“Are you back?” she asked, surprised she sounded so normal.

“Yes.” His voice was rough. He sat up and looked down at his hands and arms, as if they were new to him, and then he ran his fingers through his hair. He stopped, feeling the length and tangle of it, and touched his face, which was rough and unshaven. “It’s such an odd sensation. I know that I’ve let my hair grow and that I need to shave. Or at least a part of me knows it. Another part of me is surprised.”

“I don’t think the feeling of being disconnected will last long,” she said, rising quickly from the bed and walking over to the table on which the wineskin slouched in the basket of food. She forced her hand open, and let the turquoise stone roll out of her palm, noting that it had left an almost perfectly round indentation on her skin. Moving methodically, Brighid reached for the wine, eager to give her hands something to do, and took a long drink. Then she glanced over her shoulder at him. He was still sitting on the bed, but he had quit studying himself. Unfortunately, now all his attention was focused on her. “You need to eat and drink to ground yourself. So do I.” She turned back to the food, breaking a hunk off the fragrant bread and chewing it between swallows of wine.

She could feel his eyes on her. She took another long drink and then, without looking at him said, “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding back there.”

“Misunderstanding?”

She heard him leave the bed and approach her. She busied herself with slicing off a thick piece of cheese.

“The misunderstanding about us. You-he-assumed that I was talking about us falling in love. You, the whole you, knows that’s ridiculous. I wasn’t talking about myself, I was referring to Ciara.” She glanced at him and looked quickly away.

“I’m not falling in love with Ciara.” His voice was carefully neutral.

“Love is probably too strong a word. I suppose lust or attraction or-” she faltered, shrugging her shoulders “-something else would probably have been more accurate, but love seemed like the right word at the time.”

Cuchulainn took the wineskin from her and drank from it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “I’m not lusting after Ciara. Of course I’ve noticed that she’s beautiful, but that’s where my notice has ended.”

“Oh.” Brighid had no idea what to say.

“Look at me, Brighid,” he said.

Reluctantly she met his gaze. Physically he didn’t look changed. Or at least not much. Maybe he stood a little straighter, as if whatever had been pressing on his broad shoulders had been lifted. There were no fewer lines creasing the edges of his eyes, and his hair, which was too sandy to match the auburn shade of his sister’s fiery mane, was still sprinkled with premature gray. The noticeable difference was in his eyes. They were no longer haunted and empty. And it felt to her like they looked into her soul.

“My feelings for Ciara did not bring me home. My feelings for you did.”

“We’re friends, clan members. We’ve hunted together and-”

The touch of his hand on her arm cut off her rush of words.

“Don’t deny what happened between us.”

“We kissed. That’s all.”

Slowly his hand moved from her arm to touch her cheek. “Why are you trembling?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I think you do.”

“There can be nothing between us except friendship, Cuchulainn,” she said, wishing her voice wasn’t shaking.

He caressed her cheek. Then he let his fingers trail lightly down the side of her neck. “That is exactly what my mind is telling me, too.”

“Then you shouldn’t be touching me like this,” Brighid whispered.

“The problem is, my beautiful Huntress, that right now I’m finding it difficult to think with my mind.” He moved closer to her and she could feel the heat of his body. “You see, what you restored to me was filled with passion and joy for life, and at this moment that part of me feels young and strong and very, very willful.”

Brighid forced her voice to be steady. “But that part of you will recede, and return to its proper place. And then where will that leave us, Cuchulainn?”

He blinked, and his hand dropped away from her body. He stepped back. She could see the struggle within him as his jaw clenched and he brought his breathing under control.

“I should leave,” he said abruptly. Before he turned away he looked down at the table-at the turquoise stone that rested there. With a jerky movement, he scooped it up and stumbled away from her. He stopped at the door and bowed his head. “Forgive me, Brighid,” he said without looking at her. Then he opened the door and was gone.

Brighid closed her eyes and tried to still the trembling within her soul.

Cuchulainn hadn’t expected to sleep, but he’d returned to his quarters to find privacy. To think, to reacquaint himself with…himself. And to understand what had happened between Brighid and him.

He sat on the edge of his bed and stared into the dying firelight. By the Goddess, it was a bizarre feeling! He knew the events that had taken place during the past several cycles of the moon. He remembered loving Brenna and the tragedy of her death. He remembered traveling to the Wastelands and being snowbound with the New Fomorians. He could recall everything that had happened to them on their journey into Partholon and their return to MacCallan Castle. And yet a part of him marveled at the memories like they were foreign tales told by a visiting bard.

The strangest thing was that he felt inexplicably light with joy. The thought made his hands tremble as he sipped slowly from the goblet of rich red wine he’d poured himself. It wasn’t the kind of joy he’d known in Brenna’s touch-or the youthful exuberance he’d felt at breathing in life and knowing that the world was waiting for him. It was more the possibility of joy than the unbridled emotion itself. It was something he’d thought he’d never experience again, and the part of him that had been bereft of it felt more alive than he’d been since the terrible day Brenna had been murdered.

He still grieved for Brenna. She was his lost love. Part of him would always miss her and even yearn for her, but he knew he could go on. He knew he could live-and even love-again.

Brighid…

The Huntress had shaken him to his core. Was it because she had literally touched a part of his soul? Had she been right to say that as soon as he became accustomed to being whole once more his feelings for her would go back to their proper place? What exactly was their proper place?

In his twenty-four years he had seduced many women, but had been in love with only one. His love for Brenna had been new and young and easy. Their life together would have been full-their children many. He would have happily grown old by her side. She would have been the only one for him. The first and last woman he would have loved.

And he would never have known the flame that had been ignited when he touched Brighid. When she’d kissed him his soul had rejoiced. He’d been consumed by her, and in return he wanted to possess her. His desire had been insistent and engulfing. Just the remembrance of the taste of her, the feel of her body against his own, was mesmerizing. It had been like nothing he had ever before experienced, and so overwhelming that while they touched she had become his world, as if he had been created to love her.

Surely that was just a side effect of the soul retrieval.

Regardless, they couldn’t be lovers. Brighid Dhianna was a centaur. A centaur.

He stood and paced back and forth in an attempt to relieve the energy that pulsed through his body. It was, of course, not impossible for a centaur and a human to fall in love and mate. He was a product of such a union. But that was a unique situation. His parents were lifemates because Epona always fashioned a centaur High Shaman as mate for her Chosen Incarnate. And a centaur High Shaman had the ability to shapeshift into human form so that their love could be fully consummated.