The Immortal Highlander
Page 94

“Turn left,” Adam instructed.
“Left? How can you even see a left in this pea soup?” Gabby said irritably. She could barely make out the road ten feet past the hood of the compact car. But it wasn’t just the fog that was aggravating her; the farther they got from Castle Keltar, the more vulnerable she was feeling. As if the most magnificent chapter in the Book of Gabrielle O’Callaghan’s Life was coming to a close and she wasn’t going to like what she found when she turned the page.
She understood now why her friend Elizabeth, with her near-genius, analytical mind gave wide berth to murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and horror stories, and read only romance novels. Because, by God, when a woman picked up one of those steamy books, she had a firm guarantee that there would be a Happily-Ever-After. That though the world outside those covers could bring such sorrow and disappointment and loneliness, between those covers, the world was a splendid place to be.
She glanced irritably at Adam. He was looking at her. Hard.
“What?” she snapped belligerently, not meaning to sound belligerent but feeling it to the core.
He said softly, “You aren’t falling for me, are you, Irish?”
Returning her gaze fixedly to the road ahead, Gabby clenched her jaw, incapable of speaking for several moments, her stomach a stew of emotions, a veritable pressure cooker about to blow. She muttered a few choice words Gram would have shuddered to hear.
“Why do you keep asking me that?” she snapped at last. “I’m really sick of you asking me that. Do I ask you that? Have I ever asked you that? That is such a patronizing thing to say, like you’re warning me or something, like you’re saying, ‘Don’t fall for me, Irish, you helpless, weak little woman,’ and what’s with this frigging ‘Irish’ bit? Can’t you call me by name? Is that one of those depersonalizing touches? Like it removes you a bit from the immediacy of the moment, somehow makes me less of a human being with feelings? I’ll have you know, you arrogant, overbearing, thickheaded, underdisclosing, never-ask-me-any-questions-because-I-sure-as-hell-won’t-answer-them-to-you-O-mere-mortal prince, that I took my fair share of psychology courses in college, and I understand a thing or two about men that applies to ones who aren’t even of the human persuasion, and if I were falling for you, which I’m here to tell you I’m not, because falling implies an ongoing action, an event that’s taking place in real time, here and now—”
She broke off abruptly, on the verge of revealing too much. Too wounded, too uncertain of herself, of him, to go on.
Inhaled. Puffed her bangs from her face with an angry breath.
Long moments unfurled and he said nothing.
Gritting the words slowly, she said, “Why didn’t Morganna take the elixir of immortality? I need you to answer this.”
The silence stretched. She refused to look at him.
“Because immortality,” he said finally, slowly, as if each word were being forcibly pried from his mouth and was paining him more deeply than she could possibly know, “and the immortal soul are incompatible. You can’t have both.”
Gabby jerked and looked at him, horrified.
He slammed his fist into the glove box. Plastic exploded as his hand went right through it. Half the little door dangled for a moment on one hinge, then fell to the floor. His lips curved in a bitter smile. “Not what you expected to hear, eh?”
“You mean, if Morganna had taken it, she would have lost her immortal soul?” Gabby gasped.
“And Darroc thinks humans aren’t very bright.” Dark sarcasm dripped from his voice.
“So, er . . . but . . . I don’t get it. How? Does a person, like, have to hand it over or something?”
“Humans have an aura surrounding them that my kind can see,” he said flatly. “The immortal soul lights them from within, makes them glow golden. Once a human takes the elixir of life, that soul begins to burn out, until there is nothing of it left.”
Gabby blinked. “I glow golden? You mean, right now, as I’m sitting here?”
He gave a bitter little laugh. “More intensely than most.”
“Oh.” A pause while she tried to collect her thoughts. “So, do they change, the humans who take it?”
“Ah, yes. They change.”
“I see.” The utter lack of inflection in his reply made her deeply uneasy. She suddenly had no desire to know how they changed. Suspected she wouldn’t like it at all. “So then, that means our Books were right about the Tuatha Dé not having souls, doesn’t it?”