"Well," she said and took a step away from him, trying to distance herself from the shadowy darkness that was such a part of him, "I really must be going. Blake. I'll let you know when I hear from Hannah."
Turning, she marched quickly away and only stumbled slightly when his voice followed her.
"Eudora!" he called, then muttered, "Damn that dog!"
She gasped and whirled around. Blake leveled a hard look on the Davis house and instantly a howl of pain splintered the air, then suddenly, abruptly, ended.
Tears filled her eyes.
Then, as if killing a dog meant no more to him than swatting a fly, he turned his even gaze on Eudora again. "Remind Hannah that her anxious bridegroom is growing restless."
Eudora nodded stiffly, turned, and quickly walked away.
Blake Wolcott smiled tightly. Good. Killing that damned dog hadn't done much toward easing the frustration riding him. But on the other hand, it seemed to have made an impression on Eudora. Raw fury simmered inside him as he watched the tall, elegantly dressed older woman escape him. She knew where her niece was, and it wasn't Boston. The Lowell women were trying to outmaneuver him, but it wouldn't work.
Oh, Eudora was strong, he admitted silently. And stupidly brave. Imagine trying to hide the fact of that telegram from him. Him. Who knew everything that happened in his adopted hometown. Everything, he reminded himself with a surge of renewed fury, but the contents of that telegram. He'd tried to glean the message with his formidable strength, but the protective spell Eudora had woven was simply too strong to be broken that easily.
Which was just another reason why he had to marry Hannah. Once he was joined with the last member of the Lowell family and his talents were merged with hers, he would be so powerful that no one—no one—could stand against him. And he would finally have what he'd come all the way from England to have—the power he'd dreamed of.
A flicker of movement caught his eye and he looked at the Davis house in time to see the edge of the fall back into place behind the front window. Jasper Davis should have had more sense than to let a dog annoy him, Blake told himself and casually lifted one hand.
The window glass shattered inward, shards slicing through the curtains to fly into the room like dozens of razor-sharp knives. Jasper shrieked in pain and Blake smiled.
A punishment delivered. A lesson learned.
Feeling better now, the warlock turned toward the harbor and his waterfront home. Soon, he told himself. The man he had watching Eudora would turn up the information he required—or regret the lack of it. And once Hannah was found, he would put her under lock and key until the Solstice and their wedding.
Strolling the empty streets, he noted with satisfaction the curtains that dropped into place over closed windows as he passed.
* * *
Hannah paced the small confines of her bedroom restlessly. Her long white nightgown swished against her shins, tangled with her bare feet. Wrapping her arms around herself, she glanced at Hepzibah, curled up at the foot of the bed.
"Why didn't Eudora tell me?" she asked the little cat and paused as if waiting for an answer. The animal's eyes widened and a soft mew escaped it.
"Do you think she didn't know?"
It was certainly a possibility. After all, as Eudora had explained herself, nothing in life was a certainty. Not the crystal. Not ever magic.
"That must be it," Hannah said, answering her own question.
She stopped beside the short chest of drawers and drummed her fingertips against its top. "How long was he married, I wonder," she said, letting her fingers stray to the silver backed-brush lying on the polished wood surface. She picked it up and absently moved her thumb across its bristles.
Moving to the bed, she took a seat on the edge of the mattress and slowly pulled the brush through the length of her hair, letting the soothing tug and pull ease some of the tension from her body.
Remembering her conversation with Elias, Hannah let her mind settle on the one question the older man couldn't—or wouldn't—answer.
"Does Jonas still love Marie?" she whispered, and hearing the words spoken aloud brought a shiver to her spine and an emptiness to her heart.
Her hands fell to her lap and she cradled the silver brush that had been a gift from Eudora in her palms. Why, she wondered, did the idea that Jonas had been married before, loved before, bother her so? An ache built up in her chest, making it hard to draw a breath.
It didn't make sense. She hadn't even known him until little more than a week ago. Of course he'd had a life before she'd entered it. It was only natural.
