“The people we love.”
Alannah smiled, leaning into his touch. “Family is everything.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The moment thewords left her lips, Conan’s face changed. He looked up at her, eyes brightening by the second. “What did you say?”
“Family is everything,” she repeated the phrase that had been etched in her heart since childhood.
“What if I make you an oath?” he asked. “I will take an oath and then keep it, to redeem myself.”
Now that was an interesting thought. “What kind of oath?”
He grinned, that same, wicked grin she hadn’t seen in far too long, and took the dagger from her hand. He cleaned Oran’s blood from it with his tunic.
“What’s going on here?” Illadan called from the bottom of the path. He looked from Conan to Alannah. “You’re wounded?”
“You should see the other guy,” Conan told him.
“Oran?”
Conan nodded once, his lips set into a grim line. “He made his choices.”
Illadan, Finn, Dallan, and Ardál joined them near the cobblestone courtyard.
“I was just about to make things right with the women, here,” Conan continued, placing the dagger against the soft skin of his palm and pulling it across his hand. Squeezing it closed, his stormy eyes stared into her soul as drops of his blood splattered onto the cobblestones.
“I swear that I will do everything in my power to find your brothers and return them to Ath Luain.”
Alannah’s breath caught at his words. Long-abandoned hope rose within her chest. “Do you really think you could find them?”
“I don’t know.” Conan took a step toward her. “I’ll need Brian’s permission to do it, and it could take a long time. But if they can be found, I will do so. It’s the least I can do after all we’ve put you both through.”
Alannah heard the sound of a sheath releasing a blade. Turning, she found that Dallan had also drawn his own dagger.
“You’ll have better luck if we do it together. And, as Conan said, it’s the least we can do to make all this up to you.” He drew the blade across his palm, an angry red river flowing in its wake. “I swear to find your brothers and bring them home, if it is within my power to do so.”
Conan and Dallan looked toward the other three men. Illadan pinched the bridge of his nose, something Alannah noticed him do often. Then he drew his own dagger. They all swore the same oath. When they’d finished, Illadan stepped forward.
“I speak on behalf of those not present as well,” he told Alannah. “Cormac, Diarmid, and Broccan will aid you. You have their oaths through me.”
Tears slid down her cheeks, her eyes blurring through watery rims. “Thank you,” she whispered, wincing at the sound of her damaged voice.
“Gods,” Finn breathed. “What happened in there?”
Conan placed a hand on her uninjured shoulder. “Alannah proved that all that time training with us was time well spent. She single-handedly defeated Oran.”
“And took quite the beating along the way, it would seem.” Dallan stepped closer. “May I? My wife’s a healer. I haven’t her skill, but I know more than these louts.”
Another laugh threatened, but Alannah squashed it into a smile instead, nodding her consent.
He lifted her chin, gently turning her head one way, then the other as he inspected her neck. “You’re going to have some wicked bruises.”
“Will my voice return?” she croaked.
Dallan nodded. “I think so. If it doesn’t, you should return to Cenn Cora with us so Niamh can have a look.”
Alannah nodded, daring a glance at Conan. Would she go if he asked her?
