“Yes, that’s just the way I was thinking, Raven, when I set out to find my little sister more than three centuries ago. But your reaction was quite different. Do you remember?”
I did remember. And the doubt in my heart grew larger. “But—”
“You thought I’d come to kill you. You drew your blade, Raven. You’d have fought me—perhaps to the death. To you I was a stranger. Nothing more.”
My heart contracted at her words. Slowly I lowered my head. “You’re right.” Drawing a deep breath, I met her eyes. “But we’re sisters again now, Arianna. Closer, even, than that.”
“But our past together is just as gone. The life you led before is lost to you. You remember none of it. Not our father, a lowly saddle maker, nor our mother, nor our poor cottage in Stonehaven. Not the loch where we played.” She closed her eyes. “Our closeness now is based on this lifetime. We’ve built it together over centuries, Raven. It’s strong, and it’s real, but it’s not the same. It can never be the same.”
Turning slowly, eyes downcast, I felt tears well up and burn my eyes. “I...I hadn’t thought....”
“I know. That’s why I’m trying to make you think. Raven, Duncan may look the same, bear the same name, but he is not the same. To him, you’re a beautiful stranger who kissed him on the street one day.”
My head came up sharply. “He kissed me, too!”
“Of course he did. But, Raven, you could fling yourself into the arms of any red-blooded, heterosexual male and he would do the same. You’re a beautiful woman. Duncan is a man.”
“No,” I said. Biting my lip, I paced to the bed, snatching up a dress, eyeing it through my tears. “There was something there, something between us, Arianna. I felt it.”
“Yes. You felt it. But did he?”
The fabric of the dress crumpled in my fists, I slowly lifted my head, faced her, bit back a sob. “He...he doesn’t love me?”
“He doesn’t know you.” Arianna came closer, took the dress gently from my hands, and laid it on the bed. Then she cupped my face and wiped my tears away with her thumbs. “I only want you to be aware, to be careful, darling. He’ll fall in love with you again, I don’t doubt it for a moment. But, Raven, he’s going to need time. And so are you. Time to get to know him again. He might be very different from the man you remember. You might decide you don’t even want—”
“I will never decide that,” I sniffed, brushing at my wet eyes. “I love him, Arianna. I will always love him.”
“I know,” she said softy. Turning, she fingered the clothes on the bed, pausing on a sheer, soft dress of ivory silk. “This one, I think.” She gathered the dress up, draped it gently over my arm. “It won’t be easy for him, you know. He’s going to have a lot to deal with, when you tell him. He’s immortal now, Raven. A High Witch like us, with maybe no clue that he has some fledgling powers coming to life inside him. You must remember what a shock learning of your own nature was to you, how difficult it was to accept, to understand.”
“I remember.” I let the robe I wore fall from my shoulders to the floor, then pulled the dress over my head. But the bubbling excitement I’d felt all day ebbed now. I was suddenly unsure, afraid. What if Duncan never loved me again?
“Be gentle when you tell him. Go slowly, love. Slowly.” She guided me to the mirror, lifted a brush to my hair, and smoothed it with long, soothing strokes. “And don’t expect too much all at once.”
I nodded, staring at Arianna’s reflection beside mine in the mirror. We stood in sharp contrast to each other, she so fair with her sunshine hair, cropped short around her face. With her pixie-like features and huge brown eyes. Me, so dark, long ebony curls, jet-black eyes and lashes and brows.
“It must have hurt you, all those years ago,” I said. “To find me and realize I had no memory of you.”
She nodded. “I don’t know what I was expecting. An emotional reunion, I suppose. If I’d given it any thought I’d have realized that wasn’t going to happen.”
I turned toward her. “But it did. You are my sister, Arianna. You’re the sister of my soul. And while my mind may not remember our past together . . . my heart has never forgotten. The feelings live on there.”
She dipped her head, shielding her eyes from me. Truly?”
"Oh, yes. Truly.”
Lifting her head, smiling and misty-eyed, she hugged me tight. “I do love you, little sister.”
