by Nora Roberts
“I will.” But he took Meara’s hand. “Here now, darling, here, mo chroi, look at me. At me, into me.”
So she went dreaming, dreaming into those green eyes, outside of pain, outside of all but him. And him murmuring sweet things to her as he did when they loved.
Then Iona—no Teagan, the youngest—Teagan, held a cup to her lips, and the taste on her tongue, down her throat, was lovely.
Now when she drew in breath, true and deep, it tasted the same—of the green and the earth, the peat fire, and the herbs thriving nearby.
“I’m all right.”
“Another moment, just another moment. How could he come here?” Brannaugh asked Connor. “We’re beyond him here.”
“But I’m not. Somehow I brought him, gave him passage. A trap it was after all. Using me to get to you, Eamon, and your sisters. I led him here, led him to this.”
“No, he used us both, our dreams.”
“And drew us in as well,” Brannaugh said. “There’s none of his dark left in you, my lady. Can you sit now, easy and slow?”
“I’m fine. Better than I was before the wound. You have her skill, or she has yours.”
“You stood for my brother. If you hadn’t risked yourself, he would be hurt, or worse, for Cabhan wanted his blood, his death.”
“Your sword.” Teagan laid it over Meara’s legs.
“There’s blood on it. I thought the strike missed.”
“You struck true.”
“’Tis shadow magick,” Brannaugh stated.
“It is,” Connor agreed. “As long as I’m here, he can come again. I do you more harm than good by staying.”
“Would you take this, if you please?” Teagan held out a flower topping its bulb. “And when you can, if you’d plant this near our mother’s grave. She favored bluebells.”
“I will, yes, soon as I’m able. I must go, must take Meara back.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“I’m not. Have a care, all of you.” He wrapped his arms tight around Meara, pressed his face into her hair.
She woke in bed, sitting up with Connor’s arms around her, with him rocking her as he might a baby.
“I had a dream.”
“Not a dream, or not only a dream. Shh now, give me a moment.”
His lips pressed onto her hair, her temples, her cheeks, all slow and deliberate.
“Let me see your side.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she insisted as he shifted her, ran his hands over her. “In fact I feel someone dosed me with a magick elixir. And I suppose that’s just what happened. How did it happen? Any of it, all of it?”
“Eamon dreamed of me and I of him. He drew me to him, and I drew you with me. And likely Cabhan set the stage for it all.”
His hands fisted in her hair until he carefully relaxed them again.
“To use me, my dreaming, to attack Eamon.”
“You pushed me behind you.”
“And you did the same with Eamon. We do what we do.” On a sigh, he laid his forehead on hers. “Your sword struck his flank, and his claws yours, but he was still part in shadow so the blade drew his blood, but didn’t stop him. That’s my theory on it.”
“He came out of the air, Connor. How do we fight what comes out of the air?”
“As we did. The light drove him back—Eamon’s and mine joined, then the girls.”
“He screamed,” Meara remembered. “It didn’t sound like an animal, but a man.”
“Balancing between worlds, and forms. It’s catching him when he steps off on one or the other, I think. It’s near dawn. It’ll be an ugly business, but I’m waking Branna. I’ll leave it to you to ring up the others. This is something to share with all and straightaway.”
But first he cupped her face in his hands as he had in the dreaming time. “Don’t be so fucking brave next time, for the next time might kill me where I stand.”
“He was just a boy, Connor, and straight in its path. And he looks like you, or you look like him. The shape of the face,” she added, “his mouth, his nose, even the way he stands.”
“Is that so?”
“Harder to see it yourself, I’d think, but it’s very so. I’ll ring Iona, then she’ll be in charge of waking Boyle, who can wake Fin.”
“All right.” He ran his hands through her hair, long and waving as he’d released it from its braid the night before. “Whoever gets downstairs first puts on the bleeding coffee.”
“Agreed.” Because she could see the worry in his eyes still, she leaned in to kiss him. “Go on, you’ve got the worst job between us in waking Branna when the sun’s barely up.”
“Have the first-aid kit ready.” He rolled out of bed, yanked on his pants.
