Page 23

CHAPTER 22

F intan was enraged. Trapped, he was privy to Ardghal and Taryn’s conversation, and he despised how uncomfortable the creature was making her. If the bastard wasn’t careful, he’d scare her away for good, and Fintan couldn’t abide that. He needed her in his life, more than air to breathe or food to eat, she was essential to him, body and soul.

The Siren had been spouting shite about Ardghal for as long as Fintan could remember, claiming it knew where those bleedin’ artifacts were to boot the ancestors out of his head. But he’d ruthlessly ignored the creature, believing it was a power grab and holding it in check whenever it tried to break free. In addition to pining for Taryn, Fintan hadn’t truly desired another woman, so he’d assumed denying himself sex meant denying the Siren, hoping to weaken the beast.

It didn’t.

Or if it did, he’d fucked up when he broke his two-and-a-half decade drought. Fintan’s fear was born primarily from the skill with which Ardghal could ease her objections. By waiting her out, he gave her the space she needed to see things from his perspective. One of Taryn’s best traits was her capacity to reason. If allowed to draw her own conclusions, she’d weigh the information against the facts and see the truth of a matter in due course.

Such was the case now.

Displaying equal amounts of charm and respect, Ardghal fed her information, thereby gaining ground. Taryn’s main reason to resist his sway was Fintan. Caring for him held her back.

“I could kill him if that would make you feel better,” his creature had said.

Jaysus! Could he? Fintan hoped not. If they were the same person born centuries apart, it didn’t seem likely without Ardghal killing himself. Yet, they were of two separate minds at the moment, so perhaps the possibility existed that should he destroy the human, the Siren would remain.

Learning about the sigils taught Fintan one thing, though. His Siren was indeed Ardghal. He hadn’t known about the grotto or the artifacts it claimed were beneath it. If the spell was truly cast in the past, and if Peter was taking it as gospel, it must be so.

“Let me out, ya feckin’ bastard!” Fintan shouted. He hoped that if he could cloud the creature’s mind with noise, it would have no choice but to release him.

“It didn’t work in reverse when I tried it. It won’t work for you,” Ardghal replied dryly. “Calm yourself, friend.”

“Look, I’ll do whatever ya want,” he lied. “Just let me speak to Taryn.”

“Siren’s sense intent.”

Fecking grand.

“Be patient. It will be over soon.”

That’s what he was deathly afraid of.

Fintan’s attempts at freedom amused Ardghal. Now the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak, his other half was bargaining as if his entire world depended on it. Perhaps he was right, and it did. The future remained to be seen. Ironic for a Seer, but still.

“Why would Elizabeth want you to die?” Taryn croaked, bringing Ardghal back to the present.

“She was tired. Of war, of losing family members and friends, of life.” He shrugged and stared at the bottom of the pool. “Of me,” he added whisper-soft. “My magic kept her alive longer than any witch would normally live. She wished to end her suffering.”

“Why didn’t you do it for her? Why draw out her pain?” she asked curiously.

Wonderful question. But Ardghal didn’t want to examine the answers too closely. They all boiled down to one, anyway. “I loved Elizabeth and couldn’t imagine life without her in it.”

Understanding dawned, and Taryn touched his wrist. “You let her take the necklace!”

Meeting her incredible eyes, he absorbed the comfort of her compassion without taking anything else. If he could help it, he’d never steal a drop of her magic.

But he would borrow it to open the grotto.

“I did. What was life without her?”

“Fuck, that’s romantic,” she breathed with stars in her eyes.

“Is it?” he asked softly.

He didn’t know anymore. At the time, it had felt right to give her what she wanted, but his soulless energy had drifted around those cursed halls above until Fintan’s birth, when it fused with his body. Before then, the days had stretched endlessly, one into the next, until he was on the precipice of madness. And perhaps he’d stepped over the ledge.

Hope came in the form of his soul’s rebirth. Or rather, part of his soul. The other half had stayed with Elizabeth, where it belonged. Ardghal had slept for most of the boy’s growing-up years, when suddenly the young man’s interest in music had sparked life into him. It wasn’t until he saw Elizabeth, as Taryn, standing in the audience, that all the missing pieces of his soul clicked back into place, complete once more.

It was also when he remembered he had a mission to perform. But those bloody busybodies controlling Fintan had other ideas. They’d facilitated Peter’s death to keep the boy away from Taryn, following it with lies about her role in Fintan’s eventual demise.

Fools, the lot of them.

