“Would you have hurt me? Or any of us?”
“I don’t know. I hope not, but I didn’t see any reason to risk it. Why are you here?”
He reached out, but she held up her hand and she shook her head. “I’m not flesh. Only an apparition. Here to remind you that you may not be what you were when you were mine, but you’re not what she would have made you.”
Because he needed a moment, he bent to pick up the dagger he’d dropped, then sheathed it again. “What does it matter?”
“It does. It will.” And apparition or not, her eyes swam as they locked on his. “I had children, Cian.”
“I know.”
“Strong, skilled, gifted. Your blood, too.”
“Were you happy?”
“Oh, aye. I loved a man, and he loved me. We had those children, and lived a good life. And still my brothers left a place in my heart I could never fill. A little ache inside. I would see you, and Hoyt, sometimes. In the water, or the mist, or the fire.”
“There are things I’ve done I wouldn’t have you see.”
“I saw you kill, and feed. I saw you hunt humans as you’d once hunted deer. And I saw you stand by my grave in the moonlight and lay flowers on it. I saw you fight beside the brother we both love. I saw my Cian. Do you remember how you’d pull me up on your horse and ride and ride?”
“Nola.” He rubbed his fingers over his brow. He hurt too much to think of it. “We’re both dead.”
“And we both lived. She came to my window one night.”
“She? Who?” Inside him, he went cold as winter. “Lilith.”
“We’re both dead,” Nola reminded him. “But your hands go to fists and your eyes go sharp as your dagger. Would you still protect me?”
He walked to the fire, kicked idly at the simmering turf. “What happened?”
“It was more than two years after Hoyt left us. Father had died and mother was ill. I knew she would never be strong again, that she would die. I was so sad, so afraid. I woke from sleep in the dark, and there was a face at my window. So beautiful. Golden hair and a sweet smile. She whispered to me, called me by name. ‘Ask me in,’ she said, and promised me a treat.”
Nola tossed back her hair, and her face was full of disdain. “She thought since I was only a girl, the youngest of us, I’d be foolish, I’d be easy to trick. I went to the window, and I looked in her eyes. There’s power in her eyes.”
“Hoyt must have told you not to take such risks. He must have—”
“He wasn’t there, and neither were you. There was power in me as well. Have you forgotten?”
“No. But you were a child.”
“I was a seer, and the blood of demon hunters was in my veins. I looked in her eyes and I told her it was my blood who would end her. My blood who would rid the worlds of her. And for her there would be no eternity in hell, or anywhere. Her damnation would be an end of all. She would be dust, and no spirit would survive.”
“She wouldn’t have been pleased.”
“Her beauty remains even when she shows her true self. That’s another power. I held up Morrigan’s cross, that I wore always around my neck. The light flashed from it, like a sunbeam. She was screaming when she ran.”
“You were always fearless,” he murmured.
“She never came back while I lived, and never came again until you and Hoyt went home together. You’re stronger than you were without him, and he with you. She fears that, hates that. Envies that.”
“Will he live through this?”
“I can’t know. But if he falls, it will be as he lived. With honor.”
“Honor’s cold comfort when you’re in the ground.”
“Then why do you hold your own?” she demanded with a whip of impatience in her voice. “It’s honor that brings you here. Honor that you’ll carry into battle along with your sword. She couldn’t drain it out of you, and just the little she left was enough for you to draw on again. You made this choice. You’ve still more to make. Remember me.”