As he left, Meara reached over for her phone, and saw the bluebell. Thinking of Teagan, so like the girl Iona must have been, she rose, fetched a glass of water from the bathroom, set the bulb in it.
For Sorcha, she thought, then called Iona.
She made it down first, did her duty with the coffee. She considered making oatmeal, the only breakfast meal she had a decent enough hand with. And Connor nearly always scorched the eggs if he had charge of breakfast.
She was spared when Branna came in. Her friend wore blue and green striped flannel pants with a thin green top. She’d tied a little blue sweater over it, and that somehow matched the thick socks on her feet.
Her hair spilling free to her waist, Branna marched straight for the coffee. “Don’t talk to me, not a word, until I’ve had my coffee. Put some potatoes on the boil, and when they’re soft enough, chip them up for frying.”
She drank the coffee black rather than adding the good dose of cream that was her usual.
“I swear an oath, there’s a time coming soon when I’ll not step near a stove for a month.”
“You’ll have earned it. I’m not talking to anyone in particular,” Meara said quickly as she scrubbed potatoes in the sink. “Just making some general observations.”
“Bloody Cabhan,” Branna muttered, as she pulled things from the fridge. “I’ll kill him with my own hands, I swear another oath, for forcing me to see so many sunrises. The eggs are going scrambled, and whoever doesn’t like it doesn’t have to eat them.”
Wisely, Meara said nothing, but put the potatoes on the boil.
Muttering all the while, Branna put on sausage, started on the bacon, sliced bread from the loaf for toast.
Then downed more coffee.
“I want to see your side.”
Meara stopped herself from saying she was fine, simply lifted up her shirt.
Branna laid her fingers on it—how did she know the exact spot—probed for a moment. Meara felt heat slide in, and out again.
Then Branna met her eyes, just moved in and wrapped around her tight.
“It’s healed perfectly. Damn it, Meara. Damn it.”
“Don’t start now. I’ve had it from Connor already. You’d think I’d been gutted instead of getting a bit of a swipe.”
“What do you think he was aiming for if not your guts?” But Branna stepped back, pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Breathed deep before she dropped them again.
“All right then. Let’s get this bloody breakfast on. Connor Sean Michael O’Dwyer! Get your arse down here and do something with this breakfast besides eat it.”
As he appeared seconds later, he’d obviously been waiting for her to settle. “Whatever you like. I can do the eggs.”
“You’ll not touch them. Set the table as it seems I’ll be cooking for six the rest of my life. And when you’re done with that, you can start on the toast.”
The potatoes were frying when the others arrived.
“You’re all right?” Iona went straight to Meara. “You’re sure?”
“I am. More than all right as I’m bristling with energy from whatever potion they gave me.”
“Let me see it.” Fin nudged Iona aside.
“Am I going to have to lift my shirt for ever
yone?” But she did so, frowning a bit as Fin laid his hand on her. “Branna’s already had a poke at me.”
“He’s my blood. If there’s even a trace of him, I’ll know. And there’s none.” Gently, Fin drew her shirt into place again. “I wouldn’t have you hurt, mo deirfiúr.”
“I know it. Sure there was a moment, and I wouldn’t care to repeat it, but the rest? It was a fascination. You went with Iona once,” she said to Boyle.
“I did, so I know the sensation. Like dreaming but more like walking, talking, doing while you dream. It makes you a bit light-headed.”
“You should sit,” Iona decided. “Just sit down. I’ll help Branna finish breakfast.”
“You’ll not,” Branna said definitely. “Boyle, you’re the only one of the lot who doesn’t have ham hands in the kitchen. Scramble up the eggs, will you, as I’ve nearly finished the rest.”
He went over to the stove beside her, poured the beaten eggs from the bowl into a skillet where she’d melted butter.
“All right then?” he asked.
Branna leaned against him a moment. “I will be.”
She turned the heat off under the potatoes, began to scoop them out with a slotted tool onto paper towels to drain. “Why didn’t I feel any of it?” she wondered. “I slept straight through it all, never knowing a thing.”
“Why didn’t I, or Iona?” Fin countered from behind her. “It wasn’t our dream; we didn’t have a part in it.”
