“I like to be in control.”
“I’ve heard that about you.”
“I bet you have.”
In that moment, she really did want this fight. She might regret pushing it forward, but she was done playing the simpering maiden for him. She’d followed her grandmother’s advice on how to get entry to his fortress. She’d followed Celeste’s advice on how to make him trust her. But now Sunny was thinking on her feet, striding out on her own, forging her own path.
“Women are notoriously difficult to control,” she commented, “even those with a submissive nature.” She paused and offered him a wily smile. “Are you really man enough to control a woman like me?”
He lifted his chin. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“I came of my own accord.”
“So you believe.” He smirked, but he didn’t look quite so sure now.
“No, really I did. I’m enjoying this game. It’s fun.” She meshed her fingers and cracked her knuckles. “There’s something you don’t know about me, Fox. My blood is only half Raven’s Landing blood. The other half comes in part from an ancient tribe who had their own little...rituals.”
His eyes rounded as he took in her meaning.
She nodded. “You see it now, don’t you?” She put one hand on her hip and flapped the other in front of her face. “It’s awfully stuffy in here. I think we should get some air. I’ll open a window.”
“No!”
She sent a bolt of energy through the nearest glass pane.
The entire window shattered outwards. A gust of fresh sea air surged into the vacuum of the room.
His eyes flickered wildly. He lifted his hand in the air.
Only then did she remember what Rowena had said. “With one click of his fingers...”
Click.
It was too late.
Steel bars quickly enclosed the whole building. The outside light faded and vanished as the building became a fortress.
The chandeliers grew brighter.
The last bit of natural air was sucked out of the building.
Oh, crap. Her heart sank when all the natural light was blocked and she was trapped.
He’d achieved his goal, but he looked strangely diminished, as if the act had drained his power. She turned to face him and a sense of calm descended on her. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s your big party trick. Surrounding your guests with bars?”
Allowing her head to drop back, she laughed.
Fox turned to the only door and reached out. It slammed shut and beyond it the sound of more bars echoed.
He shifted quickly and watched her as if he was trying to gauge her next maneuver.
“That’s why you have to keep people here, because it’s all bluster, isn’t it? Unless you keep the dark tides supplied with innocent souls you’ll never get further and your reputation is built on hot air.”
He looked ready to take action again.
She opened her hands, drew on the natural resources all around them, reeling them in around the building.
His eyes looked frantic and his skin paled. “Stop it, or I’ll...”
She cocked her head on one side. “You’ll what?”
With great effort, he forged a stack of huge chains, then attempted to raise them from the floor to surround her, and failed.
“What’s the matter, have you overshot your goal? Perhaps you’ve forgotten something...”
For the first time she saw an expression of awe in his eyes.
She laughed softly. He thought she’d fractured his abilities—that she’d done this to him. Perhaps she had, because she’d taken a sacrificial soul away from him. She’d deleted Cullen from his list of casualties, which meant he was down on power.
Let him think it’s me, she decided, her visual image of him cracking wide open, chinks appearing everywhere. “You like hunting big game, as well as women, don’t you?”
She climbed up onto the table, strode across it, responding instinctively to the glazed look in his eyes. “Hunting is a crime against nature.”
She raised her hands. Plants grew along her arms, tendrils shooting through her fingers. “I work with my emotions, and I draw on nature. I find the trees respond to me. Plant life and creatures, too. See how they aid me when I call upon them?”
“You’re gifted in control of the elements. That was obvious thirty days ago,” he spat back. “Can you control inanimate objects, defeat man-made forces?”
“Nature isn’t enough for you?” She stepped closer. “That’s funny. Nature is everything to me. I’d sacrifice my twenty-first century career in technology for nature to thrive, so I could be at one with it.”
Panic stricken, Fox let out a string of commands in a foreign tongue. The table under her collapsed and turned to a nest of vipers.
Sunny jolted, her world spinning on an axis, and then landed violently on the floor in the middle of the snake pit.
He pointed in her direction with a shaky hand. “If you love nature so much, you’ll enjoy my choice of company for you.”
The snakes started to slither across the floor toward her.
She staggered to her feet then remembered to levitate, rising up and escaping them.
Grasping the chandelier, she swung over to the sideboard. Hitching up her skirt, she leapt on to it, staggering along the shiny wooden surface in her high heels. Glancing about, she assessed her options. The only way out of here now was up.
Gasping for breath, she looked at the ceiling. There was at least one floor and attics. Above that, pure blue sky.
She sent a bolt of lightning through the ceiling, then watched as it split open. The chandeliers swayed violently, and she felt the sideboard go from beneath her feet. She quickly summoned a flock of birds, and within moments they swarmed down from above, filling the space and flying around his head, making a cacophony of glorious sound.
Fox was on his back, surrounded by his own snakes, and stared up at the sky in horror, shielding his eyes with one hand. “Have mercy!”
“Mercy? No. Because I’m judge and jury in this trial, and I’m sentencing you for crimes against nature. Your punishment will be to stay here in your fortress and learn.” She lifted her hands. “I call upon nature to teach you the error of your ways.”
