Tori threw her arms around Keomany and spun her around. By the time Tori released her, Cat had joined them and she embraced Keomany as well, lifting her off the ground in her strong arms. She was a different woman from the one whose body had been ravaged by her bond with Gaea.
“Welcome back to the fold, little sister,” Cat said. Then she kissed Keomany on the forehead. “Welcome home.”
Keomany wanted to believe that so very badly. Other members of the coven had lived here in the past, off and on. There was certainly room. But still she was uncertain.
“Are you guys sure this is going to be all right?”
Tori gave her a dirty look. “Come with me,” she demanded, and then she hurried off, pausing only to beckon to Keomany as she raced up toward the barn.
Keomany glanced at Cat.
“I’d do what she says if I were you. We all do, around here. It’s just better that way.”
The tall, blond woman smiled so sweetly that Keomany could do nothing save comply. Together they followed Tori back up to the barn. By the time they got there, Cat’s wife had emerged once again, this time with a wooden board in her hands. With the way the light hit it, a moment went by before Keomany registered what the board was.
A sign.
It was a beautiful, engraved and hand-painted wooden sign upon which had been etched the words Sweet Somethings in large letters, and then, printed neatly beneath them, Confections by Keomany Shaw.
“We’ve already cleared a corner in the shop for you. Danny’s in there building new counter space and display cases,” Cat said.
Keomany could not breathe. She bit her lip, gaze ticking back and forth between the two women. Shaking, she reached out and grabbed each of them by a hand.
Only when she tasted the salt of her tears did she realize she was crying.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Peter did not turn around as Nikki came up behind him, but he held his hand out and felt her fingers twine with his. When she moved next to him, he released her hand and slid an arm around her, holding her close. She lay her head against him and for several moments he simply relished the feel of her there, the light rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed in the sweet, pungent air of Kuromaku’s vineyard estate.
At last he pulled his gaze away from the spot in the midst of the vineyards where they had buried Jack Devlin’s remains. He turned to Nikki, and when she glanced up at him, Peter kissed her, first on the nose, and then on her mouth, his lips just grazing hers, almost as though the kiss were an accident. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers.
“What’s the news from home?”
Nikki trembled slightly. “Weird. I can’t think of L.A. as home.”
“Where is home, then?”
She hesitated as though she were afraid of her own answer. Her gaze wavered but at length resolved itself and she stared into his eyes.
“That’s up to you.”
Peter took a deep breath and let it out, unable to hide the lopsided grin that teased the corners of his mouth. Where was home? He had lived so many places over the centuries. According to his agent, Carter Strom, his apartment in Manhattan had been destroyed, the Balents were dead . . . the only good news was that The Voodoo Lounge had escaped the horror unscathed, save for a few minor injuries the bouncer, Agamemnon, had sustained in its defense.
Home. Nikki was going to leave it to him to decide how to define the word. At length, he nodded. It was going to take some thought. “All right. So . . . what’s the news from L.A.?”
Nikki nuzzled against him, there in the midst of the vineyards, perhaps fifty yards from the sprawling estate Kuromaku called home.
“‘Shock My World’ went to number eleven. Not top ten, but . . . well, eleven doesn’t suck. And with everything that’s happened, the tour’s on hold until fall, at least. But the label’s willing to be patient. Things are still up in the air, but my manager says it looks like they want to launch all over again in October.”
Peter brushed blond tresses away from her face. “That’s amazing. That’s wonderful, Nik. It gives me hope.”
She frowned. “How’s that?”
Peter smiled. “With all that’s happened . . . somebody still believes there’s going to be a working economy. That there’ll be people willing to part with their money. Somebody still believes there’s a place in this world for music.”
“There’s always a place for music.”
He thought about that for a while, just holding her against him, feeling her heartbeat matching rhythm with his own.
“Sophie’s going to stay,” he said.
Nikki chuckled. “That’s not really a surprise, is it? After what she’s been through, nothing else will seem the same. I . . . I remember. What it’s like the first time.”
For several minutes they merely stood there in silence. Peter felt as though he never wanted to let her go. In his mind’s eye were scarred the images of those last moments in Ronda, when he was certain that the Tatterdemalion would kill her. Nikki still had stitches on the worst of the wounds she had received, and the gashes on her face were going to require plastic surgery before she could perform in public again.
“So,” Nikki began again, hesitant. “Sophie and Kuromaku are staying here for now. I have to get back to L.A. soon. What . . . what are your plans?”
Peter was surprised at the question. He had not spelled out his feelings or his future plans to her, but he had felt certain she could read his heart in his eyes every time he looked at her. Perhaps she had, but did not want to trust her own intuition.
He released her and stepped back. For a moment he looked up at the house, at the breathtaking array of flowers that grew all around it. Keomany had had a hand in that. He knew that, inside, Kuromaku and Sophie were preparing an elaborate dinner. It was something they had found they loved to do together.
Peter returned his gaze to Nikki.
“Ever since my heart started to beat again, I’ve been trying to figure out what it means to be . . . human. To know that my days are numbered. It made me sink into myself in a way I never want to do again. I didn’t want the magick that I have, didn’t want to be a sorcerer at all. There’s a weight that comes with it, a responsibility that I thought was too much for an ordinary man.”
“You’re far from ordinary,” Nikki admonished him.
Peter nodded. There was no arrogance in it, merely truth. Though their defeat of the Tatterdemalion had drained him, exhausted much of the power in him, possibly forever, he still had enough skill with and knowledge of magick to make him far more than ordinary.
“But I wanted to be,” he confessed. “I just wanted to live. I couldn’t figure out how to do even that right, because when I realized how much I wanted to live, I realized something else, too. I didn’t want to die. And I didn’t want to watch any more of the people I love die either. I thought it might be better to be alone.”
Peter shook his head at the foolishness of this notion. Nikki smiled and touched his face and she nodded as if to say she understood.
“I lost track of my friends. My family. That’s what they are, really. My family. I’m grateful to have realized what a mistake that was. We’ve got a war to fight. Call it a crusade, even. It’s going to be years before we figure out what the Tatterdemalion let loose on Earth, whether by accident or design. Some of us are uniquely suited to doing something about it. And we will.
“I will. Even if it takes the rest of my life. Otherwise what’s the point of being here at all, of surviving? And if I can fight this war surrounded by the people I love . . . all the more reason to stay alive,” he said quietly, the breeze rustling through the vineyards.
Nikki searched his eyes. “I’m part of this thing, you know,” she said. “Don’t count me out just because I won’t be here.”
Peter smiled. “We have to be vigilant, Nikki. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other things in life. Music, for instance. We don’t all have to move i
n with Kuromaku.”
He reached out once again to caress her face.
“I never should have let you go without me the last time. That’s another mistake I won’t make again.”
Nikki gazed at him for a long moment, an expression of surprise etched upon her features.
“You’re coming to L.A.?”
“Just when you have to be there. We don’t actually have to live in Los Angeles, do we? It’s a short flight from San Francisco.”
“San Francisco,” she mused. “That could work.”
Peter took her hand and the two of them turned to walk back through the vineyards, the rich smell of the earth all around them. He knew that out there in the world there lurked unknown horrors, things he had not yet imagined that waited in the shadows for the darkness to fall.
But today, at least, the sun still shone brightly above them and he had his chosen family around him. Nightfall would come soon, as it always did, but Peter would not concern himself with the dark until it arrived upon his doorstep.
Even then, he would face it with the knowledge that night was, ever and always, followed by morning.
Table of Contents
Cover
Praise for THE SHADOW SAGA
The Shadow Saga
About the Author
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
The Gathering Dark Page 40
