Tethered Souls

by Jessica McCrory

  “My father believed it would further motivate you to come to him. Believed that once you had no one left holding you back, you would finally realize where you truly belonged, with him. Personally, I don’t see what he sees in you. I don’t think you are good enough for him.”

  “Father?” Suddenly it made sense. The way Annie had just shown up in her life even though no agency had heard of her before. The worried look on her face when Abby had told her she was going to Ireland. “Caipre is your father.” It was a statement Abby already knew to be true.

  “Smarter than you look I see.”

  Emit moved to stand next to Annie and grinned menacingly down at Abby. “Time to go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with either of you. You will have to shoot me here.”

  Irritation flashed over Emit’s face. “Let's not play this game, Abigail. You will be coming with us whether you like it or not. The only difference will be whether I go and shoot your pal over there or we just wait until he bleeds to death. It really doesn’t matter to Caipre as long as you are breathing.” He grabbed her by the hair again and tried to pull her to her feet. “Get up.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Have it your way then.” Emit kicked her again and began walking towards the car.

  She panicked and tried to get to her feet. “No! I'll go with you, please just leave Sheamus alone.” She could try and find a way to get away from them once they were clear of him. She couldn’t let Emit kill him and she knew he would.

  “See I knew you were smarter than-”

  Suddenly a blast of light hit him in the chest and he flew away from her. Myria was at her side in seconds.

  Abby frantically looked around for Annie, but she was gone.

  “It's okay, Abby. It's okay.”

  “Sheamus, you have to get Sheamus. They are going to kill him!”

  “Aengus is getting him. We need to get you both out of here. I don’t have it in me to hold Caipre off if he decides he wants to make an entrance as well.”

  “Emit, he’s working with him, and Annie, my agent, she’s his daughter!” Abby was fighting to stay conscious. She wanted Myria to know everything.

  “Oh Abby, I’m so sorry.” Abby felt herself being lifted onto Caley and then felt Myria climb on behind her. Her vision was beginning to fade and she didn’t know how Myria had managed to lift her so gently, but she was grateful for it. “I’ve got you.” She heard her whisper.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next few days Abby only came to a handful of times. She caught bits and pieces of conversations between Aengus and Myria and tried to ask about Sheamus but every time she tried to speak her throat had burned. She fought to stay awake but each time she lost and before she knew it, it was another day.

  When she was finally able to stay awake, she wished she could go back to sleep. Her entire body burned. Muscles she didn’t even know she had would cry out in agony each time she tried to move. How long had she been asleep? Had they gotten to Sheamus in time?

  “Aengus.” She whispered when she saw him in the corner.

  “I’m here love.” He moved to sit on the side of the bed. He brushed some hair back off of her forehead and she saw the tears stinging in his eyes.

  “I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again.” She felt her own tears falling down her face and realized how true that almost was. “I was trying to buy time for someone to find us.”

  “It's okay love, we found you. Thank God we found you.” He touched his forehead to hers and she saw the pain in his face. “That son of a bitch almost had you. They almost killed you both.”

  “Sheamus?” She tried to sit up, but the pain in her side had her sliding back down.

  “He will recover. Myria’s been taking care of you both. She is asleep with him now, she is drained.”

  “How did you find us?”

  “Eamon did.”

  “Eamon?”

  “That crazy horse.” He smiled and although it was empty, she saw the pride behind it. “He was going nuts in his stall so I went to check on him. He took off so Myria and I hopped on Caley to chase him. When we got close to the edge of the property line, we heard you screaming. Eamon was already headed your way. If it wasn’t for him, we might not have found either of you. Would never have known anything was wrong.” But that wasn’t true, was it? Myria had known something was off. She had come running out once the storm had started. He had already been out checking on Eamon when she said she had sensed magic.

  “Give him a carrot for me. And I’m going to give him the biggest kiss when I see him.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

  “How bad do I look?” She knew she had to look awful. A few days with no shower, and add to that the damage she had surely suffered from the accident she was afraid to see a mirror.

  “Beautiful as ever.” He smiled at her and she saw the worry in his eyes.

  “You're a smart man.” She grinned and winced when she tried to move to the side so he could sit next to her.

  “Careful Abby.” He helped scoot her over and slid into bed next to her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

  Abby melted into him. He made her feel so safe as if nothing could touch her if she were at his side.

  “Thank you, Aengus.”

  “For what?”

  She looked up into his eyes, “For coming for me.”

  “Always my love.” He kissed her gently then. His hand held her face as if she were made of the most fragile porcelain. The tender kiss had her body warming in response and she ached for him, for all that he had to offer her. He broke the kiss off, and his face was serious. “I love you, Abby.”

  Her heart leapt. He had called her his love before, but had never said those three words to her before. At least not to who she was now.

  “I love you Aengus.” He kissed her again and cradled her into the night.

  “You stupid woman, you think you have won.” Caipre stood in front of the mangled car where she lay trapped.

  “I will win, you will lose Caipre, just like last time.”

  He stared at her, hatred burning in his eyes. “You will be mine. I will feel your skin under mine as you learn that you belong to me. He will be but a tainted memory in your mind.”

