Blood Knot

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  “I get it,” Nial said.

  “If you asked ‘im to check out something on the sly before you got ‘ere, then he for sure tipped off yer mate. Bruce is good for arresting drunk tourists and hauling truckies off each other on a Saturday night, but he’s not exactly subtle, ya know?”

  Nial sat back in the corner of the seat. “Then Sebastian could be anywhere from hours to days ahead of us.”

  Barney shrugged. “Yours is the only private charter in or out in the last week, mate. And the last commercial flight was yesterday. That was it for the last two days.”

  Yesterday. Twenty-four hours.

  Now they just had to figure out which direction he had taken.

  Winter stayed in her corner of the seat and left Nial alone in his, puzzled by his remoteness and filled with her own misery over Sebastian. She had not thought it was possible to be hit so hard by memories, especially brought on by something so simple as scent.

  The shirt sat on the seat between them, a mute accusation that glowed in the light of the moon that beamed through the back window of the car.

  The night was gorgeous, with a starry sky and balmy air. Winter rolled down her window to let in the sounds and smells of the country. It appeared this was going to be the sum total of her time in Australia, this trip. She might as well enjoy it. It was her first time on the west coast. Her tiny glimpse of it made her want to return.

  Barney, sensing their urgency, made the journey back to the airport just as smartly as the trip to Coral Bay. He brought the car to the steps of the waiting jet and bounced out to opened the door for them.

  Nial dug into his pocket, preparing to pay the man, along with his promised tip, so Winter slid past and climbed up the steps woodenly, more than ready to strap in for the flight back to Perth.

  The captain was sitting in one of the chairs but got to his feet when she appeared. “Miss,” he acknowledged, straightening his tie.

  “We’ll be returning to Perth,” she told him.

  “I’ll file the flight plan immediately and get clearance.” He headed into the cockpit.

  The co-pilot got to his feet, more awkward and younger and nodded. “We’re refueled and ready to go,” he told her. “Should be able to get airborne in about ten minutes.”

  “Great,” she told him.

  He edged past her and pushed his way into the cockpit, too, leaving her standing in the cabin alone.

  Did she really look that scary?

  Nial stepped into the cabin behind her and she turned to him gratefully.

  “Do not touch me,” he said, stepping back a half-pace, to put himself out of her reach.

  Winter rode out the hurt that slashed through her, as she re-interpreted Nial’s frosty silence in the car and saw it for what it really was. Truth once again provided pain and disillusionment for her. She nodded slowly. “Sebastian will be fine,” she told Nial. “Don’t worry. We’ll find him in time.”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “Fine,” he said roughly and stalked over to one of the chairs and sat down. He pulled the soft satchel that held his notebook over toward himself and set the computer up on his knees.

  Moving awkwardly and feeling like a wooden puppet, Winter stepped over to one of the seats furthest from Nial and strapped herself in. The ring on her left hand tapped musically on the buckle of the seat belt and she lifted her hand to look at the ring again.

  It wasn’t a modern Claddagh ring. It was a solid gold band and the traditional heart and crown were carved into the gold in relief. If Nial really had turned Sebastian in the late eighteenth century, then it made sense that the ring itself would be at least that old, if it had been Sebastian’s mother’s ring.

  Claddagh. Ireland.

  “Nial. Sebastian’s going to Ireland.”

  Nial looked up from his laptop, frowning.

  She held up the ring. “Was he born there, Nial? Is there some tiny little getaway, some village, some cottage he thinks you don’t know about where he would hole up if he was sick? Maybe where his mother died?”

  Nial’s frown smoothed out. “Yes,” he said simply.

  Chapter Ten

  THE COTTAGE HAD dry walls and roses growing up the south wall, a thatch roof with attic windows punching through it and a garden growing around it that tourists would stop to take pictures of in the summer. The road that ran along the front of it used to have cobblestones, but had been overlaid with bitumen only ten years ago, so said the village policeman who gave Winter long-winded directions. There was a tor right behind the cottage, which set the cottage off by itself from the rest of the village and ensured that modern urban development would never take over this ancient corner of the world.