“I was right in the same house, only just down the hall. I should’ve sensed something.”
“I can see as you’re the center of this world how you’re deserving a piece of all of it.”
When she rounded on him, eyes flashing, narrowed, Iona stepped up. “Stop it, just stop it, both of you. You’re each blaming yourselves, and that’s stupid. Neither of you is responsible. The only one who is, is Cabhan, so knock it off. My blood, my brother,” she added before the pair of them could speak. “Blah, blah, blah. So what? We’re all in this. Why don’t we find out exactly what happened before we start dividing up the blame?”
“You’re marrying a bossy woman, mo dearthair,” Fin said to Boyle. “And a sensible one. Sit, Iona, and Meara as well. I’ll get your coffee.”
Iona sat, folded her hands neatly on the table. “That would be very nice.”
“Don’t bleed it out,” Meara warned, and joined her.
At Branna’s direction, Boyle piled eggs on the platter with the sausage, bacon, potatoes, fried tomatoes, and black pudding.
He carted it to the table while Fin served the coffee and Connor poured out juice.
“Take us through it,” Fin told Connor.
“It started as they do—as if you’re fully awake and aware and somewhere else all at once. In Clare we were, though I didn’t know it at first. In Clare, and in Eamon’s time.”
He wound through the story as they all served themselves from the huge platter.
“A hart?” Branna interrupted. “Was it real, or did you bring it into it?”
“I wouldn’t have thought of it. If I’d wanted a guide, I’d have pulled in Roibeard. It was a massive buck, and magnificent. Regal, and with a hide more gold than brown.”
“Blue eyes,” Meara added.
“You’re right. They were. Bold and blue, like Eamon’s, come to think of it.”
“Or his father’s,” Branna pointed out. “In Sorcha’s book she writes her son has his father’s eyes, his coloring.”
“You think it was Daithi,” Connor considered, “or representing him. He might be given that form to be near his children, protect them as best he can.”
“I hope it’s true,” Iona said quietly. “He was killed riding home to protect them.”
“The hart that might have been Daithi’s spirit guided us toward the light, and the light was Eamon. Three years in his time since we last met. He was taller, and his face fined down as it does when you’re passing out of childhood. He’s a handsome lad.”
Now he grinned at Meara.
“He’d say that, as I told him they favor each other. Different coloring to be sure, but you’d know they’re kin.”
“He thought Meara was Aine—a gypsy,” Connor explained. “One who’d passed through some time before, and told him they’d see home again.”
“That’s interesting. You have gypsy in your heritage,” Iona pointed out.
“I do.”
“And Fin named the filly he chose for Alastar Aine.”
“I thought of that, and take it doesn’t mean I resemble a horse.”
“Of great beauty and spirit,” Fin pointed out. “The name was hers—I never considered another. It was who she was the moment I saw her. Sure it’s interesting, the connections, the overlaps.”
“It’s that I felt nothing while we talked, there outside the cottage. Nor did he,” Connor considered. “We asked after family. I told him of the shadow spell. And it was when he asked if we’d come inside that it happened. One minute I felt nothing, then I felt him there. Just there an instant before the wolf leaped out of the air. And he felt it as well.”
“You spun around together, like one person,” Meara added. “It was all so fast. Connor pushed me back behind him, but it wasn’t me, it was the boy, he wanted.”
“And so she pushed Eamon aside, exposed herself, and swung the sword. Not even a second, no time to throw out a block of any kind. He rammed her full, clawed her. Her blood and his in the air. The hound charged. Eamon and I joined, and the girls rushed out. It was they who threw a block, stopping me from rushing forward, throwing what they had at him, so it was me who joined with them as there was nothing else to do in those few seconds. What we had was enough to give him pain, with Kathel, Roibeard, and Alastar going at him along with us. He screamed like a girl.”
“Hey!”
He managed a grin at Iona. “No offense meant. Between us and Kathel, Alastar’s hooves and Roibeard’s talons, he went as he’d come. Gone, vanished, leaving only the stench of hell behind him. And Meara bleeding on the ground. And not two minutes, when I look back calm, not two minutes between.”
“They’ve all been short, haven’t they? Something to consider,” Branna said. “It may be he only has enough power for those short bursts with this spell.”
