“Because Rhiannon came between us. She wanted the woman he chose as his mate and I helped her disappear. He blamed me, especially when Rhiannon approached me a couple of centuries later. We didn’t speak for a long time after that.”
“Yet you went with her anyway?” Rhys asked. “Even though it drove a wedge between you and your offspring?”
I noticed Macgrath’s hands curl into fists and the air in the room seemed to swell with his anger.
And his shame.
“There was a time,” he murmured. “That I would have given anything…” He paused and looked at me. “Anythingto know who I was and where I came from. Rhiannon offered to help me gain that knowledge in return for my allegiance.” His green eyes grew dark, the deep green-black of a forest at night. “I’m not proud of the weakness and I am ashamed of the blood that I ignored. Blood that now stains my soul. There is no way to atone for that and I’m sure the God and Goddess will see fit to punish me when my time on this plane is at an end.”
The room was utterly still and silent. Macgrath’s admission was fraught with sorrow and shame, the emotions so thick in the room they were nearly choking me.
“I no longer feel that way,” Macgrath stated. “I understand what Rhiannon was doing for all those years and it sickens me. The fact that I turned a blind eye disgusts me.”
Rhys no longer looked angry. He didn’t seem sympathetic either, but he was no longer angry.
Kerry and Finn looked troubled and dejected, as though Macgrath’s confession had hurt them in a terrible way.
And Savannah. She had tears in her eyes and I knew that somehow she was feeling everything Macgrath was feeling. She knew the true depth of his pain and regret.
Before any of us could speak, his cell phone vibrated and he looked down, ending the fragile moment.
“Excuse me,” he muttered as he got to his feet. “I have to take this.”
I watched him as he left the room, his figure straight and tall despite the weakness he’d just revealed to us all. Macgrath had learned to live with his regrets. They might haunt him from time to time, but they would never consume him.
As I looked around the table, I knew I wouldn’t have had the strength to admit my weaknesses to the males and females who sat there. I had done horrible things in my past as well. Events that I shared with no one, save the Goddess.
As I watched the rest of the group talk, I wondered if they knew, would they look at me the same way they did Macgrath? Would they wear suspicion and distaste like a cloak?
I never wanted to find out.
