“But she didn’t believe you,” Dageus reminded. “She thought you were mad.”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts. If you’d haud yer wheesht a moment, you’d hear that I intend to give her a choice.”

“You do?”

“I’m no’ entirely without scruples,” was his mocking reply.

“You’re going to tell her?”

Dageus shrugged. “I said I’d give her a choice.”

“The honorable thing would be to tell her—”

Dageus’s head whipped up and his eyes sparked dangerously. “I doona have time to tell her!” he hissed. “I doona have time to try to convince her, or help her understand!”

Silvery gaze warred with copper.

“You do realize that once you take her through, she’s going to know that you’re a Druid, Dageus. You’ll no longer be able to pretend you’re naught but a man.”

“I’ll deal with that. She knows there’s something no’ quite right with me.”

“But what if she . . .” Drustan trailed off, but Dageus knew he’d been about to voice the fear that he’d been forced to face when he’d sent Gwen back.

“What if she runs screaming from me? Cries ‘pagan sorcerer’ and hates me?” Dageus said with a chilly smile. “’Tis my worry, no’ yours.”

“Dageus—”

“Drustan, I need her. I need her.”

Drustan stared at the scarce-concealed despair in his brother’s eyes, and had a sudden flash of insight: Dageus was walking a razor’s edge, and he knew it. He knew he had no right to take Chloe, verily, he knew he had no right to have brought her this far. But were Dageus to give up on those things he wanted—to accept that, because he was dark, he had no promise of a future, no true rights to anything—he would have nothing left to live for. There would be nothing to keep him fighting another day.

And which would win then? Honor? Or the seduction of absolute power?

Christ, Drustan thought, a chill seeping through his veins, the day his brother stopped wanting, the day he stopped believing there was hope, he would have to face the fact that his only choices were to become utterly evil . . . or . . .

Drustan couldn’t make himself finish that thought. And in Dageus’s tortured gaze, he could see that his twin had figured this all out long ago, and was fighting the only way he could. If Dageus’s desire for Chloe was the thing standing most firmly betwixt he and the gates of hell itself, Drustan would chain the wee lass to his brother himself.

A bitter smile curved Dageus’s lips, as if he sensed Drustan’s thoughts. “Besides,” Dageus said with light mockery, “at least I know I can return her. Gwen had no such assurance, yet you took her. If aught goes awry with me, I promise to send Chloe back, one way or another.”