When Dubheasa’s ear com had stopped transmitting, Ronan’s inner voice refused to give him peace until he returned to find her. But he wasn’t prepared for the scene he’d stumbled across, and now he knelt, frozen in shock at the sight of her still form. With no magic to heal her, none to keep her on this plane with him, he was desolate.
“Save her,” he cried hoarsely. “Please, Da. You’re the only one with the power.”
“Sure, and tell me, boyo, why would I be after revivin’ her when I already have what I want?”
Ronan had momentarily forgotten the lessons of his childhood. Begging would gain him naught. Because he wanted Dubheasa more than his own life, Loman would deny him. Needing a new tactic, Ronan attempted to rack his traumatized brain.
“She was to be a Guardian,” Reggie stated clearly and coolly as if he were simply imparting facts, with no care one way or another. “If you bring her back, you can take her power along with Ronan’s.”
Gratitude filled Ronan, but he kept his visage blank as his gaze lowered to Dubheasa’s lifeless eyes. Raw panic tried to wrap its ugly, insidious fists around his mind. It crept forward, ready to turn him into a reactive Neanderthal. But he needed to keep a level head. Though she wasn’t lost to him completely, the longer Dubheasa was in the Otherworld, the higher the chance parts of her soul would fracture off, leaving her dispassionate and distant when she returned to this plane. And Ronan needed her whole. Needed her fiery nature to keep his own soul warm and alive. Currently, the only person capable of bringing her back with any expediency was his heartless father.
“You have enough magic from all these poor bastards to revive her. If you save her, I’ll give you more of what you want,” Ronan found himself saying. Steeling himself, he glanced up and locked gazes with Loman. “I’ll give you the power of a Guardian.”
Greed lit his father’s eyes even as a disgusted sneer curled his lips. “And hers. I want hers if it’s true she was to be a Guardian.”
“It’s true.”
A moan sounded a small distance beyond Dubheasa’s body, but Ronan didn’t look to see who had made the sound. Likely another unfortunate soul his kindhearted Dove had tried to save.
As Loman’s head turned toward the person in the shadows, his smile became gloating. “See O’Malley? Ya came after me, thinking you could best me, didn’t ya? I told ya before that I always win, I did.”
Whipping his head in the direction of the prisoner he’d intentionally ignored, Ronan registered an elderly male with pain-filled green eyes locked on Dubheasa. The man’s arms had suffered major burns, and angry blisters rose on the darkened skin, but still, he stretched them in an attempt to touch her.
“O’Malley?” The name fell involuntarily from Ronan’s lips.
As their gazes collided, he saw what he’d missed. Dubheasa’s father. It could be no other. The guy bore a remarkable resemblance to Cian, but bearing auburn hair laced with silver highlights.
Ronan’s chest ached.
There lay the true reason Dubheasa hadn’t tried to escape when Loman came upon her. The father she thought had left her and her siblings behind was, in truth, a prisoner of Ronan’s own father. And Dubheasa, with her forgiving nature, was too loyal by far. Doubtless, she’d have tried to save him or remain to offer comfort in his existing state of injury.
Dismissing the wounded man, Loman lifted his hand toward Reggie. “The controller, boyo. I’ll have it back now, I will. Sure, and the others are eager to go back into their cages.”
The shuffling of feet throughout the cellblock finally penetrated Ronan’s consciousness, and down the aisle, the captives who were capable of walking inched their way toward the main exit, trying desperately to go unnoticed.
“Let them go, Da.” Ronan stood and blocked Loman’s view of the hallway. “You’ve got me.”
His father turned feral in a mere blink. “But you’re powerless, ya useless fuck! Ya think I don’t know that you bound your magic to come here? There’s no light radiatin’ off ya, like a true Guardian would have. Just as your hor had none,” he spat.
Right when Ronan would’ve charged and pummeled his father to death, Reggie stepped between them and placed a hand on Ronan’s chest, attempting to restrain him.
“It will take but one phone call to restore what’s been bound, Uncle,” Reggie said smoothly, presumably stalling for time for the remaining prisoners to escape. “Ronan can call the Aether and have his abilities returned in an instant.”
“Aye, and I’m not sure if you’re friend or foe, Reg, but ya can quit being helpful now,” Ronan said tightly. He’d been secretly hoping Loman, with his mad desire to amass more power, would’ve failed to catch that the Guardian aura was gone. But he should’ve remembered Loman never missed a trick.
“The controller, boyo,” Loman repeated, his tone bordering on lethal. “Toss it to me now.”
After sharing a grim look with Reggie, Ronan nodded. “Aye. Give it to him.”
“I’m not going back in that cage,” his cousin said, inching away from Ronan and adding more distance between Loman and himself.
When they were children, their parents’ favorite pastime was torturing them for imagined slights. The objective: teach the next generation to be as ruthless and unfeeling as they were. Whenever the adults felt a lesson needed to be taught, one unfortunate O’Connor child was beaten and locked in the damp, window-less tower for days on end. Similar to the dank prison where they now stood, the rooms had been spelled against escape.
Their cousin Moira had gone half mad and returned from her punishment crueler than when she’d started it, much to the delight of Loman and his siblings. So it was understandable that Reggie would balk. And for as much as he’d tried to play it off, to remain careless and seemingly unfeeling, he’d become highly claustrophobic, the same as Ronan. Neither could stand to be confined.