“For now,” Fin added.
“For now is what we have. He hitched onto Connor’s dream, slithered into it to try to get the boy—or one of the sisters if they’d greeted you, Connor. He can’t get into the house, but into a dream, once you’ve moved out of its protection . . . I can see this. He can’t get to them in that time, in that place, but could link to the dream to go there.”
“Where the boy would’ve been vulnerable,” Fin added, “in the half world of active dreaming. Then Cabhan waits on the edges of it, waits to attack—until you turn your back.”
“Bloody coward,” Boyle muttered.
“You said Meara spilled his blood. Where’s your sword?” Branna demanded.
“At home. I never brought it here. ’Twas just in my hand in the dream.”
“I’ll go get it,” Fin said. “Where do you have it?”
“It’s on the shelf in the closet in my bedroom. I’ll get you the key to the flat.” When he only smiled, she sat back again. “Which you don’t need at all, do you? Which is a thought that never occurred to me. Any of the four of you could walk right in as you please.”
“I’ll bring it. It won’t take but a few moments.”
“I appreciate the respect, as you know I don’t approve of taking the easy way when a bit of effort and time does the job. But.” Branna sighed. “We’re beyond that, and it’s foolish for you to drive into the village and back.”
Fin merely nodded. He lifted his hand, and in a flash held Meara’s sword.
Meara jolted, then laughed a little. “Well, that’s brilliant, and it’s so rare to see any of you do that sort of thing, I sometimes forget you can.”
“Fin’s a bit freer with it than Branna,” Boyle poin
ted out.
“We all don’t have the same boundaries.” Fin turned the sword. “There’s blood on it, and fresh enough.”
“I won’t have blood or swords at my table.” Branna rose, took it from him. “It’s enough to work with. I still have some from the solstice. But as you said, this is fresh—and it’s from him when he was wounded during a shadow spell.”
“I’ll come back, work with you as soon as I can get away,” Connor told her.
“So will I,” Iona added. “We’re really busy this morning, but I think my bosses might give me some flex time this afternoon.”
Boyle ran a hand over Iona’s cap of hair. “They might be persuaded. I’ll bring Meara back as well if you can use us. We can bring food if nothing else.”
“It’s quite a bit else.” Branna continued to study the sword. “As there isn’t enough of the fancy French stew to go full around a second time.”
“We’ll see to that then, Meara and myself, and come back around as soon as we can close things up at the stables. I’ll send Iona off soon as I can.”
“I’ll come get her,” Connor said. “I think we’re back to no one wandering around on their own, at least for a bit. I can juggle the scheduling and be off by three if that suits.”
“Well enough.”
“I’ll stay now.” There was a beat of silence as Fin spoke. “If that suits.”
“It does.” Branna lowered the sword. “The lot of you can put my kitchen back to rights. I’ll be in the workshop when you’re done,” she said to Fin, and walked out.
13
MEARA SPENT MOST OF HER NEXT FREE DAY AT HER mother’s helping with the last of the packing up for what they were all calling The Long Visit. And as packing required making decisions—what should be taken, what should be left behind, what might be given away or simply tossed in the bin—Meara spent most of her free day with a throbbing headache.
Decisions, and Meara knew it well, put Colleen Quinn in a state of dithering anxiety. The simple choice of whether to take her trio of pampered African Violets nearly brought her to tears.
“Well, of course you’ll take them.” Meara struggled to find balance on a thin midway line between good cheer and firmness.
“If I leave them, you and Donal will have the bother of watering and feeding them, and if you forget . . .”
“I can promise not to forget.” Because she’d take them straight to Branna, who’d know how to tend them. “But you should have them with you.”
“Maureen might not want them in her house.”
“Now why wouldn’t Maureen want them?” Teetering on that thin line, Meara pasted a determined smile on her face as she lifted one of the fuzzy-leafed plants, pregnant with purple blooms. “They’re lovely.”
“Well, it’s her house, isn’t it?”
“And you’re her mother, and they’re your plants.”
Decision made—by God—Meara set them carefully in boxes she’d begged off the market.
“Oh, but—”
