Marked for Death

by Claire Ashgrove

  Nothing on this earth would make her convince Taran into conducting this rite and damning himself to eternal existence. Not even Drandar’s promise that if she revealed the scroll’s altered abilities, she would spend her own eternity as his slave. His sexual slave. Bound to providing him the children he desired that could restore his disrupted power.

  Taking a deep breath, Solène unrolled the four, brittle parchment pages and laid them side-by-side. Taran had taught her how to read runes years ago, and she quickly scanned the hand-crafted ritual. But as her fingertips passed across the ancient writing, the extent of what she handled settled on her fully.

  Beneath her fingertips lay the words and wishes of a Celt High Priestess, a mother who had sacrificed her life to protect her eight surviving children and to save the remainder of her Selgovae tribe. Solène touched ancient power that signified an end, as well as a beginning to the family she had once considered her own. To Taran’s family. To his very existence.

  This document held the capacity to free him from the curse he had suffered for too many centuries to count. It avenged Solène’s own death. And if she could decipher what portions Drandar had altered and reconstruct Nyamah’s original words, they would all know freedom.

  She scanned the pages again. Most of the phrases made sense. Too much sense. Drandar knew Nyamah too well—to the point he had managed to blend his own words with such mastery the ritual flowed as one solid voice. Only someone who knew Nyamah, not just the meanings of crafted runes, would recognize the difference.

  Sighing, Solène rolled the pages together. She couldn’t take this to Taran, no matter how she wanted to. In so doing, she would defy Drandar, and he would make good on his promise. Besides, she needed someone who knew Nyamah intimately, and Taran had never connected with the lightness in his soul.

  Someone like Isolde, the sister who drove Taran to madness more often than not.

  With shaking hands, Solène pulled her oversized satchel from beneath the table and rummaged through the pockets until she located a folded paper napkin. She smoothed it flat, fished out her cell phone before she lost her nerve, then dialed the personal extension for Angus Shaw’s residence in England.

  “Hello?” Confusion laced the feminine voice that answered.

  Glancing at the hanging wall clock, Solène grimaced. Almost midnight—she had no business phoning this late.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?” the woman asked again.

  Solène cleared her throat. “May I speak with Isolde McLaine, please?”

  The woman’s voice filled with hesitation as she replied, “Speaking. Who’s calling?”

  Now came the hard part. They’d been friends long ago, almost sisters. But so much had changed…Best to just spit it out.

  “Isolde, this is Solène Larouche. I’m sorry to phone so late, but it’s urgent.”

  Heavy silence met Solène’s greeting. When Isolde spoke again, her words came out clipped and bitter. “I don’t know who you are, but I don’t appreciate your games. Solène Larouche has been dead for many years.”

  Solène let out a heavy sigh. She’d expected this, anticipated Isolde would never believe a random phone call. But hearing the annoyance, the hurt that still lingered in Isolde’s voice, made it that much more difficult to find words.

  “Never ring my home this late again.”

  “Wait!” She bit out the exclamation before Isolde could terminate the call. “Isolde, I swear, it is me. You came to Paris with Fintan in the spring of 1890, after Belen informed you that I had taken up residence with your brother. The four of us dined at Maxim’s.” Solène gripped the edge of the table top, squeezed her eyes shut, and said a silent prayer Isolde would believe. She had to. She must.

  “This is…impossible,” Isolde murmured.

  “No. No, it isn’t.” She shook her head, adamant. “When I excused myself to the ladies’ room, you followed. You begged me to leave Taran.”

  And from that moment on, they had become the dearest of friends.

  In the silence that followed Solène’s words, she opened her eyes and moved away from the table. Her heart thumped against her ribs, her mind churned frantic circles. No one else knew of their conversation that evening. Isolde must believe. Please, please, remember.

  “Solène?” Isolde whispered.

  Relief rushed through Solène’s veins. She expelled the breath she’d been holding, and the faint beginnings of a smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. “I swear it is me. I am alive, Isolde. I am alive.”

