Reluctant Adept: Book Three of A Clairvoyant's Complicated Life (21 page)

"
Was
his," I stress. "Yes, but more importantly, Lire is certain. She broke it with very little help from me. Just feeling my presence in her mind was enough to call attention to it. She's familiar enough with Kieran's resonance to know."

"Fuck a duck," she mutters. "What the hell was he thinking?"

"Pretty sure thinking didn't have much to do with it," John replies.

Kim scowls at him and then turns to me. "Did Lorcán get all the draíoclochs or did you manage to squirrel any away?" She sounds angry and hopeful at the same time.

"You have my word, on my mother's life, I don't have them, not one, not more than one, not in my possession nor hidden. I never made it downstairs, and John didn't make it down until after Lorcán and his cursed
dhêalas
fled the building through the back door."

She eyes John. "Do you have them, one … or any?"

He spreads his hands wide. "No. When I got downstairs, Michael was unconscious and bleeding, and the safe had been left open. There were no draíoclochs. Don't think I didn't look."

Her shoulders slump and she runs her fingers through her short blonde hair. "Okay. Fine. Brassal will inform the king." She eyes John. "Trent told me that someone applied a tourniquet to Michael's arm. Was it you?"

John issues a brisk nod, and she manages to give him a grim smile in return. "Thank you. He'd be dead if you hadn't done that. Hopefully Duran can reattach all of his fingers."

Something inside me rears up violently, making me sick and dizzy, and I sway on my feet, too stunned to speak.

Michael!
Lire's thought rips through my mind as pain, searing and debilitating, tears through me—

I woke screaming and disoriented, the pain so encompassing I could only screw my eyes shut and pray for a return to that other place, that other life, where I'd been hale and healthy, even if I hadn't been precisely happy. I had no room for any other thought. Agony ruled supreme. It roared through my body and poured from my mouth in a series of ragged shrieks. I barely registered the feel of hands pressing over me, moving my arms, supporting my head, shifting and jolting my body.

"Lire."

It took me longer than usual to relate the voice to the person. Tíereachán. It was Tíereachán. His breath buffeted my cheek and I realized I must be sitting in his lap, reclining against his chest.

The pain was ever present. It went on relentlessly, growing worse when I moved but never easing—a continuous agony that pierced every fiber in my body. Would it ever stop? I didn't know how much more I could take.

Oh, God! What if I damaged myself irreparably? What if th
—

Tíereachán made soothing sounds at my ear.
Lire, stay with me. Wade is on his way. It won't be much longer. John can help your body sleep, but the ass refuses to do it unless you give him permission.

There was no way! I could hardly muster the wherewithal to think. Speaking was beyond me.

Forget him
.
We can do this without his help,
Tíereachán assured me.
Come to me. Join me in my dream. I'll sleep with you until Wade arrives. I won't let you go. I promise.

I despaired and probably would have burst into tears if I'd had the energy. I wanted to escape. I wanted out of this pain, but without knowing how to go about it, I was trapped inside my ravaged body.

He shushed me again and through the torment, I dimly felt his fingers stroking my head.
Focus on my thoughts. I'm here with you, always, but you have to look past the physical, past the pain. I know it's difficult, but you can do it. Find me, Lire. I'm here. Right here.

He continued to plead with me, encourage me, harangue me, until finally, beneath the torture that consumed my body, I caught the barest whisper of his resonance, so feather light in my mind I almost missed it.

That's it. Come to me. Come dream with me.

He didn't need to ask again. I slipped free of my body and found him waiting for me, someplace soothing and warm.

As awareness returned, I registered a brightening behind my eyelids, followed, not long after, by the feel of something firm yet yielding beneath me. I was blessedly pain free and warm, particularly along the front half of my body. I snuggled my cheek into that comforting heat, and my pillow … shifted.

Blinking and bleary-eyed, I lifted my head, only to be stunned speechless at the blurred sight of Tíereachán, lying shirtless (and, by the feel of it, pantsless), half beneath me in my bed. When I realized my arm was splayed across his chest, my outstretched fingers covering his left nipple, I snatched it away and scrabbled back from his body as though I'd been caught groping him in his sleep. Unfortunately, the move pulled much of the covers with me and I was rewarded with the stunning view of his torso all the way down to his half-bared hip.

Good grief.
If he wasn't nude, then his boxers or briefs were riding pretty damned low.

I clamped my eyes closed before my gaze could take in the baby-fine, golden hair that sparsely decorated his chest or the enticing line of it below his taut belly button. I'd seen it all, more than once. Although, not in such proximity or intimate surroundings.

To my relief, I seemed to be clothed in what felt like a t-shirt and panties, but I peeked through my slitted eyelids to be sure. Yep, my well-worn Seattle Seahawks jersey, the one I'd left under my pillow yesterday morning despite not knowing when I'd be back. I could feel that my bra was missing and wondered who had undressed me.

"Feeling better?" the prime candidate asked, his voice deep and coarse with recent sleep. I heard the rustle of sheets and felt the shifting of the mattress as he probably moved to sit up.

When I opened my eyes, the magical sight hadn't dissipated. In the dim morning light of my bedroom, he looked sleep-rumpled, warm, and completely off limits to a woman who'd been tricked and used by one too many sidhe males. The comforter had eased up his body a fraction, enough to cover his hips, which left his tight abs and everything above it open to my view.

