We’d only just finished ten minutes ago, but I was already feeling that need again. All he had to do was look in my direction and I wanted him. And we were doing far more than that now. I was naked. He was naked. Our bodies were pressed together. There was no telling how much longer I had here at the castle. Might as well make the most ofit.
“I hate to break up this moment,” he murmured. “But I need to check on my spear before another round. Uisnech hid it for me, but I need to see it formyself.”
That thing again? I pushed up onto my elbow and stared down at him. “Are you finally going to tell me what the deal is with thatspear?”
He sighed and closed his eyes, his long lashes splaying across his cheeks. “I want to tell you everything, but I must admit, I fear what you will think ofme.”
Every now and then, I could tell that Lugh had been alive for a very long time. His modern speech would slip, and the formality would roll backin.
I rolled over on top of him and slid my fingers into his curls. “There’s nothing you could say that would change my mind aboutyou.”
He opened his eyes, pulled my face toward his, and kissed me deeply. “This is hard for me. I’ve only ever trusted two people in this world with mysecret.”
A flicker of hurt went through me. “Does that mean you don’t trust me enough with yoursecret?”
“No, Moira.” He sighed. “It means I do. I’m just afraid I’m wrong, and you’ll run away fromme.”
What could he say that would make me run? After what we’d been through together, after everything I’d seen him do. He was a good male. A great one, really. So what if he had a crazy powerfulspear?
Lugh grabbed my hips and slid me off his body, and then swung his legs over the side of the bed. He grabbed his pants from the floor and tossed me an oversized t-shirt of his. “Come on. We’ll check on the spear, and I’ll show you what itis.”
My heart beat rapidly, and I pulled the shirt over my head in record time. He was finally going to tell me about his spear. I’d known there was more to the weapon than met my eye, and I eagerly wanted to know the full truth ofit.
I padded after him in bare feet and out into the hallway. He led me to the end of the hallway where I noticed he’d begun to pile some books on a shelf. My lips quirked. I’d been the one to suggest a bookshelf. And I felt kinda smug that he’dlistened.
Lugh reached beneath the top shelf, and a click echoed through the quiet palace halls. When the shelves swung inward to reveal a hidden passageway within the walls of the palace itself, my mouth fellopen.
“Huh. Okay, that’s pretty wicked.” I squinted as I peered inside. A long tunnel stretched out before us, snagging to the right. “Where’s itlead?”
“To a room that no one knows about but me, Uisnech, and now you,” he said quietly. He reached inside and flicked a light switch, the hidden tunnel suddenly illuminated by a soft glow. “Come. I’ll show you thespear.”
Eagerly, I followed behind him. We padded down the hallway, and then made the turn right into a small room about the size of the one where I’d stayed in the residential building. There was a small cot lining one wall, and a desk on the other, hidden beneath mounds of books and papers. A space heater was plugged into the wall socket. Sitting right beside said wall socket was the case-enclosedspear.
Even though I had seen it several times by now, it still took my breath away. The magic seeped into the room, filling it up with a buzz of electricity that smudged the thoughts in myhead.
Instinctively, I moved towardit.
Lugh held out an arm to stop me, and then cocked his head. “You’re drawn to thespear.”
“Yeah, I guess I am actually.” I peered up at the five sharp points before lowering my gaze to the gleaming golden rivets. “Is that itspower?”
“What do youmean?”
“The magic rolling off of it,” I explained. “Does it have something to do with drawing people to it? And, on that note, isyourpower drawing people toyou?”
“No one else is drawn to this spear, Moira,” he said quietly. “In fact, they’re terrified of it. Uisnech only moved it because he cares deeply for me. But it makes his skin crawl. It makes everyone’s skincrawl.”
“I don’t understand,” Iwhispered.
He frowned, confusion rippling across his face. “Youdon’t?”
My hands clenched. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be doing this anymore. A dread had begun to seep into my bones, and warning bells clanged in my head. “What is this spear, Lugh? What’s goingon?”
Lugh crossed the room without another word and unlocked the case. The door hung open, and the gleaming gold winked atme.
“This spear,” he began, staring at it with a strange expression on his face, “is part of me. And I am part of it. We’re linked in a way that is almost impossible to understand, though I will try my best to explainit.”
“It’s part of you?” Isqueaked.
