The Immortal's Unrequited Bride

Hope warred with terror. Ethan wanted—needed—to know what was going on. With the banished and damned gods rallying as the Shadow Realm’s power shifted, the appearance of this otherworldly stalker had him unnerved. He waited on Rowan to speak.

Nada. Nothing. Niet.

The assassin just continued to stare down the hall, his eyebrows drawn together.

Ethan scooped up his dagger and, to hide his trembling hand, gestured with the blade as he spoke. “Tell me, or the next time you end up in the infirmary, I’ll set up an account and profile for you on www.hotmenofDublin.com and tie the account to your phone so it posts your location...no matter where you are.”

He fought to keep from flinching when the man’s arctic-blue gaze refocused and landed solidly on him. The vacancy in those eyes made it seem like Rowan was no more than a husk of a man. A shell. Soulless. His response did little to dispel the impression. “I’d refrain from referring to the being as an ‘it.’”

Ethan tried not to grin and failed. “You’re telling me I’ve picked up a...what? A ghost? As in, an incorporeal stalker?”

“Of a sort.”

Grin fading, Ethan couldn’t stop the sudden buzzing in his ears. “What ‘sort,’ exactly? And how do I get rid of it?”

“‘It’ is a woman,” Rowan answered softly. “And I’m not sure you want to be rid of her.”

“Why?” The buzzing grew louder as something heavy pressed against the corners of Ethan’s mind.

“Because it would seem she’s your wife.”

* * *

Isibéal Cannavan quite literally hovered around the corner and out of sight of the assassin with the terrifying eyes. The man had seen her. Could see her. But that wasn’t what had scattered her so and left her suffering with uncontrollable palsy. She’d touched the man now known as Ethan. The man she knew as Lachlan. And the terrifying man who could see her had either heard her or read her lips when she uttered that cherished yet damning word. “Husband.”

Nor was her admission what had sent her careening down the hall. All she had wanted was to touch Lachlan. Nothing more. So, after summoning every ounce of will she possessed, she had concentrated on Lachlan’s bare neck. And she’d done it, had felt him. But the very second the sensation registered, an excruciating pain had ripped through her and torn an involuntary, albeit soundless, scream from her throat. Nothing, not even the sword strike that had taken her life, had ever hurt so badly. She had been catapulted away from him as if she’d taken a far more violent blow to the midsection. Even now her hands hovered over the sight of the original deathblow. She looked down, half expecting to find blood staining her gown.

There was nothing there.

Isibéal rubbed one thumb and forefinger together, still convinced it should be blood-slicked. Her other hand she held clamped against her side. Despite the fact that she didn’t need to breathe, her chest heaved. Pain still ricocheted through her, pinging about like a maddened hornet trapped in a jar. It was of no consequence, seeing as she refused to regret her actions. She wished with fierce intensity that she’d been able to retain the sensation of Lachlan’s warmth. A fitting reward that would have been worth the lingering pain. Such was not to be. Touching her husband had taken every ounce of available concentration and more than that in bravery to master her form and create the brief connection. To retain it would have taken the very thing she did not possess.

A mortal body.

That she would never again realize the intimate feel of Lachlan’s form sliding beneath her hands, stroke the stubble along his jaw, experience his lips against hers or his arms cradling her... The realization, both compounded and comprehensive, had been enough to do what the pain had not done, driving her from the keep.

She raced to the cliffs, teetering to a stop inches from the edge.

Wind whipped through her.

Her simple gown did not so much as move.

If her sacrifice had not saved her husband’s life, it had, at the very least, saved his soul. She must remember that. Never would she regret her choice. How often had she sworn from her cursed grave that she would suffer a hundred eternal damnations to simply be able to see and hear Lachlan...now Ethan...after all these centuries? Someone had heard her fervent prayers and granted her this boon. If that single touch meant she was forever removed from Lachlan, so be it. It was a price she would pay a thousand times over to know he lived once more.

She pressed her fingertips to her lips before whispering his name in reverent invocation. “Lachlan.”

Recognizing her husband on sight had been a matter of no regard. Even now her heart called to his, just as it had the first time they’d met. Lachlan Cannavan looked much the same as he had before her death. He who had once led the Assassin’s Arcanum had been an attractive man with dark blond hair, a strong jaw and merry blue eyes more inclined to shared laughter than somber weight. Broad-shouldered with muscle layered over muscle, he had commanded any room. She had watched him long enough in this life to know that he still did. His modern clothes struck her as odd, but he looked so similar to those around him that she had to assume what he wore was fashionable. None of this was truly relevant, however.

