“I could blame my madness,” he suggested.
“But you’d be lying.”
Ahrun thought about it, tilting his head. “Not entirely. I’ve always been a little mad because of my gift.”
I frowned and shook my head, suddenly certain. Maybe it was this place. His internal world giving me a glimpse into his thoughts.
“No, you knew what you were doing. You knew what type of being Niamh was.”
She’d hurt Connor. He’d suffered in those years under her control. Centuries of loneliness as he was hunted like an animal.
“You were cruel to him,” I said.
Ahrun watched me expectantly, waiting for the answer to come to me. And like a monster from the deeps, it did.
“You wanted him for something,” I realized, chasing that sense of knowing. The illusive feeling that led me to delve deeper into the abyss. My gaze shot to Ahrun’s. “That’s not possible.”
Rick’s ability to glimpse the immediate future and a little beyond was one thing. But clairvoyance on the scale Ahrun wanted me to believe—one that spanned centuries—was notoriously unreliable. The further into the future you peered, the less clear your vision. In simple terms, the future wasn’t set in stone. There were an infinite number of possibilities, each one affected by the thousands of decisions a person made throughout their day.
If he’d thrown Connor to the wolves with something as flimsy as that as an excuse, I didn’t care how much it would hurt Thomas or Liam. I would kill him.
There was no way he could have “seen” me that long ago and known how my path would cross with Thomas’s and finally Connor’s.
“There are exceptions to every rule. And yes, you were a dream and a wish. But you also weren’t the only reason for what I did.”
I could sense the truth in his words. At least, his version of it. If nothing else, he believed what he was saying. That, more than anything, kept me quiet and listening.
“Connor’s resentment had led him to a dark path. His pride would have eventually forced Thomas to kill him or risk being killed himself.” Ahrun’s smile was tinged with sorrow. “My actions seem cruel, I know.”
“Yes, they do,” I agreed, watching him carefully and finding him startlingly clear minded for someone rumored to be in the throes of devolution. “When you act like this, it’s hard to determine how mad you actually are.”
“I’m quite insane, don’t you fear,” Ahrun responded with a chuckle. “What you’re seeing is temporary, courtesy of you intruding on my most inner self. When you exit this place, my teeth will still be buried in your throat and you’ll have to make a choice.”
“What choice is that?”
His gaze caught mine, suddenly mesmerizing as I fell into them. His voice sounded in my head, his lips not moving. “That is up to you.”
Light sundered the darkness. My awareness slammed into my body.
Pain tore through me, originating at my throat. Ahrun’s bestial growls filled my ears as his fangs worried the skin there.
Messy eater, I thought distantly, staring up at the sky as I tried to summon some sort of motivation. It slipped out of my hands, as ephemeral as a dream.
I was going to die. Painfully.
That was a pity, just when I’d started to live again.
From the cold liquid on the ground around me, I realized my blood was starting to pool. Ahrun wasn’t able to swallow it all with how fast it was leaking from me. It soaked into my shirt and hair as my body turned cold.
Ahrun jerked as hunters fired round after round into his back.
All I could see was the sky above, an oasis of calm extending around me.
There were screams and more screams as someone took down the hunters. A roar of rage that I identified as Liam.
Lowen appeared above Ahrun, a bow in his hand and the arrow already notched. Deborah stepped into view, her expression enraged as she lifted a rock to bring it crashing down on Ahrun’s head.
He didn’t even grunt.