“For Dubheasa,” Ronan said in a low voice for Reggie alone. “Please, cousin.”
Reggie forgot himself, and his British accent slipped. “Jaysus! You’re askin’ a lot of me.”
“The longer we delay…” Swallowing hard, Ronan shook his head.
With a savage curse, Reggie chucked the bracelet at Loman’s feet.
“Yeah, and it’s time ya return to your cage, Reginald,” Loman crowed. “Where you belong!”
The taunt was one too many, and the rabid animal buried deep within Reggie tore loose of its restraints. With a chilling, outraged cry, he launched himself at Loman and played right into the man’s hands.
Already expecting the reaction, Loman snapped his fingers, and the forgotten crossbow was propped against his shoulder, locked and loaded. With a sweep of one arm, he used his magic to throw Reggie into his former cell.
“Clostra!”
The bars slammed into place with a reverberating clank.
Reggie paled as Loman aimed the crossbow.
“No!” Ronan shouted and charged forward, directing the weapon upward with the heel of his hand. “If you want me to cooperate, you’ll kill no one else.”
The back of Loman’s elbow crashed into Ronan’s nose, and the crunch of bone on bone, followed by a riot of pain exploding in his face, was another reminder of his father’s teachings. The most ruthless family member made the rules and expected those rules to be obeyed.
“Ya dare tell me no, boy? You? The eejit snivelin’ over a worthless dead girl?”
A side kick to his gut sent Ronan flying backward, and his head slammed into the cement wall between the cells, causing an explosion of stars behind his lids. Using every ounce of restraint, he didn’t so much as grunt. Any sign of weakness brought with it a harsher beating. For Reggie and Dubheasa, he’d take the punishment without complaint.
Wiping the dripping blood from his nose with the back of his wrist, he met his father’s contemptuous gaze. “I’m after begging your pardon, Da. It was an instinctive reaction.” Cautiously straightening, he gestured toward Reggie with his head and immediately regretted it when the room spun around him. He tried to appear casual as he leaned against the wall for support. “If you kill him, you can’t convert him back to your side. Reggie’s always been useful in the past, hasn’t he?”
With a considering expression, Loman studied Ronan for a long moment. A crafty smile curled his lips, and before anyone could react, he pointed the crossbow and pulled the trigger.
Dubheasa’s father grunted once, then breathed no more.
“If ya see her again, be sure to tell your hor that your insolence was what caused her da to die, yeah?” Loman told Ronan. “See how she feels about ya when she learns you’re to blame.”
Never had Ronan’s desire to tear Loman’s smug head from his body been as strong and necessary as it was at that exact moment. His muscles fired and shook in an effort to break his tight control.
“Yeah, and it’s time for you to enter your own cage, Ronan, me boy.” Loman eased down to pick up the controller, careful to keep his son within his sight. “Now.”
Feeling decidedly insolent, Ronan swept his arms wide. “Sure, and I don’t see any with my name on them.”
“I’d have thought it obvious. It’s the one with your dead lover and her da.”
His stomach rolled and vomit threatened. If Loman closed him in with two dead bodies, one being Dubheasa, Ronan would lose what was left of his rapidly declining sanity.
His father, however, didn’t give him a choice. “Get in the cell, boyo, or I kill your precious cousin here and now.”
* * *
Fintan released the crystal globe resting on the altar and faced Damian. “Ronan’s magic cannot be restored yet. But know this, if you deny him his request, he’ll hate ya for it, and an O’Connor’s hate is a powerful thing.”
Damian watched the real-time vision of Ronan stepping into the cell, and wondered if their decision to send him in without his power had been a wise one. “He’ll go insane, locked up with her without a way to escape.” Just as Damian himself would’ve, had it been Vivian in Dubheasa’s place. “We can’t leave him there.”
“Now’s not the time to rescue him, all the same. We have to prepare.”
“Dammit, Fintan! He’s my friend!”
The Seer winced from the lashing pain Damian’s anger caused but remained silent.
“Forgive me,” he said after regaining control of his temper. Hurting others was the last thing he intended. “What do you suggest we do?”
“Castor’s the only person to have escaped that island, and he’s the only one wily enough to fight his twin and win.”
“He’s already there, with no idea of what is happening.”
“Aye, but I’m going back to tell him.”
“I’m going with you.”
Fintan shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do, Damian. The Authority wants the girl dead for reasons they’ll not reveal, and your presence will fuel Ronan’s anger, making him a mindless animal.”
“Then I’ll go have a discussion with those in charge,” he replied grimly. Already suspecting what the Authority was after, he gave Fintan a tight smile. “Get Castor, Simon, and Trevor to that building. Now.”
The instant the Seer teleported, Damian went in search of Sabrina and Vivian.
He found them in the kitchen, preparing lunch.
“I have to go. If I don’t return by nightfall, find the panic room and seal yourselves in until either Isis or I return for you.”
“Damian!” Vivian’s alarm was expected, and he brushed his knuckles along her silky cheek.
“Please, Viv. We’ve discussed this, and I’ve got to help in any way I can. If it means bargaining with the devil we know…” He shrugged, trying to make light of a heavy decision.
“But the Authority? They’ll demand too much.”
“They will.” Meeting the wary eyes of his daughter, he winked. “But I’ve a few tricks up these old sleeves of mine.”
“We’ll be safe, Papa,” she assured him. “I’ll protect Mama and Nate.”
His heart caught in his throat at her wording. “Will you need to?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”