  Low dark clouds had settled in by the time they reached the cottage and fine mist—not quite rain—settled on everything.

  “Now I remember what I hate about soggy old Ireland,” Nial muttered, looking up at the clouds that seemed so low Winter could reach up and touch them.

  “It’s stunning,” she dared to confess.

  “For the first hour or two,” he agreed. “Try twenty years of it.” He pushed open the low garden gate and stepped aside for her to enter while he looked the cottage over. “This was his family’s. I wonder how he got it back?”

  “His family’s?” Winter questioned.

  “Never mind,” Nial said, shaking his head.

  She hid her frustration and disappointment. It just one more of the same fractured conversations she had been having with Nial since they had left Australia. She didn’t know how to break the cycle of stop-start dialogue. Every attempt had failed so far and he had been scrupulous about avoiding her touch, too, so she couldn’t get a reading on his feelings.

  She walked up the path lined with rosebushes heavy with old fashioned roses, lavender, and other flowers she couldn’t name, but were heavy with scent, pretty, pink and white, blue and mauve, lavender and red and more. It was an artist’s dream.

  The door of the cottage was whitewashed and faded, with a doorknocker in twisted iron that was also worn with honest age. She knocked, using the knocker.

  Silence greeted them.

  “How sure are you that he’s here, Nial?”

  “It’s a guess, but how sure were you about Ningaloo?”

  “It was a guess,” she admitted. “But based on everything I know about Sebastian. It just…fit.”

  Nial nodded. “So does this. Especially after you pointed out about the ring and his mother.”

  “Do we force our way inside, then?”

  “From what I know about these types of villages—” Nial turned the handle on the door and it opened.

  “You’re kidding! Even in this day and age?”

  “Even now,” Nial agreed. He pushed the door open wide and indicated she should go inside.

  Winter stepped up onto the worn, uneven steps and into the cottage. The room beyond was furnished with a pair of armchairs facing the fire and that was all there was room for. There was a door into a kitchen, beyond, and another door, further to the left, with two wooden steps leading up to it, that clearly lead to the rest of the cottage. The cottage may look picturesque on the outside, but that made one forgot that the inside was very short on space.

  “Up,” Nial murmured.

  Winter agreed. She veered to the left, skirting the two chairs and the silent fireplace, and grasped the big old-fashioned doorknob on the door and opened it.

  Immediately beyond it, a twisting set of narrow stairs began. Winter let out her breath and realized that tension was winding itself tighter inside her with each passing second.

  Up.

  She began to climb, trying to do it silently, but her boots clattered no matter what she did. Nial followed more quietly and she was aware that he must be getting an eyeful of her legs, on the steep stairs.

  At the top there was a tiny landing and two paneled doors. One stood open and bright light from the setting sun, lower than the clouds now, shone through it.

  “He�
��s in there,” Nial said, putting his hand on the closed door.

  “How do you know?” Winter asked.

  “Morning sunlight shines in that room. And it’s bigger. Plus the door is shut. He’s in there.”

  Winter grasped the big oval doorknob and twisted it open. The door squeaked open, showing a room dim with the day, beyond. Leadlight windows and lace curtains revealed a big hand-carved bed covered with an embroidered eiderdown duvet.

  Sebastian lay beneath it, his eyes closed. He didn’t move as they stepped further into the room.

  Nial kneeled on the bed and shook his shoulder. “Sebastian.”

  The movement rocked Sebastian enough that he rolled onto his back. He appeared to be unconscious.

  Nial looked at Winter. “Quickly. Can you tell what the problem is?”

  She clambered onto the big bed and picked up Sebastian’s hand. Immediately she felt life, but so faint and weak it frightened her. “He’s barely there,” she whispered. “His heart beats, but it labors to do so. It’s like he’s trying to let go.”

  “Is he unconscious?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never seen this state before. I can’t even give it a name.”

