Hidden Jewel (Heartfire Series) (36 page)

The instant explosion of gunfire was deafening. For mere seconds the deep black of the wood lit up as bright as day; just long enough for Micah to see clearly the razor sharp, yellowed fangs and claws of the cougar flying at him, a scream of triumph making his ears ring on and on even as he hit the hard packed earth, breath escaping in a great
whoosh
as the full weight of the cat landed squarely upon his chest. The dark mass of pungent evergreen boughs high above doubled then tripled before his eyes, fading in and out of his sight. He thought he could hear indistinct voices nearby, if only his ears would stop the constant ringing that seemed to echo throughout his skull. His vision dimmed as the heavy metallic tang of freshly shed blood made his nostrils flare. Impossible to draw a full breath, his whole body felt numb, icy cold, as his eyes lost the ability to see anything except thick, heavy blackness; the cloak of death. He thought of Jacob, saw in his mind's eye his twin's happy grin, his laughing eyes as they had last looked an hour before at the cabin. He wondered vaguely if the wolf had got him. Images flashed through the darkness in a rapid, alternating pattern; family, friends, the ramshackle house he had grown up in, so well camouflaged that it was indistinct against the desert backdrop. Jacob, McKell; Jacob; Annie, James, Jacob again. McKell- the first woman he ever loved. His heart felt as if it were on the verge of exploding; if only he could draw a breath. Kiah's furious glare rose up and he fought it away, a deep hatred of the man making him feel sickened. Ailill.

At last.

The love of his life. Of any life he had ever been graced with. The scent of her overcame the smell of blood in his nose; his mouth filled with saliva, the taste of her strong and sweet on his tongue. His blank eyes blinked in the darkness and suddenly she was there, standing over him, a rifle poised high above her head, the barrel gripped tightly in two child-sized hands; the walnut stock gleamed in the pale moonlight cutting through the branches overhead. The tendons in her arms bulged, popped as the butt came crashing toward him in the dim, landing painlessly on his numb chest.

He smiled. The look of furious elation on her face was the last thing he saw before the world went dark.

The scent of her was a bright thing, a living entity that Micah knew he would take to the grave. He had hoped for more time; a long life by her side, even if it meant sharing her with a thousand raven-haired Scots; but he had no regrets, no feeling of terrible loss as he had always imagined he would when death came knocking. He had done his best to love her with all that he had, never pushing her for the one thing he'd so badly wanted. She would realize that, after a while. It was a comforting thought. It pushed back the images he had begun to see in the still blackness of the path.

The sound of her voice was soothing; an unexpected gift for his journey between worlds, his walk along the path to the Land of Eternal Youth, where all brave Celtic warriors went after this life came to an end. And he was brave; he'd endured all that Kiah had ever thrown at him, every beating, every cruel demand of the twisted man. Hearing the low, husky timbre was a pleasant surprise, even if he did not understand the words. The smell of smoke and the crackling sound, however, the intense heat of fire, was not pleasant at all. Burning in Hell for all eternity was not Micah's idea of a proper afterlife for a twenty year old who had committed only the small sins of life that everyone was guilty of in this day and age. Whomever would be passing judgment upon him, Micah felt compelled to argue his case.

"I have committed no sins worthy of this," he stated softly. "I have never killed except in self-defense, and only then because there was no other choice."

Of course not. It is not in you to be a murderer
, came the reply in an odd rolling lilt.

"I have never committed rape, although I did think about it once. But only once, and I still never did it."

No one said you did. Thinking and acting are not the same thing
, a voice said softly in his head.

"I loved my mother, even if she wasn't really my own." His heart ached at the thought.

And she loved you as much
, came the pointed response.

"I don't hate my father, if that's really who Kiah is," he said to himself.

Neither do I. Yer father is a great man. Ye'll like him. As for Kiah... Hmmph. Nay, I just dinna like him very much; in all honesty, not at all
.

Micah laughed softly at that and then was silent. "I found love," he said after a while. "It was worth the wait. That should count for something."

That is very good to hear
, the voice in his head answered back.
Is she to your liking then?
it asked, a note of amusement underneath the casual tone.

"She's perfect. She talks to ghosts, though." He wondered why judgment had not been passed yet.

And does that frighten you, Micah?
The voice held an odd note and he thought on it for a while, knowing the answer he gave was important.

"I hope it means she will talk to me still, afterwards. I am not frightened; but I still don't understand."

What don't you understand then? Perhaps I can explain it.
The voice was a soft caress in his head, a light fluttering against the throbbing ache behind his sightless eyes. He moaned softly.

"Why do I feel pain if I am a ghost?" he said after a while. "Why do I have to burn forever if I haven't done anything really
bad
?" A sudden movement made him cry out at the sharp pain in his head, but he no longer felt as if he were roasting on a spit. "Thank you," he whispered in relief.

"You're welcome. Open your eyes."

"They are open... but I am blinded, I think. A blind ghost," he muttered woefully. "What kind of judgment is that?"

"You are not a ghost, Micah, but you
are
wounded. Now, open your eyes. Please." Ailill's voice sounded breathless.

"Am I dead?" he asked solemnly. "Is Jacob dead?"

"I ain't dead yet, Brother. Just a few scratches, and
your
headache. Now do as Ailill says and open your eyes; she's sad for you. You're scarin' her, I think...she's cryin' a little bit."

"Don't cry, Abby," Micah pleaded, trying to force his eyes into focus. All he could see was a dim glow over to his left. Dark spots floated across what little sight he had left, and then all went dark again. He panicked. "I can't see! Jacob, I can't see!" he cried, struggling to sit up despite the terrible pain that shot up his spine, making him moan and clutch his head as white hot needles stabbed into the back of his eyeballs.

