by Nora Roberts
“If you’d lay your hands over mine.” Branna covered her own breasts. “I could do it myself, but it’ll be faster and easier with your help.”
Branna searched inside herself, brought up the warmth of healing, sighed into it when Iona joined her, and again when Meara just put an arm around her waist.
“It’s not deep. He only had me for a fraction of a second.”
“It hurts deep.”
Branna nodded at Iona. “It does, or did. It’s easing already, and my own fault for giving him even that small opening.”
“I think it’ll go faster, hurt less if you look into me. If you boost what I can do with what you have. Just for this, okay? Look at me, Branna. Look into me. The hurt lifts out, let it go. The bruising eases. Feel the warm.”
She let it go, opened herself, twined what she had with Iona.
“It’s clear. He’s left no mark on or in you. You’re . . .” Iona paused, still searching for injury. And her eyes widened.
“Oh, Branna.”
“Ah, well, I supposed that’s next.” She unhooked her pants, let them fall to reveal the streaks of bruising up her inner thighs.
“Bloody bastard,” Meara muttered and took Branna’s hand in a strong grip.
“It was the fog, a kind of sly attack. More a brush than a squeeze, so it’s not as dark or painful. Have at it, Iona, if you wouldn’t mind.”
She let herself go again, let herself drift on the warmth Iona gave her until even the echo of pain faded.
“He wanted to frighten me, to attack me on the level women fear most. But he didn’t frighten me.” Calmly Branna hooked her pants again, slipped into her bra, then her sweater. “He enraged me, which gave him the same chance to rush my defenses and find that one small chink. It won’t happen a second time.”
She turned to the mirror over the sink, gave herself a hard look—and a very light glamour.
“There, that’s done the job. Thank you, both of you. I’ll see if Fin’s made a decent cup of tea and tell you all what happened.”
She stepped out. Connor stopped pacing the foyer, strode straight to her, caught her up against him.
“I’m fine, I promise. I . . . No prying into my head, Connor, you’ll only annoy me.”
“I’ve a right to be certain my sister’s unharmed.”
“I’ve said I am.”
“He left the mark of his hands, black as pitch, on her breasts.”
At Meara’s words, Branna twisted around, astonished by the betrayal.
“There’s no holding things back.” Meara stiffened her spine. “It’s not fair or right, and not smart, either. You’d say so yourself if it was me or Iona.”
When Connor started to pull up her sweater, Branna slapped his hands away. “Mind yourself! Iona and I took care of it. Ask her yourself if you can’t take my word.”
“There’s not a trace of him in or on her,” Iona confirmed. “But he’d put his marks on her, up her thighs, on her breasts.”
“He put his hands on you.” Fin spoke with a quiet that roared like thunder.
Branna closed her eyes a moment. She hadn’t sensed him come up behind her. “I let him rile me, so it’s my own fault.”
“You said you weren’t hurt.”
“I didn’t know I was until I got back here and had a look. It was nothing near what Connor dealt with, or Boyle, or you. He bruised me, and where he did is a violation as he meant it to be.”
Fin turned away, walked to the fire, stared into it.
It was Boyle who moved to Branna, put an arm around her waist. “Come on now, darling. You’ll sit down and have your tea. You’d do better with some whiskey in it.”
“My sensibilities aren’t damaged. I’m not so delicate as that. But thank you. Thank all of you for coming so quickly.”
“Not quick enough.”
She gave Connor’s arm a squeeze when he sat beside her. “That’s likely my doing as well, and I’ll confess it, as Meara—and rightfully—has shamed me into bare truth. I wanted just a moment or two, and took it before I called for you. And before you all rain down on my head, it was but a moment or two, and I had good reason.”
“Good reason?” Fin turned back. “Not to call your circle?”
“For a moment,” she repeated. “I’m well protected.”
Rage, pure and vicious, burned in his eyes. “Not so well he couldn’t put his hands on you, and leave marks behind.”
“My own fault. I’d hoped he’d change into the wolf, and he did. The hound is mine, and a wolf is the same. I thought I might be able to pull out the name of the demon, now that we know we’re looking for one. But it wasn’t long enough, and all I found was the black, and the greed. I need longer. I believe, I promise you, I could dig out the name if I had longer.”