  Nial stared down at Sebastian, a tiny furrow between his brows.

  Outside, thunder rolled. Rain began to patter at the windows. Winter shivered. It hadn’t been nearly this cold in her house in Montana, despite the lingering snow on the mountains and the late start to the summer. “It’s cold in here,” she observed.

  “These old places don’t have central heating.” Nial looked around. “I’ll get a fire going downstairs. It’ll be set up to feed all the rooms with hot air.” He moved off the bed again and headed for the door. “Come here for a minute, Winter.”

  She touched Sebastian’s cold shoulder before backing off the bed herself and following Nial out of the room. He shut the bedroom door behind her and made sure it was latched properly.

  Then he stole her breath in surprise by gathering her in his arms and pressing her up against the door with his long hard body and kissing her furiously.

  For seconds, moments, Winter could barely breath as her surprise had taken all the air from her lungs and Nial was stealing what little she could gather for herself. Then she managed to draw a decent breath as he lifted his mouth from hers to press his lips against her face, her eyes, her cheeks, her throat, and she moaned her pleasure aloud.

  She clung to him as he continued to stroke her throat with his tongue and lips, driving her crazy, making her want him, making her body ache.

  “Nial,” she begged helplessly.

  He pressed himself up against her, pushing her into the door. His eyes gazed into hers. “You must go to Sebastian. You must be with him. Stay with him.”

  “Be with…?”

  “Something about you completes the symbiosis,” Nial added. “Something you must…provide, to keep Sebastian alive. You have to figure it out.”

  She let her hands drop away from him. “You’re giving me to him.”

  Nial shook his head. “I don’t want to.”

  “But if that is what is needed…”

  He looked away.

  Winter reached out to touch him, to reach inside. Nial abruptly backed away, letting her go. When had he got so good at knowing when she was reading him?

  “If you don’t let me see, I won’t go in there,” she told him flatly.

  In the dim light of the landing, his eyes seemed to almost glow as he moved slowly closer. “You’ll regret this, Winter,” he breathed and kissed her again. His hand cupped her cheek, the big thumb resting high up against her cheekbone.

  Winter thrust herself inside. It was the first time she had invaded his body for nearly two days—since they had left Coral Bay.

  Chaotic feelings pummeled her in a windstorm of bio-chemical reactions that because she had spent a lifetime reading them, it was like reading Braille—she interpreted them just as easily.

  Despair and anger she had expected. Love, yes. And the painful sense of raw loss. Shockingly, there was resentment there. Resentment. From Nial, one of the most resourceful individuals she had ever met. And there, buried deep, so deep she could barely…Winter struggled to more finely tune her senses, for a layer of dull fury and helplessness lay over all of it, like a smothering fog.

  Nial lifted his lips from hers. “You wanted truth,” he reminded her.

  The door behind her opened.

  “No, Nial, not yet—!”

  But he gently nudged her through and the door closed on her.

  It was dark and growing darker in the room so Winter turned on the old-fashioned lamp next to the bed. It was sitting on a beautiful piece of lace and the lamp itself was probably a valuable antique, too.

  She considered Sebastian’s still form and wondered where to start. There was no hint inside his body to give her guidance. His cold flesh was completely unresponsive.

  Winter shuddered again and that gave her a partway useful interim idea. She needed to get warm until Nial got the fire going downstairs. So did Sebastian.

  She stripped her boots and jacket and eased herself under the eiderdown next to Sebastian. She rolled him onto his side again and tucked herself up against his back. He felt cool against her, which wasn’t good. At the very least warming him up was a good idea. She reached inside him and encouraged his metabolism along, which would give him extra warmth, too. It was hard to push it any faster in his current state, but it cranked up a notch or two and she was pleased. Any response at all from him was a small victory.