“And I you,” I told her.
Finally she stepped away, looking me up and down. “Well, put your shoes on and go, then. This man of yours has kept you waiting quite long enough, don’t you think?”
I nodded emphatically. “More than long enough,” I told her.
* * * *
Duncan paced. He wore jeans. Jeans should be okay, right? They were the all-purpose, fit-for-any-occasion uniform of the twentieth century, after all. He hoped jeans were all right.
He hoped she would come. She said she would, but any woman crazy enough to kiss a man she didn’t even know in broad daylight on a busy street might not be too good at keeping her word. Or even remembering she’d given it.
No. She would come. And who was he kidding, anyway? There was more going on here—with him, with her, with them—than just an impulsive kiss on a busy street.
It had been a busy street. Too busy.
And that was part of it, the way she held up her hand and that truck skidded to the side like it had been pushed there. That was...that was....
That was nothing. The driver must have locked up his brakes and jerked the wheel. That was all. It was nothing.
But she knew his name. She knew his name, and then there was her name. Raven. And he’d been collecting ravens all his life, been fascinated by them. Had books on them, paintings of them, and miniatures everywhere. Wooden ravens, stone ravens, cheap plastic dime-store models, and some made of glass. The large one, carved of pure black onyx, that was his favorite. Three hundred bucks he’d paid for that bird, even while asking himself why the hell any sane man would plunk down that kind of cash for a hunk of rock. He looked at it now, perched on a pedestal table all its own like a queen holding court. His fingers stroked its cool hard feathers.
But that was beside the point. Her name was Raven. And that was...weird. Not to mention that since he’d come here there had been real ravens stalking him. Okay, not stalking him, but he’d sure as hell seen more of the big black birds perched around this lighthouse than he’d ever seen in one place in his whole life.
There was more, too. There was her. The obsession he’d had with her since that first time he’d laid eyes on her, over there on the cliffs, doing whatever it was she did on full moon nights.
And she knew his name.
He felt nervous and jittery, and not like himself at all. He kept fighting smiles and warm, fuzzy emotions and even a tear or two, and he didn’t know why. He felt as if he’d stepped out of reality and into the Twilight Zone.
The soft hum of a motor jerked him back to himself, and he braced his hands on the sill to stare out the window. Then he tensed. The small boat came closer, and he peered, squinted. She sat in the stern, one hand on the outboard motor’s rudder. She wore white, or off-white. Something soft and flowing. It rippled with the breeze as the boat came closer. And then she steered toward shore and cut the motor. Tipped it up, so its prop rose from the water, dripping beads of the sea back into itself. The boat moved forward of its own momentum for another second or two, stopping only when its nose scraped along the shore. And then she was stepping out.
So graceful, he thought. She didn’t even get her feet wet.
She bent to the bow and gave the boat a tug to pull it more securely onto dry land. Then, turning, she faced the lighthouse. He should have gone out to help her. Some gentleman he was, standing here gawking at her while she manhandled the boat on her own. Not that it had seemed to give her any problem. She must be stronger than she looked.
His throat was dry. His stomach, queasy. She started forward, and he turned, wen
t to the door, opened it, and stood there wondering what was happening to his stable, boring life. His solitary, predictable, lonely life.
And then she was standing there, facing him, looking uncertain, a little afraid, utterly beautiful, and he knew that old life was gone forever. Nothing would ever be the same again. Why he knew it, or how, didn’t matter. It was real, gut deep, and true. Telling himself it made no sense didn’t negate that certainty in the least.
“Hello again,” she said.
Was that a slight waver he detected in her voice?
“I’m...glad you came.” Or was he? Yeah. He was. “Come in.” He stepped aside to let her pass, holding the door for her. She moved past him. The front door led directly to the main room, which he’d made into a living room for himself. A curved sofa fit perfectly to one concave wall. Above it the windows looked out on the sea, on the cliffs and her home beyond them. No curtains. He hadn’t wanted anything blocking his view.
