Arnoux stared at her as he recited it aloud. ” ‘God help me, Mother. I love him.’ ”
Almost gently Arnoux closed the book and laid it on the ground between them. “I almost believed you,” he said. “You were most convincing. You did lie with him, did you not?” He grabbed her wrist with the speed of a striking rattler and crushed her bones until she had to bite back a cry of pain. “Are you carrying his seed?”
But she had no time to respond, for Arnoux’s head jerked up and his eyes focused on the woods directly behid her. Alex twisted in his grasp, just in time to see Kieran, half-masked by the trees but well within range. Just in time to see Arnoux reach for his rifle and begin the motion of raising it to his shoulder.
“Run, Kieran!” she screamed, and in the same instant flung herself at Arnoux. He kicked her away without even looking, as if she were some species of lesser pest, and took aim.
“Kieran!” Alex screamed again.
A blur of motion was all she saw. Arnoux stepped back, his rifle wavering in his grasp. “Stop,” he said harshly. The rifle swung down, the muzzle inches from Alex’s head. “Stop now, or I’ll kill your whore, Kieran Holt.”
It became a perfect tableau. Kieran stood three yards from Arnoux, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, fingers curled into claws at his sides. Arnoux held the rifle on Alex, a strange and terrible smile on his face.
Kieran. Alex let herself look her fill, as if it were the last moment she would ever have. He was more beautiful than anything she’d ever seen in her life, more precious than anything in the world.
His eyes met hers. In that brief gaze he gave her more courage than she would ever need to make any sacrifice.
Then he looked again at Arnoux. “I don’t care about this woman,” he said, and took another step forward.
Arnoux laughed, a low rumble of bitter amusement. He pressed the muzzle of the rifle directly against Alex’s temple. “No, my lost and damned son. No farther. You were never very good at lying.” His smile vanished. “I will kill her. I’ve hunted you far too long, and nothing can stop me again. I’ll let the woman live if you give yourself up to me.”
Kieran stared at Arnoux, and Alex knew he didn’t remember, didn’t recognize the man before him. “Who are you?” Kieran grated.
Arnoux’s expression changed. “How can you have forgotten your father, boy?” He shook his head in a travesty; of weary resignation. “My name is Joseph Arnoux.”
* * *
Kieran froze. Joseph Arnoux. The name seized his heart in a fist of pain and rage.
I know him.
The thought was not a rational one. It settled in his gut with instinctive certainty, fed by emotion that sprang directly from the beast within. It came with a wisp of scent covered over by some other stench, from the very look of the man: tall and broad shouldered in his heavy coat, cold green eyes in an aging, weathered face. And it came most of all from the sound of his voice.
The Voice. The voice he had heard in his mind when he’d thought himself so close to madness.
Joseph Arnoux.
And with the beginnings of recognition came rage. Rage that even Alexandra’s presence had no power to temper. Violent sensations pumped through Kieran with each beat of his heart, emanated from the man before him in equal measure. Hatred was like a bond between them, a heavy chain forged in the fires of a past Kieran could not remember.
Kieran forced himself to look again at Alexandra. Her gaze was fixed on him—pleading, but not for her life. He knew her too well for that. Because Kieran had left her back in Saskatchewan, it had come to this. She was a madman’s hostage, and still his memories would not come clear when he needed them most.
The forest was silent, as if every creature in it felt the deadly tension. “Let her go,” he commanded.
Arnoux shook his head. “Can you remember so little, boy? So little of our last meeting, all our time together? I can fulfill my duty at last, atone for all my mistakes.” He pushed at Alexandra with his rifle. “She’s human. I don’t want to hurt her. Perhaps there’s nothing in you that would sacrifice yourself for another. Or is there, boy?”