by Nora Roberts
He reached over to toy with the amulet she wore. An interesting piece, he thought, shaped like a half-moon and inscribed in—Greek? Arabic? He was no scholar. “Anyway, she was a fount of information. Fascinated and spooked. Do you affect a lot of people that way?”
“Legions.” And she’d learned to enjoy it. “Did she tell you that I ride over the bay on my broomstick every full moon?”
“Close enough.” He let the amulet drop. “It interests me how ordinarily intelligent people allow themselves to get caught up in the supernatural.”
“Isn’t that how you make your living?”
“Exactly. And, speaking of my living, I figure you and I started off wrong. How about a clean slate?”
It was hard to be annoyed with an attractive man on a beautiful day. “How about it?”
He thought it might be wise to take the conversation where he wanted by way of the back door. “You know a lot about flowers and stuff?”
“A few things.” She shifted to finish planting a fresh pot of lemon balm.
“Maybe you can tell me what I’ve got in my yard and what I should do about it?”
“Hire a gardening service,” she said. Then she relented and smiled. “I suppose I might find time to take a look.”
“I’d really appreciate it.” He brushed at a smear of dirt on her chin. “You really could help me with the script, Morgana. It’s no problem getting things out of books—anyone can do that. What I’m looking for is a different slant, something more personal. And I—”
“What is it?”
“You have stars in your eyes,” he murmured. “Little gold stars . . . like sunlight on a midnight sea. But you can’t have the sun at midnight.”
“You can have anything if you know how to get it.” Those fabulous eyes held his. He couldn’t have looked away to save his soul. “Tell me what you want, Nash.”
“To give people a couple of enjoyable hours. To know they’ll forget problems, reality, everything, when they step into my world. A good story’s like a door, and you can go through it whenever you need to. After you’ve read it or seen it or heard it, you can still go back through it. Once it’s yours, it’s always yours.”
He broke off, startled and embarrassed. This kind of philosophizing didn’t fit in with his carefree image. He’d had expert interviewers dig at him for hours without unearthing a statement as simple and genuine as that. And all she’d done was ask.
“And, of course, I want to make pots of money,” he added, trying to grin. His head felt light, his skin too warm.
“I don’t see that one desire has to be exclusive of the other. There have been storytellers in my family from the fairy days down to my mother. We understand the value of stories.”
Perhaps that was why she hadn’t dismissed him from the outset. She respected what he did. That, too, was in her blood.
“Consider this.” She leaned forward, and he felt the punch of something in his gut, something that went beyond her beauty. “If I agree to help you, I refuse to let you fall back on the lowest common denominator. The old crone, cackling as she mixes henbane in the cauldron.”
He smiled. “Convince me.”
“Be careful what you dare, Nash,” she murmured, rising. “Come inside. I’m thirsty.”
Since he was no longer worried about being chewed up by her guard dog, who was now strolling contentedly beside them, Nash took time to admire her house. He already knew that many of the homes along the Monterey Peninsula were extraordinary and unique. He’d bought one himself. Morgana’s had the added allure of age and grace.
It was three stories of stone, turreted and towered—to suit a witch, he supposed. But it was neither Gothic nor grim. Tall, graceful windows flashed in the sunlight, and climbing flowers crept up the walls to twine and tangle in lacy ironwork. Carved into the stone were winged fairies and mermaids, adding charm. Lovely robed figures served as rainspouts.
Interior scene, night, he mused. Inside the topmost tower of the old stone house by the sea, the beautiful young witch sits in a ring of candles. The room is shadowy, with the light fluttering over the faces of statues, the stems of silver goblets, a clear orb of crystal. She wears a sheer white robe open to the waist. A heavy carved amulet hangs between the swell of her breasts. A deep hum seems to come from the stones themselves as she lifts two photographs high in the air.
The candles flicker. A wind rises within the closed room to lift her hair and ripple the robe. She chants. Ancient words, in a low, smoldering voice. She touches the photos to the candle flame. . . . No, scratch that. She . . . yeah, she sprinkles the photos with the glowing liquid from a cracked blue bowl. A hiss of steam. The humming takes on a slow, sinuous beat. Her body sways with it as she places the photos face-to-face, laying them on a silver tray. A secret smile crosses her face as the photos fuse together.
Fade out.
He liked it, though he figured she could add a bit more color to the casting of a love spell.
Content with his silence, Morgana took him around the side of the house, where the sound of water on rock rumbled and the cypress grove, trees bent and gnarled by time and wind, stood watch. They crossed a stone patio shaped like a pentagram, at whose top point stood a brass statue of a woman. Water gurgled in a tiny pool at her feet.
