Нора Робертс - The Becoming

She demanded they return to the world of man, without magick she now viewed as evil, and keep their daughter there without memory of the world of her birth.

Torn between love and duty, the taoiseach lived in both worlds, making a home as best he could for his daughter, returning to Talamh to lead, and, in leading, to keep his world and his child safe.

The marriage could not survive it, and as the wheel turned, neither did the taoiseach survive his next battle, as his father murdered him.

While the girl grew, believing her father had left her, never knowing what she had inside her, raised by a mother whose fear pushed her to demand the daughter think herself less and less, another young boy raised the sword from the lake.

So they grew in their worlds from girl to woman, from boy to man. She, unhappy, did as she was bid. He, determined, guarded the peace. In Talamh, they waited, knowing the god threatened all worlds. He would again seek the blood of his blood, and the wheel would turn so the time would come when the Talamhish could no longer stop him.

She, the bridge between worlds, must return and awaken, must become, and must choose to give all, risk all to help destroy the god.

When she came to Talamh, innocent of all that had come before, she had only begun a journey into herself. Led there by a grand-mother’s open heart, she learned, she grieved, she embraced.

And awakened.

Like her father, she had love and duty in two worlds. That love and duty drew her back to the world where she’d been raised, but with a promise to return.

With her heart torn, she prepared to leave what she had known and risk all she was. On the knife’s edge, with the taoiseach and Talamh waiting, she shared all with the brother of her heart, a friend like no other.

As she stepped into the portal, he, as true as ever was, leaped with her.

Caught between worlds, between loves, between duties, she began her journey into becoming.

With the wind whipping a gale in the portal, Breen felt her grip on Marco’s hand start to slip. She couldn’t see, as the light had gone bright and blinding. She couldn’t hear through the roar of that wind.

As if tossed by the gale, she tumbled, with Keegan’s hand a vise grip on hers, and her desperate fingers barely clinging to Marco’s.

Then, like a switch flipped, she fell. The air went cool and damp, the light snapped off, and the wind died.

She landed hard enough to rattle bones. On a dirt road, she realized, wet from the soft rain still falling. And in the rain, she smelled Talamh.

Breathless, she rolled to hunker over Marco. He sprawled, limp and still, with eyes wide and shocked.

“Are you okay? Let me see. Marco, you idiot!” Searching, she ran her hands over him. “Nothing’s broken.”

Now she stroked her hand over Marco’s face as she whipped her head around to snarl at Keegan.

“What the hell was that? Even the first time I came through, it wasn’t like that.”

He shoved his hand through his hair. “I didn’t account for the extra passenger. Or all your bloody luggage. And still I got us back, didn’t I?”

“What the actual fuck?”

As Marco stirred, she turned back to him. “Don’t try to get up yet. You’re going to be dizzy and shaky, but you’re okay.”

He just stared at her, his brown eyes huge and glassy with shock. “Did all this crazy make you a doctor, too?”

“Not exactly. Just catch your breath. What the hell do we do now?” she shot at Keegan.

“Get out of the fecking rain, to start.” He pushed to his feet, a tall, irritated man with dark hair curling in the damp. “I aimed to bring us back in the dooryard of the farmhouse.” He gestured. “And wasn’t far off, considering what came with us.”

She could see the stone house now, the silhouette of it a few yards away and across the road.

“Marco isn’t a what.”

Keegan just strode over, crouched down. “All right now, brother, sit yourself up. Take it slow.”

“My laptop!” When Breen spotted it on the road, she scrambled up, sprinted over to grab the case.

“Well now, she will have her priorities.”

In the road, in the rain, she clutched it to her. “This is as important to me as your sword is to you.”

“If it got banged up, you’ll fix it. That’s the way,” he said to Marco, “slow and easy.”

The way he spoke to Marco—slow and easy—reminded Breen that Keegan could be kind. When he wanted to be.

She strapped on the laptop case cross-body, hurried back to them.

“You’re going to feel dizzy and weird. The first time I came through I fainted.”

“Guys don’t faint.” But Marco dropped his spinning head to his updrawn knees. “We can pass out, we can get knocked out, but we don’t faint.”

“That’s the way,” Keegan said cheerfully. “Let’s get you on your feet. We could use a hand here, Breen.”

“Just let me get my suitcase.”

“Women, by the gods!” Keegan whipped out a hand, and the suitcase vanished.

“Where did it go?” Marco’s voice hitched, this time his eyes rolled. “Where’d it go?”

“Not to worry, it’s all fine. Up you come now. Lean on me, and we’ll get you there.”

“I can’t feel my knees. Are they here?”

“Right where they should be.”

Breen hurried over to wrap an arm around Marco from the other side. “It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s not far, see? We’re going right there.”

He managed a few shaky steps. “Men don’t faint, but they do puke. I might.”

Breen pressed a hand to his stomach, pulled out some of the churning. It made her feel a little queasy, but she told herself she’d handle it. “Better?”

“Yeah, I guess. I think I’m having a really weird dream. Breen has weird dreams,” he told Keegan in a voice that sounded a little drunk. “Scary weird sometimes. This one’s just weird.”

Keegan flicked a hand, and the gate of the dooryard swung open.

“Like that kind of weird. Smells good anyway. Like Ireland. Right, Breen?”

“Yes, but it’s not.”

“That would be way weird if we’re standing in our apartment in Philly one minute and going splat on a road in Ireland the next. ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ time.”

“Those are good stories.” Keegan flicked the door open. “Here we are now. You’ll have a lie down on the divan here.”

“Lying down’s good. Hey, Breen, there’s your suitcase. It’s real homey in here. Old-timey homey. It’s nice. Oh, thank Christ,” he said when they laid him down on the couch.

“I didn’t faint, see. Didn’t puke either. Yet.”

“I’m going to make you some tea.”

He shook his head at Breen. “Rather have a beer.”

“And who wouldn’t? I’ll get that for you. Stay with him,” Keegan ordered. “Dry him up, smooth him out.”

“He should have the tea, what I had when I came through.”

“What goes in the tea can go in the ale.”

“Drugs, right?” Marco asked as Keegan strode out. “Because he slipped us lots and lots of drugs so we’re in this weird dream together.”

“No, Marco. It’s real.”

She held out a hand to the low, simmering fire in the hearth and had the flames rising and crackling. She lit the candles around the room from where she knelt beside the sofa.

She ran her hands down Marco’s sides to dry his clothes, then brushed them over his braids to dry his hair.

“I’m voting for crazy dream.”

“You know it’s real. Why did you jump with me, Marco? Why did you grab onto me and jump?”

“I wasn’t going to let you go without me into some hole of light in our damn living room. And you were all upset. You’d been crying. You—” He looked at the ceiling. “I hear something. Somebody else is in the house.”