But she wasn’t looking at the view, or even at the paint cans and tarps, or the stepladder in the corner. She was looking at the birds. Staring at them, one by one, blinking, and then turning to him with a question in her eyes.
“Yes,” he said, wondering just how much of himself he wanted to reveal to her. Wondering if he even had a choice about that. “They’re ravens. I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid.”
Her lower lip trembled. She caught it in her teeth.
“Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Meeting his eyes, holding them with some kind of magnetic force he couldn’t resist and didn’t want to, she shook her head, first to one side, then the other. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
He shivered. “What, then?”
Licking her lips, she lowered her head, freeing him at last to look away. But he found he didn’t want to. “I don’t want to frighten you, Duncan,” she said very slowly, and it seemed she chose each word with great care. “But there are things you need to know. Things I have to tell you.”
He nodded. “Like...how you knew my name, for example.”
“Yes.”
“It seems very mystical.”
“Some might call it that.”
“I think you should know I’m pretty much a skeptic where anything, you know, flaky is concerned.”
A tiny frown knit her brow as she tilted her head. A look so startlingly familiar it hit him like a blow to the solar plexus and took his breath away.
“Flaky?”
“Paranormal.” He waggled his fingers in front of him. “Supernatural.”
“Oh. Well, that’s all right. It’s all quite natural, Duncan. It’s just that most people don’t know, or understand it.”
“But you do?”
She nodded.
They were still standing in the middle of the room, facing each other. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he stuck them in his pockets. “Why don’t you sit down. You want some coffee or a beer or—”
“No, thank you.” She sat. On the sofa. And now he had to go and sit beside her. There was a tension between them, something that made his skin tingle and his nerves jump. Something that made him want to touch her, pull her closer. If he sat down next to her, it would be hard not to.
“Well, I want a beer,” he said, and he fled into the kitchenette. Not much of a kitchenette so far, actually. Just a mini-fridge, a card table with a hot plate on top, two folding chairs, and a couple of boxes full of supplies. And tools. There were tools everywhere. He took a beer out of the fridge, popped the top, and went back in to join her.
She’d turned sideways on the couch, one leg folded beneath her, arm resting on the back as she stared out the window. She didn’t turn to face him when he came in. “What made you buy this place?” she asked.
“The view.” He blurted it before he thought better of it.
Turning, she smiled gently, a tremulous little smile that he suspected contained a wealth of emotions, though he couldn’t guess what they might be. “You’re fond of the sea, then?”
“Actually, I’ve always pretty much detested it.” Safe subject. His personal neuroses never failed to cool things down with women, whether he intended them to or not. He usually kept them to himself. This time, though, he needed things to cool down a little. Maybe if she thought he was nuts...hell, they’d be pretty much even then, wouldn’t they?
He sat down, took a long pull from his can. “I’ve had a fear of water since I was a kid. Even baths were a major trauma when I was real young.”
She didn’t look as if she thought he was nuts. Instead she nodded. “Yes, I can see why.”
“Funny. I never could.” He lifted the can to his lips.
“Heights, too, I'll bet?”
His hand froze with the can in midair, blinked slowly, and then took a larger gulp of the cool brew than he’d intended.
Licking her lips, she went on. “But you moved into a lighthouse, on an island, despite your dislike of water. And all because of the view?”
He lowered his head. “Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it?”
“No. There’s a reason for it. For all of it.”
He took another sip of beer before facing her again. “And you know what it is?”
She nodded.
“Well? Don’t keep me in suspense, Raven. I’m dying to hear your theory.”
Drawing a deep breath, she lifted her chin. “You’ve lived before.”
Ahhh, so that was it. She was some kind of a psychic, or considered herself one. Well, it was interesting, if not exactly earth-shattering.
“You were born over three hundred years ago, in Scotland. Later you lived in England, where you were studying for the priesthood. And then—”
He choked on his beer, set the can down, and swiped his mouth. The priesthood,” he repeated. “Me.”
