Lost In You

by Alix Rickloff

  Her eyes snapped open. “Tomorrow?” She lurched forward, bit back a scream, and collapsed unconscious.

  “Just as well. This will hurt,” he whispered before gathering her up in his arms.

  Her head rested against his shoulder, her short crop of curls brushing his sleeve. He found himself staring. His heightened eyesight picked out the freckles across her nose, the sickle-shaped scar by her temple. Not so many years ago, he might have pictured himself finding a woman like her. Loving.

  Having children. Living a life rich with laughter and passion. But that felt like another lifetime. And those fantasies had been replaced by darker dreams.

  Conor paused, listening. Something felt wrong. He lifted his head, testing the air for danger. Beneath the dull pound of the surf came another noise, a dissonant chord against the comfortable night sounds. A second pack hunted. A second pack approached. Conor couldn’t hold them off, not with the mage energy frying his blood. He glanced once more at Ellery’s sleeping face. “I’m sorry for using you. But it has to be.”

  Then with a phrase, he gathered the invisibility of the fethfiada around them both and slid into the trees.

  Ellery opened her eyes, looking up into the night sky, a thin smudging of gray in the east. Tangled branches overhung her bed, and the rush of spilling water sounded to her right. She moved, and pain lanced her side. Across her shoulder. Down her arm. But beneath the sharper agony was a dull throbbing that pulsed through her entire body. Even her toes hurt.

  How had she gotten here? Nothing came to mind other than fragmented flashes of trees and rain and Conor’s steady breathing as he carried her. That last impression had been the strongest and the one she clung to when all she wanted to do was scream.

  Conor’s heat, the rhythm of his heart beneath her ear, the hard, muscled feel of his arms holding her close kept the suffering from taking over.

  “You’re awake.” His voice sounded behind her. “I’d have worried in another hour if you hadn’t moved.”

  She tried tilting her head to spot him, but even that slight gesture sent the spasms spiraling out of control. “Come where I can see you.”

  He slid into view, looking as sleek and deadly as he had last night. Mayhap more so with his jaw shadowed by whiskers, his eyes shadowed with worry. He wore only a cambric shirt tucked into his leather breeches. Ellery understood why when she realized what she lay wrapped in. Beneath his greatcoat and jacket, she had on only her thin chemise. “My clothes?” she asked.

  “They were shredded by the Keun Marow.”

  She started with a sudden thought for the ring she’d stuck in her pocket that morning.

  “Is this what you’re concerned about?” He held up the wolf-head ring.

  “I found it,” she answered, no longer surprised at his ability to read her thoughts, but ashamed she hadn’t given it back to him earlier.

  “I took it.” He rolled the ring between his fingers, making it glitter in the thin light of the setting moon. “It belonged to my sister.”

  “You told me you had no sisters.”

  “I don’t—anymore.” He tucked the ring away in his pocket, his tone curbing further questions.

  Kneeling beside her, he pulled aside the coat. She winced at the sudden explosion of cool air across her torn skin before Conor placed one gentle hand on her shoulder and one at her waist. His fingers traced each bloodied gash, felt her arm from elbow to wrist and back again. She didn’t even question whether he knew what he was doing. Of course, he did. He knew how to do everything. Or so she was finding.

  Time seemed to stretch out in all directions as he explored her hurts as if he sought to memorize every mark the Keun Marow had made on her body.

  Ellery watched his eyes as he worked. They glowed with an unnatural light, and she found if she concentrated, she could push aside the other thoughts. Thoughts triggered by his healing touch, but curving off into outrageous and highly inappropriate directions. A warmth spread through her body, a delicious heat that begged for attention. Her gaze wavered, dropped to his clenched jaw, the line of his mouth. Could he know what she was thinking?

  He spoke under his breath, whispered words lost on the breeze. His shoulders tensed, his chest heaved with every breath. Her wandering eyes snapped back to his face.

  She was wounded. Bleeding and broken after the attack in the cottage. How could she be imagining Conor Bligh’s body wrapped around hers? It didn’t make sense. She should be writhing in agony. She should be weeping. She should definitely not be wishing he would take her in his arms and crush his mouth to hers in a kiss that would shatter her like cannon shot.

