“You didn’t quite manage that either.”
“No, but I wanted the globe. I wanted to see, to help, to do something. So I focused on it—where I’d put it, what it looked like, felt like. I started to call for it, but I felt something else, said something else. And for a minute—less—I was back at the waterfall, Odran’s side. The little girl, the chanting. All of it, and it was now, Keegan. I was there now, and standing here now. It was like a hot wire in my blood, a white-hot fury and a surge of power, like all the switches came on at once.”
She took the glass from his hand. She didn’t like whiskey, but wanted something. After one sip, she shoved it back at him. “Oh no, bad choice. So, then I was back here, standing right here. And I had the globe.”
He kept watching her, eyes intense, body still. “What then?”
“In the globe, I saw the girl—I thought Shana at first—but it was the little girl, her wings fluttering as she ran. Just terrified, and running. Now—well, I mean last night when I saw. I knew I was seeing it while it happened, and I wanted so much to be there again, to help her. I started to try to pull out the same … whatever the hell it was, then Sedric was there. His cat form first, then him, and he got her away. I knew—I felt—when he brought her back to Talamh. I saw the light flash in the shadows, and they were back here.”
“I don’t ask if you’re sure, as I see you are.”
“You sent him to find her.”
“I sent a falcon to him when we arrived at the Capital. He’s the only one I know who can create a portal almost at will, and a cat is a clever thing. He’d watch and wait. Word might have come while I was out. I haven’t checked. You’ve given me good news. More than you know,” he said.
He set the cup aside. “I’ll take you to your room. Until we find Shana, it’s best you don’t go anywhere alone.”
“She’s not in the Capital.”
“I think not as well, but—”
“I know she’s not. I … I wanted to see her—where she was—so I brought the globe. And I was focused on that, on her, when I asked it to show me what I needed to see. I think, the first few seconds, I think it was Shana. But what I needed to see was the girl—that was more immediate. So that’s what it showed me.”
“You may be right, but we’ll take no chances.”
He rose, so she did the same.
She looked heavy-eyed and pale with weariness, but not, he realized, fragile. Not a bit of that.
“You dressed in stars.”
“Sorry?”
“It’s what I thought when I saw you in the banquet hall. You’d dressed in stars. I’ve a yearning for you, and it annoys me I can’t shake it away. My life would be easier without this wanting. I’ve enough to concern me without you being in the middle of my thoughts.”
“It’s good to be honest,” she said coolly. “You’ve got a case of lust and it’s inconvenient.”
“Lust is rarely inconvenient, and if only that, I’d have had you in bed every night since you returned to Talamh.”
“That assumes I’d want to be there.”
“Aye, it does. It’s not lust alone, though there’s plenty of it to go around. I’m weary of telling myself it’s best if I don’t touch you. You distract, you crowd my thoughts. If that’s the way of it, why shouldn’t I have you, as that’s not changing, is it?”
Clearly, she thought—nearly amused—he was talking himself into sleeping with her.
“Is this your idea of a seduction?”
“It’s not, no. I can do much better than this in that area. It’s truth I’m giving you, because we both value it.”
He reached out to touch her hair, just the tips of his fingers. “And the bloody, buggering truth is I need sleep, but sleep won’t come if I don’t have you. So you could give yourself to the taoiseach for the good of the world.”
And there was just enough humor in his eyes now that she crossed the line fully into amused. “I could.” She waited a beat. “Or?”
“You could lie with me, Breen, because I’m a man who wants you, and I see the want mirrored in your eyes.”
Now she smiled at him, held out a hand. “Why not both?”
He took her hand, then, as he’d done the first time, in another world, swept her up.
“You dressed in stars,” he said again as he carried her to his bed. “And I was lost in them.”