Chapter Eight

Micah glanced around the pagoda one more time, checking to insure no gaps interrupted the strong guards he’d layered together that rendered the wire mesh immoveable. A breeze washed over his skin, full of the scent of leaves, grass, and the distant aroma of the fresh-water springs deeper within the valley. Birds twittered in the approaching twilight, their songs blending with that of crickets and frogs.

He frowned at the closed door. It remained a weakness. But he would have to take his chances and hope that if Brigid didn’t dash for freedom on the gravel path he could do nothing about, that the door wouldn’t pose a problem until they were both inside and he could ward it as well. Faith had to begin somewhere.

So did hope, and as he let himself out of the gazebo and made his way inside the castle, he let it spark. If he connected with Brigid, if he gave her the opportunity to trust him, maybe he could break through her emotional walls and open her eyes to the things she refused to see. Like the fear that kept her trapped in a world of darkness she didn’t belong in. The same fear that kept her from embracing Nyamah’s ancient spell.

Fintan stopped him at the foot of the stairs.

“Micah, I’m going to need you tomorrow night at the ritual. Will you be available?” He entered the hall, brows drawn, as if his thoughts plagued him. “Beth and I will be occupied, and I need you to keep an eye out for Taran and Drandar.”

Tomorrow? At the sabot? Micah’s focus pulled up the stairs. Leave Brigid on the night that would surely torment her beyond all others? When her mother’s spell had been found?

He glanced back at Fintan. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“It’s just for a short time. We start at eleven. We should be finished within an hour. Brigid will be confined—Drandar can’t influence your wards, can he?”

Micah shook his head. “Nothing can get out or in.” As long as he remembered to reinforce them in a timely fashion and he used a new incantation so Brigid didn’t find a means of disrupting the barriers.

“Then there shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Only those that Fintan, and his righteous anger toward his sister, wouldn’t want to consider. Micah expressed a sigh. “I can spare an hour.”

Smiling, Fintan nodded. “Good, good. How’d she take the scroll?”

“About like I expected.”

“You don’t look worse for the wear.”

Micah chuckled. “No, I survived. She’s curious about it.”

Fintan’s warm eyes hardened, and a frown set into his brow. “Be careful, Micah. She’s crafty. Don’t give her the chance to trick you.”

A chance like escorting her outdoors where he couldn’t erect a ward? Micah set a foot on the stairs. If Fintan knew what he had planned, he’d lock Micah up. “I’ve got everything under control.” He started up the stairwell, anxious to be finished with the uncomfortable conversation.

Behind him, Fintan’s voice echoed up the stairwell. “A pint of Scotch says that’s what she wants you to think.”

Good thing Fintan liked Scotch. Micah had a nagging feeling he might just be receiving a caseload before the sabot was over. If he were smart, he’d forget this crazy idea of appealing to Brigid’s secret yearnings. He’d keep her confined, as he’d been instructed to do, until she crawled on her knees and begged to be given the spellbook and its promised mortality. Until she foreswore Drandar in front of her siblings and meant every damned word.

At the top of the stairs, he stopped and stared at the door. What if Fintan was right? He of all people knew what she was capable of doing. She’d practically handed him over to Drandar on Imbolc and laughed as he suffered attack after attack.

No. Micah shook his head in emphasis. He had to believe in her gentler side. Had to extend an offering of trust if he expected to gain hers. She might have turned against Fintan, but Micah would swear, if anyone had bothered to ask her why, she’d have a drastically different answer than Fintan’s assumptions.

He took a deep breath and opened the door.

****

Brigid looked up from the television as Micah entered the room. Before her heart could beat twice, she summoned a smile she hoped looked warm and inviting. “Hey. How was the walk? You missed dinner. I fixed lamb and wilted spinach pizza.”

He arched one dark eyebrow in mistrust. Her stomach knotted. Overdone. Tone it down. She gave him a casually indifferent shrug and reclined in the sofa, staring at the television once more. “There’s leftovers in the fridge.”

