Page 41 of Dark Embrace

She took his hand. “He’s still here. He’s speaking to you, but I can’t hear him.”

Suddenly tears welled in Aidan’s eyes. “Talk to him,” he begged her. “Please, talk to him.” And a tear slipped free and started a slow track down his cheek.

She had never seen a grown man cry, much less a man like this one. His grief was mushrooming in the tent like a nuclear cloud. It swept through her with stunning force. It crushed her from above, from the sides. She had to fight to stand upright, to breathe. Aidan did not deserve this. “Ian,” she gasped. “Can you hear me?”

The boy faced her and spoke.

“If you can hear me, nod,” she whispered. Aidan’s pain was so strong and consuming that she felt faint. If he didn’t control himself, she was going to pass out.

Ian nodded at her, his eyes wide, as if he was listening carefully.

“What’s happening?” Aidan demanded, wiping his face with his forearm. “Tell me about my son!”

“He can hear me,” she cried, meeting his stunned eyes. “Aidan, you’re hurting me.” She had been forced to her knees.

Aidan covered his heart with his hand, but Brie was aware of the pain racking it, and it felt like it was about to explode. But as he battled himself, she felt the terrible anguish begin to dull. The sensation was like drowning and then finally breaking through the surface for air. She gulped oxygen.

When he pushed the grief further away, she stood up. “Ian, are you here to speak with your father?”

Ian nodded and waited expectantly for her.

Aidan cried, “Tell him how much I love him! Tell him I will find and kill Moray to pay fer what he did! Tell him I hunt the deamhan bastard every single day!”

Brie glanced at Aidan and then back at Ian. “Your father loves you,” she said softly. She knelt closer to the little ghost. “Are you here to ask him to release you to the afterlife?”

Ian shook his head.

Brie was shocked.

“What did he say?” Aidan demanded, even paler than his son.

“He said no,” Brie said slowly, still stunned. Why wouldn’t the little boy wish to leave this realm? He’d been dead for almost seventy years. “Ian,” she began, but the little boy began frantically shaking his head. He pointed at her.

“What do you want to say to me? Do you want to tell me something?” she cried.

He nodded. He pointed at Aidan now.

“And you want to speak to your father, too?”

Ian nodded, then burst into tears of frustration. And he started fading.

“Don’t go,” Brie screamed, but it was too late.

And Aidan knew, because he turned away from her, his body convulsing with his grief.

Released, his anguish erupted into the tent, lancing through her. She staggered under the repeated blows, then fell under the crushing weight. His pain kept pouring down on her. On her hands and knees, hurting so badly she wanted to die, she somehow looked up. This was how Aidan felt, she managed to think.

Aidan wept silently by the tent’s closed flap door.

She knew he wouldn’t want her comfort. She didn’t care. She somehow stood and staggered to him, fighting her way through the hot waves of anguish. Brie managed to lay her hand on his back.

He roared incoherently at her and wrenched away from her, shoving through the tent flap. Brie didn’t hesitate. He needed her now, as never before, and she ran after him. It was like slogging upstream through a high, racing river.

He moved faster, leaving her behind, climbing the hill toward the ridge above. His pain was dulling. She panted, lungs bursting, legs hurting. The force of his grief had lessened, and she could run more easily now.

He halted on top of the ridge, silhouetted in anguish and misery against the violet sky. Brie froze, seeing the waves of pain emanating so clearly from him. A few stars began to emerge in the growing darkness.

The waves visibly receded until he stood there alone, as mystical as an old god or a mythical hero. Brie took a deep breath, needing the air, and she started to trek up the ridge slowly. When she reached him, she put her arms around him and gently embraced him from behind.