Shifting the moonsphere into the palm of one hand, she linked her free hand with his and threaded their fingers together in a sign of solidarity. Then she continued to the far end of the chapel where a solid stone wall stood. She didn’t glance at the faded glories of the paintings still hanging in place. Instead, she released his hand, laid her palm flat on the cold gray stones and whispered, “Haven.”
An opening appeared in the wall and Teresa smiled, took Rune’s hand again and together, they stepped into the dimly lit darkness. Instantly, the wall behind them sealed and they were left standing in a cavernous room.
Flaming torches set into silver brackets mounted on the surrounding walls threw dancing shadows and light across the interior. The walls themselves shone and glittered as the firelight touched the veins of silver embedded in the stone.
Teresa sighed and felt the soft push of power slide into her system. Silver enhanced an earth witch’s power and these veins that sparkled and shone were incredibly rich. Her gaze tracked over the symbols carved into the stone and outlined in silver. She knew them all. Her memory was clear at last and the sight of this chamber filled her with a sense of peace she had never known. All around her were carved symbols of power, of magic, of the coven that had once called this Haven home.
There were pentagrams and the sacred circle that signified unity and female power. The Bindu, circles with a single dot in the center—the circle as woman, the dot as man, joined as they were meant to be joined. She also spotted an ancient Medicine Wheel and the carving of a snake devouring its own tail—the symbol of life, death and rebirth. And there was the spiral.
Teresa let go of Rune’s hand and drew her fingers over the coiled symbol that represented the female and the birth, growth, death and rebirth of the soul. Power shimmered inside her at the contact and she smiled, letting this place and all that it had once meant to her welcome her home.
“Welcome.”
Teresa and Rune spun around to face the woman who had spoken. But there were two women standing there. Two witches, flanked by their Eternals. The women were tall, each of them had waist-length red hair and each of them was dressed in a white togalike garment that was cinched at the waist and fell in a column to their bare feet.
The togas they wore were one-shouldered, baring their left breasts to the room, displaying their mating brands proudly. One woman boasted a circlet of red roses, while the other’s skin was marked with dark red flames. Their mates stood behind them, matching tattoos on their bare chests.
Teresa blew out a breath, stunned, a little shocked and yet proud that she belonged with these women. She, too, wanted to show the world that she and Rune were matched. That they were a single unit, bonded by love and trust and magic.
The women came closer.
“Teresa,” the older one said with a smile, “we’ve been waiting for you. I’m Mairi and this is my niece, Shea. Welcome to Haven. Welcome home.”
“Thank you,” she said as Rune stepped past her to greet the other Eternals. “It’s good to be here. At last.”
“You’ve brought your shard of the Artifact,” Mairi said, with a glance at the moonsphere, still glittering with power and caged lightning.
“We have,” Rune said, returning to Teresa’s side to drape one arm around her shoulders.
“Then the ceremony will begin as soon as you’re ready,” Mairi told them. “Shea and Torin will show you to your quarters.”
Chapter 63
An hour later, Teresa and Rune reentered the main chamber. Teresa wore the traditional toga, baring her tattooed breast in a show of respect and pride. The light of purest magic filled her, making her dark hair shine white and her eyes glow.
Rune watched her near-regal procession across the firelit main chamber. Shadows swam and the light danced across the silver-studded walls as Teresa, holding the black silver in her cupped palms, approached the far wall. There, three cages made of living flame snapped and hissed in the silence. The first cage held the Artifact returned to Haven by Shea and Torin.
Teresa walked to the center cage, deposited the black silver inside and then watched as the flames surrounded it. The living flame would hold it safely until the other pieces could be brought back and the Artifact reassembled. Then the coven would ritually destroy it for all time. Only then would the world be safe.
Teresa took a step back, bowed her head and crossed her arms over her chest. She chanted softly, as if the words were drawn from a memory as ancient as the room in which she stood.
The past is gone
Yet still lives
My test is won
This Artifact I give
I am home where I was meant to be
My debt is paid through eternity.
The light left her, returning her hair and eyes to the rich chocolate color that Rune knew and loved. Teresa turned to bow her head toward Mairi, the once and future high priestess of her coven. She exchanged a smile with Shea, then looked deliberately and solely at Rune.
Mairi, Shea and their Eternals slipped out of the chamber, leaving them alone for a moment, to celebrate their accomplishment. To share only with each other the moment when their world had, at last, righted itself.
He held her and felt the heat of her bare breast against his chest as the greatest gift he had ever known. They were one, as they had always been meant to be. “You were magnificent.”