One step at a time—she couldn’t rush things. They had all night together. All night for her to work him over slowly so he wouldn’t recognize her ploy. She took a deep breath, let it out quietly. If the jittering inside her belly would quit, this would be so much easier.

“I grabbed a sandwich in the kitchen downstairs. Are you busy?”

Busy? Here? She almost laughed.

Instead, she choked down her derision and flipped off the television. “Not particularly. Did you have something in mind?” As she had a hundred times or more, she gave him a slow, sensual smile, heavily laden with suggestion.

To her surprise, Micah didn’t deflect the innuendo. He walked to the couch, stood behind her, and set his warm hands on her shoulders. His breath whispered against the side of her neck. “I have lots of things in mind for later.”

“Later?” To her shame, her heart skipped a beat. Anticipation skittered down her spine and lifted the fine hairs along her arms. She liked the sound of that. Too much.

Get a hold of yourself. You must stay in control.

She held his gaze through the mirror. “Why wait when now is so much…sooner?”

His teeth grazed her skin, sending chills sweeping through her body. She bit down on the inside of her cheek to silence a moan and forced her mind away from the feel of his warm moist breath, the taunting way he flicked the tip of his tongue alongside her jugular.

“I have something else in mind,” he murmured.

Abruptly, he pulled away. The sudden lack of contact left her feeling bereft. Of what, she couldn’t say. But in that moment, the idea of Micah doing anything but continuing to touch her, sent her spirit into violent chaos.

Before Brigid could work through the myriad of emotions that waged war on her soul, he moved around the couch and stopped beside her knee. One hand stretched toward her. He wagged his fingers. “Give me your hand.”

What in the name of the ancestors was he up to?

Too curious to refuse, Brigid slid her fingers into his. Warmth spread all the way to her belly, and she fought a shiver. Simple things like holding hands weren’t supposed to feel so good. She cleared her throat to cover her unexpected reaction. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” With a tug, he pulled her from the couch. At the door, he turned to face her and gathered her other hand as well. “I need a promise from you, Brigid.”

“What kind of promise?”

“I need you to swear that you won’t try anything funny.”

“Funny?” She grinned. “Like stand on my head?”

“Brigid.” His voice held a note of warning.

Enough warning to tell her loud and clear what he meant, but she couldn’t resist teasing. “Or make silly faces in the mirror? Like this?” Crossing her eyes, she stuck her tongue out and puffed her cheeks.

“Brigid, if you can’t be serious, just forget the whole damn thing.”

At his exasperation, she sobered. “Forget what? It’s a little hard to be serious when I have no idea what you’re up to.”

He gave her hands an affectionate squeeze. “We’re leaving these rooms. I want you to promise that while we’re going where we’re going you aren’t going to try and ditch me.”

Leaving? Escape from these three rooms? Her heart kicked into her ribs. This was even better than she’d imagined—Micah handed her the means of total freedom. She wouldn’t even have to dupe him.

Well…beyond a little white lie that he should know better than to believe. “Okay. I promise.”

He eyed her a moment, his disbelief obvious in the speculative light of his stare. Wisely, he didn’t buy into her promise. But would that suspicion prevent him from opening the door?

Micah’s gaze narrowed, and he let out a sigh. “All right. I’m trusting you, Brigid. Don’t make me regret it.”

A smidgeon of guilt stabbed into her side. Her smile faltered. Why did he have to use the t-word? Trusting her only made what she had to do that much more difficult. She’d rather he be blinded by something else. Something like desire, so there wasn’t any obvious duplicity.

Brigid pushed the uncomfortable guilt aside and focused on the more important matter. In less than ten minutes, she would never again stare out the window and wish she could be somewhere else. She’d be able to come and go as she pleased—so long as the castle wasn’t on her list of destinations.

Damn it. She’d been breaking promises for centuries. Why did her conscience have to object now?

Micah tucked her hand into his firm grip once more and opened the door. The stairwell loomed before them, cloaked in shadows from the twilight hour. Old gas lanterns flickered from their iron mountings in the wall and created eerie lights across the stone.