With that, she closed her eyes and pulled out everything she had, every ounce of love, loss and joy she’d experienced during her time with Cullen—and beyond that—with the people of Raven’s Landing, and used those emotions to fuel her magic.
Fox scrabbled to his feet and staggered back until he met with his fancy dining chair. Plant life burst through the tiled floors. Fox collapsed into his chair just as the forces of nature rose around him, consuming him. Lush foliage weaved through the room, entwining around him, fixing him to the spot.
Birdsong continued for several long moments, and then began to lessen as the birds one by one took their leave, soaring back out into the sky above.
His glazed eyes blinked, but Fox wasn’t going anywhere. He was locked into stasis in his ornate dining chair like a fossilized Green Man overgrown by nature.
“And you’ll have to stay there until you learn to show some respect to Mother Nature! It’s people like you who are destroying this planet.”
As if in agreement, a Purple Emperor butterfly emerged from the lush foliage and fluttered nearby. Sunny watched as it landed on Fox.
Relieved the task was done she let her head drop back and looked up at the sky, breathing in the clean air.
The sound of voices reached her and the door vibrated violently.
She watched as it bowed and buckled and then a boot came through, breaking the door apart. She recognized that boot.
A moment later the rest of the door was demolished before her eyes and Cullen stepped through it.
Behind him, the other members of the coven crowded in through the entrance he’d made.
Cullen strode straight to her side, clambering over massive tree trunks and beneath branches, bypa
ssing the strange sight of Fox. Lifting her into his arms, he spun her off her feet, almost crushing the breath out of her. Sunny finally went limp, wrapping her arms around his neck while he kissed her face.
Once he’d stopped checking her over, she looked past his shoulder at Celeste who was staring at Fox, who was completely still, a resigned expression in his eyes as he watched them all.
“Well,” Celeste said, awestruck, “he won’t come to any trouble now, will he?” She turned to Sunny, tears glistening in her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him looking so peaceful.” Her voice vibrated with emotion. “Thank you.”
It wasn’t what Sunny had expected her to say, but she understood. “How long do you think I’ll be able to hold him here, under my spell?”
“Long enough to learn his lesson, hopefully. We’ll join our magic with yours, to make the spell more binding, but there’s no telling how well our magic will stand up, if outside forces come into play. We always have to keep it in mind.”
“You think he might find a way to escape?”
“If he got help from an old apprentice, perhaps, but for now, we are safe.”
The other members of Celeste’s coven walked around the room, staring at the painting and looking at the scene Sunny had created.
Then Willow’s voice echoed from the hallway. “I’ve got her!”
She came through the broken door with Imelda in tow. The two women were hugging each other and Imelda was crying.
Sunny could see Imelda’s eyes were bright and lively, unlike earlier, her posture growing stronger, as if she’d been freed from more than a physical burden, but a spiritual one. As Sunny watched, Imelda sought her out in the crowd and nodded her way, her eyes glistening with grateful tears. Sunny lifted her hand, acknowledging her.
Willow ran to Celeste’s side and hugged her.
Celeste patted her hand, smiling. “This matchmaker’s error has always been where she placed the love in her own life.”
Cullen did not let go his grip on Sunny.
When she met his gaze, he said two words. “Marry me.”
Sunny nodded at him, smiling. “Now that rude interruption has been dealt with...yes, Cullen. I happily accept your proposal.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Cullen Thaine was content by her side.
Home is where the heart is, and that was in 2020, with Sunny.
He wasn’t completely free of his demons yet though. The shadows lingered at the edge of their world. One glance across the horizon was all it took to remind Cullen the Lord of the Dark Tides was still out there, waiting with hand out, expecting a delivery.
Many times a day he scanned the horizon, looking for that black vessel, that demon crew, just as each day when he awoke he sat bolt upright and checked he hadn’t been taken back in time, taken away from his lady love.
But while the threat was not close, he wanted to bind together with her, and thankfully she agreed. Together they made their way to the cliffs on midsummer’s morn, to make their commitment in the ancient way, hand fasting to one another in the pagan style. Celeste was to be their witness. She was the one to give them their bond. How could it be anyone else?
As the sun rose, the mist trailed their footsteps, blurring the horizon and masking the telltale signs indicating where they were in time. Cullen thought they could be anywhere, and it didn’t really matter, as long as they were together. As long as he was with Sunny.
It had taken a while to get used to being alive in Cornwall in the millennium, but he had. His old life began to wither away from him, like last year’s growth in the natural world. Home is where the heart is, and that was with Sunny—he could never go back, not without her.
She looked so beautiful, and he couldn’t get his fill of her. His mother’s favorite gemstones shone at her neck, a simple design of intertwined silver hearts set with small rubies. Sunny had picked it as her favorite, too, and that made him happy. Her hair was adorned with meadow flowers and her white muslin dress floated about her form so delicately, he thought she looked like an angel.
“My angel wench,” he whispered possessively.
“My lusty time-traveler.” She chuckled as she said it and cuddled up against his side, stroking his cotton shirt, for she’d insisted he wore the clothes he traveled through time in.
