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CHAPTER 25
T he wait was endless, and Fintan was about to lose his bleeding mind!
Narissa, having been fully healed by Jordan, paced the library, stopping in the doorway periodically to give him a helpless or pitying look. Brenna was no better and remained tearful within Eoin’s comforting embrace.
As for Fintan, he remained on the landing, at the entrance to the caves. He didn’t know which way Ardghal would return, whether by teleport or passageway, but he was prepared should Odessa escape her fate.
The image of Taryn, broken and bloody, with her face frozen in triumph, would forever be emblazoned in his mind. She’d risked it all to save him—or Ardghal—by confronting the one monster even the Sullivan Sirens feared.
He wished she’d have saved herself and left them to their fate. She’d still be alive, and his family wouldn’t face the wrath of Damian when he discovered what had happened.
“We should go back,” Narissa announced from the bottom step. “It’s been too long, and I don’t trust that rotten sow hasn’t talked her way out of a rightful execution. Or worse, gotten the better of Ardghal.”
When they’d returned, Fintan explained everything he and Taryn had experienced since Peter woke them. How the grotto had infused its history into his memory, and how Ardghal came to be born, then reborn today.
It was still hard to believe the entity residing in him was the original Siren hybrid.
“Ardghal won’t fail,” he said tiredly. “He has more to lose than we do.”
Except for Taryn… but Fintan had already lost her.
“I’m sorry, sugar,” Narissa said gently as she climbed the stairs. Sitting one step below, she placed a hand on his knee. “For what it’s worth, I was rooting for you two crazy kids.”
His bark of laughter sounded remarkably like a barely held-in-check sob, and he closed his eyes against the agony. Losing her a second time was so much worse than the first. At least before, he knew she was living her best life somewhere in the world.
“It’s all my fault,” he admitted raggedly. “If I’d just stayed away like the ancestors ordered… if I’d have ignored Peter…”
“She’d have still found my amulet,” Ardghall said, stepping from the shadows of the hallway. “And Taryn was always destined to be involved, Fintan. She was my wife in another life, remember? Souls always orbit around each other, crossing paths until destiny is fulfilled.”
The weight of guilt and grief crushed him as he stared up at the grim face of his Siren.
“She’s dead, then?” he asked hoarsely.
Ardghal’s mouth curled on one side, and humor lit his sea-bright eyes. “Oh, ye of little faith.”
Fintan’s heart skipped a beat. It resumed with a clunky thud, hammering so strongly, it felt like it would come through his chest wall and land at his feet. He surged upward, knocking into Narissa. When he scrambled to help her, she waved him away with a laugh. “Go on, Fin. Claim the girl!”
He took the stairs two at a time and ended up beside Ardghal in four bounding steps. “Where?
“Your bedroom.”
But before Fintan could leave, Ardghal stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“She’s in a stasis. It was the best I could do—for now.”
Joy abandoned him, and his knees weakened. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s in a transformation process. From death to life, and human to Siren.”
“What?” Fintan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His hands grew shaky, and acid burned his belly. “Siren? Ya cursed her?”
Ardghal flinched as if slapped but recovered swiftly. His cold expression edged toward hostile.
“We are of royal blood, boy, and you’ll do well to remember that.”
“Sure, and it’s still a curse,” Fintan spat. “She wasn’t born to this and doesn’t deserve to constantly battle a power-hungry beast to avoid becomin’ a demon.”
“The demon curse is activated when a Siren steals what isn’t theirs and murders to get it. The purest-hearted rarely cross the line.”
Fintan shoved him. “But you did, didn’t ya? Tales of your ruthlessness abound.”
“I won’t deny my history, but until you know the why of it, keep your judgment in check.”
Ardghal never raised his voice, but Fintan could feel the power of the Siren prince pulse through him, as he had in the cavern. Denying the unspoken command to submit burned him on a cellular level, but he didn’t flinch as he locked gazes with his liege.
