by Nora Roberts
The room was suddenly airless, the steam thick and clogging his lungs. He reached blindly for the door, found only swirling air.
She brought you here, drew you into her web. Other men have been trapped in it.
She seeks to possess you, body and soul. Who will you be when she's done with you?
Cal all but fell into the door, panicked for a shuddering instant when he thought it locked. But his slippery hands yanked it open and he stumbled into the cool, sun-washed air of the bedroom. Behind him the mists swirled dark, shimmered greedily, then vanished.
What the hell? He found himself trembling all over, like a schoolboy rushing out of a haunted house. It had seemed as if there had been… something, something cold and slick and smelling of death crowded into that room with him, hiding in the mists.
But when Cal turned and stepped back to the door, he saw only a charming room, a fogged mirror, and the thinning steam from his shower.
Imagination working overtime, he thought, then let out half a laugh. Whose wouldn't, under the circumstances? But he shut the bathroom door firmly before he dressed and went down to find her.
She was spinning wool. Humming along with the quiet, rhythmic clacking of spindle and wheel. Her hands were as graceful as a harpist's on strings and her wool was as white as innocence.
Her dress was blue this morning, deep as her eyes. A thick silver chain carrying an ornately carved pendant hung between her breasts. Her hair was pinned up, leaving that porcelain face unframed.
Cal's hands itched for his camera. And for her.
She looked up, her hands never faltering, and smiled. "Well, did you decide to join the living, then?"
"My body clock's still in the States. Is it late?"
"Hmm, nearly half-ten. You'll be hungry, I'll wager. Come, have your coffee.
I'll fix your breakfast."
He caught her hand as she rose. "You don't have to cook for me."
She laughed, kissed him lightly. "Oh, we'd have trouble soon enough if you thought I did. As it happens, it's my pleasure to cook for you this morning."
His eyes gleamed as he nibbled on her knuckles. "A full Irish breakfast? The works."
"If you like."
"Now that you mention it…" His voice trailed off as he took a long, thorough study of her face. Her eyes were shadowed, her skin paler than it should have been. "You look tired. You didn't sleep well."
She only smiled and led him into the kitchen. "Maybe you snore."
"I do not." He nipped her at the waist, spun her around and kissed her. "Take it back."
"I only said maybe." Her brows shot up when his hands roamed around, cupped her bottom. "Are you always so frisky of a morning?"
"Maybe. I'll be friskier after I've had that coffee." He gave her a quick kiss before turning to pour himself a cup. "You know I noticed things this morning that I was too… distracted to take in yesterday. You don't have a phone."
She put a cast-iron skillet on a burner. "I have ways of calling those I need to call."
"Ah." He rubbed the chin he had neglected to shave. "Your kitchen's equipped with very modern appliances."
"If I choose to cook why would I use a campfire?" She sliced thick Irish bacon and put it on to sizzle and snap.
"Good point. You're out of sugar," he said absently when he lifted the lid on the bowl. "You spin your own wool, but you have a state-of-the-art stereo."
"Music is a comfort," she murmured, watching him go unerringly to the pantry and fetch the unmarked tin that held her sugar supply.
"You make your own potions, but you buy your staples at the market." With quick efficiency, he filled her sugar bowl. "The contrast is fascinating. I wonder…"
He stopped, stood with the sugar scoop in his hand, staring. "I knew where to find this," he said quietly. "I knew the sugar was on the second shelf in the white tin. The flour's in the blue one beside it. I knew that."
"'Tis a gift. You've only forgotten to block it out. It shouldn't disturb you."
"Shouldn't disturb me." He neglected to add the sugar and drank his coffee black and bitter.
"It's yours to control, Cal, or to abjure."
"So if I don't want it, I can reject it."
"You've done so for half your life already."
It was her tone, bitter as the coffee, that had his eyes narrowing. "That annoys you."
She cut potatoes into quick slices, slid them into hot oil. "It's your choice."
"But it annoys you."
"All right, it does. You turn your back on it because you find it uncomfortable.
Because it disturbs your sense of normality. As I do.'' She kept her back to him as she took the bacon out of the pan, set it to drain, picked up eggs. "You shut out your gift and me along with it because we didn't fit into your world. A tidy world where magic is only an illusion done with smoke and mirrors, where witches wear black hats, ride broomsticks, and cackle on All Hallows' Eve."