She picked up her tea, sipped, and found it strong enough to battle a few sorcerers on its own. And that was fine with her.
“He came as an old man, looking ill and sick on the side of the road. He thought to trick me, and did—but only for a handful of seconds, and only because I’m a healer and it’s my call and my duty to help those who need it.”
“Which he knew very well,” Connor said.
“Of course. But he persists in thinking of women, whatever their power, as less, as weak, and as foolish. So I turned the trick on him, pretended I thought him an old helpless man, then knocked him head over arse.
“It’s true I should have called for you right at that moment, and you have my word on it, I won’t take even that little time again before I do. He did what I hoped, as I said, came at me as the wolf.”
She took them through it, left out no detail, then set the tea aside.
Connor drew her tight against him. “Feed his cock to the ravens, will you?”
“It’s what came to me at the time.”
“And the stone?”
“Brilliantly bright at the start of it. And bright again when he took hold of me. But when my rain burned him, it went muddy.”
She took another breath. “And there came a kind of madness in his eyes. He called me Sorcha. He looked at me, and he saw her, as Fin said when he saw me in the cave. It’s still Sorcha for him.”
“Centuries.” Eyes narrowed, Boyle nodded. “Being what he is, wanting what he wants and never getting it. It would breed a madness, and she’s the center of it for him.”
“And now you are,” Fin finished. “You have the look of her. I’ve enough to see his thoughts to know he sees her in you.”
“She is in me, but there was a confusion in that madness. And confusion is a weakness. Any weakness is an advantage for us.”
“I saw him, glimpses when I took out a guided this morning,” Meara said.
“I saw him, too, on one of mine. I didn’t have a chance to tell anyone.” Iona puffed out a breath. “He’s feeling strong again, and getting bolder.”
“Easier to end him when he’s not hiding,” Boyle pointed out. “I have to get back to the stables. I can spare either Meara or Iona if you need, Branna.”
“I’m fine now, and I . . . Oh bloody hell!” She pushed to her feet. “I’d been marketing, and all I bought is still in the car.”
“I’ll see to it,” Connor told her.
“And put everything where I won’t find it? I bought a fine cut of beef, and had in mind to roast it.”
“With the little potatoes and carrots and onions all roasting with it?”
Meara cast her eyes to the ceiling. “Connor, only you would think of your stomach when your sister’s barely settled.”
“As he knows I’m fine, and if I wasn’t, cooking would settle me the rest of the way.”
“We’ll bring it in here.” Fin spoke in a tone that brooked no argument. “If you’ve a mind to cook, you can cook here. If you need something I don’t have, we’ll get it. I’ve some work in the stables, and more upstairs, but someone will be close.”
He walked out, she assumed to bring in her groceries.
“Give him a b
reak.” Iona spoke quietly, got up herself, rubbed a hand on Branna’s arm. “Giving him a break doesn’t make you weak, won’t make him think you are. It’ll just give him a break.”
“He might have asked what I wanted to do.”
Connor kissed her temple. “You might have asked the same of him. We’ll be off then, and back in time for dinner. If you need anything, you’ve only to let me know.”
When they all left, Branna sat back down and had a good brood into the fire.
13
BRANNA DECIDED, GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, SHE’D just call what she needed to her. It seemed the best place to work on her research and studies would be the breakfast nook in his kitchen, and that way all would be close to hand when the roast was in the oven.
He kept his distance from her, and his silence—and both, she knew bloody well, were deliberate acts. Let him have his temper, she thought. She had one of her own, and the cold shoulder he offered only kept it stirred on a simmer.
On top of it all, it irritated her not to be able to stamp out the pleasure of cooking a real meal in his kitchen. It had such a nice flow to it, such fine finishes, such canny little bits of businesses such as the pot filler near the cooktop should she have a big pot to fill and not want to haul it from sink to stove.
And the cooktop she coveted. Then she might’ve had a six-burner commercial grade herself if she’d envisioned cooking for so many so often.
It didn’t seem right a man who didn’t cook himself should have a kitchen superior to hers—and she’d considered her own a dream of style and efficiency.
So she brooded about that while she let the meat marinate, and set up her temporary desk in his nook.
Another cup of tea, a couple of biscuits—store-bought, of course—and her dog along with Bugs snoring under the table. She passed the time working on the formula for the second poison—ingredients, words, timing—sent a long email to her father in case he knew, or knew anyone who knew, more of demons than she could uncover.