After a minute-long standoff, grudging respect shone in the other man’s eyes.
“You’re a stubborn bastard, I’ll give you that,” Ardghal muttered.
“How do we undo?—”
He held up a hand, cutting Fintan off. “We don’t, unless you care to carve her heart out yourself. She’s one of us, now. It was the only way to save her.”
Fintan cursed himself for a fool. Why had he left her? Ardghal wanted his wife back at all costs. Hadn’t he repeatedly tried to claim Taryn as his?
“You did it on purpose, didn’t you?” he accused. “To make her the perfect princess to your princely self?”
“If she loved me, as she loved you, perhaps I might have,” Ardghal admitted. He sounded tired as he said, “But my Elizabeth turned from me in the end and left me to die in that grotto, not realizing I couldn’t, not truly.”
“Ya once said I was you, reborn, but we’re split souls. Who am I to her, then?”
“You’re Fintan Sullivan. The Seer and love of her life.” Clapping a hand on his shoulder, Ardghal shook him. “Stop this foolishness, Fin. She’ll need you to guide her through the rest of your lives.”
Narissa sauntered forward. “He’s gifted you a third chance, Fin. Don’t waste it, sugar.”
She was right.
Here Fintan stood, quibbling over details when Taryn was in what constituted a coma down the hall. He raced to his bedroom and rushed through the door to find her exactly as Ardghal described—in a stasis. Perhaps he’d hoped she’d woken during his confrontation and would greet him with open arms the instant he stepped across the opening.
But she didn’t.
Her too-still form was unnatural, as it had been stories below in the cave. Searching the room, he didn’t see her spirit, and could only assume she was clinging to her physical self.
Fintan climbed on the bed and stretched out beside her. Resting his head on the pillow, he stared at her profile, as he’d done countless nights when they’d first hooked up. Whenever he was too wired to sleep, he’d watch her, unable to believe his good fortune. Worried that one day his happiness would crumble like an unstable house of cards. And it had.
He wanted to yell at the unfairness of life. But his voice still held power, and he checked the urge.
“It seems I’ve cursed you just by lovin’ ya, aoibhneas mo croí. ” His vision blurred, and he angrily swiped at his eyes. “The life of a Siren isn’t what I’d have wished for you, love. If I can reverse it, I will.”
“Like Ardghal said, it isn’t the Siren, Fintan. It’s those with evil intent.”
He rolled to his feet, prepared to fight the newcomer before his conscience registered who it was.
“Jaysus, Dethridge! You gave me a feckin’ heart attack, ya did.”
“You didn’t think to call me when all this began?” Damian asked from the foot of the bed. His tone was chilly and disapproving, making Fintan uneasy.
“It happened too fast, man. And Ardghal—” The Aether’s sharp glance stopped him. “Did you know he was me Siren?”
The rigidness left Damian’s expression, and he nodded. “I suspected, yes. But I also hoped I was wrong.”
“Sure, and that’s why you didn’t want anythin’ to do with Bloodstone’s necklace, yeah?”
“I couldn’t touch it. He warded it against Aethers.”
“Why, if it doesn’t work for any but him?” Fintan asked, curious why Ardghal would do such a thing.
“We have the power to gift or remove abilities, and part of them remain with us. Aethers are comprised of all bloodlines, even Sirens, to achieve this.”
“He’s the original hybrid. How is it you have Siren blood?”
“The Goddess. It doesn’t make me a hybrid, though, just as it doesn’t make me a Guardian or Traveler by possessing some of their power.”
“Sure, and it’s a migraine I’m gettin’ from all this information,” Fintan confessed.
“Or perhaps you need sleep,” Damian said dryly. “But to answer your original question, I don’t believe Ardghal wanted to take any chances after discovering my mother had absorbed the Darkness, which was born of a rogue Incubus.”
Fintan sat heavily on the mattress beside Taryn. “Can you wake her?”
“I can try, but it will take Ardghal’s trust in Beastie and me.”