“We were great,” she whispered, linking her arms around his waist.
As he held her, the mating brand burned brightly through each of them in one last fiery jolt of heat, completing the tattoo on their bodies that would join them for eternity.
Teresa sighed at the magic of the moment, then laid her head on his chest and smiled. “Your heart is beating.”
Rune laughed shortly. “It feels … strange.”
She reached up for a kiss. “You’ll get used to it.”
“As you will to being an immortal.”
Teresa kissed him again then, as her love for him erupted. Her life had become rich. Full. She had lost a lot, but in finding who she was meant to be she had gained everything.
“An eternity in your arms? Sounds just about right.”
As he kissed her, Teresa gave herself up to the real magic. The wonder and splendor of a love finally found and cherished as it should be.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Regan Hastings is the pseudonym of a USA Today bestselling author of more than a hundred romance novels. She lives with her family in California and is already hard at work on the next installment of the Awakening series.
Read on for a sneak peek at the next book in
Regan Hastings’s Awakening series,
VISIONS OF CHAINS
Coming from Signet Eclipse in June 2012.
Deidre Sterling was used to being followed. Secret Service. Reporters. Paparazzi. But giant black dogs? That was new.
She peeled back the edge of the drapes and looked out the window of her friend’s apartment. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her stomach was tumbling like an Olympic gymnast. If she had any sense, she’d leave before things got worse. But then, if she had any sense, she wouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Three floors below, the street lay in complete darkness but for the puddles of light from the streetlamps gleaming on wet asphalt. Cars were parked along the curb. A newspaper hurtled down the street, tossed by the wind. Lamplight shone from a few other apartments facing her, and directly below her stood two men in black overcoats. Her Secret Service protection.
Hell of a thing to be a grown woman and not be able to take a walk without at least two armed guys following. But since her mother was the President of the United States, Deidre didn’t really get to make that call.
Still, here she was, planning to ditch her guards, just to do what she had to do. Her gaze moved on, checking every shadow, every slice of darkness that could hold—there. The dog. It moved with a stealthy sort
of grace that gave Deidre cold chills. Its head was huge and its paws were like saucers. What the hell was it? Great Dane? Pony?
“What are you looking at?” Shauna Jackson walked into the room and went to stand beside Deidre.
“A dog,” she answered, feeling stupid. But she could have sworn over the last few days that the damn thing had been following her. Everywhere she went, she felt its presence, even though she’d only caught a glimpse of it once or twice.
Shauna took a quick look and shrugged. “Don’t see anything except your two human guard dogs in overcoats.”
“It’s there. At the mouth of the alley across the street.”
Shauna looked again. “Nope.”
Okay, why couldn’t her friend see the dog? Deidre wondered if maybe PTSD was becoming an issue for her. Was she seeing things? And if she was, why wasn’t she imagining fluffy kittens? Why a dog that looked as though it could—and wanted to—swallow her whole?
Deidre shivered as the huge animal tipped its wide head up and fixed its dark eyes on her. Okay, she was really freaking over this. The dog that couldn’t be there wasn’t looking at her. How would it know what apartment she was in? At that thought, she almost laughed. Crazy much? She let the drapes fall and told herself she was getting way too paranoid.
“You’re not trying to back out, are you?”
Deidre turned to face her friend. Shauna’s hair was clipped short, the tight, black curls trimmed close to her head. Her chocolate brown eyes were narrowed. “Dee, the execution is in the morning. You can’t really walk away, can you? You agreed that rescuing the witches was the right thing to do.”
“I know.” Five women were scheduled for the fires first thing in the morning. She didn’t know if they were witches or not. And she didn’t care. State-approved executions of witches and suspected witches were happening more and more frequently, despite her mother’s attempts to rein them in. The general public was scared. And when scared people came together they usually became bloodthirsty.
Deidre ran her hands up and down her arms, trying to dispel the cold that had been with her since the night of the last raid she had gone on, two weeks before.
But the cold wouldn’t lift any more than the memories would dissipate. She remembered everything. She saw it all over and over again whenever she closed her eyes. Her group, the RFW, or Rights for Witches, had infiltrated an internment camp to free the captive women inside. But something had gone wrong. Somehow the alarms had been sounded and guards had fired on them and men had been killed.
She hadn’t pulled the trigger herself, but she might as well have. And that night, she had made the decision to step away from the RFW. Yet here she was, drawn back in. But how could she sit back and do nothing when the Bill of Rights was being crushed under the heel of angry mobs? How could she let innocent women be imprisoned or executed without trials?
