“Deirdre doesn’t leave her mountain. She sent others, but I managed to get away.”
“And your family?”
“I let them think me dead.” He swallowed past the painful lump those words evoked. “I looked in on them when I was free. It was a chance I shouldn’t have taken. Deirdre could have gone there first and killed them just to spite me. Fortunately, she didna.”
“Did you talk to them? Your family, I mean?”
Galen shook his head. “I didna dare. They would have had questions, questions I couldna answer.”
“I’m so sorry, Galen. I had no idea.”
He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
Long ago, but it still haunted his memories.
FOURTEEN
Reaghan was aghast at Galen’s story. Her heart ached for him and the family he’d lost. The thought that someone like Deirdre could take a person and unleash an ancient god within that person left her with ice in her veins.
She glanced sideways at Galen. He sat still, his eyes the only thing moving as they scanned the area. “Tell me of the Warriors? I don’t know if the stories I’ve heard are true or not. I saw your wounds earlier down by the loch, but they’re gone now.”
“Aye. Our wounds heal quickly. We’re immortal, Reaghan.”
She chewed and swallowed her last bit of venison before she reached for a water skin. “So you cannot die?”
“I can die, but only if my head is taken from my body.”
Reaghan couldn’t imagine anyone being able to do that to a Warrior. They were too powerful, too quick. Too deadly. “No one will ever get near you to do that then.”
One side of his lips lifted in a smile as he turned his head to look at her. “I wish I could say you are right, but our battle with Deirdre continues. As long as it does, Warriors will fight Warriors.”
“Is it true you have powers?”
He glanced at his hands before he fisted them. “Aye. Each Warrior has his god’s power. We also change the color our god favored.”
“Which is why you were green and Logan silver?”
“Aye. My god is Ycewold, a trickster god. All Warriors will change color. We have fangs, claws, and enhanced senses. Each of us has a special power as well.”
She licked her lips as she tried to take it all in. Every answer he gave her led to new questions. “Like what?”
“Fallon can be standing before you, and in a blink, he’s somewhere else. They call it
Reaghan was speechless. “This goes beyond anything I could ever imagine. What about you and Logan? What powers does each of you possess?”
“Logan’s god grants him the power to command liquid, any liquid. He could part a loch with just a thought.”
“And you?” she asked when he said no more.
“Some Warriors have powers that are…”—he shrugged—“beneficial.”
“Galen, what is your power?”
He sighed deeply, heavily. “I can read people’s minds.”
She blinked, unsure if she heard him correctly. “You mean you can hear my thoughts? Now?”
“Nay,” he said quickly, and shook his head. “I have to be touching someone. It’s only when others touch me, or I touch them, that I see into their minds. Other Warriors aren’t able to use their power unless their god is released. Mine … mine occurs all the time.”
Reaghan shifted to face him. “Are you telling me when we kissed, when we … You were reading my mind?”
His dark blue gaze bored into hers, his brow furrowed. “Reaghan, you’re the only one I’ve ever touched that I doona see into your mind.”
“But the others you can?”
“Aye.”
That one word held a wealth of meaning. She could see how it distressed him by the hard line of his jaw, his compressed lips. “So every Druid you handed down the slope today, you saw into their minds.”
He gave a single, simple nod.
“And the wyrran?”
Another small nod.
“By the saints,” she murmured. She couldn’t imagine how it must feel, to have that kind of power and not be able to control it. “How is it you cannot see into my mind?”
“I doona know. When I first touched you I was too stunned to do anything but want more contact. Then, later, it didn’t matter. I found someone I could touch and not worry about seeing and hearing their thoughts. You cannot know what that means to me.”
Her heart ached for him, but most especially because in his words she heard the despair he wouldn’t admit. “Has there never been someone you could touch without seeing their thoughts?”
“Never. I’ve had to keep my distance from people for that very reason.”
There was something in his words, something that told her there was more to it. “You left someone because of your power?”
He visibly swallowed and clenched his hands. “After I escaped Deirdre’s I found a widow in need of someone to help around her cottage. In exchange, she fed me. I thought I just needed to learn to control my powers.”
“What happened?” Reaghan whispered.
“I thought she wanted my touch, but every time I held her, she would think of her dead husband. I confronted her with it.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “The idea of someone in her mind was too much for her. Whatever kind thoughts she might have had for me turned vicious over the following weeks. Until she tried to plunge a dagger in my chest.”
Reaghan covered her mouth with her hand. As a Druid she had been around magic her entire life. She understood there were things that couldn’t be explained. But there were others who did not understand.
She scooted closer and lifted his hand into hers. “Try to see into my mind.”
He leaned away from her, his face a mask of distaste. “Why would you want that?”
“Don’t you want to know if you are gaining control over your power, or if it’s just me?”
“Why would you think this had anything to do with you?”
How could she tell him about the dreams of people and places she had never seen before, but knew? Was it the fever that had caused her memory loss, or was it something more? “I have no recollections of my past, Galen. Maybe whatever is blocking those memories prevents you from seeing into my mind.”
He gazed at her for several long moments before he closed his eyes. One heartbeat, two. Reaghan waited anxiously for Galen to tell her something, anything.
Finally, he opened his eyes. Relief blazed in his cobalt gaze. “I see nothing.”
She released his hand and looked into the fire. Galen might be happy, but Reaghan felt disappointment. It just confirmed to her that there was something wrong with her mind. “As I suspected.”
“I’m sorry.”
Reaghan waved away his words. Her hope of him helping her to find her past faded into the night sky. “There’s no need. You will never fear touching me and seeing into my mind.”