As the eggs cooked, she spooned up porridge, plopped the bowl on the table, and went back to slice bread. "A world where I have no place."
"I'm here, aren't I?" Cal said evenly. "Did I choose to be, Bryna, or did you will it?''
She uses you. She's drawn you into her web.
"Will it?" Insulted, struck to the bone, she whirled around to face him. "Is that what you think? After all I've told you, after all we've shared?"
"If I accept even half of what you've told me, if I put aside logic and my own sense of reality and accept that I'm standing in the kitchen with a witch, a stone's throw away from an enchanted castle, about to do battle of some kind with an evil wizard in a war that has lasted a millennium, I think it's a remarkably reasonable question."
"Reasonable?" With clenched teeth she swept back to the stove and shoveled eggs onto a platter. " 'It's reasonable,' says he. Have I pulled him in like a spider does a fly, lured him across an ocean and into my lair?" She thumped the laden platter down and glared at him. "For what, might I ask you, Calin Farrell? For a fine bout of sex, for the amusement of having a man for a night or two. Well, I needn't have gone to such trouble for that. There's men enough in Ireland. Eat your breakfast or you'll be wearing it on your head like a hat."
Another time he might have smiled, but that sly voice was muttering in his ear.
Still he sat, picked up his fork, tapped it idly against the plate. "You didn't answer the question. If I'm to believe you can't lie to me, isn't it odd that you've circled around the question and avoided a direct answer? Yes or no,
Bryna. Did you will me here?"
"Yes or no?"
Her eyes were burning-dry, though her heart was weeping. Did he know he was looking at her with such doubt, such suspicion, such cool dispassion? There was no faith in the look, and none of the love she needed.
One night, she thought on a stab of despair, had not been enough.
"No, Calin, will you here I did not. If that had been my purpose, or in my power, would I have waited so long and so lonely for you? I asked you to come, begged without pride, for I needed you. But the choice to come or not was yours."
She turned away, gripping the counter as she looked out the window toward the sea. "I'll give you more," she said quietly, "as time is short." She inhaled deeply. "You broke my heart when you shut me out of yours. Broke it to pieces, and it's taken me years to mend it as best I could. That choice was yours as well, for the knowledge was there in your head, and again in your heart if you chose to see it. All the answers are there, and you have only to look."
"I want to hear them from you."
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. "There are some I can't tell you, that you must find for yourself." She opened her eyes again, lifted her chin and turned back to him.
Her face was still pale, he noted, her eyes too dark. The hair she'd bundled up was slipping its pins, and her shoulders were stiff and straight.
"But there's something that's mine to tell, and I'll give you that. I was born loving you. There's been no other i
n my heart, even when you turned from me.
Everything I am, or was, or will be, is yours. I cannot change my heart. I was born loving you," she said again. "And I will die loving you. There is no choice for me."
Turning, she bolted from the room.
Chapter 8
She'd vanished. Cat went after her almost immediately but found no trace. He rushed through the house, flinging open doors, calling her. Then cursing her.
Damn temperamental female, he decided. The fury spread through him. That she would tell him she loved him, then leave him before he had even a moment to examine his own heart!
She expected too much, he thought angrily. Wanted too much. Assumed too much.
He hurried out of the house, raced for the cliffs. But he didn't find her standing out on the rocks, staring out to sea with the wind billowing her hair.
His voice echoed back to him emptily, infuriating him.
Then he turned, stared at the scarred stone walls of the castle. And knew. "All right, damn it," he muttered as he strode toward the ruins. "We're going to talk this through, straight. No magic, no legends, no bullshit. Just you and me."
He stepped toward the arch and bumped into air that had gone solid. Stunned, he reached out, felt the shield he couldn't see. He could see through it to the stony ground, the fire-scored walls, the tumble of rock, but the clear wall that blocked him was cold and solid.
"What kind of game is this?" Eyes narrowed, he drove his shoulder against it, yielded nothing. Snarling, he circled the walls, testing each opening, finding each blocked.
"Bryna!" He pounded the solidified air with his fists until they ached. "Let me in. Goddamn it, let me pass!"
From the topmost turret, Bryna faced the sea. She heard him call for her, curse her. And oh, she wanted to answer. But her pride was scored, her power teetering.
And her decision made.
