"Dotty?" The insult of that brought him up short. "Who told you that?"
"My mother-that is-"
"So." He nodded as if she'd just confirmed everything he'd said. "Dotty," he muttered as he began to stride along again. "The woman gives up everything for love and they call her dotty. Aye, maybe she was at that. She'd have been better off staying in Ireland and mating with one of her own."
Then he wouldn't be stalking down this path with Rowan's trembling hand in his, he thought.
He wasn't entirely sure if he was pleased or annoyed with that particular twist of fate.
When he reached the stone circle, he pulled her directly to the center. She was out of breath, from the quick walk and from what she could feel swimming in the air.
"The circle's cast and so it begins. I ask that all be safe within. This woman comes that she may see. As I will, so mote it be."
As the chant ended, the wind swept through the stones, wrapped like a warm caress around Rowan's body. Startled, she crossed her arms over her breasts, gripped her own shoulders. "Liam-"
"You should be calm, but that will be hard for you. Nothing here will harm you, Rowan, I swear to you." He laid his hands over hers and kissed her, gently but deeply, until the stiffness of her body softened. "If you won't trust yourself, trust me."
"I do trust you, but this-I'm afraid of this."
He stroked a hand down her hair, and realized in many ways what he was doing was like initiating a virgin to love. It should be done sweetly, patiently, and with thoughts only on her.
"Think of it as a game." He smiled at her as he stepped back. "A more basic one than you imagine just now." He drew her down to her knees. "Breathe deep and slow until you hear your heartbeat in your head. Close your eyes if it helps, until you're steady."
"You tell me I'm going to make fire out of nothing, and then ask me to be steady." But she closed her eyes. The sooner she could prove to him he was mistaken, the sooner it would be over.
"A game," she said on the first long breath. "All right, just a game, and when you see I'm no good at it, we'll go home and finish breakfast."
Remember what you weren't told, but knew. Liam's voice was a quiet murmur inside her mind. Feel what you always felt but never understood. Listen to your heart. Trust your blood.
"Open your eyes, Rowan."
She wondered if this was like being hypnotized. To be so fully, almost painfully aware, yet to be somehow outside yourself. She opened her eyes, looked into his as sunlight streamed between them. "I don't know what to do."
"Don't you?" There was the faintest lilt of amusement in his voice now. "Open yourself, Rowan. Believe in yourself, accept the gift that's been waiting for you."
A game, she thought again. Just a game. In it she was a hereditary witch, with power sleeping just under the surface. Waking it was only a matter of believing, of wanting, of accepting.
She stretched out her hands, stared at them as if they belonged to someone else who watched them tremble lightly. They were narrow hands, with long slender fingers. Ringless, strangely elegant. They cast twin shadows on the ground.
She heard her own heartbeat, just as he'd told her. And she heard the slow, deep sound of her own breathing, as if she were awake listening to herself sleep.
Fire, she thought. For light, for heat. For comfort. She could see it in her mind, pale gold flames just touched with deep red at the edges. Glowing low and simmering, rising up like torches to the sky. Smokeless and beautiful.
Fire, she thought again, for heat, for light. Fire that burns both day and night.
Dizzy, she swayed a little. Liam had to fight every instinct to keep from reaching out to her.
Then her head fell back, her eyes went violently blue. The air hushed. Waited. He watched as she lost a kind of innocence.
Power whipped through her like the wind that suddenly rose to send her hair flying. The sudden heat of it made her gasp, made her shudder. Then it streaked like a rocket down her arms, seemed to shoot from her fingers into a pool of light. She saw with dazzled eyes, the fire she'd made. It sizzled on the ground, tiny dancing flames of gold edged with red. The heat of it warmed her knees, then her hands as she hesitantly stretched them over it. As she drew them back, the flames shot high. "Oh. Oh, no!"
"Ease back, Rowan. You need a bit of control yet."
He brought the thin column of fire down as she stared and stuttered.