And yet… her mind tried to paint a picture of the mysterious Marie. Was she tall or short? Fair or dark? Fat or thin? How had she died? Did he still mourn her?
Was she a witch?
On that thought, Hannah stood up, letting the hairbrush fall to the floor at her feet. Hepzibah, startled, leaped straight into the air and scuttled off the bed, headed for the not-quite-closed door.
"Probably not," Hannah muttered aloud and began to feel a bit better. Surely if the Mackenzie had been married to a witch, Eudora would have been able to see it in the crystal. "Of course," she said on a relieved sigh. The Mackenzie had been married to an ordinary woman. The spirit of a dead witch would have revealed itself to Eudora's searching eye.
At least in this, then, Hannah told herself, she would be the first. And the last. She could give him the strength and power that came with her name and the long, illustrious line of her family. Theirs would be a marriage that would blossom with the power of the ancients. A marriage that would tie two old, respected families together and bind them forever.
A joining of two houses that would anchor the Guild and banish Blake Wolcott.
The quiet creak of the door opening caught Hannah's attention. She slanted a look in time to see Hepzibah scoot through the narrow opening and streak into the short, dark hallway. Sighing, Hannah went after her.
"Damn it," Jonas's muttered, disgusted voice floated to her from behind his door as it slowly pushed open under the force of a small determined cat.
Hannah was just a step or two behind Hepzibah, although she at least knocked perfunctorily before opening the door wider.
Jonas sat in a chair on the far side of the room. A lamp burned brightly on the small round table beside him, throwing golden shadows across his face and highlighting the frown twisting his lips. His bare feet propped up on the footrails of his wide oak bed, he held an open book in his lap. His worn jeans hugged his long legs and his work shirt was unbuttoned and lying open, exposing his tanned, sculpted, very muscled chest.
"Oh, my," she murmured as the temperature in the room swiftly rose from chilly to downright steamy. Helplessly, Hannah studied that broad expanse of bronzed skin before finally lifting her gaze to his head, where Hepzibah perched like a queen on her throne. The little white cat's long, fluffy tail hung down along one side of his face, and when it twitched across his nose, Jonas sneezed.
"God bless you."
He breathed slowly, deeply, and Hannah was mesmerized by the rise and fall of that magnificent chest. Jonas shook his head slightly and Hepzibah slid back and forth like too much water carried in a shallow pan. He winced tightly before saying, "If this is a blessing, I'd sure as hell hate to see a curse."
"Hepzibah." Hannah's eyes widened as the cat slid precariously to one side of Jonas's skull its claws scraping frantically for a hold on something. She fought down a smile while she watched Jonas's patient response to the little cat's activities.
A long-suffering expression crossed his face and he winced when Hepzibah's claws dug into his scalp. But he didn't snatch at the animal. He wasn't yelling. He wasn't even angry. And Hannah felt another tug at her heart.
"Would you mind," he asked quietly, obviously trying to hold perfectly still, "peeling her off my head before she digs her claws clean down to what's left of my brain?"
"Oh!" Grinning, she muttered, "I'm sorry," and rushed across the room. She st
opped directly in front of him and leaned over to reach for Hepzibah.
Clouds of white cat fur fluttered in his face and dusted daintily against his naked chest. Tiny paws and claws scuttled across the top of his head as the damned cat tried to avoid Hannah's grip. The small stabbing pains went unnoticed, though, as the sweet, unmistakable scent of lemons washed over him.
The minute she'd walked into his room, his breath had left him in a rush that made his head swim. Standing in the doorway, her long hair loose and falling in a soft wave of curls around her shoulders and across her breasts, she'd looked like the answer to a man's prayers.
Or the beautiful doorway to a hell he didn't care to revisit.
He'd spent too much time thinking about her lately, and to see her here, in his bedroom, a thin nightgown the only thing separating her naked body from his hungry eyes… well, this was a temptation he wasn't sure he'd survive.
