Haunting Embrace by Erin Quinn Page B

was as if she’d been nailed to that spot and then turned to stone.
    Colleen opened her fingers, and there, against the faint pink lines of her palm, was a soft pouch with a drawstring top. She made short work of opening it, then let the contents spill into her open hand. Strung with a leather cord was the most incredible pendant Meaghan had ever seen. And coming off it in steady, thrumming waves was menace.
    She tried to take a step back but couldn’t move.
    The pendant wasn’t beautiful for all its bling. It glittered with an array of jewels that radiated from an emerald set like an island at its center. Diamonds, dazzling stars in a midnight sky, and opals, mysteriously opaque and alive with colors, made a rich web around it. Rubies like drops of blood woven with silver and gold twisted into spirals that seemed to go on without beginning or end.
    The markings of the Book of Fennore. The same symbols that were etched on the walls of the cavern she’d just come from.
    This was not the first time she’d seen the pendant. The night before Colleen’s funeral, Rory had been carrying it in his pocket, and she’d glimpsed it when he’d pulled it out during Colleen’s wake. She remembered the churning turmoil of his emotions as he’d fingered it. The next day, he’d gone to the cavern and never returned.
    “Saraid gave that to you?” Meaghan breathed, staring at it now, knowing the unique amulet was the same one.
    “Aye,” Colleen answered. “But she said it was yours. She was adamant that I deliver it to you. Would you know why?”
    “No,” Meaghan said numbly.
    But there could be no mistaking that the pendant was connected to the Book of Fennore.
    Colleen reached for her son and shifted him into her arms before she held out the pendant to Meaghan, as if sensing that something momentous might occur the instant Meaghan touched it. Who knew if she was right?
    Swallowing a lump that lodged in her throat, Meaghan gingerly took the amulet, careful to keep the small satchel between the silver and her palm. The thought of touching it with her bare skin repulsed her. Had Rory felt this way?
    Her hand shook, and Colleen’s eyes darkened as she watched her. The pouch she held around it was very soft, the pendant surprisingly light. And yet, the weight of it was ominous. She lifted the leather cord and let it dangle for a moment, mesmerizing as it glinted in the clouded daylight.
    “Are you going to put it on?” Colleen asked with interest.
    “No.”
    “And why not?”
    Because it scared the piss out of her, Meaghan wanted to say, but didn’t. After all she’d been through, it seemed ridiculous to fear a piece of jewelry.
    “I wouldn’t be telling you what to do,” Colleen said with an ingenuous gaze. “But I got the sense that you’d have to put it on to know.”
    “To know what?”
    “Whether or not it will take you home.”
    Blankly, Meaghan stared at her grandmother.
    “It can do that?” she asked. “Saraid said it would take me home?”
    “Not exactly. But why else would she have come all that way to deliver it?”
    Meaghan stared at the pendant with frustration and a sick fascination. It seemed to taunt her as it dangled in front of her, teasing her blasted curiosity. What would it do? What could it do?
    Meaghan was a lot of things, but she’d never been one to bow to her own fear. Without giving herself time to doubt, she put the cord over her head and let it drop to her chest, glittering against the backdrop of brown wool. She wasn’t foolish enough to let the silver or gems touch her skin. For an empath, metal was a great conduit of the emotions its last owners had felt. Something this old would have a thousand memories—a million emotions—embedded in it, all of which might pull her down and never let her surface again.
    “Is that it, then?” Colleen demanded when nothing happened.
    Meaghan clenched her fist around the pouch she still held. She felt nothing, not even the humming power that