Нора Робертс - The Becoming

“He’s a coward.” When it struck her, she gripped Keegan’s bloody shirt. “He’s a goddamn coward. Stealing and killing children, lording it over a bunch of ugly, asshole demons and—and wingnuts.”

“Wingnuts? Faeries?”

“No, I mean extremists. People who choose to belong to some insane, twisted cult because somehow it makes them feel good, feel superior.”

She gave him a little shake, paced away, paced back while Bollocks stayed stretched out on the ground and watched her with adoring eyes.

“I’ve been a coward, so I know beating one isn’t just possible. It’s probable. If he thinks he won something today, he’s wrong. He’s just one more step closer to losing.”

“I didn’t think I’d smile today,” Keegan told her. “But here you are.”

She stopped in front of him. “I need more training.”

“You do, aye. And you’ll get it. Sure I think I won’t find it so easy to knock you down so often as before.”

“I killed today.”

“Ah, Breen.”

“I killed wicked, evil things today, and I’m fine with that. This?” She held up her arm, turned her wrist to show him her tattoo. “ Misneach . Courage. That’s not just a wish anymore. It hasn’t been just a wish for months now. So you’ll train me to kill wicked, evil things, and you and Nan will help me learn how to use magicks as a weapon against them.”

“I think Yseult would say you’ve learned that well already.”

“I wanted to hurt her as much as kill her, and that was a mistake. I took a sword from a body and used it. You wouldn’t have liked my form, but I used it. You’ll teach me to use it better.”

Giving in to what he’d wanted since he’d seen her standing in the field, he brought her wrist to his lips. “That may be beyond my skills.”

“Maybe I’ll surprise you.”

“You do, every day. If I kiss you here and now, I may never stop.”

“I’m all right with that.”

He drew her in, brushing a hand over her hair, hair full of hell-smoke but still bright as a flame. He touched his lips to hers gently, once, twice. Then yielded to need, to her, and poured everything, the relief, the longing, the hope, into the kiss.

She locked around him in the light, and answered everything.

“Can we stay here like this?” She pressed her face to his shoulder. “Just for a minute. I want, so much, to go home. The valley, the cottage, so if we could stay like this for a minute. I have to stay for Morena, her family. For the Leaving. I need to be here for Finola and Seamus when they come. I need to help you do all the sad, hard things you have to do.”

Murmuring, murmuring in Talamhish, he buried his face in her hair.

“And I need to learn the language so I know what you mutter at me, or shout at me.”

“I wish you wouldn’t as yet. If you’d come with me to Phelin’s family, you’d be a comfort to them. And to all who’d see you at the Leaving, you’d be strength and comfort, and hope.”

Nodding, she eased back. “I’m going to need a room.”

He kissed her again, lightly. “Share mine.”

He took her hand, so they walked toward the castle where dragons circled. They walked back to do all the hard and sad things.

And Bollocks trotted beside them.

On the other side of the portal, where a storm raged because he willed it, Odran stood over Yseult.

She suffered, lying in the soft bed he’d gifted her. He could end that suffering—kill her or cure her—but he found her misery a small pleasure on a day of disappointments.

“You failed me, yet again.”

Her eyes, glassy with pain, looked up at him. She wouldn’t beg, and he respected her for it. And still, a day of disappointments.

“You bleed, soiling the bed. Why do you not heal yourself?”

“Some of the barbs are too deep. The pain is great, and dulls my powers.”

Lightning struck outside. Something screamed.

“I could end your pain, and use your witch’s blood to enhance my own.”

“If that is your will, my king, my liege, my all.”

“Can I have her jewelry?” Shana held up one of Yseult’s pendants, posed with it in a mirror. “She won’t need it if she’s dead.” Beaming, she swirled around. “I killed a witch today, one who loved me. A powerful alchemist. It’s more than she did.”

Odran barely spared Shana a glance. “She opened the portal, you merely went through. Leave us now.”

“To your chambers or mine?”

“Mine.”

Shana sent Yseult a sparkling look before she glided out.

“I fear, my king, she is more than half mad.”

“And fertile. Already she carries a child for me, so she has her uses. I wonder about yours.” He walked to the window to watch the storm. “All the time, the blood, the work to open the portal, only to fail to bring her through, to have them close it again.”

“There are other ways through.”

“And so the mad elf has her uses.” He turned back. “But do you? Do you, scarred and bloody, weak and writhing? Defeated by one with only months to learn her magicks.”

“She has your blood, Odran, and this is her strength, this is my weakness against her. My life is yours to do with as you wish. If you take it, I pray I may serve you in death. If you spare it, I will use every moment you give me to open the way, to bring her to you.”

“I believe you. I know you speak the truth. Still, I dislike failure.”

He walked back to her bed, laid a finger on one of the wounds in her arm. The white-hot pain had Yseult’s eyes rolling back, her body arching in a rigid bridge of pain.

When he removed it, she fell limply, shuddering.

“You’ll suffer.” He leaned down until his face loomed just above hers. She saw the red rimming his irises, and wished only death came quickly.

But she didn’t beg.

Smiling, he straightened. “But you’ll live. For now. Ply your magicks, witch, and serve me well. Or the pain you feel now will be as nothing.”

When he left her, the storm snapped off. In the sudden silence, Yseult closed her eyes. The cold, as he’d refused her a fire, had her shivering even as the burn from the wounds scorched her blood.

She would suffer, and accepted it. She’d failed him, and failure paid a price.

But she would heal. She would heal, regain her strength, and amass more power.

And with that power, she would open the next door for her king, her liege, her all. She swore it on all that was unholy.

When she had, she’d drag the bitch-goddess back to Odran and toss her screaming at his feet.

And when he’d drained her, when her god Odran took all he needed and left the mongrel child of the Fey little more than a mindless husk, she would pay for every moment of this pain.

She would pay for eternity.

A powerful new standalone novel from global bestseller Nora Roberts – a story of a mother, a daughter and a traumatic past reawakened

The first time Adrian met her father was the day he tried to kill her …

Adrian Rizzo didn’t have the easiest childhood, to put it mildly, but she’s worked hard to put it behind her and, to the outside world, she is a beautiful young woman with a successful, high-profile career and a wonderful family and friends.

When, out of the blue, she receives a death threat in the post, she is shocked but puts it down to someone’s jealousy of her success and tries to forget about it. But Adrian doesn’t realise that it’s more than just spite. Someone is very, very angry about her happy life and will stop at nothing to bring it all crashing down.