Large hands pushed him back down, a gentle force on his chest. "Be still now, Micah. Ailill's trying to help you." Jacob's breath was hot in his ear and he turned toward the sound, eyes straining to focus on the dark, amorphous shape before them. Something soft touched his lower lip; his mouth opened by reflex and Jacob shoved a square of thick leather between his teeth.

"Bite down," Ailill's calm voice commanded in his other ear. "This will hurt very much. If you need to scream, go ahead, but don't spit that out." Soft, warm fingers probed the orbits of his eyes, exerting gentle pressure. Ailill's fingertips ran through his hair, caressing his scalp, searching for the source of his sudden loss of sight. "Roll him toward you, Jacob."

Micah felt her breath stir the hairs that had fallen across his forehead, then Jacob's strong hands clamped down on his left shoulder and thigh, rolling him further away from the heat of the fire.

"Hold him tight now, his pain will drive him away from you."

The long hairs on the back of his head fell forward, a dark wave across his cheek that felt cold and damp, smelled of blood. Her smooth fingers prodded the back of his head, sending a shock wave of blinding pain through his skull, down his spine. His scream, muffled by the patch of worn leather, sounded odd to his own ears; half strangled. It built up in him, a nonstop roar from deep within his chest, drowning out the urgent tone of the voices nearby as a cool liquid washed over his head, searing the wound there with intense burning heat that sent daggers shooting behind his eyes. His strong, sharp canines sliced clean through the rawhide when he clenched his teeth, the piece instantly replaced with another by Jacob. When he bit through the second one with a fierce growl, Micah spat it out, refusing the third replacement with a stream of colorful curses directed at both who were trying to help him. 

He screamed and cursed and, finally, wept as Ailill carefully debrided his wounds with pure, undiluted alcohol, and carefully stitched the jagged gash beneath his hair, his voice gone hoarse with it, his breath harsh and ragged in his raw throat by the time she was through. The soothing words she spoke throughout went unheard as Micah stilled with sudden exhaustion, his limbs gone frigid, stiff with the loss of his blood. The sharp tang of whiskey hit his sinuses like a fist, making tears stream from his tightly closed eyes; the taste of it washed over his tongue, burned down his red-raw throat, making him choke and gag. He rolled away from his twin, crawled through deep brush on hands and knees, and retched in a patch of damp leaves on the edge of the clearing, ridding his stomach of its contents until nothing more would come up; head throbbing with tremendous pain, with exertion, Micah swayed from side to side for one breathless moment before he collapsed in a heap, unconscious before his body hit the ground.

"Uh... It looks like he's waking."

Ailill looked up from the pot of steaming liquid suspended from a sturdy branch spit directly over the fireplace, a long-handled wooden spoon clutched almost menacingly in her tiny fist. Her face glistened with moisture; drops of perspiration rolled down in front of her ears, reflecting the firelight like sparkling gems before falling to the sweat dampened cloth of her shirt. Her wide eyes were troubled when they met Jacob's briefly before sliding down to Micah's pallid face. His eyelids were fluttering. Scooping some of the liquid into a cup, setting it aside to cool, she stood and stepped silently over to where Micah lay on the bison-fur bed, kneeling down to peer into his face.

Jacob sat on Micah's opposite side, long legs folded so that his knees made a small platform beneath his deeply clefted chin, one large hand clutching his twin's still, cold fingers like a frightened child; unwilling to let go, needing the reassurance that his brother still lived, though Micah looked more alive now than he had when Jacob first laid him out on Ailill's camp bed. As he watched, Ailill leaned down, her face suspended an inch above Micah's, eyes closed, exchanging breaths. He wondered what she was doing, if she were preparing to heal his brother as she'd healed him, but Jacob would not ask; would not interrupt; would not bother her again. He was afraid; more frightened than he had ever been, sure that Micah would die, leaving  him to die alone soon after, only half of the man he had become. The thought filled him with despair, stabbed at his heart until it throbbed with a constant dull ache.

I can't live without my brother! I'll die alone!

He had screamed those words at her; had ranted and raged after going through a quarter hour of Micah's constant screaming. He had slapped her. Twice. One hand shaped bruise shown clearly on each side of her heart shaped face, purple in the firelight, and she had said nothing; had quietly taken what he gave her after that, the brunt of everything gone awry. She had shuddered beneath him even as he eased himself, Jacob's fury a demand she'd never known under Micah's gentle hands; absolutely savage, a beast of fear and darkness. He had cried, afterwards; apologized over and over, his tears and his words washing over her beautiful face. She comforted him, soothed him; cleaned and treated the deep wounds on his hands where the cat's fangs had ripped into his flesh as he pried them from Micah's forearm. She had not said a word to him since; had watched him in silence while she washed
his
blood, his seed, from her naked body with water warmed over the fire, as she had been attempting to do when he cornered her. Despite all of it, she was still claimed by only his twin, though she knew not how. Her throat was still icy where he'd bit her; perhaps that was what he'd really needed, his own fist enough easement with the barest touch of her own heat to calm him.

The scent of her, her own natural pheromone-filled perfume, was with him still; on his skin, in his clothes and hair. He watched her closely, listened carefully as she whispered in Micah's ear, soft, soothing words spoken in an odd mixture of Gaelic and English. She had not reverted to her normal Scot's burr once and Jacob was consumed with worry, sure that the lack of it was a very bad sign.