What mattered most was that, after an innumerable number of centuries, she had touched him, touched the man she’d thought lost to her for eternity. Her hand dropped from her lips to hover over the quiet at her breast. She might not possess a heartbeat, but she still possessed a heart. Of that she was certain. Otherwise, her chest wouldn’t ache with such vacancy.

A soft but persistent tug behind her breastbone drew a small gasp from her.

“I will not,” she snapped. “You do not command me.”

Though she spoke to the air, she had hope that he heard her—the God of Vengeance and Reincarnation, once known for far greater things than cold-blooded murder.

Lugh.

He summoned her yet again, this pull on her being stronger as his will forced her back a step.

Pressure in her chest eased.

She so was not ready for this.

After she’d risen from her grave, nearly a moon’s cycle passed before she understood what the pull meant. The more insistent it became, the more certain she was that the curse Lugh had laid on her at death had been consequent.

The wordless command intensified.

She resisted giving in and doing as bade, instead stepping forward. The summons caused her limbs to ache as it evolved into a silent demand. No matter. She was not his to order about. Not now. Not ever. Still, the sensation grew.

She set her jaw and leaned forward.

When the pull finally stopped, the release nearly drove her over the cliff. Not that it would hurt her, but it still unnerved her when she ended up hovering in midair.

There was no way to predict how long Lugh would leave her be this time. Every day she remained free of the grave, the god grew stronger and more insistent she answer his summons. He fed from her freedom, siphoning it like a leech. She resented his presence, despised the fact that she had no control over what he took from her. That resentment was nothing compared to the vitriolic hatred she harbored for him, though. His death curse had stolen more than her life. To say she had suffered through the centuries would be like saying a blacksmith’s forge burned hot.

“Understatement.” She huffed out a sharp breath, at the same time absently tucking a loose curl back into the hair piled on her head.

Not once had she ceased her pleading with the gods of light and life, beseeching them to find mercy and release her from the hell to which she’d bound herself. She’d had no idea what that spell would mean long-term. Darkness had blinded her. Her corporeal and incorporeal bodies had been trapped in her grave. But by some small grace—damnation?—she’d been able to hear everything that happened in the castle. It had nearly destroyed her mind even as it shredded her heart, hearing that Lachlan had died despite the bargain she’d struck and the subsequent sacrifice she’d made that summer night.

Her life for his.

She swiped at the tears that tracked down her cheeks at the memory of hearing that Lachlan had perished, the heartache as fresh as ever. “Fickle gods have no care for those whose lives are destroyed by their impetuous choices.”

And now both her sacrifice and Lachlan’s death would amount to naught. With the disturbance of Isibéal’s grave, the very grave to which Lugh had linked his binding to the Shadow Realm, Lugh’s confinement to the underworld would begin to deteriorate. While she had been bound to her grave, so had he been to his. But now that she was free? That freedom would empower the god to begin his own resurrection process. Once he manifested, she had no doubt he would rain vengeance on those he deemed enemies, past and present.

And Lachlan, nay, Ethan, would be at the very top of his list.

Chapter 2 (#ulink_e025d6b2-cd67-5050-9027-b1454e8c6710)

Thoughts raced willy-nilly through Ethan’s mind as he crossed the threshold into his room. Wife. Mine? No. Married. Me? No. No, no, no, no. Crazy-ass ghost. Rowan’s wrong. No other explanation. And then he was back to Married. Me? No. No, no, no, no. At some point in what had evolved into a mad dash down the hall, his feet had gone inexplicably numb. With a little luck and some staunch medicinal Irish therapy, the rest of his body would follow within the half hour.

He shoved through the door to his rooms and crossed straight to the small bookcase with the bar on one end. With the tip of his dagger, he performed an impromptu game of eenie-meenie-miney-mo. The blade landed on an unopened bottle of Midleton Very Rare. Ethan grinned without humor and pulled the bottle off the shelf. No glass needed.

“Waste of fine whiskey.”

The deep voice nearly drove Ethan out of his skin. His knife clattered to the floor, and he fumbled the expensive whiskey. Sunlight flashed through the bottle’s rich amber content as the decanter went end over end, its impact with the stone floor forecast in horrid slow motion. Ethan lunged for the bottle. His knees scraped the uneven floor, the burn advertising that he’d taken the first layer of skin off. But by the gods’ grace, he snatched the bottle out of the air before permanent damage—the kind that involved curses and broken glass and bandied accusations—occurred.

Rounding on the intruder and light-headed with a wild cocktail of anger, adrenaline and something too close to fear for comfort, Ethan gestured with the neck of the bottle. “Stop sneaking up on me!”