"How did I-how could I-" She snapped her gaze to his. "You."
"You know it wasn't me. It's your heritage, Rowan, and your choice whether you accept it or not."
"It came from me." She closed her eyes, inhaling, exhaling slowly until she could do so without her breath shuddering out. "It came from me," she repeated, and looked at him. She couldn't deny it now, what some part of her knew. Perhaps had always known.
"I felt it, I saw it. There were words in my head, like a chant. I don't know what to think, or what to do."
"What do you feel?"
"Amazed." She let out a dazed laugh and stared at her own hands. "Thrilled. Terrified and delighted and wonderful. There's magic in me." It shimmered in her eyes, glowed on her face. This time her laugh was full and free as she sprang up to turn circles inside the ring of stones.
Grinning widely, Liam sat with his legs crossed and watched her embrace self-discovery. It made her beautiful, he realized. This sense of sheer joy gave her a rich and textured beauty.
"All my life I've been average. Pathetically ordinary, tediously normal." She spun another circle then collapsed on the ground beside him to throw her arms around his neck. "Now there's magic in me."
"There always was."
She felt like a child with hundreds and hundreds of brightly wrapped presents waiting to be opened and explored. "You can teach me more."
"Aye." Understanding something of what was racing through her, he flicked a finger down her cheek. "I can. I will. But not just now. We've been here more than an hour, and I want my breakfast."
"An hour." She blinked as he rose and hauled her to her feet. "It seems like just a few minutes."
"It took you a while to get down to things. It won't take you so long the next time." With a thought he put out the fire. "We'll see if we can find where your talents lie once I've had my meal."
"Liam." She turned into him for a moment, pressed her lips to his throat. "Thank you."
She learned fast. Liam had never considered himself a good teacher, but he supposed it had something to do with the student.
This one was open and eager and quick.
It didn't take long to determine her talents channeled into magic, as Morgana's did. Within a day or two, they determined she had no real gift for seeing. She could give him her thoughts, but could only read his clearly if he put them into her head.
And while she couldn't, even after more than an hour of sweaty concentration, transform herself, she turned a footstool into a rosebush with laughing delight.
Show her the joy, Ana had told him. But he understood she was showing him as she danced around the clearing, turning the early summer flowers into a maze of color and shape. Rocks became jewel-colored crystals, infant blooms exploded into huge fireworks of brilliant hues. The little stream rose into an elegant waterfall of luminous blue.
He didn't rein her in. She deserved to ride on the wonder of it. Responsibilities, choices, he knew, would come soon enough.
She was creating her own fairy tale. It was so easy all at once to see it perfectly in her mind. And in seeing it, to make it real. Here was her little cottage in the forest, with the stunning witch garden spread out, the sweep of water rising, the whip of the wind blowing free. And the man.
She turned, unaware how devastating she looked just then with her hair streaming, glossy and wild, her arms flung out and the light of young power in her eyes.
"Just for today. I know it can't stay like this, but just for today. I used to dream of being in a place just like this, with water and wind rushing, and flowers
so huge and bright they dazzled your eyes. And the scent of them-"
She trailed off, realizing she had dreamed of this, exactly this. And of him, of Liam Donovan stepping off the porch of a pretty cottage and moving to her, walking under an arbor of flowers that rained pretty pink petals onto the ground.
He would pluck a rose, white as a snowflake from a bush as tall as he. And offer it to her.
"I dreamed," she said again. "When I was a little girl."
He plucked a rose, white as a snowflake from a bush as tall as he. And offered it to her. "What did you dream, Rowan Murray?"
"Of this." Of you. So often of you.
"Just for today, you can have your dream."
She sighed as she traced the rose down her cheek. Just for today, she thought, would be enough. "I was wearing a long blue dress. A robe, really. And yours was black, with gold edgings." She laughed, enchanted as she felt the thin silk caress her skin. "Did I do that, or did you?"
"Does it matter? It's your dream, Rowan, but I'm hoping I kissed you in it."