Heavens above, he loved her. This beautiful woman had come through time for him, to give him this life and her love, at home in the land he cherished. Surely no man had ever felt luckier than he did?
“Am I late?” Celeste called over to them as she and Willow climbed out of Willow’s bright yellow carriage.
“No,” Sunny answered.
“We’ve got all the time in the world,” Cullen added and kissed her forehead.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Celeste said as she walked over to where they stood on the cliffs. “I wore my favorite dress. It’s ancient, but I do love it.”
“It’s beautiful,” Sunny replied admiringly.
Cullen stared at the garment, a robe of white silk, many centuries old. Would they ever know just how long Celeste had been making merry with the hearts of Cornish folk? Her white-streaked flaxen hair was loose about her shoulders, her strange green eyes shining. A silver chain hung at her throat, adorned with a pearl and a piece of carved jet. She was clutching a red velvet cushion and a wicker basket in the other hand.
“Let me carry the basket,” Willow said, easing it from Celeste’s grip. “You don’t have to do everything.”
“I do. It’s my job to see this through,” Celeste responded.
“We remembered everything,” Willow said as she set down the basket, which contained a bottle of champagne, glasses, and a camera.
“Stop bickering, you two,” Sunny laughed. “You’re like an old married couple.”
Willow beamed and linked arms with Celeste.
Celeste pretended to be annoyed, but Cullen could tell she wasn’t.
Sunny gasped. “Willow, I thought it might be Fox you were in love with. It wasn’t, was it? You’re in love with Celeste.”
Willow shrugged, but she glowed. “Now Fox is otherwise engaged, Celeste’s just going to have to put up with me for companionship.”
She appeared mighty pleased with herself, Cullen noted, and Celeste was quietly glowing too.
“I’m so touched to be here to witness this union,” Celeste said.
“You ought to be,” Cullen teased. “Since you had such a big hand in it.”
She threw him a chastising glance, humming happily. Lifting the cushion, she leveled it, arranging the objects they’d chosen to fasten to one another: two red ribbons and two ornately-carved silver Celtic rings. “Ready?”
“Yes,” they replied in unison.
“Just one thing. I have to ask.” She cleared her throat. “As your witness and your mentor, I want to know if this binding of hearts and bodies means you’ll be disappearing off together. You know, I’d like some advance warning.”
“We’re happy here, for the time being,” Cullen replied, his mind drifting to images of the high seas, Sunny in his arms aboard a magnificent vessel as it carved its way through the ocean. They had the means to do it now, more than enough with what his mother had left for him. Perhaps they would pursue that adventure, perhaps they wouldn’t. Time would tell.
Celeste tutted. “I didn’t bring you together to have you race off again.”
She was teasing.
“The only thing you can be sure of in life is your heart,” Sunny added provocatively, squeezing his hand, “and where it leads, you will follow.”
Oh yes, he liked the promise in her eyes. There were many adventures to be had yet with his ladylove.
Celeste chuckled under her breath, then she blinked her eyes into the ever-brightening sky and presented them with the cushion. “The time is right.”
He lifted the first ribbon, turning back to Sunny. “Blood of my blood,” he recited and tied the red ribbon around Sunny’s wrist, “and bone
of my bone,” he slipped the ring on her finger. “I bind myself to thee and wherever we wander, I will return to this spot each midsummer’s day to renew my vow to walk by your side.”
Celeste offered the cushion to Sunny.
She lifted the second red ribbon. “Blood of my blood...” Her hand shook. He grasped it in his, steadying her, and she finished the job, smiling at him. “And bone of my bone.” She slipped the ring onto his finger, and he clutched both her hands in his. “I bind myself to you, now and forever.”
“My hero,” she added in a whisper.
“No,” he responded. “You’re my hero.”
When her eyebrows lifted, he nodded.
“Yes, yes, I understand now, in this world a woman can be a hero too, perhaps in my world too, but I did not see it then.”
Willow whooped and Celeste cheered.
Then Celeste wiped a tear from her eyes. “Congratulations. I’m so glad to witness this and I wish you every happiness.” She placed her hand over theirs.
“Oh,” Willow blurted. “I nearly forgot–the broom! You have to jump the broom. It’s tradition. We left it in the car.”
She turned away and darted back to where she’d parked her car, returning a minute later with an old-fashioned broomstick fashioned from a stripped branch and a bundle of twigs, which she set down on the grass in front of them.
“Is it supposed to be a witch’s broom?” he quizzed.
Willow shot him a look of mock annoyance. “Hush now, it’s all we had.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Sunny responded. She laughed and lifted her skirts, her glance inviting him to take the final step.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and together they jumped over the broom.
Sunny reached up and kissed him, and he wondered how he could ever have thought of leaving her at all. This was what he wanted, and why wouldn’t he?
It was pure magic.
If you enjoyed this novel, please consider leaving a rating or review at the retailers or on Good Reads.
Other books in the Witches of Raven’s Landing series:
A CUCKOO IN THE COVEN
There’s a new witch in town, but who is this mysterious stranger and why has he come to Raven’s Landing?
A Coven of Her own Page 23