“You’re thinking again. You in? Or out?” The expression on Shauna’s face was impatient and her eyes glinted with determination.
Deidre took a breath, then reached down for the black jacket on the couch beside her. “I’m in. I shouldn’t be, but I’m in.”
“Of course you should,” Shauna told her, slipping into her own black jacket. She picked up a revolver, checked to make sure it was loaded, then tucked it into the waistband of her black jeans.
Deidre frowned, unable to stop thinking about the last rescue gone bad. “I thought we agreed no guns.”
“We agreed you weren’t going to carry one. But honey, if somebody shoots at me, I’m going to shoot back.”
“This is nuts. The whole world is nuts,” Deidre muttered.
“It’s always been crazy,” Shauna said quietly. “It’s just now, the whole crazy ass world is on a mission.”
A mission to kill witches and rid the world of magic. Which was why Deidre was here, ready to go on another raid. “There has to be a better way to end this.”
“Well, if there is, we haven’t found it,” Shauna said flatly. “Besides, if anyone could do something about this, it’s you.”
Deidre laughed shortly, gathered up her blond hair and quickly braided the mass to keep it out of her way. “Right.”
“Your mother is the President of the United States.”
“Yeah and she won’t be pleased to know I’m back in the RFW.” Deidre didn’t even want to think about her mother’s reaction. She had been delighted to hear that Deidre was stepping back from the RFW. As president, Cora Sterling walked a fine line between the citizens who wanted magic stamped out—along with the witches who wielded the power—and protecting the witches, who—hello?—were also citizens and had rights.
But then, every major leader in the world was on that tightrope. Magic was out in the open now and those with power were being hunted down like rats by the very governments that should have been protecting them. At least her mom had shown some sympathy for the women being swept up and jailed. Or so Deidre had thought until she discovered that this execution was going ahead as planned without the intervention of the president.
Which was why, when Shauna called asking her to help, Deidre had immediately agreed. How could she not? She had seen firsthand the women who were tortured in prison. The women who were so broken by the time they were rescued that they would never recover. And that didn’t even take into account the women who had died. No, as much as Deidre wanted to be able to turn her back, she couldn’t.
“Anyway,” she said, jerking her head toward the window and the two men standing in the street, “I still don’t see how we’re supposed to get past the Secret Service guys.”
Shauna grinned. “They’ll never know we’re gone.”
Twelve hours until the execution.
Finn leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and watched his lieutenants prepare for battle. There was no conversation, only the occasional whispered comment. This group had been together only a couple of months and trust was still building. They worked on a first-nameonly basis—that way if one of them were captured they wouldn’t be able to give anyone else up. Danger was a constant companion, with death hovering around every corner, and still they came to fight.
He wondered if it was for love of freedom as they claimed—or if it was just that some people always needed something to rage against.
The lights were dim and seemed to soak into the dank rock walls rather than reflect off them. It smelled like old liquor and cats down here in the chamber below the apartment building’s basement. High above ground, buildings sent spires skyward; down here, there was a labyrinth of tunnels and rooms long forgotten by those who lived on the surface.
Scowling, Finn looked at the people busily strapping weapons to their bodies, getting ready for the raid. Humans. Mortals. Willing to risk their already too-short lives in the hopes of saving innocents.
He had spent centuries avoiding contact with humans. He hated cities. The noise. The crush of humanity. The relentless reminders of just how alone he really was. Yet here he stood. In the heart of a city, surrounded by humans.
War made for strange alliances.
And they were definitely at war.
Finn pushed away from the wall and lifted one hand to his second in command, Joe. A former Navy SEAL, Joe was, like Finn, a born warrior.
“Everyone ready?”
Joe glanced at the others as they checked pistols, stuffed knives into scabbards. “As ready as they can be.”
Finn nodded and reached for the curved bladed sword he had carried for eons. He slid it into the sheath that ran along his spine. “We’ll leave as soon as she gets here.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
Boss. How the hell had his existence come to this, with humans looking to him to lead them? Joe took orders from Finn because he agreed with the missions. He wouldn’t blindly follow anyone for long, and Finn respected him for that. Trusted him. He didn’t trust many, either. His brothers, of course, but humans? They were too fragile. Too easily broken or swayed by whatever opinion wa
s in fashion. They lived foolishly and died too soon. What was the point of knowing them? To an immortal like Finn, a human’s existence was equivalent to a fruit fly’s.
He checked his knives, then tucked a few extra throwing stars into the pockets of his black leather jacket.
But one human was different.
At least, he hoped to hell she was different.
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