  He was wearing a tee-shirt and jeans—more signs of how ill he’d been when he’d arrived in Ireland. He’d barely been able to undress. Winter rubbed his flesh where she could reach—his arms and stomach and chest and back, trying to warm the flesh and encourage circulation manually, as she couldn’t nudge it internally. She worked her knuckles over his thighs through the denim of his jeans, massaging the flesh that way.

  The work warmed her as well.

  After a while, she realized that the eiderdown had slid down her body as she worked, but the air wasn’t biting into her body as it had been when they had first arrived. Nial had got the fire working well, then.

  She checked Sebastian’s internal readings again. They still seemed dormant, but his body temperature was up. Surely that was a good sign?

  Winter wrapped her arms around him and rested for a while, trying to think things through and figure out a next step to try. In New York, when it had been her turn, they had accidently discovered what she had needed. No…she had taken what she needed. She had been awake though. Aware. Able to reach for what she needed. Sebastian could well slip into a real human coma and then death simply because he wasn’t able to reach for what he needed.

  But why hadn’t he reached for what he needed weeks ago? Why hadn’t he called?

  The heat of a human body against her back and filtered sunshine on her face told her she had fallen asleep—deeply asleep with one of those asleep-one-moment-awake-ten-hours-later sleeps that only the truly exhausted or truly jet lagged manage to pull off.

  Nial was watching her. He sat in the tiny chair under the window, arms crossed, freshly bathed, in clean clothes and looking relaxed, and very pleased with himself.

  She blinked and tried to sit up. “Sebas—”

  Nial put a finger to his lips. “He’s sleeping,” he murmured.

  She tried to look over her shoulder, but Sebastian’s arm was heavy over her waist and his leg was thrown over her thighs. She was locked down tight.

  “Sleeping?” she murmured. She eased inside Sebastian’s body to check for herself and found, to her delight, that Nial was right. Sebastian was just sleeping. She began to smile. “Well, fabulous. But I really need the bathroom.”

  “It’s outside,” Nial said gravely.

  Her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding!”

  He nodded. “I am. They built an addition off the kitchen. But it looks like it’s only a few years old. I
f you’d come here a few years ago you would have been going outside.”

  Winter tried to pull herself out from under Sebastian’s deadweight and failed. She exhaled heavily. “This is ridiculous. Nial, can you…I can’t believe I have to ask you, but can you help me get out from under him?”

  Nial’s expression was delighted mix of devilment. “Aren’t you right where you always wanted to be, hmmm?”

  She blew him a soft raspberry. “Unconscious men are an especial turn on of mine, yes.” She tried again to move Sebastian’s arm and failed. “Nial?”

  He gave a soft, almost soundless laugh and flipped the eiderdown back enough to slide onto the mattress alongside her.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded in a harsh whisper.

  “Helping,” he said blandly. “You do want my help, yes?”

  Winter caught her breath. She lay tangled in the limbs of one man, while another pressed up close to her. Her body seemed to ignite and burn with a white hot flame as erotic possibilities danced in her mind. She was almost afraid to look Nial in the eye in case he read those thoughts in hers.

  Honesty, she told herself and caught his gaze. She shifted her hand a fraction of an inch to touch his fingers.

  Heat. Super-charged arousal.

  Hope.

  She heard herself gasp. It was ragged. But she was caught by the look in Nial’s eyes. So mixed. So confusing.

  “I’m not who you think I am, Winter,” he whispered. “I never was.” He kissed her, his tongue thrusting deep.

  Then he lifted Sebastian’s arm and leg and lifted her over him so she could dash downstairs to the bathroom. Her last glimpse as she left the bedroom was Nial studying Sebastian’s sleeping face.

  It jolted her and made her remember that the emotions she read in Nial did not come with tags. They weren’t memories. She had no way to know who Nial was experiencing the emotions for. If he was feeling lust it could be for Sebastian or for her. The same with any emotion she read in him. Just because the emotion was present, she couldn’t assume that he was feeling it for her.

  So when she came out of the bathroom, instead of heading back to the bedroom, she decided to make breakfast, instead. It suddenly seemed safer.