"Yes." She sighed again as she moved into his arms. "The kind of kiss dreams are made on."
He touched his lips to hers, softly at first. Warming them, softening them, until they parted on a quiet breath. Then deeper, slowly deeper while her arms came up to circle him, while her fingers slipped lazily into his hair.
As he did something trembled in his memory as well. Something once seen or once wished for. When he gave himself to it, he began to float in dreams with her. And so drew her closer.
Together they circled, a graceful dance with hearts keeping the beat.
Her feet no longer touched the ground as they spun. The dreams of a romantic young girl shimmered and shaped into the needs of a woman. Warmth skimmed over her skin as she held him tighter, drew him into her heart. As she offered him more. Offered him everything.
There were candles in her dream. Dozens of them, fragrant and white and burning in tall silver stands with gilded leaves winding around them. And a bed, lit by them, draped in white and gold.
When he carried her to it, she was dizzy with love, washed in wonder.
"How could I have known?" She drew him down to her. "How could I have forgotten?"
He wondered the same of himself, but couldn't question it now, not now when she was so soft, so giving, when her lips were parting for his and her sigh of pleasure slipped into him like wine from a golden cup.
The sun dipped down behind the trees, edging them with fire, shooting color into the deepening sky. In the trees, the birds sang to those last lights.
"You're beautiful."
She wouldn't have believed it. But here, now, she felt beautiful. She felt powerful. She felt loved. Just for today, she thought and met his mouth with hers.
He drank from her, with thirst but without greed. Held her close but without desperation. Here, they both knew, time could spin out. Time could be taken.
Tongues met and tangled in a slow, intimate dance. Breath mixed. Murmurs melded.
She stroked her hands along the silk of his robe, then beneath to flesh. So warm. So smooth. His mouth on her throat, urging her to tip her head to give him more, and the light nip of teeth where her pulse beat. The erratic bump of it tempted him to slick his tongue over her skin, to fill himself with the flavor that was only her.
He parted her robe, lightly as air. When his hands, his mouth took possession of her, she arched gently.
Enjoy me, she seemed to say. Enchant me.
She sighed with him, moved with him, while the air swam with scent and the warm, soft wind caressed her naked skin. Sensations glimmered, tangled with delights both bright and dark. Lost in them, steeped in them, she rolled with him, rose languidly over him. Her body was wand slim, white as marble in the delicate light. Her hair was lifted by the wind, her eyes full of secrets. Captivated, he ran his hands up her thighs, over her hips, her torso, closed them over her breasts.
And there her heart beat in the same hammer blows as his own.
"Rowan," he murmured, as those secrets, as that power glinted in her eyes. "You are all manner of witch."
Her laugh was quick and triumphant. She leaned down, took his mouth hungrily with hers. Heat, sudden and brutal slammed into him, leaped into his blood like the fire she'd made only hours before.
She felt it, too, the quick change, and that she had made it. That, she thought wildly, that was power. Riding on it she took him into her, bowing back to revel in the shock of it, watching stars wheel in the black sky overhead.
His hands gripped her hips, his breath exploded from his lungs. Instinctively he struggled for control, but his already slippery grasp broke as she took him.
She took. Her hips moved like lightning, her body soared with a wild whip of energy that pushed him, raced ahead, dragged him with her.
She rocked herself to madness, then beyond, and still she drove him on. He said her name. She heard the sound break from him as his body plunged with hers. And she saw as they flew up, how his eyes flashed, then went dark and blind.
She all but wept with triumph as she grabbed hold and fell over with him.
He'd never allowed a woman to take control. Now, as Rowan lay sprawled over him, he realized he hadn't been able to stop it. Not with her. There were a great many things he hadn't been able to stop with her.
He turned his face into her hair and wondered what would come next. Only seconds later, when she spoke, he knew.
"I love you, Liam." She said it quietly, with her lips over his heart. "I love you."