“Who’s she?” Nash asked.
“She has many names.” Moving to the statue, Morgana took up a small ladle, dipped it in the clear pool. She sipped, then poured the rest onto the ground for the goddess. Without a word, she crossed the patio again and entered a sunny, spotless kitchen. “Do you believe in a creator?”
The question surprised him. “Yeah, sure. I suppose.” He shifted uncomfortably while she walked across a white tiled floor to the sink to rinse her hands. “This—your witchcraft—it’s a religious thing?”
She smiled as she took out a pitcher of lemonade. “Life’s a religious thing. But don’t worry, Nash—I won’t try to convert you.” She filled two glasses with ice. “It shouldn’t make you uncomfortable. Your stories are invariably about good and evil. People are always making choices, whether to be one or the other.”
“What about you?”
She offered him his glass, then turned to walk through an archway and out of the kitchen. “You could say I’m always trying to check my less attractive impulses.” She shot him a look. “It doesn’t always work.”
As she spoke, she led him down a wide hallway. The walls were decorated with faded tapestries depicting scenes from folklore and mythology, ornate sconces, and etched plates of silver and copper.
She opted for what her grandmother had always called the drawing room. Its walls were painted a warm rose, and the tone was picked up in the pattern of the Bokhara rug tossed over the wide-planked chestnut floor. A lovely Adam mantel draped over the fireplace, which was stacked with wood ready to be put to flame should the night turn cool or should Morgana wish it.
But for now a light breeze played through the open windows, billowing the sheer curtains and bringing with it the scents of her gardens.
As in her shop, there were crystals and wands scattered around the room, along with a partial collection of her sculpture. Pewter wizards, bronze fairies, porcelain dragons.
“Great stuff.” He ran his hand over the strings of a gold lap harp. The sound it made was soft and sweet. “Do you play?”
“When I’m in the mood.” It amused her to watch him move around the room, toying with this, examining that. She appreciated honest curiosity. He picked up a scribed silver goblet and sniffed. “Smells like . . .”
“Hellfire?” she suggested. He set it down again, preferring a slender amethyst wand crusted with stones and twined with silver threads. “Magic wand?”
“Naturally. Be careful what you wish for,” she told him, taking it delicately from his hand.
He shrugged and turned away, missing the way the wand glowed before Morgana put it aside. “I’ve collected a lot of this kind of thing myself. You might like to see.”
He bent over a clear glass ball and saw his own reflection. “I picked up a shaman’s mask at an auction last month, and a—what do you call it?—a scrying mirror. Looks like we have something in common.”
“A taste in art.” She sat on the arm of the couch.
“And literature.” He was poking through a bookshelf. “Lovecraft, Bradbury. I’ve got this edition of The Golden Dawn. Stephen King, Hunter Brown, McCaffrey. Hey, is this—?” He pulled out the volume and opened it reverently. “It’s a first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” He looked over at her. “Will you take my right arm for it?”
“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
“I always hoped he’d have approved of Midnight Blood.” As he slipped the book back into place, another caught his eyes. “Four Golden Balls. The Faerie King.” He skimmed a finger over the slim volumes. “Whistle Up the Wind. You’ve got her entire collection.” Envy stirred in his blood. “And in first editions.”
“You read Bryna?”
“Are you kidding?” It was too much like meeting an old friend. He had to touch, to look, even to sniff. “I’ve read everything she’s written a dozen times. Anyone who thinks they’re just for kids is nuts. It’s like poetry and magic and morality all rolled into one. And, of course, the illustrations are fabulous. I’d kill for a piece of the original artwork, but she just won’t sell.”
Interested, Morgana tilted her head. “Have you asked?”
“I’ve filtered some pitiful pleas through her agent. No dice. She lives in some castle in Ireland, and probably papers the walls with her sketches. I wish . . .” He turned at Morgana’s quiet laugh.
“Actually, she keeps them in thick albums, waiting for the grandchildren she hopes for.”
“Donovan.” He tucked his thumbs in his pockets. “Bryna Donovan. That’s your mother.”
“Yes, and she’d be delighted to know you approve of her work.” She lifted her glass. “From one storyteller to another. My parents lived in this house off and on for several years. Actually, she wrote her first published work upstairs while she was pregnant with me. She always says I insisted she write the story down.”
“Does your mother believe you’re a witch?”
“It would be better to ask her that yourself, if you get the opportunity.”
“You’re being evasive again.” He walked over to sprawl comfortably on the couch beside her. It was impossible not to be comfortable with a woman who surrounded herself with things he himself loved. “Let’s put it this way. Does your family have any problem with your interests?”
