“I saw one in the castle. She was incredibly beautiful, then she turned into this thing with hooves.”
“Be glad she didn’t see you. They can be very nasty.”
“So a female demon uses her beauty to distract you, then ka-bam. It must be tough going into training while your hormones are raging.”
“It teaches us to focus. Makes us stronger. What about you and all these men?”
He still acted like she had a male harem. “I’ve dated some… well, a lot.”
There was a slight narrowing of his eyes. “Define a lot.”
She cleared her throat, not wanting to explain her disastrous love life to a man from the nineteenth century. “Ten boyfriends… more or less. Most of them didn’t make it past the first good-night kiss.”
“Most?” He stared at her knees. “How many did you…” his jaw worked, as if he was clenching his teeth.
“Four.” She blushed and looked away. Including him… and Druan. The unspoken words lay between them like a ticking bomb.
Faelan didn’t say anything, just studied her, so she didn’t know if he was horrified or relieved.
She touched his talisman again, the warmth of the metal soothing. “So no one else can use your talisman?” she asked quickly, changing the subject.
“Not unless it’s reassigned. It would kill him… or her.”
“These symbols,” she said, running her fingers over the markings, “look like writing.”
“They are.”
“I don’t recognize the language.”
“No one does. It’s a heavenly language.”
“Like
“There’s only one.”
“Is that what you were speaking when you destroyed the halflings in the chapel?”
He nodded.
“At first I thought it was Gaelic. You do speak Gaelic?” She was sure he’d spoken it when they’d made love.
“Aye.”
“Say something.”
“What?”
“Anything.”
A gleam lit his eyes. “
“What does that mean?”
He smiled but refused to tell her, and she finally gave up. She’d look it up on the computer, if she could ever get the thing to work.
“Where do the talismans come from?”
“Michael—” Faelan pressed his lips together.
“Who’s Michael?”
“It’s a long story. Why don’t you tell me about this instead?” He slipped one finger underneath her shirt collar, pulling out the silver cross.
“It was my dad’s.”
“What was it doing under the floor?”
A barrage of memories assaulted her. A young girl in tears, bloody fingernails, a glowing crypt. Her dad before he died, fear in his eyes, hugging Bree so tight it scared her. “It’s a long story,” she said, throwing his words back at him.
He met her gaze, then gave a brief nod and released the necklace.
“What about your tattoos? What do they mean?” She stroked one of the curved symbols on his chest, and his skin quivered under her touch.
“They’re battle marks. They appear after our training, when we accept our calling.”
“You have a choice whether to be a warrior?”
“A warrior can refuse his mission. He wouldn’t do much good if his heart weren’t in it.”
“Are all battle marks the same?”
“Each warrior is marked according to his strengths and weaknesses. Same with the symbols on the talismans. They protect and bless.”
“There’s writing on the side of your talisman, too. I didn’t see it before.”
“Before?”