  He shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut. His neck muscles strained, his whole body rocked back with a jolt as his hands fell away from her.

  Conor knelt, head bowed, hands at his sides. As if the whole world waited, all went quiet. He raised his head, his once bright eyes gone black and staring. “How do you feel?” His words came clipped, raspy.

  Ellery frowned, but now that he’d asked, she did feel different. “Better.”

  She moved her head. Her arm. Nothing. She sat up. A dull ache, but no more than if she’d slept on it ill. Dried blood streaked her side, but her skin was intact, as smooth as if the fey hunter had never clawed her. “What have you done?”

  He shook his head, slowly as if it weighed him down to do so. “Only what I had to.” He paused. “You’d never have lasted.”

  His shirt. Black as the rest of his clothing, she’d not noticed at first. But the sky lightened with every second and now it was clear that patches of the fabric were stained and wet with blood. Across his shoulder, down his arm. Wounds that were not his by right.

  She scrambled across to him, taking his head between her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. “What have you done? How could you take this on along with everything else? I need you, you great lummoxing brute.”

  A glimmer of amusement touched the black of his eyes. “Need?”

  It had slipped out before she knew it. “I need you to keep me safe from those creatures,” she backtracked. “You’ve gotten me into this mess. You’ve got to stay alive long enough to get me out.”

  He caught her wrists in his hands to free himself. But he didn’t release her. He held on, their hands and gazes linked, a questing look in his eyes as if she were a stranger. “It’s all right. I’ve told you I heal.”

  She slipped her hand from his, touching his bloodied sleeve. “But the wounds. They’re awful. And my arm was broken—or is it your arm now?” She dropped her hand to her lap, her eyes hot with tears she wouldn’t allow to fall. “It’s like blindman’s buff. Just when I get my bearings, I’m spun about and can’t tell up from down.”

  He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Not blindman’s buff at all, but that game we all used to play. You fall backwards without looking, not knowing whether your friend will catch you or let you drop.”

  “Trust.”

  “Exactly.” She saw the toll the wounds were taking on him in the tight lines of his face, the bleak hollows of his eyes.

  “Most today believe like you do. That the fey world is a child’s tale or a crone’s superstition. Even the Other keep much of their powers hidden. But that doesn’t make the magic any less.”

  “So I should give myself up, fall backwards and trust that you’ll catch me. That you’ll never let me fall.”

  Though only inches separated them, it felt to Ellery like a chasm had opened at her feet.

  His expression went flat; he pulled his hand away. “Never trust in the tameness of a wolf.”

  “Shakespeare. King Lear.”

  His eyes widened in surprise.

  She grimaced. “My mother had a book of plays,” she explained. “She read it to me over and over when I was little.”

  “It’s true, Ellery. I’ll keep you safe from Asher and his hounds. Beyond that, I make no promises.”

  His words were meant to be cruel. To destroy the moment she knew they’d shared, even if he
wouldn’t admit it. She didn’t understand his motives, but she would heed his warning. No promises. No future. That was the way of men. And women had two choices. Accept it, loving only for the moment, or accept it, never loving at all.

  Ellery had seen what the first choice had done to her mother. She would not commit the same mistakes.

  “So what happens now?” she asked. “We can’t go back. And those beasts are out there. Somewhere.”

  Taking a shaky breath, he pulled himself up. Gingerly, he moved his arm, flexing his fingers, bending and straightening his elbow. “We’ll travel toward the coast. Lands End. Keep off the roads. Stay hidden. It’s only until the first of May. Beltane.”

  “What happens at Lands End at Beltane?”

  Conor flinched as he buckled on his scabbard. “I cast Asher back into his prison and seal the reliquary.”

  “And that will end it? I’ll be safe then?”

  He said nothing, all his attention on breaking camp, erasing the signs of their stay.