By the time Fin came in, grubby from the stables, she’d abandoned her books and sat at his counter peeling carrots.
He got out a beer, said nothing.
“You’re the one who put me in this kitchen.” She didn’t snap, but the edge of one colored her tone. “So if you’re going to cling to your anger with me, take yourself elsewhere.”
He stood in a ragged jacket and sweater more ragged yet, jeans giving way at one knee and boots that had seen far better days. His hair mussed and windblown around the cool expression on his face.
It only egged on her own temper he could look so bloody sexy.
“I’m not angry with you.”
“You’ve an odd way of showing your cheerful feelings then, as you’ve been in and out of the house twice and said not a word to me.”
“I’m buying a couple more hacks for the guideds and working a deal on selling one of the young hawks to a falconer. It’s my business, one that keeps all this running, and I came in and up to my office so I wouldn’t be talking terms in front of the hands and the young girl in for her afternoon lesson.”
He tipped the beer toward her, then drank. “If it’s all the same to you.”
“It’s all the same, and still the same I’m saying to take your temper somewhere else. It’s a bloody big house.”
“I like them big.” He walked over, stood on the other side of the island. “I’m not angry with you, so don’t be a fecking idjit.”
She felt the very blood kindle under her skin. “A fecking idjit is it now?”
“It is from where I’m standing.”
“Then if you insist on standing there, it’s me who’ll go elsewhere.” She slapped down the peeler, shoved back, and got halfway to the doorway before he took her arm.
She gave him a jolt that would’ve knocked him back to the opposite side of the room if he hadn’t been ready for it. “Cool yourself down, Branna, as I’ve been working on doing these past hours.”
Her eyes were smoke, her voice a fire simmering. “I won’t be called an idjit, fecking or otherwise.”
“I didn’t say you were, only advised you not to be.” His tone was cool as January rain. “And for the third time, I’m not angry with you. And rage is too tame a word for what I hold in me for him, for the bastard who put his hands on you.”
“He poisoned Connor, near to killed Meara, and Iona, he’s burned Boyle’s hands black and laid you out on my kitchen floor. But you’re more than raged because he now knows the shape of my teats?”
He took her shoulders, and she saw now he spoke the truth. What lived in his eyes was more than rage. “Battle wounds, and fair or foul they’re won in battle. This wasn’t any of that. You’ve only just let me touch you again, and he does this? You can’t see the deliberation, the timing? Doing this so you’d think of my blood, of my origins when next I want to touch you?”
“That’s not—”
“And you can’t see, can’t think with that clever brain that he had contact with you? Physical contact, and with it might have pulled you out of the here and now to where he willed?”
She started to speak, then held up both hands until he released her. And she went back, sat again. “You can call me a fecking idjit now, as I’ve earned it. I didn’t think of either, but I can see it clear enough now. I didn’t think of the first, as you have nothing to do with what he did, what he tried to do to me. I wouldn’t think of him when you touched me, Fin. That’s where you have it wrong. He meant you to think it, and there it seems he succeeded.”
She reached for his beer, then shook her head. “I don’t want beer.”
Saying nothing, he turned, took the wine stopper out of the bottle of Pinot Noir she’d used in the marinade. When he poured her a glass, she sipped slowly.
“As for the second, I’m well rooted. He may think he has enough to pull me when and where he wills. I can promise you he doesn’t. I took precautions there when he tried luring Meara, and we fully understood how he can shift in time. You can trust me on this.”
“All right.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Just that?”
“It isn’t enough?”
“He meant to frighten and humiliate me, and did neither. Perhaps he did also mean to twist my sensibilities so I wouldn’t want your touch, but he failed there as well. But he appears to have well succeeded in enraging you. This he understands, the rage. You’re bedding me now, and you won’t have me touched by another.”
“It’s not that, Branna.” Calmer—marginally—he shoved his fingers through his hair. “Well, not just that. It’s what touched you.”
“He’d only understand the possession. He’d never understand your remorse, your guilt, for no matter how many times you show him you reject his part of you, it’s all he sees there. He can’t see past your blood. You must. We all must. I do or however I felt about you, I couldn’t have let you touch me.”