She leaned in farther across him, trying his patience and testing his self-control. Yards of white cotton covered her nudity, backlit by the lamp at his side. He spotted vaguely teasing shadows. Hints of valleys.
His body tightened in response, and he nearly exploded with the effort to keep from grabbing her, pulling onto his lap, and taking her mouth with his… losing himself in the taste of her.
When she grabbed at her cat again, one of Hannah's breasts caressed the side of his face and he instinctively turned into her. Inhaling her scent. Imagining the feel of her flesh beneath his hands, her soft sighs whispering in his ears…
"For heaven's sake, Hepzibah, let the man go!"
He felt the removal of every claw and told himself it was just punishment for what he'd been considering. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly enough to keep him from considering the same damn thing all over again.
"There!" Hannah stood back, triumphant. Her unrepentant cat lay cradled in her arms and for the first time ever, Jonas envied a damned feline.
This was a dangerous path and he knew it. The sooner he got Hannah out of his room, the sooner he'd be able to lie down in his empty bed and groan until morning.
"Thanks," he said gruffly, laying his forgotten book flat on his lap to hide the evidence of his response to her.
"I am sorry," she said with a small shrug. "It's just that Hepzibah's taken a real liking to you."
"My own fault," he said. "Should have fixed my door a long time ago. Never did shut right."
"I could put a spell on it for you," she suggested helpfully. "Of course, I could just try to fix it, but I'm afraid my skills with tools are hardly remarkable."
She plopped herself down on the edge of the bed and looked to be settling in for a nice long chat. God help him. "Although," she went on, "if I'm to be honest, my magic skills aren't much better."
"Don't worry about it," he interrupted. "I can fix it myself, without the help of magic." He sure as hell wasn't going to get back into a discussion of witches and warlocks and whatever else was running around in her mind.
"That's very nice of you," Hannah was saying, "to be so understanding. But frankly, I don't understand it myself. At home, my powers were much stronger." She stroked one hand down the length of Hepzibah's back and the cat arched into her touch, much like Jonas had dreamed of doing.
He linked his fingers atop the book on his lap.
"I'd hoped," she went on, "that by being around you, my abilities would improve."
His gaze locked on the caressing strokes she gave her cat. Jonas's mind wandered. "Abilities?"
"My witchcraft."
"Uh-huh."
She sniffed. "But," she said, her voice a bit stronger, demanding his attention.
He tore his gaze from her fingertips to look into her eyes.
"It seems that not only am I not improving, I'm getting worse."
"That's a shame," he said, still not entirely sure what they were talking about.
"Even the potion I mixed up a few days ago…" She shook her head in confusion. "It separated when it cooled and it's not supposed to do that."
"Sorry to hear that," he said and managed to keep from asking what kind of potion she'd been mixing. He was sure he didn't want to know. Then what she'd been saying actually sank into his head and, sensing a possible road out of this situation, he said, "Maybe you're wrong about me."
"In what way?" Her brow furrowed slightly, drawing honey-blond eyebrows together over her eyes.
"If your powers are getting worse," he said, "maybe I'm not the warlock you think I am."
"Oh, you are the Mackenzie, no mistake," she assured him, shattering his hopes.
Her absolute belief was hard to argue with. But keep trying, he had to, he told himself as her gaze drifted around the room. For his own peace of mind, such as it was.
She gasped suddenly and, releasing Hepzibah scooted off the edge of the bed, drawing the hem of her nightgown up to her knees. Jonas gritted his teeth and held the book on his lap down tight, as if he expected it to be pushed aside by the force of his body's fierce response to her.
The blasted cat raced to his side. Jonas scowled and surrendered to the inevitable. This time, thankfully, the little animal contented itself with scaling his legs. Jonas shifted his gaze to follow Hannah and told himself not to notice the way her cotton nightgown clung to her thighs with her hurried steps.