Her restlessness pulled Ardghal from the past.

She shifted, putting space between them. Her wariness sank in, and he cursed himself for an eejit. Without being party to his thoughts, she was subjected to his angry energy and didn’t understand that it wasn’t directed at her.

“Let me explain.” For the next ten minutes, he told how he’d come to be reborn as Fintan’s Siren and how the so-called ancestors manipulated everyone to maintain charge of the Seer’s ability. “With it, they control the witch community, dousing any fires able to consume them.”

“They played him? Using his gift to anticipate danger to their positions? Is that what you’re saying?” Her outrage was glorious. The fierce protectiveness of Fintan was a replica of Elizabeth’s for him in the early days, when she believed his path was the right one.

“Yes. Just as they played my wife.”

Ardghal felt the hammering of her heart through their connection.

Bewildered by the past turn of events leading to his death, she shook her head. “I don’t get it,” she admitted.

“Elizabeth’s brother and father were forming a new council. You may know it as the Authority.”

“Holy shit!”

Her cursing grated on his nerves. Modern women sprinkled profanity in their conversation like a heavy-handed chef with spices. It was unseemly. But he had to remember, things were different in this century. People didn’t understand manners or the class pecking order in the way they once had. Women weren’t soft in his day, but they followed society’s rules. In Fintan’s shadow, he’d had years to get used to it, but it made him feel ancient and like he never would. Shoving his annoyance away with a resigned sigh, he waited for her to get her disbelief under control.

Taryn rose and crossed to the pool’s edge.

Except for her modern clothing, she could be Elizabeth. Her wild mane, with its blend of titian auburn and mocha brown streaked through with natural white-blonde, was identical to his wife’s, though not in length. Elizabeth’s hair had flowed to her waist, as he preferred it. Still, the soft features, innate kindness, and intelligence were all there, highlighted by the shimmering blue from the water. So was her rebelliousness.

Taryn’s brow was puckered as if deep in thought, and he ignored the buzzing in his mind. It comprised her processing of his story and Fintan’s demands for release. Eventually, she would come to the proper conclusion.

Peter had been remarkably quiet since they’d reached the grotto, and for that, he was grateful. The man’s sarcastic nature would test the patience of a saint, and Ardghal was no bloody saint!

“Peter, I know why I wish to access the artifacts, but I’d like to know why you do,” he said.

Taryn turned, waiting for Peter’s reply. Her mind was racing, and although more input might be overload, it was necessary.

“I’m after shuttin’ down the ancestors for good. For what they did to me, and what they’re trying to do to me nephew,” he confessed.

“But if they’re in league with the Authority—and that’s what I’m getting from all this—how do we take them down?” she asked.

“We don’t,” Ardghal said grimly. “Not without your Aether, and I suspect it’s not something he’s willing to do on a whim.”

“Did you meet Damian when you were alive?” she asked, curious about his distasteful expression. “He’s the best of men, so I don’t understand what you might have against him.”

“No. But I met the Enchantress in the early days, before she began her campaign of destruction by stealing and murdering others for their magic.”

“But isn’t that what Sirens, Succubi, and Incubi do?” she countered with a raised brow.

“Touché.” He nodded his acknowledgement. “But our demon form was never meant for one like a witch, and the Darkness was unleashed in the world because of it.”

“Wait, what?” She sat down hard, tipped sideways, and barely managed to avoid plunging into the pool. “Are you saying the Darkness that infected Isolde de Thorne was from a Succubus or Incubus?”

“Incubus, and yes. But it didn’t infect her first. Through blood-magic, another stole the power from one of my relatives, enslaving and starving them until they were too weak to survive.” He clasped his hands, letting the doubled fist hang between his knees, and stared at it for a long minute. “Magic like ours is too much for a mundane witch to possess.”

“Mundane?” Ardghal had a way of making others seem inconsequential.

“I don’t mean to,” he said with a grimace. “I beg your pardon.”

“Continue with the story. How did the Darkness break free to exist on its own?”

“It tempted its new host beyond human possibility, driving the man beyond the brink of insanity. It used whatever tool it had in its arsenal: fear, greed, lust, paranoia.”

For a heart-wrenching moment, Ardghal seemed lost in the past, and the urge to draw him back to her was strong. He visibly shook himself and met her worried gaze.

“I’m fine.” His tight smile couldn’t camouflage his sadness.

“Did you know that particular Siren, before he was an Incubus?”

