The Darkest Midnight. R. A. Finley

way to get her to lead him to the Stone but something had gone wrong. He still hadn’t sorted out what. But during the required binding kiss, he’d lost the threads of the spell somehow. For several days afterward he had believed she’d managed to twist them onto him instead. He’d had no other explanation for his increasing attachment.

      It had been a damned amazing kiss. Colors like fireworks, a flood of energy—and adrenaline...and for a moment, he had thought—

      No. It was too laughable. One didn’t touch souls. Especially not his. He had too many protections in place for that.

      Never in all his years had he known anything close to that moment with her—so, naturally he had blamed the spell and, for a time, Thia for manipulating it. Until it happened again. She had kissed him at the Ring when it had seemed likely that they were doomed. And it had been like before. Stronger, even. With not a single spell involved. Nothing more than Thia herself. It was, what—chemistry?

      He at last set the mug down on the adjacent table. He really should stop this pining but, truthfully, he didn’t know what to do in its place. He had spent the day alternately keeping an eye on Thia and searching for signs of Cassandra or anyone potentially associated with her. He’d achieved nothing more than rubbing salt in his wounds when it came to the former and coming up empty with the latter.

      Thia seemed to be content in Granite Springs with the store, her friends, and anyone else who might be in her life. He had come because he’d worried that she wouldn’t be, or that her friends couldn’t protect her. Now that he’d seen for himself that she was and that they could, he should leave. Go back to sorting out his own life. The Achill Bell wouldn’t find itself.

      He sank lower on the seat, tapped steepled fingers against his grimly set mouth. Adept at telling lies, he could almost tell them to himself. Unfortunately, he was equally adept at detecting them.

      Reassurances of Thia’s well-being, hunting Cassandra—those were some of the reasons he’d come, of course. But not all. He had missed Thia and wanted to see her.

      He had thought that a moment would be enough.

      How was it possible, then, that after each encounter he found himself missing her more, not less? And how, after spending his entire life alone more often than not (and, given his options for company, preferring it that way) how was it that he now felt so...Damned if the word he was looking for wasn’t lonely.

      He pushed to his feet, picked up his keycard. Enough of this. If he was lonely, there would be plenty of company to be had in the hotel bar.

      And he might pick up some useful information as well.

      

      With a nervousness she hadn’t felt since her first months on the job, Kendra arrived at Declan Murphy’s office door and took a deep breath. Held it for a three-count and then released on another three. She raised her fist to knock.

      The lock disengaged before her knuckles made contact. Of course he’d known she was there.

      She opened the door enough to stick her head in. Not surprisingly, the workaholic sat behind his desk and didn’t look up from the paperwork set before him in messy stacks.

      “Do you have a moment?” she asked, and cursed her nerves for making her sound timid. Hell, she was acting timid with the way she kept the door between them like a shield. (A completely ineffective one, as she well knew.) She stepped all the way into the office, closed herself in.

      The sound of the lock re-engaging surprised her. He’d never done that before, not in all of their meetings. Something had him on high-alert.

      He spared her an impassive glance and then returned to work. His dark hair looked as if he had been running his hands through it.

      “It’s late, Ross.” His pen scratched across paper. “Are your friends all squared away?”

      He sounded more tired than annoyed, thankfully. Unless that was meant to lull her into a false sense of security.

      “Thia is spending the night at Abby’s,” she said while cautiously seating herself in one of the two chairs opposite the desk. Impersonal objects all of them, pieces of a mass-produced set. Good quality but generic. Her office had the same. But while she had brought stuff from home to liven up the surfaces and walls, he might well have ordered the whole of a catalog photo. (Or, more likely, had the hotel’s decorator do it.)

      With one notable exception. On the wall behind him hung an unsigned painting, oil with an ornate gilt frame. A moody and well-executed landscape, its perspective put the observer at the top of a hillside of lush, green grass to look down toward what might have been a farm or small settlement nestled among large trees. Beyond was a meandering lake and a succession of mountains overhung with clouds.

      She assumed the scene was Irish, as he was. She had never asked. Nor had she asked about any of the other works that, throughout her time at the hotel, had found their way onto its walls. All unsigned, all of a similar style but varying in subject and tone. She had her suspicions, but something about it all felt personal.

      Murphy did not take well to personal.

      And, because she loved her job, no matter how much curiosity burned, she would not ask. Would not so much as mention them.

      “Well protected, is it?” he asked inattentively, his head down as he continued to write. It took Kendra a moment to recall what had last been mentioned: Abby’s home.

      “No more than Thia’s,” she said, and fought the urge to get up and pace. “But he knows where that is.”

      “Cormac, you mean?” His gaze flicked to hers, then back to his work. “And you think he doesn’t know where to find Pine Meadow?”

      She worked to cover her surprise that he knew Abby’s name for her home. “He might have tried. There was a car behind us for awhile, but it didn’t stick past the turn off Tributary.”

      “It wasn’t him.” Murphy set aside one number-filled paper for another.

      “You’re sure?”

      “Aye.”

      He must have told Security to keep an eye on things. That was moderately reassuring, but, “Is Cormac here? Was that him in the restaurant?”

      Murphy didn’t look up. Didn’t, apparently, intend to answer. And Kendra found herself furious.

      “Dammit, can you at least confirm or deny that he may or may not be in town—hell, in the state, if that makes you feel more comfortable?”

      His head came up at that. Or maybe it was in response to the power that swirled through her like a rising tide.

      “Flattered I am, to be sure, about your thoughts for my comfort, Ms. Ross.” His own power flared, dark and angry. “And certainly, I’ll be pleased to confirm that to the best of my knowledge, Idris Cathmor’s son is indeed in the state.” Blue threads of energy licked along the pen in his grip.

      Here, she recognized, was the man she’d expected to find when she’d first approached the door.

      “And,” he went on, “since you seem to be wanting every little thing laid out in detail this fine night, I will repeat my advice from earlier.” The threads crackled softly. “You would better serve Ms. McDaniel by directing your attention elsewhere.”

      Kendra worked to tamp down her power. Not easy, since it was reacting to the inherent threat of his—and she was only moderately less angry than before. But he had answered her questions. Closing her eyes briefly, she shrugged tension from her shoulders. And then, calmer, she met his gaze. “Elsewhere. You did say that before. In the elevator.”

      “That I did.”