Crossing to the chest of drawers in the corner, she picked something off its top and turned to face him. Holding the object up for the light to glitter off its surface, she beamed at him as lamplight flashed and winked off the polished brass.
"Here's your proof," she nearly crowed.
"My belt buckle?" he asked, giving her a look that clearly said she'd lost her mind.
But Hannah was used to that. He still hadn't accepted the truth of his identity, so how could he accept the fact that she was a witch? And yet, her fingers curled around the cold metal in her hand. She should have thought of the circlet herself. It was only purest luck that she'd spotted it on his dresser.
Or, she thought, smiling, destiny.
"I don't know what you're talking about now, Hannah," he said tightly. "But then, that's nothin' new."
"This," she said, moving to his chair and dropping to her knees beside him. Unlacing his fingers, she turned one of his hands up and placed the circlet in the center of his palm. "This is the Mackenzie brooch," she said, looking deeply into the icy blue of his eyes, willing him to believe her. To trust her.
To know.
Instead, she watched as his features tightened. His feet hit the floor and he sat up straight, glaring at her. "How did you know it used to be a brooch?" he demanded. "Nobody knew about it but me. And Elias."
"Where did you get it?" she asked quietly.
His fingers closed over the cold metal protectively. Then he stood up, walked past her, and laid the buckle down where she'd found it. "It was my mother's," he said, running his fingertip gently across the brassy circles. "Elias told me she wore it every day," he inhaled sharply. "My father gave it to her –"
"When they were married," Hannah finished for him and stood up, turning to face him.
"Good guess." His expression blank, he refused to give an inch.
She shook her head and smiled at him, hoping to ease the storm in his eyes. "It wasn't a guess, Jonas. Where I come from, everyone knows the story behind that circlet."
"And why's that?" His voice sounded raw with choked emotion.
She walked to his side slowly and stopped in front of him. Her gaze dropped briefly to the gleaming belt buckle. The brassy gold metal shone in the lamplight, defining each of the three, intertwined circles. Nicks and scratches pitted its surface, attesting to the centuries it had survived.
Her eyes misted at the thought. Since the time of the Druids, his family had loved and died and loved again. She wanted him to know the pride she felt in her own heritage. She wanted him to remember all of the Mackenzies who had come before him. All of the people through the ages who had formed him, made him the warlock he was t
oday.
As her family, the Lowells, had survived and prospered, so had his. He had the right to know who he was, and to take pride in that knowledge.
Turning back to him, she lifted her chin and looked up into his eyes. "That brooch," she said quietly, "has been passed down from generation to generation in your family. Since the first Druid warlock fashioned it as a gift for his betrothed, it's been given by the Mackenzie to the woman he's chosen for his wife. The brass circle has belonged to the hereditary head of the Guild—the Mackenzie—for centuries."
He sucked in a gulp of air and shifted his gaze between her and the buckle and back again. The clear color of his eyes darkened as a quick succession of expressions darted across his features. Outrage, confusion, anger, and briefly she thought she recognized fear. And then all emotion was gone from his face and he met her gaze with a studied veil of blank indifference. But her moment had come and she wouldn't be ignored.
Hannah reached up and laid both palms against his chest, feeling the heat of his body and the warmth of his banked power enter her, surge through her blood and pool at her center. The time had come. At last. A shiver of anticipation rippled along her spine.
She would need every ounce of courage she'd ever possessed to do what she must do next. A blush stole over her, but she set the warm tide of embarrassment aside. This was not the moment for modesty. It was instead, the moment to seal their bond and take the first steps into their destiny.
"And now," she said, forcing the words from a suddenly tight throat, "the circlet belongs to you. The Mackenzie."
A curl of uneasiness unwound in the pit of Jonas' stomach. Memory whispered at the edges of his mind. His brain filled with images—half-formed, blurred shapes and shadows of things and people he didn't know. Didn't remember.
But this was worse than anything he'd ever experienced before. Because now he sensed… he felt… that he should know these things. These people.
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