Twenty-eight steps to freedom.

Gritting her teeth, Brigid followed him to the stairs. Where in the world were they going? Surely Fintan couldn’t know about this—he’d have half his coven lining the steps just to make sure she couldn’t slip free.

As they descended, she listened for her brother’s voice, for signs that someone other than Micah loomed nearby. But aside from the distant rustle of the household support staff, she recognized nothing. No one watching. No one overseeing whatever Micah had up his sleeve.

She stole a glance at Micah. His profile revealed heavy concentration, as if he too strained to hear approaching voices. Still, his steps remained confident, his pace swift but unhurried.

Simple curiosity kept her from jerking to the left and breaking free at the mouth of the grand hall. They were leaving her half of the castle. Entering Fintan’s. Oh, her brother would have fits if he ran into them here. Why had Micah risked Fintan’s wrath? What was the fool man up to with this little field trip? He had to know this was stupidity at its finest. She could overpower his grip on her hand anytime she wanted. He knew this.

So what on earth, where on earth, were they going?

His stoic silence kept her from asking.

He ushered her down the long first floor hall, around a bend that led to the dungeon’s stairwell, and to the heavy, metal-studded door to the east yard. Brigid’s eyes widened as he reached for the oblong handle. Outside. He was taking her outdoors.

By the ancestors, she could kiss him!

She would. Right before she dashed away and into the forest. One last kiss to remember him by.

The cool night air hit her smack in the face as he tugged her outside. She breathed it in with short gasps, close to hyperventilating from the suddenness of it all. Four months of nothing but stale air. Four months of not even so much as a cross-breeze.

She’d almost forgotten how cold this valley could get at night, this close to the natural springs like it was. Almost.

Brigid stumbled over freshly laid gravel and glanced down at her feet. Beth had certainly been busy. This must have been the cause for the renovators she’d heard roaming the halls several weeks ago, the hammering and the heavy equipment. Talk about settling in—Beth was making herself right at home.

As she should be.

Brigid ignored the voice of reason.

Micah pulled her to a stop in front of what had once been her favorite summer solace before time caught up to the gazebo and threatened to send it crumbling into dust. Now, where the roof had splintered, it bore sturdy shingles. Where the stacked stone columns leaned at precarious angles, they’d been reinforced and stood straight and proud. As they had two centuries earlier, when she’d taken breakfast here each morning.

He pushed the door open and nudged her inside. Brigid came to a standstill two feet inside, fighting back an unexpected rush of emotion. His wards dominated the room, marking off the screened-in openings with great care. But instead of erecting the impermeable wall like he did on her windows, he wove the magic within the mesh. Reinforcing it so that it still functioned as designed. The night breeze washed over her skin, cooling it even as it accelerated her pulse.

“Well?” he asked quietly.

She turned a slow circle, wide eyed, unable to speak. Voices rose from the earth, descended from the sky, whispering murmurs that weren’t meant to be understood in clear form. The subtle greetings that caressed her mind blended with the cool temperature and the calming song of crickets—she could hear crickets! Really truly hear them. And frogs. And birds and even the buzz of the insects hidden in the grass. She had missed their voices so much.

Micah understood—the realization slammed into her like someone took a 2x4 to her ribs. Her breath lodged in her throat, her lungs felt three times smaller than normal. Micah had done this for her, because he understood her need to be close to the wilderness that created her.

Something deep inside her soul began to tremble.

Even Fintan, her flesh and blood, didn’t care. But Micah…

Slowly, she faced him, searching for words that failed to surface. He stepped closer and clasped her hand once more. Silently, he stood at her side, staring off at the rising moon, a strong presence that offered comfort Brigid didn’t deserve. Micah, who had defied Fintan to create this…for her.

In that moment she loved everything he was, even the hard-as-nails guard he’d been forced to become.

She touched his shoulder, drawing his troubled blue eyes to her.

Questions lurked in his quiet stare, as well as answers she didn’t need to hear.

Lifting to her toes, she touched her mouth to his.