He called the panic that sprang up inside him sense, responsibility. "Rowan-"
"You don't have to love me back. I just can't stand not telling you anymore. I was afraid to tell you before." She shifted, looked at him. "I don't think I'll be afraid of anything ever again. So I love you, Liam."
He sat up beside her. "You don't know all there is to know, so you can't know what you think or what you feel. Or what you'll want," he added on a huff of breath. "I have things to explain, things to show you. We'll do better at my cabin."
"All right." She made her smile easy, even as a dread filled her heart that the magic of that day was over.
CHAPTER 12
What else could he tell her that would shock or surprise? Rowan asked herself. He'd told her he was a witch, then had proved it and somehow made her accept it. He'd wiped out twenty-seven years of her simple beliefs about herself by telling her she was a witch as well. Had proved it. She had not only accepted it, but had embraced it.
How much more could there be?
She wished he would speak. But he said nothing as they walked through moonlight from her cabin to his. She'd known him long enough to understand when he fell into this kind of silence he would tell her nothing until he was ready.
By the time they reached his cabin and stepped inside her nerves were strung tight.
What she didn't think about, refused to consider, was the fact that he'd withdrawn into that silence after she'd told him she loved him.
"Is it so serious?" She tried for a light tone but the words came out uneven, and very close to a plea.
"For me, yes. You'll decide what it means to you."
He moved into the bedroom and running his fingers over the wall beside the fireplace opened a door she hadn't known was there into a room she'd have sworn didn't exist.
A soft light glowed from it, as pale and cool as the moonlight.
"A secret room?"
"Not secret," he corrected. "Private. Come in, Rowan."
It was a measure of her trust in him that she stepped forward into that light. The floor was stone, smooth as a mirror, the walls and ceiling of wood, highly polished. Light and the shadow she cast reflected back off those surfaces and shimmered like water.
There was a table, richly carved and inlaid, and on it a bowl of thick blue glass, a stemmed cup of pewter, a small mirror with a silver back ornately scrolled and a slim, smooth handle of amethyst. Another bowl held small, colorful cryst
als. A round globe of smoky quartz stood on the silver backs of a trio of winged dragons.
What did he see when he looked into it? she wondered. What would she see?
But she turned and watched Liam light candles, watched their flames rise into air already perfumed with fragrant smoke.
She saw another table then, a small round surface on a simple pedestal. Liam opened the box resting there, took out a silver amulet on a chain. He held it a moment, as if testing its weight, then set it down with a quiet jingle of metal on wood.
"Is this- a ceremony?"
He glanced over, those tawny eyes distracted as if he'd forgotten she was there. But he hadn't forgotten her. He'd forgotten nothing.
"No. You've had a lot to deal with, haven't you, Rowan? You've asked me not to touch your thoughts so I can't know what's in your mind, how you're thinking of all this."
He hadn't meant to touch her, but found his fingers grazing her cheek. "A lot of it I can read in your eyes."
"I've told you what I think and what I feel."
"So you have."
But you haven't told me, she thought, and because it hurt her, she turned away. "Will you explain to me what everything is for?" she asked and traced a fingertip over the scrolling on the little mirror.
"Tools. Just pretty tools," he told her. "You'll need some of your own."
"Do you see things in the glass?"
"Aye."
"Are you ever afraid to look?" She smiled a little and looked back at him. "I think I might be."
"What's seen is- possibility."
She wandered, avoiding him. There was change coming. Whether it was her woman's instincts or her newly discovered gifts that told her, she was sure of it. In a glass case were more stones, stunning clusters with spears rising, smooth towers, jewel-tone globes.
He waited her out, not with patience but because for once he didn't know how to begin. When she turned back to him, her hands linked nervously, her eyes full of doubts, he had no choice but to choose.
"I knew you were coming here."
He didn't mean here, to this room, tonight. He saw her acknowledge this. "Did you know- what would happen?"
Books by Nora Roberts Page 306
