by Nora Roberts
“You’d be more so if she’d managed the invitation.”
“Good point. Okay, let’s go down and…” She wobbled again, cursed.
“My way then after all.” He scooped her off her feet.
“Just need another minute. Need to find my balance.”
“You feel balanced enough to me.” He looked down, smiled slowly. “You’ve a lovely shape to you. I like that the clothes you wear don’t hide it away. And just now you’ve got a pretty scent to go with it. A bit like green apples.”
“Are you distracting me from the fact I nearly invited a vampire in for dinner?”
“Is it working for you?”
“A little.”
“Let’s try for a little more then.” He stopped, lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.
A quick jolt. Not so playful as it had been before, and she realized there was a great deal of anger and fear in him for her. She didn’t know the last time anyone had been afraid for her. She responded to it before she could stop herself, turning into him, tangling her fingers in his hair. Filling up with him that aching loneliness that had followed her out of the dream.
“Fairly effective,” she murmured when he lifted his head again.
“Well, sure it put some of the color back in your cheeks, so that’s fine for now.”
“You’d better put me down. If you carry me in there, it’ll scare them. They’ll be scared enough when we tell them what happened.”
He shifted her so her feet touched the ground, but kept his arms around her. “Steady enough?”
“Yeah, better, really.”
Still he kept a hand on her arm as they walked the rest of the way to the kitchen.
“If this can be done, why is it they haven’t done it before?” Hoyt sat at the head of the table in the dining room, the fire crackling at his back. He looked down the length of it to Cian.
“I’ve never heard of it being done before.” With a shrug, Cian sampled the fish Glenna had prepared. “With a personal connection between the vampire and the human, yes, an invitation can be seduced or cajoled. But that’s most often due to the human’s instinctive denial of what it sees. This is a different matter, and from what both you and Larkin said, you were sleeping.”
“First time for everything.” With no appetite, Blair ate because she needed fuel. “We’ve got magical types on our team. So, obviously, does she. Some sort of spell.”
“I fell asleep in the library, and…” Moira sipped water to wet her throat. “There was something. Not what happened to you, Blair, not exactly. But it was as if she was there with me. Lilith. More, that I was with her and it wasn’t in the library, at all. We weren’t in the library. She was with me in my bedchamber, at home. In Geall.”
“What happened?” Blair asked her. “Do you remember?”
“I…” Moira’s gaze stayed on her plate as her color came up. “I’d been asleep, you see, and it seemed she was just there, as real as you are. She climbed into the bed with me. She…touched me. My body. I felt her hands on me.”
“That’s not unusual.” Blair toyed with her fish. “The dream, the clarity of it, maybe, but the content. Vampires are sexual creatures, and very often bisexual. It sounds like she was testing things out with you, playing at it.”
“I had an experience right after we came here,” Glenna said. “Afterwards, I took precautions, protected myself in sleep. It was stupid, stupid of me not to think to protect everyone else.”
“Well, that’s going on your permanent record.” Blair wagged her fork in Glenna’s direction. “Glenna doesn’t think of everything.”
“I appreciate the save by levity, but I should have thought of this.”
“We’ll figure it out now, because there’s no way they’re going to put the whammy on one of us and waltz in this house.”
“They have someone of power. Not a vampire.” Moira glanced toward Cian for confirmation, and got a slight nod. “I’ve read that there are some vampires who can cause a trance, but they must be there, physically there, with their victim. Or have bitten them before. This bite causes a connection, a bond, between them so that person, the human may be put under the vampire’s control.”
“Clear of bites here,” Blair pointed out.
“Aye. And you were sleeping, as I was—as Glenna was before. You couldn’t be caught in their eyes while you slept.”
“It takes a lot of juice for a vamp to whammy a human. A lot of energy,” Blair explained. “And practice.”
“True enough,” Cian confirmed.
“So they’ve turned a witch or sorcerer,” Hoyt said.
“No.” Moira bit her lip. “I think not. If what I’ve read is the truth. The vampire can gain power by drinking blood of power, but it becomes diluted. And if this person of power is turned, he would lose most, if not all, of his magic. It’s the price for the immortality. The demon he becomes loses the gift, or retains only the dregs of it.”
