The Fire and the Earth: Glenncailty Castle, Book 2 by Lila Dubois Page B

him.
    Sorcha clung to him as her breath slowed. What had just happened? Like in a nightmare, she’d both felt what the woman felt and been able to see the scene as if she were outside of that body. The woman had been redheaded and young, wearing a green dress with a high lace collar, though the clothing was ripped and stained with blood. The man who beat her was only a shadow figure with dark hair.
    “Sorcha?” Séan leaned away, smoothing her hair from her face.
    “We should leave.” She didn’t know why she didn’t tell him what she’d seen, except that she herself didn’t understand it. Maybe she’d hit her head and imagined it all. It was certainly nothing like what he’d been through.
    “Aye.” He kissed her forehead. “We will, we’ll go now.”
    The touch was intimate, something a longtime lover would do. They’d spent only one night together, and she didn’t plan to repeat that, and yet right now she needed his touch, needed to feel his strength and calm. She searched his face, looking for a hint of the dark madness that had taken him over, but there was only his steady hazel gaze. It was strange how only hours ago she’d pushed him away, and now she was clinging to him as if she’d never let go.
    Realizing that, Sorcha pulled back.
    “I’m sorry, I just…” She gestured around, not knowing what to say.
    Séan’s gaze searched her face. “Let me take you away from here.”
    Feeling ten kinds of a fool for being the squeamish one when he was the one with the battered hands who’d been possessed by a ghost, she forced a smile. “Will you leave?”
    He looked over his shoulder. “I want to check the floor with Seamus. I worry that we shouldn’t even be standing here, except I know it was reinforced from below.”
    “Be careful of your hands,” she said.
    He went back to Seamus, who’d jumped up at her scream but was now crouched, examining the floorboards.
    Sorcha examined her palms, which were red from hitting the floor. Her imagination must be running away with her. This room was bringing up old feelings and emotions and it was making her foolish. Her shoes had come off when she fell, so she untangled them from the mess of fabric that had tripped her, which was probably the rest of the bed hangings.
    Lip curled at the feel of the old, dusty fabric, she gathered it up and set it aside, exposing the wood floor. Frowning, she crouched and looked closer. Dark brown dots stained the wood. She touched one and a rush of anger and pain overwhelmed her.
    She jerked her hand back, gasping. Taking a wad of the fabric she’d just bundled up, she wiped the floor, cleaning away a layer of dust. Drops and smears of dark brown littered the wood, as if someone had carelessly dripped wood stain.
    But it wasn’t wood stain.
    “This is blood,” she whispered.
    Following the path she moved toward the center of the room, cleaning as she went. Her cloth uncovered a massive stain and beside it a perfect handprint, rendered in blood. She looked over her shoulder at Séan but didn’t call him over.
    That hadn’t been a dream, but some sort of memory. It made as much sense as anything that a soul so tortured that it would remain on Earth as a ghost might leave memories or feelings embedded in the place where they died.
    And looking at the stain and the bloody handprint, she had no doubt that the redheaded woman in the green dress had died here.
    Considering that Séan had already been possessed once, she didn’t want him anywhere near this. Careful not to touch the blood again, Sorcha cleared the area, pushing aside a broken porcelain doll, the dried and broken pages of an alphabet book, and some unidentifiable wood bits. There was a thick trail leading away from the main pool of blood.
    Sorcha cleared more and saw another hand print, the lines smudged as if the hand—her hand—had slid sideways.
    Or if she’d dragged herself across the floor.
    Sorcha gagged, pressing her face into her elbow until the