Nora Roberts - Dance Upon the Air

She prayed with every beat of her heart that he was alive.

She could hear Evan behind her, close, too close. Her breath was coming in gasps, tattered by fear, but his was a steady determined beat.

Dizziness swept over her, urged her to drop to her knees. She fought it off, nearly stumbled. She would not lose now.

Then his body slammed into hers and sent her sprawling.

She rolled, kicked, her only thought to get free of him. Then froze when he yanked her head back by her short cap of hair and pressed the knife tip to her throat.

Her body emptied, went limp as a doll's. "Why don't you just do it," she said wearily. "Just end it."

"You ran from me." There was as much bafflement as rage in his voice. "You ran."

"And I'll keep running. Until you kill me, I'll keep running. I'd rather be dead than live with you. I've already died once, so do it. I've stopped being afraid of you."

She felt the blade bite. At the sound of running feet he dragged her up.

Even with a knife at her throat, she felt joy when she saw Zack.

Alive. The dark stain on his shirt glimmered in the faint starlight. But he was alive, and nothing mattered more.

"Let her go." Zack took his stance, supporting his gun hand with his weak one. "Drop the knife and step away from her."

"I'll slit her throat. She's mine, and I won't hesitate." Evan's eyes passed from Zack's to Ripley's to Mia's as they stood in a half circle.

"Hurt her, and you're dead. You won't walk away from here."

"You've no right to interfere between a husband and wife." There was something almost reasonable in his voice, something sane under the madness. "Helen is my wife. Legally, morally, eternally." He jerked her head back another inch with the blade. "Throw your guns down and walk away. This is my business."

"I can't get a clear shot," Ripley said under her breath. "Not enough light to be sure."

"It's not the way. Put the gun down, Ripley." Mia stretched out her hand.

"The hell with that." Her finger itched on the trigger. The bastard, was all she could think as she saw Nell's exposed throat, smelled her brother's blood.

"Ripley," Mia said again, soft, insistent under the sharp, clipped orders from Zack to drop the knife. To step away.

"Damn it, damn it. You better be right."

Zack didn't hear them. They'd ceased to exist for him. His only reality was Nell.

"I'll do more than kill you." Zack held the gun rock steady and his voice was calm as a lake. "If you cut her, so much as nick her, I'll take you apart, piece by piece. I'll put bullets in your knees, in your balls, in your gut. I'll stand over you and watch while you bleed out."

The color that rage brought to Evan's face drained away. He believed what he saw in Zack's eyes. Believed the pain and death he saw there, and was afraid. His hands trembled on the handle of the knife, but he didn't move. "She belongs to me."

Ripley's hand gripped Mia's. Nell felt the punch of energy they created, felt the hot waves of love and terror that rolled off Zack as he stood bleeding for her.

And felt, as she had never felt, fear from the man who gripped her.

Her name was Nell Channing, now and always. And the man behind her was less than nothing.

She closed her hand over the pendant Mia had given her. It vibrated. "I belong to myself." Power trickled back into her, a slow pool. "I belong to me." And faster. "And to you," she said, her eyes locked on Zack's. "He's done hurting me now."

She lifted her other hand, laid it on Evan's wrist, lightly. "Let me go, Evan, and you'll walk away. We'll put all of this behind us. It's your chance. The last chance."

His breath hissed at her ear. "You stupid bitch. Do you think I'll ever let you go?"

"And your choice." There was pity in her voice. "Your last."

The chant was in her head, rising, as if it had only been waiting for her to free it.

She wondered how she could have been so afraid of him.

"What you've done to all and me, turns back to you, one times three. From you this night I'll forever be free. As I will, so mote it be."

Her skin glowed like sunlight, her pupils dark as stars. The knife trembled, whispered along her skin, away, then fell. She heard the choking gasp, the high whine that couldn't reach a scream as Evan collapsed behind her.

She didn't spare him a glance.

"Don't shoot him," she said quietly to Zack. "Don't kill him like this. It wouldn't be good for you."

Because she could see the intent, she walked to Zack as Evan began to moan. "It wouldn't be good for us. He's nothing now." She laid a hand over Zack's heart, felt its wild beat. "He's what he made himself."

Evan lay on the ground, twitching as if something vile slithered under his skin. His face was bone white.

Zack lowered the gun, wrapped his good arm around Nell. He held her there a moment as she reached out, clasping hands with Mia, and linking them all.

"Stay with them," Zack told her. "I'll deal with him. I won't kill him. He'll suffer more if he lives."

Ripley watched her brother walk toward the writhing man, take out his handcuffs. He needed to do this last thing, she thought, and she needed to let him. "He gets two minutes to secure and Mirandize that smear of slime, then I want him taken to the clinic. I don't know how bad he's hurt."

"I'll take him." Nell looked down at the blood, Zack's blood, on her hand, curled her fist over it, and felt life pump. "I'll stay with him."

"Courage"-Mia reached out, touched the pendant-"breaks the spell. Love weaves another." She pulled Nell into her arms for a fierce hug. "You did well, little sister." She turned toward Ripley. "And you found your fate."

Early on the feast of the Saints, long after the balefires were charmed away, before dawn broke the sky, Nell sat in the kitchen of the yellow cottage, her hand resting loosely in Zack's.

She needed to come back, to be there, to tidy away what had happened and what might have happened. She'd swept away the negative forces that had lingered and had lit candles and incense.

"I wish you'd stayed overnight at the clinic."

She turned her hand under Zack's, squeezed. "I could say the same."

"I've got a few stitches, you've got the concussion."

"Mild," she reminded him, "and twenty-three stitches is more than a few."

Twenty-three stitches, he thought. A long, nasty gash. The doctor had called it a miracle that no muscle or tendons had been severed.

Zack called it magic. Nell's magic.

She reached out to touch the fresh white bandage, then trailed her fingers over the gold locket. "You didn't take it off."

"You asked me not to. It got hot," he told her, and brought her gaze back to his. "An instant before he cut me. I could see, in my head, in that quick blur, the blade going toward my heart, then being deflected. As if it hit a shield. I thought I imagined it. But I didn't."

"We were stronger than he was." Nell brought their joined hands to her cheek. "I was afraid, drowning in fear from the minute I heard his voice. It took away everything I'd built, everything I'd learned about myself. He paralyzed me, sucked out my will. That was his power over me. But it began to come back, and when he hurt you, it flooded back. But I couldn't think, not clearly. Hitting my head was part of it, I suppose."

"You ran to save me."

"And you followed to save me. We're a couple of heroes."

He touched her face, gently. There were bruises on it that he felt throb in his own. "He's never going to hurt you again. I'll go in and relieve Ripley at dawn, and contact the prosecutor's office on the mainland. A couple of attempted-murder charges will keep him locked up, no matter how fancy his lawyers are."

"I'm not afraid of him anymore. He looked pathetic in the end, eaten up by his own cruelty. Terrified of it. His madness is staring back at him now. He'll never be able to hide it again."