“So it’s more likely she has witches or whatever on her payroll, so to speak.” Blair considered it as she ate. “Someone who’d already turned to the dark side, we’ll say. Or someone she has in thrall. A half-vamp. A potent one.”
“I don’t know if that has to be.” Unlike the others, Larkin had already cleared his plate and was going for more. “I’ve been listening to all of this.”
“How can your ears work when your mouth is so busy?” Blair wondered.
He only smiled as he scooped up more fish, more rice. “It’s good food,” he said to Glenna. “If I don’t eat it, how would you know I appreciated it?”
“I’d like to know where you put all that appreciation. But you were saying,” Blair added, gesturing.
“These things happened in sleep, so it would seem to me the spell doesn’t work on the conscious mind. Wouldn’t it take more power to…” He fell back on Blair’s term. “To whammy someone when they were awake and aware?”
“It would.” Hoyt nodded. “Of course, it would.”
“And not just sleeping, not this day. Moira was all but ill with exhaustion from what she was part of today. Blair was worn through as well. I don’t know what it was like when it happened to you Glenna, but—”
“I was beat—worn out, upset. It was one of the reasons I didn’t think to take any precautions before I fell into bed.”
“There you have it then, I’m thinking. Not just sleep, but sleep when the body is weak and the mind at its most vulnerable. So it seems to me that whatever, whoever, she might be using isn’t as strong as what we have right here at this table.”
“You have been listening.” Blair considered him. “Dragon-boy here makes a good point. She hit us when our defenses were down, and she came damn close to getting lucky. What do we do about it?”
“Hoyt and I will work on protection. I’ve been using the most basic shield to this point.” Glenna looked at Hoyt. “We’ll pump it up.”
“Be good if we could do something for the house, too,” Blair pointed out. “Some sort of general woo-woo so they can’t get inside, even with an invite.”
“You can’t block an invitation.” Cian sat back with his wine. “You can withdraw it, with the right spell, but it can’t be blocked.”
“Okay, maybe not. Maybe something that extends the perimeters, creates a safe area around the house itself.”
“We’ve tried.” Hoyt laid his hand over Glenna’s. “We haven’t been able to find the way.”
“Something to work on. It would be another layer. The more layers they have to get through the better. Think vamp-free zone.”
“Perhaps I should move into a nice B and B,” Cian suggested, and had Blair frowning at him until she understood.
“Oh. Oh, right. Sorry. Forgot. Can’t have a vamp-free zone with a vamp in residence.”
“We haven’t been able to find a way to exclude him from it,” Glenna explained. “We have a few ideas. More like concepts than actual ideas,” she admitted. “And Hoyt’s been working for some time
on conjuring a kind of shield for you, Cian, so that you could go outside during the day. In the sun.”
“Others have tried and failed on that. It can’t be done.”
“People used to believe the world was flat,” Blair pointed out.
“True enough.” Cian shrugged. “But I’d think if it could be done it would have been in the thousands of years since our existence. And experimenting with it at this point isn’t the best use of time.”
“It’s my time,” Hoyt said quietly.
“We could have used you today.” Glenna spoke after a long beat of silence. “In Kerry, at the cliffs. It’s worth the time. We think we’d have more success if we had some of your blood.”
“Oh?” Cian said dryly. “Is that all?”
“Think about it. Still, our first priority will be protection. Hoyt and I will put that together.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Why don’t we get started?”
“Meanwhile, nobody sleeps until we have protection. I’ve got some extra crosses, some holy water, in my gear.” Blair got to her feet. “Cian, unless you’re planning to go out, I’d like to set up basic precautions at doors and windows.”
“Have at it. But those kind of trinkets won’t supercede an invitation.”
“Layers,” Blair said again.
“I’ll help you.” Larkin pushed his plate aside. “There’s a lot of doors and windows.”
“All right, so it looks like we split into teams. Hoyt and Glenna, magic time. Larkin and I will do what we can to block entrances. That leaves Cian and Moira on KP.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Hoyt and Glenna—she did as much as she’d ever trusted anyone. It wasn’t that she wasn’t open to magic. She had to be.
But even with the charm under her pillow, the candle lit, and the second charm hanging with the cross at her window, Blair slept fitfully that night.
And the night after.
