world mean more to you than your precious Kiaran? How desperately do you need my help?”
She knows how few options we have. And she’s mocking us for it.
When Kiaran looks at me, I see he’s actually considering this. And the thought of what he’d endure during an eternity by her side makes me ill. I’m so close to letting my powers take over, close to hurting her, killing her—
“Kam.” Kiaran’s voice, cutting through the darkness.
My name. Just my name. Like he’s asking me to understand that he’s willing to give up himself—no, his soul—to Sorcha in order to save me.
That’s all it takes to regain my focus. I can’t let him do this. No. Kiaran isn’t some bloody piece of property. You don’t make someone love you by owning their soul.
And Sorcha is doing this because she knows he owns all the bits and pieces of my heart.
She’s doing this because she loves him just as much as she hates me.
“Aye, how about it, Kam?” My fingernails bite into my palm when Sorcha says my name. “Do we have a deal?”
“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “No, we don’t have a fucking deal.”
But when Kiaran’s eyes meet mine, I can see he’s already made his decision. He’s weighed the options, and our alternatives.
And he’s decided we really are that desperate.
When he speaks, it’s in a low voice that kills something inside me. “If I do this, you’ll agree to my terms. No circumvention. You’ll make a promise not to harm Kam.”
“The same goes for you. If she tries to use the Book to break the vow, you die. If she tries to put another mark over it, you die. If she ever sees you after we find it, consider the part of my vow not to hurt her null and void. You know me, Kadamach. I learned my lesson about the language of vows.”
I look at her sharply. What does that mean?
Kiaran nods once. “The Book is Kam’s. And don’t even think about getting around killing her by putting her in a state of permanent sleep. No games. No twisting terms.” He studies her with a harsh gaze. “I learned my lesson about the language of vows, too. From you.”
Her laugh is another sword to my chest. “Believe me, I want her to live out a very, very long life. Fully conscious and aware she’ll never see you again.”
That does it. I grasp Kiaran’s shirt to pull him away from Sorcha before something in me snaps. “I need to speak with you. Now.”
Kiaran lets me lead him far enough from Sorcha that I know her enhanced fae hearing can’t pick up our words. The only sound between us is the breeze rustling through the trees that line the road, the distant garble of a nearby creek.
Kiaran doesn’t say anything when we stop; he just looks at me with that silent, stoic expression.
Hiding his feelings. Hiding everything.
Once, that was the only way he looked at me. When we hunted together, when I lived half my life in secret. Back then I assumed all the fae were emotionless, that they weren’t capable of feelings. After he and Aithinne saved me from Lonnrach’s prison, Kiaran was different. He wasn’t reserved anymore. His longing mirrored my own.
But now Kiaran hides his emotions from me when he feels the most. When he doesn’t want me to see how much he hurts.
Stop trying to protect me, MacKay.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
His expression doesn’t change and that makes me angrier. I want to see emotions from him. Longing, regret, grief, guilt—something.
“What are my alternatives, Kam?” he asks. “Aithinne’s death? Your death? Sorcha has the advantage and she knows it.”
“Then we’ll hunt down Lonnrach.”
Kiaran’s eyes meet mine. “How long do we have before you die?”
I almost stagger at the question. “Don’t make this about—”
“Don’t ask me to overlook it,” he snaps. “We don’t have time to find Lonnrach, do we?”
I look away and give a small shake of my head. He sighs, a sound of frustration and a bone-deep tiredness that I understand only too well. I wonder if he’s thinking about our time together in bed, when it seemed so easy to forget everything else. If he’s tempted to go back there and let us drown in each other all over again.
I’m tempted, too.
“Offer her something else,” I whisper. “Anything.” I press my hand against his chest, over where I know Sorcha’s mark is hidden beneath his shirt. “Then when we find the Book you won’t be bound by your vow to her anymore.”