Caomhnóir - 35

“I’m guessing we’re not heading back to the hotel,” Thom said once they were out of the shop. “And returning to the car’s not an option either I suppose.”

“You’d be quite correct on both counts.” Keegan leaned back against the alley wall as he tried to decide what to do next. When Thom pulled out his cell phone, Keegan immediately took it from him, dropping in on the ground, grinding it under the heel of his boot, and then did the same to his. “That could well be how Darius and his man found us so quickly,” he explained.

Thom nodded. “GPS. But then we didn’t expect trouble.”

“Not here, not now. I do however have to call Alasdair to let him know what’s going on. I still find it hard to believe Darius is so obsessed with me.”

“Why not, I am,” Thom said, smiling. That earned him, despite the situation, a very heated kiss in reply. “So now what?” he asked once he’d regained his composure.

“Now we find a safe place to lie low for the night.”

“There’s always the castle, if we can get back inside,” Thom suggested with a laugh. “You know it inside and out.”

Keegan tapped a finger against his lip. “That could work.” 

“I was kidding.”

“I know you were, but I’m not. Come on. I think, if we hurry, we should get there before they close.”

“Me and my big mouth,” Thom muttered as he kept pace with Keegan.

They made it to the castle without any trouble, arriving twenty minutes before closing time. After a warning from the woman in the ticket booth that they didn’t have much time, she took their money and they went inside.

“Just where are we going to find to hide that they won’t check before closing for the night?” Thom asked.

“Come, I’ll show you.” Keegan led the way down a stone-walled corridor to a door at the end. They stepped into another, darker corridor that sloped downwards, ending up in what to Thom looked like a long, deserted tunnel. Several minutes late they were in a small, empty room. “There is, was an escape tunnel to Irish Town as it was called back then,” Keegan said, sighing a moment later. “Unfortunately it appears to have been blocked off.” He pointed to faintly different colored stonework on the far wall.

“Not quite a four-star hotel room,” Thom said as he took in their surroundings, “but if it keeps us out of Darius’ hands it works for me.”

“Wait here. At least we can have something to sleep on if I hurry,” Keegan told him before vanishing back down the hall. He returned fifteen minutes later with two comforters that he said he’d stripped off of one of the displays in the tourist section of the castle. “It’s early yet, I know,” he told Thom as he spread them out on the dirt floor, “but we’ve nothing else to do so we might as well sleep.”

Thom sat down on one of them, waiting for Keegan to join him, saying as he did, “I can think of something that will kill some time.”

Keegan arched an eyebrow in amusement. “Now why did I think you’d say that mo fear daor?”

“Because you know me well, mo ghrá. Besides, I’ve never made love in a castle before.”

“Nor have I.” Keegan wrapped Thom in a tight embrace. “Therefore,” he murmured before starting to kiss him, “this will be a first, for both of us.”