“It’s his blood I want. I want it dripping from my hands.”
“I know it.” Understood it, she admitted, and had felt the same herself more than once. “But that’s vengeance, and vengeance won’t defeat him. Or not vengeance alone, for whatever we are, we’re human, too, and he’s more than earned that thirst from us.”
“I can’t be calm about it. I don’t know how you can be.”
“Because I looked in his eyes today, closer than you are now to me. I felt his hands burning cold on me. And it wasn’t fear running through me. It has been; there’s been fear mixed in, even with the power so full and bright. But not today. We’re stronger, each one of us alone, stronger than he is, even with what’s in him. And together? We’re his holocaust.”
He skirted the counter, laid his hands on her shoulders again. Gently now. “We must stop him this time, Branna, whatever it takes.”
“And I believe we will.”
Whatever it takes, he thought again, and brushed his lips to her brow. “I need to keep you from harm.”
“Do you think I need protect
ion, Fin?”
“I don’t, no, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give it. It doesn’t mean I don’t need to give it.”
He kissed her brow again.
Whatever it takes.
• • •
HE HAD BUSINESSES TO RUN, AND THE WORK DIDN’T WAIT until it was convenient for him. Ledgers had to be balanced, calls had to be made or returned, and it seemed there was forever some legal document to read and sign.
He’d learned early that owning a successful business required more than the owning of it, and the dream. He could be grateful Boyle and Connor handled the day-to-day demands—and all the paperwork, time, and decision-making on the spot that engendered. But it didn’t leave him off the hook.
Even when he traveled, he stayed keyed in—via phone or Skype or email. But when he was home, he felt obliged to get his hands dirty. That held the pleasure of grooming horses as he prized that physical contact and mental bond. More than using a currycomb or hoof pick, the grooming or feeding or exercising gave him an insight into each horse.
Nor did he mind cleaning up for the birds at the school or spending time carefully drying wet feathers. He’d gained a great deal of satisfaction in having a hand training the younger ones, and had found himself bonding particularly with a female they’d named Sassy—as she was.
Though the days grew slowly longer, there rarely seemed enough hours in them to do all he wanted or needed to do. But he knew where he wanted to be, and that was home.
Nearly a year now, he thought as he stood with Connor in the school enclosure, kicking a blue ball for Romeo, their office manager’s very enthusiastic spaniel. The longest straight stretch for him since he’d been twenty.
Business and curiosity and the need for answers would call him away again, but no more, he hoped, for months at a time. For the first time since the mark had come on him, he felt home again.
“I’m thinking the winter, and the slower demand, makes the best time to experiment with the hawk rides we talked of before.”
“We’d offer something more than special to those who come here for some adventure.” Connor gave the ball a kick, sent the dog racing. “I’ve worked out the pricing on it, should we give it a go, and Boyle grumbled as he does so it seemed in line.”
“As do I. It’ll require a different waiver, and some adjustment on the insurance end of things, and I’ll see to that.”
“Happy not to pick up that torch.”
Fin took his turn to boot the ball. “The other end is scheduling, which I’ll leave to you and Boyle to coordinate. We’ve got Meara and yourself as experienced riders and hawkers, and Iona’s done well with the hawking.”
“And none better on a horse. So that gives us three who could take the point on a combination. You’d be four.”
Fin glanced over as Connor grinned at him. “I haven’t run a guided since . . . not since the first few months Boyle and I were getting it all off the ground.”
“Sure you could go out anytime, I’m certain, with one of the others, as a kind of apprentice.”
Connor set to kick, and for the hell of it Fin blocked, took the ball himself, added some footwork remembered from boyhood before he sent it flying.
“After a match then?” Connor asked.
“I’ll take you on when I’ve time, and that’ll be after I’ve done a draft of a new brochure for you and Boyle to have a look at. Meanwhile, you should have another who can hawk and ride and handle a small group—as I think we’d keep this combination, at least at the start to groups of six and under. Who strikes you?”
“I’ve some with more hawking experience, but I’d say our Brian. He’s the most eager to learn the new, try the different.”
“Then you’ll speak to him, and if he’s keen on it, he can start training, see how it all goes. We’ll want to try it a few times, with just staff or friends. If that all goes well, we’ll begin to offer the package in March, we’ll say. By the equinox, as a goal.”
