Anne Bishop - The House of Gaian

"And flirts outrageously with anything in trousers that has a handsome-enough face."

"All right," Breanna said, uncomfortable with the anger rising in Fiona, "she flirts."

"You make it sound as if she's too young to think of men and beds," Fiona said fiercely. "And perhaps she is too young to think of men in that way, but she's already become a predator where men are concerned. She wants, and expects, male adoration. She wants, and expects, men to fulfill her every wish and whim."

"Didn't we all want that at that age?" Breanna asked cautiously. The anger and contempt in Fiona's voice worried her as much as the word predator . "Didn't we all want the romance of being special?" Don't we still want that ?

"You were never sixteen in that way. Neither was I. You never would have . . ." Fiona pressed her lips together until they were a thin, grim line. "She doesn't always live by the creed when she feels slighted by a man's lack of attention."

A chill raced up Breanna's spine. That spike of fear sharpened her voice. "What are you saying?"

"That Liam and Falco have a good reason to be wary of being alone with Jean—especially when it's clear to everyone but Jean that neither of them are comfortable with her interest and don't want to play the ardent lover."

"You can't be serious. You actually think she would use magic to harm them because they aren't interested in her?"

Fiona nodded slowly. "Because they aren't interested in her. . . and because they are interested in you."

Breanna stared at Fiona, too stunned to speak.

"Oh, not in the same way. I don't mean that," Fiona continued. "But you're the one they both inquire about first. You're the one they look to in order to understand our way of life. Jean resents your 'power' over them because she wants it for herself."

Breanna shook her head, not to deny what Fiona had said but because she still couldn't accept that Jean might be a danger to Liam and Falco. It was one thing to consider breaking the witches' creed in order to defend her family and home; it was quite another to break that creed and do harm simply because you could do it. "Have you any proof that Jean ever harmed a boy because he wasn't sufficiently attentive?"

"Proof? No. Suspicions? Oh, yes. But she always acted the darling around the elders, and they wouldn't believe sweet, pretty Jean has the heart of a cold-blooded bitch. There was nothing serious, you understand. Just little spiteful things that could have been easily explained as simple accidents if they hadn't occurred soon after a boy she wanted showed a preference for another girl." Fiona sighed. "I didn't want her to come with us. Even knowing what she would have faced if she'd stayed, I didn't want her to come with us. All during the journey, I was afraid she would do something that would call too much attention to us, make the guards in the villages we had to pass look too closely at where we were coming from. Make them look too closely at us ."

"But she didn't do anything," Breanna said. "Perhaps, with Nuala keeping an eye on her . . ."

Fiona shook her head. "I told you, the elders only saw what Jean wanted them to see—and that's the face she shows to Nuala, too. Pretty, sometimes pouty in a teasing way, fluttery feminine Jean. She was fearful enough of the people the Inquisitors have turned against our kind to behave on the journey here, but the only reason she didn't do anything more damaging back home was because. . ."

"Because?" Breanna prodded.

Fiona looked uncomfortable. Finally, she said, "She was afraid of Jennyfer. And she hasn't stirred up much trouble here because she's afraid of you."

"Me? Whatever for?"

"You and Jenny . . . you're . . . different. . . from the rest of us. I don't mean that in a bad way, but. . . there's a strength in both of you that runs so deep. A strength that comes from here." Fiona shifted the quiver to her bow hand in order to press a fist against her heart. "I remember the last time you came to visit the family and stayed for the summer. Do you remember?"

"I remember," Breanna said quietly.

"There was a brutal storm one night—wind fierce enough to uproot trees and rain that beat down hard enough to bruise skin. The rest of us huddled inside the house, but you and Jenny . . . I heard you sneak out of the room the three of us were sharing that summer. When I crept to the window and looked out, the two of you were outside in your nightgowns, dancing in that storm, celebrating it and . . . changing it. Air and water. You embraced that storm, took it into yourselves, made it part of your dance, gave it back as something gentler. You tamed a storm , Breanna. You and Jenny." Fiona smiled. "The look on your face right now. As if I've suddenly started speaking some strange, incomprehensible language."

"You are." Breanna shook her head. She remembered that night. Remembered extending her hand at the same moment Jenny extended hers so that they stepped out into that storm with their hands linked, feeling the Great Mother's power swirling around them, rushing into them while they danced. Yes, they had celebrated that storm, had acknowledged its strength, had connected to it in a way that had been so natural it had required no words, no thought. What was so strange about that?

They are deeply rooted in the Mother's Hills.

She remembered overhearing one of the elders say that the morning after the storm. Since she had kin in the hills, she hadn't thought it odd. But she also remembered that, while Fiona, Rory, and some of her other cousins had come here a few times to visit after that summer, she had never been invited back for a visit to their family homes. Except Jenny's.

Confused and self-conscious—and irritated with herself and Fiona for feeling those things—she shrugged dismissively. "Let's get some target practice." I'm in the right mood to shoot something .

Breanna had taken only a couple of steps toward the kitchen gardens when a hawk flew overhead, screaming a warning as it passed by her. At the same moment, a boy from one of the farm families who had escaped with Breanna's kin burst from the woods, running toward them as fast as he could.

"There's a man in the woods!" the boy shouted. "A man wearing a black coat! Coming this way."

"What were you doing in the woods?" Breanna snapped as soon as the boy stumbled to a halt in front of her. None of the children were supposed to go into the woods on their own. There were still some of those nighthunter creatures out there somewhere.

"Jean wanted to look for some plants," the boy said, panting. "She told me I had to come with her since we weren't supposed to go into the woods by ourselves and—" He glanced nervously at Breanna, then at Fiona. "And she didn't want to ask one of the other witches to go with her."

There wasn't time to consider what kinds of plants Jean was looking for that made her not want the company of another witch—or what she intended to do with the plants if she found them.

"Go—" Breanna looked toward the stables. The men, warned by the hawk's cries, were already in motion, saddling some horses, stabling others, gathering weapons that were always close at hand these days. "Go to the house. Warn Nuala. Go!"

As the boy raced for the house, Breanna and Fiona looked at each other.

"Get the children into the house," Breanna said.

Fiona started to protest. Then she noticed Clay and her brother Rory hurrying toward them—and the hawk flying ahead of them. Nodding, she ran toward the children, who had stopped playing and were now anxiously watching the adults.

Trusting Fiona to take care of the children, Breanna set her quiver on the ground and grabbed a handful of arrows. She pushed the heads of four of them into the ground in front of her to make them easy to snatch if they were needed. The fifth she nocked in her bow, keeping her fingers light on the bowstring. Facing the woodland trail, she waited.