  “Conor? Answer me. What happens after Beltane?” He met her gaze, his expression unreadable. “Yes, Ellery. That will end it.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Twice in two days? You grow sloppy.” Asher stood in the front room of a rundown cottage among broken furniture, smashed glass, and dead bodies. None of them Bligh’s. His hunters had failed again. At least Bligh had saved him the trouble of punishing the Keun Marow himself.

  The creature shrugged. “These not for Bligh. Not expecting trouble.” His nose slits widened. He half-closed his eyes as he searched the house for scents.

  “The Other did this?” Asher gestured at the dead hounds.

  “You lie. I sense Bligh’s magic. He was here.”

  The Keun Marow nodded. “But not alone. He and the new Other we seek. Together.”

  This new information sent Asher into a fury. The reliquary should be his. His brothers should be free. With the renewed power of the Triad, they would seek vengeance on those fey who’d dared to imprison them. But alone, he was nothing.

  His hands curled into fists, his nails digging into his palms until blood dripped between his fingers. He’d only needed minutes in the chapel. Minutes before the casket’s seals would have been irreparable. But Bligh had gotten to the man first, halting the release. Asher had tried to take the reliquary then. He’d come close, the chapel stinking of blood and death before it was over. But he’d been weak from the escape, and the amhas-draoi had won—that battle.

  Asher smiled, thinking of Bligh’s sister. Now that had gone as planned. One more victory like that one, and Bligh would beg for death before the end.

  A tentative knock on the shattered front door broke him from his thoughts. “Miss Reskeen?”

  Was this the Other his hounds kept speaking of? The owner of the house returning to survey the damage? With a flick of his wrist, Asher extended the spell of glamorie over the Keun Marow, both the hound standing beside him as well as the dead scattered around the room. Whoever it was, he would see nothing Asher didn’t want him to see. If it was the Other he sought, all to the good. And if not, he still might supply some answers. Who did live here? Why had Bligh come? Where had they gone?

  Not put off by the broken door, the intruder entered. “Ellery? Is anyone here?”

  Upon seeing Asher, the man stopped short. His eyes traveled over the room, but his mind showed him only a tall polished gentleman standing amid a tumble of discarded clothing and torn furniture.

  “Who are you?” the man blustered, casting wary glances at the mess. “What have you done with Miss Reskeen?” He drew his scrawny body up in a pose of haughty belligerence, running a hand down his front, drawing attention to a large pearl pin.

  Asher’s lips curled in a sneer as he stepped over a broken table. “Do you mean the owner of the house? I’d hoped you could tell me. A broken door. Evidence of a scuffle. And now you, sir, skulking about outside in the dark. What have you to say for yourself?”

  The man’s skinny neck worked as he swallowed. “I’m the—” he squeaked before clearing his throat. “I’m the owner. Mr. Porter. Miss Reskeen rented this cottage from me.”

  “But no longer?”

  “I evicted her for lack of payment.” He warmed to his sense of ill-usage. “A deceitful baggage. By the looks of things she came to a bad end, and I’m not surprised. Her brother, he says. I know a criminal when I see one.”

  Asher could hardly contain his delight. It was almost too easy. “You say this woman left with a man?”

  Mr. Porter nodded. “A scoundrel. He threatened me. Me, sir. A man of means in this community. Not an ounce of respect for his betters.”

  “Where did they go? Did they tell you?”

  “I can’t imagine where Miss Reskeen would go. She’s no family that I know of. A dead soldier’s bastard.”

  Asher’s body went still, his mind turning Mr. Porter’s information over and over. A soldier. The reliquary had been breached by one such. A man in a scarlet uniform armed with sword and musket, though they had availed him little against Bligh’s attack. Could there be a connection? Was this why Bligh was here? Not because she was an Other, but because she held the reliquary?

  Wait. The reliquary. A dead soldier’s bastard. The pieces fell together, sending Asher reeling back in horror. The soldier who opened the reliquary at San Salas was dead. But this girl carried his blood. She could be used to repair the seals.

  She could destroy everything.

