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My ears popped.
But it was no use.
When my feet finally touched the bottom, my eyes flew open to find a trove of glittering treasures spread out before me, illuminated by a pulsing, shapeless, ambient blue light.
Saoirse.
That was the she the witch had been talking about. I’d read about her in The Lady in the Lough.
Legend had it that Saoirse lived in the village nearly a thousand years ago and was married off to the richest, meanest man in the village. He knew she didn’t love him, and one night, in a jealous, drunken rage over some imagined indiscretion, he dragged her to the lake and drowned her. After Saoirse’s death and her husband’s complete lack of consequences, the other women in the village realized that the same thing could happen to them. They regarded Saoirse as their patron saint almost and began tossing gifts into the lake to earn her favor and protection. They would even bring their suitors for a stroll around the lake in the hopes that Saoirse would judge their hearts and let them know if the man was good or evil.
Generations later, couples began getting married there. They would wade into the water and prick their fingers on a blackberry thorn, shedding a few drops of blood in an attempt to earn Saoirse’s ultimate blessing—an eternal, unbreakable bond. But Saoirse only granted that bond once every few centuries, when she found a love that was truly pure. The rest of the time, she was a moody, bitter thing, but she did love a good gift.
The blue glow condensed into a shapeless orb and slithered toward me, plunging the rest of the lake into murky darkness as it gathered around my feet. My heart slammed against my ribs as my panic turned to terror. I had nothing to offer her. Nothing.
Reaching out in all directions, my fingertips finally grazed Damien’s, and the moment they did, he held on tight. I could feel him pulling and fighting against the gravity that had bound us to the bottom, but as the light rose up my body, I no longer felt the same sense of urgency. A sense of peace enveloped me, along with that light, like a welcoming hug after a long, hard trip.
I felt Saoirse’s presence all around me—the radiant warmth of her embrace, the gentle caress against my cheek, the graceful serenity that washed over me, telling me without words that I was safe. I was loved.
And that I had definitely been there before.
My terror melted away, along with my need to breathe, as the most beautiful images flooded my consciousness. They could have been straight from the pages of Darby Donovan’s books. A boy with gray eyes, a cottage, a church. A blue-and-white tea set perched on a stump. A rope swing, a blackberry bush, two bloody palms and four innocent lips pressed together in the lake.
Then, the images darkened.
Day turned to night. The boy, now a man. Curls, gone. Smile, gone. But his eyes still warmed when he looked at me. In fact, they glowed like the moon that lit our way as he watched me from the driver’s seat of a car that I knew wasn’t his. Three freckles slashed across his ring finger, where it draped over the steering wheel. Three freckles slashed across mine, where it draped over his. The taste of vanilla coated my tongue as I watched our naked bodies clutch and claw and cling to one another. As I felt our hearts do the same. Then darker still as gunshots rang out. Screaming. Bleeding. Running. Killing. So much killing.
Then, nothing.
Pressure weighed on my pounding heart as if Saoirse was pressing a hand against it. The blue aura around me brightened, like the tightening of a hug, and what I saw next made my unbreathing chest ache with a loss I hadn’t felt since I was seven years old.
I saw that same man again, only he was different. Lighter. Happier. I saw him laughing as I helped him shear a rowdy black sheep. I saw him in a workshop, carving things out of wood, his glossy, grown-out curls held back by a pair of safety goggles. And when he looked up and smiled at me, I saw Damien’s eyes in his face. Felt his strength and love and devotion radiate from their silvery depths. Bubbles danced around my body as I struggled to make sense of what Saoirse was showing me, but when they concentrated in front of my stomach, one last image nearly brought me to my knees.
I was standing in a bathroom, staring at down at a pregnancy test—the kind that produced two pink lines if it was positive. I watched that shy second line emerge, silently announcing that my life was about to change, but when I lifted my head, the smiling woman reflected in the mirror wasn’t me.
It was the face printed on the inside cover of all my favorite books.
Then, the energy around me shifted violently. The images disappeared, ripped away from me, along with Saoirse’s light and warmth as those bubbles darted from my abdomen to Damien’s face like a swarm of murderous bees.
I clung to his fisted hand with both of mine as the bubbles engulfed him. Saoirse was hurting him. I could feel it in his jerking arm and see it in the way his body contorted and his head arched back. A helpless scream echoed in my worthless, burning lungs as I watched her exact revenge for something I couldn’t remember.
But deep inside, I knew that wasn’t true.
I already had remembered. Those images were more than just pictures from Darby’s books. They were memories. My memories. I’d been there before. I’d met Saoirse before. I’d met Damien, and loved him, and married him … before.
And I’d watched him kill before too.
Saoirse was said to judge men’s hearts. To protect the women of the village from monsters like her husband.
But she’d made a mistake. The sweet boy she’d bonded me to had grown up to become a killer.
Twice.
And she was absolutely furious about it.
CHAPTER 32
DAMIEN