“I did. It was my brother.”

“I’m sorry.” Her sympathy was more than a platitude. Taryn physically and mentally connected to his pain. Having lost her parents at a young age, she was familiar with loss. Learning about his wife and sibling allowed her to view him in a different light and triggered her desire to comfort him. He wasn’t the monster her research claimed, nor the one Fintan had feared.

“Thank you.” Ardghal cleared his throat. “With regard to the Darkness, the host grew fevered, his body unable to sustain that level of magic without burning itself out, and he perished, freeing the Darkness to find another host.”

“Merlin’s balls! That’s next-level scary.”

“Indeed. But how do you know Merlin? Is he still around?”

“What?” It took her longer than it should’ve to recognize he was teasing her. “Funny. Go back to the Enchantress, please.”

He grinned and gamely continued. “My understanding is that Isolde’s husband was infected before she realized the threat and exorcised it from him. Her mistake was absorbing it herself. Despite her Aether status and the power she could wield, the Demon was too strong. Too crafty, even for her.”

“The Darkness was why she went insane, right? Its need to feed forced her to do those dastardly acts?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean you’re stronger than Damian, than any Aether?” she asked, wonder rounding her eyes.

“I am with the amulet.”

Dread churned in the pit of her stomach. “And you want me to help you draw up those magical artifacts why, exactly?”

“To defeat Odessa and get it back.”

“And then?” Taryn croaked, sensing his final intent.

“Burn the witch community to the ground.”

Her stomach bottomed out. “But I’m a witch.”

“You’re the exception, love.”

There would need to be an obscene number more exceptions if he wanted her cooperation. Picturing Fintan’s bedroom, she closed her eyes to teleport. Ardghal’s steel bands encircled her and held her in place.

“I can’t let you leave. Not before you understand.”

“I’ll never understand!” she shouted, viciously shoving his marble-carved chest.

He didn’t budge, and the only thing she gained was a tweaked wrist.

“Elizab—”

“ Taryn . Taryn Stephens, not Elizabeth!” she snapped.

“Okay, Taryn-Taryn it is.”

Her heart pinged. “No! You don’t get to use Fintan’s endearments. You return him to me, right now. If you don’t, I’ll blow up this fucking grotto with you in it!”

Clapping sounded from across the pool. “Here, here, you feisty girl!”

“Odessa,” Ardghal hissed under his breath. He released Taryn and swept her behind him to face Fintan’s aunt.

“Teleport to your Aether and do it immediately,” he told Taryn through their bond. “She’ll kill you if you don’t.”

“I’ll kill her if she does,” Odessa replied aloud.

Taryn almost wet her pants. Either way, her life expectancy was nil, but she’d be damned if she was leaving Fintan.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“My thoughts exactly,” Ardghal murmured. “If it counts for anything, Fintan is voting for you to escape, love.”

“He’s not the boss of me.”

Other than a snort, he didn’t reply.

“Bloodstone, am I correct you’ve returned for good?” Odessa purred as she sauntered around the pool’s edge. “It’s why the necklace drew me here tonight, by the way. It sensed your magic.”

“Well, it is mine. I’d be much obliged if you returned it,” he said, as if they were chums instead of foes.

Odessa’s laugh rang out, but there was no real humor in it.

“Okay, we’re in harmony,” Taryn said in a low voice. “Do what you need to get your weapons from the grotto.”

The sigils lit, catching Odessa’s attention. She frowned. “Your journal hinted at a treasure, but never stated the location. I suspect this pool was charmed by you?”

“You assumed correctly,” he replied. Putting a hand behind him, he pressed Taryn backward as he retreated a step for each of Odessa’s. “Far enough, woman.”

“Not nearly enough,” the elderly Sullivan boomed as she began the metamorphosis from human to beast.

Having anticipated her action, Ardghal dragged Taryn against him and clamped his hands over her ears. “Muteion!” The single-word spell was foreign, but she recognized its immediate effect as a gel substance filled and cushioned her ear canals like high-quality earplugs.

Odessa’s banshee-like cry was bone-chilling, and the unholy wail ricocheted off the cavern walls, haunting and unrelenting. Ardghal’s quick thinking had saved Taryn from ruptured eardrums, but she didn’t have the wits left to thank him. What came next was a morbidly captivating nightmare. One moment, Odessa was a cane-wielding crone dripping arrogance. The next, she towered at seven feet, all hellfire, hunger, and fully awakened Succubus cloaked in deathly allure.