  His concentration faltered, dissolving the glamorie. The Keun Marow dead and living reappeared. And the elegant façade Asher had chosen for this world vanished, revealing his true form. He stretched, the black expanse of one wing tip coming within inches of the man’s face.

  Mr. Porter shrieked, backing toward the door. But Asher’s fey hunter was there before him.

  Asher licked his lips, enjoying the man’s terror. “Do you always come calling on an empty house at such a late hour?”

  The man fell to his knees, blubbering, his eyes round with panic as they flashed back and forth between Asher and the gray, reptilian creature behind him. “Dear God in heaven. What are they? What are you?”

  “Where is Bligh? Where is this girl? Answer me, or it feeds on your flesh.”

  Mr. Porter wagged his head back and forth, moaning and clutching his hands. “I don’t know. I came for my treasure. My jewels. They’re mine. Hidden away. I came to get them.”

  “Describe these jewels.”

  The Keun Marow placed a clawed hand upon Mr. Porter’s shoulder. He screamed, his words spilling out of him like vomit. “A pearl like this one. A ruby. Molly gave them to me. She said there were others. It was Molly.”

  Asher stiffened. The reliquary had been here. He took a long look at the stone on the man’s chest. Mr. Porter cringed as Asher tore the pin off his shirt and held it to the light. “It’s no pearl.” He threw it to the floor where it shattered into dust. “It’s paste.”

  Mr. Porter sobbed. “No. It’s not true. It’s real, I tell you.” Asher tried to reach out, feel the presence of the reliquary. But there was no answering call.

  The casket and his brothers were gone. Bligh and his sacrifice were gone. So too was his chance at prying into this girl’s magic, gaining pleasure in her screams, arousal in her pain.

  But he would find them before Bligh could act. And he would have his revenge. On Bligh. On the fey.

  He walked past the cowering Mr. Porter, calling back over his shoulder. “Burn the bodies.”

  Once again the elegant English gentleman, he closed the door behind him.

  Conor scanned the rain-laden clouds with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Or was that the nausea again? For the last few hours just putting one foot in front of the other was a victory of sorts. Sweat stung his eyes, yet he shivered with cold.

  He glanced across at Ellery. In his jacket, with his greatcoat dragging out behind her like a train, she looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s thi
ngs. Or maybe her father’s. Anyway, there was no help for it. He couldn’t very well take the only clothing she had from her. He’d make do.

  It was fatigue coupled with the transference of Ellery’s wounds; that was all. And it didn’t help matters that his body had still been healing from his first tangle with Asher’s hounds. No wonder every muscle screamed in agony, his bones grated together with each step, and his stomach was somewhere in his throat.

  He stumbled, Ellery gripping him with a steadying hand. “When were you going to admit that you’re ill?”

  “What are you talking about?” He winced at the pressure of her fingers around his arm. It remained sore and stiff, the break slow to knit.

  She put a palm to his forehead. Her touch felt cool against his hot, achy skin. “You’re feverish. And you’re pale as chalk.”

  He pulled her hand away. “I’m fine.” He eyed the clouds again. “But we need to find shelter. Rain’s approaching. And the Keun Marow will be active once night falls.”

  “Mayhap we can find a posting house or tavern.”

  “And why’ll we’re at it, why don’t we leave a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow. I was thinking of a barn or a shepherd’s hut. Somewhere safe.”

  Ellery stared at him, stubbornness evident in the jut of her jaw and the way she stood with her hand on her hip. “If you think I’m going to wander Cornwall until May first in my petticoats, you’re mad.”

  He remained silent.

  She threw open the coat, holding her arms out to the side. “Look at me, Conor. I’m not exactly dressed for a forced march.”

  She had a point. Her gown and stockings were gone. Her bloody shift hung to her ankles, allowing him easy glimpses of her long, muscled legs. His jacket draped over her hands, the gaping lapels doing little to hide the shapely curves of her breasts.

  She hugged the coat back around her. Her gaze softened. She took his hand, clenching it tightly. “Please, Conor. If you feel half as bad as I did before you…before you healed me, then you feel bloody awful. You can’t keep going without some time to let yourself recover.”