  Her stomach churned. “I will never be yours. I am forever his, you will never hold me the way he does. You lost tonight, you will lose again.”

  He smiled and she saw the madness in it.

  “You have no idea what you are coming up against. I will slaughter that bitch witch sister of his along with her lover and then I will slaughter Aengus as you watch. Then you will know that you belong to me, just as you did before.”

  “I never belonged to you.”

  “Oh but you did, you will remember soon enough.” His laughter chilled her bones.

  The car caught fire and she was unable to move, held down by some invisible force. She screamed as she began to feel the heat of the flame against her flesh, all the while Caipre stood smiling madly outside watching.

  Abby shot up in bed and cried out when her muscles punished her for it. She ran her hands down her body and took a deep breath when she confirmed it had only been a nightmare. At least this one hadn’t been real.

  “What’s wrong?” Aengus sat up with her and turned on the bedside lamp.

  “Just a nightmare is all.” She did her best to smile at him. “Can you help me? I need to use the bathroom.” She felt embarrassed to have to ask for help but knew she couldn’t do it alone.

  He came around the other side of the bed and helped to lift her. She wrapped her arm around his waist and leaned against him. They stood for a moment her face buried into his abdomen. She took a deep breath and his scent filled her lungs. This is where she felt safe, Abby thought to herself. He was her home.

  She stood against him and he helped her to the door.

  “Just call for me when you’re done, okay?”

  “Okay, thank you Aeng
us.” She gently closed the door and stared at herself in the mirror. She barely recognized who was staring back at her. Bruises covered most of her face and she had bandages on her cheek and forehead. Her lip was swollen and both her eyes were black. She lifted her shirt and saw that her side was bandaged where the glass had been buried.

  What had Caipre meant, like she had been before? Had that just been a nightmare or his way of visiting her? What could he have been talking about? She lifted her shirt up higher and lightly touched her bruised ribcage.

  Her thoughts flew back to the day of the crash. Annie. The anger began to heat her blood and she clenched her fists. Caipre’s daughter. How had he fathered a child? Was she stuck in this curse as well? Or had he managed to seduce someone in this century? She knew that Caipre must have sent her to spy on her. She remembered when she had hired her, no other agency had ever heard of her and Abby had been her first client. She had taken a risk, though, and what a foolish mistake that had turned out to be.

  But where did Emit fit in? She had been the one to introduce him and Annie hadn’t she? Or had they known each other the entire time? Had they been planning this from the moment she had met them both? Abby’s entire body began to shake. Had any part of her damn life not been planned out ahead of time? Some sick bastard who she couldn’t even remember had manipulated her parents’ death and even the direction of her career!

  Her parents. Abby looked at herself in the mirror, they had died because she was too stupid to see them for who they were. So naive that she had trusted them. Abby knew she would never forgive herself for it. They hadn’t needed to die. She crumpled to the floor and the tears came flooding. Her entire body seemed to cave in on itself and she barely felt when Aengus gathered her in his arms.

  “Oh, love.” He soothed her and rubbed his hand over her hair.

  “She killed them Aengus.”

  “Killed who?”

  “My parents. Annie killed my parents.” She cried and felt his body go stiff.

  “I thought they died in an accident?” The soothing tone that had been in his voice was gone and she knew that if she had looked at his face, she would have seen the same anger she was feeling.

  “She loosened their brake lines. Their car crashed because of her. She said she watched them Aengus. What kind of horrible person does that? They hadn’t done anything to her! They hadn’t even known who I really was!” She screamed into his shirt and let herself feel all of the pain she had been bottling up. The betrayal of two people she had once trusted cut her deep.

  It was true she had known Emit was a little off, but she had trusted him once, had believed that they were friends. She had almost given her virginity to him after her parents had died. The bile began to rise in her throat. Thank God she had possessed enough common sense to end that before it had happened.

  She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “How could I have been so stupid? How could I have missed the evil inside them?”

  He lifted her chin with his fingers and stared into her eyes. “Abby, you are not stupid. None of this is your fault, the only blame is on their shoulders. Just because you trust someone and they betray you does not make you stupid. The fact that you trusted, to begin with, is what makes you a wonderful human being.”

  Aengus let her cry for as long as she needed to. He gently smoothed her hair and held her tightly while she grieved. He didn’t tell her what was going through his mind, he figured she had been through enough. But later that evening after she had cried herself to sleep and he had tucked her back into bed, he let it all out.

  Aengus stood in the barn staring at the man tied to the chair. His eyes were closed, still unconscious for the blast Myria’s magic had given him. It took all the self-restraint he had to not kill the bastard where he sat. The woman, Annie, as Abby referred to her as had murdered her parents. And for what reason? To give her no support structure? Make her vulnerable? How many lives were going to be lost because Caipre refused to believe that she didn’t want him?

  At the present moment, he wouldn’t mind adding to the body count. He took a step towards the chair and felt Myria’s hand on his arm.

  “You are better than that brother.”