  “How?” Disbelief clung to her breathless exclamation.

  “I can’t explain all of it now. But I need you here. Please come. I have the eighth scroll.” As a sense of urgency overtook her anxiety, Solène strode from behind the screen into the main portion of the store. “You must hurry. It’s been altered, and Samhain is fast upon us.”

  “Altered? Where are you? If you have the scroll, you’re in danger.”

  “I’m at the house. I’ve been here for almost a year now. Taran’s been watching me.”

  “Stalking you, more like.” Isolde’s voice raised in pitch as worry overtook her disbelief. “He’s changed, Solène. Stay far from him. Stay inside. I’ll be there on the first flight I can arrange.”

  Movement from outside the window caught Solène’s attention. She cocked her head, squinting through the darkness at the shadowy figure sitting on the retaining wall just beyond. Taran.

  His long inky hair ruffled with the breeze. He stared through the glass, his gaze cemented on her, those dark eyes piercing through her skin despite the dim lighting. Her heart tap danced into her ribs. Just one more touch. One more shared breath. One more brush of soft lips.

  Spirits above, she missed him.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Isolde.” Unable to tear her gaze away from Taran’s, she lowered her voice to a near whisper.

  “Don’t be silly. You know what happened last—”

  “He is part of me, Isolde.” Her stomach fluttered as Taran slowly rose to his feet. He took a step toward the window. Then another. “We need his help if Drandar is to be destroyed.”

  Another never-ending pause drifted through the receiver. Taran reached through the iron bars that protected the windowpane and flattened his palm to the glass. His gaze searched her face, full of disbelief, even as his expression twisted with a lance of pain. Solène’s pulse skipped into an erratic rhythm.

  One more night spent in the glory of his warm body wrapped around hers.

  “Then keep him close,” Isolde conceded reluctantly.

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  “I’ll be there before noon tomorrow. Angus will be with me.”

  Barely aware of her actions, Solène nodded as she lowered her cell phone and flipped it shut. She stepped toward the door. Beyond the window, Taran mirrored her movements. Like bees drawn to the sweet nectar of a flower, they gravitated toward one another as they had that long ago night when they first met.

  In the back of her mind, Solène knew she flirted with danger. The spirit wards that she had summoned to protect her echoed the same in the way they pressed around her.

  She stopped at the door, lifted her hand, and murmured quiet words of magic. Her guardians fell back, though the air churned with disapproving energy. With a deep breath of courage, Solène shoved the heavy wooden slat aside and unlatched the door. When she pushed it open, cool air rushed inside.

  But the chill that raced down her spine had little to do with the autumn breeze. Taran stood before her, his big strong body within the reach of her fingertips. She fought back the urge to curl her hands into his shirt and drag him close enough she could soak up the heat of his skin and raised her gaze to his fathomless dark eyes.

  “Welcome home, Taran.”

  Chapter Three

  Like an iron ball had slammed into his midsection, Taran’s breath lodged in his throat. A hollow chasm opened inside his chest at the unforgettable sound of Solène’s voice. It spread outw
ard, enveloping him in an ache that had no definition, that knew no balm. Ancestors above, demons below, he stared at the woman who possessed him body and soul.

  The fingers on his right hand twitched with the urge to touch her, to insure she was no apparition sent to haunt him. He curled his hand into a loose fist. Would she strike him? Did she hate him?

  She ought to. Like the family he had once been part of, she ought to despise his very existence.

  Instead, she took a step back, into the dark recesses of their store, and opened the door wider. Her gaze held his, open invitation shining in the vibrant pools of green. Quiet acceptance radiating in their soft sheen.

  On unsteady legs, Taran entered. “How?” he choked out on a hoarse whisper.

  Her chuckle was the last response he’d expected. She shook her head as she moved toward the counter. “How is not particularly relevant, is it? I am here.” Solène retrieved the lamp from behind the screen. She set it on the countertop, and her gaze connected with his once more. Unspoken meaning resonated in the husky lowering of her voice. “And so are you.”

