Haunting Embrace (43 page)

Ask for what you want.. . .

Meaghan had to believe that nothing they’d changed would impact the future that was meant to be. Her brother traveling into the past hadn’t altered the circumstances of his birth. He was meant to be part of their family just as he was meant to be Ruairi of Fennore. He’d been able to be
both
.

Ask for what you want.. . .

Meaghan closed her eyes, and she put her trust in the woman who’d sacrificed herself to right a wrong as ancient as the Book of Fennore. Meaghan asked for what she wanted.

She wanted what was meant to be, to be.

Chapter Thirty-four

M
EAGHAN opened her eyes in a room she did not recognize. She blinked, looking around with confusion. It was a large room with pale, sunny walls and bright white curtains. A fresh breeze redolent of sea and salt wafted through their gauzy lace, and a rising sun shot speckled patterns on the walls.

She was alone.

Memory hit her at once, a solid wall that flattened her as she slammed into it. The cavern . . . the Book . . . Áedán.

Where was Áedán?

She sat up suddenly, light-headed and anguished. She had failed. She hadn’t asked for the right thing—or she hadn’t asked in the right way. If she had, Áedán would be here.
He was meant to be with her
.

Her heart felt heavy as she moved from beneath the covers. She wore a shimmery camisole of emerald green with matching lace-trimmed pants. A satin robe lay on the end of the bed. She grabbed it and shrugged it on before stepping out into the hall.

It took a moment for her to recognize where she was.

The castle . . .

Her sister’s husband had rebuilt it from the ground up with all the modern amenities available. Meaghan lived there with her mother, father, Danni, Sean, and their children. She’d slept here just a few nights ago, before she’d gone in search of her brother and been lost in the world of Fennore, before traveling through time. It was all the same . . . and yet it was all
different.

The runner in the hall was no longer red—now it was a deep, velvet blue. The chandelier hanging in the stairwell hadn’t been there the last time she’d walked this way and new tapestries hung on the walls.

She hurried through the hall, tilting her head back to view the mosaic on the ceiling as she went down the stairs. The last time she’d looked, it had been a pattern of tiles that mimicked the spirals on the cover and pages of the Book of Fennore.

Now . . . She froze, standing against the balustrade and staring in shock.

The mosaic stretching across the domed ceiling showed an epic scene of Ruairi of Fennore with the most beautiful woman Meaghan had ever seen. One hand rested on the curve of her waist. His eyes laughed as he clasped his forearm to the forearm of another man—someone Meaghan recognized from the world of Fennore. Tiarnan. And beside him stood the woman who’d been with him and the others she’d seen when they’d been trapped. Liam—his younger brother. And the little girl with her distant eyes . . .

Unsteady, Meaghan moved down the last few steps and entered the familiar great room. Once again she had that sense of things being the same and yet totally different. The furniture, the knickknacks, the lamps . . . She stood staring, taking it all in while goose bumps rose on her flesh.

She heard footsteps and turned to see her sister, Danni, enter the room.

They stared at one another in silence, and Meaghan had the feeling that Danni knew what she was thinking, but Meaghan couldn’t decipher the emotions she felt in the air between them. Danni smiled at her, though, and nodded to something behind Meaghan.

“Someone’s been waiting for you to wake up,” she said.

Spinning around, Meaghan found Áedán standing behind her. Tall and sculpted, strong and gentle. His eyes darkened with every color of the forest. His lips quirked in a small smile.

“How are you feeling, beauty?” he asked as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

Meaghan found she couldn’t speak. Mutely she stared at the man she’d come to love, the man she’d feared she’d lost forever.

“You hit your head pretty hard,” Danni said. “We found you passed out in the cavern.”

Surprised, Meaghan turned her gaze back to her sister.

“Well, Áedán found you.”

Feeling as if an earthquake had somehow shaken reality and then settled it in this new shape, she asked, “How do you know Áedán?”

Danni smiled. “Oh, I’ve seen him around.” Her eyes sparkled knowingly. Meaghan wondered just what her sister knew, but before she could ask, Danni went on, “You two have a lot to talk about, I think. I’m off to find Sean and see what he’s up to. Can’t turn my back on that man. Who knows what he’ll want to restore next.”

And with that, Danni left Meaghan alone with the man she loved. His gaze traveled over her, taking in her rumpled hair and the emerald silk of her attire with interest.

“How did we get here?” she asked.

“A miracle. A leap of faith. Magic. Take your pick.”

“And the Book . . . Did we do it? Did we seal it?”

Áedán nodded and shrugged at the same time. “We did, and yet . . . We wouldn’t be here if it had stayed sealed. I think Elan must have seen that, and she . . .
changed
the outcome. I don’t know what the Book of Fennore has become, but I sense it’s still out there, somewhere . . . and yet I no longer feel the threat of it.”

“Could she have destroyed the evil but not the Book?”

He lifted his arms and showed her the stretch of skin above his wrist. The symbols that had burned into his flesh were gone. “I don’t know what she did. I only know that I am free of it. That
we
are free of it. Elan released us.”

Elan.
Meaghan could still hear her voice telling her to ask for what she wanted. Meaghan’s answer had been to make what was meant to be,
be.
Meaghan could only hope that Elan had found a way to do that without unleashing the Book’s monster.

“I’m so confused. I don’t understand what we did, Áedán. I don’t understand
how
we did it.”

“Elan said she made herself my sacrifice,” Áedán said. “The Book required one, and I meant it to be me.”

“But she took your place,” Meaghan murmured, gratitude swelling inside her. “I felt her emotions as her light faded. So much sorrow. So much regret. She wanted to right all the wrongs.”