“Yes. But you gave it up and came here. You lived right here in Sanctuary. And when you died....” She closed her eyes. “You died right there,” she whispered, pointing. “On the rocks below those cliffs you can see so clearly from this window. And that’s probably why you came into this lifetime with a fear of the water, and of heights, and part of the reason why the view from these windows affects you so deeply.”
Her words made his stomach cramp and turn, and his spine tingle, and his jaw clench. But they were ridiculous, and there was no reason in the world he should feel any reaction at all.
“Next you’ll tell me that we knew each other in this...past life.”
She got to her feet. The ivory dress slid down her legs, brushing her calves. The light was behind her, and he could see her silhouette through the soft fabric. And that feeling, that craving he had no business feeling, stirred to life in him all over again. Then he realized she was crying. Not noisily. She wasn’t a noisy crier, he suspected. It was just one silent tear, glimmering on her cheek.
He rose, too, and touched that tear, absorbed it into his fingertip. “I wasn’t making fun,” he told her.
“But you don’t believe me.”
“I told you I was a skeptic.” When she would have turned away, he touched her shoulders, gently keeping her there, facing him. “Why does any of it have to matter, Raven? I like you. I'd like to get to know you. Can’t we forget about all this hocus-pocus stuff and just be two people who just met? Two people who...maybe...could feel something for each other, given time? Hm?”
She seemed to search his face. “It would be easier, maybe, if we could. But there’s more, Duncan. So much more. And it does matter. Especially to you.”
He shook his head. “It really doesn’t matter in the least to me. But it does to you, doesn’t it?”
“It does. To both of us.” She cleared her throat. “We were...you and I were....”
Frowning, he probed those black eyes of hers. “Lovers?” he asked her.
“Oh, Duncan, it was so much more than that. So very much more. When you held me, touched me, it was a kind of magic beyond anything I’d ever felt. And it was the same for y
ou, I know it was.” She bit her lip as if to stop the words.
Too late, though. That irrational desire for her was sizzling through him now, and no amount of reasoning would vanquish it. “I suppose that would explain,” he whispered, and he let his hands slide from her shoulders, down her arms, and to her waist, “why I want you so badly right now.”
He leaned down, and he kissed her. Tentatively, lightly, so that she could object if she wanted to. The power of his attraction to her...was that what made such a jolting awareness between them? Was it something chemical? Something physical?
She didn’t object. Her lips formed his name against his, and then she melted into his arms. Her mouth parted, her arms twisted around his neck, and she kissed him back.
Warm, she was so warm, and soft, and her taste was like a drug that he couldn’t quite get enough of. He bent over her, deepening the kiss, hands at the small of her back holding her close, then burying themselves in her hair, and then slipping lower again while his tongue dove into her mouth. He gathered the dress up until he could touch her bare thighs, run his palms over them. Heat met his hands. Her skin seemed to be burning him–feverish for him. And when he explored the soft mound of her buttocks and found it bare, he knew this was what she’d come here for. He cupped her there, squeezed her and pulled her hips tight to his. The soft sound she made was like a plea.
So he turned her, and scooped her into his arms. He kept marauding her succulent mouth as he carried her up the curving stairs to the bedroom above. Glass all around . . . the old light in the center, and the mattress on the floor. It was all he had here, all he’d needed. Until now. Now he needed something more, and it was a need more powerful than any he’d felt in his life.
He laid her on the mattress, knelt beside her, and peeled the dress away.
And then he looked at her.
There was no shyness in her, none of the first-time nervousness other women had displayed. She lay still, proud and naked and utterly beautiful. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside.
Her soft small breasts rose and fell with every breath, quivered with every heartbeat. Their centers were dark, dusky rose, their peaks hard, elongated, expectant. He bent over her slowly, saw her close her eyes, arch her back. And when his mouth hovered a hairsbreadth from her, she clasped his head and pulled him down, until he took her nipple in his mouth and suckled, and nipped, and tugged at it. Then he moved away, stretching his body out alongside hers, twisting his arms around her slender waist, pulling her against him. Her breasts against his naked chest, her body tight to his, her longing as intense as his was as he kissed her again.
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 21