She appreciated the way he relaxed, legs stretched, body at ease, as if he’d been making himself at home on her couch for years. “My family has always understood the need to focus energies in an individual direction. Do your parents have a problem with your interests?”
“I never knew them. My parents.”
“I’m sorry.” The mocking light in her eyes turned instantly to sympathy. Her family had always been her center. She could hardly imagine living without them.
“It wasn’t a big deal.” But he rose again, uneasy with the way she’d laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. He’d come too far from the bad old days to want any sympathy. “I’m interested in your family’s reactions. I mean, how would most parents feel, what would they do if they found their kid casting spells. Did you decide to start dabbling as a child?”
Sympathy vanished like a puff of smoke. “Dabbling?” she repeated, eyes slitted.
“I may want to have a prologue, you know, showing how the main character got involved.”
He was paying less attention to her than to the room itself, the atmosphere. As he worked out his thoughts, he paced. Not nervously, not even restlessly, but in a way that made it obvious that he was taking stock of everything he could see.
“Maybe she gets pushed around by the kid next door and turns him into a frog,” he continued, oblivious to the fact that Morgana’s jaw had tensed. “Or she runs into some mysterious woman who passes on the power. I kind of like that.” As he roamed, he played with ideas, slender threads that could be woven into whole cloth for a story. “I’m just not sure of the angle I want to use, so I figured we’d start by playing it straight. You tell me what started you off—books you read, whatever. Then I can twist it to work as fiction.”
She was going to have to watch her temper, and watch it carefully. When she spoke, her voice was soft, and carried a ring that made him stop in the center of the rug. “I was born with elvish blood. I am a hereditary witch, and my heritage traces back to Finn of the Celts. My power is a gift passed on from generation to generation. When I find a man of strength, we’ll make children between us, and they will carry it beyond me.”
He nodded, impressed. “That’s great.” So she didn’t want to play it straight, he thought. He’d humor her. The stuff about elvish blood had terrific possibilities. “So, when did you first realize you were a witch?”
The tone of his voice had her temper slipping a notch. The room shook as she fought it back. Nash snatched her off the couch so quickly that she didn’t have time to protest. He’d pulled her toward the doorway when the shaking stopped.
“Just a tremor,” he said, but he kept his arms around her. “I was in San Francisco during the last big one.” Because he felt like an idiot, he gave her a lopsided grin. “I haven’t been able to be casual about a shake since.”
So, he thought it was an earth tremor. Just as well, Morgana decided. There was absolutely no reason for her to lose her temper, or to expect him to accept her for what she was. In any case, it was sweet, the way he’d jumped to protect her.
“You could move to the Midwest.”
“Tornados.” Since he was here, and so was she, he saw no reason to resist running his hands up her back. He enjoyed the way she leaned into the stroke, like a cat.
Morgana tilted her head back. Staying angry seemed a waste of time when her heart gave such an eager leap. It was perhaps unwise of them to test each other this way. But wisdom was often bland. “The East Coast,” she said, letting her own hands skim up his chest.
“Blizzards.” He nudged her closer, wondering for just an instant why she seemed to meld with him so perfectly, body to body.
“The South.” She twined her arms around his neck, watching him steadily through a fringe of dark lashes.
“Hurricanes.” He tipped the hat off her head so that her hair tumbled down to fill his hands like warm silk. “Disasters are everywhere,” he murmured. “Might as well stay put and deal with the one that’s yours.”
“You won’t deal with me, Nash.” She brushed her lips teasingly over his. “But you’re welcome to try.”
He took her mouth confidently. He didn’t consider women a disaster.
Perhaps he should have.
It was more turbulent than any earthquake, more devastating than any storm. He didn’t feel the ground tremble or hear the wind roar, but he knew the moment her lips parted beneath his that he was being pulled in by some irresistible force that man had yet to put a name to.
She was molded against him, soft and warm as melted wax. If he’d believed in such things, he might have said her body had been fashioned for just this purpose—to mate perfectly with his. His hands streaked under her loose shirt to race over the smooth skin of her back, to press her even closer, to make sure she was real and not some daydream, some fantasy.
He could taste the reality, but even that had some kind of dreamy midnight flavor. Her mouth yielded silkily under his, even as her arms locked like velvet cords around his neck.
A sound floated on the air, something she murmured, something he couldn’t understand. Yet he thought he sensed surprise in the whisper, and perhaps a little fear, before it ended with a sigh.
She was a woman who enjoyed the tastes and textures of a man. She had never been taught to be ashamed of taking pleasure, with the right man, at the right time. She hadn’t ever learned to fear her own sexuality, but to celebrate it,
cherish it, and respect it.