Silent, Áedán nodded.

“What about Cathán?” Meaghan went on. “And Kyle? I hope she found a way to save Kyle.”

“Do you remember what you asked for in the end?” Áedán said.

Slowly, Meaghan nodded. “Yes. But when I woke up alone, I was so afraid I’d asked for the wrong thing.”

“No, beauty, you asked for exactly the right thing. And Elan, in her final act, delivered it. When I opened my eyes and saw you beside me so still, I thought I’d lost you. I got you out of that cavern as fast as I could. That’s when your sister, Danni, found me. She said she’d been waiting.”

Not surprising. Her sister had inherited Colleen’s uncanny ability to look into the future.

“She brought me here and when I saw the mosaic of Ruairi . . .” He paused, seeming to choose his words with extreme care. “I asked your sister about Cathán. She told me he’d disappeared over twenty years ago from the cavern beneath the ruins.”

“Because he found the Book of Fennore?” Meaghan breathed.

“She wouldn’t say. She only smiled—somewhat enigmatically, if you ask me—and told me that there were rumors to that effect, but who really knew? She said he’d always been a troubled man, something to do with a scandal over his birth that never quite died down.”

Meaghan thought of Brion’s first wife and the twisted plan she’d had to steal Colleen’s baby. The people of Ballyfionúir would have been talking about it for years to come. Had it been their gossip that had warped Cathán into a desperate man?

She recalled those last moments when she’d realized that they had changed the past so much that she might never be born. A future that included Meaghan had no room for Cathán MacGrath. Had Elan seen that and corrected the disaster Meaghan had brought onto herself?

The Book of Fennore had been entwined in the lives of her family members for so long that Elan could not simply amputate it like an infected limb. Evidently she’d been forced to make allowances in order to grant Meaghan’s wish that she make whatever should be,
be
. . .

Meaghan gazed at the mosaic on the ceiling above her, seeing her brother’s sparkling blue eyes and the love that shone from them for the beautiful woman beside him. Without the Book of Fennore, he wouldn’t have traveled through time to find her.

Just then, Colleen Ballagh entered the room with a smile. Aged and wrinkled, she still managed to look regal and lovely. She wore blue polyester pants and an American brand of runners with bright symbols on the side. She looked around her at the home Danni’s husband had made of the castle that had once stood in ruins. The Book of Fennore had brought disaster, but it had also brought them together in ways Meaghan knew she’d never fully understand.

And it had brought
her
Áedán.

Meaghan stared in joyous surprise. Alive, not buried in the family cemetery as her grandmother had been when Meaghan went to the cavern that fateful day that she’d traveled into their past.

“Welcome back, granddaughter. It’s good to see you up and about.”

An instant later, Brion MacGrath came through the outer door, older than the last time she’d seen him—as gray and as handsome as Anthony Hopkins. He’d aged with grace and he looked at Colleen like she’d hung the moon. If Cathán had still grown into a man bitter enough to seek the Book of Fennore, Meaghan knew this couple had not had an easy or idyllic life, but the love that they’d felt for one another had endured, and she didn’t need to be empathic to feel it cementing them together even now.

“Niall and I are going to take the young ones out for some fishing,” he said happily. As he passed her by, he gave Meaghan a hug. “Good to see you up, sweetheart. It would be better if you’d put on a bit more clothes before you make young Áedán here swoon. Colleen, could I talk you into a few sandwiches for the road . . . ?”

Meaghan watched their departing backs without saying a word. When the house fell silent again, Meaghan turned back to Áedán.

“I can hardly believe any of this,” she said.

Áedán’s eyes were very serious as he pulled her into his embrace. “I almost lost you, Meaghan, and I realized then that I would rather die than live without you. You’ve given me more reason to live than anything or anyone I’ve ever known. You’ve given me back my humanity and my heart, and even when it aches, I am grateful to have it.”

Meaghan had tears in her eyes as she held him tight against her. “I love you, Áedán, and I can’t believe I am here with you. You are the future I always wanted but never thought I’d have.”

The look he gave her was hot and possessive, filled with emotions that swirled around her and filled her heart.

“I love you, Meaghan Ballagh. I want to tell you that every morning and every night for the rest of our lives.” He kissed her then, letting her feel the truth in his words. “I want to do that very human thing with you.”

She gave him a wide-eyed look. “You want to have sex?”

“Well, that, too. But it’s marriage I’m speaking of. I want the world to know you’re mine.” He paused, looking suddenly unsure, an expression she never thought she’d see on this arrogant man’s face. “If you’ll have me, that is.”

Meaghan laughed. “I’m thinking . . . yes.” And then she tightened her arms around him and held on. “Definitely, yes. I thought I’d lost you, too, Áedán, and I don’t ever want to feel so wretched again.”

“Ach,” he said. “It’ll take a wee bit more than that to shake the likes of me. I’m practically a god, you know.”

“Or a very good human.”

“Aye, I’d rather be that. You saved me. When I thought there was nothing good in me to be saved, you found me and you brought me home.”

“I plan to keep you.”

“Forever, I hope.”

“Or longer.”

“Ah, now doesn’t that sound like a slice of heaven. I love you, Meaghan. So much that forever doesn’t sound like half long enough. But I’m hoping it will give me plenty of time to get a look at those underthings you’ve got on beneath all that silk. You do have such interesting trimmings. . . .”

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Berkley Sensation titles by Erin Quinn

HAUNTING BEAUTY
HAUNTING WARRIOR
HAUNTING DESIRE
HAUNTING EMBRACE