  Another heavy fist slammed into him, only this one turned the emptiness that threatened to suck him down into a bottomless abyss into a field of electricity. The very air around him snapped with the intangible charge they had shared from the moment of first meeting. For an instant, he forgot the years that separated them, the death she’d suffered at his hands. He knew only the deep need to touch Solène. To connect with everything she was and become part of it. Part of her.

  He braced his hands on the countertop and sucked in a deep breath. How? What had brought her back here? And, by the ancestors, why now?

  As if she recognized the trembling of his very spirit, she reached across the countertop and laid her hand over his. The brush of her fingertips sent pleasure rippling to his shoulder. Comfort too, the sort of nourishment that could only come from two persons who knew each other more intimately than, perhaps, they knew themselves. Words jumbled in his head. Thoughts refused to connect.

  Taran didn’t know how long they stood that way, connected in the simplest of means, and yet joined more inextricably than if they interlaced from shoulders to toes. He drank in her unique perfume, soaked up the affectionate light in her eyes. Clung to her very existence as if she were the last bit of life on a cold, barren plain.

  One hundred years, and he was once again where he had only ever belonged.

  Solène broke the silence first. Her fingers tightened against the back of his palm, and her voice rasped like sandpaper in the quiet. “I have missed you too.”

  The gentle sentiment snapped Taran out of his stupor. He jerked his hand away. “You are a fool then.”

  “Am I?” She let out a soft laugh as she turned around and reached above her head for an aged, blue jar. “Some would argue I always have been.” Turning, she opened the canister, reached inside, and withdrew a piece of homemade candy. “Horehound drop?”

  Taran scowled. Sacred elements—she acted as if nothing had transpired between them. As if she did not have every right under the vast creation to wield the magic he knew she was capable of and extract retribution for his unforgivable sin. “What is the matter with you, Solène? Have you nothing to say about what I did?”

  She popped a candy into her mouth, pausing only for a heartbeat. “What would you like me to say, Taran? I spent three years with you, well aware of the risk I faced. Am I to judge you now, when I made the decision on my own to stay at your side…” She paused again, lifted her eyes to his. “Where I desired to be?”

  His stomach turned in on itself. He turned away with a grimace. “I came here tonight to kill you.”

  “I know.”

  “Again.”

  Glass tinkled as she replaced the jar on the shelf. “But you can’t.”

  Pivoting, Taran opened his mouth to tell her how very wrong she was, that his dark strength had grown in the last several months to heights that would shock even her. But as the argument surfaced on his tongue, a presence bore down around him. As dark as he, and every bit as strong. Filled with the same unearthly might that ran in his veins. She was not entirely wrong—he could overtake it, but doing so would take immense effort.

  He cocked his head and studied her, as she studied him. Standing tall behind the counter, she didn’t look away. Yet she didn’t gloat as he would have expected. No triumph radiated in her beautiful expression. No pride turned up the corners of her sultry lips.

  “Your magic has grown,” he observed quietly. His little witch, who had once only known how to touch the fringe of dark elements, evidently manipulated them quite well now.

  “I had an excellent teacher.” The smile he had been waiting for quirked one corner of her mouth. “It does help when the student becomes bedfellows with her instructor. Lessons are quite thorough.”

  Despite his growing agitation, a chuckle rumbled in Taran’s chest. He choked it down, unwilling to give in to the misplaced sentiment. She had no business jesting. He had murdered her, for the ancient’s sake. If she didn’t seem to want to remember, he didn’t intend to forget.

  “Perhaps you could tell me their names.” Amusement crinkled the corners of her eyes as she swept an arm toward the intangible presence at Taran’s left. “I have not managed to breech the language barrier. I call him Ares. And the other is Enyo.”

  “Damn it, Solène!” Taran took two strides forward and pounded a fist on the scarred wooden countertop. “This is no game! You should not have let me in that door!”