  “This bastard had a hand in killing her parents Myria. He damn near shot Sheamus where he already lay wounded from an accident that he caused.” He gestured to the chair, “and you would save his life? He deserves to die. Deserves to suffer all the pain he has caused.”

  “I’m not denying that Aengus. I just think it might do us good to have a bit of leverage. He may know something we don’t, and right now we could use the help.”

  He bit back a curse. He knew Myria was right, and by the look on her face, knew it was difficult for her to spare his life as well. He stepped back and took a deep breath.

  “Very well. But what do you say we wake the bastard up?”

  A slow smile spread over her face. “I think he has slept long enough.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next day when Abby woke, Aengus was nowhere to be found. She remembered how he had held her while she cried and thanked God for blessing her with such a man. She stared at herself in the mirror and was amazed that some of the bruises from yesterday had already faded away. Myria truly was amazing. She took a deep breath and did her best to move on from the truth of what had happened to her parents. There was nothing she could do to bring them back or change it, so the only thing left now was to get revenge against those who harmed them. And she would get her revenge. They would all pay for what they had done. Not just to her parents, but to Isleen as well. And for what Caipre had done to her all those years ago.

  It was time to stop burying her head in the sand, the problem wasn’t going to solve itself she knew, so she might as well find a way to fix it.

  The knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.

  “Come in!” She yelled as she came out of the bathroom.

  “I got the green light from the doc to be out of bed.” Sheamus limped in and sat in the chair next to the bed.

  Abby sat on the edge of the bed and smiled at him.

  “How are you feeling?” His eyes were both black and he had multiple cuts on his face. His entire left leg was splinted so he wasn’t able to bend it. She saw the pain in his eyes as he moved and her heart ached. It was her fault that they had been out, he had gotten hurt because they were after her. Yet another reason she wanted revenge.

  “Alive. Thanks to you.”

  “I didn’t do anything Sheamus, if it hadn’t been for Aengus and Myria, then neither of us would be here.”

  “I do not deny that.” He narrowed his eyes at her, “But I wouldn’t even have had a chance had you not kept that bastard away from me. I may not have been aware the entire time, but I came to enough to know that you kept him from shooting me. You almost went with them, would have I imagine, if Myria and Aengus hadn’t shown up.”

  The tears she had managed to keep back that morning threatened to fall. “I couldn’t let them kill you Sheamus, you had done nothing wrong.”

  “Neither had you.” He leaned forward and held her hands. “Thank you, Abby. It had been an incredibly stupid thing to do,” he smiled now, “but thank you.”

  She leaned forward and kissed his bruised cheek. “You would have done the same for me.”

  “How are you doing?” Smile gone, he looked at her and studied her expression.

  “I’m alright, healing quickly, thanks to Myria and her magic.” She smiled reassuringly.

  “That’s good, but I’m not talking about physically. I heard what she said to you, Abby. I know Annie killed your parents.”

  “I’m angry.” She gritted her teeth with the words. “I want to kill them both and I’ve never been a violent person, but I want to see them all dead. Caipre included.” Her rage surprised her. She had always been of the mindset that two wrongs didn’t make a right, but their deaths seemed to be the only thing that would ease the fury building inside of her.

  Her
admission seemed to surprise even Sheamus. “They deserve to die for what they did,” he hesitated a moment watching her, “but don’t let the hatred for them consume you, and it very easily can. You have to make sure you can still appreciate the things that you do have.”

  Something in his voice made her think he had seen far more than she had given him credit for.

  He smiled at her again and tried to stand. “I think it's time I get back to bed, Myria said I had lost quite a bit of blood by the time they got to me, that and my leg had been twisted pretty badly, so it will take more time for me to heal than I had hoped. I'll be back soon enough, though.” He grinned and when she saw the love in his eyes as Myria approached, she knew the statement had been meant for her.

  Aengus came in shortly after they had left and Abby noticed a change in him. He had dark circles under his eyes and his jaw was set in a hard line.

  “Abby, I need to talk to you.” He closed the door gently behind him and sat down next to her. The hardness in his voice had her on edge. Had something else happened?

  “What’s wrong Aengus?”

  He sat, not saying anything for a few moments. Abby could see that he was fighting with himself and it only concerned her further. What could he be afraid to tell her?

  Aengus knew that he had changed. But truth be told, he had changed a long time ago. The night that Aine had been killed he had gone on a rampage, he had run his sword through every man who had aided Caipre. All he wanted was to see their blood spilled as hers had been, and know that their hearts no longer beat in their chests just as hers didn’t anymore.

  It had been a long time before he had smiled again or felt and warmth in him. He knew that even now, he was teetering on that edge again. The fact that Caipre had sent Annie and Emit after her and Sheamus, and that they had almost died had set him on a path where all he wanted was vengeance.

  How would she feel knowing that they had captured Emit? That as of now, he was tied up in the very barn where they had first made love? Would she hate him for it? Would she think he had gone just as mad as Caipre? He knew that he couldn’t keep it from her, it had been nearly a week since the accident and he knew that he should have told her last night after she had woken, but she had been so distraught over her parents he knew she needed some time to grieve before facing what they needed to.