Whoa. Easy does it, hormones.

The latest guy wasn't even out of my system yet.

And what in the hell was this anyway? Grand effing Central? Now, another one was sleeping with me?

Not okay.

On the positive side, the fact that I wasn't freaked out, running for the door, confirmed one important thing.

Kieran's compulsion was gone.

Of course, that didn't mean I wasn't perturbed … and, okay, maybe a teensy bit unsettled. But considering the startling situation, I didn't think those feelings were out of line.

"Why are you in my bed?" I asked, doing my best to avoid screeching at him. Fortunately, my sleep-graveled voice helped. I merely sounded exasperated.

"It seemed the logical place to watch over you." His lips curved into a smirk. "Besides, last night, you refused to let go of me."

Lord.
Based on the smugness of that smile, I must have done something cringeworthy. I struggled to remember anything after our fight with the strigoi, but the memories surfaced about as easily as a boot stuck fast under three feet of mud. All I got for my trouble was a headache and an elusive flashback of palm trees waving in a placid breeze, which made absolutely no sense.

Ignorant of my desire to shove my head under the closest pillow, he continued, unperturbed, "In any case, Wade's on your couch and I didn't think you'd thank me for allowing Kieran to share your bed." He gazed at me pointedly. "Or am I mistaken?"

Frowning, I grudgingly replied, "No. You're not." I glared at him. "But if you're naked, you are
so
asking for a fat lip."

He grinned, stretching and massaging his chest with his left hand in a deliberate and distractingly masculine fashion. "Purely your fault. I was unsuccessful in my bid to find men's pajamas in your wardrobe. And I'm afraid Kieran beat you to my lip."

He touched his fingertips to the right side of his mouth, which, upon closer scrutiny, appeared red and slightly swollen. He also sported a scrape along his right cheekbone that I'd chalked up to his fight with the strigoi but now speculated about.

"He missed my right eye, though, if you want to go for that instead," he offered.

I tried to reconcile elegant, well-mannered Kieran hitting his cousin and failed. "Kieran hit you?" I gaped at him. "You guys got into a … a
fistfight
?"

Sure, Kieran was a renowned warrior. I knew that. I'd seen him wielding both his magic and his sword against our enemies, looking shockingly vicious, but I'd never seen him lose control. Even in the most dire of circumstances, faced with a room full of demons, he'd been violent yet composed and self-assured. For the most part, anyway.

Tíereachán snorted at my incredulous reaction. "Indeed," he replied. "My cousin didn't enjoy hearing that he was no longer welcome to sleep in your home. It was quite a scene. You seem to bring out the worst of his base emotions." He looked thoughtful. "Of course, clinging to me and calling my name in your delirium when I handed you off to Wade didn't help matters."

I gaped at that visual and then scowled at him. "Don't look so pleased with yourself," I snapped. "It's unbecoming. Besides …
this
"—I wagged a finger back and forth between our bodies— "is
not
happening again." I pinned him with an unflinching glare. "My bed is by invitation only. Understand?"

He arched a single lofty brow. "Of course, my love. That's precisely why I'm here."

I gritted my teeth and it took all of my willpower to avoid exploding all over him. "You know darn well, last night, I wasn't in my right mind."

"No. You weren't. You were inside mine. So deep, in fact, for some time, I hadn't realized you were there." He frowned at me, and if I hadn't known better, I might have thought he looked uneasy.

The expression stopped me short, and a fleeting image of Kim, scowling as she kicked the burly strigoi I'd frozen, flitted into my mind.

My eyes widened.
That
was not one of my memories.

I strained, desperate to remember more, but came up empty. "Kim was there … wasn't she?"

"Yes." He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing me. "You don't remember?"

"No, I— " I frowned and then gasped. "Michael!" I practically jumped at him in my haste to clutch at his shoulder, stopping myself at the last second when I remembered where we were and that he was probably naked underneath my disheveled covers. "What happened? Is he okay?"

His look of sympathy drove my stomach into free fall.

"He's alive," he replied softly, but his statement hung in the air, frighteningly incomplete.

"But?"

"It will be some time before he regains full use of his hand." He paused and then added an ominous, "If ever."

Horror hit me, an icy punch to the gut, as Kim's haunted expression and chilling words reared up, unbidden in my mind, like a snippet from a forgotten nightmare.

Hopefully Duran can reattach all of his fingers.

"Lorcán— " I choked out. "He cut off Michael's fingers … he tortured him to get the safe combination. Didn't he?" I shook my head, seeing the answer in his expression but not wanting it to be true. "Somehow Lorcán found out about the draíoclochs … knew Michael had them. That's why the vamps attacked the telepaths … for the same reason I wanted to steal them—it's a way to get to the Otherworld, to get Maeve." I fisted my hands. "And if not for my decision to stop and deal with Kieran's fucking transfixing— "

"Then John, Michael, and I would be dead," Tíereachán said flatly. "Make no mistake. And you would now be Lorcán's chattel."

A single choked sob ripped from my throat, but I swallowed the rest and took a shuddering breath.

Why was this happening? Why?

I slammed my hands into the sheets, fighting the despair that threatened to bury me, trading it for something more productive and satisfying. Unfortunately, it often brought my pyrokinesis along for the ride.