  “You’re right.” She shrugged delicate shoulders. “We’re better served by listing all the reasons we should stay apart than discussing the reasons we cannot be divided. It makes more sense, after all. Where shall we begin, Taran? You are cursed. You will kill me.” She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I cannot stop my love for you now, any more than I could have stopped it then.”

  As she brought her arm back before her body, the light reflected off her skin. Taran’s stare riveted on her fingertips. The stain of iridescent purple, gold, and blue glinted in the dim confines.

  “Nor can you stop yours for me. It drove you here to—”

  “You have the scroll.” Taran reached across the countertop and grabbed her by the wrist. Drawing it closer to him, he traced the proof that she had touched his mother’s magic. Deep inside his soul, darkness stirred to life. It crept through his veins, eating away at the scant remnants of his control. “You have my mother’s scroll. Where is it?” His voice cracked like a whip through the quiet store.

  To Solène’s credit, she didn’t shrink from the rising of his vile spirit. She tugged on her arm and frowned. “Some place safe.”

  Safe? By all that was ancient, she had no right to that scroll. He flung her arm away and stalked around the counter, intent on locating the source of his eternal freedom. “Where did you put it?” One by one, he pulled jars off the shelf behind her, tossing them over his shoulder, letting them shatter on the floor. “Behind these? I want that scroll, Solène.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I won’t tell you. Destroy what you wish, but I’ll not turn it over to you.”

  Her insistence snapped the last of his objectivity in half. Taran whirled on her. “It’s not yours.” He grabbed her by the upper arms, his fingers biting into her skin. “You can tell Nyamah I want no part of her games. She will not deter me. Not even with you.”

  Solène twisted in attempts to wriggle free from his punishing grasp, but she didn’t flinch. “Let me go, Taran.”

  On either side of him, the atmosphere grew in density. His skin prickled as her wards closed in. Taran ignored their approach and tightened his grip on her arms. “They are useless, Solène. I can overpower them. You never should have let me inside. I will tear this place, and you, apart if I have to.” He gave her a slight shake, desperate to make her see reason. If he didn’t obtain that scroll, she was as damned as he.

  “Then do so.”

  Her whisper cut throug
h the intolerable nature of his soul and touched some buried portion of decency long enough to force his fingers to relax a fraction. But the dark half of his being remained aware. It waited for the skip in her pulse, the catch of her breath that would indicate her fear and unchain the part of him he fought to hold in check.

  She held his furious gaze, unblinking. “You cannot intimidate me, Taran. I’ve known death. I have nothing left to fear.”

  Like she wielded a knife, her quiet utterance cut through the haze surrounding Taran’s awareness. Beneath his hands, she trembled. Not from fear, he realized as he stared into those fathomless green portals. No, he needed no one to tell him she shook with the magnanimity of it all. Of being so close their breaths intertwined. Of feeling their shared body heat waft between them.

  Of being in each other’s very nearness after an excruciating and terrible end.

  Driven by emotion Taran couldn’t name, he released her arms and framed her face between his hands. She rose on her toes as he dragged her closer. His mouth captured hers, hungry and yearning for acceptance that he didn’t deserve. And yet, he needed the proof of Solène’s forgiveness more than he had ever needed anything.

  The sweep of her tongue against his beat back the rise of his uncontrollable dark blood. He groaned against the way her sweet flavor soaked into his awareness. Solène. His treasure. The bright light in a dim and gray existence. He would do anything for her, perform any act of piety she wished, crawl through any gutter she desired.

  He took a half step closer and her soft curves melted against him. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. Taran dropped one hand to the small of her back and bent her body into his, molding her in place, lost to the miracle that had brought her back to life.

  And yet, the greedy way she returned his kiss was nowhere near enough to satisfy over a century of yearning. He doubted anything ever would. He had survived when he most wanted to die. When he should have paid the price for taking the one life that had ever truly mattered.