Page 26

For the first time since Aidan had laid eyes on Reilly eight years earlier, he could feel the man’s weariness, as though his soul were tired of its destiny.

“Will you suffer greatly for it?”

Reilly ran a hand over his face. “I do not know. I’m hoping they’ll not care overmuch.”

“Who?”

“The Fates,” Reilly replied.

“Do you mean the Tuatha Dé Danann? They’re mythical—”

“You do not know,” Reilly snapped, then dropped his shoulders. “I answer to a higher power than the Tuatha Dé Danann. You cannot possibly understand, and I hope that you never have to.”

Aidan looked at him speculatively. “How old are you?”

Reilly laughed. “Age is irrelevant where time’s concerned, lad.”

“Are you immortal?”

Reilly shook his head. “No. But I won’t die until they decide it, and they’ve use of me yet.”

“The Fates?” Aidan asked, a tremor passing through him at the thought. Growing up, he’d heard the stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann—powerful druid deities. His clan loved a good story, so Aidan had always taken them for tales of morality and warning. But a higher power?

“I won’t tell you,” Reilly replied firmly.

“Why not?”

Reilly leveled him with a stare. “That’s enough. I’ll secure the parking lot, and wait for you and your lady in the car.” He pushed back from the table and left without another word. Aidan watched him go, his curiosity more than piqued.

The next morning, Emma was too excited to sleep in.

Though it was only an hour or so before dawn, she was fully awake.

Aidan promised her it wasn’t anything spectacular, but she desperately wanted to see him in his own surroundings.

She donned a long skirt and long-sleeved shirt, as the mornings tended to be chilly, and quietly headed downstairs to start breakfast.

Walking into the kitchen, she noticed Reilly’s cell phone sitting on the counter.

She made a mental note to tell him that it was downstairs, then grabbed a glass from the cabinet and headed to the sink.

Her eyes drifted out the back window, and in the predawn mist, she saw Reilly walking toward the woods .

Aidan mentioned Reilly’s love of the forest, and even he himself told her just last night how he felt most at peace when he was out and about in nature.

Nature or not, Reilly would need his phone.

Without giving it a second thought, she grabbed it off the counter and ran out the door.

He was almost to the trees, and she knew he wouldn’t hear her if she called out, so she merely picked up her pace.

When she got to the forest, she saw him disappear, far ahead of her, into a thickly wooded area.

She called out then, but he didn’t respond.

“Emma!” Aidan bellowed from behind her. She turned. He was headed toward her at a fast clip.

She barely glanced at him, and held up the phone to indicate she was going to give it to Reilly before heading into the forest.

A couple minutes in, though, the entire place seemed to change.

There was a thick mist that covered the ground.

Every step she took displaced some of the fog, showing her bits of forest floor underneath by the light of the moon.

She carefully made her way deeper, looking for any signs of Reilly, before the mist fully descended upon her.

“Uh oh,” she said aloud, turning in a circle.

She could make out large tree trunks, clusters of low-lying ferns, and some tree roots nearby. But everything else remained shrouded in the dense fog, lit by an eerie bluish light.

“Hello, Emmaline.”

Emma shrieked and stumbled backward, tripping on a tree root. She looked up, her jaw slack, as Ben materialized from the haze.

“You are so hard to track down, with your rich new boyfriend covering your tracks. A private jet, Emma? Really?” He slowly walked toward her, his eyes glued to hers. His disheveled clothes matched his rumpled hair, and there was at least a week’s growth of beard on his normally shaved face .

Haggard , Emma thought dimly. He looks haggard.

“But I have some friends who are just as rich. And they agree with me, that you’re the only way I can get them the money they loaned me. And sweet, stupid Emma…we’ve been over this before. You. Are. Mine. ”

“We broke up,” Emma said, her voice shaking a little. She clenched her fists. “I’m not yours anymore.”

Ben laughed, a high-pitched, maniacal sound that frightened Emma more than his threats ever had. “You think that makes it okay to find yourself a new boyfriend?” He advanced on her, and she slipped, landing on her backside. “He’s nothing. No, Emma. You’re mine forever.”

She scuttled backward, her hands slipping on the wet forest floor. “What do you want from me, Ben?”

His smile was gone in an instant. “You’re not listening, Emmaline.

I hate it when you don’t listen to me.” He reached around himself and drew a gun from the back of his belt.

He stroked it lovingly. “I want you, Emma. You’re mine.

But you left to be with him. That’s not all right, Emmaline.

Nope, not at all. I told you. I was nothing but honest, you see. ”

She froze, her eyes locked on the weapon held loosely in his hand. “How did you get out of the States, Ben?”

He laughed again, but this time it sounded desperate.

“Oh, I owe some big drug lords a lot of money. They can do so much with the power they have. Getting me to you was easy! But you don’t want me anymore.

I told you that no one else would ever have you.

But you didn’t listen. You never listen, Emmaline. ”

Her throat was dry and her body was shaking, but she slowly stood up.

He watched her dispassionately. “You gave yourself to MacWilliam. Now you’re used goods, and I can’t have you again. So that means no one can. But it never mattered, because I need that life insurance.” He raised the gun at her, and she opened her mouth to scream —

She was knocked to the ground at the same time the gun fired. Then someone hauled her to her feet and grabbed her around the waist, swinging her away from Ben.

“Run,” Aidan urged, and she didn’t have to think twice. She ran smack into a huge chest.

“Me,” Reilly said quickly, righting her before grabbing her hand. He pulled her deeper into the forest, running as fast as she could go.

“What about Aidan?” she wheezed.

“Right behind us. Keep running, Emmaline.”

She didn’t have to be told that again. She ran with everything she had.