And yet now, for the first time, she felt the sly quickening of fear with a man.
The simplicity of a kiss filled a basic need. But there was nothing simple in this. How could it be simple, when excitement and unease were dancing together along her skin?
She wanted to believe that the power came from her, was in her. She was responsible for this whirlwind of sensation that surrounded them. Conjuring was often as quick as a wish, as strong as the will.
But the fear was there, and she knew it came from the knowledge that this was something beyond her reach, out of her control, past her reckoning. She knew that spells could be cast on the strong, as well as the weak. To break a charm took care. And action.
She slid out of his arms, moving slowly, deliberately. Not for an instant would she let him see that he had had power over her. She closed a hand over her amulet and felt steadier.
Nash felt like the last survivor of a train wreck. He jammed his hands in his pockets to keep himself from grabbing her again. He didn’t mind playing with fire—he just liked to be sure he was the one holding the match. He knew damn well who’d been in charge of that little experiment, and it wasn’t Nash Kirkland.
“You play around with hypnosis?” he asked her.
She was fine, Morgana told herself. She was just fine. But she sat on the couch again. It took an effort, but she managed a smile that was sultry around the edges. “Did I mesmerize you, Nash?”
Flustered, he paced to the window and back. “I just want to be sure when I kiss you that it’s my idea.”
Her head came up. The pride that swam in her blood was something else that was ageless. “You can have all the ideas you like. I don’t have to resort to magic to make a man want me.” She lifted a finger to touch the heat he’d left on her lips. “And if I decided to have you, you’d be more than willing.” Under her finger, her lips curved. “Then you’d be grateful.”
He didn’t doubt it, and that scraped at his pride. “If I said something like that to you, you’d claim I was sexist and egocentric.”
Lazily she picked up her glass. “The truth has nothing to do with sex or ego.” The white cat jumped soundlessly on the back of the couch. Without taking her eyes off Nash, Morgana lifted a hand and stroked Luna’s head. “If you’re unwilling to take the risk, we can break off our . . . creative partnership.”
“You think I’m afraid of you?” The absurdity of it put him in a slightly better mood. “Babe, I stopped letting my glands do the thinking a long time ago.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. I’d hate to think of you as some calculating woman’s love slave.”
“The point is,” he said between his teeth, “if we’re going to work this out, we’d better have some rules.”
He had to be out of his mind, Nash decided. Five minutes ago he had had a gorgeous, sexy, incredibly delicious woman in his arms, and now he was trying to think up ways to keep her from seducing him.
“No.” Lips pursed, Morgana considered. “I’m not very good with rules. You’ll just have to take your chances. But I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t lure you into any compromising situations if you’ll stop taking smug little potshots at witchcraft.” She combed her hair back with her fingers. “It irritates me. And I sometimes do things I regret when I’m irritated.”
“I have to ask questions.”
“Then learn to accept the answers.” Calm but determined, she rose. “I don’t lie—or at least I rarely do. I’m not sure why I’ve decided to share my business with you. Perhaps because there’s something appealing about you, and certainly because I have a great deal of respect for a teller of tales. You have a strong aura—and a questing, if cynical, brain—along with a great deal of talent. And perhaps because those closest to me have approved of you.”
“Such as?”
“Anastasia—and Luna and Pan. They’re all excellent judges of character.”
So he’d passed muster with a cousin, a cat and a dog. “Is Anastasia also a witch?”
Her eyes remained steady. “We’ll discuss me, and the Craft in general. Ana’s business is her own.”
“All right. When do we start?”
They already had, she thought, and nearly sighed. “I don’t work on Sundays. You can come by tomorrow night, at nine.”
“Not midnight? Sorry,” he said quickly. “Force of habit. I’d like to use a tape recorder, if that’s all right.”
“Of course.”
“Should I bring anything else?”
“Tongue of bat and some wolfbane.” She smiled. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
He laughed and kissed her chastely on the cheek. “I like your style, Morgana.”
“We’ll see.”
* * *
She waited until sundown, then dressed in a thin white robe. Forewarned was always best, she’d told herself when she’d finally broken down and slipped into the room at the top of the tower. She didn’t like to admit that Nash was important enough to worry about, but since she was worrying, she might as well see.
She cast the protective circle, lit the candles. Drawing in the scent of sandalwood and herbs, she knelt in the center and lifted her arms.
“Fire, water, earth, and wind, not to break and not to mend. Only now to let me see. As I will, so mote it be.”
The power slid inside her like breath, clean and cool. She lifted the sphere of clear crystal, cupping it in both hands so that the light from the candles flickered over it.
Smoke. Light. Shadow.