The training helped, the sheer physical exertion of it, and the purpose. She pushed, and pushed hard. No one, including herself, ended any day without bruises and sore muscles. But no one, including herself, ended any day without being just a little stronger, just a little faster.
She watched Moira blossom—or thought of it that way. What Moira didn’t have in strength she made up for in speed and flexibility. And sheer determination.
There was no one who could compete with her when she had a bow in her hands.
Glenna polished the skills she already had—the canniness, the solid instincts. And she was coming along with a blade and an ax.
Hoyt brought an intensity to everything. Whether he fought with a blade, with a bow or with his own hands, he had an almost unwavering focus. She thought of him as the most reliable of soldiers.
And Cian as the most elegant, and vicious. He had the superior strength of his kind, and the animal’s cunning, but he added style to it all. He would kill, Blair thought, with violent grace.
She thought of Larkin as the utility player. In hand-to-hand, he was a scrapper, and simply didn’t give up. He lacked Hoyt’s intensity and Cian’s elegance with a sword, but he fought tirelessly until he downed his opponents, or they simply dropped from exhaustion. He had a good eye with the bow—not Moira’s, but who did?
And you never knew when he’d pull out one of his little tricks, so you’d end up battling with a man who had the head of a wolf, or the claws of a bear, the tail of dragon.
It was handy, and effective.
And damn sexy.
There were times he made her impatient. He was a bit too impulsive, and often showy. Errol Flynning it, she thought. And showoffs often ended up in the ground.
But when it came down to it, if she had to pick the people she’d want fighting beside her in the battle to save the world, she wouldn’t have chosen differently.
But even soldiers in the war to end wars needed to eat, to do laundry, and take out the trash.
Blair took the supply run because she wanted, desperately, to get out of the house. Two days of rain had limited outdoor activities, and made her edgy. If one person, just one, said that the rain is what made Ireland green, she’d split their head open with an ax.
Added to it, since the night of her close encounter with Lora, there’d been no sign of the enemy. The lull ruffled that edge and added twitchy.
Something was brewing. Bound to be brewing.
She had preferred to go alone, to have a couple of hours to herself, with her own thoughts, her own company. But she hadn’t been able to argue it was an unnecessary risk.
But she’d drawn the line at giving Larkin a driving lesson on their way into Ennis.
“I don’t know why I couldn’t do it,” he complained. “I’ve watched Glenna drive the thing. And she’s taught Hoyt.”
“Hoyt drives like an old blind man from Florida.”
“I don’t know what that means, except it’s an insult of some kind. I could do better than he does, with this, or the beauty Cian keeps in the stable.”
“Garage. You keep cars in a garage, and Cian’s made it clear he’ll bite and drain anyone who touches his Jag.”
“You could teach me on this one.” He reached over to trail his finger down the side of her neck. “I’d be a fine student.”
“Charm won’t work.” She flipped on the radio. “There, listen to the music and enjoy the ride.”
He cocked his head. “That sounds a bit like home.”
“Irish station, traditional music.”
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it, that you can have music at the snap of a finger. Or move so fast from one place to another in a machine.”
“Not in Chicago traffic. You do a lot of sitting and cursing instead of moving.”
“Tell me about your Chicago.”
“It’s not my Chicago. Just where I’ve been based the last couple of years.”
“It was the Boston before that.”
“Yeah.” But Boston was Jeremy, and she’d had to get away from it. “Chicago. It’s, ah, it’s a city. Major city in the Midwest of the U.S. On a lake—big-ass lake.”
“Do you fish in it, this lake?”
“Fish? Me? No. I guess people maybe do. Ah…they sail on it. Water sports and stuff. It’s wicked cold in the winter, wind like you wouldn’t believe. Lake effect, a lot of snow, bone-chilling cold. But, I don’t know, it’s got a lot happening. Restaurants, great shopping, museums, clubs. Vampires.”
“A big city? Bigger than Ennis?”
“A lot bigger.” She tried to think what he’d make of the El, and just couldn’t.
“How is it that if it’s such a large city with so many people, they haven’t banded together to fight against the vampires?”
“They don’t believe in them, or if some do, they pretend they don’t. If somebody gets attacked, or gets dead, they put it down to gangs, or sick bastards. Mostly the vamps keep a low profile—or they did until recently. Prey on the homeless or runaways, transients. People other people don’t miss.”
“There were legends in Geall of creatures that haunted the night, preyed on humans long ago. I never believed them, until the queen—my aunt—was killed by them. And even then…”
“It’s hard to believe what you’ve been taught is fantasy, or the impossible. So you put up the shield. It’s natural.”
“But not you.” He studied her profile. It was strong, yes, but with such a pretty curve of cheek, and that dark, dark hair such a lovely contrast to the white of her skin. “You’ve always known. Do you ever wish it otherwise? That you were one of the people with the shields. Who never knew?”
“No point in wishing for what you can’t have.”
“What’s the point of wishing for what you can and do?” he countered.
He had a point, Blair decided. He usually did if you listened long enough.
She found a spot in a car park, dug out the money for the ticket. Larkin just stood, hands in the pockets of the jeans Glenna had bought him on some earlier trip, looking at everything.
>
It was a relief not to be asked a dozen questions. She knew he’d been to town before, but imagined every visit was a little like a walk through Disney World for him.
“Just stick close, okay? I don’t want to have to go hunting for you.”
“I wouldn’t leave you.” He took her hand, tightening his grip a little when she started to shake him off. “You should hold on to me,” he said with absolute innocence in his eyes. “I could get lost.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Not in the least.” He linked fingers with hers and set out at a stroll. “Why with all these people, and the street, and the sounds and sights, I could lose my way any moment. At home, the village isn’t nearly as big as this, and there aren’t so many in it. On market day now, it can be crowded and colorful. But I know what I’m about there.”
“You know what you’re about everywhere,” she said under her breath.
He had good ears, and his lips twitched at the comment. “On market day, people come into the village from all over the land. There’s wonderful food—”
“Which would be your first priority.”
“A man has to eat. But there’s cloths and crafts and music. Lovely stones from the mountains, and shells from the sea. And you bargain, you see, that’s the fun of it. When we’re at home again, I’ll buy you a gift on market day.”
He stopped to study the souvenirs and jewelry in a shop window. “I have nothing here to trade, and Hoyt tells me we can’t use the coin I brought with me. You like baubles.” He flicked a finger at one of the drops in her ears. “So I’ll buy you a bauble on market day.”
“I think we might be too busy to shop for baubles. Come on.” She gave his hand a tug. “We’re here for supplies, not shiny things.”
“There’s no need to hurry. We can have a bit of fun while we’re about it. From what I see, you don’t have enough fun.”
“If we’re still alive in November, I’ll do cartwheels in the street. I’ll do naked cartwheels.”
He shot her that quick grin. “That’s a new and important reason for me to fight. I haven’t thought of the cartwheels, but I have thought about you naked a time or two. Oh, look there. Cakes!”
Sex and food, she thought. If he’d tossed in a beer and a sporting event, he’d be the ultimate guy. “No.” She rolled her eyes, halfheartedly dug in her heels as he pulled her across the street. “We’re not here for cakes either. I’ve got a list. A really long list.”
“We can see to it soon enough. Ah, would you look at that one? See the long one, with the chocolate.”
“Eclair.”
“Eclair,” he repeated, making the word sound like a particularly pleasurable sex act. “You should have one of those, and so should I.” He turned those long, tawny eyes on her. “Be a darling, won’t you, Blair? I’ll pay you back.”
“You ought to be fat as a pig,” she muttered, but she went inside the bakery to buy two eclairs.
And came out with a dozen cupcakes as well.
She had no idea how he’d talked her into them, or the detour into half a dozen shops to browse. She was usually—hell, she was always—stronger than that.
Then she noticed the way the female clerks, other browsers, women on the street looked at him. Tough to be stronger than that, she decided.
He managed to nudge her into whittling away more than an hour doing nothing before she dragged him with her to finish the supply list.
“Okay, that’s it. Foot firmly down. We haul this stuff straight back to the car and head for home. No more window shopping, no more flirting with shop girls.”
“Sure it was shameful the way you poured your charm over that dear woman.”
Blair gave him a bland look. “You’re a real card.” She gestured with her chin. “That way. No detours.”
“You know, the way this village is built—I’m meaning the way the roads are, it’s very like my own. And how the shops are huddled up together. And here, this is very like home, too.”
Before she could stop him, he’d opened the door of a pub. “Ah, there’s a
